Page 62 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

62

August 31, 1890

Journal of Lucy Westenra

Home is the prison it has always been, but the bars feel closer now. I can’t leave Mother’s side. When we returned to London, I told Doctor Seward that the sea air had entirely revived Mother. (I know I’ve written such awful things, but I’m no longer ready for her to die. I don’t want to be alone.) He examined her and cautioned against overexertion, then gave her his usual advice to drink her brandy to calm her nerves.

Once she had retired to her bedroom, he told me the truth. Often when nearing death, people will experience a sudden brief resurgence of vitality. Then a steep decline ensues. He was not wrong. Soon after his visit, Mother once again began slurring her speech and having difficulty walking.

I’m exhausted. My blood is sluggish, my skin pale, my temperature cold. How can I care for her, too? The maids are no help. Whenever Mother shouts for someone, they hide on the back staircase.

Doctor Seward calls on us every day now because she’s so unwell. Arthur doesn’t offer me relief from either of them; he’s caring for his own ailing father. I wrote and offered to visit, desperate to leave this house.

“Your place is at your mother’s side,” he replied, “and I will not deny you a single one of your remaining days with her.”

I wonder now how he actually feels about me. I thought him madly in love, but the closer we get to our wedding, the less I see him. He’s been by only once since we got back home, accompanied by his two solicitors. The three of them locked themselves up in the sitting room with my mother. Fortunately, Quincey Morris accompanied them and saved me from having to sit in and listen. He regaled me with tales of Wild America as we walked the garden. Maybe I should have chosen Quincey, after all.

My only daily companion is Doctor Seward. This afternoon I caught him watching my breasts with clinical concentration. When he met my gaze, he claimed he was timing my breaths, because “they seem shallower than they ought to be.”

He offered to listen more closely. I demurred and called one of the maids to bring us something to eat. It’s my only strategy lately, though my own appetite has waned tremendously since Whitby. I do wish Arthur would return and bear some of the burden of Doctor Seward’s company.

But…the doctor wasn’t entirely wrong. My breathing does feel shallow and tight, my whole heart clenched with a low, vague fear. My days are haunted, and in my dreams something stalks me with relentless determination.

Doctor Seward is worried about me, and Arthur writes that he’s worried now, too, thanks to Doctor Seward’s reports. I wish they would leave me alone. Let me be sad and empty. Let me stop pretending. I do not want to pretend anymore.

I suppose I should make an entry in my other diary about being fitted for wedding dresses this afternoon. It’s what the Lucy they all want would be excited about. But I cannot summon the energy for it.

Later—

The monster is in London now. I didn’t dream him. He’s real, and he’s here.

I knew he was coming, somehow. It’s as though I’ve been waiting for him. When I saw him across the street, his red eyes burning through the shop window, it wasn’t a surprise. It was almost a relief: I haven’t lost my mind.

I returned his burning gaze with one of my own. Then I laughed and spun and pretended to be happy in my wedding dress. This is not the empty night in Whitby. This is my home. If he thinks I’m afraid, he does not know me.

And Mina’s far away and safe. That made it easier to laugh with his wolf’s gaze fixed on me.

I’m considering ending this diary. I do not care to have any feelings anymore, even secret ones and

There is something outside!

September 3

Doctor Seward found me pale and unresponsive.

(I am more relieved that my diary fell behind my window seat where they did not discover it than I was that I had survived the monster’s latest attack.)

Once I revived enough, Doctor Seward insisted on examining me. Mother was fretting and he told me it was important to keep her calm, so I submitted. How is it that the doctor’s examination felt more violating than whatever that other monster did to me? There is something about Doctor Seward’s hands and eyes that make me feel naked even when I’m clothed.

Arthur is—allegedly, I have no proof myself—“very concerned,” particularly that I be well enough for our impending wedding. He doesn’t visit, though. And the doctor took it upon himself to bring another man into my home.

What can I say about Mister Van Helsing? He has eyebrows like two toxic caterpillars; he holds my hand too much and sits too close; he pats me like I’m a pet or a child; if I have to listen to him any longer I will throw myself to the mercy of the monster.

At least the monster has the decency not to speak to me anymore. With him, I don’t have to smile and blush and pretend not to mind the horrible stink of alcohol and tobacco as he presses an unwelcome kiss to my cheek.

And the worst part is, I know exactly what happened to me. What is happening to me. But the men don’t ask me, nor will they tell me anything about their own theories. I can see in their faces that they’re alarmed, but it’s all smiles for fragile, sweet Lucy.

But what would I tell them? A man who isn’t a man visits me as moonlight and mist and bats, bites my neck and draws out my blood, leaves me trapped in nightmares waking and asleep?

I know what would happen if I told them the truth. Doctor Seward would claim me for his sanitarium, where he could examine me whenever he wished, however he wished. And as piercing as the pain at my throat is, as listless and cold as I am, I prefer this suffering to being under Doctor Seward’s complete control.

I should run. I should flee. I should leave this house and everyone in it. But Mother won’t give me money, and I have no one to turn to. Mina hasn’t responded to my letters, and I can’t put her back in the path of the monster anyway.

But it’s fine. My brave, stalwart men are protecting me. Thanks to the advice of Mister Van Helsing, they have me surrounded with…garlic flowers. As though a flower ever held back a monster.

I cannot stand how small this house has become, with Doctor Seward and Mister Van Helsing and my mother and the maids. Surrounded at all times, alone at all times. I breathe in a miasma of lies, and I breathe out my own lies, and I’m so tired.

He’s at the window again, and I don’t care.

September 17?

I want to claw out my veins, find their ends, and tug them free like a poisonous weed’s roots.

I can’t account for the last few days. I would wake at strange times, free at last from my limbo of nightmares. But the nightmare followed me into the waking world. I was always wearing a different nightdress than before, knowing I hadn’t put myself in bed. And one or more of the men were constantly here, watching me, so I had to pretend not to be terrified of what had happened while I was unconscious.

Today I woke not to the deep lethargy and listlessness I feel after a visit from my monster, but to violent illness all through my body. My organs themselves are rebelling against me. Everything hurts, everything is wrong, I can scarcely stand or breathe or think.

“Please,” I begged Quincey when he sat with me while the others were conferring outside. “Please, tell me what happened. What is different? What changed?”

He looked torn, but then his face softened. “Swear you won’t tell,” he said. All performance was gone. No more nonsense sayings, no more exaggerated accent. Just the simple words of a simple man. “We’ve been putting blood in your veins. John—Doctor Seward—said you didn’t have enough, though no one will tell me why, or where all your blood has gone.”

“Whose blood?” I croaked through my tortured throat.

“Our own. Mine. Doctor Seward’s. Arthur’s.”

I turned away so he wouldn’t see my horror. They didn’t ask me, they didn’t tell me. They drugged me—made me sleep, when sleeping was the problem! And then they punctured me just like the monster did. Putting blood in instead of taking it out, but violating me all the same.

I wish the monster would come right now and take their blood! I feel dirty, corrupted. Doctor Seward must have loved seeing a blush in my cheeks and knowing he was responsible for it for once. And Arthur—how could he, without asking? Without telling?

I tried to hide my reaction from Quincey, but he could tell I was upset.

“We meant well,” he said. “We’re just trying to get you better. So you can marry Arthur.”

So I can marry Arthur? Why not so I can be alive?

“I understand,” I said, trying to reassure him even though I was the one lying in bed with my entire body burning from the inside out.

This blood crawling through my veins is wrong. I don’t know how else to explain it. I have to get them away from me so I can open my window and pray my monster hasn’t tired of me yet. Pray he will remove this blood so my suffering will end.

I want someone to hold me. To pet my hair and tell me it will be all right.

I wish Mina were here. I haven’t seen her since the train station. I know I shouldn’t wish her here, that she wouldn’t be safe if she were, but I want—I want to see her. I don’t have many days left in this life. I want them to be with her.

I broke down and wrote her again during one of my lucid days this week, asking her to come. I’m not proud of it. It puts her in danger, and I should know better. I’m selfish and weak.

Last night in my fevered dreams I thought I heard her. I tried to open my eyes and reach out for her, but I couldn’t. It had to be a dream, though, because in the dream she was arguing with Arthur. When I asked my maids about it in the morning, they laughed and insisted no one had been to visit me in the middle of the night.

If only that were true.

Mother is furious. Not with me, for once, but for me. This morning I heard her tell Doctor Seward that the wedding would be postponed indefinitely, and that she was bringing the solicitors back to change the will. That it was time she took care of me. Could it be true?

I cannot write any more. I’m burning and freezing. My throat feels as though his teeth are in it even now, and my own teeth, oh, they ache. But it’s nothing to how I feel inside, this sickness roiling in me. This is worse than anything he has done to me. I think I am dying. I need to open the window, I need

September 19

Not much time even less strength

Mother is dead

Someone drugged the maids I recognize the smell because it is how Mother smells when she is ill

Mother’s papers are gone but the silver is all still here

I checked the doors and windows they are all locked so how did someone get in and why

My monster does not need doors but he also does not need to drug maids or my mother it makes no sense and he has not been here I am certain of it because my heart still beats with the blood that does not belong to me

Mother is dead she is finally dead and I am so sad why now when she has at last decided to be my mother instead of my burden my jailor my captor

Who will protect me now

He’s close I can feel it

I’ve opened the window and will beg him to release me from this torment of poison in my veins

I will hide this journal one last time and then die with Mina’s name on my lips

Mina I love you and I’m sorry I’m so sorry I can’t protect you