Three

May 1898

Evening

Johnathan stumbled through the front door. She could hear him mumbling something incoherent to himself and she felt deflated; he was drunk. Mina took a deep breath, she needed to get this over with.

"Jonathan? Would you come and see me in the parlour please? I have news." Waiting, she wondered why she felt so nervous. She had been married to this man for months now and had known him a great deal longer than that. He was still the same Jonathan, wasn't he? Mina looked up, she saw him standing in the entrance of the parlour with one hand holding the door frame, most likely for support.

"News?"

Jonathan's eyes were glassy and there was no softening in his features when he looked at her. She signalled for him to sit down in the chair opposite; he eyed her warily and slowly paced towards Mina, as if she were some kind of wild animal. As he sat down, she could smell the familiar scent of alcohol on him. Johnathan had obviously finished work some time ago.

"I received this yesterday, from Jack." Handing him the letter, she waited. Jonathan's face darkened as he read.

"…and you wish to go?" His voice was cold and he stared at Mina. She felt as if he was looking straight through her.

"I'm terribly worried about him, Jonathan. Don't you think- "

"You wish to go back to that place? Back to where it all began?"

Mina took a moment to gather her thoughts before answering him.

"There were good memories there too, Jonathan. It may do us some good, the clean air, getting away from London for some time." She was pleading with him now, trying to persuade him to see that this would be a good idea.

"Good memories?" He scoffed. "You are joking, aren't you? Lucy was murdered! Drac-," he paused, collecting himself. "That, that creature, that thing from Hell, no, the Devil himself killed her and you, you want to go back to relive 'good' memories? What do you think is going to happen, Mina? You think that a little trip down memory lane is going to save our marriage?"

Jonathan had turned away from her. The room was silent except for the crackle of the fire. Mina was not going to give up without a fight.

"Well it can't get any worse." Mina found herself raising her voice. "It didn't start there did it? No, it started with you! In Transylvania. That's where it began! Not Whitby. If you hadn't gone in the first place, trying to impress your employer then- "

"I went to Transylvania for us. For our future. How could I have possibly foreseen what was to happen? I am the victim in all of this. I went to Whitby with a loving wife and left with a..a tainted woman. You welcomed it into your bed! You drank its blood, of your own free will! For all I know you want to go Whitby to relive those memories!"

He was shouting now. His face grew red and spittle collected at the sides of his mouth, like a rabid dog. Mina felt her fury growing; she had only felt anger like this once before, when she was separated from him.

"Of course, yes, it's all my fault, isn't it? Let's not forget your particular rendezvous with the three devil-women, shall we? Where was your willpower then, hmm? I read your diary, Jonathan. I read what they did to you, and you to them. You adored it."

She heard the slap before feeling it. It was strange, it felt oddly elating. This was the most emotion they had shown each other in months. Jonathan moved close to Mina's face. His voice was low and threatening.

"I'll be damned if you think we are going back there. I forbid it. We stay here and move on. You will not do this, Mina. Jack will have to come to us. The matter is closed."

Jonathan stood up and tore the letter to shreds, never breaking eye contact with her. Fragments of hope littered the floor. He left the room, slamming the door behind him. Mina hadn't realised that she had been holding her breath. Her cheek felt hot and she waited for the tears to come, but they did not. She felt she had no tears left to shed. In their place was an anger, a yearning for freedom. She felt more alive now than what she had done in a long time and she was not prepared to sit back and wait for her spirit to rot, much like her marriage. Jack, her friend, needed her. She knew that he could not leave his patients, he could never visit them and she was so desperate to go back to Lucy's home, to mourn her friend; she had never had the chance to do so. Mina needed to formulate a plan. She would go back to Whitby; she was determined be free of London smog, of this isolating house, free of Jonathan.