“I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you.”
—The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
“…did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?”
—Paradise Lost
Some folks are born destined for greatness. Others live content in ignorant mediocrity, never knowing what could have been. Then there is me. Born into wealth, but barred from inheritance. Raised to be great, but crippled from illness. Dinning amidst kings and counselors, yet ever aware of that unseen barrier separating me from them. Was that not my first memory? My brother halfway out the door, glancing back to remind me I was too little to follow. Too weak. Left behind while he set out to make a name for himself. A name that has haunted me long after fleeing Geneva.
“But I am alive,” I whispered. Whether it was to my drink or the cockroach circling its rim, I could not say. Usually I could handle the memories, but tonight was the four-year anniversary of my brother’s death, and by God I longed to forget amidst this shabby tavern.
Taking another swig, I half listened to the men behind my lonely table clank mugs and bet on who was the lowest on Fortuna’s wheel. Their strange accents branded them fellow refugees.
“The revolutionaries ransacked the whole farm!”
“Well, the bloody peasants welcomed Napoleon in my city! I had to flee with only the clothes on my back. You know how the French handled their own revolution. Can you top that, mates?”
My heart ached for these poor souls. Seeking connection through tragedy, I tipped my chair back to face them.
“Illness struck my mama down when I was a boy,” I said.
“Did it?” The grit on the central speaker’s face cracked beneath a mocking smile.
“Yes, and our trusted family maid strangled my little brother. Shortly afterwards a good friend was murdered abroad, and my dear cousin’s neck was snapped on her wedding night. The pain of it drove my papa to an early grave and my surviving brother insane. The servants thought our family cursed and fled, and I followed suit when the riots escalated.”
Silence fell over the already solemn tavern. A few men on the sidelines glanced up.
“I’ll be dammed,” someone called. “We can toast to that! To…”
“Ernest,” I raised my glass, holding back a cough. “Ernest Frankenstein.”
The tavern chanted my name with a bitterness only hardened refugees could master. Many of them had likely been noblemen or magistrates, all pointless titles once the fever of revolution had gripped the masses. The upper class had been blamed for every economic and social injustice, and in the fires of vengeance, not even my deceased parent’s philanthropy had saved the Frankenstein villa from rioters.
From the lakefront I had watched the flames devour my past, present, and foolishly assumed future dwelling. I would compare it to Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise, but they at least had one another. What had I? A few hastily gathered heirlooms and happy memories trapped inside coffins? Wretched world! Paradise was lost to me the day Captain Walton presented my last family tie in a casket. He had found Victor half-frozen in the Arctic, chasing imagined monsters he blamed for the misfortune that plagued us. My poor, hysteric brother! I downed the rest of my drink, so much for burying bad memories. As I tried (and failed) to get that miserable captain from my mind, I pulled a few silver francs from my pocket. I would last three months, best. The only heirloom I had not bartered for bread was Victor’s pocket journal, and I doubted the ravings of a madman would fetch a high price. Taking my cane, I started toward the splintering door. A little girl dashed in front of me and I clutched the counter to steady myself. She pranced to the bartender and tugged on his pant leg with tiny hands. The patches on her dress were the same fabric as his pants—his daughter no doubt.
“My apologies,” the bartender bowed to me while shaking off the girl. “Turn away for an instant and the children wreak havoc!”
“You are fine,” I nodded. The girl held an empty bowl in her sooty fingers. William had been around her age when Elizabeth and I had first taken him to the lake to catch crawdads. The memory made me smile, and I dropped a few francs on the counter as I passed. “Feed your family.”
Two months now, but I would manage. A tall gentleman with arms crossed over his half-buttoned coat opened the door for me, and I thanked him before stepping onto the dirt road. The moonlight enveloped the surrounding forest in dancing silver. If I walked all night, I could arrive in the next town by morning, presuming my legs could carry me that far. The sooner Ingolstadt was behind me, the better.
A multitude of steps thundered after me. Biting my lip, I continued onward.
“Pardon me, Monsieur Frankenstein.”
There was venom in those words. I turned to face the group of three, recognizing the badly buttoned coat of the man in front who had held the door. I had not anticipated such a broken-down tavern housing learned readers. It seemed that in times of war even the mighty seek to forget the world.
“I presume you have read that captain’s so-called biography of my brother?” I interrupted the expected affirmative. “You should know that Victor was aliéné, completely insane.”
“Graverobbing will do that to a man,” Button Boy’s meaty fingers flexed. “As will lurking around God’s domain doing the devil’s work!”
The absence of people in the streets was not lost on me. Most people had wisely laughed Walton’s narrative off as a madman’s rambles, but others saw their deepest fears galvanized within Victor’s delusions. Thrusting their terrors of a quickly modernizing world onto who they saw as the ultimate embodiment of progression gone wrong. They had taken fiction for fact, and once they made the connection between him and I, well…
“Tell me, Ernest, are you aware of the concept of the hereditary taint?”
“Oh my, I just realized that I have important business elsewhere,” I backed away and thumped against solid muscle. Fingers gripped my boney shoulders as a hoarse voice whispered into my ear.
“It is the belief that characteristics are passed from parent to offspring.”
“Interesting. A fine theory to consider while being on my way…”
Button Boy took a bold step forward. “Characteristics like madness, for example, taint the entire family. It is only a matter of time before they all go the same way.”
Victor’s journal weighed heavy in my pocket.
“Good sirs, I fear you are mistaken,” I said, straining my neck to the man restricting me. “I have been an invalid since boyhood. These bones are incapable of mimicking my elder brother. If you hold that biography so dear, you would know that I had no say in his monster’s creation!”
“Perhaps.”
The tone was not reassuring.
“I am not my brother,” I jerked around but the hands easily held me. “Release me! Or I-”
Button Boy stuffed a rag between my teeth to stifle my pointless threats. What could I have said? That wounding me would have them tried by my high standing dead father and jailed by my dead country? You have nothing, Ernest. You are nothing now!
The exhaustion in my heart made my pitiful thrashing falter. My head fell against my attacker’s solid chest, soaking the shirt with sweat. If this was the climax to nineteen long years of suffering, why had I been born at all? What was your intent, Lord?
“This is for the good of humanity,” Button Boy leaned in close. Had William also stared into the eyes of his killer? What were his final thoughts as the maid he loved choked the life from his little body? Fingers gripped my throat and I gagged.
A shout came from somewhere, though my world had shrunk to those two murderous eyes. Out of the night, a fist punched Button Boy’s head with a force that broke his grip. I gurgled a choked gasp and collapsed on the road as the man behind me fled toward the trees. Light and dark wrestled for my vision as shouts and sounds of flesh on flesh erupted nearby. A new man whose blond curls drooped from wet sweat wrestled with Button Boy. Though Button Boy boasted a greater strength, his slim opponent easily dodged his fists and hit back with the skill of a man well-versed in human anatomy. Button Boy leaped up to strike the stranger’s face, but the taller man easily knocked his fist aside and punched his jaw with a force that sent him reeling. Button Boy clutched his mouth as he rushed off, dodging bottles the tavern hurled after him. The blond watched his escape with icy eyes before walking over to me.
“Is the boy injured?” the bartender called from the doorstep.
“Slightly stunned, but he will recover. I shall tend to him,” the stranger called back with enough confidence to convince the onlookers to file back inside the tavern. Better to avoid conflict than catch the eye of the wrong people.
“Can you walk, Monsieur?” the stranger asked with a poorly disguised American accent. He plucked my cane from the ground and handed it to me as I staggered to my feet.
“I am fine. Thank you, kind sir. Who knows what ditch I would be in now, had you not arrived,” I shuttered, extending my hand that he shook with the upmost class. A peculiar odor clung to him that I had never smelt before.
“Anything for a Frankenstein.”
Our hands dropped and I tried to cover a bad tear on my pants. “I take it you knew Papa, in better days.”
Better days. When my parents regularly welcomed renowned scholars to our villa. Justine had kept little William and I occupied while they discussed politics and theory. My throat burned from more than the aftertaste of cheap brandy. Justine. How could we have known what she was capable of?
“I never had the privilege to meet your father,” the stranger shuffled his shoe in the dirt. The moonlight reflected the fine quality of it. “Though Victor told me he was quite distinguished in your republic.”
My head lifted. “You knew my brother?”
“We shared several classes here at Ingolstadt,” the stranger explained. He looked to be in his late 20’s, what Victor would be now, had he lived. “Victor must have mentioned the name Joseph Curwen in passing? I was his chief competition.”
“I am afraid your name is new to me, Mr. Curwen,” I admitted. “From what I could gather, Victor would forget this place if he could. He guarded his secrets, I fear.”
“To a fault,” Curwen muttered. “It is a great shame. Your brother was a genius. Truly the Modern Prometheus of this age!”
“A fitting name,” I muttered. “Eagles feasting on your liver day after day would make even the greatest man go insane.”
“I heard he passed away, if this is to be believed.” Curwen pulled a book from his satchel. Even in the low light, I recognized Walton’s publication. “A great loss for humanity, to lose a mind as cultivated as his. It is quite the coincidence that I should meet you, Ernest, I was on my way to visit his grave and pay my deepest respects.”
Poor man! I owed him the truth, horrid though it was. “I am so sorry, Mr. Curwen, but Napoleon runs Geneva now. The Frankenstein tomb could be desecrated for all I know.”
“But not destroyed. It would be there in some form, correct?” Curwen’s voice fell to a whisper and I shuttered despite the warm breeze. “You would know your native land better than I. Could you take me to your brother?”
“Suicide,” I stumbled backward. Having just escaped death, I had no intent on testing my luck.
“I shall make it worth your while,” Curwen returned the book to his satchel and pulled out a piece of strange jewelry. It looked to be a tiara, though the patterns etched on its front held an unearthly splendor unlike any I had seen from Europe. The moonlight sent the golden coat sparkling, though the reflection suggested some foreign alloy.
“What metal is that?”
“One that will fetch a fine price,” Curwen winked and tossed me the tiara. I scrambled to catch it in time. “Us merchants have our secrets too.”
I tipped the headpiece back and forth, ever aware of the loose change rattling in my pocket.
“Please Ernest, merchantry may be my occupation, but respect for the dead is my duty,” Curwen gave a dramatic bow, perhaps an American attempt at being cordial? The habits of foreigners were largely unknown to me, when they visited our villa, Victor’s company was understandably preferred to mine. Yet hearing this stranger speak of my infamous brother so fondly was a gift in and of itself, and, I reminded myself, he had saved my life.
“I cannot promise you results, Mr. Curwen, but for the sake of my brother I will assist you as best I can.”
Curwen shook my hand again, how I missed such kind contact! “It would be much appreciated, Monsieur. We shall embark tomorrow. Until then, you must rest at my residence.”
“Really?” It was as though I were a human and not an assumed madman’s relative or corrupt aristocrat!
“For Victor’s brother, it is the least I can do,” Curwen turned from the tavern. “Come now, the university is nearby.”
“University?” my cane plunked in the dirt. “You cannot mean Ingolstadt University?”
“Where else?”
“But they closed earlier this year! From financial troubles, if I recall?”
“Which makes it the perfect abode to rest in peace,” Curwen chuckled, as though the last bit were humorous. “I assure you it is safe. The few remaining stragglers fled when the French invaded.”
Break in? Did this man consider me a criminal? Closing my eyes, I reminded myself that I was not much anymore, us invalids had to take what we could. Without Papa’s cushion of wealth, the sooner I accepted that reality the better.
“Alright, as long as no one will mind.”
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