“How do you make it move?” she demanded, her voice tinged with both anger and fear.
“I’m doing nothing!” I held out some paper and my extra quill and inkwell. “Curious? Sit across from me and write down any letters the pendulum points to!”
“I don’t like this, Victor!”
“Leave, then! Get thee to a nunnery!”
She looked at me, hesitated for only a split second, and took the paper and quill. I couldn’t help smiling. Elizabeth was never one to back down from a challenge.
“I part the veil between our worlds,” I whispered. “I invite the spirit of my brother Konrad to join us. I invite you to speak, Konrad.”
The pendulum quivered again.
“I beg you, speak.”
Elizabeth gasped as the weight jerked, and my eyes locked on to its long tip, watching the letters it pointed to as it swung. Hurriedly I began writing.
“Copy them down,” I panted. My entire body felt suddenly sheathed in ice. Back and forth, side to side, the star-shaped weight jerked swiftly.
“They’re not forming words!” Elizabeth said.
“Don’t worry about that now!” I said, for the pendulum’s movements were becoming faster still. It flailed about the spirit board, and I could scarcely keep up with its spastic motions. I was scribbling madly, the ink smearing in my haste.
The pendulum’s frenzy thrilled me-and terrified me too, for it was like a bird trapped in a room. I lost track of time and was only aware of filling page after page until, with a final violent spasm, the star-shaped pendulum broke its tether, flew across the room, and hit the wall. I realized I was holding my breath and let it out, feeling as though it had been my body, and not the pendulum, lashing about.
I looked at Elizabeth, then down at my pages of desperate letters.
“This isn’t some trick, Victor?”
“You saw it moving!”
She moved around the board toward me, and for a moment I thought that she was going to embrace me, but her arms caressed only the air in front of me, hands brushing back and forth.
“What’re you doing?” I demanded.
“Checking for strings. You might’ve made it move yourself.”
“Why would I do such a thing?” I retorted, furious.
She was trembling, and I suddenly realized how frightened she was. I too felt a watery weakness in my joints. Quickly I pulled a blanket from the end of my bed and draped it around her shoulders.
“Some force animated the pendulum,” I said quietly.
“And you truly think it was Konrad?”
“There might be a message.” I was almost afraid to examine the pages I held, but I forced myself. lksjdflkjlskdjflkjcomelsjdflksjldkfjlk draiseioureyjnmnsmeoeriytoiskldf qweqwemlksjdflkjlskdjflkjcomelsjdflksjldkfjlksdraiseio ureyjnmnsmeoeriytoiskldfmnkjjkhoiulksjdflkjlskdjflkj comelsjdflksjldkfjlksdraiseioureyjnmnsmeoeriytoiskldfi ucvzxsjkhklksjdflkjlskdjflkjcomelsjdflksjldkfjlksdraiseio ureyjnmnsmeoeriytoiskldfioubvwtygflksjdflkjlskdjflkjcome lsjdflksjldkfjlksdraiseioureyjnmnsmeoeriytoiskldf…
“It’s all gibberish,” Elizabeth said, looking up from her own papers. “Nothing.”
I shook my head in dismay.
“I’m disgusted with myself,” she said vehemently, and then turned on me. “Isn’t there enough misery in this house already, without you inviting more?”
I let the papers slip from my ink-stained hands and sank to the floor.
“You’re not the only one who suffers, Victor,” she said. “Everyone in this family is suffering. I’ve seen my entire future change.”
“I lost my twin,” I growled.
“And I lost my future husband.”
I said nothing, the word “husband” clattering painfully inside my mind.
“But what if it was Konrad?” I asked. “ Trying to talk to us?”
Her eyes closed for a moment. “I should’ve walked out on this. You’ll only torture yourself-and me too.”
My eyes settled on the pendulum. “There is a definite power in it,” I persisted. “I felt it.”
“If there is,” she retorted, “it’s not one we’re meant to harness.”
“Where is that written?” I said defiantly. “By whose law?”
“You didn’t need to build this device, Victor,” she said. “You had a choice. But I can see you’re intent on dwelling only on the darkest things.”
I watched as the door closed behind her, and with a sigh I bent to gather my papers from the floor. Blinking to clear my tired eyes, I suddenly saw, among the garble of letters, a word.
I stared, then snatched up my quill and circled it. My eyes roved across the lines, and I circled another word, then another and another. The same three words repeating again and again.
Heat and ice squalled across my flesh. Could it be coincidence? Or my own mind, knowingly forcing my hand to write the words, so desperate was I for a message from my twin?
Outside the window rain pelted the glass. I hurriedly gathered Elizabeth’s discarded papers, and my gaze flew over them. There. And there! And there!
Come raise me.
Come raise me.
Come raise me.
CHAPTER 2
'It seems beyond dispute, ” said our friend Henry Clerval, running a hand through his wispy blond hair as he looked between the two sets of pages. “You’ve both recorded the same letters-and words.”
I looked over triumphantly at Elizabeth.
“I never doubted they were the same,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean they came from Konrad.”
On a table in the music room I had spread out our transcripts from the previous night, as well as the red metal book and its contents. We had the chateau to ourselves. After our morning lessons, presided over as usual by Father, both my parents had left for Geneva, Father to attend to his magistrate’s duties, and Mother to help ready the city house for our return in October.
Before Konrad’s funeral, their pace had been frenetic. They’d received visitors offering condolences from near and far; there had always been preparations and meals to oversee. Our house had always seemed full. And even then my parents seemed intent on keeping to their usual schedules-if anything, more vigorously than ever. Father resumed our morning lessons with Elizabeth, Henry, and me, and afterward he carried on with his own work. Mother threw herself into her duties about the house, carving out time to begin another pamphlet on the rights of women.
Henry fluttered his fingers, giving his characteristic impression of an agitated bird. “And you truly think Konrad spoke to you from beyond the grave?”
“Why would it be anyone else?” I countered.
There was an uncomfortable silence before Elizabeth replied. “I was taught that the dead who need to atone for their sins are sent to purgatory, and sometimes they wander the earth in the hopes of somehow making amends-and that they may try to communicate with the living.”
“Very well, then,” I said. “By your way of thinking, Konrad is communicating to us from purgatory.”
“But,” Elizabeth continued, “the Church also believes there are devils whose only aim is to beguile us and lead us into temptation.”
Henry was nodding emphatically. “Remember that play of Marlowe’s, Doctor Faustus? The doctor foolishly
