by Johi Jenkins
Deborah held a small bundle wrapped in bloody blankets and presented it to me. “I am sorry, Monsieur,” she said, and she did sound unhappy. “Your daughter was dead inside her mother.”
Sluggishly I took the bundle from Deborah’s arms. I looked at the tiny colorless face and a sob escaped my throat. A daughter. Charlotte had been right.
“Alexandra,” I cried softly. Before that moment, she had been just an idea. An unknown something, growing in my wife’s womb. But seeing her, holding her, she became real. And her death hurt more than I could have anticipated it would.
Deborah tried to take her from my arms but I refused to give her up. I felt broken, and I needed Charlotte to mend me. But Charlotte lay unresponsive on the bloody sheets. Deborah looked at me with eyes full of pain and sympathy.
“Monsieur. Keep her as long as you need. But bring her back to me.”
“And Charlotte?”
“Charlotte will need a day of rest while she heals. Then she will awaken. I have called for the blacksmith’s son to visit her. Please send him up to me when he arrives.”
“What do you need from him?” I didn’t know if she wanted something I could perhaps provide for her.
“Charlotte needs him,” is all she said. “Now leave.”
I did as she asked. I took my daughter to my room, closing the door to Charlotte’s chamber behind me. I pressed my ear against the shared door. I strained to hear but heard nothing. Holding my daughter alone felt wrong; I needed my wife, and I became apprehensive of having left her alone with those two creatures.
“Stay away, young master.”
Argus’ cold words shook me, and I jumped back terrified. I lay down with the baby next to me on the bed and let the sorrow wash over me, smothering me. I must have fallen asleep because when I next woke up I was alone—someone had taken Alexandra. But I did not attempt to enter Charlotte’s bedroom again.
I didn’t see Charlotte again for another two days. I barely ate, barely left the bed where I slept alone, only a room away from her. I honestly didn’t even know where Argus or Deborah slept. I became a wraith, a form without a purpose, a body without a soul. My soul lay trapped with Charlotte only a door away from me.
***
When she first appeared before me I could not believe my eyes. She was standing with Deborah and Argus in the threshold of my study where I had spent my last few evenings waiting for news that never came. But something had stirred in me—as if I could sense her. Then I looked up, and there she was: a miracle before me.
Charlotte will never be the same.
Deborah’s words echoed in my thoughts. Charlotte was certainly different. She looked fully recovered. Better than recovered—she stood straighter than she had before. Her dark hair was loose and fell in beautiful soft curls down her back. I had expected her to look deathly pale, like Argus, yet standing between the tall witch and the pale vampire, she was divine. Whatever she had become had made her even more desirable in my eyes. She looked radiant. She was alive.
But she was unhappy. Her eyes were clouded with sorrow.
“My love?” I jumped to my feet and approached her.
Deborah and Argus each had an arm linked through Charlotte’s, holding her steady. When I approached them I saw Deborah pull Charlotte closer to her.
“Give her a moment, Monsieur,” Deborah warned. “These first few days have been rough.”
First few days of what?
Vampyre, Argus had said. Was my wife a monster now?
Charlotte’s eyes locked with mine, and past her gloom I could see recognition. Her eyes softened as she held mine. I exhaled a breath I had not realized I was holding. Whatever she had become, as long as she was alive, everything was going to be alright.
“Corben,” she said, and even her voice sounded different. “We lost Alexandra.” Her expression was haunting.
Despite Deborah’s warning I went to them, and took Charlotte in my arms. They let go of her and she hugged me in return, and I could feel an immense power in her embrace. She felt… denser, as if heavier; yet she was as small as she ever was. Her strength crushed me, and I realized I couldn’t breathe.
“Charlotte, stop. You are hurting him!” Deborah pulled on Charlotte’s arm and Charlotte let me go. Argus only smirked.
“I am sorry, Corben,” Charlotte said quietly.
“How are you so strong?” I asked Charlotte, then looked from Deborah to Argus.
“She will only get stronger.” Argus said. “She will get used to it. You will get used to it.”
“Does she…” I started to say, but needed to take a breath and try again. “Will she drink blood?”
At this, Charlotte’s eyes lit up as though she had heard the word “pleasure” or “delicious.”
Deborah just said, “She already has.”
And then I understood why the young son of the blacksmith had been called to her chamber.
***
We held a small service for Alexandra. The servants thought it was a miracle that their mistress had recovered enough to leave the house. But as far as we knew, they did not suspect what she had become.
Charlotte looked different but she didn’t act differently. They were a little weary of Argus, but he didn’t show his face during the day, and for the most part the servants were unaffected by his presence.
The strange guest left after a week. He had taught Charlotte basic restraint—to drink blood from people without killing them. He showed her what her life would be like from then on. Her strengths, her weaknesses. I wasn’t privy to their conversations—she only told me about them after he had left.
Even though she was almost back to her normal self, and had lost that confused expression, she remained sad as the first night she appeared before me.
“Argus told me I will never be able to carry a child,” she said the first night we slept in the same bed again.
The entire time Argus had stayed with us I had slept alone. But that first night she had crept into our room and tucked her petite frame in front of me, her back to my chest. I wrapped my arms around her tightly, happy to have her again with me, but feeling her sadness. And sharing it.
Not being able to have another child—I was surprised to find the news filled me with melancholy. While it didn’t affect me as it did Charlotte, I had held Alexandra for an hour, and in that hour everything had changed. As I held her, I had imagined several different outcomes, happy ones, despite her tiny lifeless form reminding me they were impossible.
But I didn’t want to make Charlotte even more depressed so I kept my thoughts to myself.
“You are alive, and we are together,” I whispered, and kissed her neck. “You are all I need. And I need you—you are everything to me.”
She turned around in the dark and kissed me deeply. As she did, she straddled me and moved with such command that despite the gloomy mood surrounding us my body responded immediately beneath her. In the next instant we were naked. She rode on top of me with grace and confidence—she possessed me, truly. I brought her chest down to mine and we held each other as we made love, bathed in a pleasure so scorching that it razed all of our sorrows to oblivion.
5. The Vampire Charlotte
Despite the loss of Alexandra, Charlotte’s love and good humor endured. She remained Charlotte. She would sing in the middle of the night, her voice hypnotizing and beautiful, although sometimes mournful. She merely looked different—she was more striking in appearance; her skin like flawless porcelain, her hair alive and vibrant. And she was strong. Although she tried to keep it from me, when she held me I could feel she was much, much stronger than I was.
But the biggest change was her newly acquired love for blood.
I had been relieved to learn that creatures like her—vampires, I had to force myself to say the word—didn’t need to take the life of their victims. Charlotte was by nature compassionate and kind, and she took pride in not having to kill anyone she fed from. I didn’t know what she did to make
her victims forget the wounds on their necks, and I didn’t ask. She mostly kept the details of her new lifestyle from me. I never saw her feed, and she never talked about it, unless I asked. And I only asked her once—vaguely—how she fed.
“I go out at night and take blood from the burliest men or the larger women in our village; it does not hurt them, and they do not recall my visit the next day.”
“That sounds reasonably easy.”
“Argus taught me well.”
That was good enough explanation for me, and I never brought up the subject again.
In spite of the change, our lives were filled with joy again. Deborah remained with us for several weeks following Charlotte’s recovery and transformation. The two of them would sometimes go on long walks by themselves. They remained inseparable for the duration of Deborah’s stay. At night, as Charlotte held me in her strong arms, she would whisper in my ear that she was happy. Despite her loss, she had gained something she never knew she had missed: her birth mother.
Deborah only announced her departure after Baron de Mayes wrote to my father that he would be visiting Brunsfield Park for Christmas. He would be staying in the Great House with his family, but they all wanted to see Charlotte despite our many assurances that she was fully recovered. Charlotte’s father, although he had thanked Deborah for her role in saving their daughter, had not lingered after she had arrived. I suspected he was afraid of her, and it was clear to me that Deborah was no fan of her ex-lover. He never found out exactly how his daughter had been saved.
A month passed after Deborah left and before the De Mayes arrived. For that month Charlotte and I remained alone, and I was never before as spellbound by her as I was then. Her newfound strength, her inhuman beauty, her grace, each one of her feats, everything about her captivated me. Seeing her happy made me happy. And she looked like she was genuinely happy. When she moved faster than humanly possible, she giggled. She loved carrying me in her arms and taking care of me. And when we made love, she blew my mind.
We drew closer than ever before. Prior to her illness and consequent change, Charlotte used to take walks along the paved paths and our garden, where she would stay engrossed in a book or a letter for hours, while I tended to house affairs and other business. Being a vampire only increased her love for the outdoors, because she loved running freely at full vampire speed, although she could only do this at night when no one was around to see. She climbed trees. She jumped fences. The world was her playground.
I asked if she could read minds, like Argus had been able to do. She said she couldn’t, at least not then. Argus had told her it was a power that might come with age.
Her only enemy was the sun. Its brightness bothered her, although it didn’t hurt her. I had learned during the time that Argus stayed with us that despite what old tales said about vampires, they could indeed walk in the sun. But although she was able to, it wasn’t her favorite time of the day.
“It is too bright, and I cannot see as well,” she explained to me when I asked her about it. “I am a night creature, like the owl. I can see, but it requires so much concentration to see past the glare. It tires me.”
But it worked out, because I had affairs that required my attention during the day; while I was thus engaged, she rested. And despite her aversion to the sun, she would join me in the early evening as soon as I was free, and stayed with me until I fell asleep in her arms. Whatever she did afterwards, I hardly ever knew. But sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night to find my bed empty. I never questioned her, or worried, as long as she was there when I woke in the morning.
Her favorite time was when the sky was overcast. Then we would go outside and enjoy the outdoors together, and she would show me some of her new skills. Despite her upbringing and her daintiness, her new favorite pastimes included shooting targets and throwing knives—with a flawless aim—at a dead tree behind our property.
But for all her newfound love for running, jumping, shooting and tree-climbing, as a lady she had more charm than any other woman I ever met. She was graceful as a dancer. She played the piano while singing with an enchanting voice. Everyone stopped what they were doing to pay attention to her when she walked into any room. She was that captivating.
She was everything perfect.
***
Finally came the day that brought the De Mayes family: the baron, his wife and their two daughters. Their visit was uneventful aside from the many exclamations of surprise at Charlotte’s polished beauty. They all paid their respects to us for our lost baby girl.
Towards the end of their stay, in December, my brother and his wife also visited from Camden Hall as they did every Christmas. Everyone would be staying at the Great House, although Thierry always found the time to visit with me, to spend some quality fraternal time with his little brother. He made a point to add that Madeleine was “anxious” to visit Charlotte and witness her recovery before she could take part in any merrymaking. I didn’t like the idea of Madeleine anxious about my wife, or anything related to my household for that matter, but I had no valid reason to keep her away. Not one that I would admit to anyone, anyway.
If Madeleine had any leftover dishonorable intentions towards me, she hid them well. The day she and Thierry arrived, she sounded sincere when she met Charlotte in our drawing room and exclaimed, “Oh! You look so beautiful, Charlotte! I am so happy to see you have recovered so quickly.”
“Thank you, Madeleine,” Charlotte said with a smile and curtsy. But I saw the slightest change in her expression as she regarded our sister-in-law—the faintest raise of an eyebrow. She didn’t explain it. I couldn’t place it.
Ever since we got married, Charlotte had been nothing but her sweet self towards Madeleine. When we had first seen my brother and sister-in-law immediately after our wedding, Charlotte had addressed her as “Mrs. Ashby” as was her custom. But Madeleine had replied with a casual, “Please, sweet child. You are now as much of a Mrs. Ashby as I am. We are sisters. Call me Madeleine.”
In the early days of my marriage I had always been on edge whenever Thierry visited, thinking his wife would try to injure my happiness. However, more than a year had passed since that awful scene in Garfield Park, when Madeleine had brought up our affair in the baron’s conservatory. In the course of a year, we had seen each other a few times, when she and Thierry visited my parents. I had generally tried to avoid her, but when I had to talk to her, I addressed her as I used to, informally, warmly. It was tricky, because I had to be indifferent towards her so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea, but in front of Thierry and Charlotte I couldn’t treat her with coldness. They might have suspected something was off.
But she had never brought up the subject again. We had remained friends. I had good reason to believe that she had finally put the past behind her, now that I was married. That my secret was safe.
Time had made me carefree, and I saw no reason to think that this visit would be any different.
Except that everything was different.
***
“Charlotte sends her apologies tonight. She wishes to be excused from dinner, as she is not feeling rather well.”
Exclamations of pain and well-wishes followed my lie. Family dinners were complicated, as Charlotte didn’t eat regular food anymore. She would refuse most of the invitations she received, but every once in a while she had to attend one, to prevent suspicion. She couldn’t pretend to be sick the rest of her life, after all. When she dined in front of others, she ate very little, and then threw up everything afterwards. She hated doing that, so she tried to excuse herself most of the times.
On one such declined invitation to dine at Brunsfield with our families, I had gone to the Great House alone. After dinner, while the ladies were preparing for tea, I was in the washroom when someone entered quietly behind me. I turned around to see Madeleine, a somber look on her face.
“Madeleine,” I said, not quite as coldly as I should have; her presence didn’t trouble me as it use
d to. “I am almost done—give me leave to finish washing my hands.”
“I would speak to you for a moment, if you do not object,” she said, and continued without allowing me to say whether I objected or not. “I wish to congratulate you, Corben. Your happiness is clear.”
“I am—thank you.”
Then her nose turned red and her voice broke. “I am not—I cannot be happy with Thierry.” Then she fully broke down and cried.
I just stared at her, at a loss for words. That they weren’t happy in their marriage wasn’t a secret. It caused me pain for both of them—but what did she wish to attain by telling me this? It was their issue.
She came to me and threw her arms around me, sobbing against my chest. I hesitantly put my arms around her, not wishing to engage her emotions, but not able to push her away when she was clearly in distress.
“Madeleine—”
But she didn’t even let me begin, and reached up and locked her lips around mine.
And at that horrible moment, before I could even push her away, the door opened and Thierry stood before us.
I turned my face away from Madeleine and locked eyes with my brother—and saw how his expression changed from surprise to confusion.
“Thierry,” I whispered, pulling away from Madeleine, unable to do anything else.
“What is the meaning of his?” he cried.
He took two steps towards me, where I stood frozen with my hands at his wife’s shoulders. He grabbed one of her arms and pulled her away brusquely. “Madeleine?”
“I cannot stand it anymore!” she wailed at her husband. “I love him, I always have!”
“What! No—Thierry—it is not like that,” I said, panicking. I turned to her. “Madam, you do not feel that way. I certainly do not feel that way towards you. Please show some respect toward your husband!”
“Respect!” She whirled on me and tried to slap me, but I had backed away instinctively when she faced me, and she missed. “When did you show respect? Tell him how you slept with me. Tell him how we screwed, time and again, while you were a guest at his house!”
