Her cheeks lost their color and she nervously pulled the collar of her nightgown tighter about her neck. “Didn’t you hear it a few moments ago? That wolf howling, like it was sent from the devil himself.”
I paused. Something had woken me, a bad feeling.
But I thought the howling wolf had been part of my dream, a strange sense of guilt for what John and I had done last night.
“Have more wolves come?” I asked. “Are John and Percy trying to chase them away?”
She tried to steady herself by latching onto the wall and, for the first time, I realized that something else was going on here.
“Claire, are you—is it time for the babe to come?”
She nodded, a tear sliding down her cheek. The child wasn’t due for at least two more months. I gently took her hand and led her to the parlor, then bid her to lay down. I covered her with blankets, then I hurried from one room to the next, gathering up bits of firewood that hadn’t been completely burned. On my journey I heard the wolf, howling like an angry trapped beast, the sounds coming from the backyard. I paused, fighting the terror the cries brought.
The creature didn’t sound like it was outdoors.
I stopped in the kitchen and glanced out the window toward the backyard.
I could see everything then.
John and Percy had started a great fire, thick smoke curling toward the heavens. Percy tossed pieces of ripped dead wolf into the flames, while John carried a rifle. He was heading toward the cottage.
That’s where the howling was coming from. A flash of black fur and teeth appeared in first one window, then the next.
But how had a living wolf gotten inside the cottage? There were only ripped and leftover bits of wild dog in there—
I held my breath.
And that beast John and I had stitched together last night. It couldn’t be and yet, the evidence was right in front of me. Together, we must have summoned something unnatural and unholy from the pit of Hell.
That creature had come back to life. All of John’s theories about galvanization must have been true.
I dropped the wood I had been carrying, no longer concerned about the morning fires. In its stead, I grabbed an ax that rested beside the door, used to trim bits of wood so they would fit in the kitchen hearth. I tested the ax’s weight, swinging it once to make sure I knew the merit of the weapon I carried.
Then I threw the kitchen door open and I ran outdoors, the ax resting on my shoulder and both my hands firm upon its handle.
* * *
My blood ran like fierce, hot iron through my veins and although the day was cold, I couldn’t bear the heat of my cloak. I untied the lace fastened beneath my throat as I ran, and my cloak fluttered to the ground behind me. Snow crunched beneath my boots and that wolf continued to howl, louder and louder, as if it knew I was racing toward it.
I temporarily lost sight of both Percy and John, for I was running around the massive bonfire—red-orange flames, leaping higher and higher, with thick ropes of smoke twining above. I heard nothing save the roaring fire to my left, heavy smoke flowing in my lungs with each step. I forced myself to run faster, hands beginning to sweat where I gripped that ax.
Somehow I knew this wolf was more dangerous than anything I’d ever encountered. I remembered its teeth and the way its limbs had quivered last night when I stitched it up, my lacing a pale contrast against black fur. John had tied the muzzle shut, but the beast must have clawed the rope off, or else the wolf wouldn’t have been able to howl.
At last, I rounded the fire and could see John and Percy again. Percy stood on the other side of the yard, a good distance from us, his attention still focused on tending the fire. Rifle slung over one shoulder, John was throwing the cottage door open. It looked like he was planning to set the beast free.
“John, be careful!” I cried. I meant to warn him, but my words had the opposite effect.
A look of shock appeared on his face when he glanced from the darkened doorway to see me standing behind him, then his expression gave way to guilt and remorse—the same feelings I’d been having. “Mary, you must go back in the villa!” he said.
Unfortunately, that amount of time was long enough for the beast to attack. It had been hiding in the shadows, dining on a rat, its muzzle soaked in blood. But the moment a way of escape appeared, the wolf lunged toward the open door.
The entire world slowed down.
My feet wouldn’t move, John turned back toward the cottage door, I pulled the ax from my shoulder and screamed, my howl echoing that of the wolf as it leapt from its hiding place. Every muscle in its mismatched frame rippled, the longest hind leg an unexpected asset for it gave the beast the ability to jump higher than any dog I’ve ever seen.
I thought the wolf would lunge for John’s throat. Instead, it used its shorter front legs and massive torso to knock him to the ground. He never had time to raise his weapon.
“Stop!” I yelled, standing my ground now, feet braced and ax ready to swing. I didn’t want to strike it. I wanted the creature to live. It growled and snapped at me, still sailing through the air, over John and to the ground on the other side.
Percy came closer then, until he stood between the fires and freedom, sweat staining his open shirt, his shoulder-length hair pulled back. He had no weapon, only the hairy leg of a dead wolf in one hand. A look of surprise on his face, he realized what was happening too late.
“Get down, let the wolf pass!” I yelled at him.
John was still climbing to his feet. I knew we could always go after the beast and catch it later if we wanted, even if it took days to track. I’d hunted often with my father; I could read woodland trails easily.
But instead of swerving out of the wolf’s path, Percy reacted with instinct. He swung that wolf leg like a sword.
The running wolf was not as generous with Percy as it had been with John or me. It ran even faster, and then lunged, latching onto Percy’s forearm with strong jaws, sinking its teeth deep in his flesh until blood flowed, thick and fast. They looked like one beast, Percy and the dog, each standing on two legs, fastened together by the wolf’s savage bite. The wild dog swung its head back and forth, as if trying to rip Percy’s arm from its socket. My fiancé beat at the dog’s skull with his free fist, yelling inhuman cries of pain.
John climbed to his feet and aimed his rifle at the beast.
“Be careful!” I shouted, afraid he would strike Percy. I held my ax ready, but knew I couldn’t get a clean strike.
Baboom!
The shot struck the dog’s hind leg and made it squeal, but the beast didn’t relent. John paused to reload his gun, but I knew it would take too long.
“Turn your face away, Percy,” I said.
I stepped closer, aimed the best I could and then struck down.
Slicing off one of the dog’s front paws.
The wolf swiveled, jaws snapping open to release Percy, who fell to the ground. The beast bounded up toward me and I barely had to time to get my ax back into position. I struck again with a shorter, weaker blow this time, catching it in the neck.
The wolf howled and bit and snapped.
This time, my ax lodged in its throat and I couldn’t pull my weapon out. The beast snapped and lunged, mere inches from my face.
John dropped his rifle and joined me, wrapping his arms around me and grabbing the ax handle, placing his hands beside mine. Together we were able to push the animal away. “Let go!” John yelled at me. “And get down.”
It went against all my instincts, but I did it anyway. I released the handle of the ax and dropped to my knees, bracing my arms over my head, but not turning away. I had to know what happened.
The wolf began to twist away from us, attempting to free itself from the blade. John yanked the blade from the beast, fur and blood and bits of bone flying out in a spray of gore. Then he swung the blade down, hard, again and again.
One loud wet thwack after another.
The animal snarle
d and fought and, in the end, it released one last blood-chilling howl that circled about us. Then it fell to the ground. No longer moving. Its head nearly severed, its legs twitching like when we had discovered them in the snow last night.
John stared at it in shock. “I was only trying to set it free,” he whispered.
I trembled, still crouched on the ground. “Could it—is it possible it might come back to life—and strike again?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, a heaviness in his words. “We must throw it in the fire.”
Together, he and I grabbed the legs—careful to stay out of reach of its jaws, which I feared could spring open with a snarl at any moment—and we swung the wolf into the roaring bonfire.
Behind us, Percy tried to stand, but fell to his knees, his right arm nearly severed in two just above his wrist. His gaze was cloudy and he looked confused, as if he didn’t quite realize what had happened.
“Lie down,” John ordered him, pressing him gently back onto the snow-covered ground. “Keep him fixed,” he told me, “and see if you can find an unburned log, the size and width of his arm. I’ll be right back.” He ran toward the cottage.
Blood surged from Percy’s arm, spreading, turning the snow from pristine white to frothy red. I placed one hand on his brow. “Be still, my beloved.” Then I glanced around us for any splits of wood that might be the right size. It took me several minutes and I had to leave him alone on the ground, before I found a piece of wood that might suffice. I carried it back and stood waiting for the John.
Percy stared up at the gray shrouded skies, blank terror in his eyes, as if he was lost and completely alone.
“I am here,” I said to him, but he didn’t respond. “You will be well soon.”
Yet, even as I said those words, my own terror grew. A horrid disease had been spreading across Europe, carried by wolves and foxes and dogs. Hydrophobia. The disease was so dreadful that in some regions people who had been bitten were put to death. It was against the law, but many of the old practices had come back with the recent outbreak.
There was no cure.
Even though Percy didn’t share my religious beliefs, I prayed aloud while I waited for John to return. I prayed that my fiancé would be spared this disease and that he would live. I couldn’t bear to think of him dying, not like this.
John came back then, wearing thick gardening gloves and carrying a satchel filled with strange items. “Move away from him, Mary,” he warned. “Be careful not to touch his wound or the blood. It would be best if you didn’t watch.”
But I didn’t look away. Instead, I ran into the cottage and found a pair of gardening gloves for myself. Percy was screaming when I returned. John saw what I had done in a glance, that I wore an apron over my clothes and had put the gloves on. He nodded.
“Hold him, then, by the shoulders.”
John took a strange piece of metal—shaped like a long nail with an embellished head—and he held it in the fire, then pressed it against Percy’s wound. “It is St. Hubert’s Key,” John explained briefly. Each press of the hot metal filled the air with the stench of burned flesh and the tortured cries of my fiancé. Percy fought to get away, but the bite must have weakened him, for I was now stronger than he was. I expected his brow to furrow with pain between each merciless stroke of the hot iron, but it didn’t. Instead, he stared into the sky as if seeing into another world, horror in his eyes.
“No,” he whispered. “It cannot be.”
“What is it, Percy?” I asked, leaning nearer.
“Don’t get too close to him!” John warned.
But Percy didn’t hear either of us; he didn’t even realize I was there, for he called out to me as if I were far away.
“Mary! Promise you won’t leave me!” he cried.
“I’m here, I’m right here,” I answered.
“He’s delirious,” John told me and he was probably right, though it seemed too fast for delirium to set in. The cauterizing was finished and now Percy held so still I could scarcely see him breathe. John first bound the wound with a fresh bandage, wrapping it round and round Percy’s broken forearm. Then John inserted the long piece of firewood I had found, continuing to wrap the bandage around both arm and wood.
“I have to do this,” he told me and I frowned, wondering what horror was coming next.
He pulled a thick leather strap from his satchel and slid it between Percy’s teeth, fastening it behind his head.
“He may have hydrophobia,” John explained. I’d never seen or heard of this treatment before, but I’d never seen St. Hubert’s Key either.
“You won’t shoot him, will you?” I asked, giving voice to my greatest fear.
A surprised look entered his eyes as if that thought had never entered his mind. “Of course not.” He gestured toward Percy, who seemed barely conscious. “Can you take him by the shoulder and help me lift him? He may still be able to walk, if we hurry.”
I nodded, wrapping my arm beneath Percy’s left arm while John took his right. It was slow going, but we got him up the stairs and into the kitchen, the interior of the villa nearly as chilly as outdoors. For the first time, I realized I had left my cloak in the snow. I shivered, though I think it was more from fear than cold.
“Should we take him to his room?” I asked, dreading the long stairway.
“Does the door have a lock?”
“I believe so.”
“Then, yes, and take your time, Mary. There is no rush now.”
The stairs proved even more difficult than I imagined, for Percy had become dead weight. We paused on the landing, me breathing heavily and covered in sweat.
“I can carry him the rest of the way,” John told me.
I released Percy to him, grateful to be free of the burden. I followed them down the long hallway, over patterned carpets and beside landscape paintings and portraits. Finally, we reached a paneled door which John kicked open with one foot.
“Find the key and make sure the door locks,” he instructed me as he carried Percy the last few feet toward a large canopied bed. Percy’s eyes were still closed, but I noticed a tensing of his muscles, one arm that had been hanging limp began to wrap around John’s shoulder.
“He’s waking up,” I said.
Percy growled, then began to fight to get free from John. Percy wasn’t himself, clawing and trying to bite, his eyes narrowed and spittle dripping from the corners of his mouth, where that leather strap still resided.
“Hurry! Leave the room, close the door and lock it behind you. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to open it again,” John called out to me.
I paused; I didn’t want to leave them.
“Get out!” John cried, a surprising vehemence in his voice that startled me.
So, I closed the door and latched it, then leaned my back against it. Waiting. And praying.
Eleven
Shouts and animal-like growls sounded on the other side of the door. Prickles of fear iced my skin and I had trouble swallowing. Something was dreadfully wrong. Hydrophobia didn’t set in this quickly. I knew because one of my father’s friends back in London got it. His symptoms showed up so long after his bite that we all thought he would survive. He didn’t.
But Percy acted as if he was already infected.
Could he have been bitten by a different dog weeks earlier, back when we were in England? If so, why were the symptoms showing up now, right after that wolf had attacked him?
This had to be some new, more dangerous strain of the disease.
I curled over, head to my knees, a long thin moan coming from my lips.
I struggled to figure it all out, but panic made it hard to think. Was Percy going to die? And how long before his delirium gave way to fever and hallucinations and violent behavior?
My legs refused to support me any longer. I collapsed on the floor, arms around myself, trying to block out the cold and the awful truth.
We would never marry.
Our holiday h
ad turned into a funeral procession. The words of that blonde servant girl, Arjeta, came back to me, as clear as if she were standing beside me in the hall.
This place is cursed.
She must have known about this illness. She had seen the wolves, she was from this region. She warned me to leave—
Perhaps she knew a cure.
Of its own accord, my spine straightened. My legs regained their strength and I shakily climbed to my feet.
My cloak was in the yard; I could get it, then saddle one of Byron’s horses, ride to Geneva and be back before nightfall. I started to knock on Percy’s door, to let John know my plans when someone called out my name from downstairs.
“Mary.” Claire’s voice was faint and racked with pain. I had completely forgotten about her.
“John,” I called out, not sure if he heard me. “I have to go downstairs.” There was no reply. I didn’t know whether I should leave him locked in the room or if I should open the door. Finally, I turned the key and quietly unlocked the door, leaving the key in place so John could lock it once he left the room. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said, although I had no idea how soon that would be.
No growling or scuffling, no answer or sound of any kind came from the other side of the door. I wondered if John had given Percy something to make him sleep. Perhaps he was binding my fiancé with ropes, so he couldn’t harm himself. But did he have ropes in there?
“John, is everything all right? Do you need anything?”
Silence. Heavy, ominous. And then—
“Mary! Please!” Claire called out again, louder.
I turned and ran away from Percy’s room, down the hall, down the stairs, finally reaching the parlor. Claire was still lying on the settee, blankets piled on top of her, but she was sweating and the skin on her face was blotchy. I touched her forehead. She was feverish.
“Are you still having contractions?” I asked.
One of her hands latched onto mine and she squeezed. “No. Not for about half an hour. I’ve been timing them by the clock on the mantle.”
“Good,” I answered her, smiling. But the fact that she hadn’t had a contraction for half an hour didn’t mean her contractions had stopped. “Have you passed any water or blood?”
Shade: A Re-Imagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (The Frankenstein Saga Book 1) Page 5
