Dracula: The Sleepwalker

Mina woke suddenly in the middle of the night with a strange, cold fear, and reached across the dark room for Lucy — but Lucy’s bed was empty.She lit a match and saw that Lucy’s dressing-gown and dress were still hanging in their place, so Lucy could not have gone far in only her nightdress.Mina threw a big shawl over her own shoulders and hurried downstairs, where she found the front door standing open.

She ran along the cliff path in the moonlight, and across the harbour, on their favorite seat by the old abbey, she saw a pale, half-reclining figure in white.Something long and dark seemed to be bending over it, though Mina could not tell if it was a man or an animal.Terrified, she raced down to the bridge and up the hundreds of steps toward the churchyard, calling, “Lucy! Lucy!”

For one moment something lifted its head, and Mina glimpsed a pale face and two eyes that gleamed red in the moonlight.By the time she reached the seat, though, Lucy was alone, fast asleep, breathing in long, heavy gasps as if she could not get enough air.Mina wrapped the warm shawl tightly around her and fastened it at her throat with a safety pin, then gently woke her.

Lucy did not seem frightened, only dazed, and let Mina lead her home like an obedient child, never losing her usual grace even barefoot in a churchyard at midnight.To hide her own bare, aching feet from anyone they might meet, Mina rubbed mud onto them so no one would notice, and the two got home without being seen.Before falling back asleep, Lucy begged Mina not to tell anyone — not even her mother — about the sleepwalking, and Mina agreed, locking the door and tying the key to her own wrist.

The next morning Mina was troubled to find two tiny red marks on Lucy’s throat, like pinpricks, and a single drop of blood on her nightdress.She apologized, certain she must have pricked Lucy with the safety pin in her hurry, but Lucy only laughed and said she had not even felt it.In the days that followed, Lucy slept and ate well and seemed cheerful, yet the roses kept fading from her cheeks, and at night Mina heard her gasping for breath.

The two small marks on Lucy’s throat did not heal; instead they grew a little larger, with strange white edges around the red centers.Mina told herself it was surely nothing, but she watched the marks anxiously, and decided that if they had not healed within a day or two, she would insist on calling the doctor.