Dawn_A Re-Imagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Read online

  Praise

  SHADE

  “Beautiful and atmospheric.”

  —Bersaba, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “Merrie takes the reader on a Gothic horror thrill ride through Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin's eyes that ends in a heart-stopping cliffhanger. I can't wait to read the rest of the story!”

  —Jane, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “Shade hit the ground running from page 1.”

  —Kimberly, 5-Star Amazon Review

  DUSK

  “I was on the edge of my seat, and couldn't stop reading.”

  —Bersaba, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “Part 2 was just as atmospheric and chilling as Part 1 and the plot thickened.”

  —Kimberly, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “This just keeps getting better.”

  —Kaye, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “Again, Merrie Destefano keeps a relentless, page-turning pace that will leave you at the end breathless and anxious for book three.”

  —Jane, 5-Star Amazon Review

  DAWN

  “It’s full of action, horror, heartbreak, and difficult decisions. I feared for my favorite character and for Mary.”

  —Bersaba, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “Merrie Destefano brings her trilogy galloping to a satisfying end, a thrill ride through the long dark night of the soul.”

  —Jane, 5-Star Amazon Review

  “I started reading this afternoon and I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. I finished all three books in one day! I was under this series spell until the thrilling end!”

  —Kimberly, 5-Star Amazon Review

  DAWN

  A Re-Imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

  Merrie Destefano

  Ruby Slippers Press

  For my husband, Tom.

  Forward

  In 1816, an infamous group of friends spent a holiday together in Geneva, Switzerland. Forced to stay indoors because of unprecedented foul weather, they challenged one another to write tales of the most gruesome horror. What happened next was legendary. Frankenstein and The Vampyre were born as a result.

  The names and ages of those in attendance:

  Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin…………18 years old

  Percy Shelley……………………….….23 years old

  Lord Byron…………………………….28 years old

  Claire Claremont………………………18 years old

  Doctor John Polidori…………..………21 years old

  To the rest of the world, 1816 would be known as the Year With No Summer.

  But to those few living in the Lake Geneva area, it would forever be known as the Year The Monsters Were Born.

  “What terrified me will terrify others;

  and I need only describe the spectre,

  which had haunted my midnight pillow. “

  —Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin [Shelley],

  about the visions that gave birth to Frankenstein’s monster.

  Contents

  Forward

  Quote

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Notes From The Author

  About the Author

  Also by Merrie Destefano

  Quote

  “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”

  —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

  One

  Shortly after sunset, when an unnatural darkness surrounded us, I collapsed. Exhaustion won. I’d been running for two days with fire in my veins, getting little sleep and forgetting to eat. Now that fire turned to water, my knees gave out and I slumped to the floor. I don’t even remember what I was doing at the time.

  I woke up several hours later, nestled in John’s arms, beneath a pile of blankets. We lay on the library floor, frost crackling over the windows, and every breath turning to icy cloud.

  “How long have I slept?” I asked.

  “Not long. A few hours,” he answered.

  I stayed beneath the blankets, feeling safe in his embrace. Part of me wondered if I should push him away, but I didn’t want to. Instead, I laid my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

  “You shouldn’t have gone off on your own today,” he said.

  At first, I bristled—I’ve never liked being told what to do—but he was right. I’d taken a chance on losing our horse, something we desperately needed if we hoped to escape.

  “We must leave tomorrow,” I told him. “As soon as the sun rises above the mountains. We’ll hitch the horse to the buggy, put Claire inside and the rest of us can walk. We’ll head toward Bernex or Lancy, then on to Mâcon–”

  “If she’s ready to travel. I think the baby’s coming tonight.”

  I sat up. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Hannah won’t let me in the room, but yes. From all the signs I could see, the babe is eager to be born. To be honest, I have no experience with premature births and I’m glad the old woman’s here.”

  A smile pulled the corners of his mouth and I blushed. I couldn’t help remembering his lips pressed against mine. Every time I was with him, the memories of Percy grew more distant and faint. John leaned nearer, as always seeming to read my mind when I didn’t want him to. One hand cupped my chin and his lips covered mine, a touch both passionate and gentle.

  “You must be careful, Mary,” he said, his words warm against my flesh. “That monster outside has fixed his sights on you for some dark purpose. I don’t think he’ll stop pursuing you until we’re far away.”

  My body betrayed me, for a slight tremble caused my hands to shake. I looked away from him.

  “Hannah says he wants to feed and that he’s not looking to expand his pack,” I said, as if that were a better answer than what John had just said.

  “Hannah is wrong,” another voice said.

  A slight movement from the corner of my eye drew my attention, a restless figure shifting on the settee, buried in blankets. It was Byron, his clothes rumpled, his hair looking as if he had been sleeping as fitfully as a child with nightmares.

  “I saw how he came after you earlier tonight,” Byron said. “That wasn’t hunger in his gaze. He could have taken you easily, if that had been his intent.” He stopped, a tortured expression in his eyes.

  “You’ve seen him before?” I asked.

  A long sigh came from his lungs and he laid back down, staring up at the ceiling. “He followed me through the forest, leaping from boulder to boulder, laughing, urging his companions to rise from sleep to feed. I was a mouse and they were all cats. It was a game to them, nothing more. They chased me from one shadowed vale to another, until finally, I stumbled into a patch of sunlight.” He paused, his voice cracking with emotion. “I was spared by the changing winds—nothing more—as a patch of clouds blew away from the sun.”

  “You were spared by the hand of God,” John countered. It sounded as if they’d already had this conversation and John was trying to remind Byron of the truth at its center.

  “No. God has abandoned me,” Byron replied.

  His words made me shudder, for he sounded like a man who knew he could never be redeemed.

  John slumbered at my side,
warm, a low snore rumbling in his chest that reminded me of the kittens that slept before the fire in my father’s house. An ache wrapped around my heart, a homesickness that I realized might never be quenched. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to believe John was right.

  The sangsue King wanted me for some unholy reason and, because of it, I might not escape this villa alive. I might never see England again.

  I had run away from my father’s home in anger, but I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again. I couldn’t imagine how Byron dealt with his banishment. How could a person live, knowing they would never see London or the English countryside again?

  Homesickness forced me out of the warm bed of blankets I shared with John. I fumbled through the darkness until I found my boots, donned my cloak, and wrapped an extra blanket around myself. Then I quietly stole from the room. Impenetrable darkness stretched before me and behind, there were no fires or lanterns. Something supernatural pressed light and heat far away from us.

  Hell was cold. That was what I decided that night. It was pure loneliness and separation from everything good. It was a place where evil reigned, but even in its reign, there were no castles or armies or shouts of triumph. It was an unending world, filled with panic and terror and hopelessness.

  I needed respite.

  So, I fumbled through the dark hallway, fingers finding the banister that led upstairs, toes crashing against stair risers until at last I made my way to the second floor. Here, I found my way as a person blind, hands searching for anything familiar, passing one portrait and sculpture and table to the next until, at last, I found the doorway to my bedroom. Finally alone, with my door closed behind me, I was able to quench the eternal night. A fire burst to life as I knelt on my hands and knees, blowing upon a few embers buried beneath the ashes in the hearth.

  A few more bits of wood and I had light. Not much, not yet. I lit a lamp, then searched the upstairs rooms for more wood. With quiet steps, I crept downstairs and lit our fires one last time, one in the parlor where Hannah alone was still awake, and one in the library.

  Then, and only, then, could I make my way back upstairs, still searching for a peace that I knew I would find in only one place.

  With a quill in my hand.

  I wrote through the night, although there wasn’t much left to this night. My story bled from my fingers, one black word at a time until many pages were filled with my curving script. I had to lose myself. I had to focus on the troubles of my patchwork man and forget about everything else. The longer I wrote, the more the characters of my friends found themselves onto my pages. Byron, John, Claire, Hannah.

  Percy.

  They were all in this tale, somewhere, disguised as thoughts and opinions and broken hearts.

  And then, when my hand fell limp, too weary to complete another sentence—despite the fact that I had chapters left inside of me, waiting to be born—then the black night began to fade. My head slumped to the desktop, my breathing slowed, and the sleep I’d been fighting overtook me.

  I was dreaming, of course, but I imagined that a thick fog crept into my room. It seeped through the crevices around the windowsill, until it fell in heavy, undulating waves as if it were a sea made of mist. In a few moments, my room was erased, and a different landscape rose in its place. I stood on the mountainside behind the villa, mists shadowing the vales, clouds heavy overhead, and all around me, black shapes rose from the fog, creatures with glowing eyes and sharp teeth, all of them running toward me as if they sought to devour me.

  I turned to run, at the same time remembering that this was what Byron had told me in the library, this is what had happened to him in the mountains.

  But the sangsue were after me now. I glanced behind myself, wondering if the King was there—just like in Byron’s account—and sure enough, he was, vaulting like a god from one high precipice to the next. I screamed, but that only made him more animated. My feet caught in something, an expanse of mud or a thicket of brambles, I couldn’t tell what, I could only swing my arms and cry out.

  The sangsue King pounced nearer until I could see his face clearly.

  He was no longer the King—he was Percy, my Percy, sadness in his eyes, and my heart sank for it was apparent that he had discovered my betrayal.

  I would have left him, even if none of this had happened.

  “This is my prophecy for you, my little raven,” the King whispered in my ear. He was beside me now, Percy standing before both of us. “Over and over, everyone told you this man was not the one for you. They were right.” The King took me by the shoulders and I couldn’t break his penetrating gaze. “I am the one for you.”

  “No!”

  I struggled and tried to get away, but my words came out muffled.

  “Mary…” He took me by the arm, one hand secure about my wrist. “Mary…”

  I whimpered and pulled my arm from his grasp.

  “Mary.”

  I blinked my eyes open, the heat in the room overwhelming, the pale light of a weak sun illuminating the furniture, exactly where it should have been. My bed stood on the other side of the room, an embroidered chair in the corner, tapestries on the wall and a space above my bed where a crucifix once hung. Why had I taken the religious relic down and what had I done with it? I couldn’t remember.

  “Mary—”

  Byron knelt beside me, a plaintive note in his voice, one of his hands holding me by the wrist as he tried to wake me. He had bathed and changed his clothes, but it hadn’t erased the wild look in his eyes.

  “What is it?” I mumbled.

  “Everyone’s asleep,” he said in a loud whisper.

  I frowned. Ever since his return, his behavior had been most unusual.

  “We won’t survive another night here,” he said, panic evident on his face. His gaze kept darting toward the windows, then back to me. “We must leave. Now.”

  “But Claire—she’s—we can’t leave, Byron, not yet.” How could I broach the indelicate subject that she carried his bastard in her belly and her very life was in jeopardy because of it? “She will not live if we put her in the carriage. Not until the babe is born, both Hannah and John have said—”

  “Damn them, Mary!” He stood and towered over me, his fists clenched. I didn’t want to admit it, but he was frightening me. One of my hands fingered my belt, searching for a knife or a pistol, but all I had was that foolish iron-and-bone crucifix poking me in the ribs. “Damn them all to hell!” Byron said as he took one of my hands and pulled me to my feet. “Come with me, woman, just you and me. I know you’ve thought of it, I’ve seen how you look at me when you think I’m not watching—”

  A deep flush worked its way up from my bosom to my cheeks.

  “—I’m not saying we’ll be together forever, you know I’m not that sort of man. But we’ll be alive. We’ll have each other. If we are together, we might be able to forget all of this—”

  “Byron, we will never forget this.”

  He grew quiet then, a fierce war raging inside of him. Part of me wondered if he might try to force me to do what he was suggesting. But he couldn’t, could he? Wouldn’t John wake up and try to stop him?

  “There’s one horse left. One,” he said. “We could steal a boat in Geneva and be sailing down the Rhone by nightfall. Tomorrow we could be in Lyon. The next day we could be drinking absinthe on a riverboat, headed toward freedom. There would be music and dancing and laughter.” He paused to wrap an arm around my waist and pulled me to him, his words whispering like smoke in my ears, burning my skin. “We would be alive.”

  “I cannot,” I answered.

  Still, for a fleeting moment, I saw myself on that riverboat with him, both of us floating past French castles and tree-lined cliffs, the wind blowing through my hair, one hand holding a glass of emerald green absinthe as the last rays of sunlight colored the Rhone River. For the first time in days, I would feel no fear when night came upon us. There would be only stars and music and the sorts
of tales that noblemen tell to make young women fall in love.

  A single tear glistened in Byron’s eyes. It caught in the soft morning light like a diamond, then tumbled away. His lip quivered, so slight another person would have missed it, but I knew him well and could see the pain.

  “I’m sorry, Mary,” he said. “But you haven’t seen the things I have.”

  I hadn’t noticed the scarf that had been wrapped around his fist all this time. With a quick twist, he slipped the length of fabric between my teeth and tied it behind my head, gagging me.

  I fought against him, my cries muffled.

  “Byron, no, what are you doing?”

  He then pulled a slender coil of rope from his pocket. “I simply can’t bear this madness, the bloodsuckers devouring humans, and the villagers ripping flesh from bone to make curious relics. I have to leave. But I can’t have you warning the others.”

  He bound my hands and feet with it, using a deft combination of loops and knots that looked like something a sailor would know, then he carried me to my bed and placed me there.

  “Goodbye, my pet,” he said.

  Then he kissed me on my brow, turned and walked out of my room, closing the door behind him.

  Two