OKAY let’s get caught up today. No whammies. Mommy wants to stop stressing about this and play video games.
By the way! My mother was trying to bully me into going on a cruise with her. I’ve done a few brief cruises on the Baltic, but I find the limited time available really stressful. Go for an afternoon and run back before you can do anything. Anyway, I convinced her instead to take a trip with me to Ireland. She’s nerdy about family trees and such so I proposed we go there and look around, perhaps connect to our lineage. So maybe about this time next year (2024) I’ll be writing about our trip. I plan to slurp up any and all Bram Stoker content to report back to you even if it means resurrecting this blog series. We don’t have much of a plan yet for where to go but I suspect we’ll be in Dublin for a few days and probably wander west to Tipperary, where our family apparently comes from. If you’ve got some suggestions of secret vampire stuff, hook me up!
Van Helsing and Dr. Lobotomy go to the church graveyard in time for some stranger’s funeral and hide there until the sexton locks the door. Van Helsing says they won’t be there long, but Dr. Lobotomy is creeped out all the same. Why check the coffin again if they know already that Lucy isn’t there?
They go to her “vault” and Van Helsing opens the tomb and then Lucy’s coffin. There lies Lucy, beautiful and healthy-looking.
“Is this a juggle?” I said to him.
What a strange way to use that word, but I guess “juggle” could mean a trick. I wonder if I can use this phrase in a conversation and confuse some strangers.
Dr. Lobotomy’s skin crawls as Van Helsing pulls back her lips to reveal her sharp teeth. He says they’re to bite the children. This suggestion just pisses off Dr. Lobotomy and he tries to rationalize that someone may have been moving Lucy around. Van Helsing argues that most corpses a week dead don’t look so sexy (I paraphrase).
Van Helsing explains and finally drops the word “vampire.” He says that she was in a trance when the vampire feasted on her, and she was in a trance when he returned for more. “In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too.”
I’m having some trouble figuring out this part:
Usually when the Un-Dead sleep at home”—as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was “home”—”their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to the nothings of the common dead.
By “common dead” does he mean preserved hotties?
Van Helsing laments her innocence and that he’ll have to kill her anyway. This enrages Dr. Lobotomy. If he accepts that she’s already dead, why be angry that he kill her? Dr. Lobotomy asks how they kill her, and Van Helsing says he will cut off her head, fill her mouth with garlic, and drive a stake through her body. Dr. Lobotomy finds himself more repulsed by the idea of the undead than even the idea of desecrating Lucy’s corpse.
Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?
There’s a long silence and Van Helsing closes his bag. Killing her now might be the most logical choice, but how will they explain themselves to Arthur? (You could just not, says I.) Lucy hasn’t killed anyone just yet, but if not even Dr Lobotomy could believe his eyes, what would Arthur do? It could be that Arthur even believes she might have been buried alive.
Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace.
Well I can’t really fault his logic there. I guess.
They make plans to meet the following day, and with Arthur and Quincey as well. This should be a fun night out with the boys.
What follows is a letter from Van Helsing to Dr. Lobotomy. He is plastering her tomb with crucifix and garlic to keep her in, but notes that it may not necessarily keep someone out. He does not fear Lucy, but the one who turned her is another matter.
He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy’s life, and we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what.
Van Helsing knows exactly what’s going on and just doesn’t seem to need to share that information with others.
In case he dies, Van Helsing sends Dr. Lobotomy all of the papers and journals from Jonathan et al.
September 28th is short, thank dog.
After a good night’s sleep Dr. Lobotomy journals in an outrage that Van Helsing nearly had him believing in hocus pocus. He wonders if Van Helsing himself has gone mad, and makes a note to watch him carefully.
That’s all there is for today but I want to bring us back to something that we learned in our bonus posts from Reading the Vampire, how Van Helsing is the bridge between the modern scientific world and the low-class folk, who know the truth. We’ve even seen Seward scoff at the lower-class maids drawing the blinds in the Westenra house. Van Helsing’s mind is open, meanwhile. I’d love to know why he’s like this. I wonder if he’ll tell us later?