Page 16 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

16

London, October 4, 2024

Iris

The second floor of Hillingham is bedrooms and the third floor is servants’ quarters. There’s a hatch in the third-floor ceiling that probably leads to an attic. I don’t want to deal with that yet; my allergies can’t handle it.

If I had a few months, I could appraise everything in the house. There’s probably a decent amount of money to be made. But I don’t have a few months. I also don’t have a single piece of jewelry or an ounce of silver or gold. Why have a mansion if you don’t stuff it full of easily pawned goods? It was super selfish of the last inhabitants.

I’ve discovered something else upsetting about the house: There are no light switches or electrical outlets. I wanted to find a time capsule, but I didn’t actually want to travel back in time. At least there are toilets, bathtubs, and sinks, and miraculously the water works. I let one of the sinks run for several minutes to clear the pipes. It seems safe. Ish. At least I can wash up, which is a relief after the flights and the dust.

One of the bedrooms on the second floor, with dark greens walls and heavy furniture, has the anonymously fussy quality of someone trying to impress a stranger. It’s as good as any of the others. I tear down the drapes and force the window open. There are no screens, but bugs are welcome to come in as long as fresh air does, too. The bed is creaky and hard, but usable. Assuming I can get some new bedding. Towels, too. Toilet paper. And bottled water, because I definitely don’t trust these pipes.

This house had better pay off. It’s costing me more than I can afford to spare. On paper I’m heir to a vast empire and an enormous fortune, but I won’t touch money from Goldaming Life. It’s all poison. I only have my meager barista savings, and I’m going to blow through it fast if I can’t find things to sell.

I abandon the second story. It’s down to the first-floor art and furniture for quick cash. Maybe the books. Surely old books will have a market in England, right?

I decide to make the den (or library or study or whatever this room is called in a mansion) my headquarters. There’s a sofa that, while not comfortable, doesn’t feel like it will break or impale me when I sit on it. The windows are more or less hedge-free, so there’s a decent amount of light and air now that I’ve pried them open. I can almost breathe without my shirt filter. Plus, with all the built-in bookshelves and cupboards, there’s almost no moldy wallpaper, which is about as aesthetically pleasing as the house gets.

I desperately need to sleep and eat, but I’m afraid if I stop, I’ll get overwhelmed and not be able to start again. I try the cupboards first, but they’re all locked. Hoping I’ll find a key eventually, I pull every book off the shelves, separating them into titles I recognize and titles I don’t. The second pile is, unfortunately, much larger. There are some ancient liquor bottles on a cart, which I carefully move to the kitchen. Not because I dare drink the amber liquid still stalwartly clinging to the bottom, but because the cut crystal decanters look like they could be worth something. Maybe the cart itself is.

And, in a small victory, beneath one of the bottles is a tiny key the exact right size for the cupboards.

I trace the little key as I eat a granola bar from my backpack and sip some water. Until I open the cupboards, anything could be in there. Schr?dinger’s jackpot—I both have and do not have money, as long as I don’t look.

“Come on, Schr?dinger,” I whisper as I crouch in front of the first set of doors. I open them and find a deflated ball, several wooden figures, and some blocks. I hold a bluntly carved horse and imagine the child who lived in this house. Everything here would have made it clear that children were merely tolerated, not celebrated. The furniture is stiff and unwelcoming, the beds formal and large enough to get lost in. Even the toys were locked behind a door. A child would have needed permission just to play.

But I’m projecting. Maybe a grandmother lived here, and she stored toys for when her beloved grandchildren visited. Or maybe someone desperately wanted a child and bought toys in an act of hope, then locked them away when they were too painful a reminder of dashed dreams.

This house holds so many stories, and I’ll never know any of them. That’s okay, though. Some stories are best left unknown.

I put the horse onto one of the now-empty bookshelves and move on. The next cupboard has more alcohol, still in the original bottles. I move them into the kitchen. Rich people buy weird shit, as I well know. We had a whole room in the house dedicated to old pharmacological instruments and concoctions. Enough belladonna and mercury-based products to kill someone. That’s not how I did it, though. Too obvious.

My earlier suspicion that a child lived in this cold, unwelcoming house is confirmed by the next two cupboards. More books, most of them children’s workbooks and early readers. I try not to notice the clumsy handwriting, the personality infused into doodles of cats along the margins. I don’t want to imagine the child who grew up here, wonder whether they were happy, whether they felt safe, if their bedroom held unknowable terrors in floating closets.

Another cupboard contains stacks of watercolors. They’re unframed, amateur work, but I find them charming. There’s a certain sly mockery to the exaggeration of the portrait work, particularly a sour-looking older woman. There are also several paintings of a dark-haired, dark-eyed young woman. I pause on them. They’re done with so much more care and detail than any of the others. The subject is plain, with nothing remarkable about her face, but the artist has rendered her luminous. There are dozens of studies of her eyes and her hands, an obsessive quality to them I recognize. I’ve been in love, too.

I don’t bother going through all of them. None of the paintings are signed, but if I’m charmed by them, someone else might be. I set them carefully on the desk where nothing will disturb them.

I’ve almost moved on to the next cupboard when I notice something strange. The painting cupboard isn’t as deep as the others. I push against the back. A false panel! Without any attempt at caution, I pry and tug until it comes free. It was hiding a squat black safe. The silver dial and handle are tarnished but still the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

“Oh, thank god,” I whisper, nearly in tears. I won’t have to spend precious time trying to discreetly sell furniture and paintings. I can cash out and run.

But then it hits me: I’m excited about a locked box intended to keep everyone but the owner out. And I might be the owner of this house now, but nothing is mine. Nothing has ever been mine. Not the houses, or the money, or even my own body. And not my future, still.

I sit back on my ass and let my head hang in defeat. Mom was right. I’m never going to win this fight. I might as well surrender.