scratch my head and torso as I push through them. The dirt on my face is too thick for me to see but wherever I am the air is damp and cool. Once I am free I take a few deep breaths then wipe my eyes.
I am under a darkening sky, surrounded by tall trees. My clothes are torn and caked with mud. My hands are bleeding. I wonder how far I am from a town or a place where I can shelter. Looking down at my feet I see I have lost my shoes and socks. I clench my toes and release, clench and release.
I see am being watched. Two children stand in the low lying fog, a boy and a girl, roughly twelve years of age. The girl has black curly hair and wears a white dress. The boy is athletically built with a long face, like my father's. Taking fright on encountering me – a broken-down, bleeding vagrant in the woods – the girl turns and flees. Before following her, the boy meets my eyes, communicating a flicker of vague recognition.
I am alone and the light is dying fast. From somewhere on my right comes a familiar noise, like the snapping of fingers or the clucking of a tongue. Turning towards it I see nothing but a dense veil of mist. Could my senses be deceiving me? Are these just the natural sounds of the forest reflecting from the trees? I look again and the mist is clearing, partly unveiling what I first take to be an enormous and muscular black dog, the size of a horse. The mist thickens and the shape changes.
Stepping towards me is an elderly man, seven foot tall at the least, with agile, slender limbs and a long white moustache hanging down either side of his mouth. His skin is pale, his lips are red. His costume is speckless, black from head to toe. With his manifestation comes a powerful smell of rotting vegetation. I know who he is. We have met before.
“Poor Renfield,” he says, a simple expression of sympathy that brings me trembling and weeping to my knees. He speaks but doesn't speak. “Do you know my name?”
I do. I have known it for as long as I can remember.
“It is time. Do you understand?”
I understand completely and with all my heart.
Without a sound he treads through the brambles, the silver top of a wooden cane in his hand. The ground beneath his feet ripples like water. All around, the birds of the forest have woken and are calling to each other.
“I know how hard this has been for you. I know what you have endured, how terribly you suffered. Look at you. Humiliated, foul, unable even to speak.”
I look into the old man's eyes. They are shining, black and inscrutable, like those of a sea creature.
“I promise you though, it has not been for nothing. As gruelling as your trials have been, they were necessary to lead you here.”
Placing his arms around my neck he draws me to him, laying his cold cheek to mine and murmuring into my ear. The birds are in a frenzy, their squawks a dreadful cacophony.
“Soon,” he says. “Soon you will be magnificent.”
PART THREE
I clear away the rotting food and release the blowflies. The spiders I tip out of the window from their wooden box, watching them tumbling sideways, carried by the wind. Their purpose – to teach me about the sustenance one living animal can gain from consuming another – has been served. I have no further need for them. On the distant horizon the thin line of trees look black against the grey sky.
I feel healthy and purged. It excites me to imagine what might happen now. What form will the next stage of my renewal take? Am I to be sent instructions, by means of another vision, or thought transference? Or will my course be signposted by gifts, just as happened with the spiders and the sparrow? If I am impatient it is only because I am keen to do my saviour's bidding. I am sure he understands. I shove the box in the bottom of my wardrobe.
When Seward arrives I am sat on the edge of my bed trying to empty my mind of thoughts, hoping to prevent the obstruction of any psychic communications. Disappointingly, my
I am under a darkening sky, surrounded by tall trees. My clothes are torn and caked with mud. My hands are bleeding. I wonder how far I am from a town or a place where I can shelter. Looking down at my feet I see I have lost my shoes and socks. I clench my toes and release, clench and release.
I see am being watched. Two children stand in the low lying fog, a boy and a girl, roughly twelve years of age. The girl has black curly hair and wears a white dress. The boy is athletically built with a long face, like my father's. Taking fright on encountering me – a broken-down, bleeding vagrant in the woods – the girl turns and flees. Before following her, the boy meets my eyes, communicating a flicker of vague recognition.
I am alone and the light is dying fast. From somewhere on my right comes a familiar noise, like the snapping of fingers or the clucking of a tongue. Turning towards it I see nothing but a dense veil of mist. Could my senses be deceiving me? Are these just the natural sounds of the forest reflecting from the trees? I look again and the mist is clearing, partly unveiling what I first take to be an enormous and muscular black dog, the size of a horse. The mist thickens and the shape changes.
Stepping towards me is an elderly man, seven foot tall at the least, with agile, slender limbs and a long white moustache hanging down either side of his mouth. His skin is pale, his lips are red. His costume is speckless, black from head to toe. With his manifestation comes a powerful smell of rotting vegetation. I know who he is. We have met before.
“Poor Renfield,” he says, a simple expression of sympathy that brings me trembling and weeping to my knees. He speaks but doesn't speak. “Do you know my name?”
I do. I have known it for as long as I can remember.
“It is time. Do you understand?”
I understand completely and with all my heart.
Without a sound he treads through the brambles, the silver top of a wooden cane in his hand. The ground beneath his feet ripples like water. All around, the birds of the forest have woken and are calling to each other.
“I know how hard this has been for you. I know what you have endured, how terribly you suffered. Look at you. Humiliated, foul, unable even to speak.”
I look into the old man's eyes. They are shining, black and inscrutable, like those of a sea creature.
“I promise you though, it has not been for nothing. As gruelling as your trials have been, they were necessary to lead you here.”
Placing his arms around my neck he draws me to him, laying his cold cheek to mine and murmuring into my ear. The birds are in a frenzy, their squawks a dreadful cacophony.
“Soon,” he says. “Soon you will be magnificent.”
PART THREE
I clear away the rotting food and release the blowflies. The spiders I tip out of the window from their wooden box, watching them tumbling sideways, carried by the wind. Their purpose – to teach me about the sustenance one living animal can gain from consuming another – has been served. I have no further need for them. On the distant horizon the thin line of trees look black against the grey sky.
I feel healthy and purged. It excites me to imagine what might happen now. What form will the next stage of my renewal take? Am I to be sent instructions, by means of another vision, or thought transference? Or will my course be signposted by gifts, just as happened with the spiders and the sparrow? If I am impatient it is only because I am keen to do my saviour's bidding. I am sure he understands. I shove the box in the bottom of my wardrobe.
When Seward arrives I am sat on the edge of my bed trying to empty my mind of thoughts, hoping to prevent the obstruction of any psychic communications. Disappointingly, my
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