Sadness, that's what she felt; a profound sadness, its damp and weighty feeling all too familiar and exhausting, as though it were a water-logged sheet that shrouded her body, never to grow warm or to lose its thickness. It had always been there, though its presence had never been as noticeable as it was now. Its sudden leap in intensity no doubt brought on by the murders, vampires and her internal struggle with this new reality. And Vincent? She did not blame him at all; saw, it was because of his gentle nature that her unhappiness had lessened all those months ago.
Even the quaint shop fronts and brightly coloured markets did little to ease her sadness. Her eyes sweeping across each window-pane, regarding the trinkets and produce one after another, none of them evoking in her a sense of interest as she looked on through the veil of her detachment. And as she walked she saw, staring back at her, the reflection of herself. She would have gasped if her mouth allowed it, but her lips remained shut, pressed tight in horror. Is this how she appeared to others? With her gaunt face and grey eyes that peered through black circles of tired flesh, the only splash of colour coming from her dark-red hair. How different she looked from when she first sat opposite Vincent's mirror, where her cheeks were warm and plump and her face radiated with curiosity. She turned away suddenly, horrified by her visage, and hurried onward. Her feet carrying her forward through the crowds and in between stalls like a woman frenzied.
Then, she stopped and turned to her right, her eyes drifting up towards the shop sign as though they were being pulled by a string. The large green font displaying her father's name beside a painting of a large, over-fed swine, with its mouth jammed open and choked with apples. She inhaled nervously, feeling her chest rise then fall in a single motion, followed by her hand pushing the door open, her ears full with the sound of a delicate brass bell before ending with a thump. The air was feverishly cold, enough for beads of water to collect on the surfaces and trickle down as though the very walls were sweating, and in front of her, in a great glass display, lay fresh cuts of meat, the fat marbling the flesh like veins.
She remained there in silence, her body shifting in place, poised to leave at a moment's notice. 'What would he think of me for turning up unannounced, after all these years?' Then, from behind a door, a short old man wandered in with his hands full of parchment parcels; his apron strings cutting into his flesh like butchers twine. The light glinting off of the fine halo of hair that crowned his head.
"Eva?" He looked up through his glasses, his features at once growing soft with disbelief.
For a while they stood there, neither one speaking, neither one stepping forward to embrace the other as tears collected in his eyes and warped their icy blue pools. Yet, as she looked on, the more unreadable his expression became, as though his emotions battled one another to remain on his weary face. There was sadness, there was a relief, but most painfully of all, there was betrayal. It tugged at the corners of his mouth and sharpened the arches of his brow. She saw it and did not wish to see it, did not wish to feel the pain that she had caused him and felt the soft press of his stomach as she all but collapsed onto him, her arms wrapping instinctively around his shoulders.
She couldn't begin to imagine what he felt, what he thought of her for walking into his shop after having not seen him in 6 years.
"I thought you hated me . . ." He stammered out, his voice but a whisper through his sobs.
She shook her head, her throat now becoming tight and dry as her cries threatened to break her completely.
"No . . ." She whispered, her voice breaking, "No . . . I don't hate you . . . How could I? You should hate me after everything I've done." She nuzzled her face into the fabric of his shoulder and let out a few raspy cries, her hands gripping his shirt with the same desperate intensity as her grief held her, as though holding him would dispel her of these feelings and they would be at ease again.
"Sit down." He said, guiding her to the side of the room where a shabby bench lay and she sank into it. He bent down slowly beside her, his hands trembling as they reached to support his legs and gently rolled back into the chair, finally exhaling as he came to rest with his head against the wall. She felt a sudden bolt of sadness as she watched him, as if his condition struck her a blow to the cheek, and left her reeling. She hated to see him this way, with his trembling limbs and laboured breathing; an unwelcome reminder of his age and fragile mortality. How different he was from Vincent. This only worsened her sense of guilt, of all those years wasted, consumed by a petty sense of justice, of righteousness . . .
Tears gathered in her eyes again and she began to speak, but before the words left her lips he raised his palm, blocking any attempt for her to speak. This stopped her immediately.
"What's done is done," He said, his thick country accent bringing her back to a time long gone, where her tiny, child feet sunk into the wells his welly boots left behind on the farm path, "What matters now is that you're here." With that, he hugged her shoulder and offered her a smile, a smile that seemed to grow larger and more mischievous with every passing second. "What have you been doin' all these years?" He teased and playfully squeezed her arm. She shook her head and offered him a small, forced smile, her face quickly regaining its melancholy gleam. She couldn't believe his reaction. How quickly he pushed everything aside, as though all those years alone meant nothing to him and left no lasting effect. He must be mad or else his capacity for forgiveness knew no bounds, and he was almost incapable of feeling despair, unlike herself.
He reached out for her palm then and enveloped it with his own before giving it a reassuring pat. "You've changed," He affirmed softly and bent to meet her gaze, his eyes fixing on the network of veins that webbed her pupils. "You look ill, what's the matter?"
She looked away suddenly, knowing that if she spoke a cry so loud and so wild would break free, taking with it her ability to speak rational, coherent thoughts. "There's so much . . . I want . . . to tell you." She whispered between broken sobs before swallowing suddenly, her throat now tight and painfully dry. "Look," She said now pulling on some reserve, some sense of drive, "I wanted to warn you because I'm worried. . . Have you not heard about the murders?"
He flinched at the mention of 'murders' and glanced away, nodding slightly. "A young fella told me, a doctor." He said whilst breathing in a sigh, oblivious to Evangeline who began to sink lower in her seat. He couldn't begin to imagine the effect his words had on her.
"A doctor." She repeated. Her face growing paler by the moment.
"Yeah. Nice man . . . a bloody loony, though; always orders the strangest things - He asked for a whole bucket of pig's blood that day. . . I'll tell you - as nice as he is - he's the one to watch out for if the murders don't stop!" He exclaimed and wrung his hands.
Oh, the irony of it, how perfectly oblivious he was. She would have laughed at his words if they had been directed towards someone else, someone other than Vincent. The accidental accuracy of his suspicion disarmed her so completely that she could barely speak. As much as it pained her, she had to admit that he was right, that her father spoke perfect sense. Vincent's affectionate nature could no longer prevent him from being considered a suspect.
"Pig's blood?" She said now cupping her face. He couldn't understand the reason for her distress, and she was reluctant to tell him the truth.
"Yes. Why? What's the matter?" He asked this with such a level of innocence that she weakened and couldn't begin to entertain discussing vampires with him. He had always been a superstitious, god-fearing man, but he would not believe in the supernatural. She was certain of it. If he believed it, he would tell others, if not sober then he would drunk, and she couldn't risk this knowledge being spread along the coast - not yet.
She thought for a moment before shaking her head. "It doesn't matter. You wouldn't believe me, anyway."
It was then that she realised she had made a grave mistake because her father, as mellow and innocent as he was, began questioning her intently; disregarding all boundaries she tried to enforce and the more she refused him the more desperate he grew until, finally, he became frantic and demanded to know what all this was about. How this all relates to the murders and if 'the doctor' was involved. But she refused to speak and sat in silence with him, facing away from his gaze with her hand partially entangled in her hair. She was at a loss. What was she supposed to tell him? If she told him nothing he would become suspicious of her and increasingly distrustful of Vincent.
"God sake. . ." She whispered under her breath, now removing her hand from her hair. "I don't even know how to begin. . . and if you tell other people, god, I-I can't think what will happen." She pressed her hands to her cheeks again, caught up in that inner turmoil, her inner struggle. Where in one hand the fate of the investigation and the safety vampires lay in her hands alone, but in the other, the prospect of confiding in another that vampires were real and that she was not insane seemed so inviting that she could barely resist.
"I can't tell you here," She began and slowly guided him towards the back of the shop, warning him that he must not tell a soul and that this was of the utmost importance. He nodded and gave her his word, his eyes welling with excitement and uncertainty as she walked him past the freezer, its reflective gleam catching her eye. She almost stopped when the smell of freshly frozen meat filled her nostrils, its pungent scent no longer nostalgic. Instead, it had become somewhat unpleasant. It reminded her of the mortuary; of the cold, metallic environment that was not too dissimilar from the butchery, where the steel hatches locked away, a being that was once alive but now frozen in time. It was then that another smell, more pungent than the first, caught the breeze. It seemed familiar, and she felt her stomach grow sharp with anxiety.
Not knowing where it was coming from, she envisioned herself approaching the freezer door, her feet making large but tentative steps towards it before halting. Her eyes widened with fear as felt her shoes become damp, liquid too sticky and too warm to be that of water. A strangled cry caught in her throat as her eyes met with the ground and she could only watch in horror as the rouge puddle advanced across the linoleum floor, coating every nook and cranny as though it were Tar. In a panic, she jerked the freezer handle up and forced her way through the door, the blast of cold air stinging her eyes so that they watered. The sound of frequent dripping echoed in her ears as she stood there, blinking rapidly at the gathering of shadows that formed a shapeless mass in front of her eyes. And the longer she stared, the more it took shape, splitting into three separate shadows before resembling three humanoid figures. It was then that she realised what they were. Corpses bound hand and foot, all three strung on meat hooks with their throats punctured and bleeding. The first two had fallen victim to this nameless killer - she had seen them before - their faces formed a perfect mask of their last moments, capturing their struggle and tenacity to live, but the third was alive. And she all but collapsed as she recognised him as her father with his eyes rolled up into his skull, his body still writhing. Then from the shadows, a tall, finely dressed man with raven hair and pale skin stepped forward, his silken hand holding a crystal tumbler to the stream of blood before taking a sip. He smiled as though he were tasting a glass of fine wine and rested his gaze on her, wearing a look of superiority, and with a simple gesture of his hand, he tapped his watch, his thin fingers tapping out the rhythm of a heart.
She heard a muffled voice speak her name, but before she could make sense of what happened, she was forcibly turned around. "Evangeline." He repeated, but firmer than before, his face riddled with worry. "You're not well." He said and stepped outside, eyeing the freezer door from behind. She turned to look too, only to find everything as it should be: clean and without cause for concern. She grew frightened then, consumed by internal panic. Never had she experienced such vivid hallucinations before; she would see shadows and figures, only to discover with a second glance that they were never there at all, that she considered normal but not what she just experienced. And it was only by stepping outside that she realised how severe that episode had been. She leant with her back against the wall where her father was waiting, listening, with his brows arched in uncertainty.
She looked away from him and at everything else. The building backed onto a small car park, though it was never used, instead it had become a refuge for those with nowhere else to go and they often occupied a corner or a doorway to themselves. But today there was no one, which was unusual but came as a relief since it ensured that they had privacy.
She thought for a moment, planning in her mind a way of broaching the subject with him. 'how could one describe the impossible as something infinitely possible and real?'
"Do you... believe in the supernatural?" She began, "- In angels and such?"
She cursed herself for beginning with such a question, believing that he would not take her seriously, but her father seemed to think for a moment before deciding that yes he did, and repeated his stance with greater conviction as though he questioned his resolve at first but did not now.
"Do you believe in vampires?" She asked then and held his gaze. Her eyes were resolute whilst he seemed agitated.
"What's this got to do with anything?" He demanded and threw up his hands, turning to face her.
"Just answer the question."
He sighed and folded his arms. Aggravated by her deliberate ambiguity. "So you mean to tell me that all of this-" He gestured around himself, "- all of the murders were done by a vampire . . . and, what, that the doctor is a vampire?! Are you insane?"
She recoiled from him and turned away, fixing her gaze on the floor. 'Why must he be this way?'. She no longer paid attention to him and his caustic ramblings, focusing only on her thoughts and the concrete tile that lay beneath her feet, studying it, noting its shape and size as she traced the cracks until they accumulated at her feet. His ramblings were a distant mumbling now, although she was still conscious of the words that he spoke, that he believed she was 'unwell' and needed treatment; that vampires did not exist and Vincent was just an eccentric, just as she was was an eccentric.
'Insane. Eccentric.' The words echoed within her mind as though they were a part of a ritualistic chant, evoking within her a sense of desperation and anxiety. It was not his disbelief that angered her, it was his hypocrisy, his ego. Not for a second believing that beings beyond angels and devils could exist; asserting that vampires were made up, existing only within fairytales and horror stories. 'There's no proof!' He exclaimed, and she, in awe of his lack of self-awareness, rolled her eyes.
It was then that the familiarity of the exchange became clear to her, like a freshly dusted mirror, where her reflection was clear and palpable and instead of her father arguing his disbelief, it was her. Stood in the courtyard of Vincent's cottage, her words that of her fathers as she screamed insanity at the vampire stood before her, and he too frightened to react looked on, astonished.
A wave of shame washed over her, followed by guilt. Its icy sting subsiding then renewing as though it were a lash. She looked up at her father then. His face was as fierce and pink as she could remember, although the creases had deepened with old age. There was nothing more to say. He had not changed in the time they spent apart, and she doubted he would. His age had not mellowed his temper or his tendency to insult those closest to him. All she could do now was to walk away and hope that their conversation had sunk in. Perhaps she would see him again, then again, perhaps she wouldn't. And as she turned away from him and walked back through the butchery, he continued his verbal assault, though she had grown cold and distant enough to dismiss him. Then in one final act, she hoisted up a sealed bucket of pig's blood that rested by the fridge and thrust a twenty-pound note into his apron pocket, silencing him immediately. But before he could question her and relieve his bewilderment, she spoke, claiming that the bucket was a gift, and that she was leaving before shutting the door with a thump.