Page 72 of Lucy Undying

Doctor Seward calls on us every day now because she’s so unwell. Arthur doesn’t offer me relief from either of them; he’s caring for his own ailing father. I wrote and offered to visit, desperate to leave this house.

“Your place is at your mother’s side,” he replied, “and I will not deny you a single one of your remaining days with her.”

I wonder now how he actually feels about me. I thought him madly in love, but the closer we get to our wedding, the less I see him. He’s been by only once since we got back home, accompanied by his two solicitors. The three of them locked themselves up in the sitting room with my mother. Fortunately, Quincey Morris accompanied them and saved me from having to sit in and listen. He regaled me with tales of Wild America as we walked the garden. Maybe I should have chosen Quincey, after all.

My only daily companion is Doctor Seward. This afternoon I caught him watching my breasts with clinical concentration. When he met my gaze, he claimed he was timing my breaths, because “they seem shallower than they ought to be.”

He offered to listen more closely. I demurred and called one of the maids to bring us something to eat. It’s my only strategy lately, though my own appetite has waned tremendously since Whitby. I do wish Arthur would return and bear some of the burden of Doctor Seward’s company.

But…the doctor wasn’t entirely wrong. My breathing does feel shallow and tight, my whole heart clenched with a low, vague fear. My days are haunted, and in my dreams something stalks me with relentless determination.

Doctor Seward is worried about me, and Arthur writes that he’s worried now, too, thanks to Doctor Seward’s reports. I wish they would leave me alone. Let me be sad and empty. Let me stop pretending. I do not want to pretend anymore.

I suppose I should make an entry in my other diary about being fitted for wedding dresses this afternoon. It’s what the Lucy they all want would be excited about. But I cannot summon the energy for it.

Later—

The monster is in London now. I didn’t dream him. He’s real, and he’s here.

I knew he was coming, somehow. It’s as though I’ve been waiting for him. When I saw him across the street, his red eyes burning through the shop window, it wasn’t a surprise. It was almost a relief: I haven’t lost my mind.

I returned his burning gaze with one of my own. Then I laughed and spun and pretended to be happy in my wedding dress. This is not the empty night in Whitby. This is my home. If he thinks I’m afraid, he does not know me.

And Mina’s far away and safe. That made it easier to laugh with his wolf’s gaze fixed on me.

I’m considering ending this diary. I do not care to have any feelings anymore, even secret ones and

There is something outside!

September 3

Doctor Seward found me pale and unresponsive.

(I am more relieved that my diary fell behind my window seat where they did not discover it than I was that I had survived the monster’s latest attack.)

Once I revived enough, Doctor Seward insisted on examining me. Mother was fretting and he told me it was important to keep her calm, so I submitted. How is it that the doctor’s examination felt more violating than whatever that other monster did to me? There is something about Doctor Seward’s hands and eyes that make me feel naked even when I’m clothed.

Arthur is—allegedly, I have no proof myself—“very concerned,” particularly that I be well enough for our impending wedding. He doesn’t visit, though. And the doctor took it upon himself to bring another man into my home.

What can I say about Mister Van Helsing? He has eyebrows like two toxic caterpillars; he holds my hand too much and sits too close; he pats me like I’m a pet or a child; if I have to listen to him any longer I will throw myself to the mercy of the monster.

At least the monster has the decency not to speak to me anymore. With him, I don’t have to smile and blush and pretend not to mind the horrible stink of alcohol and tobacco as he presses an unwelcome kiss to my cheek.

And the worst part is, I know exactly what happened to me. What is happening to me. But the men don’t ask me, nor will they tell me anything about their own theories. I can see in their faces that they’re alarmed, but it’s all smiles for fragile, sweet Lucy.

But what would I tell them? A man who isn’t a man visits me as moonlight and mist and bats, bites my neck and draws out my blood, leaves me trapped in nightmares waking and asleep?

I know what would happen if I told them the truth. Doctor Seward would claim me for his sanitarium, where he could examine me whenever he wished, however he wished. And as piercing as the pain at my throat is, as listless and cold as I am, I prefer this suffering to being under Doctor Seward’s complete control.

I should run. I should flee. I should leave this house and everyone in it. But Mother won’t give me money, and I have no one to turn to. Mina hasn’t responded to my letters, and I can’t put her back in the path of the monster anyway.

But it’s fine. My brave, stalwart men are protecting me. Thanks to the advice of Mister Van Helsing, they have me surrounded with…garlic flowers. As though a flower ever held back a monster.

I cannot stand how small this house has become, with Doctor Seward and Mister Van Helsing and my mother and the maids. Surrounded at all times, alone at all times. I breathe in a miasma of lies, and I breathe out my own lies, and I’m so tired.

He’s at the window again, and I don’t care.

September 17?

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