Harker and the Count: Chapter III
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
28 April 1893. Purfleet.
Loss has been my family’s lot for generations.
After my grandmother died, my grandfather did his best to raise their daughter. But he was beaten and left for dead outside their hovel by a group of white Englishmen lashing out against “dirty g*psies” who were purportedly stealing their jobs and women.
When my mother, just fourteen, stumbled upon his dying form, my grandfather managed to whisper three final phrases.
“Akana mukav tut. Ash Devlesa. Voliv tut sáyêk.”
I leave you now. Remain with God. I’ll love you always.
Today those words echoed in my heart as I led Richard Renfield from Purfleet’s train station toward one of the large houses nearby. A few years ago it was purchased by an alienist, Dr. John Seward, who added to the structure and built a series of cottages on the property, forming a private lunatic asylum that he now oversees.
Jack, as his friends call him, is the son of my father’s closest companion. Their fathers both served in the Army of the East India Company. After the deaths of those men, the sons they had sired with Indian women — Thomas Harker and Brian Seward — were remanded to the Bengal Military Orphan School in Kolkata, where they developed a bond much like the one Mina and I share. Seward was older and found employment with the Company upon…
