Such Wicked Intent

CHAPTER 15

I read at my desk, waiting for the church bells to toll midnight before I entered the spirit world. With scant nights until Konrad’s return and our departure for Italy, it was all the more urgent to collect as many spirits as I could. I’d need them for the winter. But right now I was feverishly absorbed in my reading, looking up only to scrawl things in my notebook.

Suddenly, from within the house, came a staccato burst of quick screams and then a keening wail, all the more horrifying because I knew it was my mother’s.

I was up and out my door in a second, rushing down the hallway toward my parents’ chambers. Elizabeth burst from her own room as I passed, and then, as we rounded the corner to the east wing, Father came hurrying toward us.

“Is Mother all right?” I panted.

He seized me by the shoulders, the intensity of his gaze terrible to behold. “Where were you just now?”

“In my room, reading,” I said, feeling cold all over. What did he know?

He stared at me hard. “You weren’t out on the dock?”

I shook my head. “No.”

For a moment he held my eyes with his, and then his shoulders sagged and he released me. He closed his eyes, shook his head.

“I thought not. Your mother… she woke and went to the window and began screaming. She said she saw Konrad standing. I looked and saw nothing at all. It’s not the first time she’s had such nightmares, but she seemed so certain that I felt I had to check, to make sure it wasn’t you.”

“Poor Aunt Caroline,” said Elizabeth, her eyes glinting with tears.

“She’s badly off,” Father said. “But she’s strong; she’ll rally. I just wish I’d taken her away earlier, all of us.”

Impatiently I waited for the house to settle, for the last of the servants to leave the hallways and take to their own beds.

Unlocking my desk drawer, I noticed that my hand shook slightly. I took out the spirit clock and the elixir, and as my candle backlit the tall green flask, I was startled to see how little liquid remained. I peered inside, tilting the container, trying to guess how many more drops it might yield. Why hadn’t I considered this earlier? When the elixir ran out, I’d be cut off from the butterfly spirits forever, unless-I found the recipe.

It was surely of Wilhelm Frankenstein’s making, or if not, he’d learned it from some tome contained somewhere within the chateau.

The Dark Library was, as always, the obvious place to start.

Furious, I shove yet another pile of books onto the floor, to make room for the next.

I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here, hunched over the table, scouring tome after tome, searching for the recipe. Damn Wilhelm Frankenstein and his mysterious ways! Why hadn’t he written it down in his notebook with the other instructions? Or left it in the metal book with the spirit board pendulum? How many secret hiding places did the man need?

Even with three butterflies upon me, I’ll never be able to read every single book in here in a single visit.

Maybe he liked to keep it close at hand.

The thought makes me look up, and a forgotten image flares in my mind.

When Elizabeth and I were leaving the spirit world together for the first time, my room revealed its former self as Wilhelm’s very bedchamber, from three hundred years ago. His initials on the sumptuous pillows. And in the wall, a small cupboard in which had rested a single book.

As if the house had been trying to show me something.

At once I am running up the stairs, through the library, and along the hallway to my own bedchamber. Inside I fix my eyes on the wall.

Show me!

The walls pulse, the floor ripples, and my gaze burns through centuries of lathe and plaster and brick until I see a small secret recess. I reach out and seize hold of the shimmering book, which solidifies at my touch.

On the very first page is the recipe, written in a hand I recognize as Wilhelm Frankenstein’s. I pass my fingers over it, committing all its ingredients to memory. It is simple, easy to replicate. I will transcribe it the moment I return to the real world. I turn the page to make sure I’ve not missed anything, and frown.

Across two pages are drawn various diagrams of some kind of hooded gown or robe. The fabric bears an intricate butterfly pattern. But when I turn the page, I see yet more drawings of the garment, closer and more detailed, and it appears that it’s actually made of butterflies. Hundreds upon hundreds, sutured together by their wings into a tight dark weave.

As though sharing my strange repulsion at the image, the three butterflies that have ridden with me now soar from my body, brilliant with color.

“Wait!” I say, for I want to bring them all back with me.

But they flutter across my bedchamber with such purpose that, for the first time, I wonder where it is they go. I hurry after them into the hallway.

They fly back into the deserted library, cross the room, and slip through the seam of the secret door. I follow, down the stairs, and then down the shaft to the caverns.

As I jog through the vaulted galleries, the ancient paintings are more luminescent than I’ve ever seen them. Several times I turn quickly, for it seems a bison has just pawed the ground or tossed its head. Every surface of my body is alive: My fingertips taste the air, my nostrils inhale color. A strange sense of inevitability builds within me.

I’m curiously unsurprised when I’m led to the cave with the image of the giant man. He towers above me, his stick arm outstretched, generating such power that I can feel the small hairs on the back of my head lift, as though anticipating lightning.

I follow the butterflies as they descend the steep passage to the burial chamber. They fly directly to the pit and then spiral down, as if drawn by a powerful current. I rush to the edge and stare, stunned by what I see.

The strange, vast form at the pit’s bottom is no longer encased in stone or swathed in a cocoon but is now contained in a fleshy womb-shaped sac.

My three butterflies land upon it, and instantly all the color drains from their wings and bodies and they become black once more. And at that very same moment the membranous sac trembles and becomes momentarily translucent. I see a quick, dark swirl of movement-limbs, a torso, and a glimpse of an enormous skull turning, as though looking up at me. Then the membrane is opaque once again and convulses violently as though pummeled from within by a thousand fists. A furious and frustrated wail rises up from the pit.

And for the first time in the spirit world, I feel terror, for I suddenly realize that even as the butterfly spirits have been giving, they’ve also been taking away. They give me speed of mind, instinct, but they drain me of something else, which they are bestowing upon this pit creature-life.

I take a step backward, relieved by the trembling of the spirit clock in my pocket. I turn and rush from the caves, desperate to be away from the pit and the thing that rests there, fitfully waiting to be born.

I returned to the real world, my crippled hand pulsing with pain, for I had no spirits upon me now. In my panic to escape the burial chamber, I’d not sought out any. More than that, I was afraid of them now.

Wearily I exhaled. Outside, the wind thrashed branches and rattled the windows, and with a shudder I thought of the restless white mist encircling our chateau in the spirit world.

I replaced the ring on my finger, then swung myself off the bed to lock away the spirit clock and the flask of elixir. Halfway to my desk I heard stealthy footfalls pause outside my bedchamber. My door for some reason was not fully closed, and creaked open a hair’s width.

For a moment I stood paralyzed, my skin chilled, for I’d had a nightmare about this moment, the certainty that someone was waiting just beyond the door. I dragged a deep breath into my lungs, my muscles tensed, my teeth clenched, and I rushed toward the door and wrenched it open, a roar ready in my throat.

Nobody was there.

But I heard a soft tread down the hallway. I hurried after it.

By the time I caught sight of her, Elizabeth had already reached the first landing of the great curving staircase, and I could tell at once from her eerily serene gait that she was sleepwalking. It had been her habit, since she was very young, to sleepwalk when anxious. I dared not call out to her now, for I didn’t want her to wake and stumble in alarm. So I followed her silently as she walked with graceful ease down the stone steps toward the main entrance hall. She wore only her nightdress, and her feet were bare.

I kept pace with her. I wondered if her slumbering mind was worried about the child in the cottage and she meant to check on it. I couldn’t let her wander out into the night like this. She surprised me with a burst of speed, turning away from the main entrance and rushing down the hall past the chapel and armory. I lost sight of her briefly as she hurried down a side corridor, then caught up as she entered the cloakroom that exited near the stables.

In the near dark the coats and riding cloaks glowered from their pegs like mourners. The heavy door was bolted for the night.

Elizabeth stood directly before the door, arms at her sides, motionless.

Behind her I watched, wondering what she meant to do. Her posture was so expectant, I felt the hair on my neck bristle. Outside, the wind gave a moan. Within me swelled a terrible fear that someone was about to knock.

“Elizabeth,” I said softly, stepping closer. “We’ll check on him first thing in the morning.”

She gave no indication of hearing me. I drew alongside her, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the wide, oblivious smile on her face, as though she awaited the arrival of someone beloved.

I looked at the door, and my dread became a shrill sound in my head, a metallic taste in my mouth.

“Elizabeth, you should return to bed now,” I said, trying to keep the panic from my voice.

I put a hand on her shoulder, and at my touch she gave a shudder. Her smile evaporated and was replaced by wide-eyed anxiety. She gasped.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s me, Victor. You’ve been sleepwalking. It’s all right now.”

She looked all around her in confusion. Her breathing stuttered, and I saw her poor heart drumming its pulse in her throat.

“What were you doing, do you remember?” I asked her.

From outside came a horse’s low whinny. A dog barked twice and then was silent.

Elizabeth frowned. “I had a dream that-”

There was a single sharp knock against the door.

I felt all my breath dragged out of me, as if by hook and line. Elizabeth’s arms clamped about me. Her mouth was against my shoulder, pressed hard to suppress a scream.

“He’s at the door,” she said.

I fought against the weakness in my knees. “It can’t be.”

I felt her take a deep breath. She unlocked her arms and stepped away from me, calmly pushing her hair from her face. “We need to open the door. It’s Konrad.”

“The cottage is locked. And how would-It’s never been here!”

“He’s gotten out somehow,” she said with complete certainty, and reached for the bolt.

I grabbed her hand. “You don’t know what’s out there!”

“Of course I do,” she said. “Who do you think was on the dock?”

Once more I felt a nightmare paralysis grip me as I watched Elizabeth unbolt the door and pull it wide. Cool wind washed over us. No one was there. On the doorstep was a snapped branch from the oak tree in our courtyard.

“There’s the cause of the knock,” I said, pointing.

I moved to close the door, but Elizabeth quickly stepped outside.

“What’re you doing?” I said, following her, but not without first grabbing a stout walking stick. I looked all about the courtyard in the fitful moonlight. Clouds scudded across the sky. Branches swayed. In her bare feet Elizabeth walked across the leaf-strewn cobblestones. From the stables came the reassuring smell of hay and manure. One of the horses nickered.

“There’s no one out here,” I said, eager to get back inside.

“Maybe he’s in the stables,” she said.

“Elizabeth, he’s not-”

“We should’ve opened the door faster.”

I began to wonder if maybe she was still sleepwalking, and pinched her arm.

“I’m awake!” she said with a fiery look.

“We’ll have the dogs up if we don’t get back,” I said. “We’ll wake the household.”

But she insisted on entering the stables. The horses were familiar with the two of us, and softly snorted their greetings. After a night of phantasms I was comforted by their solid, friendly presence.

“No one here,” I said, quickly walking the length of the stable, looking into the stalls and tack room.

Elizabeth frowned and headed back out to the courtyard, squinting into the night.

“It was a branch against the door,” I said impatiently.

I took her elbow and steered her toward the door, but she pulled her arm free and walked on ahead. Inside, I closed the door and quietly bolted it.

“Victor,” she whispered, and something in the choked tone of her voice sent a chill through me.

She was pointing at the floor of the cloakroom. Muddy footprints led down the hall into the house.

We said not a word, only followed the trail with all possible speed. My body felt strangely light, my heartbeat thudding in my ears. My left hand, I realized, still clenched the walking stick. The footprints led us to the base of the main staircase, and I looked up and thought I saw a shadowy figure disappearing from sight. I vaulted up the stairs, Elizabeth at my side.

The footprints were fainter now, little more than a smudge of heel and big toe. We passed Elizabeth’s bedchamber, then mine. After that the trail disappeared altogether, but down the dark hallway I heard the telltale sound of a door opening. I rushed ahead.

The door to the nursery was ajar, and my pulse raged in apprehension as I slipped inside. A curtain had been left open. Frantic moonlight, filtered through the branches of a wind-whipped tree, filled the room.

There it was, leaning over little William’s crib, reaching down with both hands. It had grown yet more and had the body of a strapping thirteen-year-old. It was completely naked, and in the turbulent light the silhouette of its face was not Konrad’s. It was that same brutal face I’d seen in the forest-an aggressively jutting jaw, a low heavy brow. It was the expression of an animal sighting its prey. My pulse became a warrior’s drumbeat, and I strode toward the creature, the stick raised over my shoulder. It saw me coming and whirled with a low whine that sounded to me like a hungry growl. Its muscled arm lifted to ward off my blow.

Elizabeth sped ahead of me and placed her body between us.

“Konrad, it’s all right,” I heard her whisper as she took the creature by the shoulders. She looked back at me severely. “Put that down. You’ve frightened him!”

I did not put it down but lowered it only slightly as I stepped hurriedly to the crib to check on William. My littlest brother was deep asleep. He looked completely unharmed, but I made sure his chest was rising and falling. Beside him in his crib was the soft felt doll Elizabeth had given the creature a few days ago.

My eyes met Elizabeth’s. She’d seen it too but said nothing. The creature had wrapped its arms around her, and she was stroking its hair soothingly. It was now the same height as Elizabeth, and its resemblance to my twin was uncanny. It gazed at me with wide frightened eyes.

I heard a murmur and turned to see Ernest shift in his bed at the far end of the chamber. In the adjoining room was their nurse, Justine. Elizabeth lead the docile creature out, and in the hallway I closed the door softly behind me. We hurried away.

“What did you think he was going to do?” she demanded.

I said nothing.

“He was just giving William his doll,” she insisted.

There was not time for me to speak, or order the maelstrom of my thoughts.

“We need to get it out of here,” was all I said. “Back to the cottage.”

For a moment I thought Elizabeth was going to object, but she nodded. We made our way downstairs to the cloakroom, found coats and boots for all of us, and stepped out into the windy night.

We walked with the creature between us. Even now, when it looked so much like my brother, so much like me, I didn’t like to touch it. I did not take my eyes off it, for fear it would transform once more and lunge at me. But it only watched the moonlit clouds, the stars, the swaying silhouette of the distant wind-racked forest. When we were little more than halfway to the cottage, it began to stumble, and I realized it was falling asleep on its feet. It was still growing so fast that it couldn’t stay awake for long.

When I finally made out the dark outlines of the cottage, Elizabeth said, “It seems so cruel. He must’ve been cold, or lonely. Why else would he come all this way?”

By this time the creature was completely asleep, and we had to half carry, half drag it between us. When we reached the shed, I saw an untidy mound of dirt surrounding a ragged hole against one wall.

“It tunneled out,” I said, taking the key from my robe and unlocking the door.

Inside we lowered the sleeping body into its earthen crib, which it almost entirely filled now. Elizabeth loosened its cloak-for its body would surely be growing even more before morning-and covered it with the blanket as the wind lowered outside.

I looked about and found a short length of rope. One end I tied snugly around the creature’s ankle, and the other to a metal ring on the wall.

“Is that really necessary?” Elizabeth asked indignantly.

“You want it escaping again?” I seized a shovel and began filling in the hole it had dug under the wall.

The creature made a small whimpering sound, and one of its hands patted searchingly at the blanket.

“He’s missing his doll,” said Elizabeth, distressed. “We should’ve brought it with us.”

“ That’s how it found us,” I said, suddenly realizing. “The smell of the doll.”

She looked at me dubiously.

“Remember, outside, I saw the way it sniffed it and looked straight toward the chateau. He could smell it in the wind. Like a hunting dog.”

“That seems far-fetched.”

“Any more far-fetched than birthing a body from mud?”

We left and locked the cottage, and pulled the cloaks about ourselves, for the wind was at our faces now. As we hunched our way toward home, my words finally burst out of me.

“Did you see the way it looked in the nursery?” I demanded. “The way it was staring down at William? That was hunger!”

“It was curiosity! He was giving him back his doll!”

“Or maybe the thing just dropped it so it could grab William!”

“What did you think he was going to do?”

My response was instant. “Eat him!”

She stared at me as though I were a lunatic.

“You talk about him like he’s a monster!”

“Elizabeth, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice this time. When we first entered, it didn’t even look properly human! Its face was completely transformed, and-”

She was shaking her head. “Did you take laudanum tonight?”

I forced myself to draw a calming breath. “I’ve never taken the laudanum. Listen to me. Are you absolutely sure this is the body we want Konrad’s spirit to inhabit?”

“It’s the butterflies, just as I suspected!” she said, voice raised against the wind. “You’ve abused their power, and now you’re seeing things, Victor. How many do you have on you right now?”

“None,” I said. “I left them behind.”

“So you went again tonight. I’ve told you, that place is best avoided!”

A sudden wave of nausea crested over me as I remembered my last visit. My mind felt filled to bursting. “I think you might be right. The thing in the pit is growing. Not growing, exactly…” The proper word came to me with a chill of cold wind. “We’re waking it.”

“What?”

I told her how I’d seen my butterflies disgorge their color into the massive form, invigorating it. “They’re like worker bees, or termites, feeding the queen. And the food is us.”

“Dear God,” she murmured. She took my hands and looked at me urgently. “Victor, you’ve strayed too long in that place, and I scarcely know whether to trust you. One thing I do know. We need to get Konrad out of there as soon as possible. And this body we’ve grown is his only way out. That is our goal. And after tomorrow night you must bid that place farewell forever. Do you understand?” She took a breath, and her eyes softened. “I know how hard you’ve worked to bring Konrad back. I’m sorry I’ve been so severe with you. You were the one who brought us this wonderful plan, and I know you’ll have the strength to follow through with it. But first you need to rest properly. You’ve let these spirits suckle on you, and they’ve clouded your judgment. You can’t expect to see things clearly and make sound decisions when you’re perpetually exhausted.”

“I… I don’t recognize myself sometimes,” I murmured, feeling overwhelmed.

She led me like a child across the fields the rest of the way to the chateau. Inside, I was surprised when she accompanied me all the way to my bedchamber.

“Into bed now,” she instructed.

I did as I was told.

“You’ll take some laudanum to help you sleep,” she said.

I looked at the unopened bottle the doctor had left me. My missing fingers throbbed, and I felt fatigued beyond endurance. I sighed, wanting to surrender, wanting sleep. “One measure, no more,” I said.

“There now,” she said as she held up the dropper and dripped the opiate onto my tongue. She leaned over me and gave me a kiss that almost grazed my mouth, and seemed to promise more. Then she stood and wished me good night.

After she left, I could still feel the imprint of her lips on my cheek, feel the heat of her face against mine.

But even as my body grew heavier, and my eyes drooped, I could not forget the creature’s monstrous face in the nursery.

And then I slept, and dreamed.

I am on a sled pulled by a pack of dogs, hurtling over a plain of ice, exhilarated. The sky is molten lead, lit from the west by a sinking sun. I am traveling north. At the summit of a low hill, the dogs falter, exhausted.

Before me a massive plate of ice, as big as a field, juts up and grinds over the frozen ground, and I realize that this is not ground at all but the sea, hardened by the same cold that turns the vapor of my breath to ice crystals the moment it leaves my mouth.

What am I doing in such a forlorn place? Surely I must be nearly at the pole. Are Konrad and I finally having our adventure, just the two of us? But as I cast my eyes to all horizons, I see that I am alone.

Mercilessly I drive the dogs onward, intent only on moving north, on finding Konrad. Each pulse of my fevered heart is filled with yearning.

Silhouetted in the distance like a frozen city, great jagged ramparts of ice lean and shriek and crack. My gloved hands are clawed around the reins of the sled.

My exhilaration is congealing to despair as darkness fast approaches. But then I catch sight of a smudge of movement on the white wastes. Squinting, I make out the telltale shape of a sledge in motion, and standing upon it is a fur-clad figure so familiar that I give a cry of ecstasy. Tears flood my eyes and threaten to freeze them shut before I can clumsily wipe them away with my leather mitt.

I urge the dogs to give me the last of their flagging strength, to speed me to my heart’s desire.

I feel as if a promise has been made.

It is Konrad. My brother lives again.