Wilhelmina A Novella (13 page)

‘Lovely morning,’ I commented, studying her reaction.

‘Warm,’ was all she gave me in return.

‘Looks to be a clear sky, doesn’t it?’

‘Mmm,’ she agreed.

I put down my fork and stared at the table cloth beneath my fingertips. I couldn't keep the pretenses up any longer.

‘Thomasine, today is my last day here,’ I said.

She didn't react at all.

‘Please, don’t be so distant - not today of all days.’

She stared ahead of her with her lips pressed firmly together. Thomasine knew. She knew what was going to happen to me, and why I was leaving. Oh, she knew - she had to know. She'd worked for the governess for too many years not to; I'd only been Elizabeth Bathory's slave for four years and I'd known in half that time. But I remembered just how I was when I was in her shoes only a handful of days ago; don’t ask questions and you’ll live.

How could I blame her when I did the same?

I decided that Thomasine was a lost cause and I gave up. It left a tart, metallic taste in my mouth - the taste of regret. If it made her feel better not to get involved, even after we'd proclaimed ourselves family after all the years we'd been together, then I could respect her needs and sever ties with grace.

I spent the afternoon in the garden, absorbing the sun and its warmth. Standing there brought back the very recent memory of Yvette's attempt to murder me - and the horrific sensations attached to them.

But Charles came to my rescue in mere moments when I'd needed him.

I wondered how often he was near; did he ever leave? Perhaps he was staying here in the mansion. If he slept during the day then I would be alone out here, but if he watched from the shadows, then…

‘Charles?’ I called, looking around. The trees rustled, and the flowers trembled in the breeze. Birds flitted and chirped from branch to branch, leaves rustled, and the wind glided across the tranquil grass, but there was no one else here except the cold face of the governess up in her tower, staring down at me.

It was the first time I’d seen her in a week’s time, and I stared back, wondering what could possibly be going through that cold, unfeeling mind of hers.

I turned away, preferring the company of bright daffodils, passionate gold and fiery red lilies, and seashore mallows. My eyes noticed the legs standing amongs them. Tight, worn jeans shaped a lithe and slim figure draped in only a black leather jacket. I admired the pants, I’d only ever heard about blue denim but the closest I’d seen in Fremont were dungarees. The stunning vision of a man must have gone to California to get his hands on this sleek and most attractive style.

I followed his form, up from his pelvic lines to the contours of his exposed stomach, up to his red eyes. My heart jumped when I realized that this was not
my
angel, not the one with which I’d been unified only hours ago.

‘Hello,’ the stranger said.

The wind swept his dark hair out of his sharp, angular face. He was as still as the mighty redwoods as he studied me, analytically, like I was an equation to be solved.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t notice anyone else here,’ I breathed, trying to steady my heart. The last time I’d stared down one of his kind was when Yvette tried to rip my throat out. This stranger could be no different.

‘I really should be going back inside, it isn’t proper for a lady to be left unattended.’

‘What’s your hurry?’ he asked. ‘You called my name; it would be rude to leave me standing here alone.’

‘I was calling a friend of mine, but he isn’t around,’ I explained, rising to my feet as warily as I could. His fixed eyes continued to watch my every movement. ‘I apologize for the misunderstanding.’

‘Well that doesn’t mean that you and I can’t get to know each other, does it?’ he countered, standing a mere foot from me as he closed the distance with a blink. There was something sinister in his eyes, but he lifted my hand in his cold grasp and placed a gentle kiss on the back of my palm. ‘You’re Wilhelmina, aren’t you? I’ve heard so much about you.’

‘I don’t know anything about you,’ I laughed, nervously.

‘My, my, where are my manners?’

I hadn’t noticed that I'd fallen into a trance until he had me sitting on the bench again. He perched beside me, staring intently into my eyes.

‘Charles, but not
your
Charles, apparently.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Tonight is your big night,’ he said. ‘I arrived earlier than I expected to, but I’m sure the governess doesn’t mind.’ He leaned closer and closer until he nearly hovered over me.

‘You know about that?’ I asked.

‘Of course, everyone does – it's the talk of the coven. The governess invited us all to watch.’

When I had imagined the moment in my mind, I was always alone with Charles. It had always been something intimate and personal in my daydreams. I hadn’t considered the same treatment that Yvette received.

‘What is it like to choose?’ he asked, curiously.

‘What do you mean?’

He ran a hand through my wild mane and studied its glow in the sun.

‘You know that you’re going to die, but you’re still ready and willing to face tonight. What is it like?’ he asked.

He waited intently for my answer, like a work of marble staring into my eyes. Even his chest was still, no breath sucked in or exhaled, which looked uncomfortable and unnatural to me. I swallowed hard and tried to answer as honestly as I could.

‘Terrifying,’ I said. ‘But it’s what I want.’

‘Why?’ he asked, interest piqued.

‘Because if I don’t follow through with this I’ll be dead.’ I said plainly. I hesitated as nerves clustered and tangled my words, but I pushed onward. ‘And I want to be with Charles.’

‘But will he still want you after the change?’ the ‘other’ Charles asked brazenly.

‘What?’

‘Charles Abberdean has quite a history involving young girls and changing them. He's not the person he presents himself to be to others - few have seen the side of him that I've seen... You may see that side sooner than you'd expect to - if he doesn't kill you first.’

He was gone before I could reply, and although I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, I was grateful to have survived
this
encounter. I remember, back in those short human days, that the feeling of being surrounded by these strangely beautiful-yet-lethal creatures was not easy to adjust to. I don’t think I ever did.

My stomach turned to knots as I stood at my window and watched the dangerous beings of darkness arrive in droves, all to watch my humiliation. Were they so dark that they found this sort of thing entertaining?

When I was finally able to tear by eyes away from the garden, wherein they gathered in the shadows of the mansion, I saw Charles -
my
Charles - standing in my doorway. I smiled, gawkily, and he lifted his mouth into a sort of reserved half-smile.

‘So everyone is going to watch.’ I opened the conversation as smoothly as I could.

‘Yes,’ Charles said. ‘That’s part of the arrangement.’

‘I suppose that it’s not such a problem, but I… I just thought that, like this morning, it would just be you and me.’

‘It is just you and me.’ He closed the distance and held me gently, softly, like our hearts had melded through the flesh our bodies, no matter how different they were. ‘Right here and now, it’s just us, and up until the end it will be just you and me. The others there are simply lost eyes in the shadows, but we’re here.’

‘I know,’ I said.

Charles took my hand and led me to the bed. He laid me back and placed one hard and gentle kiss upon my lips, a chaste and undemanding mesh of his lips against mine. When he pulled away he laid down beside me and together we stared at the ceiling.

‘Your humanity is limited. You have so little time left as an innocent,’ Charles sighed. He rolled over and studied my profile for a while. ‘Tell me what I can do to make you more at ease.’

‘You’ve given me what I wanted already,’ I said. I looked into his vibrant red eyes. ‘I didn’t realize how difficult it was for you to do that until you began to lose control.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Charles sulked. ‘But most of what we do, feeding, hunting, sex, becomes carnage. It’s difficult to keep any rational thought once instinct takes over. We behave as we are because we are sin; lust, greed, ecstacy, etc.’

‘I wish that there was something I could have done to make the experience better for you,’ I said, trying nervously to work up to being coy. I had no idea how to be attractive or playful, or even how to flirt. But I wanted Charles to want me physically, and I wanted to please him. ‘We could try again...’

‘Obviously you still don’t grasp the limits of my self-control,’ he said with a small growl of frustration.

‘It would put me at ease to know that I can do for you what you do for me.’ I tried to persuade him, sway him from his detestation, but still he disapproved of me.

‘No.’

His word was firm, and I settled for his arms around me with my back to his feverishly warm stomach.

‘What will you miss the most about being human?’ he asked inquisitively.

‘I don’t have much to miss,’ I replied frankly. ‘Ever since you’ve shown me what you really are this morning, I know that you’re not a curse, you’re a godsend.’

‘You’re wrong,’ he said morosely. ‘You don’t know my life.’

‘You don’t know mine,' I countered.

He didn’t protest, and I rolled in his embrace to look him the eye.

‘You left me, and my mother sent me to live here. Then she packed up and moved to Texas without letting me know exactly where she would be, because she wanted to forget me. I haven’t seen Mary since the night you left. I’ve been responsible for the deaths of innocent people, and I will have to live with that forever.

‘You may not have chosen this, but I am,’ I told him sternly.

My resolve was solid, and he knew that it was final. Perhaps he wanted to see me feel some form of hesitation or regret, I can’t say for sure, but whatever he was looking for in my eyes, he never found it.

‘Are you angry?’ Charles asked. I stared, vexed. ‘With me, I mean; are you angry?’

‘No, I understood why you had to stop,’ I assured him. He shook his head and laughed incredulously. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘That your concerns are so base and thin,’ he said. ‘I meant to ask are you angry that I’m the one who’s going to end it all tonight.’

‘I don’t know how many ways I can say it,’ I said. In all honesty, I could have told him in every way imaginable and he still wouldn’t believe it. ‘I’m glad it’s you.’

I pulled him down to kiss me, but before our lips could graze each other, we heard a loud
crack
downstairs. It sounded like lighting ripped through the mansion, and it made my body tense.

‘I’ll go see what that was,’ Charles said, glancing over his shoulder.

‘I’m coming’ I said. I was about to crawl off of the bed when Charles pressed me down.

‘Just stay here,’ he warned. He was gone like a shadow bathed in candlelight; there one moment, gone in the next. His speed was so fast that strands of my hair were reaching after him, drifting slowly back onto my shoulders.

I crawled quickly off of the bed and peaked out of the open bedroom door. I peered down one side of the hallway and then down the other.

‘Charles?’ I called, and my voice echoed faintly as I peered into the creeping darkness of the mansion. I heard movement, and scratches along the wall. There was a small giggle, but not from Charles. I quickly slammed the door and ran to hide behind the rice paper divider in the corner.

I was as quieter than a hen in a foxhole. My fingers tensely gripped the wall behind me as I waited for Charles to return.

I heard the door handle, and my stomach tensed. The door slowly creaked along its hinges, and I waited to see if I could hear any sound from beyond. I heard scuttling and shuffling, like someone or something was crawling along the floor, a creature that could only be described as death. I heard it growing closer and closer until it was there, right behind the divider. Could they hear me? Could they smell me?

I gripped the divider and braced myself for what I was about to do. If I was going to die, it wouldn’t be in waiting. I thrust the fold-able divider aside and looked down at the floor where my stalker should be. But there was nothing there.

I could still hear the quiet giggling, and the clawing on the floorboards, but there was nothing there waiting for me.

My revelation came sooner than I'd expected.

Dark locks of hair slowly descended from above my head, swallowing my vision like matted curtains. My eyes followed the strands up until I saw Yvette’s mad grin above me. Her fingers were hooked into the ceiling and there were pockmarks where she’d dug them in and crawled across.

She dropped and landed effortlessly on her feet.

‘Wilhelmina,’ she hissed lustfully.

‘Yvette, how are you?’ I asked pleasantly. At least as pleasantly as I could while trying to control the tremors in my stomach.

‘Splendid,’ she grinned.

‘Charles will be back soon, and we have an appointment, I’m sure you’re aware,’ I said.

‘Oh, I am
well
aware,’ Yvette said, closing the space between us. ‘But
Charles
won’t be coming back for you, not now.’

‘What?’ I gasped.

‘Oh yes, Wilhelmina, everything is chaos. I wouldn’t be surprised if Charles was already torn into pieces,’ Yvette hissed. She gripped my neck with her rough claws, and her grasp was tight. I felt helpless, like I was five years old at my father’s funeral with my wicked step-mother harsh grip on my wrist and shouting at me, telling me to stop crying.

‘Your soul is so untamed, and wild; it smells too sweet to be real.’

‘Please, Yvette, stop!’ I cried, but her fist tightened and my words were cut short as she strangled me.

‘You were always the prettier one, always the smarter one.’ Yvette hissed as I pulled at her hot stone fingers for air. ‘But once you’re dead, what will either of those things matter?’

Yvette’s mendacious grin twisted into a horrifying scowl as she bared teeth that grew to sharp points.