Such Wicked Intent

by Kenneth Oppel

  I reach the ceiling and heave myself through the trapdoor, my fingers numb. I lurch to the sofa and lie down. Clumsily I pull the ring from my finger and grasp it in my left hand, clenching the vibrating spirit clock in my right. A great breath is pulled from my lungs and—

  —Elizabeth and Henry peered down at me, their foreheads creased with anxiety.

  “Victor! Oh, thank God!” Elizabeth gasped. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded.

  “You were so still and pale,” she said, “and your breath so faint.”

  Henry put his hand to my wrist. “Your pulse is stronger now. In the last few moments it was very weak….”

  “How long?” I croaked, my body still heavy with fatigue.

  “A full minute exactly,” said Henry, looking at his pocket watch.

  “It felt much longer,” I said, opening my right hand to reveal the silent spirit clock.

  “You’re such an idiot, Victor,” said Elizabeth. “You could’ve died!”

  “And yet here I am,” I said. I dragged in a deep breath and sat up, steadied by Henry. The world slewed, and I clung tightly to my friend.

  They were both looking at me, expectant, but wary, too.

  I smiled, feeling suddenly exultant. “It’s real! I was there!”

  “Where exactly?” Henry asked.

  “Here! It was our château, the same but different. It remembers itself somehow. Or at least my gaze made it remember.”

  “What do you mean?” Henry asked.

  “When I stared hard at a place—a wall, a corridor—I could see how it used to look in every age! Toward the end it got a bit confusing. There is a trickiness to the place, and I lost my way for a moment trying to get back to the chapel. And the butterflies! There are butterflies, just like the ones in the painting, and they helped me remember the power I had, and—”

  “Did you see him?” Elizabeth asked emphatically.

  I licked my dry lips. “I saw him.”

  “How did he look?”

  “Not like a ghost. Like himself, healthy. He was in his room, playing chess.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He was afraid of me. He held his arm across his eyes as though I were a torrent of light. He said I blinded him, and gave off a powerful heat. He didn’t know who I was, not at first—he asked if I was angel or demon—and it took him a while to believe it was me.”

  “What else?” she demanded.

  “He said there was something different about the house, that he wasn’t alone.”

  “You saw others?” Henry asked.

  “No. He seemed ill at ease, though.” I thought it best not to mention the rapier, not yet.

  Elizabeth chewed at her lower lip. “Anything more?”

  “The spirit clock told me my time was up.” I looked down at the device with wonder. “Its little claw actually taps against the glass.”

  Elizabeth looked at me hard, shaking her head. “It makes no sense. The dead go to heaven, or hell, or purgatory. Our château can’t be these places.”

  Henry cleared his throat. “I’m no expert, but there’s very little description in the Bible of the afterlife. Purgatory especially might look like anywhere.”

  “What matters,” I insisted, “is that I went to the world of the dead and came back! It can be done! So what does that say about all your rules?”

  Elizabeth was silent.

  “It means,” I said, “that religion doesn’t know all the answers. The things it tells us aren’t true—or at least they’re incomplete.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes flashed. “You’re astonishingly arrogant. Why this still surprises me, I’ve no idea. But has it occurred to you that you only dreamed, and what you saw was a hallucination caused by that elixir?”

  “No, it was real…” But I trailed off, for I hadn’t considered this possibility. Already my memories had a dreamlike aura.

  “That’s the most likely explanation,” she went on. “What do you say, Henry?”

  My best friend regarded me carefully, then blew air out of his cheeks and gave a rueful smile. “I’d have to agree that Elizabeth’s is the most likely explanation.”

  “Well,” I said, “there’s only one way to find out for certain.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Which is?”

  “Two of us must go in at the same time.”

  She shrugged. “Two people might both hallucinate.”

  “Or have exactly the same real experience.”

  For a moment no one spoke. I looked at Henry.

  “It does make sense,” he conceded. “It’s the only way to be sure.”

  “Will you come, then, Henry?” I asked.

  “Well, I’d leap at it normally, if it weren’t for a certain rare phobia of mine.”

  “Which is?”

  “Fear of death,” he replied.

  “I’ll go,” Elizabeth said.

  I turned to her in surprise. “But what of your beliefs? Isn’t it a grave sin to dabble with the occult?”

  “As you say, it’s the only way. Next time we’ll both go in, Victor, and that will tell us the truth.”

  “Which is why you’ll need me to watch over you,” said Henry, nodding as if this had been his design all along. “And when you return, you’ll each write your account in silence, and I will compare them with utter impartiality.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Tonight, then, when the house is asleep.”

  “Too soon,” Elizabeth said, looking distrustfully at the green bottle of elixir. “Remember Wilhelm’s notes. Not more than once a day.”

  “It’s just as well,” said Henry. “I need to go home this afternoon. My father’s returning from a business trip, and I should be there to greet him. And,” he added with a grimace, “there will soon be preparations for a trip of my own.”

  Startled, I looked at him. “What trip?”

  “You’re going away?” Elizabeth said in genuine distress. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner!”

  He laughed. “Difficult to fit in, what with all the excitement at Château Frankenstein. Well, yes, Father has decided it’s time for me to accompany him on one of his merchant voyages.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Two weeks.”

  “For how long?” Elizabeth wanted to know.

  “Two months.”

  “So long?” Elizabeth said, and I saw Henry blush at this show of attention. “Well, then, we must see as much of you as we can. Tell your father you’ve been invited to be our houseguest for the next two weeks.”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Mother and Father will insist on it.”

  “Well, I’m very touched,” said Henry.

  I smiled at him and raised my eyebrows devilishly. “It will be excellent to have you so close at hand, Henry, at such an exciting time.”

  “Yes, how lucky I am always to be included.”

  With great care we made our separate descents on the chandelier, making sure to take all the apparatus from the secret chamber: the elixir, the spirit clock, the notebook. It would be too tricky—and possibly dangerous—to return here to make our next trip to the spirit world.

  Before opening the door to the chapel, I put my ear to the door to listen for servants.

  “Tomorrow night, then,” I said to the others, “and not a word of this to anyone.”

  * * *

  That night I dreamed I was in my room, undressing for bed, and the door drifted open just a bit. I knew it was only a draft, for my window was open as well, the evening was so warm and fine. I walked over to close the door properly, but when I pushed it, I met with resistance, and I knew there was someone, waiting, on the other side.

  CHAPTER 4

  MOMENTOUS DISCOVERIES

  AND SO YOU CAN SEE,” FATHER TOLD US AT OUR LESSONS THE next morning, “that throughout Ovid’s Metamorphoses there is a constant theme of transformation. Daphne is turned into a tree, Narcissus into a flower, Actaeon into a stag—all of these the work of the gods, o
f course. But perhaps we can take away from this an appreciation of the endless and fascinating mutability of our own world and—”

  There was a knock at the door, and Klaus, one of our servants, poked his head apologetically into the room.

  “I’m very sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but there’s been a bit of a problem at the bottom of the shaft.”

  “No one’s injured, I hope,” Father said.

  “No, sir. It’s just that we started filling in the well down there, like you wanted, and, um, it’s not a well.”

  “What do you mean, Klaus?”

  “There’s a false bottom in it, sir, and it gave out under the weight of the gravel.”

  “What’s below, then?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Looks to be a cave of some sort. We didn’t want to do anything until we told you about it first, sir.”

  I was watching Father’s face carefully, trying to guess if this was news to him. He was, I knew, an able keeper of secrets. But his face looked genuinely surprised.

  “Have you a ladder long enough to reach down?” Father asked.

  “We do, sir.”

  “Let’s have a look, then,” Father said.

  “Can we come too?” I asked.

  He looked at me, and must have sensed my honest excitement, for he smiled and nodded. “Very well. You’ll be sensible and do as you’re told. Klaus, if you’d make sure we have enough lanterns, please.”

  I leapt to my feet, and grinned at Elizabeth and Henry. Château Frankenstein was not just a home but had also been the most exciting playground a child could imagine, with its dungeons and ramparts and concealed passages, most of which had been discovered long ago by Elizabeth and Konrad and me.

  “What an endlessly fascinating home you have, Victor,” said Henry with a wry smile. “Imagine having your own cave!”

  Apart from the night of the book burning, this was the first time I’d been inside our grand library since it had become a construction site. It was now kept under lock and key, to make sure my younger brothers didn’t wander in and fall down the perilous secret stairwell, now permanently open while the workers went about their labors.

  The carpets had been rolled up, and boards laid down to protect the floors from wheelbarrows loaded with gravel and brick; the shelves of books were hung with thick curtains to guard them from dust. The hinged shelf that had concealed the secret doorway had been dismantled, leaving the portal wide open.

  It felt most strange to once more be making my way down these narrow steps. Even though they’d been properly reinforced by the workers, and the shaft was well lit with lanterns, I acutely remembered my first dark and secret descent with Elizabeth and Konrad. Halfway down, as we passed the entrance to the now vacant Dark Library, my heart gave a quick, sad squeeze, for my twin was not with me now.

  At the bottom of the shaft, two workers were peering down into the well, into which they’d lowered a lantern on a rope. I saw they had a long ladder at the ready.

  “Let’s get that down and have a look,” Father said, turning to me with a wink. His look of true pleasure cheered me. There were few men in the republic who loved learning as much as my father, and for the first time I realized that, though I was a sloppy student, raw and abundant curiosity was something we both shared.

  The workers lowered the ladder, made sure it was secure, and then stepped back. “There you go, Klaus,” one of them said.

  Klaus looked at his fellow workers. “Not keen to come, then?” he said mockingly, though I noticed he himself looked less than thrilled as he swung himself over the short wall. Father went next, and then it was my turn.

  Rung by rung I descended, feeling the subterranean chill climb my body. I passed the splintered plank remnants of the well’s false bottom, and then the cave opened out around me. Lantern light lapped at pale stone.

  I stepped down into the pile of gravel and earth that had collapsed earlier, looked around the large cavern—and sucked in my breath as I beheld the giant image of a horse drawn in black.

  It was not alone. Other horses galloped and leapt across the walls and ceiling, the simplicity of their lines only enhancing their grace and sense of speed.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Father, holding his lantern close to one painting. “They must be very old indeed.”

  Elizabeth and Henry were soon among us, gazing about with wide eyes.

  “Incredible,” Henry breathed.

  “So beautiful,” said Elizabeth, smiling at me with such simple joy and wonder that I could not help but smile back. For a few blissful moments the pain that drummed in my missing fingers almost evaporated.

  “It keeps going, this way,” said Klaus, holding his lantern high and showing us a passageway with corrugated walls that made me think of some great leviathan’s gullet. Though the passage was narrow, its ceiling was vaulted high, and on the stone were yet more animals—giant bulls with bristling crests of hair, and great horns, powerfully painted in a rich terra-cotta so you could practically feel the sheer bulk of their flanks, the bundled muscle of their haunches.

  “Look!” said Elizabeth, pointing. “That one has a spear in its side.”

  “Well spotted,” said my father. “And this one’s been felled.”

  In the wash of his lantern light, I saw one of the mammoth creatures on its side, head drooped lifelessly.

  “It’s like some kind of primitive art gallery,” Henry said.

  “Museum, too,” Father said. “Look at these markings here, beneath the fallen bull.”

  I saw the series of simple black marks with strokes through them. “It’s like a tally,” I remarked. “They wanted to keep track of their kills.”

  Father nodded. “Whoever made these pictures was recording their history.”

  The passageway turned to the right and opened up into another cavern. Elizabeth called out excitedly, “An ibex, look! When did ibexes last live in Geneva?”

  “Is that a bear?” Henry said.

  “Must be,” I remarked, “though I’ve never seen one so big. Look at it there, compared to the bull! What a monster!”

  A short tunnel led out from this cavern into a series of narrow vaulted galleries. We walked through them, sometimes awed into silence, other times excitedly calling out the new animals we saw in this underground bestiary. One gallery was filled with brown stags. In another knelt a strange horse with a horn growing from its forehead. Crouching beneath it was some kind of tiger, ready to pounce and kill, with two great teeth curving from its upper jaw. And beside the tiger was something I’d not seen before now.

  “A handprint,” I said. It was red, made with paint—or perhaps blood.

  “Is it like a signature, do you think?” Elizabeth said. “An artist taking credit for his work?”

  Instinctively I went and placed my spread fingers against it. The print dwarfed my own hand.

  “They were bigger than us,” I said.

  Klaus was looking ill at ease, his eyes straying into the darkness, as though half expecting someone or something to emerge.

  “There are more here,” said Henry, swinging his lantern to a stretch of wall where there were numerous handprints, of all different sizes.

  “‘This is us,’” Elizabeth murmured.

  I looked at her strangely. “What do you mean?”

  “The handprints—it’s like a way of saying, ‘Here we are. This is us.’ Maybe it showed how many people lived in their family, or clan, or whatever it was. A family portrait.”

  “Why didn’t they just draw pictures of themselves?” Henry asked. “They were obviously excellent artists. Doesn’t it seem strange they wouldn’t have done any people?”

  “It does indeed,” said Father, “especially when they had language, too.”

  “Language?” I looked at him, startled. “How do you know that?”

  Eagerly he waved me closer with his hand and showed me, in the flicker of his lantern, a long string of curious geometric
markings.

  “Surely these are words of some kind,” he said, “though in an alphabet I’ve never seen.”

  I had seen some strange scribblings in alchemical tomes, but these were altogether more primitive.

  “They’re nothing like Egyptian hieroglyphs,” I murmured.

  “No,” said Father, “and yet the longer I look at them, the more variety I see.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “There seems an infinite number of ways they’ve arranged the lines and dots.”

  He placed a hand upon my shoulder, gave me a squeeze and a smile. It felt good to be together like this, talking and sleuthing. I hadn’t felt this close to him for a long time, and in the coldness of the cave, I felt the warmth of his large hand all the more.

  “Passage branches up ahead,” Klaus said.

  “Then we must stop here,” Father said. “We’re not equipped for a proper exploration, and I won’t risk getting lost.”

  “Do you think Wilhelm Frankenstein knew about the caves?” I asked.

  “Most probably. He would’ve discovered them when he laid the château’s foundations. And no doubt it was he who built the false well to conceal them.”

  “But why would he keep them hidden?” Elizabeth wondered. “They’re so wonderful.”

  “He was a mysterious and secretive man,” my father said. “I don’t think we’ll ever know the extent of it, or what happened to him.” He regarded us more sternly now. “You’re not to go exploring alone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I truly meant it. Despite the caves’ appeal, my thoughts were fixed on different matters.

  “Good,” Father said. “The last time you went caving, you nearly perished. Your mother could not endure any more trauma at the moment.”

  “You won’t seal all this up, will you?” I asked.

  He looked at me carefully a moment, as if trying to gauge my trustworthiness. “I mean to send word to a historian acquaintance of mine at the university. He’ll be most interested to see all this, and I’m sure he’ll have a better idea of its origins than we do.”

  * * *

  “Where’s Mother?” I asked at lunch, for I was eager to tell her about the caves.

  “She won’t be joining us,” my father said.