***
The scream echoed around the room, a sharp thing, tangible amongst the safe, beige surroundings of the clinic.
From behind his designer glasses, the doctor’s cold grey eyes regarded me with an expression which I’m sure he thought was benign and understanding, but was actually exasperated at best.
“It’s quite alright, Jennifer, you are perfectly safe.”
“My name’s Jéhenne,” I repeated for the fiftieth time, before gagging and rushing from the room as the smell of burning flesh assaulted my nostrils once again.
I just made it, throwing up my breakfast, not for the first time, in Dr. Leonardo’s gleaming, marble-tiled bathroom.
I heard my Mother’s voice, a soft French accent that was totally at odds with the conservative mother-at-Marks-and-Spencer’s image she tried so hard to cultivate. She sounded like she should be sipping champagne in some chic Parisian bar.
I peered at her through the crack in the door. As usual she had done everything possible to disguise her looks: pulling her thick wavy black hair into a tight bun, wearing no make-up and clothes that smothered any suggestion of the figure underneath. I wondered sometimes if she did it to make me feel better about myself. As I washed my hands I glanced in the mirror above the sink and winced. I didn’t like mirrors.
“You see how it is!” I heard her say. “I cannot let her go on like this. Either give her the treatment or I will find someone else who will.”
“Now, Mrs. Corbeaux, let’s not be hasty. You remember we discussed this and decided that it was too drastic a step for a child of her age. She's only seven after all.”
“No, you decided! I have given you thousands of pounds, as well as weeks of my time, and still she persists with these stupid dreams.”
“They're not dreams!”
Two sets of eyes swivelled round to look at me.
“I’m sure they seem very real to you …” Dr. Leonardo began.
“They’re not dreams. They’re visions … of the future.”
I glared back at them, knowing full well I sounded like a lunatic.
“Voilà! You see!” Mum threw up her hands. “No change at all. I tell you now, you either give her the treatment or we leave and don’t come back.”
“Mum, please…”
“Enough, Jéhenne!”
I watched as the Doctor nodded and turned to me with his most reassuring smile.
“Well then, Jennifer, let’s see if we can’t take those nasty dreams away shall we?”
The Key to Erebus (The French Vampire Legend. Book 1) Page 2
