11
"Okay, Edward. I'm going to take some measurements. Try to be still, if you can." Said Greta, as she pulled out a tape measurer from her bag and held it parallel to Edward's arm, wrist and metal blades where hands were intended to be.
Edward was fortunately very talented at keeping still and gave Greta no trouble with the process whatsoever.
While Greta began carefully measuring and assessed the proportions of Edward's limbs, a profound question randomly sprang to her brain.
"Edward?" She asked quietly.
"Did…your father ever tell you…. why you were made?"
Though it was such a significant and deeply profound question, the answer had truthfully never crossed Edward's mind.
All he had ever known, was that one day, he had woken up, and had been alive ever since.
He dwelled on the query for just a moment before slowly shaking his head. He could recall no such explanation from his maker. Edward knew his memories well, but that was not one of them. And he was quite certain of that.
"Hm…maybe it's not important. Maybe it's just enough that you're here." Greta assured with a small smile, in an attempt to reassure any existential thoughts which might have arisen in her unfinished friend's mind.
That was one of many things which Greta had hoped to find in her great-uncle's notes but had not. If it had ever existed in writing, it was probably long gone now. Forgotten in some dusty place that even Edward did not know about.
Could it really have been so simple? Did the old man create a living person just to prove that he could?
Somehow, Greta doubted that was the case.
"All right. That should be good." Greta said while placing the tape down at the table next to her and began jotting down the measurements while she could still recall them. Edward curiously watched.
"Oh, you can move now." She said, re-emerging from an absent thought and beginning to tie her hair up in preparation for work.
Edward relaxed his arms and let them drop to his sides. It still didn't quite feel real: the promise of receiving hands, just as he had always meant to.
Having been denied them for so long, it felt like just another one of his daydreams. A fantasy that would never reach reality.
And yet, here she was…the great-niece of his creator, busily scribbling away at notes, in that same familiar way he always had.
Greta came to the castle as often as she could, but even so, her progress on Edward's hands was not moving as quickly as she had hoped.
She could now very clearly understand why her ancestor had finished these parts of Edward last. Until now, Greta had always taken for granted how complex hands actually were. They seemed so simple, but in truth were so complicated in design. The way the fingers flexed, the tendons pulled and the muscles reacted to the brain's impulses. It was all so deeply challenging; her mind was often left swimming in doubt. After long hours of labour, she would have very little to show for it. A few scraps of metal and synthetic flesh laying purposelessly on the work table in front of her, but nothing more.
Greta often found herself studying her own hands more intimately than she ever had before, just to get every little piece right. If even one molecule of the hand was out of place, they would not work. The appendage would be merely a cheap imitation of a hand and nothing more.
Greta wanted to give Edward perfect hands. Ones that were indistinguishable from the real thing.
She could figure it out. It was all here in writing, right before her eyes. Every step. Every part of the process.
She just had to concentrate.
After many sleepless nights spent in the nearly empty castle, Greta had finally managed to piece together two appendages that were slowly beginning to resemble human hands. Edward had watched her progress from afar, not wishing to disturb her. But when he saw her work beginning to take that familiar shape, he would find himself smiling in excitement, just like that Winter's morning so many years ago.
One night, Greta's mind was becoming too full of equations and formulas, as it often did. She had had her fill of piecing together metal springs and wires and layering over the synthetic skin on top of them. Her brain craved other stimulation. Anything. Absolutely anything but this.
Greta sighed softly to herself and ran her hands over top of her eyes, rubbing them harshly in an attempt to keep herself awake.
She glanced over at the large pile of books that she had brought with her to the castle several days ago. Thinking of no other way to ease her boredom at the moment, she began casually flipping through them. Page after page of news articles. There were plenty of resources on the neighbourhood below and how it had come to be, but there was almost no information on the mountain, or the castle, or when it had been built, as Greta had hoped.
However, there was one page that was littered with cut out newspaper headlines. Front page stories that had once been sensational but now rendered old and uninteresting by the passage of time.
Greta was just about to shut the book, having scanned far too many boring headlines for her own liking, until her eyes traced across some bold, black words that made the blood in her veins run cold.
"YOUTH MURDERED AT ABANDONED CASTLE IN SUBURBS."
Greta's jaw dropped in shock. It was a chilling headline to read and yet she was utterly compelled to learn more. Her eyes scanned down the lines, absorbing every word with wide-eyed interest. That is until she got to the words that made her stomach turn in horror.
"…during the confrontation, Jim had been fatally stabbed and fell out of one of the Castle windows. His killer, the scissor-handed man known only by the locals as "Edward", perished in the fight as well, as the roof of the castle had collapsed on top of him. Police arrived shortly afterwards to remove the body. The Castle was briefly searched, but a second body was never found."
The book slipped out of Greta's hands and fell back onto the desk with a loud bang. Greta felt her heart thumping in its chest. A thousand impulses to flee the castle immediately assaulted her body and mind, and yet she remained frozen where she sat.
While her mind screamed at her to run away from this place, Edward had heard the loud sound and was half-way down the stairs to investigate it.
Greta felt her breath catch in her throat and whirled around in her chair to look at Edward. She visibly trembled with fear.
Edward noticed this. His inquisitive gaze became one of great confusion.
"…Greta?" He asked quietly.
Greta slowly rose from her seat and walked cautiously towards the bottom of the stairs. She stopped next to the large, stone phantom and did not dare take a step further. She scarcely blinked as she stared up at this man. This thing. This creature that had killed a man in cold blood.
For the first time since the two of them had met, Greta was terrified for her life.
"…. Edward?" She asked, her voice shaking violently with fear.
"….is it true?" She asked. In her heart, she already knew the answer. But some foolish part of her did not want to believe it.
"….did you….kill someone?" She asked. The words left her mouth in fragments. She was breathing quite heavily in between them and standing on the threshold of an insurmountable anxiety attack.
Edward barely moved but his face said everything Greta needed to know. Lowering his eyes to the ground, a great wave of guilt and shame began to consume him. And once again, his gaze became full of memory.
"Oh my god…" Greta muttered in horror, taking a few steps back, her eyes never leaving the unfinished man for a single moment.
"…Greta…" Edward began, moving slightly towards her.
"No! Stay away from me!" Greta exclaimed with her hand raised to him as she began to back away and bolted across the main chamber to the work desk. She had just enough sense in her to grab the unfinished hands, along with their materials and throw them hastily away into her bag before running towards the door, desperately holding back tears as she did.
Edward felt frozen to the floor. Too shocked to move. Too surprised to speak. Though he did manage to utter two little words, not unlike the way he had done so, all those years ago when he had first been found.
"Don't…go…" He said, his voice just barely rising above a whisper. It was a sad, pleading voice of a little boy who did not want to be left alone in the dark again.
Greta began to sob and hastily brushed away some tears as she passed through the door. She didn't even bother to close it behind her as she ran through the garden and down the mountain path.
She did not intend to return.