Once my plans were settled, I had nothing to do but wait. It was agonizing. I knew Victor and his father were making their slow and steady way home to me. And I knew that somewhere out there, the monster was doing the same. I was in the midst of a great spider’s web. Whether I would end up as the spider or the fly was yet to be determined. All I knew was that the strands that held me here had been woven since my childhood on the shores of Lake Como.

We were, all of us, bound in this deadly and horrible dance, until we died or triumphed.

A few days before I expected Victor and his father to return, I received another letter. But it was not from them.

It was from Mary, the bookseller in Ingolstadt. And it was addressed to Elizabeth and Justine. Another person who dwelt in a beautiful fantasy in which Justine still lived. I could not so much as bring myself to open it. Could not linger in words that assumed Justine was alive, that assumed the world was good and fair and as it should be.

And I could not think of Justine without remembering the stitches, the neck repaired from its injuries so that it could once again draw breath from dead mouth to dead lungs.

Despite some time and distance from having discovered Justine’s body, I had not moved any closer to forgiving Victor. I wanted, instead, to understand. He still tried to keep me in the dark about his monster. How deep his shame and horror at what his own hands had wrought on the world must be!

But in helping to destroy the monster, I would no longer be able to feign innocence, and he could no longer deny the truth. Once it was dead, Victor would have nothing further to hide from me, and we could speak plainly. It was another reason any thought of delay was unsupportable. With the monster’s death, so too would die any secrets between Victor and me. We would have only each other, a truth too terrible to be believed by outsiders binding us more permanently than any priest could.

I yearned for the freedom I anticipated.

Freedom from the monster.

Freedom from secrets.

Freedom from the fear of having nothing.

When at last they arrived home, I met them at the dock. Victor, gaunt and worn but with eyes burning as brightly as they ever had, disembarked and officially offered me his hand. I gladly accepted.

—

The ceremony was over almost as soon as it began. I wore white, as Victor had always preferred. He wore a suit, taken in at the last minute to fit his ever-leaner frame. He brushed his lips across mine after we were made man and wife. I kept turning toward the door, expecting the monster to darken the threshold and come roaring in to tear us asunder.