Ash
The wind was warm and the soil smelled fresh and green. Winter had not yet touched these lands so deeply. Elias bought a red horse, young and sprightly, for his ride to Kilmeaden.
Like in Scotland, speakers of German were few and far between, but they were a sight more patient with him here and more than happy to take his gold.
By the time he reached Brogan’s house the feeling was so strong that he understood that it was some kind of magic.
It was like the ground was lit from within but cast no shadow, ending like a beacon on a set of rounded hills.
The sun was low in the sky, and Brogan’s windows were yellow with candlelight against the ground.
Elias approached Brogan’s house, and each step put him more on edge. He paused before the gate, and something in him told him it would be wise to say a quick prayer.
He went through the Our Father as the hair on his neck bristled, then pushed through her gate to knock on the door.
“Goh Away.” A voice shouted in English before he could knock.
Elias paused. “I have a message!” he shouted in German. There was no answer.
Elias wasn’t rude, so he backed away from the house. Maybe she would come out in the morning or the day after and he could yell his warning to her and ride away. He went back to his horse. To burn some time, he curried her and brushed her tail and mane, then braided them.
Elias settled down next to the tree. The grass on this side of the path was tough and bitter, but a few yards down from Brogan’s house it looked softer.
Maybe before he slept, he would take her there.
Elias opened his jacket and pulled out Agatha’s doll.
The hair was starting to get tangled, so he brushed it too until it shined.
Then he cleaned some of the travel dust off his shoes and jacket, ate some dried meat, and wiped his teeth clean.
He closed his eyes and looked at the string inside him, vibrating quietly as he always allowed it to these days.
It had been ages since he had stilled it completely.
He wondered what Victor was thinking on the other end of it.
Elias ran his fingers against it and received back only muted impressions.
He was confused for a while, then realized: this is what it must be like when Victor was sleeping. He kept his fingers on the thread, listening to Victor’s hazy dream state. The ebb and flow like a gurgling spring. His heart beat the rhythm of contentment.
It was strangely intimate.
A part of him wanted to jolt over a feeling of panic to wake him. But he didn’t. Elias breathed alongside him until his own eyes began to tire. He curled closer to the tree. At least here it was warm enough that he might not freeze to death.
Suddenly the door to Brogan’s house opened. Elias sat up straight and looked at the door. Brogan’s silhouette filled the frame. She stared back at him from across the road.
Elias took his chance.
“Sorry to bother you, miss. I must tell my message, then I’ll be on my way,” he called.
Brogan didn’t go back inside, but her chin tilted up. Well. That was better than nothing.
Elias took a deep breath. “There is a boy who will come to your door. His hair is yellow and he will be nervous. His name is Victor Frankenstein and he will ask for your help. He is a fugitive from justice, exiled by the magicians of our shared country. He has made me a slave and betrayed the will of God.”
Brogan listened intently. Then when he finished, she turned and went back inside the house. But this time she left the door open.
Elias scrambled to his feet and scampered across the road. The stink of magic was even higher over the threshold. He winced, rubbing his eyes at the sting.
“Who are you?” Brogan asked. She was pointing a pistol at Elias’s chest. Elias startled and put his hands up.
“Elias Hilfiker. I have traveled very far. I can leave if I am not welcome,” he said, backing to the door.
Brogan narrowed her eyes at him. She was very old.
She had long face hair, well brushed and oiled until it shined.
She had braided it and tucked flowers in to match the braids and flowers of her hair.
Elias looked over her shoulder at her home.
Everything inside it was as intricate as she was.
Patterns painted on her kitchen basin and hearth, carpets intricate with color.
Her house was homey and clean, but it was unquestionably a witch’s house.
“There is a . . . force here . . . ,” Elias started cautiously. “It’s hurting my eyes and nose.”
Brogan looked him up and down. “It’s to keep back wicked men. . . . Which more often than not is all of them.”
Elias frowned but didn’t argue. Brogan was old enough to know.
“Sit.” She nodded to the living room.
Elias followed her to a low chair across from a couch. There was a wide space between them, cold and formal. He anxiously settled into the chair and she sat before him, pistol trained on his heart, hand resting on her knee.
“You said you have been made a slave. To who?” Brogan demanded.
Elias placed his palms up on his knees in open surrender before answering.
“A boy called Victor Frankenstein.” Elias confessed. “He . . . stole me from my home.”
“You were taken . . . from your home by a boy? You’re a man full grown and strong.” Brogan scrutinized him suspiciously.
Elias shook his head. “It was not always so.”
Brogan sniffed hard. “You smell of blood and death.”
“I killed his family. In the way of justice befitting to my people.”
“Your people are child killers?” Brogan whispered dangerously.
Elias shook his head. “Not . . . not always. There are circumstances . . . Not. I . . .” He paused. “I should not have done that. But there was no other way.”
“There are always other ways,” Brogan said resolutely.
Elias bit his tongue bitterly. “I am sorry,” he said.
Brogan let his apology stink in the air for a while.
“Tell me, from the beginning, and I will listen. And judge,” she said.
Elias closed his eyes at the frisson of pain from that.
“I . . . Okay. Okay. I’m the son of tavern keepers. I have three sisters, all unmarried, the eldest just out into society. I am my father’s only son. I . . . I do not . . . I was not appropriate for marriage. Before Victor took me, I was much weaker. I have the sugar sickness—”
“You do not,” Brogan interrupted.
Elias sat up straighter. “No, I do.”
Brogan scowled. “I would smell it on you.”
“Miss, I eat nothing but meat and pine.* Have done so for years. Except for that night,” Elias argued, he pulled the jar out of his jacket and tossed it to her. She caught it, pistol unwavering, and put it close to her nose.
“I swear to you, I have the sugar sickness. Victor poisoned me to fainting and took me then.”
Brogan appeared to accept this for the moment. “Why after years would you change your protective methods?”
Elias flushed; he hadn’t thought about being asked this. “I . . . He . . .”
Brogan took the safety off with an ominous click. Elias clenched his eyes shut.
“He gave me an engagement token,” he admitted.
“A bottle of bitter wine. It was sharp, not sweet, and tasted of lemons. It was mine as a betrothed to have,” he said defensively, hating the desperation in his voice.
“I did not have much. I just wanted . . . I wanted to be close to him, to be appreciative.”
Brogan raised an eyebrow. “Is that how they do it in Germany?” she said skeptically.
Elias could feel his cheeks burning. “No, Victor is . . . He’s not a child—he’s nearly eighteen—and I’ve only seen nineteen summers and will turn that age in the fall. We would have been men together after the handfasting. My parents just wanted me to be happy, and loved. It’s . . .”
God, this was embarrassing to say out loud.
“I was going to die soon anyway, it didn’t matter. . . . No one expected me to . . . I couldn’t be an heir. All I wanted was my last few years in comfort and joy, to be loved—”
“So you knew him,” Brogan probed.
Elias hung his head. “I did not. I confess I did not, but. He. He was beautiful and he said such kind things in his letter.”
Brogan waited while Elias sat there and wished he could die.
“He said . . .” Elias forced himself to spit out words he could never forget.
“ ‘The fountains mingle with the river, and the rivers with the ocean. The winds of heaven mix forever with a sweet emotion. Nothing in this world is single; all things by a law divine. In one another’s being mingle; why not I with thine? See the mountains kiss high heaven and the waves clasp one another. No sister flower would be forgiven if it disdained its brother. And the sunlight clasps the earth and the moonbeams kiss the sea: What are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?’ ”
Brogan made a complicated face. “Percy Shelley.”
“What?”
“That’s Percy Shelley. Your lover did not write that. It was written by another man . . . an irritating one if the rumors are to be believed.”
Elias heard a roaring in his ears, and the thread began to vibrate with the wild beating of his heart. But the magic of this place stung his eyes violently, and he remembered Brogan’s warning. His anger could not happen here within these walls. He might not survive it.
Elias took a few deep breaths to calm himself.
“Okay,” he conceded. “Then, afterward, he took me to his house. He carved all parts of me until I was in tatters and sewed them back up. I do not know why he did this. The cuts were not deep but they were disfiguring. Then I awoke surrounded by other students of science. He performed some dark magic on me and left me to burn to death in his home.”
Brogan looked curious but didn’t interrupt him again.
“I managed to escape, badly burned and yet again disfigured, and walked miles through the woods in the cold to my village. When I arrived, I looked . . . so . . . inhuman that no one would help me. They drove me to hiding in the woods, and I stayed there, bleeding and burning the whole night. In the morning, I left the town and returned to where Victor had taken me. I . . . killed the men who watched my torture, save one who helped me find more information on Victor’s whereabouts.
“I met with a grand alchemist called Jaan who gave me the gold and coin for travel and a list of places where Victor may go. I intended to give chase and meet him, but I keep finding myself ahead of him. I have been to Italy, France, and Scotland.”
“You saw Ayan?” Brogan asked.
“He cut me that pine,” Elias said, gesturing at the bottle.
“Hmm. When did you kill the child?”
Elias wrung his hands. “In . . . In my village a loss must be replaced with a loss of equal value. The child was Victor’s brother and with him his mother, father, and a sister, I think, though she did not look like most of the family. . . .”
“But you are not in your village,” Brogan pointed out.
Elias met her hard gaze. “I know. And I will never be again.”
Brogan lay the pistol on her lap, no longer ready but still pointing to his gut.
“A family lost for a family lost,” she murmured, rubbing her chin. “It can be understood but perhaps not forgiven.”
“Forgiveness is immaterial. There is only penance and that is an act that must be fulfilled until the end of one’s own life,” Elias recited.
“And how do you expect to pay for these lives lost?” Brogan asked.
Elias shook his head. “I do not yet know. I hope when I meet Victor, I can ask.”
“Before you kill him, that is,” Brogan said wisely.
Elias stayed quiet.
Brogan put the safety on her gun and laid it at her feet.