Page 74 of Now Comes the Mist

“How are you feeling, Lucy?” he asks kindly, though I notice he keeps his distance.

I have to think for a moment. “Better,” I say at last, surprised. “My head isn’t floating anymore. And I am not as weak or feverish.” My stomach suddenly gives an immense rumble.

The doctor laughs. “Good! I will send for some food at once. What will you have?”

“I think I could eat every strawberry pastry in London,” I say, sitting up without difficulty. I lean back against my pillows, cheered by my return to health and the blue sky and sunshine outside my window. But when Dr. Van Helsing goes to the door to send a servant for my breakfast, I see white sheets draped over my full-length mirror and the looking glass at my dressing table. The revelation of last night comes back to me all at once, and my heart sinks.

Dr. Van Helsing comes back and sees my changed expression. “That is just a precaution, my dear. I did not want you to be distressed upon waking up.”

I touch my face, and my hands come away clean. “Please, may I see?” I ask quietly.

When he lifts the sheet off the full-length mirror, I am confronted once more by the nightmarish woman who looks like me: long black hair, darkeyes, pale olive skin with a tint of rose. But there are red droplets swirling across her skin and in the whites of her eyes, as though some unseen wind is blowing the blood around her face. I stare at the proof of Vlad’s venom swimming in my veins, manifesting only—for some ungodly reason—in a reflective surface.

Dr. Van Helsing replaces the sheet, hiding my shadow self from view. “Do not worry,” he says gently, taking the chair next to my bed. “Jack and I are working hard to find a solution. I have done much reading since last night, and we have a few promising leads.”

My fingers involuntarily clench on my blanket. “Such as?”

“I will tell you when Jack returns. In the meantime, I want you to remain calm and to eat, so that those rosy cheeks remain when your mother comes to see you later.”

My heart gives a tug of longing for Mamma. I did not see her face more than once or twice during this latest illness, likely on the doctor’s orders, for which I am grateful. “How is she? Is she sleeping and eating better than she had in Whitby?”

“She is well taken care of,” Dr. Van Helsing reassures me. It is not an answer, but I am beginning to see that he is a man who does not respond unless he can do so with the utmost truth.

I close my eyes, my chest tight with the guilt of what I have done to my beloved mother. “I have worried her into her grave, haven’t I?” I whisper. “I will lose her as I lost Papa.”

“Do not say that. Your mother’s heart malady began long ago.”

“But I have worsened it, and death will come.”

“Death comes for us all,” Dr. Van Helsing says calmly. “We have not the power to decide when, where, or how, nor does it serve us to predict or anticipate it.”

“All those books I read in Papa’s library,” I say, swallowing past a lump in my aching throat. “And still I find no comfort. How can we live so haunted by death?”

The doctor folds his hands over one knee, looking thoughtful. “In some cultures, death is celebrated as an occasion to remember the life of the bereaved. In my mother’s culture, no one is left to grieve or struggle alone. The entire community rallies when a person dies.”

“Papa said his grandmother wore white at her husband’s funeral. To her, it was the color of mourning and she would not be persuaded otherwise, though it caused a scandal. He said she was heartbroken and so alone, and I am afraid that Mamma … that I will …”

Dr. Van Helsing’s eyes on me are kind. “It is hard not to have community. Just as your great-grandmother was cut away from her roots, so, too, were you and I, when I lost my mother and you lost your father. Being transplanted is not easy. It makes sense that death weighs upon you.” He holds up a stern finger. “But we will not let it enter here. We will not invite it in.”

I look at him sharply, but Harriet comes in at that moment and he gets up to take the tray from her. She gives me a nervous smile before vanishing, and the doctor himself places my bacon, eggs, bread, and tea before me, all of which tastes divine. I devour it in minutes.

Dr. Van Helsing claps his hands, delighted by my appetite, just as Jack Seward strides into the room with two large boxes in his arms, looking disgruntled.

“The shopkeeper thought I had lost my mind,” he grumbles, setting them on my dressing table. “He must have assumed I was one of the patients at my own mental institution and not the physician responsible for them. What is this all about, sir?”

Dr. Van Helsing leaps out of his chair, looking energetic and cheerful despite his lack of sleep. He pulls some pale purple flowers out of the boxes. “These are for you, Lucy.”

“That’s very kind of you, Doctor,” I say, bewildered.

His thick black brows form a stern line. “They are not for looking pretty. They are an experiment. You see, I have been reading an interesting book that may hold answers for us, particularly after what happened last night with the mirrors. Will you trust me in this?”

“Yes,” I say with foreboding in my heart, wondering how close to the truth he has come. He approaches my bed slowly, his eyes on my face as he holds the flowers about two inches from my nose. I stare at them, puzzled. The stems are long, thin, and green and the blossoms are tiny purple spheres. But the most notable quality of the odd bouquet is its thick, strong, cloying smell. I look up at Dr. Van Helsing, who seems pleased by my confusion.

“We are not too late,” he says, satisfied. “Hold these, Lucy.”

Obediently, I take the flowers. I sniff them and immediately sneeze.

“Sir, you are going to frighten her if you don’t explain,” Jack says wearily as Dr. Van Helsing dives into the open boxes again. He brings out at least two dozen similar bouquets and looks around my room with an appraising eye, like a newly married woman decorating her new home. He puts flowers on my dressing table, hangs some from a string over my bed, and places more on the stack of books beside my bed. All the while, hehums a merry tune, and Jack and I exchange glances of mutual certainty that he has gone completely mad.

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