Stoker's Manuscript (28 page)

Sonia nodded.
Repeat what you know of their location from the original epilogue.

‘And with argint swords—’

Whose words are those?
She lifted an eyebrow.

I thought a moment.
Your husband’s . . . Romanian word for
silver
. Multiple swords.

Yes.
She nodded for me to continue.

‘. . . dipped in their blood—’

My husband chose his words, his
written
words, carefully.

Dipped, not drenched.

Show me—how does one dip?
she asked.

I gestured.
In slightly, then pull back.

But not remove all the way.

‘. . . their bodies scattered . . .’
I thought a second.
Cut up and strewn about?

Did he write ‘cut up’?

I shook my head.

Then keep to only what he writes.

Just scattered.

She waited to see if I understood before posing a question.
When you scatter grain, is it whole?

No, it’s in little pieces.

She lifted an index finger.
But is it whole?

Well, each grain is whole.
She smiled, that certain brief beam to let me know when I comprehended.
So the wives are buried apart?

She nodded.
Go on.

‘. . . equally about the waters of Acheron.’ Acheron is a river in the underworld, and on the other side of it is hell.

When did that place come into your head before?

I looked at her in surprise. I realized that the
Acheron
image had come to me the first time I crossed that little river from the church to Sonia’s house.
You did that?

She smiled. There it was again.
Yes, I placed that in your head.

Why?

To see if you were the one. Now go on . . .

‘. . . in Demeter’s hull.’
This one I thought I knew, since
Demeter
was the name of the ghost ship that carried the count to Whitby.

Not a ship. Move ahead to next.

‘. . . beneath the eyes of the Lord, and a loving foundation . . .’

She held up two fingers.
See comma. Those are two places.

‘Beneath the eyes of the Lord’ is . . . well, everywhere,
I thought. Then I recalled from my previous search that as you get to the end of the clues they get more literal.
Eyes of the Lord . . . eyes of the Lord.
I had seen them . . . the cross, no . . . in the church . . . a painting on the ceiling of Jesus looking down.
When was the church built?

Go look.

Momentarily I was stumped until realizing the cornerstone should reveal the answer. We walked hurriedly across the bridge and bent to look at the cornerstone. The date read
1714
, and above it read the name of the settlement,
DEMETER
.

She nodded and we returned to her table. I thought of the connection—that
Dumitra
is the Romanized form of
Demeter
. She confirmed it with the smile. That also meant that whoever supplied the ship’s name had seen that cornerstone.

Yes,
she acknowledged.
Have you wondered why there is no graveyard about this church’s grounds?

I had not, but that would explain it—unholy ground. It also suggested that others knew it as well.
Which of them is there?

Dalca’s.

That would be Erika.
‘. . . and a loving foundation.’
I paused, puzzled.

Use the first word again.

Beneath . . . beneath the eyes of the Lord, and beneath a loving foundation.

Think!

I did not get it.
Where is she?

Sonia stared at my eyes but did not project any thoughts my way. A minute passed, then another and another until she took her right index finger and pointed straight down. My first thought was that Radu’s bride, Luiza, resided in hell; then a streak of blistering heat traveled my spine as I realized that the “loving foundation” was literally the foundation of George and Sonia’s house.

“Yes,” she said out loud.
Jyezz.

Sonia’s house rested atop the grave of Radu’s wife. I checked the distance by walking outside and casually stepping off paces from the river to the church, and they equaled the distance from the river to Sonia’s house.
Scattered equally.
That is why she and George had built their home there, and that is why she, as she said, had more at stake.

At that moment I understood why I had certain tests I needed to pass in order to fulfill my mission, and one of them was that trip to the museum. Not only did Sonia have to learn to trust me, but she had the wisdom to know that if I learned things on my own, I would be more likely to believe them.

“I’m sorry to question you,” I said.

Her smile said all I needed to know—that she trusted me.

F
resh knowledge of what lurks under the floor changes the way you sleep. The night spawned noises that triggered visions of a vengeful Noble vampire. When I asked Sonia how long it took for her to sleep soundly above that foundation, she said it was only about thirty years. What frightened her most were earthquakes, which the region felt every couple years.

I also learned that George’s father had been a stonemason who rebuilt the Demeter church in 1811 after Napoleon’s troops scorched the earth on their way to Russia. While working the previous year at Castel Bran, he had met one of Vlad Dracula’s human slaves bound for a birthday party—a slave who’d decided against taking a particularly sensitive secret to the grave. George’s father was hired on for work in Dumitra and later confirmed the man’s tale, ultimately bequeathing the secret to his son while constructing stone foundations over both burial sites.

I went to the inn early that Tuesday morning to meet Luc for a daily briefing. “I found something,” I said.

He paused and looked at me. “In that Bible?”

Another lie-detector spike surged through my body. “Yes.”

“Well,” he said, “you’re lucky you went back and got it, then.”

I nodded and told a critical lie. “There’s a series of landmark descriptions.”

Luc seemed to buy it. “Where are they?”

“Up north.”

“You know I can’t go up north.”

Radu’s territory,
I thought, nodding, and then looked down. “I know.”

A long silent period passed before he spoke again. “You know what is going to happen to me, and
you
, if you don’t come back.”

“I know.”

More silence. “How long?”

“I’ll be back Thursday in time for the ride back here.” When he didn’t respond, I asked, “You got somewhere in
you can spend the week?”

A brief smile told me yes. “I’ll ride in with you.”

The Gypsy waited for me at his driveway’s end that morning. I handed him three loaves from Sonia and asked him to wait for Luc. We shared a quiet coffee in the interval. I felt sad for the Gypsy, as his inventory of large copper kettles and other cooking pots never seemed to shrink. In a rare moment of inquisition he asked me what brought me to Dumitra, and I told him in Romanian that I was an American here working in
and looked up a relative, Sonia, a blood relative from my mother’s side. Despite it being only a half-truth on multiple levels, that seemed to satisfy him, and was likely to become common knowledge across the village by nightfall. Spreading this information had not been my idea, but Sonia’s.

Luc hustled down the hill with his bag and thanked the driver for waiting. In
I checked the locker before departing north to Baia Mare. Only the cash and passport remained; the Bible was gone. The forged document showed I would be a Canadian citizen, Allen Petric, with an address on Hoover Street in Nelson, B.C. A Romanian Customs stamp showed I had recently entered the country, quite legally. I thought about the photo and recognized it as the one taken at UPS when I picked up my parcel from Ardelean.

I placed the passport back in the locker and boarded. Once the train left town and entered the countryside, I began recognizing landmarks and locating my position on a map, and the journey seemed to shorten. Either for reasons of repetition or perhaps because it felt like everything was closing in upon me, the place seemed to have shrunk.
What a small country.
It really was like being stuck in Oregon. Not that Oregon’s a bad place, but you’d love it less if the borders had walls. One other thought haunted me: I did not want to leave without Sonia. That would have been abandonment.

Before reaching my stop, I noticed a man passing me in the aisle. It was not so much his looks, but his smell. It was the same brand of cigarettes I had smelled the night I extricated the Bible from the museum in Belgrade. I should have noticed it before—the smell of American tobacco. European and East Asian tobacco smells much stronger, and the cigarettes are not rolled as tightly as American brands, giving each unique signatures. By the time I turned to look at him, he had left my train car for the one behind. I had not made out his face.

In Baia Mare I walked from the train station to the square and did not stop anywhere or display my crucifix until entering the merchant’s shop, where I did not speak until I was the sole patron. I asked if the man was the new owner and if he spoke English.

“Da,”
he said to both.

I lifted the crucifix from under my shirt, and he immediately locked the door and drew its shade.

“May I see that?” he asked.

I slid it off my neck and watched as he gave it a close examination, rotating and inspecting it before looking at it under the glass.

“This is extraordinary,” he said. “Where did you get this?”

“It has been in the family,” I said. Another half-truth, as I did not tell him which family.

“How may I help you?” he asked.

I held my hand out and he reluctantly returned it. “I wish to exchange it for one of equal value.”

He asked me to repeat it, in case he did not get it right.

I said,
“
rog schimba acest articol?”

He nodded. “I will ask around.” His complexion had since turned pale, and his hands shook as he lit a cigarette.

“Cât timp va dura?” How long will it take?

“I do not know.”

“Because I must depart the morning after tomorrow.”

I left him with the name of the hotel where I was reserved. There I waited the day and night, taking only light meals and watching international news, though I must admit straining to hear my name on CNN to no avail. It is tough trying to sleep when expecting a visit from a Noble vampire. I made the most of afternoon naps.

On Wednesday afternoon I opted for a walk to the old town square to enjoy the open-air market. Vendors lined the perimeter while a band played traditional Romanian songs on a central stage. A small crowd, mostly young people, danced a mixture of both traditional and modern steps in front of the stage, ringed by a crowd of swaying observing adults. Several conflicting food smells wafted in my direction while I avoided direct contact with the crowd.

Still several hours before sundown and so close to my mother’s grave, I felt the solemn need to visit once more, if for no other reason than the selfish notion of closure. I rented a bicycle and rode north to All Saints, and upon approach thought the place looked rather peaceful, albeit neglected, and walked the bike up the rutted path. No one else was around, and I pushed through the gate and walked into the Paddock of the Damned. Around my mother’s tomb—now returned to its proper state—the impression made by the lid when I was there the last time was visible, along with the damage to the neighboring headstones.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the neighbors. “I caused this.”

I placed a hand on my mother’s tomb and, as much to scold as to lament, said, “Why? Why did you do it?” I could barely make the words come out of my mouth, knowing her choices had ruined the lives of the ones she was supposed to love. “And why the hell did you have us?” This was the part that I found damnable, to bring children into the world knowing the blood she would infuse into our veins.

I knelt to pray when something caught my eye. There, at the bottom of the sarcophagus, chiseled into the stone, was the same insignia imprinted on the presentation box that contained my crucifix. I bent to brush it off and get a better look. Sure enough, it was the Dracul family stamp, the dragon’s tail wrapping the bottom of a cross.

At that moment, my brother’s reaction made sense. He must have seen it when he knelt to pray beside her grave. Before leaving, I inspected all the other graves in the Paddock, but found no others with the stamp. I left with a profound sadness, not so much for myself but for the choices she made. I begged God for mercy on her soul as I rode back into town.

I returned to the park bench in the square and passed a couple hours observing the festivities from afar, occasionally walking off energy, as I found myself checking the sun’s position. Just after sunset, as I contemplated returning to my hotel room, a tall man approached me. He had Slavic features and wore tightly laced boots under pressed jeans. He sat without asking.

Immediately I smelled cigarettes. Not uncommon there, but again I recognized the American tobacco smell. I worried when he reached into his jacket, but he was only pulling out a pack of cigarettes, a hard pack of Camels, and offered me one.
“
o
?” Would you like a cigarette?