Such Wicked Intent

by Kenneth Oppel

  “I can’t bear it if you’re in any danger here,” Elizabeth says, aggrieved.

  “I’ve not come to any harm here,” Analiese tells Konrad soothingly. “All will be well, sir, you’ll see.”

  Konrad looks at her gratefully, and exhales with a nod. “Thank you, Analiese.”

  I watch Elizabeth, her eyes moving between them. “It’s too unfair,” she says to my twin, “to have come so far and not be able to touch you.”

  “Right now just seeing you and hearing your voice is great comfort,” he replies.

  I feel a faint vibration in my pocket and remove the spirit clock to see the little clawed fist tap-tap-tapping against the glass.

  “Our time is done now,” I say.

  In dismay Elizabeth looks at me. “Get us more time!”

  “It’s too late for that now,” I say.

  “But I’m not ready to say good-bye!”

  “Will you return?” Konrad asks, sounding bereft.

  “I promise you,” I tell him. “But now we must go.”

  “Where do you go, and how?” Konrad asks in frustration.

  “To the place where we left our bodies in the real world. Come,” I say to Elizabeth, and she seems finally to understand my urgency, for her eyes move to the door. “Our bodies need us back.”

  “Good-bye,” she says miserably, stretching out her hand toward Konrad. “I shouldn’t have come. It’s a torture to leave you again.”

  I head for the door, into the hallway, and look back to make sure Elizabeth is following. Down the hall we hurry with our unnatural speed, no doubt blazing trails of light for Konrad and Analiese, who stand watching us from the doorway.

  Entering my bedchamber, I falter, for it looks entirely different. The furniture is all in different places, and the pieces themselves are much grander and older. The walls pulse with different colors and paintings and tapestries.

  “Victor,” I hear Elizabeth say, and when I glance at her, she touches the wall as if to steady herself. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the house, remembering itself,” I say in wonder. “Our living presence seems to agitate it.”

  I look at the ornate carving of the grand canopied bed and see on the pillowcases the monogram WF.

  “This used to be his room,” I whisper. “Wilhelm Frankenstein’s!”

  “Make it go back to normal,” she says, sounding scared for the first time.

  “If you concentrate, it’ll return to its present age. You have the power to do it too.”

  I take a breath, focusing my gaze on the place where my bed should be. From the corner of my eye I see the entire room shimmer and begin to reshape itself. And for just a moment I see, set within the wall, a strange cupboard containing a book—and then it’s gone and is nothing but brick and plaster. Suddenly my bed is where it ought to be, and when I look about the room, it is altogether mine again.

  Elizabeth seems confused, and moves toward my bed.

  “You’re on the chair, remember,” I tell her, and take her hand to guide her.

  The effect is instant. It’s the first time I’ve touched her in this world, and the simple contact of her skin against mine sends an urgent heat coursing through my entire body. I stare down at my hand, her hand, breathing hard. My spirit world heart thrashes within my chest like a firefly trapped in a jar. I feel weak, slightly sick—and completely, hypnotically helpless to the desire that grips me. I swallow and look up at Elizabeth and know from her gaze that she is possessed by the same sensation.

  “This is a dream,” she says.

  I shake my head. “No dream.”

  “I am dreaming.”

  In one step I am against her, my hand in her hair. Her arms lift and encircle me, her fingers pulling hard against my neck, urging me to her. Our mouths meet hungrily, and it’s as though some spectral current has been completed, and there is nothing more than this moment, all sensation, every nerve in my body attentive to her.

  But our frenzy is interrupted by the ever more insistent pattering of the spirit clock in my pocket, and a real weakness seeps through me. Not a pleasurable, giddy one this time but true exhaustion and breathlessness.

  “We must get back,” I pant, forcing myself away from her, and I see the look of disappointment and anger in her face. Once more she draws closer to me.

  “Our bodies need us,” I say, pushing her into the chair. “Take hold of your bracelet. Hurry!”

  Breathless, I tug my ring free, clench it tight in one hand, the spirit clock in the other, and throw myself onto the bed, my limbs weirdly moving of their own volition to shape this spectral body to my real one and—

  CHAPTER 5

  THE SECOND DEATH

  WE WOKE GASPING AT THE SAME MOMENT. HENRY PACED between us anxiously, looking at his stopwatch.

  “Slightly over a minute this time!” he said. “What kept you?”

  “I stretched time a little.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and faced Elizabeth. “Tell me what you saw!”

  “No!” commanded Henry. “Say nothing, either of you!” From my desk he took quills and paper and handed them to us. “Remember our plan. Write down what happened, in as much detail as you can. Events, dialogue. Then I’ll read them.”

  I exhaled. “Yes, of course. I was forgetting.”

  As I scribbled out my account, I kept glancing over at Elizabeth, wondering if she’d truly had the same experiences as me—right up to the moment before we’d left the spirit world. I wrote and wrote and heard the church bells toll the half hour. As I neared the end of my account, I hesitated and decided to leave out the passionate embrace Elizabeth and I had shared. If it had all merely been a dream, I’d only embarrass myself, and if it were true, I would mortify Elizabeth. Surely she’d omit it. I looked up and saw her watching me. We’d finished at the same time, and we silently handed our sheets to Henry.

  Waiting as he read both our accounts was excruciating. Elizabeth’s fingertips traced the lace embroidery of her hem. I folded my maimed hand within my whole one, wishing I could hide it away forever, wishing I could obliterate the throbbing pain that dogged me. We avoided each other’s gaze, and then, when we’d run out of nooks and crannies to focus on, our eyes finally met.

  Your tongue touched mine, I thought, staring at her. And then I had to look away, for my cheeks burned, and the memory of our intimacy was like a blaring presence in the room.

  Henry was now making low sounds in his throat as he looked between our accounts.

  “For heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “You must be done reading our dreams by now.”

  Henry looked over, pale in the candlelight. “It seems,” he said, “you’ve had virtually the same dream.”

  I leapt to my feet, exultant. “No dream! The exact same experience!”

  “Only the very endings differ slightly,” said Henry, scratching at his hair. “Elizabeth, you say that just before you exited, Victor seemed… confused?”

  I looked at her in surprise, then amusement.

  “Just before we returned, yes,” she murmured. “Rambling a bit, possibly delusional.”

  Henry turned to me. “Victor, you have no recollection of this?”

  I looked at Elizabeth, a smile dormant on my lips. “It’s possible. Things can get a bit hazy after the spirit clock rings. The house tends to shift. But what we experienced was real, every bit of it. Do you believe now?”

  “Of course. And you must believe that there’s a world beyond ours.”

  “Certainly.”

  “And that it’s filled with spirits and angels and devils, and could only be governed by an all-powerful God.”

  “Ah. Let’s just say I believe it’s a world filled with wonders, and one I plan to visit many more times.”

  “Is that wise?” Henry asked.

  Elizabeth said nothing for a moment, then, “I won’t go again.”

  Aghast, I stared at her. “What do you mean? You saw him.”

  She put her face i
n her hands. “But I don’t know if it was more solace or torment. He could barely look at us. I couldn’t even touch him. He’s gone from us, Victor. In time he’ll be gathered and taken to his final home.”

  “I mean to bring him back,” I said quietly.

  Silence boiled through the room like a thundercloud.

  Elizabeth was shaking her head. “We can’t bring him back, Victor.”

  “I don’t accept that. And you shouldn’t either. Two days ago you didn’t believe a door could be opened to the spirit world. We’ve opened it. We’ve passed through. Why can’t Konrad pass out?”

  She was trembling. To my surprise Henry lifted a blanket from my bed and draped it over her shoulders, kneeling beside her. “You’re exhausted by all this.”

  “Don’t play nursemaid, Henry,” I said impatiently. “She’s as strong as me, and you don’t see me traumatized.”

  At this Elizabeth stood, threw off her blanket, and glared at me. “I should’ve known this was your intent all along. Just when I think your egotism has found its limit, you amaze me afresh. Yes, we’ve passed into the realm of the dead—a place we likely shouldn’t have—and yes, we saw Konrad’s spirit. But do you actually think you have any authority in that place?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “No. We will not see. Only God resurrects people, Victor, and, as startling as this might be to you, you are not God!”

  “I never said I was,” I retorted. “You see, this is exactly my point. You think only your God has the power to govern these worlds. All I’m doing is raising a question: Might we as well?”

  She swallowed. “I feel sickened by all this. It was a mistake.”

  “What about Konrad? I thought you loved—”

  “Yes, and that’s precisely why I can’t bear it again. It’s torture, Victor, for him and me. I vowed to let him go.” More quietly she said, “Nothing good can come of it. I won’t go again.”

  I took a moment to marshal my thoughts. I nodded. “I understand. If this is something I have to do alone, so be it. All I know is that Wilhelm Frankenstein somehow found a way into the spirit world, and who knows what else he found? He might’ve made all sorts of incredible discoveries. Maybe he even knew how to bring the dead back to life. If he did, there must be some record of it.”

  “The Dark Library is ash now,” said Henry.

  This stopped me for a moment, and then I realized something.

  “Only in our world,” I said with a grin. “In the spirit world it’s still there. Every book that ever came into this house will still be there, unburned, unblemished.”

  “Books,” said Henry wearily. “Our last adventure was filled with books, and—”

  “It ended with failure, yes. Alchemy and science, primitive and modern, they failed us. But clearly the occult holds more wisdom than I gave it credit for. There will be a great many books to read….” I looked over at Henry. “For someone as clever as you, it would not be nearly so great a chore.”

  “Your flattery’s shameless,” Elizabeth said. “Henry’s too sane to help you with such a mad plan.”

  I sighed, nodding. “It’s too bad, though, Henry. Inside the spirit world there’s such total… vitality. Elizabeth felt it too. Somehow it makes us more of what we are. It gave me my fingers back. What might it give you?”

  I saw him chew at his lip.

  “It’s remarkable.” I watched his face, trying to gauge if I were swaying him. “You’ll find what’s best about you, what’s most powerful. It allows you to be the self you always wanted to be but kept hidden, or thwarted. I felt I could do anything—”

  Henry laughed sarcastically. “That’s nothing new!”

  I chuckled. “No, maybe not. But inside it just might be true.”

  “I’ve had enough of this blasphemous talk,” said Elizabeth. “Good night, both of you.”

  “Don’t forget your prayers,” I said before she shut the door.

  “That was a bit sharp,” said Henry.

  “But funny,” I replied, and we both laughed.

  Henry looked at me, intent. “What else?”

  “Inside it’s simpler, truer.” I thought of Elizabeth, how our feelings for each other had been raw and uncomplicated, animal in their urgency. “There’s nothing stopping you from doing anything you might like.”

  He looked away, as though afraid of betraying some secret. “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  He blinked and pushed his wispy blond hair back from his forehead. “When you next go, I’ll come with you.”

  * * *

  I woke early the next morning, dressed, and waited in the music room for Elizabeth to pass by on her way to breakfast. When I heard her footfalls in the hallway, I trilled a few notes on the piano—the same melody that Konrad had played the night before—and heard her stop. Hesitantly she entered the room.

  I improvised a tune on the keys and quietly sang, “I don’t think someone’s quite ready for the convent yet.”

  “Shhh!” she hissed, closing the door and coming closer.

  “Were you planning on pretending it never happened?” I asked. “That bit at the end?”

  For a moment she said nothing, and I wondered if she would refuse to speak of it altogether.

  “Thank you for not writing it down in your account,” she said finally, then cleared her throat. “It would seem that our behavior in the spirit world is… uncensored. All our base impulses are given free rein—”

  “Base impulses,” I said. “You make it sound like they’re evil.”

  “Just because one has feelings doesn’t mean one has to act on them.”

  “What a prig you are! Why’s it so hard for you to admit your feelings for me? You had no trouble showing them last night.”

  “Do you know what distinguishes us from animals, Victor?”

  “Yes, but I think you’d like to do the explaining—”

  “They know only instinct. No knowledge of right or wrong. They have no self-control. Humans do. And we’re meant to exercise that control.”

  “So is this the real reason you won’t go back inside?” I asked her. “Because you’re worried you might be overcome with passion for me again?”

  “I won’t go back inside because it’s a wicked endeavor, and if you were smarter, you wouldn’t go back either.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’ll be blunt, Victor. I am not in love with you.”

  This stung, but I pressed on. “You’re just angry because I was the one to end the kiss.”

  Her cheeks reddened. “Rubbish.”

  “You would’ve had us kiss until our bodies died. Hah! You feel rejected by me!”

  “If you must know the cruel truth, Victor, I kissed you only because I couldn’t kiss Konrad.”

  And she turned and left me there, wondering whether it was true.

  * * *

  Mother was not at breakfast again, and our morning lessons were subdued. Father seemed dispirited, and dismissed us early. I needed to be alone with my thoughts, and went for a long walk into the foothills.

  The clouds that had oppressed us the past week were thinning, and by the time I paused to catch my breath, the sun had broken through. I took off my jacket and looked back across the lake, glad to see some color returned to it. My gaze lifted to the mountain peak where the Frankenstein family crypt was carved into the glacial rock. Inside lay Konrad in his icy sarcophagus.

  In that sunlit moment it seemed madness to try to bring him back, no more possible than stopping the turning of the earth. What if… What if I were to let life simply take its course? Surely it was a form of madness, what I had in mind.

  But I couldn’t stop my thoughts from straying back to the spirit world, its lustrous colors and textures, the surge of life in my veins, my healed, painless hand. I’d opened a door, and it had revealed all kinds of possibilities, all manner of power.

  And perhaps it would allow me to keep the promise I’d made to myself, to unl
ock every secret law of this earth, to bring Konrad back.

  A jolt of pain in my missing fingers made me curse. I turned from the mountain, looking back at our château poised on the lake’s edge like a powerful and brooding sentinel. I imagined myself a malign spirit, whirling about the house, trying to get in.

  There was a second promise I’d made not so long ago—to stop coveting what was my brother’s. If I brought him back, would I have to surrender any chance of winning Elizabeth?

  Hadn’t I sacrificed enough already for Konrad? I’d given my fingers, dared to enter the spirit world, and might face even greater trials to give him back his life.

  In the spirit world Elizabeth had kissed me and pushed herself against me with a passion that seemed impossible. Surely some part of her had to love me. She denied it, but I didn’t believe her, and if I could get her to spend more time with me in the spirit world, maybe that ardor would grow even stronger and I’d be able to unlock it in the real world. How could such a pursuit be deceitful if she herself wanted the same thing as me?

  I will bring my brother back, I thought.

  But I’d keep Elizabeth for myself.

  * * *

  As I made my way back home, I saw a fine carriage I didn’t recognize near our stables. Inside the château I found my father’s manservant, Schultz, and asked him who our visitor was.

  “Professor Neumeyer from the university,” he told me. “He came to examine the caves.”

  “Is he there now?” I asked, eager to have another chance to explore.

  “No. He’s speaking with your father. I believe they’re in the west sitting room.”

  “Thank you, Schultz,” I said, vaulting up the stairs.

  I found them on the balcony, Elizabeth and Henry, too, standing against the balustrade, the professor pointing at something along the shoreline. He was not at all my idea of a professor. I’d expected someone bespectacled and papery, but this fellow was built like a bear. He wore clothes that looked better suited to hunting than studying, had a bearded ruddy face, and hands that could break bones with ease.

  “As you see,” he was saying, “the site of your château is most desirable. Access to fresh drinking water and easy transport routes across the lake. It commands a view in all directions and is backed by the mountains, both strategic advantages. You’re by no means the first people to have lived here. The Allobroges Celts had settlements as far back as five hundred years before Christ.”