Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match(57)

She got a hand around his wrist, and he was as cold as death.

With an almighty scream of surprise, he flung out his arm and Angelika was weightless, and the tree canopy spun like firecrackers. There was a moment that rattled every bone in her body, and the air in her lungs was pressed out by the impact.

Black. No dreams.

*

When Angelika opened her eyes, she was in a bed in an unfamiliar room. The first thing she saw was oak beams across a white ceiling. There was a sharp, bad smell. She tried to raise a hand to her forehead, but her arm was floppy and she grasped the pillow instead. The light was different now, a blue evening tone. Time had moved on without her.

“What happened?” Her voice was hoarse. No one replied. “Did I die?”

She could hear distant male voices arguing. When she rolled her head to one side, she saw an object that made her instantly orient herself. It was an old leather book, with Institutiones Rei Herbariae printed on the spine, set on the nightstand like a Bible.

“Finally, I’m in Will’s bed,” she croaked, then laughed, and regretted it.

She could find no wound on her scalp, only a lump. She pushed back the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed, holding her spinning head. She took in Will’s cottage in short glimpses, in between closing her eyes and swallowing back vomit.

It was bright and spartan. The smell was the fresh whitewash. The floor was made of dark brown flagstones, scrubbed clean, and the fireplace was stacked with fresh kindling awaiting a match. A washbasin and ewer were on the wide windowsill, along with a single bar of her special French soap. Some shelves were inset in a corner, revealing a small collection of food baskets, a loaf-shaped cloth, and a jar of preserves.

Other belongings included a knife, a single wooden cup, a row of apples, and an upside-down bunch of herbs on a hook. His clothes were hung from a rail, wedged between the fireplace and wall. Everything about this place was the exact opposite of her opulent bedroom. If this was how he preferred it, she could now understand why he felt so uncomfortable in the main house.

“Would he like just one small tapestry?” she asked herself between gulps and groans.

“You’re awake,” Will said from the doorway before kneeling between her feet in a dizzying movement. “How do you feel?”

“Dreadful,” she said. “How are you?”

“How I am does not matter,” Will replied shortly, cupping a hand at her throat and encouraging her to lift her head. “Angelika, what were you thinking?” He didn’t expect a reply and she gave none. “Victor has gone mad. He’s running around searching for Mary. She’s the one who will know what to do.”

“We had a row; I think she’s hiding. I just need water.” She managed to drink a few mouthfuls before patting Will on the cheek and crawling back into his bed. “You live like a monk,” she told him, before she fell back into the black place.





Chapter Nineteen


Angelika stayed in Will’s bed, and clung to it when they tried to remove her. Every time he, or her brother, attempted to question or scold her over the events in the forest, she pretended to be sick and closed her eyes.

But it wasn’t pretending.

Her bones felt bendy and the room became unfriendly; the beams on the ceiling were sickening, and she asked for air more than water. The shutters stayed open throughout the night, with a candle sputtering in the cold breeze.

Everyone was in the room: Lizzie on the edge of the mattress, Victor on the sill, Will leaning a forearm on the mantel. Belladonna’s piglet was asleep by the hearth. “I’m all right,” Angelika said at one point, causing them all to start in surprise, but their simultaneous movements and questions were too much and she fell back under the oily black pall.

When she woke again, she called for Mary—surely one of her divine cool compresses would make her recover—but she did not come, and Angelika felt hopeless. It was painfully obvious to her now as she lay back shivering. Mary was, for all intents and purposes, her grandmother, and Angelika felt her absence as keenly as grief. The memories and fragments she dredged up were all miscolored: running to Mary’s open arms as a wobbly tot, being carried and fed, being tucked in too tight, and all the while, Mary despised her?

“Don’t cry,” Lizzie said.

“Tell her I understand why she hates me, and it’s all right,” Angelika insisted to Victor, before vomiting into a bowl on Lizzie’s lap.

It was an endless night. The worst night. But like anything terrible, there were a few bright spots if one knew where to look.

Will took a turn on the mattress edge, and he read to her from his book of plants. Surely heaven would feel like this, his hand occasionally stroking her arm and his soft whisper alternating between French and Latin. She knew he was probably telling her a list of fungi, but she could believe he was saying anything she wished, as long as she lay with her hurt head on his pillow.

“Is that one of the bigger toadstools?” She tried to make conversation. “Or is it one of the smaller varieties?”

“Come and get me if she wakes,” Victor said to Will, hoisting up a snuffling, sleepy Lizzie in his arms. “If she’s still rambling about mushrooms in the morning, I shall send for a doctor. I’m going back out into the forest to search for him. Not now, Belladonna. Shoo.”

“Take him some food, he’s starving,” Angelika urged. She lay back down and dozed.