did these things because I loved you, I loved you as my own. I still do.”
Bram ignores her. The brandy muffles her voice, if only for a little while. It clears the fog in his head and brings warmth to his tired bones. He returns the flask to his pocket.
“Do you remember all those days we spent in your room, just the two of us? Lying atop your bed, telling stories. Oh, how we laughed! I’m sure I scared you, too; some of those tales were quite wicked! Remember the Dearg-Due? You were in a bit of a fever when I told you that one.”
The word is familiar, but he cannot recall the story.
“She was trapped in a room not unlike this one and look what happened to her. Look at what happened to the people who put her there. Oh, I would hate to see you suffer such a fate. If you open the door, you’ll never have to worry about these things. I can keep you safe.”
Another chunk of the blessed wafer paste falls from the edge of the door and cracks into a dozen pieces on the stone floor. Bram barely notices, though; his only thoughts are of sleep, how much he wants to and how he cannot succumb—a battle waged behind heavy lids.
“Perhaps you should take a nap. Just a short one. Just enough to cleanse your thoughts. I’m sure after you wake you’ll realize what a horrible mistake you’ve made. Go ahead and close your eyes; I’ll watch over you. It will be like when you were a child.”
The rifle slips from Bram’s hand and clatters to the floor at his feet. He thinks about picking it up, but his arms seem so heavy, the gun seems so heavy, his eyelids so . . .
“Sleep, Bram, sleep. I’ve got you.”
THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER
October 1854—As we stepped inside Artane Tower, I immediately noticed a dip in temperature. Matilda’s hand trembled in mine, and I knew she noticed, too. The entranceway opened onto a large square room, at least twenty feet across, with stone steps, narrow and steep, protruding from the outer walls and held in place by nothing more than strategic placement. To peer upwards proved dizzying, and as I did so, my body wobbled. There was no banister, only the smooth steps, each being only a treacherous two feet wide, with some even less so, chipped and cracked by time and lost to age, and with each step’s corners pointed in shape to accommodate the upwards circling of the stairs. And there were more steps to climb than I dared count; I did not want to know how many. Although two of the windows we had spotted from outside were visible, the third was not. I suspected the staircase ended with a chamber at the very top overlooking the Artane Valley and surrounding forest. The tower was originally designed for defense, and such a position would be advantageous, allowing for a view miles around.
Along the walls, candles burned at every seventh step, their flames an unnatural hue of blue. I stepped to the first of these to get a closer look. The flame danced at the wick and seemed to bend towards me as I approached. I found this to be particularly strange since there was no breeze in this place to speak of. Yet, as I moved my hand closer to the flame, it bent to greet me. And when I moved away, the flame moved in concert, resuming an upright position. Stranger yet, a blue flame usually indicated great heat, but there was no heat, no warmth at all, as if I were watching the image of a flame rather than the actual flame itself.
“She must have lit this candle recently; I see no evidence of melted wax. They haven’t been burning long,” Matilda pointed out from my side.
She was right. Not a single drip of wax leaked down the side of the candle, nor was there any buildup at the base. Either a candle burned here for the first time or someone had cleaned the candleholder before lighting this one.
Once again, I closed my eyes and reached out to Nanna Ellen. She had to be close—yet I felt nothing, no sign of