Danielle
placed the final piece of silverware on the table as she exited
the
dining room. She smiled to herself while she thought of the
wonderful
time she'd have while the Baroness and her spoiled, selfish
children
were at the market buying clothes for their already
overflowing
wardrobes. They are sure to be gone all day, she
thought, as she put a
spoon in front of Marguerite's seat. They're
so damned picky, it'll
take hours just to find undergarments, she
thought while she climed the
staircase to the bedrooms. She
chuckled as she placed her foot on the
final step.
Quickly
turning the corner of the corridor, Danielle approached the
large,
oaken door to Jacqueline's room. It was customary to awaken the
plump
stepsister first, for she was always in a good disposition,
the
better to start a busy everyday. Danielle gently rapped upon
the door.
"Yes," came a meek, sheepish voice from behind the wooden surface.
"Time for breakfast, Jacqueline," Danielle replied.
"Alright, I shall be ready shortly."
Danielle's lips drew tightly together as
she walked towards the second
door. Her hand curled itself into a
taut fist when she reached the
entrance to Marguerite's room. Her
free hand knocked.
"What is it?" an acidic voice answered.
Danielle wanted to yell all the forbidden words
under Heaven at the
little snake. Instead, she grit her teeth and
restrained herself.
"Breakfast, Marguerite."
The
sound of sucking teeth preceeded a reply, "Well wake Mother,
you
stupid girl!"
Danielle hissed and rolled her eyes.
She turned towards the final door
in the hall. Instead of being
welcomed with the rich dark brown color
of the doorway, she could
barely see the lintel behind the shadows. The
rest of the door was
obscured in darkness. It seemed to be miles away.
An oppressive
air saturated the hallway. Overcome by the sensation, she
slowed
down, concentrating on breathing. Her brisk pace slowed to a
nervous
walk. Proud strides reduced to mincing, tentative steps. A
subtle
feeling of dread gently rested upon her mind and heart. She
wiped
her moistening palms upon her dirty apron. Her heart pounded on
her
eardrums. The thuds were so powerful that she feared she would
vomit
the organ if she opened her mouth.
When Danielle finally
reached the Baroness's chambers, she froze. All
the warmth and
heat of the season suddenly escaped from her, leaving her
with
gooseflesh instead of skin. With a pale, trembling hand, she
gently
knocked upon the door. No answer. She listened carefully as
she
knocked again to be sure the Baroness did not say something
she didn't
hear. When she still received no reply, she called into
the door,
"Milady, breakfast is ready."
Still no
answer. She supposed that her stepmother would rather sleep,
but
she thought of the terrible lashing that would inevitably follow
for
allowing her stepmother to miss her meal. That idea quickly
disspelled
any notion that she should allow the lady to rest. She
grasped the cold
iron knob and twisted it. The oaken door opened
with a loud squeak. A
pool of blackness seeped out into the
hallway. Danielle stepped into
the darkness.
The draperies
were all down, and they covered the bedroom so completely
that it
looked as if night had never faded. The waxy scent of melted
candles
drifted outside. Lifeless air stagnated the inside. The odor
was
old, so decomposed that it smelled almost like soil. Yet,
something
else was still there, hidden, within the silent stone
walls. It was
like ashes spread across the silt of a river.
Danielle sneezed. The
floating dust stirred and brought a tiny
morsel of life into the room.
Minute bits of the sneeze settled
upon her skin like the tickling
drizzle.
Danielle ambulated
slowly, bumping her way towards the general direction
of the
window ahead. When she reached the cold, rugged wall, she
stretched
out her arm and felt along its surface until her fingers
caught
the warm velvet of a curtain. She pulled it along the valance
and
winced as brilliant sunlight invaded the room.
Danielle turned
around. The sun's rays illuminated the Baroness's
room. All the
familiar landmarks were there: the bed, the trunk, the
throne-like
chair beside the hearth. She looked at the velvet and linen
tomb
which she recognized as a bed. She crept toward it. When she
reached
the berth, she grasped the canopy. Her throat had become
parched,
and she swallowed hard as she pulled the awning open. Inky
darness
overflowed from the mattress and threatened to spill onto the
floor
below. But light conquered the encroaching blackness and flowed
upon
the motionless form resting there, revealing the face, neck,
and
hands of the Baroness.
Danielle trembled as she looked
at her stepmother lying there. She lay
perfectly immobile with her
long hands perched calmly on her bosom, one
inside the other.
Black hair rested neatly on the bed, outlining her
form in a thick
ebony mass. She was so placid that it looked as if she
were made
of marble instead of flesh. In the manner of that element,
she
made not a single twitch or movement which normally occurs
with
sleep. The Baroness's complexion was like that of a statue,
an almost
diaphanous white with a hint of gray. Her skin was
stretched tightly
over her fine, angular bones. The woman's lips
were dry, and her
eyeballs sank a little inside their
sockets.
Danielle shook her head. It could not be. She held
her breath as she
balanced herself on her hands and leaned towards
the Baroness's face,
her ear tiltled towards the lady. There was
no sign of the miracle.
Danielle chastised herself for wishing
such a thing upon a person, but
her heart still fluttered a bit as
she thought of the possibility. She
leaned forward further, and
she nearly fell, but she managed to catch
herself on her
stepmother's cold hands before she could topple onto
her. The
young woman gasped, barely able to restrain herself from
screaming.
She blinked hard. Had she awakened her stepmother? She
hadn't. The
Baroness was not even pushed by her stepdaughter's
clumsiness. The
woman lay there, cold and as a great stone slab.
Danielle placed
her hands on each side of her stepmother's body, and she
slowly
lowered herself towards the woman's chest. She listened for the
dull
beating of Rodmilla's heart. She heard someone breathing, but it
was
the sound of her own fluttering suspiration. Danielle held her
weight
on one hand and used the other to pry underneath the cold digits
of
Rodmilla's hands. The chill of her skin seeped through the
nightgown.
Danielle felt around the woman's sternum and searched for
the
presence of that life-giving organ, but she could find it
nowhere.
The realization sent a cold shiver speeding up her spine.
Oh God, she
thought, could the lord have given me salvation at
last? Perhaps He
did. Danielle raised herself from the Baroness's
body. A feeling of
peace swept over her as she moved out from
under the canopy.
She nearly fainted when a hand of ice
wrapped around her wrist. She
turned back inside the canopy, and
the vision of a skeletal figure
slowly arising from death filled
Danielle with an intense fear. The
girl opened her mouth to
scream, but the grip of froze her will.
Danielle just sat there
and watched as the skeleton slowly began to rise
from its
mausoleum.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
it demanded of her in a voice
that was like broken glass and
burning fire.
Danielle answered quickly before the creature
could do anything rash,
"Breakfast, milady."
"Very
well then," it answered, in a more human voice. It
turned
Danielle loose, and the Baroness sat up on the end of the
bed. Danielle
could not look directly at her stepmother, but she
knew the look that
came from her. The lady had a way of gazing at
her which made her feel
violated, as if she were prying into the
deepest corners of her mind.
Danielle's eyes fluttered, and her
breathing grew more erratic. Heat
surged through her body. A few
beads of sweat dropped upon her hands.
"Tell the
others I shall join them shortly," she heard her stepmother
say.
Danielle gave a brief, respectful nod and scurried out of the
room.
She closed the door behind her so quickly that it was almost a
slam.
She hurried down the stairway and into the kitchen, where
Marguerite
and Jacqueline were waiting to be served.
"What took you so long?" the blonde coldly asked, "And where is Mother?"
"She said she'd be down shortly."
"Fine," replied Marguerite. "I want a four-minute egg and bread."
"Yes,
Margureite," Danielle mechanically responded, her mind
still
swimming with the events which transpired in the Baroness's
chambers.
"And what would you like, Jacqueline?"
"Whatever you make is fine with me."
Danielle rushed into the kitchen before they could
see her hands
trembling uncontrollably. She started on breakfast
to shake the fear out
of her mind, putting on six eggs, bacon, and
bread. The oppressive heat
of the kitchen made her feel nauseous,
so she ran outside to get the
apples.
Danielle
stood by the fireplace preparing her stepmother's ivory-handled
brush
for grooming. Rodmilla reclined on the bed daydreaming. The
Baroness
had been oddly whimsical that day since she noticed Prince
Henry's
interest in Marguerite. She was toying with her ambitions,
painting
a lovely picture of what she believed was her daughter's
preordained
fate.
"Could you imagine? Paris at Christmas?" she
said in such a way that
was amazingly, for the Baroness, childlike
and imaginative. It was a
manner Danielle wasn't accustomed to,
yet she could not resist feeling
hopeful along with her
stepmother. The woman's moods were contagious.
The fact that she
was having a good one made this evening a great deal
more pleasant
for Danielle.
"It must be something spectacular, milady,"
Danielle answered, smiling
sheepishly. After ten years of service
to her stepmother, she learned
very early to appreciate the rare
moments when Rodmilla was in the least
bit amicable.
"Yes,
it certainly is," the Baroness said. She let the rest of
her
thought float into the air and finally dissipate like smoke
from a dead
fire.
The Baroness, in her characteristic
feline grace, arose from the bed and
walked over to the chair.
There was not even the lightest sound of a
footstep emmitted from
her as she made her way to the chair by the
fireplace.
"You
know," she continued, "My mother was rough on me too, you
know.
She taught me that cleanliness was next to godliness, and
she forced me
to wash my face at least twenty times a day,
convinced it was never
clean enough. But I was very
grateful."
Danielle was convinced of the Baroness's
statement, afraid to even
think a thought contrary to her
stepmother's words. Yet, there was
something about the
noblewoman's words which gently pierced Danielle's
heart. For a
brief instant, she felt Rodmilla was warmer, more
understanding,
more- human- than she initially believed. She quickly
dismissed it
as a futile hope.
The Baroness regally roosted herself upon
the hard mahogany chair. She
flung her black hair over the edge.
Danielle separated a thick lock and
started to brush through it.
The Baroness's hair was just enviable. It
was as soft and smooth
as dyed silk, and many times more abundant. The
color was such a
rich ebony that Danielle thought black ink would run
into her
hands if she held it too long. It was completely opposite to
the
colorless, ragged stringiness she saw on so many women,
including
herself. It was hair she would enjoy brushing if it
belonged to someone
else. It had the refreshing fragrance of
jasmines in the summer, yet it
was cool and subtle as the autumn
wind. Danielle wondered what it would
be like to sleep on a pillow
made of this hair as she groomed another
section. As she brushed
through the elegant locks, Danielle noticed
something odd. The
Baroness was unrealistically still. She made not a
single jerk or
flinch as the brush weeded through a few tangles and
roots.
Danielle could not even sense the regular heaving of the
shoulders
that normally accompanies respiration. For a moment, she
believed
that her stepmother was not breathing. It was only until
the
noblewoman once again broke the silence that Danielle did not
hesitate
to see if she was alive.
"She wanted me to be
all that I could be, and here I am. A Baroness.
And Marguerite
shall be queen." The words had an understated confidence
about
them which Danielle thought was normal on the Baroness's part yet
in
a way oddly prophetic. She mechanically continued to brush
the
section of hair which she held in her tiny hands.
Rodmilla
grasped Danielle's wrist, and the girl's heart skipped several
beats.
The coldness of the Baroness's skin assaulted her, and its
power
sapped her strength. She was a prisoner of her stepmother's
glacial
grasp. Her first reaction was fear. What had she done?
What will be
done to her? Before she could ask, "What is
wrong, milady?" the girl
was gently yet powerfully pulled to
face her stepmother.
At this moment, the young woman realized
for the first time that she did
not know the color of Rodmilla's
eyes. She had combed the Baroness's
hair every night for the past
ten years, without fail, and it just
dawned upon her that she'd
never seen the woman's face close enough to
really see what she
looked like. Most importantly, she never looked
into Rodmilla's
eyes to really see HER. Were her eyes green like the
serpent in
the garden? Icy gray like the winter she so accurately
represents?
Dark blue like the deep ocean?
She tried to keep her eyes to
the floor, to resist the urge to look at
her stepmother's face.
She knew it would seem insubordinate to the
Baroness, and that the
slightest hint of disobedience would mean a
terrible whipping for
her. Yet, Danielle felt a compelling curiosituy
to face Rodmilla
and see into her eyes. She felt a burning desire to
study her
stepmother's face, to find out the meanings behind each line,
each
wrinkle, each dimple. She tried to fight it, but in the end
her
instincts won over her good reason. She looked up, and focused
her eyes
upon her stepmother.
Her eyes were brown, almost
black. Danielle had known since she was a
child that the eyes were
the windows to the soul, and she wondered if
Rodmilla's soul were
similarly dark. She looked deeper, trying to
discover anything
else which may lie hidden beneath their depths. But
she sensed
nothing except the glowing reflection of fire upon the
irises.
"Pity
you never knew your mother," she said, snapping Danielle back
from
her search. The lady continued, "There must be a little
of her in you
somewhere."
Rodmilla gave Danielle a
sincere gaze. It seemed to her stepdaughter so
earnestly human;
her stepmother looked at her in such a way that was
almost tender,
almost maternal, almost like love. Danielle immediately
felt a
keen desire to openly ask this person sitting in Rodmilla's room,
in
Rodmilla's chair, where she had put her stepmother, but she knew
not
to complain about good things. She cherished this moment, if
only for
its rarity. On the other hand, she cursed herself for
being so naive.
Danielle felt uneasy looking down at her
stepmother. She was just a
servant, not a noblewoman. She kneeled
before Rodmilla's wooden throne
and stared up at her; she felt
more at ease at the woman's feet.
Danielle wished she knew
more about her mother: what she looked like,
how she spoke, her
disposition. But that was not possible now; her
father had been
reluctant to talk about her at best. The servants only
knew her
sweet and kind demeanor, not about her total personality. Now
even
second-hand accounts were impossible.
"I wish I knew what she looked like," she muttered to Rodmilla.
The Baroness
gave her stepdaughter a sarcastic retort, "Yes. But we
must
never feel sorry for ourselves, must we? Because no matter how
bad
things get they can always get worse."
The
noblewoman paused, looking at her commoner stepdaughter. The
woman
sighed before she continued, more gently than her last
statement, "But
you remind me so much of your father.
Sometimes, I can see him looking
out through your
eyes."
"Really?" Danielle asked, her face and voice beamed with the comment.
Rodmilla continued,
half-joking, "Yes. Of course, you have such
masculine
features."
Danielle almost laughed. She admitted to
herself that her stepmother
was right; she was not a proper woman.
Her complacent expression waned
when she stared again into
Rodmilla's eyes. The whites had now turned
bright pink, almost
red, and watery droplets hanged like newborn
diamonds at her
eyelashes, but they did not fall. Rodmilla's eyes
seemed like they
had seen many tears yet were still unused to crying.
Her face
seemed conflicted as her eyes squinched to keep from blinking
and
revealing her valuable secret. For a moment, Danielle was stabbed
by
a deep pity for her stepmother. How torturous her existence must
be,
she thought, to feel so much pain yet not be able to express
it, even if
she wanted to. She thought that perhaps there may be
something deep
within Rodmilla after all.
Danielle
swallowed her pity and timidly attempted to speak. There
was
something she wanted, needed to ask. She had to do it at while
they
were both off guard. She cautiously parted her lips as she
began to
inquire directly into the matter, the only way she knew
how, "Did you
love my father?"
Rodmilla smiled
delicately. Her eyes lit up, but the light did not come
from the
fire alone. Danielle thought she had seen something akin to
affection
within Rodmilla's eyes. She listened attentively for the
answer,
trying to see what her words, or her silence, could tell
her.
Rodmilla paused before she finally answered, "I hardly
knew him."
Yet the sadness Danielle had seen so close to
the surface never faded.
Danielle was left unsatisfied, for she
wanted to believe that Rodmilla
didn't love her father, if only to
feel justified in hating her more.
But Rodmilla's words and
actions showed differently. The mention of
Danielle's father
almost made tears fall, and the real question about
her feelings
towards Auguste de Barbarac was left unanswered. It was
so
paradoxical, so unlike her ordinary habit.
Danielle
thought it might be best not to press the issue further. She
returned
to her place behind the chair and began again to brush the
Baroness's
hair. While she groomed the noblewoman, she felt a gentle,
disdainful
nudge upon her hand as she attempted to brush through the
dark
locks. She stopped, but before she could utter a word, the
Baroness
quietly commanded her, "Go away. I'm tired."
Danielle
did as she was told, and she placed the brush upon the tiny
table
standing next to the chair. She nimbly exited the
Baroness's
quarters, closing the door quietly behind her. When she
had left the
room, a freezing wind wraped around her body. She
looked around her.
The castle was a graveyard: silent, dark, and
eerie. She hurried
towards her sleeping quarters. As she made her
way along the dark
corridors and towards the twisted stairway that
led through her hovel,
millions of thoughts plagued her mind. Did
Rodmilla love her father?
Why did she seem so much more humane
than she did before? How could she
hate her and look at her with
such fondness? Through all the confusion,
she felt the dull ache
of guilt upon her. She did not know the reason
behind this
feeling, but she intuitively understood that its source
was
Rodmilla.
As she made her way up to her bedroom, she
pondered upon the peculiar
episode that took place within the
Baroness's chambers. For all the
time she has known her
stepmother, it was only now that she realized
that there was a
human being inside the tall, imposing woman she had
known for so
long. Her head started to hurt from all the thoughts, and
she
cleared her mind of the whole mess. But the feeling was still
there,
the guilt. She quickly went into a comfortable, fetal position
upon
her straw mattress, and she closed her eyes and thought of
pleasant
things. She wondered when she would be able to fly Signor
Da Vinci's
new toy. The thought trailed off as Danielle drifted to
sleep, and that
night she dreamt of flying.
The
young monarch casually reclined on her bed. Crimson velvet
swooped
from the canopy onto the floor. She was reading, as was
her usual habit
before retiring. She was immersed in the book. Her
eyes glided across
the letters on the page as if those words would
be her last sight on
this earth.
It was night, as always.
Nearby candlelight provided a dim yet
comforting orange glow to
the room. Pink toes grazed the empty space
beside the queen.
Danielle read until her eyes felt tight and itchy.
The letters on
the parchment jumbled together in a senseless arrangement
of ink
and paper. She rubbed her eyes as the book came closed in a
dull
thud; she placed the tome on the table next to her bed.
It
was a long while past the time His Majesty normally came to bed.
A
knot grew inside her belly, heavy and tight. Maybe there had
been an
accident. Danielle pushed the thought aside. Had such a
misfortune
taken place, the servants would have informed her by
now. Something was
definitely wrong.
Danielle sat up. Her
feet dangled over the edge of the bed, and her
toes reached
longingly for the floor. She looked down for her shoes,
cursing
when she did not see them beside the bed. Flesh smacked stone
when
she leapt off the mattress. She kneeled on the floor and
peeked
underneath the bedstead. There were her shoes, two black
silhouettes
barely an arm's reach away. In a single swipe, both
were collected in
her hands. Danielle stood up. Before she had the
first shoe on her
foot, the air inside her suddenly left her body.
Deathlike silence
stopped her ears, and she could only hear two
hollow taps as her shoes
plummeted to the floor. Danielle's neck
froze; the chill seeped into
her voice, stopped cold. She flailed
her arms about, frantically trying
to escape the icy grasp of her
unseen nemesis. The vice-like grip
closed in tighter, and Danielle
could felt bloodless fingers consticting
her vertebrae. She
strained her eyes to the corners of their sockets.
She saw
darkness. With fear holding her fast, Danielle prayed. Her
mouth
did not speak, but the words shouted in her mind. Tears burned
down
her face. Her eyelids closed tightl, and she uttered the
prayer
repeatedly until her mind went numb from the
repetition.
"Life's not fair, is it?" said the thing
from the darkness. It was so
strangely calm, so soothing, that at
first Danielle did not believe she
was in danger at all. There was
something familiar about it. Something
that struck her deeply, and
her fear returned. Danielle mustered all
her inner strength to
ask, "Wh- Who are you?" The words came out
weakly, like
the frightened girl she used to be rather than the
dignified
monarch.
The phonation recalled for her, "Do you remember
what I told you,
Danielle? Nothing is final until you're dead, and
even then God
negotiates."
Danielle tried to shake her
head. The stony hand prevented any movement
there. It couldn't be.
It was impossible. It had all come back to her
in a quick rush of
remembering. And still she disbelieved. Still she
tried not to
remember. Yet, she remembered, and she believed. There
was no
escaping it. The realization was as solid as the earth.
As she
watched the figure approach within range of the soft
candlelight,
Danielle congealed. That posture, that deathlike
color, those hateful,
vengeful eyes. Slowly, the darkness melted
into the familiar form. It
was the apparition of a forgotten and
painful memory standing before
her. There, as if it had always
waited there, in the shadows of her
bedroom, was the Baroness
Rodmilla de Ghent.
Danielle's face glistened with sweat. Her
teeth chattered quietly, and
her knees butted each other. She felt
so helpless, like a chick in a
nest with the shadow of a hawk
looming overhead. She wanted to abandon
the vestiges of
civilization and turn to blind panic. But a huge weight
sank
inside her, and it prevented any hope of freedom.
It wasn't
real; it was just a dream. Rodmilla was dead; she died last
year
during the epidemic with many commoners. She was buried in a
pauper's
grave. Henry had seen to it himself. He would have had her
burned,
but Danielle resisted it, explaining that such actions would
make
them no better than she. Yet, she was there. She was there, and
she
was not dead, not disintegrated anonymously into the earth.
"B-but
y-you're d-d-d-d-dead. You c-can't be- Henry- Henry saw,"
she
said.
The Baroness shook her head, "Tsk-tsk-tsk.
You are a fool, Your
Highness. There are things about which you
cannot possibly understand.
In either case, I'll kill you before
you can find out too much."
Danielle moaned underneath
the arachnid fingers. "K-kill me?" She grew
more afraid.
She was held prisoner in the wintry grasp, so she could not
run.
held Her voice was gone, so could not scream. As it
became
intolerable, she felt herself ease into her primitive
ancestry.
Something hot ran in a river down her leg, trailing from
her loins to
her knees, and then to her ankles before running onto
the floor. The
room started to blur in a mix of color and light.
She felt as if she
were floating, and then she was shocked awake
when she crashed upon the
bed. She coughed until she respired
normally again. Danielle inhaled
deeply and savored the fresh air
that filled her youthful lungs. Her
diaphragm heaved as the rush
of air circulated through her. She
clutched the crucifix dangling
onto her chest, silently thanking God she
was still alive. She did
not dare to run, for her legs felt too awkward
to move. She felt
like screaming as loud as God would allow her. The
notion left as
soon as her ears picked up the tomblike silence of the
castle. She
wondered why no one had stopped Rodmilla. Then, she
realized that
she had not heard the slow, heavy footsteps of the guard
patrolling
the halls. She had not heard the muffled whispers of the
servants
as they made their way to bed. She normally did not hear them,
but
that was because she tuned them out of her mind. But on this
night,
such meditation was unnecessary. What had happened to them?
Where
were the guards, the servants? Where was Henry? The
Baroness
confidently slithered into a chair standing next to the
night stand.
Moonlight trickled inside the room, and its
luminescence tickled the
surface layer of Rodmilla's hair.
"What-
What did you do to Henry?" Danielle demanded, her face
growing
slightly more ruddy as anger swelled into her skull.
Her
stepmother casually tossed a loose strand of hair from her face.
With
the Baroness's silent affirmation, Danielle knew Henry's fate.
A
deep, sharp pain slashed across Danielle's chest. Tears trickled
onto
her face and down her neck. She only hoped that God was
merciful and
allowed Henry quickly and painlessly into Paradise.
"How could you?
How could you?!" she sobbed.
"For
God's sake, child. I have to eat something," the
Baroness
reported. Danielle shook her head, covering her sobs with
her delicate
hand as her body shook violently.
When her
tears had stopped, Danielle felt empty inside. Their lives
together
had seemed so short. It was like a mere blink to the years
her
stepmother could have known. The woman always seemed so-
ancient to
her. There seemed to be an age inside her that didn't
show. How old
could she be? One hundred? Two hundred? Five
hundred? How many
empires had she seen in her day? How many
generations of royalty did
she see perish? If she could come back
from the dead, she was probably
immortal.
Danielle looked
at her stepmother. She examined the dull, earthen rags
which clung
to her stepmother like a shroud, barely covering what needed
to be
hidden. A black shawl of hair covered her shoulders. She looked
at
the hard, chisled face. She almost winced at the skeleton
which
started to show underneath thin, ashy layer of tissue which
comprised
Rodmilla's skin. Danielle never realized how deathly
thin Rodmilla
was. She had up until now only seen her covered in
layer upon layer of
clothes. Her stomach turned at the blue rivers
of veins running up her
bony, wiry arm. She looked so- Danielle
hesitated to use think the
word- weak. Danielle wonders if she
could really be dead. If indeed
she was, what could wait beyond
death for her, and Henry?
"Rodmilla," she said. The
stony corpse nearly lost her facial composure
when she heard her
name called. The expressionless visage returned
within half a
blink of an eye.
"I will not spare you, and I will not release you," she snapped.
Danielle didn't expect that
much from her stepmother, so the
disappointment which would have
followed at the manor did not even raise
its head inside the
palace.
"No, stepmother, that's not what I meant. I was
thinking-" she let the
words trail off, knowing how much the
Baroness hated to be teased with
words.
"Out with it," the Baroness responded coldly.
"Am I allowed a last
request? If you are going to kill me, the least
you can do is
grant me that," Danielle sternly commanded.
"If it is reasonable, I'll consider it."
"Well, you know
how Papa used to tell me about philosophy, science, and
metaphysics.
Surely if you are truly dead, you know something about the
things
beyond this world."
The Baroness rolled her eyes at the
young queen. Danielle knew that her
stepmother at least had to
give her that. She did not expect to
survive the encounter, but
before she went, she could at leasthave some
kind of knowledge
worth dying for. Rodmilla sighed. "What is
your
request?"
Danielle smiled, almost overjoyed at
this uncharacteristically giving
overture. She thought for a
while, making sure that her request was
good enough to give her
what she wanted but feasible enough not to tempt
the Baroness's
ire.
"I want you to answer my questions, that's all," Danielle said.
"What kind of questions?"
"Questions you can answer."
"How many?"
"Ten."
"Seven," the Baroness ordered.
"Eight," insisted Danielle
"Five," the Baroness retorted.
Danielle
knew that before long it would be three and then one, so she
did
not tempt her luck too much. She was satisfied with five
questions,
but she knew she had to struggle to make them good
ones.
"Your first question," demanded Danielle's stepmother.
Danielle realized that the Baroness was in no mood
for mind games, and
she would view certain issues unfavorably.
Rodmilla could change her
mind at a moment's notice, and then kill
her as soon as she did.
Danielle stuck to the easy
questions.
"What are you?"
The Baroness
relaxed in the chair. She sat in her naturally upright
position,
like she was born to do, and looked at Danielle with a
Crusader's
conviction.
"Among superstitious peasants, I am known as a vampire."
If it were not for the seriousness of the
expression, Danielle would
have laughed herself silly, but as she
contemplated what had happened to
her, her mirth fizzled. She had
heard the legends, but she didn't
believe them. Each superstition
was wilder than the next. Vampires
drink blood; they can't stand
holy ground or crucifixes; they hate
garlic, can't cross running
water, and instantly turn to ash the minute
a sunray hits them.
From what she knew of Rodmilla, they simply weren't
true. She
would have thought the woman mad had it not been for the fact
she
had been dead and buried over a year ago.
"How long have you been- like this?" she asked.
"Constantine was
emporer when I lost my humanity," the Baroness
vacantly
responded.
Danielle was in awe. Her stepmother
close to twelve hundred years old.
She wondered how much the
Baroness could know. How many languages could
she speak? How far
had she travelled? Danielle forced herself to be
serious. How can
she not see the sun in such a long time? She had seen
the Baroness
many times in the sun, and she didn't look the least
bit
uncomfortable. She seemed to enjoy it from time to time,
almost as much
as tormenting her. But, if she did walk and go
about in daylight, what
did she do at night. Certainly not sleep.
But she never recalled her
stepmother being particularly tired.
Maybe vampires didn't need sleep.
After all, they're dead.
"How do you walk in daylight?" Danielle asked.
The Baroness
was looking into a candle. The light made a glowing orange
line
down the contour of her face, like a white stripe of paint. A
tiny
bead of light sat next to her dark pupil, as if conversing in
some
secret language long forgotten by man. With her eyes thus
transfixed,
she said, "Daylight is not our natural time, but
the sun cannot destroy
us."
"Well how can you hurt a vampire?" she asked.
"That I cannot answer," Rodmilla retorted.
"But you said any question," Danielle reminded her.
Rodmilla looked at Danielle, and the
expression on her face did not
appear to fondly remember her
stepdaughteres obstinacy.
"There are various ways,"
she began. "Each vampire has their own
particular weakness.
The methods you like to use- holy water, wooden
stakes, garlic-"
Rodmilla paused to chuckle quietly before she
continued, "fire,
and sunlight. The classical weapons of killing 'Spawn
of Satan' as
you call us, only work on some vampires. The real way to
kill
vampires is a closely guarded secret. If you were wondering how
you
could hurt me, you cannot. I will leave it at that."
For
a moment, Danielle forgot about her impending doom and absorbed
the
knowledge being handed to her. For a brief instant, she
considered
herself lucky. How many people actually learned these
things? There
were the peasant beliefs, but that was not really
the same thing. With
every word, Danielle wanted to know more. She
really yearned to know,
beyond the folktales, the source of that
unnatural state.
"Where do vampires come from? I mean,
what is the source of
this...evil?"
Rodmilla had
shifted her focus into the endless night outside the
queen's
window. "According to popular legend, Caine. He was
supposedly
cursed by God to walk the earth and feed off the blood of
mortals
for the rest of time. But now people are beginning to ask
questions,
which may or may not reveal anything."
Danielle struggled
with the phenomenon for several silent moments. Is
what Rodmilla
said true? Is she really part of an ancient and unending
bloodline
forever drenched in the stain of its founder's sin? Danielle
couldn't
imagine that fate for anyone. Even peasants seemed to have a
better
lot, for death can at least provide a source of hope, justice,
and
peace.
She pondered restlessly for the fifth question,
searching the innermost
caverns of her mind for a question that
would lead her to a clear and
final truth about her stepmother.
She was certainly not who Danielle
thought she was, but then who
was she? Who was the human being beneath
the surface? That was
what Danielle really wanted to know, more than
anything else. Who
was this creature whose humanity she had only
glimpsed at a single
moment? Where had the person retreated during the
winter of her
soul?
Danielle stared into her stepmother's eyes. She sought
the creature's
face for any uncertainty, any vulnerability which
marks human nature.
She found none. Seeing the impenetrable
facade, Danielle asked her
final question.
"Who are you really?" she sternly inquired.
"What do you
mean? My human name? My human identity?" was
Rodmilla's
answer.
"Yes. What is your real name?"
"Oh, Danielle, I've had so many names,"
the Baroness wearily replied.
It was the first and only time in
Danielle's life that the Baroness just
seemed tired of
living.
Danielle pressed onward, "Well, could you at
least tell me your original
name?"
The Baroness
sighed, apparently exhausted by Danielle's obstinacy. For
a sliver
of an instant, it was Rodmilla who cast her eyes downward. Her
gaze
returned towards Danielle, but instead of looking at her, it was
as
if she were staring through her like her stepdaughter was
an
insubstantial spirit. Did Rodmilla hear the question? The
endless
chasm of silence shattered when Rodmilla gulped loudly, as
if something
were trapped inside her throat. A mournful breath
escaped her lips.
The vampire turned her face away from her
stepchild. Danielle gazed at
the candlelit outline of her visage.
She closely watched the eyes,
which had undergone an amazing
change. As if they always had been
there, the bulging salt-filled
droplets dangled on the edges of her
eyes. The diamond-like tears
tenaciously held onto her eyelids,
refusing to let go.
Danielle
observed the creature carefully until the Baroness began to
speak.
When Rodmilla finally spoke, it was as if the strength of
her
tremendous will had failed her, "I don't remember."
As
soon as the words drifted from her mouth, a single drop of water
fell
from her eye, making a wet path down her pallid cheek. Two
more
escaped, then three, then four, until Danielle could no
longer count
their passing. Rodmilla slowly shut her eyes, sighing
deeply, in what
appeared to be an attempt to halt the inevitable
lamenation. The tiny
droplets fell by the hundreds. Their
cumulated effect made Rodmilla's
face look like the mask of
tragedy. Then, like a summer rainstorm, the
tears
stopped.
Danielle did not have to wait long until Rodmilla
regained her
composure. The water upon the vampire's cheek had
evaporated, leaving
no sign that it even existed. A look of
distant vacancy overcame
Rodmilla, and Danielle began to doubt
that she had even witnessed the
past few moments. The act seemed
too unreal, but she could not deny
it. She never believed Rodmilla
was even capable of human emotion, but
the realization of her
error made Danielle want to throw her arms around
Rodmilla's neck
and hold her until they were incapable of holding on
anymore. She
resisted the temptation. Yet, the display puzzled her.
Was it
possible that a single shard of humanity still lived within
her
stepmother?
"One final question," Danielle
said. Rodmilla scowled at her
stepdaughter for the outburst. "You
don't have to answer."
Rodmilla returned her focus to the moonlight. "What?"
"Why did you let me live so
long tonight, or for the past fifteen years
for that matter? It
would have been to your advantage to kill me or
sell me earlier.
But you didn't. Why?"
Rodmilla stared into Danielle with
her dark eyes. Immediately, Danielle
could sense some emotion,
some feeling that was within her stepmother,
but she knew that she
would never again let those feelings rise to the
surface. Were
those feelings love, or just a maternal instinct to
preserve all
young? Whatever it was, Danielle supposed, it spared her
from her
death on more than a few occasions. Still, even though a swirl
of
emotion swept over Rodmilla's seemingly placid face, Danielle
could
still perceive the taint of despair inhabiting her, deep
within the
frozen depths of her heart and soul.
Rodmilla
did not respond to the question. Danielle still wanted
an
answer.
"You don't hate me as much as you say you
do. That's why you didn't
kill me," she began. She hoped she
was right.
"Nonsense," the Baroness blankly responded.
The young woman maintained her ground, "You
lie. You don't hate me at
all. That's why you didn't kill me then,
and that's why you are
considering sparing me now." Her words
took on a strange certitude as
she uttered them. She had known for
fifteen years, although she would
never say it, that that was the
reason behind any level of mercy shown
to her by her stepmother.
It was what kept her from hating the woman
completely.
"I know the real reason why you hated me," Danielle pursued.
A
painful laugh washed over the Baroness as she asked, "Really?
Why is
that? Tell me, Your Majesty."
"You envied
me because I had something you would never have, not even if
you
tried for a thousand times a thousand years. You forgot what it
meant
to be human, and when you saw what me and Papa had it only
became
clearer to you. Then Papa died, and you lost your chance to
find out.
That's why you took it out on me. You can't have the
human spirit you
once knew, so you try to take it from everyone
around you! Because you
know that deep down you really want to be
human again, and that will
never happen! Never!" Danielle
swallowed hard to moisten her dry
throat. She had become exhausted
from the effort.
The Baroness sat silently in the chair, her
person taking on a life that
vampires supposedly did not have. She
was very still, but something
about her seemed feral, untamed.
Danielle sensed something inside her
stepmother that her arrogance
and cruelty could no longer hide. For a
brief instant, it looked
as though the Baroness's skin could not enclose
whatever was
rising towards its surface. Something was stirring beneath
Rodmilla,
and Danielle now feared what it could be. Danielle saw it in
her
eyes. The depths of her already dark oculi seemed to grow even
more
profound. Something invisible, yet powerful, churned within
her eyes,
as a torrid river whipped into a frenzy by a strong
wind. Danielle knew
that her final moments were at hand, but if
she provoked her stepmother
any further, they would come sooner
than expected.
As she looked at her seated stepmother,
Danielle noticed that the
mahogany chair now possessed deep,
cream-colored scars. Danielle stared
at her stepmother, whose
appearance assumed a frightening demeanor.
Looking at the
Baroness, Danielle noticed the peculiarities of her
hands. The
woman's fingernails had grown into long, white talons. When
the
woman finally spoke, Danielle could see, though they were
almost
concealed, that her stepmother's perfect white teeth had
grown a set of
rapier canines.
"You seem as though you wish to invite your doom," she growled.
Danielle
tried to regain her breath long enough so she could make a run
for
it, but she was worn out from the outburst she gave earlier.
She
heard her heart beating furiously, and she listened to see
what it
sounded like before it would stop forever. Before she
could even blink,
her stepmother was upon her, holding her still
with her awesome strength
and not very gently biting into the nape
of her neck. It was not as
painful as Danielle had imagined. She
could feel the life force gushing
out of her body and hear her
stepmother gulping the vitality with almost
religious
ferver.
Danielle was amazed by the sheer physical presence of
the vampire. She
hovered over her as a tigress over a fawn. There
was nothing soft about
the creature, none of the squishy layers of
skin most noblewomen wear.
Rodmilla felt heavy upon her, as if she
were carved of stone- weighty,
dense, powerful in its
stillness.
As the feeling went away from her head and neck,
she only felt a
tingling as Rodmilla's hair spread across her body
like an ebony sheet
made of Chinese silk. She could hear the
vampire's heavy breathing upon
her; it scalded her flesh and
incensed the hairs on the skin there.
Danielle was overwhelmed by
the heat that suddenly emitted from
Rodmilla's hands and lips.
Yet, even when Rodmilla seemed so alive, the
stiffness of the dead
was upon her, but the stiffness came from tension
and not
decay.
Danielle then heard the sound of a velvety moan flow
from the throat of
this fascinating creature. It was a sound akin
to that which lovers
make when they consumate their mutually felt
desire. The timbre came
again, repeatedly, soothing Danielle as it
made her afraid, for she knew
that an end to the haunting,
wordless song was the end of her life. She
wondered if she was
already dead. If so, she could still see, and hear,
and feel to a
large extent. The monody stopped. Danielle felt Rodmilla
ease her
grip and slide over to her side, the black curtain of hair
pulling
itself after her. A surprisingly gentle touch came from
her
stepmother as she turned Danielle's youthful head towards her
undead
face.
Rodmilla had suddenly became very colorful,
more resplendent than most
people. No more did she look like a
skeleton barely covered in skin and
veins. In Rodmilla's cheeks,
lips, hands, and neck, the blood of her
stepdaugther gave a
sanguine hue to the normally pale skin. A vitality
apeared in
Rodmilla that was not present before the feast. Danielle
looked at
her stepmother lying next to her, with her eyes closed and
her
breaths soft as a feather falling. Gone was the rage and
despair.
Replacing those baleful emotions was a sort of calm that
mortals rarely
achieve. Danielle realized at this moment, her
stepmother possessed
more serenity than the most devout of
Christians can find in an entire
lifetime. At this moment,
Rodmilla was no longer a noblewoman, or a
stepmother, or even a
vampire, but an entire being connected to the
wellspring of all
creation.
As Danielle lay on the bed, hovering between life
and death, Rodmilla
settled on top of her, as before, but with her
now crimson lips pressed
against her ear. She felt a tickle as the
moist mouth began to move.
"Perhaps you were right after
all," Rodmilla teased. The sound of a
suppressed giggle
escaped her mouth. Danielle simply lay silent,
feeling the tug of
death upon her body.
With those words, Rodmilla leaned forward
on Danielle and kissed her
gently on the forehead. It was a kiss
that she wished could last an
eternity. It made her feel so
complete, so whole, so loved, that she
did not want it to end.
Then, breaking her usual custom as before,
Rodmilla gave Danielle
a delicate and maternal kiss upon her lips. It
was a passionate
kiss, an extremely sensual and seductive kiss, but
essentially a
kiss belonging to a mother. Finally, after all those
years,
Rodmilla gave Danielle a small piece of what her stepchild
wanted
from her, a gesture representing all the young queen ever
wanted from
her estranged stepmother. Now it was Danielle who
cried, for this
moment meant the world to her. She began to sob
quietly as the salty
droplets cascaded down towards the silken
pillow. Rodmilla took her
long, agile fingers and wiped the tears
away from Danielle's face. The
vampire grazed the young woman's
hand with her own, and still holding
onto the tiny digits, regally
climbed out of bed. As the woman reached
the edge of the bed,
Danielle gently latched onto the warm fingertips of
her
stepmother, and for a fraction of an instant she felt the lady
return
the gesture before she allowed them to part. Rodmilla, with
leonine
grace, exited the room.
