Voices engaged in a casual conversation detach themselves from meaning before they reach her ears in muffled sounds, while she's submerged in the feeling of the breeze outside the window that she cannot feel, swaying the vibrant red autumn leaves.
For a part of the agony from being hollowed out, unbelonging beside Ishmael and his friends, fidgety and breathless within the four walls of this gigantic room and towering book trove,
only nature gifts her some sense of serenity.
More than a month has passed in this manner since she awoke from the sleep that erased her sense of self, the beautiful familiarity of life, with all its pain and pleasure, and her connection to the people around her, as well as those she may never know again.
Often, she finds herself stranded on a boat with only the basic necessities, enough to keep her alive until someone comes to find her and rescue her from this miserable existence, where the endless blue ocean is all her eyes can see. While deep within that abyss, the meaning and purpose that once gave weight to the fragile necessities of her life have rusted away.
Ishmael, her husband, is both the scorching sun that leaves her no other space to shelter in during the day, and the moon and stars that keep her from being utterly lonely and lost at night. She's aware of the foundations and realities of the universe, but how, where, and what circumstances followed her understanding of their utility is what escapes her.
Her thumb traces the paragraph in her book as she reads: "But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses, or if they had, all my past was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing.
From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I, the question again recurred, to be answered only with groans."
She has already finished reading Volume II, yet somehow she finds herself returning to these words rather than continuing on to the next volume.
Frankenstein is one of the books from the collection the butler brought to her room back when she was more isolated than she is now.
She thinks she is somewhat like the Creature, albeit cast into entirely different circumstances.
Unlike the Creature, however, she cannot be certain whether her Creator, too,
had selfishly abandoned her and shunned His responsibilities, as Victor did when his creation failed to become the ideal being he had envisioned.
A newborn in an adult body, she had not needed to learn everything from the ground up as the Creature had.
Even without retaining the slightest glimpse of her life, Ishmael has helped her gain a deeper understanding of who she was.
He has told her that she was born on a secluded island where its people had been stripped of even their most basic rights.
After her parents died in her infancy, her loving grandfather raised her, and he raised Ishmael alongside her after he was left orphaned.
He has even shown her the slightly faded paintings, preserved behind glass in frames, that they made together during their sweet and bitter days in Miraeth, the island theocracy, before she was
eventually ripped away from her family by a prophecy that incited the annihilation of children her age.
Ishmael had endured unimaginable suffering to find her, and when he finally did, only a few months ago, the relatives who had raised her had already passed away.
Having fallen in love with her lost childhood sweetheart at first sight, she eloped with him and was already expecting their child before they married.
Even after all the separations and sorrows, life still chose to be cruel, leaving her a stranger to herself, to Ishmael, and an outcast in the world around her.
She is grateful to him for being patient with her through this dark phase of her life,
when all hope seemed to have been lost.
Still, she considers herself fortunate that no greater harm came to her or the babies in her belly during the accident,
and that the driver, too, escaped with little injury.
Though she suffered severe retrograde amnesia from an internal brain injury, something the doctors said could never be reversed, she escaped with little more than a few bruises and cuts.
There were no visible signs of trauma to her head, and physically, she had not been severely injured.
Jacob's laugh, like the sudden crunch of dry maple leaves beneath an unseen step along a forgotten path, interrupts her wandering thoughts.
Only then does she realize she has been staring at the same page for an unknown length of time.
Her fingers turn another page, but she still cannot make sense of the neat web of words, for the chaotic fluidity of her thoughts consumes her. Once again, in her mind's eye, she finds herself looking over her shoulder at the road she has travelled, only to find a thick fog shrouding everything beyond where she stands beneath the bright maple trees of autumn.
It should have been a lovely occasion, within the warmth of home, beside her husband, eagerly awaiting the arrival of two new little lives, irrefutably woven into her own flesh and blood.
Yet she feels guilty for not being as attached to the babies as a mother ought to be,
and for hurting Ishmael by repeatedly refusing his attempts to draw closer to her.
She tries to fulfill her duties as his wife and as the mistress of the household, but she struggles to give herself to him wholeheartedly.
She needs time, and he has given it to her, yet sometimes, he seems angry.
He is her husband, the father of her children, the most important person in her life, but she does not know why her heart feels so heavy, yet so hollow.
Neva flinches at the sudden weight of a hand on her thigh.
Ishmael frowns slightly. "She asked you something."
Neva shifts her gaze to Lily, a beautiful woman with brunette waves cascading over her shoulders. Her grey-blue eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles.
"I asked if you'd like to take a little stroll about the room with me," Lily says. "You must surely be
bored sitting here all this time, listening to their endless business chatter," she adds, casting a teasing glance at her husband and his brother.
Jacob responds with an innocuous smirk. "I assure you, you're in good hands, sister-in-law," he drawls, glancing at Neva. "Though I'd be careful. No one in my acquaintance has more gossip than Lily."
Lily leans in and kisses her husband on the cheek. "Don't be silly, darling.
You know you'd much rather have me in bed than spend the night on that cold little couch without me."
Neva sets the book down on the coffee table beside the afternoon tea, the delicate porcelain
cups and half-forgotten plates of pastries sitting undisturbed, awaiting the butler to clear them away.
Lily waits for Neva to join her as she rises carefully to her mildly swollen feet, concealed beneath the flowing folds of her reddish-brown prairie dress.
"Make sure you don't go outside," Ishmael says. "It's getting cold."
"No worries," Lily says. "I won't let her catch a cold."
No sooner have Neva and Lily ascended the stairs than Jacob asks Ishmael if he can borrow Frankenstein, admitting that his memory of the book has faded after so many years.
What a luxury, Neva thinks, to have one's forgotten memories so easily summoned with nothing more than the turning of a few pages. And what wouldn't she give to read even a single journal
or diary from her lost life, written in her own hand?
"You and Ishmael are very similar." Lily trails a finger along the spines as she walks past the tall wooden shelves lining the walls.
"You both have such reserved natures."
Lily comes to a halt and turns to Neva. "I'm sorry if that was too forward. We've only just met, and here I am already saddling you with my opinions. I was a little disappointed when Ishmael came to our wedding alone. But a love story like yours and Ishmael's doesn't come along every day, does it?"
Neva smiles, unsure how to reply to Lily's remarkably straightforward opinion and
grandiose compliment, instead, she remains silent and reaches for a random book from the shelf.
"Can I have your number?" Lily says.
"I left my phone on the couch with my purse, but I'm pretty good at memorizing numbers."
"I don't have a phone." Neva returns the book named 1984 by George Orwell back to the shelf. She'll read it after she's done with Frankenstein, perhaps?
"It's 2019, and you don't have a phone?" Lily crosses her arms, her expression shifting into playful disbelief.
"Are you just saying that because you don't like me?"
"Oh, no," Neva immediately refuses, anxious not to upset her guest. "I really don't have a phone." Should she give Lily the household number instead?
"Your husband is filthy rich, and he won't buy you a phone?" Lily frowns.
"I don't really have much use for one." Or so Ishmael had said. Neva saunters ahead, Lily walking beside her, their conversation drifting into the mundane.
"Now you have a friend to talk to," Lily says. "But I agree, too much of the internet can mess with your head. In moderation, though, it can be a good thing.
"How far along are you?" Lily shifts the subject as her gaze settles on Neva's swollen belly.
"It'll be seven months in about two weeks." Neva gently caresses her belly. Now that she's paying attention, she feels a faint flutter somewhere beneath her ribs, but it's gone the next moment.
"Jacob and I want children of our own someday," Lily says. "But we'd like some time to ourselves
before taking that next big step. Wouldn't it be lovely if our children were around the same age?"
"It would be," Neva replies softly.
Lily smiles and lightly brushes her fingers over Neva's curls.
"Are those curls natural, or do you curl them?"
"They're natural," Neva says.
Lily then stares at Neva, making her a bit self-conscious. "You know, you have such a stunning face. Ishmael is a lucky man. If I were a man, I might've tried to steal you away from him."
"I could say the same about you."
Now that Neva has had a closer look at Lily's face, she notices a tiny beauty mark just above her upper lip, adding a delicate charm to her gentle features.
Lily winks playfully, and Neva smiles.
Lily leans against the railing as a particular book catches Neva's attention, drawing her closer.
"Who's that man?" Lily asks.
With East of Eden in her hands, Neva follows Lily's line of sight toward Ishmael's assistant, Zev, a towering, well-built man dressed in formalwear that he wears with an effortless casualness.
He mentions something about a capsule and a vault, but from the railed walkway overlooking the lounge below, Neva can't really make
out enough to understand the conversation.
"He's Ishmael's assistant."
The moment the words leave Neva's lips, Zev turns toward them, as though he has heard her. Her muscles tense at the sight of his severe, unsmiling expression. The scar slicing down his left eye only makes his rugged features appear more intimidating.
"Assistant?" Lily raises a brow. "I thought it was that middle-aged man. Oh, perhaps he's for the—" She pauses, the corners of her mouth lifting into an expression that suggests she has either realized she was mistaken about something or nearly said more than she should have, before feigning ignorance.
"Considering how important your husband and his work are,
I can understand why he'd need two assistants."
Neva offers her a faint smile before turning her attention to the blurb inside the front cover.
Perhaps she should add it to her growing list of books to read, too.
She returns East of Eden to the shelf before rounding a corner in search of a particular book.
Out of nowhere, an urge kindles within her, bringing with it the realization that most of the books she has chosen to read have, in one way or another, alluded to something she has been thinking about.
There, among the other Holy Books, the crimson spine of the leather-bound Book remains untouched.
Her palm brushes over the golden carving of letters, reading Holy Bible.
She is aware of the presence of a God, and often finds herself contemplating, through both concrete and abstract lenses,
the world's beautiful goodness in the nature around her, and the meaningful purpose found in love for another person being good and hatred being evil.
And if these things are real rather than illusions born of an indifferent universe,
it grounds her in the belief that the consciousness inherent in them has an ultimate source in something truthful and transcendent.
"The fog is growing thicker," Lily says, watching the mist-veiled autumn forest beyond the ornate floor-to-ceiling windows as darkness creeps in.
And Neva wonders if she should read the Bible after dinner, once the guests have left and the house has settled into calm and quiet before she retires for the night. But she opens it anyway,
leafing through the pages until she reaches Genesis.
And so she begins to read, wanting to know, if her Creator truly loves her, unlike Victor Frankenstein, who abhorred his creation.