elbow, my mother would photograph the injured place and carefully paste the photo in the recording book. Date, time, infraction—my father would be held to account, even if he had been down at the corner bar when I’d fallen off my bike. When I walked through a closed screen door and bloodied my face, I had never seen her so happy. She was positively shaking with delight as she snapped the picture.
She knew, and that is why she did these things. She knew her man was double timing her with another woman, and that was not to be tolerated. My father would have been better off if he’d come clean at the start, before the evidence of his betrayal—real or fabricated—piled up. My mother’s record book was exhibit A at the divorce proceedings and it left no need for any other evidence.
I never saw him after that and only heard whispers that he had been lost. I didn’t cry for the loss, for my mother had taught me well. There is no comfort for the wicked, only shame and regret. These many years later I have to wonder what a different person he would have been without the specter of my mother’s shadow hanging over him all his days. I do confess, now that I am much older, that I miss him.
Let this be a lesson to you, men of power and might: the world is full of lies. They can be used to inflict pain. A woman with the will to do it will turn the world against you.
Is it my mother’s influence from the grave that made me search the hidden corners of my husband’s life, the places he would not willingly show me? Or was I simply destined to discover the truth? Either way, I too began to keep a record of things.
I have discovered something about Rainsford, something I should not know. I had my suspicions, and they have led me to the truth. Fort Eden, this place he called my Eden, holds many secrets, but one is the foundation of them all.
Rainsford is old, old beyond any imagining. My procedure made me wonder, but my eyes have shown me the truth.
The story I share now is not fiction. It is a story written by a famous person of the past; her name is Mary Shelley. This story contains other famous people: her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, and the man Lord Byron. In the deepest part of Fort Eden, where I am not allowed to go, that’s where I found it. On yellowed paper at the bottom of a drawer, in the bleakest part of the bottom level of the fort. I found it! It is but one piece of evidence. It is the story of his beginning, and the very heart of the madman.
I have typed out the entire story and carefully returned the tattered pages of the original into hiding.
I have done you proud, haven’t I, Mother? I have recorded this hidden thing.
I hope you’re happy.
I take you now to the very night of a famous encounter between three writers, in which a contest was set in motion: who could write the scariest story? Certainly not a seventeen-year-old, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, a woman who would soon become Mary Shelley.
Or could she?
These are her words, not mine. The maker of Frankenstein speaks! How is it that the man she speaks of still lives?
This man is my husband.
This man is Rainsford.
E. Goring.
The Villa Diodati, Genoa, 1816
I am Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and I do swear by the contents of this letter.
My story begins with a terrible dream in the middle of the night, Percy sleeping soundly as I lay staring at the tiled ceiling. He would be riding with Lord Byron come morning, and I didn’t want to wake him, and so I crept out of the bed, into my nightdress, and crossed the room in silence. The late evening was cool in the country and the windows were open, letting in the muffled sounds of night on a thick, rolling fog.
I took a stack of blank pages in my hand. Down the darkened stairs, lit with flickering candlelight, I turned for the kitchen in search of some comfort—an inkwell, some cold tea. But I was not to find the peace I had hoped for. Upon opening the kitchen door, I beheld the form of a
She knew, and that is why she did these things. She knew her man was double timing her with another woman, and that was not to be tolerated. My father would have been better off if he’d come clean at the start, before the evidence of his betrayal—real or fabricated—piled up. My mother’s record book was exhibit A at the divorce proceedings and it left no need for any other evidence.
I never saw him after that and only heard whispers that he had been lost. I didn’t cry for the loss, for my mother had taught me well. There is no comfort for the wicked, only shame and regret. These many years later I have to wonder what a different person he would have been without the specter of my mother’s shadow hanging over him all his days. I do confess, now that I am much older, that I miss him.
Let this be a lesson to you, men of power and might: the world is full of lies. They can be used to inflict pain. A woman with the will to do it will turn the world against you.
Is it my mother’s influence from the grave that made me search the hidden corners of my husband’s life, the places he would not willingly show me? Or was I simply destined to discover the truth? Either way, I too began to keep a record of things.
I have discovered something about Rainsford, something I should not know. I had my suspicions, and they have led me to the truth. Fort Eden, this place he called my Eden, holds many secrets, but one is the foundation of them all.
Rainsford is old, old beyond any imagining. My procedure made me wonder, but my eyes have shown me the truth.
The story I share now is not fiction. It is a story written by a famous person of the past; her name is Mary Shelley. This story contains other famous people: her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, and the man Lord Byron. In the deepest part of Fort Eden, where I am not allowed to go, that’s where I found it. On yellowed paper at the bottom of a drawer, in the bleakest part of the bottom level of the fort. I found it! It is but one piece of evidence. It is the story of his beginning, and the very heart of the madman.
I have typed out the entire story and carefully returned the tattered pages of the original into hiding.
I have done you proud, haven’t I, Mother? I have recorded this hidden thing.
I hope you’re happy.
I take you now to the very night of a famous encounter between three writers, in which a contest was set in motion: who could write the scariest story? Certainly not a seventeen-year-old, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, a woman who would soon become Mary Shelley.
Or could she?
These are her words, not mine. The maker of Frankenstein speaks! How is it that the man she speaks of still lives?
This man is my husband.
This man is Rainsford.
E. Goring.
The Villa Diodati, Genoa, 1816
I am Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and I do swear by the contents of this letter.
My story begins with a terrible dream in the middle of the night, Percy sleeping soundly as I lay staring at the tiled ceiling. He would be riding with Lord Byron come morning, and I didn’t want to wake him, and so I crept out of the bed, into my nightdress, and crossed the room in silence. The late evening was cool in the country and the windows were open, letting in the muffled sounds of night on a thick, rolling fog.
I took a stack of blank pages in my hand. Down the darkened stairs, lit with flickering candlelight, I turned for the kitchen in search of some comfort—an inkwell, some cold tea. But I was not to find the peace I had hoped for. Upon opening the kitchen door, I beheld the form of a
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