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“Thank you,” the girl whispered, wrapping her slender fingers around mine so that neither of our hands shook anymore.
“I am Elizabeth,” I said.
“I am Justine.”
I turned to look at her. Her cheek was bright red from being struck. It would blossom into an ugly bruise by the next day. Her eyes, large and wide-set, stared back at me with the same gratitude I remembered feeling when Victor accepted me and took me away from my own painful life. She looked about my age or, judging by her height, perhaps a year or two older.
“Is it always like that?” I whispered, brushing a soft curl away from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.
She nodded silently, closing her eyes and leaning down to rest her forehead against mine. “She hates me. I have never known why. I am her daughter, her own child, same as the others. But she hates me, and—”
“Shhh.” I drew her close so that her head nestled into the curve of my neck and shoulder. If it was luck that my own beauty had saved me from a life of cruelty and want, then I would extend that same grace and luck to Justine. Though we had only just met, I felt a soul-deep connection to her, and I knew we would be part of each other’s lives forever.
“I do not actually need a maid,” I said. She tensed, so I hurried on. “Can you read?”
“Yes, and write. My father taught me.”
That was fortunate. An idea took root. “Have you ever considered being a governess?”
Justine, puzzled, stopped crying. She straightened to look at me, her delicate eyebrows raised. “I have been in charge of educating and caring for my youngest siblings. But I never thought of pursuing it outside of the home. My mother tells me I am too wicked and stupid—”
“Your mother is a fool. I want you to never again think of anything she told you about yourself. It was all lies. Do you understand?”
Justine held my gaze as though I were a rope pulling her in from drowning. She nodded.
“Good. Come. I am going to introduce the Frankensteins to their new governess.”
“Are they your family?”
“Yes. And now you are, too.”
Her innocent eyes shone with hope, and she impulsively kissed my cheek. The kiss felt like a cool hand on a fevered brow, and I gasped. Justine laughed, then embraced me again. “Thank you,” she whispered in my ear. “You have saved me.”
* * *
—
“Justine,” I said, my voice as bright and cheerful as the boardinghouse was not, “will you help me open the window?”
She blinked as though waking up. If I remembered our first meeting with that much clarity, I could not imagine what my ill-chosen words had made her remember about the time before we found each other. Maybe it had been selfish of me to make her come along to Ingolstadt to find Victor. She had always felt so at home in the Frankensteins’ isolated manor. The lake served as a buffer between Justine and her old life. She devoted herself entirely to her two young charges, and she was happy. While I had craved escape, I had not thought what disruption might mean for her.
I wish I had found her earlier. Seventeen years with that woman! Victor had saved me when I was but five.
Victor, why did you leave me?
“It is locked.” She pointed to the top of the window, where the shutters were fastened to the frame.
I leaned close, peering up. “No; they have been nailed shut.”
“This is a strange house.” Justine gently placed the quilt on a rickety chair.
“Just one night.” I sat on my bed, the ropes beneath the mattress straining. On the table between the two narrow beds was the only fresh thing in the whole room: the promised cotton for our ears.
What was it we were not supposed to hear?
* * *
—
