Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

Before opening the door to the chapel, I put my ear to the door to listen for servants.

“Tomorrow night, then,” I said to the others, “and not a word of this to anyone.”

That night I dreamed I was in my room, undressing for bed, and the door drifted open just a bit. I knew it was only a draft, for my window was open as well, the evening was so warm and fine. I walked over to close the door properly, but when I pushed it, I met with resistance, and I knew there was someone, waiting, on the other side.

"And so you can see,” father told us at our lessons the next morning, “that throughout Ovid’s Metamorphoses there is a constant theme of transformation. Daphne is turned into a tree, Narcissus into a flower, Actaeon into a stag-all of these the work of the gods, of course. But perhaps we can take away from this an appreciation of the endless and fascinating mutability of our own world and-”

There was a knock at the door, and Klaus, one of our servants, poked his head apologetically into the room.

“I’m very sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but there’s been a bit of a problem at the bottom of the shaft.”

“No one’s injured, I hope,” Father said.

“No, sir. It’s just that we started filling in the well down there, like you wanted, and, um, it’s not a well.”

“What do you mean, Klaus?”

“There’s a false bottom in it, sir, and it gave out under the weight of the gravel.”

“What’s below, then?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Looks to be a cave of some sort. We didn’t want to do anything until we told you about it first, sir.”

I was watching Father’s face carefully, trying to guess if this was news to him. He was, I knew, an able keeper of secrets. But his face looked genuinely surprised.

“Have you a ladder long enough to reach down?” Father asked.

“We do, sir.”

“Let’s have a look, then,” Father said.

“Can we come too?” I asked.

He looked at me, and must have sensed my honest excitement, for he smiled and nodded. “Very well. You’ll be sensible and do as you’re told. Klaus, if you’d make sure we have enough lanterns, please.”

I leapt to my feet, and grinned at Elizabeth and Henry. Chateau Frankenstein was not just a home but had also been the most exciting playground a child could imagine, with its dungeons and ramparts and concealed passages, most of which had been discovered long ago by Elizabeth and Konrad and me.

“What an endlessly fascinating home you have, Victor,” said Henry with a wry smile. “Imagine having your own cave!”

Apart from the night of the book burning, this was the first time I’d been inside our grand library since it had become a construction site. It was now kept under lock and key, to make sure my younger brothers didn’t wander in and fall down the perilous secret stairwell, now permanently open while the workers went about their labors.

The carpets had been rolled up, and boards laid down to protect the floors from wheelbarrows loaded with gravel and brick; the shelves of books were hung with thick curtains to guard them from dust. The hinged shelf that had concealed the secret doorway had been dismantled, leaving the portal wide open.

It felt most strange to once more be making my way down these narrow steps. Even though they’d been properly reinforced by the workers, and the shaft was well lit with lanterns, I acutely remembered my first dark and secret descent with Elizabeth and Konrad. Halfway down, as we passed the entrance to the now vacant Dark Library, my heart gave a quick, sad squeeze, for my twin was not with me now.

At the bottom of the shaft, two workers were peering down into the well, into which they’d lowered a lantern on a rope. I saw they had a long ladder at the ready.

“Let’s get that down and have a look,” Father said, turning to me with a wink. His look of true pleasure cheered me. There were few men in the republic who loved learning as much as my father, and for the first time I realized that, though I was a sloppy student, raw and abundant curiosity was something we both shared.

The workers lowered the ladder, made sure it was secure, and then stepped back. “There you go, Klaus,” one of them said.

Klaus looked at his fellow workers. “Not keen to come, then?” he said mockingly, though I noticed he himself looked less than thrilled as he swung himself over the short wall. Father went next, and then it was my turn.

Rung by rung I descended, feeling the subterranean chill climb my body. I passed the splintered plank remnants of the well’s false bottom, and then the cave opened out around me. Lantern light lapped at pale stone.

I stepped down into the pile of gravel and earth that had collapsed earlier, looked around the large cavern-and sucked in my breath as I beheld the giant image of a horse drawn in black.

It was not alone. Other horses galloped and leapt across the walls and ceiling, the simplicity of their lines only enhancing their grace and sense of speed.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Father, holding his lantern close to one painting. “They must be very old indeed.”

Elizabeth and Henry were soon among us, gazing about with wide eyes.

“Incredible,” Henry breathed.

“So beautiful,” said Elizabeth, smiling at me with such simple joy and wonder that I could not help but smile back. For a few blissful moments the pain that drummed in my missing fingers almost evaporated.

“It keeps going, this way,” said Klaus, holding his lantern high and showing us a passageway with corrugated walls that made me think of some great leviathan’s gullet. Though the passage was narrow, its ceiling was vaulted high, and on the stone were yet more animals-giant bulls with bristling crests of hair, and great horns, powerfully painted in a rich terra-cotta so you could practically feel the sheer bulk of their flanks, the bundled muscle of their haunches.

“Look!” said Elizabeth, pointing. “That one has a spear in its side.”

“Well spotted,” said my father. “And this one’s been felled.”

In the wash of his lantern light, I saw one of the mammoth creatures on its side, head drooped lifelessly.

“It’s like some kind of primitive art gallery,” Henry said.

“Museum, too,” Father said. “Look at these markings here, beneath the fallen bull.”

I saw the series of simple black marks with strokes through them. “It’s like a tally,” I remarked. “They wanted to keep track of their kills.”

Father nodded. “Whoever made these pictures was recording their history.”

The passageway turned to the right and opened up into another cavern. Elizabeth called out excitedly, “An ibex, look! When did ibexes last live in Geneva?”

“Is that a bear?” Henry said.

“Must be,” I remarked, “though I’ve never seen one so big. Look at it there, compared to the bull! What a monster!”

A short tunnel led out from this cavern into a series of narrow vaulted galleries. We walked through them, sometimes awed into silence, other times excitedly calling out the new animals we saw in this underground bestiary. One gallery was filled with brown stags. In another knelt a strange horse with a horn growing from its forehead. Crouching beneath it was some kind of tiger, ready to pounce and kill, with two great teeth curving from its upper jaw. And beside the tiger was something I’d not seen before now.

“A handprint,” I said. It was red, made with paint-or perhaps blood.

“Is it like a signature, do you think?” Elizabeth said. “An artist taking credit for his work?”

Instinctively I went and placed my spread fingers against it. The print dwarfed my own hand.