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Toward the house.
I had come here to rescue Victor. But now that I had seen what he was doing—what he would have done, had I not discovered it and prevented him—I could not face him. My revulsion and anger would be plain on my face. Knowing what I did about his motivations and his obvious distaste for the work, I could perhaps forgive him eventually. He did what he did out of love and a desire to protect me.
But the cost!
Even now I could picture him carefully cutting open Justine. Filling her veins with some substance to take the place of the blood that had fed every blush of her lovely cheeks. Opening her chest to see the heart that had beaten with such love and devotion, now a dead thing until he was ready to force it violently back to life.
What would come back? I wondered. Surely Justine’s soul had long since fled this mortal plane. Free of the cruelty that had separated it from body, off to join her beloved William to care for in death as she had in life. Would this resurrected Justine be a shadow? With her mind and heart, but without anything good or lovely to animate them?
Perhaps that was why the monster had had no qualms about murdering a child. Victor could create life, yes. But he could not give it a soul, a higher morality, that thing which separated us from animals. That was why his experiment had both succeeded and miserably, devastatingly failed.
I dimmed the lamp, hoping Victor did not note its absence. I did not want to confront him until I was settled in my own emotions. Otherwise, how could I carefully guide his? Peering out the thick, warped glass of a small window, I saw that he carried his own lantern, and willed him not to come in here. My hopes were answered as he instead entered the cottage. It shared a wall with the outbuilding, and I could hear the muffled sounds of a body settling into a space.
And then I heard new footsteps. Louder by far, and syncopated with a rhythm no human stride would make.
I might have rationalized away my fears—We were so remote! How could the monster have come here?—but the desolation and harshness of this island seemed by its very form to have warned me that I would find only unholy things here. I knew the monster was with us. I cowered, pressing my ear to the wall. If the monster looked first to check on the progress of his unwilling mate, I would be discovered. I shuddered with relief as I heard the door to the cottage open once again. It was selfish of me to wish the monster on Victor, but I was in far more danger.
“Abominable demon.” Victor’s voice carried through the wall. “Why are you here?”
The monster answered, its tones so low I could not understand the words.
“Never will I create another like you, equal in deformity. Leave my sight forever.”
There followed a conversation that, because of some shift in position, I could not make out. Victor was enraged, and the garbled and tortured voice of the monster was impossible to interpret. I imagined he shrieked and growled, grunting his wishes and forcing Victor to glean some meaning from them.
Finally, Victor shouted, “Devil, cease! Do not poison the air with your filth. I will have nothing further to do with you. I am no coward to bend to your threats. Leave me. Nothing can bar me from my decision.”
My heart soared. Though I had removed Justine, it was evident Victor had already repented of his willingness to do the creature’s bidding. He would not have brought her back to life, even without my intervention.
And in that moment, I understood in part what had driven Victor in the first place. Because as soon as I knew Justine would, of a certainty, not be brought back…I wondered if she could be.
If I knew I would get her back—even without a soul, with just her heart and mind—would I ask him to do it?
It was more tempting than I cared to admit. I, who had struggled so, who had loved so little in my life, could be tempted to break the very laws of God. Could consider tampering with a creative force that had obviously bent itself to destruction. How much worse must it have been for Victor, who had the actual ability to call forth life? How much harder to resist the temptation to defy the natural bounds of our mortal coil?
But we both knew the cost, even if I would pretend I did not. I had already resolved it. If I confessed to Victor what I had seen, he would have to explain to me what he had done to Justine’s body and what
he might have done further. I did not want to speak of it.
Ever.
Victor could keep this secret. I would leave it to him so that I could forgive and love him still.
The door to the cottage flew open, and as that barrier was broken, I could at last understand the monster. To my shock, his voice, though deeper than any man’s, was accompanied by speech as eloquent as any I had ever heard.
“Your hours will pass in dread and misery! Soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your goals forever. You have stripped me of everything save revenge—revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your form, which hides so much. I, the monster, who shrinks now from sight, while you walk freely! Be careful what you do, Victor, for I will watch with the patience of a snake.”
“Leave!” Victor said, as cold and eternal as the wind buffeting the island. “Your mere presence offends me.”
“I go. But remember, I shall be with you on your wedding night.”
I shuddered, dread seizing me. This proved that I remained the monster’s target. Victor was not yet free of its demands, nor ever would he be.
But as long as Victor had something the monster wanted, he was safe. Assured of that, I sank against the wall. Victor was safe. I might be living under an unseen blade hovering ever ready to cut my soul from my body, but so long as I had breath, I had the same goal as the monster: revenge.
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