As they reached me, I was encouraged to walk with them to the circular benches, which they filled to an exact number, leaving me without a seat. The men were so timelessly dressed that they could have existed in any era. They didn’t seem to notice me.
The little books were collected and handed to the group’s oldest man. As the owner of the most luxuriant mustache and beard I guessed he was the village elder. He began to read aloud, slowly and very boringly, from the gathered accounts. I wasn’t their prisoner but I didn’t think they’d take kindly to me leaving, especially as I had no car, so I hung around at the edge of the circle.
I only realized that my backpack was missing when I saw it being handed in to the elder, who dug around inside it and extracted every item one by one, laying each on the ground with exaggerated care, until he came to the blue edition.
Somebody lit the tree behind me.
From the Journal of Jonathan Harker, December 18th, 1893 (Continued)
‘I could not approach you, Jonathan,’ the count explained, divining my thoughts as precisely as an entymologist skewers a moth. ‘You were simply too English, too Christian, too filled with pious attitudes. The reek of your pride was quite overpowering. I saw the prayer-book by your bed, the crucifix around your neck, the dowdy virgin in your locket. I knew it would be simpler to sacrifice you upon the completion of your task.’ His red eyes watched mine intently. ‘To suck your blood and throw your carcass to the wolves.’ I stared back, not daring to flinch.
‘But,’ he continued with a heartfelt sigh, ‘I did so need a scholar to tend my library. In London I will easily find loyal emissaries to manage my affairs, but the library needs a keeper. To be the custodian of such a rare repository of ideas requires intellect and tact. I decided instead to let you discover me, and in doing so, discover your true self. This is the purpose of the library.’
He raised a long arm, passing it over the shelves, then turned his palms to me. They were entirely covered in tiny scars.
‘The library made you understand. You see, the edges of the books are marked with my blood. They just need warm hands to bring them back to life.’
I looked down at my stained and fragrant fingers, noticing for the first time how their skin had withered.
‘The books are dangerous to the Christian soul, malignant in their printed ideas. Now you have read my various histories, shared my experiences, and know I am Corruption. Perhaps now you see, also, that we are not so far apart. There is but one barrier left to fall between us.’
He had risen from his chair without my noticing, and had circled behind me. His icy fingers came to rest on my neck one by one, like a spider’s legs. He loosened the stiff white collar of my shirt. I heard a collar stud rattle onto the floor beside my chair.
‘After tonight you will no longer need to use my library for the fulfilment of your fantasies,’ he said, his steel-cold mouth descending to my throat, ‘for your fantasies are to be made flesh, just as the nights will replace your days.’
I felt the first hot stab of pain as his teeth met beneath my skin. Through a haze I saw the count wipe purple lips with the back of his bony hand.
‘I give you life, little Englishman,’ he said, descending again. ‘You will make a very loyal custodian.’
I looked from one face to the next as the villagers discussed my case. It didn’t take very long for them to reach a decision. Each one in turn held out an upright fist, as if he was carrying an invisible pole.
“You can keep the book,” I said, knowing that there was no point in speaking English to them but needing to say something. “If I could just read it, then I’ll be on my way.” I figured I could at least photograph the pages.
Two of the men walked behind me and lifted the burning tree, gripping it by the stem. When I turned to see what they were doing, I realized that it wasn’t a real tree at all but some kind of engraved wooden sculpture. They discarded the upper part, scattering embers. The remaining piece, an elaborately carved hexagonal pole, was left sticking up from the ground. I was prepared to admire its workmanship until I saw that it was a sharpened stake.
Another of the men (little more than a boy, slender-necked and the only one without facial hair) walked over and kicked me onto my back with shocking ease. I landed hard on the grass, which was blackened not by fire but blood.
The men hoisted me up by my hands and feet, held me high and without any ceremony let me fall onto the stake. Crying out in unison, they stepped on my shoulders and pelvis, stamping down with as much force as they could muster.
I guess I must have screamed. I remember lifting my head and seeing this rough wood column pinning me to the earth, the bright red tip protruding from stomach, splinters sticking in my flesh like needles. In my terror I felt nothing more than a weird sensation of invasion.
The whole thing was like one of the paintings I had seen in Castle Bran; the ritual gathering of villagers, the impaling stake, the black mountains behind. All that was missing was the count himself. Past and present collapsed together. I squirmed as they fitted the top of the burning tree-sculpture back onto its base, leaving me like a pinned moth.
I was still writhing in the mud clutching my stomach when Mikaela reappeared. She studied me pityingly for a minute, then pulled me upright and slapped my rucksack against my chest. “Get in the car,” she said. “You’re going home. And change your jeans first. The guy who rented this out to you will get into trouble if you leave mud everywhere.” I looked down at my stomach and found no broken skin, not so much as a torn stitch on my sweater. I was unharmed. We were entirely alone. The strange tree in the circle of benches was intact. There were no footprints anywhere.
My head felt like it was breaking in half. I had to make Mikaela pull over so I could throw up on the road. In my bag was the blue edition with the white edges, the one I’d brought out with me. I looked at my hands. My fingertips were still bright scarlet, and nothing would clean off the stain.
“You really are a piece of work, Carter,” she said, lighting a fresh cigarette as she drove. “You come from a country that has never been sucked dry by a parasitic invader. You were raised to think you could have anything you wanted. Well, now you’ve been denied something, and I hope the experience stays with you.”
“You knew the book would do that?” I asked, still pressing my stomach. It had seemed so real.
“Of course. I’ve read the full version. You wouldn’t have known not to touch it until after you had read it. The priest was smart.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, Carter, and you’ll never be able to,” said Mikaela, tapping her ash. “That’s going to be your penance.”
What hurt most was the realization that I could have sat down with the book and read it without touching its blood-red edges. If I had just been content to do that, I might have finally understood Stoker’s true intentions for his gothic romance.
We hardly spoke again until we reached Bran, where Mikaela had left her car. Our parting was cool. She clearly didn’t expect to see me again.
I thought about what Mikaela said on the way home, but I still didn’t know what she meant. Reading the original version was the one thing I would never be able to do. The story would never be fully revealed to me. After having to live with the novel’s impact for over a century the Transylvanians had claimed that right for themselves. To remind me of this failure day and night I only had to look at my hands, which still bore traces of my ordeal.
I went back to New York, and it took another month before I realized that Mikaela had reconciled me to a simple truth; that the story of your life is always incomplete until it’s over, and you must accept it as that.
It would be more poetically apt if I could tell you I carried my Dracula editions up to the roof of my apartment building in Queens and out into the sunlight, where I watched them burst into flames.
Ac
tually I sold them to an old friend at the Mysterious Bookshop on Warren Street. I made a packet of them. The count isn’t coming back. Unlike Jonathan Harker, I’m free of him at last.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Christopher Fowler
Cover design by Amanda Shaffer
978-1-5040-4563-6
Published in 2017 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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