HE’S NEVER BEEN this far into the country side; past Surrey and Essex and Kent, where rolling green hills are turned molten silver under the moon’s watchful gaze. Beautiful, if not slightly eerie in its emptiness. The lush pastures lay abandoned by flocks herded earlier in the evening, giving the landscape an abandoned and slightly fey quality. Wilderness only just tamed by civilization, it attempts to recover its lost ground. Roots and vines grow over ruined stone, choking it until fissures erupt beneath its grasp. He passes the broken fortresses of royalty long past, those whose claim to the crown was snuffed out by the Saxon Kings’ imposition.
The count’s castle, by comparison, appears to stand in the prime of its composition, only tastefully crumbling along the farthest reaches. Jonathan parks the Aeroford in the front, lifting the sketch of the castle Elisabeth had given him to the air. Age and renovation makes for minor discrepancies between Lady Ashbury’s depiction and the real thing.
When Jonathan discovered Bram Stoker and the good Lady once shared a familiar relationship he’d assumed the man’s famous vampire novel was inspired by her. He hadn’t expected the character Dracula— or rather Drakulya, to be based upon a real man. But perhaps he’s being too generous in referring to the count as a man at all.
❝ I should have brought a copy for him to sign. ❞
There’s something distinctly off-putting about knocking on castle doors. It misses the required ceremony of such a grand entryway. Still, he has no other way of making himself known without crawling through an open window. A gesture he himself wouldn’t exactly welcome from a complete stranger.