This Dark Endeavor

CHAPTER THREE

"En Garde!” I panted, lifting my foil.

Konrad and I were near the end of our match, and we were tied. Whoever scored next was winner. In the chateau’s armory, Signor Rainaldi, our fencing master, watched over us, as well as Henry and Elizabeth, both suited up on the sidelines, awaiting their own match.

I took the offensive and made an unimaginative lunge, which Konrad parried easily. I was weary, and my movements were getting sluggish.

“You can do better than that, Little Brother,” said Konrad.

I could not see his face behind his mask, but I doubted it was as slick with sweat as mine.

Almost from the first moment Konrad had held a rapier, he’d seemed born to it. But not me. So I had practiced and practiced, asking Signor Rainaldi for extra drills so I could keep up. It paid off, for Konrad and I were now closely matched, though he still beat me more often than not. Fencing with my twin posed another unique challenge, for we knew each other’s instincts so well it was nearly impossible to surprise each other.

I parried his attack, and planned my next move.

“Pacing, pacing!” cried our master. “I have seen old men with more verve!”

“I do not want to tire my brother,” Konrad replied.

I feinted once, and then feebly struck Konrad’s foil at the midpoint.

“Rather a waste, don’t you think?” Konrad goaded me.

“Indeed,” I said. But it was what I wanted. Let him mock me, I thought. I had my plan now.

Konrad returned to the en garde position, and we circled warily. I watched him, waiting for his attack, waiting for the flex of his knee as he lunged. When it came, I was ready.

I performed a passata-sotto, a difficult maneuver I had been secretly practicing for weeks now. I dropped my right hand to the floor and lowered my body beneath Konrad’s thrusting blade. At the same time, I lunged with my own foil. His blade hit empty air. Mine struck his belly.

“A hit, a very palpable hit!” cried our master. “The match is Victor’s. A passata-sotto. Well done, young sir.”

My eyes went to Elizabeth, who was clapping with Henry. I pulled up my mask, grinning. It wasn’t often I bested Konrad, and the victory was sweet indeed.

“A very fancy move,” said Konrad. “Congratulations.”

He removed his mask, and I was taken aback by his pallor.

“Are you well, young sir?” our fencing master asked, frowning.

Elizabeth walked toward us. “You two have fought too hard,” she said. “Konrad, sit down a moment.”

He waved her away, shivering. “I am fine. I am fine.”

Elizabeth put her hand to his head. “You’re scalding.”

“Merely from our exertions,” I said, and gave a lighthearted laugh. “It was quite a match. Shall we fetch the wheelchair for you?”

“He is feverish, Victor,” she said to me sharply.

As I looked more carefully at my brother, I knew he was truly ill. His skin had a parched look to it, and beneath his eyes were smudges of darkness.

“I am not feverish,” said Konrad, and then he fainted.

Elizabeth and I caught him clumsily before he hit the floor. He was not long unconscious, and by the time he awoke, Henry had fetched Mother and Father and they were at his side.

“To bed with you, Konrad,” Father said. “We will have Maria bring you some broth.”

I helped my father raise him to his feet and walk him unsteadily from the armory, with Elizabeth and Mother keeping pace with us. I kept hoping Konrad would meet my eye, give a playful wink to set my mind at ease, but he seemed groggy and withdrawn.

“Was it too many nights on the balcony, practicing our play?” Elizabeth said anxiously, as though she herself were to blame.

“More likely too long on the lake without a cloak,” said Mother.

“He will be up for dinner,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Just a chill, no doubt.”

Dr. Lesage arrived later in the afternoon to examine Konrad. To everyone’s huge relief, he said it wasn’t plague. He advised bed rest for three days, no food but broth, and regular doses of his patented strengthening draft.

Mother forbade us from entering his bedchamber, for fear we would catch the fever. Elizabeth wanted to help tend to Konrad, but despite her protests, we were only permitted to call out hellos from the doorway.

“I’m not being a very festive host for you, Henry,” Konrad said from his bed.

“Then you best hurry up and entertain him properly,” I replied.

“Don’t be silly,” said Henry. “Take your rest, Konrad.”

“Get better soon,” said Elizabeth.

Konrad nodded. “I will. I promise.”

But five days later he was still bedridden.

Our morning lessons were subdued, as Elizabeth, Henry, and I sat in the library listening to Father tell us about the early Greek thinkers and the principles of democracy.

At the best of times I had trouble concentrating, and right now it was nearly impossible. I kept looking over at Konrad’s empty chair. Father, too, seemed distracted. Usually his lectures were full of Sturm und Drang, and he would pace and thump the table, and fire questions at us like a volley of arrows. But today he dismissed us early and told us to get some fresh air.

At lunch, when Mother joined us at the table, she looked grave.

“How is he?” Elizabeth asked worriedly.

“Feverish again, and he complains of aching limbs. He says it makes his head throb when I read to him.”

Father took Mother’s hand. “He’s very strong. The fever will break soon for good. All will be well.”

Throughout the afternoon Konrad’s fever mounted. Dr. Lesage came and left some powders that he said were very beneficial for fighting infection.

Before dinner I went to check on Konrad with Elizabeth and Henry. He was asleep. We stood at the doorway and watched Maria gently mopping his brow with a cool cloth. He flinched and twisted and muttered nonsense. Maria tried to smooth his sheets, made shushing sounds to calm him.

“I’ve never felt a hotter head,” she said quietly to us.

Seeing my brother so ill sparked in me feelings of such intensity that I was nearly overwhelmed. What if he didn’t recover? What if I were to lose him? Looking at him was like looking upon myself, seeing my own body racked with fever and pain.

And, even more strange, I felt anger. How could Konrad have allowed this to happen? How could someone so healthy, and so smart and sensible, become so ill?

I was ashamed for having such thoughts.

And I was ashamed at how powerless I was to help him.

At dinner that night I could not eat. My body ached, and my stomach swirled.

“Victor,” my mother said. “Are you well?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re pale,” she said.

I looked over at Henry, and then Elizabeth, and caught her quick, nervous glance at Mother. Suddenly my stomach clenched and turned over, and I had to rush from the table to the nearest water closet, where I retched, again and again, tears welling from my eyes. I could not remember feeling sicker.

What had happened to Konrad had happened to me.

An eternal night spent tossing and turning, shivering and sweating. When awake, I lay in the grips of terror; and when I slept, it was only in cruel snatches, and my dreams were foul. In one, Konrad and I were playacting, joyfully at first, but then with more and more fury, and when I slew him with the sword, it was a real sword, and real blood poured from his chest, and I laughed and laughed-and started awake, drenched and panting.

Throughout the night, I was dimly aware of Mother and Father and the servants checking on me.

Finally I must have slept properly, for when I next opened my eyes, it was dawn, and Dr. Lesage stood over me, taking my pulse.

“Let us have a good look at you, young Master Frankenstein,” said the doctor, gently helping me sit up.

Limply I submitted to his grave prodding. He seemed to take a great deal of time, which made me all the more agitated.

“It is the same ailment as Konrad’s,” I rasped.

“I will speak with your mother,” the doctor said, and with that he left.

The next five minutes might have been hours. I was filled with dread. I stared out the window and saw the sunshine and the mountains, and it was as though it had nothing to do with me. It was a different world, one from which I was cut off forever. I was certain of the news I was about to hear.

It was not Mother who came in finally, or Father, but Elizabeth. Anger radiated from her face.

“There is nothing wrong with you!” she said.

“What?” I exclaimed.

She sat down on the edge of my bed and burst into tears. “You are fine,” she said. “Dr. Lesage said you are absolutely fine.”

The power of the mind must be a miraculous thing, for at that very moment I felt my fever and sickness lessen. I sat up and patted her shoulder, but she batted my hand away.

“I wasn’t play acting,” I objected. “I truly felt… I felt terrible, as though all my strength had left me.”

“You had us all so worried,” she said. “And it was merely in your head.”

“I didn’t know!” I retorted, but I felt foolish and ashamed. And strangely jealous, too, for I suddenly realized she was not crying for me but for Konrad.

“The doctor said it’s not unexpected,” she said, wiping at her eyes.

“What’s not?”

“He has seen such a thing before, with twins. He knew of one who, when his brother had his arm crushed in a machine accident, screamed, and could not use his arm for weeks because of the pain.”

“I must see Konrad,” I said. “How is he?”

I stood up and suddenly remembered I was in my nightshirt. Though Elizabeth and I had grown up together, I now felt self-conscious to be around her in so little state of dress. I noticed a flush to her cheek as she turned her face away.

“His fever is not so high.”

“That is good news.”

“It would be better if the fever were gone altogether.”

“Has Dr. Lesage any better idea what it is?” I asked.

She shook her head. “All he knows is that it isn’t any typical infection. It is not contagious. It is some ailment within him that he must fight alone.”

“Let’s go see him right now,” I said.

“Ah, Victor,” said Konrad, “I hear you had another near scrape with death.”

“A false illness,” I admitted sheepishly.

He put his hot hand on mine. “Do try to keep out of trouble, Little Brother,” he told me.

“Of course,” I said. “It would be better, though, if you stopped lazing about, so you can keep an eye on me.”

“Oh, I’ll be up shortly. I feel a bit stronger today.”

Elizabeth beamed at me. The windows of his room were thrown wide, and the scent of cut grass from the fields wafted in, along with the sound of the lapping lake, and it felt like the spring itself was enough to heal any ills.

“You’ve had Mother in a terrible state,” I said.

Konrad rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s making a fuss for nothing. Remember Charlie Fancher? He was laid up with ague for two weeks before it left him. I’ll be up and about soon.”

“Good,” I said, “because Henry and Elizabeth have been plotting another play, and this time you are to be the hero.”

“Excellent,” he said.

But later when he tried to get up, he did not have the strength to stand for more than a minute without shaking. His face had a gaunt look.

He was as weak as a newborn.

Over the next several days I tried to stay hopeful, and tell myself Konrad was on the mend.

The fever didn’t return with its earlier ferocity, but it refused to leave him altogether. After a morning lull it would come on again in the late afternoon-like some infernal gale that paused only to renew its strength.

Now that we knew he wasn’t contagious, Elizabeth spent a good deal of her time helping Mother and the servants tend to him, reading to him to distract him from his aches. When Konrad felt well enough, Henry and I would drop by to talk with him, or sometimes even play a game of chess. These were rarely finished, as he complained of headaches, or simply felt too unwell to concentrate.

I felt oddly incomplete, moving about the chateau without my twin. Not that we were always side by side, but I felt his absence more intensely now. Once, when we were six, and Mother was unwell during her pregnancy with Ernest, Father sent us each to stay with different relations for a fortnight.

It was one of the loneliest and most miserable times of my life.

But this was worse.

Why wasn’t Konrad getting better?

“You must take me to Mass, Victor,” Elizabeth said Sunday morning during breakfast.

I looked up from my hard-boiled egg, my mouth still full of bread, uncomprehending for a moment, because I was so used to Konrad escorting her to the cathedral in Geneva or the small village church in Bellerive.

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

“Philippe will ready the trap for you,” Father said.

Though my parents had no faith themselves, they had no desire to deprive Elizabeth of hers, and I was certain no Sunday had ever passed without her attending a Roman Catholic service.

It was a relief to be away from the chateau, to be in the warm spring air, holding the reins, driving the trap along the lake road. We traveled in silence, but our worries of Konrad kept pace with us.

When we arrived at the small church, Elizabeth said, “You can come inside if you like.”

“I will wait here, I think.”

“You could light a candle for Konrad.”

“You know I don’t believe in such things.”

She nodded and looked at the other parishioners entering the church with their families. For the first time it occurred to me that it must have been lonely for her, attending Mass alone all these years.

“Did Konrad go inside with you?”

“Not at first.”

I helped her down, and watched as she walked into the church. I thought of how she would light a candle and pray-and I envied her.

“What are you doing?” Ernest asked, coming into the library.

It was Monday afternoon, and I’d spent nearly the entire day with books spread all around me, taking notes furiously.

“I’m trying to learn about the human body and its ailments,” I said.

My nine-year-old brother came forward, looking gravely at the book’s illustrations.

“Konrad will get better, won’t he, Victor?” he asked.

To my shame, I realized how little I’d thought of Ernest and how his older brother’s illness might be affecting him. Little William was far too young to understand-and it was a great comfort to me sometimes just to hold his little body and try to lose myself in his warmth and laughter and obvious good cheer-but at nine, Ernest, like all of us, was having to endure the gloomy weather change that had beset our house.

I put down my pen and smiled as Father did when trying to reassure us. “Of course he will get better. I have no doubt whatsoever. He is strong, like all of us Frankensteins!”

He pointed seriously at the book. “Is the cure in there?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

He got interested in the diagram of a man’s spleen. “What does that do?”

“They used to think it ruled our temperaments.”

“You’ll find the cure, Victor,” he said. “You’re almost as clever as Konrad.”

“ Almost as clever?” I snapped. “And how would you know that, little boy?”

His eyes widened in astonishment and hurt, and I instantly regretted my outburst. How could I fault him, after all, when it was abundantly obvious? Konrad had always been the better student, and my father took no pains to conceal it. Still, Ernest’s words smarted. Even to a nine-year-old boy it was clear that Konrad was the brighter star in our family’s constellation.

Had I been just a year younger than Konrad-or even a nonidentical twin-it would have been easier to bear. But he and I were supposed to be the same in every respect. So what excuse had I to be the weaker?

Elizabeth appeared in the doorway. “Ernest, Justine is looking for you in the garden.”

I gave Ernest an apologetic smile and clapped him on the shoulder, but his parting look to me was wary.

“Still here?” Elizabeth said, coming in.

“You have your prayers,” I said. “I cannot pray, but I must do something, or go mad.”

Restlessly I looked back at my book, a huge tome written mostly in Latin. My Latin was poor, and every sentence was a struggle, but I refused to give up. I had been a lackluster student, but I would remedy that with hard work.

Elizabeth gently closed the cover. “You cannot expect to cure him on your own.”

“Why not?” I demanded. “Someone has to.”

My eyes strayed to the bookshelf that concealed the secret passage to the Dark Library.

“You have been here all day,” she said. “You can’t simply abandon Henry.”

I sighed. “I am sorry if Henry feels abandoned, but there are so many books here to understand…”

“Go riding,” she suggested. “You will get gloomy if you spend any more time here. Take Henry up into the meadows for an hour or two.”

I looked forlornly at my desk. “Just a short break,” I said.

So Henry and I changed into our riding gear and took our horses out for several hours. And I did enjoy the sunlight and air on my face, even as I felt guilty leaving Konrad in his sickbed.

As I neared home, I dared to hope.

When I saw Mother and Father, they would be smiling, and saying that Konrad’s fever had broken for good and he was on the mend and all would be well.

But it was not so. He was the same.

The very next day, a second physician accompanied Dr. Lesage to see Konrad. He was a handsome, fashionable-looking gentleman called Dr. Bartonne, who exuded confidence like an overpowering cologne. I disliked him on sight.

He strode into the room, took one look at my brother, and said he had a disturbance of the blood. Therefore he needed to be bled. The physician placed slimy leeches all over my brother’s pale body and let them suck his blood until Konrad swooned. The fellow was greatly satisfied, and announced that he had purged Konrad of the poisons that had caused the fever, and that when my brother woke in the morning, he would feel weak but improved.

It was true that he was cooler that night-who would not be cooler after having most of his blood sucked away by leeches? Nonetheless we all had great hope that this would speed his recovery.

Come morning, however, the fever returned once more. Dr. Bartonne was summoned yet again. After he left, I went to seek out Mother to ask what he’d said. Walking along the upper hallway, I overheard her talking to Maria in the west sitting room.

I stopped before I reached the doorway, for I could tell from Maria’s hushed tones they were talking about something terribly serious.

“… might be of some help,” Maria was saying, “for many say there is great power in it.”

“You love him, as we all do, Maria,” Mother replied. “But you know that Alphonse cannot bear talk of alchemy. He thinks it primitive nonsense, and I am inclined to agree with him. Please do not speak of this to him.”

“Very well, ma’am,” said Maria.

“I know you mean well, Maria. Do not think me angry.”

“No, ma’am. It’s just, I overheard what the doctor said about… not knowing how to treat him, and how, if he continues to weaken…”

My blood congealed in my veins, and I strained to listen. What had the doctor said? But there were no more words spoken, only sniffing, and little sobs, and I sensed the two of them were embracing and comforting each other. Then came my mother’s voice, a little shaky.

“You are a dear, dear member of our family, Maria,” she said.

“I could not love him more were he my own son.”

“We are doing all we can. Alphonse has heard of another doctor, a Dr. Murnau, who’s a specialist in rare diseases at the university in Ingolstadt. We’ve sent a messenger to make inquiries.”

“I will keep praying, then, ma’am,” said Maria, “if that does not offend you.”

“Of course not, Maria, certainly not. I must confess, I have found myself praying too of late. I doubt anyone hears but myself, though.”

“With respect, ma’am, someone is listening. You mustn’t despair so.”

I turned and silently walked away down the corridor, for I did not want them to know I’d been eavesdropping.

I desperately wished I knew what Maria had said earlier, about alchemy.

Did she know of some treatment that might help Konrad?

That night as I slept, my mind took me to Father’s library, and there I sat, surrounded by medical books, struggling with Latin and Greek, striving to cure Konrad.

I turned a page and there, embedded in the thick paper, was a seed. With great excitement I plucked it out and cradled it in my cupped hands, for I knew I had to plant it immediately or it would perish. But the door to the great hallway was locked, and though I rattled it and shouted, no one came to open it.

My panic grew, for the seed was already starting to decay.

There was a stirring of air, though no windows were open, and I looked up across the library to see the secret door ajar.

I’d promised Father, but what else could I do? The seed had to be planted, and I knew there was a well, and water, and earth down there.

The seed gripped in my hand, I hurried through the door to find no splintered planks but a swirling marble staircase. At the bottom, bathed in impossible sunlight, was the well, surrounded by fragrant and fertile soil.

I dug a small hole with my hands and planted the seed. Almost at once a green tendril shot up, thickening and sending out slender branches-and from the branches dangled little white bones.

I was frightened by this and stepped backward, but I could see that, growing among the bones, there was also fruit-red and luscious. And from the highest branch-for the tree was already taller than me-blossomed a book.

I started to climb up, but the tree kept growing, taking the book higher still.

I climbed faster, and with increasing desperation and rage, knowing that I must have that book.

But I could not reach it.

“We must return to the Dark Library,” I said fiercely.

It was the morning after my dream, and we were hiking in the hills behind Bellerive-Elizabeth, Henry, and me. The day could not have been more beautiful. An unblemished blue sky spanned the white-capped mountain ranges encircling the lake. Everywhere things were growing: Wildflowers sprang from the fields, trees bloomed, new leaves unfolded from branches. Life everywhere-and Konrad trapped at home in his sickbed.

“For what purpose, Victor?” Elizabeth asked.

“So we can heal Konrad,” I said simply.

“Isn’t that best left to the doctors?” said Henry.

“Damn the doctors!” I said. “They’re little more than barbers with pills. I wouldn’t trust them to groom my dog! Konrad’s getting weaker by the day. We must take action.”

“Action?” said Henry. “What manner of action?”

“For someone whose imagination is so ripe, you can be a bit dim sometimes, Henry,” I said. “We must seek our own cure.”

Elizabeth looked genuinely shocked. “Victor, we made your father a promise-,” began Elizabeth.

“That he would never find us in the library again. Yes. Those were his exact words. I don’t intend to break that promise. He will not find us in it.”

“That is not what he meant, and you know it!”

I waved my hand impatiently. “There is learning in there that has not been tried.”

Henry nervously rubbed at his blond hair. “Your father said it was all rubbish.”

I snorted. “Think, you two. Those books were kept hidden because they scared people. Why? There must be something to them, some kind of power. Silly, harmless things do not scare people.”

“But what if they are harm ful?” Elizabeth asked.

“What options do we have left to us?” I demanded. “Shall we watch Dr. Bartonne apply leeches once more? Or dead doves? Or perhaps we can ask dear Dr. Lesage to scratch at his wig and mix the dust with another vial of Frau Eisner’s invigorating tinctures.”

“Your father-,” Elizabeth began, but I cut her off.

“My father is a brilliant man, but he cannot know everything. You yourself said he can be wrong.”

I felt as though a door had been cut into the air before me, and I had passed through it, never to turn back. All my life I had assumed that Father knew everything. I had wanted him to know everything. It had made me feel safe. But he’d been confident the doctors would heal Konrad-and they had not.

“We must try other means,” I said. “Extreme times call for extreme measures. We must be willing to take risks if we want to save Konrad’s life.”

“You truly think it a matter of life and death?” said Elizabeth, and I felt a stab of guilt, for I could see that she had not thought of it in such terms before-or she’d avoided doing so by sheer will. She looked scared.

“All I know is that the doctors are baffled. They are worried.”

Henry looked away uneasily toward the Jura Mountains, but Elizabeth met my gaze with grave determination.

“The Church condemned those books,” she said.

“The Church condemned Galileo for saying the sun did not revolve around the Earth. They can be wrong too.”

“The place frightens me,” she said.

Henry swallowed and looked uneasily from Elizabeth to me. “Are you so sure these forbidden books hold an answer?”

“All I know is this: If I don’t at least try, I will go mad. I can’t bear it a day longer. And I need the both of you,” I said. “Your knowledge of Latin and Greek is better than mine.”

I could see Elizabeth hesitate, and then something changed in her eyes.

“When?” she said.

“Tonight.”

“Good,” she said. “Let us meet at an hour past midnight.”

Not long after the church bells of Bellerive had tolled the hour of one, the three of us met in the hallway and made our way toward the library. Henry kept glancing about with nervous, birdlike movements, peering beyond the flickering light of our candles as though expecting something to swoop down on him. Whenever he stayed at the chateau, he complained of strange rustlings at night. And despite our constant assurances, he still believed the place to be haunted.

“I sense something,” he whispered. “I’m telling you, there’s some presence up there, I think.”

“We should tell him the truth,” Elizabeth said to me with a sidelong, mischievous wink.

“Truth about what?” squeaked Henry.

I sighed. “Cousin Theodore.”

Henry’s eyes snapped to me. “You never told me about Cousin Theodore.”

I shrugged. “He died young, and this was his favorite place to play.”

“So you’ve seen him?” demanded Henry.

“Well, part of him,” I replied. “He was, well…”

“It was a dreadful accident,” said Elizabeth solemnly, and then giggled.

“You scoundrels,” said Henry, narrowing his eyes. “You know my imagination’s excitable, but go ahead, torment me.”

“I’m sorry, Henry,” said Elizabeth, squeezing his arm affectionately.

We all fell silent as we neared and passed Konrad’s room, for we did not want to disturb him, or wake Mother, who we knew was sleeping at his bedside tonight. There was scarcely a moment of the day when my brother’s illness did not inhabit my thoughts. Passing his bedroom, I imagined him sleeping in his bed, his body fighting and fighting. A great sorrow welled up in me. I was glad of the shadows, for my eyes were moist.

We were all of us in our nightclothes, swathed in robes, for nights on the lake were sometimes cold when a northern wind brought with it a glacial chill.

“Have you ever realized,” said Henry nervously to me, gazing at the flickering portraits in the grand hallway, “what a grim bunch your ancestors were? Look at that fellow there! Have you ever seen such a grimace?”

“That’s the Frankenstein smile,” whispered Elizabeth.

“And who’s this fellow here?” Henry asked, pointing.

Looking up at the oldest of all the portraits, I felt a sudden chill. “That,” I said, “is Wilhelm Frankenstein.”

“The alchemist?” Henry whispered.

I nodded, studying the oil painting. Strange that you could pass a certain thing every day of your life and never once look properly at it. In the candlelight the portrait glowed warmly. Wilhelm still looked like a young man, and he stared just past us with a small, slightly disdainful smile on his lips. He had a secret and would not share it. He wore a black doublet with a white ruffled collar, and a black cap in the Spanish style. He stood, one slim hand upon his hip, the other holding a book upon a table, one finger keeping his place within the pages…

“We should go,” Elizabeth said, tugging at my arm.

“Yes,” I murmured, pulling my eyes away.

As we entered the moonlit library, my heart gave a terrified lurch. Father sat in a leather armchair by the window, glaring at us. But no-I exhaled. It was only shadows, shaped no doubt by my guilt, for I knew I was defying him.

Elizabeth found the shelf and once more triggered the secret latch. There was a dull thunk — louder than I remembered-and the bookcase swung inward.

“Remarkable,” breathed Henry.

“Just wait,” I told him as we all slipped inside. His reaction was satisfying indeed.

“Good Lord,” he said. “You didn’t mention the steps were quite so flimsy.”

“They’re perfectly safe,” I assured him, leading the way.

At the door, as I prepared to put my hand through the hole, I felt some of my confidence abandon me.

“Do you want me to do it this time?” Elizabeth asked.

That spurred me on. “No, no,” I said, and thrust in my arm. At once the eerie hand seized me. I battled against instinctive revulsion and this time did not fight but merely pumped the hand up and down.

Our greeting done, the door opened itself.

“And in we go,” I said with a smile.

Truly the Dark Library was well named, for it seemed to suck at our candle flames, making them pucker and smoke. I felt something new, something I had not noticed during our first visit in the middle of the day. Mingled with the mildew and mustiness, there was fear, excitement-and an unshakable sense of hungry expectation.

“Let’s get to work,” I said, bringing my light to the shelves of cracked leather tomes. “We are looking for anything on the subject of healing.”

“What a place,” Henry murmured.

We cleared space on one of the dusty tables. After gathering books, we perched on stools, spreading books all around us and passing them to and fro if we needed help translating or reading a script so spidery that it was all but invisible in the half-light of our candles.

“Here is something,” said Henry, and I eagerly looked up. “It is in Occulta Philosophia. ”

“That’s the book I pulled out on our first visit!” I said to Elizabeth. “The one by Cornelius Agrippa.”

“What have you found?” she asked Henry.

His eyes skimmed over the page, and he began to read, slowly translating from the Latin. “‘From the grand scholarship of ages past, and my own modern learning, I have created a formulation… that has great power to remedy all human suffering. And not only to remedy, but to prolong life… so that he who imbibes it will avoid all deaths but those of a violent nature, and will enjoy a multitude of years such as Methuselah.’”

“Methuselah?” I said, frowning. “I do not know the fellow.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Have you never read a Bible, Victor?”

“I can’t keep all the names straight.”

“Methuselah,” Elizabeth said, “lived a very, very long time.”

“How long?”

“Nine hundred and sixty-nine years,” Henry answered, still looking at the tome before him.

“Read on,” I said impatiently.

“‘And so,’” Henry continued, “‘after many years of failed attempts have I at last this Elixir of Life perfected, and herewith have transcribed it, in the manner of Paracelsus, for all the ages.’”

I lunged across the table and snatched the book from Henry. “Elixir of Life! This is just the thing we seek. Where is the recipe?”

I had the book before me now, my eyes trying to find the right place. I saw the Latin text, found the words “ Vita Elixir,” but afterward came such a language that I had never set eyes upon.

“What is this?” I demanded, jabbing at the vellum page.

Henry stood and leaned over the tome. “If you hadn’t snatched it away, I might have had a better look. As it is, I do not know.”

“Elizabeth?” I said. “Can you make sense of this?”

She moved her stool closer. “It is not Aramaic,” she said. “Nor Sanskrit.”

It was a strange-looking thing, to be sure, all curves and angles and sudden flourishes. It went on for ten pages.

“Gibberish,” I muttered, and flipped ahead, trying to find some kind of glossary or key to its translation.

“You are too hasty, Victor,” said Elizabeth. “As always.”

She sounded just like Konrad then, and I shot her a resentful scowl.

“Go back,” she said. “Is there not a clue in what came before?”

“What do you mean?”

Carefully she turned back the pages. “Here. He wrote, ‘I have transcribed it in the manner of Paracelsus.’ What is Paracelsus?”

“Or who?” I said.

I was almost sure I’d seen that word on the spine of a book. I stood and hurried back to the shelves, my eyes scouring the bindings.

If not for the sharp shadow cast by my candle, I would have missed it, for the gold of the tooled letters had flaked away altogether, leaving only a series of indentations.

Paracelsus.

And then, farther down on the spine, again almost without color, the title in German, The Archidoxes of Magic.

“Paracelsus,” I said, dragging the volume from the shelf and giving it a triumphant shake above my head. Immediately I wished I hadn’t, for a shower of sooty fragments rained down upon me.

“Carefully, Victor!” Elizabeth said, rushing over and taking the book in her own hands. Sheepishly, I let her have it.

She carried it back to the table, and now I could see that this book had obviously been burned. A big triangular section of the cover was charred and crumbling.

“You think Agrippa’s strange letters were invented by Paracelsus?” I asked Elizabeth.

“Let us hope,” she said.

“Why would it be burned?” Henry asked.

“Father said it was all thought witchcraft,” I said. “No doubt it was gathered up by the Church or the townspeople and thrown into a bonfire.”

“But Wilhelm Frankenstein rescued it,” said Elizabeth.

“You Frankensteins are so enlightened,” said Henry with a nervous chuckle, and we glanced about, as though that long-dead person might still be here in the Dark Library with us, watching.

Very gently Elizabeth opened the cover. The frontispiece was a portrait of a man, but his features were hard to make out, for the page was half burned. Only a skeletal trace of his stout face remained. Either he was wearing a strange, angled hat, or his skull was of a most bizarre and deformed shape. His eyes, strangely, were still clear. They were shrewd and confiding, and seemed to be looking out at us, intensely.

I watched Elizabeth, and could see that the disturbing image had the same effect on her, for her lips trembled a bit.

“It’s like a man who’s been terribly burned, and only a ghost of his former self survives,” she whispered.

“It is Paracelsus, though, no question,” said Henry, pointing to the bottom of the portrait, where, like words painted upon a wooden sign, it read:

FAMOSO DOCTOR PARACELSVS

The doctor’s body had not been so damaged by the fire. With a shudder I saw that one of Paracelsus’s hands rested over the edge of his own portrait, his fingers curled over the top of the little sign bearing his name. It was just part of the painting, of course, but it made it seem like he could simply step out of the picture.

If he so wanted.

I swallowed back my unease.

“He was a German physician,” said Elizabeth, reading the tiny print beneath the portrait. “Also an astrologer and alchemist.”

I began, with great care, turning pages. It was an agonizing, heartbreaking business, for many of them had been fused together by the flames, and just the action of turning them tore them free and sent silky bits of ash floating up.

On many pages it was really only the lower half, near the binding, that was even legible.

“We are destroying the book even as we examine it,” said Henry miserably.

Again and again I carefully turned pages.

Until I found it.

“Is that it?” I asked excitedly. At the very bottom of the page was one of the strange characters we’d seen in Agrippa’s Occulta Philosophia.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, nodding back at me. “It’s very distinctive.”

“We will have our translation, then!” I said. “Surely if Dr. Paracelsus invented this language, he must lay out its translation in the common alphabet.”

But when I tried to turn the page, I could not. It had been completely fused by fire into a thick papery clump.

“Stop, stop!” said Elizabeth. “You’ll tear it!”

It was all I could do to keep myself from hurling the book across the chamber. As if sensing my rage, Elizabeth took hold of my hand and pointed at the open book.

“Look there,” she said.

Above the strange character was written something in Greek. I squinted but could not make sense of it.”

“The Alphabet of the Magi,” Elizabeth translated.

“But its key is lost to us,” I moaned. “The book is unreadable!”

“We know the alphabet’s name at least,” Elizabeth said.

I nodded and took a breath. “And now we must find someone who can translate it for us. We must find ourselves an alchemist.”

I slept but a few hours and, after breakfast, went downstairs to the servants’ quarters. I waited in the hallway outside the kitchen until Maria turned the corner and saw me. Her face lit up.

“Konrad?” she said, with such joy that I felt guilty to disappoint her-and then disgruntled, too, for Konrad had always been her favorite when we were little.

“It is Victor, Maria,” I said, coming more into the light.

“Victor, forgive me. You gave me a start. For a moment I thought it was your brother, up and about-” She stopped herself. “Is everything all right upstairs? Does your mother need me?”

“No, no, all is well,” I said. “I am sorry to bother you, Maria, but there is something I wanted to ask you.” I waited as Sasha, one of the kitchen staff, passed by in the hall, giving us a curious look. In a lowered voice I said, “Of a rather confidential nature.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Come into my office.”

As housekeeper she had a comfortable suite of rooms, some of which looked out toward the lake. She led me into her small office, where all the business accounts of the household were carefully maintained. She was a meticulous woman, and I’d often heard my mother say that we would all be utterly helpless without her.

“What is it you wanted to speak to me about, Victor?” she asked, closing the door. She should have called me young master, but she had raised me from a yowling whelp, and it would have felt odd to be called master by her.

“I am very worried about Konrad,” I began cautiously.

She nodded, and I was not surprised to see her eyes moisten.

“I worry that the doctors do not know how to cure him,” I said, watching her, “and I wonder if perhaps there are healers with different skills who might be more successful.”

She said nothing, but her eyes would not meet mine.

“Do you know of any such people, Maria?”

She took a breath. “I do not.”

I sat back, discouraged, tried to think of another subtle line of questioning, and couldn’t.

“But I heard you talking to Mother,” I blurted out, “about some fellow you know of, an alchemist.”

“You little villain! Eavesdropping!” she said, and I suddenly felt five years old again, and caught out at some mischief.

“Who was it you were talking about?” I persisted.

“I promised your mother I would not speak of it.”

“To Father,” I said. “She asked you not to speak of it to Father. But you can tell me, Maria.”

She glared at me, then looked away. “You must promise me you will not speak of this to your parents,” she said. “And I do this only because I am so worried about your brother.”

“Of course,” I said.

“I put little faith in these doctors. Some cannot even cut hair straight, much less deliver a baby without killing the mother.” She sighed. “There was an incident a good many years ago; you and Konrad were just newborns. One of the city’s generals had a daughter, no more than six, who sickened suddenly. The general spared no expense. He summoned the finest physicians of Europe. All of them said the girl was beyond hope and would die before the winter was through. But the girl’s mother could not bear the thought, and sought out an apothecary right here in Geneva. Some said he was a gifted healer. Some said he was an alchemist. Some said he trafficked with the devil. But the mother did not care about any of that. She went to him and he prepared a medicine, and he saved that little girl.”

Maria’s voice trembled. I took my handkerchief and passed it to her, and counted five seconds while she dabbed her eyes, but I was too impatient to wait any longer.

“His name,” I said urgently. “What was the fellow’s name?”

“Julius Polidori.”

I had never heard of him, which was odd. Geneva, though an important city, was no vast metropolis like Paris or London, and my father’s position made him aware of anyone of prominence.

“And is he still in the city?” I asked Maria.

“I don’t know, Victor. But I think maybe you should find out.”

I smiled at her. “I will. I most surely will.”