Page 37 of Lucy Undying

My time there was done in more ways than one. I had looked for Mina in every face of every boy I saw on the battlefields, but I hadn’t found her. It was exhausting. I needed to stop looking for her, to let myself forget. I also needed to get the scent of blood and rot and terror out of my sinuses. That would never happen at the Doctor’s side.

“Stay with me,” the Doctor said. “You’re useful. And we have so much more to do.”

“No,” I snapped. “You don’t care about me. I’ve as much value to you as a scalpel or a needle.”

The Doctor gave me her most withering glare. “Lucy, there is nothing you can do that is more important than helping me.”

I nearly gave in and let her decide for both of us. Let her tell me who and what I should be. But the scent of morphine lingered, an itch in my soul. Once again something inside of me recoiled from a memory I couldn’t find. A phantom scar on my perfect vampire body.

And just like that, I was moonlight. I fled the Doctor and the trenches once and for all. I didn’t stop until I found so much light it shocked me back into my body.

Have you ever been to Paris in the frantic lull between wars? Everything building toward an inevitable, devastating climax, but oh, the pressure in that buildup! The ways people found to release it! I wandered the streets, lost among a populace raucous with joy over news of the armistice, drunk on the relief of it. I myself was dizzy with the heady triumph of knowing I had given this to them.

And then I was promptly murdered.

33

July 22, 1890

Journal of Lucy Westenra

Coming to Whitby was the right choice for Mother’s health. Arthur was sad (he cannot visit us here often, due to his own father’s poor health) and Doctor Seward cautioned against it, but Mother seems more herself than she has in months. For better and worse.

But not even being on her actual deathbed could have stopped Mother from making this trip. I have been dragged along on social call after social call, endless parades of tea and inanities as we bless distant acquaintances and local clergy with visits so Mother can tell them all about her greatest triumph: my engagement to the future Lord Goldaming.

And Mother, unaware in the most morbidly hilarious way possible, always adds in a whisper that Arthur will be the lord sooner rather than later, owing to the poor health of his father. I do not add in my own whisper that I will also inherit everything sooner rather than later, owing to the poor health of my mother.

But it doesn’t bother me. I feel more generous, knowing Mother’s end is nearing. I can tolerate everything. I don’t even mind smiling and feigning excitement over my wedding, demurring on taking a role in arranging the details because I cannot care about any of them.

My only focus is counting down the days until Mina’s arrival. She’s my lighthouse on the horizon, the fixed point I navigate by. Everything else is storm and tempest, confusion and despair, but Mina. Mina! Tomorrow the train delivers her to me, at last.

I’ve been sitting in front of the mirror, practicing my facial expressions. I must get them right so I don’t disappoint Mina. Here, the rapturous smile when I talk about my engagement to Arthur. Here, the generous smile when she talks to me about dull-as-mushy-peas Jonathan. Here, the excited smile when we plan our weddings and futures as wives.

I’m so good at showing what I’m supposed to and nothing else. I’m a little mirror, reflecting back what others wish to see.

I snapped at the maid tonight, wanting to prepare Mina’s bed myself. To make sure everything is perfect. And then I sat on my own bed and cried because what am I doing? What am I hoping for? Why am I breaking my heart against Mina’s shores, when they belong to someone else?

34

London, October 5, 2024

Iris

Water sluicing off me, I stand and slowly turn to the window. “No, Mom. You’re dead. I made sure of it.”

Crouched on the ledge isn’t my mother, red eyes glowing as she scrapes the glass with the blade I left in her heart.

It’s a crow. It drags its beak down the window once more.

“Pervert.” I cover my chest. You never know when it comes to animals. “Seriously, get a life.”

Without drapes to close, bath time is officially ruined. I tug out the stopper and let the water drain away. I’ve long kept a catalog of trustworthy versus untrustworthy animals, but it’s hard to be one hundred percent sure of most of them. Cats are the only species fully on the trustworthy side, mostly because they’d never follow a command they didn’t want to. And pugs, because pugs are too stupid and adorable to be evil.

Good animals versus bad animals is one of those things I could never talk about. How do you explain that you’re convinced your mother used various creatures to spy on you? That she was so insidiously controlling, so mind-bogglingly rich, even the natural world bent to her will?

Answer: You don’t. At least not if you don’t want to be involuntarily committed. The most dangerous thing I ever did was tell the truth.

Despite my earlier resolution to keep Elle out of all this, I take more time than usual getting ready. I brush my hair out so it will fall in loose black curls like a curtain around my face, then line my eyes and apply mascara. Finally, I add a healthy coat of tinted lip balm, just in case she finds my lips as potentially kissable as I find hers.

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