He recoiled, staring at me. “What did I say?”
“Do you not remember?”
“No,” he said. Then he leapt up and strode out of the room, exclaiming, “No! No!” in such despair I almost wept to hear him. Oh, what am I to do?
Later
After I had left Jonathan alone for a while, I went in to him again. He was calm but looking very frightened. I cannot bear to see him in such torment. “Mina, all I remember of last night is... is wrestling with blackness, as if I had become some dull-minded beast that cared for nothing but its own vile impulses.” He began to weep. “I fear I have done you some terrible harm.”
“No, you have not,” I reassured him again. “No harm is done. Surely our love is strong enough to withstand these lapses in each other?”
“I don’t know,” he said, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead.
“And you do not remember... much?”
“Very little.”
“Then you must have had a fever,” I said, drawing his hands into mine and stroking his head. I breathed a sigh of relief that he might therefore have little recollection of my own uncontrolled response. “And so had I.”
“Mina, forgive me.”
“My darling,” I said, “there is nothing to forgive.”
He fell quiet then, but I fear... oh what is the use of failing to articulate it? I fear that our trip to Transylvania was bad for him after all. That it woke memories, and perhaps a relapse of the brain fever that possessed after his experience in Castle Dracula.
* * *
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
27 October
Something terrible is happening to me. I can deny it no more. Three nights in the past four this black beast, as I term it, has come upon me. It brings me out of sleep in the middle of the night, a fire raging in my brain, a black inferno. My ears fill with a sound like the beating of wings. I cannot think, cannot reason, can only succumb to blind impulse. I find myself forced by this dark raging to embrace Mina – to seize her, even tearing her nightdress in my eagerness to uncover her body – and not to desist until this grim, animal fire is sated.
Afterwards, I hate myself. I shrink with loathing from the horror that is my own body and soul. Yet I can never remember much; it is as if I see all through a thick veil, and am divorced from my own actions. I recall it with a kind of excitement, despite my loathing. I recall, also, that Mina never resists. I would expect her to draw away, to exclaim in shock, to bring me out of the trance and back to my true self with stern words. Yet she does not. She permits all that I – all that the beast does. She seems almost to encourage it, to participate in uncovering each other’s nakedness, while her eyes turn liquid, languorous, glittering in the dark.
I found the marks of her nails upon my back this morning. They seem like the marks of Satan.
Mina and I have both been educated – by Church, family and society – in the true Christian belief that base impulses must be sublimated to the will. All our married lives, out of the love and intense respect I bear for my wife, I have adhered to that principle. I have troubled her as little as possible, and then as briefly as I may and with all tenderness, and only in the hope that Quincey might have a sibling.
For if these lusts are base in man, in woman they are an abomination. My wife is not wanton – God help me, I will not see her in that light!
There is only one explanation. That whatever malign spirit possesses me possesses Mina also; it is not we who couple like beasts, but some evil force using our bodies. Yet this line of reasoning also is madness – I am ill, not possessed! My thoughts whirl round and round in circles and I reach no answer.
I am afraid. What is happening to me? God, grant me an enemy I can see and fight with my hands! Anything but this!
One matter is decided. Until this fever leaves us, and is safely gone, Mina and I can no longer share a bed.
* * *
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
29 October
I have today written to Van Helsing to tell him how worried I am about my husband. Jonathan, of course, did not want to trouble him, but this has gone on long enough and it is ridiculous to struggle on alone when we have such good friends who will help us at a moment’s notice! Would we not do the same for them?
The past few days have been difficult. Jonathan insists on going to work, and apparently convinces everyone there that he is well, but once at home he falls into a dark mood and spends hours alone in his study. At night he is plagued by sweats and nightmares. I dearly want to be close to him, to soothe him, to show him that I am not afraid and will cleave to him through the worst of these attacks – but now he has banished himself to a guest room, and will not even see me after he has retired.
Secretly, his decision grieves me. I am so lonely I have even considered asking Elena to share my bed instead – the very idea, it would be like returning to my girlhood with Lucy! How comforting it would be. Still, I sleep alone. Strange fancies swarm around me – some frightening and some pleasant – but I do not succumb. I do miss Jonathan, even – especially – that unknown, passionate Jonathan who embraced me in the depths of the night. When I think of those times it is not with any degree of revulsion, but with a kind of breathless wonder.
But that is why he has left me. He is ashamed! And that has made me ashamed, too. However, my only concern now is returning my poor dear husband to health.
Thank goodness Elena is unaffected by all of this!
30 October
A telegram arrived. Van Helsing will be here in three days’ time! Soon all will be well.
* * *
ELENA KOVACS’S JOURNAL
30 October
It distresses me to see Mr and Mrs Harker, who have been such friends to me, suffering as they are. They think I do not know, but I notice many small signs. My Dark Companion is playing with them – as with the cat, so with Mr Harker. I have to remind myself how callously they destroyed him, then I smile, and know that their suffering is for a higher purpose: to give my love his revenge. And to help me give him back his earthly shape.
I must put aside my human concerns and fix my mind, my will, all my intentions, upon fulfilling him. I stroke the brass urn in which his ashes lie, and feel the subtle vibrations of his presence.
He is telling me that the time is drawing near, I must act quickly now. I am very afraid, my heart beats hard with anxiety, but I have thought of a way!
The child is very close to me now. The child will do our bidding.
Chapter Eight
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
1 November
We are anticipating Van Helsing’s visit with eagerness. The prospect of his presence is a great ray of sunlight dispersing our darkness. Jonathan and I are in better humour already. Dear Dr Van Helsing was always, in the dark days we endured, a steadying influence, the voice of sanity and wisdom piercing the chaos.
God forbid that black times should be falling on us again. But if they are, we shall face them with all the courage at our disposal. And learn the lesson that we can never relax our vigilance, never take the peaceful order of our lives for granted!
2 November
Well, I shall be in poor form to greet our friend. A tiresome accident has sapped my strength and I have been unable to eat, which leaves me all the more enervated.
Doubly tiresome, because it marred what was otherwise a perfect afternoon. It was Quincey’s first day out of bed. Elena and I had lunch with him in the nursery, then we sat on the terrace to enjoy the sun. The weather was delightfully mild and the garden glorious, all wreathed in the lushness of autumn. The roses are still in bloom, red and apricot and white. Beyond the lawn, the sweet docile cows were nosing over the fence, so Quincey naturally wished to pet them. The exertion made him wheeze quite badly. I was concerned for him, but Elena works wonders with the child; she is so calm, stroking his brow with her pale, firm hands. She has a wonderful quality of repose, despite her passionate nature.
&
nbsp; We quieted Quincey by reading to him, and he soon recovered, sitting drowsy and happy on the bench between us in the golden light. When I finished the story, the dear boy wanted to bring me a rose as a reward. Elena quickly fetched cutters and a small brass bowl – in which, I suppose, she meant to place some blooms. Off Quincey trotted and cut a beautiful deep-red rose with a long stem. Bringing it to me, he climbed on my knee and insisted he must present the rose by placing the stem between my teeth, “Like the Spanish ladies,” he said. He was so charming and so intent on this ritual that I complied. I opened my mouth to receive the rose, but instead of placing it between my teeth he laid the stem along my lower lip. Oh, I had not considered how long and sharp the thorns would be! I would have removed it, but Quincey shut my lips with his fingers, saying, “Hold the rose, Mama. You look so pretty.” Not wishing to spoil his game, I kept very still so the thorns would not wound me. “So very beautiful,” he said.
But then, obviously not comprehending his own actions, his small fingers pressed tighter upon my mouth and I felt thorns pierce my inner lip and gums. I could not speak, but I made a muffled sound of pain. Realizing that he was hurting me, Quincey must have meant to relieve my pain as swiftly as possible.
He seized the head of the rose and tried to take it from my mouth by dragging it sideways across my lower lip. The tough thorns pierced me and ripped through the tender flesh. It felt like acid and fire; I cried out, my mouth falling open. The pain was so extreme it made me sob and cough; I could make no other sound. And the blood that poured from the wounds! I had no idea that the flesh of the lip could bleed so copiously. You would think some great artery ran through it! Quincey jumped off my knee – so shocked, I think, that he had no expression at all on his intent little face. He put his hand into the flow of blood, as if trying ineffectually to stop it. The next I knew, Elena was there, catching the blood in the brass bowl she’d brought out for the roses. (There was some dust or dirt crusted at the bottom; where she had obtained this appalling old object, I have no idea. From the garden shed, I imagine.) She held my head, tipping it forward so that the fast-flowing blood would collect in the bowl. I’m sure she was trying to help, but this did nothing to stop the bleeding. I was, however, too shaken to protest. I felt myself turning faint and sick.
I fell into a swoon, and when I came round I was lying on the couch just inside the french window, with Elena and Dr Gough – whom, I found out later, Mary had called – leaning over me. He was holding a compress to my lip, and the bleeding had all but stopped. Mary was with Quincey, trying to reassure him. The pain was indescribable, all the more unpleasant for being in the mouth, and so bad I felt quite ill. Nevertheless I sat up and explained – as best I could, my speech being somewhat affected – that the whole mishap had been an accident and that Quincey was not to blame.
Then they let Quincey come to me. He was so mortified by what had happened that he wept, poor lamb. His remorse distressed me far more than my own discomfort!
Well, that was yesterday. The physical shock has diminished. The doctor has given me tinctures for the pain, saying it will be some days before healing sets in. Who would believe that so trivial an injury could cause such prostration!
3 November
Dr Van Helsing is here. Although his hair has turned quite grey since his poor wife’s death, and he has a certain frailty about him, his vigorous spirit seems to bring our whole house to life! Quincey adores him.
He expressed great concern over my injury, but I explained it was an accident. I do not wish to dwell upon it. Jonathan is the one in need of his expertise.
Over dinner (at which I was content to sip consommé and wine), Jonathan seemed more his normal self and the evening was so pleasant that I did not want us to touch on our reasons for calling our friend at all. It was almost possible to believe that nothing has happened! But Van Helsing is too shrewd to let anything pass him by. After the meal, when Elena had gone to Quncey and the three of us were alone in the drawing room, he said, “Now, my friends, we have endured too much together for this reticence. I know you would not call me so urgently without cause. You may speak frankly and freely. What troubles you?”
He said this with a charming but knowing smile. I was ready to begin, to spare my husband’s feelings, but to my surprise Jonathan spoke first. “I don’t know where to start. We have no specific cause for concern, such as we had with Lucy. I have been suffering... dreams, nightmares, delusions. How foolish you must think us to drag you here for something so trivial!”
Jonathan paced about as he spoke, and his cheeks were pale. Van Helsing, watching him, replied gravely, “On the contrary, a matter that so clearly distresses you cannot be trivial. What manner of dreams are these?”
“Horrible... oppressive.”
“I too have been troubled,” I said, almost forgetting the pain of my lip in my eagerness to speak. “Though not as sorely as my husband. I fear that our second journey to Transylvania was unwise. It seems to have stirred bad memories.”
“But your memories were more fresh the first time,” said Van Helsing. “Why not the bad dreams then? Why now?”
I said, “I think it would save time if I showed you my journal.”
“Mine, too,” Jonathan said heavily. So we fetched our notebooks – we had not read each other’s, so I don’t know what his said – and waited patiently while Van Helsing read. The recollection of certain events made me blush, but I suppose they were best disclosed. Van Helsing showed no sign of embarrassment as he read. In fact, at one or two points, he smiled! I was mortified, though naturally I hid it. I suppose he knows so much of life, nothing can shock him.
When he finished, Jonathan spoke more easily, as if relieved of the burden of explaining from the beginning.
“I have acted as a beast towards my wife,” he said in a raw, desperate tone. “I have done something terrible, used her savagely. But why, I don’t know, cannot remember. It is all through a thickness of dark glass, as if I were drugged, or fevered.”
I said quickly, “I have told Jonathan many times, he has not hurt me. He did nothing that was... in any way unnatural between a married couple.”
Van Helsing looked so keenly at me that I blushed. “It seems that you remember more than your husband, Madam Mina. Have you any theories?”
“Only as I wrote; a fever, the weather, the worry of Quincey’s health...”
Van Helsing shook his head with a rather grim smile. “You have seen enough of supernatural to know that it exists as firm and solid as Nature; yet still you cling to the rational, the English explanation! But this is commendable. Dismiss the rational before you look to the irrational.”
“Well, what should we do?” Jonathan said angrily. “Spend a week at the seaside to see if a holiday cures us? Quincey is not well enough to travel!” He sank down onto a chair. “Forgive me, Professor. But I am at my wits’ end. Mina doesn’t deserve this.”
Van Helsing was contemplative. How wonderfully calm he is! “You say you cannot remember certain matters. Is this blockage of your own making, one of denial, or something else? There is a way to find out, if you will permit me. I would like to hypnotize you, Jonathan.”
I saw my husband start back, his eyes so wild I thought he would dismiss the idea out of hand. But after a moment he lowered his head and sighed. “Of course. Do what you must.”
Van Helsing hypnotized me often, when we were pursuing our enemy to his lair, and while Dracula’s hold over me – his vile blood mingled with mine! – made a link between his mind and mine. The process holds no fear for me. But Jonathan was uneasy, even when Van Helsing had made him comfortable and made the usual passes in front of his eyes. Jonathan seemed to resist. But at last I saw him relax and sink back into the chair, seeming more peaceful than he has in days.
The atmosphere was thick and close; the deep brown of the walls and curtains a stifling barrier against the night, the gas lamps hot, dim globes. I have become too sensitive to such atmospheres; they afflict
me constantly.
“I want you to think back, Jonathan,” Van Helsing began, soft and grave. “You are safe, so the memory cannot hurt you. You are in bed beside Mina. You feel a strange impulse come upon you; all seems dark and unreal, as if you dream yet do not sleep.” Jonathan frowned and uttered a moan. “Tell me what is happening.”
“I hear... I hear the wings of bats all around me. I can hear voices sighing, but nothing is there! A black wind is whirling tighter and tighter around me... I cannot escape, I lie paralysed, not even wanting to resist. No! It’s too late! He’s inside me!”
These words sounded so forlorn, so eerie, that I shivered. Van Helsing spoke soothingly. “Who is inside you?”
“Dracula.”
As he spoke the name, the whole room seemed to jolt and wheel around me. I think I knew that Jonathan was going to say it. Yet when he did, it came as a deep and violent shock, a wrenching of my whole being. I said nothing, lest I distract Van Helsing and ruin the hypnotism.
“How do you know it is him?”
“I simply know. I am him. He is me. I see Mina lying beside me, her face so beautiful beside me in the soft wash of moonlight through the curtain... Ah no, no. I cannot let him... but I cannot stop him! He must possess her. He laughs and I cannot stop him because he controls me.”
Van Helsing’s face was impassive. “Does he speak to you? Tell you anything?”
Jonathan paused. His eyes were closed but his face worked in a way that was terrible to see. “He tells me nothing. He only possesses me... but I feel him mocking me. As if to say, ‘You think you have vanquished me but I can never die.’ And then Dracula uses my body to – to ravish my own wife!”
I shuddered. Van Helsing said, quickly and calmly, “And when it is over?”
“He leaves. I am myself again. Knowing I have committed a terrible sin. That we both have!” To my horror, Jonathan opened his eyes and pointed at me. “She knows! She knows that it was Dracula who lay with her, not her husband! Mina, did you know and yet did not fight? Did you allow…? No. No.”
Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula Page 11
