This Dark Endeavour (with Bonus Material) (21 page)

“We have no fish to show for ourselves,” said Elizabeth.

“I should’ve thought of that,” I said. “But it can’t be helped now. We fished for the sport of it. We’re late because we lost track of the time.”

“Most important of all,” said Konrad, “we do not mention anything about Polidori or our quest.”

Mother and Father must have been listening for our horses, for they were in the courtyard scarcely before we had dismounted. On seeing us, Mother burst into tears and scolded, even as she embraced us. Her abundant grief made me feel ashamed for the first time.

We handed off our horses to the grooms and were ushered inside.

“You have worried your poor mother to distraction, and me as well,” Father said angrily.

When I removed my riding furs, Mother gasped. “Victor, your arm!”

I looked to see the bloom of blood on my shirt. “A small wound, really,” I said, glad of the chance to appear brave before Elizabeth.

“We must call for Dr. Lesage,” Mother said.

“We won’t be able to reach him until morning,” said Father. “I will tend to it.” To Schultz, our butler, he said, “Konrad and Elizabeth will need warm baths drawn at once. Give them each a small glass of brandy. And have bed warmers between their sheets, please.”

“Very good, Master Frankenstein,” said Schultz.

I watched as my brother and Elizabeth were led off, meekly as little children, to their separate baths.

My father turned to me. “Come to my study.” Mother made to accompany us, but my father caught her eye and shook his head.

Inside his study he sat me at the great oak desk and told me to remove my shirt. I did so, and he unwound the bandages.

“You have been bitten,” he said calmly.

I cleared my throat. “Yes,” I said. “It was a fish. A large one.”

Father took a valise from a cupboard and withdrew from it a clean white cloth, which he spread over the desk. Next he set out bundles of cotton batting, a packet of needles, and a spool of thread. I always knew that Father’s knowledge was impressive but had not known he was also capable of simple surgery.

At the side table he filled a tumbler with brandy, and placed it on the desk near me.

“You may wish to fortify yourself,” he said.

“I am fine,” I said, my mouth dry.

“Very well. Hold out your arm.”

He took a clear flask, unstoppered it, and poured a small amount of liquid directly into each of my wounds. It was worse than being bitten. The pain pierced my arm through and through, and I cried out.

“Alcohol to disinfect,” my father said, “before we suture.” He began to thread a needle. “What possessed you to go underground?”

“Underground?” I croaked, truly surprised.

“I glanced inside your saddlebags,” he said, “and found a lantern and a flask of oil.”

What a fool I’d been.

I composed my answer carefully. “We’d heard tales that there was a pool beneath the earth where we might see a coelacanth.”

“Are they not extinct?” my father asked, and inserted the needle into my flesh.

I winced but kept myself from crying out. “No,” I grunted as the needle criss-crossed my wound. “They live … in the lake bottom and … spend their days in underground pools.”

“And you were bitten while attempting to catch it?”

I exhaled. “Yes, Father.”

He made another two stitches, closing the first wound, and then tied off the threads and snipped them short with scissors.

The room swam briefly before me. My father turned my arm so he could work on the second bite.

“It was very foolish,” I said, hoping to distract him from his calm course of questioning. “I promise I will never enter those caves again. I am very sorry.”

“Why did you try to catch the fish?” Father asked.

“To catch such a rare thing—” I groaned. “We thought it would be remarkable.”

“It seems,” said my father, “that you meant to explore these caves all along.”

I said nothing. I could not think clearly. The pain was mounting, and my guilt with it. I wondered if Elizabeth and Konrad were undergoing a similar interrogation by my mother. At least they weren’t having their rent flesh sewn together. They should be able to keep silent.

I reached for the brandy, but my father moved it beyond my grasp.

“Yes, it was planned all along, Father.”

“You deliberately misled your mother and me.”

I whimpered as the needle entered my flesh yet again. “Father, the pain is …” I reached out for the brandy, but once more he withheld it.

“You have also visited the Dark Library again.”

I said nothing.

“Yes or no, Victor.”

“Yes, I did,” I said faintly. “How did you know?”

“Footsteps in the dust. Books shelved in different places. It’s unlike you to deceive, Victor. And I can’t help wondering if
these two deceptions—your forbidden visit to the library and your expedition today—are connected in some way.”

Why had I thought I could fool him? He was one of the cleverest men in the Republic, a magistrate who judged truth from lie in his daily work.

“Are they connected, Victor?”

I had no more fight left. I nodded. He pushed the brandy toward me, and I greedily drained the tumbler. The burn in my throat temporarily obliterated the pain.

Father finished the last stitch and looked up. “Now I want to know
why
you did these things.”

“It was my idea from the start,” I said quickly. Even in my suffering I was eager to take full credit for the enterprise—and also to control the story. “When Konrad was ill, and none of the doctors seemed to know how to cure him, we found a recipe for an elixir of life and decided it might be his only hope. So we set about searching for the ingredients.”

Father’s face darkened. “Did you hear nothing of what I told you in the Dark Library? You disobeyed me to pursue some childish fancy!”

He brought his fist down on the desk and I jumped, but the violence of his gesture sparked my own anger. I was being treated like a criminal. Interrogated. Tortured. “You’re wrong! It wasn’t childish! The vision of the wolf. The flameless fire! I made them both, and they worked!”

I regretted my outburst immediately. Father’s eyebrows contracted and he sat forward in his chair.

“You have been working alchemy?” he asked with disconcerting calm.

“Only to help us find the elixir’s ingredients.”

“And whose miraculous recipe have you been following? Master Caligula’s? Eclecti’s?”

“Agrippa’s,” I told him.

He shook his head. “No. You are not being honest. That recipe cannot be made.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” I countered, then said, lying only a little, “We found a translation of the Alphabet of the Magi.”

“It has been lost!”

“We found one. Surely you cannot have read every single book in the Dark Library!”

This was a gamble, I knew. I saw my father bristle, but then he reined in his temper.

“Victor, you have no idea the danger these elixirs pose. They are not proper cures!”

“Like Dr. Murnau’s?” I blurted.

He looked at me, silent.

“Konrad told me,” I said. “We have no secrets. But you’re keeping one from Mother. His illness might return.”

Father seemed weary suddenly. “There is a small chance.”

“And next time it might kill him! How can you sit back and do nothing? How can you trust Dr. Murnau’s guesswork, and no one else’s? Why not Agrippa’s? There are accounts of its successes—”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Father. “Dr. Murnau’s methods are informed by centuries of proper scientific learning.”

At that moment we were interrupted as the door to the study opened, and Elizabeth and Konrad, warmly robed, were ushered in by my mother.

“They wanted to see how you were,” Mother said to me.

“The patient will survive,” Father said.

Konrad was studying me, no doubt wondering how much of our adventure I’d revealed. I felt ashamed. I’d crumpled under Father’s interrogation. I’d not told him everything—but too much.

“It seems,” Father said to our mother, “that the children have been trying to gather the ingredients for an alchemical potion. An elixir of life, no less.”

The look of sheer surprise on Mother’s face told me that Konrad and Elizabeth had confessed very little.

“You said you’d gotten lost exploring the caves!” she exclaimed, seeming genuinely hurt. “How long has this been going on?”

“Since Konrad got ill,” Elizabeth murmured. “We wanted to cure him.”

Mother frowned. “But why would you persist with this even after Dr. Murnau cured him?”

From the corner of my eye I saw my father and brother exchange a glance, as if reminding each other of the secret they kept.

“An elixir of life would be a glorious thing to have,” Konrad said smoothly. “I confess I couldn’t resist the sheer adventure of it.”

“You must abandon this dark endeavour,” my father said firmly. “It is finished. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Konrad and Elizabeth said.

“Victor, I don’t believe I heard you.”

“Yes,” I muttered.

“You’ve put your lives in peril. You might easily have been killed in those caves. And you should know this as well. Not only is the practice of alchemy fruitless, it is also
illegal
in our republic. You were unaware of this, no doubt.”

I nodded, truly surprised. I remembered Polidori telling us he’d
personally
been forbidden from the alchemical arts, but I hadn’t realized it was considered a crime.

“Some years ago,” Father went on, “we tried an alchemist who had been administering a certain
miraculous
elixir. People paid for it eagerly and willingly drank it. Some of them were made sicker; one died. To prevent further tragedies, the other magistrates and I decided to pass a law making it illegal to profit from, or
administer,
alchemical medicines.”

“We did not know that,” murmured Elizabeth contritely.

“I cannot have my own children daring the laws of the land,” he said.

“No, Father,” said Konrad.

“And while I admire the selflessness and love that inspired your actions,” said Father, “I’m very disappointed by how you’ve deceived your mother and me.”

I looked at him coldly, and thought he was a hypocrite. Was not he being dishonest with Mother, by not telling her the truth about Konrad’s illness?

“I’m placing you three under house arrest for the next two weeks. No riding. No boating. Your footsteps will not tread beyond the inner yard. You will receive no visitors.”

“Not even Henry?” I cried.

“Especially not Henry,” Father snapped. “He was one of your accomplices!”

“He didn’t really do much,” I muttered, and Konrad could not suppress a laugh.

“He was very good at staying behind,” said Elizabeth, biting back a smile, “on account of his acute imagination.”

And then the three of us fell into a violent fit of giggling—
despite our exhaustion, and the prospect of being imprisoned for the next two weeks.

“We must somehow get a message to Polidori,” I said quietly.

We had slept deep into the morning, and after a late breakfast the three of us had met in the ballroom, where we could stand outside on the balcony and see the glorious summer, forbidden us for two weeks.

“We need to make sure he got the coelacanth head from Henry—and that he knows we won’t be visiting for a fortnight.”

I was very worried what Henry might have told the alchemist; I didn’t want Polidori to think we’d exposed him, or given up on our plan.

Konrad exhaled. “Victor, we promised to end our adventure.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Yes, but we were lying.”

He glanced at Elizabeth, as though they’d already discussed this without me.

“Perhaps ending it is for the best,” she said.

“How is it for the best?” I demanded.

“We might have died, Victor,” she said in astonishment.

“Yes, I know. I was very nearly inhaled by a fish. But we can’t give up now. We have only a single ingredient left to find! Konrad, it was
you
who wanted to continue.”

“I regret it now. I’m of Father’s opinion. We are chasing a mirage. There is no proof these alchemical cures work.”

Elizabeth nodded, and I stared at her in astonishment. “You saw that book move; you smelled its blood!”

“I don’t know what I saw or smelled anymore.”

“Did you not say the room was bathed in red lamplight?” Konrad asked her. “That might have created the effect of—”

“You were not there,” I reminded him pointedly. “If you had been, you would’ve felt the power of the book, and Polidori—like Elizabeth and me.”

“I find it curious,” said Elizabeth, turning to me, “that you can’t believe in God but are more than willing to believe in alchemical wonders.”

“The vision of the wolf. The flameless fire. They may be wonders, but they’re real. It is just science by another name.”

Konrad sniffed. “Father doesn’t think so.”

“Right now,” said Elizabeth, “I am extremely grateful to be alive. And I think we should put the whole matter in God’s hands.”

Konrad gave a little nod.

“Has she converted you, then?” I asked. “You never believed in God.”

“She is very persuasive,” Konrad said, smiling, and Elizabeth flushed as they looked at each other fondly.

“And he’s converted you too,” I said to her, disguising my jealous pain with anger. “You were so brave on our adventures, and now you cowardly want to surrender.”

She would not meet my eye. “We see things differently, Victor.”

“Well,” I said, “I prefer to take some action. But if you wish to lie about and hope for miracles, go ahead.”

“Victor, you have already risked your life for me,” said Konrad kindly. “I cannot imagine a greater show of brotherly love. I’ll never forget this. But I am asking you now to stop.”

“But—” I began, only to have him interrupt me. “Surely my say should count the more,” he said. “It’s
my
life. And I say stop. Truly, let’s leave this behind us.”

I did not know how to reply.

I woke the following morning to an unexpected feeling of well-being.

When I parted the curtains, warm sunlight doused me. I opened the window to the trill of birdsong and an intoxicatingly warm breeze. The lake sparkled. It seemed the whole world was before me, and it was truly beautiful, and beckoning me to return to it.