Young Forever

by Lola Pridemore

  Then I went back to sleep. In fact, I slept until well in the afternoon. When I awoke, I got up, got dressed in the clothes Gerta had found me, washed my face with the water in the basin on a table in the far corner then made my way downstairs. I looked around the house for a while, marveling at its beauty.

  I was still amazed at my luck. Here I’d gone from starving to death, quite literally, to the lap of luxury. Things had worked out well for me, I must say.

  Then I heard a knock on the front door. This startled me and made me want to run and hide in one of the big armoires. The knock came again and I jumped a little. Should I open it or not? Another knock, which was louder. The person on the other side was getting irritated, I could tell. Well, I suppose I had to see who it was. So, I went to the door and opened it. On the other side was a peasant woman in a bonnet holding a large basket. She thrust it at me before scurrying down the steps and out of sight.

  I stared after her, then down at the basket, which was filled with more food. Even though I had been eating almost nonstop since I had come to the house my mouth watered at the sight of it. I raced all the way to the kitchen where I took it all out and began to tear through it like a wild animal. There were pastries and meats and wonderful strudel. After I had gorged, I made my way into the library and found a book, sat down with it in front of the fireplace and shivered. I looked to the side and saw logs and kindling. After I located some matches, I built a fire, something everyone in my family knew how to do. Then I turned my attention to the book. Of course, I didn’t know how to read at the time and had to just look at the pictures. When I was finished with the book, I tossed it to the side and went through another one and then another, making a big pile of books on the floor. I continued this into the night when Gerta walked through the door said, “What are you doing?”

  “Looking at pictures,” I said, thinking she might be angry at the mess I’d made.

  She wasn’t. She smiled at me and said, “Now let’s put the books back in the shelf, Isotta.” She bent over to pick up a few books. She turned to me and said, “Have you eaten?”

  “I have,” I said. “Who was that woman that brought the food?”

  “She is someone I have employed to prepare your meals,” she said. “Was the food satisfying?”

  “Very much so,” I said then realized she’d evaded my question. “Who was she?”

  “The night you came, last night, I found a nice old estate and went inside to ask for some food,” she said. “The lord of manor ordered me out. This angered me, so I ate him and told the others in the house that if they did not send me food once a day, I’d come back and eat the rest of them. They were more than happy to oblige.”

  I was a little shocked, to say the least. As I stared at her, I wondered if she might not be just fattening me up to eat later. Maybe I should leave. But where would I go? Back into the forest? I shuddered at the thought. I would not survive the forest again. Back to my family? They did not want me any longer, so I couldn’t return there. And I was young and very small and weak. There weren’t many options for me.

  Gerta smiled at me gently and, as if reading my mind, said, “Set yourself at ease, dear child. I will never harm you.”

  She leaned in towards me and stared deeply into my eyes. Something inside of me believed her, so I accepted my circumstances and whatever fate that was to come my way. I smiled back and asked, “Where is Aloiki?”

  “He is gone,” she said. “He will not bother us again.”

  Well, that wasn’t true but I didn’t know that then. Even so, over the next few weeks, Gerta and I fell into a routine. I’d sleep at night in my princess bed. She’d sleep during the day in the cellar. (Of course, she had a beautiful bed down there. Just no windows and the bed was on a dirt floor which she said she preferred, as it kept things cooler, which I did not understand.) I’d rise mid-morning and wait for the woman with the basket. She’d arrive soon thereafter, thrust a basket of food at me, then race off as if she were afraid I’d eat her. I’d eat the food then I’d go to the library and look at some books. Some days, I’d go outside and talk to the animals and feed them hay from the bales in the barn. There were three horses in the stables and a few sheep. That was it, though.

  Soon, afternoon would turn to night and Gerta would rise and spend some quality time with me. She was teaching me to read and at first this was an arduous process. I would get so frustrated that I would throw books across the room. Ever patient, she would pick up another book and say, “Let’s begin again, shall we?”

  And so we would.

  Then it would be time for bed. She’d walk with me to my room, tuck me into bed and stoke the fire. She’d kiss my forehead before leaving and I’d fall asleep.

  Gerta basically nursed me back to health. She saved me. She wanted a companion. It was that simple, really. And I knew she’d never hurt me. This went on for about a year or so. But then, one day, the food ceased. I waited and waited on the peasant woman but she never came. I had plenty of food left from the previous day, so I wasn’t worried but when I told Gerta that she hadn’t come that day, she looked worried and hurried out of the house. She returned hours later and told me that they weren’t there anymore. They had moved.

  “I hadn’t realized I’d frightened them that much,” she said. “Now what am I to do?” She stared at me as if considering. “We will have to consider a move as well. Food is getting scarcer now but we will find a way.”

  I nodded but didn’t worry about it too much. Gerta took excellent care of me and I knew she would come up with something. She had this idea of going to the colonies in the New World and she spoke of it often. She said there were warmer climates there and, in her words, “Wide, open spaces and much, much land.” She said that we could flourish in the colonies as there was much disease, as well as the threat from the natives who didn’t take kindly to others coming in and trying to take over their land. There were other unknown things that could kill people, too. We could survive there very well as she would have plenty to choose from and there would be plenty of food for me.

  Just then, a loud knock came on the door and Aloiki yelled from the other side of it, “Gerta! Let me in!”

  She groaned under her breath and went to the door, leading him back into the kitchen. When he saw me, he pulled back a little and said surprised, “You still have the child? I thought you would have eaten her by now.”

  “Quiet, Aloiki,” she said, crossing her arms. “What do you want?”

  “I need rest,” he said. “I have been wounded—don’t worry, nothing too horrible—however, I must stay here for a while.”

  “I will not allow it,” she said.

  He glanced at me again and said, “Can I have just a bite? I am starving.”

  “No,” she said. “You have been taking out whole families again, have you not? I have warned you that you cannot do that. They will start looking for you.”

  “But I get so hungry,” he said exasperated and sunk into a chair.

  “You must control your appetite,” she said. “But I have more pressing matters. The woman who was providing the food for Isotta has moved. I must find someone else to do this.”

  He nodded, considering, then exclaimed, “Oh! There’s a family I’ve been watching and they have plenty. Grand estate. Horses, some cattle even. I can take you to them.”

  “They have plenty of food?” Gerta asked suspiciously. “How do you know this?”

  “I’ve been watching them, as I said,” he said.

  “Where are they getting the food?” she asked. “Are they buying it from someone?”

  He shrugged. “I have a funny feeling they’re doing something else. I think they might be stealing it from others.”

  “Then we must steal it from them.”

  He nodded and stood. “Yes, I agree.”

  “No,” she said and pushed him back into his seat. “Tell me where they are and I will go.”

  He sighed. “Let me come with you and I will
only eat one to scare them.”

  She shook her head. “You are too risky. I cannot allow this.”

  He stared at me and said, “Why not her? Why not just send her in? She is beautiful and they might allow her some food. She could then lead a smaller one out for us to share.”

  Gerta rolled her eyes. “No. We cannot risk anything, otherwise, they could follow us back here and then where would we be? You know where. Staked. Dead. Gone. And then where would Isotta be? Who knows? We would be dead so we would not care. Even so, I cannot allow that to happen.”

  She turned to me and told me she would be back shortly. Aloiki left with her, though she kept telling him to stay put, that she didn’t want him along. I waited all night for them and they returned with food. I don’t know exactly what they did or how they did it, but all of our appetites were sated and I began to get food once again daily.

  And then Aloiki began living with us.

  * * * * *

  After that, Aloiki became a semi-permanent fixture in my life. He stayed with us on and off for years and years. He took a liking to me and eventually stopped talking about wanting to eat me, though he would sometimes insert it into our conversations from time to time, like, “She’s so pretty I could eat her up!” Even though he said it like he was joking, I had a feeling if it weren’t for Gerta he would have done just that.

  I was growing up and growing strong. Soon, I was taller, more womanly, more beautiful. Aloiki called me his niece and loved to read to me. Well, he loved to read aloud while I listened, which was a fairly common form of entertainment back then, way before phonographs and radios were invented. At night, he would sometimes sneak me out with him and we’d go to old taverns filled with men and women drinking. Soon enough, I began to like him. He became like Gerta, part of my family.

  “Why do you always take me to these places?” I asked one night before he prepared to leave.

  “Because that’s where you find the happy people,” he said, smiling. “And that’s where you find the ones who are lonesome, too, with no one in the world to care about them. And that’s when you take them outside and—”

  “Aloiki!” Gerta yelled. “She does not need to hear this!”

  He leaned backwards in his chair, looking over at her in the doorway. “You are always sneaking around, listening. I am just trying to teach the child the ways of the world.”

  “She is not a vampire,” she said. “Do not fill her head with these horrors.”

  “I don’t mind,” I told her and I didn’t. I was bored. I didn’t go to school, not that there was a school to go it. Aloiki and Gerta slept all day and all I did was read the books in the library and walk around the house. It was a little lonely and creepy at times, but better than starving, though. I had to admit that. Sometimes I would get so bored and lonely, I’d think about my family and want to find them. But I knew I could never go back there. They became just a memory to me, a distant, somewhat unpleasant memory. I still held a grudge for them abandoning me in the woods but I think I was justified in that. But I did miss them sometimes.

  “I mind,” she said. “Set your thoughts to better things.”

  “Such as?” he asked.

  “Not you, her,” she told him, shaking her head. “She and I have plans.”

  “Plans?” he said.

  She nodded and threw me a sharp look, warning me to not speak of her plans to move to the Colonies in the New World. I gave a quick nod and opened up a book. But then I thought, why not let Aloiki in on it? What could it hurt? He was more fun than Gerta and told me silly jokes that made me laugh. He also smiled more and was more pleasant than her. I like having him around.

  I threw the book down and said, “Why don’t you tell him what we are going to do?”

  “Isotta!” she said sharply.

  “Gerta, he can come with us,” I said.

  “Come with you where?” he asked and turned to her, almost gasping. “Were you planning on leaving me?”

  “I was not,” she said. “As you do not really live here.”

  “He does,” I said and stood. She looked me over, noticing how tall I’d grown, how I’d filled out into a woman. I was a woman, full grown. She and I were now about the same height.

  “Isotta, I do not like your tone,” she said.

  “I don’t like yours, either,” I said. “You are not my mother.”

  “No, I am not your mother because, unlike her, I did not send your father out into the woods with you to abandon you,” she said. “That is why I think it best that you listen to whatever it is I have to say.”

  “I don’t want to listen to you!”

  “A bit of rebellion is expected, Isotta, you’re at that age,” she said. “But too much means that you will have to be punished.”

  I believed her though it didn’t frighten me. For some reason, Gerta never really frightened me, though she probably should have.

  She sat down and gave me a gentle smile. “But do not feel bad about that. You weren’t the only one. Your father left each of your siblings alone in the woods. They did not fight like you. They were very weak, even weaker than you.”

  I nodded. They had been weak and the thought of what my father had done still sickened me. Yes, he had done it to me first but it was only a matter of time before all of them disappeared. “Did you kill each of them?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I would have never touched your family. But I do not know what happened to them. I would see them from time to time in the woods; they looked like you, yes? I mean, it could have been other children from other families, so I am just assuming that those were your siblings. But I left them alone, whoever they were. Perhaps they met the same fate that you were supposed to, to die in the woods.”

  I thought about that and it made me sad. It also made me feel a little lost in the world, even though I did have Gerta and Aloiki. And I did love them. Aloiki made me laugh and he did protect me. Gerta made sure I ate well and had pretty clothes to wear. So, in a way, they had replaced my parents. However, the fact was that I lived with two vampires and the lines of good versus bad or good versus evil certainly blurred at times. Well, they blurred every day.

  I felt sad knowing that I was now alone in the world. I only wished my siblings could have found their way out of the woods as I had. But they hadn’t. I did feel sad but at the same time, I knew they’d meet that fate. I’d been prepared for a long time to accept this. It would hurt but I had to move on.

  “So,” she said. “It will not be hard to leave Bavaria then. You have no family left.”

  I stared at her and then thought of my parents. “What of my father and mother?”

  She surged. “I suppose they are dead, also. Starvation, probably. Would you like me to find them?”

  I shook my head. “No.” And I didn’t. I knew it was time to close the chapter on the people who’d given me life. I hated that, but if I were to continue with Gerta and Aloiki, I would have to do just that. I was smart enough to know who was on my side and, in the end, it hadn’t been my family. They had abandoned me in the woods. While I accepted that, I also accepted the fact that if I held too much emotion over them, I’d go between guilt, anger and sadness every day for the rest of my life. And that would drive me crazy. I looked at things in a very black and white way back then. But most people did. We certainly didn’t have psychologists to discuss our feelings with. We just acted, mostly, on instinct and the instinct back then was to survive at all costs. One could not and should not get bogged down, emotionally or physically. If you stopped for too long, you’d be dead. And the name of the game was survival and only the strongest survived. I was that simple.

  She smiled. “Good. So, we are clear to leave? Yes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am fine with that. It will not be hard to leave here. Why have we not left before now?”

  “I had to make preparations,” she said, smiling at me. “Vampires cannot just get on a boat and leave, Isotta. There is more to it than t
hat.”

  “When do we leave?”

  She glanced at Alioki, then back at me. “Soon. Shortly.”

  “When?”

  “When you are ready,” she said.

  “But I am ready now,” I replied.

  She shook her head, almost looking worried. “No, you are not.”

  * * * * *

  And I wasn’t ready because I wasn’t a full-fledged vampire. But, more importantly, I hadn’t even known that Gerta had planned on turning me into a vampire. She didn’t let me in on her plans. She just decided to do it her own way, rogue style.

  Gerta didn’t turn me the way most vampires usually turn humans. She did it in increments, unbeknownst to me. I didn’t even know she was doing it until one morning I went outside to greet the day because I noticed the sun was making a rare appearance. I stepped outside and smiled but not for long because I started to get hot. Really hot. When my skin started burning, I ran inside and locked myself into a dark room until she rose from her slumber.

  “I’m burning!” I wailed and held out my arm, which was slightly charred and really gnarly looking.

  “I see,” she said and smiled. “It is finally beginning to take hold.”

  “What?”

  “You’re turning into vampire,” she said.

  “What do you mean by this?” I asked, startled then examined my arm. I stopped and stared at her. She was turning me into a vampire? What? I was suddenly stunned, shocked. She’d never mentioned this before.

  “That is what you want, is it not?” she asked.

  I thought about that. Did I even want to become a vampire? Hmmm… Decisions, decisions, decisions. While I liked Gerta and Aloiki, well, I loved them, really, I was still young. I was physically a grown woman but young at heart. And I did have fantasies about finding a handsome young rich man with a nice manor and a good staff and marrying him. I did think about children. How many would I like to have? Three? Four? But then I thought about childbirth and I’d heard things about that, as well. It frightened me. But so did death. Did I really have a choice in the matter?