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Most mornings I had to dutifully visit Madame Frankenstein and play with boring little Ernest. I did not care about him, but it made Madame Frankenstein happy. She had told me when she was still pregnant with him, her stomach distended and horrible in a way I could not understand, that it was because of me she had finally been able to bring another child into t
he house.
I would have been happy to never see the baby. But I did not let her suspect that as I cooed over him long enough until I could slip back outside.
As soon as I was out of sight of the house, I would take off my white dress and set it carefully in a cleaned-out tree hollow. Then, free to wander without fear of damaging my clothes and bringing home proof of my transgressions, I would prowl through the trees like a wild creature.
I discovered warrens, nests, burrows, all the hidden places of things that creep and crawl, leap and bound, fly and flee among the deep green and loamy brown. Though my heart was filled with joy among them, my journeys served a dual purpose: if I discovered where the animals I loved lived, I could deliberately avoid them when I was with Victor.
When I could not be outside, during the depths of winter or in the afternoons when Victor returned, I studied his schoolwork or looked at paintings and read poetry. It delighted the Frankensteins. They saw it as evidence of my good breeding that at such a young age I was so attuned to the arts. But really, it was a way of escaping back into the wilderness when I was trapped inside.
If I could have worn nothing but my slips, I would have. But clothes were part of the role I played. And I never stepped out of character where they could see me.
* * *
—
“Elizabeth?”
I stopped stirring my tea, which had gone cool as I stared out the fog-covered window. I smiled at Justine to cover my lapse in attention. She returned my smile to let me know she did not mind. Things were always so with Justine. I could never do anything to make her cross with me. It was a tremendous relief not to have to choose each word and expression with care. Sometimes, though, our relationship felt as false as the one with my benefactors. I wondered if she truly was that good, or if she merely acted that way to avoid being sent back to her monster of a mother.
No. I did not really wonder. If there was any pure good in the world, anything as clear and unsullied as freshly fallen snow, it was Justine’s heart.
“What were you thinking of?” she asked.
“I was remembering the first time Victor left me to go to school. That was when he was thirteen, and it was just the local school in Geneva. He brought back all his books so I could study, too. And he brought back the most wickedly funny reports of his poor schoolmaster.” I could scarcely believe that was only five and a half years ago. Now Victor was nineteen, and he had not brought back anything, not even himself.
“Oh!” I set down my spoon and abandoned my cold tea for good. “His schoolmaster! I have just thought of our next clue. In one of his earliest letters he describes two professors at length. He seemed particularly keen to work with one, though both had knowledge he hoped to gain. Surely they will be able to direct us to him!”
I pulled out the meager collection of letters I had from Victor. Four, total, and three of those from his first month away. After that, seven months passed until the next. And after that, nothing.
I had Henry’s letter, too, from six months previous. But there was only one, and I did not care to read it ever again. The least he could have done was give me Victor’s new address before abandoning us both. But my anger had cooled after steeping for so long, to be replaced with gnawing fear. Victor’s extended silence could be attributed to any number of his less pliable traits. After all, I had been the one to gentle him. So long in my absence was not good for him. Or for us.
I stood, anxious for the day’s work to be done. “Let us visit some professors.”
PROFESSOR KREMPE WAS NOT nearly so unpleasant to look at as Victor had written. But Victor was so precise, so meticulous in his pursuit of perfection in all things, that someone with features as lopsided and coloring as uneven as Professor Krempe’s would be nearly unbearable for Victor to converse with.
If Victor could not fix it, he could not be around it. It was the fear of being unable to fix things that had driven him from Geneva. Had he found the answers he sought here?
Professor Krempe offered as little in the way of hope as he did in physical beauty. But his voice was kind and his expression apologetic. “He asked me for more chemistry books than a dozen students could need, and wrote me feverishly intense letters filled with the most astonishing and frequently absurd questions. But that all stopped more than a year ago. Indeed, until you young ladies knocked at my door, I assumed he had left his studies and moved on.”
My throat tightened at the thought of it. Moved on? No. Surely he was still here. He would not have gone to another city entirely without telling me. Even Henry had had the decency to tell me, if nothing else. “Do you perhaps have the address he was at when last he wrote you?”
“I do, but I doubt it will help. There was another friend looking for him, now that I think about it. A young man, handsome, with a round, friendly face and startlingly blue eyes.”
“Henry!” I said, too quickly and with far too much force. I blushed and smiled to cover my emotion, toying with my gloves. “Our friend Henry came to study here, as well. Do you know where else he went to look?”
Professor Krempe shook his head with genuine remorse. “I am sorry. I had an address for Victor that your Henry had already visited and found vacant. I do not know where he went next in his search. I see so many young men. I remember Henry only because he was so friendly, and I remember Victor for his remarkable intensity.” The professor paused, scratching his pockmarked chin thoughtfully. “I think he did not like me. He seemed uncomfortable in my presence. I was keen to work with him, though.”
“I am certain he liked you! You are one of only two professors he wrote of to me. He is simply…bright. He has an unusual mind, and it can be hard for him when talking to new people.”
Professor Krempe nodded. “I hope he has done well, wherever he ended up. I have never seen questions such as his, and doubt I ever will again. He was on the path to either genius or lunacy.” Realizing he had gone too far—I was unable to hide the panic his words brought to the surface—he held up his hands and laughed. “I jest. My odds are on him having taken up a different line of study and simply not needing me anymore. Somewhere he is plaguing a history professor with questions about the dental-care habits of ancient Mesopotamia.”
I held out a card, writing a smile onto my face with as much elegant determination as I had written out my information. “If you do think of anything that might help us find him, or if he happens to contact you—”
“I will send word immediately. It was lovely to meet you, Miss Elizabeth. Miss Justine.” He paused, and his next sentence was so studied and casual I suspected he hoped I would not notice how desperate it was. “If you find him, please let him know I would like to see what he has been working on.” He smiled. “I am ever so curious about his studies.”
“I will.” I would not. This man had done nothing to help me.
