Dracula: The Wolf at the Window

Lucy seemed to be growing stronger, and everyone privately thanked Dr. Van Helsing, who visited daily and always draped strange white flowers — garlic blossoms — around her neck and across her window, though he never fully explained why.He warned Mrs. Westenra, Lucy’s gentle and anxious mother, never to remove so much as a single flower from the sickroom, no matter how strong their smell.But one evening, finding her daughter deeply asleep in a stuffy room thick with the flowers’ heavy scent, Mrs. Westenra could not resist gathering them all up and opening the window for fresh air, certain she was only doing a kindness.

That night Lucy woke to a soft flapping at the window, yet felt strangely unafraid, for her mother had come in to sit beside her and even climbed into bed to keep her company.Before long, a low howl rose from the dark shrubbery outside — deeper and far fiercer than any dog she had ever heard.Then, with a sudden crash of shattering glass, the head of an enormous grey wolf appeared, framed in the broken window.

In her terror, Mrs. Westenra clutched wildly at whatever was nearest — and her grasping hand caught the wreath of flowers around Lucy’s neck and tore it away.She gave one strange, gurgling cry, then fell back across the bed and did not move again; her frightened heart had simply stopped.The wolf drew its head back from the window, and in its place came a whirling swarm of tiny specks, pouring through the broken glass like dust caught in a desert wind.

When Lucy could think clearly again, her mother’s body lay cold and heavy across her, and an unnatural stillness had settled over the room.She called for the maids, and when the four of them rushed in and saw what lay on the bed, they screamed and fled downstairs for a calming glass of wine.But none of them ever came back, and when a badly shaken Lucy finally went looking for them, she found all four lying senseless and unmoving on the dining-room floor.

A strange, bitter smell hung over the half-empty sherry decanter, and Lucy realized with horror that someone had emptied her mother’s entire bottle of sleeping medicine into it.She was alone now — with her dead mother, her drugged servants, and that same low howl still sounding somewhere beyond the shattered window.With trembling hands and failing strength, Lucy began to write down everything that had happened, determined that the truth should survive even if she did not.

She folded the paper and hid it against her chest, so that whoever found her would also find her account of that terrible night.“God shield me from harm this night,” she wrote. “Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive.”