Wilhelmina A Novella (11 page)

Thomasine was silent today, and I was a little absent minded, but at least the screams had ceased. They were finally gone, faded, but there was still no sign of Yvette. I feared and assumed the worst, of course.

By noon I was fast asleep, and gladly. I hated waiting for my time with Charles, and this solved my empty time space. At least then I could dream of him until he returned to me.

‘Wilhelmina,’ Thomasine shook me and I sat up, groggily but steady. The excitement in my blood wouldn’t let me roll back to sleep when I knew that Charles was coming. But as I looked out the window I saw that the sun was still up, loitering above the horizon. ‘You should get up and get ready; eat and change.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ I lied.

I was starved, but I didn’t want an unsettled stomach after what I had set out to do. Nerves alone would occupy the void inside of me until after it was done and over with.

Though I was quite anxious to see Charles’ kind eyes, and his endearing smile, I didn’t rush my bath. My nerves were bloating like dead weights and I was beginning to wonder if I had the courage to ask this task of him. Would it even be possible? Would he kill me before saving me?

I dried and Thomasine helped me dress, though she did most of the work as I was too distracted with the prospect of the night ahead of me. So there I sat, alone and waiting by the light of my sweet vanilla candles for Charles Abberdean.

And like a dream, a wonderful and terrifying dream, he was there. He took off his hat and bowed slightly, and I stood up to greet him.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, gently moving my chin to study my face in the light.

‘I’m fine, Charles, really,’ I assured him.

‘After our time together last night, I was afraid that you would still be shaken, upset,’ he said.

‘You were just being honest, which is all I can ask of you.’ I led him to the bed and, like a gentleman, he sat down only after I'd settled myself down first. ‘And that’s all I can offer, which is why I want to ask something of you.’

‘What is it?’ Charles asked.

‘Though I am afraid, Charles,’ I said. My stomach was in knots, but I managed to look him in the eye as I prepared my confession. ‘I’m afraid that you won’t grant me this one request.’

‘Wilhelmina, I am about to be branded your murderer for the rest of eternity; any last requests you have I will give if I can, and willingly,’ he said, and I smiled at the fervency in his voice but he was not prepared for what I was to ask of him.

‘You may not feel the same after you hear what I’m going to ask of you.’

‘Should I be worried?’ Charles asked in a low tone.

‘Perhaps,’ I mused. ‘I’m about to cross a boundary. I hope you’ll be there with me on the other side.’

‘Now I am worried,’ he said. I matched his smile to calm him a bit, to let him know that everything was still alright, but I think that may have prepared him for an ambush instead.

‘Charles, we only have tonight, and tomorrow night together before the governess expects you to change me. And then you will turn me into one of ‘the legion of the damned’, as you like to put it.’ I took his hand inside of my own warm palms, and held him there for a moment. ‘I will be immortal.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘Undying,’ I continued.

‘Yes.’

‘I will live on for centuries, thousands of years, and I will meet others like you,’ I persisted, trying to work up to my point.

‘Eventually you will find a mate, a man who loves you, who shares a bond with you,’ he added, which was exactly what I wanted him to say. Now he could better understand my request from a logical standpoint, even if I knew that he wouldn’t agree to it.

‘But I could never completely fulfill and satisfy my mate, and we could never completely be one and joined,’ I said.

Charles’ expression hardened, frozen with concern and, most likely, disgust.

‘Is it not enough that I must bear the fault of reaping you of humanity?’ he asked. His voice trembled, though out of nerve or anger, I couldn’t be sure, though I was very certain, by the crook of his brow, that he was irate. ‘Is it not enough to turn you into a monster in order to set you free?’

‘No,’ I said flatly.

His eyes flashed - he couldn’t believe what I’d just said, and neither could I.

‘It isn’t enough, Charles. If you leave me untouched I will have no choice but to accept. But if you won’t do this for me it
never
will be enough.’

He shook his head furiously, standing up from the bed and staring down at me with incredulity, so clear on his face it may as well have been written across his brow. He turned away, and I grasped his arm, afraid that he would leave.

‘Please, don’t go,’ I pleaded.

‘Wilhelmina, that is too much to ask of me,’ Charles told me fanatically. ‘You have no idea what you’re implying.’

‘I’m
implying
that you be my first,’ I said. I stood up and held onto his coat to keep him from running away as I forced him to look me in my eye. ‘I trust you, I want you to do it. After all, you’re going to change me, it’s only logical that you be
the one
.’

‘So it’s logical? It’s purely business, is it?’ he asked crossly. I swallowed as I realized that was not what he wanted to hear. ‘I think it’s best if we mark this as the cap of our visits until the night I…’

He never finished that sentence, he just left me sitting there. I should have gone after him, but instead I stared into the empty space in which he stood moments before. I was alone and rejected, but I knew that time was on my side. The present was a failure, but time was like a book of pages, of layers, and if I stood up now, I could run after him and change the story.

It was my story, and sitting here playing a damsel in woe was not how I wanted to be observed, to be remembered. This was not simply business, or logic, this was emotional. This was choice. I loved Charles so much I was going to let him kill me, both in life and in innocence.

I stood.

‘Charles!’ I called after him, rushing out into the hall. I ran and ran, though I had no idea which direction to go. I kept running and running, calling out his name with the hope that he would hear me.

I saw a lone figure in the garden, gazing at the moon, and my heart fluttered. I rushed out into the moonlight and stopped, taking in the vision of beautiful pale skin that glowed like a dove’s wings in the glorious sun. Eyes, red with wonder, immediately noticed my presence, and a familiar smile crept across the striking full lips of the seraphine girl.

‘Wilhelmina,’ Yvette whispered.

‘Yvette!’ I gasped. ‘Where have you been? What’s happened to you? I thought – I feared – I heard –’

‘You look so gorgeous,’ Yvette marveled, completely oblivious to everything I’d just said.

In the blink of an eye she was in front of me, brushing my hair out of my face and cupping my jaw line into her warm, hard hands. Hands like Charles; hands like the governess. ‘Your skin is so soft, so warm; your blood is so thick, running smoothly and coarsely at the same time.’

‘My blood?’ I asked her suspiciously.

‘I’ve already fed, but you just smell so…
good!’
Yvette said with a grin. ‘That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you, Wilhelmina. You smelled good every time you walked near, but now… now you smell so phenomenal, so warm, so
wild.’

She gripped my arm and held my neck. She was no longer Yvette, of this I was certain.

It was comical, as I trembled in her grasp during the last pages of this chapter of my life, that I should fear this future. When it was understood that Charles would be the one to curse my soul, I felt nothing but understanding and anticipation. So long as it meant freedom from this life, and more time to spend with him, I could care less what type of monster Charles Abberdean would make me.

But in Yvette’s hold, I was terrified, trembling without control, because Yvette’s face wasn't a face at all, but a mirror. She dreamed once, she hoped once, and she used to be a wonderful person full of life. But all that remained in those demonic eyes was lust and desire, and she was no longer a person, she
was
that lusts and desire.

I was looking into my own future, what would have been had I not chased away Charles; a soulless creature driven to wicked sin by feral cravings. But now I didn’t have to worry about that because I was about to die.

Her face blurred as she struck my neck with her teeth. I felt her silky jaw scrape my skin, but I was thrown up into the air. I flipped and spun through the air, wondering which direction the world was going to hit me. I landed in hard arms, and was almost immediately dropped onto the stone ground. A shadow leapt between me and Yvette, growling like a fierce mountain lion.

When I had my bearings, I sat up and saw Yvette’s angry face hissing back at my guardian. She was hard, aggressive, and purely untamed with rage. She shrieked and nearly flew toward my protector, and both creatures became a smear.

All I could see were white blurs of movement and the clashing sounds of granite limbs colliding. When everything stopped, I saw my harbinger of death holding Yvette’s head with both hands. She was on her knees, gasping for air as Charles stood over her from behind. His eyes were dark and beastly, and he gritted his teeth as his shoulders tensed, ready to do what in his own natural heart he would normally never dream of doing.

I watched, paralyzed, as small cracks spread like spider webs around Yvette’s neck. Dust fell from the fissures like a shattered brick and bright firelight shone from behind the ashen flesh. In one swift motion, Charles twisted the head of the succubus right off of her neck.

‘Charles...’ The voice that called to him was not my own. Out of the shadows stepped a pale figure, lithe with masculine grace as he stepped out into the night light. ‘Stop.’ He held one, solid hand raised in his direction.

Charles dropped the head and it hit the ground with a heavy thud. He looked at his hands, and then at me. The rage drained from his eyes only to be replaced by some unreadable emotion, close to fear but similar to regret.

He vanished like a haze, vexed by some inner tumultuous battle that had torn him in two pieces. I stared at Yvette’s headless body in awe, watching it wriggle around as the arms groped the empty air. The mouth on her face gaped like a fish out of water, and she stared at me in shock.

‘Come, we mustn’t be near when she puts herself back together,’  said Charles' blonde friend as he gripped my shoulder.

He lifted me to my feet without effort and gently guided me back to my room. Though my feet carried me, I had no idea what was truly happening in the world around me.

Had I really just seen Charles and Yvette fight like two ravenous wolves over a helpless doe? Did Charles become a monster and decapitate my good friend of four years? Worse yet, had my old ‘friend’ tried to kill me just moments ago?

I stared at the ceiling as I wondered just what I was getting myself into. What was the price of freedom? Could I stand to become like Yvette so that I could walk away from my sheltered life?

The look in her eyes was menacing, and it frightened me. Not because they wanted my blood so strongly, not because they would have been the last thing I saw, but because I didn’t want those eyes to represent who I was by this time next week, next month, next year.

For the first time since I was bargained for by Charles from the governess, I didn’t want to become one of them. If losing who I was would be the cost of my liberty, then wouldn’t I rather just die?

When I walked to my window, I looked down into the garden where Yvette’s body should have been. She was gone.

By dawn I’d gone back to sleep. By noon, I was up again. With no direction, and no certain hope of seeing Charles, I was stuck in a type of purgatory. The sun was stapled to the sky, immovable by my relentless wishes, and time was at a standstill. Even the wind ran at my presence, abandoning me as I sat in the garden, marveling over what had happened last night.

I was left to anticipate whether or not I would see Charles tonight, or even tomorrow night. Were my forward advances and last request what would sever the last thread to what was once my life? If he left,
permanently
left, my life was forfeit in the governess’ hands.

I knew that thinking about this evening would not make the wait any easier, but I had no other ties to stake me to this life of mine. I couldn’t even call this thing a
life
, I simply ‘existed’. Charles Abberdean was all that I really had to hold onto, and if he didn’t come back then I didn’t know where to go, or what to do with myself. I would be a lifebuoy in the middle of the ocean with no hope of ever seeing another ship again.

I dined alone, as usual, for I hadn’t seen Rhoda since I’d stopped waiting on bended knee for anyone. Thomasine was quiet once again, which was unusual for her, even on a bad day.

‘Thomasine,’ I said. She shifted, but didn’t answer. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, miss,’ Thomasine said with a blank slate face.

‘Please, don’t call me that, you
know
me, we’ve worked alongside for four years, Thomasine,’ I said. I felt slightly insulted by the isolated response, and she knew it. ‘Why are you so quiet? You haven’t spoken to me in days.’

‘You’re proper now, miss, and I don’t have anything to say to a proper woman. I’m a servant, you are my mistress; that’s enough to tell me my place,’ Thomasine said.

I looked back down at my chicken breast and poked at it with my fork, feeling a mental door close between us.

When the sun set I waited eagerly in my room. I knew that Charles would come tonight, he wouldn’t just leave things the way they were. He wouldn’t leave me behind, not again. But as darkness settled in the moonless night, and all I could see through the window was my own reflection, I was beginning to get concerned. Uneasy.

After two hours of sitting at the small white desk beside the window, reading the New Hudson Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, my hope was hanging like a helpless hummingbird caught in a spider web; it just wasn’t enough, and it gave way to the emptiness that awaited me.