Dracula: The Mark on Her Forehead

The next morning everyone agreed that nothing would be kept from Mina any more.Before the men left, Van Helsing gently touched her forehead with a piece of holy bread, to protect her.Mina screamed, for the holy bread had burned her skin like hot metal and left a red mark.

“Unclean!” she cried. “Even heaven turns away from me!”Van Helsing said with great tenderness that one day, when their work was done, the mark would be gone.Then they all knelt together, held hands, and promised to stay faithful to one another.

At Carfax the men opened each of the twenty-nine boxes and placed a piece of holy bread in the earth.Now the Count could never rest in those boxes again.As they walked away, Jonathan saw Mina at the window and waved to tell her that the work was done.

In Piccadilly, Arthur and Quincey acted as if they owned the house and asked a locksmith to open the door.No one on the busy street thought it was strange, and soon the locksmith left.Inside, the house smelled just like the chapel at Carfax.

In the dining room they found eight boxes of earth, but the ninth was missing.They also found a heap of keys to the Count’s other houses.Arthur and Quincey took the keys and hurried off to deal with the boxes at Mile End and Bermondsey, while the others waited for the Count.