But then the Frankensteins did not notice anything except the neat squiggle of red that charted a course across the bed, captured in a membrane thinner than an eyelash. One wrong stitch would undo it all, but Angelika saw that her brother had applied himself thoroughly.
“You always said you cannot sew,” she said to him. “But you have done well. Whatever happens next, thank you for trying. I will never forget it.”
“This is the only tube that I managed to completely suture, and I don’t think I can reuse it. So you are going to have to hold on tight, Jelly. I just put this into him here.” Victor plunged the other needle into Arlo’s vein with detached calm. “And we wait. And we pray.” He held his sister’s gaze and put out his hand to her. “I will pray with you, my beloved sister.”
Mary was revived, Lizzie helped her into the armchair, and they both watched the impossible.
“Dear Lord,” Victor said, with his eyes closed. “Dear Lord, save him. I will do anything. Whatever it takes, I will do it. I will bleed myself into him every day if it means my sister can live with her only true love. He is better than all of us put together, and I know that sounds like a strange thing to say about a man who is completely put together.”
Everyone laughed.
Victor continued, still with closed eyes. “I have not prayed once, in my entire life. I did not pray for my parents; I did not pray to find Lizzie. I trusted the natural order of things. I trusted science, and I still do, clearly. But for the first and only prayer I will make in my life, I ask you to save him.” His eyes opened and locked on Angelika’s. “God, I am asking you to let us have him. One lifetime’s worth will do, and when he is an old man, he can return to you.”
Angelika felt a curious sensation: a sparkling, a pulling, a star sensation. She looked across the pillow. “Is he coming or going?”
“He’s right on the edge,” Victor said. Mary rounded to his side, still waxy from the sight of the blood, and her eyeline carefully averted. She assessed the man below. She put her hand on his forehead. She patted his cheek, and then put her thumb on his pulse, and was silent.
“Well?” Lizzie ventured timidly.
Mary replied with dignity, “I am praying, too.” And in the silence that followed, they all thought of the life they wished for him.
Victor wanted a brother at last, to ride horses with at sunset, stomachs full of ale. He wished for a nephew or niece so hard that he brought himself to tears.
Lizzie prayed for Angelika’s smile. She prayed for a blanket laid beneath an apple tree, and the faint buzz of bees. More than anything, she wished that a baby would look at her with Angelika’s same tart, direct gaze.
Mary’s prayers were not exactly centered on Arlo, but she prayed she would find the courage to say important words out loud. That was the fault Angelika had with herself, wasn’t it? They were cut from the same cloth, because Mary had never once told either of these children that she loved them.
Angelika prayed for a heartbeat, and anything beyond that would be a bonus.
They were all so lost in thought, holding hands and making promises to themselves, that they did not notice the new tinge of pink on Arlo Northcott’s cheekbones. And when they did, Angelika Frankenstein refused to let up; she drained herself into the only man she had ever loved, until he opened his exquisite eyes on a new day.
His head turned on the pillow. Everyone remained silent.
“Where am I?” His words should have been terrifying, but there was a dry humor in the question.
Angelika was so weak, the quality of her voice alarmed everyone. But she was smiling now, too. “You are in the bed of a spoiled, wealthy heiress who has realized her privileged position and will work for the rest of her life to deserve you.”
His mouth twitched before he looked down at their linked arms. “What have you done for me?”
“She has at least halfway died for you,” Victor interjected, efficiently pulling the needle from Arlo’s arm, and then his sister’s. The fragile tubing promptly disintegrated, and Mary roared at the mess it made on the bed. As Lizzie began to mop, and Victor began to crow about how Jürgen Schneider would take the news of this latest scientific breakthrough, Angelika used the last of her strength to put her cheek on Arlo’s chest, the one she had personally selected.
“My dream man. The one I have waited for. The one I will live and die for. I think we have found a way to keep you with me forever.”
“Forever?” Arlo’s lips, growing pinker by the minute, quirked into a tired smile. “Forever is a long time, my love.”
“I know.” She tipped up her face to his, and they gave each other a kiss. “Do you doubt me? Have you forgotten who I am?”
“Angelika Frankenstein,” Arlo said, “if forever is what you want, you shall have it.”
He glanced up at the smiling faces that were beginning to appear in the room: Sarah, Jacob, the cook, and the gardeners. Mary was telling Sarah loudly how to soak a sheet. Mrs. Rumsfield was ladling out broth. Lizzie put her hand to her stomach, then laughed and took Victor’s hand, pressing it to her side. “Like stars,” she told him.
Dropping his voice to a whisper, Arlo said into Angelika’s ear, “I think we will have some peace and quiet at Larkspur Lodge.”
Epilogue
The change of season put Victor Frankenstein in a good mood.
“I’ve never seen apples like this,” he enthused to Mary, who was digging a hole in the garden patch beside her cottage’s front door. “There must be a hundred times the usual amount.”
“It’s the same number of apples as every year,” Mary said as she pushed a flowering shrub into the dirt and began to press it in. “You’re only noticing them because of the harvest. Every year they have fallen to the ground.”
“Not this year,” Victor said. “We are doing things differently around here. Now, why are you tidying up so vigorously?” He indicated the rug airing on her windowsill. “You’re bustling around like mad when we want you to relax and enjoy your retirement.”
“My grandniece is visiting me, which you should know, as I’ve told you at least ten times. She will be in Clara’s old cottage.”
“I’ve been distracted,” Victor protested.
His every waking moment revolved around the growing protrusion on his wife’s midsection. She was agreeable enough to cooperate in some baseline experiments, and the trip to the altar on the hill had been just in time. He grinned now at the memory. “Jolly good of Arlo to perform one last ceremony, wasn’t it?”
“Focus,” Mary scolded, and handed him a broom. “Sweep up. I want everything to look respectable.”
“How old’s your grandniece? How does that work? Is she your sister’s granddaughter?” Victor didn’t much care about some stranger, but he listened dutifully, and swept a path for the first time in his entire life. “Seventeen? Careful she doesn’t fall in love with me. I am told that the girls in the village think me terribly handsome and rich, mysterious and refined. It’s all truth, but I am now married, and a father in a matter of months. All the girls fall in love with me,” he added to Belladonna, scratching her chin.
“I am sure you tell your reflection all that in the mirror every morning,” Mary replied cuttingly. “Mary isn’t a stupid girl; she won’t fall for whatever charms you believe you have.”
“Her name is Mary, too?” Victor smiled his particularly irresistible smile, and grudgingly Mary found herself smiling back.
“She is named for me. Put them on her bed,” she said to Adam, who was walking up the path with blankets in his arms. “Good boy,” she encouraged him. Mary had a grandson at long last, and it was delightful to see her dote on him in her way. “Do you feel all right?”
“Fine, fine,” Adam said in his grumbling tone as he trudged past. “Victor won’t need to top me up for another week, I’m sure.”
“Just let me know,” Victor replied, and patted his inner elbow firmly. “Plenty of blood to go around.” Inventing a reusable blood transfusion tube was much more difficult than anyone knew. In truth, it was a task that had nearly broken him, but he had been determined to do it without his sister’s assistance. Now that he thought about it, it was his first solo invention.
“It’s a story nobody would believe,” Mary said as they watched Adam bend down to fit through the cottage door. “Young Mary is a writer. She has a similar vivid imagination to you. You will get along with her. Ah, our little boy is here to visit old Aunt Mary.”
Up the path, Edwin was being bounced along each stepping-stone. His hands were held by a very careful man, and he arrived at Mary’s feet without injury.
Victor greeted them. “Commander. Clara. How lovely to see you both.”
Christopher lifted the boy up. “We can’t stay away. He loves it here.”
“It’s not the same here without you, Clara. I think you should move back.” Victor said it to rile Christopher, but she answered earnestly.
“I’ve gotten rather used to the academy,” Clara replied with a blush and straightened her son’s trousers. “It wouldn’t do for the commander’s wife to live by herself, would it?”