by Emma Glass
“What do you do? Is there a ritual?”
“A ritual?” she laughed. “Well, sometimes there is a birthday party. Your friends and family come around to visit and, well, I guess they sort of feast in your honor…”
I listened raptly. This sounds quite like nothing I’d ever heard of before... A celebration of oneself was well beyond any party I’d ever heard of – at least, not unless one was an especially narcissistic and vainglorious vampire.
“Then there’s a birthday cake,” she continued.
“Birthday cake?” I asked curiously, brushing aside my thoughts on vampiric vanity. I’m always looking for an opportunity for cake… “How is it different from any regular cake?”
“Well, someone brings it out to you with a ton of tiny, lit candles up on top. Some do it with one thick, squat candle, shaped in the number of your age. Personally, I think the first way is a lot better. One candle for every year… laid out in whatever way looks best.”
Clara smiled when she saw what must have been a captivated, amused expression on my face, but she barely skipped a beat.
“Although, on second thought I guess there is something of a ritual to it. When the person brings your cake out, everyone sings a birthday song for you. When it’s over, they have you make a wish and blow out the candles…”
“A birthday song?”
“That’s right,” she nodded enthusiastically. “Here, it goes something like this:
Happyyy birrthdaay tooo yooouu
Happyyy birrthdaay tooo yooouu
Happyyy birthday, dear... youur-naame…
Happyyy birrthdaay to youuuuu
My eyebrow rose. “That’s standard?”
“Oh sure,” she laughed. “What you just heard is one of the most famous songs across the whole world. It’s probably sung thousands of times a day in countries – er, holds – all over Earth.”
I sounded out the words in my head. Quite a simple little song, I noticed, with barely any lyrics to it. But it puts such warmth in my heart…
“After the song’s over, like I said, you make a wish and blow out the candles. Then, everybody starts handing you your birthday gifts. While you thank them and open up your presents, the cake is split up and shared among all the guests. From there on, it’s basically just whatever the rest of the night calls for.”
I stroked my chin. “Fascinating…”
Clara shook her head in utter disbelief. “Do you guys seriously not do anything like that here? How don’t you celebrate something so simple as birthdays?”
“Like I said…” I leaned back in my chair with a small grin. “I suppose our kind just doesn’t see much of a point to it. Consider, for instance, that part with the candles. I mean, can you imagine? Most cakes would have hundreds of candles!”
“That’s why some are made with the single candle shaped like their age,” she reminded me.
“I see.” A mischievous plan started to form in the back of my head. “Well, if you really want my sister here at the table, I should inform the staff. If you’ll excuse me a moment…”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why not just have a servant tell them? You hate getting back up once you’re settled in at the table.”
Clever girl, I thought to myself.
“After all the excitement last night, I’m eager to stretch my legs a little. That, and they’d never expect me to waltz in. I like a good surprise.”
“Are you… are you sure that you’re okay?”
“What? Oh, yes. Of course,” I reassured her.
“It’s just… if you aren’t well, I don’t want you up and over-exerting yourself, Elliott.”
“It’s your birthday, and I’m not missing it. I’ll be fine, my dear. The nurses of the castle aren’t on my pay without good reason. Now, if you’ll let me speak to the staff…”
Clara looked unconvinced. I planted a peck on her forehead, and she offered up a smile.
“That’s right. There’s my girl.”
Her face oddly reddened at that.
Once I strolled through the servant’s doors to the kitchen, I started carefully forming my plan. Distractedly, I grabbed the first chef I saw.
“L-Lord Craven? Is everything alright?”
“Well, that depends. Do you happen to have a cake on hand? I have something in mind for it...”
“A cake?” She gave a glance over her shoulder. “Well, yes we do, but why would you–”
“Good,” I smirked. “What flavor?”
“Your favorite. Chocolate.”
“Excellent. What about icing? Candles?”
“Well, yes! Of course!”
“Fantastic. Now, I’m going to sneak out the other way and talk to the guards – I want some people tracked down and sent over to the feast, so you’ll need to cook a little extra of everything. You should go ahead and have the kitchen take a little longer than usual with the food, just to give them all time to arrive... but that’s not all. There is a certain song the servers will need to be taught. It’s a simple one, very difficult to mess up…”
Heroically, the perplexed cook tried to hide her complete exasperation. It didn’t escape my notice that all her nearby kitchen staff pretended to focus on their work, thinly hiding their total amusement. “Lord Craven, with all due respect, what is this all about? Are you quite alright?”
My face erupted into a devilish grin. In all your centuries, my dear, have you ever heard of a strange ritual called a birthday party…?”
14
Clara
Right before the appetizers started arriving, there came a loud, impatient knocking from the nearby door. Elliott suspiciously tried to hide a smile as he nodded over to the stationed guard.
Nikki and Lorelei wandered into the room.
“Oh, hi!” I grinned happily up at them. “I was hoping to see you soon. And Miss Lorelei, this is a surprise. I’m glad you could make it too!”
“Of course,” Nikki grinned evilly. “You know I like to play with my food before I eat it…” When she looked over my shoulder at Elliott’s face, her demented grin slipped away. “Oh, fine. Alright, I guess I did promise to be on better behavior…”
Lorelei remained as distant as ever.
“I’m sorry if I alarmed you,” I told her.
“Why would you have alarmed me?”
“Well, the coma comes to mind…”
“Oh, that?” She laughed conceitedly. “No, that was my son’s concern, not mine. So long as you didn’t drop dead on us, I wasn’t’…”
I didn’t know what face Elliott was making, but it seemed to have the same effect as it had on Nikki. To my surprise, the notoriously apathetic Lorelei Craven turned to me with a renewed smile on her face. “I am pleased that you’re safe, Clara. Welcome back to us.”
“It’s a delight to be back.”
“Ah yes,” she smirked. “The manners… how I always seem to forget your unfailing manners…”
“Well, what are you two standing around for? Take a seat,” Elliott motioned to the table. “Plenty of room for everyone.”
I gave him a peering gaze. He ignored it.
Elliott gazed up towards the Knightly Trio – they were still huddled nearby, protectively awaiting any signs of danger. “You three as well. Come and take a seat with us. Join the feast.”
Asarra looked confused. “Are you… are you sure, Lord Craven? What if an intruder–”
“This castle, and the island it sits on, is easily defensible on all sides,” he reminded them. “It’s only tradition that keeps you three so dutifully over there. The purpose for it has long since gone. Hell, if any threat were to appear in this room, it would have already been inside the stronghold.”
Nikki oddly twitched, but nobody else seemed to notice it. Her eyes met mine with a curious, cat-like smile, but she stayed silent.
Several members of the staff appeared from the kitchen, wielding a wide array of food. To my delight, they cheerfully dropped off what looked like an absolutely del
icious set of appetizer plates, alongside sharing plates and extra utensils.
“You look particularly happy tonight, more than usual,” I told one of the servers.
“Naturally,” the butler professionally replied, carrying a sophisticated air of esteem. “It is very rare that we are called upon for a celebration in this castle. We always love a reason to party.”
“I knew it!” I turned to the vampire lord; he elegantly hid his sly smile behind a glass of blood wine. “What did you tell them?”
“I might have explained the basic premise of a birthday party to the staff,” he noted dryly.
“Might have?”
“Is that what this is?” Lorelei asked aloofly. “I was told something about an important party for our guest. It’s your birthday?”
“It is,” I answered happily.
“And how old does this make you?”
“Seventeen years old.”
She blinked in astonishment. “Seventeen? And you’re sentient? Why, you’re no older than a mere child!”
Freezing in place, the serving staff held a wide variety of curious looks on their faces. Clearly, those guys didn’t get the news either…
“On our terms, yes,” Elliott noted patiently. “You would be right. However, within the context of human beings, Clara is of age.”
“Of age for what?” Nikki grinned evilly.
“Of drinking alcohol,” I cut in nervously. “Or of making complicated decisions over my future. This is the age where most adults start expecting me to act more like them. I’m not considered a kid anymore, not in a lot of cultures on my world.”
“You were a kid before?” Lorelei asked.
“In England, where I’m from? Where we’d be sitting right now, if we were on my Earth? No. But across the sea, in another major civilization of our world, I’d still have to wait one more year for a lot of the things I can do now. I couldn’t buy beer, or things civilized people consider… obscene.”
“Obscene?” Nikki pulled forward in curiosity. “Ooh, do tell me more…”
Elliott actually looked slightly embarrassed. “No, that’s quite enough of that, I think. We aren’t here to pick Clara’s brains for the minutiae of her human world, are we?”
“Why are we here?” Lorelei asked plainly.
“To celebrate her. We have the first human on our planet in recorded history. Within two weeks of her arrival, she’s having a birthday – and unlike the rest of us, with our thousand-year lifetimes, Clara may see less than a hundred. The milestones are far more important to her kind. There are so few of them seen that every one of them counts.”
I’d never really thought about the differences in lifespan between Elliott and me. I mean, yeah, he’s a vampire. He’s going to live to see way more of these than I would… I turned to him as he quickly educated them on the ‘rituals’, as he called them. I wasn’t listening to the words anymore.
While I grow withered and old, he’ll stay frozen in time. Those equinoxes that the vampires have… they put aging on hold. From the deepest reaches of my mind, a small wave of sadness struck me. Now that the thought was there, it infected my mind like a virus. Elliott’s stuck looking twenty-one or twenty-two, and he’ll stay just like that for countless ages… staying frozen in a youthful face. For the entirety of my lifetime, he will stay looking that age. What would take me four or five years will take him centuries…
It never mattered to me before. But now we’d kissed, he and I. We’d confessed certain feelings to each other.
Another thought occurred to me. If you’re being suitably honest here… Clara, you haven’t discussed what that really means to him, have you? What if your aging means differently to him?
That’s when the idea first breathed life in the back of my mind. It surprised me that it had never occurred to me before then. But with the insanity of this world and all its intricate similarities to mine, the notion just never occurred to me until…
Clara – what if you can become a vampire?
Others joined us shortly: Sebastian the sage, and Sabine the sorceress. The two entered together; I noticed them talking in a hushed tone with arms interlocked. The elder vampire leaned in and whispered something in her ear; the sorceress hid a laugh behind her clasped hand.
Those two seem to be getting along, I thought to myself with a smile. Good. I love seeing people start new friendships.
“I believe someone mentioned a birthday?” Sebastian greeted us as they approached the table.
“That’s right.” Nikki’s wicked smirk grew into a devious grin, and she pulled me closer with an arm around my shoulder. “Our little human woke up from her coma in time to turn seventeen.”
“Seven– seventeen?” He gasped. “How–”
“Human biology,” Elliott quickly answered as the two took their seats, conspicuously beside one another. It was obvious that his patience for giving this explanation had begun to fail him. “No equinoxes, much shorter lifespans. Birthdays are sacred, celebrated events to their culture.”
“Well, ‘sacred’ I’m not so sure about,” I leaned in, hoping to spare him from further questions. “But the rest is definitely true. We humans see them as a way to bring friends and loved ones together. A good birthday party is sometimes what it takes to get distant family members in the same room… well, that, or a funeral.”
Sabine blinked in confusion, turning to me. “You are so remarkably mature for that age.”
“Not really,” I grinned as Nikki released her grip on me. “Well, maybe here. But really, I’m no different from any other teenager my age, at least back from where I’m from.”
“Interesting,” she murmured.
“Come and feast!” Elliott suggested, waving his arm over the spread of food before us. “There are still entrees coming later. For now, I hope you came hungry…”
“You know what we need?” Elliott suddenly thought aloud. “Music. Why don’t we have music? This is a party, isn’t it?”
“Order for it, then,” Lorelei noted quickly.
“I believe I will. Guards?”
A pair of posted guards near an exit to the dining hall dutifully strolled forward. “My Lord?”
“Go down into the tradesman’s village within the castle and find us some musicians. A small band will certainly do.” He thought for a moment. “Five hundred gold, for a couple of hours’ work. And tell them that time is of the essence.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
As they left, Lorelei turned to him. “You could have made it a command. Why pay them?”
“This is a time for celebrating,” he smiled. “I want the musicians to reflect that in their music. Why even have them here if they play somberly?” He rested back into his throne. “A better question: what do you think would be a more appropriate guide for the melodies: a command, or a reward?”
A small and reluctant smile crossed her lips. “Very good, my son. Certainly, you might make a decent vampire lord after all.”
I caught him gaze with wide eyes.
A compliment? From Lorelei?
He clearly felt the same way. Instead of giving a sarcastic rebuke, Elliott Craven merely lifted his wine glass and smiled into a sip of blood.
To describe the rest of the birthday evening, it was nothing short of spectacular. Dinner tasted incredible, and there was far too much food even for our entire party; the musicians were fantastic, and the others in our party kept me laughing with their strange, clashing personalities.
“What are you chuckling about?” Nikki asked curiously as I stifled laughter.
I motioned for her to pull closer.
“It’s just, I never realized until tonight just how badly that I needed to see Wilhelm and your mum trapped in the same room together.”
Nikki watched them with me for a moment.
As usual, Wilhelm was being his typically cheerful and banter-friendly self. Stiffly sitting next to him, the usually composed and statuesque Lorelei valiantly attempted her norm
al aloofness. But the passage of time wasn’t being kind to her patience. The sour, deadpan look quietly growing across her face made us painfully and laughably aware that, even if she was far too proud to admit it, Lorelei was completely and utterly done with being stuck with him.
Nikki bit her lip and stifled laughter.
“Oh my gods, you’re completely right.”
“Just look at her!” I whispered with a grin. “If she has to put up with him any longer, your mum is gonna lose a gasket!”
“A gasket?” Nikki turned. “What’s a gasket?”
“Oh, it’s a car thing. Like an engine? It, uh…” The look on her face underlined the futility in my explanation. “You know what? Doesn’t matter.”
We were practically married at the shoulder when Nikki glanced back Lorelei’s way. Wilhelm seemed to be miming out some ridiculous bread-baking gesture in his hands towards Viktor, with his head tilted back and his jaw slackened; the former vampire lord, utterly fuming behind her eyes, chose to disappear into a glass of blood.
Asarra merely watched stoically, but I could see a faint smile hidden on her lips.
“What is even going on over there?” I asked.
“No idea. Somehow, that makes it better.”
Before I could react, there came a commotion from the back. I peered over the mostly destroyed spread of dinner plates towards the back gates.
“Is everything alright?”
Elliott was already rising. “Let me check.”
The others gathered gazed at him as he strode down the dining hall towards the kitchen; once he’d passed from sight, the ambient lighting all around us quietly and suspiciously dimmed.
“What is this?” I asked them.
“Beats me!” Wilhelm offered chirpily. “I’m in the dark as much as you are. Get it? In the dark?”
“Ugh,” Lorelei groaned into her glass.
