The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

I left Mary’s address with the doctor and waved Mary and Justine away in the carriage, then turned resolutely to face my unwelcome tasks.

* * *

—

There was a graveyard connected to the city cathedral, but that was too public and did not match the name of the one on Victor’s list. I once again slipped outside the walls protecting the good people of Ingolstadt—this time avoiding the gatehouse that had troubled me so the first time.

It was nearing sundown when I reached my destination. The trees were hunched over, weeping with accumulated rain. A one-room house on the edge of the meandering green expanse had a light in the window, and I knocked determinedly. At the last moment I drew my cloak closed to cover my dirty, bloodstained dress.

A man as hunched as the trees opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“I am here on behalf of my father, who is the caretaker of the cemeteries in Geneva. He has had a recent string of grave robberies and is at pains to gather information. As I am here to visit my sister and her family, he has asked me to inquire whether you have experienced anything similar.”

The man frowned, looking out past me. “You alone?”

“Yes

.” I lifted my chin and smiled as though the fact were neither unusual nor troublesome. “My sister has recently given birth and cannot leave the house. I only just remembered my promise to my father and slipped out to fulfill it before she needs me again.”

He sighed, rubbing at the white stubble on his jaw. “They been taking jewelry?”

“Yes.”

“Well, nothing like my troubles, then.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He raised a bushy eyebrow at me. “I live next to a university. When people steal from my cemetery, they do not take jewelry off the bodies. They take the bodies themselves.” He shook his head. “Dirty, damnable business it is, too. I have been offered money for the bodies, but I have never taken a bribe. Not a single one. I patrol most nights, but I am an old man. I have to sleep sometimes.”

I nodded, my sympathetic horror unfeigned.

“Tell your father to consider himself lucky it is just the jewelry that goes missing. Much easier to hide than a gaping hole where someone’s brother was laid to rest.”

“I—I will. Thank you, sir.”

He waved sadly and closed the door. I turned toward the cemetery. As evening quietly claimed the day, everything turned from green to gray to black, soft and silent. I imagined creeping in with a shovel, looking for the most freshly turned soil. Digging until my hands blistered. Then pulling a body free, tugging its limp weight, tripping over roots and low headstones, the body falling to the ground that was supposed to have claimed it, kept it safe…

It was all so much work. I could imagine Victor doing it once, twice even. But surely he had found a better way.

The other address listed was a charnel house, a sort of repository for bodies of the poor. Deceased who had no relatives or benefactors with money to pay for proper preparations ended up there to be buried in paupers’ graves.

Where the cemetery had been damp and serene, the charnel house was dank and repulsive. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a person with more of weasel about him than man. His tiny eyes were narrowed in suspicion, his few remaining teeth blackened and sharp.

“What do you want?” he growled.

I raised an eyebrow imperiously. “I am here on behalf of an interested buyer.”

The man coughed so long and hard that I feared he would lose a lung. Finally, he spat a blob of mucus onto the floor at his feet, some of it landing on one of his boots. I suspected that was the only polish they ever got. “Let me guess: Henry Clerval?”

I gasped in shock. Henry had bought bodies for Victor? I could not imagine it. It made no sense.

And then I realized—Victor must have used Henry’s name so that his would not be known by so low a creature as this man. It was clever, really. And it made my job easier: I would not have to try to bribe this man into silence about Victor’s activities.

“Yes,” I said. “Henry sent me.”

“So mister high-and-mighty needs more supplies, does he? Why would he send you?”

“He has been ill. But he is finally able to resume his…studies.”