by Olga Wojtas
“Thank you so much,” I gasped. My reaction was part relief, part embarrassment. I wasn’t in a grave. I wasn’t in the kirkyard. I was in a room. The coffin lid hadn’t even been nailed down: I could have kicked it away.
I investigated my surroundings. We were in some sort of workshop. Jagged pieces of timber were stacked against the wall, a saw and a container of nails on a stool beside them. The lantern stood on a workbench alongside all sorts of strange paraphernalia, including metal-bound wooden hoops and a contraption with cross-bars, moveable arms, levers and handles. A cheese press.
The stench from the hessian sack was slowly leaving my nostrils, and instead I could smell sour milk. I spotted a row of large metal buckets, some full of milk, some empty. And with a horrified shudder, I saw still more were filled with blood.
I turned to share my horror with Lord Erroll. He was smiling. Perhaps he hadn’t yet spotted the gory sight. Or perhaps he had. He wasn’t wearing his muffler, and in the lamplight, I could see his long, sharpened fangs.
I thought I had been rescued, but now I wasn’t so much out of the frying pan into the fire as out of the coffin into the realm of the undead.
“You’re not the Earl of Erroll,” I said bitterly. “You’re a vampire.”
He gave a slight bow. “Indeed so, madam. My name is Dracula.”
Every one of my muscles weakened in shock. “Count Dracula,” I whispered.
He waved a self-deprecating hand. “Oh, please don’t call me that. I don’t think it’s right to use a title that’s been conferred through an accident of birth. Just Dracula will do.”
I was scarcely listening to what he was saying. I couldn’t take my eyes off those canines, glistening in the lamplight. He was about to turn me into a vampire. What sort of missions could I carry out for Miss Blaine if I had an uncontrollable urge to go around biting men, or, if I could persuade the authorities not to be so gender-specific, anybody? And the council would undoubtedly fire me as a librarian for reasons of health and safety.
There was only one solution. I had to prevent Dracula from biting me. He would find that a Blainer wasn’t one of these droopy, swooning women he was used to. When I was a schoolgirl, I was well able to deal with unwanted attention from the boys of the Royal High School and Heriot’s – a vampire surely couldn’t be much more difficult. My teenage status of Ballbreaker McMonagle could be upgraded to Toothcracker McMonagle.
If Dracula could be killed with a Bowie knife, a saw should work equally well. I grabbed the saw off the stool, scattering the nails on the floor, and dropped into a martial arts stance, the saw in one hand, and the stool in front of me like a shield.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Protecting myself,” I said.
“From what?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me. Are you saying you didn’t order your henchmen to kidnap me and put me in there?” I nodded towards the coffin.
He gasped. “In there? In my bed? Good gracious, my mama would never condone such a thing!”
“Yeah, well, we don’t always do what our mothers would like.” I held the stool more tightly. “Just so as you understand, I’m not going to let you bite me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry, I’ll try to be a bit clearer. You make a move on me, and I’ll shove your teeth so far down your throat that you’ll have to brush them in a very unusual way. Comprenez?”
“Madam!” There was no doubting his shock. “I am not in the habit of biting people. My mama would not tolerate such behaviour.”
I doubted his shock. He was play-acting, trying to lull me into carelessness.
“Nice old lady, is she, your mama?” I asked. “Don’t suppose she’s bitten anyone in her life – or her afterlife, or whatever it is you lot are in. I know all about you. I’ve read my Bram Stoker.”
His mouth dropped open, displaying his fangs to best advantage. “That…” he whispered. “That … that…”
His legs seemed to give way and he collapsed on the ground. He looked quite dreadful, his face at least two shades paler than it had been. Had he been anyone else, I would have rushed over with the stool, and helped him to sit. But I could see his plan. He was trying to lure me closer so that he could sink his fangs into me.
He was curling up into a foetal position. “That…” he repeated, “that…”
He was barely audible now, but I have remarkably acute hearing. “That … that book…”
I shuddered. I had frequently used those very words myself.
Now I knew he wasn’t faking – we librarians can always tell. Nobody better understands the power of books. It was my duty to promote good reading experiences. I hadn’t time to speculate what had upset him so much: if someone was traumatised by a book, it was up to me to put things right as quickly as possible.
With no further concern for my own safety, I went and knelt beside him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “There, there,” I said. “Did a nasty book upset you? Nasty book! Don’t give it another thought. There are lots of lovely books around. Lots and lots. We’ll get you a lovely book that you’ll like, and you won’t have to think of the nasty book ever again.”
He looked up at me pitifully, showing absolutely no sign of wanting to bite me. “Really?” he asked.
“Really,” I confirmed. I wondered what book to get him. He seemed to be a bit of a mummy’s boy, so something with a strong mother figure. Medea. No, she killed her children in revenge for Jason cheating on her. Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. No, she was a total pain. I was looking for a nice mum. Mrs Weasley would have been ideal, but she wouldn’t appear until 1997. The Railway Children, featuring Mrs Waterbury. Sadly, we were just too early for that – it wouldn’t be published until 1905.
And then I had it. Little Women, with the saintly Marmee, had already been in print for several decades. “There’s a lovely book with a lovely mum, set in America. Have you heard of America?”
He nodded.
“Good. You’ll enjoy it. Well, Beth dies, but she’s quite boring, so it doesn’t really matter.” I realised too late that I should have said “spoiler alert” but he was still recovering from his agitation, so I hoped he wouldn’t remember.
He hauled himself up to a sitting position against the wall. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re very kind.”
“Just doing my job,” I said.
Now that the immediate literary crisis was over, it struck me that another crisis was still pending.
“You’re sure that you had nothing to do with my incarceration?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“In that case,” I said, “the thugs who smacked me over the head and dumped me in there are liable to come back. They’re planning to bury me. I think we should leave. Quickly.”
I got up and went to the door. It was locked.
“How did you get in?” I asked Dracula in puzzlement. “Have you been here the whole time?”
“I’d only just arrived when I found you,” he said. “I came in through the window.”
The window was shuttered. He must have closed the wooden panels after he came in. I wrenched the shutters open. Only the lower sash windows opened, and it was too small for either of us to get through.
“How did you get the upper sash to move?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I got in there, and then climbed over the top of the shutters.” He pointed to a tiny area of broken glass in the top pane.
“There’s no need for sarcasm,” I said. “How did you really get in?”
He stood up, and then before my very eyes, he disappeared. In his place was a brown bat, which flapped around the room a few times, then hovered on the opposite side of the room to the broken window. Suddenly, it shot past me so quickly that I couldn’t register where it had gone. Except it was no longer there.
I peered at the fractured pane and saw two tiny brown ears wiggling in from the outside, followed by a cute wee brown furry face. The bat s
eemed to breathe in, and then it was through, its wings outstretched, making great whirling circles round the room.
And just as suddenly as the count had disappeared, the bat disappeared, and there was Dracula, descending lithely to the floor like Nureyev performing a jeté.
“That, madam,” he said, panting slightly, “is how I really got in.”
I had to applaud. “That’s very good,” I said. “Although it doesn’t help me much.” I examined the window. If the entire thing was removed, we would be able to get out, but the wood round the two sashes was solid. If I battered it with the stool, I was sure it would be the stool that splintered. A thought struck me. “Are you able to give me just a wee bite, enough to turn me into a bat, but not enough to turn me into the undead?”
He started to curl up again, moaning, “That book … that book…”
“OK, OK,” I said. “Plan B. You fly off whenever you like, I’ll hide behind the door, and when the goons come back, I’ll nip past them and run away. I always won the four hundred yard race on sports day.”
He had uncurled and was looking at me in bemusement. “But I need to take this – that’s why I’m here.”
He indicated the coffin I had so recently vacated.
“Take it where?”
“I’m taking it home,” he said. “Back to the castle.”
I looked at him, a slight, delicate figure, quite unlike the brawny Cart Woman, who had the additional advantage of a cart.
“That’s impossible,” I said. “You can’t carry that.”
“Allow me to contradict you,” he said. He put the lid back on top of the coffin and I saw there were grooves enabling it to lie flush. If the body inside was alive or undead, the lid could be closed neatly and effectively from within. With a deft movement, he picked up the top end of the coffin and pulled the whole thing upright, then whisked it across the floor in an elegant figure of eight.
“My own design,” he said.
I now saw that there were wheels attached to the base of the coffin, allowing it to move effortlessly.
“That’s very clever,” I said. “Have you patented it? You really should, or someone else could steal your idea.”
“The way they stole my coffin?”
“Exactly,” I said. “And if I could make a suggestion – there’s been another invention recently called the suitcase. If you could modify your wheels to fit that, you would make your fortune.”
He looked a little uncomfortable. “I already have a fortune. It’s thoughtful of you to suggest that I involve myself with patents and modifications, but I dislike bureaucracy almost as much as I dislike confrontation.”
I understood his reluctance, especially as bureaucracy and confrontation can go hand in hand.
He sent the coffin spinning round, demonstrating its impressive turning circle. “I really should go.”
“But it will take you hours to get back to the castle, and you’ll have to wait until dawn to see where you’re going,” I said.
He gave a small, self-effacing laugh. “The distance and the dark are no problem – I’ve taken it on much more complicated journeys. But I would be very grateful for your help to begin with. Then perhaps you would like to come back with me and have a cup of tea?”
This was an offer not to be refused. “Of course,” I said. “What do you need me to do?”
He blushed a fetching shade of pink. “Are you – are you wearing undergarments?”
This male preoccupation with women’s underwear was pathetic. We Morningsiders have never been amused by the Weegie jibe, “all fur coat and nae knickers”. I gave Dracula the sort of look that could incinerate a Royal High boy at ten paces.
“I believe that’s a private matter,” I snapped.
“Forgive me for asking such an intimate question,” he stammered. “I merely thought you might have been able to tear off a strip of your petticoat.”
We had been talking at cross-purposes.
“Not a problem,” I said. I went to lift the hem of my skirt and Dracula swiftly turned away, shielding his eyes. I was coming round to the view that he was quite shy, really not the type to bite bosoms. There were rows of tucks at both petticoats’ hems, so it was easy to rip away the bottom edges.
Once my skirt was decently covering my ankles again, I waved the lengths of cotton at Dracula. “Will these do?”
“Perfectly,” he said. He rapidly tied each length to the top handles of the coffin while he outlined what he wanted me to do once we were outside. It didn’t make any sense – in fact, it sounded total nonsense – but his tone was exactly that of a form teacher. When you hear that voice, you know that however daft the instructions, your job is just to obey.
“Won’t it hurt?” I asked.
“I can tolerate a degree of discomfort if it is necessary for the task in hand,” he said.
Or task in teeth, I thought. I admired his attitude. It was the sort of thing I would expect a Blainer to say.
“So now we smash our way through the window with the coffin?” I asked.
Dracula winced. “We do not. I don’t wish my bed to suffer any more damage.”
“Then how do we break the window? The stool isn’t going to be strong enough, and there’s nothing else around that looks suitable.”
“There’s me,” he said, “I’ll jump through it.”
I looked at him. He was so slight, he would make even less impact than the stool.
He noticed my scepticism and gave a small smile. “There’s a technique to it,” he said, wheeling the coffin to lean against the wall near the window. “Ready? We’ll need to move fast since the breaking glass will probably alert your kidnappers.”
“Ready,” I said.
And for the second time that night, Count Dracula disappeared and was replaced by a massive shaggy-haired wolf. It backed up slightly, tensing its hind paws, then suddenly gave a mighty leap, crashing through the window, sending splinters of glass and wood everywhere.
I whacked at the debris round the window frame with the legs of the stool, pulled over the coffin by its new cotton petticoat cords, and quickly manoeuvred it onto and over the windowsill. Then I clambered out myself, pulling my thick skirt tightly round me to avoid getting cut by the remaining shards of glass.
Lights were being lit in distant chalets. We had to get away. I balanced the top end of the coffin on the wolf’s hindquarters. I took the cotton cords, crossed them over in the wolf’s jaws to form a bridle, and fastened the ends to the coffin’s carrying handles. I clambered into the coffin, grabbing the handles in the lid to pull it closed over me, and shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
The wolf went. It wasn’t the best journey I’ve ever experienced. Given the lurching from side to side over uneven terrain and the sounds of disturbed undergrowth and branches, I guessed we were going the direct way through the forest. I was feeling quite groggy by the time we slewed to a halt outside what I must now call Castle Dracula. I pushed the handles to open the coffin lid, my knuckles white with tension.
The phrase “a braw bricht moonlicht nicht” could have been coined for the occasion. The castle was a black Gothic silhouette, however recent its construction. Dracula stood there panting, no longer a wolf, but still fastened to the coffin by the cotton cords in his mouth. Perhaps it was a trick of the moonlight, but his face was paler than I had ever seen it.
“You were a little heavier than I expected,” he gasped.
“Muscle weighs more than fat,” I snapped. Not true, of course – a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat – but it’s amazing what you can get away with if you say it confidently enough.
“I think you are the most muscular lady I have ever met,” he said.
I accepted the compliment with a gracious bow once I had scrambled out of the coffin. “I work out a lot,” I said, untying the cords from the handles and freeing him. He spat out a few loose threads.
“Thank you,” he said. “Welcome to my house. Enter freely and of your
own free will.”
I wondered if I should tell him about the tautology, and also remind him that he’d said this all before. But I worked out it must be his traditional greeting to guests, the vampire equivalent of “You’ll have had your tea.”
He lifted up a terracotta flowerpot from beside the entrance and produced a massive iron key with which he unlocked the great wooden door. He returned to pick up the top end of the coffin, preparing to lug it into the castle. He was obviously exhausted and, conscious of all the steps we would have to go up, I grabbed the other end. He demurred a little, but not too much. We got the coffin upstairs and into a large room that looked like a bedroom, except that it had no bed. There was a large ornately carved wardrobe against one wall, and a chest of drawers with a jug of water and a glass on it. There was a stepped plinth in the centre of the room, covered in a purple velvet cloth. Between us, we hoisted the coffin on top of it.
With a deft move, Dracula unclipped the lid, lifted it off and leaned it against the wall. For the first time, I noticed a brass plaque on it. There were no dates on it, merely the name Draculek.
Dracula saw me looking at it. “It’s what my mama calls me,” he said with his small self-deprecating laugh. “I know it’s a bit babyish and I should change it, but I’ve got used to it over the centuries.” He adjusted a fold of purple velvet and looked on the scene with a critical eye.
“Well, well,” he said in an undertone. “It can’t be helped.”
He sounded exhausted and despondent.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I shouldn’t complain. I have my bed back. It won’t be as comfortable as it was before, but I’m sure I shall get used to it in time.”
“What you need is a wee cup of tea,” I said. “Point me in the direction of the kitchen, and I’ll make it.”
After a token protest, he let me go off. It was a proper Victorian kitchen with whitewashed plaster walls, a stone floor and a solid-fuel range, where a tea kettle was already bubbling away. But in the middle of the room was something I hadn’t expected.
“Dracula, there’s a cow in your kitchen,” I called.
