phantasmagorical things because we wanted to see them?”
“You are very sensible, Henry,” said Elizabeth tartly, “for someone whose pen makes such flights of passion.”
“Yet they are inventions only,” Henry persisted. “Not reality. If we truly believe that book moved, we are believing in magic.” He lowered his voice. “Witchery.”
“There is no such thing,” I said. “Just things we do not yet understand. Father would say the same.”
“Your father would condemn what we’ve done,” said Henry.
I swallowed. “He will not know.”
“Are we fools?” said Henry nervously. “Deceiving your father is one thing, but even if Polidori can translate the recipe, is the elixir something that should be made?”
“If it is Konrad’s only chance at life, yes,” I said. “And damn the consequences!”
“Polidori himself said that there were no end of magical elixirs-and their effect could be dangerous,” Henry persisted.
I said nothing.
“I trust him,” said Elizabeth. “Polidori. He will advise us well.”
We were all surprised when we heard Saint Peter’s bells toll two o’clock, for we’d lost all track of time inside the laboratory. Down the cobbled streets of the city we ran, toward our house, to meet Father.
After dinner I went to visit Konrad, but he was already asleep, our unfinished game of chess still on the bedside table. With a sigh I sat down and looked at the board. Yesterday he’d actually dozed off, it had taken me so long to figure out my move. I examined the position of his pieces carefully, and almost at once understood his stratagem. It was very good. He would have me in three moves if I wasn’t careful.
I made the move for him, then turned the board round to take my own turn.
Hunched over in the chair, I played against myself-and I knew Konrad so well it was very much like playing him prop-erly-but suddenly the sadness of it struck me hard, and I realized how desperately I missed him, and how badly I wanted him to get out of that bed for good.
“We had a rather exciting day,” I whispered to his sleeping face.
I’d been longing to tell him since we got home from Geneva, but I knew it was best kept secret. Now, though, I could at least utter the words.
“I’ve got a great plan to gather the ingredients to the Elixir of Life, and once we’re done, you’ll be able to drink it.”
He shifted in his sleep, turned his head away, as though doubting me.
“I promise,” I said, kissing him on the forehead. “If no one else can make you better, I will.”
That night I woke suddenly with the dreadful sensation that someone was in my room.
Cautiously I peered through my bed curtains to see my chamber bathed in moonlight. Elizabeth stood before the window in her nightgown, gazing out over the lake.
“Elizabeth,” I said softly. “What’s the matter? Is it Konrad?”
At once I worried she’d come to bring me some terrible news, but she did not turn. She had not heard me at all.
In the moonlight her face was ghostly pale, her brow furrowed. She seemed to be holding something in her arms, and kept looking down at it anxiously.
“Elizabeth?”
No response. She was awake, yet asleep.
It was not the first time. When Elizabeth first came to our house as a small child, she sleepwalked. My parents would find her in the hallways, looking about her in confusion, or staring intently at some invisible view. Father said her mind was temporarily disordered by the great changes in her life and, even in sleep, it would not let her rest, and would make her walk the house in the early hours of morning, trying to puzzle things out. In time it would pass, he said.
Once, in those first few months, I awoke with a start, to find her body pressed against mine. Her thin arms encircled me tightly. She was shaking. I dared not wake her, for Father had said you must never wake someone who was sleepwalking. So I just lay very still. Gradually she stopped trembling, her breathing calmed, and we both fell asleep. In the morning she was most indignant to find herself in someone else’s bed, and woke me with a punch in the shoulder, before flouncing out of my room.
But that was many years ago, when we were little more than seven.
We were sixteen now, and I was almost afraid to approach her, for she seemed to emanate an eerie power. She was herself, and not herself, and it was like having a stranger in the room. I felt I ought to guide her gently back to her own bedchamber, if possible. Father had said the best thing to do with someone sleepwalking was to talk to them very calmly and matter-offactly.
“Elizabeth,” I said. “This way.”
When she turned to me, her face was stricken with anxiety. In her arms she cradled an old doll. I shivered, for her gaze seemed to look right through me, to someone just behind me.
“The baby’s not dead,” she said fiercely.
“No,” I said.
“She’s just cold.”
“Yes,” I said.
“She needs warming.” So urgent and penetrating was her gaze that for a moment I looked back at the doll, just to make sure it wasn’t real. “That’s all. Just a little warmth and she’ll be fine.”
“You are warming her right now,” I said soothingly. There was something so childlike and beseeching in her look that I felt my heart ache. “She will be wonderfully warm and happy soon.”
She looked down at the doll, kneading it with her hands. “Yes,” she said.
“You see,” I said. “The baby’s fine. I’m sure she just needs a good sleep. I’ll show you the way.”
I started walking toward my door, and checked to make sure she was following. I quickly lit a candle and made my way down the hallway to her bedchamber. The door was ajar. We went inside. I pointed at her bed, the sheets in a tangle.
“Here we are,” I said. “You and baby can rest here.”
“The bed will be warm,” she said.
“Of course.” I tried to smooth the sheets for her, but she lay down on them before I could finish, still clutching the baby. It was a good thing it wasn’t a real baby, for Elizabeth was lying on top of its head and torso. Her eyes were already closed and she was properly asleep. I found a blanket in her armoire and gently laid it over her. I looked at her for a moment, then left the bedchamber.
At breakfast Elizabeth said not a word about her sleepwalking. She remembered nothing, and I was not about to remind her.
CHAPTER FIVE
The famous Dr. Murnau from Ingolstadt arrived at the chateau the following day.
I’d expected someone dignified and gray-haired who would emanate knowledge and quiet confidence. But this fellow was surprisingly young-he couldn’t have been more than thirty-and he looked like he needed a doctor himself. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone so thin and pale. His fingers were positively skeletal. Behind his dusty spectacles his watery eyes appeared permanently startled.
He was to stay with us at least a week, and Father had given him one of the turret rooms, with an adjoining parlor to use as his surgery and laboratory. As his carriage was unloaded after breakfast, I counted no fewer than six trunks, no doubt filled with all sorts of chemicals and apparatus.
Father said Dr. Murnau had lectured at the finest universities and was widely thought the best, and most progressive, healer in Europe. If anyone could devise a cure for Konrad, it would be him.
He spent a full hour examining my brother, and the whole time Elizabeth and I paced the hallway outside-
