Bram Stoker | Dracula | 1897

My Dearest Mina,

I know you are busy in Roumania being both Jonathan's wife and nurse, but I couldn't help wanting to distract you from your task for a few moments. Things are becoming awfully strange back home, and I must admit that your marriage has caused conflicting emotions to possess me. What of Lucy? I know you felt very grown up and affectionate while you watched her embroiled courtship from the stronghold of your own engagement, but did you ever really ask why it happened the way it did? Did you not notice that it was after your own engagement that she rushed into hers, and seemed so immediately consumed with the desire to know the same state of possession? All those years of being so close, of sharing those secrets in your shared bed... Lucy missed you enough, Mina, that she thought only a man's proposal could erase the difference your engagement set between you.

I'm sorry, but I must tell you that she is suffering from the acquaintance of a certain gentleman, who is no stranger to your husband. Dr Steward has brought in a foreign expert who seems to be going about things the right way, but every time her condition seems likely to improve, some sad coincidence leaves her vulnerable to further attack. As a result of this she has now had the blood of three men - both doctors and the Texan - siphoned into her veins, without the knowledge of her fiancé. Mina, Lucy is in the hands of men I do not entirely trust - especially the doctors, one of whom fosters lunatics and is tempted by delusions of grandeur, the other with a mad wife whom he has locked away somewhere while he gallivants around England tending to unmarried and under-clothed young women.

My Darling, Lucy has been lost since the moment they diagnosed her. All I can do is beg you to be careful when you return - these men have insinuated their very essences into Lucy's body, and I believe they will not hesitate to destroy her in the name of restoring her purity. So please, keep records of everything - do not let a stray remark from them escape you. Do not trust Jonathan to keep you safe - if it is not their blood they use to ensnare you, it will be their tears, and he will aid them.

Oceans of Love,
Rose Edwards