Darkness enveloped my little cell as I waited for my last sunrise. A cruel ending it was, to be hung in the square and have the name Frankenstein permanently branded with unhallowed deeds. The shadow of Victor’s legacy would trap me till the end, and I had only myself to blame. My selfish desires to revive my family had blinded me to Curwen’s dark work. A mistake I realized had likely cost many lives, judging from the number of crates I had delivered over the past few months. Human blood! Oh, if only I had known! How could I hate Victor when in my own obsession I had enabled such atrocities? What right had I to judge him when I was enslaved to the same master?
My head thumped against the wall in defeat. Victor. My mind drifted back to our final conversation in the villa, when we were all that remained of our family and a trembling husk was all that remained of him.
“That daemon has struck down everyone but you, and he is coming, Ernest! I have failed to stop him, and he shall claim you too, if you stand idle!”
“Calm yourself, Victor. You are unwell,” I soothed, watching him pace the floor. “Elizabeth’s death has shaken you.”
“Murder. She was murdered by him, Ernest! You must believe me!” Victor clutched my shoulders with boney fingers. He shoved his journal against my chest, and I saw his nails were gnawed to bloodied stubs. “Here is my journal, dated years ago! Could madness be so precise? So detail-oriented?”
Grief had settled into every line of his exhausted face. His manic eyes pleaded with me through the strands of unkempt hair that floated rather than fell around his head. I ignored the lice crawling in the knotted curls and gently shut the journal.
“Victor, you know I stumble with such fancy words. These are scribbles to me.” I patted his trembling hand. “How about we get some sleep, huh? The servants are pouring some Laudanum to calm your nerves.”
“I do not need calm, we must act,” Victor’s voice rose to the rafters in desperation. My hand discreetly waved forward the servants positioned in the hall. “I have wrought terrible mayhem upon our house, but I will not let my curse consume you too! You are all I have left, Ernest. I beg of you to believe me! Not these mad claims, but me. As my brother, you must heed this threat!”
“Yes, yes, Victor,” I smiled gently and fought back tears. Elizabeth and Papas’ deaths had broken him. My poor, hysteric brother! He had always been the strong one. The one with all the talent pushing my miserable frame to be better. Where had that trailblazer gone? My brother may have been clutching me, but he had abandoned me in spirit. The Victor I had known was gone. The servants filed in to take his imposter away.
“Do not let them do this, Ernest,” Victor fought the hands that restrained him, though he had lost the strength to fight long ago. “Please, believe me! I cannot lose you too!”
“You are mad with grief, Victor,” I soothed. “Rest will restore you.”
You are the strong one! How can you fall apart and leave me alone?
Victor opened his mouth, but my mind was set. Something like defeat settled in his eyes. Victor’s body went limp as the servants’ drug him to his room. His eyes never left me, two watery pits silently pleading to be heard.
Wanting to save a thick-skulled wretch like me.
My hands pressed against my eyes and I wept for words left unspoken. He had cared! Victor had done wrong by turning from God, but I had turned my back on my own brother who so desperately wanted to keep me safe.
Was that why his creature had spared me? Not because I was to insignificant for my death to hurt Victor, but because me living and reducing his suffering to the rambles of a madman was the ultimate punishment? Victor could find strength in those murdered by destroying his monster and avenging them. The misery I had to live with in their absence would not end by Victor putting a bullet through the creature’s heart. My murdered family’s thoughts were at peace, but my ongoing misery was Victor’s shame to carry to the grave knowing he was responsible. His fond letter crinkled in my pocket, and I knew I could not hate him. I knew then too, that the unhallowed work that had withered his spirit and decimated our family could not continue, no matter the intent.
The prison door swung open and a streak of light cut back the shadows. I covered my eyes from the haggard silhouette outlined against the intense brightness.
“Ernest, what in heavens name are you doing here?”
“Walton?” Blinking rapidly, I focused on the captain’s battered frame. “Have you come to take me to the gallows?”
Silence settled between us.
“I want to know why?”
“Why an invalid like me would play with a fire that scorched my brother?” I laughed bitterly. “I thought I could resurrect my family and we could be happy again, but not if their life comes from the death of others. I have seen death, Walton, and felt the void created in its wake. I would never subject anyone to that grief, even if it meant restoring my only source of happiness. I know what such work did to Victor and saw how it tore our family apart. I was a fool to think any good could come of its continuation.” I turned from the captain. “So write your sequel. Tell the world what a fool I am!”
“You are a fool,” Walton nodded. He bent beside me and rested his hand across mine. “But you are not a bad man. You clearly did not know the contents of your wicked cargo. It seems your destiny to be caught up in the madness of others, a lonely ship tossed about in a storm it could never hope to understand. You know better now, though.” Walton’s voice cracked. “Tell me who tricked you? What are they planning with Victor’s work?”
My repressed misgivings of Curwen resonated with Walton’s trembling voice. I had been too focused on my family to consider how Curwen would utilize the spark of life after they were brought back. What had he meant about merging raised souls with new flesh to be unstoppable?
“I do not know the details, but if the end justifies the mean, and that mean is human blood, it is a wicked thing,” I frowned. “Is this an interrogation?”
“A rescue,” Walton corrected, stepping aside to give me a clear path to the door. Seeing the confusion on my face, he pulled out an empty sack and smiled. “Your father was a magistrate. You should know how a few gold coins can sway a verdict. Yet not everyone has deep pockets, if you want the night on our side, we must quit this place and put an end to whatever is brewing on the edges of Ingolstadt.”
Gripping the wall, I pulled myself to a standing position, longing for my cane left by the river. “I will do whatever I can to stop Mr. Curwen from following in my brother’s steps.”
“We will stop,” Walton placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Captain, this is my sin to mend,” I said. “You must not jeopardize your life to let mine be at peace.”
“I fear all life will be in jeopardy if I stand idle,” Walton frowned. “I am more than just the historian of great men’s exploits, and you are not your brother. You do not have to do this alone.”
A roach darted in and out of the shaft of floor light. What chance had I of talking down Curwen alone? Walton knew the thrill of discovery, he could speak a language to Curwen that I had never known and Victor knew all too well. And, despite the pain Walton’s biography had caused me, I realized that Victor’s legacy overshadowed us both, but while I was tied to Victor by blood, Walton merely happened upon him by chance and was unknowingly thrust into this world of gods and monsters. I was shunned for the deeds of my brother, but as I looked at the frail captain, I knew he had suffered too. My hostility was unwarranted, and I extended my hand to relate as much to Walton.
“Shall we destroy that feind, then?” Walton asked, eagerly returning the handshake.
I thought of the morning after the servants had drug Victor away. I had stood in his empty room torn apart by a hasty deserter rushing to an Arctic death.
I shook my head beside Walton. I had ignored Victor for the last time.
“Walton, my brother held this man to the highest regard. I will not underplay the depravity of Mr. Curwen’s work, but perhaps his delusions of grandeur have incapacitated his ability to reason, a crime which I cannot judge, nor you, Arctic explorer. When we enter the university, let me speak with him before any rash action is taken.”
“And if speech fails?”
“You know what Mr. Curwen will do, and that cannot be.”
Walton looked reluctant, but having nearly died in his own quest for glory, he could not protest.
Outside, we were met by a horrid wind that sent overturned barrels bouncing across the streets. Walton found me a broom to replace my cane as we hurried past window shutters slamming open and shut. It seemed nature itself was sick of this wicked business.
“Does this Curwen character work with human flesh?” Walton shouted above the wind as we cleared the courtyard.
“Initially, though his process for reanimation differs greatly from Victors. He boils the body down to salt and relies on black magic for completion.”
Walton nodded with a frown. “By any chance, did you ever inspect Victor’s casket after I delivered him to you?”
“There was no reason to after I saw his face,” I said, confused by this question. A chorus of barks and howls rose up throughout the city. Were they following us?
“I see,” Walton said, eyes darting around in search of bloodhounds. “Given your former disbelief of Victor’s accomplishment, I refrained from sharing certain requests he relayed to me. Requests I felt best to omit from my biography.”
“Do tell?” I said as a man leaned out his window to wrangle the collar of his howling dog in a vain attempt to silence it.
“Victor said he did not wish to be brought back and asked for me to dismember and discard him after death,” Walton admitted, side stepped a bouncing barrel. “An odd request, considering he alone knew the secret of reanimation. Or so I thought.”
“Right,” I said absently. The unnamable smell from Curwen’s lab hung heavy in the air. “Did you do it?”
“I could only bring myself to throw his left hand overboard, I am no butcherer!” Walton shivered from more than the wind. “I did not know if that means anything to you now?”
“It appears straightforward enough,” I breathed as the gates of Ingolstadt University came into view. “Victor cannot be revived.”
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