He died in his sleep.
I did not understand how it could’ve happened. He had been getting well. He had been growing stronger. How could he be gone?
Mother wept and wept-Father, too.
If any parents suffered more, I have never seen it.
They did not believe in heaven. They did not believe in an afterward. They knew they would never see their son again.
Elizabeth cried and prayed for Konrad’s soul.
“How can you pray?” I said coldly to her.
She looked at me, her face bleached by tears.
“We prayed to your God on the boat, when we sailed home with the elixir,” I reminded her. “You said- you said-He would listen and heal Konrad. Why didn’t He?”
“He heard us. But sometimes He says no.”
“He is not there at all,” I said savagely.
She shook her head. “He is there.”
“Make me believe you. Convince me, here.” I beat at my head with my hands.
“Stop,” she said calmly, grabbing my wrists. “You know that I have always believed. God does not disappear when bad things happen. He is with us through good and bad and will one day be our final home. We need no elixir to live forever. He made us immortal, and Konrad is not gone.”
I shook my head in disgust, and stormed off.
The elixir had failed. Or had it? Had Konrad simply been too ill for too long? I would never know, and it would torment me forever. But most poisonous of all was the thought that I might have killed my brother. What if he’d been recovering and the elixir had defeated him?
Father had no doubts. The elixir was a mirage, and I had foolishly chased after it. He did not need to say this aloud. It was in every look he gave me. He said he would have the Dark Library burned.
Meals were made and set before us.
Our servants went about their work.
Outside, the world continued without us.
We all moved through the house, pretending to be ourselves.
I could not cry.
Our carriage moved slowly up the winding mountain road.
There had been no church service, even though Elizabeth had begged my parents to hold one. There would be no funeral mass, no words of comfort spoken by a priest, no promises made.
We were all clad in mourning black. Elizabeth and I sat with Ernest between us. Facing us were Father and Mother, with William on her knee.
At the front of the procession was the hearse, carrying Konrad’s coffin.
Behind stretched dozens of other carriages and traps and horses, bringing our staff and friends.
The journey was a long one. For centuries the Frankenstein family had buried its dead high in the mountain just outside the city. The crypt was an enormous cave that, over the years, had been hollowed ever deeper into the glacier’s side. Even in the summer it was colder than death itself, the sarcophagi and their inmates sealed eternally with ice and snow.
As children we had seen the crypt only once, after Father’s younger brother had died in a hunting accident. Konrad, Elizabeth, and I had stood, blue-lipped and silent, as the coffin had been lowered into its stone sarcophagus. Afterward, during our lessons, Father had told us that because the temperature never rose above freezing, a body in that crypt would be miraculously preserved.
No worms or bugs would infest it, no water would rot it, no elements would corrode it.
Konrad. What if it was I who killed you?
It was close to noon when we reached the crypt.
Our footman came and lowered the steps of the carriage for us. I was glad of my cloak, for the air was very cold. The path to the crypt entrance had already been cleared of ice and snow, but all around, on the mountain slopes, it glittered painfully and almost cruelly in the sunlight.
I stared briefly into the darkness of the crypt, then went to the back of the hearse to join Father and the other casket bearers. I was glad Henry was among them. Carefully we pulled out the coffin.
Though there were three of us on either side, and the coffin contained only my brother, when I took my handle and lifted-that coffin was as heavy as the earth itself. I could imagine nothing heavier.
It took all my strength to keep from losing my grip. As we started to move toward the crypt, for a moment I thought I might faint. Torches had been lit inside, flickering orange. I was shaking as we crossed the threshold. Ancient walls of stone and ice. Huge sarcophagi ranged to the right and left, centuries of Frankenstein ancestors.
And straight ahead, an open sarcophagus.
My step faltered. If we put Konrad inside there and closed the lid, how could he ever breathe?
I staggered on. I did not know how I managed it, but I helped lift the casket over the lip of the sarcophagus and lowered it inside.
There was no priest or minister to preside over the ceremony, so we all stood in silence. The crypt was full, and people were standing outside, too.
I shuffled back to my mother and Elizabeth. Her hand slipped into mine and squeezed.
I thought of Konrad in his sarcophagus, never aging, his perfect body useless to him.
I tried to pray- Dear God, please — but could not.
My father went alone and slid the stone lid into place-and that was when I wept.
Konrad had gone to the New World without me, and no matter how fast I ran westward, how close I kept to the sunsets, I would never catch up with him now. My tears were filled with fury-for I had failed him.
I’d tried to save him, but I had not been smart enough, or diligent enough.
I covered my face with my hands.
And I made an icy promise to myself.
I promised that I would see my brother again-even if it meant unlocking every secret law of this earth, to bring him back.
