“I hope so,” she said, swallowing. The hidden man’s eyes were changing, and he was beginning to look angry. He was probably starving, and she was dawdling. “But you are right, I am tired. Could we talk more once I have completed my errands, and we are inside, by the fire?”
“I feel it,” Will said to her, searching her face now. “You’re so frightened of what I am about to tell you. But I don’t want you to be scared. You should know the truth.”
“Let us walk and talk.” She looked back at the tree, and the man was gone. It took another few seconds to locate him, and he was closer. His graying complexion and tattered clothes gave him the appearance of a yew tree come to life. Victor had told her of Will’s violent transformation when she had been threatened. What if there was a fight, and he was hurt, or worse? It would be her fault.
“Angelika, wait,” Will spluttered as she marched past him and took the trail at a blistering pace. “Don’t run away when I’m trying to tell you something.”
“I just need to get back,” she replied. The line into the clearing behind the house seemed like miles away. The slope sucked at her shoes, dragging her downhill.
“You’ll trip,” Will said, scooping an arm around her, forcing her to halt. “Shh, it’s all right. Listen to me. I don’t know if I am going to live as long as a normal man.”
The way Victor’s creation moved through the trees was soundless and frightening. Had he followed them up the hill, casting those shadows as he passed the chapel doors, circling, watching the two kiss? What was his motive? Food? Jealousy? He was radiating the same malevolent energy as the trees, and now he carried a short, thick branch like a club.
Will ducked to catch her eye. “Did you hear me?”
“It’s fine,” Angelika said airlessly.
“It’s fine?” Will was stunned. His arm around her weakened. “Did you hear what I just said?”
She was juggling twin horrors. One must be prioritized. “I said I wanted to talk by the fire, but you didn’t listen to that, either.”
“I’m trying to tell you that I think I’m dying,” Will shouted, and the birds roosting above them exploded into flight. “I am losing sensation in my fingertips. I am not healing. I am cold. I am fading away, Angelika.”
Angelika wrenched her eyeline off the man who had been so effortlessly stalking them. “What?”
“Don’t block this out.” Will cupped her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “This is not something you can fix with money, and according to Victor, it likely can’t be fixed with science or medicine. This is happening to me, and I’m afraid, and I would very much like you to say something real in reply.”
She opened her mouth, but the only sound now was a growl from the trees. Will’s hands on her shoulders clamped harder, and comprehension dawned on his face.
“It’s all right,” Angelika told him from unmoving lips. “We just have to get to the clearing. He won’t follow us there.”
“Let her go,” Victor’s creation said, in a voice hoarse from lack of use.
Will released Angelika and whirled, blocking her with his body. “Leave us.”
“You leave,” the big man countered. “She is afraid of you.”
“Of me?” Will was incredulous. “She is in love with me.”
How pleasant it must be to be so sure of another’s love. Angelika’s voice faltered when she said, “I didn’t know you could speak.”
The man scratched at his neck with a curled hand. “At first, my throat felt . . . not quite right. Then, someone helped me to remember how.”
There were kind souls in the world. “I’m glad. Do you remember your old life? What is your name?”
He did not answer, but shrugged and refocused his eerie yellow stare on Will. “I have seen you before. In a dream. A bad dream.”
“You woke up before I did in the Frankenstein laboratory. We were lying side by side. We are like brothers.”
This shocked the man. “But you are a gentleman.”
In response, Will drew down the neck of his shirt to show his line of stitches. “You were made by Victor. I was made by Angelika, his sister.”
“I thought I was yours,” Victor’s creation protested to Angelika. “I thought that was why you visited me.”
Angelika confessed to Will, “I take him a basket in the evenings, with food and some essential supplies. Candles, soap, things of that nature. That’s why I wanted to hurry back. We will give you vegetable pies tonight—will that be all right?”