Chapter “What Have You Done to Her?” Harker
“What Have You Done to Her?”
Harker
I emerged from the chapel onto the battlements under a silver-sulfide sky that seemed not to care the day was young yet. Which was just as well, since my vision was better on dark days.
Atop the tower, I could indeed see miles in every direction.
To the south, the heath sloped away toward Pentivale, where springs hidden by willows, reeds, and bracken formed the headwaters of the River Fal.
The Fal Valley, which had been mined for tin since medieval times, was also prime farming and grazing land.
Lined by willow scrub and slender birch, the river snaked across Goss Moor on its journey toward Falmouth and the English Channel.
The moor spread to the west of my family’s estate, and overlooking it from the north was Castle Down with its ancient hillfort, Castle an Dinas. Like many sites in Cornwall, it had associations with Arthurian legend. It was also a ceremonial site of pre-Christian peoples.
In the nearer distance to the northwest was St. Gomonda, the parish church, and across from that The Magpie and the whole village of Roche.
Around the margins of the parish, imposing themselves on the view, were the white conical hills of quartz and mica waste from the china clay operations, the area’s most important industry.
They were stark and alien interruptions in the pastoral landscape, but without the money from china clay—essentially a decomposed version of the same rock that had built this chapel—a village tearoom in rural Cornwall would be a risky venture indeed.
Mining—whether for tin, copper, or clay—was an integral part of Cornwall’s history. Miners worked six days a week in all seasons, and I imagined it wore a man down. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to excuse Jack Penrose’s behavior toward his sister.
I wasn’t sorry for what I’d done, yet it had probably only made things worse between them, and he was all she had left. It also likely reinforced what Jack already believed about me. You devil.
If I could put a stop to this creature menacing the parish, Mina could at least go back to her job at The Magpie. Of course the return to her old routine would also mean a return to the daily temptations of her walking back and forth—which would be greater now that I’d given in to the bloodlust.
I will need more vital essence. The process was involved, and the Walachian vintage very difficult to acquire, so I’d kept to small batches up to now. But the outer world was encroaching on my sanctuary, and I could no longer afford to scrimp.
My thoughts were drifting from my intended purpose in climbing up here.
Over the quiet decades, my mind had learned a habit of running to extremes.
When I studied or worked in my laboratory, I was capable of an intense focus that sometimes kept me going for days without rest. When I was idle, I found my thoughts traveling down strange, forking paths, waking from these mental ambles only to discover I wasn’t sure whether minutes or hours (or days) had passed.
Moving slowly along the battlements, I studied the moorstone that littered the ground at the base of this black granite ridge.
From the southwest-facing wall, my gaze picked over the ruins of a pre-Christian village and barrow, from which stone for the chapel had been foraged.
Due west, almost to the border that the estate shared with parish church property, lay the family cemetery where I’d buried my father and he’d buried my mother.
Finally, the oak wood spread north toward the village almost to the road, like a great shawl flung from the battlements.
Until undertaking this search, I couldn’t have said when last I’d walked among those trees, though I’d played there almost daily as a boy.
Roche Rock was a horrible place for a child, growing up with no one for company save my father and old Mr. Pritchard, who’d served as both my tutor and my father’s steward.
Before I came of age, I’d sometimes been allowed to accompany my father’s agent—one of a long line of Carews—on errands and even trips to Bodmin, and in that way learned something of the wider world that didn’t come from books.
Once we went as far as St. Austell, and I saw the sea. The relentless assault of the waves on the strand, the still darkness of the Atlantic, beyond the channel, that seemed to stretch for centuries . . . I had felt a kinship with it that I’d been too young to understand.
These excursions had felt like a game, as I’d been required to pretend I was Mr. Carew’s nephew to avoid drawing attention to the estate. How many times had I wished that I was, and that we’d never return to this desolate place?
You were lonely even then. My gaze found the pool on the heath, beetle black under the heavy sky.
I closed my eyes, but it didn’t prevent her from manifesting in my mind.
Yesterday I had studied her profile long enough to paint her, had I the talent for it.
The tiniest detail—the outward curve of the Cupid’s bow of her lip—was enough to make even the blood of a cold creature like me run hot.
I should have discouraged her pity. I should have discouraged her concern. Most of all, I should have discouraged her presence. Yet Mina Penrose was the only light to have flickered in my far too long shadow of a life.
Glancing down toward her cottage, I noticed a low cloud moving over the ground.
My eyes couldn’t penetrate the thick vapor.
Sudden mists and fogs, lonely clouds like this one—they had occurred on the estate for as long as I could remember.
My father once remarked on it, saying my mother had found them unsettling.
My sluggish heart made what passed for a sudden movement. Had I discovered the reason we’d never seen Goosevar?
I was about to hurry down when I noticed the figure of a woman on the heath. The cloud was moving toward her.
“Mina!” I shouted, startling a formation of gray geese overhead.
I ran to the stairway and wound down to the main floor, crossing to the door so quickly I overturned a chair, its back striking the floor with a sound like a shot. The steep entry stairs forced me to slow, but soon I was flying down the hill, dodging the moorstone in my path.
The cloud had reversed course now, and I soon closed the distance. Plunging inside the wall of vapor, I waved my hand as if to clear smoke from my vision.
“Mina?” I called out. Droplets collected on my exposed skin.
No answer came as I moved within the cloud, stumbling over the uneven ground that I could no longer see. I called for her again without result, but then finally the vapor cleared enough that a hulking shadow began to take shape—along with Mina, invisible at first against the silhouette.
Goosevar. He had the torso of a tall, broad-shouldered man, back curved like a crescent moon as he hunched over her.
The network of branches fanned out from his head, and the bottom half of his torso divided into legs, shaggy with gray lichen.
His flesh looked rough like the bark of a tree, including that of the canine face—long snout, ember eyes, and thin lips peeling back over black gums to reveal a gleam of white fangs.
Mina, child-size before him, appeared unharmed, though her eyes were glassy. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders, and her freckles stood out starkly in the strange silver-white light. Her gaze was flat, expression blank. She did not seem to have registered my presence.
“What have you done to her?” I demanded, voice broken by coursing fear.
Goosevar made no reply, but the curtain of fog was re-forming. I lunged for Mina, catching her against my chest. Once again trusting that she was safer with me than this monster.
He stepped back from us, folding himself low to the ground, moving down the heath within the cloud.
Then a series of impossible scenes played before my eyes.