certain she did, in much the same way she moved about her own room without leaving a single track in the dust and grime.”
I turned back to the crate as something else caught my eye, something beneath the dirt. Before Matilda could stop me, I reached back and brushed the dirt aside carefully with my fingertips. When they found cold white flesh, I pulled back. “Oh no.”
Matilda grasped my shoulder and peered down into the crate. “Is that her?”
Our eyes met, my heart beating wildly.
I reached back for the crate, and Matilda grabbed my wrist. “Don’t—”
I reached back inside anyway, digging at the dirt, brushing it away, uncovering—
“It’s a hand,” Matilda said.
As I dug farther, as I neared the wrist, the bony white arm I found—
Matilda turned her head and gagged. I nearly did, too, at the sight of it, at the torn skin and muscle, at the bone protruding and splintered—the hand had been severed at the forearm and buried in this box, in the dirt.
“Not Nanna Ellen’s,” I forced out, for this was clearly a man’s hand; much too large to be that of a woman, although the long, thin fingers were smooth. Not a man who worked the fields, but perhaps one who sat at a desk. The fingernails were abnormally long, protruding over the fingertips maybe half an inch and filed to sharp points.
“Is there more buried in the box?” Matilda said beside me. “Did she kill a man and place him here?”
“There is something in the man’s grasp,” I said.
I pried the fingers apart one at a time, all dry and brittle, afraid they might snap off, soon revealing the hand’s palm and the shiny object at its center. “It is a ring,” I said, plucking it out.
Matilda stepped closer as I held the ring up to the light. It was a thick band, a man’s ring, wrought of silver or white bronze, I could not be sure.
“That seems old,” Matilda said.
I twisted the ring between my fingers. The detail was extraordinary. The sides were intricately carved with various symbols I did not recognize, two on either side of the wide shoulders, which depicted what appeared to be a family crest. At the very center on the head of the ring was the image of a dragon surrounded by a multitude of diamonds so small they seemed more like a glittering of dust than individual stones. The dragon’s only visible eye glowed a bright red, a ruby of some sort. The ring was clearly ancient, but the workmanship rivaled that of the best modern craftsman; I had never seen anything like it.
“May I see?” Matilda asked.
I set the ring in her open palm, and she raised it to the nearest candle, peering at the inside of the band. “There’s something written here . . . on the inside.”
“What does it say?”
“Casa lui Dracul.”
I thought I saw one of the fingers twitch when she uttered these words.
That was when we ran.
PART II
The world must bow before the strong ones.
—Bram Stoker, Makt Myrkranna
NOW
Bram wakes with a start. His body jerks up with such force he nearly tumbles from the chair—his journal falls to the floor.
How long had he slept?
Minutes?
Hours?
He cannot be sure.
He turns to the window.
Although the moon is still high in the sky, it has clearly moved farther to the east. Light spills from the surface, only to be diffused by thick gray storm clouds rolling in from the distant mountains. But the moon has moved; of this he is certain.
Bram’s rifle sits on the ground at his feet, and the door—
The door stands open!
Bram scoops up the rifle as he stands in one fluid motion, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
The door is not open much, only an inch or so, but open nonetheless. The paste he used to seal the opening litters the ground in tiny piles of dust and broken