The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

necklace. A gold locket that opened to reveal a portrait of his mother. I let him wear it. It is my fault.”

The men turned and, as respectfully as they could, searched the tiny body. “It is not here,” one said.

The constable nodded grimly. “I will send word for them to look where his body was found to make certain it did not fall off. And we will alert every merchant in the area to be watchful for someone trying to sell it.”

Judge Frankenstein led me from the barn and back to the house.

“You cannot blame yourself,” he said, his voice hollow and without any force.

“I can.” I did not care about disagreeing with him. I could not tell him the full truth, though the weight of my guilt threatened to drag me beneath the sodden ground. Because I was certain it had been the charnel house devil. Somehow, he had followed me here. Motivated by greed or revenge, he had murdered that innocent child and taken the gold lure.

But I could not say! I was sealed in most damnable silence! If I gave them a description of the man, I would have to say why I thought it was him. Judge Frankenstein did not know about my trip to Ingolstadt. But I would admit it, if that was all the trouble I would bring down on my own head.

It was Victor I worried about. Always. Because if I led them to the vile charnel house man, they would discover why I had met him. They would follow the connection to Victor. And all my work to protect his reputation would be undone. His madness revealed. His own brilliant future aborted as cruelly as William’s young life. And, if he was committed to an asylum, my future aborted, as well.

I could only pray they found the man and killed him before he could talk.

Judge Frankenstein interrupted my thoughts. “You did not murder the boy.”

“I might as well have hung a target around his neck. You know the greed of men.”

He sighed, hanging his head. I had never thought him an old man, but his years dragged him down and showed in every movement as though the night had robbed him of twenty years of his life. He escorted me to my room, then patted my hand. “I will write to Victor. You need not recount the horror to him. Get dry and try to sleep.”

He shuffled away. He tried to close my door quietly, but it hung askew. The wood scraped and groaned against the frame until finally it shut.

And then I realized my punishment was only beginning. Because I had not yet told Justine that her William—her precious charge, whom she loved more than his own mother had—was gone. I could not bear the thought, but the idea that she should find out that she had slept peacefully when her William had been taken away was too awful. She had to be told.

Scarcely able to catch my breath, I went to the servants’ wing of the house. There was no answer when I knocked on her door. I eased it open to find her bed made and unslept in. But it was night now, and raining. Where was she?

It was selfish of me, but I was relieved. I had tried to do the right thing. Let her have one last night of peace, one last night of happiness. I stumbled back to the other wing and passed up my room in favor of Victor’s. I crawled into his bed, the welcome oblivion of sleep claiming me from the new horrors of my waking life.

* * *

—

I lay, unable to move. One eye was closed, pressed against the dirt. The other rolled wildly, but all it could see was sky between brilliant red leaves. I made a strange, high, keening cry that I could not form into words. I could not speak, could not move, could not see anything other than the uncaring sky and the dying leaves.

Then there was another noise.

A tearing, ripping sound. The horrible grating of metal against something unyielding. A sawing sound in fits and starts, in time with the heavy breathing of some other creature. And then the wet slop of things sliding out and hitting the ground.

That was when I realized:

The noises were coming from me.

Still I could not move, could not scream, could not do anything other than lie frozen, listening to my own dissection.

I would wake up, bathed in cold sweat, my heart racing but my voice silent. I was too afraid to open my mouth, too terrified I would only be able to produce the same dying cry as the deer.

On those nights, I would pad down the hall and slip into Victor’s room. He would shift sleepily to the side, holding out an arm and letting me nestle into him. I would feel my stomach, run my hands down my ribs. I was still alive. I was fine. Victor was there, and he would protect me.

When I slept at his side, I never had nightmares.

* * *

—

The sun was nearly at its zenith when I was jarred back to consciousness. I clamped my mouth shut over the strange cry I had been making.