Page 97 of Lucy Undying

And you were right. We were both right. Dracula is here. We’re closer than ever, and we’re in more danger than ever, and I need you to stay safe. Which means you have to stay away from me. The only way this works is if we keep Terminator Lucy off Goldaming Life’s radar. I’ll only leave another letter when I have a solid plan ready to go.

I miss you. I wish I’d brought your journal. At least then I could have your words in my arms.

I never told you about the daydream I had when reading your journal. (We needed more time. We’ll have more time, soon.) I read about you plotting to run away with your beloved, and in place of imagining you and this mystery person (I hadn’t realized who it was yet), I imagined you and me. Even before I knew who you were, Lucy and Elle were already blending together in my head and my heart. I was always falling for every part of you.

It does feel like cheating that I got to know teen you, though. You’ve only known the current me, and she’s a bit of a desperate mess. But here’s a story from my childhood:

I went to summer camp when I was thirteen. My mother wanted me to do private tutelage straight through the summer, but Dickie suggested that giving me a summer away might cut back on the volume of runaway attempts. “An emotional reset,” he called it. That’s probably why he let me go to London, too. Sneaky bastard.

I didn’t know what to expect from camp. I’d spent so little time around kids my own age. But it was magical. We were in the middle of nowhere, in a lush, dense forest. The air itself hummed with humidity and insects and life. I loved everything about it. The sunburns, the bug bites, the creaky bunks, the mediocre cafeteria food, the campfire singalongs. I painted and I learned ukulele and I excelled at archery. I made bracelets and lopsided ceramic pots and friends I was sure would last a lifetime.

I even had my first crush and my first kiss—the crush was on a counselor named Samira who was so cool I couldn’t even function around her, and the kiss was with my bunk mate Alyssa, who just wanted to “practice” once, which turned into nightly practice sessions for the rest of camp. (I don’t know if she wrote me after. If she did, my mother never let me have the letters. I looked Alyssa up a couple years ago, and she’s lead singer in a lesbian punk band. Samira is married with two kids and writes critically acclaimed young adult novels. I’ve always had good taste, is what I’m saying.)

I’m thinking about that summer now, everything green-filtered woodsmoke scented sunshine, and how happy I was. How happy it was possible for me to be once I was away from my mother and my bedroom and everything being a Goldaming meant. It’s a good reminder. I haven’t always been miserable, and I know we can be not miserable together in the future.

Dreaming of that future (and also, always, of you),

XOXO

Iris

81

Salt Lake City, January 13, 2025

Dracula

Somehow, you knew what he wanted. You’re out, alone in the night that belongs to him, walking on a trail through the lonesome hills.

Tonight it begins, but he can feel the ending as if it’s already happened. All your futures, all your potential, his. He’s inevitable. The black drag of gravity, pulling you down to where you’ll join the lives he’s collected and become one of his secret safe graves. Unholy and perfect, pulsing across the globe like fireflies burning in a color only his eyes can see.

But you. You’re all he thinks of tonight. His only now in an infinite expanse of then.

You walk down the wooded trail with confidence, warm brown curls bouncing defiantly. Such unjustified fearlessness. You don’t realize yet how powerless you truly are. How easily the teeth of this world can pierce you.

That might be his favorite thing about this current age. Everything has been made so secure, so safe. People scurry about their short, empty lives, certain that they have death held at bay. But it’s always waiting. He’s always waiting. They’ve simply forgotten how to look for him.

He’ll teach you. He’ll catch your cry in his teeth and savor the taste of your surrender, that bitterest bite. That sweetest bite.

He reaches out into the night and finds the hungry, willing minds of feral beasts waiting for his call. It’s time you felt the first wave of fear dragging you from everything you’ve hoped and planned into everything that’s left for you in this world: only him.

The snarls of the stray dogs chase you, nipping at your heels but never quite connecting. He won’t let them taste you. You belong to him that way. But dogs make excellent shepherds, guiding you into the wild. Just when it seems the whole world is fear and danger and death, you burst free of the scrub and hills. Onto the path and into his waiting arms.

He relishes your expression—fear and relief in one. You view him as your savior, and he is. Both your salvation and your damnation.

He sweeps you into his embrace, his the strength of generations, yours the weightlessness of mortality. You tremble against him. He can see the pulse pounding in your neck. He relishes the tantalizing agony of restraint as he sets you down next to the street. You eye the darkness warily, staying close to his side. He can still hear your rabbit’s heart, scampering in your chest, looking for safety. He knows how your pulse would feel, flooding his mouth, coating his throat, and it’s too much, you’re ready, he’s ready, he—

You look at him then, and something in your face stops him. Because it isn’t gratitude or even fear in your expression. It’s…a challenge. There’s something indecent in your gaze, a bold defiance that makes him want to hurt you right now. Abandon the dance entirely and break you on the spot.

But no. He reminds himself to be patient. He needs to break your will, not your body. And to do that, he needs you to let him in. Come with me, he says. You must recover from your fright. I live nearby.

And then you laugh.

His fingers spasm, reaching toward you with animal urgency to silence that sound. But you’re already stepping away from him. Rage boils, more than he’s felt in ages. He’ll show you, he’ll teach you to be afraid, he’ll—

You say you’ll be walking again tomorrow, this same trail, this same time. He watches you leave, barely able to contain the storm in his chest.

He thought he wanted you the way he’s wanted all the others, but you. You’re something special, something new. The longer it takes to make you his, the more you’ll pay for the privilege. This bubbling in his chest could be anger or lust or thirst, but it feels closest to something he lost so many lifetimes ago.

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