Dracula

Lucy's funeral becomes a stage for hidden agendas and supernatural dread. Van Helsing places garlic and a crucifix on Lucy's unnaturally beautiful corpse, then shocks Seward by demanding to cut off her head and remove her heart. When the crucifix is stolen overnight, Van Helsing postpones his grisly plan, leaving Seward bewildered. Arthur arrives grief-stricken for a final goodbye, disturbed by Lucy's impossible beauty in death. Van Helsing secures permission to keep Lucy's private papers, hinting at knowledge he cannot yet share. Meanwhile, Mina and Jonathan return from their honeymoon, but Jonathan suffers another breakdown when he spots a familiar figure on Piccadilly—the same man from his traumatic journey, now mysteriously younger. Jonathan's mind protects itself by forgetting the encounter entirely. The chapter ends ominously with newspaper reports of children going missing on Hampstead Heath, all claiming they were lured away by a 'bloofer lady' and found with small wounds on their throats. Van Helsing's desperate measures, Jonathan's fragmented memory, and the children's stories all point to a supernatural threat that the rational world refuses to acknowledge. The living struggle with grief and trauma while something undead stalks London's children.