Frankenstein's Monster

by Susan Heyboer O'Keefe

  “The sheriff? What’s my crime?”

  “Murder.”

  “That’s the least of it!” Winterbourne shook the gun at me.

  Murder? Biddy Josephs had mentioned murder.

  “I’ve harmed no one.”

  Another of the men holding me spoke: “You beat the stable boy so badly we had to identify him by a birthmark. It was Miss Winterbourne who found him, isn’t that right, miss? It was a terrible shock.”

  “I shouldn’t have taken the dogs out,” Lily said softly. “He was out, too. I saw him leaving the stables. When I brought the dogs in to pen them … that’s when I found the body.” She sagged against Margaret’s narrow chest.

  Lily and I had heard noises that night, a faint but persistent sound, like twigs and scrub rubbing against each other. She had said someone was there, but I did not believe her. Could she have heard the murderer? Had she walked in his very footsteps? It seemed that death stalked her on all sides. But—

  “I wasn’t in the stables,” I said to her. “I was with you.”

  “Never!” she cried, near swooning. “You were never with me!”

  Margaret led her daughter out. The men tightened their circle.

  The accusation in Winterbourne’s eyes scorched me with shame. How could he possibly believe that I was capable of murder? Laughter bubbled from my lips.

  “He does not even attempt to defend himself!” Winterbourne said.

  “An innocent man needs no defense.” I drew myself up and said, “Conscious of his own purpose, such a man does not deign to manifest the wrath that righteously seethes within him.” Into the following silence I added, “Alfieri’s ‘The Free Man.’ ”

  Winterbourne hammered my face with the pistol butt.

  His men pulled him off me.

  “Sir, that’s too bloody to be a gentleman’s job,” one said. “Stay here while we take him to the sheriff. If you want, sir … we don’t have to reach town.”

  Winterbourne hated me enough to hesitate.

  “No!” I cried out.

  Blows pounded my neck and shoulders. A club cut me down at the back of my knees, forcing me to the floor. While the axe kept guard, Winterbourne again beat me with his pistol.

  All along, I had held back, certain I would be allowed to explain. Now, blinded by my own blood, I exploded from their hands and grabbed the axe. In my last act as a man, I yanked the head from the handle and hurled both aside lest I turn the axe on every person there.

  Two of Winterbourne’s men struggled to keep him away from me. The rest attacked with a viciousness reserved for diseased vermin. Instead of subjugating me, they beat me into fury. I kicked shins, kneecaps, thighs; punched ribs and jaws. Bones snapped like castanets; I would dance to their rhythm. Seeing Winterbourne break free of his men, I scattered mine like a boy bored with his tin soldiers. I lunged. Winterbourne aimed and fired. With scalding pain, the bullet chiseled a crease into my temple.

  Blackness hovered.

  “Quickly, while he’s stunned!”

  From behind I heard the whistle of wood. Driving back the dark, I twisted round, stopped the club on its downward swing, then charged bull-like through the circle of men. Someone had closed the windowed doors to the veranda. With a contemptuous laugh, I shielded my face, burst through the glass, and landed on the flagstones. Blood flowed heavily from my forehead and temple and now, too, from my hands, scored by glass shards.

  I scrambled to my feet just as Winterbourne cried out, “The hounds!”

  The first one leapt at me from the side and knocked me on my back. It snapped at my wounds and encircled my throat with its teeth. I seized its head, clapped my knees around its rib cage, and wrenched its neck. The dog slumped to my chest. I regained my feet just as the other hounds arrived. I swung the limp body by its feet, slamming the other dogs away as they came after me again and again. The dead animal’s head battered their heads, while its dead blood mingled with mine. Soon the dogs cowered and whined at this thing that only looked like a man. I threw the hound’s body, terrifying them: years of obedience were erased in moments.

  Bleeding, throbbing, reeling, I had to find shelter before I passed out. The cave was useless now. I would be too easily tracked, too easily cornered there. On buckling legs I made my way into the woods and began to cross and recross creeks and brooks and rivulets to weaken the trail and wash off my blood. My pace slowed to a stumble. Splashing my way up a large stream, I tripped, lost all strength, and collapsed. My floundering efforts to climb out of the icy water attracted the notice of a horse and rider. I waited for the pistol shot.

  “Do you require help?”

  A moment’s stay. I nodded, trying to recall where I had heard that voice before.

  “Come out of the water. Or are you too drunk to stand?”

  The Reverend Graham.

  “No, I am not drunk,” I gasped. “I’ve been attacked.”

  I stood halfway. Graham’s breath whistled out.

  “You!” As if sharing his surprise, his horse reared. “You murdered that boy!”

  Pain split my forehead, my sight darkened, and I swayed on my feet. In the distance a hound bayed. I tried to appeal to him using his religion. “I am accused falsely,” I said, “as your Jesus was.”

  “That’s blasphemous.”

  “Is it?”

  Graham’s head dipped forward as if he were straining to see better.

  “Were you really created by a man?”

  I gestured, took one step, and fell back. After a long hesitation, Graham dismounted and led the horse down the embankment. The horse bucked and whinnied at my touch. Graham patted its flank and steadied it for me to mount, a giant on a child’s pony. Walking the horse out of the water, he held the very end of the reins, as if fearful of my reach. He did not know how weak I was, too feeble even to form a plan. The ache in my head drove out all thoughts, and exhaustion tried to drag me to sleep.

  Right before we would leave the woods and enter the town, the reverend stopped. His thoughts were transparent: should he lead me to his church or surrender me? At last he turned toward the shadows at the rear of the parsonage.

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to me in openmouthed amazement. My profanity had not shocked him as much as my gratitude did. The talking dog was full of surprises.

  By now we had reached a small barn, which stood on a side street; the church fronted the main avenue. He helped me down.

  “I spoke with Mr. Winterbourne this afternoon,” he said.

  “Winterbourne.” The very word scratched at my ears.

  “He told me that Lily was ill, that you had killed the stable boy, and that they feared you had murdered Mrs. Winterbourne’s brother as well.”

  “I did not kill her brother. I did not kill the stable boy.” I could scarcely stand and had to grip the stall door for support.

  Unsaddling the horse, Graham felt the animal’s trembling side.

  “She’s overheated from carrying your weight. I must cool her down at once.”

  Did he put his horse above me, the natural above the unnatural? I slipped to the floor, then knew nothing more.

  It was not sleep that had overcome me, but my head injuries. For three days I lay unconscious. Unable to move me, Graham cared for me in the barn. What torments he must have suffered. Was I guilty or not? Could he offer the sanctuary of the church to something that may not be a man? Did sanctuary extend to the church’s outbuildings?

  My criticism does him a disservice: he saved my life when I expected otherwise.

  At last I awoke. I pulled off the damp cloth that covered my head, my cloak that covered my body. My first action was to check that my journal was still on my person. Graham might have searched me during those three days and read it. I think not. My words confess to such heinousness that he would have summoned Winterbourne and allowed him to kill me while I lay helpless. Did Graham grant me the dignity of privacy? Or was he simply loath to touch me?

  On weak an
d trembling legs, I walked outside. It was late afternoon. Graham was in the church, prostrate before the altar, arms thrown outward. I cleared my throat.

  “No, no,” he said, jumping up, alarmed. “You should not be in here!”

  “If a dog wandered in, would you at least not treat it kindly?” I asked, hanging on to a pew. “It does not realize it offends, after all.”

  “I’m sorry. I spoke too brusquely.”

  He quickly moved to my side and opened the door to the pew so I could sit. I had to twist my body to get into it and even then sat with my knees squashed up to my chin. But the seat was steady where my legs were not. I had walked too far too soon.

  “I’m truly glad you have recovered,” Graham said, sitting in the pew ahead of me.

  “Are you?” I asked. His eyes were swollen and red. Had he wept on my account? “You have been agonizing over what to do. My death would have forestalled such a decision.”

  His cheeks flamed. “I wish no harm to any man.”

  “But you don’t think I am a man.” I felt as if, during my long black sleep, my mind had been considering the same question. “Then what am I? Someone at the party said I was the new Adam. Am I a new type of man?”

  “A new species?” He shook his head. “God made everything once and perfectly at Creation. If matter developed on its own …” The sentence was too dreadful to finish.

  “This matter,” I said, gesturing to myself, “did not develop on its own. I was created by a man.”

  “You may be no more than a machine.” Graham turned away at the lie. “The Luddites destroyed machines they said would replace us. What would they have done with you and your like?”

  “There is nothing to fear on that account. I’m the only one. But what am I? Do I have a soul? You must decide.”

  He stared up at the cross as if waiting for his God to answer him. At last I could no longer watch his suffering. I gently touched his shoulder. He flinched.

  “If you cannot decide,” I said tiredly, “can you at least give me a little bread? Even an animal needs to be fed.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He brought me soup and bread; also a book of prayers, although he set it down without speaking of it. Perhaps he thought it would be sacrilege to proselytize an animal and so left it up to me to convert myself. I took the book with weary greed.

  The days since I was attacked have passed as a blur: my vision, my insight, has been blinded. I have set down the incidents here, writing quickly in case my mind becomes again disordered, but I find no relief. Sometimes words are merely something to be rid of, like washing hands of filth.

  Beneath my pain and confusion simmers black rage at Winterbourne. I burn with rancor. His rejection is far worse than the hate others have always shown me; he taunted me with something I had never before felt: hope. I want to rip him apart for being falsely kind. I want to ravage his world and all those he cherishes.

  November 23

  Graham has decided nothing about my nature, or nothing he would reveal.

  Day by day I grow stronger; day by day, more agitated. I have moved into an upper room in the church. The sexton cleans only that which can be seen: both the upper room and its loft overlooking the nave have been neglected for years. His negligence benefits me.

  Now that I have occupied the church, I know more of the town’s business. Besides the conversation from the street below, I hear gossip from the sexton, who is also the town apothecary. For him, each medicinal has a dark meaning, which he gladly interprets as one of the seven deadly sins. This one was in for a bromide of ground seashells—gluttony! That one, a poultice for his son’s infected back—anger!

  Although Graham tries to silence him, he also prattles on about the stable boy’s murder. It is a favorite topic in town. The Patchwork Man is real! It stalks the night! Hurry home! Lock your doors! But even that may not be enough.…

  After the sexton left this morning, Graham climbed the staircase and, fixing his eyes on me in an unwavering gaze, said, “Swear to me, for I must hear it from you again: are you indeed innocent of this murder?”

  “I do swear it. I would have you believe me with certainty, and then share that certain belief with Winterbourne. I … I am innocent.”

  “You hesitate.”

  What should I say? Graham is a public proclamation for a religion that swings erratically between forgiveness and condemnation.

  But truth has value in itself.

  “Of this murder I am guiltless,” I admitted at last. “But other blood stains my hands. More would have, had not circumstances intervened.”

  “Shall I tell Mr. Winterbourne that as well?” Graham asked sharply, my response obviously not the one he wanted. A new Adam? I had already fallen and been expelled from Eden.

  “Everything I did, however wrong, I believed necessary to protect myself.”

  Without meeting my eyes, Graham crept back down the stairs.

  November 24

  It is done and it cannot be undone; I have had my revenge after all.

  So much to set down that I will run out of ink!

  Late afternoon, a carriage was driven into the churchyard. Spying from the loft, I saw Winterbourne alight. He hurried into the church.

  “Graham!”

  No matter how enraged my earlier thoughts, they melted to nervous optimism. Perhaps here, in this place he must hold sacred, Winterbourne would at least listen to me.

  The reverend hurried in. Winterbourne seized him by the arm.

  “I must discuss a matter of urgency,” he said.

  Glancing toward the loft, Graham led him out of the church and beyond earshot. At first he listened, but soon he was shaking his head vehemently. Winterbourne tightened his grip and would not let him go. Words poured out on each side. At last, the reverend nodded curtly, pushed him aside, and with obvious distress ran back into the church. Winterbourne followed.

  “Speak no more of it!” Graham yelled, again glancing upward. “I’ve agreed under the strongest of protests, but I won’t hear another word! Wait while I gather what I need.”

  “You need nothing. Come with me this second.”

  Would Graham not take at least a moment to speak on my behalf? My thoughts must have been forceful, for he addressed Winterbourne more civilly.

  “One moment, sir. Surely you can wait one moment more.”

  “What is it?” Winterbourne asked impatiently.

  “I heard that you attacked the Patchwork Man, as he called himself.”

  “That vile thing?” Winterbourne’s brow darkened, almost as with blood, and his voice grew harsh. “After all these years, I am finally sympathetic to my brother-in-law’s obsession.”

  No! I clutched the railing of the loft.

  Graham turned to the altar, to the cross, and spoke softly: “I found him in the woods that night, gravely wounded. I … aided in his escape.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Sir, remember that you are in church. I assisted him because he swore he was innocent.”

  “If this thing is capable of murder, Reverend, surely it’s capable of lying.”

  “I believed what he told me. Also, I believe he … is a man.”

  I pressed my forehead to the railing, shuddering with the desire to weep. Graham’s voice held both his belief in me as well as something of the price he paid for it, exacted from his religion.

  Winterbourne breathed hard with anger, too furious to speak; breath by breath, his reaction bled me of all gratitude and replaced it with hatred. The reverend continued: “The creature—I mean, Mr. Hartmann—wanted me to tell you he is innocent. And if I myself came to believe it, he wanted me to tell you that as well.”

  “Mercy has made you a damned fool!” Winterbourne said. He grabbed his arm and dragged him through the door. “But fool or not, this day you’ll play your part for me.”

  By the time I ran to the window, Graham had shaken himself loose, run to the sexton, and whispered into his ear. The man’s ey
es grew round with wonder. Winterbourne pushed the minister into his carriage. At once the sexton ran into the street, gossiping with each person who passed.

  I wore down the floorboards with pacing, besieged by wrath, humiliation, comfort, puzzlement.

  Nearly two hours later, the sexton at last entered the church. Bloodlust clouding my eyes, I jumped over the railing and grabbed him from behind.

  “What is Graham’s business with Winterbourne?” Had Lily’s health worsened that quickly they had called for the reverend? When the sexton did not answer, I squeezed tighter till his eyes bulged. “Tell me.”

  “Wedding … Miss Winterbourne … Stuart Hawkins.”

  Lily married? My prize danced a little farther beyond my reach. Just weeks ago Winterbourne had spoken about “any man” with whom he might arrange a match. Now there was a groom.

  “Who’s Hawkins?” I asked.

  The sexton could not answer. I loosened my arm.

  “Has money. Does this and that. Import and export. Some whaling. Shipbuilder. Why, you never saw so strange a sight as a frigate sailing down a cobbled street on its way to the—”

  I tightened my arm to shut him up.

  “Matches are made every day,” I said. “Why does this one cause so much gossip?”

  “Hasty weddings cause talk.”

  “Hasty?”

  “This evening. No banns, no license. Extreme poor health.”

  Would Lily not live the three weeks to announce the banns?

  “If Miss Winterbourne is so ill,” I asked, “why bother marrying?”

  “Miss Winterbourne?” The sexton talked boldly, perhaps thinking gossip would earn him freedom. “It’s Hawkins who won’t last, what with him being old enough to be her father and coughin’ up blood. They’ll get the license afterward and pray he lives that long.”

  “How does marriage benefit him?” I asked.

  “He’ll die happy. Maybe even get an heir. Doesn’t take but the once.”

  Gritting my teeth, I stifled him. Get an heir? So, no one knew of Lily’s illness.

  “How does this benefit Winterbourne?” I asked, relaxing my arm again.