Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

“Konrad, you shouldn’t bite,” said Elizabeth mildly, but the child’s face had resumed its characteristic tameness. It yawned and rubbed its eyes with a fist.

“Little monster,” I muttered.

Elizabeth began to laugh. “It hardly broke the skin.”

“I’m glad you find it so amusing,” I said.

“He takes after you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your mother once told me what biters you and Konrad both were, when you were little. Always chomping on each other. She was quite appalled by it.”

“Victor, you’re pale,” Henry remarked, joining us.

“He has a tooth,” I said quietly, “pointed like a saw.”

“Oh, that,” said Elizabeth carelessly. “I noticed that yesterday.”

“It’s not natural.”

“Likely it’s just two teeth that’ve come in too close together. He’s growing so quickly, I’m not surprised.”

“I’ve never seen a tooth like that,” I persisted, unconvinced by her remarks. “And it wasn’t just the tooth. Its whole face changed. It happened yesterday, too. You’ve never noticed anything odd about the child?”

“No.”

I looked over at Henry hopefully, but he too shook his head.

“There’s something not right about it,” I said. The child was staring right at me, and even though I knew it understood nothing, its gaze unnerved me. “When its face changes like that, it’s like another creature altogether. It’s not Konrad.”

Elizabeth looked at me sternly. “Of course it is.”

And certainly, at that moment, the child’s resemblance to Konrad was uncanny.

“Look,” said Henry, “his eyelids are already drooping. He’ll not last the walk back.”

And with that he scooped the child up in his arms and headed for the cottage, Elizabeth at his side.

“Victor, will you gather our picnic things?” she called back over her shoulder.

“Oh, absolutely,” I said, watching them venture up the hill and into the trees, like some lovely family I was no longer part of. “Please allow me to just clean up after everyone.”

Muttering under my breath, I returned to the glade and packed up the hamper. I was about to set off when I saw I’d missed the beloved rag doll. I scooped it up and was about to cram it into my pocket when something stopped me. I looked again at the doll. On the right hand the fourth and fifth fingers had been chewed off.

“You’re making too much of it,” Elizabeth said as we locked the cottage behind us. “Children chew on things all the time.”

“It doesn’t strike you as eerie, or at least odd, that he chewed off the exact same fingers that I’m missing?”

We began our walk back toward the chateau under the unseasonable warmth of the October sun.

“He’s very observant,” Henry said. “Maybe he already recognizes the similarity between you and he’s trying to imitate you.”

“You should be flattered,” Elizabeth added.

“Hah! I don’t think it’s kindly disposed toward me.”

She exhaled angrily. “Well, no wonder, since you seem intent on denying him the least scrap of humanity!”

“Because he’s not human, not yet!” I said, and then added, “Maybe not ever.”

“What are you trying to say, Victor?” Henry asked with a frown.

“I wonder if this creature isn’t… abnormal in some way. If you’d seen the way it looked those two times, you’d wonder the same.”

“Curious, that you’re the only one who sees this,” said Elizabeth. “Have you wondered if maybe you’re seeing things? How many spirit butterflies do you have on you, by the way? Two, three?”

“Two,” I said.

“Maybe they’re clouding your perceptions, like an opiate.”

“I see very well indeed, thank you,” I retorted.

“Well, you’re certainly blind to your own jealousy,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I sometimes wonder if you’ve really accepted the fact that your brother is growing up and truly coming back!”

“Of course I have,” I said, wondering if she were right.

And then I stared, for I thought I saw something dark move across the nape of Elizabeth’s beautiful neck and disappear beneath the collar of her dress.

“You have one on you too,” I murmured before I could check myself.

“What?” she said.

“There was… something on your neck. It looked like one of the shadow butterflies.”

“I have nothing on me.”

“Have you checked?”

“I would’ve noticed, Victor, when I undress at night!”

“You should check right now,” I said. “Under the sun. It’s easiest to detect that way!”

“Honestly, Victor, you’ve got cheek!”

“ I did it on the boat!” I reminded her. “Look, we’ll turn away!”

“I have no intention of undressing in this field, thank you very much!”

Henry looked at me like I was a lunatic.

“You,” she said to me, “have definitely been spending too much time in the spirit world. You’ve moved beyond megalomania and are well into paranoia now!”

And she walked on without saying another word to me, all the way back to the chateau.

I read at my desk, waiting for the church bells to toll midnight before I entered the spirit world. With scant nights until Konrad’s return and our departure for Italy, it was all the more urgent to collect as many spirits as I could. I’d need them for the winter. But right now I was feverishly absorbed in my reading, looking up only to scrawl things in my notebook.

Suddenly, from within the house, came a staccato burst of quick screams and then a keening wail, all the more horrifying because I knew it was my mother’s.

I was up and out my door in a second, rushing down the hallway toward my parents’ chambers. Elizabeth burst from her own room as I passed, and then, as we rounded the corner to the east wing, Father came hurrying toward us.

“Is Mother all right?” I panted.

He seized me by the shoulders, the intensity of his gaze terrible to behold. “Where were you just now?”

“In my room, reading,” I said, feeling cold all over. What did he know?

He stared at me hard. “You weren’t out on the dock?”

I shook my head. “No.”

For a moment he held my eyes with his, and then his shoulders sagged and he released me. He closed his eyes, shook his head.

“I thought not. Your mother… she woke and went to the window and began screaming. She said she saw Konrad standing. I looked and saw nothing at all. It’s not the first time she’s had such nightmares, but she seemed so certain that I felt I had to check, to make sure it wasn’t you.”

“Poor Aunt Caroline,” said Elizabeth, her eyes glinting with tears.

“She’s badly off,” Father said. “But she’s strong; she’ll rally. I just wish I’d taken her away earlier, all of us.”

Impatiently I waited for the house to settle, for the last of the servants to leave the hallways and take to their own beds.

Unlocking my desk drawer, I noticed that my hand shook slightly. I took out the spirit clock and the elixir, and as my candle backlit the tall green flask, I was startled to see how little liquid remained. I peered inside, tilting the container, trying to guess how many more drops it might yield. Why hadn’t I considered this earlier? When the elixir ran out, I’d be cut off from the butterfly spirits forever, unless-I found the recipe.

It was surely of Wilhelm Frankenstein’s making, or if not, he’d learned it from some tome contained somewhere within the chateau.

The Dark Library was, as always, the obvious place to start.

Furious, I shove yet another pile of books onto the floor, to make room for the next.