Duality
Chapter Three:
Violet stared out of the window, taking in the vast landscape, the expanse of trees that covered the stretch of land like a rich verdant canopy. Thick sturdy trees that had histories of their own. There was a small brook somewhere in the thicket, she could catch the subtle currents of wildlife and the burn of the city beyond.
Violet searched the landscape meticulous, keeping constant watch, penitent vigil for the merest hint of Rose's return. Each morning Violet would wake and stand, a silhouette in the window. Each morning the horizon offered no sign of her sister.
The months had crawled agonizingly slow since Rose had left. Coral haunted the mansion, blood wine reddening her lips, her voice a phantom haunting the halls. A mad Mrs Rochester, forsaken in her attic.
Violet rarely slept, instead she often watched the twilight shift to daylight and wondered where her sister was.
It was on a typically day such as this when she saw the silver Jaguar race into the driveway like a thunderbolt. No one was home but Violet and her mother, Violet had retired the servants as there was no need to tend to Rose's will.
She descended the staircase slowly to open the door to Calder Marwood-Thorn.
Calder's shoulders were shaking with barely concealed rage as the door opened between them. He took in the sight of her smudged eyeliner and mussed hair and his lips pursed. His nostrils flared, testing the air, confirming which twin he was speaking to. She caught a whisper of his thoughts 'like mother like daughter'. Alcohol still clung to her lips, her throat, her insides, as she often drank herself into her vigils.
Anger infused her but she was careful not to exhibit this through her posture.
"Where's Rose?" He growled.
"Not in." Said blandly.
His eyes searched behind her as if she were lying out of spite. "Where is she?"
Violet shrugged. "Away." She didn't know where exactly and didn't care to know all she wanted was her sister back and peace to resume in the Bludworth household.
Calder tried to push his way into the slim crack of the door but Violet would not budge from the doorway.
"Move out of the way." He demanded from between clenched teeth.
But still she didn't budge.
He glared at her. "You don't understand a lick of what's going on around you, do you?"
Minutes later they were sitting in the dining room, Calder was stiffed back in the ornately carved chair, his palms lay flat on the lacquered table surface. Violet was half collapsed on the table, her ear pressed to the wood listening half heartedly to the vibration of his voice as he gave diatribe about family honour and the vampire nation. "Our names are prestigious, it's of the utmost importance that this wedding goes ahead without a single hiccough..."
She lifted her head suddenly. "What about love?"
He paused. Cocked his head, confused at the word. It rarely had any context among the Lamia nor the rich.
"What has love to do with it? It's a lie, a fabrication of humankind to bind them to one another." He seemed utterly convinced and his handsome face was cold, lip curled in disgust and she was repulsed by him.
"You're an arsehole."
He flashed fangs suddenly, springing out of his chair to wrap a bare hand around her throat.
"Do you even know my sister?" She said despite his grip. "Do you even care?"
"You're fucking dangerous." He hissed, his eyes glowing, fangs extended completely exposed as the vampire he was. A formidable creature who held her life in his hand, her bones grinding against his palm. With the thumb of his other hand he wiped some of the smeared eye shadow from her cheekbone.
Something passed between them, a memory rose like a phantom of another time in their past like this. They were playing amidst the oaks, Violet had been separate from the children that flitted through the forest like phantoms.
They had been playing all day, Violet remembered vividly how her hands had ached, how her knees had been scored by the bark and how those cuts had scarred her.
They were playing hide and seek, at least they had started to play earlier that evening but violet had given up hope that they had remembered to find her. It was often like Rose and Calder to go their own way and leave Violet wandering the estate. Violet had been hiding in the trees for hours, a dangerous place, a place neither Rose nor Calder were brave enough to hide.
When it became dismally clear she was alone she began to walk leisurely through the wood. She had a favourite place back then, a place beside the meagre brook, listening to the trickle of water over the rocks. Someone had dug the pit for the brook decades ago, the land had been dedicated to someone Violet couldn't recall the name of.
A willow had been planted especially in commemoration though it was never discussed in the house and her mother had only ever mentioned it in passing. Violet sat in its shade, staring up at the ceiling of trees, silver moonlight reflected in the murky water making the place glow.
Calder burst through the trees. He had been skinny then, tall and skinny and always covered in mud from some adventure or other. He saw her, but didn't speak instead he sat beside her in the dirt to listen to the water and bask in the glow of the moon.
Their fingers brushed and she drew her hand away, instead he grasped her hand firmly and leant over her. He used his fingertips to trace the top of her flowery shirt, pulling the collar down to expose the birthmark that sat above her breast.
He pressed his mouth to hers, swallowing her shallow breaths in a clumsy first kiss experience. "Violet!" Rose was calling from a distance. Calder jumped up wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as if to rid himself of the stain of her lips.
She barely had time to sit up to find he had disappeared. Violet lay back down, her heart thumping, her lips swollen, feeling exhilarated, the same sensation as a fresh feed but somehow more. He must have thought she was Rose.
Looking into his cold eyes, hot draughts of anger possessed her, he must be mistaking her for someone she was not. She jumped out of her chair and he relinquished his grip taking some steps away from her.
His stare was intense and made her feel awkward amongst other things.
"Get out." She demanded tremulously.
His lips fell open and she saw his teeth clench together before he spun around and left the house, slamming the door behind him. She could hear his tyres squeal as he sped out of the drive and she was glad he was gone.
*
Violet had barely stepped out of a steaming hot shower when she heard the timid knock on the front door. Her heart leapt. "Rose." She whispered and threw a robe over her to run to open the door.
Her heart was hammering even as she pulled open the door but instead of her sister found a young human boy standing and staring at her astonished. "You're not Rose." He stated.
It was the boy from the alleyway. She could barely conceal her shock. Violet glanced behind her shoulder as if Rose might have been standing there with wicked smile, she wasn't. She turned back to the human and felt two conflicting feelings: her stomach clench with Hunger and her skin crawled with the proximity of the human and the knowledge of what he had done with her sister.
"What are you doing here?" She asked softly and then burst into a tirade. "This is impossible, how did you know where she lived? No that doesn't matter now, you can't be here. You have to go."
"You look just like her." He whispered and then put his foot in the doorway to stop her slamming it in his face. "I need to see Rose, I need to talk to her to tell her that I-"
Fascinated. "Tell her what?"
"I love her."
Sentimental fool, she thought and put pressure behind the door which was slowly crushing his foot.
Her senses sharp, she could hear a distant engine it was a car approaching and it was approaching fast. It could have been anyone. If she was caught with a human it'd be an awfully nasty scandal for the family and they couldn't afford that now.
She dragged the human inside the house and marched him to her bedroom, he didn't bother to ask as if he understood the urgency. "Don't come out no matter what you hear, just hide and I'll be back."
"Wait, I need to know if Rose is here."
"Just wait, please. Stay real quiet."
She rushed down stairs and opened the door before anyone could knock. It was Calder again and he looked like shit. It could only have been a few hours since she had asked him to leave but he looked as if he'd lost months of sleep. "Don't think this means anything, Violet." He was saying as he strode toward the door.
He paused, stopped to take in the sight of her in her flimsy robe, hair still wet and blood pumping with all the excitement. She pulled the fabric tighter around herself and glared at him. He shook his head as if to clear it but his eyes never looked quite convincing now as he continued indignantly. "Don't think your sentimental clap trap is going to pervert the course of this alliance."
"Alliance?" She grew mad and forgot about everything for a moment stepping out of the house and poking him in the chest. " You can hardly have one of those when the girl you intend to marry has run a million miles to get away from you."
"That's not true."
He pushed his way past her and back into the house.
"Who do you think you are?" He paused again, nostrils flaring as he took in the breath of the house. "Why do I smell vermin?"
His senses were sharp. The Marwood-Thorns were renowned for their incredibly sharp senses. She grasped his arm, tugging on him to stop him from bounding up the stairs to investigate the smell. "I got hungry." She said.
He spun round to face her and put his face close to hers, the warmth of his mouth brought a new unsuspected fluttering to her stomach. "No blood." He spoke and stepped back.
"I haven't started just yet." She said indignantly. "You interrupted me."
He drifted toward the staircase. She gripped his arm tighter to stop him from going any further and he looked at her fingers curled around his arm. "I don't like to share." She said, her eyes began to glow and fangs protruded.
He seemed to respond to it, she could feel his body wanting to move toward the staircase, to seek out the human blood and satisfy his suddenly ravening apatite.
She did the only thing she could think of, she threw herself into his arms and covered his mouth with her own, kissing him passionately, invading his mouth with her tongue to fill his mind with things other than the warm, rich human blood waiting upstairs. To her dismay she didn't find it altogether unpleasant.
Calder reciprocated. A small voice in the back of her mind was disgusted, this was her sister's fiancé. This was her childhood peril. But he was tender and warm and completely her own as they crushed their bodies together.
When their mouths parted and they caught a breath, Calder hissed flashing his impressive long, sharp fangs and pushing her away.
"You shouldn't have come back." She said to him placing fingers to her swollen lips.
He made an unintelligible sound and stormed out for the second time that day. She went to the door to watch the jaguar depart and knew his eyes were on her reflection in the rear view mirror until he disappeared from sight.
She took a few moments to recover, the strange feelings wracking her body, caught between hatred, confusion, desire and Hunger. Hunger. Her eyes closed. "Shit." She ran back upstairs, taking two steps at a time.
"Are you there?" She asked softly as she stepped into her room but she found it was empty. She lifted her nostrils to the air and followed the trail to her mother's door where it stood ajar. Her mother had left the gramophone playing, a warbling record that was skipping over one phrase that Violet could not decipher.
She took slow, reluctant steps into the bedroom that stunk of sweat, old air and…blood. She saw her mother's figure hunched over her bed.
"Mother?"
The sound of wet sucking made her simultaneously repulsed and hungry. She began to tremble but still approaching slowly, dreading what she would see. She didn't have to see it to know that her mother was feeding on the human boy. Rose's lover.
Her heart was seized by fear.
In a frenzy Violet threw her mother off the boy and Coral landed hard against her wooden cabinet, momentarily unconcious. Violet sat beside the human, his throat had been made ribbons by Coral's teeth, not only had she pierced but she had chewed on his throat. Violet pressed her hand to his wound as if she could stop the flow of blood. There was too much blood. He'd lost so much already. I
Her mother was howling on the floor nearby.
"It's going to be okay." She said to the boy over and over but they both knew it wasn't okay. Even as she spoke her fangs appeared, her eyes turned molten gold and he was afraid of her. And then those eyes which were once full of life suddenly became vacant and she felt his soul slip his skin and dissolved into the ether.
Serenaded by her mother's sobs, Violet was crying silently, whether it was for the boy or for her near irresistible desire to bend down to the blood and lap at it.
She turned to her mother who was now laughing manically.
"What have you done?" She asked but the woman was incoherent, hysterically cackling.
It took every ounce of strength and self control for Violet to stand up, she picked up the human body, pressing the bloody mass of rib boned flesh to her chest and carry him into her room. She laid him on the bed, arranging his limbs and covering the worst of his wounds with a blanket.
She sat by the window, staring out at the expansive view of Parkland Estate. She looked to the canopy of trees, the twinkle of the brook lit silver by the moon's light. She stared in silence, taking up a vigil, waiting for her sister's return but before she settled into her session she picked up her cell phone dialled a number. "I fucked up."