The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

by Kiersten White

For Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, whose creation still electrifies our imaginations two hundred years later — and — For everyone made to feel like a side character in their own story

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? —John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Do not ruin this,” she hissed. “Better for you to have died at your birth along with your mother than to be left here with me. Selfish in life, selfish in death. That’s what you come from.”

“My son, Victor, is only a year or two older than you are. He is a special child. Bright and inquisitive. But he does not make friends easily. Other children are…” She paused, as though searching a candy dish for just the right piece to pop into her mouth. “They are intimidated by him. He is solitary and lonely. But I think a friend like you would be just the gentling influence he needs. Could you do that, Elizabeth? Could you be Victor’s special friend?”

You mean his groomed to be bride you sick fucks

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

have been in charge of educating and caring for my youngest siblings. But I never thought of pursuing it outside of the home. My mother tells me I am too wicked and stupid—” “Your mother is a fool. I want you to never again think of anything she told you about yourself. It was all lies. Do you understand?”

“I am certain that is ever so useful to you here, running a student boardinghouse.” I offered my cutting words with a dagger of a smile. How dare he insult my Victor.

Interacting with new people would be easier for him if he could use me as a shield. I let him do that. I would do anything for him.

Victor and I greeted Henry wearing all white, our hands clasped as a united front. Henry’s smile was shy, but it hid nothing. His round face was open and utterly incapable of deception. Where Victor was cold and removed from the world, and I was as deceptive as a sour strawberry, Henry was exactly as he appeared to be: the most pleasant boy in existence. Even his blue eyes were as clear as the lake on a summer day.

By their grace I lived, and so I did all in my power to keep their love. Perhaps they would have tolerated some disobedience, but I would not risk it. Not ever.

I did mind the books. I minded them very much, and I wanted to know more about all of them.

I had become this girl in order to survive, but the longer I lived in her body, the easier it was to simply be her.

“Sometimes the things you say sound more like the lines I write than like what you are actually feeling.” “What if I am not happy?” I whispered, smiling, though it was a physical pain to do so. “What would you do? What would anyone do? This is my home, Henry. The only one I have. Without the Frankensteins I have nothing. Do you understand?” “Yes, of course I—” I lifted a hand to cut him off. He could not understand. If he could, he would never have asked me such a stupid question. “But I am happy. What would I choose but this life? You are such a strange boy. We are together nearly every day! You know I am happy here. And you are happy here, too, or else you would stop coming.”

Henry had asked if I was happy. I was safe, and that was better than happy.

I hmmed as I crawled into bed next to him. “Elizabeth,” he said. “You never asked me what actually happened this afternoon.” “It is fixed now. It does not matter and I do not care. Read me some more of your book,” I said, closing my eyes and falling asleep.

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.

He always had. And he did now more than ever. I had to help Victor get well, and I had to protect him. I could not let anyone discover the truth: Victor had gone mad.

“You are mine, Elizabeth Lavenza, and nothing will take you from me. Not even death.”

“I have been stuck in the business of books for so long, I forgot how much fun being a part of a story can be.”

They had bought me based on a lie.

Besides, I already knew how to be Victor’s. I did not want to learn how to be anyone else’s.

Perhaps I stared at her with as much joy and adulation as the young Frankensteins did. I loved Justine. Just as I loved Henry. But I loved no one as I loved Victor, because I owed it all to him.

Victor had never been this way, even as a child. They were nothing like him. Maybe it was because they had Justine instead of me. Had I truly helped Victor, or had I made him even more unusual? The madness I had seen of his work in Ingolstadt made me wonder. But he had gone mad without me. Not with me.

“Men are always doing things without thinking of how they will affect others. It is a woman’s heart that is big enough to hold another’s feelings.

I turned to look at her. “Then you are not upset? I had wondered if maybe you would feel it a lost opportunity.” “Goodness, no. I never want to marry. I want to stay here and raise dear William and Ernest. And I want to take care of your children.” My children. What a horrible thought. “But then you would never have children of your own!” Justine nodded, her face clouding with sadness. “I do not want them.”

They had stripped us of everything we were taught made us women, and then told us we were mad.

Perhaps that was why Victor was so desperate to imitate life with his own twisted version. He had never been able to feel things as deeply as he should; he had been raised in a home where everything was pretense and no one spoke the truth. Not even me. I had accused Victor of creating a monster, but I had done the same.

“It was not his mind I loved. It was his esteem for me. He valued me when no one else did. And I thought it made me special, that he loved only me. I should have realized that his inability to love anyone else just meant something was wrong with him.”