The Covenant with the Vampire by Jeanne Kalogridis

Author:Jeanne Kalogridis [Kalogridis, Jeanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror & Ghost Stories
Published: 2010-05-22T13:24:18.700000+00:00

Chapter 8

The Journal of Mary Windham Tsepesh

17 April.

The great clock in the hall has just struck two, but I still cannot sleep, despite the fact that Arkady insisted I take a small sip of the laudanum. He took a great deal of it himself, being as agitated as myself, though he tried to hide it because he was trying to comfort me in my terror. That was shortly before one o’clock. Now he is snoring loudly, while I struggle against the unpleasant, helpless dreaminess induced by the drug. It has the opposite of its intended effect: I fight to stay awake, for I prefer to have my wits about me in critical times. I am so frightened. Writing is the only thing that calms me these days. My hope that we would soon leave Transylvania was short-lived. Arkady returned very late from speaking with Vlad yesterday evening, and this morning he would give no details of that encounter, but only said that it would be “a little while longer” before we are able to take our holiday. I know what that means. In a “little while longer,” I will definitely not be able to travel. It is already risky enough as it is. I could tell from Arkady’s subdued demeanour that Vlad has refused our request, and they have had an argument, and my good husband could not bring himself to tell me. He spent the day traveling to and from Bistritz, then went directly to the castle, and returned home quite late, after I had retired.

He did not come to bed, but remained in his study. I knew this because I could not sleep, in part because I was bitterly disappointed about the postponement of our holiday, but also because I felt a growing uneasiness over Zsuzsanna. She seems quite improved, and her colour is better than it was when I first arrived at the manor. She was even up and about today. When I visited her in her bedroom, she was dressed and sitting in the window-seat, gazing out the open window to her left, at the forest in the distance. As I entered, she glanced over her shoulder at me, briefly, with a child’s smile, then pointed excitedly at the distant pines.

“Look, there! Do you see it?”

I crossed the room and stood behind her to squint, and saw nothing but forest, so far away that the trees were really quite indistinguishable from each other. “What is it you see, Zsuzsanna?” I asked pleasantly, and without thinking, placed a hand upon her shoulder.

“An owl!” she exclaimed. “Can you see him? There, to the right—up in the very highest branches.”

I could, of course, see nothing, and stammered a reply about her eyesight being quite remarkable, which seemed to please her, though really I knew“ it had to be the product of fancy. She could have made out nothing at that distance.

It was not her imaginary sighting which troubled me, but the sudden realization that my hand rested upon a

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