They were just like the one I’d seen on the creature Elizabeth had already named Konrad.
I ran across the pastures, vaulting fences. As I neared the cottage, my sweat was icy against my skin. I flung open the door to find the place deserted. They must’ve taken him to the glade again. Before I left, I grabbed a shovel.
Fatigue slowed my steps as I hurried through the forest. How had I become so feeble when I’d once felt so strong? When I reached the little hill, I was out of breath and labored up to the top, kneading the cramp in my side.
Through the trees I could see the glade spread below me. On a picnic blanket sat Elizabeth and… Konrad. For several breaths I could only stare in confusion, for it was exactly like looking at my brother. Indeed, the creature even seemed to be wearing Konrad’s shoes and trousers, shirt and jacket. His abundant hair, quite long now, was stylishly tied back. Elizabeth poured a cup of tea and held it out to him; he took it and drank.
Where was Henry? My eyes swept the glade, and there at the far end I made him out near some bushes, picking blackberries.
The scene was so serene, I felt some of my panic ebb.
It was Konrad, and all I had to do was walk down to see him. My brother. Elizabeth was pointing things out to him, as she would a child, no doubt naming them. A tree. A cloud. A patch of flowers that grew near their blanket.
Konrad stood and looked at them more closely, then grabbed them and ripped them up. He tasted them and spat them out. I heard a trill of Elizabeth’s laughter, and she came and gathered up one of the flowers, and smelled it, then held it out to Konrad, tickling his nose. He leaned into the flower, then took it from her hand and held it under her nose.
And then he kissed her on the mouth.
I watched, frozen. For what seemed like a very long moment, she let him kiss her-or perhaps she was not merely allowing but participating. Then she put her hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him back, saying something. He gazed at her for a moment. Then he seized her arms and kissed her again, roughly on the neck.
I shouted, but my voice was hoarse, and I didn’t think either of them heard me. I lurched headlong down the hill. Elizabeth pushed against him, but he overpowered her, forcing her to the earth. He lay on top of her, pinning her arms flat even as he continued to ravish her, his mouth on her throat and lips.
Elizabeth cried out, and I saw one of Konrad’s hands dragging her dress up, revealing her stockinged legs.
Henry was running across the glade now, but I reached them first.
“Get off her!” I bellowed, my shovel raised.
Konrad and Elizabeth both looked at me in surprise.
“Victor, no!” I heard Elizabeth shout.
Konrad began to stand, and I struck him hard on the shoulder with the flat of the shovel, knocking him over. He looked at me, and those empty eyes were no longer empty. They were filled with anger, and his jaw jutted-his brow furrowed and compressed.
But then, just as suddenly, he looked like a slightly younger Konrad, clutching at his shoulder. There was blood on his fingers.
“Victor, you’ve hurt him!” Elizabeth cried.
“He attacked you!” I felt Henry’s hand on my shoulder and turned to him. “You saw it, Henry!”
My oldest friend was pale, eyes flicking nervously from Konrad to Elizabeth. “I saw it too. He was forcing you against your wishes.”
“He doesn’t know!” Elizabeth protested.
“What doesn’t it know!” I bellowed back, not taking my eyes from the creature. “It knew enough to try to rape you!”
“No. He has a man’s appetites but no conscience yet,” she said.
The creature stood up, and for a moment its face darkened and I thought it might lunge at me, so I struck it again with the shovel on its leg. With a wail it turned and pelted across the glade and into the trees, making a sound like a thrashed dog.
“Look what you’ve done!” Elizabeth screamed, kicking off her shoes and chasing after him. “Konrad, come back!”
I ran after her, still clutching my shovel, Henry at my heels.
“Listen to me!” I grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her to a standstill, but she wrenched herself free and kept going. Through the trees I saw Konrad. He was fast, a bundle of will and energy, hurtling through the undergrowth, snapping branches. Even barefoot Elizabeth had no hope of keeping up with him-none of us did-and in less than a minute we’d lost sight of him.
“He’ll get lost!” she panted, staggering on, refusing to stop. “He might come to harm!”
“Slow down! Listen to me! The professor found something monstrous in the burial pit.”
“What of it?” she gasped, refusing to look at me.
“It’s some massive thing, not human. But there was a jawbone, and on it teeth, one that looked exactly like that sharp one on Konrad!”
She laughed in my face. “Is this another of your hallucinations, Victor?”
“What are you saying, Victor?” Henry demanded at my side.
I grabbed at Elizabeth and this time stopped her. “Don’t you see! It’s not just Konrad’s body we grew. It’s someone else’s, too!”
Henry frowned. “How can this be? We used Konrad’s own hair-”
“Konrad’s hair blended with the butterfly spirit! And those spirits come from the creature in the pit. And what that creature wants is a new body! Konrad’s body!”
“You can’t know this,” said Henry.
A hostile silence emanated from Elizabeth.
“If you don’t believe me, come back to the chateau and see for yourselves! You’ll see the size of the thing. The professor said its own people were frightened of it. Maybe they were meant to resurrect it, but instead they dug it up and massacred its body. It was a monster, maybe some kind of demon!”
“There’s no time for this!” Elizabeth cried. “We have to find Konrad now!”
“Stop calling it that! I’m Konrad’s twin, and I can promise you, what we created is not my twin!”
“He needs to be found,” said Henry with surprising calm. “Imagine if he wanders into a town, looking like you…”
“And he’ll outgrow his clothes soon,” Elizabeth said. “He’ll take them off.”
I dragged a hand across my brow. They were right. The idea of having a naked facsimile of myself running rampant through the countryside, eating dogs and cats-and who knew what else the thing was capable of. It was too horrific to comprehend.
“All right,” I said grudgingly. “But surely it’ll just come back to the cottage. Or the chateau. Those are the places it knows.”
“And he knows you’ll be there too, waiting for him with your shovel,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s dangerous!” I said. “How can you not see this? What would you have done if I hadn’t appeared?”
She laughed disdainfully. “Do you always need to be the hero? I would’ve stopped him, calmed him, and he wouldn’t have run off.”
“You’re mistaken,” I said.
“It’s you who’s mistaken,” she countered. “And inconsistent. At first you trumpeted your praises of these spirit butterflies! ‘They give intelligence, power, life!’ You kept them on you. You probably have them on you still! But now you expect us to believe they’re evil.”
“That body,” I insisted again, “is made for some thing else.”
“So, what do you propose we do?” she demanded. “Destroy it?”
I said nothing, though the idea spread through my head like a bloodstain.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know yet. Right now we just need to find it and get it out of sight.”
“Put your shovel down if you mean to come with us.”
Our eyes locked. I held tight to the shovel. Murderous thoughts filled my head-hacking at the creature that so
