Stoker's Manuscript (11 page)

I
swung my arm around in defense and struck a man on his shoulder. When he pulled back I recognized the priest and offered my apology.
“
-ma, va rog.”

“I speak English,” he said with a heavy Eastern Euro accent. He looked middle-aged Slavic and dressed in the black robes of Orthodoxy, without the round cap. He kept a clean-shaven face. “I am Father Andrew. What happened to you?”

“I was attacked by some . . . animal out there.”

“Let me see.” He shone a lantern over me and moved my chin side to side, inspecting my neck. “Anything broken?”

“I don’t think so.” I opened my jacket and noticed a startling amount of blood across my chest.

“You had protection,” he said.

Only then did it occur to me that whatever attacked me had torn through my clothing and some skin, only to stop when it saw the relic that Arthur had sent me.

To protect.

“Come,” he said, “there is a woman who will help clean your wounds.”
Voonz.

As the priest started walking toward the bridge, I halted. He turned to me and said, “It is okay. We go here.” He pointed to the lone house on the other side where the middle-aged Gypsy woman had looked at me earlier. I walked across the bridge and felt a shudder of fear with each creak of the wooden planks, and knew firsthand the fearful looks owned by the superstitious villagers. Yes, I now understood them.

The priest knocked on the door and spoke as the woman emerged.
“El s-a muscat un caine.” He’s been bitten by a dog.

I greeted her.
“
mâna.”

We went inside where the woman’s tidy house held decorations of traditional Romanian fashion: whitewashed walls with colorful fabrics and an icon corner along the east living room wall. Immediately she retrieved a wool blanket from a closet and laid it on the wooden plank floor, then covered it with a clean sheet. I lay on it while she washed her hands and the priest withdrew.

From a cabinet she removed several items: scissors, cleaning fluid, bandages, and a sewing kit. She snipped through what remained of my bloody shirt and asked,
“Cum
?” What is your name?

“
numesc
Joseph Barkeley.”

“Bine
venit.” Welcome.
“Sonia.”

She dressed as the nuns did, in layers of redundant modesty. Her collarbone-length hair was as black as the priest’s shirt, but giving way to random strands of gray. Like most women of these rural parts, she wore no makeup. Her skin suggested somewhere south of the Danube and managed to avoid the common ravages of deep lines, just a couple crow’s-feet. The shape of her dark eyes suggested east, somewhere the Mongols had conquered, and gave the impression she had seen much sadness in her life. Lastly, I noticed her manicured hands and slender fingers, out of place in the land of peasantry.

“I have a million questions,” I said.

Sonia carefully removed the crucifix from my neck, kissed it, and set it aside. She stared at my face while preparing to clean my wounds, and I heard the female voice in my head again.

Do not speak in the company of others.

I looked quizzically at her.
Is that you?
I thought.

She nodded.
Your first question involves your own sanity.

Yes.
I yelped when the alcohol-soaked rag introduced itself to my skin. The stinging cure felt worse than the wound.

I know who you are, and these are not dog bites.
She turned my chin side to side, also inspecting my neck.
Do you know what attacked you?

“No,” I said aloud. I suspected what it might be since it looked like the drawing in Mara’s journal, but one does not utter the word
vampire
while in the company of strangers in the Transylvanian backcountry.

She pulled back and glared at me for speaking.

Sorry, go ahead.

Sonia continued cleaning and prepared a salve for gauze and bandages.
Those who attacked you are evil, an eternal foe of all that is good.
She wrapped me with tape.
I did not need to see your neck to know that you have been selected.

Selected for what?
I asked.

A great mission.

I don’t understand.

You have come home to right a great wrong.
She handed me a towel to wrap as a shirt.
You will need wisdom.
Next she returned the crucifix to my neck and laid her hand on it.
And you will need this.

Is it enough protection?

Depends where you are going.

She went to the next room and retrieved an old coat to replace the torn one. Taking a deep breath as if to smell it one last time, she handed it to me with a wave and made a quick sign of blessing.

“
,”
I said.

The coat smelled old, but not unpleasant. It fit with room for layers and had a tad more sleeve than arm. One might describe it as a barn coat with a button front, the collar and lapel cuts not trending with recent fashion.

“Come,” the priest said. He had returned without my noticing. “You may sleep in the church.”

“My things are at the inn.”

“That door will not be open tonight.”

I had so many questions as I looked at her.
How can I thank you?

You must come back.

I wondered if I had heard her right. First she warned me to be gone. Then, after I failed to heed her, she insisted that I return. Her eyes, wiser and older than her face’s appearance, sought my own. Her gaze pleaded wordlessly that I mind her this time.

Come back here?
I asked.

You must return to this place. This very ground holds the answers you seek. Go now. Complete your transaction and return to me.
Before she closed the door, I heard,
Many lives depend on your completing your mission.

The priest walked me to the church and showed me inside. “They will not come in here.”

Many nights can I count sleeping on the hardwood pews of churches, and after my adrenaline and elevated heartbeat subsided I slept as if embalmed. I awoke to the sound of the priest opening the creaking church door.

“It is time for you to go now.” The priest handed me a crust of bread and water and my traveling articles that he must have retrieved from the inn.