She does it quietly, as if this is the last thing she’ll ever do. Like a woman shuffling up to the gallows. When she’s finished, her body bare, she shivers a little and joins the rest, vanishing into the throng until I lose sight of which one she even is.

Bee chokes up a single sob, and at last, I manage to reach out to her, grasping her hand. The front door is still blocked, but there’s more than one way out of this house. Down the narrow hallway that never seems to end, the ceiling dipping below us, the house swallowing us whole.

“I’m not finished with you, Lucy,” Dracula calls out, and they’re following us now.

Bee and I get to the bedroom, slamming the door closed, but there are too many of them, piling against us on the other side. The polished hinges give way, and we tumble backward, the Buick key skittering out of Bee’s hand, as the girls pour into the room, past the violet curtains and the oversized bed that’s been put to use more times than anyone should count.

Gripping tight to each other, Bee and I rush across the floor, as Bellflower and Vervain flank Dracula, their bodies coiling around him, tighter than pythons. But he shakes them off and advances on me instead.

Dread tightening in my throat, I back against the wall, letting go of Bee’s hand, hoping she’ll get to the patio door, hoping she’ll get away. At the back of the crowd, Rochester’s giving us that ugly smirk of his. No Jane, though. Maybe she doesn’t want to see this part.

Dracula inches closer to me, and everything about this is horribly familiar. His shadow envelops me like an abyss, and in a flash, he seizes my arm, pulling me into him, pressing my palm hard against his bare chest.

His touch is the same as I remember it, cold and impersonal, like the caress of a spider.

I try to wrench away, but he holds me there, forcing me to feel his body. I gag on air, but then something happens, something new. My fingers slip right through his skin. Again and again, I find them, scattered in a constellation across his chest.

Tiny spongy holes, pieces of him that are missing.

He tips his head down, his mouth gaping, and for the first time in years, I see his teeth, sharp and ready. “What have you done with the rest of me?”

I stare back at him, at those bottomless eyes that never stop watching me. “The rest of you?”

“The last urn,” he says, as my hand plunges deeper into him, grazing the spot where his heart should be. “The one from the parlor. Where is it?”

I pull away. “I have no idea,” I say, shuddering, my fingertips still damp from being inside him.