Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters (15 page)

“Yes. I am,” I declared, wiping my eyes.

“Then there’s no reason to cry, is there?”

“No. You’re right,” I agreed, filled with new resolve.

Walter gazed up the ladder and shook his head. “I can’t climb that. You said there is a tunnel out of here?”

“Yes, I’ll light a lamp and we’ll go slowly. But first, let me retrieve what we found.” I climbed the ladder, took the bag with
the head, and then, upon returning to the laboratory, took the head out using a pair of wooden tongs. Then I placed it in a large glass jar from one of the shelves and added some of the preserving fluid that all the other parts were sitting in. I turned the glass around, unable to gaze upon the too-familiar face any longer than necessary.

We went very slowly because of the darkness and Walter’s infirmity. But the lamp I’d found down in the laboratory threw a strong light, and so the path was clearer than I remembered it. I had not been back since my first journey to the laboratory, having used the aboveground path for all of my visits since that time.

“Be careful on the steps,” I warned, recalling the treacherously steep staircase I’d encountered.

We came up the stairs and headed into the tunnel. Walter held my hand as we crept along with me in the lead. Before we had gone very far, I startled beside Walter, alarmed.

“There’s someone in the tunnel,” I whispered sharply.

He held my arm protectively. Ahead of us, the dark form of a person sat slumped, blocking our path. In the deep silence of the dark passage, it emitted no sound of breathing. Nor did it move at all.

This silence emboldened us to creep forward cautiously. As we neared, I detected the rank odor of decaying flesh. When we were close enough, I lifted the lantern and gasped. The person in front
of us stared up blankly, covered in blood with a large triangular shard of glass plunged into his belly. He was clearly no longer alive.

“I know him,” I told Walter.

It was Riff.

My head swam with the possibilities. Had he been killed elsewhere? Did someone kill him here in the tunnel? Was that person still in the tunnel? Had my father’s nemesis come back? Was he still lurking in the tunnel?

And then an equally frightening possibility came to me: Was Riff the one who had frightened Giselle here in the dark passageway? Had she accidentally killed him in the course of defending herself?

Even though it was self-defense, I couldn’t let her go on trial for murder. She wasn’t strong enough.

“Would you hold this?” I asked, handing Walter the oil lamp, which he took from me.

Bending, I grasped Riff’s ankles and began pulling him back toward the laboratory.

“Where are you going?” Walter asked.

“Wait for me here,” I requested without stopping. “I’ll be back soon.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m taking him to the laboratory. We might not have to get in touch with Mr. Gallagher after all.”

FROM THE DIARY OF
BARONESS GISELLE FRANKENSTEIN

August 10, 1815

Diary, I had a most perplexing and disturbing conversation with Ingrid this evening on the subject of Mrs. Flett’s nephew, Riff. She asked me if I was certain I hadn’t seen him after the day he taunted us with the key. When I told her I hadn’t, she continued probing, suggesting that I might have forgotten something, or that there might be some fact I didn’t want to reveal. Then she dropped that line of inquiry to ask about the day I was attacked in the tunnel. She wanted to know if I’d seen my attacker, and I assured her that he’d come upon me from behind and that I’d fled without looking back.

Finally I was fed up with all these questions and blew up at her.

“What are you trying to say, Ingrid?” I demanded.

Ingrid opened her mouth and then shut it again as though deciding not to continue with her line of thought.

“I just think it odd that he disappeared like that,” she said, and I felt there was something insincere in her expression and tone.

I don’t like this idea that Ingrid might be keeping something from me. Since girlhood we have never kept secrets from each other, and I don’t see why she should start now.

I shall go to bed tonight feeling lonely and desolate, because my best friend in the world is not taking me into her confidence.

August 14, 1815

Party plans are advancing wonderfully well, and I now have a list of thirty definite guests, ten possible, and only ten refusals.

You will not believe the guest list, Diary! It includes Lord Byron; the poet Percy Shelley and his wife, Mary. The artist who painted my father’s portrait, John Singleton Copley, has accepted, which is thrilling.

Ingrid will be thrilled to know that all her scholars have accepted. Humphry Davy will be coming with his wife and his assistant, Michael Faraday. A French scholar named Sarlandière accepted immediately, although he was the last to be invited; I
suppose the French do love a soirée. I wonder if scholars in general are really the best people to have at a party — who really understands what they’re talking about? — but there are enough of them that they can talk amongst themselves. I’m sure Ingrid will keep them all busy with her endless scientific curiosity.

The next crucial thing for me to decide is what I will wear to the party, which really amounts to a debutante ball for Ingrid and me, since it is our introduction to fascinating society. Mrs. Flett has told me that there is a wonderful dressmaker over in Stromness, which is a city on Mainland, the second largest after Kirkwall.

Naturally I wanted Ingrid to make the trip to Stromness along with me; she will certainly need a dress too, but she was busy, as is usual these days. I never see her anymore because the first thing in the morning she rows out to Sweyn Holm, where she holes up in that shed and claims to be studying Anthony’s medical books and our father’s notes. One might think she was preparing for some important test, the way she has taken to devoting herself completely to her studies. I don’t think she even goes over to see Lieutenant Hammersmith anymore, though perhaps that’s because he isn’t home. I never see his chimney emitting smoke these days.

At any rate, I will take the ferry over to Mainland soon and I will get a suitable dress and probably have to buy one for Ingrid as
well, or she is likely to show up at the party in her plain frock with an apron thrown over it, her hair in a braid.

August 16, 1815

The dressmaker in Stromness proved to be a treasure, and I have commissioned her to create a gown with a black velvet top and a plaid taffeta skirt. For Ingrid, I requested that she create a simple dress all in an exquisite sapphire blue silk, which I think suits her style perfectly. My measurements sufficed for the two of us, of course, though I will have to insist that she make the trip back with me when the time comes to pick up the dresses so that she can have one real fitting.

On the ferry back, I ran into Investigator Cairo, who was making another trip to Gairsay from Kirkwall. He waved when he saw me and gave a friendly nod as he came to my side.

“It’s a bit late for you to be traveling unescorted, isn’t it, Baroness Frankenstein?” he remarked as we stood near the railing.

“Perhaps. But in a place with no darkness, where is the danger?” I replied.

“You make a good point, but enjoy it while you can. Come the winter months, it will be almost nothing but darkness, with only a few hours of dim sunlight.”

“I won’t like that,” I commented sincerely.

“No. I would think not. Perhaps you will travel abroad during those months.”

“That is an excellent idea.”

We stood side by side, gazing out onto the ocean for a few moments without speaking.

“You’ve seen nothing of that Arthur Flett, I assume?” he said after a little while.

“No, but it’s funny you mention him. My sister, Ingrid, was asking me about him just the other day.”

“How so?”

“She was just confirming that I hadn’t seen him after that last day at the castle. For some reason, she seemed particularly eager to be sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.”

“And had you?” Investigator Cairo asked.

“Why would I forget?”

“Oh, people forget all sorts of things, especially memories that are unpleasant. These events are frequently buried below consciousness.”

“Consciousness?” I questioned.

He sighed and looked up pensively as though deciding how best to explain it. “I’ve been reading on the works of the German physician, Franz Mesmer. He put his patients in a trance state that enabled them to recall memories they had buried.”

“How does one bury a memory?” I inquired. “Certainly not with a shovel.”

He smiled. “Of course not.”

“These unhappy memories can be locked away in the mind so that the person does not even recall that they ever occurred and is thus protected from the pain and fear caused by the event’s memory,” Investigator Cairo explained. “Dr. Mesmer is able to unlock those memories by a method that has come to be known as mesmerization.”

“Thankfully I have none of those in my past,” I said.

“You have never suffered a mental trauma?”

“Trauma?”

“An injury — in this case an injury to the mind. No assault on your psyche at all?”

I thought he was being overly personal and I didn’t like it.

“Hasn’t it been a mental trauma to you to never know your mother or your father?” Investigator Cairo asked.

“How do you know those things?” I asked, shocked and mildly offended at his impudence.

“I’m an investigator.”

“I gather you don’t think it rude to speak to someone you hardly know of personal matters such as that.”

At this he smiled and shook his head wearily. “You must forgive me,” he apologized. “My work as an investigator has sharpened my
interest in everything to do with the workings of the human mind. I tend to ask questions that I consider professional, but others find boorish.”

“I have never met someone who probed so deeply,” I said.

“It is a passion of mine. I believe that someday there will be doctors who study nothing but the pathologies of the mind, the idea being that when people suffer from maladies of the mind they are alienated from their true selves. This alienation causes the afflicted person to behave in odd and even criminal ways.”

“Interesting,” I commented. “And do you believe that maladies of the mind are at the root of the current troubles in the area?”

“Some sort of madness is afoot,” he said. “An Angus Martin who delivers dairy products around Gairsay has gone missing now. Do you know him?”

“Mrs. Flett takes care of all such things for us,” I told him. But then I remembered an incident a few days earlier when I was walking alone and a man in a milk wagon had come up behind me so close that he startled me, causing me to stagger to my knees on the ground. The man came down from his wagon to help me, which would have been nice had he not been muttering angrily, extremely annoyed that I had been in his way.

After I told him about this, Investigator Cairo asked, “Were you injured?”

I held out my arms to show him where I was scraped and bruised from my fall, though modesty prevented me from showing him the bruises that were also on my knees.

“Those are bad,” he said. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“I don’t see the need. They’ll heal. I’d rather just forget about it.”

“There! You see?” he cried triumphantly.

“See what?”

“An unpleasant event pushed away under the carpet of forgetfulness.”

“I could remember it if I wanted to,” I argued. “I simply choose not to.”

“You’re right. It’s not quite the same thing,” he allowed.

We chatted about one thing and another until we reached Gairsay. Investigator Cairo helped me with the bags of things I’d purchased in Stromness as he escorted me back to the castle. “Would you mind if I came by one of these days for a call?” he asked at the door.

“Would it be business or pleasure?” I asked.

He thought about this for a moment before answering, “A bit of both.”

FROM THE JOURNAL OF
INGRID VDW FRANKENSTEIN

August 17, 1815

Conscience. Shakespeare has Hamlet say it makes cowards of us all. Does it? That question has been on my mind a lot lately.

I think it does. Every time I stop to question my actions — the rightness or wrongness of them — I am thwarted in my resolve. I must stick to my one goal: to return Walter to his former health. The intense love I feel for him drives me. It is my only concern.

But it is a grisly business. If, before I began, I had truly comprehended the magnitude of the gore involved, it certainly would have sickened me into abandoning my plans. At the end of every day the white lab apron I wear is soaked in blood. Despite scrubbing
in the laboratory sink, the skin on my hands is becoming tinged with red.

Poor Walter. He suffers so. For his own good, I keep him in a nearly perpetual state of deep intoxication. When he groans or stirs, I pour strong alcohol down his throat. He is becoming quite thin even though I mix mashed food in with the fluid in order to sustain him.

Thanks to our donor, he has a new right leg attached at the knee and a new right hand and forearm. It was much more arduous and time-consuming work than I had imagined, and I am afraid to miss even the tiniest detail. Joint bones must be filed to fit their new host. Tendons must be reattached. Muscles reconnected, nerves and veins allowed to find their paths.

Some of it is the work of a butcher. Other times I feel like a lace-maker tatting her delicate fibers with deft fingers.

It is tedious and wearying. I labor at it for hours and hours each day until I am close to collapse. At times I throw myself across my beloved’s broad expanse of chest, sobbing with nervous exhaustion, wondering whether this quest I have embarked upon is madness itself. Am I a love-crazed lunatic who has lured poor dear Walter into an insanity of my own making? The solace of my love’s barely thumping heart is all that consoles me and keeps me going.

And what of Riff? Are the sins of bravado, rudeness, and conceit really so dire that he deserved such an end — to be packed in
ice and cut apart? When I am done, I will make a grave for him and throw what remains into the ground. I dare not mark it, though. Perhaps it will be safer to simply drop what’s left in the ocean.

I think of all those cadavers I saw in the medical college. Didn’t the college itself look the other way when it came to the unsavory methods of their procurement? Why must I struggle to do the same?

August 18

Giselle is aggravating me so, constantly clucking about this party next week. How can I care about it when I have so much on my mind?!

Walter’s life hangs in the balance, entirely in my hands. I don’t want to overstrain him, and with each new procedure I must give his body time to heal and recover. But at the same time I can’t take too long. How much longer can Walter survive in this alcohol-induced half sleep?

The pressure is more than I can bear sometimes. Only sleep can mend my frayed nerves, and many nights sleep won’t come. If only it would get truly dark! This continual daylight could drive anyone insane!

August 19

If Giselle doesn’t stop nagging me, I will strangle her! She says my appearance is diminished from studying too much, and I won’t look good when our guests arrive for the party!

The party!

Who cares? Who cares! Who cares about a stupid party?!

If she’s not complaining that I am disinterested in her frivolous gala, then she is annoyed because I am not paying sufficient attention to her or Uncle Ernest — or the world around me, apparently.

Just minutes ago, she was berating me for this. “You are so involved in your studies that you don’t even realize that there have been two more murders. Investigator Cairo has been coming by to report them to me.”

“Who has been killed?” This shocking news
did
grab my attention.

“One was right here on the island — a worker was killed. And the other was in Stromness, not far from the dressmaker where I got our gowns.” From there, she went on to scold me for not having tried on the gown she’d had made for me.

There are only two reasons I am eager for this party. Dr. Sarlandière is coming. Jakob Berzelius has also accepted. There
are questions I need to ask them before I run electric current throughout Walter’s body. For that reason — and that alone — I am counting the days until our guests arrive. Hopefully Dr. Berzelius will come earlier than the others, as he suggested he might.

August 19 (continued)

I have reached a most astonishing point in my father’s riveting narrative. I can hardly pull myself from it. Having animated the man he has created, Victor Frankenstein finds that this man-creation has gone wildly out of his control. He torments my father.
He
is the nemesis that threatens all who my father loves. What cruel irony! His stalker is the thing he himself created.

As I continue to read my father’s writings, I think I understand why he felt such revulsion toward the creation that he calls the Monster. It was his own ineptitude that caused the creature’s deformity. Victor Frankenstein, who had figured out how to overcome death itself, could not lay in simple stitches as any beginning physician can. Perhaps it was his youth, or his haste, or his growing madness. If his creature had not been a human wreck of monstrous proportion, all the other misery that came after — which I am now breathlessly reading for the first time — might not have happened.

This reading of my father’s tragic story fills me with caution. While I want to replace Walter’s stiffening skin, at least on his face, I must not destroy his handsome face with a slip of my own quivering hand. And so, I hesitate. But this procrastination cannot go on indefinitely.

Tonight I will guard over my Walter, sitting beside his bed as usual, reading. Among the books Anthony lent me is one on the work of Sushruta, India’s great ancient surgeon, who was repairing facial injuries incurred in battles in 600 B.C.

Before I begin to read, I must mention one last strange occurrence. The head I scooped from the sea and keep in a jar is changing. The skin is tightening and the film is dissolving from the eyes. Some quality in the preserving fluid must be causing this. I will keep a close watch.

He is stirring. I must attend to him….

August 20

I read for hours and hours and hours until sleep overcame me right there in the chair where I sat. What a night of discovery!

Sushruta was fascinating. He burned mustard seeds to create cleansing fumes to soothe the nerves of the patient he was working on. He used boiled butter to clean wounds. But it was not Sushruta that kept me glued to my chair for hours.

I’ve learned why my father came here and what he was doing. It was all in the last of the three albums.

He had come here for the isolation of this barely populated island. His Monster had demanded a mate. In exchange, he would never bother my father again.

What a revelation! My father estranged himself from Giselle and me to save us from the Monster’s vengeance.

My father got in touch with Gallagher. This time, the human he made from body parts was a female. And she was beautiful. But without intending to, he fashioned a woman who looked just like our mother.

In a fit of panic — and maybe of jealousy — he decided not to give the Monster this female who looked just like his dead wife. Instead, he dismembered her, sailed out to the middle of the ocean, and threw the parts overboard.

But what he didn’t know was that the head would wash ashore, years later.

I have the head of Frankenstein’s bride in a jar!

Even now I can see her gazing at me. Did this head really once look like my mother? I’ve seen small paintings of her. This, though, is so real.

I now know all my father learned in creating this newer, more refined version of the original creature. For one thing, he found a stronger, more delicate stitching thread. He had a supply of it
somewhere here in the laboratory. He also learned to freeze the skin before stitching.

I have to stop writing because there is so much to do. I will begin by applying ice to Walter’s face.

August 20 (continued)

It’s done, and I’m afraid it has not turned out as cleanly as I had wished. There is swelling I hope will subside with time. The stitches show and both eyes are deeply purple underneath, as is the whole right half of his face.

It’s monstrous.

I hate myself right now. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. Exactly!

But bruises heal. Swelling goes down. I mustn’t lose heart.

Walter stirred and I hurried to his side.

“My skin isn’t hard,” he slurred. His lip twitched in an attempt to smile, and that was encouraging. I hadn’t killed the nerves in his face. “You did it,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Sleep now,” I told him, bringing the bottle of spirits to his lips. “Rest and heal.” In a second he was sleeping once more.

I have no patience for this party tomorrow. I haven’t even tried on my dress. I will have to steal away often to check on Walter. His health seems so fragile right now.

Tomorrow I will speak to the scholars at the party. (Anthony has written to say that his medical studies will keep him in Edinburgh.) If the scholars give me the answers I am hoping for, I will begin slowly introducing electric current section by section into Walter’s body with the hope of reinvigorating the nerves.

As I write this, the head of Frankenstein’s bride, the replica of my mother, seems to peer at me from the jar on the shelf. Do I see blame in her gaze?

Am I doing what my father before me did — creating a love for myself? When Victor Frankenstein realized what he had unwittingly done, he destroyed his work. But was that the right thing to do? What harm would there have been if he had let her live, loved her, and then made another mate for the Monster?

Walter moans in his sleep, and I brush away dark curls from his forehead.

By the end of this month, my Walter will be a new man. A man whom I will love always.