Elizabeth sped ahead of me and placed her body between us.
“Konrad, it’s all right,” I heard her whisper as she took the creature by the shoulders. She looked back at me severely. “Put that down. You’ve frightened him!”
I did not put it down but lowered it only slightly as I stepped hurriedly to the crib to check on William. My littlest brother was deep asleep. He looked completely unharmed, but I made sure his chest was rising and falling. Beside him in his crib was the soft felt doll Elizabeth had given the creature a few days ago.
My eyes met Elizabeth’s. She’d seen it too but said nothing. The creature had wrapped its arms around her, and she was stroking its hair soothingly. It was now the same height as Elizabeth, and its resemblance to my twin was uncanny. It gazed at me with wide frightened eyes.
I heard a murmur and turned to see Ernest shift in his bed at the far end of the chamber. In the adjoining room was their nurse, Justine. Elizabeth lead the docile creature out, and in the hallway I closed the door softly behind me. We hurried away.
“What did you think he was going to do?” she demanded.
I said nothing.
“He was just giving William his doll,” she insisted.
There was not time for me to speak, or order the maelstrom of my thoughts.
“We need to get it out of here,” was all I said. “Back to the cottage.”
For a moment I thought Elizabeth was going to object, but she nodded. We made our way downstairs to the cloakroom, found coats and boots for all of us, and stepped out into the windy night.
We walked with the creature between us. Even now, when it looked so much like my brother, so much like me, I didn’t like to touch it. I did not take my eyes off it, for fear it would transform once more and lunge at me. But it only watched the moonlit clouds, the stars, the swaying silhouette of the distant wind-racked forest. When we were little more than halfway to the cottage, it began to stumble, and I realized it was falling asleep on its feet. It was still growing so fast that it couldn’t stay awake for long.
When I finally made out the dark outlines of the cottage, Elizabeth said, “It seems so cruel. He must’ve been cold, or lonely. Why else would he come all this way?”
By this time the creature was completely asleep, and we had to half carry, half drag it between us. When we reached the shed, I saw an untidy mound of dirt surrounding a ragged hole against one wall.
“It tunneled out,” I said, taking the key from my robe and unlocking the door.
Inside we lowered the sleeping body into its earthen crib, which it almost entirely filled now. Elizabeth loosened its cloak-for its body would surely be growing even more before morning-and covered it with the blanket as the wind lowered outside.
I looked about and found a short length of rope. One end I tied snugly around the creature’s ankle, and the other to a metal ring on the wall.
“Is that really necessary?” Elizabeth asked indignantly.
“You want it escaping again?” I seized a shovel and began filling in the hole it had dug under the wall.
The creature made a small whimpering sound, and one of its hands patted searchingly at the blanket.
“He’s missing his doll,” said Elizabeth, distressed. “We should’ve brought it with us.”
“ That’s how it found us,” I said, suddenly realizing. “The smell of the doll.”
She looked at me dubiously.
“Remember, outside, I saw the way it sniffed it and looked straight toward the chateau. He could smell it in the wind. Like a hunting dog.”
“That seems far-fetched.”
“Any more far-fetched than birthing a body from mud?”
We left and locked the cottage, and pulled the cloaks about ourselves, for the wind was at our faces now. As we hunched our way toward home, my words finally burst out of me.
“Did you see the way it looked in the nursery?” I demanded. “The way it was staring down at William? That was hunger!”
“It was curiosity! He was giving him back his doll!”
“Or maybe the thing just dropped it so it could grab William!”
“What did you think he was going to do?”
My response was instant. “Eat him!”
She stared at me as though I were a lunatic.
“You talk about him like he’s a monster!”
“Elizabeth, you can’t tell me you didn’t notice this time. When we first entered, it didn’t even look properly human! Its face was completely transformed, and-”
She was shaking her head. “Did you take laudanum tonight?”
I forced myself to draw a calming breath. “I’ve never taken the laudanum. Listen to me. Are you absolutely sure this is the body we want Konrad’s spirit to inhabit?”
“It’s the butterflies, just as I suspected!” she said, voice raised against the wind. “You’ve abused their power, and now you’re seeing things, Victor. How many do you have on you right now?”
“None,” I said. “I left them behind.”
“So you went again tonight. I’ve told you, that place is best avoided!”
A sudden wave of nausea crested over me as I remembered my last visit. My mind felt filled to bursting. “I think you might be right. The thing in the pit is growing. Not growing, exactly…” The proper word came to me with a chill of cold wind. “We’re waking it.”
“What?”
I told her how I’d seen my butterflies disgorge their color into the massive form, invigorating it. “They’re like worker bees, or termites, feeding the queen. And the food is us.”
“Dear God,” she murmured. She took my hands and looked at me urgently. “Victor, you’ve strayed too long in that place, and I scarcely know whether to trust you. One thing I do know. We need to get Konrad out of there as soon as possible. And this body we’ve grown is his only way out. That is our goal. And after tomorrow night you must bid that place farewell forever. Do you understand?” She took a breath, and her eyes softened. “I know how hard you’ve worked to bring Konrad back. I’m sorry I’ve been so severe with you. You were the one who brought us this wonderful plan, and I know you’ll have the strength to follow through with it. But first you need to rest properly. You’ve let these spirits suckle on you, and they’ve clouded your judgment. You can’t expect to see things clearly and make sound decisions when you’re perpetually exhausted.”
“I… I don’t recognize myself sometimes,” I murmured, feeling overwhelmed.
She led me like a child across the fields the rest of the way to the chateau. Inside, I was surprised when she accompanied me all the way to my bedchamber.
“Into bed now,” she instructed.
I did as I was told.
“You’ll take some laudanum to help you sleep,” she said.
I looked at the unopened bottle the doctor had left me. My missing fingers throbbed, and I felt fatigued beyond endurance. I sighed, wanting to surrender, wanting sleep. “One measure, no more,” I said.
“There now,” she said as she held up the dropper and dripped the opiate onto my tongue. She leaned over me and gave me a kiss that almost grazed my mouth, and seemed to promise more. Then she stood and wished me good night.
After she left, I could still feel the imprint of her lips on my cheek, feel the heat of her face against mine.
But even as my body grew heavier, and my eyes drooped, I could not forget the creature’s monstrous face in the nursery.
And then I slept, and dreamed.
I am on a sled pulled by a pack of dogs, hurtling over a plain of ice, exhilarated. The sky is molten lead, lit from the west by a sinking sun. I am traveling north. At the summit of a low hill, the dogs falter, exhausted.
Before me a massive plate of ice, as big as a field, juts up and grinds over the frozen ground, and I realize that this is not ground at all but the sea, hardened by the same cold that turns the vapor of my breath to ice crystals the moment it leaves my mouth.
