Perhaps in another life, under other circumstances, knowing that Victor and I were to wed would fill me with relief that my place in the world would at last be secure, with all the legal protections the Frankenstein name would offer. Never again would I fear that I would be abandoned, that everything they had given might be taken away.

Certainly only a few months earlier, receiving such oddly loving sentiments from Judge Frankenstein would have given me cause for celebration and happiness. Perhaps, if he had thus expressed himself ever in all our years under the same roof, I would not have chased after Victor and brought the monster back with me.

But I suspected it was that same monster and its devastating evil that had effected this change in Judge Frankenstein. Had he not lost so much, would he bother clinging to an orphan of no family, no fortune? Losing those things he loved most must have broken his heart enough that I finally found purchase there.

So be it. I did not doubt that Victor would want to marry me. I had always been the only girl in the world who mattered to him. If he was to marry anyone, it would be me. But I had feared that Judge Frankenstein would reject my claim on Victor. I was grateful to have his and Victor’s official approval, and to learn that they shared my desire for speed.

I had never been the type to imagine a wedding or what it would mean to be a wife, other than having binding protection. I tried now, envisioning something simple. Beautiful. But in my imagination, Justine was at my side, and Henry at Victor’s.

I had lost that ideal. And so I would push through, little caring about the wedding itself. It was the wedding night I had to plan for.

With no other women in the house to help me besides the maid, with whom I had no relationship, I was free to arrange the barest, most utilitarian wedding ever planned in the long history of the Frankenstein name. I scheduled a priest to marry us at the chapel nearest the edge of Geneva bordering the lake. I invited no one.

My one extravagance was a notice sent out to all the regional publications I could find, advertising the upcoming union of Victor Frankenstein and Elizabeth Lavenza.

The trap was set. And I was both bait and poison.

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