Ask of the Lesser (Frankenstein/The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

2 Nothing Beside Remains

My frantic flight from Switzerland had taken weeks on foot through the surrounding woodland. The carriage Curwen purchased after leaving Ingolstadt made the journey in a few days. Towns identical in their destruction passed us by as folks picked through the rubble. Geneva likely suffered a similar fate, and my heart ached for the devastated people this bloody revolution was meant to help! Their torches and pitchforks had given great men power and renown, yet what had Napoleon done to benefit them and their broken windows?

Given my familiar face, Curwen decided to wait until nightfall to visit the cemetery, a decision I did not protest too. Abandoning the carriage, I guided him through the desecrated suburbs of Belrive and welcomed the darkness that hid the extent of the damage done to my former home. Despite my occasional pause for breath, we made good time and the moon had not fully risen when I stopped beside the Frankenstein tomb. In the four years of my absence the wildflowers had taken over, though the stone structure stood as regal as ever. Curwen placed his hat over his heart, content to pay his respects from a distance. I shook the vines from my cane and stumbled to the entrance. My torch lit up the chiseled letters above the sealed door: Frankenstein. My family. Little saplings had sprouted around the tomb, how long until nature reclaimed the only proof my loved ones had existed at all?

A sudden wildness seized me, and my knees hit the ground as I tore out the surrounding weeds and flung them into the night. Dirt clogged my nails as I desperately tried beating back the woodland that cared so little for memories of warm smiles and charity. The effort tightened my lungs and I collapsed in a panting heap, still surrounded. It took me a moment to realize Curwen had vanished. Wiping sweat from my brow, I staggered to the tomb's entrance where the door stood ajar. An odd chemical scent floated around melted metal where a lock had been.

"Are you finished, then?" Curwen's voice echoed from inside. "Do come in, they do not bite."

"What did you do," I stumbled over to Curwen waiting in the back of the tomb.

"I told you already. I wish to see your brother," Curwen said. His pupils drew in the surrounding shadows. "Which casket is his? We do not have time for petty guesswork."

His right hand clutched a crowbar. Reality suddenly dawned on me. I was in a hostile land, breaking into the realm of the dead with a stranger who had allegedly known Victor. Previous encounters had taught me that Victor's rambles attracted two types of readers: those from the tavern who looked on his actions with terror and disgust, and those who did not.

"You are one of those resurrection men," I breathed. "A graverobber!"

Curwen's face was a mask. "Your brother kept like-minded company."

"Victor did no such thing! It was all in his head!" I snarled. "You actually believe he stitched together rotten corpses and reanimated them to massacre my family?"

"What I believe means little, Victor said so himself," Curwen carelessly tossed the crowbar on Mama's casket and pulled Walton's book from his satchel.

"You are mad," I stepped away.

"Come now, do you really credit your extraordinary misfortune to mere chance?" Curwen pressed. "That those connected to the Frankenstein family just have a habit of getting their necks snapped? That your sweet maid saw it fitting to murder her little charge and hide his locket in so obvious a place? You speak of madness, yet I find your denial of the evidence precisely that!"

"Nonsense!" My cane struck the floor as though the motion alone could defeat Curwen. "My brother was a genius, yes, but creating life? That is strictly God's domain!"

"Foolish boy, you do not get it. He beat God! Earths' at least, had it been the other gods he chose to rival, well, that is beside the point!" Curwen shook his head. "I thought being his brother would have opened your eyes more so than the others, but you people are all the same. So stuck in your beliefs that you are incapable of comprehending the grand scope of genius! Of the power we hold now and will claim in the future!"