wildly, looking for an exit, my pulse beating in my ears. Stairs leading down. No. A small, low doorway. I duck through it into a long doorless corridor lined with the mounted heads of boar and deer-another place I do not recognize.
Where is the chapel? It’s one of the oldest parts of the chateau; it must be close by!
I stagger on, the floor seeming to tilt, the end of the hallway receding faster than I can reach it.
A great anger stirs within me. I am being defied.
“All doors will be revealed to me!” I shout. I glare at the walls until a familiar arched doorway etches itself in the stone. Relief surges through my limbs. I burst into the chapel. The room is alive in a way it wasn’t earlier, bounding through all its ages one after another, the ceilings and walls throbbing with color. I can barely focus on the chandelier waiting for me near the floor.
I collapse upon it, swallow, pray that I have strength enough to pull the rope. I haul, hand after hand, lifting myself with increasing effort. Halfway to the ceiling I have to pause, gasping for air.
Tap-ta-tap. Tap, tap, tap, vibrates the spirit clock in my pocket.
I reach the ceiling and heave myself through the trapdoor, my fingers numb. I lurch to the sofa and lie down. Clumsily I pull the ring from my finger and grasp it in my left hand, clenching the vibrating spirit clock in my right. A great breath is pulled from my lungs and — Elizabeth and Henry peered down at me, their foreheads creased with anxiety.
“Victor! Oh, thank God!” Elizabeth gasped. “Are you all right?”
I nodded.
“You were so still and pale,” she said, “and your breath so faint.”
Henry put his hand to my wrist. “Your pulse is stronger now. In the last few moments it was very weak…”
“How long?” I croaked, my body still heavy with fatigue.
“A full minute exactly,” said Henry, looking at his pocket watch.
“It felt much longer,” I said, opening my right hand to reveal the silent spirit clock.
“You’re such an idiot, Victor,” said Elizabeth. “You could’ve died!”
“And yet here I am,” I said. I dragged in a deep breath and sat up, steadied by Henry. The world slewed, and I clung tightly to my friend.
They were both looking at me, expectant, but wary, too.
I smiled, feeling suddenly exultant. “It’s real! I was there!”
“ Where exactly?” Henry asked.
“Here! It was our chateau, the same but different. It remembers itself somehow. Or at least my gaze made it remember.”
“What do you mean?” Henry asked.
“When I stared hard at a place-a wall, a corridor-I could see how it used to look in every age! Toward the end it got a bit confusing. There is a trickiness to the place, and I lost my way for a moment trying to get back to the chapel. And the butterflies! There are butterflies, just like the ones in the painting, and they helped me remember the power I had, and-”
“Did you see him?” Elizabeth asked emphatically.
I licked my dry lips. “I saw him.”
“How did he look?”
“Not like a ghost. Like himself, healthy. He was in his room, playing chess.”
“And what did he say?”
“He was afraid of me. He held his arm across his eyes as though I were a torrent of light. He said I blinded him, and gave off a powerful heat. He didn’t know who I was, not at first-he asked if I was angel or demon-and it took him a while to believe it was me.”
“What else?” she demanded.
“He said there was something different about the house, that he wasn’t alone.”
“You saw others?” Henry asked.
“No. He seemed ill at ease, though.” I thought it best not to mention the rapier, not yet.
Elizabeth chewed at her lower lip. “Anything more?”
“The spirit clock told me my time was up.” I looked down at the device with wonder. “Its little claw actually taps against the glass.”
Elizabeth looked at me hard, shaking her head. “It makes no sense. The dead go to heaven, or hell, or purgatory. Our chateau can’t be these places.”
Henry cleared his throat. “I’m no expert, but there’s very little description in the Bible of the afterlife. Purgatory especially might look like anywhere.”
“What matters,” I insisted, “is that I went to the world of the dead and came back! It can be done! So what does that say about all your rules?”
Elizabeth was silent.
“It means,” I said, “that religion doesn’t know all the answers. The things it tells us aren’t true-or at least they’re incomplete.”
Elizabeth’s eyes flashed. “You’re astonishingly arrogant. Why this still surprises me, I’ve no idea. But has it occurred to you that you only dreamed, and what you saw was a hallucination caused by that elixir?”
“No, it was real…” But I trailed off, for I hadn’t considered this possibility. Already my memories had a dreamlike aura.
“That’s the most likely explanation,” she went on. “What do you say, Henry?”
My best friend regarded me carefully, then blew air out of his cheeks and gave a rueful smile. “I’d have to agree that Elizabeth’s is the most likely explanation.”
“Well,” I said, “there’s only one way to find out for certain.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Which is?”
“Two of us must go in at the same time.”
She shrugged. “Two people might both hallucinate.”
“Or have exactly the same real experience.”
For a moment no one spoke. I looked at Henry.
“It does make sense,” he conceded. “It’s the only way to be sure.”
“Will you come, then, Henry?” I asked.
“Well, I’d leap at it normally, if it weren’t for a certain rare phobia of mine.”
“Which is?”
“Fear of death,” he replied.
“I’ll go,” Elizabeth said.
I turned to her in surprise. “But what of your beliefs? Isn’t it a grave sin to dabble with the occult?”
“As you say, it’s the only way. Next time we’ll both go in, Victor, and that will tell us the truth.”
“Which is why you’ll need me to watch over you,” said Henry, nodding as if this had been his design all along. “And when you return, you’ll each write your account in silence, and I will compare them with utter impartiality.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Tonight, then, when the house is asleep.”
“Too soon,” Elizabeth said, looking distrustfully at the green bottle of elixir. “Remember Wilhelm’s notes. Not more than once a day.”
“It’s just as well,” said Henry. “I need to go home this afternoon. My father’s returning from a business trip, and I should be there to greet him. And,” he added with a grimace, “there will soon be preparations for a trip of my own.”
Startled, I looked at him. “What trip?”
“You’re going away?” Elizabeth said in genuine distress. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner!”
He laughed. “Difficult to fit in, what with all the excitement at Chateau Frankenstein. Well, yes, Father has decided it’s time for me to accompany him on one of his merchant voyages.”
“When?” I asked.
“Two weeks.”
“For how long?” Elizabeth wanted to know.
