When the Creature First Spoke – 015

Dear Molly,

When I emerged that morning, sleep-starved but charged with a quiet fury, I had no intention of sharing what I had written. It felt fragile. As if speaking it aloud might shatter it into triviality.

But Percy saw the pages. He always did. And he read them in silence.

Then he looked up and said something I shall never forget: “This is not a tale, Mary. It is a reckoning.”

That same afternoon, Byron insisted I read it aloud to the others. I protested, demurred. He thought I was being coy. I wasn’t. I was afraid—not of their opinions, but of their laughter. I was nineteen, a girl in a room full of men accustomed to shaping the world with their words.

You might be asking: “Did they laugh?”

No. They did not.

Byron tapped his cigarette against the rim of his glass and said, “There’s something unholy in it.” He meant it as praise. And Percy… Percy looked as if I’d exorcised something he hadn’t yet named.

Even Polidori, ever the hanger-on, asked me where the idea had come from. I didn’t know how to answer him. How does one explain a vision?

From that point on, I felt a shift. No longer the child among wolves. I had become a mirror, a needle, a mouth through which something larger could speak. It terrified me.

And yet—I kept writing.

Not because I wanted to be read. But because the story refused to remain still. It hunted me. It whispered to me in the dark. It had no name yet, but it had purpose. It demanded to be born.

I hear you wonder: “Did you ever feel love for the creature?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

I shall try to answer next time.

But I think… yes.

Yours in memory and moonlight,
—Mary