how I would be able to do that with Henriette, but decided that I would somehow find a way. I kept my worry to myself. The poor girl had enough as it was to worry about.
Once Henriette regained enough strength to walk, we headed northeast, toward Munich. Travel with her was slow, and I wished I could have left her to rest more, but I did not trust leaving her alone with the wolves and bears and other wild beasts that lurked in the forest, and I needed to reach a city so that I could continue my thieving ways. This time, though, I felt justified in what I was going to be stealing, for these were articles needed if Henriette was going to survive the trip to Venice, as well as her being able to live a good life there. I was better read than Henriette and knew what to expect. In Geneva, they treat their servants as family, and she could have been happy there, except that she was right—the stories from Aibling could follow her to Geneva. In Venice, if the stories I read were true, a young and beautiful girl like Henriette without any money or family to protect her could very well be forced to become a whore to survive, and I was not about to let that happen. I felt responsible for her current situation. If it was not for my earlier skulking and the wild stories that spread because of it, Frau Brunnow would not have been able to get very far accusing Henriette of being a witch, and Henriette would now be safe and still happy in Aibling.
When we were several miles away from Munich, I built a fire for Henriette to sit by, hoping that that would be sufficient to keep her safe, and once darkness came I raced toward the city.
This time I did not have a fever blinding me and I was more careful in my thieving and skulking, and my activities went unnoticed. I picked only the largest and wealthiest homes to rob, and I ended up with an attire for Henriette that was better suited for the travel we were going to be undertaking, as well a sack full of gold and precious gems that would assure Henriette of a good life in Venice. I also took several bundles of food that were better suited for her than what I had been foraging, as well as several bottles of wine. Once I had all of this, I raced back to where I had left Henriette. The fire was still burning, and she was safe. I was crouching as I showed her what I had brought for her, and she squealed with delight and threw her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek.
Embarrassed, I waited until she let go of my neck before I wiped the wetness of her kiss from my cheek. “I do not know if there are beer halls in Venice,” I explained. “And I do not wish for you to have to pour wine instead.”
“Thank you, Friedrich, for all of your kindness.” Concern ruined her smile as she stopped to consider what I had done. “About the people that you stole from?”
“They were wealthy. They can afford charity to an unfortunate young woman who was unfairly accused of a ridiculous crime and was almost burned to death because of it. Do not worry about them. Let us sleep now, for we have many miles to travel tomorrow.”
Henriette agreed, and she lay on a soft bed of grass next to where I had built a fire. Once she was asleep, I covered her with my cape to provide her additional warmth. As usual since she had been in my care, I did not sleep, and instead stood guard over her. I was grateful for this diversion, for it allowed me to keep my own awful dreams at bay.
CHAPTER
13
To help Henriette learn Italian more thoroughly, I decided that we would converse only in that language, but she had an agile mind and was a quick learner, and within five days of our travel toward the Swiss Alps, she showed a mastery of the language that surprised me. There were times when she would be frustrated as she would try to remember words or figure out how to phrase her statement, and this frustration would show in the way her eyes would squint and her lips would compress, but in the end she would work out how to say what she wanted. Usually it would be questions about my life in Ingolstadt, and I would answer her freely, although I never would talk about Johanna. When she asked what type of accident or fire had made me look the way I did, and how I came to be of such gigantic size, I told her that I did not know—that all I remembered was suffering great injuries and what happened afterward to transform me was a mystery to me. I did not wish to tell her about Victor Frankenstein or about the unholy manner in which I was constructed.
Travel with Henriette was slow, as I would often have to clear away bramble and other obstacles for her, but I greatly enjoyed her companionship and quickly developed a deep affection for her. This affection was not of the type that I had felt toward Johanna, but more as if Henriette were a dear cousin or sister.
It was after a week of our travel together that we escaped the darkest part of the forest to lighter woods with glens and finally just a scattering of trees. This allowed us to make greater progress, although Henriette’s pace was still considerably slower than what I could have made on my own. As we walked more freely, Henriette was in a particularly cheerful mood, her eyes sparkling as she joked of how instead of my taking her to Venice, we should instead build a cabin in the woods and live together.
“Not as husband and wife,” she said, “but as brother and sister, for that is how I have grown to think of you, Friedrich.”
“A fine life that would be for you,” I said, but I had grown distracted for off in the distance were wolves. Five of them. They were keeping their distance, but they were tracking us, nonetheless. Henriette spotted them also, and edged closer to me so that our bodies touched.
“Why do you suppose they are following us like that but not moving closer?” she asked, her voice tight with fear. “It is almost as if they are wary of us.”
I wondered this also. Could these wolves somehow know how I had slaughtered their brethren when they had attacked me, and was this the reason for their cautiousness? As we walked, the wolves maintained their distance, but they also continued to track us, and I could sense Henriette’s growing nervousness over this. I picked up a stone and threw it with all my strength at them, hitting one of the wolves in its hindquarters. The wolf let out a surprised yelp, and they all ran off. I was surprised that the stone did not shatter its bones, but it was a long throw, and I was glad to see them gone, Henriette even more so. It was late afternoon and still several hours before dusk would be settling on us, and Henriette looked worriedly toward the sun.
“Do not be concerned,” I told her. “We have several hours more of sunlight. Those wolves are gone. They will not be back.”
She nodded, but apprehension tugged at her mouth as she was uncertain about that. It took over another hour of walking and without any sign of those wolves before she was back to her previous cheerful self.
“I had never seen wolves before,” she confided. “I think I was more afraid of their sight than even when my neighbors set fire to my cottage. And the way they looked at us!”
I kept thinking of those wolves also. The stone that I had thrown must have weighed over two pounds, and with the force that I used, the wolf that I hit with it should not have been able to run off with its pack. And the way they had stared at us with their eyes shining with a malignancy that was foreign in the other wolves that had attacked me. But they were gone now, and I tried to put them out of my mind and exhibit the same good spirits that Henriette was showing.
We walked until late into the night. Even though I did not need fire to see, I lit a torch that I fashioned with a tree branch and cloth from the rags that Henriette had previously worn so that she could see better. When we settled at last upon a grassy area, I made a fire, and then Henriette pleaded with me that I open one of our bottles of wine for us to celebrate. “It is not often that we get to stare down a pack of hungry wolves,” she said, her face lit up by both the fire and an infectious smile that made me smile also. “And to hit a wolf from over fifty
I relented and opened up one of the bottles, amazing Henriette with how I was able to do so without a corkscrew. While she drank several sips of wine, she confessed to me that even though she had been in the employ of a beer hall she had had very little alcohol in her lifetime, adding that this was the first time she had tasted wine. After what could have been no more than a glass, she started showing the signs of being tipsy and soon afterward fell asleep. I covered her with my cape, then took the bottle from her and finished off the wine.
I watched over her for several hours, but the weariness from the wine and not having slept since I rescued
