Reeds
The house where Victor grew up looked hauntingly similar to Elias’s own. It was just bigger and had more animals. The land was fenced around to keep them in and also to mark their territory.
Elias had only ever been able to associate Victor with the plaster and steel of the city. The severity of a sea of black clothes pressed sharp. Cologne that burned the nose. Clinical and orderly, cramped and dull.
It suited him.
This place, however, spoke of a childhood in the sunshine. Chores while the wind blew your cheeks pink. Grass and mud beneath soft boots instead of cobblestones.
Elias frowned. He shifted in his tree perch and pulled his scarf tighter around himself.
The Frankensteins must own a good deal of land. The other houses in this area were close together, but this one was apart. They had only one neighbor, and even still, they lived far away enough that it might be hard to hear a commotion.
Through the window, he could see a woman or girl, close in age to Victor, with blond ringlets.
She was laughing behind the glass. An older man, likely Alphonse himself, passed the window with a mug in his hand.
An even older man came out of the sheepcote and went inside the house.
A small brown head of hair bopped along the bottom of the windowpane. A child.
Elias wanted to howl. Wanted to punch something.
He had not intended to become a killer of children.
Not for this. But if he left the child alive, it would be trapped in a hall of bodies, rotting and alone.
He could not carry the child to another house and risk rousing alarm and the authorities.
He could not let the child out to run to safety.
It was too cold, had just gotten dark, and the mountainside was steep.
Elias pushed his forehead against the tree until it hurt. He lost faith. Despair flooded him like a wave until he rocked in place and keened, his noises whipping into the early night, torn apart by the wind.
Tears freezing his face, he climbed higher until he could see the edge of the mountain. He took the doll from inside his coat and kissed its fabric face.
“Unser himmlischer Vater, ich wei?, dass ich ein Sünder bin und dass ich so viele Dinge gegen Deinen Willen getan habe. Es tut mir sehr leid und ich bitte Dich um Vergebung.
“Herr Gott, bitte sieh meine Sünden und Fehler mit einem barmherzigen Auge an und vergib mir. Du bist ein vollkommener Gott und ich wollte Dich mit meinen übertretungen nicht verletzen. Vater, hilf mir, mein Verhalten zu ?ndern und in Deinen Scho? zurückzukehren. Ich werde mich bemühen, nicht mehr in Versuchung zu geraten.”*
Then he closed his eyes and let go of the branches.