"Funny, how?" she asked as she wrote:
Tends to put foot in mouth with pretty females—quite a problem, given the size of Frederick's foot.
"A gap between her teeth. I like it. At first her smile made me feel happy inside," Frederick admitted. "But right after that, it made me feel all odd."
"Can you describe that feeling?" Eve asked, making more notes.
"It became hard to breathe, and I saw little dots in front of my vision—like before, when those townspeople in Germany chased me with those torches."
"I see," Eve said, keeping her voice gentle, though her thoughts were anything but. Poor Frederick and his night terrors. He had feelings of fear no self-respecting monster wanted. After all, monsters were supposed to instill night terrors, not be subject to them. Eve wanted to find those nasty villagers and give them a piece of her mind.
"I felt like I was going to fall apart, like my stitches weren't holding," Frederick went on. "It was terrible. I was so upset, I just left without a word to anyone. Now Miss Beal must think I have monstrous manners."
"Perhaps you could send her some flowers, and a note of apology saying you'd forgotten some previous engagement," Eve advised.
"I would hate to tell her a lie," Frederick argued.
"Then you could tell her the truth—that you found her smile so engaging you didn't know what to say, so you left."
"Maybe so, Dr. Eve… but then, if she showed the note to her friends, they might laugh at me."
Since Eve didn't know Miss Beal or what the girl would do, she suggested, "Perhaps your cousin Clare might know of Miss Beal's character."
Frederick brightened. He said, "I will write and ask."
"How is she doing in her confinement?" Eve had met Baroness Huntsley at a ball five months past, and though the woman appeared as eccentric as all Frankensteins, Eve had found her to be a delightful lady with an inquiring mind. She and her husband, the Werewolf of London, were expecting their first child in less than a month.
"I saw her two weeks ago, and she was happy as a clam and fat as a pig. Of course, I didn't tell her that part about being fat as a pig."
"Very wise, Frederick. No lady likes to hear she has gotten plump."
Frederick shook his big, slightly dented head. "Oh, no. Clair doesn't care about her weight. Neither does her husband, Ian. Clair just doesn't like people to mention the word 'pigs' around her, what with that unfortunate incident and all."
Eve tapped her fingers on the skull on her desk. Ah, yes, she vaguely remembered some gossip about a misadventure with pigs, ghosts, and a cemetery when she'd first come to town.
"I'm glad to hear your cousin's confinement is going well. Now, about those feelings you experienced at the Grau ball. After you left, did you breathe into a paper bag, as I suggested?"
"Actually it was a horse's oat bag," Frederick admitted.
"Improvisation is good," Eve replied. "Now, did it help with your breathing?"
"Uh-huh."
"Good, good," Eve praised. "Did you count to one hundred and clear your mind of everything but the rolling ocean waves, as I suggested?"
"Yes. But I added fish. Goldfish."
"You were hungry?" Eve asked. Every patient had foibles, and Eve had learned of this patient's culinary fondness by coming into her office one day to find all her goldfish missing from the large glass dome aquarium she'd kept by the balcony doors. That day the fish tank was empty, and Frederick was wearing a stricken look on his homely face. "Well, a sign of hunger is always good, I say, after an attack of night terrors."
Frederick nodded, and Eve glanced at the grandfather clock against the wall. Withdrawing a folder from her desk, she slid out a piece of paper smeared with black ink stains.
"It's time for our other therapy," she said. Inkblot therapy was a brand-new concept encouraging the patient to come forth and give responses to various ink stains on parchment paper. These stains sometimes provided a key to the unconscious. The technique was necessary due to the subconscious mind often being hidden and slippery.
Pointing at the parchment she asked, "What does this picture remind you of?"
Frederick studied the ink spot with intense concentration. Finally he replied, "An electrical storm."
Eve rather thought it resembled the bow of a ship. She held up the next picture. "And this one?"
Again, Frederick concentrated. "I think it's either a gravestone, or maybe my friend Herr Munster's foot."
Since she had never seen Herr Munster's foot, she couldn't disagree, although she thought the dark stain rather resembled a pirate map. "And this one?" she asked, showing one that obviously resembled coins and jewels in her father's favorite sea chest.
"Faces. Lots of cruel faces, staring at me."
His answer was just about what Eve had suspected, and she noted her thoughts on her pad.
Patient's fear of crowds is still prominent in his subconscious mind. Not surprising, when he has been chased half the length of Germany by a vicious, bigoted mob brandishing torches and weapons.
Yes, her work was still cut out for her. She would have to determine a way to help Frederick through his fears of being hunted and big crowds. Perhaps her assistant Pavlov's behavior patterning might provide a method. She would ask the man when he returned from France.
The grandfather clock chimed loudly beside her desk, and Eve stood, her hand outstretched. "Our time is up for today, Frederick. I want you to continue to do the exercises I gave you whenever you feel one of your nighttime terrors coming on. I also want you to practice looking into the mirror every day and repeating, 'I am a jolly good fellow' at least twenty times." She escorted Frederick to the door. "I will see you the same time next Monday. Take care, Frederick, and tell your father, Dr. Frankenstein, hello for me."
Frederick nodded, his big head ducking under the door frame as he slowly began his lumbering march to the front hall.
Tapping her fingers upon her chin, Eve watched him lurch away, his massive shoulders hunched, his oddly shaped head bobbing up and down, and his tremendously big feet slapping loudly on the marble hallway.
There went a good soul, a kind monster, and a complex man of many parts. Too bad most of those parts were mismatched, the cynical side of her thought; people could be so cruel to those who were different. But the more romantic side of Eve caused a faint smile to crease her lips. Perhaps Miss Beal might be persuaded to be Frankenstein's bride.
"What a strapping young man!" her housekeeper, Mrs. Fawlty, said in a voice loud enough for Eve to hear in the study.
Eve followed the voice. As she rounded the corner into the large entranceway, she saw the woman—a tall, middle-aged matron with modishly curled gray hair—scurrying toward her. Mrs. Fawlty's heavily painted face wore an aggrieved expression upon its continuously pinched features. The housekeeper was a woman of excessive nerves, insatiable desires, and uncertain temperament, and she was always in a snit about something.
"It's a shame that husband of yours is in that godforsaken country of Trainstationia, working on those railroads all the livelong days. Who knows what foreign disease he might be catching, and who knows what foreign ladies he might be tupping? They might be giving him an evil eye or something even worse, what with their tawdry Trainstationia ways. You just can't trust them foreign women. No, sirree, I tell you, you sure can't. They'll try to steal him away from you, they will."
Eve repressed a smile. Let them try. Her husband was, after all, the quintessential invisible man, resistant to all lures of the flesh. "It's Transylvania, and my husband is doctoring a mad vampire. Remember, I've told you this before." At least a thousand times in the past two years, Eve thought wryly. But Mrs. Fawlty heard what she heard, and if it wasn't to her liking then it doubtless never reached her brain.