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Chapter 1: Monster
We found the monster on a rocky ledge high above the lake. For three dark days my brother and I had tracked it through the maze of caves to its lair on the mountain’s summit. And now we beheld it, curled atop its treasure, its pale fur and scales ablaze with moonlight.
It knew we were here. Doubtless it had smelled us coming, its flared nostrils drinking in our sweat and fear. Its crested head lifted slightly, almost lazily. Coins and jewels clinked and shifted as its body began to uncoil.
“Kill it!” I roared, and my sword was in my hand, and my brother at my side, his own blade flashing.
The speed with which the beast struck was incomprehensible. I tried to throw myself clear, but its muscular neck crashed against my right arm, and I felt it break and dangle uselessly by my side. But my sword hand was my left, and with a bellow of pain, I slashed at the monster’s chest, my blade deflecting off its mighty ribs.
I was aware of my brother, striking at the beast’s lower regions, all the while trying to avoid its lashing barbed tail. The monster came at me, again, jaws agape. I battered its head, trying to stab its mouth or eyes, but it was quick as a cobra. It knocked me sprawling to the stone, perilously close to the precipice’s edge. The monster reared back, ready to strike, and then shrieked in pain, for my brother had severed one of its hind legs.
But still the monster faced only me – as if I were its only adversary.
I pushed myself up with my one good hand. Before the monster could strike, I hurled myself at it. This time my sword plunged deep into its chest, so deep I could scarcely wrench it out. A ribbon of dark fluid unfurled in the moonlight and the monster reared to its full height, terrible to behold, and then crumpled.
Its head shattered on the ground, and there, amongst the bloodied fur and cracked crest, was the face of a beautiful girl.
My brother came to my side and together we gazed at her, marvelling.
“We’ve broken the curse,” he said to me. “We have saved the town. And we have released her.”
The girl’s eyes opened and she looked from my brother to me. I knew she didn’t have long to live, and a question burned inside me. I knelt.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why was it only me you attacked?”
“Because it is you,” she whispered, “who is the real monster.”
And with that she died, leaving me more shaken than I could describe. I staggered back. My brother could not have heard her words -- they were spoken so softly -- and when he asked me what she’d said, I only shook my head.
“Your arm,” he said with concern, steadying me.
“It will heal.” I turned my gaze on the pile of treasure.
“We have more than can ever be spent,” my brother murmured.
I looked at him. “The treasure is mine alone.”
He stared back in astonishment, this brother of mine who looked so much like me, we might have been the same person. And indeed we were, for we were identical twins.
“What do you mean?” he said.
I lifted my sword, the tip against his throat, and forced him, step by step, towards the edge of the precipice.
“Why should we not share this,” he demanded, “as we’ve shared everything equally?”
I laughed then, at the lie of it. “No twins are ever completely equal,” I said. “Though we’re of one body, we are not equal, brother, for you were born the sooner by two minutes. Even in our mother’s womb you stole from me. The family birthright is yours. And such a treasure that is, to make this one look like a pauper’s pittance. But I want it, all of it. And I shall have it.”
At that moment the monster stirred, and in alarm I turned -- only to see it making its final death contraction. But in that same instant, my brother drew his sword.
“You will not cheat me!” he shouted.
Back and forth across the ledge we fought. My brother had always been the better swordsman, and with my broken arm, I was even more disadvantaged. But my cold serpent’s resolve was strong, and before long I had smacked the sword from his hand and forced him to his knees. Even as he stared at me with my own face, and pleaded with me in my own voice, I plunged the sword into his heart and stole his life.
I gave a sigh of utter relief and looked up at the moon, felt the cool May air caress my face.
“Now I shall have all the riches in the world,” I said. “And I am, at last, alone.”
For a moment there was only the shushing of the breeze from the glacial lake -- and then applause burst forth.
Standing on the broad balcony, I turned to face the audience, which had been watching us from their rows of chairs just inside the ballroom. There was mother and father, and their friends, their delighted faces bathed in candlelight.
My brother, Konrad, sprang to his feet, and together we ran back to the crumpled monster and helped our cousin emerge from her costume. Her luxuriant amber hair spilled free and her olive complexion glowed in the torchlight. The applause grew louder still. Hand in hand, Elizabeth between us, we took a bow.
“Henry!” I called. “Join us!” We all three of us waved him out. Reluctantly our best friend, a tall blond wisp of a fellow, emerged from his lurking spot near the French doors. “Ladies and gentleman,” I announced to the audience. “Henry Clerval, our illustrious playwright!”
“Bravo!” cried my father, and his praise was echoed round the room.
“Elizabeth Lavenza as the monster, ladies and gentlemen,” said Konrad with a flourish. Our cousin made a very pretty curtsy. “My name is Konrad and this…” he looked at me with a mischievous grin, “is the hero of our tale, my evil twin, Victor!”
And now everyone was rising to their feet, to give us a standing ovation.
I must say, the applause was intoxicating. Impulsively, I jumped up onto the stone balustrade to take another bow and reached out my hand for Konrad to join me.
“Victor!” I heard my mother call. “Come down from there at once!”
I ignored her. The balustrade was broad and strong and, after all, it was hardly the first time I had stood atop it – but it had always been done secretly, for the drop was considerable: fifty feet to the shore of Lake Geneva.
Konrad took my hand, but instead of yielding to my pull, he exerted his own, and tried to bring me down. “You’re worrying Mother,” he whispered.
As if Konrad hadn’t played atop the balustrade himself!
“Oh come on,” I said, “just one bow!”
Our hands were still joined and I felt his grip tighten, intent on bringing me back to the balcony. And I was suddenly angry at him for being so sensible, for not sharing my joy at the applause -- for making me feel like a childish prima donna.
I jerked my hand free, but too fast and too forcefully.
I felt my balance shift. Already weighted by my heavy cape, I had to take a step backwards. Except there was nowhere to step. There was nothing, and suddenly my arms were windmilling. I tried to throw myself forward, but it was all too late, much too late.
I fell. Half turned I saw the black mountains, and the blacker lake, and directly below me the rocky shore -- and my death, rushing up to meet me.
Down I fell towards the jagged shallows.
But I never reached it, for I landed hard upon the narrow roof of a bow window on the chateau’s lower floor. Pain shrieked from my left foot as I collapsed and rolled – and my body began to slide over the edge, legs first. My hands scrabbled, but there was nothing to grasp, and I was powerless to stop myself. My hips went over, then chest and head -- but at the roof’s very edge was a lip of stone, and it was here my frenzied hands finally found purchase.
I dangled. With my feet I kicked at the window, but its leaded panes were very strong. Even if I could crack the glass, I doubted I could swing myself inside from such a position.
More important, I knew I could not hold on for very long.
So, with all my might I tried to pull myself back up. My head crested the roof, and I managed to hook my chin over the lip of stone. My flexed arms trembled with fatigue and I could do no more.
Directly above me I was aware of a great clamour, and glimpsed a throng of people peering over the balustrade, their faces ghastly in the torchlight. I saw Elizabeth and Henry, my mother and father – but it was Konrad onto whom my gaze locked. Round one of the balustrade’s posts, he had clasped his cloak, so that it hung down like a rope. And then I heard my mother’s shrieks of protest, and my father’s angry shouts, as Konrad swung himself over top the balustrade to the outside. He grabbed hold of the cloak, and half climbed, half slid, down to its very end.
Even as the strength ebbed from my arms and hands, I watched enthralled. Konrad’s legs still dangled some six feet from my little roof, and his landing spot was not generous. He glanced down, and let go. He hit the roof standing, teetered off balance -- to the gasps of all the onlookers -- but then crouched low and steady.
“Konrad,” I gasped. I knew I only had seconds left before my muscles failed and my fingers unlocked. He reached out for me.
“No!” I grunted. “I will pull you off!”
“Do you wish to die?” he shouted, making to grab my wrists.
“Sit down!” I told him. “Back against the wall. There’s a stone ledge. Brace your feet against it!”
He did as I instructed, then reached for my hands with both of his. I did not know how this could work, for we weighed the same, and gravity was against us.
And yet… and yet… with our hands grasping the other’s wrists, his legs pushing against the stone ledge, he pulled with all his strength -- and then something more still -- and lifted me up and over the roof’s edge. I collapsed atop my twin brother. I was shaking and crying and laughing all at once.
“You fool,” he gasped. “You great fool. You almost died.”
Chapter 2: The Dark Library
“It is a terrible thing,” I said, “to be crippled in the prime of one’s life.”
“You have sprained your ankle,” said Konrad. “Elizabeth, why on earth do you persist in pushing him about in that wheelchair?”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth with her merry laugh, “I find it amusing. For now.”
“Doctor Lesage said it musn’t bear any weight for a week,” I protested.
Afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows of the west sitting room, one of the many large and elegantly furnished chambers in the chateau. It was a Sunday, four days since my brush with death. Father had gone into Geneva to tend to some urgent business, and my mother had accompanied him to visit an ailing aunt in town. My two younger brothers, Ernest, who was nine, and William, who had scarcely learned to walk, were with Justine, their nanny, in the courtyard, planting a small vegetable garden for their amusement.
“Honestly,” said Konrad, shaking his head at me and Elizabeth, “it’s like a nursemaid with a pram.”
I turned to Elizabeth. “I think our Konrad would like a turn in the chair. He’s feeling left out.”
I glanced back at my brother, hoping for a satisfying reaction. His face was virtually identical to my own, and even our parents sometimes had trouble telling us apart from a distance, for we shared the same brooding demeanour: high cheekbones, heavy black eyebrows and large dark eyes amidst pale skin. Mother often lamented what she called the “ruthless turn of our lips.” A Frankenstein trait, she added; it did not come from the Beaufort side of the family, she was quite certain.
Right now, Konrad’s lips were, in fact, curled into a sneer. “Victor, I begin to doubt that your ankle is even sprained,” he said. “You are play-acting. Again. Come on, up you get!”
“I’m not strong enough!” I objected. “Elizabeth, you were there when the doctor examined me! Tell him!”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I seem to recall he said it might have been sprained. Slightly.”
“You should be ready to hobble about then!” Konrad proclaimed, and grabbed my arms, trying to haul me from the chair. “You don’t want to get sickly!”
“Mother will be vexed!” I said, fighting back. “This could leave me permanently lame…”
“You two,” said Elizabeth with a sigh, and then began laughing for it was surely a comic sight, the two of us wrestling while the wheelchair rolled and skidded about the sitting room. At last the chair tipped over, spilling me onto the floor.
“You madman!” I cried, getting to my feet. “Is this how you treat an invalid?”
“A little diva is what you are,” said Konrad. “Look at you, standing!”
I hunched, wincing for effect, but Konrad started laughing, and I did too, for it was hard to watch oneself laughing without doing the same.
“It is still sore,” I said, testing it gingerly.
He passed me the crutches Doctor LeSage had brought. “Try these,” he said, “and let Elizabeth have a rest.”
Elizabeth had righted the wheelchair and arranged herself gracefully on the cushioned seat. “You little wretch,” she said to me, her hazel eyes narrowed with playful anger. “It’s very comfortable. I can see why you didn’t want to get out!”
Elizabeth was a distant cousin of ours, from Father’s side of the family. It was a vague connection I’d never really understood. All I knew was that when she was only five her mother died, and her father remarried and promptly abandoned her to an Italian convent to be raised by nuns. When Father got word of this, some two years later, he travelled at once to the convent, and brought her home to us.
When she first arrived she was like a feral cat. She hid. Konrad and I, both seven years old, were forever trying to find her. To us it was a wonderful game of hide and seek. But it was no amusement to her; she just wanted to be left alone. If we found her, she became very angry. She hissed and snarled and hit. Sometimes she bit.
Mother and Father told us she needed time. Elizabeth, they said, had not wanted to leave the convent. The nuns were very kind to her, and had been the closest thing she knew to a mother’s love. She hadn’t wanted to be torn away from them to live with strangers. Konrad and I were told to let her be, but of course we did nothing of the sort.
We continued to pursue her for the next two months. Then, one day, when we found her latest hiding place, she actually smiled. I’d almost cried out in surprise. I had never seen a smile part her lips, and was speechless. It completely transformed her. It was like opening the curtains and being blinded by sunlight.
“Close your eyes,” she ordered us. “Count to a hundred and find me again.”
And then it truly was a game, and from that moment the three of us were inseparable as any siblings. Her laughter filled the house, and her sullenness and silence disappeared forever.
Her temper, however, did not.
Elizabeth was fiery. She did not lose her temper quickly, but when she did, all her old wildcat fury returned. Growing up together, she and I often came to blows over some disagreement – she even bit me once, when I suggested girls’ brains were smaller than those of boys. Konrad never seemed to infuriate her like I could, but she and I fought tooth and claw – until we reached a more civilized age.
Now that we were sixteen, all that was far behind us.
“Well then,” said Konrad, grinning wickedly at Elizabeth, “you shall finally have your turn in the chair.”
At top speed he propelled her out of the sitting room and down the great hallway, me hurrying to keep up on my crutches, and then tossing them aside and running after them on my miraculously healed ankle.
Great portraits of our ancestors looked smugly down at me as I ran past. A full suit of armour, brandishing a sword still stained with blood, stood sentry in a niche.
Ahead, I saw Konrad and Elizabeth disappear into the library, and followed. Konrad was in the middle of the grand, book-lined room, spinning Elizabeth round and round in a tight circle until she shrieked for him to stop.
“I am too dizzy, Konrad! My vision swirls!”
“Very well,” he said. “Let us dance instead. And he took her in his arms and pulled her, none too gently, from the chair.
“I cannot!” she protested, staggering like a drunk as Konrad waltzed her clumsily across the room. I watched them, and there was within me a brief flicker of a feeling I did not recognize. It looked like me dancing with Elizabeth, but it was not. And I wanted it to be. And then, just as quickly, this uncomfortable emotion was gone.
She caught my eye, laughing. “Victor, make him stop! I must look ridiculous!”
Growing up with us, she was used to such rough play. I was not worried for her. If she so wanted, she could have freed herself from Konrad’s clutches.
“All right, my lady,” said Konrad, “I release you.” And he gave her a final spin and let go. Laughing, Elizabeth lurched to one side, tried to regain her balance, and then fell against the shelves, her hand dislodging an entire row of books before she collapsed to the floor.
I looked at my twin with mock severity. “Konrad, look what you’ve done, you scoundrel!”
“No, look what I’ve done!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
The bookshelf before which she sat had swung inwards on invisible hinges, revealing a narrow opening.
“Outstanding!” I exclaimed. “A secret passage we haven’t discovered yet!”
It was a rare and delightful fact of our childhood that we lived in such a place as Chateau Frankenstein. It was built by our ancestors, more than three hundred years ago, outside the village of Bellerive, a mere four miles from Geneva. The chateau was constructed as both home and fortress, and its thick walls and high turrets rose from a promontory overlooking the lake, surrounded on three side by water.
Though we also had a handsome house within Geneva itself, we usually stayed there only in the winter months, and at the first signs of spring, we moved to the chateau. Over the years Konrad, Elizabeth and I had spent countless hours and days exploring its many levels, its sumptuous chambers and ballrooms, boathouses and stables, and ramparts. There were damp subterranean dungeons, portcullises which clanged down to block entranceways – and, of course, secret passages.
We naively thought we’d discovered all of these. But here we were, the three of us, staring with delight at this gap in the library wall.
“Fetch a candlestick,” Konrad told me.
“You fetch a candlestick,” I retorted. “I can practically see in the dark.” And I pushed the thick bookshelf so that it swung further inwards – enough for a person to squeeze through if he turned sideways. The darkness beyond was total, but I resolutely moved towards it, hands outstretched.
“Don’t be daft,” said Elizabeth, grabbing my arm. “There might be stairs – or nothing at all. You’ve fallen to your death once already this week.”
Konrad was pushing past me now, a candlestick in his hand, leading the way. With a grimace, I followed Elizabeth, and hadn’t taken two steps before Konrad brought us up short..
“Stop! There’s no railing – and a good drop.”
The three of us stood, pressed together, upon a small ledge which overlooked a broad, square shaft. The candlelight did not reveal its bottom.
“Perhaps it’s an old chimney,” Elizabeth suggested.
“If it’s a chimney, why are there stairs?” I said, for jutting from the brick walls were small wooden steps.
“I wonder if Father knows about this,” said Konrad. “We should tell him.”
“We should go down first,” I said. “See where it leads.”
We all looked at the thin steps, little more than plank ends.
“They might be rotted through,” my brother said sensibly.
“Give me the candle then,” I said. “I will test them as I go.”
“It’s not safe, Victor, especially for Elizabeth in her skirt and shoes – ”
In two swift movements Elizabeth had slipped off both shoes. I saw her eyes flash eagerly in the candlelight.
“They don’t look so rotted,” she said.
“All right,” said Konrad. “But stick close to the wall – and tread carefully!”
I badly wanted to go first, but Konrad held the candle, and led the way. Elizabeth went next, lifting her skirts. I followed. My eyes were fixed on the steps, one hand brushing the wall, as much for reassurance as balance. Three…four… five steps… and then a ninety degree turn along the next wall. I paused and looked back up at the narrow bar of light from the library door. I was glad we’d left it ajar.
From below rose an evil, musty smell, like rotted lake weed. After a few more steps, Konrad called out:
“There’s a door here!”
In the halo of candlelight I saw, set into the side of the shaft, a large wooden door. Its rough surface was gouged with scratches. Where the handle ought to be have been, was a hole. Painted across the top were the words:
Enter only with a friend’s welcome.
“Not very friendly to have no handle,” Elizabeth remarked.
Konrad gave the door a couple good shoves. “Locked tight,” he said.
The stairs continued down, and my brother held the candle at arm’s length, trying to light the depths.
I squinted. “I think I see the bottom!”
It was indeed the bottom, and we reached it in another twenty steps. In the middle of the damp dirt floor was a well.
We walked around it and peered inside. I couldn’t tell if what I beheld was oily water, or just more blackness.
“Why would they hide a well in here?” Elizabeth asked.
“Maybe it’s a siege well,” I said, pleased with myself.
Konrad lifted an eyebrow. “A siege well?”
“If the chateau was besieged, and all other supplies of water were cut off.”
“Makes good sense,” said Elizabeth. “And maybe that door leads to a secret escape tunnel!”
“Is that… a bone?” Konrad asked, holding his candle closer to the ground.
I felt myself shiver. We all bent down. It was half buried in the earth, very small and white and slender, with a knobbly end.
“Maybe a finger bone?” I said.
“Animal or human?” Elizabeth asked.
“We could dig it up,” said Konrad.
“Perhaps later,” said Elizabeth. “No doubt it’s just a bit of another Frankenstein relative.”
We all laughed, and the noise echoed about unpleasantly.
“Shall we go back up?” Konrad said.
I wondered if he was scared. I was, but would not show it.
“That door…” I said. “I wonder where it goes.”
“It may simply be bricked up on the other side,” said Konrad.
“May I?” I said, and took the candle from his hand. I led the way back up the splintered stairs and stopped outside the door. I held the flame to the small hole but still could not see what was beyond. Passing the candle down to Elizabeth, I swallowed, and stretched my hand towards the dark hole.
“What’re you doing, Victor?” Konrad asked.
“There might be a catch inside,” I said, and chuckled to conceal my nervousness. “No doubt something will grab my hand.”
I folded my hand small, slipped it into the hole -- and immediately something seized me.
The fingers were cold and very, very strong, and they gripped so tightly that I bellowed in both pain and terror.
“Victor, is this a joke?” Elizabeth demanded angrily.
I was pulling with all my might, trying to wrench my hand free. “It’s got me!” I roared. “It’s got my hand!”
“What’s got your hand?” shouted Konrad from below.
In my hysteria all I could think was: If it has a hand it has a head and if it has a mouth it has teeth. It would bite off my hand!
I pounded at the door with my fist. “Let me go, you fiend!”
The more I pulled, the tighter it squeezed. But even in my panic I suddenly realized something. This grip did not feel like flesh. It was too hard and inflexible.
“It’s not a real hand!” I wheezed. “It’s some kind of machine!”
“Victor, you idiot, what you have done now?” Konrad said.
“It won’t release me!”
“I’m going for help,” said Elizabeth, carefully moving around me and up the narrow steps. But before she reached the door, there was a dull thud, and the bar of light from the library disappeared.
“What happened?” Konrad called out.
“It closed itself! Elizabeth called back. “There is a handle but it will not turn!” She began to pound on the thick door and call for help. Her voice echoed about the shaft like a bat’s flurry of panic.
All this time I was still struggling to pull my hand free.
“It’s getting tighter!” I bellowed.
“Be calm,” said Konrad at my side. “Elizabeth, can you return the candle to us, please.”
“I’ll be trapped down here forever!” I wailed, thinking of the bone we’d seen in the dirt. I now understood the deep scratches in the door, no doubt gouged by desperate fingernails. “You’ll have to saw my hand off!”
Exhausted, I stopped fighting the mechanical hand; and it instantly stopped tightening – but it did not release me either.
“Enter with only a friend’s welcome,” Elizabeth said, reading the message painted on the door. “It’s some kind of riddle. “A friend’s welcome…”
“Crushing someone’s hand to pulp!” I said.
“No,” she said. “When you welcome a friend, you say hello, you ask how they’ve been, you… shake their hand! Victor, maybe it wants you to shake hands!”
“I’ve been shaking hands with it for ten minutes!”
But had I? I’d been pulling and thrashing wildy about. I forced myself to take a deep, calm breath. As smoothly as I could, I tried to lift my hand. Amazingly, I was permitted to do so. Then I pushed gently down -- and then politely pumped up and down once more. Instantly the mechanical fingers sprang apart, my hand was released, and the door creaked open a few inches.
I cradled my molested hand, flexing my fingers to make sure none were broken. “Thank you,” I said to Elizabeth. “That was a very good idea.”
“You trouble-maker,” she said angrily. “Your adventure has got us locked in – Victor, what are you doing now?”
“Don’t you want to have a look inside?” I said, poking the door open a little more.
“You must be mad,” said Konrad, “after what that door just did to you.”
“It may be our only way out,” I said. I was aware that I’d done a good deal of wailing and shrieking. At least I hadn’t wept. But I wanted to save face – and I was genuinely curious to know what lay beyond this devious portal.
“Come on,” I said to Elizabeth, taking the candle from her.
I pushed the door wide, stood to one side and waited a moment. Nothing flew out. Cautiously I stepped in, and peered behind the door.
“Look at this!” I said.
An elaborate machine, all gears and pulleys, was bolted to the back of the door. Against the hole was an amazing metal hand with jointed wooden fingers.
“Quite an ingenious lock,” said Konrad.
“And look here,” I said, pointing up. “I bet those ropes go to the library door. Didn’t it close and lock once the machine grabbed my hand? A brilliant trap to guard the room.”
“But why does the room,” Elizabeth began slowly, “need to be guarded?”
As one, we all turned. The skin of my neck turned to goosflesh, for I honestly did not know what to expect. A gruesome torture chamber? Human remains?
I held the candle high. We were in a surprisingly large chamber. Nearby I saw a torch still jutting from a wall sconce, and lit it. The room brightened, an orange glow flickering over tables scattered with oddly shaped glassware and metal instruments – and row upon row of shelves groaning with thick tomes.
“It’s just a library,” I said, in relief
“We must be the first to discover it,” Elizabeth said in awe.
I stroked my finger through the thick dust on the table, looked at the cobwebs sagging from the corners of the low ceiling. “Maybe so,” I murmured.
“Father will be delighted,” said Konrad, grinning.
He was right, for our father was an enthusiastic scholar. As one of the four magistrates of our Republic, his expertise was the law -- but there was no subject under the sun that did not win his interest. Indeed, so great was his respect for learning that he had resigned many of his public duties and business dealings, so he could devote himself to our education. The chateau was his schoolhouse, his own children his pupils – and that included Elizabeth, too.
Both Mother and Father were considered exceedingly liberal by many people. Liberal meant open-minded, sometimes dangerously so. Father, for instance, believed that all men were created equal, and Mother believed that all women were created equal, too – equal to men, that is. She’d even written a pamphlet, arguing that the way girls were taught turned them into meek, weak-minded creatures who wasted their true potential.
It was not so in our family. Every day Elizabeth took her place between Konrad and me in the library to receive our lessons in Greek and Latin and literature and science and politics from Father and Mother and whatever tutors they saw fit to teach us.
And there was one other student in our eccentric classroom: Henry Clerval.
Henry was exceedingly clever, and my father won the permission of Henry’s to allow our friend to be tutored in our home. He was an only child, his mother having died some years ago. As his merchant father was often away on business for weeks, or even months at a time, Henry spent many of his days – and nights, too -- at our home, and we considered him practically one of the family.
I only wished he was here right now to see this most strange and secret discovery, this library within the library.
“Curious instruments,” said Konrad, peering at the glassware and scales and sharply angled tools arranged atop the table.
“It looks a bit like an apothecary shop,” I said, noting the large sooty hearth. “No doubt one of our ancestors made primitive medicines.”
“That would explain the well,” Elizabeth said. “They’d need water.”
“But why do it in a secret chamber?” I wondered aloud. I walked over to the bookshelves and squinted at their cracked spines. “The titles are all Latin and Greek and… languages I have never seen.”
I heard Elizabeth laugh, and turned.
“Here is a spell to rid your garden of slugs,” she said, paging through a black tome. “And another to make someone fall in love with you.” Her eyes lingered a bit longer on this one, before turning the page, “And here is one to make your enemy sicken and die…” Her voice trailed off. “There is a very upsetting picture of a body covered in running sores….”
We laughed, or tried to laugh, but we were all, I think, in awe of this strange place and the books it held.
“And here,” said Konrad, paging through another volume, “are instructions on how to speak to the dead.”
I looked at my brother. I often had the uncanny feeling that I was waiting for his show of emotions so I could better know my own. Right now I saw fear – but not my own powerful fascination with this place.
He swallowed. “We should leave.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, replacing her book.
“I want to stay a little longer,” I said. I was not pretending. Books usually held little interest for me, but these ones had a dark lustre, and I wanted to run my fingers over their ancient pages, gaze upon their strange contents.
I caught sight of a book titled Occulta Philosophia and drew it thirstily from the shelf.
“Occult Philosophy,” said Konrad, looking over my shoulder.
I turned the first few vellum pages to find the author’s name.
“Cornelius Agrippa,” I read aloud. “Any idea who this old fellow was?”
“A medieval German magician,” said a voice, and Elizabeth gave a shriek, for the answer had come from behind us. We all whirled to behold, standing in the doorway, our father.
“You’ve discovered the Biblioteka Obscura, I see,” he said, torchlight and shadow dancing disconcertingly over his craggy face.
“It was an accident,” Elizabeth said. “I fell against the books, you see, and the door opened before us.”
“And naturally you had to descend the stairs,” my father said with a grin.
“Naturally,” I said.
“And would I be right in assuming, Victor, you were the one to shake hands with the door?”
I heard Konrad chuckle.
“Yes,” I admitted, “and it very nearly crushed my hand!”
“No,” said my father, “it was not designed to crush the hand, just hold onto it. Forever.”
I looked at him, shocked. “Truly?”
“When I discovered this secret passage as a young man, no one had descended the stairs for over two hundred years. And the last person to do so was still here. What remained of him anyway. The bones of his forearm dangled from the door. The rest of his ruined body had fallen into the shaft.”
“We wondered if we’d seen… a finger bone down there,” Elizabeth said.
“No doubt I missed a bit,” said Father.
“Who was it?” Konrad asked.
Father shook his head. “Judging by his clothing, a servant -- unlucky enough to have discovered the secret passage.”
“But who built all this?” I asked.
“Ah,” said Father. “That would be your ancestor, Wilhelm Frankenstein. By all accounts he was a brilliant man, and a very wealthy one. Some three hundred years ago, when he built the chateau, he created the Biblioteka Obscura.”
“Biblioteka Obscura,” Elizabeth said, and then translated the latin. “Dark Library. Why was it kept in darkness?”
“He was an alchemist. And during his lifetime its practise was often outlawed. He was obsessed with the transmutation of matter, especially turning base metals into gold.”
I had heard of such a thing, and found the idea mightily beguiling. Imagine the riches, the power!
“Did he succeed?” I demanded.
Father chuckled. “No, Victor. It cannot be done.”
I persisted. “But maybe that explains why he was so wealthy.”
There was something almost rueful in Father’s smile. “It makes a fine story, but it is nonsense.” He waved his hand at the shelves. “You must understand that these books were written centuries ago. They are primitive attempts to explain the world. There are some shards of learning in them, but compared to our modern knowledge they are like childish dreams.”
“Didn’t the alchemists also make medicines?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, or at least tried to,” Father said. “Some believed they could master all elements, and create elixirs that would make people live forever. And some, including our fine ancestor, turned their attentions to matters even more fantastical.”
“Like what?” Konrad asked.
“Conversing with spirits. Raising ghosts.”
A chill swept through my body. “Wilhelm Frankenstein practised witchcraft?”
“They burned witches back then,” Elizabeth murmured.
“There is no such thing as witchcraft,” Father said firmly. “But the Church of Rome condemned virtually each and every one of these books. I think you can see why the library was kept in darkness.”
“He was never caught, was he?” I asked.
Father shook his head. “But one day, in his forty-third year, without telling anyone where he was going, he mounted a horse and rode away from the chateau. He left behind his wife and children, and was never seen again.”
“That is… quite chilling,” said Elizabeth, looking from Konrad to me.
“Our family history is colourful, is it not?” said Father humorously.
My gaze returned once more to the bookshelves, glowing in the torchlight. “May we look at them some more?”
“No.”
I was startled, for his voice had lost its affectionate joviality and become hard.
“But father,” I objected, “you yourself have said that the pursuit of knowledge is a grand thing.”
“This is not knowledge,” he said. “It is a corruption of knowledge. And these books are not to be read.”
“Then why do you keep them?” I asked defiantly. “Why not just burn them?”
For a moment his brow furrowed angrily, then softened. “I keep them, dear, arrogant Victor, because they are artefacts of an ignorant, wicked past – and it is a good thing not to forget our past mistakes. To keep us humble. To keep us vigilant. You see, my boy?”
“Yes, father,” I said, but was not sure I did. It seemed impossible to me that all this ink could contain nothing but lies.
“Now come away from this dark place,” he told the three of us. “It is best if you do not speak of it to anyone – especially your little brothers. The stairs are perilous enough, and you already know the hazards of the door.” He looked at us gravely. “And make me a promise I will not find you here again.”
“I promise,” the three of us said, almost in exact unison. Though I was not so sure I could resist the strange allure of these books.
“Excellent. And Victor,” he added with a wry grin, “wonderful to see you on your feet again. Now, if I’m not mistaken it is nearly time for us to prepare dinner for the servants.”
*
Our home was a most peculiar one.
The city of Geneva was a republic. We had no king or queen or prince to rule over us. We were governed by the General Council, which our male citizens elected. Father believed all men should have the right to choose how they lived.
We had servants, as all wealthy families did, but they were the best paid in Geneva, and were given ample free time. Or else, as father said, they were little better than slaves. Just because they did not have our advantages of wealth and education, Father said, did not make them lesser. They should be treated as our brothers and sisters.
And so, for as long as I could remember, it had been our tradition, every Sunday, to make dinner for our servants and dine with them in the great kitchen downstairs.
No other family I knew did this, but to me it was normal. Sometimes I wondered if our servants felt entirely comfortable with the strange custom. Some of them, the older ones especially, seemed a bit ill at ease, even faintly grumpy, at seeing us take over their kitchen. And often, they’d start lending a hand, when they saw us bumbling about or doing something wrong.
Tonight, Mother and Elizabeth took charge of preparing the cooked ham, chatting happily with some of the maids. Mother was much adored by the servants. She was younger than Father by nearly twenty years, and very beautiful, with thick blonde hair, a high forehead and frank, gentle eyes. I couldn’t remember her ever speaking sharply to any of our staff.
Konrad and I set the table, helped Ernest peel potatoes, and tried to stop William from cramming the raw pieces into his mouth as fast as he could lay chubby hands on them. Father chopped parsnips and carrots for the roasting pan, and talked to Scopes, his butler of twenty-five years.
For my own part, I did not look forward to Sunday nights. I would much rather have had my meal made for me, and served upstairs. But Konrad had never confessed such unworthy feelings, so I would not reveal mine.
One of the reasons I disliked these dinners was that Konrad was so much better at them than me – as he was at most things. He had but to walk into a room, and all eyes turned to him. It wasn’t just that he was handsome – or else they would’ve looked at me, his twin, just as much. No, Konrad was charming. His manner was warm. He put people at their ease.
When we finally sat down at table, masters and servants united into one very large and unusual family, at once Konrad struck up conversations with everyone. He knew all the servants by name, and details of their lives and families. He asked Maria, our housekeeper, how her ailing mother was. He asked Seecombe, the groom, how Prancer, our pregnant mare, was faring. He even asked one of the new kitchen maids how she was finding Bellerive, and urged her to walk in the foothills on her next day off, and admire the view of Geneva and the Jura mountains beyond.
He did this all with complete ease, and before long, the table was alive with conversation. The servants lost their reluctance and out came their stories, which I truly did love to hear, for their lives were so unlike my own. Hanson, our footman, had once been a soldier and fought a bloody battle and lost several toes; Patricia, my mother’s maid, had been parlour servant to an evil duchess in France who would beat her with her shoe if the cake tasted stale.
I wished I had Konrad’s gift with people. But I’d always been the awkward one. Though our bodies and features were near identical, I wore mine differently somehow. I was quiet around people I did not know well, and sometimes abrupt, and so they didn’t warm to me easily.
But tonight Konrad drew me out, as usual, begging me to tell the story of my plunge to death from the balcony – and I was grateful to him, for together we had the entire kitchen enthralled and gasping and laughing.
Afterwards we helped the servants clean the dishes and pots and pans, and I marvelled at the work they did for us each and every day.
And I was very glad we did this but once a week.
Perhaps we were a peculiar family, but I could not imagine a better one.
*
Floating on the lake, gazing up at the night sky: perfection.
We’d grown up so near the water it was like a second home to us. Konrad and I had learned to sail not long after we’d learned to walk. So assured were our skills that our parents never worried when we spent time on Lake Geneva. The chateau had its own dock and boathouse , and one of our favourite pastimes in fine weather was to take a rowboat out in the evening and let it drift. Lying back on cushions we’d stare up at the stars, sometimes talking, sometimes silent – and that was exactly what we were doing Tuesday after dinner, with Elizabeth and Henry. Tonight, we had even more reason to celebrate, for Henry was to stay with us an entire month. His father had just embarked on a lengthy business trip, and our parents had happily invited Henry to stay with us for the duration.
“I wonder why Wilhelm Frankenstein suddenly left like that,” he said, after we’d finished our tale of the Dark Library. “It has the makings of a wonderful play.”
“Maybe he was bewitched,” Elizabeth said. “Driven mad by all he’d learned!”
“More likely he met with some misfortune on the road,” Konrad said. “Brigands who murdered him and bundled his body off the mountain.”
“Or perhaps,” I said, “he truly discovered the secret of eternal life, and went off to begin his life afresh.”
We all sat in silence for a moment, musing about the mysterious Wilhelm Frankenstein.
“Another shooting star!” Konrad pointed out.
“God’s creation is very vast,” Elizabeth murmured, staring at the night sky.
“Father does not believe in God,” I said. “He says it is an outmoded – ”
“I know very well what he says,” Elizabeth interrupted. “An outmoded system of belief that has controlled and abused people, and that will wizen away under the glare of science. How original you are, Victor, to mimic your father.”
“You are wiser than him, of course,” I said.
“You two, please,” sighed Konrad.
Elizabeth glared at me. “I’m not saying I’m wiser. I am saying he is wrong.”
“Oh-ho!” I said, looking forward to a quarrel.
Henry shifted uncomfortably, for his family worshipped at the Calvinist church. It was a very radical thing to deny the existence of God – yet another oddity about our household, and one we kept quiet, except amongst our family and closest friends.
“Victor,” said Elizabeth. “I doubt you are truly an atheist, and if you are, it is only because your father taught you to be.”
“And you are a Catholic because your mother taught you to be. And some nuns, too!”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I have considered it carefully, and find no other possible explanation for – ” she waved her hand at the night sky, and the lake, and us – “all of this!”
“There is no proof of God,” I said, quoting father.
“There is knowing, and there is believing,” said Elizabeth. “They are two different things. Knowing requires facts. Believing requires faith. If there was proof of God’s existence, it wouldn’t be a faith, would it?”
This puzzled me for a moment. “I simply don’t see the point,” I said. “Faith seems worthless to me, then. One might have faith in any fancy. Singing flowers or -- ”
“Worthless?” cried Elizabeth. “My faith has given me sustenance for many years!”
“Victor, enough,” said Konrad. “You will hurt her feelings.”
“Oh, Elizabeth can take care of herself,” I said. “She’s no delicate blossom.”
“Certainly not,” she retorted. “But in future I will only argue with my intellectual equals.”
“I am considering pushing you into the lake,” I said.
“I’d like to see you try,” said Elizabeth, with a flare of the wildcat in her face.
“I have read,” said Henry, “that if you stare long enough at the heavens, your future will become clear.”
It was an excellent distraction.
“And what is it you see for yourself?” Konrad asked our diplomatic friend.
“Well,” he said, “the view is clear for me. I will become a merchant and in time take over my father’s business.”
Elizabeth pushed herself up on her elbows, indignant. “That’s dismally practical of you, Henry.”
“Nothing wrong with being practical,” he said, frowning.
“But what of your interest in literature?” she demanded. “Look at the applause your play won!”
“I felt like an imposter taking credit,” said Henry. “The idea was yours.”
This was true. But Elizabeth thought the audience might be scandalized to know that a young lady had invented such a violent and bloodthirsty tale.
“Well,” said Elizabeth, pleased. “A story comes easily enough to me, but the writing was all yours, Henry. You have the soul of poet.”
“Ah, well,” said Henry. “A merchant does not need to rhyme. What do your stars tell you?”
“I will write a novel,” Elizabeth said with decision.
“What will it be about?” I demanded, surprised.
“I don’t know the subject yet,” she said with a laugh. “Only it will be something wonderful. Like a bolt of lightning!”
“You’ll need a pen name,” Konrad said, for the idea of a woman writing a novel was scandalous.
“Perhaps I will shock the world with my own,” she said. “Elizabeth Lavenza has such a literary flair, don’t you think? It would be shame to waste it.”
“And what of marriage?” Konrad asked.
“It would take a remarkable man to make me marry,” she said. “Men are mercury. Always changing. Look at my father. He remarried and just sent me away. I was packed up like a bit of furniture. And he visited me only once in two years.”
“Scoundrel,” I said.
“Not all men are so bad, surely,” said my brother.
She laughed. “No doubt. I will have a fabulous husband and many beautiful, talented children. Now, I have embarrassed myself enough. Victor, what do you see in your future?”
I thought a moment, and then said, “When I see the stars I think of the planets that must orbit them, and I would like to travel among them. And if we could do so, would not we be gods?”
“A modest goal, then,” said my twin. “Victor just wants to be a god.”
Laughing, I elbowed him in the ribs. “I’m imbued with high hopes and lofty ambitions. And if I can’t travel between planets, I will create something, some great work which would be useful and marvellous to all humanity.”
“You mean a machine of some kind?” asked Elizabeth.
“Yes, perhaps,” I said, thinking more seriously now. “An engine that will transform the world – or a new source of energy. It seems scientific discoveries are being made every day now. In any event, I will be remembered forever.”
“Statues and monuments will bear your name no doubt!” Konrad said with a grin.
“Very well, let us hear your little dreams!” I said.
Konrad stared at the sky. “I will follow Father’s example,” he said thoughtfully. “I would like to help govern Geneva, to make it even greater than it is now. But I’d like to see the world, too. Perhaps cross the ocean and see the new America, or the British colonies to the north. They say there are still vast landscapes there, untouched by Europeans.”
“Then you would abandon us all here forever,” Elizabeth asked, “and marry some exotic native princess.”
Konrad chuckled. “No. I will make my journeys with a soulmate.”
“You’d just want me to carry all your supplies,” I joked. “You’d best find another travel companion.”
But I liked the idea of having a great adventure with Konrad.
I’d always imagined we’d travel together, though I’d never considered such far flung places as America. France and England seemed far enough. But if America was where Konrad had set his sights, that was where I too would go.
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