The Unholy Night

Chapter IV

"Cause I am, I am a little wicked, I am, I am, hands red, hands red just like he said, I am a little wicked"

- A Little Wicked by Valerie Broussard 

A note from your narrator: Still fond of me? Am I still growing on you? Shame. Not for long, my friends, not for long. 

Jonathan awoke in his bed the next morning. It had to have been a dream, all a dream, nothing but a dream. 

But there were small things that would make him think otherwise, because Jonathan Harker was a precise man. His clothes were not folded the way he liked them, his watch unwound. 

Luckily, he still had his journal. Dracula had not taken it. 

The horrifying faces of the women swam before him. The first, tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a hooked nose, the second, nearly her double, but with the addition of glasses, and the third, with wavy yellow hair, ruby lips, pearly white teeth, and eyes of a pale sapphire. 

(I have just been unceremoniously hit with a sketchbook yet again for writing that description by someone who has had over a hundred years to get over it.)

But just as he was remembering the events, the faces blurred in his memory, and then left him entirely. 

It wasn't for two more days that he returned to the door through which such a horrendous thing had happened, but he had to know if it was true, or if it had really been a dream, but he found that the door had been bolted shut from the inside. 

The day after that was the day he made the conclusion that he was trapped. 

"I need you to write three letters," Dracula said. "The first should say that you are nearly finished with your work here and that you will be leaving soon, the second should say that you will be leaving the next morning, and the third would say that you have left the castle and arrived in Bistritz."

Jonathan thought briefly of rebellion, but every logical bone in his body shot the idea down. In this time, it was madness. Dracula knew he knew too much, and it was unlikely that he would let Jonathan live anyway. It would be too dangerous. He just needed to stay alive as long as he could. If he could hold out longer, perhaps he could escape. 

Dracula's eyes resembled a storm - the beginnings of a hurricane, clouds spinning, gathering fuel for the tropical storm. They showed his wrath, of course. And it wasn't quite a storm yet. It was more darkness on the horizon, brewing quietly in his mind. 

If it all unfolded, Jonathan suspected, he might be in the eye. 

"Posts are few," Dracula sighed, "and their arrival is very uncertain. I would like to ease the minds of your friends. I will hold over the latter letters in Bistritz."

Jonathan had really no choice. "What should I date the letters? Sir?" The "sir" he added rather halfheartedly. 

"The first ought to be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29." 

Jonathan knew suddenly that that was how long he would live.

*

In a little less than two weeks' time, on the twenty-eighth of May, a band of worksmen began camping in the courtyard. They had been hired by Dracula, for purposes that Addy suspected were nefarious. 

"Have you tried talking to them?" Bess asked, looking out the window at them. 

"Yes," Addy answered, paging through a book she'd read at least ten times.