Home > Work > The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
1 " Over the next month, despair settled around me like snow falling on the ground, covering my dreams of vengeance. Then despair covered my dreams of life itself, until all that remained was a blank white pain of nothingness. "
― Kiersten White , The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein
2 " I wanted more time with the books. I wanted to spend the day in a quiet corner, sitting against a window, lost in words and worlds I had never been given access to. "
3 " I felt certain that once again I was on the edge of it. On one side: Victor, Justine, Henry. The life I had built with such vicious determination. On the other: the unknown. But the unknown beckoned, promising rest from pain. Rest from sickness. Rest from the endless striving and manipulating and working, working, working, working just to keep my place in the world "
4 " Why are you here?'...'My husband,' the word poisonous and foul on my tongue, 'experimented on and then cobbled together dead body parts to create a monster. Once that was accomplished, he went on to murder his own brother and frame my best friend for the murder so that she would be hanged. Then he tried to use her body to practice his dark science on, in preparation for eventually changing me from living to dead, and back again to a new form of being that would never corrupt or die or be parted from him. I told him I was not interested in being his wife under those particular circumstances.'The women's eyes were wide, and she scooted several inches away from me, pushing herself along the floor "
5 " The noise of the rain against our umbrellas hushed for one long breath as we walked beneath the wall.In that moment I thought I heard again the noise of my dreams. The haunting cry of a soul so alone, even being in hell in the company of the other dammed would be a comfort. "
6 " If either of us could have seen the future, we would have known the next day his mother would pay my cruel caregiver and take me away forever, presenting me to Victor as his special gift. "
7 " I am better.''But you will not always be. Someday death will claim you and I will not allow it.' His eyes narrowed, and his voice trembled with fury and determination. 'You are mine, Elizabeth Lavenza, and nothing will take you from me. Not even death. "
8 " Mary Shelley changed the whole world. "
9 " I had had a life, before. Before the hovel of mean and biting children. Before the women who cared for me with fists and bruises. Before a life haunted by fear and crammed into the dirty darkness with strange bodies. "
10 " I sought to puncture Heaven and instead discovered Hell. "
11 " Sometimes we were strangers even to ourselves. "
12 " Not being blameless is not the same as being guilty. "
13 " They had stripped us of everything we were taught made us women, and then told us we were mad. "
14 " It was easer to rage than to despair. "
15 " I, however, was perfectly aware of my beauty. I considered it a skill, alongside speaking French, English, Italian and German. It was a language of its own, in a way. One that translated well in different circumstances. "
16 " While I saw the destruction of the tree as nature’s beauty, Victor saw power—power to light up the night and banish darkness, power to end a centuries-old life in a single strike—that he cannot control or access. And nothing bothers Victor more than something he cannot control. "
17 " I would lie silent and still, like a corpse, as he studied me. His careful, delicate hands explored all the bones and tendons, the muscles and tracings of veins that make up a person. “But where is Elizabeth?” he would ask, his ear against my heart. “Which part makes you?” I had no answer, and neither did he. "
18 " death is never allowed to touch you "
19 " The trap was set and I was both bait and poison. "
20 " Lightning clawed across the sky, tracing veins through the clouds and marking the pulse of the universe itself. "
