What Manner of Man: Chapter 15 🦇

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

• This book is dedicated entirely to my radiantly splendid Patreon supporters, eternally slipping sacred $1 bills under the cosmic g-string.

• I feel I should apologize for the brevity of the email this week — that’s what I get for following the Dracula Daily format of novel serialization. At least it’s longer than that one two-sentence telegram entry.

• Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈 (Somebody should tell the guys in this book they’re not observing it properly.)

JOURNAL ENTRY

Dated May 28, 1950.

God help me, but I do wish things could return to the way they were.

It’s foolish of me to wish for such a thing, of course, as I have been in the gravest possible danger since the moment I set foot upon this island. Yet, despite myself, I long to return to those first evenings of my stay here; when, glass in hand, I would keep company with Lord Vane deep into the night, enjoying wine and sparkling conversation by firelight. I yearn to go riding with him once more; to pass long days exploring ruins and discussing the history of the island. Any escape from this purgatory of dark suggestion and ill-defined dread.

Despite all these ominous hints, I still have no true notion of the precise nature of the evil which is in the process of consuming Lord Vane. I am in doubt as to whether the rite of exorcism would have any positive effect on him, even if I were in a fit spiritual state to perform it.

Still worse, I do not know what infernal rite I participated in — and yet he stopped himself. What does it mean; that he stopped?

Lord preserve this poor unworthy sinner, brought low before you. What little mortification I have attempted thus far has been woefully inadequate for the scale of my failure. I must tame this vile thing in which my soul is shackled; this beast of burden which calls itself my body. Trapped in the darkness of my breast, far from the divine light of God, I can feel my soul withering. It dies cooped within these walls of flesh. Oh for skin as thin and delicate as a veil. I would become as glass should be, as all-confessing. Through-shine my heart, pierce me with divine light. If such transparency will leave me bared to the world, so be it. I long to be open.

I will have no half measures. There is a satisfaction in denial to which little else compares; never again must my blood run hot and heedless but cool to a quiet calm. I will begin to deny myself, and by my denial become less and less until I am nearly gone. In this way I will save myself.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Some lines at this point have been erased and are illegible.

For entire days at a time, of late, I have found Lord Vane nowhere about the manor, and I doubt if my absence will even be noticed.

P.S. FROM 2024:

Hello! 👋 What you’re reading is a draft version of What Manner of Man. You may not be all that surprised to learn that this chapter no longer exists and has been incorporated into the chapters around it. It was never supposed to be a separate chapter in the first place, but needs must.

(You can get the complete, edited and expanded novel DRM-free on Itch.io or at the retailer of your choice.)

THANK YOU to everyone who left nice comments about the illustrations last week. 😭🙏 I did NOT expect any response — I frankly had no idea that people paid attention to these short messages at the end of all the chapters. Oops.

-Me, the editor again (hi!)

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