You might want to read/ reread the flashback in chapter 11 of Who is the Monster before this one...

Double, Toil, Trouble

Duchy of Württemberg

South-east Germany

20 something years later...

Voices sounded outside. Hushed and muffled: directions to circle and snuff out. The middle-aged woman tucked a dagger in the folds of her dress bow. Just in case. She heard them creeping around her wooden house, creaking the floorboards around the front door and stone floor. It was the early hours of the morning, some time before the sun would rise. And her family would find her missing. And her husband would return from the war to find her dead. She tied her hair up into a presentable bun.

Without a tinge of hesitation, a change in colour on her cheek, she unlocked the door and pulled it open before the men outside woke her family. Her eyes were accustomed to the dark. Five men stood beyond the crack in her door, all dressed in pristine white. Expensive garments. Important garments. One had his hand stretched out, ready to knock on the door, and he abruptly pulled back. She pulled the door open the rest of the way.

"Gentlemen," she said, pushing a note of terror into her voice. People in important clothes liked to feel in control. She let them have that. She let her figure shrink, deliberately fiddled with the bow. Feeling the outline of the dagger securely in place. "What may I do for you? At this hour?" She pushed surprise into her voice. Shake it up a little.

"Miss Elizabet." A short, well-groomed man stepped forward, tapping on the first man's shoulder. The first man straightened up immediately and took too many steps to reach his destination — behind the leader's back. "We have heard of you from the peasants," he said, smiling with tight lips.

"Perhaps because I, too, am a peasant, Sir. Whatever may you need from a lowly woman like me?"

"We are not noblemen, Miss Elizabet, you can speak freely with us," the leader continued. He cracked a small smile. "Well, not the kind you think, anyway."

Elizabet nodded her head excessively.

"We have heard that an incident occurred here, many years ago. We have heard that a certain…man had sought council with you. This man was a witch-boy."

Her lips wobbled, and she looked shiftily around the taller, burly men. Elizabet had heard the stories a hundred times and was sick of it. She had forgotten of that uproar up until now, had learnt to live her life without ratty old rumours circling her wherever she went, like vultures about to come down and pick her eyes from her socket. She wasn't dead yet; she wasn't planning to go so easy. But now, years upon years later, this turns up on her doorstep? Elizabet stowed away whatever reaction her younger self would have lashed out with. Carefully, she stepped outside, shutting the door gently behind her. The key clattered to the floor, a creaky clink on wood, and she swiped it under the door with her foot. Elizabet looked up to the moonlight where they could see her, nodding again. Slow and resolute, and asked:

"What do you want with me?"

The leader smiled widely, not smug, not mocking, just smiled with warmth on a cold night. "Miss Elizabet, would you like to take a short walk with us, pray?"

"How could I refuse?" She held out her arm.

The leader raised his brows. He wasn't expecting that. He closed the gap between them and took the lady's hand.

"Where are we going?"

"Just to have a chat, Miss." She was far too old to be referred to as Miss. Elizabeth took his hand and daintily followed the nobleman's leader out into the bush. Into the forest and then into the mouth of a valley. She twisted her head around incessantly the entire journey. Did they think she was lost? Think again. They didn't need to go so far if they didn't want anyone to hear her scream. For that, they needn't have left her front door.

They slowed as they came into a clearing. It smelt of smoke and burnt dirt. A fire had been quelled recently. Some cut down logs were placed around a pile of ashes that must had been used as seats. Elizabet opened and closed her mouth, giving the nobleman at her side a cue to talk. Talk. Stop wasting my time. "Miss Elizabet," he began again, sentences too slow and slagging for her liking. Could he ever just spit it out?

"This is about—"

"Faust," she finished for him.

"So you do know."

"So I've heard." She sat down on the seat provided before anyone offered. "You must have heard from everyone that I. Don't. Remember." She sighed involuntarily. "I don't believe in witches or wizards or sorcery, Sir," she said, words slower than even his. "And I don't believe what I can't see with my own eyes. If the devil walked among us, wouldn't we certainly all be dead? Don't be absurd."

The nobleman tilted his head in what looked like was reluctant agreement.

She continued, "Faust is a story. Nothing more. A story of a man, perhaps, but no. Not a devil."

"What do you remember of him, Elizabet?" His tone turned far too friendly.

Blue.

"He stopped an axe from falling. Tough, but not impossible feat."

"His hands started to burn," the nobleman prodded.

Purple.

"Hearsay."

"You defended him."

Black.

"How could I defend someone I don't positively know?" Elizabet looked up, squinted away her supposed fear. She bared her neck to one side. Enough of those stories. "I hit my head that day. The villagers think I'm delirious. I might be. I'm ageing. I don't remember what happened."

The nobleman crossed his arms, moved his long legs on the spot. "Elizabet, what if I told you that we could help jog those memories of yours?" he asked, pulling a hand off of his mouth.

"What do you mean?" She willed her hand away from the hardness of the dagger.

"I mean, we are looking for this man called 'Faust.'"

"You're looking for a children's tale," she corrected, dusting off the ends of her skirt now. "Some wild man that waltzed into the village over twenty-something years ago. Faust, the devil's man. Quite childish, don't you think?" She peered up from her lap, smiling serenely.

"Don't tell me you don't wonder why there are blanks in your mind, Miss Elizabet."

Elizabet looked over to the trail. It would be hard to run through that bush again, despite those tall men having flattened a path. Besides, there was not much to do. Many of the villagers were off for war. Who was left to cut these intruders down? Elizabet pursed her lips.

"An old woman has a waning memory. How odious," she murmured.

The noblemen broke out a large, fangy beam. Those canine's were far too large for his slow-slurring mouth. "But you'll let us try? It is quite important. Of the utmost, Miss Elizabet. This man is very significant to us."

"How so?"

The man swallowed. "He stole something."

"What?"

The nobleman might have chuckled in a way that said he was losing his patience. If Elizabet was going to found in this part of the valley, another twenty odd years later from now, she'll be sure to waste as much of these men's time as she could. Screw them, screw their fancy, white clothes and screw their 'Faust.' The holes in her memory meant nothing, if she were to give them a shred of information she might have forgotten.

Blue,

purple,

black.

The colours buried deep in her mind didn't budge when she tried to remember. She didn't care. Those colours made her feel annoyed. Nothing but a faint itch she couldn't scratch in the sinkhole of that memory.

Blue dashes,

purple heat,

black somethings,

Elizabet bit back her taunts, just sighed again. Made herself seem tired. She really was. "I'm afraid I'm not in the slightest bit useful to you, Sir."

The nobleman walked behind her. Through the rustle of footsteps, she could hear the men go off into the distance. They were leaving her with the leader? Alone? Elizabet perked up. Against one man, her dagger might see some use after all. She dragged down her eyesight as he neared again.

The nobleman approached her, and without warning, crouched. He stuck his face under hers, drawing her chin up. She let him. "This matter of your memories might will be solved in a simple tick, Elizabet," he said. "All you need to do, is look into my eyes."

It took every ounce of energy in her, and her twenty year history of staying-straight faced when someone tried accusing her of being a witch, that she held in a scoff. She quickly turned away, hoping to keep up the charade. The air of the night changed. The man gripped her chin with his sharp nails and forcefully whipped her head around to face him again. Her eyes widened a fraction.

She wasn't surprised by his sudden use of fore. It was his eyes. No longer dark, shadowed by the night; they seemed to be collecting with a strange light. Moonlight distorted around the man's eyes and his pupils bled away into nothing. His eyes were ugly and empty. She stared into them, captivated by something that wasn't nice to look at, wasn't alluring or hypnotising.

Like she'd felt like this before.

God.

She'd been through this before, hadn't she?

That thought ripped through her mind, bringing her back to reality.

Blue, purple, black.

She'd never let him look at a thing she held in her mind. Elizabeth slammed her fist up the man's chin and jumped to her feet, slamming a knee into his chest for good measure. The suddenness of her own awareness and movement unbalanced her, and she fell to the floor.

Things began to clear and when she looked at the man again, he was still bobbed down, face cocked up in the position she'd hit him. He slowly bought his head down, look of mild inconvenience on his face. Or not even that. His eyes had no pupil or iris. All red. Elizabet's heart began to race. She scrambled to her feet and ran.

"Elizabet, don't leave. Don't leave we're not done!"

She didn't look back as she mapped her way through the dark, to the closest place she knew where there was still distance from the village. She couldn't lead those monsters back to anyone else. Red eyes. They had Red eyes.

What did they want from her?

Blue, purple, black.

She'd reached the farmland. Row by row wheat grains grew in great walls that towered over her head. Elizabet plunged herself into the wad of them and began milling away to the other side. There were oxen on the other side that she could set free — might help. She stopped in a tiny clearing, bending her hands over her knees and panting to catch her breath. There were several men after her. Stupid, really. Should have taken that chance to take out that leading one. Now she'd trapped herself in the wheat fields.

From the tower of wheat behind her, a few whoops and calls sounded. Some clanging sounds. Did they have weapons? Well, didn't matter if they did. Being chopped to death was better than being beaten to death. She thumbed over the dagger and just before she bobbed up, light glowed. A searing sound startled her off of her feet. Wheat rained down. Elizabeth clutched at the dagger now, untangling it from her clothes and held it to the ground, looking up.

The entire top half off the farm grain had been sliced off. Elizabet stopped breathing, holding her moth as she laid covered by the fallen wheat.

"Elizabet?"

"Lizzy!"

"Miss!" They called.

She doubted there was anyone in range to wake up.

"I hope you've hidden well. Feel like child again! How true to real life — I always end up as the villain. I'm always 'it!' "

His ugly proclamation was dripping with disease — or something. It didn't sound normal. His eyes weren't normal. Their sorcery wasn't normal. Elizabeth clambered to her feet and ran again with the new knowledge that threatened to overcome the movement in her legs. This was a game to them. They'd just proven she was at their mercy the entire time, despite her pretence. They let her run for sport. For hunting.

If she were a witch, she'd curse the lot of them. Hand them over to the devil. Elizabeth wasn't afraid of dying herself — she'd practically won back twenty years of her life with that blank in her memory. 'Twas worth it.

And that was when she heard it. More screaming. Though not in laughter or amusement. Screams of pain rang through the night. Loud, shrieking noises blared though the rows of wheat. Her skin jumped at the sounds. She stood where she was, listening to the screeches that seemed to seep through the labyrinth and into her clothes, her fingers, making her feel completely cornered. Had they turned on each other? What for?

But that meant she was truely valuable to them. She could survive this yet. The thing was, did she want to?

She waded back through the wheat, hoping to hide somewhere safe. Water splashed under her feet as she sped past a row. Elizabeth froze. There shouldn't be water here, it hadn't rained for days. Moonlight glistened over the puddle, still rippling from her footfall. Bodies lay in the long grass beside her, limbs all twisted in strange directions. She slowed down into a walk. Elizabeth slipped past the trodden wheat, back into the tangle of the walls. Another voice echoed. A young, enraged one.

Call it curiosity or a sheer, dumb whim. But Elizabeth peeled back the curtain of wheat to see. It was too striking, too out of the blue to hear. English.

"How dare you!"

"Who—"

Someone had pinned one of her captors to the ground.

"You piece of—"

"Please!"

It was the leader, the man with red, red eyes and horrible voice. Moonlight caught the outline of the two, giving the new stranger a tinge of blonde hair and a slim, lean silhouette.

"How dare you—"

Shadows shifted in all directions, lighting up the nobleman's bruised face and the stranger's knee pushing down his chest. His hands were on fire.

"No!"

"—go after Elizabeth!"

Blow after blow landed on the nobleman and the stranger didn't let up. He clenched his hand, and with left hand on shoulder, right rising into the air, beat the nobleman's teeth in.

"Bloody scoundrel!"

Over and over and over.

"You think you can—"

"plea—"

Bam, bam, crack.

"—put your filthy fingers near her?"

Bam, crack, Bam.

"How goddamned dare you go—"

Crack.

"after—"

Crick.

"her!"

He kept pummelling the nobleman. Elizabet watched in shock. After a long, eerie silence, the limbs of the leader going languid, the stranger stopped cursing. He moved off the body, sitting with his knees up and hands braced upon them.

Elizabet had seen enough, and now her heartbeat was cycling to the glimpses of reality trapped within her — with the light of the man's flaming hands, she saw the glimpses match up with the colours.

Blue eyes. Purple flames. Black garments.

Nothing that made sense, yet remembering that was a blow to something inside her.

The purple flames immediately extinguished, but Elizabet saw his head turn not a millisecond too late. She didn't even gasp, just accepted that he'd seen her.

"Lady Elizab—"

With a well-intended thrust, she stabbed her dagger square before her.

"Guh!" The stranger sucked in a breath. "Hm. I'm terribly sorry. You had to. See….that," he mumbled.

"I told you," she said through her teeth, "I don't know who or what Faust is!" It wasn't like she could get away anymore. "And truthfully, I don't care!"

It was too dark to see, now that light had flashed and threw off her eyes. She stood there, bordered by wheat.

"Of course," he agreed with her quietly, "I apologise," he said, as if she hadn't just put a hole in his chest. Elizabet swallowed. Of course, it hadn't done any damage to him at all.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded. "Why do you know me? Who are those men?!"

"Lady—"

"I'm too old for you to call me that, you!"

The man took a loud step back. "Forgive me, Madam."

Elizabet bit her lip. "Are you going to silence me."

"Yes."

"I'm far too old to be running," she stated. Do it already.

She couldn't really see what his expression was, but the stranger drew back even more.

"No — I'm not going to hurt you! I swear, I just want to…" he faltered. "I need to make you forget this."

Elizabet paled. Something clicked, albeit messily.

"You did this to me." Elizabet clenched her fists, ran her hand into the folds of her clothes where she'd already pulled out her only weapon, still embedded in the stranger's chest. "You — twenty years — you tampered with my mind!" Her voice bubbled with accusation, and her bottled confusion swept in a wave of anger.

"It's been twenty years?" she heard him utter. "Oh. I…it seems so…Time feels different to me."

"It feels like thinking you've been crazy, all this time, like everyone tells you. It feels like someone closed something that's mine, away."

A breeze fluttered over, brushing wheat against Elizabet. When something else dawned on her, her mouth propped open. This was utterly implausible. "How…twenty years ago you…you would have been a child." Confusion flashed over her face.

"I need you to look into my eyes, Ma'am."

Elizabet jolted forward, clasped her hand around the hilt in the man's chest and twisted it. His weight moved with her, bending with the blade as it turned within him. He didn't let out a sound this time, only made a face. Elizabet wobbled back.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know he'd tried to extract it from you already. Are — are you ok? He didn't manage to get anything, did he?"

"Is the information all you care about?!" she whispered incredulously.

She might have felt him frown in that silence.

"I just don't want you to remember this night. You shouldn't have to live, knowing people like this exist."

Elizabet scoffed. "People like you, Faust."

That got a response from him.

Plick, plick. She could hear his blood spot the floor, the cold air probably making it sting. It was a marvel he was still standing. Or maybe not.

"We were friends, once," he said, a touch of something distant in his voice. "It's because I put you in danger. Knowing about me would put you in danger. The things you've seen tonight will put you in danger. Bad people will do anything to get information about me. Elizabeth. I mean…please let me take away these memories away from you. I can't have you live with the burden of seeing this."

Faust nodded his head down before freezing. It was a strange, tense moment. It was as if he wanted to bow, lower his head and back in sincerity, but something stopped him. Like the thought that bought Elizabet out of the nobleman's trance, Faust only managed to dip his head. It looked as if some sort of internal struggle had taken ahold — it wasn't pride or arrogance that stopped him, but rather, something else. Did his sense of allegiance to some other Lord make him wobble like that?

Elizabet cleared her throat. "I don't care. No one has permission to remove anything I've seen. I'll live with it. Just like I'd lived with the fact that I've been accused of being a witch."

Faust shuddered.

"Either kill me. Or let me go back to my village."

"Elizabeth," he protested.

"Make your choice, Faust."

"I—" He silenced. "My name's not Faust."

The purple flames crackled alight again. Elizabet balked seeing the wetness from the stab wound. "I need you to look into my eyes. Please. I won't take your memories away. I swear." He placed a flaming hand over his heart, lighting up his eyes.

The bluest blue Elizabet had ever seen. Light, airy and none of the malice she'd seen only a moment ago. His eyes sunk into her, making her dizzy.

And Elizabet remembered.

"Frankenstein?"

Notes

"Double, double, toil and trouble..." I'm sorry it's from the witch scene in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

I delayed this one forever because I thought it was too cliched. But whatever.

There is no reason for this to exist. I just really liked Elizebet heheheh. I wanted to write more Elizebet. She's so intense. I don't know how old she was in Monster, but she's somewhere in her late 40s to 50s here.

When I was writing it, I was going to make Franken bow for him to show sincerity and persuade Elizabet. But then I thought - isn't that weird? He wouldn't bow to anyone except Rai... hmmmmm. And thats why that part was so random, lol. This more to this one coming.

Thanks.

-earl