This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) (31 page)

“The doctor says I will have scars,” Elizabeth said. “I never thought myself vain, but I am vain, and it upsets me more than I can say.”

We were in the library, sunlight pouring through the windows. Konrad had been taking his meals in bed so far, but said he would like to get up later and join us for dinner. Dr. Murnau would remain only a day longer, and said Konrad’s progress was most encouraging.

He’d examined my hand again this morning, and was pleased with Polidori’s chisel work. There was no sign of infection. He said he knew some very fine craftsmen who could fashion me a pair of wooden fingers to strap onto my hand.

He’d also told Elizabeth she could remove the bandage on her cheek.

“They will be very faint scars,” I said now, looking at them. “Whisker thin. You would have to know they were there to even notice them.”

She laughed bitterly. “They will be clearly visible. Konrad cannot love me now.”

I could not help laughing, and the misery in her face was quickly replaced with anger.

“How is that amusing?”

“Elizabeth,” I said, “Konrad would be the biggest fool in the world if he thought a few scratches could dim your beauty. There
cannot be a lovelier young woman in all the Republic. I would say all of Europe, but I have not seen all the young women there yet.”

She smiled and looked down, and the colour rose in her cheeks. “Thank you, Victor, that is very sweet of you.”

I did not understand why, but I found something compelling about those scars. The claws of a lynx had raked her cheek and left their mark. And it was a mark too of her own wild nature. She could not hide it—and the wolf in me found her all the more desirable for it. But I would not think of her in such a way anymore. I was done with coveting what was my brother’s. My resolve would be strong as stone.

“In the elevator,” she said abruptly. “At Polidori’s. In the dark.”

I looked out the window. I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Hmm? What of it?” I asked carelessly.

“That kiss was for you.”

I said nothing—had nothing to say. I was secretly ecstatic, but wished too that she had never told me. For I feared these words would germinate in my devilish heart and send forth tendrils that might crack even my granite resolve.

I just smiled, and it took all my will to lift my feet and leave the room.

We sat out on the balcony wrapped in blankets, for the clear night was cool. It was just the two of us. Above the mountain peaks to the west was the last indigo hint of sunset.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That whole business with Elizabeth. I—” “Victor, you don’t need to say anything.” “I was a complete ass.”

Konrad chuckled. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been angrier in my entire life. That’s quite a skill you have.”

“It’s a good thing you fainted,” I said. “Or you might’ve killed me. I’d never seen that look in your eyes. You do forgive me, though, don’t you?”

He smiled, and I knew the answer was yes. “And by the way,” he said, “I’ve never thought myself better than you.”

I snorted. “Except at Greek and Latin and fencing and—”

“I didn’t mean like that. I meant as a person.”

For a moment I made no reply. “Well, I don’t know if I believe you, but it’s very nice of you to say. Thank you.”

“You’re impossible,” he said, shaking his head.

“Ah, that’s more like it,” I said.

“Do you still imagine interplanetary travel for yourself?” he asked, looking up at the first stars.

“At the very least,” I said. “And you will go to the New World?”

“Only if you come with me.”

“Just the two of us,” I said.

“Just the two of us.”

“We’ll do it the moment Father gives us permission,” I said.

Konrad smiled. “Given recent events, that might not be for several decades.” But we talked on with great enthusiasm, about the lands across the ocean, and what kind of adventures might be had there. It was as if we were little again, with the great atlas spread before us on the library floor. We talked about how, if we reached the farthest coast of the New World, we might continue on, across the Pacific to the Orient. I loved the idea of travelling west with my brother, always west, chasing the sun.

H
e died in his sleep.

I did not understand how it could’ve happened. He had been getting well. He had been growing stronger. How could he be
gone?

Mother wept and wept—Father too.

If any parents suffered more, I had never seen it.

They did not believe in heaven. They did not believe in an afterward. They knew they would never see their son again.

Elizabeth cried and prayed for Konrad’s soul.

“How can you pray?” I said coldly to her.

She looked at me, her face bleached by tears.

“We prayed to your God on the boat, when we sailed home with the elixir,” I reminded her. “You said—
you
said—He would listen and heal Konrad. Why didn’t He?”

“He heard us. But sometimes He says no.”

“He is not there at all,” I said savagely.

She shook her head. “He is there.”

“Make me believe you. Convince me,
here
.” I beat at my head with my hands.

“Stop,” she said calmly, grabbing my wrists. “You know that I have always believed. God does not disappear when bad things happen. He is with us through good and bad and will one day be our final home. We need no elixir to live forever. He made us immortal, and Konrad is not gone.”

I shook my head in disgust, and stormed off.

The elixir had failed. Or had it? Had Konrad simply been too ill for too long? I would never know, and it would torment me for the rest of my life.

But most poisonous of all was the thought that I might have killed my brother. What if he’d been recovering, and it was the elixir that had defeated him?

Father had no doubts. The elixir was a mirage, and I had foolishly chased after it. He did not need to say this. It was in every look he gave me. He said he would have the Dark Library burned.

Meals were made and set before us.

Our servants went about their work.

Outside, the world continued without us.

We all moved through the house, pretending to be ourselves.

I could not cry.

Our carriage moved slowly up the winding mountain road.

There had been no church service, even though Elizabeth had begged my parents to hold one. There would be no funeral mass, no words of comfort spoken by a priest, no promises made.

We were all clad in mourning black. Elizabeth and I sat with
Ernest between us. Facing us were Father and Mother, with William on her knee.

At the front of the procession was the hearse, carrying Konrad’s coffin.

Behind stretched dozens of other carriages and traps and horses, bringing our staff and friends.

The journey was a long one. For centuries the Frankenstein family had buried its dead high in the mountains just outside the city. The crypt was an enormous cave that, over the years, had been hollowed ever deeper into the glacier’s side. Even in the summer it was colder than death itself, the sarcophagi and their inmates sealed eternally with ice and snow.

As children we had seen the crypt only once, after Father’s younger brother died in a hunting accident. Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had stood, blue-lipped and silent, as the coffin was lowered into its stone sarcophagus. Afterward, during our lessons, Father told us that because the temperature never rose above freezing, a body in that crypt would be miraculously preserved.

No worms or bugs would infest it, no water would rot it, no elements would corrode it.

Konrad. What if it was me who killed you?

It was close to noon when we reached the crypt.

Our footman came and lowered the steps of the carriage for us. I was glad of my cloak, for the air was very cold. The path to the crypt entrance had already been cleared of ice and snow, but all around, on the mountain slopes, it glittered painfully and almost cruelly in the sunlight.

I stared briefly into the darkness of the crypt, then went to the back of the hearse to join Father and the other casket bearers. I
was glad Henry was among them. Carefully we pulled out the coffin.

Though there were three of us on either side, and the coffin contained only my brother, when I took my handle and lifted—that coffin was heavy as the earth itself. I could imagine nothing heavier.

It took all my strength to keep from losing my grip. As we started to move toward the crypt, for a moment I thought I might faint. Torches had been lit inside, flickering orange. I was shaking as we crossed the threshold. Ancient walls of stone and ice. Huge sarcophagi ranged to the right and left, centuries of Frankenstein ancestors.

And straight ahead, an open sarcophagus.

My step faltered. If we put Konrad inside there and closed the lid, how could he breathe?

I staggered on. I did not know how I managed it, but I helped lift the casket over the lip of the sarcophagus and lowered it inside.

There was no priest or minister to preside over the ceremony, so we all stood in silence. The crypt was full, and people were standing outside too.

I shuffled back to my mother, and Elizabeth, whose hand slipped into mine and squeezed.

I thought of Konrad in his sarcophagus, never aging, his perfect body useless to him.

I tried to pray—
Dear God, please
—but could not.

My father went alone and slid the stone lid into place—and that was when I wept.

Konrad had gone to the New World without me, and no matter how fast I ran westward, how close I kept to the sunsets,
I would never catch up with him now. My tears were filled with fury—for I had failed him.

I’d tried to save him, but I had not been smart enough, or diligent enough.

I covered my face with my hands.

And I made an icy promise to myself.

I promised that I would see my brother again—even if it meant unlocking every secret law of this earth, to bring him back.

T
he books flew open like startled birds trying to escape the flames. One after the other I savagely hurled them into the hottest part of the bonfire, watching them ignite almost before they landed.

We’d hauled everything out of the Dark Library, every alchemical tome, every
grimoire
, every glass vial and earthenware mortar. Father had ordered that it all be destroyed, and he’d enlisted the help of only our most trusted servants. But even with their assistance it had taken us many hours to carry it all out into the courtyard.

It was well past midnight now. There were no more books left to add to the conflagration, but my body still craved things to tear and throw. I prowled the margins of the fire with a shovel, flinging half-burned debris back into the center of the inferno. I was hungry for destruction. I looked at my father, the servants, their faces pale and terrible in the dancing light and shadow.

Pain throbbed from the stumps of my two missing fingers. The heat seared my face and brought water to my eyes. There was nothing remarkable about this bonfire, no spectral lights, no demonic whiff of brimstone. It was just cracked glass and burning paper and ink and reeking leather. The smoke lifted into the dark autumn sky, carrying with it all the lies and false promises I’d foolishly believed would save my brother.

* * *

The next morning I woke to the sound of the birds’ dawn chorus and had my brief blissful moment—always the smallest of moments—before I remembered.

He is gone, truly gone.

There was only a hint of light behind my curtains, but I knew sleep had abandoned me, so I sat up, my body stiff from the previous night. The smell of smoke was still trapped in my hair. I put my bare feet against the cool floor and stared blankly down at my toes. The dull pulses of pain in my right hand were the only reminders that time even continued to pass.

In the three weeks since my twin’s death, I’d felt neither fully asleep nor awake. Things happened around me without happening
to
me. Konrad had shared my experiences for so long that without him as my confidant, nothing seemed properly real. My sorrow had folded itself over and over like a vast sheet of paper, becoming thicker and thicker, harder and harder, until it filled my entire body. I’d avoided everyone and sought out places where I could be alone.

We were a house of ravens, dressed in our mourning black.

I clenched my eyes shut for a moment, then stood and hurriedly dressed. I wanted to be outside. The house was still asleep as I made my way down the grand staircase and opened the door to the courtyard. The sky was just starting to brighten above the mountains, the air crystalline and still. The bonfire had all but burned out, leaving a low, ragged pile of faintly smoking ash and fractured earthenware.

“Can’t sleep either?” said a voice, and in surprise I looked over to see Elizabeth.

I shook my head.

“Every morning I wake so early,” she said, “and there’s always just a second when—”

“Me too,” I said.

She gave a quick nod. In the severe lines of her black dress, she appeared thinner and paler, but no less beautiful. As a small child she’d come to live with us, an orphaned and very distant relation. Quickly she’d become part of our family, and a cherished friend to my brother and me—but this past summer my thoughts for her had often been more than friendly. I forced myself to look away. Her heart had always belonged to Konrad.

“So it’s done,” she said, staring at the smoldering remains of the Dark Library. “I saw you all, last night. Did it make you feel better?”

“Briefly. No, not even that. It was something to do. You didn’t feel like burning some books?”

She sighed. “I couldn’t. I felt too heartsick, just thinking of all the hope we’d put into them.”