Tea before Dying

by Vered Ehsani

  Too soon, there was a knock on the library door, and Parson entered. His pasty face set in an uninviting expression, he announced in a bored voice, “Lady Sybil is ready for your attendance.”

  With even less enthusiasm, Lilly and I followed the butler around the house to a private veranda hidden by tall hedges. An ornate, metal garden table and matching chairs filled most of the space. Lady Sybil was waiting for us, wearing another white dress. She sat upon a chair with her back straight, her shoulders pulled back, her chin lifted, and her eyes peering down her long nose at us.

  Sweeping invisible dust off her pristine clothes, she beckoned us to join her around the table. Despite the heat outside, she was attired as if we were still in London: her dress covered her from neck to ankles; long white gloves and a wide-brimmed, lacy hat ensured no ray of sun would ever touch any part of her skin. Leaning against her chair was a closed parasol, also gleaming white. I wondered how long the color would remain unsoiled.

  “As your education has been sorely neglected and perhaps even reversed in this socially backward village, I have taken it upon myself to rectify the matter,” she said, her declaration punctuated by a sharp clicking of her tongue and a wave of her hand. She tapped the stone tiles with her parasol. “This, young ladies, is how one should serve afternoon tea. As you can see, I have used the tea set that is most appropriate for the season, even if this wretched part of the world seems to have only two seasons: floods or droughts.”

  Lifting a gold-rimmed teapot, she poured us each a cup of tea before continuing her unsolicited lecture. “Observe the scones and cucumber sandwiches. Everything is bite-sized. Regardless of the time of day or year, it wouldn’t do for an Englishwoman to scoff down large quantities of food.” She glanced at me, sniffing again. “And the table shouldn’t be contaminated with platters of native fruit. That’s not how afternoon tea is done.”

  Before I could comment on her disparaging remark regarding the consumption of local fruit, Jonas limped around the corner of the hedge. Normally, my gardener exuded a suitably subservient attitude in public. Not having noticed Lady Sybil, he abandoned pretense and approached me directly, his wrinkled head held high.

  “Miss Knight,” he lisped before I could warn him, “that stupid firefly, he insists on speaking to us right now.”

  Stupid firefly was a reference to Yao. While a firefly wasn’t as impressive or scary as a bat, it was better at infiltrating people’s homes to find its next victim.

  I stared at him and twitched my eyes toward Lady Sybil.

  “Miss Knight, your eyes,” Jonas said, frowning at me and rubbing a gnarled hand over the short, gray curls covering his scalp. “They are stranger than usual today.”

  A loud clicking of tongue against teeth and a tapping of parasol against stone startled Jonas. He glanced toward the source: an outraged Lady Sybil. Her watery blue eyes were wide and almost popping out of her pale, wrinkled face. Tapping her manicured fingers against the edge of the small, round table, she sniffed again and flicked her fingers toward Jonas while pinning me with a glare.

  “Are your servants always so bold as to speak without permission?” she demanded, her voice quavering.

  Gritting my teeth and ignoring Lilly’s imploring expression, I said, “I prefer my staff to be comfortable around me.”

  “How dreadfully liberal of you, my dear,” she said, her nose wrinkling. “We would never permit such tendencies in our household. Would we, Parson?”

  “Certainly not, m’lady,” Parson huffed from where he stood in a corner of the veranda, his eyebrows as elevated as those of his mistress.

  Lady Sybil glanced at Jonas. “Unhappy fellow, isn’t he, and unappreciative. You provide him everything he needs. Uncivilized, the lot of them. But at least most of them smile which is a form of gratitude, I suppose.”

  Wincing at her remarks, I didn’t dare look at Jonas. As if the afternoon tea couldn’t get any more complicated, Yao strolled into view, the epitome of contentment even if it was a barely dressed version. Lady Sybil abandoned her sniff for an outright gasp. Such was the effect Yao had, even from a distance. Apart from a short, leather skirt, Yao was naked. His broad chest and muscular limbs glowed like mahogany in the sun. His grin revealed bright white teeth.

  “Oh dear,” Lilly whispered and sipped at her tea.

  I glanced at Lady Sybil’s countenance. She was flapping a fan before her pale face; beneath the heavy application of powder, her cheeks began to redden. Her lips pursed tightly shut, she stared at the African who brazenly sat in a chair at the table and smiled at each of us in turn.

  Gulping, I kept my gaze firmly on the plate of scones. Rather than focus on the silence among us, I tuned into the twitter of the birds in the nearby thorn tree, the buzz of insects in the dry grass, and the occasional trumpet of an elephant farther afield.

  A huff announced Lady Sybil’s intention to resume talking. “And what is he doing here?” she demanded, waving her hand at the vampire’s naked chest.

  “Yao is here for a bride,” Yao stated, his face suffused in a sloppy grin.

  Lady Sybil sniffed and eyed the young Adze. “Well, don’t look at me.”

  “All right, Yao won’t,” he agreed with great cheer. Swiveling to face me, he continued, oblivious of Lady Sybil’s hard gaze. “Miss Knight, you promised to help Yao negotiate a dowry with Jonas.”

  “Stupid firefly,” Jonas muttered from my other side.

  “It has been my experience,” Lady Sybil said, raising her voice, “that the best servants are silent ones.”

  Despite being the stoic butler, Parson appeared ready to have a heart attack. Lilly and I exchanged bemused glances. I imagined what Lady Sybil would say if she had any clue she was speaking to a shapeshifting vampire. Eyeing Yao, I wondered when he might bare his teeth. The Adze weren’t renowned for their forbearance. Fortunately, Yao was a more patient example of his species.

  “I believe the entire exercise of colonizing the continent should at the very least result in the appropriate training of the natives,” Lady Sybil said, her voice rising in pitch and volume as she warmed to the subject. “Anything less, and we have entirely failed in our role as civilizers.”

  Not in the least interested in the moral justification of the British empire, Yao continued his own conversation. “Miss Knight, please will you ask Jonas how many cattle and goats he wants?”

  Lady Sybil prodded one of Yao’s finely muscled calves with her parasol. “Young man, you’re interrupting my afternoon tea.”

  Yao studied the various treats laid out neatly on the garden table. His lips curled into a sneer. “Disgusting food. Yao doesn’t want your tea.”

  Lady Sybil’s tongue clicked against her teeth, and her nostrils flared. “That is no way to speak to an Englishwoman, particularly a lady, even if she grants you permission to speak, which I did not.”

  “Lady Sybil,” Lilly murmured, leaning forward and placing her teacup on the table with a soft clink.

  Ignoring her, she prodded Yao again. Yao stared down at the parasol, a frown marring his cheerful countenance, before he glanced at the matriarch.

  Speaking slowly as if attempting to grasp the significance of the proposition, he said, “If Yao waits for permission, Yao might never speak again.”

  Leaning back in her chair, a satisfied gloat on her wrinkled face, Lady Sybil nodded once and said, “Precisely. See here, ladies, how training of the locals should proceed. Finally he is grasping his position in the order of things. Now we need only to clothe him and—”

  Yao glanced at his lap and interrupted, “But Yao has clothes.”

  Scowling, Lady Sybil snapped, “I did not grant you permission to speak.”

  Grinning, his sharp canines gleaming in the light, Yao eyed her covered neck and purred, “Oh, that’s not necessary.”

  “Yao,” I said, gesturing to Jonas to assist me. My gardener smirked, having no inclination to interrupt the entertainment.

  “Yes, Miss Knight,”
Yao murmured as he leaned closer to Lady Sybil and sniffed.

  “Good gracious,” Lady Sybil huffed as she swatted Yao over the head with her parasol. “Has he no sense of propriety?”

  Jonas scoffed and said, “None.”

  Lilly stood and pushed back her chair. The scraping of its metal legs against the stone distracted all of us. “It’s been delightful, Lady Sybil,” she said, pinching me on the arm when I remained seated. “We shall have to do this again sometime.”

  “No hurry though,” I added as I rose. “Next year, perhaps. Yao, let’s go.”

  Gazing up at me, Yao asked, “But what about tea?”

  “What about negotiating for a wife?” I countered, ignoring Jonas’ glare and Lady Sybil’s hiss.

  Smiling, the vampire leaped to his feet. “Thank you, Miss Knight.” Glancing at Lady Sybil, he patted his chest and said, “Yao prefers his tea younger, anyway.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “YAO IS SO exciting about the negotiations,” the vampire crowed, bouncing on his feet. The bare skin slapped against the stone tiles of my kitchen.

  “You’re excited, not exciting,” I corrected him, trying not to admire his lithe muscles and handsome figure.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Yao frowned at me. “Wanjiru thinks Yao is exciting. She says so every time—”

  I waved a hand at him, and mercifully he shut up. Closing my eyes, I sighed. “Perhaps you might want to keep that between you and Wanjiru. I’m not sure her father would appreciate hearing the details.”

  Before Yao could argue the point, Jonas stalked into the kitchen. Glaring at Yao, he took up his post by the stove and added water to the kettle. His shoulders slouched, his expression grim, he clenched his gnarled hands around the tattered edges of his faded shirt.

  From one of the rafters, Shelby squeaked, her long tail flicking in the air above my head. Simon strolled into the kitchen, glanced at the scene and said, “I believe I have somewhere else to be.” Spinning on his heel, he exited the kitchen.

  “Coward,” I called after him.

  “I merely have a heightened sense of survival, my dear,” he replied before closing the door to his office.

  “And on that note,” I said, turning to Yao and indicating with a twitch of my head that he should proceed.

  “Yao wants to marry your daughter,” Yao said, extending his arms before him as if welcoming his future father-in-law into an embrace.

  “No,” Jonas replied, his scowl deepening on his wrinkled face.

  “So much for negotiating,” I muttered. Clearing my throat, I said, “Jonas, Yao did help reinstate the life-death cycle.”

  Yao puffed out his chest and rocked back and forth on his feet. “Yes, he did! Yao is a hero. And don’t forget, Miss Knight, about the dragon. Yao battled a dragon to steal some rocks to give to the Creator.” He nodded his head and patted one hand against his chest. “Yao did that.”

  Leaning against the stone counter, Jonas wagged a finger at Yao and said, “So you, you’re a thief.”

  “Yes!” Yao replied with a smile just as I said, “No, of course not.”

  Gasping, Yao directed an outraged glare at me. “Miss Knight, Yao is a thief and a very good one.”

  Shelby shrieked and leaped to another beam overhead. Smacking a palm to my forehead and leaning my elbows onto the table, I said, “I have a zombie processing my imports, a husband trying to resuscitate his business, a poacher to battle and a wedding to help plan. I don’t need another headache.”

  “Bah,” Jonas said, turning his back to us to stare at the kettle. “Me, I don’t need one either. So I say no to the bug.”

  Directing his unhappy gaze to Jonas, Yao defended himself. “Adze aren’t bugs.”

  Swiveling to face us, Jonas stepped forward and placed his fists on his hips. “And my daughter isn’t going to marry a fly.”

  “Firefly,” Yao corrected, shaking a finger at Jonas. “Flies can’t create light from their backs.”

  “Me, I don’t want an Adze in the family. No vampires,” Jonas said, puckering up his lips as if he was going to spit on the floor. I half-rose, pursing my lips together, and Jonas restrained himself.

  Yao growled, his sharp nails digging into the wooden table as he leaned forward. His elongated canines glittered. Before Yao could permanently remove Jonas from the conversation, I laid a hand on the arm closest to me, as if that could restrain him.

  “Jonas, what does Wanjiru want?” I asked, hoping to inject a degree of civility and logic into the male brains.

  “She wants Yao,” Yao declared, straightening up. “She said I’m—”

  “Jonas,” I interrupted Yao.

  Grumbling, Jonas turned to face the stove and lifted the boiling kettle. As he poured water into my teapot, he said, “She’s a child.”

  “She’s a grown woman,” I said. “Don’t you trust her?”

  Jonas muttered under his breath. Yao’s hands clenched, his nails now firmly embedded into my table and leaving deep gouges.

  “And you, what will you do when she gets old?” Jonas asked, glancing over his shoulder to stare at Yao, his features strained.

  I sat back in my chair. It was a good point. I wondered what Drew would do once Cilla aged. At least in that case, there was always the option of turning Cilla into a werewolf, as horrid a notion as that was. Would Drew do that? Would Cilla want him to give her the deep and rather painful bite of transformation? I shuddered at how complicated love could be.

  “Yao will care for her always,” Yao replied, extracting his nails from the indents in the wood and straightening. “Whatever she needs, Yao will find a way to make it.” Pausing, he gazed up at the rafter where Shelby hissed at him. “And if Yao can’t make it, he will beg, borrow or steal it.”

  “You mean buy it,” I said, smiling up at him.

  “Maybe.”

  Jonas flung up his arms. “Me, I don’t trust vampires.”

  “I take offense at such a statement,” I said, frowning at Jonas.

  “Yao also takes offense,” the vampire said, placing a fist over his heart and lifting his chin. “Yao is very offensed.”

  “Offended,” I corrected him. “My father is a vampire, and he is completely trustworthy.”

  “Hmm,” Jonas huffed, his worried scowl still directed to his would-be son-in-law.

  “And there’s a church being built,” I added, hoping Jonas was softening to the idea of having a firefly in the family. “Or a chapel, really.” Coughing, I admitted, “To be honest, it’s more like a hut with a cross on top but at least Nairobi will have a place of worship. They can be married in it.”

  Scratching his head, Jonas said, “Me, I don’t care where they marry. The one we pray to is the one that created everything and everyone. That one Creator doesn’t care where you pray.”

  “You’ve never spoken of your beliefs,” I said, leaning my chin on my hand and eyeing Jonas.

  Jonas stared at me and shook his head. “Why should I talk about it? You can see how I live.”

  “And he said he doesn’t care where we marry, didn’t he, Miss Knight?” Yao said, grabbing my shoulder. “He did. So he has given permission. Yao will arrange the dowry.”

  Before Jonas could protest at the misinterpretation of his statement, Yao dashed out the back door in a blur of joy and was gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I WAKE UP right before they murder my parents.

  Of course, I can’t possibly know at that moment what is about to happen, in that carriage during the last ride they will ever have. And yet, as is the ways of dreams, I know.

  “Mother,” I whisper as I huddle between them, marveling at their aliveness. I inhale deeply, savoring Mother’s rose-scented perfume and her husband’s cologne. “Father?”

  Mr. Anderson, the man I used to call Father, says nothing, as if he can’t see or hear me. Or perhaps he is too involved in his thoughts as he stares out the small window of the carriage, mesmerized by the blur of the da
rk countryside. The only light is from a nearly full moon and the smattering of stars bright enough to compete in the night sky.

  The swaying movement of the carriage jostles us from side to side as wooden wheels rattled over a rough road. The horse snorts, its metal shoes clattering against small stones and hard packed earth. An ice-tinged wind whistles sharply alongside us, its tendrils sneaking around the loosely fitted, rattling door. The croaking of frogs from the lake fill up the remaining silent spaces.

  Mother glances down at me and wraps an arm around my shivering shoulders. “Go to sleep, Beatrice. We’ll be home soon.”

  “But I’m not tired,” I protest, my voice that of a child.

  “We shouldn’t have brought her along, Penelope,” Mr. Anderson mutters without looking at either of us. “She should be at home and asleep, not gallivanting about.”

  Mother chuckles, a soft and sad sound. “I’m sure she’ll survive one late night, dear.”

  He harrumphs but doesn’t reply.

  “I’m not really here,” I say, clutching my small hands together, both of them solid and human.

  Another scent drifts into the small carriage, that of a wet dog. My nose wrinkles against the assault even as my eyes widen and my heart speeds up.

  “Turn around,” I whine, my voice constricted with the fear of inevitability. “We need to go back.”

  The wet dog stench intensifies.

  “You need to go straight to bed,” the man beside me grumbles, unimpressed by my emotional turmoil.

  I lean toward the narrow opening in the carriage wall through which I can see the driver sitting on the bench, reins held loosely in one hand. Ignoring Mother’s gentle warning to sit down, I reach my arm through the window and tug at the driver’s heavy wool trench coat. “Please stop. I… I feel sick.”

  The man’s head angles slightly to one side so that I can see his face in profile. His features are handsome yet the expression disturbs me. A long ponytail flicks across his shoulders.