Chapter XIX
May 15th, the year of our lord Viktor was the day that I shall never forget, the day where I have not told a soul of what had happened to me on the night of the full moon.
It was around midnight when it first happened. I couldn't really fall asleep, my mind was filled with worry and fear as I recalled one of the nightmares I had when I was a little girl.
The ones where a wolf that wasn't a wolf and a man who wasn't really a man at all came running after me as I ran for my life, tripping then seeing with horror as he pounce on me and…
I shivered as I thought how it seem almost so real, still vivid inside my head, hearing my screams…feeling my heartbeat faster as I ran…the sharp teeth of wolf's biting into my throat and tearing it apart, everything all still there in my mind.
I wanted to clear these thought by taking a walk outside, that usually did the trick for me whenever something terrible I felt and needed to rid those awful memories by taking a brisk stroll down the path. I grabbed a cloak as it was getting a little cold those days and my mother would've scold me if I didn't always take one with me at all times, even if it would be warm in the summer nights than the winter. I crept out of my room and walk quietly past my parent's and then my sister.
Ah little Selene but not so little anymore, soon to be a young woman. My dear sister, named after the moon, which rises solemnly tonight, round and glowing white in the night sky. I had to be careful as I went down the stairs as they sometimes creak and I feared mama or papa would wake up to the noise and see me and wondering what I was doing up in the middle of the night, in which I would have to explain my nightmare to them. And if I did, then the memory would come back and haunt me through and I shudder to think of it.
I got to the hallway and slip out the door and walk on the forest path. Papa had taken us on this walks maybe times until we knew it like the back of our hands and could find it with my eyes closed if possible.
I must have walked for almost an hour or so before I realized I had gone too far from the trail and into the heart of the forest. I was about to turn and leave when I heard a twig crack!
My body froze and my heart jumped. I knew I wasn't alone in this forest. Perhaps a deer or small creature but no it sounded too big and I had a fear that it might be a wolf as it wasn't rare that there were wolves living here. I heard them sometimes from the castle papa used to work on the architect of the lower part of it and me and Selene use to go with him and we would hear them howling in the middle of the night before we head back home. I thought they must have kept them as trained hounds or something.
Keller snorted while Hermione engross what else it said continue to read, imaging a young woman lost in a forest with an unknown creature following after her and fearing for her life of what it was.
…Perhaps due to those noises was when my nightmares started but I wasn't too sure. All I thought right then was to turn back and go home, knowing if I ran, I would let it know I was afraid of it and it would attack me.
But then again I knew it could sense my fear coursing through my veins and my body was shaking and my feet began to walk faster. The creature's pace quicken as well and I became more frighten then ever and started to run. I felt tree branches scratching my face and tearing my hair and gown but I did not care as I ran, ran back to the safety of the manor where I should have stay in the first place, should have forget going in the middle of the night for a stroll when I should have laid in my bed and wait till morning.
I recalled those stories papa used to tell me about little girls, running in the woods and wolves, large and scary, chasing after them and catching them and…I had to get away!
I tried looking back only once to see how far behind it was but that had been my grave mistake as I trip and felt my ankle twist and fell to the ground, my adversary still coming. I tried to get back up but the pain in my ankle and my fear got the best of me as I lie there frozen and then saw the thing emerge from the shadows.
A young man in his youth, like my age or perhaps a year or two older came out from behind the bushes and appeared, walking towards me.
I couldn't help but stare at him as he came and bend down, lifting my hem and as I was about to make a remark, he placed his hand on my ankle and I shivered at his touch. Not because it was cold but because he was gently caressing it to see if any bones were injured. He was asking me something but all I could do was stare into his shining blue eyes as I lost speech to my words.
I felt a burning desire somehow as he kept saying something but all I did was stare into his eyes, blue and looking intensely at me…
Hermione and Keller skimmed down the parts, all they were reading was how she was describing him, almost in a poetic way of him with long black hair past the shoulder, rugged handsome looks, almost gypsy heritage, cobalt blue eyes, etc.
"Yep definitely a lycan no doubt about that the way she got it down but why would she…" Hermione lifted up a hand to silent her and Keller did as she continue to read with her forward and following up to where Cecilia was being lifted up in the stranger's arms and carrying off somewhere in the forest.
The man laid me down on a fern bed of moss and went to tend my ankle. I knew it was wrong to stare at a man as it was improper for a lady but I couldn't help it and was wondering what it would be like to kiss those lips. Just one time for one taste of them. His hands, oh how I remember I could feel them touching my ankle, checking to see if I had broken any bones. God his touch, I wanted him to touch me all over, I wanted him to run his hands to run over my body, I wanted to feel him caress my very soul until we were one.
NO! I should not think such things as we could not as it was against the Lord's wishes to have two people who were unwed not by the holy blessing of Christians to do such a thing, especially for oneself when one is still a virgin like myself.
But I couldn't seem to control my action as I touch his hand, rubbing them, feeling the hard skin and he look up to me and I saw he had the same look of desire and passion I had.
We had only met for one day and felt a drawn ecstasy for one another. I took his hand, and slowly kissed it, feeling the hard callus and then slowly bringing my lips to his. He was as first as reluctant as I was but he soon was responding to my plead and I felt the tug of the strings around my nightgown and then the pull of the dress…
Keller pretend to gag while Hermione pretending to ignore all the words that the woman was saying as she and the mysterious stranger made love after meeting for the first time and imaging herself and Remus doing that kind of thing. Feeling a drawn desire to be together, to become one's soulmate.
Soulmates, was that what it was for her? It wasn't until she reach the end was when she saw it changed.
I must have fallen asleep before I saw that I was lying in a bed of moss, naked and my dress and cloak covering my body like a blanket but I noticed that he was missing but his clothes were still lying next to me.
I took my dress and pulled it back on and went to go find him. I thought I believe I was in love and that we needed to be together.
I would tell him as soon as I found him and search around until I saw him standing out in a clearing, basking under the moonlight, his body aglow as he raised his arms in silent blessing to the sky.
My eyes widen as I watch his body convulsed and watch him cringed in pain and falling over to the ground. I wanted to go and see what was wrong and help him but I stood transfixed in my spot as I watch with absolute growing horror with what was happening.
His body was shifting, bones I heard snapping and rearranging and changing, fur sprouting all over him, his facial structure change and a hideous snout appeared and had long sharp fangs in his jaw, snapping open.
I couldn't watch anymore as the horrible transformation of my lover continue and I decided to run, knowing he must've known I seen him and probably would then kill me. I ran as hard as I could, ignoring the pain my ankle gave me or anything else. I had to get home to safety. My gown ensnare on a branch and I had a hard time getting it loose before I heard something gaining on me and knew it had to be him. I tore my gown loose and kept running, knowing he was getting closer to me. I could already feel his claws in my flesh, his fangs ripping my throat open.
Oh dear lord he was going to kill me! Please help me God! I tried to run faster but he seem to be gaining and in that moment I turn and saw him pounce and then there was no more as everything around me blacked out.
The next time I awoke, I found myself lying by the horses' stable, my body sore and my shoulder flaring in pain as I step over to the manor and into the house. Everyone was still asleep as I made my way up to my room and saw in the mirror my reflection.
I was a complete mess! My dress was covered in dirt and twigs, my hair a wild mane around my head and I saw that the right shoulder of my dress was red and becoming sticky.
Slowly I pulled it off, wincing as I peeled it like if it were second layer of my own skin and stared at the bite mark. It looked like one would receive from a dog or wolf when bitten, but I knew better and tried to think why I was given this instead to die?
Did he feel that I should suffer the same fate by given me this so as not to tell anyone less I wanted to put myself in danger or when right when he was about to kill me, he reconsider remembering what we did in those last hours and spared me out of love?
Whether that was the case, I knew I was cursed and I would never forget that night…
In here my secret will be kept safe from my father, my mother and my little sister who I would not dare harm any and if I were, I would kill myself and save them from the fate rather to think of my own punishment to the Underworld for the terrible sins I committed…
Hermione stopped then turn to Keller to see she what she thought and had the same look she had.
She had been bitten and lived. Keller's aunt had been actually bitten by a lycan, so maybe it might explain why, maybe but something didn't seem to add up.
Keller seem to voice Hermione's question, "If she was bitten then why didn't she change? We know Remus does and goes to the Shrieking Shack every time the full moon, what about professor Valerious, I mean Cecilia then? Does she go to one or does she…"
Keller took the papers from Hermione's hands and looked through some of them, skimming some brief note on her parents and such and found the part where she found herself pregnant and then having to tell them, due to fear of disownment, but was able to tell the somewhat true and her family had been disappoint but at least when Cecilia gave birth to the twin girls they seem to once more happy, filled with the laughter and love of the two daughters she brought into this world, forgetting her somewhat troubles or memories of the past.
Then reading further along about having strange occurring dreams that in six years to come would come true about the vampire coming to kill off her family and these dreams always happened around the full moon, during the time of her pregnancy and after but no said effect of any changes except heighten senses, having lot of stamina, being stronger, cravings for raw meat, everything but sprouting fangs, claws or fur. Finally on the last page she found something that interested her and Hermione looked over to read what it said.
It was later after five years when she had her twin daughters; she had another strange dream on the full moon.
I had another dream where I saw him coming to me, calling my name when I never gave it to him in the first place. At first I wanted to ignore it but the way I couldn't let go of the past feeling I had for him no matter how much I try to.
I went and saw him looking at me with those same blue eyes that I became used to because they belong to both of my daughters. They looked more like me but only had his eyes and I sometimes cried at night whenever I looked at them, thinking it was his eyes staring right at me, him watching me.
He came to me, telling me how sorry he was for placing me under this sort of situation but had little to say as he came to warn me.
A vamprye was to come and take my entire family away, just like I recalled in my dreams so long ago. He told me that if I wished to live that I would have to trust him.
I didn't know if I shouldn't have or tried to think this was some sort of trick, but I saw that same look he had given me before and I remember how I thought it had been love at first sight and still was to me even when I tried to forget the memory of it all.
He asked again if I would and I agreed. He took down the sleeve of my shoulder and bit it in, embedded his teeth in me and then pulled back and placed on my thigh as well. He told me to stay awake still and I tried to before I lost all conscious and then woke to hear the sound of something coming into our house.
It had to be them as I saw my door crashing open and then a figure who smile remind me of a grinning skull of Death as he came at me and felt my throat tore and then saw only darkness.
Again I awoke, only to find myself in my room, unlike last time and found blood, my own, covering me and remembered what the man did.
I touch my throat, feeling a little bit of my flesh and skin and realizing it was slowly healing. I got out of my bed and searched everyone's room, finding my mother dead, my dad not there, my sister missing and then my daughters…
Oh dear lord, my darlings, my precious angels! I had gone to their rooms, fearing the worse and saw the horror as they looked to been butchered like animals, their bodies ripped apart to pieces and I wept over their bodies, letting my tears fall onto the blood-soaked sheets. I wept for them, for my mother and father, for my sister and for myself…
I left my home a week after, seeing as there was nothing left for me there with my parents and my daughters gone. I had one hope that my sister was alive out there somewhere and had managed to escape the bloody massacre of our family.
Traveling in daylight as vampires needed to sleep and woke to feel the moon on me but no changes except to give me renew bitter strength of my hate for them for what they done to my family. My lover had told me before that my blood was able to mold the change and let it become part of me.
I didn't know I was the only one to have this in my bloodstream and had thus made me immortal without becoming a werewolf like he was or when bitten by the vampire himself.
I only pray that someday if my sister is still alive as I can feel that she is, we would meet again and that nothing would ever befallen our heads again…
Keller, reading the last words over and over, her hands shaking and her eyes brimming with tears as they dropped onto the paper, smudges some of the letters as Hermione took her body and brought her close to her and held her as she felt the raspy breathing and choking.
"…All this time…this whole time, my aunt was alive and my mother didn't know. Didn't know she had one family member still alive and was a lycan. What if under the full moon my mother would have, she would have…" Hermione smooth her hair and try to calm her down as best she could as she was taking all this in with a sudden calmness as the realization hit them hard.
Professor Valerious was Keller's aunt Cecilia!