Page 44 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

44

August 10, 1890

Journal of Lucy Westenra

At the funeral today there was a dog.

Large and gray with eyes that looked ageless, twin dark pools of experience he didn’t have the language to share. He was sitting, placid, as well-behaved as any dog. Then his owner decided he wanted him to move. The dog trembled and froze, staring ahead at nothing, or perhaps sensing something we lacked the ability to comprehend. The dog wasn’t threatening, he was threatened. He refused to move. The owner, frustrated when his possession failed to respond to his every whim, got more and more abusive. At last, he struck the poor beast. He made the dog cower, broken, not even allowed to feel fear.

Mina could tell I was upset. She assumed I was saddened by the deaths of the ship captain, whom I didn’t know, and the boring old man, whom I didn’t like. Trying to cheer me up, she took me on a long walk. And it worked, for a while. We cut across a field and were chased by a bull, went for tea at the inn, and laughed until it almost felt like old times. Mother’s dinner guest, a local curate, was impossibly tedious, but Mina and I kept joking, pretending to be afraid that the bull was still coming for us. And then we stayed up late, sitting on my bed with our knees pressed together, talking. Almost like old times, but I felt it as a goodbye. My own farewell to the Mina I’d hoped to someday find. I’ve been unfair. Looking for something in her that I have no right to demand.

Now Mina’s asleep and I can’t pretend I’m not alone. I’ll always be alone in my head and my heart. And I can’t stop thinking about that dog.

I’m going out now to find the yard he’s kept in. I’m going to cut the rope that binds him, and I’m going to hold him and pet him and let him feel whatever he wishes to feel, all the time.

Or maybe we’ll slip away and never come back.