The churning river was an inky black beneath the moonless night. I met the man Curwen had described standing beside a small sloop in a narrowed channel hidden from the main docks by a stretch of pines. His hat was pulled over his face as he directed the handful of crew members to load the cargo into my newly purchased wagon.
“Thank you, sir,” I extended my hand to the fine fellow. “I cannot express how much these contents will benefit me!”
The man let out a scratchy laugh as he rubbed the strange necklace Curwen had given me for payment with calloused fingers. He stank of peat and dead fish.
“You swim in deep waters, boy. Do you know the contents of this cargo?”
“Dark magic trinkets. Vials and weird mushrooms, I would imagine?” That was what Victor had worked with.
The man laughed again, shaking his head. Feeling my incompetence, I set my cane against a tree and limped over to grab a crate not yet loaded on my wagon. The weight made me stagger as liquid sloshed back and forth inside.
“Careful scamp,” the captain called. “That is the finest chemical France has to offer! Only thing those hounds are good for.”
“I know,” I puffed, though my feet stumbled and the crate smashed against the rocks. A passing sailor snatched it up with a chuckle as the group roared with laughter. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the gashes the rocks had torn in my new pants. I felt the same heat in my cheeks that arose whenever the kids in Geneva had mocked me for being unable to keep up with their games. The jeers evolved in both their frequency and intensity until I had stopped coming outside altogether. Victor had been the one to convince me to rejoin society. He had taken my hand and led me past the laughing faces at the market to buy me a wooden sword for my aspiring career as a soldier. Victor cared little for the opinions of anyone outside our home and took no issue with hurling rocks at my tormentors until they left me alone and I was a happy child once more. Elizabeth had once said that my parent’s extensive travels across Europe when he was a boy had deterred Victor from forming any real connections outside our little circle. Family, he once told me while bouncing tiny William on his leg, were the only permanent forms of fellowship one could count on.
Yet he had ruined ours.
When the laughing crew had finished loading my wagon, I left their mocking behind and led my new horse down the winding backroads. Cannonballs lodged into trees reflected us as we passed. It seemed revolution had penetrated even the depths of nature. My horse clopped along the overgrown paths without complaint until we neared the gates of Ingolstadt University.
“Come on,” I encouraged, lightly tapping him with my cane. The horse bolted up with a sharp bray that echoed through the forest, nearly knocking me from the wagon as I fought for control with the bucking beast. I would never reach Curwen at this rate! If I could not do the most basic of tasks, what sort of assistant was I? Justine’s face flickered in my mind, her hands shooing me away.
“Do not trouble yourself, young master. I can sweep up this broken vase just fine by myself.”
“But I can help!”
“Not with those lungs. You must take it easy.”
“Life is not easy,” I muttered and yanked the reigns sharply toward the gateway. The horse reared up again and flung me from the wagon to the forest floor. I rolled over just as a hoof smashed down where my head had been. From the ground, I saw Curwen’s feet rushing over, a wooden plank swinging from his hand.
“Down you beast, down!” he screeched and whacked the horse between the eyes. The horse struck out his hoof, but Curwen dodged and smashed the plank into the horse’s head again. The creature staggered backward, and the wagon creaked beside me. I jumped up and steadied it as Curwen pulled a glass vial from his pocket and shoved it beneath the horse’s nose. The horse let out a smaller neigh and shook its head with less force than before. Curwen grabbed his chin and pressed the horse’s face to his. “You will obey me, bloody brute!”
Curwen’s usually calm face contorted as he struck the creature again, though the horse had given up long ago.
“Mr. Curwen, that is enough,” I pleaded. The poor animal was swaying!
Curwen’s eyes locked on me, and I felt myself falling into the pits of his eyes. Shaking my head, I hobbled between him and the horse and rested my hand against the creature’s sweat-slick neck. There was something about the beast’s helplessness that pained me.
“I shall lead him the rest of the way,” I said. “He is calmer now.”
Curwen’s face flushed with returning color. “A fine idea. I shall show you where to leave our supplies,” he smiled at me, a gentleman once more. “You did well, Ernest. I would have never reached the docks on my own.”
My momentary unease withered beneath Curwen’s praise. Fetching his materials was dangerous, but I had succeeded! See Justine, I can do more than watch from the sidelines!
I guided the dazed horse along gently as Curwen led us to the old lecture building where he had set up his makeshift lab. After I tied the steed to a nearby tree, Curwen loaded a good portion of the crates and odd vases onto a smaller wagon and motioned for me to follow him. I instinctively turned down the hall where his lab was, but Curwen pointed to a stairway I had not noticed before. The scorch marks around the opening were not reassuring.
“These materials must be stored deep underground, where it is cool.” Curwen gave a formal bow. “After you.”
“Me?” I squeaked. That unnamable smell from the lab was practically rolling from the crypt.
“Who else can hold the torch?” Curwen’s teeth flashed. “Unless you can push this cart yourself?”
Feeling my uselessness, I snatched a torch from the wall and descended the steps. Curwen followed behind with the wagon, each step sending the mysterious liquid sloshing around within the crates. Unlike the plain cobbled stone utilized aboveground, the stairway and walls were smoothed down and decorated with chiseled images that boasted a technique aesthetically evolved to the highest degree.
“Weishaupt had these catacombs constructed during his time as headmaster,” Curwen’s voice echoed unnaturally. These walls absorbed sound too. “Officials sealed the crypt off after running him out, long before our time. Victor and I used to speculate on what secrets the Illuminati hid here beneath the world of man. I only recently cleared the stonework to enter myself.”
“It must have taken years to chisel the artwork alone,” I breathed. The dancing shadows made the artwork look alive.
“Legend says Weishaupt’s crew finished in three months.”
“That is impossible!”
“Not if the workers were more than human,” Curwen smiled as he passed an image of a star-shaped plant creature in that utterly alien style. “Consider this an honor. Besides us, no mortal has trod this sacred ground for decades!”
A screech sounded ahead of us.
“See, in our absence the rats rule this world!”
“That was no rat,” I breathed, halting on my step. “That was a bark. No, a dog imitating a human scream!”
“Do you hear how ridiculous you sound,” Curwen laughed, and I fell silent, ever aware of how feeble my lone torch was compared to the surrounding darkness.
At the end of the stairway, Curwen began lighting the mounted torches that slowly revealed a massive circular room with honeycomb corridors splitting off in multiple directions. My eyes broke from the cryptic symbols etched above each entrance to the image chiseled into the stone floor. Nearly the entire floorspace was dedicated to the horribly realistic etching of a creature with curling swaths of tentacles dotted with glowing orbs of yellow eyes. So many eyes! Such a dreadful yellow!
“That creature,” I whispered. “I saw it in my dream!”
“Your deep grief must be manifesting into literal monsters,” Curwen frowned. “It will pass once your family is returned.”
“No, this is identical to the monster in my dreamscape! How can that be, when I have never seen it before?” I shivered from more than the crypt’s biting cold. The surrounding carvings radiated the same unearthly quality as Curwen’s mysterious merchant jewelry. Sunlight had never touched this place, and neither should creatures that belonged in its light like us.
“Calm yourself, Ernest,” Curwen patted my back. “Perhaps the lack of air is too trying for your weak lungs?” He raised two fingers to stop my reply. “These vases of salt are small enough for even you to handle. Bring them to the room on the left. I shall carry the crates to their own resting place.”
I started to protest, but the eyes chiseled into that life-like stonework seemed to be watching me. Studying. I did not wish to linger here any longer than necessary.
The salt in the vases rattled as I entered the stone room of furnaces half-hidden by dust and white ash. My arm cleared charred wood chips from a furnace to place the vases. I noticed the corner of something white peeking from beneath the stone structure. Pulling out the paper and brushing off the dust, I stared at a letter with the wax seal still intact. I held the paper to my torch with trembling hands, but my poor literacy skills were not deceiving me, the wax emblem was imprinted with the distinct Frankenstein seal! I broke the wax and the aged paper crinkled in protest as I read the contents dated nearly nine years ago:
Dearest Family,
I hope this letter finds you in good health, assuming it finds you at all. I have yet to receive any communications from your end, though I am told such delays are common here at Ingolstadt.
Rest assured though, that I am not alone. Fate has been kind to bless me with a fellow kindred spirit! Though he too is a first year, Mr. Curwen has shown me much to compensate for my late start due to Mother’s abrupt passing.
The next lines had a thicker consistency of ink, as though the author had taken a long break after recounting this death.
Curwen is a true friend. He eagerly shares my enthusiasm for Agrippa and Paracelsus and has introduced me to the writings of Borellus and other great men M. Krempe relentlessly mocks in his lectures. Do not fret Father, for I assure you that these genius writings receive little more than chuckles from my peers. My research does not involve the forbidden texts you have warned me of, and certainly not that horrid Necronomicon, contrary to Curwen’s attempts to convince me of its worth.
In other news, I have made terrific progress on my theory of galvanism, which my next letter shall humor you with in greater detail, for I fear I have bored you enough. Give little William many kisses for me, and do write soon! Curwen is a fine companion, but he is steadfast in his ambition and does not understand me as you all do.
Postscript: I found this particularly vibrant leaf native to Germany that I am confident Ernest will enjoy, nature fanatic that he is. I entrust you will deliver it to him safely.
Best,
Victor Frankenstein
My finger traced the imprint of the long-since decayed leaf on the paper. Victor had written! Frequently too, if this letter was to be believed, and these were not the rambles of a madman. Rather, they were the sincere concerns of a brother. My brother, who had taught me to catch moths without damaging the wings so I could show Mama. Who Curwen said had never walked these formerly boarded halls.
“Ernest, are you in here?”
“Yes, Mr. Curwen,” I said, stuffing the letter in my coat and turning to the figure in the doorway.
“Good. A man can become lost down here if he wanders. When you have finished unloading, come up to the dining hall.” Curwen’s voice lightened. “The revolutionaries did a poor job raiding the pantry!”
“I will, sir,” I nodded, and waited for his shadow to pass. As Curwen’s footsteps faded, I dropped the letter and watched it float back beneath the furnace, perfectly hidden from the surrounding ashes. My stomach lurched from more than hunger as I snatched it back up. We had heard nothing from Victor for years until Henry found him. Had someone burned Victor’s letters, and I held the sole survivor? If so, why had Victor kept silent when we confronted him on his lack of communication and told Walton he had neglected to write at all? Why hide proof that he cared? Dead or alive, Victor’s secrets seemed intent to haunt me.
The weak neighs of my horse reached me long before climbing back into the world of men. Whatever Curwen had given him had worn off, and his sides heaved as he tugged against the rope. My fingers made quick work of untying the knot. The motion rejuvenated the horse, and he rushed off into the waning night to leave all this mystery behind. I would tell Curwen the animal had overpowered me. No one deserved to be trapped here, and if they were, it should be their choice to make.
Comments (0)
See all