Mina Harker, the heroine of "Dracula," is spiraling into premature menopause – a natural occurrence, or the remerging curse of having ingested the Count’s blood years ago – questions the changes stirring in her body.

Mina is losing instead of gaining weight. She sleeps longer through the day than through the night. Her cravings are ravenous as she tries to feed her iron deficiency with bloody, sometimes raw meat. Additionally, Mina nurses her teenage son, Quincey, out of a long bout of influenza, which allows her to notice the changes his body is making from a teenager into a young adult. Simultaneously, Mother and Son are transforming.

In her diary, Mina vividly records her dreams which are so genuine that she ponders at what point a dream becomes a hallucination or a vision or a premonition, and what actually is a reality. Was she indeed crawling on the ceiling or was that just a dream?

Mina’s world is changing, and she does not know how to cope with the changes, natural and supernatural. Her greatest fears linger from those long-ago terrible events as all around her the paranormal creeps in from the shadows. She increasingly alienates herself from family and friends, and her disdain for the elderly grows in volumes.

After the horrifying murder of her dear nonagenarian mentor Professor Van Helsing, Mina, and Quincey disappear.

Mina’s husband, Jonathan Harker, with a small group of colleagues ventures into the Carpathian Mountains in search of his wife and son.

MINA HARKER tragically culminates in a fiery completion of an oath made to Mina twenty years past by Jonathan and his colleagues; that if she were to become something other than human, they would destroy her.

I never refer to Dracula by name, only as The Evil One, and I don’t use the word "Vampire."