Bride

by Kyle Alexander Romines

  I searched for my creator among the masses of people, but he was nowhere to be found. Alarmed, I began calling his name, causing no small number of people to take note and begin murmuring. Just when I was about to give up hope, I spotted someone who looked like Victor through the crowd. I pushed my way through the people and grabbed his arm, turning him toward me, but to my surprise, I found myself face to face with a stranger.

  “Is something wrong, ma’am?” the stranger asked, concerned. “You look pale.” It was all I could do not to scream.

  The day passed quickly, and it was noon before I knew it. When I asked others if they knew Victor, or had word of him, no one was willing to help me. This was not the world that I had longed for, depicted in the storybooks on Victor’s shelves. These people were distant and unfeeling, unmoved by my plight. As evening approached with no word of Victor, it took all my resolve to retain my composure. The snows started again, and I searched for a place to seek refuge, but with no money, I was turned away at every door.

  My path gradually led me farther from the marketplace to a less affluent district of the city, where even the soldiers seemed not to tread. The poor begged for food, covered in dirt, their clothes ragged. Everywhere I looked the sick and infirm were suffering, unseen by those who were better off. Brawlers spilled out of pubs, fighting and swearing. I was horrified by the conditions in which these people lived. Victor had never prepared me for anything like this.

  The sun set, marking the end of my first day without my creator. Eventually, I found a lonely spot in a deserted alleyway. There I lay under the cover of darkness, fighting back tears, uncertain what future awaited me. I closed my eyes, hoping that when I woke, the world would be different.

  In my sleep, I swam against a current of memories and dreams. Fleeting moments and images lingered in my mind’s eye, disappearing like wisps of smoke whenever I attempted to focus on one. The landscape of my mind was a canvas that had been repainted, but the job had been botched, and glimpses of what lay underneath remained. Nearly all these shattered thoughts were too faint to leave a lasting impression, like a thread unraveled too far to ever be sewn again.

  I reached out desperately, perched somewhere in that gray twilight between slumber and conscious thought. Suddenly I was no longer lying in the cold, dark alleyway. Instead, my world was filled with brilliant, radiant sunlight. I was warm, so warm—a feeling I had never experienced since the moment I first stirred in Victor’s laboratory. Birds sang somewhere beyond me, their voices joining in a beautiful chorus.

  Where am I? I wondered, and the memory grew more vivid as it unfolded.

  A vast castle towered above me, as if it had appeared straight out of my storybook. I stood at its feet, holding the hand of a middle-aged woman I did not recognize, with strong features and graying hair. Behind us, a carriage drove away toward a city that loomed in the distance, nestled under the mountains. I cast a sad look back at the carriage as it disappeared down the trail, and returned my attention to the castle.

  What is this place?

  As if reading my mind, the woman knelt down and whispered in my ear. “Welcome to Castle Frankenstein. This will be your new home, Justine.”

  “I don’t want to go,” I pleaded, though I made no movement to flee. “Please don’t make me.”

  The woman sniffled, moved by my words, and kindly patted my head. “Everything will be all right, child. You will be well looked after in this place. You will grow to like it here in time—you’ll see.”

  “I miss my mother,” I said, to which the woman did not respond. “I miss my father.” She offered only a half-smile, though her eyes were full of pity.

  I wanted to remain there, to look around, but my body followed the woman up the stairs, toward the massive doorway granting entry to the castle. It was as if I was actually there, and yet I felt powerless to effect change. The past could not be altered. My grip tightened around the woman’s hand as we crossed the threshold into the castle, where servants watched me quietly as they worked. I glanced about each room, fidgeting nervously with my plain, patched dress.

  A mirror hung in one of the rooms, and my heart raced at the sight of my own reflection. The feeling of a heartbeat was a strange and wonderful sensation, one I could now experience only through the past. I was much younger in the memory, little more than a child. My complexion was full of color, my eyes a lively green. My body was weak and vulnerable, but also warm and full of life. I could have stared at the image for hours, but the memory continued undaunted, and we passed through the room into another.

  Finally we came to the family room, a spacious chamber in the heart of the castle where a new collection of strangers awaited. I looked around in awe at the ornately decorated room. An immense chandelier hung from the ceiling, burning with light. Rich tapestries adorned the walls. Tall staircases rose in the corners of the room, leading deeper into the castle.

  “Welcome, Justine,” said a woman standing in the center of the room. She was tall and regal, like a queen. She wore an elegant red dress, and her golden hair was bound loosely behind her neck. “Look how lovely you are.”

  Her smile filled the room with more light than the chandelier, and I couldn’t help feeling at ease in this woman’s presence. “Good morning, ma’am,” I said weakly.

  “How old are you, Justine?” she asked.

  “Twelve, ma’am.”

  The woman approached and knelt beside me. “My name is Caroline Frankenstein. I know it must be hard on you being away from home, but in time I hope you will come to think of us as your family.”

  I stood shyly by her side as Caroline introduced me to the remaining members of the family present in the room: Alphonse, her husband, Ernest, her sickly, middle son, William, a baby she held to her chest, and Elizabeth, her niece—a pretty girl with blonde hair and fair skin. After the introductions were over, Caroline asked me about myself before requesting that one of the servants show me around the castle and arrange for my supper.

  That night, I lay in my bed, unable to sleep. It was black inside the castle, and the small candle on my nightstand barely kept the shadows at bay. I fought back tears, frightened and alone on my first night in this strange new place. A low, soft sound echoed outside my door, and I slid out of bed, listening carefully. It sounded like music, a beautiful melody that seemed to calm my nerves. Taking the candle from my bedside, I pushed open the door and advanced down the hallway, seeking out the source of the sound.

  The door had been left open to a room at the end of the hall, where a boy played a violin in a candlelit room. I watched him in the faint light, mesmerized by the music. Suddenly, he spotted me, and my eyes grew wide as saucers.

  “Don’t be afraid.” He waved me into the room. “I’m Victor,” he said, holding the violin at his side. He was only a few years older than I, on the cusp of young adulthood. “And who might you be? I don’t think I’ve seen you around the castle before, and I have a very good eye for faces.”

  “Justine,” I answered hesitantly, afraid he would leave me standing alone in the dark if I didn’t speak.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Victor said. “Tell me, Justine, what are you doing up so late?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I confessed. “I was scared.”

  Victor followed my gaze as I peered back into the vast darkness behind me, and a knowing look came over his face. “I used to be afraid, too,” he said quietly, as if admitting a private indignity. “The feeling will pass, I promise. The world is never as scary as we think. Until then, why don’t you remain here for a while and listen to me practice?” He smiled and lifted his violin.

  I nodded eagerly, and he resumed playing, until at last my eyes grew heavy. Then the sound of voices ripped me from the memory, and from my sleep.

  “Victor?” I asked hopefully, still half-asleep. Then it came rushing back to me. I was not Justine, but Persephone, and Victor was gone. Shapes approached down the alleyway, and my eyes discerned four men with sinister-looki
ng expressions coming toward me.

  “Look what we have here, boys,” one of them said. “Easy prey.”

  “Stay back,” I protested. They were on me before I could move, kicking me where I lay as I futilely tried to shield myself.

  Suddenly, one of the men vanished into the darkness with a scream, and the others stopped at once. My head was spinning from the violence, and I crawled away, glancing back over my shoulder.

  “What was that?” one of my attackers demanded of his companions.

  “There’s something there,” another answered, his gaze on the spot where a monstrous frame loomed in the shadows.

  The creature stepped forward, wearing a terrible look of wrath. He reached out and slammed one of the remaining attackers into a nearby wall so hard the man’s head left a bloodstain behind. He wrapped his hands around another’s throat and lifted him into the air until the man’s legs stopped kicking and fell still. The fourth man tried to run, but the creature dragged him away into the darkness. I heard an awful snapping sound, and moments later the creature reemerged, his hands covered in blood.

  Victor’s monster knelt forward, his untamed hair falling wildly about his hideous countenance. He stroked my trembling face with a bloody hand. My gaze moved from him to the trail of bodies he had left in his wake, and I struggled to reconcile the gentle gesture with the brutality he had unleashed without a second thought.

  “I knew I would find you.” The smile he wore looked foreign to his face, as if he had never had the occasion to use it before. “There is nowhere you can go that I will not follow.”

  The memory of his visit to the cottage returned, a time when I had been just as vulnerable. Unlike then, I was now in full possession of my wits, and I had no intention of becoming his prisoner. I pushed myself off the ground, propelling myself at him with a savage cry. The creature caught my fists before I could strike, pinning them in his colossal hands.

  “This is how you would treat your savior?” the creature demanded, his voice a low hiss. How quickly he switched from one emotion to the next, gentle one moment and full of fury the next. I struggled mightily against him, but he forced my hands to my sides and spun me around, his black lips against my ear. “When last we met, you took me by surprise. Though you are powerful—no doubt an unintended effect of our creator’s making—your strength is nothing compared to mine, your rage only a drop in the infinite fount of my wrath.”

  “Release me,” I protested, held fast against his gigantic frame.

  He laughed, an eerie sound in the quiet nightscape. “I would sooner tear out my own heart. Now that I have found you, my bride, I will never let you go.”

  The creature’s words filled my stilled heart with icy dread. “Victor will come for me.”

  He stiffened at the mention of Victor’s name. “He will do nothing of the sort. I’ve seen to that. Our pitiful creator will have his hands full with the authorities in the small matter of the death of Henry Clerval.”

  “You killed Henry,” I muttered. “You murdered him and framed Victor.” For the first time, it struck me just how cunning, and how devious, this monster was.

  He brought me face to face with his leering grin. “There is no one coming for you, Persephone. It shall be you and I, alone, until the end of days.” With that, he swept me off my feet and carried me into the falling snows.

  “Where are you taking me?” I demanded, but he did not answer. When I tried to scream, he clamped his hand over my mouth and held me fast.

  Darkness swelled around us, the light of the waning moon a flicker in the night. There was not a living soul within sight. We kept to the alleyways and the back roads in places no man should dwell. Penned and chained animals erupted in frenzy whenever we passed, but by the time their masters awoke, we were already gone.

  Up close, the creature was even more hideous than I realized before. My right hand was perilously close to one of the many rows of uneven stitches, this particular trail reaching down his neck. Even in the dim light, his cruel yellow eyes gleamed with hate. I found it astonishing that Victor could have created such a being, in whom malevolence lurked behind every feature.

  The air grew colder the farther we walked. I spotted the bridge rising in the distance, and a short time later a dense fog crept up from the harbor, clinging to the streets. The creature carried me into the mist, his worn, undersized boots rattling against a wooden staircase as we made our descent. My ears detected the creaking sound of boats shifting in the water, and I realized that he was taking me to the river.

  “Now we will leave the wretched world of man behind,” the creature said as he lowered me into a sailboat. At the last minute, I broke free with a kick and crashed against the dock, but he caught my ankle before I could escape. “It’s no use resisting me,” he said, dragging me back toward him as I clawed the wooden planks for dear life. “You are mine.”

  A lantern flashed through the fog, accompanied by a cheerful whistle. The patrolman, I thought. I tried desperately to cry out to him, but the creature’s hands muffled the faint noise.

  “Is someone there?” a voice called, and the creature turned around and bared his teeth before receding into the fog.

  The lantern grew closer, and a kindly older man with a long white mustache materialized in the mist, holding the lantern in one hand and a musket in the other. When he spotted me, the whistle died on his lips.

  “Are you all right, miss?” he asked, but before I could reply, the creature stepped forward and grabbed the man from behind, ready to strangle him to death.

  “Wait,” I shouted, stretching out my hand. “Don’t hurt him.” The creature stopped, his shimmering eyes on me. “Let him go. Please.” I bowed my head, willing myself to say the words. “I will go with you.”

  The monster seemed to consider my words for a moment longer, looking from me to the patrolman in his grip. “Very well, my bride,” he said with a sneer. He released the guard, who toppled onto the dock. “For you alone, I would set aside my hatred of mankind.”

  He extended his hand to me where I lay. I cast one look back at the city, as if Victor might appear at the last second to deliver me, but he did not come. He had left me alone with his monster, with no escape from this waking nightmare. My gaze lingered a moment longer on the life I might have known, and then I reached up with a shaking hand.

  Chapter Nine

  There was no sleep for me that night. I doubted I would ever sleep again.

  Morning, when it came, was almost indistinguishable from the long dark that preceded it. The mist had receded, revealing a lifeless gray sky, illuminated by the tepid light that permeated the array of clouds. I sat against the mast, facing the water, my back to the creature steering at the bow of the boat. Neither of us had exchanged a word since we embarked from the harbor. Perth was a distant memory; the city had long ago vanished over the horizon.

  We sailed north, for what destination I did not know. I was the creature’s captive, no longer in control of my own fate—if I had ever been truly free in the first place. The wonderful world I once believed in had soured, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Thunder whispered softly behind malformed black clouds so large they swallowed the sun. Harsh winds battered barren trees on a rocky shoreline licked by the crashing waves.

  The snowfall ceased as we traveled farther, though the river was covered with thick sheets of ice. The boat rocked to and fro against the choppy water, and I found myself almost wishing it would capsize. I watched the blackbirds flying along the bank, envious they could be so free.

  I cradled Victor’s pocket watch in my palm, the last link to my creator. I wondered where he was, if he was looking for me somewhere. Had he truly abandoned me of his own volition, or had he been arrested for Henry’s murder, as the creature suggested?

  “I was there on the night of your birth.”

  I bristled at the sound of the creature’s voice as it broke the silence, almost lost against the low rumbling of thunder.


  “I was there in the shadows, watching.”

  I turned my head to catch a quick peek at him. At the breaking of dawn, he had pulled a long, ragged hood over his head. Though the hood concealed most of his face, a portion of his taut, scarred skin was visible, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end.

  “I came so close to our creator, and yet he did not sense me. His neck would have been a twig in my hands, had I wished it, but I thought…I thought he made you for me, as a gift.” The creature shook his head, as if disgusted with himself. “It was a foolish hope—a child’s hope. Had Frankenstein bestowed on me only a fraction of the kindness he showered upon you, much would be different today.”

  “You were there,” I said, repeating his words. “I saw you in my dreams.” My skin crawled at the realization that all the nights I had woken from my slumber to discover him looming in the darkness weren’t dreams at all.

  The creature looked up, and our eyes met. “I was always there. I watched you grow. For your sake, I left Victor unharmed as you learned, so that you would receive all that I never did.” His expression hardened. “I never imagined that he would be so wretched as to attempt to keep you for himself. He should have prepared you for me, taught you to care for me, as I have grown to love you.”

  This sudden profession of love from someone who had just kidnapped me struck me as perverse. “If you truly cared for me, you wouldn’t have abducted me against my will. Love should be kind.” I thought of Victor comforting me on my first night in the castle. “It should be a choice.”

  The waves lifted the boat, and water poured in over the sides as it came crashing down again. I returned to the pocket watch to my dress so as not to lose it.