Carmilla, read aloud

The house's fifteenth and last chapter, Le Fanu's sixteenth, the Conclusion. Laura closes the frame, the Baron explains how a vampire gets buried twice, and the book ends not with a victory but with a woman who still starts at the light step at the drawing room door.

The house's fourteenth chapter, Le Fanu's fifteenth. The baron arrives, the lost grave is opened, and the report of the commission says out loud what everyone has known since the carriage: the body in the coffin is still warm. Then the stake, the head, the fire.

The house's thirteenth chapter, Le Fanu's fourteenth. The General's story ends where it began, at the window of a sickroom, and he swings an axe. Then Carmilla walks into the ruined chapel, and the woman standing in the passage swears she never came out.

The house's twelfth chapter, Le Fanu's thirteenth. In the carriage, Laura hears her own symptoms described in the General's story of the girl he lost. At the ruins of Karnstein, a woodman tells what happened to the village, and the General says out loud what he means by justice.

The house's eleventh chapter, Le Fanu's twelfth. The mother makes her petition: take my daughter, no questions, no name, for a few weeks. The General says yes, and the last line closes the door behind her.

The house's tenth chapter, Le Fanu's eleventh. The General finally tells it: a masquerade, a masked lady who knows his whole life, and a name that is Carmilla rearranged.

The house's ninth chapter, Le Fanu's tenth. A general arrives with a story he is sure no one will believe, and drops one fact about Laura's own blood on his way to tell it.

The house's eighth chapter, Le Fanu's ninth. Medicine arrives, finds a small blue spot where the needles were, and gives a diagnosis it will not name. For the first time the guest has nothing to say, so the reading has one voice.

The house's seventh chapter, Le Fanu's eighth. A locked room that proves nothing, a search for the wrong missing girl, and a father's tidiest theory yet, which quietly acquits the one thing in the house.

The house's sixth chapter, Le Fanu's seventh. The terror settles into the room and its furniture, Laura becomes her own jailer, the charm comes from the one it protects, and the descent is consented to.