by Nicole Mello
I did not.
I knew how I would sound. Regardless of how much they loved me, it sounded absolutely insane, and I was in no condition to be trusted just then. I certainly would never have believed it, were I them. They might love me, but they also knew me. It was not outside the realm of possibility that this was my tipping point and that I had just lost my mind. I kept quiet. I didn’t tell them. I let them comfort me. Henry helped me to slow my breathing, to calm down, as he was so good at doing. Eliza rubbed my back, held my hand. She pressed her forehead into my temple and whispered and cried.
My father and Glo returned home not too long after. It turned out they had been down at the police station, being questioned about Justine. I wanted to leap up, tell them that Justine hadn’t harmed Will, that she would never have laid a finger on him, but what evidence did I have? I had only just returned home, and I knew nothing of the details of the murder. I continued to keep quiet, and let my father lead us to the living room. He embraced me, then Henry, then sat us all down. The room was silent; never before had I endured such a bitter silence. My mother would have known what to say. Will would have been able to make us smile. The hope was gone. I longed, perhaps irrationally, for the presence of Gloria’s step-son; a child could help, I thought. But this was no place for a child, even beyond the crime scene and the intense black depression that had settled over us. It was unsafe now; my beast knew my location, and I was so sure that he was seeking my blood.
I didn’t say anything. I truly believed nothing good would’ve come of that. The guilt over my not having said anything still weighs on me today, a physical burden in my chest, pressing into my lungs, suffocating me. It only barely loosens telling you the truth now. I didn’t know what the right decision would have been to make then. I still have no idea what I should have done. All I know is that I should have done more.
If I had said something, surely they would have thought I was crazy. Wouldn’t you have thought I was crazy? You probably think I’m crazy now. But, my point is — if they thought I was crazy, and then they incapacitated me — put me in a hospital, or a home, or confined me to the apartment — who would have stopped the demon? Nobody else knew what I knew, so how could they even begin to protect my family? It was impossible. I made the decision that I believed was right at the time. Hindsight, as they say, is twenty-twenty.
I was called upon as a character witness in Justine’s trial, as was the rest of my family, and Henry. Eliza delivered an incredible speech on Justine’s behalf. Eliza had become something of a mother to Will in my mother’s absence, and she cried throughout the entire discussion, which moved the jury. I was sure that her words could have saved Justine. If the woman who was like a mother to Will seemed so sure of Justine’s innocence, how could Justine be guilty? It seemed fairly cut and dry to me, and I almost began to relax, though I still felt guilty, since it was my fault that Justine had to go through that ordeal in the first place.
I spoke as highly of her as the rest of my family did, though I did so with a bit more passion. I had more at stake than they did; I wanted to ensure that Justine was found not guilty, because a guilty verdict for her would be a sentence for me, as well. I wanted to confess to the crime, if only to spare Justine, but it didn’t make sense: I had an alibi. I was too far away to have possibly committed the crime. They didn’t know of the extenuating circumstances, and how could they have? I don’t blame them.
Justine panicked. I wish I had been able to talk to her more, to tell her to remain steadfast in her assertions of innocence. I knew she was innocent, which made it much easier to believe her, whereas my father, my sister, and even Henry were finding it hard to suppress their suspicions. Eliza remained just as sure as I was, though I have no idea where she pulled her strength from. Perhaps it was from sheer virtue of being Eliza.
But, yes, Justine panicked. She was always very in touch with her culture, being Algonquian, and she believed in not only her own innocence, but also in forgiveness. The interrogators got to her; they brought up her beliefs, and said that, if she confessed, she would be forgiven her mistakes. She had not committed a crime, but she panicked, and she confessed to a crime which I was sure she did not commit.
That was it for poor Justine. The trial had had the possibility of swinging her way, but it was becoming clearer and clearer that the evidence against her was just too strong. And, of course, how could I forget the nail in Justine’s coffin? Only one day before his death, Eliza had given Will a trinket of my mother’s. It was valuable, but it reminded Will of her, and Eliza and my father thought that was worth more than any monetary value. It was a locket which had a picture of our family on the inside. My mother wore it always, and Eliza after her. Will loved it. Will was also found strangled the next day, while the locket was found in Justine’s bedroom.
Eliza blamed herself, I could tell. She did not believe Justine to be responsible. What she believed was that someone had broken into the apartment — while she was at the grocery store, and Will was home alone, because he was old enough to be alone for half an hour — and was looking for money or valuables. Instead, they found Will, a child, with a valuable around his neck, and it just went badly from there. That’s what Eliza believed. She was close; there was a break-in, and Will was found alone. I don’t know why Adam stole the locket, or how it ended up in Justine’s apartment, but I was unwavering in my belief that Adam had committed the crime.
Justine fell out of the jury’s favor with the confession, understandably. They didn’t know her like my family did, and they didn’t have the knowledge I had. Like I said, I don’t blame them. All signs really did point to Justine. She was convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole. The traditional sentence in New York for first-degree murder tends to be twenty-five years to life, but Will was a charismatic child, well-loved and undeserving of his fate, and that just made it all the worse for her. I had stolen her life from her; inadvertently, and indirectly, sure, but I had.
When the judge announced Justine’s sentence, I had something of an out-of-body experience, I remember. It was like I had separated from myself, and was floating somewhere in the air above the event, watching everything happen. It was such a tremendous blow, I found myself numbed. I wanted to throw myself at the feet of the judge and confess to the crime, to tell the judge everything which I had done, regardless of how insane I sounded. I leapt to my feet; Henry’s hand on my wrist stopped me from going any further. He was firm, and he removed me from the courthouse. I was silent. I returned home with what remained of my family.
I was guilty, sentenced to life.
Chapter Twelve
I was not myself then. I was the furthest from myself that I had ever been, I believe. I had committed a great wrong. I broke laws, both in the legal and in the scientific senses. My own brother was dead because of me, and a woman I considered a friend lost her life to confinement because of me. I was a monster. Before that day, I had never felt such an overwhelming desire to take my own life. I wanted to escape everything. I felt as though I couldn’t physically withstand everything that was happening; it was like my chest was being crushed, my heart mutilated, my mind destroyed, all at once. I wanted to die, and only two things saved me from that.
The first was the knowledge that, if I was dead, it was the same as it would have been if I had been arrested or institutionalized: nobody else knew about Adam. I was the only one who could stop him. However guilty I was, Adam was guilty twice over. He was the one committing the crimes, not me, even if I was the one who created him. He had to be stopped; only then would all of these disasters finally end. I, and I alone, could stop him.
The second thing was Henry. I had never outright lied to Henry before; I frequently lied to him through omission, which I’m sure you’re well aware of, but still. I could never lie directly to him. He had such a gentle, trusting way about him. If we were able to, I would have us bring him here, and you could look into his face and try to lie to him. You wou
ldn’t be able to. He just had that way about him.
Henry sat me down, and he asked me to tell him what I was thinking. I told him as much as I could. I told him I wished I could die. Henry broke down then. He had always been much stronger than I, and I had never seen him fall apart like he did then. I feel guilty about it now. I didn’t even think about Henry; I only thought that the world might be better off if I wasn’t in it, and that, of course, I would be relieved of the pain I was experiencing. I didn’t think of Henry, and how he might feel. He considered us to be inextricably linked, bound to one another. He couldn’t stand the thought of life without me, he said. He wouldn’t have been able to bear it.
“I love you,” he said to me. We were sitting in my old bedroom, I remember. We were on my bed. He gathered my hands in his and pressed his forehead to my palms. “I love you, Victor. You can’t leave me. You can’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I said to him, softly. I didn’t want to break him. “Henry-”
“No, Victor,” he interrupted, and his voice was firm, almost angry. Henry had never been this truly angry with me before, though he had more than enough just cause to be, on many occasions. “I can’t live without you. I won’t.”
I could never understand why Henry loved me as he did. I will never understand it. Henry himself — that’s a love I understand. I completely understand my own love for Henry. He was an incredible being, incomparable, beautiful, singular in body, mind, and soul. I was nothing. I was a monster, a demon of a man, and I pushed him away constantly, whether I was aware of it or not. There was no reason for him to love me, and still he did. I never knew what I had when I had him.
“I won’t die anytime soon, Henry,” I assured him, even though I had no way of knowing this, and I was almost sure I was lying. “But, if I did, you would have to keep living. Do you understand?”
“No, Victor-” he tried, but I interrupted him.
“No,” I said to him. “No, Henry, I can’t bear the thought of a world without you, even more than you can’t bear the thought of a world without me. The world needs you.”
Will was like a beam of light, but, for me, Henry was the sun. He was necessary. Henry eventually agreed, that he would keep living if I didn’t, but he made me promise the same. I did it for him, but I didn’t believe it. If Henry died before he was an old man, I knew, in that moment, that it would be my fault he was dead, and that was a pain I would never be able to bear. I couldn’t think of a world without Henry; it didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t.
We made love that night, in my childhood bed, like we were in high school all over again. It was desperate, I remember. The freshness of Will’s death and the trial added an edge, that anguished realization of mortality, how easy it was to lose somebody. My talk of death had only exacerbated that feeling for Henry, it seemed. It was dark and rough, nothing like when we were in high school, or even when we were in Cambridge, but Henry seemed to be reassured by it. It was like the sensations gave him a comfort, reminded him that we were both still there, both still together. It helped him, I think.
Henry and I wanted to stay with my family for a while after that, so we did. We only had what we thought to pack and bring with us when we left Cambridge, but it was enough to get by until we had the opportunity to return and pack up everything. We stayed there for only a week, as it ended up being. We thought we would be there for much longer, but we had no way of knowing what was going to happen. If I had had a crystal ball, a lot of things would have been different.
Anyways, it was only a week after that night that we received the news of Justine. She had obtained a power cord at commissary, and she had hanged herself with it. She left behind no last words, no note. One moment she was there, and, the next, she was gone. That was it. Justine was dead. Two people dead — that I knew of, I thought, and then dismissed the thought, because I couldn’t handle the thought that he was on a spree, and these were only two of his victims. I went almost mad with guilt. Will was dead, Justine was dead, and I was at fault entirely. I couldn’t handle it. I nearly went insane.
I fled. Alone. I ran. I’m not proud of it, but I ran. The guilt was too much for me, and I went north until I reached Canada. I crossed the border into that northern country, and I wandered alone for a time. It was better this way, I thought. I wasn’t thinking straight. If the demon was following me, then he was away from my family now, right? That’s what I thought. If he wanted me, he was following me. I wandered about Canada, penniless and half-dead. I was in Montreal when Henry finally caught up with me. I don’t know how he did it, but, if anyone could have, it was Henry.
I told him he had no business being with me, that I was a monster of unholy proportions and that I deserved to be separate from humanity, that I deserved to lose everything. This was surely what Adam thought, though I did not voice that particular opinion. Henry, of course, disagreed vehemently. He insisted on accompanying me. There was nothing I could say or do to stop him. I told him that, if we were to really do this, I couldn’t be in a city, that I had to leave. Henry recognized in me my desire to return to nature.
Going to nature was always incredibly satisfying to me, and this was not lessened by everything that had happened. If anything, I would say the feelings I had towards it were stronger now, because I had almost nothing else to live for. It led me to appreciate nature more, I think. Henry and I went to the Laurentian Mountains. I never told Henry that we were hiding, but I think he suspected it. He was smart; he must have known.
There was a village in the Laurentian Mountains called Val-David. It wasn’t fair of me to expect Henry to drop everything to live in some cabin in Canada with me, but he did it anyways. We still called my family, spoke with them, kept them updated on our lives, but I never dared to visit them. Henry seemed to be afraid to let me out of his sight for more than a couple of hours, so he never left, either. He talked to Eliza every day. I didn’t feel the need to; I was trying to protect them. I kept my contact minimal.
Henry, like he did when we were in Cambridge, gave himself the task of starting a life for us. It took its toll, I could tell; starting a life for a third time, having to do it all again. He did it, though. People in Val-David were warm, kind, and welcoming, and Henry’s involvement in the community and his charismatic personality opened them up to us almost immediately. We tried to construct a life for ourselves there, a normal one. I really thought we’d be safe there. The shadow of Adam loomed over my head and darkened my every step, but Henry didn’t know, and I had not seen Adam in some time. I felt as happy and safe as I could possibly feel at that point in time.
Henry started a garden, and he grew all sorts of things. He had a green thumb, Henry did, and could make something come alive just by looking at it. I don’t know how he did it in Val-David — it seemed like it was always cold, and there was snow on the ground most of the time, but, if anyone could do it, Henry could. He grew flowers, fruits, vegetables. You name it, Henry had it. He went to the farmers’ market in town every single day, once he felt comfortable enough to be away from me for that long. I think he was afraid I’d run again. I’d be lying if I said that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Once I was more settled, though, he felt more secure in his decision to go away for longer periods of time.
He made friends there. People weren’t always accepting of our relationship, but, in Val-David, if they didn’t accept us, they didn’t say anything. It was comfortable. Henry grew less and less afraid with each passing day, getting happier and happier every time the sun rose. For a time, I lost myself to the nothingness, to the numbness which had been steadily consuming me since Justine’s death. Henry had just been beginning to draw me out of this and back into the real world, his new world, when it happened.
We were both outside, in broad daylight. I was sitting in the grass, propped up against the side of our little house, reading a book that Henry had recommended to me. I’m not sure, but I think it was something about lightness. Very much Henry’s taste in books at
that point. He had insisted I read whatever it was, and, once he had succeeded in drawing me out of myself a little bit, I finally did.
Henry was kneeling in his garden, probably weeding — I don’t think he was planting that day. I heard a twig snap in the woods, and I looked up. Henry was humming to himself, one headphone in his ear; I don’t think he heard it. When I looked, I didn’t see anything in the woods, but I was so on edge all the time, so full of fear. I set the book aside in the grass. Henry looked at me, and tugged his headphone out of his ear.
“Is something wrong?” he asked me. I shook my head, but I was still scanning the edge of the woods. Henry leaned back and turned to look, as well. “Did you see something? Hear something? Is someone in there? Is it Etienne? He said he’d be stopping by-”
“Henry,” I interrupted him, my voice low, and he seemed to understand. I stood, abandoning my book and my warm spot in the grass so that I could go towards the woods. I had barely taken two steps, however, before a figure emerged from the woods. I almost passed out then, when I saw who it was. Henry was at his feet in a split second, so fast that I didn’t even see the transition from sitting to standing. He was at my side in the next moment, hand on my elbow, ready to pull me back.
“Who are you?” Henry demanded. My words had been stolen from me; I couldn’t speak, and my feet felt cemented to the ground. Adam took a step closer, and that was all the incentive I needed to push Henry behind me.
“Leave,” I snarled. Adam approached, and I backed up, keeping Henry safely behind me as we moved. “You are not welcome here.”
“Victor, who is he?” Henry asked. Adam opened his mouth. I had not imagined him capable of speech, but it was a day for surprises.
“Yes, Victor,” Adam said. “Who am I?”
“Victor-”
“Victor, haven’t you told him about me?” Adam demanded. As he got closer, I was able to see him in more detail; the sun shone as brightly on him as it did on us, though I thought he belonged to the shadows from which he had come. He wore old, moth-eaten clothes now, but he was still as horrible as he had been when he was born. His eyes had changed so drastically from the dark beauty I had originally chosen; they were terrible to look at, yellow and watery, bloodshot and hellish. He stared through me.