This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) (2 page)

“I
t’s a terrible thing,” I said, “to be crippled in the prime of one’s life.”

“You’ve
sprained
your ankle,” said Konrad wryly. “Elizabeth, why on earth do you keep pushing him around in that wheelchair?”

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, laughing, “I find it amusing. For now.”

“Dr. Lesage said it mustn’t bear any weight for a week,” I protested.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of the west sitting room, one of the many large and elegantly furnished chambers in the chateau. It was a Sunday, four days since my brush with death. Father had gone into Geneva to tend to some urgent business, and my mother had accompanied him to visit an ailing aunt in town. My two younger brothers, Ernest, who was nine, and William, who had scarcely learned to walk, were with Justine, their nanny, in the courtyard, planting a small vegetable garden for their amusement.

“Honestly,” said Konrad, shaking his head, “it’s like a nursemaid with a pram.”

I turned to Elizabeth. “I think our Konrad wants a turn in the chair. He’s feeling left out.”

I glanced back at my brother, hoping for a satisfying reaction. His face was virtually identical to my own, and even our parents sometimes had trouble telling us apart from a distance, for we shared the same brooding demeanour: dark and abundant hair that had a habit of falling across our eyes, high cheekbones, heavy eyebrows, a square jaw. Mother often lamented what she called the “ruthless turn” of our lips. A Frankenstein trait—it did not come from the Beaufort side of the family, she was quite certain.

“Victor,” my brother said, “I’m starting to doubt that your ankle’s even sprained. You’re play-acting.
Again.
Come on, up you get!”

“I’m not strong enough!” I objected. “Elizabeth, you were there when the doctor examined me. Tell him!”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall he said it might be sprained.
Slightly.
”

“You should be ready to hobble about, then!” Konrad proclaimed, trying to haul me from the chair. “You don’t want to get sickly!”

“Mother will be vexed!” I said, fighting back. “This could leave me permanently lame—”

“You two,” said Elizabeth with a sigh, and then began giggling, for it must have been a comic sight, the two of us wrestling while the wheelchair rolled and skidded about.

At last the chair tipped over, spilling me onto the floor.

“You madman!” I cried, getting to my feet. “Is this how you treat an invalid?”

“A little diva is what you are,” said Konrad. “Look at you, standing!”

I hunched, wincing for effect, but Konrad started laughing, and I did too. It was hard to watch oneself laughing without doing the same.

“It’s still
sore
,” I said, testing the foot gingerly.

He passed me the crutches Dr. Lesage had brought. “Try these,” he said, “and let Elizabeth have a rest.”

Elizabeth had righted the wheelchair and arranged herself gracefully on the cushioned seat. “You little wretch,” she said to me, her hazel eyes narrowing. “It’s
very
comfortable. I can see why you didn’t want to get out!”

Elizabeth was a distant cousin of ours, from Father’s side of the family. When she was only five, her mother died, and her father remarried and promptly abandoned her to an Italian convent. When Father got word of this some two years later, he travelled at once to the convent and brought her home to us.

When she first arrived she was like a feral cat. She hid. Konrad and I, seven years old, were forever trying to find her. To us it was a wonderful game of hide-and-seek. But it was no amusement to her; she just wanted to be left alone. If we found her, she became angry. She hissed and snarled and hit. Sometimes she bit.

Mother and Father told us she needed time. Elizabeth, they said, had not wanted to leave the convent. The nuns had been very kind to her, and their affection had been the closest thing she’d known to a mother’s love. She hadn’t wanted to be torn away from them to live with strangers. Konrad and I were told to let her be, but of course we did nothing of the sort.

We continued to pursue her for the next two months. Then,
one day, when we found her latest hiding place, she actually smiled. I almost yelped in surprise.

“Close your eyes,” she ordered us. “Count to a hundred and find me again.”

And then it truly was a game, and from that moment the three of us were inseparable. Her laughter filled the house, and her sullenness and silence disappeared.

Her temper, however, did not.

Elizabeth was fiery. She did not lose her temper quickly, but when she did, all her old wildcat fury returned. Growing up together, she and I often came to blows over some disagreement—she even bit me once, when I suggested girls’ brains were smaller than boys’. Konrad never seemed to infuriate her like I could, but she and I fought tooth and claw.

Now that we were sixteen, all that was far behind us.

“Well, then,” said Konrad, grinning wickedly at Elizabeth, “you shall finally have your turn in the chair.”

At top speed he propelled her out of the sitting room and down the great hallway, me hurrying to keep up on my crutches, and then tossing them aside and running after them on my miraculously healed ankle.

Great portraits of our ancestors looked smugly down at me as I ran past. A full suit of armour, brandishing a sword still stained with blood, stood sentry in a niche.

Ahead, I saw Konrad and Elizabeth disappear into the library, and followed. Konrad was in the middle of the grand book-lined room, spinning Elizabeth round and round in a tight circle until she shrieked for him to stop.

“I’m too dizzy, Konrad!”

“Very well,” he said. “Let’s dance instead.” And he took her hands and pulled her, none too gently, from the chair.

“I can’t!” she protested, staggering like a drunk as Konrad waltzed her clumsily across the room.

I watched them, and there was within me a brief flicker of a feeling I did not recognize. It
looked
like me dancing with Elizabeth, but it was not.

She caught my eye, laughing. “Victor, make him stop! I must look ridiculous!”

Having grown up with us, she was used to such rough play. I was not worried for her. If she so wanted, she could have freed herself from Konrad’s clutches.

“All right, My Lady,” said Konrad, “I release you.” And he gave her a final spin and let go.

Laughing still, Elizabeth lurched to one side, tried to regain her balance, and then fell against the shelves, her hand dislodging an entire row of books before she collapsed to the floor.

I looked at my twin with mock severity. “Konrad, look what you’ve done, you scoundrel!”

“No. Look what
I’ve
done!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

The bookshelf behind her had swung inward on invisible hinges, revealing a narrow opening.

“Incredible!” I exclaimed. “A secret passage we haven’t discovered yet!”

Chateau Frankenstein had been built by our ancestors more than three hundred years ago, outside the village of Bellerive, not four miles from Geneva. The chateau was constructed as both home and fortress, and its thick walls and high turrets rose from a promontory overlooking the lake, surrounded on three sides by water.

Though we also had a handsome house within Geneva itself, we usually stayed there only in the winter months, and at the first signs of spring, we moved back to the chateau. Over the years, Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had spent countless hours and days exploring its many levels, its sumptuous chambers and ballrooms, boathouse, stables, and ramparts. There were damp subterranean dungeons, portcullises that clanged down to block entranceways—and, of course, secret passages.

We had naively thought we’d discovered all of these. But here we were, the three of us, staring with delight at this gap in the library wall.

“Fetch a candlestick,” Konrad told me.

“You
fetch a candlestick,” I retorted. “I can practically see in the dark.” And I pushed the thick bookshelf so that it swung farther inward—enough for a person to squeeze through if he turned sideways. The darkness beyond was total, but I resolutely moved toward it, hands outstretched.

“Don’t be daft,” said Elizabeth, grabbing my arm. “There might be stairs—or nothing at all. You’ve fallen to your death once already this week.”

Konrad was pushing past us now, a candlestick in his hand, leading the way. With a grimace I followed Elizabeth, and hadn’t taken two steps before Konrad brought us up short.

“Stop! There’s no railing—and a good drop.”

The three of us stood, pressed together, upon a small ledge that overlooked a broad square shaft. The candlelight did not reveal the bottom.

“Perhaps it’s an old chimney,” Elizabeth suggested.

“If it’s a chimney, why are there stairs?” I said, for jutting from the brick walls were small wooden steps.

“I wonder if Father knows about this,” said Konrad. “We should tell him.”

“We should go down first,” I said. “See where it leads.”

We all looked at the thin steps, little more than plank ends.

“They might be rotted through,” my brother said sensibly.

“Give me the candle, then,” I said impatiently. “I’ll test them as I go.”

“It’s not safe, Victor, especially for Elizabeth in her skirt and heeled shoes—”

In two swift movements Elizabeth had slipped off both shoes. I saw her eyes flash eagerly in the candlelight.

“They don’t look so rotted,” she said.

“All right,” said Konrad. “But stick close to the wall—and tread carefully!”

I badly wanted to go first, but Konrad held the candle and led the way. Elizabeth went next, lifting her skirts. I came last. My eyes were fixed on the steps, one hand brushing the wall, as much for reassurance as balance. Three … four … five steps … and then a ninety-degree turn along the next wall. I paused and looked back up at the narrow bar of light from the library door. I was glad we’d left it ajar.

From below rose an evil, musty smell, like rotted lake weed. After a few more steps Konrad called out:

“There’s a door here!”

In the halo of candlelight I saw, set into the side of the shaft, a large wooden door. Its rough surface was gouged with scratches. Where the handle ought to have been was a hole. Painted across the top were the words

ENTER ONLY WITH A FRIEND’S WELCOME

“Not very friendly to have no handle,” Elizabeth remarked.

Konrad gave the door a couple of good shoves. “Locked tight,” he said.

The stairs continued down, and my brother held the candle at arm’s length, trying to light the depths.

I squinted. “I think I see the bottom!”

It was indeed the bottom, and we reached it in another twenty steps. In the middle of the damp dirt floor was a well.

We walked around it and peered inside. I couldn’t tell if what I saw was oily water or just more blackness.

“Why would they hide a well in here?” Elizabeth asked.

“Maybe it’s a siege well,” I said, pleased with myself.

Konrad lifted an eyebrow. “A siege well?”

“In case the chateau were besieged, and all other supplies of water were cut off.”

“Makes good sense,” said Elizabeth. “And maybe that door we passed leads to a secret escape tunnel!”

“Is that … a bone?” Konrad asked, holding his candle closer to the ground.

I felt myself shiver. We all bent down. The object was half buried in the earth, very small and white and slender, with a knobby end.

“Maybe a finger bone?” I said.

“Animal or human?” Elizabeth asked.

“We could dig it up,” said Konrad.

“Perhaps later,” said Elizabeth. “No doubt it’s just a bit of another Frankenstein relative.”

We all giggled, and the noise echoed about unpleasantly.

“Shall we go back up?” Konrad said.

I wondered if he was scared. I was, but would not show it.

“That door …” I said. “I wonder where it goes.”

“It may simply be bricked up on the other side,” said Konrad.

“May I?” I said, and took the candle from his hand. I led the way back up the splintered stairs and stopped outside the door. I held the flame to the small hole but still could not see what was beyond. Passing the candle down to Elizabeth, I swallowed, and stretched my hand toward the dark hole.

“What are you doing, Victor?” Konrad asked.

“There might be a catch inside,” I said, and chuckled to conceal my nervousness. “No doubt something will grab my hand.”

I folded my hand small, slipped it into the hole—and immediately something seized me.

The fingers were cold and very, very strong, and they gripped so tightly that I bellowed in both pain and terror.

“Victor, is this a joke?” Elizabeth demanded angrily.

I was pulling with all my might, trying to wrench my hand free. “It’s got me!” I roared. “It’s got my hand!”

“What’s
got your hand?” shouted Konrad from below.

In my hysteria all I could think was, If it has a hand, it has a head, and if it has a mouth, it has teeth.

I pounded at the door with my other fist. “Let me go, you fiend!”

The more I pulled, the tighter it held me. But even in my panic I suddenly realized that this grip did not feel like flesh. It was too hard and inflexible.

“It’s not a real hand!” I cried. “It’s some kind of machine!”

“Victor, you idiot, what have you done now?” Konrad said.

“It won’t release me!”

“I’m going for help,” said Elizabeth, carefully moving around me and up the narrow steps. But just before she reached the
door, there was a dull thud, and the glow from the library disappeared.

“What happened?” Konrad called out.

“It closed itself!” Elizabeth called back. “There’s a handle but it won’t turn!” She began to pound on the thick door and call for help. Her voice echoed about the shaft like a bat’s flurry of panic.

All this time I was still struggling to pull my hand free.

“Be calm,” said Konrad at my side. “Elizabeth, can you return the candle to us, please?”

“I’ll be trapped down here forever!” I wailed, thinking of the bone we’d seen in the dirt. I now understood the deep scratches in the door, no doubt gouged by desperate fingernails. “You’ll have to saw my hand off!”