Page 37 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

37

London, October 5, 2024

Iris

“You do know the time difference between London and Salt Lake City, don’t you?” Dickie asks as soon as he answers the phone.

“You do know what Leave me the fuck alone or I’ll never sign your fucking documents means, don’t you?” I snarl, prowling down the street.

“You’re going to have to enlighten me about what I’ve done wrong.”

“The photos. The ones you had taken of me outside the house. Could you at least try for a little subtlety when threatening me?”

“Are you perhaps still jet-lagged? Or you may want to have the house checked for gas leaks. Those photos aren’t threats. Those photos are gifts. Gestures of goodwill. I had a photographer take a few exterior shots for when you list the house. If you’ll check your email for once, you’ll find I told you about it, and also asked you to schedule with the photographer so she can come back to get the interior.”

I have no response to that. I move the phone away from my ear and check the email with the seminar invitation. Sure enough, Dickie told me about the photographer and asked when I think the house will be ready for staging.

No. No, he’s gaslighting me. Or implying-gas-leaks-ing me. This is what they do. They threaten me, they hurt me, and then they have the most reasonable explanation possible. An explanation that makes me look crazy and paranoid.

As if we both don’t know I have every reason in the world to be paranoid. It’s not paranoia if it’s based on fact and experience.

I put the phone back to my ear. “I flew across the ocean to get a little space to process everything. Do you know what space is? It’s that thing where you leave someone alone. No more fun stalker photos, no invitations to soirées to show me how close the nearest cult members are, no nothing until I say so, do you understand?”

“I’m paid to care about your well-being, Iris. Whether either of us likes it, you’re the heir to Goldaming Life. So much depends on you, which means—”

I hang up. I’m done with Dickie. It’s still too early to call the nursing home back, though. I shouldn’t call right now anyway. I’d probably be mean, and the employees there don’t deserve it. I try to burn all my angry energy by speed-walking to the nearest street with a café. Fucking Dickie. Fucking Goldaming Life. Fucking everything.

The café has an open table near an outlet, at least. I wolf a sandwich but nurse my coffee slowly. While my phone charges, I search online. My collection of antique books is worth a few hundred pounds. It’s not as much as I’d like, but I’ll take what I can get.

I email a few rare-book dealers around London to get preliminary quotes. I don’t want to waste my time visiting them in person if I’m not going to be paid. Then I check the time zone difference to see if it’s okay to call Dad’s nurses yet, since I can’t once I get back to Hillingham.

A realization hits me like a bus: When my dad dies, I won’t know. I’ll be in hiding, with every line of communication cut. A scalpel dividing my life neatly in two, severing all that came before.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about it, which somehow makes it all worse. My mom corrupted everything she touched, including my relationship with my dad. Maybe I should talk to him whenever I can over the next few days, but what would I say? I’d wish I hadn’t called as soon as he picked up.

As always, when I start feeling like I’m a bad daughter, I slip my hand under the hem of my sweatshirt and trace the two tiny scars on either side of my abdomen.

No guilt, I remind myself.

Needing to kill some time and desperate to be anyone else for a while, I pull out Lucy’s journal. The first line— I cannot decide whether Quincey Morris is simple, or simply American —makes me laugh out loud, which earns me puzzled looks from the other café patrons. I put my head down and keep reading.

“Lucy,” I murmur, “I can’t blame him. I think I’m in love with you, too.”

I find myself rereading certain paragraphs. Lucy and I have so much in common. Both with terrible, controlling mothers pressuring us to have children. Both trapped in lives we can’t extricate ourselves from despite all the privileges. Both practicing faces in front of a mirror so we can survive. I don’t have three obnoxious suitors, so Lucy has me beat there. My mother certainly tried to force men on me, but even she quickly abandoned that pursuit and instead extolled the virtues of artificial insemination and unwed motherhood. As if I wanted that, either.

The next couple of entries are funny accounts of clumsy courting by the American cowboy. Lucy imagines a life of riding wild on the Texas frontier, unable to fathom why Quincey Morris would assume she’d be a good match for him. Even though she’s still a teenager, barely nineteen at that point, Lucy was a good judge of character. She was keenly aware that when these men looked at her, they never saw her, merely whatever they wanted her to be to them.

After the cowboy interlude, there’s a far more upsetting entry about the doctor. I’ve barely read anything about him, and he gives me the creeps.

“Girl,” I mutter, “trust your gut.” The doctor is every red flag that has ever existed. He tells Lucy that her mother’s dying—I see myself in her mixed feelings, though mine are about my father—and then the creepy doctor straight up tries to drug Lucy. The tension of watching her carefully navigate his attempts to control her is making my stomach hurt.

“Mother is dying. I still cannot force my mind to accept the information. Mother is everywhere; Mother is infinite. Mother is the gravity of my whole life, keeping me chained to the earth, forever revolving around her. What will happen when gravity ceases its terrible tyranny? Will I float away? Will I shed my mortal coil and become nothing but light and happiness? Or will I be condemned to hell for these very thoughts?”

I trace her writing. It makes me impossibly sad for her, but also for myself. My own tyrannical mother’s gravity is walled up now, and still I can’t escape her. Not yet, at least. But soon. I hope Lucy escapes, too.

“Oh god,” I mutter as I read what happens next. Lucy doesn’t even get a chance to process her news. It’s like the men are teaming up on her, making sure one always picks up where the other left off. Arthur is there waiting for her as soon as she gets home.

I know I’m a deeply suspicious person, and I’ve also read a lot of novels, but: Doctor Seward tells Lucy her mother is dying. Arthur’s waiting for her as soon as she gets home. He suggests that they not only don’t get a second opinion or a specialist to treat her, but that he should bring in his own solicitor to handle Lucy’s estate.

“Lucy,” I groan. I feel powerless. I know this all happened long ago, but Lucy’s voice is so vibrant and real. I want to reach through the pages and save her.

My phone dings with a text, drawing my attention away from the journal. Thankfully it’s Rahul, making sure I haven’t been eaten by any foxes or wolves.

I have, actually, I text back. But it’s nice and warm in its stomach so I don’t mind.

Cozy, he responds, with a ball of yarn emoji.

My phone’s fully charged now. Maybe it has been for a while; I’ve been lost in Lucy’s words. Time to go. At least I have Elle to look forward to at the house. Except, shit. It’s Friday. I can’t expect her to work through the weekend. I’ll make sure she knows I want her to come back on Monday, though. I get another coffee to go, then stop at a corner shop and buy a knife for my purse, plus a cute kettle. Not a wise investment for someone who plans on living in exile starting in a week, but it is a wise investment for someone who wants to keep Elle around as much as possible.

My phone rings with a London number. Hoping it’s one of the bookshops, I answer.

“Miss Goldaming,” says a pinching voice attached to a grasping crustacean of a man. I wish I hadn’t answered. Mom’s London solicitor continues without waiting for me to speak. “You asked me to inform you if the property in Whitby was open for viewing. I can confirm it isn’t occupied this weekend.”

“Oh.” I’d totally forgotten about the other house. I doubt anything there is good for quick cash. But…it would be nice to get away from Hillingham for a day or two. Stay somewhere meant for human habitation. And it’ll support my cover story that I’m checking out the properties here in order to list them. Might as well distract whoever is watching me from the fact that I’m essentially looting Hillingham. “Great! I’ll head there this weekend.”

“I can arrange transportation—” he starts, but I cut him off.

“Nope. Bye.” I wouldn’t get into a car arranged by that man if someone paid me. He’d probably be hiding in the trunk. In the middle of the night I’d waken to him sitting on my chest, pulling off little pieces of skin to shove in his mouth while talking about how long he’s served my glorious family.

I look up transit options. I can get to Whitby via train. Another thing that’ll eat into my dwindling funds. Maybe I shouldn’t have splurged on such a pretty kettle, but I couldn’t bear to buy Elle an ugly one.

When I get back to the house, she’s tromping down the stairs, carrying a box. For the first time she looks disheveled, like she’s in a mood as sour as the attic air probably is. Like she could use a weekend away, too.

“There’s a leak in the roof,” she says irritably. “Tons of water damage. This is all that’s salvageable, and probably not even worth the effort it’ll take to haul to a—”

She pauses, actually looking at me, and then sets the box down at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re excited about something. Are any of the books winners?”

“No! Well, maybe. But the other property my family owns is available this weekend.” Before I can talk myself out of it, I careen through the next sentences like they’re a single thought. “If you aren’t doing anything, do you want to come up with me, not as an appraiser or anything, just to get a break, because I don’t know about you but I feel like this house is going to drive me crazy if I spend much more time here, plus the other house is a vacation rental so it will definitely have hot running water and a stove you don’t need a PhD in history to start, plus I hear Whitby is really pretty?”

Elle’s face had been increasingly amused until I got to the last sentence, at which point a cloud descends, cutting off the sunshine of her happiness.

“Oh. Whitby,” she says. “That’s a bad place.”