Such Wicked Intent

CHAPTER 4

"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, of 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. Chateau 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 chateau’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.

“Is she unwell?” Elizabeth asked with concern.

I watched Father, waiting for his answer.

“No, she’s not ill, just tired.” But his leonine head seemed to sag upon his broad shoulders. How had I not noticed until now? “During the past weeks, since the funeral, she’s been very strong for all of us, but now she needs her rest.” He tried to smile reassuringly. “You’re not to worry. It’s not uncommon after a great sadness. All she needs is time, and she’ll be up and about again.”

The food set out before us suddenly lost its appeal. I felt ashamed of myself. Elizabeth had been right when she’d said I was blind to any but my own suffering. I wondered if my mother’s frantic pace had been her way of escaping grief-but grief was the swifter, and had overtaken her in the end. And I wondered if there were some way I could vanquish her grief. What if it were in my power?

“Perhaps, sir,” Henry began awkwardly, “this is not the best time for me to stay.”

Father shook his head. “No, no, Henry. You’re like family to us, and we’ll miss you sorely when you go on your trip. Until then, stay. Your presence brings light into our house.”

“That’s very generous,” said Henry, looking uneasy, and I wondered if he, like me, was thinking of what we planned to do tonight, in darkness.

After the church bells in Bellerive struck one, first Henry and then Elizabeth joined me in my bedchamber, fully clothed like myself.

By the light of a single candle, I took from the locked drawer in my desk the spirit clock and the green flask of elixir.

“Are you ready?” I said.

Elizabeth was staring at the green flask, chewing on her lower lip. I thought she might be shivering.

“Have you chosen a talisman?” I asked her.

From her wrist she carefully pulled a bracelet made of tightly coiled hair. “It’s from my mother. After she died, my father cut some and had this fashioned for me. It’s one of the only things of hers I have.”

I knew this was a common enough practice, making keepsakes out of the departed’s hair, but I still found something rather ghoulish about it.

Henry cleared his throat. “I would just, at this point, like to make one final-probably doomed-plea for reason. I urge you not to do this.”

“Thank you for that, Henry,” I said. I looked at Elizabeth. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, “if that’s what you think.”

“I never think you’re afraid,” I told her. “You’re the bravest person I know. But I also know you think this is a-”

“What I think is that we’ll both hallucinate and prove this is all nonsense. And that will put a stop to it. But if you’re right, well… then I’ll be proved right as well.”

“How’s that?” I asked, confused.

“If there’s a world beyond our own, a life after death, that means there’s also a God.”

“Does one have to follow upon the other?” I asked.

“You two, please,” said Henry, “not another riveting theological debate right now.”

“So that’s the only reason you’re coming?” I said mockingly. “To make a believer of me?”

She couldn’t help smiling. “To save your miserable little soul, that’s right.”

“Nothing to do with Konrad whatsoever?” I inquired. “Just pass me the elixir.”

She took a deep breath, hesitated for only a second, and then placed a drop upon her tongue and handed the flask to me so I might do the same.

“You can recline on my bed if you like,” I told her.

“I’ll be perfectly comfortable in this armchair, thank you,” she replied, settling herself and gripping her hair bracelet in her left hand. “You have the spirit clock ready?”

“Yes,” I said, lying back against my pillow. “Do you taste it, metallic in your mouth, and feel the strange heat washing through your body?”

She nodded. “Henry, you’ll watch over us carefully?”

“I will indeed,” he promised.

“It comes quickly,” I told her. “The blink of an eye.”

I yawned and

— look over. There she is, sitting on my chair: Elizabeth.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Her amber hair spills like silk around her radiant face, over her shoulders. Her eyes are open, and she smiles at me. I smile back. There is absolutely nothing between my gaze and her face. It’s like I’m stroking her skin. It feels almost wicked, deliciously so.

There is no need of candlelight, for beyond the windows of my bedchamber comes a surprisingly strong white light from the thick, impenetrable fog.

I push myself up off the bed and stand, feeling that same vital energy coursing through me. And with every step I take, with each hot squeeze of blood through my veins, with each flex and pull of my muscles, I am thrillingly aware of myself as never before. It’s as though every hair on my head, every pore, every surface of my body is twice as sensitive.

There is nothing I could not do here.

I put the spirit clock in my pocket, slip the ring back onto my finger. I step toward Elizabeth. My nostrils flare to take in her scent-her hair, her skin, her breath. Her hazel eyes draw me closer. I have a distant memory of two wolves in the night forest.

“Are we here?” she asks.

It takes me a moment to understand, for here is so immediate and real, how could there be anywhere else but here and now?

In answer to her question I stretch out my right hand and show her how my two missing fingers have been returned to me. In amazement she frowns and reaches out-and I know, beyond any doubt, that once we touch, we will be unable to resist each other.

But this current of desire is severed suddenly by a few simple notes of music wafting through the air.

Elizabeth lets her hand drop as she stands. “Piano,” she says.

Eagerly she walks past me and opens the door to my bedchamber.

“Konrad played that piece all the time.”

Played it for you, I think, for I remember how they used to steal away to the music room to be alone.

I follow her as she strides purposefully down the hallway.

“Konrad?” she calls out, and the music abruptly stops. We reach the doors of the music room, and Elizabeth throws them wide and walks in ahead of me.

Half turned on the bench, arm shielding his eyes, is my twin. I see his rapier, tipped up against the piano.

“Elizabeth?” he breathes.

She weeps with total abandon, tears spilling down her cheeks. Despite what I’ve told her, she steps toward Konrad to embrace him.

“I’d give anything to hold you,” my brother says, standing and retreating, “but I can’t.”

“It’s too unfair,” she says, her words jerking out.

“Your heat’s so intense, it nearly sears me, even from this distance.”

I see his eyes move to me briefly, squinting, and he smiles.

“Victor. You came back.”

“I promised I would. This light of ours, we can’t see it.”

“It radiates from you like an aura. You’re like something drawn with the sun’s fire, and I can take only little glimpses of you.”

He stands now before us, his head bowed, like a man awaiting sentence from the magistrate. I feel like both angel and devil, radiating glorious light but also demonic heat, and once again I feel a surge of excitement to think myself so powerful.

“How long have I been dead?” he asks. “Time seems to have no meaning here.”

“Nearly a month,” Elizabeth tells him. “I never even had the chance to say good-bye to you. It was so sudden.”

“Tell us,” I ask him impetuously. “What was it like?”

“To die? I can’t really say. When I first woke in bed, I was alone. No one answered my calls. So I got up-and was surprised by my strength. I felt completely well, like my old self. I wanted to tell you all, but when I left my room, I couldn’t find anyone. The house was completely deserted, and seemed somehow unfamiliar, even though everything seemed to be in the right place. That was when I first began to wonder if I’d died in my sleep, though I hoped it was just a nightmare. But I didn’t wake.”

“You don’t… look dead,” I tell him.

He gives a small laugh. “Well, I’m glad to hear it.”

I am suddenly ravenous with curiosity. “Do you float above things, or do you feel the floor beneath your feet?”

“I feel the floor.”

“And you can open doors, exert force on objects?”

“You heard me playing the piano.”

“If you punch the wall, is there pain?”

“Yes. I’ve tried.”

“Do you sleep?”

“Victor, enough,” Elizabeth says.

“I don’t seem to, no,” Konrad replies.

“And are you hungry?”

“Not thirsty, either. Victor, am I to be another scientific experiment of yours?” He gives a wry smile, and I chuckle apologetically.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that there are so many things to discover here.”

“For me too,” my brother says. “How is it possible you’re here?”

“We got your message and came to find you,” I say.

His confusion is obvious. “My message?”

“‘Come raise me.’ That’s what you said, over and over again.”

“Victor built a spirit board to speak with the dead,” Elizabeth explains. “You didn’t hear him calling out to you?”

Konrad looks shaken. “There was a moment-I don’t know how long ago-when I felt you so strongly, as though you were somewhere in the house. And I looked for you, and called out, but heard no reply. I thought I must just be hallucinating. But I don’t remember saying ‘Come raise me.’”

“Well, maybe it doesn’t need speaking aloud,” I reply. “Maybe your wishes alone conveyed themselves to our world.”

But Elizabeth looks uneasy. “Who else is here?”

“There’s a girl our age called Analiese. She was a servant in the household and died of fever long before we were born. When I was wandering the house, I met her in the kitchen. She was very kind to me, as kind as anyone can be when they’re telling you you’re actually dead.”

“Where is she?” Elizabeth wants to know.

“She often seems to prefer the servants’ quarters.” He gives a small smile. “I think she feels she’s being too familiar, coming upstairs to speak with me, though God knows I welcome her company.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth says a bit stiffly, “I can imagine it must be terribly lonely for you. So you two are the only ones here?”

Konrad hesitates a moment. “I don’t know. Sometimes I hear sounds, deep in the house. Like someone slumbering fitfully.”

“Well, I’d like to meet this Analiese,” Elizabeth says. “Maybe she can explain why you’re here.”

“She already has. She says everyone who dies in the house comes to the house for a time.”

“I simply don’t understand it,” says Elizabeth. “Your soul ought to have gone straight to heaven-or at least purgatory.”

“Unless this house is purgatory,” Konrad replies.

“Isn’t it obvious,” I say with an impatient laugh, “that everything is different from what you’ve been taught by the Church?”

“No, it isn’t,” says Elizabeth.

Konrad sighs. “Things are very strange here.” He turns to the windows and the impenetrable fog beyond. “I feel so trapped.”

My eyes remain fixed on the fog, watching its slow, mesmerizing swirl.

I begin walking toward it. “You should open a window,” I say.

“No, don’t!” he shouts, and his urgency stops me in my tracks.

I laugh. “How can it hurt to open a window?”

“One of the first things Analiese told me was never to open the windows or doors.”

“Why ever not?” Elizabeth wants to know.

“Because, miss, there’s an evil spirit outside who wants to enter.”

I whirl round to see a young woman, no older than me, standing in the doorway, one hand shielding her face from our glare.

“Are you Analiese?” I ask.

“I am, sir. And you must be Mr. Konrad’s brother. He told me you’d been, and I could scarce believe it-the living visiting the world of the dead.”

She is beautiful, I see immediately, with long plaited hair so blond it is almost white, and eyes of a most arresting blue. Her porcelain skin bears a bewitching beauty spot on one cheek. She wears a simple black dress-her best, no doubt-that, though modest, cannot conceal her very pleasing figure.

“What do you mean, ‘an evil spirit’?” Elizabeth asks.

As if in answer the fog outside the windows intensifies and thumps menacingly against the glass, so hard that the panes actually rattle.

I hear Analiese gasp, and see her take a step back.

Once more the fog pounds at the glass like an angry fist, and I realize I am not frightened but strangely expectant, wondering:

What will happen if the glass breaks?

But the glass does not break, and I feel a curious disappointment when the windows stop their shaking and the fog disperses slightly, though nowhere near enough to allow any view.

“It has intent, no question,” says Elizabeth, not fearfully but with the same fascination I myself feel.

“It’s only what I was told, miss,” Analiese says, eyes averted humbly. “When I died and came here, there was only one other person in the house. She was one of the ladies of the house, and she was the one who told me about the devilish spirit and how we mustn’t let it in, lest we be tempted.”

“It’s like some great coiled serpent,” Konrad says uneasily, “hungry and waiting.”

Analiese continues, “And the lady said we must bide our time here, until we are gathered.”

“Gathered?” I say.

“Yes, sir. I saw it happen to her, not long after. A beautiful winged light, even brighter than yours, and musical, entered the house and wrapped itself around her, and she was gone.”

“Angels!” says Elizabeth, looking at me triumphantly.

Analiese smiles happily. “I think so too, miss! And I can only hope that my turn will come before long.”

At that moment two large black butterflies flutter into view, circling high over Elizabeth and me.

“What are they?” I ask Analiese.

“Oh, they’ve always been here I think, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ We’re a very liberal household, and you’re much older than me besides.”

Her eyes are still averted, showing her lovely long eyelashes to great advantage. “It’s habit, I’m afraid, sir, but I’ll try.” She looks up at the butterflies. “I’ve always thought of them as a kind of angelic presence, to keep us company and give us hope for the life to come.”

“I think you must be right,” Elizabeth remarks as one bobs down toward her. “They certainly don’t fear our light and heat.”

When it alights upon her shoulder, she gives a little gasp of delight, and her cheeks flush.

“So beautiful,” she breathes as the butterfly’s black wings radiate with color, and then it flutters away.

Elizabeth’s eyes meet mine briefly, then look away almost secretively. I hold out my hand, and the second butterfly lands upon me, and I feel the same surge of pleasure as the first time.

It lingers upon my finger, brilliantly glowing, and I feel a powerful calm settle over my mind-all its jumbled drawers and cluttered surfaces organized-and with it a great sense of strength and readiness, like a sprinter upon the start line.

“How much time is left us, Victor?” I hear Elizabeth ask.

With my free hand I take the spirit clock from my pocket. The skeletal leg has almost made its full revolution. Elizabeth draws closer to look and gives a sigh of disappointment.

“How does it work?” Konrad asks. “You still haven’t told me how you even got here!”

As Elizabeth explains, I suddenly remember Wilhelm’s handwritten instructions: “With practice the spirit clock can be manipulated.”

I put it to my ear and listen. Tick, tick, tick…

The butterfly is still perched upon my finger as I touch the clock face, above the skeletal bird leg.

Slow.

“What’re you doing with it, Victor?” Elizabeth asks.

And slower still.

I put it to my ear once more and listen intently. Tick… tick… tick…

“I think I’ve done it!” I exclaim.

“Done what?” Elizabeth asks.

“Slowed it down! Remember, the notebook said it could be done. It ticks slower now! I’ve bought us a little more time!”

I see Elizabeth gaze at Konrad with a look of such undisguised love and desire that I feel both awkward and jealous. I cannot watch.

“These butterflies,” I say to Analiese as mine flutters away, “they have a power to them.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. They show no interest in me.”

“Nor me,” Konrad says.

“What about these noises you’ve heard in the house?” I ask my brother.

“I still hear them from time to time,” he says uneasily.

I turn to Analiese. She has a pretty habit, I notice, of absentmindedly stroking her earlobe, which draws attention to both her lovely throat and hair. “You’ve been here much longer. Do you know anything about this?”

“I’ve never seen anyone else in this house, sir, but I think I’ve heard the same sounds as your brother. Like someone who wants to wake up but can’t.”

“Are you frightened?” Elizabeth asks Konrad.

“No,” he says, and I know he’s lying.

“Then why’s there a rapier by the piano?” Elizabeth demands.

For a moment my twin says nothing. “It gives me peace of mind, foolish as it may be. Moment by moment I don’t know what to expect. Whether I’m to be gathered to heaven-or to hell.”

“No-,” Elizabeth says, shaking her head fervently.

Konrad cuts her off, a look of wildness in his eyes. “There’s a spirit outside the windows that wants to come in, and something inside that wants to wake. I doubt my rapier will make a difference, but if need be, I’ll wield it for all it’s worth.”

“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.