Such Wicked Intent (3 page)

“Why would I do such a thing?” I retorted, furious.

She was trembling, and I suddenly realized how frightened she was. I too felt a watery weakness in my joints. Quickly I pulled a blanket from the end of my bed and draped it around her shoulders.

“Some force animated the pendulum,” I said quietly.

“And you truly think it was Konrad?”

“There might be a message.” I was almost afraid to examine the pages I held, but I forced myself.

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“It’s all gibberish,” Elizabeth said, looking up from her own papers. “Nothing.”

I shook my head in dismay.

“I’m disgusted with myself,” she said vehemently, and then turned on me. “Isn’t there enough misery in this house already, without you inviting more?”

I let the papers slip from my ink-stained hands and sank to the floor.

“You’re not the only one who suffers, Victor,” she said. “Everyone in this family is suffering. I’ve seen my entire future change.”

“I lost my
twin
,” I growled.

“And I lost my future husband.”

I said nothing, the word “husband” clattering painfully inside my mind.

“But what if it was Konrad?” I asked. “
Trying
to talk to us?”

Her eyes closed for a moment. “I should’ve walked out on this. You’ll only torture yourself—and me too.”

My eyes settled on the pendulum. “There is a definite power in it,” I persisted. “I felt it.”

“If there is,” she retorted, “it’s not one we’re meant to harness.”

“Where is that written?” I said defiantly. “By whose law?”

“You didn’t need to build this device, Victor,” she said. “You had a choice. But I can see you’re intent on dwelling only on the darkest things.”

I watched as the door closed behind her, and with a sigh I bent to gather my papers from the floor. Blinking to clear my tired eyes, I suddenly saw, among the garble of letters, a word.

I stared, then snatched up my quill and circled it. My eyes roved across the lines, and I circled another word, then another and another. The same three words repeating again and again.

Heat and ice squalled across my flesh. Could it be coincidence? Or my own mind, knowingly forcing my hand to write the words, so desperate was I for a message from my twin?

Outside the window rain pelted the glass. I hurriedly gathered Elizabeth’s discarded papers, and my gaze flew over them. There. And there! And there!

Come raise me.

Come raise me.

Come raise me.

I
T SEEMS BEYOND DISPUTE,
”
SAID OUR FRIEND
H
ENRY
C
LERVAL
, running a hand through his wispy blond hair as he looked between the two sets of pages. “You’ve both recorded the same letters—and words.”

I looked over triumphantly at Elizabeth.

“I never doubted they were the same,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean they came from Konrad.”

On a table in the music room I had spread out our transcripts from the previous night, as well as the red metal book and its contents. We had the château to ourselves. After our morning lessons, presided over as usual by Father, both my parents had left for Geneva, Father to attend to his magistrate’s duties, and Mother to help ready the city house for our return in October.

Before Konrad’s funeral, their pace had been frenetic. They’d received visitors offering condolences from near and far; there had always been preparations and meals to oversee. Our house had always seemed full. And even then my parents seemed intent on keeping to their usual schedules—if anything, more vigorously than ever. Father resumed our morning lessons with Elizabeth, Henry, and me, and afterward he carried on with his own work. Mother threw herself into her duties about the house, carving out time to begin another pamphlet on the rights of women.

Henry fluttered his fingers, giving his characteristic impression
of an agitated bird. “And you truly think Konrad spoke to you from beyond the grave?”

“Why would it be anyone else?” I countered.

There was an uncomfortable silence before Elizabeth replied. “I was taught that the dead who need to atone for their sins are sent to purgatory, and sometimes they wander the earth in the hopes of somehow making amends—and that they may try to communicate with the living.”

“Very well, then,” I said. “By your way of thinking, Konrad is communicating to us from purgatory.”

“But,” Elizabeth continued, “the Church also believes there are devils whose only aim is to beguile us and lead us into temptation.”

Henry was nodding emphatically. “Remember that play of Marlowe’s,
Doctor Faustus
? The doctor foolishly makes a deal with the devil, and in the end he’s dragged down to hell. I’d never felt such horror—not in the theater, anyway.” He paused. “With you two I’ve felt far greater horror, of course.”

Despite myself I laughed. “Why, thank you, Henry. I’m flattered.”

“What is it exactly you think you can achieve?” he asked me, removing his spectacles to polish them. I was surprised by the steadiness—the hint of challenge, even—in his blue-eyed gaze.

I took a breath. My own thoughts were far from clear. “I don’t know. To see him again, I suppose. To help him.”

“Admit it, Victor,” said Elizabeth. “You’d make your own deal with the devil if you could play God.”

“Don’t listen to her,” I told Henry dismissively. “She plans to join a convent.”

Bewildered, Henry looked from me to Elizabeth. “Is this true?”

Elizabeth glared at me. “Why did you say that?”

I shrugged. “Why keep it secret?”

Henry looked truly distressed. “You really mean to become a… a
nun
?”

“Why does everyone seem to find this idea so incredible?” she asked.

“Well, it’s just…” Henry cleared his throat. “You’re very, um,
young
to make such a drastic decision—and have you thought about the family? They’ve just lost a son. If you entered a convent, it would be like losing a daughter, too. They’d be devastated.”

“Of course I’ve thought of that! Which is why I wasn’t planning on doing it right away.”

“Well, that’s some comfort,” murmured Henry. “Still, it would just be such a terrible loss to, well, everyone.”

“She has no intention of becoming a nun,” I said impatiently. “Anyway, she wouldn’t last two days.”

“I resent that very much!” Elizabeth said.

I held up two fingers. “
Two days
before the mother superior throws herself from the bell tower.”

Elizabeth bit at her lips, and by the light in her eyes, I knew she was suppressing a giggle.

But now Henry leveled his gaze at me. “You, Victor, are just trying to change the subject. What exactly are you planning? You used to joke about being a god. But this is taking things too far, don’t you think?”

I rubbed at my temples, impatient. “I tell you, I want to see my twin again!”

“But how?” Henry demanded.

I sighed. “I’ve no idea, not yet. Here’s all I know: that the world is uncontrollable. Chaos reigns. That anything and everything might be possible. I won’t subscribe to any rational system again. Nothing will bind me.”

“That is the way to madness,” said Elizabeth.

“If it makes me mad, so be it. But leave me to my method, because without it I’ll fall into a despair so deep, I’ll never claw my way back out. I’ll see him, damn it! As far as I’m concerned, he asked for my help. ‘Come raise me.’ Over and over he said it. Wherever he is, he’s not happy.”

“Stop,” Elizabeth said.

“He’s suffering,” I persisted.

“Stop it, Victor!” Her eyes were wet.

“Victor, you’re upsetting her,” Henry said, softly but firmly.

“You two don’t need to have any part of this. I’ve bullied you enough—you especially, Henry.”

I was startled to see anger animate his face. “I’m not quite so easily bullied, Victor. I may not be the bravest of men, but I’m not the weakling you suggest.”

“I wasn’t suggesting any such—”

“I was with you when Polidori amputated your fingers and tried to kill us all. I fought then, and I fought that wretched lynx alongside the rest of you.”

“Absolutely you did, Henry, and—”

But he was no longer listening to my reassurances. His eyes had strayed to the red metal book.

“I’ve seen that before,” he said.

“Possibly in the Dark Library,” I told him. “We spent enough time looking through the shelves—”

“No. Not there.”

Purposefully he walked past me, opened the door, and left the music room. Elizabeth and I looked at each other in puzzlement, then followed. We found him in the great hallway, standing before the huge portrait of Wilhelm Frankenstein, our notorious ancestor who’d built this château some three hundred years before.

His face was handsome and pale, unblemished except for a mole on his left cheek. His full mouth was well-molded, almost feminine. His eyes were a piercing blue, with a curious speck of brown in the lower part of each iris. Eerily he stared out at me, meeting my gaze directly, his right eyebrow lifted slightly, conveying a hint of mockery.

“There,” Henry said, pointing.

I looked and shook my head in amazement. “How is it possible I’ve lived here my entire life and—”

“Precisely for that reason,” Henry said. “We stop seeing what’s before our eyes every day.”

“Incredible,” I murmured. One of Wilhelm’s hands held a slim book. There could be no mistaking its color, nor the elaborate decoration on the cover. “The metal book.”

I heard Elizabeth give a small gasp. “And that’s not all. Around his neck, look.”

Wilhelm wore a black doublet with a ruffled collar in the Spanish style fashionable for the time. Half hidden in the lace flourishes was a chain with an unusual pendant. Without a doubt it was the star-shaped pendulum weight.

“This is the fellow who built the château, isn’t it?” asked Henry.

“And the Dark Library within it,” I replied. “Remember, he’s the one who got on his horse one day and was never seen again.”

“Your father mentioned that he attempted to converse with spirits and raise ghosts,” Elizabeth said quietly.

“Perhaps his attempts were successful,” I said. I stared up at his face. His smug smile seemed to be congratulating us for our discovery. “The fellow knows something.”

“You can learn a lot from a painting,” said Henry, peering more closely at the canvas. “And there’s a great deal of detail in this one. Remarkable. It could have been painted with a magnifying glass.”

“There’s fruit on the windowsill,” said Elizabeth. “Limes and oranges and apples.”

“What of them?” I said impatiently.

“Fruit was terribly expensive three hundred years ago,” said Henry. They’re a display of his wealth. He’s bragging. ‘Look at my limes and oranges! The elaborate brass chandelier! The tapestries on my wall!’”

I couldn’t help laughing at Henry’s pompous voice.

“His money’s new to him,” my clever friend continued. “He wants to show it off.”

Elizabeth looked at him with real admiration, and I felt an
unexpected pang of jealousy. “That was well observed, Henry!”

“I’m a merchant’s son,” he replied, flushing. “I know the cost of things, that’s all.”

“But there’s symbolism to it as well,” Elizabeth said. “The apple’s always a sign of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, and”—she pointed—“that one there has a bite out of it.”

I leaned closer. “So it does. You think that refers to his endeavors in alchemy?”

“The occult, more likely.”

“Look at the chandelier,” Henry said. “There are eight holders but only one candle.”

“Does that have significance?” I asked, starting to feel more than a little irritated by my ignorance amidst all this scholarly brilliance.

“On the altar at church,” Elizabeth said, “a lit candle is the sign of God’s presence, that He is among us. But”—and she shivered—“that one is unlit.”

“Perhaps he’s saying he doesn’t believe in God,” I said.

Elizabeth sniffed. “More like His presence is not invited, but if he thinks he can hide from God, he is sadly mistaken.”

“But he
wants
to be seen,” Henry said. “That’s the point of the whole painting. He
wants
to show us something.”

“What does he want to show you?” asked a voice behind us, and with a start I turned to see Maria, our housekeeper, staring at us in surprise. Of all our servants Maria had been with us the longest. She had been nurse to both Konrad and me (Konrad being her favorite, naturally) and was practically a member of the family. Indeed, when we were seeking the Elixir
of Life, she helped us find the disgraced alchemist Polidori, and kept our secret for us. And when we finally gave the elixir to Konrad, she was in his bedroom, watching. But I never told my parents that—and never would.

“Hello, Maria,” I said breezily. “We’ve just been amusing ourselves with our ancestors’ portraits. It turns out Henry here has a connoisseur’s eye when it comes to evaluating a painting. He was just pointing out all the signs of wealth in the portrait. The clothing, the fruit, and so forth.”

“Is that right?” Maria said, looking from me to Henry with some suspicion, then up at Wilhelm Frankenstein. “That fellow, I always look away when I pass him.”

“Why’s that, Maria?” Elizabeth inquired.

“The way his eyes follow you. Makes my skin crawl.”

“Yes, it’s quite a feat to paint the eyes for that effect,” said Henry, playing the part of the eager expert.

Once more Maria turned her gaze on me, and I knew she suspected something. She’d known me since I was a babe and of late knew what secrecy I was capable of. We would have to be very careful. Then her face softened and she smiled. “I like seeing you all together, enjoying yourselves.”