Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 5: Patience When the Heart is Breaking

 Castle Lecter has prepared for months for the solicitor's arrival. There were mortal comforts to be seen to – comforts none of my family has been familiar with for many years. Thus, we turn to the village. I have spoken with the elders – only what they need to know, which is that I am in need of help at the keep. They sent me Peter, a stablehand kicked in the head by a horse. He hasn't been the same since and the villagers fear he might turn violent. He was terrified of us at first, but when Chiyoh enlists his help with our own animals, and I show him how the humble creatures of the world respond to my call, he transforms entirely. One could not ask for a more loyal attendant.

He wants nothing in return, save a comfortable room and as many creatures as he wishes. It pleases me to watch him collect injured animals in the woods and nurse them back to health. The village's children, if they are brave enough, bring him their ailing pets or the runts of the litter. The courtyard comes alive with one-legged ducks and blind cats and a goat with some kind of melancholic disorder.

It vexes Antony to no end, but Antony would prefer it if we were all as miserable as he. Bedelia reminds him that all of this is in service of our goal – freedom from the confines of my homeland.

Peter is industrious, and soon, the castle's livable chambers are scrubbed clean. He is clever with his hands and can fix some of the older furniture. Before long, Castle Lecter is nearly a proper home again.

Then, the village sends me the girl. I know the names of every man, woman, and child in the village, and how their bloodlines connect back to the Lecters and the Sforzas. I have nurtured this place for centuries. But I do not know her. She is Russian, and her name is Avigeya. So young to have traveled so far alone. I can only think that something drew her here the way it drew the others. She has been living on the charity of the village, but had worn thin her welcome; they sense something in her the way I do. Though her face is innocent, I can practically smell the blood she's spilled. She is a murderer.

We can sense our own.

I consider using mesmerism to make her confess to me. But I decide against it. The girl is clearly looking for a father, and, in some ways, she reminds me of Mischa. She has my sister's intelligence and practicality. I feel I am on my honor to look out for her.

I am slowly but steadily learning her language. We spend hours speaking. She corrects my grammar and I ask her questions under the pretense of practice. It takes far less time than I thought for her to trust me. Weeping in my arms, she confesses her secret. Her father suffered under a compulsion to kill. His chosen victims were girls that looked just like her. Avigeya helped him lure the young women to remote places where they were butchered. Choices were limited; she could play accomplice or suffer their fate. What she does not say aloud but what I know is that hunting with her father was the loveliest part of her life, something she misses. Though she was more bait used to lure than anything else.

When the residents of their small city in Russia learned their secret, Avigeya's father was killed by a vigilante mob. Only by her cunning did the girl escape, her name tainted, on the run for almost a year as the Daughter of the Shrike.

Still, she had agency. One day we will discuss it, killer to killer. She is the sins of her father. And I welcome her into my home, perhaps one day into my family.

She has survived this long on her own doing some domestic work, and so she cooks for Peter and herself, and sews and cleans; I know Bedelia is glad for more feminine company than Chiyoh. The castle has not felt so alive in a hundred years.

When the solicitor arrives, we are more than prepared to receive him and his precious documents. London calls.

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