Daisy After Life (Book 1): Perdition

by Demers, Raven J.

  Though it took some convincing, Perdita curling up near her, soon the sniffling stopped and the girl’s breathing slowed. Daisy raised herself up, and slipped away. She set out the food in an obvious place for her to find in the light. She could only hope that some corner of the abandoned building would suffice as a restroom, because after checking the facilities, she was quite certain the half-smashed toilet would be inadequate to the girl's needs.

  Steeling herself for whatever he had to say, Daisy reached out once more with her senses, and found Nathaniel. He stood back at the tree, twenty paces from the door. She opened the door with a creak and stepped onto the porch. This time he closed the distance between them in a blink, and Daisy, still acclimating to her abilities, only managed to get one foot back into the house.

  Nathaniel reached for her, pulling her into his arms and forced a kiss on her. His nails dug into her arms, but left no mark.

  No! Anger rose in her and with a thought, she twisted free of him and found herself halfway into the living room of the house. The speed with which it happened startled her a moment. The ease of it all.

  Out of habit, she sucked in a deep breath.

  "What possessed you to do that?!" Daisy hissed through her teeth.

  Nathaniel’s laughter filled the room, but died against the dust of the room when he saw her scowling back. In the fraction of a second that all of her thoughts took place, he had time to straighten up and assess the situation.

  He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, and bobbed his head in the direction of the sleeping child. "Playing with your food, Daisy?"

  "You should have had more sense, Nathaniel. What did you think I’d do when I found her? You think I could just kill a child to slake a thirst?" Her eyes were venomous, though he merely smiled.

  "No, no. I suppose you’re right," he conceded, the smile fading. "But I’m surprised at you. How’d you do it?" He held up a hand and shook his head. "No, I know. You’re stronger than all the rest of us. You always were."

  Daisy’s shoulders, which had been tense as a cornered cat, dropped. "What do you mean, stronger? Stronger than whom?"

  He chuckled. "Oh, now, don’t mistake me. You’re still weak in body, sure, but don’t you remember what I said? The way you resisted my gifts? I didn’t understand it then, but I called it what it was."

  Nathaniel straightened and shut the door, then approached her. Daisy tensed and pulled back further into the illusory safety of the shadows. Instead of continuing toward them, he plopped down in the center of the room and sat cross-legged, arranging the leather panels of his duster about him like a fan.

  They both turned their heads at the sound of Perdita rousing from sleep and slipping down the hall to hear. At the sight of them in the room, the girl let out a little gasp, but Daisy reached out a hand. The child scurried to her arms, and hid her face, as Daisy picked her up.

  "I’m strong because I chose not to hurt her? Or because I didn’t change when I was a girl?" She found a ratty cushion to sit on, and put Perdy in her lap like the porcelain doll. Absently, she curled her fingers through the girl's hair. Her mind raced, going back over the murky memories of her mortality, so many years back, it became difficult to remember.

  Then, like someone turned on the bulb in a disused closet, she could see all the clutter for what it was, and rearrange it into linear order. She remembered with clarity the afternoon they sat on her bed and he bit her, drinking long draughts of blood, and he fed her from a cut on his arm.

  She recalled the lucid colors of the world after, the way the world came alive. The dials on her senses turned up all the way and she had felt she could finally experience life the way it was meant to be. "I remember."

  Nathaniel nodded his head once and smiled. His eyes wandered back to the girl sitting on Daisy's lap, who stared back, unsure of whether or not to be scared. He brought up a gloved hand and waved at her. Perdita turned and buried her face in Daisy's chest once more.

  "Don't frighten her!" Daisy said, as she brought her hand up to pet Perdy's hair and pat her back. "Shh," she said to the child. "I have you. You're safe with me." To Nathaniel she remarked, "So that night with Candace? And the evenings on the mountain?"

  "All real, Daisy dear." He pulled off a glove and picked his perfect teeth as if trying to be vulgar. They both knew he had nothing to pick from between them. Sucking his tongue he said, "Not going to feed on her?"

  Daisy's eyes narrowed, and she pulled the child closer to her. "No."

  "Very well," he said, and he was up in a flash and ran out the door. To Perdy's eyes it was a shadowy blur and then, poof! He'd disappeared. In less than a minute he returned with a handful of rats dangling by their tails and struggling in his gloved hand. "Dinner, although I can't see how you stand it."

  As though another person possessed her body, Daisy set Perdy down and lunged for the rodents, pulling at their blood like a child on juice boxes. When they were drained and dead, she flung their bodies out the door, and resettled back in her spot with Perdita back in her lap. Nathaniel visibly shuddered. "How do they taste?"

  Daisy lowered her eyes, ashamed of the monster she had become. "Like rats. No better than they would to a human, I suppose. Enough to live on, though."

  "Live?" He moved to hover over them both. "You think you're living by hiding in broken down houses, feeding off vermin?" His eyes were set aflame, ready to consume the three of them and the house as well. His anger became palpable, a flavor on Daisy's tongue, and she remembered that she need not cower from him. The shared in the strength of the same blood.

  Daisy stood to face him.

  "Live, Nathaniel. This is what you sentenced me to. May the Lord help me, but you've made me a monster." Her eyes bored into his. "What do you expect of me? I am not willing to damn myself any further by spilling the blood of this—or any—innocent."

  She stepped forward, and Nathaniel's mouth went slack, the cold returning to his features. "Don't come here with threats or mockery. You say I'm strong, let's see how strong I can be." Nathaniel took a step back, and then another. As she stared him down, he retreated to his seated position on the floor and waited.

  "I remember. I remember the looks you used to give me. The fear in your eyes. Is this what you fear?" She held out her hands, gesturing toward herself.

  Nathaniel focused on the grains in the wood of the floor, not willing to meet her gaze any longer. Perdita crept up to Daisy's side and took her hand. The girl tugged once, twice, before Daisy straightened out of a predatory stance, which she hadn’t been conscious of taking.

  "Why are you here, Nathaniel? Did you come to see if I was still as strong?"

  His eyes flicked up to hers, gazing out over a freckled nose. "Something like that, and well, I didn't think I'd have to wait so long." He cracked a smirk, and added, "You lived a long life. But it's been made clear that as your—as the one who made you, I've got to be the one to teach you who you are."

  Daisy frowned at him. "I know who I am. I've had years to figure that out. But you seem as impulsive and irresponsible as the day you left."

  Nathaniel’s grin broadened. "No, I have a feeling Daisy," he began to stand, "that you don't have a clue who you are now." At the last word he lunged for her, reaching a hand out to strike at her face. With barely a moment to think, she pushed Perdy behind her and blocked his attack. Daisy used her free hand to push open-palmed at his chest, and sent him flying to the other side of the room, his body hitting the wall hard enough to splinter the wood paneling, and crack the nearest window.

  He shook dust and plaster from his hair and off his coat as he stood, laughing with mirth instead of mockery. Daisy remained ready to fight him off again.

  "Easy, easy," he said. "Just proving a point." He brushed off the last of the white powder on his shoulders, and then shook himself like a wet dog.

  "Get out," she hissed. "Get out and leave us be." Daisy wanted nothing more than to pick up Perdita and race as fast as she could to Atlanta, getting
the girl to a safer place and far from the danger she had become.

  "Ah," he said. "That's not so simple."

  "I can make it easy on you, Nathaniel. Go and you live. Stay and together we'll learn how strong I am."

  "That's not up to me." He shook his head slowly and shrugged. "Like I said, I've been told to come here, to teach you."

  Daisy's eyes narrowed. "Told by whom?"

  "I can't really speak much to that, either. Let's say it's better to obey than to rebel, in this case."

  "Then there are others like us?" Nathaniel nodded once to her. "And you're obligated to 'obey' as you say because you fear them more than you fear me?"

  "Well, I wouldn't say I fear you, Daisy, but I think you see the right of it. More or less."

  Daisy's shoulders slackened in momentary defeat. "Fine. Then you'll have to come with us to Atlanta."

  "Atlanta?" His eyes widened. "Why would you want to go there?"

  "I have a promise to keep." Some flicker of his eyes cautioned her. "I take it your 'others' are in Atlanta, then?"

  He folded his arms in defiance, uncomfortable with her seeing right through him. Did he really think he was being subtle? "Can’t go. Not now. I told you, the police are on the hunt, and besides. It’s getting close to dawn."

  Daisy knew well enough he lied about the latter, but wasn’t certain about the former. Could the police already be out looking for Perdita? Do they really have evidence I was there?

  "Fine. We sleep here, but we’re leaving at nightfall, no matter your cautions."

  Nathaniel snorted and didn’t look pleased, but he agreed.

  After a quiet truce, Nathaniel found a dark spot in the front room to hide during the day, and Daisy returned to the corner in the spare room with Perdita. In the shadows, she wrapped her body protectively around the girl, on a pile of rags with a tattered blanket over her.

  Daisy lay listening to the child's breathing and doing her best to ignore the alluringly warm fragrance emanating from Perdy's skin and hair. Worse, she felt guilty.

  What kind of life was this for a little girl? Even temporarily, living on the run, sleeping in abandoned buildings and tool sheds, leaving her unsupervised during the day ... these were dangerous. The rats who scurried in this old house lusted for the same blood Daisy did.

  Tonight, she thought. Tonight she will be with a better family. Maybe I can bathe her and put some clean clothes on her. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Lord in Heaven! Now that I've been declared dead, all of my money is gone. All of my savings are in the hands of my children. She exhaled out of habit. As it should be, but what use am I to this one if I can’t afford a decent meal and a safe place to sleep?

  Daisy stroked Perdita's thick brown hair, so dark it was nearly black, and realized that she had forgotten all her years of experience. Her hair hadn't been brushed in days! I used to be such a practical woman. A few days of being dead changed her in ways that she found unnerving. She sank into sleep, immersed in guilt and worry, reciting the Lord’s Prayer for herself and the little one.

  The daylight had yet to fully recede when Daisy awoke. Perdita wasn't in the same room with her, and she startled into a sitting position. Where is she?

  She calmed herself down and remembered that she could see and hear in new ways.

  First, she noted the fresh scent of urine. A floorboard creaked downstairs, and she heard Perdy humming to herself, some lullaby Daisy didn't recognize. From the doorway, she could smell Nathaniel’s odor rose from the same place in the front room where she’d seen him curl up for the day.

  She made her way downstairs, careful to avoid the shafts of sunlight that made their way through the boards over the windows and the holes in the roof. Perdita didn't hear her approach. I really am a predator now.

  It alarmed her and she said a silent prayer, although she wondered if God could hear her now that she was a monster. Daisy stopped herself behind Perdita and watched the child play.

  The girl started her song over, "Luna lunera, cascabelera. Ve dile a mi amorcito por dios que me quiera …"

  Somewhere in the house she had managed to find an old doll, part of the paint on its face faded and scratched away, the porcelain cracked and yellow, but clearly still useable by a girl with a decent imagination. Tiny fingers worked their way through each of the doll's curls, smoothing out the rough and tangled patches. Perdy continued to sing to herself—always the same three lines, as though she didn't remember the rest. Likely, she does not.

  "Perdy," Daisy said as gently as she could. The girl visibly startled, but turned to smile at Daisy. The way she jumped to her feet and ran at Daisy's legs to embrace her was better than a June Sunday to Daisy. She lifted the girl with ease into her arms, the little fingers tugging and twisting around the curls at the back of Daisy's neck. They held each other for several moments before Perdy started to wriggle away to look Daisy in the face.

  "Anthea?" she asked, her brown eyes wide and hopeful.

  "Yes, dear?" Daisy smoothed Perdy's hair down the way the child had done to the doll only moments before.

  Perdita put both her tiny hands on Daisy's shoulders, pushing back so as to really get a good look at her face. She screwed up her mouth trying to find the right words. "You don't look like you anymore." A crease formed between her eyebrows as she tried to puzzle it out. "Not like you did the other day."

  Daisy remembered looking at herself in the mirror and finding herself looking changed. That night when Nathaniel laughed and brought this child into her life. Had it only been two days? Three? "I wonder," she said, and set Perdy back on her feet. She searched for a reflective surface, and managed to find a hall mirror smashed into shards on the floor. It took a forceful scrub to clear away the layers of dust and dirt that had accumulated on it. She could only see a portion of herself at one time, but turned it back and forth. The difference was subtle but startling.

  She retained her age, to be sure, but her eyes were sharp as crystals and her expression turned fierce. The lines in her face had hardened, her cheeks appeared sunken, and her wrinkled skin almost translucent. The veins on her forehead and at her throat stood out. The skin around her neck that once sagged had tightened into a ghoulish appearance, not smooth and young, but pulled taut as if by clothespins. When she smiled at herself, white teeth flashed back at her, menacing needles.

  Sweet Lord, I look like a demon! She shut her eyes, and set the mirror down, a litany of prayers flashed through her mind, but none of them seemed enough to encompass her sorrow and shame.

  Daisy had thought, at first, she might have grown a bit younger. After all she was first bitten when she was sixteen years old at the time. But no. She appeared far more like someone who crawled from her grave than a Christian woman had any right to. What a frightful thing for a child to look upon.

  Tonight she goes to her aunt's house, and I need not worry after that. Still, she wondered whether she could move easily through the human world looking as she did.

  She said, "Oh child, we need to get you bathed and ready. Tonight you go to see your other aunt!" Perdita's face fell.

  Daisy retrieved the brush she had wrapped in the bundle of clean clothes from the night before. With patience and attention to every subtle change in the child, she brushed Perdita's hair. It took longer than she imagined, as her hair fell to her waist in thick clumps of knots. By the time she brushed through every tangle, the heavy blanket of hair draped over her back in dark brown ripples. At least they fed her well, Daisy thought. Perdy's hair had a shine to it that reflected light even in the late afternoon gloom of the house.

  In the upstairs bathroom, a claw foot tub caked in grime awaited them both, and Daisy set herself to the task of washing with a rag and an old bar of soap she found on the sink. At first the pipes ran only rust water, but soon it turned clean. They creaked and thumped and sputtered out water, but it ran. "Bless the Lord, the water works!" she shouted, and scrubbed the dirt hard and fast.

  In three minute
s, a task which should have taken half an hour or more, the tub shone white and perfect. Only a few yellowed stains at the bottom remained etched into the enamel of the bathtub itself.

  Perdita smiled at her and clapped her hands. "Wow! You're fast." She breathed out the last word, awed by her protector's magic. She pulled off her clothes before Daisy could even start the water running to fill the tub. By the time it was ready, Perdita hopped from one foot to the next eager to jump in. For a moment, Daisy watched the impatience, and her chest ached with a desire to keep the girl with her. To keep her safe forever. Foolish old woman, you don’t have any right. Besides, you’re the most dangerous option.

  Perdy washed clumsily with the bar of soap, and asked, "Can you get my back?"

  How easy it might be to crush her without thinking? The thought made her shudder with disgust. Daisy touched Perdita’s shoulder gingerly until the girl giggled and shouted, "Stop tickling me!"

  Oops! Too gentle! They laughed together, and Daisy washed Perdy’s back, before giving it back to her to finish up. Without a towel to dry her off, Daisy salvaged an old curtain from another room, shaking it free of dust before wrapping it around her. This made Perdita giggle even more. Perdita dressed, and Daisy sat down on the tile to braid the child’s hair. After sectioning it off and making the part of her hair even down the middle, she made two braids. Having forgotten to search for bands or ribbons, she tore two small strips of cloth from her own dress and used them to tie off each braid. "There," she said to Perdita. "All done!"

  The seven year old's legs kicked out in order to jump up. In a flash, she bounded down the hall, not realizing the ease with which Daisy followed after her. Perdy's hand shot out and picked up the broken piece of mirror to examine herself as Daisy had done. "Thanks, Miss Anthea!"

  "You're welcome," Daisy said and smiled to see the girl so pleased.

  "Your turn!"

  "What?" Daisy looked surprised, and it made Perdy laugh and pull at her hand.

  "Your turn! Bath and braids, too, Miss Anthea."

  Daisy smiled and shook her head. "I don't have another change of clothes, dear."