Page 30 of Her Creation

“We need to learn something about him, a mistake he’s made—something that we could use to free you from his coercion.”

Victoria stared blankly out the window in silence, unable to look at her friend during the last bend of trail before the castle as she listened to Helena rambling passionately about the various methods they could use to stop Wilhelm from his abuse and free her from the situation.

At the castle, the two women said their goodbyes, and Victoria made to step out of the carriage and into the night, her foot hovering above the step. The realization fell to her that not once, in all the mentions of finding a way to help Victoria, not one time had Helena so much as asked what the secret was. She was ready and willing to fight for Victoria blindly.

Unfamiliar warmth bloomed in her hollow chest. She fell back into the coach and put her arms on Helena’s shoulders, giving her an awkward hug.

“Thank you,” she muttered, moving quickly back out of the carriage and into the front door of the castle before the other woman could respond.

“There she is! How was your evening?” Alphonse called out happily, greeting her by the large circular table in the center of the dark entrance.

“It was nice,” Victoria said, and for once, she meant it.

“Walk with me, tell me everything.” He smiled widely. Just as his foot lifted to take the single step onto the level of the landing by the door, he tripped. His body fell forward, narrowly missing the sharp corner of the molding beneath the stairs to the upper levels.

“Papa!” Victoria cried out as she lunged at him. She helped him off the floor, frantically searching his face and hands for injuries.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

Once she realized he was all right, the frustrated anger that had been held behind a barricade too long snapped out of her. “This is idiotic! How can you have these symptoms for so long and we cannot find a cure?” she shouted as she raised her hands high in frustration. “Have you even tried? Or are you as eager to leave me as mother was!”

Her words lashed across Alphonse’s face, causing him to wince as if he’d been slapped.

Exhausted and frustrated, Victoria continued her rant. “Over the years I have watched you heal things that are impossible to heal. I have watched you diagnose and cure intricate diseases when you did nothing more than look at the symptoms of their tongues! How can we not figure out what plagues you?” Her chest rose and fell with ragged, heavy breaths.

Alphonse looked at his daughter sorrowfully. His mouth drooped at the corners as he hunched in on himself, looking deflated and broken. He crept to the step he’d tripped over and sat down before patting the space next to him and signaling Victoria to sit. When she did, his gaze lingered on her face a moment before he spoke again.

“I know what it is, Vic.”

Her eyes rounded. “What do you mean, you know what it is? Why wouldn’t you tell me?” The slow, dragging pace of his answers filled her with a sense of creeping dread she had never felt. “Well, then what is it? What is the cure?”

Alphonse’s head nodded slightly, more as if he were encouraging himself to finish what he’d started than a nod to her. “I believe it to be something called paralysis agitans. Some believe it’s caused by the brain, some believe it’s the nervous system—a surgeon in England believes it’s related to the spinal cord.”

Victoria gripped his forearms, needing to stabilize herself before she fell from an unseen cliff of panic. “That’s great news! We will figure out how to stop it. We can compare all their findings and—why are you looking at me like that? Papa, why are you looking at me like that?”

“I had this disease long before you knew of it. After your mother passed, it became worse. The thought of leaving you in this world alone, without either Mary or me, was too much. I worked tirelessly to find a cure and—” His eyes glistened in the dark room.

“And what? What is the cure?” Victoria interrupted as her eyes welled with tears, knowing her father too well.

“I don’t believe there is one,” he whispered softly. He picked at a stray piece of skin on his finger.

Victoria shook her head violently, her hand clapped over her mouth as panic set in. “Then we will find one; I will find one.” She stood, unable to sit another second. “How have I not read anything about this? You say you’ve studied it extensively, but I’ve pored over all your notes and all your books. There is no way I would have missed something like this, and I’ve never even seen the term paralysis agitans.” She turned to her father accusingly.

He rose from the step and tightened his robes closer. “I removed all traces of it because I didn’t want you to know.”

Victoria’s brows furrowed. “Why?” she snapped angrily, furious that he would stop her from helping him.

“Because I had already spent too much time exhausting the material instead of spending my precious and limited time with you. I know you, Vic. I know you would never stop until you found a cure, and I don’t want that. What I want is to spend the rest of my time with you, focusing on things you want to do—things that I might not always be around to get to see or experience with you.” He cleared his throat.

Victoria’s anger fell, shot down from the skies at the sight of him struggling. She would keep it to herself and not burden him with her own struggles. “How does it progress? How long do we have?”

Alphonse sighed heavily and rubbed his temples in a circular motion as he sat. “It’s hard to say. Not much is known about it. From the case studies, it’s unlikely to cause me any severe harm, only discomfort and difficulty with movement. It seems to progress quickly in some, slowly in others. It’s likely that I will eventually require a wheelchair as my legs and arms will continue to be more and more difficult to use.”

Victoria stood with her thoughts in silence for a moment. “Then perhaps a small cottage would be better for us after all? I don’t think I can carry you up the stairs to your room, and if it isn’t already obvious, I will not marry for money.” Victoria attempted to jest, pointing to the stairs.

She watched as it hit Alphonse differently.

“Yes, well, I have given it a tremendous amount of thought, and I struggle endlessly with the thought of you being forced into a man’s arms whom you don’t love. As a father, it’s far more important to me that you be happy than that you make some other man happy, including myself.”