Story Notes For The Soft Whispers of the Dead

[calliopes_pen]

-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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[calliopes_pen]

This next bit would have originally followed the burning of Lucy's remains. It was eventually replaced by Mina and John being in companionable silence, while Jonathan and Van Helsing are noticed to be speaking animatedly. It was rendered redundant due to Mina confessing her feelings earlier in regards to what she would have done if she turned, as well as other rewrites changing things. There's a hint of Seward/Mina in there.

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.”