Dracul

by Dacre Stoker

  In just the last half hour, the sky had grown more woeful as storm clouds rolled in. I could see the harbor in the distance, the ships now returning to port. Those already docked were tying down in anticipation of the oncoming inclement weather. With each step we took ascending the steps, the air grew a little colder and the fog a little closer, until all we could make out was the fine mist surrounding us. The world below, the little town of Whitby, became hazy. I could not help but recall what Vambéry had said about Dracul manipulating the weather and I wondered if he was here now. By the time we achieved the halfway point up the stairs, Thornley was favoring his left knee—an old rugby injury—and Vambéry appeared short of breath. I reached for Vambéry’s satchel and slung it over my other shoulder. “I will return it to you at the top,” I told him.

  Vambéry prepared to argue but granted me a quick nod instead. “My leg is a burden, particularly at a time like this,” he said, now breathing through his mouth.

  “The air is thin up here, difficult for anyone.”

  “Not you.”

  I said nothing to this, just kept walking. He was right, of course, I felt no fatigue whatsoever. I could have sprinted up the steps, had I so chosen.

  “Do you sense she is up there?” Matilda asked.

  I shook my head. “I’ve felt nothing since she blocked me earlier. If she is in the abbey, I cannot tell.”

  We passed only three other people as we mounted the steps farther, two older fishermen and a woman. All three eyed the sky nervously as they made their way down. When we reached the apex, we found ourselves alone in the sprawling graveyard, with St. Mary’s Church to our left and the abbey in front of us, a large pond right next to it. The graveyard continued on over the hill towards the cliff, high above the water. The site was much larger than I had expected. “Where do we begin?”

  Vambéry asked for his leather satchel, which I readily returned to him. From a pocket in the front, he pulled out an old map and unfolded it. Its weathered paper bore a drawing of the buildings and grounds. “We are here,” he said, pointing to the steps snaking up from the town at the edge of the map. “Saint Mary’s is still considered holy ground, so Ellen could not possibly be in there. Most of this cemetery is still consecrated, too.”

  “What about the graves of the suicides?” Matilda asked, studying the map.

  “Yes,” Vambéry said, “they can be found here and here.” He indicated two spots on the map—one near the side of the abbey, the other perched precariously on what looked like the very edge of the cliff. “The suicides are not part of the church grounds but are on land belonging to the abbey.”

  Lightning filled the sky over the sea, three quick flashes. We all regarded it with trepidation.

  “Perhaps we should split up before this storm strikes,” Vambéry suggested. “Bram and I can take the interior of the abbey while the two of you search the suicide graves.”

  “Is that safe? Maybe we should stay together,” Matilda said.

  “If these creatures come out during daylight hours, they have no powers. They are less than mortals. If she is here, if any of them are here, they are most likely at rest,” Vambéry explained. “We have four hours of daylight remaining; we must make the most of it.”

  Matilda reached out and squeezed my hand. “Do be careful.”

  “You as well.”

  Vambéry said to Thornley, “If you discover anything, come retrieve us. We are close by.”

  I watched Matilda and Thornley make their way past the ancient towering cross that marked the cemetery entrance and disappear amongst the large headstones.

  Vambéry reached down and picked up his bag. “Come, my boy. Let us hurry.”

  Much of the abbey was a crumbling ruin, but that which remained was extraordinary—tall, intricately carved columns and massive stone blocks reaching for the swirling gray clouds of the heavens. The grounds were overgrown with foliage and weeds, all fighting to claim this structure, yet it was fighting back, unwilling to concede just yet. We passed under an apse and entered the abbey at the south transept. The remains of a staircase stood among a pile of rubble against a central wall.

  “These cloisters follow the exterior walls,” Vambéry informed me. “To the west, they lead to the nave, and the east end houses the choir, presbytery, and sanctuary. The round towers standing sentinel at all four corners are accessible by staircases; they are frequented by the locals, particularly on nights when ships are out at sea during a storm and a high vantage point is required to help guide them safely to port in the harbor.”

  “Where was the lady in white sighted?”

  “She has been observed atop all four corner towers as well as at the apex of the central tower above us, in the keep behind the crenellations.” He then looked upwards. There was a hole in what remained of the ceiling, and churning storm clouds were clearly visible through it. “Most of the supporting structure for this central tower obviously has crumbled away. In fact, about thirty years ago this entire section was lost, including the stairs. The upper rooms were deemed unsafe and sealed off. If Ellen is anywhere, I think she would be there.”

  I stepped deeper into the crossing. The air was rank with mildew, small puddles of water stood stagnant. Weeds grew between many of the stones, forcing their way through the mortar. I ran a finger over the stone of the wall and it gave way under my touch. My arm tingled. A name came to mind. From where, I could not know, but I uttered it under my breath. “Marmion.”

  Vambéry stopped and turned to me. “I am sorry, what did you say?”

  “Marmion.”

  “From where do you know that name?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t recall. It just dawned on me.”

  Vambéry stared at me. “Is it from Ellen? Something you plucked from her mind?”

  “Maybe. Again, I don’t know. What does it mean?”

  “Walter Scott wrote of the tragic legend—a nun who fell in love with Marmion, a knight, who would betray her love in the end. She had broken all of her vows to be with him, you understand. When the lovers were eventually discovered, she was bricked up inside the walls right here at the abbey,” Vambéry said.

  “Was she ever found?”

  “No. If the story is to be believed, she is still here somewhere. Many have searched for her over the years, but no trace has ever been located.”

  I said, “If Ellen had the thought, what is the connection?”

  Vambéry had no answer to this.

  I ran my hand over the wall, my eyes drifting to the breach in the ceiling. “Can we get in through there?”

  He shook his head. “That leads to the ward, an outer courtyard on the upper level next to the tower, but any doors have since been sealed with mortar and stone to keep people at bay.”

  The outer walls of the crossing were lined with niches, no doubt intended to hold statues or books while this place was still a functioning monastery. They were spaced about six feet apart. All now housed cobwebs and dislodged stones and sported copious quantities of dust. The remnants of a fireplace still stood proud against the far wall, the flames long extinguished. As my eyes fell upon it, I felt the tingle in my arm again.

  I traversed the room.

  The hearth was perhaps eight feet across, the firebox itself almost five feet wide and nearly as tall. I could hear nesting birds twittering far up the chimney. I am not sure if I saw the small pile of dirt in the left corner of the firebox first or if I smelled it, but the scent registered immediately, for it reeked of the same rotten soil we had found under Nanna Ellen’s bed all those years earlier.

  THE DIARY of THORNLEY STOKER

  (RECORDED IN SHORTHAND AND TRANSCRIBED HEREWITH.)

  17 August 1868, 4:58 p.m.—My sister moved through the graveyard with purpose and with dispatch, carefully stepping over the dead at our feet and scrutinizing each stone as we p
rogressed. This sector of the graveyard held little interest for her; she was concerned only with the suicides’ graves at the cliff’s edge. As we approached, she continued to study the roiling clouds above. The air had taken on a chill in a matter of minutes, and I now felt the first drops of rain on my head.

  We passed a large pond, the scent of which crept across the cemetery, mildewy, stale, and stagnant. The waters were still, save for the occasional ripple produced by the coming rain.

  “Here,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “See that small stone wall? We found a similar wall in Clontarf. It serves to delineate the ground that is sanctified and the ground that is not.”

  At this place, I noted a shift in the terrain itself. Just beyond the wall, the weeds appeared thicker, with vines rolling over tombstones and encasing them as if attempting to pull them down to the ground. And the stones themselves appeared much smaller; while the markers behind me rising from the consecrated plot were tall, anywhere from two to six feet in height, stones marking the suicide graves were squat. Many were flush to the ground, some bearing no inscriptions at all. This was, indeed, a land of the unwanted and forgotten.

  “What are we searching for?” I asked my sister, my eyes darting from stone to stone.

  Matilda knelt and cleared away the weeds from the face of a stone; her fingers then traced the lettering beneath, worn and faded with time. “It is difficult to say. With the O’Cuiv grave, the soil seemed like it had not been disturbed in years, yet we found Ellen’s possessions inside. Vambéry said these creatures possess the ability to change shape, even transforming into mist. This ability applies to the items in their possession as well. If such is the case, she could enter and exit a grave through the smallest of holes, something so small we may not be able to detect it.”

  “That is not very helpful, my dear sister.”

  Matilda moved on to the next grave. “There may be a familiarity to the name, or possibly a symbol on the stone. If Ellen used the grave as a place of rest or to store possessions, I believe she would have marked it somehow. You start over there, and I’ll go through these; keep working towards the outside of the yard.”

  I began moving through the graves, searching for anything of significance. The cliffside loomed precariously close, and I again noted how many of the graves were perched right at the precipice. This area of the cemetery was ripe for reclamation by the swirling sea.

  Matilda screamed and jumped back.

  “What is it?”

  “A snake. It startled me, is all.”

  I had not seen a single snake until her outburst, then, as if on cue, a pair slithered past me. There were no snakes in Ireland, so I was not accustomed to seeing them. In truth, they made my skin crawl.

  “The ground is moist here, primed for grass snakes. They’re harmless, though; it’s the adders you need to watch out for. They’re not very aggressive, but if you step on one and it bites you, they have some of the most lethal—”

  “Thornley?”

  I looked up to find Matilda kneeling at a small headstone.

  “I think I found something.”

  I walked over and crouched down beside her as she busied herself plucking away weeds. The inscription on the stone proved difficult to read, but was still legible, simply stating IN REMEMBRANCE OF BARNABY SWALES. There were no dates.

  “I don’t understand. What is the significance? I’ve seen dozens of headstones like this. Is the name familiar to you?”

  Matilda shook her head. “It just reads ‘In remembrance of . . .’”

  “So do many of the other stones here,” I replied. “A lot of these people were lost at sea; there would be no body to bury, so they mark the grave like this instead of saying something like ‘Here lies . . .’”

  “There is not a single grave amongst the suicides that says ‘In remembrance of . . .’ save this one. They are all out there,” she said, gesturing towards the other half of the cemetery. “Why would an empty grave be amongst the suicides? That does not make sense.”

  She was right, of course. The purpose of a suicide grave was to bury a body considered to be unholy or unblessed by the Church, away from sanctified ground. One that could not be officially buried on Church property. The damned were meant to be forgotten, interred and lost, never to be mentioned again. An empty grave had no place here. “I’ll get a shovel.”

  Above, the clouds could hold back the storm no longer, and thick drops began pelting us relentlessly.

  NOW

  Bram watches in horror as snakes writhe out of the soil at the base of the tower and attempt to climb over one another—so many snakes that the ground itself disappears, lost beneath their squirming, coiling bodies.

  At the center stands the man, his arms now outstretched, his eyes still closed, his fingers still twitching. Bram cannot help but think of a conductor and his orchestra, each instrumentalist following his baton. All of this activity is taking place in complete silence, Bram aware of nothing but the sound of his own breathing.

  Behind him, the odor of newly turned earth drifts from behind the door. This rank perfume of the grave is all too familiar to him now and he can only imagine its source here. Then he hears the loud grunt of a beast of some kind followed by the shrill laughter of a little girl, both also coming from behind that door.

  The last rose he placed there is now shriveled up and dead, and his basket is empty; he had placed the last two on the windowsills in order to keep the man, this Dracul, from entering. He considers moving only one, but knows that is probably exactly what this man wants him to do—free the window and allow him entrance into this place.

  The odor grows worse, and Bram tries to shield his nostrils with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Around the frame of the door, the last of the paste dries right before his eyes and crumbles to the stone floor. A dark muck begins to seep out through the crack between the foot of the door and the floor itself, a sour-smelling mess teeming with maggots and wiggling worms. Bram pulls off his coat and tries to stem the grotesque flow, but it somehow moves around his blockade, impossibly climbing over his coat, into every crease. Bram pulls away in disgust.

  He returns to the window and looks down.

  The man is watching him yet again, a broad grin on his face, the ground around him still alive with slithering snakes. He raises his long arms above his head and points to the open window.

  The stone walls of the tower, covered as they are with vines and errant foliage, centuries worth of vegetation attempting to scale the ancient façade, become the snakes’ destination as they begin to slip over the unfettered growth. First just testing, then becoming more bold, they slowly creep up the side of the structure. Where vines and foliage do not reach, the snakes, twisting and churning their bodies over one another, keep climbing, gaining inch after inch.

  Bram tugs at the shutter, and the wood becomes dust at his touch, the result, he has no doubt, of some evil spell cast by the man below.

  The man below closes his fingers into a fist, and the creature behind the door slams into the oak with a tremendous force. Filthy muck shoots out from all the edges, spraying across the room. Then it begins to drip from the top of the door, running down over the wood and the corroded metal lock.

  Bram runs back to his leather satchel and dumps out its contents. He has no more holy water, no more blessed host. Nothing left with which to defend himself. He plucks one of the crosses from the wall and brandishes it in his left hand.

  Outside, the snakes keep climbing, so close that Bram can hear their angry hisses as their thin forked tongues flick between their ever-ready fangs.

  THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER

  17 August 1868, 5:12 p.m.—“What is it?” Vambéry asked from behind me.

  I ducked deeper into the firebox and looked up. “There is a ladder here embedded in the chimney stones.”

  Vambéry squeezed in
alongside me and he, too, glanced up. “I see nothing. Hold on—” He disappeared and returned with a lit candle in hand.

  I reached up and gripped my fingers around the ladder’s first rung. “Here, do you see?”

  He raised the flickering candle. Stones protruded every few feet in a zigzag pattern from the top of the firebox to what appeared to be another fireplace on the floor above. The chimney was large enough to accommodate me standing up, and I rose to my full height. With the satchel slung over my shoulder, I began to climb. Vambéry handed up his cane, then followed after me, favoring his bad leg.

  I crawled from the chimney into the firebox on this secondary level and found myself in a room much smaller than the one below. It, too, smelled dank, and while no footprints were evident upon the dirty floor, I noted this deficit with caution, remembering the complete lack of footprints in the tower at Artane or in Nanna Ellen’s room.

  Vambéry hoisted himself up behind me with a grunt and dusted off his jacket and pants. There was a small window to the east, and he looked out. “The sleeping chambers were on this level; this one most likely belonged to Lady Hilda.” He cautiously inched forward. “Be careful where you step; this floor is brittle and can collapse underfoot.” There was a narrow door at the far side of the room, and he went to it. “The tower keep is one more level up.”

  Beyond the small room, we found the remainder of the staircase adjacent to the ruined hallways running to the left and to the right. While the steps leading down below were missing and the shaft sealed, those leading up remained intact. Vambéry advised me to stay close to the wall and follow directly behind him, placing my feet where he placed his as he tested the steps ahead of us with his cane. This part of the structure felt very much like a house of cards that could fall with little provocation, and I pictured us both crashing through the floor and landing under a pile of stone and rubble.