Page 3 of Lucy Undying

But oh! My dearest heart is coming today, and I think I will die of all the love I have in me, the flutters and the hopes and the absurd little dreams that always come when I know what the train is bringing. A respite. Someone who cares about me, who cares for me, who wants only my happiness.

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Fie! A curse on my earlier hopes. Arthur Holmwood and his flesh-colored mustache are coming instead. He sent a card asking to call on us this afternoon. I forgot he existed until he insisted on reminding me.

He picked up my glove at the opera last week and assumes he also picked up my heart. As if I would be so easily won! I have dozens of gloves. I could lose a glove a day for the next month and never miss a single one of them, just as I could lose a dozen of these exhausting men and never think of them again.

What a waste of a day. I’m all foul moods and tempers, the worse for having to hide them. I shall go crazy pretending to be happy. Then Mother will send me to the sanitarium and Doctor Seward can study me at his leisure. He would like that very much, I think. Perhaps that’s why he’s always lurking about. Waiting for me to crack into pieces so he can examine each of them.

Speaking of torments. Arthur Holmwood and his horrid lip caterpillar are here. My journal must go into hiding along with all my true feelings. Smile, Lucy! Time to pretend.

4

Boston, September 25, 2024

Client Transcript

Thank you for inviting me in, Vanessa. You didn’t need to. Both because this is your office, not your home, so technically I don’t need an invitation, but also because I wasn’t going to kill you if you didn’t.

It must have been upsetting, though, seeing me decapitate that other vampire in your parking lot. Are you sure I shouldn’t be giving you therapy? No? Probably for the best. So kind of you, offering to listen to me. Therapy might be the only thing left that I’ve never done. How fun to be having a new experience!

Well then, to answer your questions in order of importance:

Yes, it’s fine that you’re recording this. I don’t mind. All these endless years, and I have nothing to show for them. Might as well live on as a ghost in your phonograph, or whatever they call them now.

Yes, vampires are real, and yes, I’m one, and yes, that other vampire was trying her best to kill me, poor thing. She might have succeeded, too, had I not outrun all her friends.

I hope your neck doesn’t hurt too much. The bleeding has stopped, at least. I’m sorry I didn’t get her before she bit you, but please don’t think too unkindly of her. She was basically a baby rattlesnake. All instinct and no control. You startled us, so she attacked. Which, again, I’m grateful for. They’d injured me enough already that I needed a little help, and you were an excellent accidental distraction.

And now to the other questions you peppered me with as I helped you back inside: How is this possible? Why is this happening? Are there more of them out there? Who are you? All valid things to wonder.

I’ll start at the beginning. The beginning is, as all beginnings are, soaked in blood and shrouded in darkness. The end will be, too, but we’ll get there together.

My name is Lucy Westenra, and this is my story.

5

London, October 4, 2024

Iris

“American?” the angel asks, still clutching the strap she tore clean off while pulling me to safety. I’m turtled on the pavement, backpack keeping me off the ground but also making it impossible for me to get up. She holds out her free hand to help; her skin’s warm and her fingers fit just right. I manage to awkwardly stand.

My heartbeat is an ocean pounding in my ears. Everything seems heightened and bright and loud. I almost died. Holy shit, I almost died. If I’d brought luggage instead of my old running-away-backpack, I might have. “What gave me away?” I ask.

“You have to look right here.” She points down where, sure enough, “LOOK RIGHT” is painted directly on to the asphalt. “Also, sorry about this.” She waves the narrow length of nylon that used to be my backpack’s top strap.

“That’s fine. I’ll sew it on like a patch to commemorate the time I survived not looking right.” I take it and shove it into my pocket to give myself something to do with my shaking hands. It’s hard to tell how old my angel is, with her golden hair, flawless cream-colored skin, and small frame, though she carries herself with an assured confidence I can only describe as not a teenager. But she’s such a slip of a thing, it’s amazing she managed to yank me that hard. “I’m glad you’re stronger than you look.”

“Adrenaline.” Her smile’s nearly as brilliant as the sun. But this is London, so it’s not hard to rival the sun for brightness. Still, I feel myself starting to go stupid and fuzzy, the way I always do when meeting gorgeous women. Or maybe it’s just my body, still flooded with that same adrenaline.

“Right. Wow. Welcome to England, I guess.”

She laughs, and it’s like champagne flutes being chimed together. Fizzy and bright and crystalline all at once. If I’d known they had women this beautiful here, I’d have gone to Oxford instead of Salem State. Mom would have been thrilled to pull strings and get me in. Even happier to pay for it. After all, whatever she financed, she owned.

Stay dead, Mom. Let me enjoy a beautiful face in peace. All the other beautiful faces my mother got her claws into flash in my mind, and my throat aches with pent-up emotion. Maybe this time. Maybe with Mom dead, with Goldaming Life far away…

My angel bends down and retrieves a spilled to-go cup. Her drink splattered on the sidewalk so I wouldn’t be. Which gives me an opening.

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