Such Wicked Intent (23 page)

“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 château.

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 château 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.