Bride

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  I nodded bashfully. “I…I am Persephone,” I said, still painfully enunciating each syllable in my name.

  “That’s a right curious name,” the man said. He fetched his hat from the ground and began wiping the dirt away. “Sorry about my horse. Something must have spooked her. I seem to be no worse for the wear.” He smiled, as if to indicate that he was fine, and I did the same reflexively.

  “You sound…strange.” The man’s voice was thick with an unfamiliar Scottish accent, which sounded distinctly different from Victor’s voice.

  The man laughed, causing his mustache to move up and down with each heave of his chest. “You’re the one who sounds strange in this land, my lady. You’re in the King’s country.”

  His meaning was lost on me. “Do you…live there?” I asked slowly, pointing to the village.

  “Well, I don’t know where else I’d be living around here.” It seemed to dawn on him that I had come from the forest. “You came from that way?” he asked, and when I nodded enthusiastically, his smile fell. “In the cottage by the sea?”

  “Yes,” I replied with another nod. “In the cottage. I live in the cottage.”

  “There’s talk in the village about odd things afoot on that land, if you pardon me for saying so,” the man said. “Some manner of foreign physician, from what I’ve heard. His friend is staying in the tavern—the man keeps mostly to himself. Suspicious if you ask me. Say, are you sure you’re all right? Maybe you should see the doctor in the village.”

  My eyes widened with excitement. “I want to go to the village,” I said in agreement.

  “In that case, come along,” the man said. His horse had wandered a short distance away, though it remained wary of me. He approached the animal, but I stayed put, uncertain of the best course of action. What if I was unable to find the path home? “Come along now,” the stranger said. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”

  I started forward, until a voice rang out behind me.

  “Persephone!” I looked back and saw Victor approaching quickly from the forest. He did not look pleased.

  “Is this a friend of yours?” the rider asked suspiciously. I could tell that he was troubled by Victor’s sudden appearance, though I couldn’t imagine why.

  “Yes,” I agreed as Victor drew near. “Victor is my friend.”

  “This is my sister,” Victor said, grabbing my arm, “and she’s quite unwell. She wandered away from the cottage, feverish. I need to take her back.”

  “Let me help,” the rider offered, although he looked as if he wanted in no way to accompany us back through the shadowy forest. “It’s the least I can do.” When he started toward us, his horse almost pulled out of his grasp as it tried to resist him.

  “There’s no need for concern,” Victor said. “We’ll be on our way.”

  “Farewell,” the stranger said when we departed.

  “I warned you about straying too far from the cottage,” Victor said to me through clenched teeth. He led me away, and I frowned as the village shrank in the distance. His behavior didn’t make sense. The stranger seemed kindly enough. I was sure he didn’t mean any harm, and yet Victor had taken an instant dislike to him.

  “I am unwell?” Despite what Victor told the man, I felt perfectly fine.

  Victor paused and glanced behind. The stranger was no longer visible. “I needed to get rid of him without drawing unwanted attention.”

  “Why?” I asked, confused. “He was a friend.” I looked at him hopefully. “There are more friends in the village?”

  Victor’s expression changed, at once calculating and appraising. “There is nothing for you there. Only pain.” He took me by the shoulders. “Promise me you’ll never go there on your own. Promise me.”

  I nodded meekly, stunned by his seriousness.

  Until this point, I had generally seen Victor as truthful. It troubled me that he could lie so easily to the stranger. For the first time, I wondered if he had ever lied to me.

  While Victor remained clearly unsettled by the creature’s threat, I was far too preoccupied to follow suit. I was changing more and more each day, becoming something new—someone new. At long last, everything I had learned started to coalesce. Within days after the creature’s departure I began to read and write. My thoughts came in complete sentences. Suddenly, the world around me began to make sense.

  It was like stirring from a deep sleep. The more I learned, the more I hungered for knowledge. Something had awoken inside me, and it would not be quieted. For each question answered, two more sprang up to take its place. I now had a name, but who was I really? Where did I come from?

  Although the answers I sought lay tantalizingly out of reach, some truths were hidden just beneath the surface. A few nights later, when Victor asked how I wanted to spend the evening, I asked if he would read me a story.

  “Actually, I thought you might read to me this time,” Victor replied. “It would be a good opportunity for you to practice what you’ve learned, and I rather enjoy the sound of your voice.” I smiled at that last part, and Victor turned to his bookshelf to retrieve an exceptionally large volume covered in dust. It was an old copy of the Bible, frayed and tattered, but still intact. “In fact, I have just the story in mind.” He handed it to me like a parent bestowing a gift upon a child, and I accepted the book reverently.

  “Where do I begin?” I asked. Victor turned to the passage he had selected, and I started reading—slowly at first, with growing confidence as I continued. The words slid off my tongue with ease for the most part, though occasionally I had to stop to sound out an unfamiliar word.

  “On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, “‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will…rise again.’” I gazed at Victor, surprised.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “This is a strange story. How can someone rise again when they are dead?” In my mind’s eye, I pictured the broken form of the robin we had buried beneath the oak tree.

  “You haven’t finished the story yet,” Victor said, wearing a sage expression. “Go on.”

  I started reading again, my interest commingled with an inexplicable sense of unease. It was a beautiful story, about love and the triumph of life over death, but I couldn’t help feeling something in the story was meant for me—that Victor had chosen it for a reason.

  “Jesus…came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.” I looked away. “Like the graves in the cemetery?”

  “Something like that,” he answered.

  “‘He told them…he told them to take away the stone,” I said.

  “What did he do next?” Victor asked, gauging my reaction.

  “Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.” I sat there, puzzled. “What does it mean? I don’t understand, Victor.”

  “You will,” he said.

  “This story—it isn’t like the others we’ve read. Is it real?”

  “I’m the wrong person to ask that,” Victor replied, suddenly reticent. “There was a time when I believed all the stories in this book.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Things changed,” Victor said. “I learned that life wasn’t at all like what was written in these stories—that it could be harsh and unforgiving.”

  I delved deeper into the book, long after Victor retired for the evening. The next day, I picked up where I left off, and so on until I reached the end. I wanted to believe the words I had read more than anything, but the image of the robin refused to leave my thoughts. How could a loving Creator have allowed His creations to know such pain and suffering in the first place? It was a question to which I didn’t have an answer, not with life still so new to me.

  After that, I read voraciously. Each story was a gateway to a new world, con
taining a new truth previously unknown to me. One morning, Victor entered the sitting room and found me poring over one of the books from his study, completely absorbed. My ears were well attuned to the noises he made, and I heard him coming before he crossed the threshold.

  “Good morning, Victor,” I said cheerfully, glancing up from the pages with a smile.

  If he was startled that I had detected his presence so easily, he gave no sign of it. His gaze moved over me, and his brow furrowed. “You were wearing that dress yesterday. Have you been reading all night?”

  Sunlight streamed through the windows, and I realized it was morning. The candle had burned down to a stump beside me, its flame extinguished. A stack of finished books rested on the tea table at my side.

  “Goodness,” I exclaimed. “I lost track of time. Honestly, I hardly feel the need to sleep at all anymore.” I let out an embarrassed laugh and ran a hand through my hair. “I must look a frightful mess.”

  “Never,” Victor assured me. “In fact, I’d say you look particularly lovely this morning.” He regarded me with a strange expression, as if he was meeting a stranger and no longer knew quite how to behave around me. “What are you reading?”

  “Blake,” I answered, showing him the book’s cover.

  Victor took the seat across from me and grimaced. “Poetry,” he muttered, seeming amused. “Of all the useful volumes available in my study, you had to go and find a Romantic.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “You could use a healthy portion of Romanticism—something apart from those dull scientific texts your shelves are stuffed with. Then maybe you wouldn’t be so gloomy all the time.”

  “It might surprise you to learn that I have interests outside of science,” he replied coyly. “I wasn’t always a doctor. In my younger years, I was fond of fairytales and philosophy.”

  “You?” I asked in disbelief. “Victor Frankenstein? What changed?”

  He looked away. “That is a story for another time, I think,” he said, perusing the other books I had finished. “Homer?”

  I let out a sad sigh. “I read his account of Hades and Persephone. Tell me Victor, why did you name me after such a sad tale?”

  He looked away, sad. “The world isn’t always the way we want it to be,” he answered. “We may seek to avoid pain, but it will always be with us.”

  “What a frightful account! There is joy, too,” I reminded him. I was hoping to elicit a smile, but he gave only a tacit nod.

  “Are all these sketches yours?” he asked, looking around the room. His gaze lingered on the canvases I had left hanging about, which depicted various animals and landscapes I had observed during my walks through nature.

  “Yes,” I replied brightly. “I did most of them yesterday, when you were cooped up in the attic. Do you like them?”

  Victor stood and walked over to one of the drawings. “The detail is remarkable,” he muttered, tracing the penciled outline with his finger. “You’ve progressed so much in such a short time.”

  “I tried drawing the horses, but for some reason they always seem to panic at my approach. Why is that, Victor? I don’t mean to frighten them. They’re always so calm around you.”

  He didn’t answer. “I thought we might walk through the forest today after your lessons. Perhaps I could prepare some food and we could make a picnic of it.”

  “It sounds like the perfect day. Let me bathe and change, and I’ll find you in the study.” I rose and gave him a peck on the cheek before dashing upstairs, leaving him standing with a surprised and troubled look on his face, touching his cheek where my kiss still lingered.

  It was almost as if he was frightened.

  Chapter Five

  My lessons began in earnest. It was only a short while ago that I had struggled to speak. Now, under Victor’s tutelage, I studied geography, mathematics, literature, history, and science, among other disciplines. Some subjects came to me more easily than others. Science and mathematics—Victor’s bread and butter—bored me endlessly. History and literature, on the other hand, interested me to no end. Nevertheless, I worked hard to master every lesson he taught to prove myself a worthy student, and also began to fathom the vastness of his own brilliance. There seemed no subject he had not mastered, no problem he could not solve.

  “I’m going to town in the morning to see Henry,” Victor announced one night after dinner. “I have to warn him about our unannounced visitor.” It was clear from his tone that he was concerned for his friend. I suspected the only reason he hadn’t sent word already was out of concern for me, but now I was more than capable of looking after myself. “Do you think you can manage without me? I’ll only be gone one day.”

  “Take me with you to the village. I want to see the world, Victor, with my own eyes.”

  Victor shook his head slowly. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?” I asked, disappointed. My curiosity about the world beyond the cottage had grown at a fervent pace since my awakening. I longed to experience the sights, sounds, and sensations I had read about in the pages of Victor’s books. It was one thing when neither of us strayed outside the forest’s border, but now Victor was traveling to the village and leaving me behind, alone.

  “You’re still not ready,” he said matter-of-factly. I felt a small stirring of resentment toward him for deciding that he knew what was best for me. Victor had made every consequential choice on my behalf since the night of my birth. Despite how far I had come, he still didn’t seem to see me as an equal. I started to speak out, but he touched my face gently, and I stiffened in response to his touch. “The world is a strange, unkind place—especially for those who are different. I want to make sure you’re prepared before you go out into it.” He let his hand linger on my face for a brief moment before he turned and began gathering his things. “You will see the village, Persephone. I promise you that.”

  I stayed awake long after Victor retired to bed, unable to quiet my mind. My thoughts were too restless to be calmed by my beloved books. As I had told Victor earlier, I hardly needed sleep. It only took a short nap every few days to renew my energy. Neither did I require food to the same extent that Victor seemed to, though I still ate mainly for pleasure. I sensed I was different from him, but just how different, I had not yet guessed.

  As the moonlight danced on the floor, I picked up Victor’s violin and began to play, softly at first to avoid waking him. I played by ear, picturing how he had held the instrument. It bothered me that there were things that Victor wouldn’t tell me. On some level, I had always suspected Victor carried secrets, but now I was beginning to understand that he was keeping them from me. More than ever before, I felt there was something wrong with my life. Finally, I decided that perhaps sleep would grant me the peace I sought.

  Victor was already gone when I woke. I began to change clothes, but stopped in front of the mirror. For the first time, I noticed my scars. In contrast to the creature’s mauled flesh, my scars were few, neat, and tidy. The stitches had been sewn with a steady, cautious hand. I approached the mirror, my fingers grazing a set of stitches that ran the length of my shoulder blade. Tremulous hands pried back my clothing, revealing three more pairs of scars running across my ribs, all the way down to my bellybutton. My breath came in shallow gasps as I peered closer and noticed two stitched scars under my hairline on my temples.

  Memories that had simmered under the surface came roaring to the forefront. Suddenly, my pale skin and lack of a heartbeat took on a new, enigmatic meaning. I thought again of how the wolf attacked me in the forest, and how the horses reacted violently to my mere presence. I was not like Victor, but what kind of a person did that make me?

  I had not forgotten the night of my birth, although now I was another creature entirely than the pitiful thing that collapsed in the rain, incapable of speech. The memories of those first few days in the attic came back unbidden. This was not how normal human beings were born. What isn’t he telling me? I wondered, and it suddenly occurred to me where I m
ight find the answers I sought.

  The attic door had been mysteriously locked, barring my entrance to the laboratory. “Victor,” I muttered with a frown. I paused outside the door, aware he must have locked it for a reason. Victor had only been kind to me, and if I proceeded, it would be in clear violation of his privacy and wishes.

  I must know. I pushed against the door with all my strength, and the wooden frame gave way against the use of force. The door fell open before me. There was no turning back now. I looked at my hands, surprised by the sudden surge of strength. What else was I capable of?

  Victor’s laboratory was laid bare before me, and I gazed upon it with new eyes. I saw the table to which my body had been strapped, where I had awoken. I crossed to the center of the room and laid my hands upon its surface, staring up at the trapdoors that had ushered in the storm. My eyes followed the wires that once hummed with electricity and had long since fallen silent. I saw the cot where Victor had slept beside his desk, and the table where we ate our first meal together.

  Then I noticed the book that had been left on the desk. It was Victor’s journal. I approached the leather-bound book with a sense of unease. How often had I longed to examine its pages, to discover what secrets it kept? My fingers grazed its cover, which was weathered and wrinkled with use. I felt a sense of shame as I opened the book, but my curiosity was too great.

  I turned to a random page and found myself staring at an illustration of myself sitting at the table not long after my birth. Victor’s drawing had rendered me more favorably than I must have appeared, depicting me as beautiful and innocent. I read the accompanying entry.

  I wonder what she will become. She is not like her predecessor, but neither is she entirely human anymore, either. That life ended the moment of her death. The creature now before me is no longer human. She will never die—she will live forever. She will never grow sick, or feel pain in the way that humans do.