This Monstrous Thing

by Mackenzi Lee

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s beautiful. Was it a home?”

  “Once. Then a prison.”

  “So which is it now?”

  I pulled my coat tighter around me. “Come on, let’s go.”

  I led her across the abandoned courtyard and around the back to the servants’ entrance I used. After a few seconds of fumbling with the bolts, I realized with a sick lurch they were all undone. I bent down to the lock and ran my fingers along the latch. It was hard to see by only the slivered moonlight, but I could feel scratches on the keyhole—the marks of sloppy lock picking done in the dark.

  “What’s wrong?” Clémence whispered.

  “I think someone was here,” I replied, “or Oliver’s gone.”

  “Which is the better option?”

  “Hell if I know.” I fit my key into the lock and propped the door open. Somehow, the darkness seemed deeper inside. I reached behind me for Clémence.

  We took the stairs up from the kitchen into the deserted entry hall. I’d rarely come to see Oliver at night, and I was surprised by how shadowy and silent the whole place was. The vaulted ceilings disappeared into the darkness and every footstep cracked loud as a splitting avalanche. I was jumpy, but if Clémence was afraid, she didn’t show it. The only time she started was when her foot went through a rotted beam on the stairway and I had to grab her hand and pull her back up.

  “Sorry, the stairs are a bit treacherous,” I murmured. “I should have warned you about that.”

  “Would have been nice.”

  I started climbing again. Then from behind me I heard her say, “You can let go of my hand.”

  “Oh.” I was surprised to realize I was still holding it, and even more surprised by how badly I didn’t want to let go. “Do you think maybe . . . ?”

  I trailed off, but she worked out the rest. Her fingers flexed against mine. “Keep going, then,” she said, and we started again, still linked. As we reached the second landing, Clémence said, “It smells like gunpowder.”

  “It’s from the basement,” I said. “The city keeps explosives here.”

  “It reminds me of Paris.”

  “I don’t remember Paris smelling of gunpowder.

  “My father was a bomb maker there, remember? Gunpowder smells like home.”

  At the top of the stairs, I spotted an open doorway down the hall with golden firelight dancing from beyond it. The wallpaper peeling away in long strips looked like thorny spikes in its shadow.

  The room was a large, open antechamber connected to what was once a bedroom. The barred windows overlooked the moonlit rooftops of Geneva far below, with the illuminated face of the clock tower hanging above them like a halo in an Annunciation painting. A fire was blazing in the grate, flames leaping up into the chimney, with a figure silhouetted against it. Not Oliver, I realized. A woman. She turned when we entered, her dark profile framed by the firelight so I didn’t know who it was until she spoke.

  “Alasdair,” she said, and her voice made my whole being go still.

  “Mary Godwin,” I replied.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Mary took a step toward me—out of silhouette and into the firelight so I saw her in full like an apparition raised from smoke. She was . . . different. That was the only word that came to my mind. The Mary I had known from two years ago was round faced, with rosy cheeks and full lips, and a body even a shapeless gown couldn’t conceal.

  But this woman, this specter of a woman, looked so much older than I thought anyone could become in two years. Her cheeks were hollow, the skin beneath her eyes shadowed, and she looked frightened, something I had never known Mary to be.

  “Alasdair,” she said again, and she took another step toward me. Her eyes flitted to Clémence’s and my linked hands, and a stab of vindictive satisfaction tore through my surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I came to find you. I told you I was coming to Geneva. It was in the letter.”

  “I never read it.”

  “I know that now,” she said, and my stomach dropped.

  “Where’s Oliver?”

  “I’m here.” There was a creak from the darkness and Oliver stepped into the firelight. His pipe, lit and smoking between his teeth, cast a bloody glow across his face and turned his eyes black. “You came back,” he said.

  “You thought I left you?”

  “It seemed the only logical conclusion.” He looked around at Clémence, Mary, and me in turn. “Well, this is the most visitors I’ve had in two years. We should call it a party.”

  “Why’s Mary here?” I demanded. I wasn’t in the mood for games. I wanted to know what was going on, and how long I had before he erupted.

  Oliver took a long pull on his pipe, then tipped his head back and released the smoke into the air. The mechanic in me—the Shadow Boy that would always be Oliver’s maker—flinched when I thought of the damage he was doing to his oiled-paper lungs. “When you didn’t come for days,” he said, “I assumed you’d finally grown tired of playing mother to your creation and had left me locked in here to die.”

  “I’m back now.”

  “To dispose of my corpse before someone found your resurrected man?”

  My hand turned to a fist inside my pocket. I hadn’t expected him to be pleased to see me, but I had hoped he’d be a bit less openly hostile. “I came back to get you out of here.”

  Oliver crossed his arms and stared me down. His pipe bounced as he clenched his jaw. “So where’d you go?”

  I glanced at Clémence, wondering whether it was worth lying, and suddenly wishing I hadn’t brought her. “I went to Ingolstadt,” I said. “Our parents were arrested and Geisler offered me protection.”

  “Oh good, so you’ve been chumming it up with my murderer as well.”

  “I needed somewhere safe,” I said over him. “I didn’t abandon you, Oliver, I was always going to come back. I have come back.”

  “To fetch me for the mad doctor’s experiments?” Before I could deny it, he clapped his hands together in mock delight. The gears in the metal one whined. “Oh, and look who came to visit while you were gone! Mary Godwin, the long-lost poetess of the year I died. Her sweet little letter saying she was coming for a visit was tucked in one of the books you gave me, and that helped me find her in my own memory. She”—he pointed a silver finger at Mary—“didn’t think I had memories at all, but there they were, just waiting. I remembered that you two had a bit of a flirt, and you’d been sick over her ever since she left.” He glanced at Clémence. “Seems you’re moving forward, though.”

  I felt Clémence’s hand try to abandon mine, but I clung to her. I was afraid if I didn’t have something to hold on to, I’d tip over. “Why did you come here?” I asked Mary.

  She glanced at Oliver, and he spread his hands. “Go on. You can tell him.”

  “I went to your shop,” Mary said, her voice quavering, “and it was all torn up. I thought if you’d made it out, you’d be here with Oliver, so I came to find you. But you weren’t. And then I couldn’t get out.” She glanced sideways at my brother. “Neither of us could.”

  “It’s a brilliant prison, Ally,” Oliver added. “Doesn’t keep people out, but it certainly keeps them in.”

  I ignored him and instead asked Mary, “How long have you been here?”

  “Four days.”

  “She’s good company,” Oliver interrupted again, like he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than a second. “My first company in years. Mrs. Shelley—did you know she was Mrs. Shelley?” He seized Mary around the wrist and held up her hand so the gold ring around her finger flashed in the light. She flinched. “Are you devastated?”

  I was grateful the darkness covered my blush—I was so hot I thought my face might catch fire. “Stop it,
” I snapped, but Oliver just laughed. He let go Mary’s wrist and dropped into a chair beneath the window, crossing his legs in a crooked way that came only from having metal-hinged joints. “Why are you angry at me?” I asked.

  “Because you left!” he cried, voice suddenly sharp-edged, and he flung his pipe. I dodged, but a few flecks of hot tobacco still licked my cheeks. “You left me here to die, to rot!”

  “I didn’t leave you to die. I didn’t have a choice! The shop was raided. The police were hunting me. I had to get out. Why else would I leave you? I’ve got no life but you!”

  “Apparently you have a whole other life I didn’t know about.” He pressed his metal finger against a piece of glowing tobacco that had landed on the arm of the chair so it smoked against the upholstery. “All this time I thought you were working in the shop, you’ve been out chasing literary pursuits.”

  “Literary pursuits?” I repeated, dread creeping through me. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t think I’d notice? How insulting.” Oliver snatched a book from beside the chair and tossed it at me. I knew what it was, but I made a show of looking at the spine. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, with that empty space below the title where the author’s name should have been. So I had left it with him.

  “What’s this for?” My voice wavered in spite of my best efforts, and I fought the urge to look at Mary.

  “I was hoping I could trouble you for an inscription,” he replied. “I’ve heard books are worth much more when they’re signed by the author.”

  This time I did look at Mary. She looked away. “I didn’t write it,” I said.

  Oliver continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “I thought it was Geisler at first. I couldn’t believe a boy with so much clockwork in his blood would write something that elegant. You never told me you were a writer.” He stared at me like he was waiting for me to crumble and confess. When I didn’t say anything, he dropped his head back over the arm of the chair with a groan. “Come on, Ally, are you really not going to admit it was you?”

  “I didn’t write it,” I said again.

  “Of course you did, it’s us!” he cried, and suddenly he was across the room and towering above me. I’d never realized how much taller he was until that moment. He seized me by the front of my coat, wrenching me away from Clémence and nearly lifting me off my feet. I could see the puckered scar along his hairline flex as a vein in his forehead tightened. “It’s about me, and you, and bringing me back to life—it’s about us!”

  From behind us, Mary said quietly, “It wasn’t Alasdair.”

  “You don’t think so?” Oliver called to her. “All just a big coincidence? A young man who brings back the dead with clockwork to gain the notice of a famous university and what he makes instead is a monster. Doesn’t that sound a bit like our Alasdair Finch? And what a chance—it’s Geneva, and it’s Ingolstadt, and it’s my bleeding life!” He shoved me backward and I had to grab the windowsill to keep from falling. I looked to Mary and then to Clémence. They were both staring at me, and I realized that out of all of us, Oliver was the only one who didn’t know the truth.

  When I spoke, my voice tripped over my heartbeat. “I know it’s about us, Oliver, but I swear to you, I didn’t write it.”

  “They’re looking for me,” he said, shoulders shaking. “Mary told me all about it. There’s a manhunt going on for this resurrected man. The police are pulling clockworks off the street to make sure they aren’t me, and all the clockworks want me to rise up and lead them. People are rioting in my name.”

  I took a step toward him, not sure what I was going to say but almost certain he wouldn’t listen. “Oliver, I didn’t write—”

  He was so fast I didn’t realize he was moving until his fist crossed my face. He used his mechanical hand, and it hit me so hard I collapsed, blinking stars out of my eyes as my vision tipped.

  He’d never struck me before. Not since we were children and didn’t know better.

  Mary shrieked. I braced myself as Oliver came at me again, but he reared back suddenly with a yelp of pain. Clémence had grabbed his mechanical arm at the socket and twisted. He thrashed, and his elbow knocked into her chin and sent her stumbling backward. A trickle of blood ran from her lip, but she swiped it away and turned to face him, her knees bent like she was ready for a fight.

  Oliver rounded on her now and began to advance. I tried to stand, but my vision dipped again and I sat down hard instead. “So who are you, exactly?” he asked with another step toward Clémence. She didn’t back away. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

  “I’m someone like you,” she replied.

  Oliver gave a short caw of laughter. “No one in this whole world is like me.”

  “I am.” Clémence seized his metal arm around the wrist and slammed it against her own chest. There was a hollow clang of metal on metal.

  Oliver started, and looked up from his clenched fist to her face. “Bleeding hell.”

  With one hand still around Oliver’s wrist, Clémence tugged down the neckline of her dress and showed off the gleaming metal panel beneath. “You are not alone in this world,” she said softly.

  For a moment, Oliver looked like he might kiss her. I’d never realized just how lonely he was until I saw that rush in his face, cheeks all at once bright with a color they had missed for years. “So you’re not his sweetheart,” he said. “You’re his experiment.”

  “I’m not Alasdair’s,” Clémence replied. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

  “But someone made you.”

  “Geisler,” she said. “He’s the one you should be fighting, not Alasdair.”

  “My dear brother,” Oliver said, and he choked on the words, “has turned against me.”

  I finally managed to pull myself back onto my feet. “I haven’t, Oliver, I swear.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “He didn’t write it,” Clémence said.

  “How do you know?” He was shouting again, and his voice screeched against the high ceiling and bounced back. “If it wasn’t Alasdair, then tell me who it was!”

  “It was me,” Mary said.

  Oliver froze, gaping at her with his misshapen mouth half open. I froze too, every hope that we would all walk away from here in one piece shattering inside me. It was in my defense, I knew, but there couldn’t have been a worse moment for her to say it out loud. She’d taken what little control I had left over Oliver and set it on fire.

  Mary seemed to take the silence as a cue to say more, for she started speaking, fast and reckless. “After I left Geneva, I wrote it all down, everything I could remember about the resurrection, and I showed it to my husband.”

  Just shut up, I pleaded with her silently. Shut up, shut up!

  But she kept going. “I wasn’t going to do anything with it, but then—” Her voice hitched. “Oliver, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  Oliver didn’t say anything for a moment. He stood still, firelight glinting off his mechanical pieces, and I swore I could see through his skin to his metal skeleton, bars and rods that joined like tributaries of a river to form the twisted shape of him.

  “You sold us out,” Oliver said, his voice so low I had to strain to hear it over the snapping fire.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary whispered. Her hands were clasped before her like she was praying. “Please, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t think—”

  Her words fell into a shriek as Oliver lunged toward her, as fast as before, but this time I was expecting it. I sprang forward and grabbed him around the shoulders, trying to hold him back, but he wrenched me straight off my feet.

  But my added weight was enough to slow him down, and he halted, too far from Mary to strike her. Then he twisted sharply, and I was thrown to the ground. My elbow hit the stone with a sharp blossom of pain. Clémence was coming forward now—I could see her from the corner of my eye, but she didn’t seem to want to stop Oliver. She hovered, reaching out to no one in par
ticular.

  Oliver seized Mary by the shoulders, pressed her against the wall, and pinned her there with his mechanical arm. He was shouting at her, words lost in volume and ferocity, and she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks. Oliver raised his fist, and the firelight caught a flash of something in his hand. As his arm came crashing toward Mary, I flung myself to my feet and leapt between them so that his fist landed on my shoulder instead of hers.

  I didn’t realize he had stabbed me until blood started to pool along my collarbone. We both watched as the dark stain began to stretch its fingers across my shirt. Then Oliver looked up and I thought I caught a glimpse of panic or remorse, a smidge of someone that I hadn’t seen since before he died. He looked, for a moment, almost human.

  It may have been longer than that, but the pain set in then, sharp and sudden, and I swooned. Mary caught me before my head cracked against the floor, and we sank to the ground together. All the sound in the room seemed to funnel and close, flushing me into silence with a weight like a collapsing tunnel. I looked up at Mary. Her lips were moving, and I realized she was saying my name. “Alasdair!” She had one hand cupped at the back of my neck. “Alasdair, stay here with me!”

  I wanted to tell her I wasn’t going anywhere, but instead I murmured, “Sorry.” It was the only thing I could think to say. I tried to sit up, but my head felt too heavy. Mary pulled me up the rest of the way, then held me there with my cheek against her shoulder. She kept saying my name, like she had forgotten every other word she knew.

  Oliver was still standing over me with his mechanical hand pressed to his forehead and his mouth contorting. In his good hand, his flesh-and-bone hand, he was gripping a pair of needle-nose pliers, blood sliding from their tip. My pliers, I realized, the set I’d left with him the last time I came. My pliers, and my blood.

  Clémence alone kept her wits. She was at my side, wrenching her scarf off and pressing it to my shoulder. I didn’t know I’d made a sound until she said gently, “Shut it, I know it hurts.”

  I could feel my heartbeat throb across my skin like an electric current as it worked to make up for the blood I was losing in hot waves. Pounding, pounding, pounding through my skull, against my eardrums, over every inch of me like I was a drumhead.