Lucy's Transformation

§1 I returned to Hillingham that afternoon with a letter in my pocket that I had not yet posted. It was addressed to Professor Van Helsing, to his residence in London, and contained a condensed account of everything that had happened since October eighth — the banquet, the Count's correction of my Latin, the letter Jonathan had burned, the petals on Lucy's windowsill, and the symbol I had drawn from somewhere in my dreaming. I had written it in a single hour of insomnia, my hand moving with the precision of someone who knows that the future may depend upon the accuracy of the record. The housemaid met me at the door with a face that was already half-apologetic. "Miss Harker, you're too kind to come back so soon." "Is she worse?" "She's been asleep most of the day. Missy, she don't touch her food. And last night — well, you'll have to judge for yourself." I went upstairs without replying. The corridor was dimmer than I remembered, the light from the windows filtered through curtains that had been drawn earlier than customary. At Lucy's door I paused, my hand on the brass handle. From within came the sound of breathing — slow, regular, the breath of deep sleep. But beneath it, underneath, there was another sound: a whisper, low and continuous, as if someone were murmuring to themselves in another language. I entered. Lucy lay upon the bed, her face turned toward the wall. Her hair was loose and fell across the pillow in a dark wave. The sheet was drawn up to her shoulders, and beneath it she seemed smaller than I remembered — not thinner, but somehow diminished, as if the light in her had been turned down rather than extinguished. The room smelled of roses — not the fresh green scent of cut blooms, but something older, heavier, like pressed flowers between the pages of a book that has not been opened in years. "Lucy," I said. She did not wake. The whispering continued for a moment, then stopped. Her breathing resumed its slow rhythm. I sat in the chair beside the bed and watched her. The house was silent except for the ticking of the clock in the hall and the occasional creak of timber settling in the cooling afternoon. I thought of the symbol in my notebook. I thought of Van Helsing's book. I thought of the white rose in my study, still upright, still refusing to fade. And I thought of Jonathan's letter, ending in ash and silence. §2 She woke at dusk, or what passed for waking — her eyes opened, but they were not immediately Lucy's. For a moment they were distant, unfocused, looking at something beyond the ceiling, beyond the room, beyond the house. Then they settled on me, and she smiled. "Mina. You came back." "I told you I would." She reached for my hand. Her fingers were cold — not the coolness of a woman who has been sitting by a window in autumn, but the coldness of something that has been withdrawn from warmth. "Have I slept long?" "Since morning." "I dreamed." Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "I dreamed I was walking in a garden. There were roses — white ones, with thick petals. I followed them. They led me to a door. The door was open. Behind it was —" She stopped. Her grip tightened. "Behind it was what, dear?" She shook her head slowly. "I don't know. It was dark. But I could feel him on the other side. Waiting." I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "You said his name in your sleep last night. Did you?" She was silent for a long time. Then: "I don't remember saying anything." "Your mother's maid heard you. She said you were speaking Latin." Lucy turned her face toward me. In the dim light her features were pale, almost luminous. "What did I say?" "I don't know the words. But the tone — it was not your tone. It was as if someone else were speaking through you." She looked away. "Perhaps it was." "What does that mean?" She did not answer. Instead she sat up and drew the sheet about her shoulders. "I'm not hungry, Mina. You needn't send for tea." "You must eat. You haven't touched food since yesterday." "I know." Her voice was calm, almost gentle. "But I'm not hungry. There's nothing I want." I looked at her hand where it rested on the sheet. The bruise was still there — but it had changed. The blue-violet centre had darkened to purple-black, and the edges had spread slightly, creeping outward like ink on wet paper. I reached for her wrist. "Lucy — when did this happen?" She looked at her hand and did not flinch. "I don't know. I've had it since I touched the petal." "You must let a physician examine it." "No." Her voice was firm. "Please, Mina. Don't tell mamma. Don't tell anyone." "Why not?" "Because they would make it worse." She met my eyes, and in that gaze I saw something I had never seen before — not fear, not sadness, but a kind of terrible knowledge. As if she knew something about herself that she could not explain, something that was happening to her whether she wanted it to or not. "You know that, don't you? If they know, he'll know they know. And then he'll come for them too." I did not know what she meant. But I understood the fear in her voice, and I understood that it was not entirely her own. §3 That night I wrote to Van Helsing. I described Lucy's symptoms in detail — the pallor, the coldness, the darkening bruise, the sleepwalking, the words spoken in a voice that was not hers. I included the Latin phrase I had heard, though I could not transcribe it accurately. I enclosed a rubbing of the symbol I had drawn, and I asked him, in the plainest terms I could manage, what I should do. I posted the letter before dawn. He replied that evening. His handwriting was cramped, urgent — not the measured script of the man I had met two days before. Come at once. I shall arrive tonight. Do not let the patient eat or drink anything. Keep watch. If she speaks in her sleep, write down every word. — V. I showed the letter to Lucy's mother, who wept and begged me to do everything I could. I told her Van Helsing was coming — a physician of international reputation, specialists in nervous disorders sent for him from the Continent. I did not tell her what I feared. I did not tell her that the symptoms matched, in terrible detail, descriptions I had read in texts I had dismissed as superstition. Van Helsing arrived at nine o'clock. He came alone, without portfolio, without the book he had given me. He looked at Lucy sleeping in the chair by the fire — she had not been able to stay in bed, and had drifted into a doze as the house settled around her — and his face changed. "You have been watching?" he asked. "Yes. She has been sleepwalking." "Talking?" "Yes. In Latin. I could not make out the words." He sat beside Lucy and studied her face in the firelight. His eyes moved over her features with the attention of a man reading a text he thought he knew but had never fully understood. "Her pulse?" "I do not know how to take it." "Let me." He took her wrist in his hand and held it there for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low. "Her pulse is slow. Too slow for a woman her age. And her skin —" he touched her forearm — "is cold. Not feverish cold. The cold of something that has lost its heat." He looked at me. "Has she eaten?" "No. She refuses food." "Good. Keep her from eating. And keep her from drinking anything either." "What is wrong with her?" The question came out before I could stop it. He was quiet for a moment. Then: "She has been visited." "By whom?" "Not by whom. By what." He stood and walked to the window. The garden was dark beyond the glass. "There are diseases that do not appear in any medical text. There are visitations that do not appear in any theological manual. Your friend has encountered one of them." "Is it contagious?" "That depends upon what you mean by contagious." He turned to me. "If you mean can it be caught by proximity — no. If you mean can it be inherited, or destined — that is a question I cannot answer." §4 I followed him into the adjoining room, where we could speak without being overheard. He closed the door and stood with his back against it, his arms folded. "You have been researching Transylvanian folklore," he said. It was not a question. "I have." "Have you encountered the term copila?" I felt the word settle into my mind like a key into a lock I did not know existed. "The bride of the night. The woman who waits for the Dragon Prince." "Yes." His voice was flat. "And have you read the texts that describe what happens when she is found?" "I have read fragments. Discrepancies. Accounts that contradict one another." "Because the truth contradicts itself." He walked to the desk and picked up my notebook — the one I had left on the hall table when I went to answer his knock in E6. "You drew a symbol. Have you seen this before?" He opened the notebook to the page where I had copied the symbol from his book. He studied it for a long moment. "This is what you drew?" he asked. "Yes. From memory. From my dreaming." He closed the notebook. "Your hand simplified it. The original is more complex. The curve at the bottom — you drew it as a simple arc. In the text, it branches. Three branches. Representing the three stages: the waiting, the claiming, the returning." "And which stage is Lucy in?" The question left my lips before I could check it. He did not answer immediately. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet. "That is the question, is it not?" "What are the three stages?" He did not answer immediately. When he spoke, his voice was lower. "The copila does not choose. She is chosen. The prince sees her across the centuries — not her face, not her name, but something else. Something that persists. And when he finds her, he does not ask. He takes. And she —" he paused — "she remembers." "Remembers what?" "What she promised. What she swore. What she gave." I thought of Lucy's sleepwalking. Of her words in the garden: "He waits. He remembers." Of the bruise on her hand, darkening like ink on wet paper. "Can it be stopped?" "That depends." He looked at me directly. "Does she want to be saved?" "What if she doesn't know she's being taken?" "Then she will resist. And resistance delays but does not prevent." He turned toward the door. "I must watch her tonight. You may keep watch too, if you wish. But do not leave her side. And do not let her speak to anyone — not her mother, not the maid, not you — until I have decided what to do." "Decided what?" "That she is already halfway across the threshold. And the question is whether she will cross it willingly, or whether I must pull her back." §5 I did not sleep. I sat in the chair beside Lucy's bed and watched her breathe. The fire had burned down to embers. The room was cold, and Lucy was colder — her skin had the texture and temperature of marble. Her lips were pale, almost white, and there was a sheen on her forehead that was not sweat. It was the sheen of something preserved, not perspired. At some hour in the early morning, she woke. Not fully — her eyes opened, but they were half-closed, dream-hazed. She looked at me, and for a moment I thought she would speak. Instead she reached out and took my hand. Her fingers were ice. "Mina," she said. Her voice was different — lower, flatter, without the musical quality that was hers. "You must not let him see you watching." "Who, Lucy? Who are you talking about?" She did not answer. Her grip tightened. "He's coming. He's almost here. Don't let him see you — don't let him know you remember." "Remember what?" But she had fallen back into sleep. Her breathing resumed its slow rhythm. Her hand went limp in mine. I sat in the dark and tried to understand what she had said. He's coming. Don't let him know you remember. Remember what? I thought of my dreams — the dark-haired man, the castle, the sensation of waiting. I thought of the symbol I had drawn, the one that felt wrong because my hand had simplified it. I thought of the white rose in my study, still upright, still refusing to fade. And I thought of Jonathan's letter, ending in ash. I thought of the Count at the banquet, correcting my Latin with that calm, certain voice. I thought of the symbol in Van Helsing's book, the one with three branches. I stood and went to the window. The sky was dark grey, the colour of wet slate. The garden was empty. But at the far end of the lawn, where the yews formed a dark hedge, I saw something. A figure. Standing. Not moving. I blinked. It was gone. Or perhaps it had never been there. §6 I did not tell Van Helsing about the figure. I did not tell him about Lucy's words in her sleep. I sat beside her bed and watched her breathe, and when the first light of dawn came through the window, I saw that her lips had colour — a faint, unnatural pink, like the inside of a shell. She woke. Her eyes were clear, focused, hers. "Mina," she said. "Did I dream?" "Yes. You were sleepwalking again." "Did I say anything?" "I don't know. I didn't hear." She looked at her hand. "The bruise — has it changed?" I looked. It had — but not in the way I expected. The purple-black centre had lightened, fading to a dull blue. The edges had receded. It was healing. Or changing. "No," I said. "It hasn't changed." She sighed, and the sound was almost relief. "Then perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps I imagined it." "I don't think you imagined it, Lucy." She looked at me, and for a moment her eyes were distant again — the same unfocused look she had had when she woke the day before. Then it passed. "I'm hungry," she said. "May I have breakfast?" "Yes. Of course." She rose from the bed and began to dress. I watched her — the way she moved, the way her hair fell across her face, the way she hummed a tune I did not recognise. It was an old melody, something from the theatre, something Lucy would have known from her childhood. But the tune was wrong — not the melody I remembered, but a variation, distorted, as if played on an instrument that had been out of tune for many years. She was herself again. Or she was becoming herself again. Or perhaps she was hiding something from me. I did not know. I only knew that Van Helsing was watching from the adjoining room, and that his face, when he saw Lucy standing and moving and speaking, was not relieved. It was grim. When Lucy had left the room — to fetch her wrapper, or to speak to the housekeeper, or to do something ordinary and human — he came in. "She will eat today," he said. "Yes." "She will eat, and she will drink, and she will pretend that nothing is wrong. And you will pretend that you do not see." "Why would she pretend?" "Because she is afraid. And because —" he paused, choosing his words with care — "because part of her does not want to be saved." "I —" "Do not lie to me, Miss Harker. I know what you saw last night. I know what she said." He walked to the window and looked out at the garden. "She is fighting it. Whatever is happening to her, she is fighting it. And that gives us time." "Time for what?" "To decide whether she can be saved." He turned to me. "Or whether she must be destroyed." End of Episode 7