by Syrie James
“But who will go with Art?” Dr. Seward looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan glanced at me. I could see that he was torn with indecision; for as much as he wanted to join the fight, he also wanted to stay with me.
“Friend Jonathan,” the professor said, “you must do this. First, because you are young and brave and can fight. My legs are not so quick as once, and I am not used to fight with lethal weapons. Second: because it is your right to destroy this monster which has wrought such woe to you and yours.”
The man is eloquent, is he not? Dracula intoned in my mind.
“And we can take no chances, John,” Dr. Seward interjected. “We must be certain that the Count’s head and body are separated, so that he cannot reincarnate. Your kukri might be needed at the last.”
That sounds unpleasant.
Jonathan nodded quietly as the professor continued: “To sum up, then: while Lord Godalming and Mr. Harker go up-river in a steamboat, Dr. Seward and friend Quincey will guard the bank on horseback. Whoever come upon the Count first, in daylight, will kill him in his box. Then we all meet in Transylvania at Castle Dracula.”
“Why at the castle?” Mr. Morris asked.
“Because I go there myself,” Dr. Van Helsing said, “to obliterate the remaining occupants of that nest of vipers. And I take Madam Mina with me.”
Good God!
Jonathan leapt to his feet, crying hotly: “Do you mean to say, Professor, that you would take Mina into the jaws of that Devil’s death-trap? Not for the world! You do not know what that place is! It is a den of hellish infamy, the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes that would devour you—and her!”
“Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. And who but she can lead me there? When you arrived at the castle, you were taken by a roundabout route in the dark, you said; and you leave in a state of great mental anguish. Could you find your way there again?”
“Probably not,” Jonathan admitted with a frown.
“With Madam Mina’s hypnotic powers, surely we shall find our way. I will not take her into the castle itself; no, never; but there is grisly work to be done, and I am pledged to do it, friend Jonathan. I would give my very life to destroy those gloating vampires whose lips you felt upon your throat!”
Jonathan sank back into his chair in defeat as a small sob escaped his throat. “Do as you will,” he said softly. Taking my hand in his, he kissed it fervently. “But I will not let Mina go into that enemy’s territory unarmed. The place is crawling with wolves. We will give her a gun of her choosing—and teach her how to use it.”
That is the first sensible thing he has said.
I am sorry, Nicolae. I tried to encourage them to stay together.
Do not worry. This will certainly complicate things—I will be obliged to keep track of all four parties now en route—your factions as well as the Szgany’s boat—and I refuse to stage my death until Van Helsing is there to witness it. But somehow, I will make it work.
Where are you now?
In the vicinity. Mina: I will not be able to stay in contact as often now. I can only communicate via thought when in human guise, and there may be entire days and nights when I must take another shape. But I promise I will be watching over you.
WITH LIGHTNING SPEED, THE ARRANGEMENTS WERE MADE. IT IS A wonder what can be done with the power of money, properly applied! The men carried among them a small arsenal. Jonathan saw to it that I was given a large-bore revolver, which Mr. Morris instructed me how to load and operate in a field behind the hotel.
“I have never held a gun in my life,” I admitted.
“You’ll get the hang of it, Mrs. Harker,” Mr. Morris replied, “and believe me, you’ll be glad you have it.”
I mastered the weapon with surprising facility. Although I prayed that I would never be obliged to use it, I could not deny that I felt a little thrill when he placed the cold metal instrument in my hand—and an even greater thrill when I loaded, cocked, and fired the weapon several times in succession at a target nailed to a tree.
Good shot, I heard Nicolae intone approvingly in my head. Perhaps you do not need my protection after all. One warning, however: take care before you shoot at bats or wolves. I do bleed—and you never know where you might see a friendly face.
As there was no time to be lost, Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward set out that very evening on their long ride, planning to keep to the right bank of the Sereth and follow its curves. Lord Godalming hired an old steam-launch, which he was experienced at working, having had for years a similar launch of his own back home.
All at once, it was time for them to go. As we stood outside the door of the hotel, Jonathan gazed down at me affectionately. “Take good care of her, Professor.”
I felt my courage failing me. This entire expedition was setting forth on my word. I had no real idea what Nicolae was planning for these men up-river, except the vague notion that he intended to somehow stage his own death. What if something went wrong? With a little gasp, I suddenly recalled the dream I had had some weeks before, in which my four Englishmen had swooped down upon a wagon carrying Dracula, dead in a box—and one of my men had died! Tears started in my eyes as I thought: what if Jonathan or one of the others should be hurt? What if Nicolae did not survive?
“There must be no tears now,” Jonathan said as he tenderly wiped away the moisture from my cheeks and wrapped my white cloak more tightly about me. “Not until this is over, and only then if they fall in gladness.”
“I love you, Jonathan,” I said, kissing him. “Be careful.”
“I will. You do the same. Do not be afraid to use that revolver.” He kissed me again, then strode off with Lord Godalming in the direction of the river.
TWENTY-ONE
AS THERE WAS NO NIGHT TRAIN AVAILABLE WHICH COULD take us directly to Bistritz, Dr. Van Helsing and I did the next best thing and took a train by way of Bucharest to Veresti, arriving late the following afternoon. We were to drive ourselves to the Borgo Pass, for the professor did not trust any one else in the matter. In Veresti, he bought an open carriage and horses, all the equipment and supplies required for our journey, and plenty of fur rugs to keep us warm. Fortunately, the professor knew something of a great many languages, so he got on all right in his transactions.
We started off that same night. For the sake of propriety, Dr. Van Helsing told the landlady at the inn where we dined that we were a father and daughter travelling together. She put up a huge basket of provisions for us that seemed enough for a company of soldiers.
For three days and nights we drove on, stopping only to take nourishment, and keeping up a good speed. We were in good spirits and did our best to cheer each other. The professor seemed tireless; at first he would not take any rest and did all the driving himself. I now felt so tired during the daylight hours that I could hardly keep my eyes open. At times I fell into a deep slumber from which it was difficult to wake. I could see that the professor was becoming very wary of this tendency in me. I suppose I was just in denial: but I insisted that it was only the rocking motion of the carriage along the rutted road that induced such lethargy. On the second night, exhaustion finally overcame the professor, and he was obliged to hand over the reins to me. I drove on through the night while he slept beside me.
We changed horses frequently with farmers along the way, who were willing to make the exchange for sufficient coin. The country-side was lovely: field, forest, and mountains as far as the eye could see, full of beauties of all imaginable kinds. The people we encountered were strong, simple, and kind, but appeared to be very superstitious. On the first day, when we stopped at a house for a hot meal, the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead and cried out in alarm, making the sign of the cross. Then she thrust out her hand and pointed two fingers towards me, in a gesture that made her hand look like a little head with horns.
“What does that mean?” I whispered to the professor.
“It is a char
m or guard to keep off the evil eye,” he replied in a low tone.
I believe the woman put an extra amount of garlic into our food. I used to like garlic very much, but I suddenly found that I could not abide it. I left my meal untouched—which caused Dr. Van Helsing to send another wary look my way.
Every day, I gave the professor hypnotic reports, implying that Dracula was still inside his box on the river. Every night, Dracula came to me in my mind, informing me about the progress of the others.
Jonathan and Lord Godalming are stopping and inspecting every boat they pass on the river. They have taken to flying the Romanian flag, so as to pass as a government boat—very clever. But of course they find nothing.
What of Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris?
Still riding hard, without incident.
The country got wilder as we went. The great spurs of the Carpathian Mountains, which at Veresti had seemed so distant and so low on the horizon, now gathered round and towered before us. Several times I spied a bat circling in the sky above our carriage, before it took off into the distance. Twice I thought I spotted a wolf crouching low under the cover of the trees, staring fixedly at us. Was it Nicolae, keeping his eye on me?
Houses now became few and far between. At night, we could hear the howling of wolves. The diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz passed by us twice on the dirt road, but we saw no horsemen, and only encountered a few peasants along the way. The weather grew colder by the hour. Snow flurries came and went, then quickly melted away. I felt a strange heaviness in the air, or perhaps it was only a heaviness within me; for the further we progressed, the more the blood in my veins seemed to grow cold and sluggish. At times, I felt light-headed; at other times, I could not stop shivering, despite my warm wool cloak and the fur rugs Dr. Van Helsing had purchased, which I wrapped around me.
“We should get to the Borgo Pass by dawn,” the professor said, as we drove on in the early-morning darkness of the third day. “The last two horses we got will have to go on with us. We may not be able to get another change.”
His maps, I knew, would soon be of little use. Jonathan had written in his journal that once he left the diligence at the Borgo Pass, it had taken but a few hours in Dracula’s rapidly moving coach to reach his castle. Unless we could see the castle from the pass, however, we would have no idea which direction to turn—and I was growing a little uneasy, for the professor was relying on me, and my mental connection to the Count, to lead the way. But I could offer little assistance, since I had not heard from Dracula all day.
JUST AFTER SUNRISE, WE SAW SMOKE FROM A CAMP-FIRE, AND DETECTED a band of gipsies camped in a thicket not far from the roadside, an event which proved to be most remarkable.
“Let us ask those gipsies for directions to Castle Dracula,” said the professor, as he brought our horses to a stop. He clambered down from our carriage, and I joined him.
As we approached the group, I admired the gipsy wagon. It was painted a deep red and embellished with gold scroll-work, with a curved, barrel-like roof-top and yellow curtains at the windows. Dr. Van Helsing hailed the travellers, who were gathered around the camp-fire. A sturdy-looking gipsy man with shoulder-length black hair and a black moustache returned the greeting with an aloof, unsmiling nod. The women—who were beautiful, wrapped in long cloaks against the cold, their dark heads covered by colourful cloths which descended down their backs—gave us suspicious glances and stuck to their work, cooking breakfast over the fire.
“They do not look very friendly,” I whispered to the professor.
“Yet they may be of help.” He made his request in what appeared to be the gipsies’ own tongue. As soon as the words left his lips, every one of the gipsies looked absolutely terrified and crossed themselves. The man who had so calmly greeted us now leapt to his feet, shaking his head vehemently and shouting a string of forceful proclamations that I did not understand.
“What is the matter?” I asked Dr. Van Helsing.
“From what I can gather, he is refusing to share that information—if in fact he knows it—and he warns us most strenuously to stay far away from that castle if we value our lives, for it is populated by demons.”
Just then, the door at the back end of the gipsy wagon flew open. An elderly gipsy woman wearing a dark purple head-covering descended the ladder and began hobbling straight towards us, her dark eyes fixed on me. The look on the old woman’s face was so full of concentrated interest that I found myself frozen to the spot. Why was she looking at me thus? Was it, again, because of the scar on my forehead? But no; her attention seemed to be drawn to my whole being, as if she was deciphering something extraordinary about me. She stopped before me, grabbed my hand, and held it tightly in her wrinkled grasp, as she stared into my eyes. Then she gave a little gasp; her face lit up with delight, and she spoke in an animated, gravelly voice. I did not understand the words; but from her gestures, as she pointed to me, to herself, and to the other gipsies by the fire, her meaning instantly became clear to me.
She was saying that I was one of them!
The other gipsies now rose and gathered around me in a state of happy excitement, touching me, hugging me, shaking my hand, shouting, and smiling. I was so overwhelmed, I hardly knew what to say or think. Dr. Van Helsing conducted a brief conversation with them, which he quickly translated for my benefit.
“They say the old woman knows things. She says you are of their family. I explain that you are from England, but she insist that their blood runs in your veins from very far back.”
I was speechless with wonder. Was it possible? Was my own mother—was I—descended from these very people?
The gipsies invited us to share their camp-fire and their breakfast, and the professor agreed that we might make a brief stop. We spent a half-hour in their company, during which time they treated us with generosity and kindness and regaled us with their stories, which Dr. Van Helsing did his best to translate. They said they were members of the Konoria tribe, one of many thousands of nomadic gipsy tribes in Romania. The old woman was their seer; the greater part of their income came from the fortunes she told. The most spine-tingling moment came when the old woman took my hand again and said in a voice heavy with meaning:
“You face great danger, and will be forced to make an important choice. Listen to what your body tells you. It is changing. Let it be your guide.” (At least, that is how Dr. Van Helsing translated it for me, with a grave, worried frown.)
This prediction about danger, choices, and my body changing filled me with silent dread; but I pushed it quickly from my mind, refusing to believe it. Even gipsy fortune-tellers could be wrong, couldn’t they?
The old woman also warned us to stay away from “the dreaded castle,” an admonition which the rest of the group repeated most emphatically. The thirty minutes passed as in the blink of an eye, and it was with great reluctance that I rose to leave the group. As we hugged and shook hands in parting, I knew it was most unlikely that I would ever see these people again, for the gipsies’ itinerary, by nature, was uncertain.
“Well, that was most interesting,” Dr. Van Helsing said as the two of us once more got under way.
“I have never had a relative to call my own. I learned, only recently, that my mother may have had gipsy blood in her. To think that one of my distant ancestors might have been a member of that clan is truly thrilling.”
“Yes. But it is a shame they could not, or would not, assist us in finding Count Dracula’s castle. Although I suppose I should not be surprised.” The professor fell silent for a moment, then glanced at me with an odd look. “What did the old woman mean, do you think, when she say you will be forced to make an important choice?”
“I have no idea,” I said, as a little shiver ran through me.
A FEW MILES FURTHER DOWN THE ROAD, WE CRESTED THE SUMMIT of the Borgo Pass and stopped to look around us in wonder. In every direction were endless mountains and valleys covered by dense pine forest, interspersed with scattered deciduous trees abl
aze in every shade of autumn colour from green to orange, gold, yellow, russet, and red. It was breath-takingly beautiful; but to my dismay, I saw no castle. Indeed, there was not a single sign of human existence anywhere.
There is a byroad about a mile up ahead.
Dracula’s voice came to me so unexpectedly that I jumped.
I marked it with three boulders and a wooden cross, he continued, a little amusement for Van Helsing’s benefit. Turn right and follow it.
Thank you, I thought, but what then?
Be patient. I will guide you. You are almost here. You are almost in my arms.
Aloud, I said: “We must continue on, Professor. This is the right way. There is a byroad up ahead.”
“How do you know? I cannot see the castle.”
“I just have a feeling.”
The professor nodded and told the horses to move forward. We soon came to the byroad. “Aha!” he cried. “Do you see that cross? The locals must have put it there as a safeguard and a warning. We are indeed on the right track.”
Dracula intoned with a chuckle: I am glad he appreciated that, for in making it, I singed my fingers.
It was slow going. The byroad joined with many other roads. We were not sure that they were actually roads at all, they were so neglected and overgrown. To complicate matters further, a light snow began to fall; but Nicolae’s voice continued to instruct me. It seemed to me that he was taking us on a rather circuitous route, for despite an entire day of driving, we still saw no sign of the castle. The professor, however, did not appear to be concerned.
We travelled on until dark, climbing up through a densely forested and rocky stretch of terrain. Since we were so near to our destination, the professor said that we should treat ourselves to a true rest; so we made camp that night in the forest. While Dr. Van Helsing tethered and fed the horses, I made a fire with some of the wood we had brought with us and prepared supper. The aroma from the cooking food, however, did not appeal to me at all.
