lessen. I sat up and patted her shoulder, but she batted my hand away.
“I wasn’t play acting,” I objected. “I truly felt… I felt terrible, as though all my strength had left me.”
“You had us all so worried,” she said. “And it was merely in your head.”
“I didn’t know!” I retorted, but I felt foolish and ashamed. And strangely jealous, too, for I suddenly realized she was not crying for me but for Konrad.
“The doctor said it’s not unexpected,” she said, wiping at her eyes.
“What’s not?”
“He has seen such a thing before, with twins. He knew of one who, when his brother had his arm crushed in a machine accident, screamed, and could not use his arm for weeks because of the pain.”
“I must see Konrad,” I said. “How is he?”
I stood up and suddenly remembered I was in my nightshirt. Though Elizabeth and I had grown up together, I now felt self-conscious to be around her in so little state of dress. I noticed a flush to her cheek as she turned her face away.
“His fever is not so high.”
“That is good news.”
“It would be better if the fever were gone altogether.”
“Has Dr. Lesage any better idea what it is?” I asked.
She shook her head. “All he knows is that it isn’t any typical infection. It is not contagious. It is some ailment within him that he must fight alone.”
“Let’s go see him right now,” I said.
“Ah, Victor,” said Konrad, “I hear you had another near scrape with death.”
“A false illness,” I admitted sheepishly.
He put his hot hand on mine. “Do try to keep out of trouble, Little Brother,” he told me.
“Of course,” I said. “It would be better, though, if you stopped lazing about, so you can keep an eye on me.”
“Oh, I’ll be up shortly. I feel a bit stronger today.”
Elizabeth beamed at me. The windows of his room were thrown wide, and the scent of cut grass from the fields wafted in, along with the sound of the lapping lake, and it felt like the spring itself was enough to heal any ills.
“You’ve had Mother in a terrible state,” I said.
Konrad rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s making a fuss for nothing. Remember Charlie Fancher? He was laid up with ague for two weeks before it left him. I’ll be up and about soon.”
“Good,” I said, “because Henry and Elizabeth have been plotting another play, and this time you are to be the hero.”
“Excellent,” he said.
But later when he tried to get up, he did not have the strength to stand for more than a minute without shaking. His face had a gaunt look.
He was as weak as a newborn.
Over the next several days I tried to stay hopeful, and tell myself Konrad was on the mend.
The fever didn’t return with its earlier ferocity, but it refused to leave him altogether. After a morning lull it would come on again in the late afternoon-like some infernal gale that paused only to renew its strength.
Now that we knew he wasn’t contagious, Elizabeth spent a good deal of her time helping Mother and the servants tend to him, reading to him to distract him from his aches. When Konrad felt well enough, Henry and I would drop by to talk with him, or sometimes even play a game of chess. These were rarely finished, as he complained of headaches, or simply felt too unwell to concentrate.
I felt oddly incomplete, moving about the chateau without my twin. Not that we were always side by side, but I felt his absence more intensely now. Once, when we were six, and Mother was unwell during her pregnancy with Ernest, Father sent us each to stay with different relations for a fortnight.
It was one of the loneliest and most miserable times of my life.
But this was worse.
Why wasn’t Konrad getting better?
“You must take me to Mass, Victor,” Elizabeth said Sunday morning during breakfast.
I looked up from my hard-boiled egg, my mouth still full of bread, uncomprehending for a moment, because I was so used to Konrad escorting her to the cathedral in Geneva or the small village church in Bellerive.
“Yes, of course,” I replied.
“Philippe will ready the trap for you,” Father said.
Though my parents had no faith themselves, they had no desire to deprive Elizabeth of hers, and I was certain no Sunday had ever passed without her attending a Roman Catholic service.
It was a relief to be away from the chateau, to be in the warm spring air, holding the reins, driving the trap along the lake road. We traveled in silence, but our worries of Konrad kept pace with us.
When we arrived at the small church, Elizabeth said, “You can come inside if you like.”
“I will wait here, I think.”
“You could light a candle for Konrad.”
“You know I don’t believe in such things.”
She nodded and looked at the other parishioners entering the church with their families. For the first time it occurred to me that it must have been lonely for her, attending Mass alone all these years.
“Did Konrad go inside with you?”
“Not at first.”
I helped her down, and watched as she walked into the church. I thought of how she would light a candle and pray-and I envied her.
“What are you doing?” Ernest asked, coming into the library.
It was Monday afternoon, and I’d spent nearly the entire day with books spread all around me, taking notes furiously.
“I’m trying to learn about the human body and its ailments,” I said.
My nine-year-old brother came forward, looking gravely at the book’s illustrations.
“Konrad will get better, won’t he, Victor?” he asked.
To my shame, I realized how little I’d thought of Ernest and how his older brother’s illness might be affecting him. Little William was far too young to understand-and it was a great comfort to me sometimes just to hold his little body and try to lose myself in his warmth and laughter and obvious good cheer-but at nine, Ernest, like all of us, was having to endure the gloomy weather change that had beset our house.
I put down my pen and smiled as Father did when trying to reassure us. “Of course he will get better. I have no doubt whatsoever. He is strong, like all of us Frankensteins!”
He pointed seriously at the book. “Is the cure in there?”
I laughed. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”
He got interested in the diagram of a man’s spleen. “What does that do?”
“They used to think it ruled our temperaments.”
“You’ll find the cure, Victor,” he said. “You’re almost as clever as Konrad.”
“ Almost as clever?” I snapped. “And how would you know that, little boy?”
His eyes widened in astonishment and hurt, and I instantly regretted my outburst. How could I fault him, after all, when it was abundantly obvious? Konrad had always been the better student, and my father took no pains to conceal it. Still, Ernest’s words smarted. Even to a nine-year-old boy it was clear that Konrad was the brighter star in our family’s constellation.
Had I been just a year younger than Konrad-or even a nonidentical twin-it would have been easier to bear. But he and I were supposed to be the same in every respect. So what excuse had I to be the weaker?
Elizabeth appeared in the doorway. “Ernest, Justine is looking for you in the garden.”
I gave Ernest an apologetic smile and clapped him on the shoulder, but his parting look to me was wary.
“Still here?” Elizabeth said, coming in.
“You have your prayers,” I said. “I cannot pray, but I must do something, or go mad.”
Restlessly I looked back at my book, a huge tome written mostly in Latin. My Latin was poor, and every
