Descent Into Madness

by Catherine Woods-Field

  Always in December, when the snow fell on the pines, and there was nothing to see for miles but the white blanketed countryside, my father would bundle us in furs, plant us gently near the fire in the Great Room, and relay age-old tales of the Norns.

  The Norns, he would say, were supernatural women – masters of the seidr. Eagerly, and with great care, they tended the world tree Yggdrasil, spinning the Web of Wyrd. The fate of every mortal is revealed within their mystical patterns and woven strands. Even the skaldic poets heralded their influence over death and battle.

  When a Norse child was born, the legend says, one of three Norns blessed the babe with its fate.

  Urd, the Keeper of the Past, my father said, was an old hag— her straggly, silver strands hanging past her shoulders, her mouth grimaced in a snarl, her eyes encircled in the lines of time, and wrinkles scarring her haggard face.

  Skuld, the Keeper of the Future, merely stands, her finger erect, pointing into the unknown. Her face stoically hides secrets of the future of which she will never tell.

  In the middle of the three stands the fairest, Verdandi. She is the Keeper of the Present. My father’s eyes twinkled and his voice faded when he spoke of her. Verdandi was breathtakingly beautiful, her golden hair drizzling down her back, its strands an endless ocean of rippling butter cream; her eyes, my father would say with a forlorn echo lacing his tongue, were warmly hypnotic.

  To some, though, the Norn’s presence was a curse. They were seen as witches and scorned. That was how my mother saw them. My father’s folklore was heresy to her Catholic ears, and his poisoning of my soul with false idolatry was a constant source of strife between the two.

  My father had wished to name me Verdandi, but my mother objected. Verdandi, after all, was not a proper Christian name. She felt a proper name would ensure me a prosperous marriage – and salvation. My father, though, was forever lost in the fairy tales of his mother’s homeland.

  His affection for Norse mythology extended to the mother country – to Norway. His mother had been a Norwegian Countess before marrying into English royalty. She had once taken him to her homeland when he was but a boy, and he always reflected fondly on those short months. Frolicking with anglers and playing with village children - those were adventures my grandfather would never have allowed him to have in England.

  My mother had been Italian, a Duchess, of equal standing in society as my father. He married her for her title and a wealthy purse, and they had never learned to love one another. Their marriage was one of acquiring property and amassing wealth, of bridging royal bloodlines and creating alliances.

  She came, of course, with the trappings of aristocracy: a palatial summer estate on the coast, a traveling staff, and a cache of jewels. Her jewels – what was left of my mother once she fell to the Black Death - came to me, and I deposited them with the family banker when I entered the convent. Through means, I wish never to know and only to assume, Wesley reacquired them for me after his transformation.

  When I left for Norway, I arranged to procure those jewels. I took with me my grandmother's diamonds; her sapphire and ruby tiara are all home where they were crafted.

  The journey there was arduous, for I took great care in transferring my belongings to my new home. I sailed most of the way, only traveling by land when it was of the utmost necessity. I was still in my infancy and not in full command of my vampiric powers. I greatly coveted Wesley’s ability to raise me into the sky. When the clouds tickled my cheek, the misty vapors moistened my skin; it was bittersweet. He had always assured me that my powers would eventually come, but each time he displayed a power I did not have, my frustration grew.

  Once, when I was unable to fly onto a tall tree branch, I rushed over to a tombstone, pulverizing it with a flick of my toe against the marble. The rubble scattered, leaving a marble stump stuck in the hard earth. I had fallen onto the ground and begged for forgiveness at the sacrilege I had committed; Wesley openly mocked me from far above. His laugh echoed in the silent cemetery, shaking the surrounding stone monuments and skittering the loose soil beneath my knees.

  But I had fled to Norway to separate myself from Wesley, to leave the blood-sucking monster that was leaching my humanity, my purity and my sanity, behind. I needed humanity, to reconnect to a world I had lost when he took me from the convent.

  I had a cabin built on one of the Lofoten Islands without Wesley knowing. It was nestled safely in a fjord, surrounded by rugged coastline and a nearly impermeable mountain range. I took every precaution I knew. It was far enough from the villages, yet not too far. It was a barren plot, but still habitable.

  The anglers found the choice odd, but not suspicious. That I was a lone female drew more speculation than where I settled an estate. I only wanted to live beyond suspicion, beyond fear of discovery and to exist – to make peace with what I had become.

  The men who built my humble cabin and painstakingly dug my cellar through the frozen earth, were disposed of. I fed off them, one by one, and allowed their bodies to slip into the frigid waters. Their lives flashed in Technicolor glimpses before my eyes; their inner thoughts whispering to me as I drank from them. Their souls plead as I leached the life from their hearts.

  I had pity for them, I truly did. But I had to secure my survival. I made concessions with the corpses, slipping their bodies into the icy waters. The moon was my sole confessor; its silvery haze falling on the tide absolved me.

  I stood at the shore and watched the moonlight fall on the tide. Those rippling Norse waters caught the moonlight; much like the small convent pond near the statue of St. Anne once did, where the willow trees swayed in the sticky summer breeze. It was between the apple orchard and the vegetable garden, the water adopting a mystical haze whenever the grey light graced it.

  Sister Veronica and I had been sitting on the bank the last time those waters mesmerized me. Our feet dangled in the cool water, our naïve minds blissfully calm. We were alone during a time of quiet, religious reflection, and while we were supposed to be silent, we were not being faithful in this task.

  Sister Veronica and I had grown up in the same inner circle, when she was but Elizabeth, a duke’s eldest daughter, and I was simple Bree. Her father had hunted with my father, our mother’s took tea together, and that was how one socialized then, within the confines of society. When her mother began showing signs of the Black Death, her father sent her to the convent and her brothers to France.

  She complemented me nicely as a friend. When we were children, our friendship seemed easy. We laughed, we talked, we made merriment. It was effortless, and our friendship was invaluable in that convent.

  Behind those hallowed walls, days stretched into eternity. I struggled with contemplation, with silence, with obedience. Days passed where I tightly shut my eyes and envisioned my arms were wings, outstretched eagles wings, and I would see myself soaring high above the convent wall only to see an unfamiliar world beckoning below.

  Then there were days, other days that would linger for weeks, and often times months, where I felt comfortable and at home in my surroundings, in my decision.

  But that night, I was consumed with boredom as I stared at the reflection the moon cast on the water. Its silvery hue shone atop the waters vibrating ringlets, my foot dipping below the surface, its toes twirling in the tepid water. I was wondering about the outside world; how life carried on since the last remnants of the plague swept through the area; since I had locked myself away behind the enclosure gate and stone walls five years ago.

  That evening, I sat along the water’s edge, staring at the moon, wishing it were my eyes so that I could see the world for one brief moment.

  "There is something bothering you, Sr. Clare," she whispered.

  Sr. Marie St. John and Sr. Mary Catherine sauntered past, their habits swishing against the garden walls. I pressed my finger to my lips as they glanced our way. Laundry duty had been our punishment, for a month without reprieve, the last time our talking during contemplat
ive hour was discovered. The laundry water blistered my hands; unsightly large, red, itchy splotches that peeled, and that stung as I dipped them into the lye bucket.

  "Do not worry about me," I said, once they were out of sight.

  "You have that look in your eye, Bree."

  "Do you want to get us into trouble?" I whispered, glancing among the shadows. "Someone may hear you call me that!" She knew using my birth name was forbidden; I dared not imagine the punishment that would ensue.

  "No one’s out here now. Calm yourself. Why are you so paranoid tonight?"

  "I am not sure," I explained. "I feel on edge. I have been so since the sun went down. It almost feels as if I am being watched."

  "You are troubling yourself for nothing, my friend. Nothing and no one is watching you." She moved closer to comfort me and placed her arm around my shoulder.

  "I know!" I replied. "Elizabeth, I have this... urge to open the front gate and run out; to leave! It has never been this strong before."

  "Do not be foolish. Mother Abbess has the key."

  "I have even thought of going into her office and getting it. I know where it is. I have seen it myself!"

  She placed both hands upon my shoulders and looked into my eyes. I remember the look in her eyes; the frightened look of a friend terrified of losing someone they loved.

  "Listen to me, Bree. Don’t do it. Do not leave here. Please?"

  We sat like that, in that embrace for several minutes. Her eyes moistened with tears as she waited for my answer. In the distance, we could hear the shuffling of feet in the cloister, and soon followed the hollow ringing of the dinner bell.

  "What will it be, Bree? Are you staying here with us or flying away?"

  "I could never leave you, Elizabeth. You are my best friend in the whole world and this place, with God - this is all I know now. I do not know what has come over me. I do not! Perhaps I am just unwell."

  As we embraced, our tears mingled and blended, dancing and shimmering upon each other’s cheeks, before we erased the evidence of friendship and made our way to the evening meal. Shortly after prayer, an inexplicable pain seized my head. Thunder crashed against my skull while my stomach twitched and twisted. Once excused, I returned to my cell, saying good night to no one.

  Wesley came for me that night. Whenever I remember that evening, my agony returns. I seldom regret promises I could not keep, because I’ve made them with little intent on keeping them. However, I greatly regret making that promise to Sister Veronica. I never sought to cause her anguish, and especially not pain. Not my dear friend, who sat by the pond with me, basking in the moonlight before the dinner bell rang, reminiscing about a long-gone life we once lived together outside the convent walls.

  The Norse breeze wasn’t as warm as it had been on the night Wesley took me from the convent. It blew icy on the island as I stood watching the bodies float out to sea, my thoughts slipping from the past.

  I finished preparing my house while the moon still held its fixture in the sky. I prepared my bed in the earthen cellar, dug deep under the house and secured with a mechanism I had acquired from a learned man in Italy. It required three keys with which to secure it, and all from my side of the cellar door. No one could enter from the outside when locked, and I had a separate key, a single one, on the outside, that locked the room when it was not in use.

  An ordinary root cellar – that is how my sleeping chambers appeared to visitors. To me, it was a return to the bed: a staple for mortals, but often not for vampire kind. Tradition, folklore, call it what you wish, but the stories are true. Vampires take respite in the dreariest of places: coffins, sarcophagi, crates, caves. The darker and heavier, the better.

  Wesley had felt that cumbersome marble sarcophagi assured our safety. He had taught that marble was impenetrable to mere mortals, but posed no hindrance to our kind. Our strength, he would say, was stronger than ten men were. Even in my first hours as a vampire, my strength had surpassed that of three mortal men.

  I had missed the luxury of sleeping in a bed, though. It was comforting, feeling the gold satin slipping against my skin as I climbed into the bed right before dawn. I used silk fabric, cobalt, and even crimson velvets, to adorn the cushions beneath my head. I had carried them with me from England to remind me from where I had come.

  I was in exile on that island – the island of my father’s fairy tales. I was with the rune casters of old – the witches – as my mother once taught. But to my father, I was home.

  FIVE

  Ten years I ventured only into the surrounding villages, feeding at night. Back then, I still kept to the small drink, leaving my victim alive. I could go three, maybe four months like this, taking just enough to survive. Humanity was still precious and unspoiled, and I took no pleasure in sacrificing the occasional fattened lamb.

  Murder was never pleasant. I never grew accustomed to it as Wesley promised. I never liked it, either.

  There were times, though – times when my survival demanded that I kill. Even then, the vile act of taking someone’s life turned my stomach. Their blood left a sour taste on my tongue, and I would sometimes feel as if my gut would wrench its contents onto the floor. The thought of killing is unnatural to me, even to this day. Even though I am a monster, I cannot revel in stopping a man’s heart and listening to the soul whisper its last mercy plea. I am not God.

  It was during these ten years in Norway that I discovered I could take to the skies in flight as Wesley had. Vampires are faster than humans, and we must be conscious of this. We must always slow our movements to a mortal pace, blending in amongst the masquerade of mortals pretending to be what they are not. It was atop a peak, overlooking a barren valley; my speed was limitless that evening, when I learned of my flight ability. Crystal flecked stars lit the sky, their luminescent carpet unrolling, as I looked skyward.

  A seemingly endless meadow of dulled green grass stretched before me, tickling my toes as I ran into the unknown, not releasing my eyes off the stars’ shimmering presence on the blackened carpet overhead. My feet quickened until the stars blurred in my view. The wind caught my hair, twirling and twisting it, blowing it into my face. Then I looked about me— the tree line was below me, my feet were no longer on the ground. My body soared within a cloud, its puffiness enveloping me, the nighttime birds and brisk air current were my companions. It took a few nights to harness this power - to master the art of flying. Once I did, though, the world became an endless conquest of places to visit.

  I ventured first to Bergen, for this was the first time since coming to Norway that I had not needed the ferry to travel to the mainland. What would normally have taken a few hours now took minutes. The newly found ease of travel allowed me to stay there longer, and so I acquired an apartment in the heart of the city.

  I cherished those evenings lingering on my wrought-iron balcony, savoring the rain as a mist accumulated on my cheeks. The hustle of city life moved below in sharp contrast to my peaceful solitude on the island. It was comforting, at times, to be amongst humanity, to hear the sound of a hundred hearts beating simultaneously. I felt less alone in the universe, and slightly more human.

  When one watches society evolve around them, babies born, growing, and later dying, trends spawning and fading, one looks at themselves – an unchanging fixture in the world – and realizes they are different than the masses they have watched over. They become isolated, drawn to the familiarity of the past. As much as they crave humanity, the more they are amongst that which breathes and ages and dies, they realize how far removed from it they are. Because of this, eternity can be extremely lonely.

  Isolation on my island home often drew me to Bergen. However, one month when my gloom refused to abate, I ventured further until I discovered the hidden gem that is Trondheim. From the clouds, I spotted a looming gothic cathedral. Its spires tugged my memories with vivid flashes of my First Communion in such a church. I descended onto the stone steps of Nidaros Cathedral, its doors closed.

&nbs
p; I pulled at the heavy doors. The aroma of incense bombarded me with memories. The smells, while familiar and comforting, caused me quiet unease. The last time I had smelled such a pungent aroma, I had been human. Now, it was different to me. The aroma of incense, of myrrh and altar wine was stronger now, and sour. A sickening acridness stung my tongue when I tasted the air. I missed the wine’s delicate bouquet, and the nuttiness of myrrh.

  I stood on the steps, frozen with the gentle flood of emotion, admiring the untainted images adorning the West Front. The sculptures of Adam and Eve, of the prophets Daniel, Zachariah, and next to them the patriarch Jacob; there was King David and even King Olav, the founder of Trondheim; and in the center fixed for eternity in stone – the Crucifixion group, Jesus surrounded by Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist.

  The cathedral candles burned, casting mystical shadows on the cobblestone, beckoning me to enter. I attempted to resist, but the ghost of my former self urged me onward, calling me home. She urged me to enter, to sit in the pew, to sit through evening prayers. She urged me to remember my past, to take solace in it, and to find comfort in a religion I had once adored.

  I took to a pew in the back and watched as the priest began his ascent to the altar. His chanting became rhythmic; the candlelight flickered in the corner of my eye and ignited a lost memory of nights spent in contemplation and reflection in a pew much like the one in which I now sat. The priest, his thick accent muttering the delicate Latin, "Te Deum laudamus: Te Dominum confitemur." There I was in the convent, clothed in the protective habit, hidden from the world. I was safe then; the world was safe from the creature I was to become, and I was oblivious to what lurked for me in the night.

  They were next to me – Sr. Catherine with her knotted cane, Sr. Angelica Marie, and Sr. Veronica knelt beside me in the pew, their eyes closed in solemn reflection.