by Suzanne Weyn
“Don’t fall, it will only make my task harder,” I told him.
“Your task?” he questioned.
I nodded. “You’ll see.”
It took a long time for Walter to make it down the ladder. Several times I was sure he was about to slip. But I saw that he’d been strong when he was well, and his left arm and hand could still grip remarkably well. When he was halfway down the ladder, I followed.
At the bottom, I showed him everything — the equipment, the body parts in jars, my father’s albums. “I can make you better, Walter,” I said as he scanned Victor Frankenstein’s notes. “Remember the doctor who thought he could cure you with electric current?” I flipped forward in the album to where my father had written of his contact with Jakob Berzelius, the Swedish chemist. Both of them were sure it could be done. “They figured out how to do it, but couldn’t control the electricity. But I think I know how to do that. I could give you a new leg and hand too — parts that will work like they should. I could even put new skin on your face.”
“You could, could you?” He was teasing, but only by half. There was an expression of keen interest on his face. “Where would you get these human body parts?”
“I know a man in Edinburgh I could contact.”
“You do?” He regarded me with a mixture of incredulity, amusement, and respect. “Aren’t you a remarkable girl?” he said appreciatively. “Full of surprises.”
“I am.” I saw no point in responding with false modesty. I was prepared for this. I understood the concepts involved, and my father had left behind a step-by-step guide to connecting and reconnecting body parts, then animating them.
“Would it be very painful?” Walter asked, which told me he was giving it serious consideration.
“We’ll numb you with strong alcohol.”
“How long will it take?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll set up a recovery room for you down here. I’ll take good care of you.”
Walter grew quite pensive, surveying the surroundings, glancing at the albums, looking at me. “Ingrid, do you know why I took my sailboat out today?”
“No.”
“I was going to capsize it and drown.”
I gasped at the awfulness of this. “No! You couldn’t!” My eyes teared at the very thought.
“I was about to do it when I saw you in distress.”
Flinging my arms around him, I pressed my cheek against his chest. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again!”
“I can’t promise you that, Ingrid. I don’t want to be a sick, sad invalid slowly withering away until there’s nothing I can do for myself. Dismal as that sounds, it’s the future that lies ahead of me. The physician who amputated my leg said I should prepare for further disintegration.”
“No, that can’t be!” I said passionately. “I won’t allow that to happen.”
“I haven’t told you the worst of it. This hardening of the flesh on my face will spread. Before too long I will be encased in a mask of hard tissue, unable to speak or swallow. If I manage to survive that, it will continue on until I am in a head-to-toe cast of hardened skin. I will desperately long to die. But by then I’ll have lost the ability to end my own life.”
Everything within me cried out against this. It couldn’t be! It wasn’t fair! There had to be a way to change his terrible fate.
“I’m not afraid to die,” Walter went on. “But I’m terrified of living in this way. So I have nothing to lose. I say we attempt your experiment. If I die trying, I’ll be no worse off than if I’d tossed myself into the ocean today.”
“Oh, it will work, Walter.” In that moment, I was sure of it. “I will contact my friend Anthony and have him get in touch with the body parts man, Gallagher, for me. As soon as I get the parts from Gallagher, we can start. You’ll see! I can do this.”
I hugged him tightly as tears overtook me. He let me cry a moment, stroking my hair tenderly. “No more crying now,” he said after a while. “You’re going to fix my problems, aren’t you? Didn’t you just tell me that?”
“Yes. I am,” I declared, wiping my eyes.
“Then there’s no reason to cry, is there?”
“No. You’re right,” I agreed, filled with new resolve.
Walter gazed up the ladder and shook his head. “I can’t climb that. You said there is a tunnel out of here?”
“Yes, I’ll light a lamp and we’ll go slowly. But first, let me retrieve what we found.” I climbed the ladder, took the bag with the head, and then, upon returning to the laboratory, took the head out using a pair of wooden tongs. Then I placed it in a large glass jar from one of the shelves and added some of the preserving fluid that all the other parts were sitting in. I turned the glass around, unable to gaze upon the too-familiar face any longer than necessary.
We went very slowly because of the darkness and Walter’s infirmity. But the lamp I’d found down in the laboratory threw a strong light, and so the path was clearer than I remembered it. I had not been back since my first journey to the laboratory, having used the aboveground path for all of my visits since that time.
“Be careful on the steps,” I warned, recalling the treacherously steep staircase I’d encountered.
We came up the stairs and headed into the tunnel. Walter held my hand as we crept along with me in the lead. Before we had gone very far, I startled beside Walter, alarmed.
“There’s someone in the tunnel,” I whispered sharply.
He held my arm protectively. Ahead of us, the dark form of a person sat slumped, blocking our path. In the deep silence of the dark passage, it emitted no sound of breathing. Nor did it move at all.
This silence emboldened us to creep forward cautiously. As we neared, I detected the rank odor of decaying flesh. When we were close enough, I lifted the lantern and gasped. The person in front of us stared up blankly, covered in blood with a large triangular shard of glass plunged into his belly. He was clearly no longer alive.
“I know him,” I told Walter.
It was Riff.
My head swam with the possibilities. Had he been killed elsewhere? Did someone kill him here in the tunnel? Was that person still in the tunnel? Had my father’s nemesis come back? Was he still lurking in the tunnel?
And then an equally frightening possibility came to me: Was Riff the one who had frightened Giselle here in the dark passageway? Had she accidentally killed him in the course of defending herself?
Even though it was self-defense, I couldn’t let her go on trial for murder. She wasn’t strong enough.
“Would you hold this?” I asked, handing Walter the oil lamp, which he took from me.
Bending, I grasped Riff’s ankles and began pulling him back toward the laboratory.
“Where are you going?” Walter asked.
“Wait for me here,” I requested without stopping. “I’ll be back soon.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m taking him to the laboratory. We might not have to get in touch with Mr. Gallagher after all.”
FROM THE DIARY OF
BARONESS GISELLE FRANKENSTEIN
August 10, 1815
Diary, I had a most perplexing and disturbing conversation with Ingrid this evening on the subject of Mrs. Flett’s nephew, Riff. She asked me if I was certain I hadn’t seen him after the day he taunted us with the key. When I told her I hadn’t, she continued probing, suggesting that I might have forgotten something, or that there might be some fact I didn’t want to reveal. Then she dropped that line of inquiry to ask about the day I was attacked in the tunnel. She wanted to know if I’d seen my attacker, and I assured her that he’d come upon me from behind and that I’d fled without looking back.
Finally I was fed up with all these questions and blew up at her.
“What are you trying to say, Ingrid?” I demanded.
Ingrid opened her mouth and then shut it again as though deciding not to continue with her line of thought.
“I just think it odd that he disappeared like that,” she said, and I felt there was something insincere in her expression and tone.
I don’t like this idea that Ingrid might be keeping something from me. Since girlhood we have never kept secrets from each other, and I don’t see why she should start now.
I shall go to bed tonight feeling lonely and desolate, because my best friend in the world is not taking me into her confidence.
August 14, 1815
Party plans are advancing wonderfully well, and I now have a list of thirty definite guests, ten possible, and only ten refusals.
You will not believe the guest list, Diary! It includes Lord Byron; the poet Percy Shelley and his wife, Mary. The artist who painted my father’s portrait, John Singleton Copley, has accepted, which is thrilling.
Ingrid will be thrilled to know that all her scholars have accepted. Humphry Davy will be coming with his wife and his assistant, Michael Faraday. A French scholar named Sarlandière accepted immediately, although he was the last to be invited; I suppose the French do love a soirée. I wonder if scholars in general are really the best people to have at a party — who really understands what they’re talking about? — but there are enough of them that they can talk amongst themselves. I’m sure Ingrid will keep them all busy with her endless scientific curiosity.
The next crucial thing for me to decide is what I will wear to the party, which really amounts to a debutante ball for Ingrid and me, since it is our introduction to fascinating society. Mrs. Flett has told me that there is a wonderful dressmaker over in Stromness, which is a city on Mainland, the second largest after Kirkwall.
Naturally I wanted Ingrid to make the trip to Stromness along with me; she will certainly need a dress too, but she was busy, as is usual these days. I never see her anymore because the first thing in the morning she rows out to Sweyn Holm, where she holes up in that shed and claims to be studying Anthony’s medical books and our father’s notes. One might think she was preparing for some important test, the way she has taken to devoting herself completely to her studies. I don’t think she even goes over to see Lieutenant Hammersmith anymore, though perhaps that’s because he isn’t home. I never see his chimney emitting smoke these days.
At any rate, I will take the ferry over to Mainland soon and I will get a suitable dress and probably have to buy one for Ingrid as well, or she is likely to show up at the party in her plain frock with an apron thrown over it, her hair in a braid.
August 16, 1815
The dressmaker in Stromness proved to be a treasure, and I have commissioned her to create a gown with a black velvet top and a plaid taffeta skirt. For Ingrid, I requested that she create a simple dress all in an exquisite sapphire blue silk, which I think suits her style perfectly. My measurements sufficed for the two of us, of course, though I will have to insist that she make the trip back with me when the time comes to pick up the dresses so that she can have one real fitting.
On the ferry back, I ran into Investigator Cairo, who was making another trip to Gairsay from Kirkwall. He waved when he saw me and gave a friendly nod as he came to my side.
“It’s a bit late for you to be traveling unescorted, isn’t it, Baroness Frankenstein?” he remarked as we stood near the railing.
“Perhaps. But in a place with no darkness, where is the danger?” I replied.
“You make a good point, but enjoy it while you can. Come the winter months, it will be almost nothing but darkness, with only a few hours of dim sunlight.”
“I won’t like that,” I commented sincerely.
“No. I would think not. Perhaps you will travel abroad during those months.”
“That is an excellent idea.”
We stood side by side, gazing out onto the ocean for a few moments without speaking.
“You’ve seen nothing of that Arthur Flett, I assume?” he said after a little while.
“No, but it’s funny you mention him. My sister, Ingrid, was asking me about him just the other day.”
“How so?”
“She was just confirming that I hadn’t seen him after that last day at the castle. For some reason, she seemed particularly eager to be sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.”
“And had you?” Investigator Cairo asked.
“Why would I forget?”
“Oh, people forget all sorts of things, especially memories that are unpleasant. These events are frequently buried below consciousness.”
“Consciousness?” I questioned.
He sighed and looked up pensively as though deciding how best to explain it. “I’ve been reading on the works of the German physician, Franz Mesmer. He put his patients in a trance state that enabled them to recall memories they had buried.”
“How does one bury a memory?” I inquired. “Certainly not with a shovel.”
He smiled. “Of course not.”
“These unhappy memories can be locked away in the mind so that the person does not even recall that they ever occurred and is thus protected from the pain and fear caused by the event’s memory,” Investigator Cairo explained. “Dr. Mesmer is able to unlock those memories by a method that has come to be known as mesmerization.”
“Thankfully I have none of those in my past,” I said.
“You have never suffered a mental trauma?”
“Trauma?”
“An injury — in this case an injury to the mind. No assault on your psyche at all?”
I thought he was being overly personal and I didn’t like it.
“Hasn’t it been a mental trauma to you to never know your mother or your father?” Investigator Cairo asked.
“How do you know those things?” I asked, shocked and mildly offended at his impudence.
“I’m an investigator.”
“I gather you don’t think it rude to speak to someone you hardly know of personal matters such as that.”
At this he smiled and shook his head wearily. “You must forgive me,” he apologized. “My work as an investigator has sharpened my interest in everything to do with the workings of the human mind. I tend to ask questions that I consider professional, but others find boorish.”
“I have never met someone who probed so deeply,” I said.
“It is a passion of mine. I believe that someday there will be doctors who study nothing but the pathologies of the mind, the idea being that when people suffer from maladies of the mind they are alienated from their true selves. This alienation causes the afflicted person to behave in odd and even criminal ways.”
“Interesting,” I commented. “And do you believe that maladies of the mind are at the root of the current troubles in the area?”
“Some sort of madness is afoot,” he said. “An Angus Martin who delivers dairy products around Gairsay has gone missing now. Do you know him?”
“Mrs. Flett takes care of all such things for us,” I told him. But then I remembered an incident a few days earlier when I was walking alone and a man in a milk wagon had come up behind me so close that he startled me, causing me to stagger to my knees on the ground. The man came down from his wagon to help me, which would have been nice had he not been muttering angrily, extremely annoyed that I had been in his way.
After I told him about this, Investigator Cairo asked, “Were you injured?”
I held out my arms to show him where I was scraped and bruised from my fall, though modesty prevented me from showing him the bruises that were also on my knees.
“Those are bad,” he said. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“I don’t see the need. They’ll heal. I’d rather just forget about it.”
“There! You see?” he cried triumphantly.
“See what?”
“An unpleasant event pushed away under the carpet of forgetfulness.”
“I could remember it if I wanted to,” I argued. “I simply choose not to.”
“You’re right. It’s not quite the same thing,” he allowed.
We chatted about one thing
and another until we reached Gairsay. Investigator Cairo helped me with the bags of things I’d purchased in Stromness as he escorted me back to the castle. “Would you mind if I came by one of these days for a call?” he asked at the door.
“Would it be business or pleasure?” I asked.
He thought about this for a moment before answering, “A bit of both.”
FROM THE JOURNAL OF
INGRID VDW FRANKENSTEIN
August 17, 1815
Conscience. Shakespeare has Hamlet say it makes cowards of us all. Does it? That question has been on my mind a lot lately.
I think it does. Every time I stop to question my actions — the rightness or wrongness of them — I am thwarted in my resolve. I must stick to my one goal: to return Walter to his former health. The intense love I feel for him drives me. It is my only concern.
But it is a grisly business. If, before I began, I had truly comprehended the magnitude of the gore involved, it certainly would have sickened me into abandoning my plans. At the end of every day the white lab apron I wear is soaked in blood. Despite scrubbing in the laboratory sink, the skin on my hands is becoming tinged with red.
Poor Walter. He suffers so. For his own good, I keep him in a nearly perpetual state of deep intoxication. When he groans or stirs, I pour strong alcohol down his throat. He is becoming quite thin even though I mix mashed food in with the fluid in order to sustain him.
Thanks to our donor, he has a new right leg attached at the knee and a new right hand and forearm. It was much more arduous and time-consuming work than I had imagined, and I am afraid to miss even the tiniest detail. Joint bones must be filed to fit their new host. Tendons must be reattached. Muscles reconnected, nerves and veins allowed to find their paths.
Some of it is the work of a butcher. Other times I feel like a lace-maker tatting her delicate fibers with deft fingers.
It is tedious and wearying. I labor at it for hours and hours each day until I am close to collapse. At times I throw myself across my beloved’s broad expanse of chest, sobbing with nervous exhaustion, wondering whether this quest I have embarked upon is madness itself. Am I a love-crazed lunatic who has lured poor dear Walter into an insanity of my own making? The solace of my love’s barely thumping heart is all that consoles me and keeps me going.