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“The police would never believe us. What would we say? You need to look for a poisonous girl and a woman who is over six feet tall, because they’ve been kidnapped by a bunch of Beast Men?”
rate, I don’t want her doing anything arduous. We don’t want her to suddenly leave, do we? To return to the base luxury of her life on the streets, like those other girls? Poor Sally Hayward or Anna Pettingill? We want her to understand the value of what we offer here—the comfort and safety of the Magdalen Society.
He spoke in the cultivated accent of a gentleman, but something about that voice sent a shiver up Catherine’s spine.
Twelve girls, I’ve provided—descriptions, addresses. Twice I contacted the girls myself, luring them into places where you could collect what you desired. I want my hundred pounds. Once I receive it, I’ll tell you where to find your daughter.”
She wanted to see Hyde. He sounded confident, but underneath that confidence, she could smell fear.
Catherine had been too quick to dismiss little Alice. She could lie like a champion. But why? She had clearly followed Catherine. Why was she protecting her?
Moreau had been cruel enough, but at least he had tried to make his creatures aesthetically pleasing. These creatures were malformed, even for Beast Men.
MARY: Alice, why did you follow Catherine? Were you just curious about where she was going? ALICE: Oh, I was curious all right, but I didn’t care about that, miss. See, she was wearing Mrs. Jekyll’s dress. I recognized it right away: there was a darn under the arm that I had made myself when Mrs. Poole didn’t have time. Your mother had torn it in one of her fits. And so I thought, Why is this woman wearing Mrs. Jekyll’s dress? You could have sold it, of course, but I didn’t think you would sell your mother’s clothes unless you were in desperate straits. Perhaps she had stolen it, but something
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“Beast Man,” said Mary. They were all different, but by this time she could see what was common about them all: the impression of misshapenness, of something inhuman in them.
it will be a blank slate, ready for whatever I teach it. I shall be your Frankenstein then, not he—not the cursed father who created us both!”
“Notre Père, qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, que ton règne vienne, que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel . . .”
“You will do as you’re told, or I’ll send the story of how you betrayed Moreau to your damned society. Do you think they will allow you to live, after learning that you took Moreau’s killer as your concubine? The next time you have a guilty conscience, Prendick, do not take opium where others are likely to overhear.”
“Unlike you, I’m not a killer,” said Hyde. “And there will not be a mark on her. Remember that your butchery has Scotland Yard on our trail. Even after I convinced that imbecile to confess, you wanted another brain—fresher, you said! Your actions continually put us in danger of discovery.”
“I’m surrounded by incompetents!” roared the giant, once again setting the Beast Men in the cages pacing and calling.
“Who is this Adam?” asked Watson. “He seems to be their leader, and the chief perpetrator of this madness.” “Can you not guess?” said Holmes. “He is the first monstrous creation of Victor Frankenstein.” “But the monster perished,” said Watson. “It says so in Mrs. Shelley’s account.” “Oh yes, because everything written down is true,”
MARY: I had to leave my purse in that alley, and forgot to retrieve it afterward. At least I remembered to tuck the rest of the money and the house key into my waistband. I suppose Diana’s right—women’s clothes really aren’t made for adventures.
She had often thought that if no better opportunity presented itself, she might one day become a burglar. DIANA: And I still might!
The air was so sweet, so fragrant. All she wanted to do was sit down, breathe it in, remain in that garden forever. With a final tug, she opened the latch and pushed the window panes outward. Fresh air! She breathed deeply.
“You and Dr. Watson, armed only with those toys? And with two—ladies, if they are, which I rather doubt, since ladies don’t go around carrying guns or making threats.
you measure and observe, then make your deductions. You are a kind of glorified automaton. I doubt you can understand the methods of a creative mind.
DIANA: I didn’t. In life, you sometimes have to take risks. BEATRICE: Thank you . . . I think. At least you didn’t stab me. I suppose that is what matters.
“You told me we were coming to England so you could challenge the society that had expelled me and would not admit you as a member. Remember that? You wanted to punish Van Helsing and his faction. When you recruited Prendick and we started making Beast Men, I believed you. And then we started collecting the women—what for? More experiments, you said. When I told you Justine was alive, it became all about kidnapping her, bringing her to you. This was always about your personal desires. You disgust me!”
But do you know what I did, Brother? For all the pain I had endured, I killed him. That was what I did. I turned on him and bit him through the throat. He was not a god, only a man, and he died more easily than I thought possible. Do you understand me, Brother?”
What a night it had been: fear and tragedy and absurdity, all mingled. She simply didn’t know how to respond anymore.
She held him as tenderly as though he were a young bird in a nest. It is the way she holds everything—when you are as strong as Justine, the world is terribly fragile.
He had taken her elbow, he had spoken to her in confidence. . . . She did not quite know what to think, except that it was new, and she liked it.
“I think she’s fainted again. She’s been so strong all night, but I wondered when the strain would begin to affect her. Mrs. Poole, can you bring the sal volatile? And if you have any brandy . . .”
After all, it wasn’t Diana’s mother who had been killed. Mary had been the one to watch her mother die, to stand by the grave as her mother’s coffin was lowered into the ground. She gripped the teacup tightly. And then she reminded herself that Diana’s mother had died a pauper’s death, with no one to care for her or even bury her properly.
CATHERINE: You mean good thing for you. Why do you think none of us notices anymore when you get angry? You get angry all the time, and then it passes, like a spring storm. But when Mary gets angry . . .
She’s strong, but she’s also very sensitive, particularly to emotional strain. Every once in a while, her heart gives out. Remember that she died and was brought back to life. You can’t treat her like an ordinary woman.
“I’m just a scullery maid, miss,” she replied, shaking her head rapidly, like a sparrow. “No more adventures for me, thank you.
I gasped for air. What madness was this? We were the only two of our kind in the whole world, and he would kill me? I, whom he had called his Eve, whom he considered a mate and the mother of his future children? But he was enraged, and the whiskey was clouding his mind.
What if they kill me? Perhaps I deserved death after all, not for my actions, which I thought had been justified, but because of what I am. That is what hunger and tiredness will do to the mind. At last, even the instinct of self-preservation begins to go.
Then a boy who had been kicking a ball in the village square saw me, and called to his playfellows. They shouted at one another, but not with fear, neither with hatred. No, it was . . . excitement. Even a sort of delight. I looked at them curiously.
Giantess . . . la géante. They were not afraid of me. I was, to them, a figure out of a fairy tale. I pulled up my sleeve and showed the boy my muscles.
My father’s cottage had no mirror, and I had not passed a lake or pond or even puddle, no water still enough that I could see myself in it. I stared at myself. I looked . . . ordinary. Taller than women are, but there was nothing hideous about me. I could pass among human beings. It came as a relief. You have seen Adam—his hideous countenance. Any part of it would be handsome enough, but all together—my father had made him from corpses that had lain dead some days, taking what body parts were not yet corrupted. He had not been preserved carefully, as I was. And my father had been younger, less
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I was no longer the pretty girl who had called herself Justine Moritz, but I was not a monster.
I was learning English from my encounters with Englishmen, although all of them seemed to speak in different accents—and what I later realized was Welsh, I could not understand at all. I thought for a time that I had wandered into another country. . . .
That night, I longed to die. I was afraid to surrender myself to the justice of man, but wished that the justice of God would strike me down. I ran through the night, following roads headed I knew not where, away from the town where I had committed such a heinous crime.
woods. It was the library of a wealthy family—Justine Moritz knew that. But everywhere, there was a sense of neglect. The carpet was moth-eaten. The books and furniture were covered with dust. The curtains that hung at the windows had faded, and there were cobwebs in the corners of the room. The barn I thought I had stumbled into was a grand house—magnificent, but utterly deserted.
Finally, I dusted the books, as Justine Moritz would have done. Remember that I had been a maid. What I had known best in the world, before my father taught me philosophy and literature, was cleaning. I knew how to launder fine linen, polish silver, keep a great house.
Yes, I could live here. I had food and water, a bed for the night. I had that library of neglected books. What more did I need? I was completely alone, except for the mice and the owls that nested in the attic, whom I did not disturb. It was my own Eden, and I was its Eve. I thought it was paradise.
Once, a stray cat came, and her progeny lived with me for the rest of my time there, keeping down the population of mice.
I did not realize that a legend had grown about the Cornish Giantess, who roamed that stretch of shore.
“Do not be afraid,” she said in English. She pulled down the collar of her dress, which was unbuttoned at the top. “Look. I, too, am made. I, too, am a
But he had never completed his task. Afraid that his male and female monsters would reproduce, he had disassembled her and thrown her body parts into the sea. That’s what I knew from Mrs. Shelley’s account.
JUSTINE: Please, can we finish my story?
“Justine, you’ve been living in this house for almost a hundred years.” It startled me, that so much time had passed. I had no clock, no calendar. I had not kept track of the passage of time. I did not age, and evidently I could not die. I knew many winters had come and gone, but . . . “I did not know,” I said, feeling for the first time a sense of desolation. Everything Justine Moritz had known was gone.
“It seems clear that we have solved one mystery: we know who committed the Whitechapel Murders, and why. Now we must solve the mystery of the Société des Alchimistes.
“What I’d like is for you all to stay here. I’ve lost all the family I had . . .” Hyde did not count, of course. “I think we’ve all lost our families, haven’t we? Diana has no one. Beatrice may still have relations in Italy”—Beatrice shook her head—“but anyone Justine knew is long dead. And Cat—well, she had no human family, at least. I want us to be a family for each other.
