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“Let him stay,” says Elizabeth, when Victor's body has been dragged away to the crypt, bloodied and bereft.
William looks at her, face blank with grief. He does not look at his brother's creature for more than a glance, frozen where he stands. He does not look at the spatter of blood—his brother's—on Elizabeth's white gown. He sees her, perhaps, in a new light. He sees her for the first time.
This was supposed to be their happiest day, the start of a marriage to last decades. This was not supposed to be the day Elizabeth had wrested the gun from Victor only for it to fire at him.
The creature stays.
He is there when they return from their honeymoon. The servants don't have a bad word to say about him per se, other than that they think him ugly and strange, and that he eats only rarely, and that it is rather hard to find clothes for a man of his proportions, but at least they call him man.
He is there in the library, reading by the window. William barely acknowledges him, even if in the secrets of their shared bed he had whispered to Elizabeth that it had always been Victor who had scared him, Victor who had been the monstrous shadow in his life.
He is there dressed in his dark blue coat and matching striped trousers. His hair is still unfashionably long, but it has been washed and combed, and he has a boyish halo to him, there in the sunlight, that even the scars of his birth cannot mar.
“I heard you took a name,” says Elizabeth, as she takes a seat across from him. The butler had told her where the young master was to be found, and he hadn't called this young master a creature.
He is there, and he looks up from his reading—on leaves, it turns out. “Adam,” he says in his gravelly voice.
Elizabeth smiles. “Hello, Adam” She offers her ungloved hand. “I am Elizabeth.”
Adam is a quiet, unassuming presence in the household. He takes to the shadows most of the time, and when it's not shadows it's the same window in the library, overlooking the garden. It's a beautiful view, even in late winter, and Elizabeth promises herself she will take him out for a lovely little stroll come spring, when the flowers bloom once more.
“Do you think he's lonely,” William says, the rare time he speaks about him. “There's only one of him.”
Elizabeth looks down at her morning tea, unwilling to give her real answer: that she had first looked at Victor's creature, chained in the cistern, and had seen herself—caged bird, no choice to be made but many to be imposed upon her.
She says, “He has us.”
When she looks up, William's eyes tell her he had heard what she hadn't said. That there is never just one of anything, not unless it has been hunted to extinction.
Married now, Elizabeth wanders the halls in her lovely silk gowns, draws her pictures of insects, and finds herself bored. She buys books to keep her mind busy, knits herself scarves, embroiders William's kerchiefs, walks the halls again. She doesn't see Adam as often as she would like to, though she feels his eyes on her and revels in the thrill of it.
She has known pleasure and she wouldn't mind sharing the taste of it with him, damn the sisters of the convent, and damn god too. Damn her vows, if she has to, though she would rather not.
His eyes are on her when she sits with her embroidery hoop by the hearth. William wanders in with a glass and a bottle of brandy.
“Should we go to the city soon?” he says, pouring himself a half-full glass. She's glad he's at least a little measured in this. “The manor is a bit far out, but being cooped up here is driving me to climb the walls.”
Perhaps it's the madness gripping her too, because Elizabeth says, “Can Adam come with us?”
William stares at her, blue eyes tinted orange, but he says, “Sure. I reckon he hasn't seen the city.”
The shuffle startles them both, a sudden little movement from Adam that reveals him in his little corner. The fire catches his eye, the glint of it giving him away.
“Oh my god,” says William, hand on his heart. “You’re a little mouse. Don't the cooks feed you enough? Sit, sit! Have you ever had brandy?”
He hasn't, as he tells it, and Elizabeth feels her heart break for him as the story spills out. It doesn't take much for the drink to take him, mellow him out, and in the glow of the hearth, he seems softer than ever: just a boy, another child failed by his father. William doesn't see it, can't: he has always been favoured, the blond cherub of his sire, a sacrifice born in blood and cherished for being the spitting image of his father.
All the same, the barrier between William and Adam falls, and Elizabeth covers them in a blanket before she leaves. William's golden head rests upon Adam's shoulder, and she has the ideas of a sketch already forming. But that is for the morning.
And in the morning, Adam sits with them for breakfast, carefully picking little bites from his bread, just as carefully not looking at either Elizabeth or William.
“I would like to see the city,” he says quietly, shyly. His hands still don't quite know what to do with themselves, fingers unused to the way they have to bend to pick up a teacup, but there's an elegance to his movements that Elizabeth finds alluring, and she thinks William stares a little too long at Adam's fingers for it to be entirely innocent curiosity.
“Wonderful,” she says in his stead. “I'll send someone to ready the carriage.”
Vienna is cold and covered in a dusting of snow, glittering with lights. Christmas is nearing, and some are shopping frantically for gifts. Elizabeth has her arm hooked around William's as they walk, and she occasionally looks back at Adam so as not to lose sight of him.
She's missed Vienna, missed the babble of German, missed not having to translate herself. Adam knows a handful of words, and William has had much joy in expanding his vocabulary, so it's not so strange when he wanders away, dragging Adam with him.
Elizabeth herself is drawn to new books, this time on flora. It would be good for Adam, she thinks, because they don't have that many at home, and it comes with a companion encyclopedia on fauna with beautiful art.
When she looks over, William has an arm hooked with Adam's, gesturing enthusiastically at books from the penny dreadfuls stand. The merchant keeps throwing odd looks at Adam, and the bellicose, protective creature within Elizabeth wants to bundle him up and send him home, where he can be hers and only hers.
But she had been bartered once, had been sold like meat, and she could not bear the thought of caging him, of shackling him to a bed and leaving him there to be looked at. Adam deserves the freedom she had killed for.
So, she laughs quietly to herself and buys the books.
Spring is a breath of fresh air. They stroll through the gardens, and she points out the butterflies, and he talks about the trees and the bushes and the flowers. He has a captivating way with his words, how he chooses them, the lilt of his acquired Northern accent—somewhere around Leeds, William had said, giggly from the wine. Elizabeth would do anything for him to keep it.
Tragically, with spring also come the obligations of work, and William must see himself to the capital for business, now that winter can't keep the men indoors.
“At least I know there is someone to keep you company while I'm gone,” William says to her in the foyer. “I dread to think of you, alone and without comfort.”
He says it with a slyness quite unlike him, like something of Victor exists in him too. Of course it does. Elizabeth smiles and kisses his cheek as a proper and chaste wife is expected to do.
That night she rides Adam to ecstasy for the first time, and feels her wings spread once more, wings she had thought clipped on the journey to adulthood.
He's not as cold as the blue of his skin would suggest, and he warms up easily enough under her touch. He learns her lips over the course of three kisses, whispering her name like a prayer and a supplication all at once. She feels powerful, lets that feeling carry her to the peak, basks in the sound Adam makes. She feels closer to the divine than ever she has been, red rosary around her neck her only adornment.
“Elizabeth,” he says, deep and gravelly. She lays her ear against his chest, hears his heartbeat. Its rhythm is still erratic, matching hers.
“I don't know what books Will has shared with you,” she says, still out of breath, “but you are a fast learner.”
Adam smiles, she hears it, and when she looks at him it is exactly as angelic as she had imagined it.
They meander in the garden, her boys, and William leans a little too heavily in Adam's space, assured of his sturdiness. “We could build a butterfly pavilion here, don't you think, little mouse? I think Elizabeth would be charmed.”
She is already charmed, walking at a sedate pace behind them, her parasol protecting her delicate skin from the late spring sun. The little silken red hair tie in Adam's hair makes him look like a gentleman from another century, but William and she had agreed it would be such a waste to cut his hair. He's so handsome with it.
And yes, a little pavilion for butterflies would charm her. William is enraptured by whatever Adam is telling him about the care and feeding of insects, and Elizabeth feels the fluttering of wings when William looks at Adam's lips for a moment too long, and when Adam leans in for a quick kiss.
There's a lot for the servants to gossip about, but they've taken to calling Adam ‘Young Master Frankenstein’ and, when he's not near, ‘Little Mouse’. They laugh now when he startles them with his light feet and his lurking, and they bring him little treats in the library.
In the evenings, when it’s just the three of them, when Adam’s eyes droop and he rests his head upon her lap, when William looks at them fondly, Elizabeth marvels at the life she has built for herself out of the ruins of one night.
And so, when William suggests they take another set of vows, tying the three of them together under God’s watchful gaze, she says yes.
The twins are born on a stormy evening, as the lightning strikes and thunder masks Elizabeth's final shout. The eldest, Henry, arrives quietly, eyes open and curious. The youngest, Victoria, arrives with a fury, announcing her displeasure to the world, fists shaking. Elizabeth, tired and mightily pleased, presents them to their fathers and watches as wonder and love takes over the fear and apprehension on their faces.
“They’re so tiny,” William says, and of course they are, come early and so new to the world.
Elizabeth had once told Victor, on a night that seems now long ago, that his name was a word that perhaps had meant everything to his creation. She sees it now on the faces of her children, that she is everything, their whole world. It terrifies her to have such power over them, to be so fettered to their little lives, but then Adam scoops up Henry and it feels right, it feels just, that the three of them are everything to the babes.
It’s not easy, exactly, and nights come when Elizabeth is certain she will never know sleep or sanity again, but the maids help, and Adam is less constrained by the rules and cages of society, less aware of the mores that their peers hold to, so he takes to fatherhood like a duck to water, doing things that men usually leave to their wives to sort out. William, perhaps seeing the wisdom in freeing up Elizabeth’s time, or perhaps not wanting to be left out, joins him with a nervous sort of hesitance that is entirely normal for him, but soon he is carrying one babe or the other around and showing them off to anyone who will listen.
“My darling Victoria,” he says to their guests.
“That one is Henry,” Adam says. “I have Victoria.”
Not bothered in the slightest, William laughs. “And fast asleep! You know, she only does that for him. It’s his calming presence.”
The guests titter, but Elizabeth knows well they think this little family strange—more than strange: outright and bizarrely sinful. They watch Adam, whisper about his face, the strange lines on his wrists. The question in their eyes is clear: why is this man, introduced as Adam Frankenstein, relation unspecified, so involved with the children? Are they even William’s?
Elizabeth cannot answer that question, nor does she much care to. Hers is a happier life than a younger version of her could have anticipated. The girl she had once been could not have imagined the joy of seeing Adam point and name objects for Henry, or how William cries at how adorable Victoria’s little bonnets are. The girl who had come out of the convent could not have envisioned the light in her house, or sharing a bed with her two favourite people.
That is all for this Elizabeth.
When the autumn comes, so do the first of Adam’s grey hairs. It is a shocking thing, though Adam himself seems unmoved by their appearance. William frets, distantly recalling the discussions his brother and her uncle had had about the storage of energy, of how it would run out.
“The time we have may be brief,” he says, blue eyes already borrowing grief from the future.
“It may be brief,” she says to him, “but it will be profound.”
And Adam continues to smile, and he tells the babies stories, kinder ones, and he shows them leaves he had collected in the garden. The light in him continues to shine, and so Elizabeth writes her worries on a piece of paper and hides it in a book she can’t find later.
The remarkable thing about the seasons is that the children grow with them, and by winter they’re no longer the tiny things they once were. Just by looking at her, it’s clear Victoria will be the taller of the two. Henry still does most things first.
“I’d like to see all of their lives,” Adam says on a particularly gloomy afternoon. The twins are down for their nap, not that Henry had been very willing, bless him.
“No parent ever does,” says William. “But I do wish I could.”
By spring of the next year, no new grey hairs have shown themselves, and Elizabeth breathes a little easier, takes her boys and her babes out to the garden, to the pavilion. The weather has settled enough into a steady warmth that there are butterflies to look at, and what a wondrous thing it is, to see the awe and childish glee on the round little faces of the babies.
It is here, in William’s arms, that Victoria says her first word.
“Adda,” she says while pointing at Adam, and it's not his name, not really.
William smiles. “That's right, that's adda.”
Adam smiles, all soft and alight, butterflies fluttering around him like in a fairytale, Henry fast asleep in his arms.
And Elizabeth’s heart swells with a happiness, unbounded.
“Caged bird, to caged bird,” she says, holding Adam’s hand.
“We can be free together,” he whispers back.