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calliopes_pen) wrote2018-09-11 02:27 pm
calliopes_pen) wrote2018-09-11 02:27 pm
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Story Notes For The Soft Whispers of the Dead
-For those that would like to watch Dracula (1968), it’s available on Youtube: You can find it here, in one part, if you either don’t want to purchase it, or want to watch it before you do. It’s 1 hour, 20 minutes.
-This is the longest thing I have ever written. Now you see the true terror that happens to my writing when I am not given a due date, and Dracula is involved. Also, over a month of beta reading. There were so many delays in getting this finished, thanks to an assortment of real life things, but I’m glad I made it through to the end of the story.
-While editing, I realized that I had left in a reference to one of your stories, Lost Spook. There is a mention that Van Helsing had a once haunted watch. I was encouraged to keep it in there. There was also a comment about not attending séances lest Jonathan end up possessed—that bit from Van Helsing was written long before you wrote me that story with everyone attending a séance.
-The following titles were considered: Suffered From The Night. The Embers That Glow In The Winter. Shatter Now The Veiled Reflection. Innocent Souls Turned Carrion Birds. The Pale Stones Were Splashed With Red. Coveted Be Thy Name. In the end, these two were big contenders, before the former won out: The Soft Whispers Of The Dead. The Bloodstained Shadows (or The Bloodstained Shadows Knew His/Their Sin).
-Originally, the story was going to be completely different. When it still had the title Suffered From The Night (it still uses that quote from the novel) Jonathan was going to stay broken. He and Mina would have remained estranged. He was going to simply go back to the asylum, and never be heard from again until a mention in the epilogue. There would be a hint that he and Mina would divorce soon, because he thought he was too broken. However, Jonathan was oddly thrilled to sit in the front row of Mina’s wedding to Seward.
-There is a another epilogue that I opted not to go with after rewrites. Seward’s housekeeper fell for Jonathan, thought he was sweet, and wanted him to stay as long as he wanted because she knew he wasn’t messed up anymore. Apparently, they spoke a bit during the course of the day that he was himself. Jonathan was stunned, and honored to find out the same invitation had been extended to Mina. The only hint of them interacting now (or that she’s in the story) is when Seward is relayed the fact that Jonathan was asking her for a second bowl of soup.
The rewrite had Seward offering Jonathan a guest room in a different situation.
-Let it be known that there are at least a dozen other versions of the ways that Jonathan was going to fall into the Count’s power in the castle. And there are other versions for Jonathan’s personality following the Count’s death, since we have nothing to go on aside from him being led away quietly in the film.
There are a couple where Jonathan had no memory of what happened prior to the events in the graveyard. There was one where Jonathan had a panic attack about what he had done and passed out, to be dealt with later. There are some, where Jonathan didn’t snap out of it when the Count died. There is one where he positively had a crush on the Count despite being free, and nobody could be certain of his loyalties. There is one where he discovered he could sort of partly control rats, and only told Seward so that he would know his office had a problem.
And then there’s what I went with, where the servant is another creature brought into some semblance of being under the Count’s power, which survived, and that wants Jonathan’s body even if he can’t have the Count.
-Father Arminius: He was mentioned in Wrap The Cloak of Night Around His Shoulders as a friend of Van Helsing’s, so I used him one more time. Van Helsing is writing a letter to him in the epilogue, which I highly doubt the man will fully believe. I said his origin was this in my Yuletide 2016 post on everything: “It’s my way of paying homage to the man who may or may not have inspired Bram Stoker in the creation of Abraham Van Helsing. His name was Ármin Vámbéry, and he was also known as Arminius. He was an acquaintance of Bram Stoker’s and helped him as a consultant when he was writing Dracula.”
-The Brides: I reused the names for them that I came up with in Wrap The Cloak Of Night Around His Shoulders. In a deleted scene, Marishka (who I almost renamed Livana to get around the Van Helsing (2004) reference, before I didn’t for whatever reason) actually speaks to Jonathan, before briefly using his body to chain Amaya and Mehira in their coffins. Which would have led to some off panel torture for her prior to Jonathan and Dracula leaving for Whitby.
A very vague write-up was done of that before I decided I wasn’t going to use it. It will go into the deleted scenes post, if anyone is interested.
-Olgaren: He is imported from the novel. He was one of the crew that died on board the Demeter. An extract of Olgaren in the novel, since it’s his one mention:
“On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deckhouse, as there was a rain storm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway, and go along the deck forward and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall today search the entire ship carefully from stem to stern.”
My original plan for Olgaren was to simply see Jonathan and try to throw him overboard before Dracula got him (saw him; snapped his neck—one paragraph). He was nameless at that point. It felt too rushed. It evolved and became Jonathan getting kindness from him; Olgaren wanting to help him and the servant leading him into a trap; speaking with Dracula before he gets killed; the real Jonathan half mourning him until he’s forced to forget the truth of what occurred; and, finally, Jonathan recovering the man’s name during mesmerism in the epilogue.
Basically, Olgaren called him little brother when he dubbed him bratya, since he couldn't learn his name. He actually forgave him for letting him die, guessing Jonathan was possessed.
-Petrofsky was another member of the crew in the novel, and gets a passing mention when Jonathan wonders if he really did go astral projecting. With everything else that went on with his head, let’s throw that onto him, too.
-Lucy Weston: When I first started writing it, her appearance as a ghost wasn’t going to actually be her, and she wouldn’t have appeared to anyone other than Mina. It would have been Dracula trying to seduce Mina into turning, with that illusion. A few rewrites of that later, Lucy popped up as a ghost rather than something that unwittingly brings Mina more pain intentionally. Given her death, I doubted she was at peace. If Dracula was still at work, Lucy would want John and Mina safe. She was strongest in the crypt, even if she couldn’t do much.
-In particular legends, the only way the vampire can find peace following a staking and decapitation is to burn the body. With the strigoi, there is this method: “After removal of the heart, the body was burned and the ashes mixed in water and drunk by the family, as is customary.” Van Helsing and company were not going that far, because Lucy just needed peace.
-Mina: The scene with a post-exorcism Jonathan helping her see what she is becoming even better immediately prior was not originally supposed to happen at all. She would have simply lurked near his throat as he slept, preparing to bite, and startled away when Seward returned.
And then…something happened. It was fleshed out. It became a nice, quiet moment between Mina and Jonathan in the midst of everything. Even with a few close calls, she remained protective of him. Having just lived through something similar, Jonathan only wanted to help her. It also had another potential title in Don’t Close Your Eyes, once I noticed it was said first by Jonathan in the graveyard in his head, and again by Mina in their scene, and when she’s trying to remain herself when the Count’s messing with her.
-The grave that Seward rests his scarf on to prevent murder was almost going to be for Arthur Holmwood. Instead, I went with a recently departed Mr. Swales. That moment happened following a rewatch of the film one last time, when I realized he was wearing one in the graveyard fight at the end, and everything else about the crypt scene had already happened.
-Rowse and Jenkins: Canon characters from the film, of course. They get more to do here, though it’s mostly being traumatized by the supernatural on the part of Jenkins, and being confused by how Jonathan is even sane. Jenkins will roll with the weird, so that he’s not locked up. “Why did you quit your last place of work?” “A devil eyed ghost smashed all the mirrors.”
-I recently realized that one of the windows that was smashed by Dracula's anger was likely the same one that Jonathan crashed his way through in the film, when a dinner party was ongoing. Seward would have just had it replaced, poor man.
-The Servant: He could be crafty and play a long con, as proven by the scene between the servant and Mina’s creepier vampire persona in the graveyard. He couldn’t resist watching out of Jonathan’s eyes and trying to use him momentarily at the pond with that glaring, just to prove he was still a danger, despite Mina’s warnings to be patient.
-During the cell scene, and in the crypt: Seward isn’t really meant for being the man of action. Instead, he talks (and prays) Jonathan down. And when I was trying to work out how to get Jonathan to the forefront in that scene, the first method contemplated and rejected as out of character was...Seward delivering a rather painful slap to Jonathan. The next idea was the prayer, and the scene grew from there.
-Was that a cameo appearance by Lawrence Talbot, under an assumed name? Your call. Or maybe it’s Ethan Chandler wandering through from Penny Dreadful. It’s a few decades too soon for Universal’s Wolf Man, so it’s whatever Victorian era werewolf you want it to be. Seward is half worried by the very idea being proven right. There isn’t a full moon yet, so who knows? Or maybe it’s just a morose guy moaning about full moons.
-During the scene on the Demeter, and a later point in the graveyard? When the servant is using Jonathan, and says “coveted be thy name,” or “coveted be the name of Dracula,” he’s mocking a bit of the Lord’s Prayer. I did not even mean to make that foreshadowing for how the servant is driven out of Jonathan. That just happened. It ended up tying things together nicely, and is part of why I briefly considered Coveted Be Thy Name for a title.
-The Vade Retro Satana is an actual Medieval Catholic exorcism that I used for this. It was originally recorded in 1415. You can find it in Latin and English, along with what was on that medal that Jonathan saw on the Wikipedia page.
-While the toad myth can be seen at work in Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, I never found anything online to prove that it was an actual bit of folklore.
-The exorcism for the Count that includes the words “Depart, then, transgressor. Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent” can be found in Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications. While the book that compiles the ritual was published in 1999, the Wikipedia page also says this: “The preceding revision of the document was in 1614. The document was originally issued only in Latin, but some versions in the vernacular are extant.”
-I considered having Seward faint, but between the crypt and the cell, he was likely going to obtain a head injury. However, he comes rather close with Dracula messing with his head for a few seconds in the cell. Jonathan bore the brunt of all fainting spells.
-I decided in this version, Jonathan probably ignored everyone that offered him protections like a rosary on the way to the castle.
-As stated in the end notes, two lyrics from Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula musical made it into the story. “Deep in the darkest night,” and “the embers that glow in the winter.”
-Seward urges Mina to protect Jonathan while he speaks with Van Helsing. Mina thinks to herself, “There was none safer in all the world than she from him.” That is a reference to the novel, though there it was in relation to the brides. The line in the novel was: “None safer in all the world from them than I am."
-According to Wikipedia, the Scholomance “was a fabled school of black magic in Transylvania, which was run by the Devil.” Van Helsing made a reference to it in the novel. With the film version, it’s likely after all that research he has run across the name in relation to the Count, or in relation to legends.
-‘Innocent souls turned carrion birds’ is a line from The Vampire, by Conrad Aiken. As is ‘the pale stones being splashed with red.’ The more obvious poem reference is She Walks In Beauty, by Lord Byron--Jonathan (or the servant) says a line in the cell, and Mina chooses to use the same passage when she’s seeing Lucy off in the end.
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The month of beta reading? Oh, well well over... to be honest I'd been considering the beta reading to have begun at least a half-year ago, when I was being shown all the snippets and thoughts for scenes as they were written and re-written, the month-long "official" beta being for when everything was (mostly) in final order, and the need to really Brit-pick the descriptive writing as well as the dialogue came to the fore.
"at least a dozen other versions"
To say nothing of the number of times beta reading paragraphs lead to someone trusting too readily and promptly being et :D
We didn't think of a tally, but it would run off the page...
Olgaren - Several evenings were devoted to his scene, especially when it came to finding his voice - or rather, making sure he didn't sound too modern or too highly stationed (Russian etiquette for addressing strangers is quite involved to this outsider's eye, especially taking into account differences across centuries). Similar with all of the swooning at least discussed (even if it didn't make the final version) - most synonyms found were just too cold or too modern for the style of the story.
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Ha! We're probably just at the point of sharing the lone fandom brain cell or something. :-D
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Being the only ones in the fandom, I can see that! And I need to remember to post some of those deleted scene excerpts in comments here tomorrow, if you're interested in how it almost went.
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You can see the remnant at the end of when I originally would have wanted that to be the end of the prologue prior to the decision for the next bit to be aboard the Demeter. It also references why Jonathan was afraid of Marishka, although it’s a bit vague on details. There are also more rats.
--
The women teased him from time to time, by putting their fangs on him, but never biting down. He belonged to his Master, but they still made sport of him. They could still enthrall him, and lead him into committing acts against his nature, which left him disturbed, even in his present state.
So Jonathan began taunting them, no matter how petty it was. He spoke sweetly and told them that because they were of his Master’s making, he was therefore ruled by their instructions as well should they see fit. He spoke of bringing them a burlap sack filled with babies; they were so hopeful that it almost upset him.
At last, he brought them his prize. “Don’t you want them?” He innocently wondered, but it was a façade. He had learned from them. They hissed, for the contents were not human. He automatically bared his own teeth in response, for he had been around them far too long. “They are babies, after all. I spared a mother rat, and fattened her up with little morsels. If you don’t want the resulting family, I do,” he haughtily added. They would be his banquet, and not theirs!
The blonde approached him, and reached into the bag even as the others retreated; she drew out the biggest, the mother, as though giving careful thought to the life within its veins. Finally, she shook her head, petted it once, and released it on the floor, where it fled down the stairs.
At Jonathan’s resulting outrage, Marishka held out her arms. Jonathan inched closer, still carrying his bag that squeaked frantically. He was desperate to be bitten, yet despondent at knowing she would never break that final rule. She stroked his throat, obviously tempted, and he vowed that if she tried he would never, ever tell.
“Hide it from the Master, please. I know I can’t lie to him,” he softly begged before she pulled away. It wasn’t to be, he knew.
“We’ll hunt the people together someday,” She promised. “Go and catch her,” she purred. “Eventually. Eat.”
Jonathan smiled. It was a game, he realized. It was just a game, and it included him. A trance settled over his mind, induced by her; it was encouraging him. “Prolong it? Yes. Thank you, Marishka,” Jonathan obediently said. If he let the mother rat go free, more could be born. In a daze, he wandered away so that he might find a private place to feast on his bounty.
Only later, did he recognize she had played with his mind until it was completely open to her suggestions, as well as his Master’s. He couldn’t obey them both, could he? He was so lost that he couldn’t tell which orders came from which vampire. He didn’t care, and began listening further to her…but when the Count noticed him doing what she bid without care, and looked into Jonathan’s mind to see why, she was sorely punished.
When he had come back to himself after the Count had severed a tie with her, he saw what he had done. She had made him lock the other women in with chains around the coffin lids, while his Master was out.
The mortal man had no conscious recollection of it, but did see that the empty coffin for his Master was also chained. He must have been told to do so, and known his Master was otherwise engaged.
He wasn’t punished; the other two were let go, and fled into the shadows. It made him think ever more that the Master was merciful. The Master was wise.
The Master was kind. Mesmerism blocked out all potential reactions to Marishka’s desperate screams, along with the continued touch of his Master as he was led away from the crypt and into the library upstairs. They had last been here when he had been placed on the path to his Master’s glory.
“Tomorrow,” Dracula began once he directed him to sit in a chair. “We will travel to England. All arrangements have been made successfully.”
“What of the women? What of the rats?” Jonathan inquired in a trance. It was like a curtain always kept his true self far away whenever he looked into his eyes. It was calming. It felt so comforting. He only loved him and his path. Blood was life.
There was a long pause, as though one of the three would never live to see the next night. “Marishka will starve for a time. The remaining women will roam the castle, and pick off the villagers at their leisure,” The Count confided as he put his hands to Jonathan’s cheeks.
Yes, the man was so deeply mired in his will that even if they were parted he would be his forever in mind and soul. “The rats will be plentiful, should we return, Jonathan.”
“Good,” Jonathan smiled, as though he had not just been told of how a village would be decimated. He closed his eyes, falling into a state between wakefulness and slumber as the Count stroked all the way down his throat slowly. He really desired himself to be bitten, when he suddenly caught a whiff of blood. He wouldn’t look unless his Master wished it to be so.
“Open your eyes, Jonathan,” the Count softly instructed. His wrist waited. He would bind the man to him even deeper than before—should they part, the mortal could reveal nothing to anyone by his own choice. He already governed his actions.
Understanding without being told in words, Jonathan drank as much as he was required. “Very good. You will not sleep in your room when daylight comes. You will stay with my coffin. We will depart from there.”
“Thank you,” Jonathan happily replied. “Oh, yes.” He would sleep atop it, no matter the discomfort. He was so sleepy. He was led back downstairs, and waited patiently for his Master to climb in. He didn’t care if the others watched him.
When the lid was closed, Jonathan passed out atop it as though he had been drugged.
No dreams troubled him. He cared for nothing but the power of those eyes.
In time, his identity would be forgotten. He only knew he must serve, even if he couldn’t find his Master. He would remain loyal unto death. He would not tell doctors why he was like this; it concerned the Master’s presence and not them.
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As with the others, this one's not Britpicked.
--
Seward wrapped an arm around Mina when she returned to his side; Van Helsing gathered his tools. Jonathan kissed her cheek, and then wandered to the man’s side, to help him put things away.
It was getting quite dark out, for the hour was late. Mina and Seward had required some time to pull themselves together. In light of all that had occurred, Jonathan understood a bit of that need; he brought them a second lantern. Before he left to give them privacy, Mina squeezed Jonathan’s hand in thanks. They would not be bothered, should they need to speak of private matters.
Which, they soon realized with their tears not long dry, they did. The two of them had eventually let go of each other, though they remained close to touching as they sat upon a stone seat near a grave.
“I was tempted; I truly was,” Mina confessed. “I wanted to fling myself into damnation.” As she had previously stated, most likely with John, willingly or no; and, almost certainly, they may have dragged Jonathan away with them, to either serve gladly or join them in the night. “I would have done such wicked things; I would have aided Jonathan, so that his master might be brought back to his former glory. For, as you could see just from Jonathan’s past attitude, glory is what I might have termed it,” she concluded with a shaking voice.
“What stopped you?” Seward wondered, not unkindly. “If I might be so bold.” He felt his voice was hushed, as he didn’t wish to stop her in this moment. She needed to talk; they both needed to talk. If they suffered in foreboding silences for too long in the aftermath of all that occurred, they would just drive themselves into a padded cell.
“At first, it was merely the expression, the elation, the wonder in Jonathan’s eyes at being so newly freed, before he fell back into the old ways against his own desires,” Mina imparted with a soft smile. Mina saw that her lantern was too dim; Jonathan had his own at the other side of the graveyard, but that wasn’t quite enough light. She knelt to turn it up; it gave her a moment to compose herself and consider her words carefully, when she thought she might weep again.
Seward put his hand on her arm for strength, hesitantly at first, before he felt more than welcome and that she wouldn’t shove him away. As he withdrew the touch and she rose to her feet, she laced her fingers through his own. He squeezed the hand gently, letting go when she needed to turn and think. When she looked back, she gave him a shaky smile.
“Lucy stopped me; how she died, so far removed from herself, and what she should have been,” Mina continued as she moved to carefully rest her hand on his arm. It sounded as though they were only speaking of a friend who had passed after a long illness, and not falling into vampirism’s clutches.
“Her spirit touched me, just as she did you, when I was in a bad way. And you, John; you gave me strength, for I thought of all the ways you had been and would still be touched by this curse. You don’t deserve such a horror, John; you wouldn’t deserve me coaxing you to give me your blood.”
There was truth there, and he was momentarily speechless; even after her words of earlier, he hadn’t quite believed she would have been cruel enough to attempt to bite him. Would he have died beneath her touch? From the knowing look upon her face, he presumed he had only scratched the surface of what danger there had been. “Neither do you, Mina,” he said at last.
“Thank you,” Mina softly replied. “I’ve come to understand that, and resisted until it all passed me by.”
“Praise everything holy for that strength,” Seward marveled. “I’m just sorry you were alone when you were tested.”
She gave him a small smile. “Someone needed to watch over Jonathan, and there were your other duties. Someone needed to research protective measures, as the Professor did. One of us would have found themselves faced with him no matter what. One of us would have been alone when he came,” she murmured.
“And we couldn’t have known, for you couldn’t have voiced the worry when you were partially his to command,” Seward finished as he tenderly clasped her hands in his own.
“When he was still substantial, if undead, he advised that I keep my own counsel; he had his ways of making people wish to behave that way.” She touched Seward’s cheek with a small sigh. She was just glad he hadn’t been harmed by her unnatural desires.
“You weren’t weak, Mina; not then, when you found Jonathan, and not now,” Seward sternly argued as he rose to his feet to meet her, before he looked apologetic. “You shoved aside the strongest of attendants, to be at his side. You survived; you don’t need blood to survive. You damned neither yourself, nor anyone else, and Jonathan made it through his own trials intact.” He stepped back, holding her hands still, and uncertain.
“Lucy is at rest, for you gave voice to the method to help her.”
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--
‘I have almost entered your soul fully; just another step. Perhaps only two, my friend. I have used your mouth before. The trail into you is so familiar, is it not? You enjoyed it when I filled you,’ he whispered. ‘My blood once consumed will always make that transition smooth. The pain of your passage into eternity will be muted.’
A soft reptilian laughter slithered through his soul. ‘The time has come, you see. You will not cast me out. You will only invite me in, with your pleasure.’ It would be easy for him, the Count insisted from within his mind; there may be sorrow or devotion from Jonathan or the servant, but it would come. He need only be patient.
For an instant, Jonathan felt as though the laugh had come from his mouth, but he was too woozy to be certain. They were not one; they were still but two. However, he knew that the next words did come from his mouth; they were torn out haltingly, raspy, with a reverberation that told of his nature; it told of the strength and the power of his glory.
The point was made with those four words; the Count’s resolve was absolute, albeit temporary. “I—will—be--reborn.”
And Jonathan would be damned.
“No,” Jonathan managed to whimper quietly, skirting around the servant’s mind.
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The end result is the same, with Seward offering a place for Jonathan and Mina to stay—although, the suggestion originates from someone else. Lost in an accidentally deleted document for when that rat power was still happening was a moment where Seward enters his office, sees the chair moving, turns it, and finds a rat in his chair, with Jonathan beneath the table keeping it company until Seward can be there.
This was one of the original epilogues, until the whole plot changed.
--
“What is it, Dr. Seward?” Jonathan asked when the man returned sooner than he had anticipated. He had thought he wouldn’t have another visit until morning at the least, following the exorcism of Dracula’s ghost. Had something happened?
“I told my housekeeper that you were due to be released, and felt that you should know. She was distraught—you first met her when you smashed through those French doors, but you may not recall doing so,” Seward pointed out. He found a suitable place to sit, so that they might speak further.
“No, sir. Not truly, not then,” Jonathan replied. “Did the Count harm her? I know the servant only bowed and fawned when he intruded, upon smashing through that window. Did I scare her? Is that why she is upset by the news of my release?”
“Oh, it’s not that, Jonathan,” Seward assured him. “She came into the library to clean up just after your session. Do you remember bowing to a woman out of respect when you almost collided at the door, just prior to returning to your cell?”
“Oh, her!” Jonathan remembered her face, but hadn’t been able to stop worrying enough to do more than mumble an apology. “Did she find me rude or out of line? Did I—did I inadvertently insult her? She wasn’t one to be forgotten; she was kind, even when I wasn’t myself! She gave me blankets, but only during the day when she knew I wasn’t prone to attacking.”
Seward put his hands on Jonathan’s shoulders so that he could get him to focus on him and not get caught up in an unnecessary tumult of guilt or worry. “You misunderstand me, Jonathan, for I was too vague. Let us blame the Professor’s influence for such a gross breach of clarity on my part, if not a mistake in my etiquette. I apologize.” When Jonathan’s humor seemed to gently peek out with a chuckle at that comment, he was gratified that it would not be held against him.
“No, Mrs. Hoskins was distraught because she found you a good and proper young man, and she was happy,” Seward revealed. “She said something about considering you practically what amounts to a nephew she is fond of, and not quite nearly a son. You remind her of one, I should say.”
“A son? A nephew?!” Jonathan replied with wonder. He was on the brink of speechlessness in his awe. He was dismayed. “She thinks so highly of me? Why? Haven’t I caused terror and grief within the household?”
“She found the servant's mischief—and these are her words, mind you, for I don’t feel this to be a proper label by any means,” Seward sighed. “She found it charming once she saw the true you dashing through the halls immediately after being such a proper gentleman,” he added. What was charming about crashing through a window, and upsetting guests? He would never understand.
“She was thrilled when you requested food. She wanted you to stay on as a guest, and not be locked away in a cell. When I told her that you were soon to go, she begged me to extend the invitation, and I see no harm in it.”
In truth, he had planned to do such a thing when the sun came up, and Jonathan had at least slept through the night and eaten further.
“You don’t? And I would term it deviltry,” Jonathan offered politely. “You must thank her,” he laughed. It was so strange. He didn’t know how best to react to the offer. “Does she know of my previous tastes? I never indulged in front of her, so far as I recall. I’m surprised it didn’t disgust her.”
“Yes,” Seward sighed. “She didn’t approve then or now, and is glad you won’t catch a disease now that you’re away from such things.” She had given him such a lecture on how the Black Death had spread in the Middle Ages, once he mentioned that Jonathan had eaten rats at a particular time.
“She still offered? Goodness...but I suppose if she could handle the housekeeping duties for you and all the madmen and women, then she has seen it all,” Jonathan mused. “I would tell her the Master—the Count’s power protected the servant from plague and most of the fleas, but she wouldn’t understand or believe me.” His eyes begged for forgiveness, even if the slip into old phrasings wasn’t much.
“Yes,” Seward agreed. “Before you ask, she extends the offer to Mina as well. She felt that if the two of you required assistance, and if madness did not tear you two apart, then why not allow you to maintain a residence while you adjust? We have room. Mina found the suggestion logical and intriguing, and said to place the decision squarely in your capable hands.”
Seward agreed with Mina’s suggestion. Jonathan needed to begin making his own choices in regards to more normal affairs, after everything. He had denied the Count his soul. He had exorcised himself, and aided the Professor in the handling of Lucy’s remains, so that Seward himself would not need to. This could be the first step, prior to his release.
“Shall I inform her to prepare a room or not?” Seward urged. “What is the verdict?” Mrs. Hoskins also wished to feed Jonathan a proper meal. Seward wanted to be there to see the look on Jonathan’s face when the time came.
“Might I have a room to myself, so that I should not disturb Mina in the night?” Jonathan requested politely. “And would your housekeeper be angry if I showed her where all the vermin’s hiding places are? Or would she scoff at my ability to know? It could enable her to maintain the cleanliness of your lodgings, if you don’t believe she would be offended.”
“Of course, if you so wish,” Seward replied, after a confused silence at the last. “I suspect she would be gratified. She was beyond the realm of fretting at any infestation of the asylum proper, but might be brought around.” He paused. “You can sense them from afar, Jonathan?” Should he inform the Professor? While it was prudent to do so, if the remnants were harmless, then why bother him?
“Of course,” Jonathan replied, as though it was a fact that could never be revoked or rebutted. “The source of its creation may be—deceased at last, and exorcised from the physical world, but I’ll always feel them.” He smirked without anger or meaning to bother the other man, even as he studied his features.
Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t know how I know their exact locations, I just do! It doesn’t go away. I do not have the means to translate their squeaks into speech. I don’t control them like the Pied Piper, and they don’t control me…but I can keep him relatively docile for up to a minute with the right foot forward.”
Perhaps it was from so many occasions that Jonathan was fed Dracula’s blood. A lingering taint that only extended an extrasensory perception, and didn’t leave a thirst for blood or living flesh in its wake. There was not a chance in hell that Seward could write a monograph on the subject without being thrown into an asylum himself. He felt a headache coming on if he were to think too much on it.
He had the distinct impression that a group of angry villagers would arrive at his doorstep, and demand that Jonathan free them from a sudden infestation that he had not realized he had been the one to cause.
Bah! He had read too many penny dreadfuls, all at Mrs. Weston’s insistence when he was courting Lucy.
“What is it?” Seward asked. He could tell that Jonathan was still himself, just as he had been since the graveyard…but that look used to always come when a wicked idea rooted itself into his mind and called to him in bygone days. Or when he was about to break away and flee the orderlies. It was a cunning that tended to cause worry.
“I’ll show you, Dr. Seward. I’ll bring one to you straight away. I wish to demonstrate, even though I haven’t felt any need to escape since that exorcism,” Jonathan explained. He suddenly realized he hadn’t answered the offer of just a minute ago. “Tell Mrs. Hoskins and Mina that my answer is yes, and thank you kindly. I truly thank you, Dr. Seward.”
What else was a solicitor to do when confined?
Seward was worried for a sudden influx of rats in the halls, but smiled politely at the last. “You can sense them even here?”
Jonathan shrugged uncomfortably. “They are fond of biscuits, I presume, for I saw you drop enough crumbs from one that was too dry once without knowing to keep them plump. They probably obtained even more food from the kitchens, even as we made off with the salt. And from there, I would have tended to find them—succulent. If I were still of that vocation.” He was sorry for that.
“It seems I must rectify that,” Seward replied quietly. “I’ll watch for them. And…Jonathan, where are the smaller mice?” He was suddenly worried he would hear squeaks beside his bed when it was midnight, and be too disturbed to look until morning.
Jonathan closed his eyes, as he focused on the ability and the slight tug that signified them. “Behind your cupboards,” Jonathan promptly disclosed after his eyes opened again. He had felt the impression of them back there, when he once hungered for them. “The spiders are busy beneath the window sill, for I saw webbing.” He made a face. “I’m sorry for disturbing you with these facts, Dr. Seward.”
“It could be useful to know before they creep into the light and scare a maid,” Seward lamented with a sigh. Or himself. “Don’t worry about it, Jonathan; and, please, do call me John if I finally stop being your doctor and eventually become what amounts to simply your neighbor in this house.”
“Of course,” Jonathan smiled. “I will make a concerted effort to remember to do such when the time comes.”
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You can see the bits that stayed the same, although it's not much. This is before the whole ‘the dagger’s really a dagger!’ came into being, too. Jonathan and Mina would have been divorced because Jonathan felt that he had to stay at the asylum. All the pieces didn’t fall into the correct placement in Jonathan's head when he was freed.
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Dracula may have brought them momentarily to their knees, but he would not ruin their souls. They may have been tarnished by his cruelty and manipulations, but they were not destroyed.
They would survive. They would piece their scattered lives back into a semblance of order, if not normalcy. They would live the rest of their lives; and if they were not free of those last crumbs in their dreams, then at least their waking lives were calmer.
Jonathan and Mina were free of the shadow of Dracula’s taint, when it came to life beyond death. They would not rise again. They would not be possessed. Seward would heal from his grief with Mina’s assistance. His door would always remain open to her, as well as to the man who would eventually become her former husband.
And if, in time, that friendship between doctor and friend transfigured into something more, something purer, it would come in its own time, and its own way. They let nature take its course; Jonathan needn’t fret the perceived scandal that would result from his former doctor courting his ex-wife (really, annulled for the fear of them burning for the thought of divorce); he had brought the potential for scandal to an explosive head just from his very presence locked away in an asylum for a time.
Jonathan took dark satisfaction (and never revealed such to another for fear they would think he was still too corrupted to be let loose upon society) from the thought of the gasps those of a fainter disposition would emit as he participated in a wedding ceremony for those two.
If he gave the bride away, it would surely upend the most stringent of Mina’s old friends.
When the time came there was not a single whispered objection from the onlookers when the traditional plea was given. Van Helsing sat in the front row, wondering privately if he might be able to spirit Jonathan away, so that he may be led to the Count’s former abode and stake his women; however, he knew that someone would notice and chastise him for leading the former madman into danger. And so, they would be left to their small piece of Transylvania, to do what they would.
Seward nervously wondered how he could stop the Professor from trying, even as he watched the bride step down the aisle. Mrs. Weston had, at last, insisted that she be the one to give the bride away, for it was improper for Jonathan to do so.
The living would not willingly walk through the shadows; they would not linger in its icy thrall, pallid from the taint of the undead. Mina and John; Jonathan and Van Helsing; they would dare to live in the light.
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Basically, Jonathan is over in the corner in that other version of the story, just making rich old women pass out.
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And, ahaha, Mrs Hoskins wants to adopt Jonathan on the strength of his breaking a window? Mind, I suppose if Dr Seward is going to wind up with Mina, she'll need a new hapless male to make tea and provide blankets for...
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Well, once he stopped breaking out of places and looked to be saner, I'd imagine. And he apologized for doing that in that version, so she was quite impressed.
Meanwhile, in that version: Jonathan just becomes accepting of plates of fresh biscuits, hot tea, blankets, etc... as gifts from Mrs. Hoskins.
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Also he probably kept the numbers of rats down. :-D