Late the next day Father returned home with Dr. Murnau. The two of them went at once to Konrad’s bedchamber, whereupon the doctor proceeded to examine my brother.
Elizabeth and Henry and I waited in the library, paging through books without reading.
“What will Father do when Mother tells him?” Elizabeth asked me.
“Well, the Frankenstein dungeons may once more have inmates.”
“Be serious, Victor.”
“You can have the larger cell. I don’t mind.”
This time she laughed.
The sun was beginning to set when Father appeared in the doorway, still in his riding clothes, looking exhausted but calm.
“Come with me,” he said to the three of us.
We followed him to his study, where Mother sat with Dr. Murnau.
“He’s healing, isn’t he?” I asked the doctor.
“Tomorrow I’ll take blood for study. But it seems the crisis has certainly passed.” He leaned his bony frame forward in his chair. “Victor, I understand you gave him a certain elixir a few nights past. I need to know its exact ingredients.”
“There was a rare lichen, from a tree in the Sturmwald,” I began.
“Describe it.”
“Pale brown, with a delicate shape like embroidery or coral. Usnea lunaria was its name,” I added, remembering suddenly.
The doctor pursed his lips, nodded. “What else?”
“Coelacanth oil,” I said. “And bone marrow from a human.”
I saw his eyes stray to my hand. “I will look at your wounds shortly. Anything else?”
“That’s all. But how Polidori prepared them, we don’t know.”
“Is it harmful?” Father asked Dr. Murnau.
“We’ll watch Konrad carefully for the next day or so, but he shows no signs of poisoning. Quite the opposite. These ingredients your son mentioned, they’re unusual and noisome, but it’s possible they might have had some beneficial effect. In folk medicines some lichens or fungi are often brewed as teas to combat infection or fever. As for the fish oil, many oils have been noted to have an invigorating effect on the patient, though we do not know why.”
“And the bone marrow?” Mother asked.
“A mystery,” said the doctor, pushing back his glasses. “Though one of my students once claimed that a crushed bone, amazingly, yielded a special concentration of vigorous blood cells. But, as to the usefulness of your elixir as a whole”-he floated his skeletal hands up into the air-“there’s no scientific proof. And there is no shortage of fabulist cures trumpeted by charlatans. I’d say you were very lucky, young Master Frankenstein, that this particular elixir was benign. I’ve seen some that have wrought very dire results indeed upon the human body.”
Father looked at me and Elizabeth severely. “You might have killed your brother.”
“We might also have saved his life!” I said, my temper flaring.
Dr. Murnau licked his lips nervously. “Victor, what we’ve witnessed is a coincidence-and a dangerous one if it convinces you that this elixir has any value.”
My heart beat in my ears. I said nothing. I didn’t need to convince him. The deed was done, and the truth was obvious to me: The elixir was real.
“Now listen carefully,” Father said to Elizabeth, Henry, and me. “Once Polidori is caught and tried, your involvement in this shameful affair will be public knowledge. But this is more than a question of embarrassment; it is a question of your innocence.”
“Alphonse,” said Mother, “you’re frightening them-and me.”
“Might we be charged, then?” Elizabeth asked uneasily.
“By the law’s definition, to practice alchemy you must profit by it, or actually administer your substances to a person,” Father said.
“It was I who administered it to Konrad,” I said quickly, for it was true. I had dripped it upon his tongue. “If anyone’s charged, it should be me.”
“That is not just,” said Elizabeth. “It may have been Victor’s hand that held the vial, but I stood beside him, and would have administered the elixir if he’d faltered. I am equally guilty.”
“And I,” said Henry, his head bowed.
“No one will ever know that Konrad took this elixir,” my father said. He looked at all of us in turn. “Dr. Murnau has already agreed to keep this in his confidence. And we must all of us keep the secret. I threw the elixir into the lake. That is what happened. I abhor a lie, but I will do it to protect my family.”
I wondered how many other lies my father had told over the years, how many secrets he kept from us.
“Are we agreed, then?” said Father. “Konrad never received the Elixir of Life.”
“Agreed,” said Elizabeth and Henry.
Father looked at me severely.
I met his gaze. “If I am asked to testify in court, I will not lie.”
“Victor,” Mother said, “don’t be absurd!”
I did not flinch from my father’s stories. My own voice seemed alien to me, hard and calm. “I will not mention Elizabeth or Henry. But I will not perjure myself. I helped create that elixir with my own sweat, and flesh and blood, and I administered it to my brother. And I cured him. If I’m to be jailed for that, so be it.”
My father’s eyebrows contracted, and he was about to speak, but then he changed his mind.
“We will talk more of this later.” He looked at Mother. “He is overwrought. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
But truly I did. My father would not make me a liar-nor would he take away my triumph.
Before I went to my bedchamber for the night, I visited Konrad’s room and found him still awake, reading by candlelight.
“Do you remember us giving it to you?” I asked, sitting beside his bed.
“I remember waking and seeing you all before me, but I thought it a dream-and such a pleasant one. I felt rejuvenated somehow.”
“Do you feel it in you, working?” I asked.
He gave a laugh. “Am I your patient now, Victor?”
“Not patient. Creation!” I said with a grin. “Come now, you must feel something! You have the Elixir of Life in you!” I imagined a great bubbling, a magical fermenting that released healing bodies throughout his blood to battle anything vile they encountered.
“If you must know, I feel as weak as a kitten-but remarkably… transformed.”
“That will be the elixir working hard, destroying the disease! It is bound to be tiring. But now you will not ever get ill again, you lucky dog.”
“Let me see your hand properly,” he said.
I placed it on my knee.
His gaze settled on it. When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “Does it hurt still?”
I shook my head. “It sometimes hurts where my fingers used to be. A kind of phantom pain.”
He placed his perfect hand on mine. “Thank you, Victor.”
During breakfast the next day another message arrived bearing the magistrates’ stamp. Father opened it at once and read it in silence. He sighed.
“Polidori has completely vanished.”
“How can that be?” exclaimed Mother. “The riders could easily have overtaken his carriage.”
“Unless he was never in a carriage,” Father said. “Even without the use of his legs, he might be able to ride a horse of his own-take remote alpine paths and venture into France. We have no authority to pursue him there-nor would we have much luck finding him, the place is in such chaos.”
“Might he have accomplices?” Mother asked, looking at the three of us.
“Krake was the only accomplice we knew of,” I said. “But he might have paid people to help him, I suppose.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “He looked so impoverished.”
I remembered how he had talked about the myth of the lynx, the Keeper of the Secrets of the Forest, harvesting gemstones from its own urine.
“Maybe he had money saved up,” I said.
“Well, if he’s disappeared for good, there will be no trial
,” Father said. “No one need hear of this again.”
He looked at me pointedly as he said it.
“As long as he’s left Geneva for good,” Mother said, “I am satisfied.”
“He would be a fool to stay,” said Henry. “His place is burned to the ground, and he is conspicuous in his wheelchair. He’d be caught instantly.”
My neck tingled. It was childish, but I couldn’t help wondering if the alchemist had worked some dark wonder to make himself invisible. I imagined him at night, dragging himself through the streets, his shoes and clothes scraping on the cobblestones. Dragging himself ever closer to Chateau Frankenstein.
Later that day Elizabeth and I stood in the courtyard with Henry to see him off. I shook his hand and then embraced him.
“You have a lion’s heart, as well as a poet’s,” I said.
He shook his head with a grin, but I could tell he was pleased.
“I was not brave compared with you two,” he said. “I possess only a small courage-but it is good to know that.”
“Nonsense,” said Elizabeth, kissing him on the cheek.
He flushed.
“Good-bye, Henry,” I said.
“Good-bye,” he replied, “and do try to stay out of mischief while I am gone.”
“Write us another play,” I said, “that we can all perform before summer is out.”
“I will.”
“The doctor says I will have scars,” Elizabeth said. “I never thought myself vain, but I am vain, and it upsets me more than I can say.”
We were in the library, sunlight pouring through the windows.
Konrad had been taking his meals in bed so far, but said he would like to get up later and join us for dinner. Dr. Murnau would remain only a day longer, and said Konrad’s progress was most encouraging.
He’d examined my hand again this morning, and was pleased with Polidori’s chisel work. There was no sign of infection. He said he knew some very fine craftsmen who could fashion me a pair of wooden fingers to strap onto my hand.
He’d also told Elizabeth she could remove the bandage on her cheek.
“They will be very faint scars,” I said now, looking at them. “Whisker thin. You would have to know they were there to even notice them.”
She laughed bitterly. “They will be clearly visible. Konrad cannot love me now.”
I could not help laughing, and the misery in her face was quickly replaced with anger.
“How is that amusing?”
“Elizabeth,” I said, “Konrad would be the biggest fool in the world if he thought a few scratches could dim your beauty. There cannot be a lovelier young woman in all the republic. I would say all of Europe, but I have not seen all the young women there yet.”
She smiled, and looked down, and the color rose in her cheeks. “Thank you, Victor, that is very sweet of you.”
I did not understand why, but I found something compelling about those scars. The claws of a lynx had raked her cheek and left their mark. And it was a mark too of her own wild nature. She could not hide it-and the wolf in me found her all the more desirable for it. But I would not think of her in such a way anymore. I was done with coveting what was my brother’s. My resolve would be as strong as stone.
“In the elevator,” she said abruptly. “At Polidori’s. In the dark.”
I looked out the window. I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Hmm? What of it?” I asked carelessly.
“That kiss was for you.”
I said nothing-had nothing to say. I was secretly ecstatic but wished too that she had never told me. For I feared these words would germinate in my devilish heart and send forth tendrils that might crack even my granite resolve.
I just smiled, and it took all my will to lift my feet and leave the room.
We sat out on the balcony wrapped in blankets, for the clear night was cool. It was just the two of us. Above the mountain peaks to the west was the last indigo hint of sunset.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That whole business with Elizabeth. I-”
“Victor, you don’t need to say anything.”
“I was a complete ass.”
Konrad chuckled. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever been angrier in my entire life. That’s quite a skill you have.”
“It’s a good thing you fainted,” I said. “Or you might’ve killed me. I’d never seen that look in your eyes. You do forgive me, though, don’t you?”
He smiled, and I knew the answer was yes. “And by the way,” he said, “I’ve never thought myself better than you.”
I snorted. “Except at Greek and Latin and fencing and-”
“I didn’t mean like that. I meant as a person.”
For a moment I made no reply. “Well, I don’t know if I believe you, but it’s very nice of you to say. Thank you.”
“You’re impossible,” he said, shaking his head.
“Ah, that’s more like it,” I said.
“Do you still imagine interplanetary travel for yourself?” he asked, looking up at the first stars.
“At the very least,” I said. “And you will go to the New World?”
“Only if you come with me.”
“Just the two of us,” I said.
“Just the two of us.”
“We’ll do it the moment Father gives us permission,” I said.
Konrad smiled. “Given recent events, that might not be for several decades.”
But we talked on with great enthusiasm, about the lands across the ocean, and what kind of adventures might be had there. It was as if we were little again, with the atlas spread before us on the library floor. We talked about how, if we reached the farthest coast of the New World, we might continue on, across the Pacific to the Orient. I loved the idea of traveling west with my brother, always west, chasing the sun.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE ICE CRYPT
He died in his sleep.
I did not understand how it could’ve happened. He had been getting well. He had been growing stronger. How could he be gone?
Mother wept and wept-Father, too.
If any parents suffered more, I have never seen it.
They did not believe in heaven. They did not believe in an afterward. They knew they would never see their son again.
Elizabeth cried and prayed for Konrad’s soul.
“How can you pray?” I said coldly to her.
She looked at me, her face bleached by tears.
“We prayed to your God on the boat, when we sailed home with the elixir,” I reminded her. “You said- you said-He would listen and heal Konrad. Why didn’t He?”
“He heard us. But sometimes He says no.”
“He is not there at all,” I said savagely.
She shook her head. “He is there.”
“Make me believe you. Convince me, here.” I beat at my head with my hands.
“Stop,” she said calmly, grabbing my wrists. “You know that I have always believed. God does not disappear when bad things happen. He is with us through good and bad and will one day be our final home. We need no elixir to live forever. He made us immortal, and Konrad is not gone.”
I shook my head in disgust, and stormed off.
The elixir had failed. Or had it? Had Konrad simply been too ill for too long? I would never know, and it would torment me forever. But most poisonous of all was the thought that I might have killed my brother. What if he’d been recovering and the elixir had defeated him?
Father had no doubts. The elixir was a mirage, and I had foolishly chased after it. He did not need to say this aloud. It was in every look he gave me. He said he would have the Dark Library burned.
Meals were made and set before us.
Our servants went about their work.
Outside, the world continued without us.
We all moved through the house, pretending to be ourselves.
I could not cry.
Our carriage moved slowly up the winding mountain road.
There had been no church service, even though Elizabeth had begged my parents to hold one. There would be no funeral mass, no words of comfort spoken by a priest, no promises made.
We were all clad in mourning black. Elizabeth and I sat with Ernest between us. Facing us were Father and Mother, with William on her knee.
At the front of the procession was the hearse, carrying Konrad’s coffin.
Behind stretched dozens of other carriages and traps and horses, bringing our staff and friends.
The journey was a long one. For centuries the Frankenstein family had buried its dead high in the mountain just outside the city. The crypt was an enormous cave that, over the years, had been hollowed ever deeper into the glacier’s side. Even in the summer it was colder than death itself, the sarcophagi and their inmates sealed eternally with ice and snow.
As children we had seen the crypt only once, after Father’s younger brother had died in a hunting accident. Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had stood, blue-lipped and silent, as the coffin had been lowered into its stone sarcophagus. Afterward, during our lessons, Father had told us that because the temperature never rose above freezing, a body in that crypt would be miraculously preserved.
No worms or bugs would infest it, no water would rot it, no elements would corrode it.
Konrad. What if it was I who killed you?
It was close to noon when we reached the crypt.
Our footman came and lowered the steps of the carriage for us. I was glad of my cloak, for the air was very cold. The path to the crypt entrance had already been cleared of ice and snow, but all around, on the mountain slopes, it glittered painfully and almost cruelly in the sunlight.
I stared briefly into the darkness of the crypt, then went to the back of the hearse to join Father and the other casket bearers. I was glad Henry was among them. Carefully we pulled out the coffin.
Though there were three of us on either side, and the coffin contained only my brother, when I took my handle and lifted-that coffin was as heavy as the earth itself. I could imagine nothing heavier.
It took all my strength to keep from losing my grip. As we started to move toward the crypt, for a moment I thought I might faint. Torches had been lit inside, flickering orange. I was shaking as we crossed the threshold. Ancient walls of stone and ice. Huge sarcophagi ranged to the right and left, centuries of Frankenstein ancestors.
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