by Dacre Stoker
“Thornley wouldn’t do such a thing,” Matilda insisted.
I thought of the chickens at the coop, the excitement in his face. A fox, he had said. A fox did this.
“What purpose do these serve?” Matilda pointed at the crate’s lid, leaning against the side. “The top is riddled with holes. For air? Maybe the animals were meant to live inside that box and didn’t survive the journey.”
“It’s filled to the rim with dirt. Nothing was meant to live here.” I knelt down beside the crate and inspected the lid closely. Nails peppered its edges, but even though they appeared to be thick, the nails did not protrude to the other side as one might expect; they had been cut off. Fake nails, in other words. Providing only the mere illusion of nails. On the inside of the lid, I discovered six small hasps. I stood and took a look at the crate again.
“Those latches are designed to hook over these staples. I think the lid is designed so someone can lock it from the inside. The false nails give the appearance of being sealed by a hammer, but of course that is not the case.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Does any of this make sense?” I replied, gesturing around the room.
“Look at your hand,” Matilda said in a low breath.
The handkerchief I had wrapped over the wound earlier had fallen away, revealing my palm.
“The cut is gone.”
I held my hand to the light, trying to hide the slight tremor that started at my pounding heart and worked its way down my arm. The skin had healed; there was no sign of the injury. “It was a small cut,” I heard myself say, knowing the words meant nothing even as they slipped from my lips.
Matilda took my hand in hers, turned it over, then back again. “It was bad enough. There is no sign remaining. Nothing at all.”
I shook her off.
She frowned. “We need to talk about this.”
“Not now.”
“What did she do to you?”
“Nanna Ellen might return at any moment.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t feel her presence anymore. How do you know she was here at all?”
“We saw her here yesterday,” I replied.
“Bram, you must be truthful with me. Can you tell? Was she here on this night?”
I had no reason to deceive her. I nodded. “In this very room, yes. As recently as the past hour.”
I watched Matilda glance around at the many cobwebs and the thick dust, and I understood what thoughts raced through her mind. “I’m not sure how she moved about without disturbing anything, but I am certain she did, in much the same way she moved about her own room without leaving a single track in the dust and grime.”
I turned back to the crate as something else caught my eye, something beneath the dirt. Before Matilda could stop me, I reached back and brushed the dirt aside carefully with my fingertips. When they found cold white flesh, I pulled back. “Oh no.”
Matilda grasped my shoulder and peered down into the crate. “Is that her?”
Our eyes met, my heart beating wildly.
I reached back for the crate, and Matilda grabbed my wrist. “Don’t—”
I reached back inside anyway, digging at the dirt, brushing it away, uncovering—
“It’s a hand,” Matilda said.
As I dug farther, as I neared the wrist, the bony white arm I found—
Matilda turned her head and gagged. I nearly did, too, at the sight of it, at the torn skin and muscle, at the bone protruding and splintered—the hand had been severed at the forearm and buried in this box, in the dirt.
“Not Nanna Ellen’s,” I forced out, for this was clearly a man’s hand; much too large to be that of a woman, although the long, thin fingers were smooth. Not a man who worked the fields, but perhaps one who sat at a desk. The fingernails were abnormally long, protruding over the fingertips maybe half an inch and filed to sharp points.
“Is there more buried in the box?” Matilda said beside me. “Did she kill a man and place him here?”
“There is something in the man’s grasp,” I said.
I pried the fingers apart one at a time, all dry and brittle, afraid they might snap off, soon revealing the hand’s palm and the shiny object at its center. “It is a ring,” I said, plucking it out.
Matilda stepped closer as I held the ring up to the light. It was a thick band, a man’s ring, wrought of silver or white bronze, I could not be sure.
“That seems old,” Matilda said.
I twisted the ring between my fingers. The detail was extraordinary. The sides were intricately carved with various symbols I did not recognize, two on either side of the wide shoulders, which depicted what appeared to be a family crest. At the very center on the head of the ring was the image of a dragon surrounded by a multitude of diamonds so small they seemed more like a glittering of dust than individual stones. The dragon’s only visible eye glowed a bright red, a ruby of some sort. The ring was clearly ancient, but the workmanship rivaled that of the best modern craftsman; I had never seen anything like it.
“May I see?” Matilda asked.
I set the ring in her open palm, and she raised it to the nearest candle, peering at the inside of the band. “There’s something written here . . . on the inside.”
“What does it say?”
“Casa lui Dracul.”
I thought I saw one of the fingers twitch when she uttered these words.
That was when we ran.
PART II
The world must bow before the strong ones.
—Bram Stoker, Makt Myrkranna
NOW
Bram wakes with a start. His body jerks up with such force he nearly tumbles from the chair—his journal falls to the floor.
How long had he slept?
Minutes?
Hours?
He cannot be sure.
He turns to the window.
Although the moon is still high in the sky, it has clearly moved farther to the east. Light spills from the surface, only to be diffused by thick gray storm clouds rolling in from the distant mountains. But the moon has moved; of this he is certain.
Bram’s rifle sits on the ground at his feet, and the door—
The door stands open!
Bram scoops up the rifle as he stands in one fluid motion, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
The door is not open much, only an inch or so, but open nonetheless. The paste he used to seal the opening litters the ground in tiny piles of dust and broken chunks. The remains of the last rose he placed are there, too, a decayed ruin.
He slowly approaches the door, his palms sweating on the rifle barrel and grip.
A scratching at the stone floor on the other side. Then the voice comes, feeble and thin, his mother’s voice.
You don’t want to hurt me, do you, Bram? Put the gun down before you hurt me. I need your help; I don’t feel well. Please hurry.
The scratching grows louder, more frantic, tiny nails tick-tick-ticking against the stone.
Bram falls still, his eyes drifting from the door to the basket of roses, the three remaining blossoms. He forces himself to advance towards the door.
It itches so. I never would have expected it to itch so bad.
Holding the rifle with his right hand, he reaches for the corner of the door with his left and pulls it towards him. The heavy oak swings lazily on tired hinges, the scrape of metal on metal squeaking under the strain. The odor from within wafts out at him with such strength he nearly swoons—a horrible stench full of death and rot, a scent all too familiar to him.
At first, he perceives nothing in the gloom beyond. Then he spies the eyes, two eyes of fiery red, staring back at him from the depths. Perhaps they are inching closer, for they seem to wax brighter, and he fights the urge to step back and slam the door. Instead, he
raises the barrel of the rifle and points at the pair of orbs, forcing his aim to remain true even though his arms and hands shake in rebellion.
I don’t want to die, Bram, says the voice of his mother.
Bram pulls the trigger, and the butt of the rifle kicks back into his shoulder as the projectile rockets out in a cloud of smoke.
He hears a yelp from within, and the glowing eyes bounce up as the bullet strikes home.
That is no way to treat your mother, Bram.
The voice is no longer that of his mother but has morphed into his father’s thick Irish brogue. Then comes a growl as the red eyes rush at him, tearing through the gloom with incredible dispatch. In the moment before the monster leaps, Bram catches sight of a large gray wolf bounding from the shadows. He tries to jump out of the way, but the creature proves too fast; the wolf projects itself off the stone floor and catapults through the air, plowing into him with such force he falls back hard against the ground and slides across the chamber, the enormous beast’s thick paws pressing into his chest. He looks up at its giant snout, dripping with saliva and acrid gore, as the animal releases a howl loud enough to shake the walls before biting Bram’s neck, the wolf’s white teeth tearing through flesh as if it is nothing but paper. Warm blood sprays through the air, and Bram tries to scream, but not a single sound escapes—
* * *
• • •
HIS EYES SNAP OPEN, and he falls from the chair onto the hard stone floor, a guttural noise escaping his lips as he does. With both hands, he pushes at the wolf, only to realize there is nothing there. Bram twists and jumps to his feet, pulling the bowie knife from the sheath at his side and slashing at the air, only to find he is alone.
He spins around and faces the door, ready to strike there, too.
But the door is closed.
With his free hand, he reaches up to his neck and finds no wound.
Bram sucks in a deep breath.
A dream.
He goes to the door and inspects the gap. Most of the paste along the perimeter remains intact, and the last rose lies in a withered heap as he remembered; at least that much is true. Judging by the moon, the hour is no later than three o’clock.
If he had been tired before, he finds himself wide awake now, and without hesitation he reaches for another rose from his basket, remembers to bless it this time, then places it before the door.
A stack of letters stick out from the corner of his bag, and Bram picks them up and returns to his chair. The first is written by Matilda, but there are others.
Bram reads Matilda’s letter, then reads it again, before slipping it into the pages of his journal, between pages previously written upon, and once again begins writing by the pale light of the oil lamp.
He has so much more to tell. And so little time to tell it.
LETTER FROM MATILDA to ELLEN CRONE, DATED 8 AUGUST 1868
My dearest Nanna Ellen,
Or should I call you Ellen? I am, after all, an adult now. Can you imagine? All grown up, twenty-two years of age. A spinster! Sometimes I find it hard to believe how the years have flown. Where to begin? I know some may find it silly to write a letter to a recipient who will never read the words, but so much has transpired since you left us, much weighing heavily on my mind. And may I say, I miss you so? Somehow, through it all, I miss you.
Never far from my thoughts, regardless of how hard I have tried to forget you.
Oh, now I ramble. That is not my intent. I suppose I am a bit flustered at the thought of committing these words to paper, for to do so makes them more real, but do so I must. To think and write of all that transpired is an admission to myself, acceptance of what occurred. I am certain you would have me believe the shadows of my childhood imagination have simply been aggrandized over time, but I know that such is not the case. These years of reflection have given me the perspective to untangle the truth from fancy. I may not know you in the way Bram knows you, but, believe me, I know you well.
As hard as I have tried to forget the events of your final days in our home, the memories refuse to let go. They sit in a small room at the back of my mind, and when the door is about to close on them, when the last bit of candlewick is about to be snuffed out, they come pouring forth. I have had dreams, both night terrors and the wakeful sort, and sometimes the memories scream out in the middle of the day, drowning out all else around me.
Where did you go?
What became of you?
For years, I wondered if you really walked into the bog and disappeared beneath the water or if that was just a conjecture of my childhood’s imagining.
Then there was that crate, that horrid thing in Artane Tower, and its grotesque contents, the sight of which burned into my mind’s eye. Weeks passed before I found myself able to sleep through the night after finding that box.
We told them everything. We had to.
We fled the tower—we could have killed ourselves scrambling down those steps—and back home as if riding the very wind. We woke Ma and Pa straightaway. We told them of our findings between labored breaths. Realizing the hour and the fact that we had been out was enough to give them quite a shock, but we went on anyway. Bram and I did not care about any punishment that awaited us; this tale seemed far bigger than the consequences of our transgression. We told them everything. How we found the soil in your bed. How we observed you eat—or, truly, not eat. We even told them how we followed you and how you disappeared into the bog. But most of all, we told them about the crate in the tower and the severed limb lying within. Ma and Pa listened in silence, their eyes bouncing from Bram to me and back again as the words poured out, and when we finished, they watched us in silence still. Ma spoke first, her words short and thick with sleep. She turned to Pa and patted his arm. “Perhaps you should go and have a look, Abraham.”
Still wrapped in our coats, Bram and I both nodded our heads vigorously at that suggestion and leapt from their bed towards the door. Pa did not follow, though; instead, his head fell back upon his pillow. “In the morning,” he said. “We’ll go at first light.”
“We need to go now, Pa! She may still be close!” I cried out.
Pa raised a weary hand and pointed at the window. “It’s raining. We’re not going outside and traipsing across creation in the middle of the night while it’s raining. Your brother shouldn’t even be out of his bed. Both of you, return to your rooms.”
They were too sleepy to wonder what on earth had propelled their sickly boy from his bed—looking back, perhaps they thought they were dreaming.
I was willing to brave the weather; I am certain Bram was, too. I attempted to argue, but Pa was snoring a moment later, oblivious to my words.
Ma pointed towards their bedroom door and mouthed, You heard your father. To bed with both of you.
At my side, Bram said nothing. He tugged at my hand and simply nodded.
Neither Bram nor I slept; we did not even take the time to change into our nightclothes. We spent the remainder of the night sitting upon his bed in silence. At dawn, the two of us were standing at the door to our parents’ bedroom, unwilling to risk Pa slipping out without us in tow. He rose with a grunt, told us to wait for him in the kitchen, and went about his morning routine.
When he appeared in the kitchen, there was a scowl on his face. “Dirt inside her bed, you say? I found nothing of the sort. Her bed is filled with hay, same as yours.”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell Pa that you somehow removed the soil yesterday when you left, but before I could speak, he started towards the door.
“Take me to this place in the tower; show me what you found.”
When I saw the look in Bram’s eye, my stomach sank, for a realization came to me, same as him—you removed the dirt without anyone the wiser, the tower room would also be cleared.
I considered telling Pa it was all a lie or possibly a dream that felt too
real, but one that we now knew to be false, but I could not bring myself to do it. I needed to see for myself. I rose from my chair, donned my coat, and walked out the door towards the fields of Artane, towards the castle. For the first minute or so, I was not even certain that Pa and Bram followed me. I was unwilling to turn, and so determined to see this through I would have gone it alone. They had followed me, though, and together the three of us crossed the muddy fields to the tower rising from the edge of the forest.
Pa was nearly out of breath by the time we reached the top of the stairs; but it was Bram’s condition that concerned him. That worry seemed to overshadow all else; he did not comment on the dilapidated state of the structure or the possible risk involved in climbing to the top. When Pa pushed open the heavy door, emptiness screamed out at us.
We found nothing inside.
The tower room was empty.
Not even our own footprints littered the dusty floor, the space appearing as if it had been empty for hundreds of years, and smelling just as deserted.
How did you do it?
How did you hide everything?
So many questions, and now you are gone. You have been gone for so long.
I imagine you are wondering about Bram.
You left him in such a state.
You left us both in such a state.
That was a long time ago. Somehow, Ma and Pa seemed to forget all that, and despite their conventional ways, allowed me to travel to Europe without them. I recently returned to Dublin from Paris.
Oh, Paris, what a beautiful city; I wish I had been able to stay. I spent my days at the Louvre and my nights along the banks of the Seine. There were restaurants and shops offering the most extravagant of things—none of which I could afford, mind you, but a girl can look. I was there to collect an award, the Young Artist’s Award for Painting from Life. You always encouraged my drawing and my art; I thank you for that, you and Ma. If you had not encouraged me, there is no telling whether or not I would have pursued the desire to create all these years. Perhaps I would still be sketching, but I surely would not have possessed the courage to exhibit my work. This particular painting is an oil of a woman with flowing blond hair and the most beautiful blue eyes. When they asked who modeled for it, I told them it was not any single woman but the combined images of many women. This was not the truth, but it was not wholly a lie, either. You see, I based the sketch for the painting on the drawings I did of you when I was a little girl. Dozens of pictures, all of the same woman, yet not the same. I was always perplexed by this. To this day, I cannot capture your likeness on canvas. The women I draw are all beautiful, but they are never you, not quite, not even today. If I were to send this letter, I would include one, but, alas, it will not be sent.