The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

by Kiersten White

Words and stories were tools to elicit the desired reactions in others, and I was an expert craftswoman.

I would lie silent and still, like a corpse, as he studied me. His careful, delicate hands explored all the bones and tendons, the muscles and tracings of veins that make up a person. “But where is Elizabeth?” he would ask, his ear against my heart. “Which part makes you?” I had no answer, and neither did he.

It was so hard, sorting through what was left of me when I cut off the parts that existed for others.