“Warm isn’t in, gov’nor, to be wearing such a heavy cape as that?” he asked.
I did not bother answering him, but that didn’t deter him.
“You’re a big’un, aren’t you? How tall are you? Seven feet? Never saw no one your size before.”
Frankenstein had been absorbed in his thoughts, but this brought him to life and he snapped at this man to watch the road and not to pester me with any further questions, at least if he wanted to be paid for his services. The driver apologized, but still kept glancing back at me suspiciously. When we reached a desolate area along the shoreline, Frankenstein had the driver stop the coach. He first took a gold watch from his pocket to see the time, then got out of the coach, and after pulling a small folding telescope from out of his inside jacket pocket, used it to spy in all directions. Satisfied with what he saw, he ordered the driver to take his trunk down from the coach where it had been stored. The driver struggled doing this and several times glanced in my direction hoping that I would offer to help, which I ignored. He did not need to see that I could have lifted the trunk with one hand. After several minutes of his huffing and puffing he had it on the ground. He was then paid and told that he was no longer needed.
His expression queered as he looked about this desolate area. “You want me to leave you here in the middle of nothin’?” he asked.
“That is what I am asking.”
He shrugged and climbed back on top of his coach. After he drove away, Frankenstein pointed out an island to me.
“That is where we will be going,” he said. “A rowboat should be waiting for you no more than a mile down this coast. I would have you come with me, but I am afraid with your additional weight we would capsize the rowboat I have arranged for myself.”
Frankenstein glanced once more at his pocketwatch as a way to dismiss me, and I turned and headed off in the direction that he was sending me. The rowboat was where he had said it would be, and I used it to row myself to the island, which was only a little more than a mile from the coast. With my great strength, the trip was quick, and at times the boat appeared to barely skim the water’s surface. When I reached the island, I saw another dinghy with two men aboard also coming to the island, and I knew that Frankenstein was one of those men. From the distance they still had to travel and given the speed at which they were propelling the boat, it would take them another half hour to reach the island’s shore. I left the water’s edge then to quickly explore the island before returning and waiting for my enemy.
I was able to cover the grounds in less than a half hour. The island was a barren place, mostly rocks, and held little more than four small cottages. From a distance I spied a man and a woman entering one of these cottages. From the manner of their dress they must have been servants. Both appeared to be large-framed with an extraordinary dullness about them. I guess as well as being servants they were most likely also husband and wife. I did not call attention to myself so it was doubtful that they saw me.
There was a grayness about the island that not even the late afternoon sun could dispel. A shiver ran through me as I sat and waited for the other rowboat to arrive. Without looking inside any of the cottages, I knew that in one of them a girl was being held captive, the one who would be transformed into Johanna. I tried not to think of her and the terror that she must be suffering. I tried telling myself there was nothing that I could do about it; that Frankenstein’s black magic held too much power over me, but I still felt myself a coward and a fraud.
It took Frankenstein and his companion much longer than a half hour to bring the rowboat to the island, as they had trouble with the waves and the undertow. The sun was already setting by the time their boat pushed onto the rocky shore. They both looked winded as they climbed out of the boat with perspiration glistening upon their faces. But Frankenstein smiled excitedly as he stepped first from the boat.
“Friedrich, I see that you beat us here,” he said. “Not that that should have been any surprise. I would like you to meet a childhood friend of mine, Henry Clervil. He will be observing our experiment, and will later journey back with us to my castle.”
The other man was Frankenstein’s age. Tall, finely dressed, with sharp features and a sallow complexion made to appear even more so by his black hair. Like Frankenstein, he was incapable of disguising the cruelty that he held in his eyes and mouth. As I looked at him, I felt as if I had seen him before.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
His eyes showed only slightly more life than those of the vampyre’s I had encountered in that depraved club in London, and the light faded quickly from them as the look he favored me with turned dismissive. “I don’t believe so,” he said as he left the boat to join my enemy.
Frankenstein had me carry his trunk for him, and as he walked to one of the cottages, he explained that the operation would be done the following morning. “This will be a more difficult operation than my construction of you, Friedrich. The task of replacing one brain with another while leaving the rest of the body intact is a delicate one and requires far more precision. But after a restful night’s sleep, and assuming that I have a strong morning sun, I should be able to proceed.”
He had me leave his trunk at the cottage where he would be residing, and then he led us to a cottage that was farthest away from the others. Inside of this one were all the instruments and devices he would need for the operation, as well as the young girl that I had chosen to be Johanna. This girl lay on a small cot, her eyes swollen and rimmed with red as if she had been crying miserably for days. She avoided looking at us. I saw that a manacle was attached to her right ankle, chaining her to the cot so that she would be unable to move more than a few feet from it, with the cot itself bolted to the floor. Frankenstein ignored her and instead opened a wooden crate. From this he removed a glass bowl, inside of which floated a lump of grayish matter in a similar milky liquid that had sustained Charlotte.
“Here is what remains of your Johanna Klemmen,” Frankenstein said, his eyes intent on the contents of the bowl. “Her brain.”
Clervil stood transfixed as he also stared at this bowl. I looked away. The thought of Johanna’s skull having been cut open so that her brain could be removed from it disturbed me greatly. I knew she was dead at the time and would not have felt anything, but still this violation to her body struck me as utterly inhuman. And yet, the same was going to happen to this girl who lay only a few feet from me, and I was going to be complicit in the act.
Frankenstein had enough of studying Johanna’s brain, and he packed the bowl away. He commented that the brain showed no signs of atrophy or decay. “It should be fine,” he said. “Tomorrow, Friedrich, you will be reunited with your betrothed and we will see if her memories have remained intact. For tonight, you will stay here and keep your future bride company.”
A panic seized my throat at the thought of doing this. “I would like to stay in one of the other cottages tonight,” I croaked out, my voice not much more than a guttural rasp.
“I am sorry, Friedrich, but that won’t be possible. I will be occupying one of the cottages, Henry another, and the final cottage is housing my servants.”
“Then I will sleep outside.”
“No, I prefer that you spend the night with your future bride.” A pitiless glimmer sparked in Frankenstein’s eyes, and Clervil’s lips also twisted into a thin smile. “I know it goes against accepted moral conventions to spend the night before your wedding with the bride, but in this case we’ll make an exception. Besides, it will allow you to more appropriately reflect on the decision you have made, and your role in the events that will be transpiring. Good night, Friedrich. And I do not want you leaving this cottage. Henry and I have much to discuss, and I do not wish to be disturbed.”