The next night we took a visit to Madeleine's doll shop. Claudia and I were both allowed to choose a doll. Madeleine wandered around the doll shop, looking at everything with new found eyes. She almost looked afraid.
"Madeleine, what's wrong," I asked her softly.
"The dolls almost look as if they are alive. I can see their eyes following me everywhere…'Madeleine whispered softly. She reached out and broke a doll. Then another and another until all but three dolls remained in the shop. She would soon continue this trend, only with humans as her victims. That night Louis taught her how to feed. He taught her how to select which human to kill. Although she hardly listened. For the next week she simply went around killing men that were handsome. She made the kill very passionate, lifting her victims off their feet in her passion, stroking their throats right before they died in a way that sent shivers down her victims' spine in pleasure before they died. The week after that she went simply after women whom she had wished to kill when she was a human. She killed all of the women that were remaining in her family, saying that they looked too like her daughter and went on about how she wished to forget about her daughter so she must kill them. She would crush their throats with her ivory fingers as surely as she drunk their blood. So certain was I that sooner rather than later this mad intensity must abate if she were ever to take hold of this nightmare that she lived every day of her mortal life. The nightmare of losing someone you love. The nightmare of losing your own daughter. She had never really gotten over it. This was why she became a doll maker. She would forever bring joy to the little girls who were living, but never to her daughter ever again. She could make doll after doll but she could never make another daughter ever again. She could never be replaced. She could never be brought back to life. She could never be brought back into her life. For centuries she had been grieving for the loss of this daughter. Now it almost seemed to be driving her mad. She decided the next night that she had to burn all of her daughter's belongings so that she could forget about her. So we gathered up all of her dresses.
I stole one away for myself and hid it from her. It was a beautiful dress that was made out of white lace. It was slightly crinkled from not being hung properly. It smelled of camphor.
Madeleine, Claudia and Louis gathered up all of the other dresses and bought them to the Hotel Saint Gabriel with us. I grabbed the last two dresses lingering in the chest. I grabbed a beige dress and a dress made out of linen.
Once we got back to the flat, Madeleine fed all of her daughter's dresses, except the one that I stole for myself, into the fire. She was feeding to the fire in the grate the folded dresses of that dead daughter, white lace and beige linen.
The next night she and I returned for all of her daughters shoes. They were all crinkled and smelled of sachet. She burned them all that night.
After that we went after all of her hats. We grabbed up all of the bonnets and we brought them back to the flat and burned them as well.
Then we continued with her child furniture. She had a child sized rocking chair, book shelves, a child sized table, and a child's bed. We burned them all in the fire. The fire was better fueled by these than the other objects because they were made out of wood.
Next came all of her daughter's dolls. She had nine of them. We burned all but one. I saved one that looked almost like Claudia. She had curly blonde hair. She was beautiful. I hid her along with the dress that I had hidden nights ago.
After that came the rest of her daughter's toys. She had nine other toys. She had a stuffed bear, a tiny oil lamp, and nine other toys made out of wood. Yet again I saved the teddy bear for myself and allowed Madeleine to burn the rest of the toys. She had made all of the toys herself.
Then we continued with all of the china cups in the house that she had ever drunk from. We threw them upon the floor of the flat, breaking them all. These things we did not need to burn.
The next night we came back for all of the saucers that went with the cups and broke them by throwing them across the room as if they were Frisbees. They shattered against the opposite wall.
Finally we took all of her purses from the house. I saved two of these this time. I saved leather one and one that was made out of midnight colored velvet. I stashed them and then we burned the rest of them.
After this Madeleine went back to the house alone. She set her daughters toy clock on fire within the house and allowed the rest of the house and all of her daughter's and her things in them to burn. "It means nothing now, any of it," she said as she stood back watching the fire blaze. And she looked at Claudia with triumphant fierce devoted eyes.
Claudia looked back at her and then took her hand. She led her to a man so that they may feed for the night.
After this was all done, Madeleine fell into her old doll maker's craft of making her old lover over and over the replica of her dad child. She made fourteen dolls one night. Claudia and I each received one. The next night we visited her shop. We put all of the new dolls onto the shelves and cleaned up the broken ones. Madeleine picked up her chisel and knife from the shop. On the way home she collected a few sticks of wood. The next night she made a perfect rocking chair, so shaped and proportioned for Claudia that seated in it by the fire, she appeared a woman.
Claudia rocked in that chair for hours upon end in front of the fire while Madeleine made her more things. The next night she made her a table of the same scale. The next night she and Claudia went shopping for things to put upon the table. It looked to plain and naked. They came home with a tiny oil lamp, a china cup and saucer, a white purse and leather bound book. Claudia read the book in one night.
After this Madeleine and Claudia got a craving not only for blood every night but to go shopping as well. One night they brought home some small mirrors that were only high enough to reflect Louis's legs. Then for the next two nights they bought famous paintings for each room in the house. They hung them up low so that Claudia and I could look at them. Then the next night Madeleine made Claudia a beautiful little vanity table. We filled it with all of our gloves. After this Claudia got the craving to go shopping for clothes. Some clothes she bought while others she ripped off of her victims to fit either her or Madeleine. They got themselves many new dresses. Claudia's favorite became a woman's low-cut gown of midnight velvet. To continue looking so good Claudia also shopped for accessories. She got a tiara from a child's masked ball.
So naturally one night we ventured into a masquerade ball. We fed upon women drunk upon champagne that had just left their husbands and taken their wealth with them. We each wore beautiful masks except for Claudia. She wore her woman's dress with matching gloves and her beautiful tiara. I myself got a dress decorated with peacock feathers. To match I wore a mask made out of feathers. There was a peacock feather coming out of the top of it. Louis and I danced all night while Madeleine and Claudia danced like fairy queens.
By the end of the month Claudia had become Madeleine's crowning jewel. She was a fairy queen with bare white shoulders wandering with her sleek tresses among the rick items of her tiny world while Louis watched from the doorway. How beautiful she was in black lace, a cold flaxen-haired woman with a kewpie doll's face and liquid eyes which gazed at Louis so serenely. She seemed to catch his gaze and keep it so much better than I myself could. Louis would lie on the floor and stare at her and Madeleine for hours.
Louis put his hands under his head and gazed at the chandelier.
Madeleine was on the couch, working with that regular passion, as if immortality could not conceivably mean rest, sewing cream lace to lavender satin for the small bed, only stopping occasionally to blot the moisture tingled with blood from her white forehead. She had promised me that she would make me a bed tomorrow night.
I went and lay down next to Louis. I cuddled up to him. "Claudia reminds me of Cinderella," I commented softly, a little jealous still but trying not to show it through my words. "She could come out a house where garden mice would be monsters, rather than horses. She's more of a gothic Cinderella."
Louis nodded. I could tell he was thinking about something else.
"You know, you are not bound here," I mind-spoke to Louis gently, "You can get up whenever you want to."
'But I am bound hand and feet here," Louis mind-spoke back softly.
"By who," I asked.
"By that fairy beauty, that exquisite secret of Claudia's white shoulders," Louis mind spoke back to me.
I looked over at Claudia. She was putting on pearls. She then sprayed a bit of perfume upon herself. Now a decanter, from which a spell is, released that promises Eden.
"Claudia would not bind you here," I mind spoke to Louis gently, "What is really binding you here?"
I saw it on Louis's face before he admitted, "I am bounded by fear."
"Fear of what," I asked, "You don't have to fear anything inside this room."
"Fear that outside these rooms, where I preside over the education of Madeleine- erratic conversations about killing and vampire nature in which Claudia could have instructed so much more easily than I, if she had ever showed the desire to take the lead- that outside the room, where nightly I am reassured with soft kisses and contented looks that the hateful passion which Claudia has once shown could return."
"Things have changed. I don't think Claudia is going to be mad at you any time soon." I reminded him, "You have changed."
He looked over at me. Our eyes locked as I continued to comment.
"I've just noticed it since you turned Madeleine, you have changed," I admitted, "According to my own hasty admission, you have truly changed. The mortal part of you has changed. Also since Europe you seem to have become slightly more evil." It was silent for a few moments. So I decided to change the subject. "We have not seen Armand for a month or so now." I saw Armand in his monkish cell; saw his dark-brown eyes. So the clock ticked on the mantel. We did not move to go to Armand.
During the next few nights I began to learn about some of the truths of loneliness. I realized that in Europe I'd found no truths to lessen loneliness. Rather, I'd found only the inner workings of my own small soul. I was glad that Claudia was no longer in pain. She still had a huge passion for a vampire who was perhaps more evil than Lestat.
"I want to burn the doll shop," Madeleine told us one night.
I did not believe her, so certain I was- even though night after night Louis had to lead her away from men. I also had to lead her away from other women she could no longer drain dry. So satiated was she with the blood of earlier kills, often lifting her victims off their feet in her passion. So certain I was that sooner or later this made intensity must abate, and she would take hold of the trappings of this nightmare, her own luminescent flesh.
Madeleine smiled at herself in the mirror, showing her fledgling teeth to the gilt-edged mirrors. She was mad.
Louis did not realize how mad she was. I did not realize how accustomed to dreaming; and that she would not cry out for reality.
"Why do you want to burn the doll shop," I asked her.
"So that I can take almost all of the wood from the shop to make Claudia more things," Madeleine reasoned, "I need more wood."
"If there is no wood then what would fuel the fire," I asked, almost trying to see her mad reasoning behind it all.
"The doll buttons," she shrugged," the dolls clothes. The dolls themselves…"
Now I could see why she wanted to burn down the doll shop. It wasn't for the wood. "You want to burn down the doll shop because you want to burn the dolls," I announced.
Madeleine turned to me with blood tears in her eyes. "They all look like her," she whispered softly, "they all remind me of her. They have the same hair, the same face, the same eyes…" It was silent for a moment while Madeleine cried softly. She blot the blood tears from her cheeks. "I want to forget," she sighed softly. "It's just like all of her clothes… the doll shop means nothing now. Nothing in it means anything at all."
I nodded to her. "Ok, we will burn down the doll shop," I reasoned with her.
It was a week before we accompanied Madeleine on her errand, to torch a universe of dolls behind a plate-glass window. We walked up the street away from it, round a turn into a narrow cavern of darkness where the falling rain was the only sound. Louis saw the red glare against the clouds first.
Then I saw it. Bells clanged and men shouted. Claudia beside Louis was talking softly of the nature of fire. The thick smoke rising in that flickering glares unnerved Louis. I was slightly afraid of it. After all, it is the only thing that could kill us other than the sun. It was merely a mortal fear for me. It reminded me of the old town house burning in the Rue royale. I thought of Lestat and the last time that I had seen him. A few tears began to form in my eyes. I began to wonder if Lestat really was all right like he had promised he would be. Little did I know that I was soon to find out.
I was pulled back into reality of Claudia's words, "fire purifies."
"No," Louis replied, "fire merely destroys."
Madeleine had gone past us and was roaming at the top of the street, a phantom in the rain, her white hands whipping the air, beckoning me, white arcs of white fireflies. I went to Madeleine. So did Claudia. We had some shopping to do. Louis needed some new buttons for his shirt and Claudia and I needed some new buttons for our new black evening gloves.
I saw Armand pass us a few moments later. The black ribbon in Claudia's hair slid out of her curls, the rain making her hair so slippery. I beckoned the girls to come with me so that Armand and Louis could be alone.
