Author's Note to Readers:

The scientific impossibility of these things was not of consequence in Mary Shelley's text, nor will it be in mine. The setting of the original is within the eighteenth century, & I do my best to stick as faithfully to that as possible, but you might notice some anachronistic references (referencing literature that was in vogue in the 1600s instead of the 1700s, for example), & I apologize in advance for that. Lastly, if you enjoy this story, you will also enjoy my story Fantôme—the two have a very great deal in common. Thank you for reading & I hope you enjoy it.

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In the Grey of Dawn

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I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.

—Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley

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Chapter 1

My uncle's house was just as I remembered it from summers spent on its grounds before I left for education in London, though the overcast skies cast the manor into gloomy shadow. Memories drifted through my mind like the morning fog, pricking sharper as I neared the open gate. A tarnished silver plaque read Frankenstein.

The stones crunched underfoot as I passed through with my suitcases, the noise louder than usual in the stillness. The back of my neck prickled. It was too easy to imagine in the gloom that somehow the grief of the home's residents had permeated its grounds. It was as if the manor had taken on a half-life. How different it appeared from the rosy sun-dappled summers of my childhood…

I entered my uncle's house and the servants took care of the cases in my hands. I asked after the family and was directed to an open-windowed parlor where my relatives were breakfasting. I was received with a sorrowful warmth. Uncle had written to inform me of the grievous events of the past months—the deaths of first my aunt from the fever, the baby William murdered, and now a man named Henry Clerval dead as well. He wrote to say that my cousin Victor was wretched with grief and had almost been convicted of Clerval's murder. Fortunately he had been acquitted, and he had left Ireland to return to Geneva and his family here.

Ernest was the first to stand and receive me, and through we had not seen each other in four years, my young cousin knew me immediately and embraced me.

"I came as soon as I could upon receiving your letter, Uncle," I said when Ernest released me, who was unable to speak but for the tears that ran quietly down his handsome face. French was my native tongue, and despite my long absence, it flowed like a ballet from my lips. "I'm so sorry it could not have been sooner. I can hardly believe that the little one…and then Justine…"

Uncle Alphonse put his hands on my shoulders, his face twisted into an almost-unrecognizable mix of emotion. It seemed as if he tried for speech several times before finally saying in his deep voice, "How well you've grown, Chandelle. You bring brightness into this sad house. It does me good to see you again."

He stepped aside and I looked past him at the woman now rising from her seat.

"Elizabeth," I breathed, a wondering smile spreading across my face.

Elizabeth and I had been as sisters when we were young as neither of us had had sisters of our own. I had been holding her in my head as a little girl in a soft blue dress playing dolls with me in Aunt Caroline's drawing room. She was a woman now, with grace in her movements and a softness to her lovely features. Her blonde angel's hair cascaded in soft rivulets past her shoulders, and the knowledge and years in her lash-framed eyes completed her. The mark of her grief was upon her, also, however; she looked pale and was without the vivacity I had known in her as a child. I realized as I had not as a young girl how like opposites we were in our appearance—my hair was rich chocolate brown, and my eyes dark as well, where she was fair as a saint. We were like negatives of one another. I wondered if I looked as much changed as she in her eyes—as much a woman as she.

We moved toward one another, taking each other's hands and pressing our lips to one another's cheeks, tears shining in our eyes.

"You look remarkable, Chandelle," she murmured. "I would say I hardly recognized you, but there was no way I could not. You are still my dear cousin."

"I've missed you, Elizabeth. You look like an angel. How is Victor?" He was not at their breakfast table. "Where does he keep himself?"

Elizabeth did not answer right away, looking away as her lips thinned, pressed together, and her delicate brows came together in pain.

"He keeps to his room," Uncle answered me. "He suffers from spells of fever and grief." Uncle's eyes were dark with worry and I sensed something more behind his words. Victor must indeed be suffering.

"Shall I go to him? Would it do him good?" I asked. These words were greeted with quiet from all and my eyebrows rose. "Is he so bad?" I asked quietly.

"He arrived only a few days ago from Ireland," Elizabeth said. "He is…he's very shaken still."

"Elizabeth can soothe him, but none of the rest of us," Ernest added. "Often it seems as though he wishes to speak with us about something pressing, but always holds himself back… We wouldn't wish for you to see him in such a state—neither would he, I'm sure."

"Fits do not frighten me," I replied. "Don't forget I have a stiffer backbone than both of you." I pointed between Ernest and Elizabeth with a small smile, attempting to lighten things. "I should see my cousin."

"I'll take you to him," Ernest offered, nodding in acceptance, and I followed him out of the room and through the house. We went up the staircase and through the hall until he stopped at a dark wood door.

Ernest knocked gently.

"Victor, brother," he called quietly, "cousin Chandelle has come from London just now and I'm sure you wish to see her."

"Chandelle?" came a voice from inside. My eyebrows shot up at the voice. I did not recognize it as Victor's. It was too low, too forced. "Little Chandelle from London?"

"Yes," I called, sounding far gayer than I felt. "Now open up, Victor—I have not laid eyes on your haughty mug in four years and you shall not keep me waiting!" I grinned as the door was wrenched open and I forced that smile not to falter as I beheld the man's sunken frame, his sallow, creased countenance, and the wild, dark desolation in his eyes. He looked ten—twenty!—years older than I remembered him. He was barely the tall, clever, arrogant elder cousin I remembered underneath all the changes. He looked like a crazed old man—like someone off the streets, if not for the fine clothes hanging off his thin body.

"Chandelle!" he exclaimed, his eyes traveling over me in surprise and wonder. "From London. Well there you are…aren't you…" He twitched oddly and then pulled me into an embrace. The embrace was well-meant, but there was a desperation in his movements and a dank smell on him that made the gesture an uncomfortable one.

"Come in…come in and talk for a while," he said, guiding me into the dark room. Ernest lingered apprehensively in the doorframe for a moment, and then left us.

Victor shut the door without seeing it. His eyes darted to the window in a strange fashion and I saw by the dim light in that moment how feverish he truly did seem. Uneasiness fluttered inside me. Something was deeply wrong. Victor was unwell, but it was not fever of the body he suffered from, but fever of the mind. I had seen as much in that roll of his eyes by the light of the window.

"Victor," I began, swallowing my trepidation as I pulled up a chair near him and he sat on his bed. I tried for a warm smile. "You look as if you've been run over by a carriage and starved."

Victor blinked at me and then a grin split open his face and he laughed. His laugh was harsh and choppy, but it was genuine.

"Chandelle!" he cried, shaking his head. "Ah, I'm glad you're come back. Dear Elizabeth's gentleness and your crassness make a healthy couple."

"I am not crass!" I argued. "Blunt, perhaps, but not crass, cousin. You must not begin with insults now; we are not children anymore."

"Yes. Why, you have been in school for four years now and no doubt can charm when it suits you." He smirked at me, but instead of being insulted by his cheek, I winked and replied, "Even the devil can cite scripture for his purpose."

Victor smirked. "And quoting Shakespeare…"

I waved him off. "I spend too much time with self-education and too little time trying to find a husband, at least that's what the old bats tell me."

Victor laughed. "Well, be careful. You don't want to be a Katherina and scare them all off."

"Oh, no," I countered easily, "like Katherina, I have the presence of mind to allow myself to be tamed if a Petruchio comes along."

Victor grinned. I was showing off, of course, but I rarely got the opportunity. There were more pressing matters, however, so I was serious once again, leaning toward my cousin to look him in his sunken eyes.

"Victor," I said firmly, taking one of his clammy hands in both of mine. "Victory, truly. You must not torture yourself. These loses were not your fault."

Fateful words.

Immediately I wished to take them back. My cousin's eyes bulged and his body seemed to spasm. He wrenched his hand out of mine and clutched his head with both his hands, shaking his head back and forth like a dog.

"My fault, my fault, all my fault," he groaned. He gave an anguished smothered cry. I took a hold of his shoulder, at a loss for what else to do.

"Victor," I soothed quickly. "Victor! William and Henry were murdered—you could not have foreseen this! We—" But my every word seemed to be making him worse. Victor lapsed into a fit. Not of fever, as they had made it sound like downstairs, but of madness. His eyes strained, rolled and stared without seeing and his hands clutched at anything within reach. I tried to calm him in vain, frightened he would harm himself, when suddenly he collapsed down onto his bed, still and trembling. He stared at me, his eyes enormous and filled with anguish and self-loathing.

"What I've done, what I've done…" he groaned. He said it with such certainty, such self-loathing, that I found myself asking in a low voice, "What is it you have done, Victor?"

Victor's fevered eyes fixed themselves on mine and his mouth trembled with the weight of his confession. His unhinged eyes found so little familiar in me it seemed as if he were talking to himself.

"I created him," rasped the madman in my cousin's weary skin. "The one who murdered Willie and Henry… It was him… Him… My monster. My travesty. My fault…all my fault…"

I did not blink as I demanded of Victor in a low voice, "Your monster? What are you talking of?" Trepidation trickled cold through my limbs. I had read in medical publications of men and women consumed by the belief that they were two separate people… What if Victor…? The idea was too terrible to imagine.

Victor's rigid body trembled, but his beliefs groaned forth from his pallid lips. "I did what no one before had yet done. I—Victor Frankenstein—brought animation back into the inanimate. I made what was once dead alive…I created a being… A monster up out of hell…and he has been taking his revenge upon me since…" He clutched my arm suddenly. "He doesn't know you—he doesn't know—you can get away—"

"Hush," I countered quietly, trying my best to keep my composure. My voice was shaking slightly. "Tell me how you did this, Victor. How did you make the dead live?" Even though my rational mind did not believe him, something about the very real fear in the back of his dark eyes made me ask.

And in a crazed flood, the entirety of the grisly story poured forth in a coarse yet supplicating manner as if he were half begging for forgiveness and half damning himself.

I remained silent as I listened to the tale. At times my hands shook, and I shoved them beneath my thighs to steady them. It seemed impossible to believe, but details, names and facts flowed forth in a way that spoke of truth, no matter how ghastly. That my own cousin would dig up graves—or imagine himself digging up graves—and work by candlelight stitching a new being from pieces of the deceased… It was too much to even envision. It could not have been so…

Then, when he began to paraphrase the creature's conversations with him, I grew fascinated despite myself. Victor railed against his so-called creation, calling him nothing more than a demon—an unholy animal—yet this 'animal' he either created or imagined was articulate and made eloquent arguments. Whether or not it was merely ravings, I was fascinated by the character of the man Victor seemed so deeply convinced he had created. The monster spoke of in innocent beginning, of a doomed quest for acceptance. Of learning language alone and in secret. Of heartache and rejection.

My mind would not accept Victor's conceit, however. Never had death or human mortality been denied. Never had children been born but by conception. Perhaps Victor's enemy was a real man, and his guilt had caused him to conflate things in his mind—a reaction of a snapped mind to grief. Another possibility…of this 'monster' being a separate personality of Victor's…Victor's alter-ego…this I hoped with all my heart was not the truth.

The day was as dark and grey as the morning had been, and the room did not lighten as an hour passed, but Victor grew more and more noticeably weary.

"I was acquitted…acquitted when I should have died for my sins…and my father took me back here to Geneva…and Elizabeth. Elizabeth… She must not know…must not…what I've done…"

"This creature," I said, "where…do you think he is now?" This man Victor is convinced is responsible for the murders…could he be still stalking Victor? Or if he is Victor himself…might he hurt someone else?

"Anywhere." He voice was only a rasp. "Anywhere."

"Do you think he will hurt more of us? Uncle? Ernest?"

Victor's eyes squeezed shut and moaned, tortured. "You should leave…before he finds you…he cannot know…he would hurt you…because you are a woman and I would not make him a woman…"

"Hush, cousin," I soothed. "I shall be fine." He is mad. He is mad and that is all. There can be no monster. And yet then who was responsible for these deaths? I suddenly remember that Victor had been with Henry Clerval, but not with the baby William. He could not have been responsible for both deaths.

Victor's strength was ebbing. He grasped my arm tightly, looked me in the eyes and exclaimed, "He would hurt you if he could. You are beautiful and he is hideous. And you are everything he cannot have."

The same was true of Elizabeth, but pointing this out would only upset Victor further.

"Victor," I said firmly and leaning in close, "have you spoken of this—told this story—to anyone else? Your father?"

"No," he groaned, tears welling in his eyes. "They can never be told… No… Then they would know…then they would see…my evil…you…little Chandelle in London…little…" And his eyes rolled back into his head and Victor collapsed limp onto the pillow in unconsciousness.

With a great weight in my heart, I quitted the room.