Dracula in Love by Karen Essex (5)

Is he not the most handsome, extraordinary man you have ever met, Mina?”

Lucy and I were undressing for bed, or rather I was, and Lucy watched me. She had no interest in discussing the shipwreck or speculating on the mystery of the dead captain but preferred to reminisce about the thrill of seeing Morris. I rinsed my mouth slowly and closed my jar of toothpaste, checking my teeth in the mirror, while I decided whether to challenge Lucy. As her friend, I felt I owed it to her to point out the ramifications of her actions.

“But, Lucy, he is Arthur’s friend. Surely this will not come to a good end.”

“Oh, Arthur is not a true friend. He simply thinks it’s daring to have a friend from a scandalous American family. He speaks badly of Morris behind his back.”

“Perhaps he is speaking the truth,” I said. “Perhaps you should take heed.”

“You are supposed to be my best friend, Mina, and yet you have not tried at all to understand!”

“I only understand what I see. Look at yourself.” I pulled Lucy off the bed and stood her in front of the oval cheval mirror. She crossed her arms in protest, but she did not look away. “You are wasting away to skin and bones. You do not eat. You do not sleep. And all day long, you are as nervous as an alley cat. Your sweet temper has become sharp. When you talk about your love, you look like Lizzie Cornwall, sick and dizzy from smoking opium but craving it nonetheless.”

“I do crave his love. It has replaced every other appetite.” Lucy’s eyes danced in the sockets in the strange way they did when she thought of Morris Quince. She pulled a note out of her bodice. “He slipped this to me when no one was looking. I am going to meet him!”

“Lucy! The weather!”

She went to the window and opened the shutters. “Look. It has cleared. God himself is smiling upon my love.”

The rain had stopped and the mist had lifted. A cool breeze wafted in. I looked out the window and traced the seven brightly burning stars comprising the Starry Plow, so vivid that it looked as if I could reach up and use it to scoop water out of a well. The single good memory I had of my father was when he had me in his arms one night and pointed it out in the sky.

“Morris would not let me come to him in the rain, Mina,” she said, thrusting the note into my hand.

If the weather clears, meet me after midnight. If it is raining, don’t dare risk the health of the one I hold dearer to me than my own life. I am racked with anguish being so near to you and not being able to touch you.

“These are just words, Lucy. Any man can write words on a page if it costs him nothing,” I said.

“Apparently not Jonathan Harker. How long has it been since you have had words on a page from him?”

“Lucy, how unkind!” Her words made my own fears come roaring back. Jonathan did not love me. Jonathan had met someone more suitable to be his wife. I was to be a spinster schoolteacher for the rest of my days. These fears had overtaken me a few days prior, and I had written to Mr. Hawkins to ask if he had had word from Jonathan, but I had received no reply.

Lucy took my hands in hers, which were cold. Her skin, once so enviable, looked as thin as tracing paper. A network of blue veins formed a spider’s web on her left shoulder. The tendons at the bottom of her neck stuck out like claws. “Forgive me, Mina. Let us be the good friends we have been to each other since we were girls. We are both in love. One day, you will marry Jonathan, and you will come to visit Morris and me in America.”

“America?”

“He says that he will go to his father and beg forgiveness. Once he is back in the family fold, we will be married and we will live in New York.”

“You are not thinking of Arthur’s feelings at all?”

“No, I am not! He knows I do not love him. He spent one year seducing my mother so that she would insist on the marriage. He knows that she controls my fortune and I must do as she says. That is an underhanded way for a gentleman to behave.”

I wanted to remind her that seducing a friend’s fiancée, such as Morris had done, was also an underhanded way to behave, but it was apparent that my arguments held no sway against her passions.

Lucy waited until she was certain that her mother was asleep. Then, tucking me in as if I were a child, she extracted another promise of discretion, turned out the light, and slipped out to meet her lover, while I fell asleep to disquieting thoughts about the mistake she was making.

I dreamt that I was somewhere warm, safe, and enveloping, like a womb. I was floating, wondering if I were a baby about to be born, when all my senses exploded, throwing my body into chaos. All at once, I was everywhere and nowhere, as if I had burst outside myself. I felt as if my skin were being flayed, making way for something that crawled onto the surface of my flesh. I stuck my neck out long in front of me, and my hind legs pulled in the opposite direction, as if I were elongating my body. Pushed on by a tingling sensation I tumbled and tumbled, and found myself suddenly on grass, where I lunged forward like an animal onto all fours. Crouching, I felt balance and a sense of strength and power. I looked at my hands, which had become something else, some other appendage, covered in pale fur, with five sharp black claws all pointing forward, and black webbing between each toe. I stretched them wide, knowing that I could curl them around an object-the head of a small bird, the soft belly of a mouse-if I wanted to. And I did want this very much. I was ravenous and driven to prowl.

In that same instant, all thoughts disappeared from my mind, lost in an avalanche of sensations that eviscerated things like words and ideas. Out of my mouth came sounds and cries, but I had lost all ability to form words, or even to know the meaning of words. My sight became less and more at the same time. All colors turned to black, brown, and gray, yet images became sharper and more defined. I could see into the shadows, where the very blades of grass and the leaves and buds of plants were sharply defined though it was a dark night. I was acutely aware of my ears, hot, pulsing, and humming. Now fragrance took command, and I was struck with the scents of the evening. Unable to resist, I rolled on the ground, breathing in the wet tang of dewy grass and the musk of the mud in which it grew. I glided my muzzle through the blades, letting each soft edge tickle my nose. When I lifted it, I caught the delicate fragrance of wildflowers and the powdery sweetness of red clover. The aromas permeated my body as if I could smell with my eyes, my toes, and my tail. I detected the essence of living fowl on the feathers of a fallen bird, but was quickly distracted by the blood-warm effluvia of rabbits and voles wafting up from a small hole in the ground.

The air carried the scent of wet leaves after a forest rain. My senses were torn in two, with one thing calling my attention into the air and another, even more compelling, back down to the earth. The miasma of fetid earth, God’s creatures, and the aromatic night air swirled in my head and through my body, competing with a cacophony of noises that grow louder and louder. The muffled sound of my paws as they made contact with the ground resonated in my ears. I felt in my body the vibration of all things touching the earth-animals small and large, as they interacted with the same soil that I was treading. The rustle of leaves in the trees, the screech of the wind blowing the hairs on my face, the fluttering of bees’ wings, the distant cry of an owl-I heard each as a distinct, sharp sound. My senses were in control of my body. I was a living machine that processed sights, smells, and sounds.

Submit.

The command came from nowhere and from nothing but was put forcefully into my head. Confused, I looked around, sticking my muzzle into the air. Something crept up behind me, tackling me, pushing me to the ground. Soon, this creature was on top of me, not hurting me but rubbing its fur against mine and rolling me over on my back. Ah, how I recognized its scent-the salty iron of its blood mixing with the vital juices of its last kill and the pungency of the woods hanging from its slick fur. Its familiarity allayed the fear in me as I was jostled to and fro. A huge, soft tongue licked my belly, paralyzing me with pleasure. I stretched out long and could feel every inch of my spine against the earth, which was cool, compared to the tongue that worked its way up to my neck. The great nose of the beast rubbed and caressed the length of my long wolf neck, imprinting itself on me.

Yes. I am returning to you.

The words broke the spell of night’s aromas and sounds and the pleasures brought by this animal that held me captive on the ground.

The voice was familiar and male, but the mouth I stared into was not human. The creature bared its teeth. Four sharp fangs, pairs from above and below, jutted toward me, threatening to tear into the my belly-soft flesh, while the little bits and pieces of me would be shredded more slowly by the small, straight teeth between the fangs. The great red tongue that had given me pleasure hung between those feral canines, as if anticipating the savory taste of my muscle and bone. I rolled to my side, trying to escape, but the beast growled at me, threatening me again with its gaping jaws.

I went limp, succumbing to my fate. The world around me turned to black as I anticipated the agony of the canines ripping into my flesh. I waited for a very long time in darkness, all sound, sight, and smell obliterated by fear and anxiety. But nothing happened. It was hard to tell what was more frightening: the fear of being eviscerated by the larger beast or the utter terror of his absence.

I woke up surprised to find that I was still Mina, and not a young dog or wolf or fox or whatever form I had taken in my dream. Nothing about my body had been transformed, though my senses remained heightened. Not as acute as in the dream but sharper than they had been before I went to sleep.

But I was not in my bed. I was sitting on the grass in the moonlit shadow of the ruins of Whitby Abbey, and I had a companion. At first I thought I might still be dreaming as I looked into his midnight blue eyes. He stared at me without blinking or making a move toward me. He did not look dangerous, but how could he not be, with his size and the sinister V-shaped mane that began at his muzzle, rising above his eyes and around his taut ears? His coat was silvery gray. His paws had to be six inches wide. He was larger than a wolf, perhaps was a wolf-I did not know. He had frightened every spectator when he had leapt from the ship, but here he seemed to be standing guard over me, letting me take in his features.

But the most disarming thing about the creature was the intelligence in his eyes. There are ways that men look at women-with desire, with hunger, with respect, with disdain, with confusion. This creature looked at me as if he knew me. There was something noble, even regal, about him, as if he was bred to protect a king, or as if he were a king. Yes, I could see him sleeping beside a throne or commanding from one. His coat glittered like armor in the moonlight. I could see why he had looked like a silver streak when he jumped from the vessel. He did not look like an animal that had been long at sea but like a perfectly groomed prize of an indulgent owner or a lordly creature of the forest that presided over lesser beasts. With his gleaming coat and sinewy musculature and poise, he looked well fed, exercised, and cared for by standards that would make most children envious. Perhaps he was the beloved companion of the captain who had arrived inexplicably lashed to the helm. Whoever had done such a horrible thing to the man had clearly not harmed the animal.

But was he the animal from my dream? After witnessing his dramatic disembarkation from the vessel, had I dreamt that I was this creature and now, by coincidence, was encountering him? Would I soon be looking into his gaping jaws but this time not in a dream world, where I could simply open my eyes and find safety?

I was breathless, but the profound serenity of the beast staring at me without malice settled my nerves. The memory of soft fur nuzzling my neck made me want to reach out and stroke his coat. Secure that he would not attack, and bolstered by the crazy idea that he had given me that very promise with his eyes, I sat up straight, ignoring the leaves and grass that clung to my sleeves. I was afraid to move, but he came to me. He stared at me with his intelligent eyes, and I felt all fear and resistance leave me. He sniffed my arm and then nuzzled my chest with his head. I let him rub his warm fur against my neck all the while taking in his familiar scent, the same one from my dream. I was reveling in this exchange when, without warning, the animal turned and ran away. I watched his thick haunches retreat. His legs sprang from the earth with a kind of preternatural buoyancy that I had previously not witnessed in man or beast. It was as if some unseen power were pushing him from below, giving additional spring to his gait. He jumped over a pile of rubble, random stones that had fallen from the abbey’s central tower. Leaping through one of the lower windows, he disappeared into the shell of the abbey.

I tried to get my bearings. I knew exactly where I was-the abbey is a rather conspicuous landmark-but the question of whom and what I was became harder to answer. I shuddered, hugging myself tight. The fog that had disappeared earlier settled once more over the promontory. It seemed darker now as the mist thickened, and I heard a hollow moan sweeping through the interior of the abbey’s shell. It’s only the wind, I told myself. I knew I should get back to the rooms, but without my animal companion watching over me, I was afraid.

I wanted to follow him into the abbey, but even by day, I found the building’s hulk too foreboding. The arched windows stood like dark open mouths waiting to spill secrets, mysteries from a past better left undisturbed. But this had been a holy place, not some medieval torture chamber where dark spirits wandered, seeking revenge for horrific acts committed against them. This had been the home of saints and of the saintly, of God’s chosen. There was nothing to fear. I had had a strange dream. I had walked in my sleep, and I had encountered the animal that had come over on the wrecked vessel. It was a simple story.

Looking up at the abbey wall, I started to rise. I would take one peek inside to see if I could catch a glimpse of the animal. But before I could take a step, a shadow glided across one of the windows-not a dark shadow but something white, something not quite whole-and I dropped back to my knees. As it passed, I heard a whooshing sound, like the winter wind that rushed through Miss Hadley’s halls on the coldest evenings. From somewhere within the abbey, the wolf dog howled, sending great spiraling wails into the night. Had the animal also seen the apparition? I could have sworn that it was the outline of a female form, but I credited the old whaler’s story of the long-dead abbess with that thought. I hoped that my eyes were playing tricks on me as eyes often do in the dark. The fog and the moonlight and my sleepwalking had conspired to make me see strange things. The animal was merely responding to the sound of the wind. Yet the calm I had felt while with the wolf dog was now gone, and I was aware of every nerve in my body.

The night grew colder and darker as the moonlight dissolved into the fog. I knew I had to make a move, though I also felt safe in my inertia. Finally, it was the dampness of the earth seeping through my clothes that forced me to rise. I turned toward the churchyard but was stopped dead by what I saw before me.

I tried to take a breath, but my lungs failed and my knees grew weak. Was he a man or an apparition? He was not dressed in evening clothes, but it was unmistakably my savior from the riverbank, the man who had somehow made his way into the Gummlers’ photograph. How had he found me in the middle of the night on the Yorkshire coast? He looked illuminated, like a figure on stained glass, not by moonlight but by his perfectly ivory skin, which turned the mist surrounding him into a halo. I backed away, stumbling on a rock, but he did not move.

“Whoever you are, please go away,” I said. My voice was full of fear, with nothing in it that might inspire him to obey me. He was not transparent but was solidly before me, wearing a long, tailored waistcoat, the kind a gentleman would wear for a country walk.

“Why are you following me?” I asked, my voice trembling.

You know why.

He did not speak, but I heard his voice in my head and recognized it as the voice from my dream. The accent was vague in origins but aristocratic. The words were pronounced with care to each letter and syllable. The tone was deep, almost bottomless, authoritative. I did not know how to respond, or if I should respond. My heart pounded in my chest. As long as I did not move, and he did not move, I would not be harmed-or that was the flawed logic that guided me at that moment. I put my face in my hands to avoid his stare.

“What do you want with me? Why are you doing this to me?”

You know why.

“I don’t know why! I don’t know anything!” I started sobbing and did not stop until my hands were wet with my own tears. I had no idea how long I stood there crying, but when I looked up, he was not there. I waited, convincing myself that he had been an apparition after all. When I felt safe again, I turned to run away, but he was again in front of me, standing statue still.

“Who are you? What are you?” I screamed the words, angry now that this being was taunting me, following me so that there was no relief and no escape.

Your servant and your master.

“Please leave me alone.” The insistent tone disguised the fact that my words were actually prayers meant to play upon his pity. He had saved me once; perhaps he would not harm me if I begged for my life.

The power is yours, Mina. I come to you when you call to me, when I feel your need or desire.

“Quit following me,” I said, turning and walking away from him. I hugged myself tightly as I walked toward the cemetery. After a few moments, out of curiosity, I turned around. He was no longer there but had disappeared into the fog, leaving me alone and shivering, my hands still wet with tears.

I did not need my eyes to witness the absence; I felt it in my very being. Disappointment washed over me. Where had he gone? I found myself wanting to find him, to track him down as he was tracking me, and to demand an explanation. I was shocked at my own courage in even thinking this way, but something drove me on. I was sick of the weak person I had been. I wanted to yank her out of my body and stamp on her, making myself strong and brave.

“Come back to me,” I demanded, but nothing happened.

My pulse calmed, and I was able to breathe again. The winds seeped through my damp clothes, chilling me clean to the bone. I was so cold and tired that I thought my spine might crack if I did not get to a warm place.

Suddenly something came out of the mist and enveloped me, like the cocoon that had earlier wrapped me and brought me into the night. It was not anything that I could see or feel, but an energy, a vibration, an invisible shell that cosseted me.

You are cold. Come inside.

The only structure I could see was the hollow shell of Whitby Abbey.

I did not have to say anything. My body submitted for me. I felt myself moving through space, though I did not know where I was going. Either my eyes were closed or I was in total darkness. I felt like some winged creature soaring over unknown territory, being steered by something outside myself, but knowing that I was not lost. Lights like stars whirled past me from out of the darkness, and when I opened my eyes, I was lying on a bed covered in rich tapestry and piled high with pillows. The room was lit by candles in colossal iron holders that flickered on the walls. A great fire was ablaze in the hearth. I recognized the triptych of slender, arched windows, though I was seeing them for the first time from the inside. No longer empty, they were fitted with glass through which I could make out some of the stars that hovered over Whitby on a clear night.

We were inside the abbey, though apparently outside time. The room was warm and the roof intact, and he was lying beside me.

Every moment that has ever existed in time is still here, Mina-every thought, every memory, and every experience.

Now that I saw him in the candlelight, he was more beautiful than I had imagined. Skin marble white, paler than mine and glowing, and hair like the night sea’s glossy waves. His face was long and angular with a strong brow, like the artists’ renderings I had of the Arthurian knights. With his midnight blue wolf eyes, he stared at me, taking me in.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice timid and feeble.

His lips did not move, and yet I heard every word that he said. I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but one long and slender finger reached out and touched my lips. Locking eyes with me, he slid my nightdress from my shoulder. Shock waves rippled through my body as his finger followed the curve under my neck, dusting my chin, and slowly sliding to the other ear. Surely just one finger could not create this bedlam inside me.

Ah, so you do remember.

My heart palpitated wildly, but I was not afraid. Something familiar about him prevented me from fearing him, though I had witnessed how dangerous he could be on the banks of the Thames when he had thrashed my attacker.

“Yes, yes, I remember,” I said. I would have said anything to keep his hand on me, to wallow in the wild energy he brought to my body, and to stare into the infinite violet blue of his eyes. Though I said nothing else, every nerve in my body begged him to keep touching me.

I did not have the audacity to say the words aloud, but this being knew me and knew my thoughts. Our eyes were locked, and our minds were linked. I felt connected to him in a way that I had not known with another person. We were not one, but we were in harmony, as if we were both parts of the same symphony. With eerie slowness, his finger moved down my neck to the breastbone and across my chest until it reached my nipple. Then something extraordinary happened. He held it there, barely moving but sending a wild sensation through my breast that resonated in every curve and turn of me. My body was like a musical instrument that only he knew how to play. I tried to breathe while he moved at the same deliberate pace to the other breast, all the while staring into my eyes. I was electrified, fierce currents dancing through my veins. I gasped for breath, which only heightened my arousal. I had no idea how long I lingered in this blissful place. It might have been minutes or hours, but I rode the wave of it, letting it wash me through with excitement.

He stopped touching me. He looked into my eyes, waiting for me to answer. But my thoughts took another direction. Here was the phantom that had been luring me out into the night since I was a child. Could it be that he was responsible for my father’s disdain and my mother’s rejection? Excitement slowly turned to anger. As much as I did not want to leave the blissful place, I could not help myself, and he read my thoughts.

I came to you to help you, Mina. You were in danger. You needed me.

I began shrieking at him. “Yes, I remember everything. I am Mina Murray, whose parents sent her away from home because she was a strange and frightening child. I have made my own way to a good life, a respectable life, and a life over which I have control. I am a teacher at a school for girls, and I am engaged to be married to a man who loves me.”

I knew that I was sabotaging my own pleasure and perhaps so much more by rebelling against him and whatever memories he wanted me to have. I knew I was fighting against the very ecstasy he evoked from my body. But just as I could not earlier resist submitting to him, I could not combat the hostility I felt now. He was asking me to remember the very things I had spent my life trying to forget.

“Yes, go!” I cried aloud. “Leave me in peace before you wreck my life again.” I curled up like a fetus and began to cry. Soon, my body was racked with sobs and grief. I cried for a long time, until every tear was wrung from my eyes. Cold began to seep in again through my clothes. I uncurled myself and opened my eyes. My mysterious stranger was gone, and I was lying on the grass inside the stark ruin of the abbey in my nightdress, looking up at the stars.

I climbed through the empty window of the abbey and walked to the churchyard, where low lamplight flickered on the headstones. A cemetery at night may frighten some, but after my experience this evening, the familiarity of the place comforted me. I paused at the grave of a child, resting my hand on the wing of an angel so that I could wipe off the grit that was irritating the bottoms of my feet, when I saw two figures on the bench where the old whaler and I sat by day looking out over the sea. An unmistakably familiar wavy blond mane cascaded over the back of the bench, while a man’s form loomed over her, his face buried in her neck.

I had wandered into this scene involuntarily and should have run away as quickly as possible, but I was riveted by the sight of his mouth consuming her neck, her cheeks, her shoulders, sliding luxuriously back up to her ear and lingering there. He opened her shirt, exposing her bosom, and lifted one breast out of her corset. Then he picked her up and put her on his lap so that she straddled him, and I watched them in profile as he took her breast into his mouth, licking and biting her nipple. I was close enough to see his slick tongue lapping at her, and my own lust, so recently aroused, began to stir. The feeling was so vivid that I could imagine that it was not Lucy on that bench but me, with Morris Quince’s well-formed lips on my nipple and his huge powerful hands all over me. I stood still, relishing the feeling, when he looked up and saw me. His shoulders dropped, and he said something to Lucy, whose head jerked around.

“Mina!” Her voice was full of admonition. She jumped off Morris’s lap and stood up, taking big strides over to me. Her hands made two fists, which swung back and forth like a toy soldier’s. “Why are you following me?”

Her blouse was open, and I stared at the white skin of her breasts, which were still of considerable size considering her weight loss. The bruiselike marks I had seen earlier were more plentiful now and deeper in color.

“I am n-not following you,” I stammered. The cold night air, the strange events, and the shock of seeing Lucy, caught up with me. “I-I don’t know how I got here. I was walking in my sleep again.”

“Mina?” Morris was taking off his linen jacket and putting it over my shoulders. I am sure he was embarrassed to see me in my transparent nightdress. “You are all wet and you have no shoes! We must get you indoors.”

Everyone looked at my bare feet, which were stark white. My toes grabbed at the ground as if I were trying to hold myself to the earth.

“I cannot allow a lady to walk barefoot,” Morris said, looking around as if a pair of shoes would miraculously pop out from one of the graves. He looked helplessly at Lucy, waiting for her to suggest something. “I will carry her,” he said.

Lucy’s impatient expression said that she did not sanction the idea. “What would happen if we are seen, with you making such a spectacle?”

“I can walk in bare feet. I have done it many times,” I said. I wanted to disappear into the ether just as my phantom had done.

“But you look ill, Miss Mina. Your teeth are chattering. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Morris’s eyebrows were squeezed tightly together, forming one long hedge across his strong brow.

“I-I have bad dreams,” I said, torn between taking comfort in his concern and Lucy’s annoyance at having been interrupted. Morris Quince’s kindness felt like a rope thrown to save me from drowning, but Lucy was not allowing me to hold on to it.

“We had better just go,” Lucy said. She nodded her head at the jacket around my shoulders. “You can’t take that with you.”

“But she is half naked and has had a shock.”

“My mother will see it,” Lucy said with finality, and I took the jacket off and handed it back to Morris. “I’ll give her my shawl.” She untied the shawl, which she’d looped around her waist, and draped it on my shoulders. “We must part ways here,” she said to him, leaving him looking forlorn as he watched us walk away.

Lucy was silent for a while. She put her arm around me and pulled me close to her. “My, you are cold, Mina.” I snuggled closer to her, slipping my arm around her. I could feel the top of her hip bone jutting through her skirt. Despite her thinness, her body gave off immense heat.

“You are playing a very dangerous game, Lucy,” I said. “Half the town is probably still awake, what with the shipwreck.”

“He was walking me home when we decided to go to the churchyard to look out over the view. We had no intention of carrying on like that out in the open, Mina, but we are so much in love.”

The sky was mottled with shifting gray clouds that parted, revealing one bright, shining star. We walked for a few blocks, and when we turned the corner, Lucy stopped dead, her hand tightening around my shoulder, holding me back.

“I’m freezing-” I said, but Lucy interrupted me, pointing up the hill to the rooms. Fiery yellow light blazed in the bank of windows lining the two parlors, as if Mrs. Westenra was hosting a party in the middle of the night.

“She’s found me out!” Lucy wrapped her arms around her stomach as if her entrails were about to fall out. She bent over, gasping for air. I thought she might vomit on the pavement. “I cannot go in there,” she said.

“The lights may be on because your mother took ill,” I offered. That was the first thought that came to my mind. “Someone may have called for a doctor. Hilda, or a neighbor.”

“Yes. That is undoubtedly what has happened,” Lucy said, running her fingers through her snarly hair. “Oh dear, poor mother!”

Then her face took on the wild-eyed look that had become familiar to me. She took my hands in hers. “Oh, I am a terrible person. I am more worried that my affair has been found out than I am about my mother’s health; more concerned with it than with my poor friend, awakening alone in a strange place!”

Lucy’s eyes were wide and glassy, floating in the sockets above her gaunt cheeks. I was very cold and I knew by the burning lights above that the evening’s drama was not over. “We had better see what the trouble is inside.”

Lucy smoothed her clothes and checked her buttons. She brushed her skirt with quick little gestures, her hands like feathers. “Do I look composed?”

“More than I,” I said. “At least you are clothed. But you had better hide those marks on your neck and chest. I am assuming that Mr. Quince put them there?”

Lucy took the shawl from me and wrapped it around herself. “No matter what is said, or what questions are asked, leave the talking to me,” she said in a tone that was a far cry from the impassioned love victim of moments ago.

I had no choice but to believe in her. At school, while Kate liked to think of herself as the rebel, Lucy was the one whose quick tongue and blithe way of doing whatever she wanted put her above the rules. Kate was defiant, always making a spectacle of her disobedience, whereas Lucy felt entitled to do as she pleased and never expected anyone to stop her. I hoped she was still the girl who could get away with collecting money for candy and saying it was for the blind.

We walked up the stairs to the rooms and opened the door. The parlor was lit for company. A tea service sat on a pedestal table but the chairs flanking it were empty, as were the two divans that faced each other over a small, low table. The room looked like a theatrical set before the actors had arrived to begin the play. We ventured deeper into the parlor, where we heard voices from the hall. Mrs. Westenra appeared, a pink-and-white striped nightcap framing her face. She was followed by a night watchman in uniform.

“Merciful heavens,” she cried. “They are safe!”

“As I assured you, madam,” the policeman said. “During the summer months, young ladies like to stroll at night. No harm done, eh?”

“No harm? I nearly died from fright! What can you girls have meant by disappearing in the middle of the night? Lucy, are you trying to murder your poor mother? And Mina?”

The policeman stood behind the lady, his eyes averted. I suppose he was trying not to look at me in my nightdress.

Mrs. Westenra took a lap robe from the back of a chair and put it around me. “What is the meaning of wandering about in this unseemly condition?”

Lucy did not wait for me to answer but struck out on a defensive attack. “Mother, please calm yourself. Mina and I have been through our own nightmares this evening. Why is there a police officer here?”

“Why?” The lady looked in disbelief at the officer. Upon closer inspection, I saw that he was very young. His swallow-tailed coat with gleaming silver buttons, wide leather belt, and polished boots endowed him with authority that he did not yet own. I felt sorry for him having to deal with a distraught middle-aged woman prone to histrionics.

“Why?” Mrs. Westenra continued. “Because I woke in the middle of the night feeling poorly. I went into the bedroom to ask you to attend to me, Lucy, and I discovered an empty bed. At two o’clock in the morning! I did not know what to do. Hilda is spending the night at home, I was alone, and my heart-well, my poor heart. I thought I would die, it was pounding so loudly in my chest. I went to the window and screamed for help. I was shrieking like a madwoman. A kind gentleman sent word to the chief constable, who sent out a watchman-this delightful young man here-who has comforted a frightened woman. I might have succumbed to a full attack of angina had it not been for him. Why, he even mixed my medication for me. And perfectly so, I might add.” She smiled at him.

“You have been very brave, madam,” he said, adjusting the chin strap of his police helmet under his strong, square jaw.

Lucy stood tall, taking over the situation. “I cannot thank you enough, sir, for attending to my mother. Her condition causes her to become overemotional.”

Mrs. Westenra started to protest, but Lucy interrupted her. “It is all very simply explained. Mina suffers from the same sleepwalking malady as Father did. She has had some dreadful incidents recently in London, which she told me about the evening she arrived here. Isn’t that right, Mina?”

True to my promise, I nodded but kept silent, letting Lucy tell her story.

“I woke up and saw that she was not in the bed. From what she told me of her previous episodes, I knew that she could venture quite far, so I rushed outside. I should have left a note for you, Mother. I am very sorry, indeed. But I was desperate to find Mina before she came to any harm.”

“And are you quite all right now, miss?” the officer asked me. “Had you wandered very far?”

“Yes, to the churchyard,” I answered. “I go there every day because the view is so lovely. I suppose that my body simply led me there out of habit.”

“All the while in your sleep?” He looked suspicious now.

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Westenra said. “My late husband suffered the same illness. We used to discover him in the most unusual places. Sometimes he did not return at all but was found wandering the heath near our home in London.”

“Strange, indeed, madam. But I have heard of such things. My gran says that the spirits like to call out to us when we are asleep.” He smiled weakly, as if he did not know whether to believe his grandmother’s superstitions or not.

“Your gran must come for tea sometime when our friend Dr. Seward is here. He will set her straight on these matters,” said Mrs. Westenra, assuming the learned air I’d seen before when she had mentioned her discussions of medical affairs with John Seward. “It is the mind that imagines such things, the unconscious mind, which is a very different organ from the conscious mind. If you read up on the latest findings of medical doctors, you will see that I am correct.”

“I shall do that, madam,” he said politely, but smiling at Lucy. Because of his young age, I suspected that he wanted to win her good opinion, not her mother’s.

“Might we let this good man leave now so that we all can get some sleep?” Lucy’s technique for getting herself out of trouble had not diminished. She had lied to her mother and to the night watchman and was getting away with it. The officer was already taking steps toward the door.

“Lucy, dear, take the lamp to the top of the stairs so that our guest will have some light,” said the mother.

“Not necessary,” said the officer. But Lucy already had the lamp in her hand. When she turned around, her shawl fell from her shoulders, and the light illuminated the pattern of purple bruises and wound marks stippled against the cream white of her neck and chest. Against the bright lamplight, they were like roses flowering in the sun. Rings of tooth marks sat at the base of her neck, like red-rimmed eyes staring out at the world.

The officer squinted his eyes at Lucy’s neck. “Miss, were you attacked by someone?”

Lucy put the lamp down, but her mother picked it up, holding it up to her daughter’s face. The marks were even more awful in the brighter light offered by the proximity of the lamp.

Lucy put her hand to her throat. “What? No, of course not.”

Mrs. Westenra said nothing, but stared at her daughter’s neck. Rather roughly, she took Lucy to the mirror on the wall and turned her toward it, holding the lamp so close to Lucy’s neck that she jerked her face aside to avoid the heat of it. Lucy looked at her own reflection, and then shied away from it.

“You certainly look as if you have been attacked,” Mrs. Westenra said.

“Miss, if someone has hurt you, it will do you no good to protect him.” The officer now assumed the authority he had earlier lacked. “This is a peaceful place, and we do not take kindly to the sort of violence committed in London. If a lady is harmed in these parts, we find the culprit right away. We do not let him haunt our streets to commit more mayhem. You can be sure of that.”

“Lucy?” Mrs. Westenra seemed to be challenging her daughter. I was grateful that Lucy had made me promise to keep quiet. I was fearful for her, but at the same time I was curious to see how she would get out of this predicament.

She did not disappoint. Rather than turn red with shame, as she should have done, Lucy stood as defiant as a war goddess, her bruised neck held high. She asked her mother to sit down. “I wanted to spare you the details of the horror that befell me,” she said, putting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I was afraid that the shock would bring on an attack, and then, what would I do? I did not want to be responsible for causing that, Mother.”

I stepped into the shadows to hide my astonished face as Lucy unfurled an amazing story. I soon realized that she was purloining my own experience on the banks of the Thames and placing herself in the roll of victim. She illustrated in detail the madman I had described, using my own words and images. “Red eyes like a monster!” she said, explaining how she had been in the churchyard looking for me when a man jumped out of nowhere-“was he man or fiend?”-and fell upon her, biting her and sucking at her neck and throat and bosom while he held her hands and legs down with his limbs.

The watchman took a small pad from his pocket and began to scribble furiously as Lucy spoke, occasionally stopping her to clarify a detail. “And you say he smelled of drink?”

“I suppose so. Though it was so acrid and horrible that I wondered if he was a corpse escaped from the grave!” Her eyes were huge now and gleaming in the lamplight. The watchman sat on the divan next to Mrs. Westenra so that he could put his pad on the little table and write faster. I could see little prickly light-colored hairs sprouting above his pouty crimson lips, not thick enough to grow a proper mustache. His acorn-brown eyes were fixed alternately upon Lucy and his notes, his head bobbing up and down trying to keep up with her words. The deeper Lucy got into her story, the more convincing she sounded, her confidence and dramatic inflection rising parallel to the interest of the watchman.

Mrs. Westenra sat terribly calm through all this. I would have thought that any mother, let alone one with a nervous condition, would have shown more emotion listening to the details of an attack on her daughter, but Mrs. Westenra took in the story with uncharacteristic serenity. “However did you evade this monster, Lucy?” she asked.

“It was Mina who saved me,” Lucy said, gesturing to me with her arm as if I were being presented onstage like a performer.

All eyes turned upon me, leaning against the fireplace mantel, hugging the lap robe tight around my shoulders, thankful to have been forgotten until this moment. I knew that Lucy wanted me to play a part, but I was frozen.

Lucy rescued me from responding. “Before the madman could do any, well, any irrevocable harm, Mina wandered into the cemetery and saw us. Her screams frightened him, and he ran away like a coward!”

The night watchman pressed Lucy for more details, but she claimed that shock prevented her from getting a good look at the attacker. He explained that he might have to return with further questions if the chief constable was not satisfied with his report. “We will do everything possible to find this vermin and bring him to justice,” he assured us.

When he left, Mrs. Westenra ordered me to wash my face and my feet and go to bed. I was surprised at the commanding tone in her voice. “Lucy will be along shortly, Mina.”

I did as she said, pulling the curtains tight against the breaking dawn, and climbed into the bed, stretching out on the cool linens, eager for sleep, but I heard Lucy and her mother arguing.

“I have told the truth,” Lucy said, to which I heard Mrs. Westenra groan.

“I was a married woman!” she said. “Why does every generation believe it is the discoverer of pleasure? Your father was a spectacular lover.” Even through the wall, I could hear the triumph in her voice.

From Lucy’s mouth came a groan that matched her mother’s. “I am going to bed,” she said as if it were a proclamation. When I heard her footsteps approach, I turned my back toward the door so that when she entered the room, she would think I was already asleep.