Chapter 4

Aurelia lay in bed that night, going over the evening with Lisette in her head. She felt like she could think much more clearly now that she was alone. She also found that she was actually still conflicted, despite being so sure of herself when she was with Lisette. Was she doing the right thing? Was it really possible to feel so strongly about someone she’d just met? Lisette’s pull was nearly irresistible and Aurelia didn’t really want to resist, she just wanted to be sure that she was doing the right thing.

            When you combined her concerns with the fact that her “Knight in Shining Armor” had turned out to be a woman, well, that complicated things a bit. She finally decided that she would take some time to think about it. If she didn’t spend so much time with Lisette, she’d be able to think more clearly.

            But Lisette was like a drug, a very addicting, very intoxicating drug. Aurelia was hooked and felt like she was barely in control of her own actions. Her mind told her to fight against what was happening, what she felt for the other girl. But her heart was telling her to just let go and let Lisette envelop her into her life.

            She considered the aspects of what her life would be like if she gave in to Lisette. As long as they both lived in Binderton, they could never be together publicly and their relationship would have to remain a secret. When she looked at it that way, she wasn’t entirely sure that she was ready or willing to do something like that.

            But if she gave in, there was also the possibility that she and Lisette could finally leave and go somewhere that they’d be accepted and maybe even welcome. Maybe they could go to San Francisco, or Seattle, or Miami, some place where people weren’t disturbed if they saw two women walking hand-in-hand down the street.

            Not only could she openly be with Lisette, but she could get out of here, like she’d always dreamed of doing. Yes, she’d take some time to think about it. This was a very big step to take and if she wasn’t one hundred percent positive that Lisette was the one, then there was no point in leaving.

            As she drifted off to sleep, she began to dream about the evening they’d spent together. The dream was a bit different than the reality though. In her dream she sat on Lisette’s couch, close to the fire and Lisette sat in a chair across from her. They were talking about plans to move away, this was when she realized that it wasn’t the evening they’d just shared.

            There was a comfortable feeling between them, as though they’d gotten used to one another’s company, obviously time had passed if they were talking about leaving. While Aurelia took in Lisette’s angelic face the way she always did, this time she noticed that Lisette looked slightly pale and her canine teeth were elongated sticking out slightly more than was normal.

            “Are you thirsty?” Aurelia heard herself asking.

            “No darling, I’m fine.” Lisette responded with a smile.

            Aurelia stood up and crossed the room to stand before Lisette. She took her hand and it was cold, ice cold.

            “Lisette you should go feed, you’re so cold. You’ll feel better if you do.” This time Aurelia noticed when Lisette pulled her head slightly away.

            “Just go, it won’t hurt my feelings and you won’t have to pull away from me anymore if you do.” Aurelia insisted. Lisette looked at her with another smile and then nodded.

            “You’re right, of course. I’ll go and when I come back, I’m going to hold you close and sing to you.” Aurelia smiled. Lisette loved to croon love songs in her ear while they danced to the sound of her voice.

            The corners of Aurelia’s lips turned up in a smile as the dream went on. Lisette rose from her seat and glanced out in the backyard; a somewhat disgusted look crossed her face. Aurelia reached for her hand again.

            “I know you don’t like it, but you know how much I appreciate that you do it.” She heard herself say as she leaned in and quickly gave Lisette a peck on the cheek before she could pull away.

            “That’s why I do it.” Lisette said with one last smile and a squeeze of Aurelia’s hand before she headed out the back door.

            Aurelia stood in the living room watching Lisette walk slowly across the yard, psyching herself up for what she was about to do. Her subconscious was wondering what Lisette was doing outside and another part of her was telling her that she should turn away from the window. But in her dream world she just stood there, watching Lisette as she began to creep up on some bushes.

            She smiled as Lisette lowered herself into a defensive crouch, as though she was preparing to wrestle with something in the bushes. Her subconscious mind was screaming at her to turn around, so alarmed that she was beginning to wake up.

            She could feel her heart pounding in her chest as her subconscious told her that something was terribly wrong. Just before she opened her eyes, her gaze fixed on Lisette’s face. She looked determined and horrifying as a fierce growl escaped her lips and she bared sharp teeth with elongated canines.

            Just before Lisette lunged, Aurelia got a clear view of the deer that had strayed into the yard and the next thing she knew, she was sitting upright in her bed, screaming at the vision she could still see before her.

            Both of her parents came running in, flipping on the light as they rushed to her side, demanding to know what was wrong. She was hyperventilating and in tears, but no longer screaming by the time her mother sat on the bed and took Aurelia’s hand in her own.

            “Did you have a nightmare dear?” her mother asked worriedly. All Aurelia could do was nod as she tried to catch her breath.

            “This is why you need a good man to protect you, make you feel safe, so that you’re not scared by nightmares, maybe you wouldn’t even have them at all,” Her father muttered, though she wasn’t sure if he’d actually intended for her to hear him or not. 

            She began to calm down as she focused on her mothers’ face and the horrible scene faded into nothingness. She cried herself out in her mother’s arms as she rocked her eldest child back and forth. Comforting with her touch rather than with words

            Her tear ducts felt like they were all dried out and her cheeks hurt, when she had finished crying. She had given no explanation for her behavior other than confirming that she’d had a nightmare. Eventually her father had gone back to bed, thinking her silly for getting all worked up over a dream and muttering about how lucky she was to live in a house with a man to protect her the way he did.

            Her mother stayed by her side until she drifted back to sleep. She brushed the hair back from Aurelia’s face and hummed lullabies to her, the way she had when Aurelia had been small. This time when she drifted into unconsciousness, she dreamt of nothing and finished out the night in peaceful sleep.

 

            Lisette watched as Aurelia lay sleeping, quiet at last. She hated herself for putting the dream into Aurelia’s head, but something made her feel like she had to run the idea past Aurelia somehow, just to see how she’d take it. The idea of her feeding from animals rather than humans had to help a little didn’t it?

            Besides, if she’d shown herself with a blood bag and a straw, that would have been totally lame, Aurelia needed to understand much more of the big picture in order for this to work out. But it had pained Lisette as she watched the human girl sit upright in her bed, screaming as though she was scared beyond words. She looked on as Ronald and Elizabeth McKinnon rushed in to comfort their daughter.

            A frown touched her lips as she heard the man start in on how Aurelia needed a good man to protect her. What a silly human man, so stuck in the ideals of the past. There was no human man who could protect and care for their daughter the way Lisette could, not that they would ever know that, even if Aurelia accepted what she was.

            This thought brought her thoughts back to what she’d done. Aurelia would probably avoid her for a bit while she took the time to get over the dream, blowing it off as impossibility. After all, vampires didn’t really exist, as far as humans knew.

            If Aurelia talked to her about it, then they might be alright, but if she continued to avoid her and broke the friendship… Lisette found that this idea saddened her a great deal. She wanted nothing more than to learn everything she could about the human girl, to be her best friend, confidante and all the things Aurelia had convinced herself that she’d never find in a man. Only then could the possibility of acceptance be examined and just maybe she could reveal her true self to Aurelia some day.

            As her thoughts came back to the present, Lisette realized that she’d been floating above the ground for a long time without even thinking about being seen. The horizon was just beginning to turn purple with the slow rise of the sun and the clouds that had brought last night’s rain were nothing but whisps of white in the sky now. It was going to be a beautiful day and she wished that she could share it with Aurelia by the beach.

            With one last glance up at Aurelia’s bedroom window, Lisette completely wiped away any memory of the dream she’d given her friend and began to walk home. She could find out how Aurelia would deal with her being a vampire another time.

            When she arrived at her house, Lisette walked around to the back, and lowered herself onto a lawn chair to watch the sun come up. There was too much going on in her head for her to sleep right now, not that she really needed to. Her mind drifted back to a time when she’d been human, not the vicious killer she had secretly become-

            She was sixteen years old and one of the happiest girls you could ever care to meet. Her family wasn’t well to do, but they got by and they loved her so very much. Very rarely did her parents have a cross word to speak to her because she brought them so much joy with her shining red hair and bubbly personality.

            Lisette’s best friend was a girl named Saydie, she came from a very wealthy family with a big brick house built right in the center of a sprawling landscape with mazes of hedges, beautiful flowers growing everywhere you turned, gorgeous fountains with water shooting from the top, down into the waiting pools below and the most lovely rose garden Lisette had ever seen. The two girls could most often be found chasing each other around the grounds, having picnics, exploring or reading in the rose garden.

            “Lissy, let’s go play by the stream,” Saydie suggested, but it was getting late and Lisette would have to go home for supper soon.

            “I don’t have time, but perhaps we could later?”

            Saydie nodded her approval, “I’ll meet you here after everyone is asleep then.” Lisette nodded back, they sneaked out a lot at night just to get away from the rest of the world. Nobody else was out when it was dark and they could just be themselves instead of the ladies society expected them to be.

In the warm months they would sneak out in their thin nightgowns, which was highly improper. They then spent the rest of their time together cooling themselves in the creek that ran through the back of Saydie’s parent’s property. There were plenty of trees for privacy and nobody ever went to the creek but them.

And so with a quick hug and “goodbye”, the girls headed to their respective houses for supper, anxiously awaiting the moment that they could be free again. When Lisette walked in the house a warm smile spread across her mother’s face.

“Where have you been? Out running about with Miss Saydie Mason again were you?” Marguerite Duvall inquired. 

Lisette nodded and returned the smile, “We had such a wonderful time drinking tea in her rose garden, the roses are so pretty and they have such unusual colors this year. One of the bushes has flowers with petals the color of a sunset, bright oranges, reds and pinks, they’re just lovely.” Lisette gushed and Marguerite laughed at her young daughter.

“You’ll have to beg of her mother to let you bring me some the next time you go to visit.”

“Of course mama, I shall ask her tomorrow.” Lisette smiled at her mother while making a mental note to ask Saydie about it later that night.

            “You’re such a joy to me child.”

            When the household was fast asleep, Lisette crept from her bed where she had been sweating away the hours in the heat of the night. Her hair and nightgown both clung to her and she tried to shake the gown out so that it would dry enough not to stick. There was no point in being more indecent than necessary on the off chance that she was seen.

            She crept quietly downstairs and out the front door, taking off at a sprint the second the door was closed behind her. Saydie was already waiting for her at the creek, sitting on a rock and staring at the stars while the ends of her long gown hung in the water and moved with the gentle current.

            Lisette noticed that Saydie was crying when the trail from her tears caught the moon light.

            “Saydie what is wrong?” Lisette cried, hurrying to put her arms around her friend.

            “I miss my Papa. He’s always working because Mama doesn’t want him to be at home,” Saydie replied sadly.

            “Surely that’s not true,” Lisette argued.

            “No, it’s true, I heard them talking about it. They weren’t fighting or anything, she was just telling him that it’s better that he’s not around so much so that he doesn’t influence the decisions I make for my life.”

            “And what did your Papa say?”

            “He agreed with her, although he said he misses me terribly. I heard Mama say to him ‘She needs this my darling, you have to let her be who she’s going to be, you can worry about the rest when the time comes.’ A few minutes later he came to give me a kiss and told me that he’d see me soon. He left me a beautiful gown in a box on the dining table; he always leaves gifts when he’s going to be gone for a while.”

Saydie had the air of someone who had gotten used to their situation, but was still disappointed by it and Lisette hugged her friend close. Neither of them cared that it was too hot to be holding each other, that their hair was sticking to the other’s shoulders or that their gowns had now absorbed enough water to make them see through. All they cared about was each other at that moment and how thankful they were for one another.

“I’ll always be here, even if he isn’t, Saydie.” Lisette promised.

“Me too.” Saydie replied and with a final wipe of her face she lowered herself into the cool water, which was a signal that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. So the two girls sat in silence in the shallow waters of the creek, the only sound disturbing the night was that of moving water and the occasional splash when they used their hands to scoop water onto themselves.

When the sky began to turn purple they knew it was time to head home and get a couple hours of sleep before their mothers came to wake them up. They could find a nice shady spot to take a nap later in the day, if they were still tired. They stood at the same time and then faced away from each other to ring the water out of their gowns the best they could. From the corner of her eye Lisette saw Saydie begin to wade through the creek to get to the grassy shore.

“Ow!” She heard Saydie cry, looking over to see that Saydie had cut her foot on a rock and was sitting down in the grass to examine the cut.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Saydie said with a smile and then pulled her foot up to examine it. The moment Saydie bent over and looked down at her foot, Lisette’s eyes went dark, she felt the rush of the breeze blowing past her and a hand over her mouth. For a moment she thought that she’d fainted from the heat and was falling; then the world went black.

            That was the last time she ever saw Saydie and she had missed her terribly for a while, but eventually the feelings faded over time and now she could barely recall what Saydie looked like anymore, though she’d never forget what happened. Saydie was just a ghost in a memory that happened over two centuries ago, the last of Lisette’s normal human memories and one of the few she still remembered fairly clearly.

            The sun had just crept fully over the horizon, causing Lisette’s alabaster skin to glow orange in the morning light as she came back to the present. For the first time in many years she wished Saydie was here with her so that she would have someone to share her thoughts with, someone to tell about Aurelia so that they could give her their thoughts on how she should proceed. But there was no one, and Saydie had been dead for a very long time.

Lisette stood up and stretched, looking over at the sun with a smile. She was one of very few vampires who could walk in the day time and she had taken much pleasure in killing the vampire from whom she had obtained this power. Only those created by the Sovereign in the very beginning were able to walk in the sun along with those who had been born or created before the race was cursed. Afterward, the only way to obtain the ability was to take the power of one of the Originals and there were very few of them left despite their being nearly impossible to kill.

            Now she felt nearly human again and no one would guess otherwise, unless they happened to break into her basement refrigerator and find her stock of blood. She had drained and stored every drop she could from every vampire she’d ever killed. Blood from her own kind sustained her far better than human blood and she could go longer without needing to feed. Refrigeration was truly a blessing, and one she was sure the Sovereign hadn’t considered when vampires were cursed to walk only at night and drink blood instead of eating food.

            Now they could keep a flush in their cheeks and even tan their skin a bit, enough to blend in anyway. Lisette had been naturally pale as a human so she didn’t get much color, but at least she wasn’t sickly gray from lack of light and vampire blood. She walked into the house with one last glance at the rising sun, the memory of Saydie already fading into the back of her mind while Aurelia’s face came to the forefront.

            Aurelia would be waking soon, all memory of her dreams would be forgotten and Lisette would be here waiting for her friend to sneak over for a visit after she’d finished her chores for the day. The thought of seeing her again was thrilling and Lisette found that she was more excited than she’d been about anything in a very long time.

            She turned on the television in her room, changed into shorts and a tank top and curled up in bed to watch for a while, hoping to make herself sleepy so that she could take a nap before Lisette arrived. She had a feeling about this one; it just might really work out this time.