Sunday, 2 November 1800. 10:35 p.m.
Seldes gazed contemplatively at the cleared area behind the house. Yes, a vegetable garden would look lovely right about......there. He knew Ben wanted the area to the left for a flower garden. It was one of the many things they had discussed in the kitchen the previous night.
Flowers were pretty enough, but Seldes preferred vegetables. Not that he ate them or sold them or anything. It just made him feel good to create something so useful. Food was a wonderful thing. So many vampires no longer realized that.
He remembered his old vegetable garden inside the Warren. The area he had planted it in was officially off limits, mainly because it was in the bottom of an old well and the sun hit the bottom during the day. But that was perfect for him. He could tend the garden at night, and in the day it would get all the sunlight it needed.
And to tell the truth, that was another reason it had to be a vegetable garden. A flower garden would have attracted too much attention. Though the villagers didn't use the well anymore, some children still liked to play around it. From a distance, vegetables could be mistaken for weeds, while if the children had seen flowers down at the bottom of the well, they might have crawled down to get a better look. And you simply could not have small kids crawling into a Nosferatu Warren.
Anyway, it was those kids and their families that got the vegetables once they were ripe. Seldes always used to sneak into the village late at night and leave the produce on the doorsteps of some of the more run-down homes. Though money would have been taken immediately, no one ever seemed to steal food. It was odd where the humans placed their priorities. Even his own clanmates didn't approve of him doing that, though. But those people were suffering, and Seldes just couldn't help but try to do something about it.
Bleeding heart liberal that he was.
Well then. His vegetables would go over there. Maybe he and Ben could plant some trees around the outside too. Not the big evergreens that surrounded the. Maybe something like an apple tree....
"Hi!"
Seldes jumped about a foot in the air. "Oh....hello Cathy."
The Brujah smiled. "You know, I was trying to bond with Maria, cause she's my partner and all, but she kicked me out of the room. So yeah. I came out here. What're you doing?"
"I was thinking about planting a garden. Over there." Seldes pointed to the corner he had been examining.
"Oh, cool! Hey, the Ventrue chick said something about going down to Geneva tomorrow night! Maybe you can buy seeds and stuff."
"Really?" Seldes was surprised. "Geneva's really not all that close..."
"Yeah, I know, but I think we're gonna go early tomorrow night and then stay the day at this factory of hers. That's the real reason she wants to go. To check it out. Man, those guys are richer than god."
Seldes nodded placatingly. "Well, with all the new gadgets they've got coming out these days, there's lots of opportunities to make money."
"Then how come I don't have any?" Cathy crossed her arms in annoyance. Then in an abrupt change of subject: "Hey, did you see anything weird in the icebox this evening?"
"Um....what do you mean by weird?"
"Like...clocks. Little clocks in the ice. It was so weird......"
"That....is" Seldes agreed.
They both paused at the sound of maniacal laughter coming from the house.....