Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here, hunched over the table, scouring tome after tome, searching for the recipe. Damn Wilhelm Frankenstein and his mysterious ways! Why hadn’t he written it down in his notebook with the other instructions? Or left it in the metal book with the spirit board pendulum? How many secret hiding places did the man need?

Even with three butterflies upon me, I’ll never be able to read every single book in here in a single visit.

Maybe he liked to keep it close at hand.

The thought makes me look up, and a forgotten image flares in my mind.

When Elizabeth and I were leaving the spirit world together for the first time, my room revealed its former self as Wilhelm’s very bedchamber, from three hundred years ago. His initials on the sumptuous pillows. And in the wall, a small cupboard in which had rested a single book.

As if the house had been trying to show me something.

At once I am running up the stairs, through the library, and along the hallway to my own bedchamber. Inside I fix my eyes on the wall.

Show me!

The walls pulse, the floor ripples, and my gaze burns through centuries of lathe and plaster and brick until I see a small secret recess. I reach out and seize hold of the shimmering book, which solidifies at my touch.

On the very first page is the recipe, written in a hand I recognize as Wilhelm Frankenstein’s. I pass my fingers over it, committing all its ingredients to memory. It is simple, easy to replicate. I will transcribe it the moment I return to the real world. I turn the page to make sure I’ve not missed anything, and frown.

Across two pages are drawn various diagrams of some kind of hooded gown or robe. The fabric bears an intricate butterfly pattern. But when I turn the page, I see yet more drawings of the garment, closer and more detailed, and it appears that it’s actually made of butterflies. Hundreds upon hundreds, sutured together by their wings into a tight dark weave.

As though sharing my strange repulsion at the image, the three butterflies that have ridden with me now soar from my body, brilliant with color.

“Wait!” I say, for I want to bring them all back with me.

But they flutter across my bedchamber with such purpose that, for the first time, I wonder where it is they go. I hurry after them into the hallway.

They fly back into the deserted library, cross the room, and slip through the seam of the secret door. I follow, down the stairs, and then down the shaft to the caverns.

As I jog through the vaulted galleries, the ancient paintings are more luminescent than I’ve ever seen them. Several times I turn quickly, for it seems a bison has just pawed the ground or tossed its head. Every surface of my body is alive: My fingertips taste the air, my nostrils inhale color. A strange sense of inevitability builds within me.

I’m curiously unsurprised when I’m led to the cave with the image of the giant man. He towers above me, his stick arm outstretched, generating such power that I can feel the small hairs on the back of my head lift, as though anticipating lightning.

I follow the butterflies as they descend the steep passage to the burial chamber. They fly directly to the pit and then spiral down, as if drawn by a powerful current. I rush to the edge and stare, stunned by what I see.

The strange, vast form at the pit’s bottom is no longer encased in stone or swathed in a cocoon but is now contained in a fleshy womb-shaped sac.

My three butterflies land upon it, and instantly all the color drains from their wings and bodies and they become black once more. And at that very same moment the membranous sac trembles and becomes momentarily translucent. I see a quick, dark swirl of movement-limbs, a torso, and a glimpse of an enormous skull turning, as though looking up at me. Then the membrane is opaque once again and convulses violently as though pummeled from within by a thousand fists. A furious and frustrated wail rises up from the pit.

And for the first time in the spirit world, I feel terror, for I suddenly realize that even as the butterfly spirits have been giving, they’ve also been taking away. They give me speed of mind, instinct, but they drain me of something else, which they are bestowing upon this pit creature-life.

I take a step backward, relieved by the trembling of the spirit clock in my pocket. I turn and rush from the caves, desperate to be away from the pit and the thing that rests there, fitfully waiting to be born.

I returned to the real world, my crippled hand pulsing with pain, for I had no spirits upon me now. In my panic to escape the burial chamber, I’d not sought out any. More than that, I was afraid of them now.

Wearily I exhaled. Outside, the wind thrashed branches and rattled the windows, and with a shudder I thought of the restless white mist encircling our chateau in the spirit world.

I replaced the ring on my finger, then swung myself off the bed to lock away the spirit clock and the flask of elixir. Halfway to my desk I heard stealthy footfalls pause outside my bedchamber. My door for some reason was not fully closed, and creaked open a hair’s width.

For a moment I stood paralyzed, my skin chilled, for I’d had a nightmare about this moment, the certainty that someone was waiting just beyond the door. I dragged a deep breath into my lungs, my muscles tensed, my teeth clenched, and I rushed toward the door and wrenched it open, a roar ready in my throat.

Nobody was there.

But I heard a soft tread down the hallway. I hurried after it.

By the time I caught sight of her, Elizabeth had already reached the first landing of the great curving staircase, and I could tell at once from her eerily serene gait that she was sleepwalking. It had been her habit, since she was very young, to sleepwalk when anxious. I dared not call out to her now, for I didn’t want her to wake and stumble in alarm. So I followed her silently as she walked with graceful ease down the stone steps toward the main entrance hall. She wore only her nightdress, and her feet were bare.

I kept pace with her. I wondered if her slumbering mind was worried about the child in the cottage and she meant to check on it. I couldn’t let her wander out into the night like this. She surprised me with a burst of speed, turning away from the main entrance and rushing down the hall past the chapel and armory. I lost sight of her briefly as she hurried down a side corridor, then caught up as she entered the cloakroom that exited near the stables.

In the near dark the coats and riding cloaks glowered from their pegs like mourners. The heavy door was bolted for the night.

Elizabeth stood directly before the door, arms at her sides, motionless.

Behind her I watched, wondering what she meant to do. Her posture was so expectant, I felt the hair on my neck bristle. Outside, the wind gave a moan. Within me swelled a terrible fear that someone was about to knock.

“Elizabeth,” I said softly, stepping closer. “We’ll check on him first thing in the morning.”

She gave no indication of hearing me. I drew alongside her, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the wide, oblivious smile on her face, as though she awaited the arrival of someone beloved.

I looked at the door, and my dread became a shrill sound in my head, a metallic taste in my mouth.

“Elizabeth, you should return to bed now,” I said, trying to keep the panic from my voice.

I put a hand on her shoulder, and at my touch she gave a shudder. Her smile evaporated and was replaced by wide-eyed anxiety. She gasped.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s me, Victor. You’ve been sleepwalking. It’s all right now.”

She looked all around her in confusion. Her breathing stuttered, and I saw her poor heart drumming its pulse in her throat.