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A new horror descended on me, though this was less a mortal terror and more a humiliating fear.
Victor was my husband. We had shared a bed countless nights growing up. But now we were man and wife: I, at seventeen, a woman; and he…
I dared not turn around. The bed behind me felt as though it were growing, taking up more and more of the room, lurking like the monster itself in anticipation of claiming me.
I had wanted to wed as a means to kill a monster. All my plans had centered on spending my wedding night in a fight for my own life, and for Victor’s, as well. I had never once considered a wedding night on which we were safe and relatively free.
I was hit with a sudden longing for a mother. Not any mother I had ever known—the horrible woman here who I sincerely hoped was dead, or useless Madame Frankenstein—but a mother like what I imagined a mother should be.
A mother like Justine.
A longing for my friend punched through me with physical force, and I collapsed to the floor. Escaping Geneva had not let me escape the ghosts of my past.
I could not simply stay here, safe. Painting. Sitting at Victor’s side as he studied. We might have left Geneva, but I had not left behind my purpose. I pulled out my journal, desperately reviewing what I knew of the monster and what I had written about it.
The words on the pages led my mind inexorably to the memory of William, lying dead. I wished I had never seen him, never branded on my memory the cold body, the closed eyes, the terrible bruises on his neck. Even now I could see them, each mark of a brutal finger written on the skin with blackest violence.
I pictured the monster: picking him up, silencing his scream, placing its enormous hands around his—
I set down the journal and raised my fingers to my neck. Something was wrong. I could feel the edges of my certainty fraying.
The prints of the fingers on William’s neck were not misshapen, not massive. They were as slender as my own hands.
Which meant that the monster had not murdered William.
Someone else had slowly squeezed the life from the boy. Someone else had carefully taken the pendant. Someone else had found Justine and planted the pendant on her when she was asleep. Someone else had engineered the sequence of events perfectly so that—
I let out a choked sob of horror.
Someone else had engineered the sequence of events perfectly so that he could have Justine’s body.
“Victor,” I whispered.
“Yes, my love?” he answered, a dark silhouette in the doorway.
ALL MY MANY YEARS of tailoring my emotions to fit others’ needs, of making certain I showed only what was expedient, of training myself to be someone else’s, failed me.
I was unable to pretend.
“Victor.” My voice trembled as the scaffolding of my life fell away to reveal a ruinous and terrible mausoleum where I had sought to build a home. “Did you kill your brother?”
“Which one?” His question was genuine; there was no teasing in his voice. He entered the room and sat on the bench at the foot of the bed, crossing one leg over the other knee.
I gasped out a choking laugh of shock and disbelief. “Which one?”
He raised an eyebrow, as though I were the one being confusing. “I have two dead brothers. I suppose I did kill Robert, but it was an accident. I was just curious.”
“Who is Robert?” My mind whirled as it tried to fill in the past with this new information.
“My first brother. The one who died as an infant.”
“I am not talking about that! I have never asked you about that!”
He frowned at my shrill tone. “I know. Because you understand me.”
I stood, buzzing and numb at the same time. I was going to fly apart. I clasped my hands tightly in front of myself to keep them from shaking. “I am talking about William. Did you kill William?”
He said nothing, blinking several times as his eyebrows drew close together. I had always loved that expression, loved the though
