Albion House
Marlow
So strange for two letters to arrive one right
after the other. Mary Shelley watched these two foreign things on her writing
desk as if they might attack her. Clara had finally settled not long before,
and with Percy being away she really didn’t need this excitement.
But there the letters stayed until she finally
drew enough courage to open them.
Upon further investigation, she found she
recognised the handwriting on both. Well, of course she did. The slimmer was by
her friend John Polidori. Goodness, it must have come all the way from…well
where ever John and Lord Byron were now, or actually had she heard of a
possible falling out between the two, perhaps the letter would tell all. The
second, and much more substantial specimen, was in the unmistakable hand of her
husband, who had dashed off a week before after receiving just such unsolicited
correspondence without telling her where he was going or from whom the letter
had come.
After a moment’s thought, she decided to get the
page or so from Polidori out of the way before tackling Percy’s tome. She
reached for the ornate silver letter opener on the desk; it was an unusual
artifact, this blade, with geometric shapes all over the handle and an image of
Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man etched on the blade. With it, she released the faint
odour of lavender that always accompanied Polidori and slid out his letter.
John Polidori
Milan
Italy
Dear Mary,
It is my
most fervent hope that this letter finds you well. Allow me please to apologise
for its brevity, in the first, as I must attempt to get you you as soon as
possible after it, if not before it arrives.
It has come
to my attention that you are attempting to write a book based on the Dippell
legend you learnt about in Darmstadt. I cannot impress enough upon you the
urgency with which you should cease all and any work on this book and research
thereof.
When I reach
Marlow I will explain. For now, please, if your life and that of your family
means anything to you, desist.
Yours etc,
John
Polidori
How strange, she thought, that John should write
at all after hearing nothing from him in two years and that when he does he is
so dramatic and vague. And he hadn’t said anything of a break from Byron. How
annoying. Well, she could ask him when he arrived and failing that Percy would
surely know more when he returned.
The thought of Percy drew her mind back to his letter
waiting there on the desk to be opened. Polidori’s letter had left her mind in
such a frenzy that she almost delayed opening Percy’s. But she knew she must
and soon, for she hadn’t heard from her husband in a week and until now had not
known if he were alive or dead.
Grasping the letter opener firmly, she slit the
letter open as if to kill it before it turned on her.
Percy Shelley
Darmstadt
Germany
My dearest
Mary,
I must begin
by apologising to you for not explaining where I was going and why, but there
simply wasn’t time. For, I knew that if I told you, you would insist upon
coming but we have little Clara to think about now. It may have been wrong of
me, but there it is.
I suppose I had better begin in Geneva, for
that is where all of this business starts. You remember, I’m sure, that night
by the lake we talked about ghost stories. Polidori came up with his Vampyre
story, Byron with his and you had that idea about that Dippell fellow we had
heard so much about. Well, on that night I was approached by Byron, later after
you had gone to bed. He had taken his nightly dose of Laudanum on top of far
too much absinthe and was in a sorry state. I must admit to not understanding
everything he said and I also admit that this may indeed be because of his
state, but I have since found out that there was some truth in it.
You see, he
told me he was a member of some secret organisation, The School or some such.
At the time, I assumed it was some abstention society as he talked a lot about
fighting daemons, which as you know he has many. But the more he spoke, the
more convinced I became that he was being literal, which is unusual for our
dear friend George. He warned me to be careful of what you did. I supposed at
the time he was worried for your image, worried that in being an author it
would make you less womanly, or some other similar absurdity. I believed that
was how he meant it at the time, as poor George could be the most terrible cad.
Again,
however, his vehemence convinced me of deeper motives. Especially when he began
relating his worries about the content of your proposed writings: the rumours
surrounding Dippell.
I know I
should have told you about these things at some point between then and now, but
in all honesty I had put them down to the ravings of a drunkard and henceforth
forgotten them. That was, until the letter came.
Do you
remember the Kreis der Empfindsamen? The very people who told us about Dippell?
Well, the letter was signed by an officer from that very group. As soon as I
saw that is was them, the memory of that night in Geneva came gushing back.
Byron had told me that the stories about Dippell weren’t stories at all, but
true accounts. He told me that the Kreis were the opposite to The School. They
pretended to be art and literature lovers only, but it was all a cover. He told
me that they worshipped daemons, real daemons but they called them gods.
So you see,
I had to fly to Daermstadt as soon as I got the letter from the Kreis inviting
me to go. I didn’t care what the letter said. I just had to go.
My journey
was uninteresting, until I got to the town itself. I had planned to spend the
night there and in the morning, set off to track down the Kreis. As I’m sure
you recall, they weren’t hard to find the first time, so I imagined that a trip
to Castle Frankenstein would yield the same results on this occasion.
The Inn, the
same we stayed in before, was comfortable as ever and I set off to bed after a
hearty meal. But a good night’s sleep was not to be my destiny that evening.
They came in
the night to carry me off. I know not how many came, but my struggles seemed
that of a child against his father. They did not treat me badly, but my eyes
were covered and my body bound. On the floor of a carriage was I transported, I
knew not where. Nobody spoke around me, or if they did my anxiety would not
allow me to hear it.
On and on
the journey went over smooth and rough terrain. Again, I say I was not unduly
inconvenienced, aside from being bound and on the floor. Then I either fell
asleep or fainted.
When I awoke
it was to darkness. The cowl had been removed from my head, but it seemed I was
in a place where no light could reach. From the cold underneath me I understood
that the floor was stone and that I was directly upon it. My hands and feet
were fettered, but I could move a little to relieve my cramps and even managed
to stand up before thinking better of it when a wave of dizziness overcame me.
I know not
how long I stayed there alone, for there was no clock, no sunlight and no stars
to measure the passage of time by. However, eventually a light appeared. It
came from a barred door in the ceiling of my prison. There was no talk, only
food that was lowered by rope. This happened twice more. I slept for a time
between each visit. With the darkness, quiet and lonliness, I was beginning to
believe I would go quite mad. Then, at what was surely my breaking point, I had
a visitor.
He would not
say who he was, but he offered help to escape. I laughed, thinking the idea
absurd. My cell, which in the meagre light each time food was brought I had
examined, was entirety made of stone. It had a small door of thick, old oak,
hard itself as the stone that surrounded it. However, my saviour bade me stand
in the corner of the cell, with a voice both rough and kind. He proceeded, with
superhuman strength, to tear the very door from its hinges taking with it some
of the stone it had been fixed to. The next I saw, a rope was lowered but by
the time I got to the top the stranger was gone. All that was left was the
twisted remains of the door to my cell on the floor of a larger dungeon.
There were
similar cells to mine all along the floor, but all appeared unoccupied. I found
a torch in a brazier on the wall, no doubt left by my friend. The door to the
dungeons was unlocked and unguarded, by which I assumed that I was the only
captive and had been for some time.
The shock I
got when I realised where I was, I can could no more put to paper than I could
satisfactorily describe the wind. I was being held in Castle Frankenstein! Yes,
the very place I had set out to find. The old ruin was just as ominous as I
remembered but I didn’t tarry. Instead, I fled with the utmost haste.
No sooner
was I out of the bat-like main gates than I heard the sound of hoof beats
behind me, followed closely by a resounding ‘halloo’. I discarded my torch and
took off down the dark road. Despite running as fast as the terrain would
allow, I soon heard the carriage wheels crunching the stones behind me. Closer
and closer it came, louder and louder until I was certain it would run me over,
grinding me into flour with its iron banded wheels. I had all but accepted my
fate when I was dragged roughly from my feet into the bushes. The carriage sped
on, heedless that they had just missed their quarry.
‘Are you
alright? I recognised the ragged yet gentle voice of my saviour.
‘Thanks to
you,’ was my reply.
In the
terrifying darkness, I could not see much. I could, however, make out a
silhouette that was mountainous in form, craggy and steep and brutal.
‘You must
come with me,’ he said and, without waiting for a reply, he left.
I followed
as closely as I could, but he kept ahead of me ten paces or more all the time.
No matter what increase in speed I attempted, he was always more than capable
of keeping his lead. At length, we stopped outside a lonely wooden cabin in the
depths of the woods.
My saviour
entered and held the door as I followed. There was a well banked fire which,
with the thick curtain over the solitary window, made it practically cosy
inside. At my host’s bidding, I made myself comfortable on a simple but
well-made chair as he busied himself getting the fire back to full strength. He
was crouched with his back to me so I could tell no more about him that I had
already surmised. But, as he turned and stood to his full height I shank from
what I observed.
The sheer
scale of him made me think him some kind of illusion, a trick of the flickering
firelight. He gazed down upon me with a face whose muscles were all working
against one another, as though they were accustomed to different faces and were
only recently brought together. I assumed he was smiling but it looked more of
a pained grimace. The arms and legs were all of drastic proportions, not quite
matched in size or shape; though when he moved, it was with a litheness and
ease that belied his cumbersome appearance.
Mary, I must
admit to you above anyone else that I was terrified and must have looked it.
For the next thing he said to me was, ‘do not be afraid of my monstrousness. I
had no say in how I was made, but what I have made for myself,’ here he tapped
his head and then his heart, ‘I believe is pure and good.’
I looked up
into his mismatched face and saw no malice, only innocence there. He told me
about his creation at the hands of Dippell and how his creator prayed to a god
for the power to bring him to life.
The things
the Kreis told us about Dippell were mostly true however they left out vital
details which his creation filled in for me. Dippell had been experimenting
with electricity, trying to use it to put life into dead tissue, but it hadn’t
created life only dead motion. That was his only desire, to fashion a living
thing, like God. To this end, he prayed to the goddess Athena for the power to
bring the dead to life; he did not, as we were told, achieve it through
diligent study of the natural sciences. Athena who had given the same power to
Aesculapius, appeared in answer to his prayers. The Gorgon Blood that she gave
to the demi-god son of Apollo, she gave too to Dippell, for a price. It was his
to keep but if he used his gift—if he used the blood of Medusa to bring
something dead back to life—then he would be punished as Aesculapius had been.
Except for Dippell it would not be his life he would lose but his sanity.
His
curiosity and intellectual drive were too strong for caution, sadly. He put
together pieces of bodies that he stole, sewed them and stuck them in any way
he could. Then, using the Gorgon Blood, he gave his creation life. With the
first breath the creature took, Dippell lost his mind. In his madness he began
trying to undo what he did. The creature, being suddenly brought into this
life, defended itself but did not know its strength. It tore its creator in two
before it could think.
All of this
took place within the very castle I was kept prisoner in, Castle Frankenstein.
It has always been a meeting place for the Kreis. The night Dippell achieved
his aim of thrusting life into dead tissue, he was not there alone. He managed
to cry out just as his creation unmade him and when the others entered the
laboratory and saw the creature with one half of Dippell in each hand, they
tried to destroy it. The Castle was a fortress in those days, much more
complete than it was when we visited, and the newly born creature was confused
and enraged. This security backfired on the Kreis that night. The creature told
me it does not remember how many it killed in its escape, but it regrets all.
Once the
shock had wound down, the creature found it remembered things from the various
lives of its other donors. No specifics, but it found that it could understand
human speech and writing. With practice, it even learnt to control its uneven
muscles enough that it could write, cook, work wood and a hundred other little
things that we take for granted.
Since its
escape, the Kreis has not rested in its attempts to destroy the creature and
any record that it ever existed, preferring instead to tell tourists that the
Dippell stories were but rumours and fancy. Thus far it has managed to escape
their clutches, and the world at large thinks of it as a ghost story and no
more. It wants nothing but to live and be left alone. It spies on the Kreis,
listening at windows and doors, hiding in shadows, just in case they decide
once again to hunt it down. In this way it heard of you and your book. It was
flattered, but knew the Kreis would try to stop you telling its story. They
would stop at nothing.
It was the
creature, in its kindness, who sent the letter inviting me to come, forging the
hand of an officer of the Kreis. In their ignorance, they had thought it was me
who was writing the book and that is what the creature overheard. He wanted to
speak to me about it, to warn me, but dared not stray too far from his cabin.
He knew I wouldn’t come for anything less than an invitation from the Kreis,
but he’d miscalculated one thing: they were watching all train stations, roads,
inns, and hotels assuming one or both of us would return to research the book.
Anyway, I’m
safe and will be home as soon as I am able. My new friend has told me it’s too
dangerous for now, but perhaps another couple of weeks when there will be a
moonless night. He will smuggle me to the boarder and I will make my own way
from there. Until then I am comfortable in his care. What food he has, he
shares and his own bed he has given up to my use. For now I urge you, please be
careful. The Kreis not stop until they have buried the truth. The creature will
deliver this letter to a courier far from here. From there it will be sent to
you. In this way, we hope the Kreis will not come for you, thinking it was me
they wanted and that I am in their country. Despite all these precautions,
however, I beg you to be careful.
I will write
again before I leave, so you know to expect me.
Yours with
love,
Percy
When she finished the letters, she folded them
carefully and placed them in her bureau. Contrary to Polidori and Percy’s
warnings, she was now more determined than ever to tell her story. Of course,
she would change the names and situations, but she would tell the creature’s
story, because it deserved to be told. What had been just an interesting
subject, now had real meaning. No, it was real.
Straightening up, Mary Shelley stretched her
aching back, she had been sitting too long. Clara had been asleep for some time
now, so she decided to go check on her, carefully so as not to wake her. Mary’s
heart almost stopped when she passed close to the front door and a knock
reverberated off the wood and through her very being.
Who could it possibly be at this hour?
