Chapter Text
He'd stowed away in the hull of a ship leaving from Port Hope with tons of iron. Arrival was a week and a half later. He slipped into a shadow and left the harbor into alleyways until the city became a town. He followed the dirt roads from across ditches and then set out North. He circled a few times overnight, observing the homestead, and only passed under the gate when he determined it was indeed abandoned. As he had thought.
He stopped just under the arch, looking at the wood. It had discoloration where he'd bled. He made a note to fix that someday, probably soon. He assumed that the darkened wood meant rot would set in easier.
Spring and Summer passed, and he was settling down for bed. Exhausted from the day of hunting and the rigorous task of drying the skins and meat, he put a large log of fir and some kindling into the fireplace closest to his bed. The doorway fireplace didn't have to be lit, he wanted to save his fir for late Winter when he'd need it's longevity. He pulled his boots off and winced as the cold stone floors touched his toes. Then, quickly, he laid in his bed on his stomach, with his head to the side facing outward. He pulled the quilts and fur blankets over himself and sighed, falling asleep gradually.
He woke in the night to what he thought was a wolf. Then, a scream. He rose to his feet, frantically grabbing his boots and tying them messily. The screaming became louder. He ran into the raining night, nearly crashing through the gate he'd built in the archway. Following what had amounted to wailing, he fell to his knees out of breath; just about a mile down the trail East of the cottage where there lay a little rag-wrapped baby.
He pulled the infant into his arms, not quite sure how to hold the small creature, but worried for him, nonetheless. He carefully stood, panting and looking through the trees for anyone or anything that could have been hiding in the depth of the forest.
Upon returning to the cottage, he laid the baby on a table and gently pulled away the rags just enough to see that he shouldn't. The child was clearly very young as well as spare. He decided to stoke the fire yet again and then wrapped the baby in a better blanket. He sat on the floor before the hearth and held the baby girl close, trying to warm her.
He stroked the sobbing child, attempting to calm her down.
“Who could have left such a precious creature all alone, and so far out?”
She continued to wail and screech, so the man thought after a while of cooing and soothing to try and feed her something. He took some of the broth he kept in a pot on the hearth and filled a clay mug with it. Deer marrow floated in the deep brown liquid and fell as it cooled. He gently blew over the mug as he patted the baby on her back. She was warming up, and he could hold her closer without flinching. She was very thin.
Eventually, he took a wooden spoon and tried his best to feed the baby. She was clumsy, but instinctively seemed to realize that what passed her lips was something she desperately wanted and needed. The cries ceased instantly. He stopped after a good ten minutes of feeding, and rubbed the baby's back as she drifted off.
“You've been left with me by complete accident, I'm sure. No parent would leave such a darling girl with a monster like me,” the man cooed, “or alone in the forest. I wasn't aware that I had a close enough neighbor…”
He fell asleep in the chair that night, the baby in his arms and against his chest.
When light peered into the windows, he opened his eyes with effort and realized that his face had been nestled against the girl's dark, curly hair. He lifted his face and swallowed gently. The child stirred and he watched her reach blindly for his breath. He grabbed her little hands and watched as she awoke.
She had two different eyes. He stared at them for a moment– a sapphire and an emerald –until she began to whine. He set her aside and fed the fire, then filled her mug with broth again. He waited for the soup to cook by rocking her and putting a shirt on. The baby settled down when he began to spoon the broth to her and he drank the excess when she was full.
Around midday, the rain stopped and he had finished fashioning a harness or something of the sort for the baby. A blanket worked well to hold her to his chest as long as he wrapped it over his arms and around his mid-back. He drank some more broth with her mug before pulling on his coat and grabbing his knife and a small basket.
Mid-Autumn and early Spring were the seasons to look for morels in the woods, he remembered the taste and figured that they would be a nice treat in his soup. He walked out to where he'd found the baby the night before and paced along the trail which doubled as a fire line in the Summers.
After finding a few patches of morels, he realized that every time he knelt to cut them from the earth, the baby girl would startle and protest gently.
As he walked, the man began to duck when it was unnecessary, gently holding the girl close. Eventually, she began to be lulled by the repetitive movement and he mused at how softly her features relaxed.
Upon returning home, he fed her again, though she was sleepy. As he did, he talked to her. He was happy to have someone to talk to, he had heard little of his own voice in the past months.
“I will have to care for you, now. I do not know if that is the best decision to come to, but it is the decision that I have made. I have been many things in my life, yet never a father and I have been here on God's Earth nearly twice the years that some fathers have, so I suppose that it is my due time.” The girl listened absently with a gluttonous mouthful of broth. He drank what was left in her mug and set it and the spoon aside.
As he rubbed her back, he continued.
“I should have to be a better father for you than mine was for me. So I suppose I could start by giving you a name. Frankenstein– though it pains me –is already our own name, but you can't be called that alone…” He studied the now sleeping girl.
“Perhaps I should name myself first, that might inspire me. I've always been… particular to the name of ‘Adam’ but,” he trailed off as the baby awoke to shift and relax again, “Adam, it is.”