Preys & Predators IV; Monster and Witches Chapter 14

 

14.

 

Mary Annabelle Frankenstein pushed the plate and looked at her father. They were seated at the chamber with their table facing the town view.

“Father, I am not hungry.” Mary looked at the other. Her father had not eaten any food but took his drink from the wine bottle he had brought with him.

“Will we get to meet Mother?” Mary asked. “Maybe just see her from……”

“We will meet her. She left you when you were one year old. She may not …… recognize you, but both of you should meet.”

“Why did Mother leave us?” Mary looked at the town from her view. “The town is …… It does not match the cities we were in.”

“Your mother grew here. She loved the town.” Victor smiled. “I was too.”

“Yet, both of you left.” Mary sighed. “I wondered why… but you will not tell.”

“We left because…” Victor paused then. “We left because we needed a new life.”

“And she left us after two years.” Mary sighed. “And she did not take us. Father, tell me of the creature.”

“Creature? Where …… Who …… How did you know?” Victor was stunned by her daughter’s statement.

“I was… there were words then at the Uni’s where you were. They whispered of your… creation. You created a… a creature from the dead. They did not tell me directly, but there were some who told me later. Friends I thought I had then.”

“Mary, I am a scientist… and yes, I did experiments on dead… anatomies, but the creature was a…” Myth that they all hold onto me. I did not create any creatures. It is impossible to relive a dead body.”

“Father, I read your notes.” Mary stared at the man. “I did not understand it, but the words appeared to……”

Victor was shocked. Mary, his child, was blessed at an early age, but she could read more than many others her age. He had kept his notes in the huge case, latched most times, unless he was to access it.

“Ignore what you read. It is all …… failed works.” Victor regretted not destroying the notes. “You may want to rest now. We will talk tomorrow or meet your mother.”

Mary nodded and prepared for bed. Victor remained seated there, and his thoughts were on the past.

Judith.

William.

Ernest.

And finally, Elizabeth. She was full of glee when they left the town, and the days were gay with fun, while he found his first acceptance at the university there in the city. It was all a new life, and with Elizabeth and their child, he thought all was a new life. Upon the birth of Mary, Elizabeth went into a recluse. She would not tell him why but kept herself in the chamber. She even ignored Mary as a mother. He had consulted the medical experts, and they diagnosed it as a post-natal condition. He was advised to move to a new university and did that, but Elizabeth was to recover. Soon, she left them, with a letter stating that she was leaving them.

Victor was to search for her, but Mary came down with an illness that required her to rest. He juggled his work and taking care of the young baby, and it took a year before Mary was able to talk. He kept at his commitments and ignored the whereabouts of Elizabeth. After some years, he heard of her as the chairman of the Theology Society, and despite his letters to her, none was replied to.

His thoughts went back to the creature.

It was never found; it was hunted by many, but all failed. The euphoria soon faded while he was immersed in his works, but the faculties reminded him to share his works. He did not and was soon removed, and he needed to find new Unis. The acceptance by other universities soon depleted, and finally, after a decade of work, he was forced to return to the mansion. He was expecting the place to be in a better state than what he saw that day. He was thankful the mansion structure still stands, and Sven was there. The lab and the generator still stood. He sighed, for he did not visit Henry’s grave. It stirred in him the painful memory.

A part of him urged the notion that the creature was there.

Mary was what she called herself. She looked like a female; the anatomies were mostly female, and yet she was not a gender like the living ones. Henry liked and named her, but he had rejected it. It was still a creation.

“How did ……” Victor was muttering to himself. Till that day, he was unsure what he did. He knew his fixation on electricity; it was a new tool, and many experiments were built around it, but nothing told him it created life for the creature. In 1818, Scottish chemist Andrew Ure held two metallic rods charged by a 270-plate voltaic battery to various nerves and watched in delight. The dead corpse convulsed, writhed, and shuddered in a grotesque dance of death.

That experiment flirted with the concept that electricity could revive life creations. Italian anatomy professor Luigi Galvani and later his nephew, physicist Giovanni Aldini, all tested on these experiments that grew morbid. More came on board the works, including the Galvani’s nephew, physicist Giovanni Aldini.

The experiments were given a new avenue with the Company of Surgeons in England carrying out such tests. In 1751, England passed the Murder Act, which allowed the bodies of executed murderers to be used for experimentation.

“The reasons the Murder Act came about were twofold: there were not enough bodies for anatomists, and it was seen as a further punishment for the murderer. It was considered additional punishment to have your body dissected.”

Further punishment or justice for a life taken? Ironic as Victor’s thoughts flirted. “Yet their works will have the dead once again arise.”

Life was the work of God, involving the living beings and the cohesion of the cells expended by the two genders, and from there, another living being was to be created. That was the proven science.

“Yet…” Victor muttered. He defied God’s work. He had built the creature from the female anatomies; he was of the view that the female may birth a child, so it drove his creation. He had used the anatomies to build the full female body, but the works did not work. He had Silvus give him new parts when others failed. He thought that his creation must be created and not taken from God’s. He could not grow one from the cells; that will take years. He needed a faster creation. 

And the creature was matched up.

When he thought it was a failed experiment, it came…alive.

“Henry, you idiot.” Victor felt that when Henry crossed the boundary from science to social needs.

“I love her.”

“It is not a her. It is a creation of mine.” Victor defended his definition for the creation. The trusted assistant to him was clearly naïve, simple in terms to describe Henry’s character, but loyal. If only he remained at that, but he had to cross the threshold that outlined his social needs upon the creature. It shattered the experiment then.

That was not the only expectation.

Ernest was an unexpected development. The imbecile cripple dabbled into the mystic. Victor knew his mother was into it. He heard the arguments between the parents, but Tata was unable to stop it. However, his mother agreed not to teach the children. Ernest was her favourite, and somehow, he got himself immersed in it. And paid the price. It brought in unwanted attention from the authorities and jeopardized the work on the creation. He recalled the demon that threatened him then at the lab. It was the creation that saved him then.

Demons and witchcraft.

Ernest paid for his life. Judith died from the works of it.

“Bastards!” Victor cursed. “I was one too.”

How could he have fallen for Elizabeth? She was never his; she was William’s girl. His was Judith, but she died, supposedly killed by William. Not to be known by others.

Oh God. I cross the boundary of my own.

He had taken to Elizabeth and took her away till the day she returned here. As he did. He glanced at his; no, it was their daughter. Mary Annabelle Frankenstein was their creation, the way God had set the conditions. He had named her Mary after the creature, a grim reminder of his creation, and Annabelle after his mother. Elizabeth did not offer any names.

Mary?

Somewhere in him, the creature lived in him.

Mary was its name.

Victor was back to restore the mansion, but his main concern was the lab. He knew that creature would return there, and from it, he would resume his work to find the real cause of it living.