by Eva Alton
To my relief, he didn’t bother to ask why half of my face kept changing colors, and I made sure to remain indoors to avoid my neighbors’ inquisitive gazes.
I made lots of lists, but I didn’t pack anything just yet―I wouldn’t tell Mark about my new job for a while, just in case it didn’t work out. I’d just leave a note, saying I was going for a little vacation and return for the divorce proceedings. He worked so late every day that he would hardly notice my absence, anyway.
When, on Sunday morning, he screamed at me for spilling his coffee on the saucer, I remained silent and fantasized about the safety of him never being able to find me again.
Many times, while doing housework, I found myself replaying in my mind the visit to The Cloister. Those thoughts drifted recurrently to Mr. Clarence Auberon and how oddly at ease I had felt in his presence. It must have been years since I had proper conversation with another adult; especially discussions which didn’t revolve around my kids and didn’t end up in bouts of irrational yelling.
But at night, bad dreams and insomnia haunted me, like they always did when I went through stressful periods―which seemed to be all the time, lately. The nightmares kept me up until dawn, listening to things which weren’t really there. Sometimes I thought Miss Jilly, the cat, was staring at me from the windowsill; but whenever I stood up to check, there was nothing. Right before sunrise, I generally fell back into a restless sleep full of horrible visions of my loved ones suffering. It was exhausting, but I had grown used to it after years.
On Monday morning, as soon as Mark left for the office, I called the babysitter and rushed out to do some errands. I found some cash Mark had forgotten in a Chinese vase in the living room, and I used half of it to buy children’s medicines, cosmetics and a few other necessities. Once I got my first salary and cash wasn’t so tight, things would become much easier.
At eleven o’clock, a large raven was sitting on the highest branch of the magnolia tree, and it extended its wings in a silent greeting as I made my way across the lawn.
I entered the house, followed by my very unusual, feathered escort, just to find the babysitter furiously pacing up and down the kitchen.
“I called you twenty times!” the babysitter yelled, ignoring the bird, which perched patiently on the back of the sofa. The girl must have at least eight tattoos of arrows and dolphins on her left arm alone, and I couldn’t remember whether her name was Hopper or Harper. “I already missed my chemistry class because of you!”
I stared at my watch blankly. My intention had been to be back by ten, so I could pack up before Clarence arrived, but I had ended up queuing at the drugstore for a long time.
“I’m so sorry...” I didn’t dare say the girl’s name in case I had got it wrong. Losing another babysitter seemed too risky, so I walked towards the TV stand and grabbed Mark’s Yongzheng vase―a rare antique gifted to him by a satisfied client after they had won an almost impossible case. I tried to squeeze my hand into the long and narrow mouth of the vase, but it didn’t work out. In the end, I just spilled all the contents on a sideboard and thrust the bills into the astonished babysitter’s arms.
“There you go!” I said gaily. It was at least ten times more than her normal fee, but she deserved it, anyway. “Consider it my apology. Now go back to college before you miss something else!”
Harper-Hopper stuck the money into her backpack and stumbled out of the house, stuttering a clumsy thank you. By the look on her face, this babysitter would be delighted to come back.
“Good nannies are so hard to come by,” I muttered at the raven, who was still waiting calmly on the couch. “I’m going through a very delicate phase, and I’m going to need her.”
Iris and Katie were stacking blocks peacefully in their room. When I crouched next to them, they pretended I was invisible, so I deemed it safe to go and pack my stuff quickly.
“I need to get my suitcase from the basement,” I said to the raven. “Care to come with me? Maybe we can talk there. It’s dark.”
The bird shook its head up and down and followed me, letting out a brief squawk which vaguely resembled a yes.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” I said, waving in his direction, “I can’t understand any of that.”
The basement had no windows and Mr. Auberon seized the opportunity to turn back into his vampire self. His presence felt odd in that house: having a male guest, and a clandestine one at that, was almost like doing something forbidden behind Mark’s back, even if it was a purely businesslike visit.
“I’m pleased to hear you are taking us up on our offer,” Clarence said, emerging out of the gray mist with a smug smile. “You won’t regret it, trust me.”
“I hope so,” I said, as the thin smoke vanished. Would I ever get used to this? Or was I about to wake up to my husband yelling at me because he just ran out of toilet paper? I went through my packing list in my head and tried to remember where we kept the travel bags: it had been more than ten years since I last traveled somewhere exciting.
“Are you glad you are leaving this place?”
The way he said it, it sounded like he had stuck his nose a bit too deep into my private life during his investigations.
“I’d rather not talk about personal stuff,” I snapped, grabbing a suitcase from the wrong end. Mark’s luggage cracked open, and out of it came a bunch of adult toys I had never seen in my life. A pair of tiger-striped plush handcuffs hit my pinkie toe, and I muttered a curse.
“You have interesting hobbies,” Clarence said, lifting a strange object vaguely similar to a tennis ball and smirking. “What is this for?”
“I don’t know! These are not mine!” I squealed, kicking a particularly gross item under a snowboard. “Ask Mark!”
“All right, all right,” he laughed and extended his hands, signaling me to calm down, “I’m not judging you. It’s not like I don’t have skeletons in my closet.”
“You are in a good mood today,” I observed grumpily, as I swiftly picked up the rest of Mark’s toys and threw them behind a pile of old tires.
“I think I missed talking to humans. It’s been a while.”
“You don’t talk to them before you bite them?” I snapped, stepping on a stool to reach a smaller suitcase.
“I try to keep contact to a bare minimum,” he shrugged.
“That’s kind of awful,” I said, looking at him from above, as I stood taller than him on the stool. “How can you live with that? Killing people every single day?”
Clarence looked at me like I had just slain his good mood. “That’s something I often wonder, too,” he replied with a sigh, “although it’s not every day, and I rarely kill them, if it makes you feel better.”
“Does it make me a horrible person if I agree to work for creatures like you?” I gasped, stricken by a sudden sense of guilt.
“I don’t know. What kind of people does your husband work for?”
“Good point.”
I jumped off the stool, remembering bitterly how Mark and his attorney partners were humorously known in local circles as The Vampires of Emberbury. Hah. If only they knew they had competition.
“Wait a second. So, my blood smells disgusting, which means you and your friends won’t try to bite me. But what about my daughters? I can’t risk taking them to a hole full of hungry vampires.” How could I have overlooked such an important detail?
“Oh, no, they should be all right, too,” he said with a dismissing wave of his hand. “They are your daughters, and being female, they must have witch blood, because it’s passed from mothers to daughters. Wait a second...” he lifted his index finger and sniffed the air with his eyes closed. “Yes, no doubts. I can smell them from here.”
“I swear I bathed them yesterday!”
Clarence grinned and pointed at the bags on the floor. “May I sit down?”
“Make yourself at home.”
He sat on one of Mark’s suitcases, his ridiculously long legs bent in an awkward position against
his face. “Don’t worry about the children. They will be safe with us. I give you my word.”
I wanted to ask how much a vampire’s word was worth, but I bit my tongue. He had helped me once, after all.
“There’s one more thing,” I said, pursing my lips, “what am I supposed to do with the kids while I’m working? Am I allowed to bring a babysitter to your... cloister?”
“No, nobody else should know about our place, but we happen to have a very good governess among us, actually.” He picked up a piece of old paper from the floor and started to fold it absentmindedly.
“That’s nice. Although they’ll have to go to school, eventually.”
“It’s not like we are going to lock you inside. You can go wherever you want as long as nobody follows you back to The Cloister.”
“What if somebody sees me?” I asked.
“We have ways to help them forget.” He smiled. Then, he snapped his fingers and the folded piece of paper turned into a stunning origami rose.
“I see you have an answer for everything.” I sat right next to him, enthralled by the paper rose trick. My knee brushed against his, and I grimaced. I scooted over, leaving more distance between us. “Did your previous assistant have children, too?”
“No, she didn’t. This is new for us. But Elizabeth is thrilled. If everything goes well, one of your daughters could succeed you after...” he closed his mouth and looked away.
“How practical,” I snarled, guessing what he meant. “I see you vampires are good at planning for the future.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” he said gloomily. “But some things last more than others. We can’t bend the laws of nature.”
I winced, mostly because he was right.
“What happened to your previous assistant, by the way? How come you didn’t just turn her into one of you?”
“Her name was Julia, and she passed away in the eighties. We could not turn her into a vampire for two reasons. First, because another vampire wouldn’t have been useful for our purposes anymore. And second, because there are rules which forbid it.”
“Rules? What rules?”
“Elizabeth’s rules. The rules of The Cloister, the guidelines of our community. We are not allowed to spread the curse. Doing so would entail banishment, and it’s a harsh world outside. A rogue vampire can’t survive long among humans in the modern world.”
I exhaled, trying to process all the new information. “Wait. Does this mean there’s decades’ worth of abandoned work waiting for me?”
“We’ve been doing our best, but yes, many things remained stagnant after we lost Julia. As we told you, stray witches are becoming extinct. Some just die, and others have their bloodlines end if they have male offspring. Many have jobs and families and are not interested in working for us. So you can imagine how long it took us to find a successor.”
That sounded like a lot of work.
In a very weird place.
“What am I getting myself into?” I moaned, holding my head between my hands.
“You will be fine,” he said, patting my knee amiably. “I already gave you my word.”
I studied his nicely shaped features and his barely graying temples. He didn’t seem much older than I, but his eyes told me otherwise. “May I ask how old you are?”
“Me?” The vampire chuckled bitterly. “I’m thirty-five. Forever thirty-five.”
“No, I meant, how old you really are.”
“There’s no joy in counting years when they are so similar to each other. A day, a month, a decade―does it matter, when it all looks the same, and you are condemned to spend eternity locked in a catacomb?” He sighed. “I can remember the fire and reconstruction of Westminster Palace in London, and I was there when the Statue of Liberty disembarked at New York Harbor. Do you know when that was?”
I shook my head, and studied his expression, looking for a hint. A century and a half ago, maybe? I had no clue. My parents and I had spent a few months in London when I was a child, but my memories of the city were very limited.
A little girl’s voice called me from upstairs, pulling me out of my reverie.
“I must go back to the children and finish packing,” I said, standing up and taking good care not to touch him in the process. “You can stay here if you want, and I’ll call you when the taxi arrives.”
“AHOY, TRAVELERS!” MAY shouted from her porch, almost invisible behind a thick puff of cigarette smoke. I was just leaving the house with a suitcase and two toddlers in tow, and a big raven had just flown discreetly out my window. “They say it’s going to rain! Where you headed?”
“I’ll call you!” I gestured, bringing my hand to my ear. I still hadn’t talked to her since Friday night.
“Have fun!” she shouted, winking at me and watching us get into the taxi.
“Where are we going, mommy?” Katie asked, rubbing her eyes as I buckled her to a booster seat.
I glanced at the taxi driver, reluctant to talk in front of a stranger. “We’re going to meet some... friends,” I said, using my fake-excited mom voice. Despite my gleeful tone, my stomach was in knots. The alluring idea of finding shelter away from Mark had blinded me during the weekend, but now that things were actually in motion, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was behaving irrationally by dragging my kids to a place like that.
“Let’s count red cars,” I said, trying to make the ride more entertaining for the kids.
“One...” Katie said, pointing outside the window.
“Two, three... thirteen, seven!” Iris said triumphantly, clapping her hands.
“Iris is cheating again!” Katie complained, as an incredibly cute frown formed on her rosy forehead.
They were so adorable that I almost wanted to cry. On Sunday, in a fit of anger, Mark had sworn to take the children away from me forever. Hopefully, he was exaggerating just to make me mad, but given his records winning all sorts of crazy cases for his clients, I couldn’t be sure. No doubt he’d go the extra mile now his own interests were at stake.
“Pull over there,” I said to the driver, pointing at Saint Anne’s park gates. “Our transfer will pick us up.”
The taxi driver shrugged, making me feel stupid for lying unnecessarily. He didn’t care about the continuation of our trip, as long as I paid his fare.
When we stepped out of the car, the raven was already waiting for us on a tree branch.
“This way,” I said to the girls, following the swift black bird like a medieval juggler: three-year-old Iris had curled up in my right arm while I dragged a suitcase over a grassy path and led Katie with my left hand. I was also wearing two backpacks, one on my back and another one in the front. Thankfully, I had collected lots of experience as a cargo porter during Mark’s prolonged absences.
A black cat crossed our path, and I tried to remember whether that was supposed to be a good or a bad omen.
“Miss Jilly!” Iris squealed, staring at the animal’s peculiar purple eyes.
“Where did she go?” Katie asked. “She just went... poof!”
“What?” I turned around, but the cat was gone. “She must have jumped into the bushes.”
We crossed the park and stopped by Saint Anne’s graveyard at the other end. The cemetery was very old and had been abandoned for a very long time. The main door was locked, but the raven was already waiting on top of the gate and let a heavy iron key fall at my feet.
“Is this a museum?” Katie pointed at the funerary sculptures, mostly stone crosses and depictions of saints.
“Sort of,” I answered, opening a hidden hatch at the feet of two black angels, who were forever joined in a sad embrace of farewell. “Now we’re going to walk down some super fun stairs and see our new room,” I said with feigned enthusiasm, hoping the kids didn’t start to cry as soon as they stepped into the darkness of the other side. Someone might hear us, and I didn’t want to make a scene on our first day.
Surprisingly, they peeked in and didn’t scream, and Iris even
asked to go down the stairs on her own. I waited for the raven to fly in, then let the hatch close behind us with a loud thump. But, as soon as darkness surrounded us, Iris started to cry her lungs out.
“There, there. Please don’t cry,” Clarence said softly, and after a few clicks, a candle lit the space with its soft yellow glow. He was standing on the landing of the stairs, his expression apologetic. Tilting his head to see her better, he crouched down next to my little daughter and conjured a charming expression on his face. “It’s not so dark once you get used to it, I promise. And there’s a surprise in your room. Do you want me to tell you what it is?”
Iris nodded, still pouting.
“Don’t tell anyone, but your room has a skylight!” he said in a conspiratorial tone.
“What’s that?” Iris asked, pulling at the tails of his incongruous coat.
“It’s a window on the ceiling.”
Iris’ eyes widened, and Katie squealed with joy.
“Will we be able to see the stars?” Katie asked, enthralled.
“Of course!” he answered, drawing spirals in the air with a fingertip. “And the sun, too!”
“Awesome,” I said half-heartedly, as my cell phone beeped for the hundredth time, and I contorted to get it out of my jeans pocket. I hadn’t been able to write back to May, with my hands full of children and luggage, and she was starting to make up outlandish stories in her mind about me leaving Mark and disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle.
“Let me have that,” Clarence said, lifting my suitcase and tearing off my backpacks all in one quick, single move.
“I can carry my own stuff, thank you,” I protested, snatching my things off his hands and ignoring the loud crackling sounds emitted by my back muscles.
“I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t, but I’m just holding a candle here,” he blinked and lifted the candlestick, looking confused.
“Then hold it tight,” I snapped, not sure why I was suddenly feeling so grumpy.
“Who are you?” Katie asked him with curiosity.
