This Monstrous Thing(46)
She kicked one of the runners, and a lump of wet snow was knocked free. “I don’t know. I just do the lifting.”
“Mademoiselle Le Brey,” I heard Geisler call from the doorway. “Are we ready?”
“Nearly.” Clémence glanced over her shoulder at the house, then sideways at me. “Are you all right? You look a bit weary.”
I hadn’t been less all right in a long time. I didn’t know what I meant to do once we reached Geneva. I could still hand Oliver over. That thought whispered inside me in the same sly, horrid voice that had sent me to Ingolstadt in the first place. Geisler might not be a good man, but Oliver was valuable to him—too important to be treated badly. And I had spent so long putting Oliver ahead of what I wanted, trying to make up for what I’d done and only feeling worse. If we returned here with Geisler, I could study at Ingolstadt and Oliver wouldn’t have to be shut up in Chateau de Sang tearing apart the furniture. It could be better.
But Oliver would still be an experiment, something to be studied and tested and taken apart. I’d be doing work that interested me, but he would be my work. Victor Frankenstein and his monster in earnest.
The other choice was getting to Oliver before Geisler could and then fleeing Geneva. But Ingolstadt would be behind me for good if I did that, and Geisler, and every dream I’d clung to of studying here someday, or going to university at all. Going back to Geneva was a return to Oliver and a life spent hiding and looking after him and staring him in the face and wondering where he’d gone. I’d be right back where I started—alone, with my wild brother to care for and now a madman on our tail.
So which is it going to be? I thought. Was I just the same as Geisler and Victor Frankenstein, or could I choose Oliver?
Are you good, whispered that horrid voice inside me, or are you clever?
Behind me, Clémence whistled. “Coming, Finch?”
I took a deep breath. I wanted to stand there forever, listening to the house ticking and never moving past this moment or making a decision. But the engine was growling and the sun was on the snow, and I cut my tracks around the sleigh and joined her.
Clémence took the seat in the back without asking while Geisler climbed into the front. I hesitated, not sure where I was meant to sit, until Geisler called me over to his side. I cast a pleading look at Clémence, but she just raised her eyebrows, and I reluctantly pulled myself up next to him. As we set off in a wide loop around Ingolstadt, I turned back and took a last look at the university spire rising above the rooftops.
Geisler took a different route than I remembered. We wandered along roads too narrow for a wagon, with splashes of snow spilling from the moaning pine boughs and owls swooping low between the trees. We all wore green-lensed goggles to shield our eyes from the sunlight bouncing off the snow like diamonds, but I still had to squint.
There were circulating-steam foot warmers, and the pelts of several thick-furred animals to wrap up in, but the wind still managed to find every possible route under my coat and I felt cold to my bones. I had brought Frankenstein with the intention of finishing it but the thought of exposing my hands, even gloved, to the cold didn’t appeal to me. I was drowsy from sitting up the night before with Clémence, but when I tried to sleep, I remembered a book Oliver had read when we were both in the throes of our polar-exploration phase in Bergen. The book said that when you’re about to freeze to death, you get dead sleepy, and death comes as a sort of drifting off. It didn’t seem likely that I would freeze, but the thought still kept my eyes open.
That and Geisler’s chatter. Now that we were on our way, a scientific expedition in progress, he seemed to feel permitted to interrogate me about Oliver and his resurrection. How long had it taken? What stock weight had I used for the gears? How had I handled the severed arteries?
I dodged the questions as valiantly as I could, uttering “I don’t remember” more than anything else. “I hope you remember a bit more once we start work,” he snapped at me after what felt like hours of it. “Or else you won’t be much good for holding up your end of the bargain.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “I’ll remember.”
He grunted, eyes forward on the snowy lane. “Any more ideas about the authorship of your memoir?”
I bristled at the term but kept my face straight. “Not yet, sir. I’ve been thinking.”
We fell into a tense silence after that. I could feel Geisler stewing beside me, but he must have consoled himself with the thought that soon the three of us—he, Oliver, and I—would be together in Ingolstadt and there would be a living experiment for him to examine.
On the fourth night of our journey, we crossed into Switzerland on an unmarked vineyard road and stopped at an inn a few miles from Geneva’s walls. Traveling had left me with a deep, full-body fatigue, but I dreaded sleep. I’d had nothing but nightmares since we left Ingolstadt, and they grew worse each night. Clémence didn’t seem inclined to go up to bed either, so after Geisler retired, we ordered warm wine and chouquettes and sat in the common room long after most people were gone.
Three drinks in, I found myself warm and airy and talking about Oliver. I’m not sure how we arrived there—maybe it was the wine—but suddenly I was telling her stories from when we were boys, things I hadn’t thought about in years, let alone told anyone. Clémence listened, hands around her mug, and it was a while before I realized she wasn’t really saying anything, just letting me talk myself hoarse.