Bride

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  Though I didn’t understand what he meant, I felt the deeper truth that lay behind the words. “Victor sad?”

  He chuckled, but it was an empty laugh, bereft of joy. “I wasn’t always like this, you know. I had other plans when I was younger, hopes and dreams. I loved stories, art, and music—even philosophy.” He wore a blank, empty expression, as if he was a million miles away. “I never wanted to become this. We have that in common, I imagine, you and me.”

  “You and…me,” I repeated. Again I remembered the image of my reflection in the mirror. I pointed at his chest. “You Victor. Who…me?”

  Victor made no reply, at least for a while. He simply stared into the fireplace, and watched the flames devour the blackened logs. Finally, he withdrew the leather-bound journal he kept in his jacket pocket. His next words were full of sorrow.

  “There comes a day when all must face their true nature. After such a day, there is no turning back.” He opened the book and flipped through the pages, pen in hand, and etched in a name. “A name is a powerful thing. That is why I have waited to bestow one upon you. I wanted to see who you were—and who you might become.”

  “Victor tell,” I said, unable to read the name written in the journal. “Tell…me…name.”

  “When I was a boy, I loved the tales of the Greeks and their gods. I styled myself Odysseus, Prometheus even.” He bit his lip. “I was a naive little fool.” Victor let out a deep sigh. “There was once a daughter of the goddess of the harvest. Her name was Persephone. She loved life, all the creatures and the things that grew. Then Hades, the god of the dead, stole her away to the underworld to be his bride. Persephone was condemned to live out half her life under the sun, and the other half among the dead.”

  I shook my head to indicate that I still didn’t understand. “Name?”

  Victor pointed at me. “Persephone,” he said, repeating the name.

  “Per-seph-o-ne,” I said, stumbling over each syllable. My name. I smiled in the glow of the fire. Though I still carried the weight of the robin’s death, I remained happy—content. Victor, however, was anything but. He looked away, his momentary happiness short-lived.

  “I thought about destroying you,” he said quietly. “There were several times when I came so close. Perhaps it would have been better if I had.”

  “Victor?” I stared at him as he rose, an unspoken question in my eyes, and he hesitated.

  Victor offered a sad smile. He started to reach down, as if to comfort me, but then withdrew. “Sleep well, Persephone.”

  That night, I had the same nightmare as before. Again when I woke, there was an empty chair facing my bed. I considered showing the chair to Victor and attempting to explain what troubled me, but I didn’t want to add to his burdens. I desired only his happiness, which remained an ever-elusive aim.

  My lessons now included letters of the alphabet as well as words. As I began to read, I started to arrange my words and thoughts into sentences. I mastered the simple acts of dressing myself, bathing, and combing my own hair. I was learning faster than ever before—growing into something more, someone yet unknown even to myself. Victor had been right; for good or ill, from this point forward, there was no turning back. I was about to learn the reason for which I had been born.

  It happened on an evening much like the night of my birth. The Scottish countryside was never far removed from a storm; sunlit days were the exception, not the rule. This particular storm was exceptionally fearsome to behold. The whole of the cottage shuddered at the thunder, with wind so strong I thought the house itself might come crashing down on top of our heads.

  A dense mist shrouded the cottage in fog. As soon as we saw the wall of black clouds approaching, we scrambled to make preparations before the storm hit. I rummaged through the pile of firewood, shielding myself from the first of the rains while Victor attempted to lead the frightened horses to their stalls.

  “Persephone!” he called to me above the thunder. “It’s not safe out here! We must seek shelter now.”

  We sprinted to the cottage under the bleak sky, my dress whipped about by the fierce winds. The graves seemed to shine across the abandoned cemetery, cast in eerie lightning. We spilled into the house, and Victor slammed the front door shut behind us. The house was dimly lit, and shadows festered outside the safe glow of the few candles and lamps left burning inside. My eyes adjusted to the lack of light more easily than Victor’s. I had stopped being afraid of the dark long ago, though fire still produced an inexplicable dread in me.

  Victor wiped the light coating of rain from his hair and followed my gaze to the roof, which had sprung a leak, a small puddle spreading underneath. He sighed and pursed his lips. “We’ll have to plug that unless we want a flood on our hands. There’s a bowl in the sitting room. Would you mind searching for it while I look for a hammer and some nails?”

  On my way from the parlor through the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder and saw Victor staring over the puddle, his face as white as death. Just beside the water was the muddy outline of a footprint—one far too large to have been left behind by either of us.

  Victor’s gaze moved up to the spot where I stood at the center of the divide between the dimly lit kitchen and the sitting room, cloaked in darkness. His eyes met mine, and I saw that they were filled with terror.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered, reaching for the pistol that his friend Henry had left behind. He cocked the hammer and slid his finger around the trigger as he approached, staring past me into the blackness. Floorboards creaked somewhere in the shadows, and the pistol wobbled violently in Victor’s hand.

  Then lightning flashed, revealing the form lurking in the dark, and my life would never be the same again. I found myself gazing upon the creature from my nightmares. Even in the pale light, the wild black hair that fell over his face did little to hide the horrors that lurked underneath. His black lips were spread thin in a malevolent sneer. The long coat he wore barely concealed the rippling muscles underneath his colossal frame.

  Before Victor could pull the trigger, the creature crossed the distance between them in an instant and ripped the gun from his hands. He towered over Victor, contempt etched into every line of his malformed face. “This is how you greet me, Frankenstein? Did you really believe this weapon could harm me?” He laughed, but it was a cruel, pitiless sound. “There is no weapon forged by man that could inflict greater injury than what you yourself have already done.” He cast the gun into the darkness, an afterthought.

  “Don’t remind me of my sins,” Victor said darkly. “I know them well enough.”

  “No. Not nearly well enough.” The monster held his hands inches from Victor’s face. His fingers writhed like worms, as if they itched to wrap themselves around Victor’s neck.

  Victor flashed his teeth, his anger palpable. “I did what you asked. Here she stands as proof. Haven’t I suffered enough on your account?”

  The creature shook his head. “You know nothing of suffering. Or have you forgotten your part in this tale?” He took a step closer, until there was almost no room between them.

  Victor met his gaze without flinching. “Enough of this. Why are you here?”

  “You know very well,” the creature announced, and both turned to look at me. “I have come for her—for my bride.” He started toward me, the floorboards moaning under his weight.

  My eyes widened in terror. “Victor,” I pleaded, paralyzed by fear. “Afraid.”

  The creature stretched a yellow, scarred hand toward me, but Victor stepped between us. “No.”

  The monster shook with rage. “You will not deny me now, Creator.” With one sweeping motion, he knocked Victor across the room into the table, which broke underneath him. Victor landed on his stomach against the floor, coughing, and I ran to his side.

  “Victor!” I hurled myself beside him and helped him up, my hands gripping his shirt for dear life.

  The creature looked from Victor to me, and when he saw the expression of concern
on my face, his yellow eyes blazed with hate. “I should have known you would be too wretched to fulfill your oath, accursed Creator. Which of us is the monster now, Frankenstein?”

  The wind shrieked, as if in answer. “No hurt Victor,” I begged the monster.

  When he heard my voice, the creature forgot about his animosity toward his creator. “She is so beautiful. I wanted you to make her like me.” His voice was soft. “We would be two monsters together, with only each other for company. But this…this is what I truly wanted. You have done well, Maker.” He reached out and stroked my trembling face, wincing slightly as I recoiled from his touch.

  “Leave her alone,” Victor said. “Can’t you see she’s frightened of you?”

  The monster seized Victor’s neck in his stitched hand and held him close. “You would do well not to threaten me.”

  “Then take her,” Victor managed to say with the creature’s hand around his throat. “She means nothing to me. Do as you will and be done with it.”

  “Do you think I am blind?” the creature demanded. He released his grip on Victor, who slumped against the floor, clutching his throat. “I have seen the two of you together. Tell me, do you think she would still feel the same way if she knew the role you played in her sorrows? Do you imagine she could forgive you?”

  Victor closed his eyes. “There is blood on both our hands.”

  “Her mind is still young,” the monster said. “She needs time. Time to learn about the world, about herself. I should know, as I had no one to teach me.” The last words came out with a snarl. “You will teach her to care for me—to glimpse what lies behind this face you mangled.”

  “I know what lies behind it,” Victor said coolly.

  The creature stopped in the doorway to look at me one last time, and his expression softened for a moment before he again turned to face Victor. “But know this: I will return, and I will have her, or I shall finish what we began in Geneva.”

  Victor climbed to his feet. “Wait!” he shouted, and the creature glanced over his shoulder. “Now that I’ve done as you’ve asked, promise me that you will not harm my family. Tell me that they are safe.”

  The creature’s eyes moved up and down, studying his creator. “We shall see.” Then he was gone, vanished into the night.

  “You gave me your word,” Victor cried, racing after him into the storm. “You gave me your word!”

  But there was no answer.

  Chapter Four

  I found Victor in the sitting room, alone. My eyes, more acute than those of an ordinary human, perceived him standing in the dark, staring at his pocket watch. When Victor felt me standing behind him, he snapped the pocket watch shut and tucked it away next to his journal, as if afraid of what I might find inside. Sensing he was upset, I touched his shoulder lightly to comfort him, but Victor bristled at my touch and recoiled from me. The uncharacteristic reaction stung, and I lingered there behind him for a long while before hesitating and reaching out to him again.

  “Victor.” My tone was soft and understanding.

  This time he did not recoil. “It’s my fault,” he said finally, hanging his head. “It’s all my fault.” His voice broke, and when he turned to face me it seemed as though he might cry. “I created him, you see. I built him myself, stitch by stitch. He was supposed to be something beautiful, not a monster to haunt my every waking moment.”

  “Monster?” There was something curious and terrible about the word.

  “Something hateful and ugly beyond all others. I can hardly stand to look upon his cruel face. It mocks me, reminding me of my failures. I wanted to make a better world, not bring this horror upon it.”

  The very word made my skin crawl. What a terrible thing, it seemed to me. I shivered, remembering the creature’s yellow skin and horrible stature. He was indeed ugly, but that was not what frightened me. I knew little of the way the world defined and divided the ugly from the beautiful. It was his eyes that scared me, and the hatred they bore that hinted at a greater evil within.

  “In my heart, I know the truth—the truth I can barely bring myself to admit: I brought this upon myself. I had the chance to be a father to him, but when I saw his horrible face—heard his terrible cries—I was afraid. I fled from him in terror. Do you hate me for that, Persephone? You would be right to. I created him and rejected him, leaving him alone in a world that treated his ugliness with contempt. And so the outside became reflected inside, all because of me. If only I could go back to that wretched night!”

  The walls moaned under the weight of the storm, like ghosts wailing in the night. Victor’s knees buckled and he sank to the floor. I cried out as if I had been wounded myself and fell to my knees beside him, and we held each other close. His eyes were wet with tears.

  “The fiend murdered my brother. He strangled him with his bare hands!” Victor stared at his own hands as he said the words. “He promised he would destroy everyone I’ve ever cared for, unless…” There was a trepid pause as a silence hung over the room, punctuated by the rainfall against the windows. “Unless I made him a companion.”

  I did not yet understand the full weight of Victor’s words, or the meaning of his conversation with the creature, but I knew they meant something terrible. In the lightning, Victor’s face was already bruised from the creature’s blow. My mouth opened in alarm. “Victor hurt?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve no right to your concern. You’ve already suffered too much for my mistakes. When I think about the nightmare that lies in store for you…” Victor trailed off. When he spoke again, his voice was somber and cold, his expression, empty. “A nightmare without end. It was a mistake to bring you back to life. I thought it was a mercy, but now I see it for the cruelty it is. I have brought you into this world to face an eternity of torment, all to pay the price for my sins.” As we held each other, his gaze fell on the pistol the creature had cast aside.

  “Victor?” I asked, searching his eyes with my own.

  He fled from the room at once. I sat there in the darkness, unable to process all I had witnessed, until I heard his bedroom door shut above.

  “Monster,” I repeated, dwelling on the creature’s haunting countenance.

  Difficult as it might be to believe, the monster’s presence quickly faded. For me, his sudden appearance in the cottage was little more than a bad dream. There were no more nightmares, no more waking up in the night afraid. He became a distant memory, a momentary interruption in what I imagined were our happy lives. The creature’s threatening emergence, along with the earlier visit by Victor’s friend Henry, served as the first indication that our tranquil, solitary existence on the costal estate could not last forever. There was a vast world beyond what little I knew of life, and I was about to discover it. My first glimpse of this world occurred quite by accident.

  It was another icy winter day. Patches of clouds cast shadows over the earth, and the sun was nowhere to be found. I walked unaccompanied along the familiar trail that led through the woods. Victor had remained indoors after having used a syringe to draw several vials of my blood, which was an unusually dark, viscous substance. He was probably in his laboratory, poring over the specimen with a microscope. Although it was hardly my first time going out alone, never before had I ventured so far into the woods.

  The trees groaned as the winds rushed over the treetops, where black birds perched on bare branches, looking down on me. I walked along the winding, narrow trail, dressed in only a light gown and shoes. Bereft of a coat, gloves, or scarf, I was out of keeping with the season, but the cold never affected me the way it did Victor. The cottage had long ago vanished behind me, obscured by the distance and the trees. I was about to turn back when I noticed smoke looming above the treetops ahead. The sight puzzled me, for I knew our chimney spat smoke into the air, and yet the cottage was in the opposite direction—so where was this smoke coming from?

  Drawn by the smoke, I kept to the path and delved deeper into the forest. Eventually, I emerged on
the other side of the woods, in a place I had never been before. My first instinct was to turn around and run home, to Victor and to safety, yet my interest drew me forward. Outside the forest stretched miles of fields, green even in winter. The hilly terrain was littered with stones and boulders, along with a few solitary trees that appeared as if they had been left there by mistake.

  My gaze was fixed on the source of the faraway smoke. Beneath the hills, nestled underneath the woods, was the village Victor had spoken of. My mouth opened in awe, like an infant. I approached shyly, despite the distance and the fact I was by myself. Below, scores of villagers went about their day, each unique. The marketplace was crowded with merchants and craftsmen and their buyers. Children ran across cobblestone streets, playing and laughing. Bells chimed loudly from the church. Delicious aromas drifted toward me from the bakery.

  Somewhere nearby, a faint whistle emerged, accompanied by the sound of hooves trampling the earth. Before I could react, a man approached on horseback, riding against the wind. He seemed not to notice me. I watched curiously until the rider drew closer, and the horse reared up in reaction to my presence. The rider shouted for it to calm down, but the horse neighed and bucked loudly. Within moments it had hurled the rider to the mud and galloped away.

  The unseated rider let out a string of profanities. He attempted to rise from the ground before slipping and falling back into the mud, and I hurried to his side to help. He was a short, portly man, middle-aged, with nondescript features apart from a fiery red mustache. When I reached out, the rider regarded my porcelain white skin with a puzzled expression before taking my hand.

  “Your skin is cold as ice,” the man said, startled. His gaze swept over me. “You shouldn’t be out here dressed like that. You could catch your death of cold. Just look at you. Your lips are turning blue. Do you live around here?”