“You’re late.” The words were directed at my father, but she was looking at me in disapproval. Her gaze swept me over, searching for fault, and she frowned and wiped my lip. “Is this chocolate?” she demanded, turning to my father. “You shouldn’t spoil her so. You show her far too much favor as it is. Justine, stop standing there and help me with supper.”
“Yes, momma,” I replied, dutifully approaching, but not before my father ruffled my hair and patted my head, drawing another reproachful gaze from my mother.
As the scene faded, I held on for dear life, unwilling to so easily release my hold on the past. Another memory slid into view, and I delved into it, eager for another glimpse of my father. I knew from the start that something had gone terribly wrong. I again stood inside the shack with my family, along with my mother and siblings. We were all wearing black. My father lay on a cot, covered in sweat, his skin waxy and pale.
“Justine,” he called weakly, reaching for me.
I put my hand on his belly, and he held it fast. There were tears in my eyes. “Don’t go, Papa,” I stammered. “Please.”
My father took his crucifix and placed it gently in my hand. He started to speak, but his head fell back and he lay stiff as a board, his eyes unseeing.
No, I thought, horrified. I don’t want to be here.
I was crying, my chest heaving up and down. My mother put a hand on my shoulder, and I looked to her for comfort.
“You did this. You brought home the sickness with you.” She shook her head. “If you had been a good little girl, your father would still be alive.”
“I’m sorry, momma,” I said, bowing my head. “I didn’t mean to.”
Her voice was cold, without sympathy. “You would do well to beg for God’s forgiveness, Justine.”
I felt the impact of Justine’s raw emotions long after the memory faded, which left me drained and spent. I found my way back to Dot and Old Agnes, who had earned far more than we hoped to fetch for the livestock. When the last coin changed hands, we loaded up the wagon and began the long ride home. I kept to myself on the return journey to the farm, still processing the residual effects of my foray into the past.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Penny,” Dot said later when we had returned to the hut. “Is something on your mind?”
“I was just thinking about the past.”
Dot rose to pour a fresh pot of tea for Old Agnes. She offered a cup to me, which I politely refused. “Go on dear,” she said, filling the teacup anyway. “It’ll lift your spirits.” I laughed and raised the cup to my lips. Sure enough, the warm liquid left me feeling better. “You haven’t said very much about where you come from,” Dot added, settling back into her comfy chair. She stretched her arms toward the fire and looked over at me while Agnes rocked slowly, already on the verge of sleep.
I stared pensively into the fireplace. “I was born in Geneva, far away from these shores, the third of four children. My family didn’t have much, but we were happy—until my father’s death.”
“What happened?”
“My mother was a mean and unhappy woman. I was my father’s favorite, and she was always jealous of me.” It was a realization Justine Moritz, ever the devoted daughter, had never come to in life. She had always tried to see the best in people, but I no longer saw the world through the same lens.
“I’m sorry she was cruel to you,” Dot said as she draped a blanket over a snoring Agnes, who had finally fallen asleep.
I shook my head at the needless cruelty with which Justine’s mother had blamed her for her father’s death. “After my father passed away, she cast me out of the house. I would have been destitute, but a wealthy family took me into their household as a servant. I was happy there—loved.”
Until the creature had framed me for William’s murder, that was, and a hangman’s noose ended my life. But it was Victor who had formed the creature and cast him aside. It was Victor who had filled the fiend with his monstrous rage through callousness and neglect, and by extension, it was Victor who stole my life away with his wanton experiments—through his brazen pursuit of power over death.
For the first time, I began to feel anger toward my creator of an intensity that matched the residual longing I still possessed for him. The limited memory fragments I experienced provided only a glimpse into Justine’s past. If I were to unlock the truth about my history, I would need to piece it together myself—and the answers I sought could only be found in Geneva, where perhaps Victor might be found, too.
I wanted to return home, and yet, I could not bring myself to part with Dot and Old Agnes. There was never a shortage of work to be done on the farm, even in winter’s absence, and it wasn’t long before the planting season was in full swing. The herd thrived and multiplied, and the crops were plentiful and healthy. We made regular journeys to the village to sell or barter for other goods and services, and I learned much about humanity and the way people interacted with each other through my observations—much that could not be gleaned from the volumes in Victor’s study.
As spring yielded to summer, my resurfacing memories grew fewer and fewer, until at last they stopped entirely. I reread Victor’s journals again for the first time, delving into every aspect of the means he had used to restore me to life. Each time I purchased a new book from the shopkeeper, I would read it aloud to Dot and Old Agnes in the evenings over the fire. All the while, I saved for the day when I would return home in search of the girl I had once been.
One afternoon, we were gathering grain in buckets to take to the village when I spied a lone rider on a distant hill, too far away for the others to see. He sat there on his horse, watching the property for a long while, until he finally turned around and disappeared under the cloudy sky.
“Penny, is something wrong?” Dot asked, noticing my expression.
I did not answer.
Two days later, I was making preparations for our journey when I heard a scream, followed by a gunshot. I tore from the barn, running toward the source of the sound as fast as my legs could carry me. There, among the corn, her white shirt stained red with freshly pouring blood, Dot lay on the ground, shivering. Three marauders stood nearby, having dismounted from their horses. The man in the center still had his gun trained on Dot. He lowered it as I collapsed at her side, clutching her to my chest.
“Penny,” she said weakly, reaching up to touch my face. “I’m so cold.” It was a sensation I knew only too well—the coldness of the grave.
When Old Agnes saw Dot, she began screaming uncontrollably and rushed toward the marauders, swinging her hands and biting at them. One of the men gave the stooped old woman a hard shove. She fell backwards, and her head struck a stone sticking out of the earth, killing her instantly.
“Don’t go,” I begged Dot, rocking her in my arms, but her eyes went dark, and she fell limp.
“What about this one?” one of the killers asked, looking to the leader.
“She’s pale, but she’s pretty,” he answered as I gently lowered my friend’s body to the earth. “Maybe we’ll keep her alive for a while.” He stepped closer and reached down to grab me by the hair, but I caught his hand in my own and squeezed, shattering his fingers. I stood, facing them in the wind, a dark expression etched across my face. A cold fury gripped my heart, and I shook with rage from head to toe. I took hold of the man with the gun and seized his neck, letting out a primal cry as I twisted with all my strength. His spine snapped like a twig, and he slumped to the ground.
I fell on the others before they could flee. I ripped the throat out of the man closest to me, and he was dead before he hit the soil, blood pouring from his mouth. The last man tried to run, but I caught him by the collar and threw him to the earth. I was on him before he could recover his feet. I pinned him to the ground and hit him again and again, unleashing all the rage I had held in: at the Creature—for thinking he could force me to be his bride, at Victor—for deceiving, rejecting, and abandoning me, at these killers—who had murde
red my only friends in the world, and most of all at the world, for not being what it was promised to me. I hit him until his face was little more than a bloodied mess, long after his legs had stopped twitching and fallen still.
When I was finished, my terrible rage subsided, and I made my way to Dot and Agnes. As I stared at my friends’ crumpled forms, I sobbed fiercely as I had never before, like a child. I carried their corpses to an old oak tree on the hill overlooking the hut. Their bodies were weightless in my arms. I retrieved a shovel from the barn, and there I buried them. I remained there, under the tree’s shade until the last of the sunlight was gone, unable to leave them even in death.
“Farewell, my friends,” I said at last. “You were too good for this world.”
I wanted to believe that Dot had found the peace she sought—that she was with her family again—but I couldn’t. Justine’s optimism had died with her. I couldn’t bring myself to believe in anything that would allow such kind people to suffer so much. There was nothing but the cruelty of this life, and Victor had condemned me to an eternity of it. For that, he would have to answer, and so would everyone who had played a role in my death.
I returned to the hut to retrieve my savings and Victor’s pocket watch. Then I set the hut ablaze, leaving my storybook behind to burn. The killers’ bodies I left in the field to rot, after stripping them of the considerable wealth they carried with them, no doubt ill-gotten gains from other evil endeavors. I was now a woman of considerable means, and I intended to put it to good use.
It was time to go home.
Part Two
Where Monsters Walk
“You cannot create a monster and then condemn it. Hate its ugly features, its terrible gait. When I look into the mirror I do not see myself, but all of you who made me.”
–Anonymous
Chapter Eleven
Geneva
1796
Darkness welcomed my return.
One with the endless night, I stared across an infinite expanse. I stood on a ship’s deck, my hands resting on a cold guardrail as I peered over the side. The boat that rocked gently in the water beneath me was a freighter bearing passengers and cargo alike. The limited accommodations held unwanted attention at bay, which suited my purposes perfectly. At the moment, the other passengers were fast asleep. Not a soul stirred in the cabins under my feet. The deck had been abandoned for hours, and even the sailors had fallen asleep at their posts.
Boots echoed behind me as the guard finished his hourly patrol. I clung to the shadows, invisible, and the man walked straight past me, inches from the spot where I waited. He was fortunate he did not see me; if I wished it, he would have been at my mercy. Though I had not taken a life since my friends were murdered before my eyes, I had not forgotten how. As I looked on, the guard returned the way he came, leaving me alone again.
I returned my gaze to night’s enfolding embrace. The waxing moon was at its zenith, revealing the peaceful waters of the Rhône River under its silver light. I had secured passage on the freighter in the Netherlands, after crossing the North Sea on a similar vessel, where I had left Britain and the life I had known there forever behind me. The Rhône fed into the crescent-shaped Lake Geneva, where my destination awaited at the lake’s southernmost point. The lake and city were bordered by vast mountain chains on either side. To the west, sharing a border with France, lay the Jura Mountains. To the east loomed the majestic, snow-covered Alps.
Over a year had passed since I last laid eyes on my creator, and I did not know what feelings our reunion would bring about. In that time I had continued to learn and grow, no longer the innocent soul that awakened in Victor’s laboratory. Nor was I Justine Moritz—the simple, kind-hearted girl who had her life stolen—but I was her avenger. I had come to this place where monsters walked, to find them and make them answer for what they had done to me.
“Soon,” I promised under the moonlight, echoing the words the creature had once said to me, so very long ago.
I lingered on the deck until morning, watching as the port approached. Clear skies stretched for miles under the sun’s emerging light, without so much as a cloud in sight. The world was green and vibrant wherever I looked, from the shore to the forested mountains on the eastern shore. The city itself was breathtaking. Despite its substantial population, Geneva remained a charming agrarian village, in contrast to the industrialization I had witnessed in Perth. Geneva was an antiquated city, born of a bygone era, and its design was rustic and full of history. If I had been born in purgatory, among the storms of the Orkney Islands, then Geneva was paradise. Except I knew the ugliness that lurked under the surface, just beneath the amiable veneer humanity presented to the world.
The freighter sailed into the bustling harbor just before midday, and the passengers disembarked not long after. I brought with me only a modest, leather trunk that carried my belongings. Once my feet touched the ground, I blended in with the others without so much as a second glance. The paints and powders so carefully applied to my skin concealed my unnaturally pale complexion and blue lips alike. I wore a fashionable royal blue walking dress with a high-cut collar that touched the top of my neck—hiding my scars—along with a hat with matching ribbons and a pair of white gloves. My once waist-length hair had been cut to a far more manageable length, though it retained its natural ash brown hue. These few alterations created a drastic change in my appearance, and now there was little hint to the casual observer that I was in fact, not truly alive in the traditional sense of the word.
I had not set foot in Geneva since the city put me to death. Following my friends’ senseless deaths, my feelings toward mankind had long ago turned cold. Any of the teeming crowds going about their day might have been part of the mob that sent me to the gallows without a trial. That was almost two years ago, by my reckoning, though the exact date remained lost to me. My task was clear: familiarize myself with the city and find a place to stay while I searched for answers. Then I would make those responsible for my suffering pay, and seek out my creator, if he was to be found.
I wandered through the streets until I found myself in the town square, now occupied by the active marketplace. My gaze fell on the gallows, at the rope from which my lifeless body once hung. As others moved around me, I stood silently, recalling the cold dread Justine felt as the mob ignored her cries of innocence. Far in the distance, a familiar castle loomed over the horizon, watching over Geneva like a stone sentinel.
Suddenly, a nearby shout interrupted my thoughts. “Leave her alone!”
I turned and saw a young woman close to my age positioned between a soldier and a frightened little girl. The child was dirty, her clothes torn and ragged. She hid behind the woman’s skirt, holding a half-bitten apple in her hands.
“Get out of the way,” the soldier said, narrowing his gaze at the young woman. “That brat stole that apple.” He was a tall, gruff-looking man wearing an untidy red coat that matched his unkempt beard.
“Look at her. She was hungry,” the young woman protested. “I’ll happily pay the grocer the cost of the apple, if that’s what you want.”
The soldier scoffed at her. “You know the penalty for thieving. A few days in the stockades will do her some good and set an example to the rest of her ilk.” He took a few steps forward, but the young woman stood her ground.
I looked on, feeling a measure of sympathy for the peasant girl, who was obviously stealing to survive. Don’t get involved, I told myself. This isn’t why you’re here. These people mean nothing to you.
When the soldier reached for the girl, the woman waved her hand through the air and pointed her finger at him. “My uncle will hear about this,” she declared, unflinching, mere inches away from his harrowing gaze. “He is…”
“I know who he is,” the soldier replied in a mocking tone. “I’m afraid your family name doesn’t carry the weight it once did. If I were you, I’d leave this city while you still can. Now stand back or suffer the consequences.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted.
The soldier raised his hand as if to strike her, but I had already closed the distance between us without either noticing me. I grabbed his forearm and held fast it in midair. “Enough. Leave these people alone.”
“Unhand me, wench!”
When my fingers tightened around his arm like a vice, he attempted to reach for his weapon with his free hand, but I was faster. I snatched his other hand and pinned it against his side. His eyes widened with surprise at the show of strength.
“I could kill you without a second thought,” I whispered into his ear, too softly for the young woman to hear. “Depart from this place at once, while I still allow it.” I released my grip, and the soldier fled, gingerly cradling his forearm. I returned my attention to the young woman.
She watched me with an expression of awe. “Thank you. That was astonishing. How did you manage it?”
Had I given myself away? I silently cursed myself for interfering. I had only been in Geneva for mere minutes, and I had already drawn unwanted attention. I put on a false smile to set her at ease. “I grew up with three brothers. I had to learn to take care of myself.”
“So did I,” the woman exclaimed. “Cousins, that is. We grew up together, at any rate.” She glanced behind her, but the child had already vanished into the crowd. “It appears our little companion has disappeared.”
“It appears so,” I agreed. “Was she a friend of yours?”
The woman shook her head. “I suppose I have a soft spot for children. I like to travel to the city to give care to the poor and the infirm.” Her smile ebbed for a moment. “Or at least, I used to.”
I briefly studied my new acquaintance. She wore an understated brown riding habit that nevertheless hinted at wealth; although the clothes were plain, there was not a speck of dirt on them, all the way down to the hem of her skirt—indicating they were new. An opulent gold band occupied her ring finger. Whoever had bestowed it upon her either held her in great esteem or boasted considerable means. Perhaps both.
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