It had been over a week since Jean had properly fed. She'd gone three days without before Lucien had presented her with that beautiful jade brooch for her birthday. That remarkable gift had almost made her forget about her birthday, actually. Almost.
She was now one hundred fifty-six years old. Everyone she had ever loved had died around her. Perhaps she should have been immune to the pain of it now. But her birthday, more than any other day, reminded her of her loneliness. Oh she had friends, ladies from church she would join in a sewing circle, neighbors to share a cup of tea with, but it wasn't the same. By her nature, Jean had to keep a certain distance. No one could get so close to her as to notice the strange things about her, after all. And how close could she really get to a person whose mind she could read and control at her whim? Not that she did such things with great liberty, of course, but it was just too easy to be avoided sometimes. Anytime someone was cross or suspicious or unhappy at all, Jean would rifle through and make them feel better and ignore things they ought not notice. It left Jean, once again, frightfully alone in the world.
It was on her birthday, too, that she allowed herself to think about Christopher. He came to her mind almost every day, but that was just a fleeting thought here and there. No, on her birthday, she thought about what life had been like when he'd been with her. The day they met. The day he first kissed her. They night they first stole away to the woods and he put his jacket down on the ground beside an enormous tree and held her in his arms and made love to her the first time. Happy memories. She wanted happy memories on her birthday.
But of course, the happy memories were so few. She had been missing him for so long. The life she'd had with Christopher had only lasted nineteen months. She'd figured it out once. Five hundred seventy-two days from when she'd first met him until the day he died. And it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she'd only had one birthday with him and one hundred twenty-seven of them alone.
This birthday, however, had not felt as lonely as ones past. Lucien had been so kind. That beautiful gift. It was a gift he'd bought before the war and had intended to give to his wife. He'd saved it for so long, holding on to that connection to the past. And he'd chosen to give it to Jean. She could hardly think of what that meant. That he'd thought of her as worthy of a gift so dear? Jean hardly felt worthy. And yet she treasured it more than she could say. She wore that brooch on her birthday and Lucien had smiled to see it pinned to her blouse. And his smile had caused a fluttering in her belly that she'd not felt on her birthday in one hundred twenty-seven years.
There was, however, a very unfortunate side effect of Lucien being so sweet to her on her birthday. The brooch was not just a birthday gift. It was not just a symbol of his appreciation and affection for her as his housekeeper. It was a sign of a new beginning. He seemed determined to be better at not taking her for granted. Being more helpful. Being more involved.
True, she had been particularly prickly immediately after their difficulty with Sergeant Hannam. Jean had wanted to deflect and dissuade his interest in how exactly she'd managed to subdue the murderous man so easily. And it was easy. As easy as controlling and altering the memories of any person she fed from. Any person she met. Every person, actually, except Lucien. She had tried to alter his memory so that he would have the same story in his head that she'd given Hannam. That would have made everything quite simple. But she still could not read him. Trying to access his mind was like trying to access the mind of the sofa cushions; Jean was blocked from Lucien the same way she was blocked from an object without a mind at all. It was absolutely infuriating. She'd had to be so much more careful thanks to his attention.
And now he paid even more attention! He'd gone back to that old technique from when his father was alive when he would practically insist on joining her at the market. If she worried at all about what people thought of her, she'd be absolutely appalled by the idea of passersby thinking that Jean Beazley was so inept as a housekeeper that her employer had to do the shopping with her. Thankfully she was able to distract everyone they came across, and if any of them did speak to Lucien, Jean made sure they promptly forgot about the interaction. She could not have people thinking there was something unusual about her. People talking, people making conjectures, people spreading rumors, these were all things that would necessitate another move. And Jean did not want to move. She liked Ballarat, she liked living and working in the Blake house. She would not put her position in danger by the threat of people growing too curious.
For better or worse, the only person who seemed to be curious about her at the moment was Lucien. And there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Jean had done her best to guard herself, exhausting as it was. She was out of practice being so contained. With everyone else, she could react as she pleased and then just change their memories of events. Not so with Lucien. She had even worried about him seeing her go out to the garden to stand under the moonlight. Normally, she liked to go renew her powers every other night. She'd limited herself to once each week now. It really should have been done more frequently, as she'd noticed that using her powers tired her out more than it should have. But maybe that was due to the other problem.
Really, it was the main problem. The reason that Lucien's added courtesy and attention had been so difficult to bear. He was noticing her too much for her to be able to feed with any regularity. Jean had taken to just searching for an opportunity and taking it whenever she could. If Lucien was out with the police, she could slip out of the house. But not if he was home and not even if he was with a patient in the surgery. There was just too much risk of him noticing and asking what she was doing or—even worse—following her out.
As a result, it had now been ten long days since she had last gotten life-giving blood into her mouth. True, she did not need to feed as often as mortal humans needed. Even in the best of times, she only usually fed once each day at the most. She'd gone down to twice per week when Doctor Blake had first gotten very sick and needed her presence almost constantly before Mattie had moved into the house to care for him.
But ten days was beyond what she'd ever experienced before. And it was having dire effects. Jean was tired. She was irritable. She was weak. She was dizzy at times. And, worst of all, she was in pain. More pain than she'd been in since she herself had been mortal. Jean did not even know that she could even feel pain like this anymore. It was agony with every breath and every movement. She couldn't even sleep. Sleep was usually a luxury rather than a need; she could go days or weeks without sleep if necessary but she liked to sleep as a way of escaping the world for a few hours. There was no escape now. Nothing could stop the pain. She needed blood. She might be close to death, if such a thing was possible. She didn't actually know. She'd never thought about it before. She had never been in any position to wonder if she could die. It had never felt so close.
Now, though, Jean was quite certain that she would die without blood. Her body was attacking itself, surely. She would die of starvation or whatever her equivalent would be. And ever second until she expired would be pure agony. That she knew for certain. The pain would not be gone until there was no life left to wring out of her.
Jean had to do something. The house was mercifully empty with Mattie doing her district nursing rounds and Lucien attending an autopsy. No one would be home for an hour at least. This was the perfect opportunity for Jean to feed.
Well, it would have been if she had been able to feed. As it was, Jean could barely stand up. She stumbled through the house, bumping into walls and grabbing furniture in order to keep herself from falling. Whimpers fell from her lips uncontrolled. The pain was absolutely unbearable. Had she pushed too far? Was she so far gone that blood would not help her? No, it must. It must be able to help. The blood was all she needed.
Jean's heart beat quickly and weakly. There was black creeping into the corners of her vision. Was she crying? Her face felt hot and her eyes were blurry from tears or else delirium. She needed to…she didn't know what she needed to do. She needed blood. But there was no way she could go out and find someone to feed from in this state. She could hardly walk. She could hardly breathe.
Clutching at the wall like a drunkard, Jean paused, trying to catch her breath. She inhaled as deeply as she could through her nose and did her best to ignore the debilitating pain of that simple action. But then she caught it. Faint, but it was there. She could smell…blood.
It was across the room. To the left. She had to find it. She had to get to it. She had to find a way. Jean took a couple shaky steps, but her legs collapse beneath her, and she fell hard onto the floor, moaning with yet more pain. From there, Jean had to crawl. She dragged herself across the floor, grunting with the ungodly effort that was required of her. But the scent grew stronger. She was getting closer.
Jean hardly noticing where she was going, just focused single-mindedly on her dire need for blood and knowing it was near. Her ears were ringing. Her limbs were far too heavy for her to continue for much longer. She crossed a threshold into another room and finally saw the glittering, beautiful sight of deep red. Blood. In small little glass jars. Just ready for her to swallow down in one go each.
She reached up to the wooden holder for the small vials, but her movements were clumsy. As she grabbed one, the others came crashing down. Jean did not notice the broken glass. She tipped the vial back into her mouth.
And then everything was gone.