by Dacre Stoker
I walked over to the pie and tried to slip my finger under the crust; Ma slapped at my hand. “Not until after dinner, Bram. It isn’t going anywhere.”
“It better not,” I said, offering a wink to Margaret before heading into the parlor where I found Thomas leaning against the hearth while Pa sat in his favorite chair, pipe in hand. His face was flushed and locked in a scowl; neither of the two spoke as I stepped in. Pa waved a frustrated hand at my brother, then took another puff of his pipe.
“Ma says you are still set on lodging a bullet in your brain before your twentieth birthday,” I said.
Thomas grew defensive. “You, too, Bram? Of everyone, I thought you would understand.”
“And why would I understand?”
“You know precisely why.”
Pa pulled the pipe from his mouth and blew a smoke ring before speaking, his voice subdued and somber. “He says I broke your spirit and saddled you with a desk job, that I am trying to do the same to him, and he will not have any of it.”
“My situation is hardly the same,” I replied, knowing it was only half true. “My position at the Office of Petty Sessions is a great opportunity, and it affords me the income I need to attend the theater, among other things.”
“But you’d rather be working in the theater, wouldn’t you, Bram?”
To this question, I said nothing. I didn’t glance at Pa, but I felt his eyes on me.
Thomas continued, “If given the opportunity, I think you would leave the castle and become an actor at the drop of a hat! Imagine the life: traveling from city to city, country to country, all these far-off places and foreign people, all of them coming to behold the illustrious Bram Stoker alight upon their humble stage. They would shout your name and wait for a glimpse of you after the performance as you exit the theater, ask you to sign their playbills.”
“Nonsense,” I replied.
“It’s the truth.”
“What does any of this have to do with your gallivanting off to India?” Pa grumbled.
Thomas sighed. “If you had the opportunity to fight in the Coalition Wars, don’t you think it would have made you a better man?”
“That is even before my time, my son. The only fighting I have done has been in the halls of our government, albeit just as bloody.”
“In India, the challenge to rebuild British interests is enormous. The government, laws . . . it’s a blank slate. I’ll be fighting for what is right, no different than you. The only difference is the battleground.”
“Hardly,” Pa scoffed. “You will be a target for the locals.”
“I’ll be gone but two years; when I return, I will accept whatever post at the castle you wish. You can chain me to the desk alongside Bram. Or, better yet, I’ll take his position when he finally runs off to the theater,” Thomas said.
At this remark, I laughed. “Maybe I’ll put the bullet in your brain and save us all the trouble.”
“I’ve seen you shoot. I do not believe I have anything to worry about.”
Pa chuckled. “I will grant him that, Bram. You are a horrible shot.”
Ma poked her head around the corner. “Nobody is shooting anybody until after dinner. To the table with all of you.”
Pa rose from his chair and patted Thomas on the back. “We will continue this conversation later.”
Thomas said nothing, only pushed past him towards the dining room.
When he was gone, Pa turned to me. “He is going to go; there is little any of us can do to stop him. He has that same fire in his eye I had at that age. The service might actually do him good, give him a means to channel some of that grit burning within him. I will not sleep a wink, though, when he is gone; neither will your mother. I can see her now, running each day to fetch the post, waiting for a letter detailing her son’s last day.”
“You shouldn’t think such things; I’m sure he’ll be fine. Thomas can take care of himself. You taught him to handle firearms when he was a boy, same as the rest of us. And he’s a fighter; I have yet to see someone get the better of him.”
“I think I can take him.”
The voice came from behind me, and I turned to find Matilda smiling at the two of us. “Matilda!” I scooped her up and spun her around, the hem of her skirt swirling out around us both.
“Put me down!”
I spun her twice more, then set her back on her feet. “How was Paris?”
“Let us not keep your mother waiting,” Pa said, starting for the dining room.
Matilda leaned into me and in the lowest of whispered breaths said, “We need to talk.”
* * *
• • •
8 AUGUST 1868, 6:48 p.m.—Dinner went as well as could be expected. Pa and Thomas glowered at each other for the duration. Their silence brought to mind a pair of deaf mutes, and Ma attempted to lighten the mood, reminding us that a few years ago she delivered a paper to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society on the need for a state provision for the education of the deaf and dumb in Ireland. It was one of the many social issues she felt strongly about, and although membership of the society was strictly male and no lady had presented a paper before, Ma was never one to let something as trivial as a male-only club prevent her from communicating a message. She would have stood outside their halls and shouted had they not invited her in. Ma had since become an associate member, and presented more papers, most notably regarding the female emigration from workhouses.
I had attended her first speech, and the president of the society, Judge Longfield, pulled me aside to tell me how pleased he was by her delivery. I had learned later that twelve of the members refused to attend Ma’s speech simply because she was a lady while others attended because she was. Ma had a serious manner about her that even the most hardened of gentlemen could not help but respect.
Matilda told us about her recent trip to Paris and her desire to return there as soon as possible. Father scoffed at this idea, no doubt concerned about the cost, but I had never seen her so happy, and a smile upon her face is worth any price. She spoke of the galleries and the food, the people bustling in the streets. “It’s not like Dublin,” she said. “Paris teems with people from dozens of countries. More people on holiday than actual residents, it seems.”
“And you went with your entire art class?” I asked.
Matilda nodded. “Twenty-three of us. Twenty students and three teachers: Mrs. Rushmore, Sir Thomas Jones, and Miss Fisher.”
Pa’s eyes narrowed. “Thomas Jones? There were men on this trip?”
Matilda glanced at Ma, then back down at her plate. “There were a few gentlemen in attendance, yes, but they remained exactly that: gentlemen. Sir Thomas Jones saw to the men, and Miss Fisher was charged with the ladies. Mrs. Jones accompanied her husband as well. As head of the Dublin Art School’s Figure Drawing Program, Mrs. Rushmore oversaw our itinerary. Both men and women were chaperoned and sequestered from each other; I scarcely realized the men were there.”
“Uh-huh,” Pa grumbled.
Ma placed her hand on Pa’s. “Your daughter is a grown woman, Abraham, you cannot keep her locked away under your roof for her entire life.”
“Of course I can.”
Ma ignored him. “A trip like this is precisely where she will meet her future husband, of that I am certain.”
“I adored the Louvre,” Matilda chimed in. “To behold the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo in person. There are no words to describe their beauty.”
“May I be excused?” Thomas said.
Ma frowned. “And what do you need to do that is so pressing it cannot wait until we’ve all finished supping?”
“There is an unofficial rugby match at Trinity tonight.”
“In the dark? Are you playing?” I asked. “I’ll go with you.”
Matilda kicked my ankle under the table and stared at me, her lips tight.
&nbs
p; Thomas said, “No, just watching. My shoulder is still giving me some trouble after the last game; I’m sitting this one out.”
“And you plan to go off to war?” Pa grumbled. “A sore joint will be the least of your worries.”
“Enough of that, Abraham,” Ma said. “Not at the dinner table.” She turned back to Thomas. “Go ahead, enjoy yourself.”
With that, Thomas pushed back his chair and stood. He glanced at me. “Coming?”
Matilda’s eyes burned into me, and I shook my head. “Maybe later. Matilda wants to tell me all about Paris.”
Thomas shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He was out the door a minute later, a slice of apple pie perched precariously in his hand.
Matilda turned to Ma. “May Bram and I be excused from the table? I want to show him all my sketches from the trip.”
Pa waved a hand at both of us, then reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his pipe.
* * *
• • •
8 AUGUST 1868, 7:03 p.m.—In the room Matilda shared with Margaret, I watched as she took one last glance down the hallway before closing the door.
“This is about her, is it not?” I asked, sitting on her bed. “Why do you burden yourself with these thoughts? She is gone.”
Matilda turned and leaned against the door. When she spoke, she did so in a voice barely above a whisper. “I saw her.”
“In Paris?”
Matilda nodded vigorously. “On the Champs-Élysées. I was on the other side of the street, and there was a bit of a crowd, but I know it was her.”
“Why would she be in Paris?”
“I do not know.”
“And you’re certain it was her?”
She nodded again. “As sure as I am standing here.”
I pondered this for a moment. Neither of us had seen Nanna Ellen in nearly fourteen years, a lifetime ago. The way she left us, her trip to the castle, the bog, how she—
“There is something else,” Matilda said, pursing her lips. She appeared unsure of what to say, then blurted out, “She appeared no older than the day she left. Younger, even. I daresay, she seemed younger than I.”
I shook my head. “This must have been someone else, then, someone who reminded you of her.”
“It was her. I swear my life on it.”
“I have often thought I spotted her, too. Always in a crowd, always at a distance. When I got close, though, I realized I only saw another woman with similar features. I’m sure you simply took note of someone who resembled her and your mind associated this stranger with Ellen.”
“It was her.”
“So I am to believe our long-lost nanny is living in Paris and hasn’t aged a day since she ran away fourteen years ago?”
“Yes.”
I took Matilda’s hand in mine. “You miss her. I do, too. But it wasn’t her. It could not have been. At most, this was a trick of the light.”
“Oh, hardly. I am absolutely positive what I saw.”
“Did you go to her? Speak to her?”
Matilda let out a sigh. “I tried, but by the time I pushed my way through the crowd to the place where she stood, she was no longer there. I know what you’re thinking, Bram, but I have no doubt; it was Nanna Ellen and she was not a day older.” Matilda picked up a small music box from her dresser and ran her fingers over the intricately carved wood. “You remember what she was like, particularly that last week. She looked like an old woman in those final days; before that, she appeared to be but a girl, a young woman, at the outside. Had you asked a passerby on the street to guess her age, you would have received a different answer from each. Not a single one would describe her in accurate detail any more than I am able to draw her.”
“You must forget her.”
“I cannot.”
“No good can come from tormenting yourself like this, dwelling on the past in such a manner. We were children; we sought the mystical in everything. Remember the stories we told? The monsters and horrid things we would make up in order to frighten each other?”
Matilda’s eyes remained riveted on the music box in her hands. She spoke not a word.
“At that age, the true and the fantastic blend together, becoming as one. Nanna Ellen told us tales of creatures, so in our minds she became one. Our imaginations fed on these stories, twisted them; we wanted to believe, so we did. But that doesn’t make them fact.”
Matilda placed the music box back on her dresser. “We saw her enter that bog and not come out.”
“It wasn’t real.”
“The dirt under her bed. The crate in Artane Tower. That wretched hand. That god-awful, wretched hand.”
“All imagined things, the ramblings of creative, overactive young minds, nothing more,” I replied.
Matilda stormed across the room and pulled up my sleeve. “If all was imagined, then what is this?” She glared down at my wrist. “Why has this wound not healed after all these years?”
My eyes fell on the two red dots on my inner wrist above the vein, both freshly scabbed. I quickly pulled my sleeve back over them. “I pick at them, that’s all. I’m sure if I left them alone long enough, they would fade away as with any other wound.”
“Why don’t we talk about that?” Matilda’s face grew flushed, and I could tell she wanted to scream at me, but she kept her voice in check for fear of someone overhearing. “When was the last time you had even a hint of illness? When was the last time you got hurt?” she asked. “Hmm? Why don’t we talk about that?”
“You know the answer. I’ve been very lucky. Not since Uncle Edward—”
“Uncle Edward did nothing!”
This time the words boomed out loud and sharp, and I thought Ma or Pa would come bounding through the door, but neither did. I held a finger to my lips.
Matilda went on. “You don’t think they know? The whole lot of them know; they just don’t speak of it. Hypocrites, all of them!”
“Hush.”
“I will not!”
I stood and leaned over her. “Matilda, you are acting the child!”
Before I could react, she lashed out at the back of my left hand with a letter opener she must have picked up from the dresser, the metal blade leaving behind a thin red gash. I tried to cover the cut with my right hand, but she reached out and held me still. As we watched, the wound knit itself back together, first becoming a pink line, then that, too, faded, leaving nothing behind but a trickle of glistening blood, the injury otherwise gone within seconds. Matilda wiped the blood away, then peered up at me with sorrowful eyes. “What did she do to you, my poor Bram?”
I tugged my hand away and thrust it into my pocket.
“Removing it from sight does not make it less so,” Matilda told me, the anger having evaporated from her voice. “Don’t you want to understand?”
My mind raced. I felt the blood burning beneath my cheeks, my heart thumping in my chest.
I did not want to know.
I did not want to think about such things.
Not now. Not ever.
“If she were near,” Matilda breathed, “would you know?”
Such thoughts had not dawned on me in years.
Nanna Ellen staring down at me from her ceiling perch, her eyes flaming red, burning so bright they nearly cast enough light to illuminate the room. And her falling, falling on me.
For the first time in ages, my arm itched.
NOW
Bram looks up from the journal, the sound still echoing through his mind.
A wolf, no mistaking it, but the howl came not from behind the door. This howl came from outside.
Rising from his chair, Bram goes to the window and gazes out over the grounds. At first, he sees nothing; then he sees a large shadow inching through the thicket, parting the grass. The shadow moves slowly around the base of the tower,
then raises its head and leers up at Bram.
Bram recognizes the wolf immediately. While he can’t explain how he knows, this is the same wolf from his dream earlier in the night, the one that attacked him from behind the door. Only now, the fierce beast isn’t trapped behind a door; the wolf isn’t trapped at all. It roams free on the ground, and Bram is nothing more than the hunted trapped in a high tree.
The wolf glares up at him with the same red eyes as in his dream and lets out a savage howl. Surely such a howl will bring the townspeople running with guns in hand. Nobody comes, however, and the wolf paces back and forth until the weeds are flattened, until a path is worn in the earth.
Without abandoning the window, Bram reaches back and snatches up the rifle, already primed to fire. He balances the weapon on the level flat stones of the windowsill and follows the wolf with the barrel, slowly scanning back and forth as the wolf moves. When the wolf pauses, when it stops to stare up at him again, Bram squeezes the trigger.
The rifle kicks back into his shoulder as the shot leaps from the barrel.
He hears a yelp, but it does not come from below—it comes from behind the door, and is followed by the heavy thump of a body falling to the floor.
Bram goes to the door and presses his ear against the oak. He hears nothing.
After a minute, he returns to the window and peers below—the wolf is gone.
Had he really seen it? Perhaps he had imagined the wolf. But, no, the weeds are still pressed flat where the wolf had been. Yes, the wolf had been there, but maybe now it slunk off somewhere to die. Bram weighs going down to check, but he knows doing so would be the height of foolishness. He cannot leave this room.
A scratch at the door, followed by a soft whimper; the sound of an injured dog.
This has to be another trick.
He wants to open the door. He wants to see with his own eyes.
He finds himself back at the door, reaching for the lock, fumbling through his pocket in search of the key. He will open the door and—
No.
Bram pushes away from the door and scuttles across the floor.
