Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

Despite myself I laughed. “Why, thank you, Henry. I’m flattered.”

“What is it exactly you think you can achieve?” he asked me, removing his spectacles to polish them. I was surprised by the steadiness-the hint of challenge, even-in his blue-eyed gaze.

I took a breath. My own thoughts were far from clear. “I don’t know. To see him again, I suppose. To help him.”

“Admit it, Victor,” said Elizabeth. “You’d make your own deal with the devil if you could play God.”

“Don’t listen to her,” I told Henry dismissively. “She plans to join a convent.”

Bewildered, Henry looked from me to Elizabeth. “Is this true?”

Elizabeth glared at me. “Why did you say that?”

I shrugged. “Why keep it secret?”

Henry looked truly distressed. “You really mean to become a… a nun?”

“Why does everyone seem to find this idea so incredible?” she asked.

“Well, it’s just…” Henry cleared his throat. “You’re very, um, young to make such a drastic decision-and have you thought about the family? They’ve just lost a son. If you entered a convent, it would be like losing a daughter, too. They’d be devastated.”

“Of course I’ve thought of that! Which is why I wasn’t planning on doing it right away.”

“Well, that’s some comfort,” murmured Henry. “Still, it would just be such a terrible loss to, well, everyone.”

“She has no intention of becoming a nun,” I said impatiently. “Anyway, she wouldn’t last two days.”

“I resent that very much!” Elizabeth said.

I held up two fingers. “ Two days before the mother superior throws herself from the bell tower.”

Elizabeth bit at her lips, and by the light in her eyes, I knew she was suppressing a giggle.

But now Henry leveled his gaze at me. “You, Victor, are just trying to change the subject. What exactly are you planning? You used to joke about being a god. But this is taking things too far, don’t you think?”

I rubbed at my temples, impatient. “I tell you, I want to see my twin again!”

“But how?” Henry demanded.

I sighed. “I’ve no idea, not yet. Here’s all I know: that the world is uncontrollable. Chaos reigns. That anything and everything might be possible. I won’t subscribe to any rational system again. Nothing will bind me.”

“That is the way to madness,” said Elizabeth.

“If it makes me mad, so be it. But leave me to my method, because without it I’ll fall into a despair so deep, I’ll never claw my way back out. I’ll see him, damn it! As far as I’m concerned, he asked for my help. ‘Come raise me.’ Over and over he said it. Wherever he is, he’s not happy.”

“Stop,” Elizabeth said.

“He’s suffering,” I persisted.

“Stop it, Victor!” Her eyes were wet.

“Victor, you’re upsetting her,” Henry said, softly but firmly.

“You two don’t need to have any part of this. I’ve bullied you enough-you especially, Henry.”

I was startled to see anger animate his face. “I’m not quite so easily bullied, Victor. I may not be the bravest of men, but I’m not the weakling you suggest.”

“I wasn’t suggesting any such-”

“I was with you when Polidori amputated your fingers and tried to kill us all. I fought then, and I fought that wretched lynx alongside the rest of you.”

“Absolutely you did, Henry, and-”

But he was no longer listening to my reassurances. His eyes had strayed to the red metal book.

“I’ve seen that before,” he said.

“Possibly in the Dark Library,” I told him. “We spent enough time looking through the shelves-”

“No. Not there.”

Purposefully he walked past me, opened the door, and left the music room. Elizabeth and I looked at each other in puzzlement, then followed. We found him in the great hallway, standing before the huge portrait of Wilhelm Frankenstein, our notorious ancestor who’d built this chateau some three hundred years before.

His face was handsome and pale, unblemished except for a mole on his left cheek. His full mouth was well-molded, almost feminine. His eyes were a piercing blue, with a curious speck of brown in the lower part of each iris. Eerily he stared out at me, meeting my gaze directly, his right eyebrow lifted slightly, conveying a hint of mockery.

“There,” Henry said, pointing.

I looked and shook my head in amazement. “How is it possible I’ve lived here my entire life and-”

“Precisely for that reason,” Henry said. “We stop seeing what’s before our eyes every day.”

“Incredible,” I murmured. One of Wilhelm’s hands held a slim book. There could be no mistaking its color, nor the elaborate decoration on the cover. “The metal book.”

I heard Elizabeth give a small gasp. “And that’s not all. Around his neck, look.”

Wilhelm wore a black doublet with a ruffled collar in the Spanish style fashionable for the time. Half hidden in the lace flourishes was a chain with an unusual pendant. Without a doubt it was the star-shaped pendulum weight.

“This is the fellow who built the chateau, isn’t it?” asked Henry.

“And the Dark Library within it,” I replied. “Remember, he’s the one who got on his horse one day and was never seen again.”

“Your father mentioned that he attempted to converse with spirits and raise ghosts,” Elizabeth said quietly.

“Perhaps his attempts were successful,” I said. I stared up at his face. His smug smile seemed to be congratulating us for our discovery. “The fellow knows something.”

“You can learn a lot from a painting,” said Henry, peering more closely at the canvas. “And there’s a great deal of detail in this one. Remarkable. It could have been painted with a magnifying glass.”

“There’s fruit on the windowsill,” said Elizabeth. “Limes and oranges and apples.”

“What of them?” I said impatiently.

“Fruit was terribly expensive three hundred years ago,” said Henry. They’re a display of his wealth. He’s bragging. ‘Look at my limes and oranges! The elaborate brass chandelier! The tapestries on my wall!’”

I couldn’t help laughing at Henry’s pompous voice.

“His money’s new to him,” my clever friend continued. “He wants to show it off.”

Elizabeth looked at him with real admiration, and I felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. “That was well observed, Henry!”

“I’m a merchant’s son,” he replied, flushing. “I know the cost of things, that’s all.”

“But there’s symbolism to it as well,” Elizabeth said. “The apple’s always a sign of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, and”-she pointed-“that one there has a bite out of it.”

I leaned closer. “So it does. You think that refers to his endeavors in alchemy?”

“The occult, more likely.”

“Look at the chandelier,” Henry said. “There are eight holders but only one candle.”

“Does that have significance?” I asked, starting to feel more than a little irritated by my ignorance amidst all this scholarly brilliance.

“On the altar at church,” Elizabeth said, “a lit candle is the sign of God’s presence, that He is among us. But”-and she shivered-“that one is unlit.”

“Perhaps he’s saying he doesn’t believe in God,” I said.

Elizabeth sniffed. “More like His presence is not invited, but if he thinks he can hide from God, he is sadly mistaken.”

“But he wants to be seen,” Henry said. “That’s the point of the whole painting. He wants to show us something.”

“What does he want to show you?” asked a voice behind us, and with a start I turned to see Maria, our housekeeper, staring at us in surprise. Of all our servants Maria had been with us the longest. She had been nurse to both Konrad and me (Konrad being her favorite, naturally) and was practically a member of the family. Indeed, when we were seeking the Elixir of Life, she helped us find the disgraced alchemist Polidori, and kept our secret for us. And when we finally gave the elixir to Konrad, she was in his bedroom, watching. But I never told my parents that-and never would.