I must have slept in the end, for I awoke at dawn and all was normal. But as we ate breakfast, a shepherd came to the kitchen door and told the farmer that a wolf had come down from the forests and taken a lamb.
Was that the sound I heard, that I thought was only in my nightmare? The lamb, bleating for help?
The men have gone out with guns to hunt the wolf. I hate to think of it being chased and shot, the poor wolf, which was only hunting to live. Must two animals die instead of one? My father would say this is sentiment. He would think me mad.
But the worst thing that happened was this. While he talked, the shepherd – a young, unappealing man with red cheeks and a long greasy moustache – kept staring at me. Perhaps he meant no harm, but I found his looks insolent, and they made me feel defenceless and somehow ashamed. If I could have left the room quickly, it would not have mattered. But my father saw the looks, and got in a rage, and would have attacked the shepherd had not the farmer and his sons held him back! It was an ugly scene. When the shepherd had gone, amid raised voices, Father pushed me into my room and shouted at me that it was all my fault, I must have encouraged him, and I was nothing but a hindrance to Father’s artistic career, and the sooner I am married and out of harm’s way the better, and so on. Then he embraced me so hard my ribs were bruised, and said he could not bear me to marry, no man would ever take his Elena from him, and all this so rough and fierce that I found no comfort in it, only more pain.
I was left weeping. I still tremble now. Suddenly everything seems very dark and wretched and I wish I could leave, but I cannot. Where would I go?
There is a commotion outside. The men are home.
3 August
Father has been kinder today; or at least, he has kept me constantly busy, fetching and carrying, cleaning brushes. He commands me to sing folk-songs as he paints, then complains that my voice is weak and shaky. I wish I knew how to please him! Everything I do seems to disappoint him. If I had been a boy... Sometimes I wish I had never been born! I think he wishes it too.
They shot the wolf that took the lamb. The poor creature dragged itself off to die and no one can find it. I hate to think of any creature dying slowly in pain.
5 August
Last night as I lay in my bed I heard a wolf howling, a lonely, high keening that pierced the silence and brought me awake. It sounded uncanny, high at first then falling and trailing mournfully away. The sound of it turned me cold. But I had to get out of bed and look.
Down in the yard, standing in the centre of a white splash of moonlight, there was a great silver wolf! He was beside the well, his ears almost on a level with its carved wooden roof. He was pale in the moonlight, but his eyes glowed red. He stared at me. I could hardly move for fear. This terror of wolves is very old and deep in the Transylvanian peasants – and in me, as if their fear has stirred and woken my own. Yet I opened the window wide, as if I were acting in my sleep.
The animal was there, looking up at me. We stared at each other. I felt a compulsion to climb out of the window and go to him. But he let out a faint keen, and suddenly the howling of dogs rose up from the village, from other farms. This was joined by the howling of wolves on the ridge, until the whole landscape was filled with their mournful keening. So disturbing was this sound that I drew back quickly and closed the window.
When I looked out again I saw the creature turning and slipping away into the shadows. But he went slowly, very lame, and I saw a dark splash like blood on his flank. My heart beat hard. This must be the wolf that was shot! He was wounded and in pain, I could not leave him! But he had gone, and I dared not go after him. All of this was dream-like. I lay down and slept until morning.
I tried to find the wolf in daylight but there was no sign of him. How far could he have gone, so sorely wounded? I have told no-one. I don’t know why. I feel it is my secret. I am afraid of the wolf, yet I want him to come again.
7 August
He came. I am fearful, but I must write of it.
Last night I was woken suddenly – not by any sound, but by an urge to look out of the window. I crept out of bed and looked out, and the great pale wolf was there again.
He stood very still, his haunches all bent under him, his eyes as scarlet as sunset. I was very afraid, but felt I must go to him. I undid the window and climbed over the sill, nearly tearing my nightdress. I had saved him a little piece of meat. I crouched down and held out the meat to see if he would come, and he did. He came limping to me and ate out of my hand! Then he let me stroke him. I never dreamed I would dare to stroke so fierce a creature.
He put his big head on my knee and let me rub his soft ears. There is a big ragged hole in his haunch where the bullet went through. It looked as if it should have killed him. His eyes, which had seemed red before, were dark and filmy with weakness. He licked my hand as if to thank me, then he left.
I followed a little way through the orchard, hoping to find his lair, but I lost him. Suddenly the trees around me seemed full of menace, and I looked around as if I’d woken from a trance. Something was watching me from the darkness; I couldn’t see it, but I knew. I turned and ran back to the house, and soon I was in bed with the window shut, feeling safe again but foolish.
I hope the creature will come again. I will keep food for him. If I don’t feed him he may starve to death. Perhaps he cannot live anyway but I must try to help him.
No one must know, or they will kill him, and punish me.
9 August.
All I can think of during the day is the wolf. While I am helping Father, I am only waiting for night to come. I am clumsy, I cannot pay attention. Father berates me but I don’t hear.
The great wolf led me a little way into the trees tonight, and ate all the food I had saved. He was famished. I cleaned the edges of the wound as best I could with clean water, but it is very deep and not healing as it should. Something is wrong. He is too vigorous for an animal that must be dying. When he licked my hand, as if to say thank you, his tongue was cold. And before he left his eyes again glowed scarlet, so bright I could not mistake it. I was frightened when I looked into his eyes. I felt dizzy, as if I would fall.
When I went to bed afterwards, I had a nightmare. It was real and vivid, but the events so wild and squeezed together I could make no sense of them.
I am lying in a box of earth, a big mouldering box like a coffin. Everything is moving violently around me, as if there is a cart beneath me, and I am afraid. No, not quite afraid, but urgent, angry and full of hatred. I see and feel, but cannot move. Now I see the sun dipping above me, red as blood. I smile. I know I can move once the sun sets. Then I will do something very terrible. (I shudder even now to remember that gloating anticipation.) I am about to do something violent and evil, yet I long to do it! Now I see two faces above me – pale, shadowed and colourless with the cold crimson sky behind them, and snow blowing around them. I see two shining steel blades flashing towards me. I scream, my whole body jolts.
Then there is a deep, peaceful blackness.
This seems to go on for ever. I have no thoughts, no feelings, only a dull awareness. I know I am dead, but there is no Heaven or Hell waiting, not even purgatory... only this limbo. Nothingness.
(How horrible it seems, now I write it down! The faces, I recollect... One I did not know, but one was that of Madam Mina’s husband, Jonathan Harker. I feel violent hatred for him as I write. What does this mean?)
After an indefinable length of nothingness, I hear the fleeting murmur of a voice I know. A spirit brushes by me, like an angel! I stir. Something pulls at me and I open my eyes, but no one is there. Instead I see a stony road winding between the mountains, a thin bleak twilight lying on the cold stones. I see some greyish soil, like ash, lying in the cracks between the stones. The sight of this dust, for no reason I understand, fills me with despair and I want to roar with grief. But I have no throat with which to cry out.
Thank God, I woke then. I was hanging out of bed, shivering with the cold, an
d my chest aching from the position I had twisted into in my sleep. It’s over. I said a prayer. I never, never want to have a dream like that again!
10 August
Prayers not answered. The nightmare again. The same, but it goes a little further this time.
As I stir from limbo, I see the angel who woke me. I hear her warm voice and see a fleeting form like a white ghost – and it is Madam Mina! Her presence is a hot, fragrant river. I am a ghost while she is alive, mortal, full of blood and life... and I long for her, I must touch her at any cost; she is as vital to me as a mother to a child! But I can only watch. I watch, coldly, the figures of her and her hated companions, standing with their heads bowed. I don’t know what they are doing. The tableau of their heated, mortal, ageing forms fills me with despair, as if I fall for ever into an abyss.
When I say “I”, I mean whoever I was in the dream – for I was not myself. These visions and nightmares distress me more than I can say.
13 August
Each night I stay as long as I dare with my friend the wolf, because I do not want to go to bed and endure the dreams again. But they always come eventually. I fight sleep as long as I can, and my father says I look pale and tired, and berates me for my lethargy. I think he has made up his mind I shall marry Miklos now. He says my illness is because I am spoiled and lazy, and I need a husband to keep me under control. Unwell, I am a burden to him, so he wants me to become the responsibility of someone else. And again I disappoint him!
I tell my friend about the dreams. That comforts me, though I know he cannot understand. He lies with his heavy body over my legs and I stroke his fur as I tell him every detail. His ears flicker as if he listens. When I look into his glowing eyes he seems almost to speak to me. He seems more real than my father, the farmer’s family and the insolent shepherd all put together!
I cannot wait for night to fall, and the shaggy white wolf to stand under my window and call to me. I worry about him. Although he eats the food I give him, he remains very thin under his coat. He drags his hind leg and his wound does not heal. He neither regains health nor loses it; he is always the same, as if... as if he were dead, yet still walking.
I wish I hadn’t had that thought! This room seems so tiny and ill-lit, while the world outside oppresses me with its wild, cruel darkness.
15 August
I think I have lost him. I am very afraid.
Last night he looked into my eyes and I felt him trying to tell me something. His eyes were like two great lamps, burning into my head. I had to look away, to push his head away, because I could not bear it. I couldn’t understand. Then he began to snap and snarl at me. I cried out and ran away from him, through the trees and back to my room. He came after me! Surely he could have caught me easily. Just as I shut the window he jumped at the glass, making the whole frame shake. I yelped in fear. He stared at me through the glass, his lips drawn back and trembling. His long fangs shone and they looked so cruel and hard.
I was terrified he would burst through the glass. We stood eye to eye for a moment. Then he took his big paws off the sill and ran three-legged into the shadows of the trees.
I cannot believe he has changed and turned on me. What have I done wrong?
I did not sleep until the cold hour before dawn. But then I had another dream, the worst yet.
I see cold mountain slopes, a castle rearing above a precipice and folds of thick dark forest, as if I am a spectre wandering over a land I once loved, but which is now bleak and lifeless. I would weep if I had throat, mouth and eyes to weep with. All I ever loved has passed away to dust. All my loved ones are long gone. There is nothing but darkness to the end of the universe. Nowhere I can find rest.
As I describe the dream I cannot express the feeling of desolation that filled me. It is the most terrifying feeling I have ever known. This God-forsaken landscape is my own soul. I haunt the walls of the castle but I am exiled.
Someone woke me from oblivion, but she is gone and I cannot find her. Have no body in which to find her. I drift a long way over mountains...
I see a hairy wolf, dying at the foot of an oak tree with the glistening wound of a bullet in its haunch. I enter its body as its own spirit departs. Its corpse is mine and now I have a form in which to move. Now I can find someone to help me... One who has been touched by the same gentle spirit.
I can write no more. This is all I remember. The dream faded and as I try to recapture it I can only think how ridiculous it sounds.
I will steal a good piece of meat from the kitchen, in hopes of sweetening my friend. He eats most of my dinner and supper these days, while the farmer’s wife frets that I grow thin. He thrives at my expense, then dares to snap at me!
16th August
He came back. He ate the meat, very slowly and lovingly, licking and tearing it into thin slivers. As if he knew the risk I had taken to steal it for him.
Then he came and licked my hands. The blood was still on his tongue and my hands became wet with it, but he went on working with his long tongue until all was clean. I am forgiven!
When I went to bed my dreams were as vivid as ever, and unsettling. I dream that a tall old man is bending over my bed. There is a faint light behind him, but I cannot see his face. He is telling me something very important, whispering, whispering. (I cannot now remember a word but at the time it was vital). He takes my hands; his own are hairy, like paws! He leans towards me and I think he will kiss me; instead he licks my throat with a long, rough tongue. I shudder from head to foot with revulsion... and yet I want it to continue. I have no will to stop him.
I paused in writing to say a prayer. It seems, as I look back at my journal, that all I have recorded are sick ravings. Am I ill? Surely these dreams are not healthy – will I call evil upon myself, by writing them down?
22 August
I can barely hold the pen to write. I am exhausted and my eyes cloud with pain.
Last night when I met the wolf he would not come to me, only looked over his shoulder and trotted away into the orchard. I followed. I know I should not have done so, but with him a strange condition of mind comes upon me; that I am conscious but bereft of my own will – or rather, my will is all to obey him. So I put on hide boots and a shawl and go with him. As we cross the pastures my feet (even through the boots) become soaked. The sky is thick with stars and their soft light turns mountains and forest to an uncanny, shimmering realm. I look around fearfully as we go, yet with my friend I feel safe. He is so strange; sad and in need of my care, yet so strong – all that fierceness coiled up in his red eyes!
A spell is on me. We turn east along the base of the ridge, which leads us higher and higher along a climbing deer track. There are spruce saplings around us. Then we cross a stream and enter the forest, passing a shepherd’s hut as we climb the long valley. The slopes grow steeper. I am uneasy and out of breath. The ground between the great spruces is covered in thick black mould, full of fallen branches and trunks. Once I see two large shapes pass between the trees some distance away: bears. They watch us pass. My feet hurt, and I worry that we are going too far. I know I will not reach home again before dawn. Yet I cannot stop.
When dawn comes, we are deeper in the mountains than ever. We reach the top of a steep ridge just as the sun blazes on the silver limestone crags of the Carpathians. The chain of peaks rings us all around and they look as cold as snow. I am very tired now, cold and frightened. But whenever I falter, the wolf turns his bright eyes on me and forces me on. We are so far from anywhere!
Now we pass breath-taking narrow gorges and plunging waterfalls. I drink from streams, too tired to feel hungry. A mass of grey cloud comes down and soaks us in mist and rain. Animals watch us; wolves and foxes, lynx and wild pigs. They form a ring around us, as if the wolf draws them yet warns them away; as if he holds a magical power over them also.
The journey is confused and blurred. A mud path along a shadowy gorge, a grassy, open saddle with hazel groves, elders and blackberry bushes. We
descend and climb a deep gulley, and the firs close in, thick and dark around us. The wolf leads me out of the forest onto a rough track, the long white brush of his tail swaying.
There is a steep, thinly forested ridge on one side, a deep valley with a fierce river on the other, and a long silver line of mountains beyond. Far along this track, my companion halts. I sink down exhausted. I had my eyes on the ground, but as I look up I see a castle, a great, towering pile with broken battlements and ancient towers above a precipice. I catch my breath in terror. The Szekely farmers whisper of a castle from which evil has been visited upon them and their ancestors. No one speaks its name. But I know – with the deep dream-knowledge that my friend gives me – that this is that place.
The wolf leads me into the undergrowth below the track, and here I see the timbers of some great box that has been broken up and left to rot. He is directing me; I know what to do. Lifting lengths of timber aside I see a pile of earth that is darker than the brown mould on which it lies. Mingled with this substance are thick patches of a lighter dust, a sort of ash.
I spread out my shawl and with my bare hands I scoop the ash into it. It is damp, mould-scented, all laced with cobwebs. The wolf watches intently, panting, his tongue lolling over his long teeth. I cannot stop until all the dust is gathered. I make a bundle of my shawl. As I do so, he goes up onto the track and picks up something small and white between his teeth. Delicately, like a cat carrying a kitten, he brings this item to me.
It is a handkerchief, lacy and delicate, such as an Englishwoman would have. The initials W.H. are embroidered on one corner. I use it to tie the top of the shawl. Then the wolf has me carry the bundle to the courtyard of the castle.
Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula Page 4
