This Monstrous Thing(83)

Mary had said very little while Shelley raged, and she’d made no move to stop him. But she caught me at the door as I left and asked me quietly to come back the next day. When I arrived, there was a small, round man sitting in the armchair beside the fire, clutching a notepad while a white-faced Shelley stood at the mantelpiece. He was a reporter, Mary explained to me, from an English newspaper, stationed in Turin. She had invited him—without asking Shelley—to report on what she had promised him would be the story of the year. Which was a big claim, considering we were only a day in.

“Mrs. Shelley,” the reporter prompted, and Mary looked up at him. She had broken off midsentence and was staring out the window.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and tugged at her necklace. “Could you repeat the question?”

“What was your intention when you wrote Frankenstein?”

“I had no intention but to tell an imagined story,” Mary replied. “I never meant to cast my allegiance to one side, or for my novel to be such a rallying point for oppression and fear.” Her gaze flitted to me, the moment too brief to be called eye contact.

The reporter scribbled something down on his pad, then dipped his pen again. “Why did you choose to publish the novel anonymously?”

“That was my suggestion,” Shelley interrupted. “We wanted to see if the book had merit on its own without my surname attached to it.”

Mary’s mouth tightened into a frown, but she said nothing.

The reporter made a note, then looked back to her. “And now you will be republishing under your own name?”

“Yes,” Mary replied. “I want everyone to know I wrote it.”

“There has been a good deal of speculation, Mrs. Shelley, particularly with the recent uprising in Geneva, that your novel was based on an incident surrounding the late Dr. Basil Geisler and his work.”

My hand flexed on the arm of my chair. There had been no mention of Mary or the resurrected man in the official reports out of Geneva, and only a hint that the rebellion might have been sparked by Frankenstein. The unofficial reports had ranged from laughable to shockingly close to the truth. In Ornex alone, I’d heard stories that included the resurrected man and Frankenstein, as well as Mary. But no mention of my own name, or Oliver’s.

Mary pursed her lips but managed to keep her tone light when she spoke. “I don’t know anything about the uprising.”

“Really?” The reporter leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and his mustache twitched. “Because I heard that you were seen in Switzerland just before—”

“Move on,” Shelley growled from his post at the mantel.

The reporter sat back with a wary glance at Shelley, then ran his finger down his pad like he was finding his place again. “Could you tell me, Mrs. Shelley, where precisely the inspiration for the novel came from? If not from truth, that is.”

Mary looked to Shelley, but he kept his back to her. For one gut-twisting second, I thought she was going to change her mind and leave me with the shards of another broken promise. But then she said, so softly the reporter and I both leaned closer, “It came to me in a dream.”

“A dream?” the reporter repeated, and he sounded disappointed.

“While my husband and I were in Geneva, some of our friends were having a competition to see who could write the best ghost story, but I couldn’t think of anything. Then one night I dreamed of a student, kneeling, with a corpse made of gears and cogs stretched out before him. And then by the working of the engine placed inside, the monster came to life.”

“So none of it is based on true events?” the reporter asked. “There is no Dr. Frankenstein, and no resurrected man?”

“No,” Mary said, and this time she looked at me. Met my eyes, and touched her fingers to her heart. “It’s only a story.”

There were a few more questions after that; then the reporter stood up and shook hands with all of us. “I don’t think I caught your name,” he said when he reached me.

“He’s a friend of the family,” Shelley interjected.

“Well, good to meet you, friend of the family.” I could see him reaching for his pad again. “Would you care to comment on anything?”

“No,” I said flatly. “No, I would not.”

Shelley watched the reporter leave through a gap in the drapes. Then he twitched them shut and rounded on Mary and me. “How dare you go behind my back,” he snapped at Mary.

She smoothed the front of her dress and said calmly, “It’s not your choice, Percy. It’s my book, and I want people to know that.”

“This had nothing to do with credit, it’s because of him. And you—” He swiveled his gaze to me. “You have no right to be in my house. You’ve done your damage, now get out.”

“Don’t be cruel,” Mary said.

“I want him out,” Shelley snapped, and he stalked from the room, coattails swinging.

Mary looked like she might cry, so I said quickly, “It’s all right. I need to go. We’ve got a journey.”

Mary helped me into my coat and followed me out onto the front step. Clémence was waiting at the end of the drive, sitting with her back against one of the gateposts. When she saw us, she stood up, but didn’t come closer.