Dracul

by Dacre Stoker

  She was frowning. “They’re so old; some of the borders are wrong. They look hand-drawn. I don’t recognize the language.”

  My arm began to itch. “I think we should put them back, before someone comes up.”

  She ignored me, flipping through the maps, reviewing each one, studying each line, memorizing everything.

  “Matilda?”

  She held a finger to her lips.

  The last map.

  “All right,” she said softly, more to herself than to me.

  She put the maps back into the satchel.

  “Make sure they are in the same order.”

  “They are.”

  Matilda retied the string and placed the leather satchel back behind the wardrobe, attaching it to a small hook I hadn’t noticed before. “Help me move it back,” she said, gripping the side of the cabinet.

  Together, we moved the wardrobe back into place, lifting it as much as we could to keep from making noise again.

  “There may be something else. We need to keep looking,” Matilda said, turning her attention to the desk. She began rifling through the drawers.

  I turned back to the bed.

  A thick goose-down quilt covered the small frame, and a single feather pillow sat propped up at the head. The wooden frame was similar to my own, a simple structure with shallow-carved adornments and stained a forbidding brown. I leaned in close and sniffed the quilt—my nose buckled, and a loud sneeze forced its way out.

  “Bram!”

  I covered my nose and tried to hold back the second one, but it came with more force than the first.

  “Somebody will—”

  I sneezed a third time, my eyes filling with tears. When a fourth began to tickle at my nostrils, I found the strength to stop it as Matilda came towards me and smothered my face in a handkerchief. I waved her off and stepped back, my eyes locked on the quilt. When I began to lean in close again, she tried to pull me back, but I shook her off. This time I didn’t inhale; rather, I gleaned a better look. The quilt was covered in dust. Not a thin layer, but the kind of dust you find coating forgotten furniture in an attic. Dust like this didn’t just appear; it accumulated over time due to disregard and neglect.

  “How often would you say Nanna Ellen remakes our beds?”

  Matilda thought about it for a second. “Every Saturday, without fail.”

  “Then why not her own?”

  The question hung in the air, for neither of us had an answer. “For that matter, where does she sleep, if not in the bed?”

  She had a wooden chair at the desk. With a stiff back and arms, it wouldn’t allow for so much as a slouch. I could not imagine anyone attempting to sleep in it.

  “Maybe she sleeps on the floor,” Matilda offered. “My friend Beatrice once told me her father sleeps on the floor all the time due to a nagging pain in his back. The wooden floor is the only surface that provides relief.”

  “I don’t think Nanna Ellen has a bad back.”

  “Where, then?”

  The dust on the floor was thickest at the bed.

  I don’t know why I noticed it; maybe because I was simply looking down. At the bed frame, it wasn’t just dirty; the dust was piled high against the base. It looked as if someone had swept the room repeatedly against the bed rather than to the center of the floor, where it could be picked up. It reminded me of the mounds of dirt washed against the side of the house by rain, climbing against the walls in an attempt to enter. Wasn’t that the goal of dirt? To get inside and reclaim what is ultimately the property of the land?

  I reached down and lifted the corner of the mattress.

  Nanna Ellen’s bed was constructed in the same manner as my own. Under the blankets and sheets was a mattress stuffed with goose or chicken feathers, no more than five inches in thickness. This was a luxury for most, one we were quite grateful for. Pa’s position granted access to some of the finer things, and while my parents did not splurge on much, proper bedding was something they fervently believed in. They felt that without a good night’s rest, we would fail at our next day’s endeavors, and that that failure would, in turn, lead to the lackadaisical inertness they witnessed in so many of our countrymen. Whether or not this was true, I did not know. But as someone who had spent a substantial portion of his life in his bed, I was grateful for the comfort.

  Beneath the feather mattress of my bed was a box filled with straw. Each spring, the old straw would be removed and replaced with fresh from the fields behind Artane Lodge. We packed it in tight, and the box, at nearly two feet in height, was the perfect foundation. Beneath Nanna Ellen’s feather mattress lay a similar box, but as I pulled the mattress aside, it wasn’t straw I found but dirt, thick and black. Centered in the dirt was the concave impression of a body.

  “She sleeps in that?” Matilda breathed the words. “But why?”

  I didn’t answer her, though; I was too busy watching the worms as they wiggled out to greet us, slinking over the putrid soil from within the bed’s bilious bowels.

  * * *

  • • •

  IT WAS MATILDA who spoke first, her voice quavering. “We need to get out of here.”

  My eyes remained fixed on the bed, though, on the outline of Nanna Ellen’s body pressed into the moist soil. The stench, of death and decay, was nearly overpowering, as if a body, left to rot in the earth, had recently been uncovered by the gravedigger’s shovel. White maggots joined the worms, fluttering to the surface with excitement and vigor, their little bodies writhing. My mind went back to the last time I had seen such a sight nearly a year earlier. Thornley had been working in the fields at Artane near the barn and ran behind the house. I was having a day better than most, and Ma carried me downstairs to the sofa in the sitting room. When he barged in, his face flush and dripping with sweat, he could barely speak. He had run so hard that his breath deserted him, and it took him a moment to regain his voice. “You’ve got to see this,” he finally said between gasps. “Behind the barn.”

  He was eight at the time, and I was only six, but the excitement in his eyes lit a fire within me and I wanted to see whatever it was he had found. I wanted to see it then and there, and an energy surged through me, enough to help me to my feet. I could walk, but not well, so he threw my arm over his shoulder and helped me tackle each step. Faster than I could have moved on my own but slower than he would have hoped, we left the house and crossed the field to the barn, located on the east side. A large structure built to hold more than a hundred cows and nearly a dozen horses and sundry other livestock, the barn towered over most on the property, casting a shadow of immense proportion over the surrounding land. Together, we made our way around the south side and towards the chicken coops. Before we arrived, I sensed something was wrong, for the chickens were emitting the most awful reports. Their normal bawk, bawk, bock had been replaced by nervous clucks and squeals I would never imagine coming from fowl. As we neared, I noticed the muddy ground was littered with brown and white feathers and streaks of red that thickened around the coops themselves.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “A fox, I think. A fox did this. Or maybe a wolf. Something got inside the coops and killed six of the hens last night,” Thornley retorted. “Take a look.”

  The stench hit me then, the coppery odor of spilt blood and torn flesh. “I don’t want to.”

  “Don’t be a ninny.”

  “No, take me back home.”

  He wouldn’t, though; he kept dragging me closer. It didn’t matter that my feet stopped moving as I dug my heels into the dirt; he was much stronger than me, and pulling my frail body along was little chore for him. Before I realized it, we stood beside the open door of the coop, and my eyes couldn’t help but land on the shredded bodies of half a dozen hens. A cloud of flies buzzed over the coop, thick and gloomy, as they landed on the knotted flesh and picked at their r
epast. Tiny maggots dotted the exposed meat; newly hatched and hungry, they tumbled over one another in quest of their next bite. Bile engorged my throat, and before I could turn away the vomit sprayed from my mouth across the carnage.

  Thornley laughed. “When Ma serves you chicken tonight, I just thought you’d like to know where it came from. Fresh from the slaughter.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “BRAM, WE NEED TO LEAVE!” Matilda insisted in a loud whisper, tugging at my arm.

  “I don’t understand,” I responded quietly. “She cannot possibly—”

  “Now!”

  Matilda tried to pull me towards the door, but I remained firmly in place. My eyes returned to the dirt on the floor, the way it formed a small hill as it tried to climb the sides of the bed. Then I understood. When Nanna Ellen swept her room, she swept the dirt towards her bed rather than away from it or into a dustpan. Was it deposited back on the floor as she climbed in and out of the bed frame?

  I turned back to the floor and studied the footprints trailing from the door and around the room, the many little footprints—the prints of children—none large enough to have been produced by an adult.

  “She doesn’t leave footprints.”

  Matilda turned from the door and faced me. “What?”

  “The tracks on the ground, they all belong to us. See how tiny they are? Nanna Ellen is small, but her feet are still larger than ours. She hasn’t left a single print. Remember how the dust was when we first walked in? A thin coat spread evenly and undisturbed?”

  With that, Baby Richard began to stir in his crib—I had forgotten he was in the room with us. Matilda went to him. His little feet began to pump, and his blanket fell away. Richard’s face contorted, and for one brief moment the room fell into complete silence; then his mouth opened and unleashed a wailing shriek loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house. Matilda scooped him up and held him to her chest while gently rocking back and forth.

  I quickly returned the mattress back to its original position, careful not to touch the dusty quilt.

  Ma appeared at the door. “The lungs on that child will wake the dead! You didn’t wake him, did you?”

  Matilda shook her head, and, without missing a beat, let slip a lie. “We were in Bram’s room when he started crying. I didn’t know where Nanna Ellen went, so I figured I would check on him. I think he requires a new nappy.”

  Ma wasn’t listening to her, though; she stared at me. “Bram! You’re out of bed!”

  When I started to cross the room, she rushed towards me and wrapped her arm around my back in an effort to help, but I shook her off. “I can do it on my own, Ma. See?” And I did just that, walking from the side of the bed to the door. I’d be lying if I said it was easy; the effort was enough to bring a sheen of sweat to my brow, but I truly felt much better than I had in recent memory. My muscles wanted to work, but, after years of atrophy, the movement was difficult.

  Ma’s eyes teared up. “Well, I’ll be . . .”

  “It’s all right, Ma. He can do it,” Matilda exclaimed.

  Ma waved her off and took me in her arms. “Thank your lucky stars for Uncle Edward. God bless him!” She squeezed me in a hug that nearly lifted me off the ground. Beneath the sleeves of my nightshirt, the leeches’ bites itched.

  “How this woman keeps a clean house yet sleeps in such a mess, I’ll never understand.” She glanced around the room in disgust. “Out with the two of you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THERE IS SOMETHING I did not tell Matilda that day, something I kept to myself all this time and will take to my grave. As I stared down at the dirt in Nanna Ellen’s bed, as I watched the worms and maggots wiggle about, as I took in the scent of death, I was not as repulsed as she, as I should have been. Instead, it seemed vaguely welcoming—instead, I stood there and fought with all my strength the urge to climb inside and lie down.

  * * *

  • • •

  EVENING—I couldn’t recall the last time I had sat at the dinner table and taken my evening meal with the rest of the family. Had I ever? My illness had dominated my life for so long, all I could remember were meals in my room, brought to me by alternating members of the family. This made me feel like a burden upon them, a chore to be accomplished. At first, when Ma brought me down, I wasn’t sure even where to sit. There were seven chairs around the large wooden table, six of which had place settings. Had Matilda not nodded towards the chair to her right, the one lacking a setting, I would have continued standing there like a fool in front of my family, observing them.

  I took the seat Matilda indicated, and Ma handed me a plate and utensils. My fingers fumbled with the fork. As I glanced around the table, I could tell the others were uneasy as well. My little brother Thomas sat across from me and stared. Every few minutes, his finger would slip into his nose to pick at something I dared not consider, and Matilda delivered him a swift kick under the table. He frowned at her and continued his unholy quest. Ma sat to my right, oblivious to Thomas’s and Matilda’s activities as she was preoccupied with Richard, who was securely fastened into a high chair at her other side. His food had already been served, and Ma attempted to spoon mashed potatoes into his mouth only to watch him spit the pale mound back out and rub it into his lap.

  Pa sat opposite Ma on the long end of the table. I don’t think he wanted to draw attention to me; instead, he opted to pretend there was nothing abnormal about my presence. For this, I was grateful. Aside from Thomas’s overt stares, the others attempted to conceal their sense of wonder. On more than one occasion, I caught each of them glancing my way, but nothing was said about it.

  Then, however, Thornley mentioned it outright, his bluntness overpowering. I asked him to pass the bread, and he responded with, “Finally gave up on dying to see what was going on in the rest of the world, huh?”

  With this, Ma shot him her angriest look. “Your brother has been quite ill, and I think you should be grateful your Uncle Edward restored him to us.”

  “I think as long as he is cooped up in that room of his, he is not down here helping with the chores. Seems like he suffers from nothing more than laziness,” Thornley replied.

  Pa raised his eyebrows but added nothing to this thorny exchange; instead, he unfolded today’s newspaper and scanned the headlines.

  Thornley was only two years my senior, but to me he seemed much older. He was bigger, too, towering over me by at least six inches. While I was slight and thin, his build was bulky due in much part to the work he did to help Ma and Pa around the house. He tended to most of the animals and the yard, toting lumber and such. This made for a strong boy; even at nine years old, he was larger than others his age and he knew it. Thornley was always quick with a jab, whether verbal or physical.

  Nanna Ellen appeared with a large stewpot and set it at the center of the table, then began to fill our bowls one at a time, beginning with Thomas. When she got to mine, Matilda nudged me under the table. I did not peek over at her, though. If Nanna Ellen knew we had been snooping around her room, she said nothing about it. She came in after tending the laundry and proceeded to put away the clothing without even the slightest acknowledgment of our violation. Even when she deposited my laundry in the various drawers of my bureau, she did so without a word. Her head hung low, and her face remained obscured by her scarf.

  Nanna Ellen handed me my soup bowl, and I took it from her without meeting her eyes, even though I could sense them on me. It was only when she reached Pa that I dared to glance at her face. Matilda had been right. Nanna Ellen looked as if she had aged in the past few days; her skin was pale and gray, devoid of the shine normally blossoming at her cheeks. The strands of blond hair that poked out from around the scarf appeared dry and brittle. She tried to tuck them back under the scarf, but they fell back out, dangling over her face.

  “You d
on’t seem well, Ellen. Do you need to rest?” Ma said from across the table as she dabbed Richard’s cheeks with a napkin.

  Nanna Ellen offered a weak smile. “I believe I picked up a cold, is all. I’ll be okay. I’ll lie down after dinner and nip it in the bud. I’ve never been one to let some illness hold me down.”

  Thoughts of her bed popped back into my mind, the little worms and maggots sifting through the dirt. I could picture her lying on top of it all, her deep gray eyes wide open in a blank stare as these earth creatures slowly fed on her flesh. The leech bites across my arms began to itch, and I fought the urge to scratch at them. One was visible at my wrist, and I couldn’t help but glance down at it, now nothing more than a little pink circle, healed nearly to the point of invisibility. I noticed Matilda eyeing me, and I pulled the sleeve of my shirt down over the mark and waited for a kick under the table that never came.

  I took a bite of my bread, and Pa cleared his throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  I surveyed the piece of bread in my hand, then looked down at my soup, unsure of what he meant.

  Thornley snickered.

  Pa frowned at him before returning his gaze to me. “A civilized family says grace before they eat.”

  I had taken my meals in my room for so long, such things escaped me. I put the bread down beside my bowl, pressed my hands together, and closed my eyes.

  “Perhaps you should speak aloud,” said Pa.

  I opened my eyes. A smirk washed across Thornley’s face, and I felt my cheeks flush. “Yes, Pa.” I tried to recall the last time I had said grace and simply couldn’t. My mind went blank, and I found myself staring down at my soup bowl.

  Pa looked to my sister. “Matilda, remind your brother what it is to say grace.”

  Matilda sat up straight in her chair and clasped her hands, her voice loud and ringing through the room. “Bless, O Lord, this food for Thy use, and make us ever mindful of the wants and needs of those less fortunate. Amen.”