“Well, then,” said Konrad, grinning wickedly at Elizabeth, “you shall finally have your turn in the chair.”
At top speed he propelled her out of the sitting room and down the great hallway, me hurrying to keep up on my crutches, and then tossing them aside and running after them on my miraculously healed ankle.
Great portraits of our ancestors looked smugly down at me as I ran past. A full suit of armor, brandishing a sword still stained with blood, stood sentry in a niche.
Ahead, I saw Konrad and Elizabeth disappear into the library, and I followed. Konrad was in the middle of the grand book-lined room, spinning Elizabeth round and round in a tight circle until she shrieked for him to stop.
“I’m too dizzy, Konrad!”
“Very well,” he said. “Let’s dance instead.” And he took her hands and pulled her, none too gently, from the chair.
“I can’t!” she protested, staggering like a drunk as Konrad waltzed her clumsily across the room. I watched them, and there was within me a brief flicker of a feeling I did not recognize. It looked like me dancing with Elizabeth, but it was not.
She caught my eye, laughing. “Victor, make him stop! I must look ridiculous!”
Because she had grown up with us, she was used to such rough play. I was not worried for her. If she so wanted, she could have freed herself from Konrad’s clutches.
“All right, my lady,” said Konrad, “I release you.” And he gave her a final spin and let go.
Laughing still, Elizabeth lurched to one side, tried to regain her balance, and then fell against the shelves, her hand dislodging an entire row of books before she collapsed to the floor.
I looked at my twin with mock severity. “Konrad, look what you’ve done, you scoundrel!”
“No. Look what I’ve done!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
The bookshelf behind her had swung inward on invisible hinges, revealing a narrow opening.
“Incredible!” I exclaimed. “A secret passage we haven’t discovered yet!”
Chateau Frankenstein had been built by our ancestors more than three hundred years before, outside the village of Bellerive, not four miles from Geneva. The chateau had been constructed as both home and fortress, and its thick walls and high turrets rose from a promontory overlooking the lake, surrounded on three sides by water.
Though we also had a handsome house within Geneva itself, we usually stayed there only in the winter months, and at the first signs of spring, we moved back to the chateau. Over the years, Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had spent countless hours and days exploring its many levels, its sumptuous chambers and ballrooms, boathouse, stables, and ramparts. There were damp subterranean dungeons, portcullises that clanged down to block entranceways-and, of course, secret passages.
We’d naively thought that we’d discovered all of these. But here we were, the three of us, staring with delight at this gap in the library wall.
“Fetch a candlestick,” Konrad told me.
“ You fetch a candlestick,” I retorted. “I can practically see in the dark.” And I pushed the thick bookshelf so that it swung farther inward-enough for a person to squeeze through if he turned sideways. The darkness beyond was total, but I resolutely moved toward it, hands outstretched.
“Don’t be daft,” said Elizabeth, grabbing my arm. “There might be stairs-or nothing at all. You’ve fallen to your death once already this week.”
Konrad was pushing past us now, a candlestick in his hand, leading the way. With a grimace I followed Elizabeth, and hadn’t taken two steps before Konrad brought us up short.
“Stop! There’s no railing-and a good drop.”
The three of us stood, pressed together, upon a small ledge that overlooked a broad square shaft. The candlelight did not reveal the bottom.
“Perhaps it’s an old chimney,” Elizabeth suggested.
“If it’s a chimney, why are there stairs?” I said, for jutting from the brick wall were small wooden steps.
“I wonder if Father knows about this,” said Konrad. “We should tell him.”
“We should go down first,” I said. “See where it leads.”
We all looked at the thin steps, little more than plank ends.
“They might be rotted through,” my brother said sensibly.
“Give me the candle, then,” I said impatiently. “I’ll test them as I go.”
“It’s not safe, Victor, especially for Elizabeth in her skirt and heeled shoes-”
In two swift movements Elizabeth had slipped off both shoes. I saw her eyes flash eagerly in the candlelight.
“They don’t look so rotted,” she said.
“All right,” said Konrad. “But stick close to the wall-and tread carefully!”
I badly wanted to go first, but Konrad held the candle, and led the way. Elizabeth went next, lifting her skirts. I came last. My eyes were fixed on the steps, and one hand brushed the wall, as much for reassurance as for balance. Three… four… five steps… and then a ninety-degree turn along the next wall. I paused and looked back up at the narrow bar of light from the library door. I was glad we’d left it ajar.
From below rose an evil, musty smell, like rotted lake weed. After a few more steps Konrad called out:
“There’s a door here!”
In the halo of candlelight, I saw set into the side of the shaft a large wooden door. Its rough surface was gouged with scratches. Where the handle ought to have been, there was a hole. Painted across the top of the hole were the words:
ENTER ONLY WITH A FRIEND’S WELCOME.
“Not very friendly to have no handle,” Elizabeth remarked.
Konrad gave the door a couple of good shoves. “Locked tight,” he said.
The stairs continued down, and my brother held the candle at arm’s length, trying to light the depths.
I squinted. “I think I see the bottom!”
It was indeed the bottom, and we reached it in another twenty steps. In the middle of the damp dirt floor was a well.
We walked around it and peered inside. I couldn’t tell if what I saw was oily water or just more blackness.
“Why would they hide a well in here?” Elizabeth asked.
“Maybe it’s a siege well,” I said, pleased with myself.
Konrad lifted an eyebrow. “A siege well?”
“If the chateau were besieged, and all other supplies of water were cut off.”
“Makes good sense,” said Elizabeth. “And maybe that door we passed leads to a secret escape tunnel!”
“Is that… a bone?” Konrad asked, holding his candle closer to the ground.
I felt myself shiver. We all bent down. It was half buried in the earth and was very small, white, and slender, with a knobby end.
“Maybe a finger bone?” I said.
“Animal or human?” Elizabeth asked.
“We could dig it up,” said Konrad.
“Perhaps later,” said Elizabeth. “No doubt it’s just a bit of another Frankenstein relative.”
We all giggled, and the noise echoed about unpleasantly.
“Shall we go back up?” Konrad said.
I wondered if he was scared. I was, but would not show it.
“That door…,” I said. “I wonder where it goes.”
“It may simply be bricked up on the other side,” said Konrad.
“May I?” I said, and took the candle from his hand. I led the way back up the splintered stairs and stopped outside the door. I held the flame to the small hole but still could not see what was beyond. Passing the candle down to Elizabeth, I swallowed, and stretched my hand toward the dark hole.
“What are you doing, Victor?” Konrad asked.
“There might be a catch inside,” I said, and chuckled to conceal my nervousness. “No doubt something will grab my hand.”
I folded my hand, slipped it into the hole-and immediately something seized me.
