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After Justine’s breathing went steady and slow with sleep, I eased out of bed, hungry and restless. I longed for the nights when, sleepless or plagued by nightmares, I could sneak down the hall and crawl into Victor’s bed. He was nearly always awake. Reading or writing. His brain never stopped, sleep too much of a nuisance. Perhaps that was why he was plagued by his fevers—his body forced him to finally shut down.
Knowing that whenever I was awake he would be, too, made life less lonely. The last two endless years I would lie in bed, wondering if he was awake. Certain he was. Certain that, if I could just get to him, he would shift over and let me curl up next to him and his work. To this day, nothing comforted me more than the scent of paper and ink.
I wished horrible Frau Gottschalk had a library, if only so I could bring a book to bed with me.
Confident that all my years of nighttime creeping would keep me safe, I slowly turned the doorknob. I remembered that the door creaked and would need to be moved with utmost care.
But my memory mattered not. The door was locked. From the outside.
Suddenly the room, which before had merely been too small, was suffocating. I could almost smell the rank breath of other children, feel the press of scabbed knees and brutal elbows. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply to exorcise the demons of my past. I would not go back to that. Ever.
But still there was not enough air in the room. I went to the shutters and did my best to pry them open without waking Justine. As I worked, I went over my plan.
I would go to Victor’s residence in the morning. I would not accuse or get angry. That never worked with Victor. I would smile and embrace him and remind him how much he loved me, how much better his days were with me in them. And if he brought up Henry, I would be perfectly innocent.
“What?” I whispered to myself in absolute surprise. “He asked you what?”
My finger got caught beneath one of the slats. I swore viciously beneath my breath, working it free. It was warm and wet. I stuck it in my mouth before the blood could stain my nightgown.
And if Victor did not seem to respond to my sweetness, I would simply cry. He never could stand it when I cried. It would hurt him. I smiled in anticipation, letting the meanness at my core stretch like ill-used muscles. He had left me alone in that house. I had Justine, yes, but Justine could not keep me safe.
I needed Victor back, and I would not let him abandon me again.
One of the slats finally slid free. Clutching it like a knife, I pressed my face against the opening to look down upon the empty street. The rain had stopped, clouds stroking the swollen moon like a tender lover.
Everything was still and quiet, shining wet and as clean as a city ever got. I saw nothing. I heard nothing.
I replaced the slat and then sat guard in front of our bedroom door, certain the only threat in Ingolstadt was the person we had paid to lock us in a dusty room.
* * *
—
Sometime before morning I startled awake, nearly falling from the chair. Dazed and half-asleep, I was drawn to the window as certainly as I had been drawn to Justine’s animal cries of pain that day in Geneva.
The street was empty. Had I dreamed a cry that pierced so deep—that my very soul recognized? Plagued by memories I did not wish to possess, I resumed vigil until dawn and the long-awaited click of the key to freedom.
BREAKFAST WAS A SOUR affair. Though I tried my best, Frau Gottschalk was impervious to my charms. Perhaps I overestimated them, or perhaps they were so well honed to the Frankensteins after all these years that they were worthless elsewhere.
It was not a comforting thought.
Frau Gottschalk refused to relinquish the key to our room—for our “protection,” as though guarding the virtue of young women were part of her contract. Her bread was somehow burned and doughy at the same time, her milk as fresh as I felt after such a sleepless night, and her company unbearable.
We beat a hasty retreat from the house. As the door closed and locked behind us, I let out a deep sigh of relief. At least that would be the only night we would have to spend there. Once we found Victor, we could get resettled.
Everything would be resettled.
I pulled out Victor’s last letter—from nearly eighteen months before, my fingers impulsively twitching into claws as I traced the date—and looked at his address. Though I had memorized it, the letter felt like a talisman that would guide us to him.
“Should we find a carriage?” Justine eyed the sky dubiously. The clouds were heavy with the threat of more rain. But I did not want to waste time finding a man to hire, and I ce
rtainly would not go back inside to ask Frau Gottschalk for help.
“After so long in the carriage yesterday, a walk will be just the thing.” Two years previous, when Victor was preparing to leave, I had copied a map of Ingolstadt. I took care to add all the flourishes and artistic details he seemed to admire when I did them. He used to laugh at how useless my art was, but he always showed it off proudly when the rare visitor came to the house.
I had the map I had used as the original. There were no flourishes because it was for me, and what was the point?
Tracing the lines of streets like a fortune-teller reading a future in a palm, I tapped my finger in time to my heartbeat. “Here,” I said. “Here we will find Victor.” Justine and I linked elbows and stepped carefully across the muddy borders of the cobblestone street, letting the currents of ink on my map draw us to our destination.
