by Cat Winters
“All of what?” I asked.
“Dracula, of course.”
“Oh.” I tightened my coat around my neck. “Did you like it?”
“Yes. But why do you like it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you like a horrific story involving so much blood and murder?”
“I don’t know. Why does anyone like any literature?” I shrugged as if responding to my own question. “I love that books allow us to experience other lives without us ever having to change where we live or who we are.”
He kept his eyes on the lamp-lit road ahead, which was disappearing into a gold-tinged mist that carried the scents of chimney smoke and rain. “You were right about there being certain . . . scenes.” His mouth turned up in a smile.
My neck sweltered beneath my coat. “Yes, um, well, I warned you.”
“And that Lucy character, with ‘eyes unclean and full of hell-fire’—holy Moses.” He shook his head. “Why would a girl like you want to read about someone like her?”
“The book was about far more than just Lucy.”
“Oh, sure, there were also Dracula’s lusty wives.”
I snorted. “Why are you dwelling on the lewd women in the book? Dracula is more Mina’s story than anything. Prim and saintly Mina. I’m sure you liked her all right.”
“Oh, Mina was just fine. In fact, I think I fell a little in love with her and wanted to save her.” He peeked my way. “She reminded me of you.”
I met his eyes, which gave off a strange yellow cast in the darkness, the way a prowling cat’s eyes appear when it’s stalking through my backyard after nightfall. I shuddered and told myself I’d only imagined the phenomenon, even though a sideways sort of feeling washed through me again.
“Mina Harker reminded you of me?” I asked.
He nodded. “She was a lot like you.”
“Oh.” I took hold of the side of the buggy. “And who are you most like? Jonathan Harker? Dracula?”
“Arthur,” he answered without hesitation. “Lucy’s fiancé.”
My blood chilled. Arthur was the character who had staked wild Lucy. Ferociously.
He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake . . .
I wrinkled my brow. “Why would you want to be like him?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to be like him. But this past summer there was a girl . . .” He straightened his top hat with a clumsy movement of his hand and hardened his jaw. “What am I saying? You don’t want to hear about another girl.”
“No, tell me. Did someone hurt you?”
“She . . .” He gave a little cough, as though his throat had gone dry. “Her name was Nanette. I met her in Los Angeles when my family was summering down there. She liked to listen to ragtime music and rode around the city on a bicycle. She wore bloomers that made old ladies throw rocks at her in disgust, and she called her parents Lula and Pete instead of Mother and Father.”
“Oh?” My heart drummed with jealousy. Bloomers, no less. Beautiful bicycle bloomers.
Percy huffed a sigh. “I thought I could handle her, but she was a bit much. Her parents believed in free love. Her mother gave birth to her when she was living in some sort of utopian society that shunned marriage. Nanette’s father may not even be her father.”
He flicked the reins to bring Mandolin to a faster walk. The buggy swayed and bounced and thundered over the uneven road, and wind whistled across my ears.
“It turned out Nanette believed in free love, too,” he continued. “I found out she was with two other fellows while I was courting her.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” The buggy knocked me to the left, and my hand clutched his arm for support, my nails digging into wool. “And that’s why you hate the Lucy Westenra character so much?”
“Olivia . . .” He shook his head. “You’re supposed to hate Lucy, too. She drank the blood of children.”
“But”—I let go of him and righted myself—“if she didn’t have that bloodthirsty side, I’m guessing you still would have hated her. She was hardly a standard young lady with pure thoughts.”
“I’m just saying that’s why I feel like Arthur. I completely understand the burden of trying to love a devil woman.” He eased his grip on the reins. “And that’s why I’m more than ready to have an innocent girl in my life. Someone chaste and sweet and docile.” He scooted next to me until our arms and hips rocked against each other, while the buggy rolled onward toward the grand mansions of Irving Street that rose up ahead like incandescent palaces. “Olivia . . .”
I waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I fastened my top coat button and asked, “Yes?”
His foot nestled against mine. “It’s my firm belief that you will be the savior of my poor broken heart. You’re exactly what I need.”
Shadows hid his face too much for me to get a good look at him, but the weight of his expectations—his overconfidence in my sweetness—bore down on my shoulders. I clamped my teeth together.
If he had my vision of the world, if he had seen me the way I truly was, he would have thrown me off the buggy right then and there and kept on driving into the mist.
ercy slowed the buggy as we approached a sandstone fortress with a terra-cotta roof and a half-dozen turrets. Electric lanterns and chandeliers lit the entire building, and an arched wooden door, wide and thick enough to fend off both hurricane winds and invading armies, guarded the front entrance. Six other buggies stood alongside the curb in front of the castle, and the resting horses exhaled clouds of foggy breath through their wide nostrils.
“Whoooa.” Percy tugged on Mandolin’s reins and brought the white horse to a stop behind an enclosed carriage with no driver. He must have been warming up with a mug of coffee in the Eiderlings’ kitchen. “There’s a good boy,” said Percy. “Well done, Mandolin.”
The horse nickered, and Percy tossed the reins to the ground and climbed out of the buggy.
I gazed at the mansion beside us, my stomach growling in anticipation of the awaiting feast inside. I remembered the words Kate had shouted up at me when I climbed onto the stage to meet Henry: Go on, Livie. Don’t be shy. My blood thrummed with expectation.
“Wait until you taste the food here, Olivia.” Percy tied Mandolin’s reins to a black hitching post shaped like a horse’s head. “Mr. Eiderling lets the boys sample his beer, so I always have a crackerjack time at Sadie’s parties.”
“Oh.” I flinched, triggering a small whine from the buggy’s springs. “I didn’t know you’d be drinking . . .”
“Does that bother you?”
“I don’t . . . Maybe.”
He peeked over his shoulder with a crooked grin. “What are you, a temperance crusader?”
I threw up my hands. “Why is everyone so concerned about me and the temperance movement? I just don’t want to be driven recklessly through the city by someone who’s guzzled too much beer.”
“Mandolin won’t be squiffed, and that’s what counts—unless the butler brings out a bucket of ale for the beasts when we’re not looking.” He laughed at his own words, his chuckles cracking through the silence of the street.
I fussed with my white kid gloves and noted how every inch of fabric that I wore looked wrinkled and wrong. “Do I look nice enough to be here, Percy?”
“What type of question is that?” Percy strode over to my side of the buggy and offered his hand with a wiggle of gloved fingers. “Come on down, my pet.” While supporting my arm and waist, he lowered me off the buggy onto the solid dirt ground and bent his face close to mine. “You have nothing to fear, Olivia. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” I nodded, for I didn’t see any sights that warned of danger.
Percy planted my hand on his arm and escorted me up the stone pathway to the broad castle door.
In response to Percy’s raps with the round iron knocker, the Eiderlings’ butler—a portly, gray-haired fellow with the saggi
ng jowls of a bulldog—hoisted open the door.
“Good evening,” said the butler, every letter enunciated to perfection.
Percy removed his top hat. “Good evening, Mr. Burber. Mr. Percy Acklen and guest for the supper party, if you please.”
“Please step inside, Mr. Acklen. Miss Eiderling has already gathered the guests in the dining room.”
“Thank you.” Percy handed the butler his hat and scarf and slid his arms out of his overcoat, revealing a gray silk bow tie and a fine black tailcoat that complemented his striped trousers. “I hope we’re not too late.”
“Miss Eiderling likes to be prompt. I believe she’s already asked for the first course to be served.”
“Well, she is the birthday girl, after all.”
Without responding to Percy, the butler took my coat and hung it on a tall cedar rack that reminded me of a scraggly old tree. An impressive collection of jackets and wraps already dangled from the crooked branches.
Percy offered me his arm again and led me across the grand entrance behind the butler. The soles of our shoes clopped on the polished marble floor that reflected our feet and the swishing hem of my purple skirt. Above us rose lofty, gold-accented walls and a sky-high ceiling that gleamed as white as fresh porcelain dentures.
“I smell oysters and salmon,” said Percy, and his stomach rumbled. “And beer. Lovely, lovely beer.”
We ventured down a mirrored hall the length of my entire house, toward the sound of laughter and the soft clinks of silverware brushing against dishes. Percy carried himself with grace, his head held high, his shoulders relaxed, his dark evening suit pressed and flawless.
“How do you know Sadie?” I asked before we reached the end of the hall. “Doesn’t she go to Saint Mary’s Academy?”
“My father helped her father avoid a lawsuit earlier this year. And”—he smiled, and that smile was reflected in the mirror beside us, magnifying his amusement—“I think she’s secretly in love with me. That’s why she invites me to her parties. I’m a toy she can’t have, because her parents consider me beneath her.”
I stiffened. “And do you love her?”
“No.” He shook his head and lowered his voice to a whisper behind the butler. “She’s another wild one. I’ve heard stories about her that would put both Nanette and Lucy Westenra to shame.”
“But—”
“I told you, Olivia”—he pressed his gloved fingers around mine with a squeeze—“I want you.”
I bit my lip, unsure how to respond.
We neared the swarming buzz of chattering guests that waited beyond the corner, and the scents of seafood and beer grew potent enough to taste the salt and the bubbles in the air. I gripped Percy’s arm.
He patted my hand. “Don’t be afraid. No one’s going to gobble you up.”
We rounded the corner.
My feet halted.
Percy was wrong. So utterly wrong.
Beneath a blinding crystal chandelier, around a lace-draped table, a dozen fanged young guests with ashen skin and lips like blue-black bruises chatted and gorged themselves on appetizers. I heard their voices as muffled nothingness, but I saw them—my word, how I saw them. With sterling silver forks, they scraped oysters from the half shells and devoured the mollusks’ slippery gray flesh with slurps and swallows and ripples down their long white throats. Tall, gilded steins sat in front of each boy, but they were filled with blood, not beer. The young men wore black tails and vests the colors of fine jewels; the girls sparkled in dark silk gowns and bright diamond necklaces, but even they were savages.
A bespectacled redheaded creature with long yellow teeth and piercing eyes lifted his head and spotted us standing there. “Percy, you old bore! You’re late.”
A sea of deathly faces turned our way. All I could hear was the hammering of my heart against my chest.
“Mr. Percy Acklen has arrived, Miss Eiderling,” said the butler, sounding bored. And then, as if in afterthought, he added, “And guest.” The servant turned on his heel and left the room with footsteps that mimicked the quickening of my breath.
I turned to leave as well.
“Where are you going?” Percy grabbed hold of my wrist.
“I can’t do this. They look like they want to murder me.” I lunged toward the room’s exit.
Percy tugged me back and pressed his mouth close to my ear. “This is embarrassing. Turn around and come back to the table.”
“I can’t.”
“Please. What’s wrong with you?” He scowled at me as if I were the monster in the room, his teeth so sharp. Fierce. Oh, God.
“No!” I gave a small cry and broke free of his grip, but then, with a sudden jolt, the world tipped upright. I leaned forward, regained my balance, and saw the room as a normal room, with more sound, fewer colors.
Fewer teeth.
The throng of faces at the table now belonged to a finely dressed assortment of regular young men and ladies who gaped as though they were encountering an escapee from the Oregon State Insane Asylum.
The girl at the head of the table breathed a curt laugh through her nostrils and scanned me from the top of my drooping hair to the toes of my three-year-old dress shoes. She had reddish-gold locks that rose at least a foot off the top of her head—an impressive soufflé!—and her dress was lined in black and cream stripes, with dizzying swirls on the curves of her bodice.
“Who is this, Percy?” she asked with a wrinkle of her small nose. “And what on earth is wrong with her?”
Percy cleared his throat and guided me toward her. “I’m sorry I was late. This is my guest, Olivia Mead.”
Two of the girls snickered. The other guests leaned forward and studied me with watchful eyes.
“Oh! You’re that hypnotized girl!” said a sunken-eyed blond fellow, raising his hand as if answering a question in a classroom. “The girl Henri Reverie stood upon at the beginning of the Halloween show. That was the funniest, bawdiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That was the bawdiest thing you’ve ever seen, John?” asked the redheaded boy who had first spotted us. “Remind me to show you a certain deck of playing cards, my friend.”
“Don’t be crass, Teddy,” said Sadie. “Even though the presence of certain individuals might suggest otherwise”— she glanced at me again—“this is a lady’s supper party, not a North End saloon.”
Next to Teddy, a dark-haired girl—a scrawny, bulging-eyed thing—burst into a peal of high-pitched laughter. “You brought the dentist’s daughter, Percy? Why?”
“Yesss, why?” Sadie bared her bright white teeth. “Is this a joke, Percy? Did you somehow hear about my surprise guest?”
“What? No.” Percy let go of my hand. “What guest?”
Sadie turned her attention toward the opposite end of the table. “Henri Reverie.”
My heart dropped to my stomach. I craned my neck forward to better see where she was looking, and there he sat, down at the far end, his face turned toward his plate so I could only see a head of dark blond hair with a few uncombed tufts sticking up on top.
Henri Reverie.
Henry Rhodes.
“Before Monsieur Reverie leaves for his performance tonight”—Sadie shifted her sights back to me—“he agreed to dine with us and then to hypnotize me even more thoroughly than he hypnotized you, Ophelia.”
“It’s Olivia,” I said.
“He’s promised to help me sing like an opera ingénue.”
“Like Svengali,” I muttered without even thinking.
Sadie furrowed her brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“Um . . . I—I—I said”—I cleared my throat to summon my voice, which was retreating down my throat like a frightened rabbit—“he’s . . . like the controlling hypnotist in the novel Trilby. Svengali hypnotized a girl into singing with the voice of an angel.” Doesn’t anyone else my age read popular novels? I wanted to ask, but I sealed my mouth closed to hide the anxious chattering of my teeth.
“I am not a Sv
engali, Mademoiselle Mead.”
Henry—I could no longer see him as On-ree, even though he had slipped back into the counterfeit French accent— lifted his face. “Our hostess hired me of her own free will,” he said, “so please do not suggest I am a demon sorcerer.”
His eyes held mine, and, despite his defensive words and taut mouth, he brought a sliver of warmth to that cold, hostile room. I’ve been worried sick about you, I remembered him saying at the theater.
“Sit down, Percy,” said Sadie with a nod to two empty chairs at the middle of the table, one of them next to Sunken-Eyed John. “There’s a seat for your little friend beside you. Speaking of whom”—she took a sip of water from a crystal goblet before continuing, perhaps to create a theatrical pause—“is it true, Mr. Reverie, that dim-witted people are the easiest to hypnotize?”
More snickers erupted down the table, and all heads turned again to Henry, who lowered his fork to his plate, a small smile on his lips.
“No, that’s not true at all,” he said. “A clever person, someone skilled at focusing on one subject at a time, is usually the most susceptible to hypnosis.”
“A clever person?” asked Sadie with a giggle.
“Oui, Mademoiselle Eiderling. The cleverest.”
I took the seat between Percy and John and gave silent thanks for Henry’s defense of my intelligence, in spite of my Svengali accusation.
“Ah, I see.” Sadie squeaked an index finger along the rim of her goblet. “Then I’m sure I’ll be as easy to mold as soft putty when I’m in your skilled hands. I’m clever as can be.”
“Too clever,” said Teddy while chewing on an oyster.
“Thank you, Teddy.”
“Tell me, Reverie”—Percy removed his gloves, his eyes locked on Henry—“now that you’ve hypnotized Olivia once, how quickly could you hypnotize her again?”
“Extraordinarily quickly.”
“Really?” Excitement mounted in Percy’s voice. “Could you do it in a minute? A half minute?”
“I could put her into a trance in less than one second.” Henry dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin.
Silence seized the room. I bit my lip and worried he could do exactly what he boasted.