What harm could an old
man do me? I had walked toward him, intending to speak a few words to him, when
the priest
came outside.
"Come away!"
he called to me. "Come inside."
My hand was extended
toward the man. He had just raised his own to touch me when I pulled back,
turned and joined
my companions. "Was
that someone you know?" I asked the priest.
He nodded and said
nothing. Janos, who had been seeing to the horses, turned and looked toward the
road. "Who?" he
asked.
I looked back and the man was gone. We did not
speak of him again, but when we left for the ride back to the estate an hour
later, the priest blessed us very solomnly before letting us go. He used a
language I had never heard before. When I inquired about it, he told me it was
the old tongue, rarely used in our time. As we left, I thought I saw the old
man standing in the forest close to the road, watching silently as we passed.
I heard later what happened that night. The priest
had said the evening service and left to walk through the churchyard to his
little house. He never reached it. Like so many others, his body was never
found. I know his resting place well now, the deep chasm where his bones and
the bones of a thousand others lie crumbling beneath the weight of the new
kills falling above them.
Yes, I am not so
innocent now.
The next time I saw the
man from the churchyard was while walking in the garden of the estate the
following evening.
He was sitting on a bench close to the heavily scented wisteria
blooms. His body had been restored by the life it had consumed. His hair was
black, his face unlined, his hands powerful and young. Only the eyes were the
same-dark and intent.
A relation to the old
man, I thought, yet the similarity was so strong. And, of course, he knew me
enough to call me by
name.
Was I troubled by this?
Not at all. I was in hailing distance of the house, in the gardens of a
powerful family. Their
guards patrolled the borders of the property. It seemed that the
man must have been trusted with admission. Besides, what possible reason would
a thief or murderer have for sitting so openly on the grounds?
Had I known what danger I was attracting, would
I have gone to him and sat with him and held his cold, pale hands? I doubt an
army could have altered my future once he saw me, and now that my future has
been set like a pattern in marble, there is no other known to me, no way to
find regret.
He
spoke of the land, its history and its customs. I spoke of court at Bratislava,
of the clothes the women wore, the wealth of the prince. Then, suddenly, with
no real warning, I was speaking not of others but of myself and the walls I would
face throughout my life.
Suddenly he was kissing
me, his mouth hard against mine, his teeth so sharp that my lips bled. I pushed
him away, turned
and ran toward the house. When I looked back to see if he would
follow, he had vanished as if the deepening night shadows had swallowed him
whole.
He had given me no name to call him by, no way
to find him again. If I had not thought that I would be punished for approaching
a stranger, I might have asked my mother about him. Janos, whom I trusted more,
knew nothing about the stranger. The mystery of him only added to my passion,
and the following evening, I walked in the garden again. But though I stayed
among the rhododendrons, the lilies and the blooming vines for hours, he did
not come.
The
next night, I woke late and looked outside on the moon-drenched lawn. He stood
among the flowers, looking up at my window. Child that I was, I had become
infatuated with the strangeness of him. I put on a cloak and stole outside,
the dew coal on my feet as I ran to him.
I
recalled the night perfectly, the shiver I felt as he brushed his lips against
my bare shoulder, the side of my neck. He unlaced my nightshirt. I felt his
lips on my breast, a pressure there, and an instant later, whatever innocence I
possessed died.
On the last few words, Mina's voice
had grown soft. Now she stopped reading altogether, looking from the pages to
the flames in the parlour stove. Winnie rested a hand over hers. "You
wanted to learn from this account," she said as if expecting Mina to destroy
the pages.
Mina handed
the remaining two pages to Winnie. "You finish the reading. No matter what
I do, you finish it." Her voice shook as
the past-the passion and the
horror of it overcame her.
Winnie did,
going on in a voice far more dramatic than Mina's flat tone had been.
In the nights that
followed, I was mud for him, doing what he asked as he drank from me, as he
shared his own blood.
His marks were not on my neck but lower, on the
tips of my breasts, where clothing would hide them. I understand the reasons
for that now. In this land, there are too many who know the bite of the vampire
and the precautions to take. And any woman would hide such marks even from her
servants lest she be accused of having suckled a devil's child. Yes, I hid them
well. No one knew of my assignations. I blamed the weakness the others noticed
in me on some vague illness. The excuse allowed me to sleep by day and go to
him at night. Then, when I was even too weak to rise from bed, he left me. In all
the years that have passed, I have tried to understand why he did not carry me
off.
I have begged him to
explain, but he is always silent.
At first I did not notice that he had gone, but
when I had recovered my strength enough to continue my visits to the moonlit
garden, I walked alone. I felt the cutting pain of loss, and a terrible
rebelliousness. The days all seemed to fly by. My life seemed so short, so
useless. I decided that I would no longer be the obedient child my parents
wanted. I would dare anything for a chance to live.
Winnie halted. "Mina, are you all right?" she asked.
"You look so pale." "It's nothing save how well I understand her
emotions," Mina replied. "Go on."
I rode the estate lands alone. I broke my
promise to stay within its stone walls and went out into the countryside. I
was looking for him, of course. This was not love, but passion. I don't think
anyone could ever really love him, because he cannot love in return. Now that
I am one of his kind and the emotion is likewise lost to me, I can see this
more clearly.
As I have written this,
I have shared the account with the others and they have laughed at me. They are
so old, they have
forgotten their past. I
remember it. I long for its freedom now, as I longed for him then.
I did not find him.
Instead, a creature far more ruthless waited for me and, out of jealousy rather
than desire, brought
me to this place, this
life.
"That's
all," Winnie said, "Shall I read Mr. Ujvari's letter as well?"
Mina nodded
and Winnie began.
"Since I was born in the part of the world
in which the Countess Karina lived, I feel compelled to comment on this story.
It is a myth in my land that the dead, if buried in unconsecrated ground or
guilty in life of unconscionable deeds, may rise and walk the earth, stealing
life from those still living.
Liderc, vampir,
or
strigoiul
they are called in my
country, and there are those who believe in them even to this day. According
to other documents I have read, at the time the countess disappeared many
people assumed that it had been one of these creatures which had carried her
away. This is, therefore, a fictional account of her
life,
not a real one, for no
educated person would accept their existence.
I had
hoped to have the entire translation done in the next two weeks. However, the
dialect shifts after this to one with which / am less familiar, and the work
may take some time. For that I am sorry. I decided to send you what was done
so you would have some idea of the sort of journal you have purchased.
Anton Ujvari."
"Karina
changed the dialect to hide her account," Mina said.
"From
Dracula?"
"No, I
don't think she was hiding it from him. She mentions others. His wife made
Dracula a vampire, and Van Helsing killed
another woman as well. But
someone made Dracula's wife undead. There may be others, indeed there likely
are."
"I
suppose." Winnie replied too quickly. Mina decided that she was being
placated until Winnie went on, "Did you learn anything
from that account?"
"I
don't know. I found the thought that Dracula or someone could enter the
churchyard and kill the priest somewhat odd. Van
Helsing said that a vampire
must be invited."
"Once
Dracula was the ruler of all that land," Winnie said and laughed as if the
notion were somehow preposterous. Her face
reddened. "I'm
sorry," she said, gripping Mina's hand. "It's just that it seems so
strange to be dissecting such a fantastic account."
"Do you
believe me, Winnie? No, don't nod, tell me the truth."
Winnie hesitated. "I didn't
believe you entirely at first. But then, as you went on with your story, it all
seemed so real. And I am not blind, Mina dear. You are quite sane and
sensible, so, yes, I do believe it. I do admit, however, that I would feel
infinitely better about accepting it if I could see one of these creatures
with my own eyes."
"Pray
that you never do." Mina felt suddenly weary. She stood and asked for her
cloak. "Keep the pages," she said when Winnie
tried to give them to her.
"When we have the whole account, I'll decide if I want Jonathan to read
them."
The day had become unseasonably
warm. Rather than hire a cab, Mina decided to walk home. She had just turned
onto her street when Gance rode by on a beautiful white stallion. "Good
afternoon, Mrs. Harker," he called to her, and continued on. By the time
Mina reached the house, she felt chilled by the spring damp, and weakened by
her sudden rush of desire.
She stared
for a moment at her reflection in her bedroom mirror before taking off her
bonnet and cloak. The moment when
Gance had spoken to her had made it clear that it made no
difference if Dracula were alive or dead. His blood had changed her as it had
the innocent countess. Its taint would be there throughout her life, altering
her existence, perhaps someday altering her death.
One day flowed swiftly into the
next, like a current gathering momentum before the falls. Each morning Mina
waited anxiously for another message from Winnie before starting her day, but
there were none. She wrote letters on behalf of the hospital and followed each
of them with personal calls. Her relaxed charm succeeded where Winnie's
intensity often had not. Donations came in more quickly than ever before.
Winnie and the other volunteers were ecstatic.
Though Mina
longed to tell Jonathan about each successful call, he would come home late,
ready for nothing but dinner and bed.
So she would sit beside him
in front of the parlor stove and listen to him speak of his own day. Duty
destroyed all real interest.
Passion went with it, but he
did not notice that either, or how Mina lay awake long after he slept with her
gathered in his arms.
It had been nearly eight weeks since
she had fainted in the hospital. Her breasts had continued to feel swollen, her
stomach to ache long after the bleeding was done. Now, with so much time
elapsed between cycles, she was certain that she had indeed lost a child. She
found some comfort in that belief, for if she'd had a miscarriage, the terrible
thoughts and dreams would not repeat each month.
And then the
relentless pressure around her womb started again, followed by the bleeding.
She sent a note to Gance to tell him
that she could not keep their
meeting, then lay in bed, not daring to sleep lest she dream.
Though she
did not ask it of him, Jonathan stayed home from work the following day and
tended her himself. "You must rest," he
told her. "Exhaustion
only makes the pain worse."
"Then I
dream," she reminded him.
"You
always dream. You've said so often enough," he replied patiently.
"Not
like this, Jonathan. I cannot tell you how terribly vivid the dreams become.
It's as if he walks the earth again. I'm so afraid."
She gripped his hand.
"Sleep,"
he said. "I'll remain here with you. If you become restless, I will force
you to wake."
She tried,
but though the dreams were as terrible as before, she did not cry out or stir.
When she woke, she found Jonathan had
dozed off in his chair. She looked at him, with his chin pressed
against his chest, his salt-and-pepper hair tumbling over his forehead, and
tried to understand how many hours he worked, and how exhausted he must be. No
matter how she tried, she could not help but feel betrayed.
After that, though she tasted the
tea he brought her and sipped the cordials like a dutiful wife, she did not
finish them lest they contain some drug to make her sleep. Her expression grew
dull from fatigue then animated as she moved beyond exhaustion, talking to him
in quick, short sentences.
When he
dozed off, she would shake him awake, until finally, apologetically, he told
her that he had to rest and moved into one of
the guest rooms.
Once he was
gone, Mina could remain awake only through motion. Jonathan lay in the
adjoining room listening to the sound of
her bare feet on the rug as
she paced like a great cat in its cage.
Then the
bleeding ended. The anxiousness vanished, and though the dreams remained, they
were not so vivid. Mina slept for
nearly a day, then woke and
felt very much herself. Her optimism had also returned. These three days had
been easier than the last.
The next monthly would be
easier yet. And the next.
If she just
kept her mind occupied, everything would be all right.