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Elizabeth was a thief. It was not money she stole, nor jewels. She had little use for the former and had ample of the latter. No, what Elizabeth Lavenza stole was time. She had become quite skilled at the theft of time. Snatching a few extra moments in the early morning before the house awoke and chores began or finding ways to shave precious minutes out of the tedious hours spent filling the void that had been left by Caroline’s death.
The rest of the house grieved. Elizabeth worked. Clothes stayed clean, meals were cooked and served on time, servants were paid, and children were cared for. Wherever a mother, sister, or daughter was required, Elizabeth was there.
But not today.
Today she had crept away to the nearby wood to steal her time among the trees and the whispering leaves. Dappled sunlight shot speckels of gold along the forest floor and she followed them as if chasing after fairy footsteps. Birds called and she whistled back, giggling like a giddy child when she got one to trill a response.
Her sudden abundance of stolen time had been carefully planned. She had let Justine take William to play and she had left Ernest a sheet of sums that would keep him occupied for a good hour. Alphonse, she had quietly dodged so that he had no opportunity to ask her to entertain him with conversation over dry historical tomes. He had an affinity for the kind of joyless books that were bound in handsome leather covers and meant to collect dust on shelves rather than to be read: volumes that could interest no one but the most sterile and pedantic of dilettantes.
There were no such tomes out here. No child needing her attention, no younger brother struggling with studies and no adoptive father seeking to distract himself from his grief and loneliness. Justine’s arrival had been a relief, the constant mourning and sorrow-laden silence that had filled the house after Caroline had died had tasted of guilt and unspoken accusations. The quiet dignity with which the household was expected to grieve lay like bleak, colorless snow over something dark that pulled tighter and tighter at Elizabeth’s heart until she was sure it would cut off her very breath if she did not break free from it.
It was your fault she died…
If she hadn’t tried to save you she would have lived…
It should have been you…
They would never speak those words. But Elizabeth heard them all the same. She heard them in Victor’s sudden overcompensating attentiveness. As if he were apologizing for thinking such things. She heard them in Alphonse’s silent coldness, the way he insisted she fill the space Caroline once occupied and quietly resented how much his loneliness made him seek out his daughter’s comfort. A poor substitute was better than being alone.
Elizabeth didn’t know if she agreed.
She didn’t know when she had broken into a run but the trail of lights she had been following began to blur and the trees flew past in bold dark shapes at the corners of her vision. The wood was getting darker and denser. The whistle of birdsong became the ominous flap of wings as the creatures fled from the half-mad woman in her frantic flight below them. She took no notice. Onward she barrelled uncaring of how the grasping branches snagged her dress or whipped her skin. So fast was she running that it felt like plummeting until a large figure in her path brought her to a stumbling halt.
The world stopped. Her trail of lights had ended. Even the birds were silent. It was as if all life had vanished. Elizabeth’s heart hammered in her chest and her eyes and mouth were wide with shock. The creature before her could not possibly be a man. Had he not been standing upright and moving towards her she would have thought him a corpse.
He must have been seven, no, eight feet tall. His skin was yellowed and scored with scars. Pale white lightning patterns webbed across one of his cheeks and rough suture marks that rent through is upper lip and twisted it up into a permanent half-snarl. The tangled curtain of thick, glossy, black hair that framed his face did little to soften the effect. Horrible as these features were it was his eyes that terrified her the most. Catching what dim light managed to penetrate the trees they shone a vivid reflective yellow,
She found that, terrified as she was, she could not move or scream. Perhaps that was what saved her. Had she run she was certain he would have given chase. Frozen she waited until he came to a stop just before her and spoke in a rough voice.
“Peace! I have no intention to harm you. What are you running from?”
She recoiled a little when his eyes lingered too long upon her face and figure and his countenance darkened.
“I…I am running…”
What should she say? That she was running from grief? From her family? Should she tell him she’d been seized by a sudden madness. Embarrassed she ducked her head and stared down at her feet.
“I could see you were running. I asked from what,” he replied, “Is someone after you? Are you in need of protection?” he scanned the forest behind her. She watched as one of his hands wandered up to grasp at his left shoulder as though in remembrance of an injury, “They aren’t armed, are they?”
Fear. She recognized it. It gave her some comfort to know that this creature could feel afraid. He seemed human. Perhaps he was merely ill or deformed. Still, a large man was not something Elizabeth was keen to meet alone in the woods.
“No. I was running from-from something else. Something I prefer not to discuss with a stranger. Why are you here?” she asked.
“I am seeking the one who made me. I believe his home is very near and I intend to find him there,” his horrible face twisted with a murderous rage that sent a chill down Elizabeth’s spine.
“The one who made you? What do you mean made?” she took a step back and glanced behind her, wondering if perhaps she should take her chances and run.
“That is a long tale, though I would be very grateful to be able to tell it to a sympathetic soul,” she didn’t miss that his expression had turned hopeful, if a little desperate. He had begun to raise a hand and reach for her. Perhaps sensing that she was on the cusp of fleeing.
She skittered back a few paces, “Stay where you are! I will hear your tale but do not come nearer to me. I won’t run from you but you must not come closer!”
He seemed displeased but made no move to approach her. After some deliberation he seemed to find her request favorable for he brightened, “You would listen to my tale? You will hear it out to completion if I do not come closer? I will accept this! Perhaps once you come to know of my plight you will find it in your heart to take pity on me! Oh yes, I desire that very much. If one such as you could take pity upon me I would gladly abanon my quest to find my maker. Please, my good and generous benefactor, tell me your name?”
“Elizabeth Lavenza,” she replied warily, “I will hear you, please speak freely.”
A look of such deep relief spread across his misshapen face that Elizabeth could not help but feel a little moved already. He raised his hand to wipe a tear from his eyes, “Thank you,” his gratitude was humbling. She looked around and gestured to a fallen log for them to sit on.
“Come, if your story is a long one we may wish to sit."
She did not wholly trust him yet, but she reasoned that if he had meant to harm her he would have done so by now. He followed her and sat at one end of the fallen tree, giving her room to take as much distance as she wanted. She offered him a small smile of thanks and he beamed in return. Once satisfied that he had her undivided attention he began.
“It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being: all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt, at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses…”
His tale was a long one, but he was eloquent and well spoken. Elizabeth found herself intrigued by the extraordinary nature of his existence and drawn in by his passionate delivery. What she had once found frightening was becoming fascinating.
At length he produced papers from his tattered coat and a journal, “These are the artefacts my father left. Once I acquired the knowledge sufficient to read them I had a place. Geneva and a name…Victor Frankenstein,” he said.
Elizabeth could not keep the shock from her face.
“W-what did you say? What name?!”
He stared at her, his gentleness vanishing as he rose to his feet and loomed over her, “You know him.”
“Yes!” she held up her hands as though to ward him off, he caught them and hauled her to her feet roughly.
“Stop!” she cried, “Stop! I am not your enemy! I can help you!”
He held her in place and stared down at her, “How do you intend to help me? You have shown me great kindness, beyond that of any I have met but you reacted to the name of Frankenstein. What do you know of him? He owes me a great deal and I intend to see him fulfill his responsibility, else I shall strike him dead.”
“I can take you to him. I can even speak to him on your behalf. Please! This doesn’t have to end badly, I will help you but you mustn’t harm me nor anyone else! Let me go!”
“How can I be assured you won’t run and warn my enemy that I am in pursuit of him? Perhaps you would seek to protect him from me!” his eyes flashed.
“I would be your advocate. I would plead your case to Victor and convince him to accept you. Did you not say you wished for a friend? Did you not say that if you found one you might well abandon your quest?” she looked up at him pleadingly.
The creature eyed her and pinned her wrists in one of his large hands while he rubbed his chin with the other, “I did,” he conceded. He looked at her wide, frightened eyes and softened. With a sigh he released her.
“Very well, I will submit myself to your care. So long as you do not betray or abandon me I shall do anything you ask of me. Do not betray my trust and I will not betray yours,”
Elizabeth rubbed her wrist and nodded. She turned and gestured for him to come with her.
“Follow me then. I will take you home.”