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Victor has known about the strangeness haunting the estate since he and Adam returned from the Arctic. With the crypt door clawed open and faces at his window in the night, it’s hard to miss.
Refusing to be cowed, Victor studies these new aberrations in his life. He learns very quickly that they only come out at night, and either won’t or can’t cross into the manor itself. The sunlight seems to chase them away every dawn. They have some semblance of intelligence, for they talk to each other and to the infuriatingly incautious Adam.
And more: The female obviously hates Victor, baring her fangs at every opportunity, but seems oddly tamed by Adam’s presence. With him, she goes soft and sweet–-a ruse, Victor would suspect, except for how Adam returns night after night unharmed. Perhaps it’s something about Adam’s own strangeness that protects him. In contrast to his fiery mate, the male is more elusive, and Victor is secretly glad of it. It’s hard seeing those silver eyes in his brother’s face.
Adam takes a rosy view of it, of course. The things prowling the grounds are simply Elizabeth and William, given new life through some kind of miracle. Victor knows better. He’s seen how the world is set against him. And he can admit to himself, now, that many monsters wear human faces.
Adam calls him paranoid, but despite his nightly wanderings, obeys Victor’s rule to never invite one of the creatures into the manor. He brings messages instead, though Victor’s tried to make it clear he doesn’t want to hear them.
Adam, stubborn as his maker, says anyway:
“Elizabeth still blames you for her death. Perhaps you should apologize.”
And:
“William looks poorly.”
And:
“Elizabeth wants to know why you refuse to see them.”
And, perhaps most damning of all:
“William is asking after you. I told him you are doing well enough. He worries.”
He does not know Victor is sending correspondence to people he once thought mad. Unscientific. Superstitious. But there are three dead people walking his estate, only one that Victor even slightly wants there, so to superstition he must turn if he wants to burn out this infection.
Victor’s in the middle of writing one of these letters when he hears the creak of his window opening. At first, he thinks it is merely the wind; he must have forgotten to lock the shutters. But then, soft, barely there–-a sigh.
Warily, hating himself for it, Victor turns. His first thought is that the thing wearing Elizabeth’s face has tired of her game and tried ripping Adam to shreds, and now wishes to do the same to him. Worse, though–-
–-it’s William.
His little brother is still wearing the clothes they buried him in. Victor was not there for the funeral, already tearing off across the world, but he recognizes William’s best suit and neatly-tied cravat. They, like their wearer, are now worse for wear. It looks like he’s taken them tromping through the forest.
It’s this that makes Victor sure in his hypothesis that this is simply something wearing his brother’s skin. William always avoided the forest. He hated their father’s hunts, and as a child, was afraid of ghosts hiding behind every tree. Why would he range there now?
Resolutely, Victor turns back to his letters.
“Are you still ignoring me, then?” the thing asks, and God damn it, it sounds just like William, too. It continues, “I’m not a hallucination, you know. If you just came over here, you could feel me.” A pause. “Or you could invite me inside.”
Victor knows better than to fall for that ruse. He draws his shoulders up against the chill coming in the window, and keeps writing.
“I understand why you hate me, you know.”
Victor can’t help but look, now. Just for a moment–-just to catch the thing in a moment of blank-faced playacting, but no–-it’s looking straight at him, eyes big and sad and wet. Quickly, he looks back to his letters. It won’t catch him that way.
“I took her away,” it says. Soft, apologetic, “She was your world, and I took her away.”
Oh, it’s clever, playing on Victor’s grief for his mother. He wonders, for a moment, how it even knows of her.
Then, like glass splintering, its soft tone changes, pitches into something sharp and sly, goading, “I know that’s why you coveted Elizabeth.”
Victor’s hands clench on his pen.
“I’ve seen the portraits. They look so similar.”
Victor swallows, forces out a soft, “Be quiet.”
Of course, it doesn’t listen. “Did you want a wife or a mother? Perhaps to you, they’re one and the same.”
“I said,” Victor snarls, voice rising, “be quiet!” Somehow, he’s turned back to face the window, has to fight his urge to stride over and push the thing right back off the sill.
It has the gall to look hurt. They stare at each other for one silent moment, and then, curse it, it’s talking again. “I would have filled the hole,” it says, as gentle as William ever was in life. “If you’d let me.”
For one moment, Victor allows himself to wonder what that would have been like-–to comfort William and be comforted in turn, to lay his head upon his brother’s lap and know peace. If only he’d realized sooner–-if only he’d seen past his grief and anger to another way of being–-
The thing leans forwards, almost pleading. “I still can.”
Gritting his teeth against its temptation, Victor says, “You’re not my brother.”
“Because I speak my mind?” it laughs. “Perhaps this has been here the whole time, and you just never sought to find it.” That has the ring of truth, and Victor flinches from it. How does the thing know? It adds, “And I was never brave enough to put it before you.”
Despite himself, Victor mutters, “You certainly were when you died.”
“And now I must live with it anyway. For in damning you, I’ve damned myself.”
Despite himself, Victor can’t help but look closer, cataloging hollows under those silver eyes, the way the funeral frock hangs loose. For all its cut-glass beauty, there’s a sallow cast to its skin. William looks poorly, Adam whispers in the back of his mind, and before he can stop himself Victor asks, “What do you mean?”
“Invite me in, and I can show you.”
It’s like a shock of cold water. Bitterly, Victor snorts, “I know better than that.” He shakes his head, turns back to the writing desk. “More fool me, for entertaining the ramblings of a monster.”
Just as bitterly, it replies, “Well, at least now we match.”
Shame and anger twist into a churning concoction in Victor’s gut. He turns it on the thing on his windowsill, snarling, “See? See?” With a stab at the air with his pen, “William would never be so blatant in his hatred-–”
“You just said I was,” it hisses back, “when I died. Well, I am still dead now, if walking; can’t I continue to be cruel if it suits me?”
It feels like a slap in the face. Stricken, Victor says, “William was never cruel.”
“No. Certainly not like you,” it retorts.
“Cruel? Me?” Victor sputters. He feels like he’s losing control, only this time there’s no Adam to blame it on. Groping, he tries, “I was distant, perhaps–-"
“All I wanted was some speck of affection!” it cries, and it sounds so much like William it hurts. Victor has to fight not to stand, to walk over and smooth away the furrow of its brow, the tears shining in its silver eyes. He wants to it be silent, but it continues, “And you hated me! I know you hated me, for taking her away, but I would have done anything if you had just looked at me, and smiled–”
He can’t help it. “I didn’t hate you!” Victor draws breath, fights the clawing urge to run from this guilt in his stomach. “I don’t!”
“Then prove it,” it snarls. “Let me in.”
Victor rocks back in his chair. Again it calls him. Again, wearing his brother’s face and voice and all the unspoken hurts between them, and how does it know?
It looks down at where its fingers have clawed lines into the sill. Face twisting in regret, it lies its hands over the gouges, as if to hide them. It’s such a fussy, silly thing to do.
Perhaps it is William.
But–-not.
Dawn is but a couple hours away.
“Fine,” Victor says at last. “But let me finish this first. It’s important for my work.”
He tries not to see the elation on its face. Tries not to think of what he is doing, in drawing out the length of each letter, spending endless minutes on phrasing and manners and decorum. He finds excuses to write another, then another, chasing down leads he previously discarded as fruitless.
Every time he glances its way, it is smiling. A knife to the heart would be less cruel.
Finally, there is no more left to write. The clouds outside have lightened from midnight black, to charcoal, to grey. “Alright,” Victor says, mostly to himself, and pushes away from the writing desk. Grabbing his crutch, he levers himself upright.
“You’re not wearing your prosthetic,” it protests. What a silly thing for it to notice.
“Ugly thing,” Victor says, on reflex. “I hate it.”
“It was expensive,” it shoots back, and--
–-oh, it is so like William. Victor can’t help his face crumpling, for one quick second, before he schools it back into impassivity. To distract himself, he stumps over to the fire, stoking the embers until it’s a roaring blaze once more. To the flames, he explains, “You must be cold.”
“Thank you,” it replies. So polite. All the manners that Victor never had.
“Alright.” Victor glances past its shoulder. The sun is almost up.
“She doesn’t hurt him,” it says.
Pulled back into the moment, Victor can only hum quizzically.
“Elizabeth. Adam is safe with her.”
“Oh.” Victor pushes his hair back. Why does it feel the need to reassure him about this? He has worried, of course, but of all of them Adam is likely the safest. “Yes. Good, good.”
Like a child, it says pleadingly, “You said you’d let me in.” It sways a little. “You said–-"
His stomach churns. But some things must be done. “So impatient.” Victor takes another step forwards, then holds out his arms. “Alright. Come here.”
William crashes into him, noses into his neck, sighs like he’s finally coming home.
Outside, dawn reaches her first fingers into the sky.