Page 65 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

65

London, October 8, 2024

Iris

By the time my doorbell rings, I’ve got it almost all laid out. The safe ended up being extremely helpful. Just not for my immediate financial needs.

I drag myself to the front door and find Albert Fallis standing there, looking disheveled and disgruntled like a crab caught mid-molt. He’s holding a box of files.

“These are all originals,” he says, “and I must insist that—”

I grab the box and slam the door in his face. I’m not proud of how I threatened him on the phone this morning, but manipulating the legal system is a long family tradition. One that his firm has been participating in the whole time.

The documents fill in the remaining gaps of the case I’ve been building. The entire den floor is papered in proof, arranged by type. Whoever decided to keep everything thought they were building an alibi, but it’s so calculating, so conveniently tidy, it serves as condemnation. Even the shorthand journal tells me exactly what I need to know. Because it isn’t regular shorthand, after all. It’s a code. One that I was taught by my mother, who was taught by her mother, on and on back to none other than Mina Murray Harker Goldaming.

“You cunning little bitch,” I mutter.

“Iris?” Elle sounds panicked as she rushes in. She stops on the room’s threshold; there’s very little space to walk anymore. “The front door was cracked open. I was worried.”

“I forgot to lock it after the solicitor brought these documents.” I wave dismissively. The lock doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid of anyone who can walk in of their own free will.

“What’s all this?” Elle carefully dances through the documents to perch on an armchair.

“I finished Lucy’s journal.”

“Oh? Any good stories? Is Lucy who you hoped she was, or did she disappoint you?” Her face is sad as she picks up the stack of watercolor paintings. I know now they were painted by Lucy. And I know now I should have looked through every single one that first night. It would have saved me so much time.

“They killed her,” I say. “They fucking killed her.”

Elle frowns. “Wait. ‘They’? Who’s ‘they’? Who killed her?”

“Everyone,” I growl. I gesture at the case I’ve laid out. “You were right about the last inhabitants of the house. Father, dead. Mother, dead. Daughter, dead. But in the case of the last two, it was murder. I’m going to walk you through it, step-by-step. Please just trust me and listen to the whole thing.”

“But shouldn’t we—”

“I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to be focused on.” I can’t even pace. I’m literally locked into place by the history around me, which feels so apt I want to laugh. “I know. But I need to tell you, because I finally have the whole story. And once you have it, too, then you’ll understand what you’re getting into if you run away with me. And you have to understand. Every part of it. Otherwise it’s not fair to you.”

“What does a girl’s death over a century ago have to do with it?”

“ Everything. Let me start at the beginning.”

I narrate, Elle listens, and the past at last delivers its secrets, newly risen from the grave they tried to bury it in.