Dracula's Ghost - Interlude
The Box Revisited
Then I tried to find some way of embracing my poor mother’s ghost. Thrice I sprung towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom, and being touched to the quick I said to her, “Mother, why do you not stay still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms around one another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows even in the house of Hades. Does Persephone want to lay still a further load of grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom only?”
“My son,” she answered, “most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not Persephone that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together; these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now, however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note all these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.
Homer, The Odyssey (Book XI)
Amsterdam
1908
“Young lady, please help me to the balcony.”
Mina Harker slipped her arm beneath his own and helped him to stand. “Not so young anymore, I’m afraid.”
Abraham Van Helsing laughed, and the laugh turned into a wet, hacking cough. Mina remembered his last consultation with Seward, six months prior. A cancerous tumor of the lung. Nothing more to be done. Still, his eyes were alert, and his smile was warm and pleasant.
“Not so young, eh? The lady has children of her own, with a household to run and cares to weigh her down, so she says, ‘I am old woman now!’ Not so.” Van Helsing squeezed her hand. “This woman is young and strong. It is so good to see you again, Madam Mina.”
“And it is good to see you, Abraham.”
They had breakfast on the balcony overlooking the street. Van Helsing ate little, and Mina mourned silently at his appearance. He had been a big man, strongly built; now he was wasted away to a shadow. Sooner or later, the reaper comes for us all.
“And how are the Harker children?”
“They are lovely, of course,” she said. “Sarah is four and into everything, but her sweet nature keeps her from serious trouble. John Quincy is thirteen and somber like his father.”
“And how is Jonathan?”
“He is managing, I suppose. Arthur’s death affected him terribly.”
The rheumy looked into her own, and Mina wondered what Van Helsing knew, or suspected, about Jonathan’s state of mind. The nightmares had briefly returned after Arthur’s suicide, then vanished like dew in the morning sunlight. Jonathan appeared as vigorous as ever, and even the recent troubles were handled with a surprising nonchalance. Surprising, and a little disturbing. If the events of 1893 had broken Jonathan Harker, the fragments had been reassembled into something better - a gentle, kind man tempered by loss. Arthur’s suicide, by contrast, had hardened him. Jonathan was wound taut, and Mina found herself wondering how long he would endure before some vital piece of machinery snapped.
“Our friend Arthur casts a long shadow.” Van Helsing paused as another coughing fit overtook him. “It is always so. My own son died so young, and my poor wife -” He shook his head to banish the memory. “Still, we must work while the sun shines. What have you brought me?”
“One of the children has died.”
“Very sad,” Van Helsing said. “How did this child – no longer a child, of course – die?”
“Killed in a carriage accident,” Mina said. “Theodore Price, aged twenty-one years. He must have looked the wrong way crossing the street, and he was crushed under the wheels.”
“I see. And what was done afterward?”
Mina touched the hollow at the base of her throat. “Dr. Seward handled the matter before the burial.”
“Good.” Van Helsing was wracked by another coughing fit. “And the others?”
“Two are alive and accounted for. We never identified the last child.”
“What about the police investigation?”
“I don’t understand it – they must have found something, but the whole thing ceased as quickly as it started. Jonathan swears that Lady Godalming gave them some tidbit from Arthur’s papers.” An idea that he would never have entertained before Arthur’s death, she thought.
“Very well. We must wait and hope for the best.” He caught her expression. “What else troubles you, dear lady?”
“Do you think Arthur told the truth? Did Lucy… visit him after her death?”
“I wish to say no, but I am not certain.” Van Helsing coughed again. “And there is the matter of the box. Its nature and purpose is simple enough to understand - Dracula removes a little earth from the other boxes and leaves behind a final sanctuary - if we accept Arthur’s story. But what of that? We passed through the bitter waters and emerged from the other side, scarred but living.”
“And yet we are still afraid.” She took his hand in her own. “I must return to London tonight, but I wanted to see you again.”
“To say goodbye.”
“Yes.” Mina leaned over and kissed his cheek. “To say goodbye.”
Abraham Van Helsing dreamed that night, vivid memories from a London tomb – dust, blood, and the lonely wail of a young woman. At dawn, he called for the priest and made his final confession. He died two days later.
II.
London
Mina waited until he departed for the Continent. Rumors and innuendo had dried up Jonathan’s domestic business, but there was still work to be found across the Channel. Eleanor, her Lady’s Maid, eyed her suspiciously. “Does your husband know where you’re going, Madam?”
Of course not, she thought. I’d be a bloody fool to tell him. Elanor’s tongue was notoriously loose, and Jonathan would hear of his wife’s waywardness, but she would deal with him in due time. For now, Mina assured her that she had her husband’s permission to venture out and climbed aboard the carriage. An hour later, the driver dropped her off in Purfleet.
The sun warmed her skin as Mina climbed the stone wall. In 1893, there had been some semblance of groundskeeping, doubtless performed in anticipation of the new owner’s arrival. Fifteen years later, field rose and wild parsnip crowded out the grass, and poplars sprouted among the weeds. The house itself had changed little, and Carfax Abbey was a dreary place, even at midday. Arthur could come at midnight if he wished, but Mina would not venture near the place after sunset. The great wooden door stood ajar before her.
Enter freely and of your own will.
Mina looked over her shoulder at the weed-choked lawn. Fifteen years ago, she had teetered at the edge of an abyss, and not even Jonathan understood how close she had been to falling over the edge. For years, every creaking floor at midnight, every tree limb scratching the window at dawn, filled her with dread. Now, standing in the late morning sunshine, a knot tightened in her stomach. If she turned her ankle on a loose board or impaled her foot on a rusty nail, she would never make it out before sunset. What in God’s name had she been thinking to come here?
Enter freely and of your own will – but come alone.
Dry leaves, blown through the open doorway, crackled underfoot as she crossed the threshold. Mina followed a short hallway to her right, then turned left down a longer passage. The windows were boarded up to discourage intruders, but the rotted planks had fallen away in places, and sunlight filtered through the openings. Dust motes, stirred by her own passage, danced before her eyes as she walked. Mina turned another corner and the door to the larder stood closed before her.
She lit the lantern with trembling fingers and braced her shoulder against the door. He is here, she thought as the hinges protested. Dracula cheated us with the illusion of his own death, and he has been sleeping under our very noses for fifteen years, waiting for the proper moment to exact his revenge. Waiting for my return. The door slowly gave way, and Mina realized, too late, that she had no defense against an undead enemy. Her mind willed retreat, but her shoulder remained firmly pressed against the door and her legs carried her of their own accord as she crossed the threshold.
The larder was empty.
Mina stood in the gloom and pondered Arthur’s final letter. The box is the door. Mina is the key. Don’t you see it John? He’s been one step ahead of us all along! Mina shook her head to banish the thought. Dracula was dead - Jonathan and Quincy had killed him, and his plans, whatever they might have been, had been thwarted in the end. If the box existed at all, she told herself, it no longer mattered. Things turned out all right, just as Quincy foretold. Still, a chill ran through her as Arthur’s words echoed in her mind.
The box is the door. Mina is the key.
She retraced her steps through the dusty hallway. The front door was standing ajar, just as she had left it, and Mina closed it firmly behind her. The sun shone brightly overhead as she picked her way across the overgrown yard, unable to shake the foreboding that lingered in her mind.