I know, I know, I'm late... What can I say, I've been busy and I forgot it's been three weeks since the last update.
First off, I want to thank those of you who reviewed, followed, and faved this story. Seriously, your support means a lot to me :)
And second, I owe many thanks to my wonderful Beta Reader, FateMagician. I hope you're not getting tired of hearing (well, reading) it because there is still a lot of chapters left before the end of this story ^^
The title comes from Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida, act 2, scene 3.
Enola looked around with curiosity as Katrina led her to the kitchen. At least Abraham had taken care to ensure Katrina's comfort: the place was well-furnished, though anciently so. Paintings hung on the walls, baubles and books filled the shelves, and all of them tasteful—she had to grant him that, at least. Candlesticks and candelabras, scattered atop pedestal tables and cabinets, fought off the gloom caused by the shuttered windows. Katrina's scent of soap and herbs pervaded the rooms, as did Abraham's—it had changed, Enola noticed immediately. The blood was still there, which made sense given the gaping wound where his head was supposed to be, but the dirt and the rotten wood had faded in favour of wood fire, forest, and a hint of... hay? Oh, right, his horse. They were, however, still heavily laced with the cold smell of death.
"So, how are you?" Enola inquired, putting her helmet on the plain wooden table in the middle of the kitchen while Katrina set about brewing tea.
The witch gave a sigh that Enola, who was busy removing her coat and her scarf to drape them over the back of a chair, recognized immediately. She had answered her parents with the same one every time they had asked her that question after Cyrille.
"Ah, let me guess," she said with a soft smirk, leaning against a cabinet and folding her arms. "You're fine physically, but mentally, it's complicated."
Katrina smiled faintly and cast a scrutinizing glance at the vampire as she carefully pulled from a cupboard a mahogany tray carrying an exquisite blue-and-white porcelain tea set.
"I'm afraid you are correct," she acknowledged, laying the tray on the table and removing four of the six cups from it. "It is trying to return to the world I have longed for after such a long time, only to be denied access to it. But there are much greater things at stake than my own contentment. That is why I chose to remain here, and that is a decision I must now abide by."
"I know, and I promise we'll make sure you won't have to endure Sir Scowls-A-Lot's company for nothing."
That drew a wider smile from the witch who was busy filling a heavy iron kettle with water from a tall pewter jug.
"Sir Scowls-A-Lot?" she repeated, amusement twinkling in her eyes.
"Well, he keeps glaring at me. Uh, sorry, is there anything I can do?'
"Yes, you can put the leaves into the teapot. The caddy is over there, on the bottom shelf. And I suspect that he glares at you because you are his enemy."
"Pretty sure it has more to do with the fact that I can actually beat him in a fight," Enola bantered as she retrieved the mahogany box from where it sat.
She placed it on the table next to the tray and opened it, revealing two other boxes, each closed by a lid with a brass knob. The first contained black tea leaves, and the second green ones on top of which lay a silver spoon with a short handle and a wide shell-shaped bowl. The light, fresh scent of the green tea leaves mingled with the rich, floral scent of the black ones in a heady combination that slowly spread throughout the kitchen.
"Green or black?" she asked with a glance at Katrina.
"Green, if you don't mind. You are most likely correct—Abraham's pride was always easily wounded."
"Yeah, that's what got him into this clusterf– this mess in the first place," Enola mumbled, dumping two spoonfuls of green leaves into the teapot before closing the caddy and returning it to its place.
Katrina brought the water in the heavy iron kettle to a boiling point with a flick of her fingers and poured it into the teapot from which a plume of vapour rose. It was quickly broken by the lid that the witch placed atop the pot with a soft clink.
"I am sorry, but there is no milk, only sugar," she said with an apologetic gaze. "I do not have any biscuits either."
"That's all right," Enola replied with a dismissive wave. "I never put anything in my tea and vampires can't eat solid food—makes us sick."
"I see. Ah, would you mind if we had tea in my bedroom? It is the only room where the shutters are open. Unless... you prefer the dark?"
"No, it's fine. The sky's all cloudy, anyway."
Katrina picked up the tray and headed for her room, followed by Enola. The latter had to open the door for her and pale grey light streamed into the dim corridor, forcing Enola to blink as her eyes adjusted to the change in luminosity. She closed the door behind them while the witch placed the tray on her vanity, and then she helped her move a pair of armchairs covered in faded green tapestry next to the vanity—Katrina had to push aside the cushioned stool that stood in front of it.
"You said that Abraham's excessive pride was the cause of his downfall," Katrina began once they were settled in the armchairs with a hot cup of tea in their hands. "But I believe I am partly responsible. It was my decision to marry Ichabod instead of him that provoked him into taking on the mantle of the Horseman."
"Aw, come on, not you too!" Enola huffed, throwing her free hand in the air.
"Me too?" Katrina repeated with a puzzled frown.
"Yeah, Ichabod said something similar. Anyway, what was the alternative, hm? Marry Abraham anyway and condemn yourself to decades of misery? Or break off the engagement but not marry Ichabod? Deprive yourself and him of happiness just to spare Abraham's inflated ego? That's ridiculous!"
"We were selfish, Enola. We never considered his happiness, only ours."
"You wanted to be with the one you loved! That's not being selfish, that's being human! Besides, do you really think being bound for the rest of his life to someone who didn't and would never have loved him would've made him happy? Look, your decision wasn't his to control—but his reaction to it was. He could've chosen to move on and to look for happiness elsewhere, and maybe also to think about what he'd done wrong. That's what any mature person would've done. Instead, he chose to blame someone else for his mistakes and to cling to something he couldn't have. And now he's stuck trying to change the past, which is impossible. That's on him, and not on you."
For a long moment, after she stopped talking, her words seemed to hang in the air, weighing down the silence as they waited to be acknowledged and processed—as they practically dared Katrina to contradict them. The witch was staring at Enola with an inscrutable look on her face, her cup raised halfway to her lips, and Enola was staring right back, her intent gaze filled with conviction and a residue of the frustration that had fuelled her speech—Katrina suspected that the latter was directed as much at Abraham than at her.
"You feel very strongly about this," the witch commented after taking a sip of tea and returning the cup to its saucer.
Enola immediately noticed that she wasn't concurring with her—nor differing, so perhaps there was hope.
"Well, of course I do," she retorted. "Abraham kidnapped you, and now he's holding you prisoner and keeping you from practicing magic—it's not right!"
"No, it is not, but we shall try and make the best of this situation."
"Yeah, I know," the vampire sighed with a displeased frown, raking a hand through her hair.
Then she huffed out a rueful laugh and shook her head.
"Sorry, I came here to try to cheer you up, but I think I'm doing it all wrong. Let's change the subject, yes?"
"Very well," Katrina agreed with a soft smile.
They spent the next hour bombarding each other with questions about their respective kinds, though Enola carefully avoided revealing anything about the ways to weaken and kill a vampire, just in case Abraham was keeping his ears a bit too open. They compared the condition of women in the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, exchanged their opinions about art, and argued about fashion—Enola didn't hesitate to take off her jumper and her T-shirt to display her bra, whereupon Katrina agreed that it indeed looked much more comfortable than a corset. The vampire also promised she'd come back with history books borrowed from the high school library, so Katrina could catch up on everything that had happened during her imprisonment.
Enola noticed that the witch didn't laugh easily: she would smile, sometimes chuckle quietly, but she never really laughed. She spoke in a hushed voice as if she were still in Purgatory and feared Moloch would hear her. I suppose a two-century-long habit dies hard. There was still something… haunted at the bottom of her pale green eyes: the memories of her time in Purgatory were still clinging to her, and probably brought her back there when she slept. Although, the fact that she wasn't completely crazed by the two centuries spent in that hellish place testified of her strength of mind, and Enola admired her for this.
As for Katrina, she was quite surprised by the contrast between the young woman sitting in front of her and the one she had met in Purgatory—nervous, impatient, irritable. Now she was talking with ease, all wry smiles and sarcastic humour. When the conversation broached a topic she took to heart, her eyes would blaze, and her hands come alive. In these moments, she radiated energy as if her body were too small to contain it. She didn't laugh, however, and Katrina surmised that it had something to do with the vampire who had turned her. The witch had asked her about him but she had tensed up, a scowl darkening her face, and she had categorically refused to answer.
Those bursts of energy both charmed and worried Katrina no end, for they made her suspect that the vampire was as short-tempered as Abraham—or close to it. She gave a mental sigh of resignation: those two in the same house were an explosion waiting to happen, and sooner rather than later, given that Enola intended to make her visits a habit. When it did happen, it would be spectacular and Katrina had no doubt that it would result in physical violence. Abraham did so hate to be proven wrong and, quite frankly, there wasn't much he could say in defence of his actions—if anything at all.
When Enola left, the night was falling. She returned the next evening after school and, as she had promised, she brought a couple of history books, an art book, and several novels, plays, and poetry books from her own collection. She had also cooked Katrina's dinner, a generous batch of madeleines and another of amaretti. The witch's protests were, naturally, met with unwavering stubbornness.
"It's food money I don't need for myself, and anyway, I miss cooking," the vampire stated in a tone that brooked no argument. "Seriously, this is not going to stop, so you'd better just accept it."
Katrina, sensing that she'd be better served beating her head against a wall, wisely decided to drop the matter and contented herself with thanking her self-appointed cook. Besides, to be completely honest, her resistance had mostly been for the sake of form. As for the genuine part, it had been swiftly overcome by the delicious smells and the golden skin of the madeleines.
The vampire then proceeded to open all the windows and shutters, much to Abraham's annoyance, and he too failed to deter her from her course.
"If you don't like the fresh air, go and barricade yourself into your room," she snapped as she pushed the shutters of the living room window against the exterior wall. "I'm doing this as much for Katrina's comfort as for mine."
"Someone could see the light!" her enemy shot back, glaring a hole in her back and most definitely not noticing the way her trousers hugged her backside.
Enola turned around and folded her arms, levelling an inflexible gaze at him.
"Then I'll compel them to leave and forget what they saw. But no one comes this way, anyway."
Abraham let out an inarticulate noise that sounded very much like a frustrated growl and an amused smile flitted on the young vampire's lips.
"Relax, I'll close everything in ten minutes," she said, patting his arm as she passed him on her way to retrieve the books she had brought.
"Five."
"Seven, and that's my final offer."
This time, Katrina and she settled in the living room where a fire was burning. Two sofas and two square-back armchairs with carved wooden frames and plump cushions were placed in a 'U' in front of the hearth—the sofas flanking the fireplace, facing each other with a marble-topped coffee table between them, and the armchairs facing the hearth. The witch and the vampire sat down in one of the sofas and the history lesson began.
Abraham chose to stay at home that night to keep an eye on his unwanted guest. He didn't want her to turn Katrina against him, not when he was so close to having the witch all for himself. He grabbed a book from his own collection to look busy and sat down in an armchair, where he had Enola in his line of sight. What he hadn't planned was that he'd be actually interested in the history lesson. That and Enola's clear voice, so different from Katrina's soft one, didn't help him focus—or even pretend to focus—on his book, which irked him profoundly. He stole regular glances at her, noticing almost against his own will the way the firelight gilded her fair skin and set off the maroon hue of her hair, and the enthusiasm she radiated as she instructed Katrina.
When the critical part of his mind finally caught up with exactly what he was doing, he scowled at himself. She wasn't the one he was supposed to be looking at, for Moloch's sake! He'd have to find something nasty to say to her… Maybe that would put his ideas back in place. As soon as the vampire declared the history class was over for this evening and began to show Katrina the literature she had brought, Abraham all but fled the room, which earned him a surprised glance from both women.
Unfortunately for him, his torments weren't over yet. He was pacing his bedroom, kindling his anger towards Enola by calling to his mind the pain when she had broken his legs, her inhuman face when she was about to rip his heart out, the blazing delight in her red-blood eyes at the idea of doing so, when his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by… well, he assumed it was music. Or at least it was supposed to be music. He barrelled through the house, stormed into the kitchen where the noise was coming from and stopped so abruptly he might as well have hit a wall.
Katrina was perched atop a stool near the table, a mixture of amusement and perplexity on her face as she observed Enola, who was standing at the table, pouring the content of a transparent container into a small iron pot—it appeared to be soup. She had removed her long dark blue cardigan, which left her in a white blouse tucked into her tight trousers, and she was singing along in a warm, rich voice—sultry, his inner voice whispered insidiously, and he smothered it mercilessly.
"Nothing else can hurt us now,
No loss, our love's been hung on a cross.
Nothing seems to make a sound,
And now it's all so clear somehow.
Nothing really matters now,
Now we're gone and on our way."
And as she sung, her hips swayed gracefully to the rhythm of the music, catching her thighs and her bust in their movement, and irresistibly drawing his eyes to them even while his higher brain functions railed at his lack of self-control. Mind you, self-control had never been his strong suit.
"Now she's gone love burns inside me,
Now she's gone love burns inside me,
Now she's gone love burns inside me."
She picked up the pot and danced to the hearth where a small fire was burning. Her hand rose above her head, wrist twisting elegantly and fingers unfurling languidly, then came back down, elbow and wrist bending as her hand traced a wave that died on her thigh. She hung the pot over the fire, grabbed a wooden spoon from a nearby worktop and stirred the soup for a few seconds, her hips still swaying.
"She cuts my skin and bruise my lips,
She's everything to me.
She tears my clothes and burns my eyes,
She's all I want to see.
She brings the cold and scars my soul,
She's heaven sent to me."
She twirled around, her arm reaching out as she did, and froze for a split second when she met his nonplussed eyes before going on her merry way.
"Something the matter?" she inquired, laying the spoon on the lid of the container she had emptied.
Her tone was polite but there was a glint of mockery in her eyes, as if she knew exactly what he'd been eyeing. It struck his pride like flint and ignited his anger, a wildfire that roared through his veins and urged him to burn the woman foolish enough to provoke him.
"Yes, there is," he ground out. "What is that noise?"
Enola scowled and folded her arms defiantly.
"It's not noise, it's Love Burns by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It's great!"
Abraham decided to abstain from commenting on the nonsensical name of what he assumed was a music group, and glared at the vampire even harder instead.
"And where is it coming from ?" he asked disdainfully.
"From this," she replied, pointing at a small black rectangular box with a metal shell and the word BOSE on one side that sat on the table. "It's a wireless speaker. Very useful. I'll bring it back tomorrow."
What?! She was going to keep on polluting his home with more modern cacophony?!
"Is it a modern custom to invade someone's home and to make a nuisance of oneself?" he finally snapped.
She froze at the insult and, much to his satisfaction, her narrowed eyes flared up—his anger was baying for a fight and it seemed he would have it. Enola jabbed the power button of the speaker and in the sudden silence, the tension that crackled in the air became extremely obvious. Katrina sat stiff with trepidation, her eyes nervously travelling between the two enemies, but something kept her silent and glued to her spot. Curiosity, her mind whispered. She wanted to see which of the two formidable creatures would prevail in the verbal fight that had broken out.
"And is it an eighteenth-century custom to abduct women and imprison them in one's home?" Enola hissed, prowling towards the Horseman until she stood barely three feet from him.
Abraham stiffened—ooh, touché—and opened his mouth to reply but the vampire beat him to the punch.
"And don't tell me Katrina's not a prisoner here," she continued. "She can't get out, she can't practice her magic, she's afraid because she has no idea what Moloch is planning to do with her. I'm pretty sure that's an accurate description. And you dare to say you love her!"
She scoffed and shook her head, her face the very picture of scorn.
"Obviously you know nothing about love! When you really love someone, you put their happiness before your own, before anything else! You… You're keeping Katrina from her husband, from the world, from her magic. She endured Purgatory for two and a half centuries for your sake, waiting to be claimed like some kind of prize!"
The inhuman growl she let out had a strange chittering undertone to it and when she slammed her fist on the table, everything on it—the containers of homemade food, the speaker, the soup plate, and the cutlery—jumped a good inch in the air.
"It's not your feelings she wounded when she broke off your engagement, it's your fucking pride!" she snarled. "The only reason why you want her as your bride is to heal it! You just want her by your side so you can pretend that nothing happened, that she has always been yours, yours, YOURS!"
She had roared the last word so ferociously that Katrina cringed. As for Abraham, if there had been blood to be drained from his face, he would have been ashen. His hands were balled into white-knuckled fists that shook from the force with which he was clenching them. An icy chill was rolling off him in skin-biting waves that weakened the fire into a few shuddering flames, allowing the shadows to spill from their hiding places and crowd around them.
"You think she's your property, don't you?!" Enola shouted, indifferent to the sinister atmosphere, her human mask starting to slip. "You showered her with expensive jewels, as if it could buy her affection—did you even bother to try to find out what would really please her? Of course not, because everyone knows that all women like jewelry, right? You didn't understand a thing about her, did you? You still don't! And then you blamed Ichabod for her choices?! The only one to blame was you!"
Her curled-up lip was showing her now fully lengthened fangs and her eyes had turned red.
"But that didn't even occur to you, huh? No, you're too proud to even consider having made a mistake! Too proud to suck it up and move on like a fucking adult! Screw everyone else's feelings, Mr. Van Brunt had to get what he wanted! Well, I've got news for you: no one gets everything they want, not even rich entitled pricks like you. It's called life. You can rant and rave all you want, but–"
"Enough!" the Horseman bellowed, swinging his fist at the vampire.
It didn't strike her face but her palm as she caught it in a vice-like grip. The other one suffered the same fate when it came sailing at her, and although her fingertips only just covered his knuckles, his efforts to pull his hands free were futile.
"That's the only answer you can come up with?" she scoffed. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised."
"I said, enough!"
"Yeah, you're right, that's enough."
A strong shove sent him stumbling backward.
"Go away," Enola hissed venomously as he regained his balance.
"No need to tell me twice," he spat before stomping out of the kitchen.
He took the cold with him, which let the fire spring back to life and push the shadows away. A few seconds later, the main door was slammed shut with a resounding crack that had Katrina flinch instinctively. Enola puffed out her cheeks and let out a long breath as the tension left her body.
"Sorry for talking about you as if you weren't here," she sighed, turning to Katrina and propping her hands on her hips. "I've wanted to say this to him for a long time. Besides, I think he needed to hear it. Maybe it'll prompt him to do some introspection. Although it may be too much to hope for… We'll see, I suppose."
Katrina opened her mouth to reply but the horror that suddenly washed over Enola's face interrupted her.
"The soup!" the vampire screeched, all but lunging at the pot hanging over the fire.
A careful glance and a quick sniff were enough to ensure that the soup wasn't reduced to a blackened goo at the bottom of the pot, or anywhere near that state. In fact, it was just hot enough to be served, prompting Enola to spare a reluctantly grateful thought for Abraham's cold aura.
"He did care for me, you know," Katrina commented while Enola removed the pot from the hearth, a cloth wrapped around the handle to protect her hand. "Even now he makes sure that I am comfortable."
"How generous of him," the vampire snarked, carrying the pot to the table. "Anyway, sure, maybe there's a man beneath the monster. Really, really deep beneath."
She bent over to fish her bottle of bourbon from the backpack she had used to transport the books and the food, while Katrina helped herself to the soup.
"So what?" she went on, fetching a glass from a nearby cabinet. "It'd take an army of psychologists to dig him out from under that mountain of pride, anger, and selfishness. Although, I doubt they'd be brave enough to go near him, even if we tied him down."
She settled on the stool on the opposite side of the table from Katrina and half-filled her glass under the witch's thoughtful gaze.
"Do you really think that bringing his humanity to the surface is impossible?"
"I don't know, and honestly, I don't care much," Enola replied after taking a sip of bourbon. "But if that's your goal, I'd better stop coming here. I seem to bring out his most violent side."
"On the contrary, you should keep visiting," Katrina countered with a pointed glance at the vampire. "You remind him that he is not all-powerful and that not everyone fears him. You can also tell him things that I cannot afford to if I wish to preserve my cover."
"You mean you want me to keep trouncing him and yelling at him?" Enola smirked before raising her glass towards Katrina. "You've got yourself a deal."
For the first time since they'd met, the witch let out a genuine laugh that, although short-lived, was enough to draw one from the vampire. The rest of the evening was spent in pleasant conversation, while deep in the forest, three unfortunate campers quite literally lost their heads to the Horseman's fury.
An army of psychologists… or one beautiful, stubborn, short-tempered, sarcastic vampire ^^ I'm afraid we're not there yet, however.
Do you know, Enola's rant is what prompted me to write this story in the first place… When I first watched the show, Abraham's selfishness, his pride, and his refusal to accept responsibility for his own choices annoyed the hell out of me. I just wanted to… throw everything I thought of him to his face, and thus Enola was born :)
Anyway… only eleven rewiews to go before one hundred! It was my birthday last week, so…. how about a belated present?
I'll update in three weeks and after that, you'll have to wait because the next chapters aren't edited yet.