Page 65 of Now Comes the Mist

“He came again just now. He is living in Purfleet, near Dr. Seward’s property. Aside from being much too interested in you, he seems charming and gentlemanly. And yet—”

I find that I am holding my breath. “And yet?”

Mina hesitates. “You seemed afraid of him before we left Whitby, and I think you were right to be wary. There is indeed something odd about him. A sense of wrongness in the way he looks at one and speaks to one. I believe he has an improper interest in me as well. I think some men must enjoy the …challengeof a woman who is engaged to another.” She studies me. “The day you warned me about him, you told me Jonathan was still alive in almost the same breath. I know I promised not to question you. But there is no way you could have known, unless …”

My palm stings from the pressure of my fingernails digging into it.

“Unless it was that bond between us. That link I believe we share with our loved ones,” she says, and I let out a slow and quiet breath. “Perhaps your love for me and, in turn, my love for Jonathan, led you to sense that he was safe. But I have been turning it over and over in my mind, the way you seemed to imply a connection between him and the count.”

My throat is dry as bone, and I find that I cannot say a word.

“And I have been asking myself questions. Such as whether the count could be the client Jonathan was helping in the Mountains of Deep Winter. Or whether he could possibly have had anything to do with Jonathan’s delay.” Mina puts her hands on my shoulders and searches my eyes. “You had a feeling about Jonathan being alive. Did you somehow sense this, too?”

For one wild and reckless moment, as I look into the vivid blue of her eyes, I consider telling her everything. I consider baringall. The mist, the dreams, the secret encounters with Vlad. But then I would also have to confess to her what I have done—what I have asked for. And I am too much of a coward. We stare at each other for a long, charged moment before I hang my head. “No,” I mutter. “I was so ill, Mina. I must have been feverish. Confused.”

“You did not seem confused to me,” she says quietly.

I keep my eyes averted. “As you say, there is no way I could know these things. It is only intuition, perhaps. A feeling, to use your word.”

There is another silence, and then she squeezes my shoulders and forces a smile. “Yes, of course. This is all conjecture, and it may be unfair, casting suspicion on a man whose only fault may be liking women who are already spoken for,” she adds in a lighter tone, and I make myself smile back, even as my pulse quivers like a cornered animal. “Perhaps I am overthinking it, as I tend to do about everything. But you know that about me, Lucy. My Lucy who I love more than life itself.” She kisses me again, this time, a sisterly peck on the cheek. “I promise to be back intime for your wedding. Ring for Harriet, dear. Tonight, I shall be on the train to Jonathan.”

I lie in bed alone that evening, feeling desolate with Mina gone, tucked into a train compartment somewhere with her trunk above her dreaming head. Part of my heart went with her, and I wish all of it had, for the piece that remains insists upon aching. I stare into the shadows of my room, wondering what else she may have pieced together from what I did not voice about Vlad. I would ask her if she were here in bed with me, but she never will be again. When she returns, she will be the wife of Jonathan Harker. And my beloved friend, my confidante and my teacher, my sister and my love, will almost be dead to me.

I curl into a trembling ball and hug myself. I cannot go on losing people, for every time I do, a part of my own self is destroyed. And someday, there will be nothing left of me at all—nothing left of any of us but ashes and shadow. How short, how full of loss life is. How unerringly bookended by death. I bite down on my pillow, hard, to quiet my sobs.

But my mother must hear me all the same, for there is a quiet knock followed by her soft voice asking, “Lucy?” The key turns in the lock and my door opens, revealing her thin face. The moon falls full upon her features, sharpening her skeletal cheeks, hollow eyes, and skin as fragile as crumbling paper. The truth of her illness is even clearer in the darkness, and it hits my aching heart like a powerful blow. “I had a feeling you needed me.”

“Oh, Mamma,” I sob as she comes over and puts her arms around me, rocking me and murmuring soothing words into my hair. “Whatever would I do without you?”

“You would live on, my precious one. You would have a happy life with Arthur, loved and protected. I have no fears on that score, so I can go whenever I am called.”

I hug her so hard I can feel every one of her bones jutting out from her frame. “I won’t let you go,” I say fiercely. “You won’t be called. I cannot allow it.”

She laughs gently. “We talked about this when you were a little girl, remember? We cannot control death. It beckons and we can only obey, some of us earlier than others. I am glad, glad to the heart that I have had so many years with you.”

“How can you say that when we haven’t had nearly enough? Mamma, this is my fault. I should not have worried you so with my illness. I should not have—”

“Hush. I have been unwell for years now and I kept it from you.” My mother smiles, her face softening into the one I know and love so very much. “I was not certain for a long time. I only suspected, and I did not wish to think of it, not with my daughter not yet married and under a husband’s protection. But earlier this year, I began to accept it and to put my affairs in order. And recently, that marvel of a doctor Van Helsing put me at ease.”

“What did he say?” I whisper.

“I told him everything in Whitby,” she says. “He confirmed my illness, a malady of the heart, and assured me that I had prepared better than most. He praised me for seeing my lawyers early, organizing my papers, and ensuring that you would be cared for. And he gave me his word that you would always have his friendship. He holds such fatherly affection for you, my child.”

I cling to her, my throat raw with tears. “Butyouare my true parent, my last parent.”

“You are a woman now. In two weeks, you will be twenty and married. You passed out of my care some time ago without realizing it. It was why I pushed so for you to marry Arthur.” She tenderly wipes my face. “You will have Arthur to adore you, Mina to be a sister to you, and Dr. Van Helsing and many others to help and advise. We only fear death when we have not done what we should have or lived life to the fullest, and I have done both. My story is ending, but yours is just beginning. My one regret is not being able to see your children.”

I shudder. “I have no need of them when I still feel like one myself.”

“You will change your mind,” she predicts. “When Mina and Jonathan have their first baby, you will know that hunger for a child.”

“I? Hunger for a child? What nonsense.” I look pleadingly up at her. “Perhaps you and Dr. Van Helsing both will be wrong, and you will live to see a ripe old age.”

“Perhaps. But it’s better not to hope for something we have no power over.”

“Will you stay with me tonight, Mamma?” I ask. “I feel so lonely without Mina.”

We snuggle together in my bed, my mother’s arms around me as though I am her little girl again. She believes I will come to accept our situation. But as I listen to her breathing grow steady with the rhythm of deep sleep, I think of how I have never been the sort of woman to accept hard truths. And I will not be now, not in the face of losing so much.

---