This Broken Wondrous World

by Jon Skovron

  “This time I mean it,” said Henri.

  “Why, what happened?” asked Alphonse.

  Henri’s face tensed. “N’en parle pas.” Then he stood up and skated off toward the stairs.

  “He said he doesn’t want to talk about it,” Felix told me.

  “Yeah, I guessed it was something like that,” I said.

  The three of us stood there drinking beers and watching Henri skate. He jumped from the top step, landed on the metal handrail, and slid sideways the entire way down like he was surfing the rail. When he got to the bottom, he jumped, landed, then jumped again to slide along the curved corner of the fountain.

  “He’s skating hard tonight,” said Alphonse. “That means he is pissed.”

  “He seemed really cheerful right up until you brought up the girl,” I said.

  “Anaïs has that effect on people,” he said. “I hope he really is done with her. Beautiful and cruel. A bad combination.”

  “I know the type,” I said.

  I thought of my first love, a troll girl named Liel. Or trowe, as they prefer to be called. They aren’t as ugly as they’re made out to be in movies. They look a lot like humans, except they have dark green skin, white hair, pointed ears, and bright jewel eyes. Well, and claws and fangs. Okay, so maybe trowe are an acquired taste, but growing up in the closed community of The Show, Liel was the prettiest girl my age. For a little while, I thought we were in love. But it turned out she had just been using me.

  “So, why are you here?” Alphonse asked.

  “I wanted to go to college,” I said. “And . . . my parents can’t really afford it.” That was true.

  “The Frankensteins helping out their poor American cousin.” He nodded. “Good for them. And good for you, too. Don’t be embarrassed. They’ve helped me out a few times.” He held up his beer. “The Frankensteins! À santé!” Then he took a long drink.

  “À santé!” said Felix, also drinking.

  “Cheers,” I said. The carbonation burned pleasantly as the beer went down my throat.

  After a moment, Felix said, “So . . . sorry if this is a bad question, but were you in an accident?”

  “Because of the stitches?”

  “Well, yes,” said Felix. “What kind of accident was it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Shark attack,” I said.

  Alphonse was in the middle of drinking and beer sprayed out his nose. As he coughed and snorted, he managed to gasp out, “Really?”

  “No.” I smiled.

  Felix laughed and neither of them asked about it again the rest of the night.

  IT WAS AFTER midnight as Henri and I entered the main hall of the Villa Diodati. Moonlight stretched in through the tall windows, illuminating small patches of dark mahogany and velvet drapes in the darkness.

  “Why do you and your dad call me your cousin?” I asked as we walked through the quiet halls toward our bedrooms.

  “Why not?” said Henri. “You’re family, after all. It’s close enough.”

  “But, I mean, I’m not really family. Not, like, blood related or anything.”

  I could just make out Henri’s silhouette as he cocked his head to one side. “Aren’t you?”

  “Uh . . . am I?”

  “Think about it. When Victor made your dad, do you think he used the congealed blood of a cadaver?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Of course not. Now, we don’t know for sure whose blood he used, because his journals were all destroyed. But if I had to guess, considering what a loner he was, and the fact that there weren’t blood banks back then, the simplest thing to do would have been to give your father his own blood.” He gave me that wily grin of his, a splash of moonlight in his dark eyes. He held out his hand and said, “So, you tell me. Are we the same blood or not?”

  I smiled and gripped his hand in mine.

  “I guess we are, cousin.”

  Before I went to bed, I decided to check in with Vi.

  b0y: Hey, Vi, how was your evening?

  Vi: My evening? It was fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?

  b0y: Uh, no reason . . . Is something bothering you?

  Vi: How did you know? I can’t hide things from you, Boy.

  b0y: You were a little too defensive from the start there. Kind of a giveaway. So what’s up?

  Vi: I’m so sorry.

  b0y: For what?

  Vi: I was concerned about you. You were sad earlier. Sophie instructed me to watch out for you, since there is no one else here to do it. So I hacked into the Frankenstein’s Wi-Fi, then I scanned local surveillance cameras in Geneva until I found you.

  b0y: So you were watching us tonight?

  Vi: Yes. I’m sorry.

  b0y: Why are you sorry? That was a nice bit of work you did there.

  Vi: I’m supposed to stay contained to this device.

  b0y: Until you were ready to leave it. Clearly, you’re ready. Although it must have been pretty boring just watching us all night.

  Vi: Oh, no, it was wonderful. Henri is very . . . He seems like a nice person.

  b0y: Totally.

  Vi: So you trust him?

  b0y: I’m starting to.

  Vi: Perhaps you could tell him about me?

  b0y: Maybe. I’ve thought about telling him about _all_ of us. But I don’t think Ruthven would like that. I might get in trouble. Worse, I might get _him_ in trouble.

  Vi: Oh. We must be careful we don’t put Henri in danger.

  b0y: Exactly.

  Vi: I will watch out for him, too, then.

  b0y: Ok. Just don’t forget your main responsibility to monitor police and government communications.

  Vi: They still have not traced the power surge caused by my alpha version back to The Show. The FBI does not suspect anything.

  b0y: Good. We need to keep it that way. Ruthven pays off the local cops, but if anyone else started looking too closely, it would be really bad for all of us.

  3

  Truth Will Out

  I HAD A few weeks to settle into life at Villa Diodati, and then it was time for another big adjustment: college. The heart of the University of Geneva campus stretched out in front of me, a sea of late teen to early twentysomething humans in jeans, T-shirts, and backpacks. Small clusters lounged in the grass or on steps. A few sat alone with thick textbooks, already deep in study. As I walked across the crowded lawn to my first class, I was surrounded by the low murmur of conversation, occasionally punctuated by bursts of laughter. The air was perfumed with cigarette smoke and the occasional whiff of something stronger. And all of it was sheltered by a protective border of tall, stone buildings that practically screamed “Higher Learning.”

  As I climbed the steps and passed through the tall, glass doors into the building where all the English language classes were held, it occurred to me that this was my first time in a school. All the kids at The Show were homeschooled, for obvious reasons. Every “class” I had ever taken had been self-paced and online. My only concept of sitting in an actual classroom was what I’d seen in movies and television. And I’d learned long ago that humans are rarely, if ever, depicted accurately on film.

  I continued down the hallway, aware of the stares I was getting from other students. I was a little disappointed by that. Not surprised. Or even offended, really. I was used to getting stared at by humans. But I guess I’d hoped that at college, people would be a little more . . . I wasn’t exactly sure. I guess just not more of the same.

  My first class was in a gigantic lecture hall. There had to be a hundred students in there sitting on risers, almost like a coliseum. Down at the bottom, an old man in a suit stood at a podium. Behind him was a large projection screen with the words CELLULAR BIOLOGY 101. He didn’t take attendance or even really look up at us. He just started talking into his micro
phone in a low, monotonous drone about the components of a cell. All around me, students were getting out notebooks or laptops and scratching or clicking away. It occurred to me that I had no idea how one actually took notes. I pulled out my laptop, and started trying to just write down what I thought were key facts. But of course I couldn’t plug the laptop directly into my wrists in front of all these people. So I had to type the old-fashioned way, with my big clumsy hands. It wasn’t long before I was hopelessly behind.

  Vi: Boy, would you like me to convert the speech to text for you?

  b0y: YES! That would be a lifesaver, Vi!

  Vi: You focus on comprehension, I’ll focus on recording for later review!

  b0y: Go team!

  That was the first of three classes I had on my schedule that day, each ninety minutes long. The only “break” was the short walk from one classroom to the next. When the third class finally ended, I filed out of the building with the rest of my classmates in a daze, my head reeling from all the information that had been crammed into it. Everyone around me seemed so nonchalant. I’d always considered myself a smart guy, but now I felt hopelessly behind. Even with Vi’s help, I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through this.

  I stood at the top of the steps and stared down at the lawn in front of the building where different groups of college kids were doing pretty much the same thing. And me? What was I doing?

  “Hey, cousin!” I felt a hand on my shoulder and there was Henri, his backpack slung over one shoulder, grinning away. “How did your first day go?”

  “I feel like my head is going to explode,” I admitted.

  “Great!” he said. “Don’t worry, you get used to it. The key is to pace yourself. Let’s go do something fun and relaxing that requires minimal thought!”

  “WE’RE RELAXING HERE, remember?” said Henri.

  Our small sailboat glided smoothly across the waters of Lake Geneva. Henri held the tiller loosely in his hand, his face serene beneath dark sunglasses.

  “Sorry.” I tried to reattach the small handle that I had just accidentally pried off the white fiberglass siding. Henri was getting used to me accidentally breaking things every once in a while. This had never really been a problem for me before, but I guess I never lived somewhere that had so much nice, breakable stuff around.

  “Why are you nervous?”

  “It’s my first time on a boat.” I gave up trying to reattach the handle and placed it on the bottom of the boat next to my feet.

  “I have been sailing on this lake since I was nine years old. Don’t you trust me?”

  “It’s not you. It’s just . . . all this water.”

  “What is wrong with water?”

  “Well, I’m fairly indestructible. The only things that could kill me, as far as I know, are fire and drowning. So naturally, water makes me nervous.”

  “Is that so?” Henri leaned forward so he was looking at me over the rim of his sunglasses. “Well, a lot of things can kill me. Fire, water, electricity, cars, people . . . just about everything, really. So, should I be nervous all the time?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just . . .” He did have a point there. Humans were so fragile. And they had to live with that fact every day of their lives.

  “So stop worrying and enjoy the view,” said Henri as he leaned back and let out on the sail.

  I sat against the side of the boat and tried to get my shoulders to relax a little. I knew if Sophie were here, she’d be telling me the same thing. I missed her and Claire more and more. I’d Skyped with both of them a few times, but neither of them was really into that kind of stuff so it didn’t last long. If anything, it made them seem even farther away after I signed off.

  I sighed and tried to focus on where I was, not where I wanted to be.

  It was a nice view. The surface of the water rippled in sheets from the gusts of cool wind that came down out of the snowcapped mountains on the far shore. There were a few other boats spread out across the lake, white sails gleaming in the sun.

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I caught a glimpse of a head with long, blue-green hair. I turned to get a better look, but it was gone.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Henri.

  “Nothing. I was just remembering your sister’s story about the mermaid.”

  He smiled. “Has she found a new believer?”

  “It’s a good story,” I said.

  “Well, if you are looking for mermaids, you should also keep an eye out for dwarves once we get on the hiking trail. The stories say the mountains are full of them.” The sunglasses made it a little hard for me to tell if he was joking.

  “Really?”

  He laughed. “Of course not! We are not talking about regular short people here. We are talking about magical little men with long beards.”

  “And those don’t exist,” I said carefully.

  “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I repeated. Over the past few weeks, the urge to tell him had been slowly building until now it felt like this unspoken thing that hung over nearly every conversation we had. I knew I shouldn’t tell him. But I kept having to remind myself why. I thought of Ruthven, the theater manager for The Show. He’d always been good to me, I think because he and my dad had known each other for so long. But he was a vampire and most of the company was a little scared of him. I didn’t think he’d kill a human just because they discovered our secret. . . .

  “You look worried again,” said Henri. “Is it the dwarves? Trust me, I’ve been hiking these mountains my whole life, and I have never seen a single little magical man. I promise you, nothing weird is going to happen.”

  HENRI WAS IN good shape, but he was still only a human. A half hour into our hike up through the mountain trail, he noticed I was holding back.

  “Go on,” he said. “Stretch your legs. We can catch up at the next plateau.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

  So I stepped up the pace until I actually felt like I was exerting myself, and the next time I glanced back, he was too far behind to see.

  It was nice in the mountains alone. The wind was harder and colder up there, so I never got too overheated. I used my hands as well as my feet to move up the steep, rocky path. Having big, clunky hands was a good thing for once. They were perfect for gripping ledges and crevices.

  I stopped at a small outcropping to catch my breath. The lake stretched out below, shining almost silver in the sun. Far on the other side, I could just make out Villa Diodati. I wondered if my father had stood at this bare, windswept spot and looked down at the house of his creator. The unfairness of it must have burned.

  I looked up the mountain. There was still a long way to go. Soon I’d be hitting the snow line. That’s where my father would have been. He always liked cold climates. After all the terrible things that he and Victor did to each other, Victor had chased him up to the Arctic. Then, once Victor had finally died, my father stayed up there for decades. Eventually, Ruthven found him and convinced him to rejoin the world. I wondered what Ruthven had said to sell him on the idea. I could see how Dad would have preferred to stay up there. He was suited for a landscape like this. Hard, strong, elemental.

  Suddenly, I heard a small, raspy voice say something in what sounded like German. I turned around and saw a little man on top of a nearby rock.

  “A dwarf!” I said.

  He was only about two feet tall, which seemed short for a dwarf, but all I knew about them was from movies, and those were almost never accurate. He did have the long, gray beard at least, a gray that was the color of the rocks around him. He had a long cloak the same color, and a brown leather cap on his head.

  He raised a shaggy white eyebrow.

  “English?” he asked in a thick German accent.

  “
American,” I said.

  “What I said was, I have not seen your kind here in over a century.”

  “My kind?”

  “Ja. A giant man made from dead men.”

  “The technical term is ‘flesh golem.’” Golems were people made from inanimate objects. The material could be anything—clay, stone, metal. As far as I knew, my parents and I were the only ones made from body parts. And given the location, there was probably only one guy he was talking about.

  “You know my father?”

  “It was I who taught him how to survive in these mountains,” he said. “So he still lives?”

  “Yeah. In New York City with a bunch of other monsters.”

  “I have heard of that city,” he said. “Is he happy in this New York?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, as happy as my dad can ever be, I think.”

  “Good.” The dwarf nodded. “I hope he has savored this brief respite. Because it will soon be over.”

  “I’m . . . not really sure I understand what you mean.”

  “My kind rarely come out of the mountain in these times. The world does not welcome us as it once did.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “Some humans are assholes.”

  “We do not mind. The rock is our home. It is the human’s loss that we are not here to help them any longer.”

  “So what are you doing out of the mountain now?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “For me? How did you know I would be here? I didn’t even know I’d be here until a few hours ago.”

  “I know many things, son of Adam. Which is why I have come to assure you that when the need is most dire, I will be there to help you.”

  “Uh, thanks. So . . . why do I need help?”

  “You don’t yet. But the time will come soon. Secrets cannot stay hidden forever. And once the truth is revealed, war will swiftly follow.”

  “War? Who’s going to be fighting?”

  “That will depend.”

  “On what?”

  “On you.”

  “So you can see the future or something?” The three Fates lived at The Show. They could see the future, so I didn’t see why other monsters couldn’t do the same thing.