Dracula: The Wrong Port

On their last evening in England, as the sun went down, Mina asked everyone to sit close around her.She made each of them promise that if she ever changed completely, they would save her soul, as they had saved Lucy’s.One by one the men knelt and promised, and last of all Jonathan, his face grey with pain.

They crossed Europe on the Orient Express and reached Varna, on the Black Sea, well before the ship.Every sunrise and sunset Van Helsing hypnotized Mina, and every time she said the same thing: “Waves lapping against the ship, and the wind in the sails.”Their plan was simple: board the ship in daylight, open the box while the Count slept, and end it.

Days passed, then a week, and still the Czarina Catherine did not come.Meanwhile Jonathan sat quietly sharpening the great Kukri knife that he now always carried.Then a telegram arrived: the ship had sailed straight past Varna, hidden in fog, and had reached the port of Galatz.

“When is the next train to Galatz?” asked Van Helsing, and Mina answered at once: “Half past six tomorrow morning.”She smiled at their surprise; she had always loved studying train timetables.Van Helsing realized the truth: the Count had used Mina’s mind to learn that they were waiting in Varna, and had tricked them.

But to keep his secret, the Count had now shut Mina out of his mind, and she felt freer than she had for weeks.“He thinks only of himself, like a criminal,” said Mina. “Once before, when he was beaten, he ran home to his own land, and now he is doing it again.”“Clever lady!” cried Van Helsing, kissing her hand, for now they understood their enemy better than he understood them.