The Cottage in the Woods
folder
1 through F › Frankenstein
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
2,962
Reviews:
3
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
1 through F › Frankenstein
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
2,962
Reviews:
3
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Frankenstein, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
The Cottage in the Woods
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for reading my story. I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. This story is based on Frankenstein, specifically the 2004 TV mini-series with Luke Goss and Donald Sutherland. The events in this story take place several months after the end of the movie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was an early spring day and frost was still covering much of the garden that early morning. She had started tending it and getting it ready for spring. She especially tended the first growing shoots, those plants that could survive the cold nights and frost of an early spring. She was an herbalist, and was almost out of the herbs that she had dried in the fall. Soon, those that were brave enough or desperate enough would come to her for her cures. There were still those that believed in the old wise women and their magic. She tended lonely hearts, men who could no longer perform, women who didn’t want to have another child, or didn’t want to have a child so young or unmarried, and those whose pain would not go away or whose wound would not heal. The new church had made sure that those who held the knowledge of the old medicines were killed as heretics and that the only medicine that was practiced was that which was sanctioned by the church. She knew that this had led only to many more deaths, the church’s brand of medicine was mainly involved with leeches and bleeding, which were not useful for all the things that they prescribed it for. But there were still those, like her, who practiced the old ways. They had moved out into the woods where they wouldn’t be bothered by the church.
She had built herself a nice cottage in her woods. She had a nice main room with a loft upstairs for her bedroom. There was a wattle fence and arch surrounding the small stone cottage. She had her kitchen garden, dyeing garden and medicine garden. This year she was starting her vegetable garden so that she would have fresh vegetables close at hand and not have to rely on her patients or the forest. She knew where every plant important to her work or life grew in the forest. She was happy.
She sang in the garden as she worked. She fixed the fence, pulled the few stubborn weeds that grew in this cold, and took the dead plants that she had not gotten to before the cold truly hit and put them in her compost pile. She noted that she would have to build a new one, as the one that she had built last year had gone almost to dirt. She could enhance her garden quite a bit with the loam that she tended.
She spent most of her time like this, either working in the garden or tending the fowl, three goats and other small animals that occasionally wandered by. It comforted her. It was what she knew and loved. She occasionally went into town on those rare occasions when the people paid her in coinage instead of trade, and she did not like it. She didn’t stay long. She was able to get everything that she needed from the forest, the flax that grew by the river she could beat into linen, her food came from the forest, either grown or killed. The townspeople brought her eggs, wool from their sheep, or other goods that she could use in her house.
Many years had passed like this and she was happy with it. She was a bit lonely, but she made do with the people that came to visit her. She saw the trials that came with marriage or living among other people. She had stitched up the wounds and aborted the unwanted babes of those women who had been beaten by their husbands or had not used some form of control to prevent the child that grew in their bellies. She saw how people treated each other, and she was fine with people thinking that she was strange and leaving her alone.
She was musing along these lines, thinking of what the girl who was coming up her small lane surely would want this early in the season. It was a two day walk to her cottage, even at the best of times, and a girl who wanted to come here this early in the year without some sort of blanket or warm outside clothing was only here for one thing. She prepared to go inside to make sure that she had the proper herbs and tinctures to take care of yet another young girl’s problem when she felt like someone was watching her in the woods, up on the small rocky hill that overlooked her cottage. She glanced up, and thought that she might have seen a pale form clothed in dark flowing clothing quickly turn and leave, but it happened so quickly that she couldn’t be sure. She shrugged it off and went inside.
He’d had a hard life, even before he they had died. He was a monster, forsaken by God and man. His own father, or what he thought of as a father, had even forsaken him after he’d created him.
His father creator had stitched him together from parts of different corpses and through alchemy and black magic had given him life with a final bolt of lightning on a cold stormy night four years ago.
His father creator thought that he’d been a mindless villain intent only upon evil and villainy. But the creature, as his father creator thought of him, wasn’t evil or mindless. Even if he didn’t remember who he they had been, he remembered his learning. He remembered how to be compassionate and kind, and how he had enjoyed doing these acts. But his father creator didn’t see that. He saw a creature that he had made a mistake in making lurching after him to kill him. He read his own evil intent in the actions of a man who had been sewn together out of many corpses and brought back to life as he had been. The creature was simply disoriented and unused to moving, having been dead for many days, then chopped up and sewn together out of many pieces. In that one action of his father creator, in trying to kill him in the first few minutes of his new life, he had destroyed both their lives.
The creature spent many years hiding from other people, and whenever he did feel like he may have found people that he could trust, who would not scream at the sight of him, for he was pale and slightly grey with skin splotched as if it were cold, and he had horrible scars, one prominent at his temple and another that encircled his neck and wove down his chest, he found that he had made a grave error. If they did not scream, they tried to kill him.
At first, he did not fully understand why they did this. He had slight memories of what he looked like when he was alive and whole, and while he saw the scars, to him, he didn’t look that different. He remembered himself as being handsome and a bit of a lady’s man. It was some time before he found the journal sewn into the lining of the heavy cloak that he had stolen from his father creator when he had escaped that first night of his second life, and as he read it, it slowly dawned on him what must have happened to him. His heart hardened against his father creator when he was finished reading of his foul work. Even then, he didn’t truly understand what he looked like.
But one time, after being rejected again, this time after spending a lovely day with a very young girl and her blind grandfather, talking and being treated like a true human by both of them, he ran into the woods. When he thought that he had lost the girl’s father and blind man’s son, he stopped at a small pond and bent to sip some water. It was then that he saw his own reflection. He himself thought that it was a monster come to kill him and recoiled in fear. But when there was no one behind him, a horrifying thought came to him. He slowly moved back to the pond and looked at the reflection in its surface. He was appalled at what he saw. He looked like he was three days dead and prematurely aged. The scar on his forehead and the scar around his neck were still angry raw red gashes. The most horrible of all for him was that he saw vestiges of his old face, the one that he’d had before he died, hiding underneath the visage of the face he had now. He could still see the chiseled perfection and fine features which had attracted so many women when he was alive the first time. He angrily splashed his new reflection out of existence and ran. He ran most of the day and didn’t know where he ended up. But he was determined to get revenge on the man, his father, who had created him.
The next three years were horrible for both him and his father creator. He did many evil deeds that he would not have ever done in his other life. These actions only made him fall deeper into his own hell. In the end, he not only destroyed his father creator’s family and everything that he held dear, but his father creator himself.
He had spent many months wandering the wilderness since that time, avoiding any man or woman that he could have come across. If he saw a road he avoided it and walked the other way. He knew that he had been cursed, that nothing good would ever come of being around him. He lived his own hell. One created for him by his father creator, but one that he wallowed in, reliving the horrible deeds that he had done in the time that he was bent on revenge for what his father creator had done to him.
But for some reason, watching the woman tend her garden, milk her goats and collect her chicken’s eggs had entranced him. She looked kind and wise. She had long dark hair done up in an intricate braid. Her skin was pale from the long winter indoors with little sun, and her body was slim, but strong from hard work. He could tell that she ate well and worked hard. He watched her muscles move as she worked, how she brushed the loose strands of hair from her face and slowly wiped her hands along her long apron, unconsciously caressing the curves of her hips and legs.
He saw the young girl come up the lane long before the woman noticed her, and watched her reaction when she did notice the girl. She sighed when she saw her and shook her head. She took down the wide brimmed hat that she wore on her head and wiped the sweat from her forehead with her scarf. She watched the girl come up the lane and shook her head again. She gathered her basket of eggs, milk and the few herbs and small flowers that she had gathered and started inside.
He leaned in closer and accidentally snapped a small twig when he did so. She looked over at where he was and he quickly ran from where he was hiding so that she wouldn’t catch sight of him.
Thank you for reading my story. I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. This story is based on Frankenstein, specifically the 2004 TV mini-series with Luke Goss and Donald Sutherland. The events in this story take place several months after the end of the movie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was an early spring day and frost was still covering much of the garden that early morning. She had started tending it and getting it ready for spring. She especially tended the first growing shoots, those plants that could survive the cold nights and frost of an early spring. She was an herbalist, and was almost out of the herbs that she had dried in the fall. Soon, those that were brave enough or desperate enough would come to her for her cures. There were still those that believed in the old wise women and their magic. She tended lonely hearts, men who could no longer perform, women who didn’t want to have another child, or didn’t want to have a child so young or unmarried, and those whose pain would not go away or whose wound would not heal. The new church had made sure that those who held the knowledge of the old medicines were killed as heretics and that the only medicine that was practiced was that which was sanctioned by the church. She knew that this had led only to many more deaths, the church’s brand of medicine was mainly involved with leeches and bleeding, which were not useful for all the things that they prescribed it for. But there were still those, like her, who practiced the old ways. They had moved out into the woods where they wouldn’t be bothered by the church.
She had built herself a nice cottage in her woods. She had a nice main room with a loft upstairs for her bedroom. There was a wattle fence and arch surrounding the small stone cottage. She had her kitchen garden, dyeing garden and medicine garden. This year she was starting her vegetable garden so that she would have fresh vegetables close at hand and not have to rely on her patients or the forest. She knew where every plant important to her work or life grew in the forest. She was happy.
She sang in the garden as she worked. She fixed the fence, pulled the few stubborn weeds that grew in this cold, and took the dead plants that she had not gotten to before the cold truly hit and put them in her compost pile. She noted that she would have to build a new one, as the one that she had built last year had gone almost to dirt. She could enhance her garden quite a bit with the loam that she tended.
She spent most of her time like this, either working in the garden or tending the fowl, three goats and other small animals that occasionally wandered by. It comforted her. It was what she knew and loved. She occasionally went into town on those rare occasions when the people paid her in coinage instead of trade, and she did not like it. She didn’t stay long. She was able to get everything that she needed from the forest, the flax that grew by the river she could beat into linen, her food came from the forest, either grown or killed. The townspeople brought her eggs, wool from their sheep, or other goods that she could use in her house.
Many years had passed like this and she was happy with it. She was a bit lonely, but she made do with the people that came to visit her. She saw the trials that came with marriage or living among other people. She had stitched up the wounds and aborted the unwanted babes of those women who had been beaten by their husbands or had not used some form of control to prevent the child that grew in their bellies. She saw how people treated each other, and she was fine with people thinking that she was strange and leaving her alone.
She was musing along these lines, thinking of what the girl who was coming up her small lane surely would want this early in the season. It was a two day walk to her cottage, even at the best of times, and a girl who wanted to come here this early in the year without some sort of blanket or warm outside clothing was only here for one thing. She prepared to go inside to make sure that she had the proper herbs and tinctures to take care of yet another young girl’s problem when she felt like someone was watching her in the woods, up on the small rocky hill that overlooked her cottage. She glanced up, and thought that she might have seen a pale form clothed in dark flowing clothing quickly turn and leave, but it happened so quickly that she couldn’t be sure. She shrugged it off and went inside.
He’d had a hard life, even before he they had died. He was a monster, forsaken by God and man. His own father, or what he thought of as a father, had even forsaken him after he’d created him.
His father creator had stitched him together from parts of different corpses and through alchemy and black magic had given him life with a final bolt of lightning on a cold stormy night four years ago.
His father creator thought that he’d been a mindless villain intent only upon evil and villainy. But the creature, as his father creator thought of him, wasn’t evil or mindless. Even if he didn’t remember who he they had been, he remembered his learning. He remembered how to be compassionate and kind, and how he had enjoyed doing these acts. But his father creator didn’t see that. He saw a creature that he had made a mistake in making lurching after him to kill him. He read his own evil intent in the actions of a man who had been sewn together out of many corpses and brought back to life as he had been. The creature was simply disoriented and unused to moving, having been dead for many days, then chopped up and sewn together out of many pieces. In that one action of his father creator, in trying to kill him in the first few minutes of his new life, he had destroyed both their lives.
The creature spent many years hiding from other people, and whenever he did feel like he may have found people that he could trust, who would not scream at the sight of him, for he was pale and slightly grey with skin splotched as if it were cold, and he had horrible scars, one prominent at his temple and another that encircled his neck and wove down his chest, he found that he had made a grave error. If they did not scream, they tried to kill him.
At first, he did not fully understand why they did this. He had slight memories of what he looked like when he was alive and whole, and while he saw the scars, to him, he didn’t look that different. He remembered himself as being handsome and a bit of a lady’s man. It was some time before he found the journal sewn into the lining of the heavy cloak that he had stolen from his father creator when he had escaped that first night of his second life, and as he read it, it slowly dawned on him what must have happened to him. His heart hardened against his father creator when he was finished reading of his foul work. Even then, he didn’t truly understand what he looked like.
But one time, after being rejected again, this time after spending a lovely day with a very young girl and her blind grandfather, talking and being treated like a true human by both of them, he ran into the woods. When he thought that he had lost the girl’s father and blind man’s son, he stopped at a small pond and bent to sip some water. It was then that he saw his own reflection. He himself thought that it was a monster come to kill him and recoiled in fear. But when there was no one behind him, a horrifying thought came to him. He slowly moved back to the pond and looked at the reflection in its surface. He was appalled at what he saw. He looked like he was three days dead and prematurely aged. The scar on his forehead and the scar around his neck were still angry raw red gashes. The most horrible of all for him was that he saw vestiges of his old face, the one that he’d had before he died, hiding underneath the visage of the face he had now. He could still see the chiseled perfection and fine features which had attracted so many women when he was alive the first time. He angrily splashed his new reflection out of existence and ran. He ran most of the day and didn’t know where he ended up. But he was determined to get revenge on the man, his father, who had created him.
The next three years were horrible for both him and his father creator. He did many evil deeds that he would not have ever done in his other life. These actions only made him fall deeper into his own hell. In the end, he not only destroyed his father creator’s family and everything that he held dear, but his father creator himself.
He had spent many months wandering the wilderness since that time, avoiding any man or woman that he could have come across. If he saw a road he avoided it and walked the other way. He knew that he had been cursed, that nothing good would ever come of being around him. He lived his own hell. One created for him by his father creator, but one that he wallowed in, reliving the horrible deeds that he had done in the time that he was bent on revenge for what his father creator had done to him.
But for some reason, watching the woman tend her garden, milk her goats and collect her chicken’s eggs had entranced him. She looked kind and wise. She had long dark hair done up in an intricate braid. Her skin was pale from the long winter indoors with little sun, and her body was slim, but strong from hard work. He could tell that she ate well and worked hard. He watched her muscles move as she worked, how she brushed the loose strands of hair from her face and slowly wiped her hands along her long apron, unconsciously caressing the curves of her hips and legs.
He saw the young girl come up the lane long before the woman noticed her, and watched her reaction when she did notice the girl. She sighed when she saw her and shook her head. She took down the wide brimmed hat that she wore on her head and wiped the sweat from her forehead with her scarf. She watched the girl come up the lane and shook her head again. She gathered her basket of eggs, milk and the few herbs and small flowers that she had gathered and started inside.
He leaned in closer and accidentally snapped a small twig when he did so. She looked over at where he was and he quickly ran from where he was hiding so that she wouldn’t catch sight of him.