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Introduction:

This part of the adventures of Marcilla and Enid references the events of Joseph Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 lesbian vampire novella Carmilla. It is freely available online and it would probably make things more easily comprehensible if readers not familiar with the story read it first.

The initial portion of this Part Four will become relevant in the fifth episode of this series.

MARCILLA:

“Want to stop at a town for the evening?” I asked.

Enid groaned theatrically. “Now she asks me!” she whined at nobody in particular. “After my ankles are wrecked and my bum’s grown callouses from this blooming bike seat, after I finally made up my mind that we’re going to pedal on forever, now she asks if I want to stop at a town!”

“How you do go on,” I replied, amused. “I just thought we should take the chance to have a shower and launder our clothes, but if you’d rather we kept going, then…”

“No, no!” Enid sounded horrified. “Let’s get to the town! Quickly now.”

I laughed. “Well, then, get on your bike and come along instead of sitting there.”

We’d been wending our way northwards for over a week now, mostly through forest, keeping clear of the road at night because that’s when bicyclists ran the greatest risk of being run down by a vehicle going too fast to stop. And since we spent most of the day resting and sleeping, that meant that we had been off the main roads, feeding on what prey we came across, cycling through narrow forest trails when we could, and carrying our bicycles when we couldn’t. But the sun was still a hand’s breadth over the western treetops, and the highway below us was invitingly smooth and mercifully clear of traffic.

So we made good speed and, as dusk closed in, came within sight of a small town. The buildings were a mix of new and old, and there were actual cobblestones in the square. It was quite charming.

The amber lights of a café offered welcome. There was even a rack to tie up our bicycles. “Do you want coffee or tea?” I asked Enid as we entered. Unlike alcohol, caffeine is something our kind can handle. We can’t digest it very well, but we can drink it without any ill effects.

She shrugged. “Coffee, I suppose.” Shedding her jacket, she stretched luxuriously, like a cat, before sitting down. “I missed these smells.”

I sniffed at the air. “What, the smell of the dreams of disappointed would-be writers…” I nodded at a bespectacled man in the corner bent grimly over a laptop. “...washed-up waitresses, itinerant lorry drivers, and such?”

She snorted. “No, you berk. The smells of coffee and fresh baked goods. I can’t even remember what fresh bread tastes like.”

“I could get us some if you want.”

“I’d probably puke it up if I ate any.” She sighed. “Never mind, just get me the coffee and let me soak in this air.”

I went to the counter and, in English, ordered a couple of lattes. The woman behind the counter, about fifty years old and with a lined face, looked at me with interest. “Are you tourists?”

“Yes, we’re on a bicycle tour of the continent.”

“Ah, I thought it was a bit odd. We don’t get a lot of foreigners stopping by here, especially tourists. Are you?”

“Stopping by?” I thought about it for a moment. “For tonight, yes.” She’d definitely think it odd if we insisted on pedalling off into the darkness. “Is there a hotel or some such place you can recommend for us?”

“Right here.” The woman pointed upstairs. “We’ve rooms for guests, though we hardly ever get any. You’re welcome to stay for the night.”

“That’s wonderful, thanks.” I picked up the lattes she put on a tray and turned to go back to Enid.

“We’ve washing machines guests can use, too,” the woman said.

“Why are you grinning?” Enid asked, when I returned to her.

“Never mind, it’s nothing.” The latte was good, and I swirled some around my mouth. “We’re staying here tonight.”

“We are? Brilliant. Warm bed and all?”

“Warm bath, warm bed, washing machine and all.”

We both chuckled and sipped our lattes, and I grew aware that the man in the corner, the one I’d decided was a frustrated author, had lifted his head from his screen and was looking in our direction. The light shining on his spectacle lenses turned his eyes into twin mirrors, but I was certain that he was watching us. Enid followed my gaze and returned his stare, whereupon he quickly looked away and returned to his laptop.

“What was that about?” Enid asked.

“I’ve no idea. Maybe he was just ogling a couple of pretty young women. Finish your coffee and let’s go upstairs.”

Our room, while small and with two single beds, rather than the one double bed I’d expected, was comfortable and the floor had a carpet so thick that it positively invited the touch of bare feet. After we’d showered and put our clothes in the washing machine, Enid and I sat on one of the beds rubbing our feet in the carpet while she idly scrolled on her phone, which she’d plugged into the socket in the wall. Once we were alone, we’d turned off the lights, of course; with our night vision we didn’t need lights to see by.

“You of this modern generation and your mobiles,” I complained. “I have one but you don’t see me spending every free moment on mine. Here I am, next to you, naked, and craving some affection, but you’d rather spend time on that infernal device than make love to me.”

“I know you’re used to getting your news by carrier pigeon, Granny.” She rubbed the top of my foot with her toes. “But this is the twenty first century. I haven’t had my daily dose of what’s happening in the world for days.”

I snorted, and pushed up against her toes with my foot. “You’ll find that none of it matters in the long run.”

“But I’ll have to wait centuries to find that out, Gran.”

“Careful with that granny talk.” I slapped her thigh. “I may be old, but my fangs are still sharp.”

She gave a delightful little giggle and scrolled further. “American president says…US president claims… US president threatens tariffs…” She sighed. “If I never read US president news again it’ll be too soon…Hollywood celebrities’ messy divorce…cricket player Dongmei Zhang injured…and…” Her toes, pressing on my foot, suddenly went rigid. “Wait. Look at this.”

“Look at what?” I took the phone from her, and blinked. “Oh, now that’s interesting.”

NIGHTCLUB OWNER MISSING, the headline read.

“Nightclub owner Lothar Magrat has been missing for the past week, according to a complaint made to the police. Mr Magrat, 54, was last seen leaving his nightclub on the morning of the fifth of this month. His car was subsequently found parked outside his house, but no further signs of his whereabouts have been discovered so far. Magrat’s wife, Anna-Louise, who had been holidaying in Greece, returned yesterday and is said to be incapacitated with worry and grief.” I raised an eyebrow at Enid. “Somehow, I don’t think so.” I turned back to the article. “There has long since been speculation that Magrat has underworld links, but both his wife and the staff at his nightclub strongly denied any such connection.”

“Like they’d admit it,” Enid scoffed. “What do you suppose happened to him?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. At least it means we didn’t kill him.”

“Maybe…” Enid frowned. “Could he have wandered off and snuffed it from the aftereffects? I mean, we did drug him as well as feed from him.”

“In that case they’d have found his body.” I scrolled down past a photo of Magrat outside the Starscream, in a suit that his thick shoulders threatened to burst at the seams. “Police say that there is as of now no evidence of foul play, but they are following all leads.” I handed her back the phone. “Maybe it’s something to do with that meeting we were told to keep him from.”

“Deffo, that could be.” Enid put down the phone, flopped on her back on the bed, and stretched one of her legs across my thighs. “Now what were you saying about naked and affection and summat like that?”

______________________________

ENID:

It’d been a few days since we’d been able to do each other properly, so we both came fast and hard, and then did it again more slowly and tenderly. We’d just finished the second time and started on the third when my tummy rumbled.

Marcilla giggled. “Hungry, then, already, after the coffee? Maybe I should’ve got you bread after all.”

I pulled a face at her and raised myself on an elbow. “As though you aren’t famished too. Of course you’re used to starving for a bit, but I’m not.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll go out after everyone’s gone to sleep.” She frowned a bit. “That might present a little problem.”

“What?”

“How do we go out without the owner noticing? The woman downstairs, I mean.”

“And we can’t feed from her, of course.”

“Of course not.” She tapped a finger on my hip. “Let’s see what the window’s like. Maybe we can sneak out that way.”

I knew of course that she was really wondering if I could, because she wouldn’t have any spot of bother doing that. Once again I remembered that I was really rather useless and she’d be better off without me.

I might have begun saying something about it but she’d walked, still starkers, to the window and pulled the curtain to one side to take a dekko at the street below.

“Nobody’s down there,” she said, as I joined her, and pulled the curtain the rest of the way open. “Well, this is fine. There’s no window grille, at least.”

“No window ledge, either.” The street, though we were only on the first floor, looked a great long way below us. “Wish we could turn into bats like in the horror movies and fly off.”

Marcilla chuckled. “It would be more convenient, certainly. But this isn’t bad at all. We can get out this way, easily.”

“Talk for yourself.” I craned my neck to try and see if there was at least a grass border or something below, but it looked like paving right to the base of the wall. Brill. My ankles began twitching in fear just at the thought. “I think I’ll just starve for tonight.” Before the words were proper out of my gob, my tummy protested with another rumble. “Blast!”

Marcilla threw her noggin back and laughed. I could cheerfully have murdered her. “Don’t worry, it’s just a short jump down to the street.”

“Not on your nelly. I’m not doing that.”

“You won’t have to. Just wait till our clothes are dry and you’ll see.”

I looked at her, at the street, back at her, and my tummy rumbled again. “Hell!”

“Looks like we won’t have a choice, will we?”

By the time our clothes had dried enough to wear it was past midnight and the town was dark; just like back home, everyone was in bed by eleven. Marcilla laced up her boots, opened the window, and hoisted herself on to the sill. “Do exactly as I tell you,” she said over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

It was like a magic trick, and though I’d seen this lass do it before, I never could wheedle myself into believing it was real. I rushed to the window and there she was, standing below me on the street. She looked up at me and gestured. “Jump, Enid.”

I shook my bonce no. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a daftie. Until she held out her arms and gestured impatiently, and I clocked at last what she wanted me to do.

So, with one deep breath, I jumped, and an instant later landed in Marcilla’s arms. I still can’t get used to how strong she is. She didn’t even stagger, just put me down on my feet. I looked from her to the open window.

“Ace, ta. Now how exactly are we supposed to get back up there?”

“I’ll boost you so you can grab the windowsill and pull yourself up the rest of the way.” Marcilla rolled her eyes. “You really need to trust your own abilities a bit more, Enid.” I was in two minds about that, to be sure. “Now let’s go get dinner.”

Naturally, this was easier said than done. I’m from a small town meself, like this one, and I knew that people turn in at ten and don’t move a finger till cockcrow afterwards. So we wandered through the place for a good two hours without seeing a soul, until we were out on the highway again.

And then we found, at bleedin’ last, something to eat.

She was walking down the road, fuming to herself if the muttering was anything to go by. Her carrying her shoes in one hand, her handbag in the other, while her stockings got rubbed to nothing, told the whole story.

“Drunk?” I murmured to Marcilla.

“Not drunk enough to not reject her date’s advances, so dumped and walking home alone.” She sighed. “Poor girl. I hate to do this to her.”

“You go ahead.” All of a sudden I was no longer hungry. This lass reminded me of things I’d rather forget, from Vivek’s ashtray kiss to much worse, from other lads, before. Bad memories. “I’ll get along till tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded. “As sure as I can be.” The lass had come close enough by now to hear us and suddenly looked up, gobsmacked. Her face was messy with makeup and tear tracks. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. She said something in German that sounded like a question.

Marcilla replied in German. The lass replied, Marcilla said something more, and turned to me. “Enid.”

“Aye?”

“This young lady still has a fair long way to walk. Her feet are sore…” I’m sure, I wanted to say, I could see that they were bare in patches where her stockings were worn through. “…and, obviously, she’s not safe out alone. Do you think we should keep her company until she gets home?”

“You bet,” I told her. The wave of love for Marcilla that washed over me was so strong I could say naught more. Imagine the people who’d tried over the years to finish her, when she’s kind as kind under the surface. The lass looked from one of us to the other.

“You are…foreign? You are tourists?” Her accent was thick as a pea-souper fog.

“Yes,” I nodded. In the darkness I was mostly certain that she wouldn’t clock my fangs.

“And you are helping me where my own people would not.” She threw her arms around me and started bawling on my shoulder. “My own people’s young man threw me out of his car when I would not…do things with him, that I did not want to do. And you are helping me.” She bawled a bit more, and Marcilla gently peeled her off me after she was down to snivelling.

“What’s your name?” she asked, in English, for my convenience, of course.

“Katja Müller.”

“Come on, Katja. We’ll see you home.”

We had to put our arms around her shoulders and half carry her most of the way. By the time we dropped her off to her house (she was half passed out by then, but we hung around long enough to make sure she got inside safely) it was too late to look for dinner elsewhere; the sky was getting light in the east. So we had to shake a leg to get back to the caff before it got too much dawn.

We turned the last corner, and Marcilla held her hand up suddenly. “Wait,” she said, real soft and quiet. “A moment.”

“What?”

“Look,” she said, and pointed. I craned my neck around the corner so I could see the pavement opposite the caff. A bloke in a coat and a hat was standing there, looking up at the windows. I could just clock the dawn light glittering on glasses frames. After a bit he turned and walked away.

“What was that all about?” I whispered to Marcilla, when he was too far off to hear.

“I’m almost sure he’s our ‘author’ from last night.” Marcilla looked from his figure, far off by now, to the window. “This alters plans a bit.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Enid. Do try to think for a minute.” She shook her nut. “He was watching us last night. He’s just now been watching our window. There’s something not right about this, and the faster we get out of here the better.”

“You mean, after breakfast?” I still wanted some of that coffee and a nibble or two of bread, if nothing else.

“No, I mean now.” She looked up at the window. “Stay here a bit, won’t you?”

Then she was suddenly up top, in that magic-like way, slipping in through the window. Just two, maybe three minutes later, she appeared at the window, holding my bag. “Here, catch.”

I caught it and put it down, and a minute later she tossed down her bag for me to take. Then she jumped down to the ground, only she doesn’t ever really jump. It’s like watching her float down like a dandelion seed. I’ll never be half that graceful, even if I live a thousand years.

That’s barmy, to clock I might actually live for a thousand years.

“I left the door unlocked and ajar,” she said, when we got to our bicycles. “Let’s go.”

“Another day in the saddle again?” My thighs were already screaming in protest.

Marcilla laughed, but she didn’t sound one little bit buzzed. “Another day in the saddle again.”

We were passing the spot where we’d met the girl last night before she spoke again.

“We did something good for once, at least.”

I reckoned it was something she kept thinking over. The longer I was with her the more I began wondering those things myself. Does anyone really care what happens in a world where, just for instance, nippers can be bought and sold? Why should we be hated when we aren’t even harming anyone, most of the time, anyway? And what does it matter when we’ll be here hundreds of years after everyone we take a little blood from is gone?

I shook my noggin. There are better times for philosophical rubbish than when bicycling out of a town at half past four in the blooming morning.

______________________________

MARCILLA:

We were two days away from the town before I finally admitted to myself just where I was taking us.

The terrain was growing familiar, the same hills I’d known so well, the same winding trails, even lonelier now than they’d been then, when they’d heard the creak of carriage wheels and the thud of horses’ hooves. I braked at a spot where a path turned away to the left.

“Remember the chateau of Maximilian von Karman I’d mentioned to you once?”

Enid glanced at me and frowned slightly. “No…wait. That’s where you were turned, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s the way to that chateau, or whatever it is now.”

“Are we going back to your place, then?”

“It seems so.” I bit my lip. “I wasn’t doing it intentionally, but we’re headed that way, right enough.”

“Mint. I wanted to see what your house was like.”

I snorted. “It’ll be a ruin now. It was almost a ruin when I was there last.”

“When was that?”

I considered. “Eighteen…twenty eight? No, eighteen twenty nine. That was the year.”

“That’s when…what was her name? Lauren?”

“Laura.” I sighed. “They told such a lot of lies about me afterwards.”

“What kind of lies?”

“Let’s go, and I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”

STYRIA, 1829:

They said later that I’d tricked my way into their Schloss by staging a carriage accident outside their gates, but that was rubbish. Where would I even get a carriage, let alone the “mother” who had to “leave me behind” while she travelled on, not to return for three months? It was absurd, but then their whole point was to paint me as the villainess, and she as my innocent victim.

It was a little more complicated than that.

I was back in Karnstein then, after years in France. I’d been in Paris during the Reign of Terror, and had licked the blood from under the guillotines at night; you are lucky you never had to experience the like. Then there was Napoleon and his wars, and once they were over I felt in desperate need for some rest, some stability. And so, after over a hundred years of wandering, I’d come back.

I didn’t go into the Schloss itself. There were too many memories in it which I didn’t want to face, not then. Those memories were much sharper and more recent in 1815 than now, over two hundred years later. I went to the old mausoleum which had been my home so many years ago. It was still intact, still the same as when I’d known it last, and I made myself at home.

There were still some of the old families living in the area, the descendants of people I’d known, and some of them had lovely nubile daughters. I wanted to get close to them, to feel a little stability, and possibly a bit of love instead of the pitiless terror I’d been dealing out to my victims for so many years. So I began to look around, make myself seen, and in time had a brief romance or two. They were not with the young baronesses and countesses I’d been around in my human life, of course; they were the lovely, lonely, nearly illiterate daughters of peasants, working hard all day and more than happy to find a shoulder to lean on. I never harmed those girls; my affairs with them comprised of my giving them pleasure in return for companionship; but those affairs never lasted more than a few days or a week; both because we had to hide them from the girls’ parents, and because I had to hide from the girls just what I was. So I, inevitably, disappeared, hoping that the hearts I sundered would heal in time.

And one day, over a decade after my return, I was, as usual, out in the early evening. Unlike in the past, I had to travel a fair way to find food. The village of Karnstein that had stood beneath the Schloss had long since become deserted and fallen to ruin, probably a victim of one of the wars that had flowed across the land in the hundred and twenty odd years since I’d first left. All the other villages in the area were many kilometres away and none of them promised easy hunting, since the peasants were too inconveniently superstitious and barricaded themselves indoors at dusk. Every day, it seemed, I had to walk further and in a new direction before I could feed.

I didn’t really mind it, all that much. After decades of hanging on the fringes of rebellion and war, it was a pleasant change.

The sun had just set, freeing me from the chains that I’d felt back then weighing me down when it was in the sky, the chains of being helpless and powerless, the chains of being human. It was only just barely twilight, the swallows whirling overhead one last time before returning to their nests for the night.

I walked down the path, enjoying the feel of the breeze on my face and in my hair. I threw back my head, watching the sparrows and wishing that I could fly like them. On an impulse, I pulled off my short boots and stockings, to feel the ground under my bare feet. It was a good evening to be alive.

My feet felt the vibration of approaching carriage wheels before my ears heard them. A few moments later the vehicle cantered round the bend, not particularly fast, slow enough that the coachman could rein in the horses when he saw me in the way. I stepped aside on to the grass verge, and as the carriage rolled slowly by I found my eyes rising, naturally, to the window. And there was a face looking down at me.

That was my first sight of Laura Davenport.

Laura Davenport. I can see her now, if I close my eyes. She had just turned eighteen then, beautiful in a ruddy, healthy, almost peasant way, for all her aristocratic pretensions. To be quite accurate, the pretensions weren’t hers, but those of her father and of her two French governesses.

Her father was one Thomas Davenport, an English immigrant who’d spent most of his life working in the Imperial civil service, and in consequence had been knighted as Thomas Ritter von Davenport. His Austrian wife had died shortly after Laura’s birth, so she’d never had a mother she’d properly known.

After he retired, Davenport had taken his pension and the money that had come to him through marriage and bought an old Schloss some kilometres east of Schloss Karnstein. I knew the place fairly well; in the old days I’d attended more than one ball in it. It was not something I myself would’ve wanted to own, but then I wasn’t a civil servant with some money and pretensions to nobility. So I can’t blame him for that.

I didn’t know any of this then, of course. I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was. All I saw was this lovely face looking back from the carriage window at me, the elegantly coiffed head turning slowly to keep me in view as the carriage rolled off into the distance.

Of course I could’ve followed her; in the gathering twilight, with my strength and speed restored, I could have kept pace with her carriage. But there was the risk that she’d notice, because I could easily imagine her keeping looking back over her shoulder towards me. Also, my first priority was to feed, and my destination was a village I hadn’t touched in weeks; which meant that hopefully they’d be careless enough so I could feed at least from livestock without being seen.

But I didn’t forget, not for a moment, her eyes looking at me from the window, and I kept wondering who she was.

The nineteenth century, naturally, did not throw its doors open to me socially as my own seventeenth century had done. I was no nobleman’s daughter, to be invited to visits and balls. I didn’t even have an address to call my own; I could hardly admit to living in ruined old Schloss Karnstein or the abandoned village beneath its frowning walls.

I was the lurker in the shadows, watching society celebrate in the bonfire’s cheery light, waiting for someone to stray too far.

Why did I not, like Brunhilda, just gatecrash balls and parties and make myself seen to prospective prey, you ask? Because I was a lot younger then, and a lot less able to use my powers properly. I could hardly keep myself unnoticeable to one person for a brief while; the very thought of keeping my presence secret from a gathering was laughable.

So, I had next to no chance of getting to meet the mysterious carriage girl socially. In fact, if she’d just been passing through to somewhere else, there was no chance of my meeting her ever again, at all. So for a while I just put her out of my mind as I roamed the countryside, feeding from lonely farms and an occasional stag before returning, in the earliest hours of the morning, to the mausoleum, my home.

So stereotypical! But, unlike the fictional depictions of our kind, who could live in one crypt for hundreds of years and spread a reign of terror around the surrounding countryside without ever being destroyed until the inevitable hero arrived, I finally reached – as I knew I would – the point of diminishing returns. I could not keep feeding discreetly enough to sustain myself without going further and further afield each evening, and it became obvious that it was time for me to leave once more.

I didn’t stand for ceremony. One evening I just crawled out of my crypt, hoisted myself as usual through the tiny opening, and jumped to the ground. I took a quick look around to make sure nobody had seen me, and set off without a backward glance. My destination was Vienna, and thence, perhaps, I would go on to Salzburg; I hadn’t made up my mind.

I still remember that evening perfectly. It was a wonderful spring evening; the full moon hung in the sky before me, a restless breeze playing in my hair. I soon fell into the ideal pace for travelling, a stride that fell into a natural rhythm, neither so slow as to tarry nor so fast as to exhaust even our kind’s greater stamina. Soon Schloss Karnstein and all its memories were far behind, and only the future lay ahead.

Just then I heard again, the rumble of carriage wheels and the thudding of horses’ hooves. This time, though, they weren’t travelling at the sedate pace of earlier; I’d enough experience of carriages and horses to know a panicked, out of control, gallop from the sound alone.

So when the racing carriage rounded the bend in front of me, I’d long since prudently moved to the grass verge. And, as the horses thundered past, I was perfectly positioned to snatch at a flapping rein and pull on it with all my considerable strength, hauling back until the carriage drew to a shuddering halt.

Why did I do it? I still can’t tell you. It was mostly instinct. Also, I had seen far too many ghastly carriage accidents in the past, with maimed horses screaming in agony, to want to have to endure that again. In any case, a few moments later, I stood, my arms still straining at the reins, while the coachman jumped down and began rubbing and soothing the beasts. Then, at last, I dropped the reins, and stood back, panting.

I was barely aware that the carriage door had opened behind me until I heard a voice at my elbow. “How can we ever thank you?”

I turned. It was a plump woman in a matronly dress. “Something frightened the horses and they just ran,” she went on. Her German was perfect, but with an unmistakable French accent. “Nothing the coachman could do would stop them. We were just beginning our last prayers.”

“It was nothing,” I said. “You’re welcome.”

“It wasn’t nothing!” My head snapped around at the sound of a second, much younger, voice from the carriage. “We would’ve been killed if it hadn’t been for you!”

She appeared at the window, and I recognised her at once; my window girl from weeks ago. “Madame Perrodon,” she said, also in German, “I do declare we must take the young lady here home, to show our gratitude.”

“Oh no,” I hastened to say, though my heart was beating fast. “I was on my way to Vienna; please do not put yourself out of the way for me.”

“Vienna? And you were going to walk all the way?” My window girl’s voice was shocked. “Please get in here at once! You must certainly come home with us and rest a day or two. And then we’ll find conveyance for you to go on your way.”

After a show of reluctance I absolutely did not feel – of course I wanted to go to Vienna, but I was intrigued by this girl – I got into the carriage. The Frenchwoman, Madame Perrodon, followed me. “I am Laura Davenport,” my window girl announced, “and this is my governess, whom you’ve already met.”

“It’s a pleasure,” I murmured. The carriage started off again, but only at a slow canter, the coachman obviously not willing to risk another stampede. Covertly, though aware that she wouldn’t be able to see much of me in the darkness of the carriage with her mere human vision, I studied this Laura Davenport. “Do you live somewhere close by?”

“Yes, my father owns a Schloss not far from here.” She leaned forward for a better look at me, and I lowered my eyelids slightly so that my eyes wouldn’t glow. “What’s your name?”

I hesitated a fraction of a moment as I thought of an answer. Nobody had asked my name in years. On an impulse I hit upon an anagram of my real name, which, as you know, I never use anymore. “Carmilla,” I replied.

“That’s a nice name…” she drew in a sharp breath. “Wait! I know you!”

“You do?”

“Yes, I’ve seen you before…” She stared intently at my face and I was grateful of the darkness. “Yes! Now I remember. You’re the barefoot girl who was carrying her shoes.”

“Laura,” the governess interjected, “that is hardly polite…”

“But you are, aren’t you?” Laura was almost bouncing in her seat. “I saw you a few weeks ago. You were walking along with your shoes in your hands.”

I chuckled. “You’re probably right. I have been known to do that sometimes.”

“…and I thought,” she went on, “that I’d love to know a girl with such a pretty face and the courage to take off her shoes when she feels like it! And now you’re here with me!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Madame Perrodon, the governess, throw her a warning look. “Calm yourself, Laura.”

“Oh, pish, Madame Perrodon. She saved our lives. I don’t have to be calm.” She turned to me. “So, tell me, where are you from?”

I was saved from finding an answer by the carriage turning off the main roadway on to a path that soon led to an actual drawbridge spanning dark water. A moment later we were through a half-familiar portal and into the central yard of the Schloss.

And that is how I entered the Schloss. Not as a result of a staged carriage accident and a mysterious “mother” on a journey that could not wait, but as a guest invited by the daughter of the house herself.

“Come along,” Laura said, almost dragging me out of the carriage with her hand on my arm. “I want to introduce you to my father.”

Her father was waiting for us just inside the front door. “I am told that you nearly had a carriage accident, daughter,” he proclaimed, even before the portal swung fully open. He spoke English, but I was by then reasonably proficient in the language. “I trust you are not injured.”

That was the first time I was to lay eyes on Thomas, Ritter von Davenport. He was of medium height and must have been quite handsome many years ago, but care had scored deep lines in his face. He was dressed like a fine noble at the Imperial court in Vienna, which made him look ridiculous in his own little Schloss in Styria. He looked at Laura and then his gaze fixed on me.

“Who is this young woman, then?”

“This is Carmilla, Father. She saved our lives by stopping the horses.” I dropped a curtsey, hampered a little by Laura’s arm round my shoulder.

“You did?” Davenport peered at me. “Upon my soul, how did a mere slip of a girl manage that?”

I was saved from coming up with an answer by Laura. “You should have seen her, Father. She snatched the reins and pulled the carriage to a stop!”

“I was just lucky,” I mumbled. “Really, it was your coachman who did all the real work.”

“In either case, without your intervention my daughter might not be standing here now.” Davenport attempted a smile which did little to improve his lined countenance. “May I ask about your family and where you are from?”

I’d had a little time to think up an answer to this inevitable question. “My family is from Bavaria,” I said. I could manage a Bavarian accent well enough if I had to. “However, they now live in Berlin.” I was fairly certain that he would have no knowledge about the minor nobility of Bavaria, let alone Prussia, of which he must undoubtedly have considered me a part. “I was on my way to Vienna, from where I intend to travel on to join them.”

“Alone? That seems scarcely wise.”

I shrugged. “I’m used to being alone. I have been through a lot of things that taught me to take care of myself.” This was perfectly true.

“Can she stay here a few days, Father?” Laura asked. “She needs rest, and, you know, since Bertha won’t…” she stopped abruptly.

“Yes, of course.” The smile Davenport turned on his daughter was a lot more genuine than the skeletal grimace he’d directed at me. I could tell that he adored her. “I will have her luggage moved into the room next to yours at once.”

“Ah…I have no luggage.”

He turned a look of utter astonishment on me. “You do not?”

“I travel light, Herr Davenport. The bulk of my possessions await me at Vienna. I was not expecting to be asked to stop for a while, but…” I attempted my most winsome smile. “…I would not refuse your charming daughter’s invitation for the world.”

“Ah, well, you are both the same size, so I suppose her clothes will fit you well enough. You do not mind sharing with your new friend, do you, Laura?”

“Of course not, Father.” Laura took me by the hand and pulled. Her grip was potent. “Come with me and let me show you your room!”

As she dragged me up a wide flight of stairs, which I remembered seeing from a ball I’d attended here over a hundred years before, she kept up an incessant chatter. “I’m so glad I met you! Not just because of the carriage, either. Until just this morning we were all expecting Bertha to come but then when Father got the letter…”

This was the second time she’d mentioned the name. “Bertha? Who is that?”

“Bertha Rheinfeldt.” I had never heard of this person. Later, of course, I would be accused of having murdered her. “She’s…” Laura paused. “I mean, she was the niece and ward of my father’s friend, General von Spielsdorf.”

“Was? Something happened to her?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what. A letter from her uncle came for Father this morning. It said she’d died.” Laura sighed. “She was to visit me in a few days and stay for weeks.”

“You were looking forward to her visit, then?” I glanced at her. “You were good friends?”

“I never met her, or corresponded with her. She was supposed to come and I was hoping that…she would be my friend.” She sighed. “But at least you’re here now!”

For the first time I became aware of her extreme loneliness, one that I could only have compared to mine. This girl was so isolated, so desperate for company, that she had been pining to befriend a young woman she’d never met or even exchanged letters with. My heart wrenched for her. “Yes,” I sighed. “I suppose I am.”

“Here we are.” She opened a door. “I’m just next door to you. We share a bathroom.”

The room wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, the most opulent I’ve ever been in, but compared to my quarters for the last decade and more, even a straw mattress might have seemed like the lap of luxury. The four-poster bed was ancient, and the windows with small thick lead-glass panes would, in daylight, still admit so little illumination as to keep things gloomy. However, in the candlelight, it looked cosy enough. Laura giggled and threw herself down on the bed on her back. The mattress was so firm that she bounced.

“I used to love doing this over and over when I was a little girl,” she giggled. “It drove Madame Perrodon to distraction.”

I smiled at her. “You’ve lived all your life in this castle, then?”

“Well, we do go to Vienna every year. And sometimes to Salzburg. I like Salzburg a lot more than Vienna. The people aren’t so stuck-up.”

“But you don’t make friends?”

“We don’t stay there long enough. And…” she blushed suddenly and turned her face away. “They don’t like me making friends they don’t approve of.”

“They?”

“Oh, you know, Father and the others.” She got up from the bed. “Here, let me show you the bathroom.”

It was a long chamber with facing doors on opposing walls, one opening into my room, and the other into, presumably, Laura’s. There was even a bathtub set in the floor. Laura set her candlestick down on a stool next to the tub. “Would you like a bath? I could have the maids heat water and bring it up here.”

“Not tonight. I don’t want to put them to the trouble. Tomorrow morning, maybe.”

“Of course.” Laura took me by the hand again and picked up the candlestick. “Now come and see my room and try on some of my clothes!”

Her room was like mine, though, of course, a lot more lived-in. There were flowers in vases and oil lamps burning in holders on the walls. “Here,” she said, throwing open the doors of a tall carved oaken wardrobe set against the wall next to the windows, pulled out an armful of dresses, and tossed them on the bed. “Try these on!”

I hesitated. “Ah, all right, but…I mean, you want me to do it right here and now?”

“Why not?” She grinned happily. “I’ll leave you alone to try them on. When you’re done, just take those you’d like back to your room and come downstairs and find me.”

I looked at her, looked at the pile of clothes, and shrugged. “All right.” When she’d gone, I took off my dress and began trying on those she’d left out. Most of them were quite old-fashioned, of the style of thirty years or so before, which meant I was more used to them than the full-skirted, brightly coloured dresses that were in vogue in the 1820s. As Davenport had surmised, they fit me well, and I finally carried a ***********ion over to my room, changed into a simple off-shoulder white dress with a red sash across the waist, and made my way downstairs.

All of this time I’d been wondering to myself what, exactly, I was doing. I was beginning to regret the impulse which had led me to get into the carriage. This girl was simply too nice, too desperate for friendship, for me. It reminded me of myself at her age, when I was still human. I bit my lip and told myself I’d just stay a few days, long enough to give her enough friendship to make her feel better, and then move on.

At the foot of the stairs I saw nobody, so I began wandering the halls to seek out Laura. As I passed one half-open door, I heard voices inside, speaking French. I stopped to listen.

One was Davenport. “But she saved Laura’s life,” he was saying. “And Madame Perrodon’s, too.”

“How can you know she did?” It was a female voice, shriller than Perrodon’s amiable rumble. “Monsieur Davenport, the coachman says the horses have never bolted like that before. He doesn’t know what frightened them.”

“Horses can get frightened at almost anything,” Davenport replied. “I’ve seen them start at moonlight glittering on leaves moving in the wind. But what exactly are you accusing this girl of? Frightening the horses so she could stop them? How could she even have run ahead to stop them if she had frightened them in the first place? And to what end, only to enter this castle? It was Laura who invited her, remember. Do you think she has designs on my silver plates and spoons?”

I was holding my breath and listening intently. “I do not know,” the female voice replied after a pause. “But I intend to find out. Please, Monsieur, I do not like the idea of this unknown woman in the Schloss at all. Your daughter is far too trusting and easily led astray.”

Easily led astray? What was she talking about? Who’d led Laura “astray”, and in which way?

“I will think about it,” Davenport said. From the finality of his tone the conversation as obviously nearing its end, and I did not wish to be seen to be openly eavesdropping. I quickly withdrew up the stairs, waited a moment, and walked down them briskly. As I reached the last steps, the door I’d been standing at opened fully, and Davenport emerged, a tall thin woman at his side.

“Here is our guest,” he said heartily, in German. “Fräulein Carmilla, this is my daughter Laura’s other governess, Mademoiselle de Lafontaine. Mademoiselle de Lafontaine, my daughter’s friend, Fräulein Carmilla.”

The woman looked at me with open hostility in her eyes, but managed to bend her lips in a semblance of a smile. “I am told that you saved our ward, Fräulein. We hope you have a happy stay here with us.”

“You are too kind…” I began, but just then I heard a happy squeal from behind me.

“Ah, there you are!” Laura rushed up and took my arm. “Come, dinner’s just being served.”

I had to make a pretence of mumbling along with the Grace at the start of the meal, and then of nibbling at bread and roast meat, though I passed up the wine in favour of water. At long last the repast was over, and we rose to leave.

Laura, as I should have foreseen, insisted on accompanying me into my room. “It’s so nice, you being here,” she proclaimed, bouncing on her back on my bed. “I’m so tired of being alone!”

I remembered the reference about her being led astray. “Why are you alone?” I asked. “Surely there are other aristocratic families in Styria with daughters you could visit and who could visit you?”

For some reason she blushed bright red again. “It’s just…they don’t like it.” She was silent for a minute or two. “Carmilla…could I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You’ve been to Berlin, and other places too, haven’t you? So tell me…have you ever heard of any women who…” she was so red now that in the candlelight she seemed positively dusky. “…loved other women? I mean, not like mothers and daughters, or sisters, just…other women?”

“I have, uh, met a few.” I swallowed. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s not important.” It was clearly very important. “I should be going to bed. Good night, Carmilla, I’ll see you in the morning.” She almost fled from my room.

Well, well, I thought. Whatever has been going on inside these walls?

After a few minutes, long enough to allow for “saying prayers” and undressing, I blew out my candles and prepared to go out to feed. I had, of course, no intention of preying on the inhabitants of the Schloss, at least not until I’d got to know the place much, much better. Changing into the darkest of the dresses I had, the one I’d been wearing on my march to Vienna, I opened one of the windows and stepped out into the night. There was a convenient tree outside, so I didn’t even have to jump to the ground.

The smell of dung guided me to the stables, where I found the horses I’d stopped earlier. They were restless and uneasy, but in my long existence I’d fed from horses thousands of times and I knew how to quiet them down. So, though I fed a little from each of them, even the groom in his little house next to the stable was none the wiser that anything had happened when I returned to my room.

Then I sat on my bed and went over everything that had happened, wondering what to do next.

I had come no closer to an answer when dawn lightened the windows and I fell into a restless sleep for some hours, until Laura burst into my room at eight in the morning. “Come on, sleepyhead!” She’d lost all the shyness that had suddenly overcome her the previous night. “Get up, have breakfast, and come with me so I can show you around!”

“You’re disgustingly cheerful this early in the morning, you know that?” I groaned my way out of my nice comfortable bed and washed my face and eyes from the basin in the corner. “Well, then.”

It was much more difficult to convincingly pretend to eat in the light of day, so I just said that I did not get hungry in the morning, and limited myself to tea and milk. Later Laura took me on a walk around the Schloss. Many of the things she showed me I was already familiar with, from the time or two I’d been there over a hundred years before, but others, especially in the grounds, were new.

“So, about the thing you mentioned last night,” I said, while we leaned our elbows on the parapet and gazed down at the moat with its drawbridge and paddling swans. “Is there any particular reason you asked that?”

She glanced at me quickly under her brows. “I...could we talk a bit later? I’ll have the maids draw you a hot bath. You did say you’d have one today.”

I hadn’t promised to have one, but I didn’t mention that. Although, as you know, Enid, our kind can stay clean enough without bathing, I hadn’t felt the touch of hot water in so long my skin almost crawled in anticipation. “Thank you,” I said. “That would be wonderful.”

An hour later I stood watching next to Laura as the maids who’d brought up hot water in pails from the kitchen curtsied and left. If it were up to me I’d have spared them and brought the water up myself, with a lot less exertion besides. Laura squeezed my hand. “Now you can bathe.”

“What about you?” I asked, on an impulse.

She looked at me with confusion all over her face. “About me? How do you mean?”

“You need to bathe too, don’t you? Do you really want those poor girls to heat water all over again and drag it up here for you?”

She blinked at me and sighed. “I suppose not. But would you really feel comfortable if we bathed together?”

“I, uh, I have bathed with girls before, you know.”

“Is that something that they do in Berlin?” She sounded honestly curious.

“It’s been known to happen, and not just in Berlin.” I began stripping off my clothes. “Come on, undress and get in the tub, then we’ll talk.”

She blushed a fetching pink, turned away from me, and began removing her clothes. There was a mirror on the wall opposite her, though, and I saw her eyes on me as she began pulling off her dress. By then I was almost naked, with only my drawers still on, and her eyes followed my hands as they pushed the garment down my legs, revealing my pubis to her eyes.

I began to have an inkling of what they meant by her being led astray. “Laura?”

I’d already stepped into the tub and was in the act of lowering myself into the water when she finally replied. “Yes?”

“Get in before the water gets cold.” I’d made a point of not glancing at her while she undressed, but couldn’t resist a quick peek under my brows as she finally got in. Her body was pale, a lot paler than her face and arms. Her pink nipples looked like roses on the snowy hills of her breasts. Her pubic hair was a patch of dark gold.

She was beautiful.

I waited until she was settled in the water opposite me, with her nipples peering coyly from her half submerged breasts, before I looked up. “Comfortable?”

She sighed. “Yes…” Her feet slipped over my thighs, finding space around my waist. Beneath the water, our vulvas must have been almost touching. I had to make a deliberate effort to not move any closer to her. “This feels good.”

“All right, so about what you were asking me last night.” I’ve often found that being naked together makes someone more likely to open up. “Did you have anyone special in mind?”

She turned even redder. “Yes…” she whispered eventually. “Yes, I do. There is someone I’m asking this for.”

“And this person is…please don’t be embarrassed…is this person you?”

She looked down at the water and finally nodded. Just once.

“Oh, Laura,” I replied. “You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about. A lot of women love other women. It’s even common among the nobility, though of course nobody talks about it openly. I mean, that would never do!”

She looked up at me quickly and hopefully. “You know women like that?”

I nodded. “Yes. Many.”

“And you don’t think it’s…unnatural?”

“Of course it isn’t. If it exists, it’s part of nature. How can nature be unnatural?”

She said nothing to that. I pushed the water at her with my hands so that little waves splashed against her shoulders. She looked up at me with a little laugh. “You’re naughty sometimes.”

I smiled back at her. “Not only sometimes. I’m naughty most of the time. I’ll show you how, if you want.”

She bit her lip and blushed bright red. “I think we should get out of the tub, before we get wrinkled.”

There was no way we could’ve got wrinkled in such a short time, but I knew she was trying to keep herself from embarrassment, so I pretended that I agreed with her. She fetched a couple of rough towels for us to dry ourselves, and then we dressed. She was very quiet throughout.

We went to the library, which was deserted. She sat down on a chair between the cupboards of books and motioned me to another. “And…if you touch yourself…between your legs…” she looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. “…for pleasure…that’s something women do too?”

“Laura! Just about every woman who ever existed has done that at some time. Don’t you?”

She sighed. “Oh.”

“Is there something you need to tell me?”

She nodded, took a deep breath, and looked up at me. “When I was younger, still a child, I found that touching myself like that when I was in bed felt good.” I nodded, encouragingly. “I didn’t know why, I just knew it felt good, so I used to touch myself every night after I went to bed. Then one day I found an old painting, of a beautiful dark haired lady…” She sighed. “I don’t know who she was. It was a small painting, and very old, but the moment I saw her, my heart clenched. I’d never seen anyone so captivating, and even through that ancient painting, she’d won me over.”

“Go on. What happened?”

“I snatched up the painting and hid it under my dress, next to my heart. That night, when I lay in bed, my thighs apart and my fingers slipping under my drawers to caress myself, I began imagining that they were not my fingers, but those of my beautiful painted lady. And every night after that I did the same, until it almost seemed to me that I could feel her breath on my cheek and the warmth of her body in the bed beside me.

“It couldn’t last, of course. I realise that now. One night, while I was touching myself, the pleasure I felt suddenly peaked in a crescendo that brought a cry to my lips. By the greatest ill fortune, at that very moment Mademoiselle de Lafontaine was walking past my bedroom. A moment later, the door flew open and she rushed in…only to find me with my night dress thrown back, my fingers buried in the spot between my legs, and the little painting clutched in my other hand.”

“Oh,” I said. I could not think of anything more to say.

Laura swallowed. “Of course they made the most dreadful fuss. I think Madame Perrodon would have let it pass, but Mademoiselle de Lafontaine and Father took away my painting and called in a doctor the next day to ‘cure me’, as though I was ill. They even brought in a priest to expel the demons from my mind and my room.” She sighed. “From that night on, for years, either Madame Perrodon or Mademoiselle de Lafontaine would sleep in my room, to make sure that I could never touch myself again.”

“And what happened to the painting?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Father burnt it or threw it away. She was really very beautiful.” She looked at me and repeated the sentence in a whisper. “She was really…very beautiful.”

She fell silent and I took her hands in mine. “Laura. Nothing you did was wrong. As I said, every woman in the world has touched herself like that, at one time or another.”

She looked up at me and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “So…you have?’

“Of course I have.” I raised our joined hands to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “Please, Laura, stop thinking you did anything wrong.”

She drew a deep, shuddering breath and wiped her eyes. “Oh, Carmilla, I am so glad that you’re here.”

I felt a shaft of pain inside me at her words. If she knew what I was she would not be so glad, not at all. “Let’s make the most of the day and go for a walk,” I said. “We can spend the day out and about.”

“Capital idea!” She jumped to her feet. “I’ll ask the cook to give us a packed lunch.”

We walked a fair distance, talking. In truth, it was strange to walk out in the sun without a care in the world, after so many years of feeling as though sunlight was as fetters on my feet. I had none of my powers, of course, but I didn’t miss them. With her by my side, our fingers brushing, I felt as though I was still human, as though I could live like this forever. And, with every moment that passed, I grew more and more impressed with this young woman. Away from her father and her governesses, she blossomed like a flower, displaying a keen wit and a ready intelligence. She asked me incessant questions about my supposed family in Berlin and the doings of the Prussian nobility, to answer which I had to draw on all of my at the time fairly limited experience of that great city. Finally we came to a natural clearing in the woods, where she declared would be the ideal spot for our picnic.

Since it was broad daylight it was more difficult for me to convincingly pretend to eat, but Laura was so caught up in her questions and listening to my answers that she hardly noticed. But lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with me, and eventually I could no longer suppress a yawn.

“You’re tired,” she said. “Let’s go back home so that you can rest.”

I’d rather have slept right there, on the grass, with my head on her lap, but I dragged myself up and we wended our way back to the Schloss. At a certain point she slipped her hand into mine, shyly, like a child. We held hands until we came in sight of the lowered drawbridge. “I enjoyed the walk, Laura.”

“I did too.” She sighed. “I wish we could have kept walking on and on.”

I went to my room, closed the door, pulled off my dress and boots, fell into bed, and slept until the fading light through the little windowpanes woke me. Laura came to my room just as I finished dressing, and she and I spent the evening talking and laughing, quite as though we’d known each other for years.

Dinner was a repeat of the previous night’s experience. Neither governess took much overt notice of me, while Davenport limited himself to observing that my coming had made his daughter happier than she’d been in months. Afterwards I retired to my room, waited until the castle had quieted, and as on the previous night I slipped down by way of the tree.

I could not, of course, feed from the horses again, not on two consecutive nights, so I slipped across the drawbridge that was never raised and into the forest, looking for a deer or a stray sheep. Instead I found a man quietly walking through the woods, a bag over his shoulder and coiled cord with nooses at the end dangling from his fist.

I’ve never had any love of poachers. I did not spare him. Afterwards, I dragged his corpse to a dip in the ground, which I covered with twigs and leaf debris, making a mental note to not bring Laura walking this way. Then, replete enough so that I would not have to feed for several days, I swiftly returned to my room by way of the tree.

I was not a moment too soon. Even as I clambered in and turned to pull the window closed, the bathroom door opened and Laura slipped in, wearing a chemise and, apparently, nothing else. “Carmilla,” she whispered. “You’re awake!”

“I couldn’t sleep. I wanted some fresh air.” I fastened the window back open, letting in the wan moonlight, and turned to her. “Couldn’t you, either?”

“No…” she blushed and looked down at her bare toes. “I wanted to…if you could…”

“Yes?”

“Could I share your bed?” she asked in a rush, as though desperate to get the words out. “I just…I want to be with you tonight.”

“Of course you can. Just let me undress.” If she’d wondered why I was still fully clothed, down to my boots, when I supposedly was trying to sleep, she didn’t show it. Nor did she, this time, make any pretence of not watching while I disrobed down to my own chemise, not forgetting to remove my drawers as well. Once again her eyes followed my hands as I pushed the garment to my ankles.

“Carmilla…” she murmured, after I slipped into bed beside her and drew the sheet over our bodies. “May I ask you one more question?”

“Of course,” I assured her, and ran my finger down the side of her face. “What is it?”

“Have you ever been in love? I mean…with a woman?”

I thought for a moment. Had I? Had I been in love with Brunhilda? “I don’t know. It’s complicated. There are no yes or no answers to this question.”

“But…you’ve been intimate with women? You’ve kissed them and…touched them?”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes, I have.”

She sighed. “Carmilla…you remember my telling you that they don’t like me making friends they don’t approve of?”

“Yes…”

“Last year, in Vienna, I met a girl. Helga, that was her name, Helga von Rotwald.” She paused, as though to check if I’d ever heard of her before. I shook my head. “I liked her a lot, very much. And one evening when we were together, she kissed me. Here.” She touched her lips. “It made me feel…I can’t express it. It was like lightning through my body, down to the tips of my toes.” She paused.

“Go on,” I said gently, when the pause had stretched on interminably. “What happened?”

“We were kissing again when Mademoiselle de Lafontaine came into the room looking for me and saw us. I suppose you can imagine what happened after that. We left Vienna that same evening and came back here.”

Oh, so that was what the led astray was all about. “Did you hear from this girl again?”

“No.” She sighed. “For months all I could think of was those kisses, and her touching me. Here.” She took her hand and put it on her breast. It lay warm in my palm, only the thin cloth of her chemise separating us. “I still imagine it, and it makes my heart beat faster, and…”

“And?”

“It makes me wet, between my legs.” She bit her lip. “Carmilla…”

“What is it, dear?”

“Could you kiss me, please? I want to be kissed by you.”

“With pleasure.” Making sure my fangs were fully retracted, I inclined my head towards her, and her mouth crashed against mine. I felt her lips spread as her tongue pushed against my teeth. I opened my mouth and let it in. I felt her breathe in sharply and then she moaned as her hands clutched at me.

“Carmilla…” she whispered once she’d finally broken her kiss.

“…Laura?” I could feel my own heartbeat accelerate. “Are you all right?”

“I’m…I’m…” she clutched at me and kissed me hard again. “I’ve never been more all right. Please kiss me again.”

I obliged. Our feet tangled under the sheets as her lips slid over mine, lubricated by our saliva. I felt her nipple stiffen against my palm. She pulled my head to her with her hand against the back of my neck. Her breath came hot and fast on my face.

“Darling…” she moaned. “Carmilla, darling, hold me, kiss me, touch me. Touch me everywhere.”

I slid my hands down her body, until they reached the bare skin of her thighs. She shivered.

“Do you like that?” I murmured. She nodded against my face.

I slipped my hands under her chemise and up her thighs. As I’d surmised, she was naked under it, and as I cupped her bottom she pushed herself forward against me, with a gasp. “Oh…that feels so good. What should I do?”

“Just lie back and enjoy yourself.” I pushed her on her back, rolled over her thighs so I was positioned between them, and slid her chemise up over her torso towards her breasts. “Raise your hips a little, dear,” I murmured, so that the cloth wouldn’t be trapped between her bottom and the bed. The sheets were now a forgotten puddle of linen draping our feet. In the wan moonlight her navel was a well in the flat plain of her belly, her patch of pubic hair a dark triangle pointing to the meeting place of her thighs, but with my enhanced vision I could see her cleft swelling and the moisture gleaming on her labia. She herself caught hold of the chemise and pulled it up and over her breasts, shoulders, and head, baring herself before me.

“Carmilla,” she moaned, “I need…I don’t know what I need. I just need you.”

“In a moment, love.” I pulled off my own chemise and slid my naked torso over hers to kiss her lips. Our nipples rubbed on each other. I could feel her moisture coating my lower belly. Her tongue tip probed mine. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at me with an expression that could have been anything from wonder to terror.

“Carmilla, what’s happening? What’s happening to me?”

“It’s just your body readying itself for love, dear.” I nuzzled her throat. Her blood pumped and surged, just a skin’s breadth from my mouth, but even if I hadn’t gorged myself earlier I couldn’t have done anything to her. I licked the hollow of her throat as I slid slowly down her body. She cried out softly as my mouth found her nipple. I sucked on it softly, while with my fingers I rubbed and gently twisted her other nipple, and my free hand caressed her hip and thigh. Her pubic hair, wet with her moisture, rubbed against my navel as she instinctively spread her legs as far as she could. I switched my mouth and hand from one breast to the other. She made an inarticulate sound and bucked her hips up against my body.

I still remember the exquisite sensation of her labia parting for me as my fingers slipped between them and to the entrance of her vagina. I ran them up and down her cleft, coating them in her own lubrication, as I kept licking and tweaking first one nipple and then the other. She moaned and writhed and shook under me, her hands clutching at my arms and shoulders hard enough to leave bruises.

Slowly, very slowly, I slipped a finger into her vagina, stretching her hymen around it as I passed through. I curled it up, seeking and finding the spot I had long since discovered in myself and other women, the spot which made her throw her hips up against my hand and cry out as she came.

“God…” she whispered. Back then, taking the alleged deity’s name in vain was a considerable sin, so it showed how much she was moved. “I’ve never felt anything like this…not even when I touched myself thinking about my painted lady.”

I slipped my finger out of her and eased myself up enough to kiss her mouth and eyes. “I’ve hardly even begun,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Now the expression in her eyes was unmistakably wonder.

“You’ll see,” I told her, and kissed her again.

Easing myself down so I lay between her thighs, I put my fingers on either side of her cleft and spread her open like a flower so that the little nodule of her clitoral tip popped free of its hood. Running my tongue up her excited pink membranes, I touched it to her clit and flicked it from one side to the other. Laura, who’d never even imagined such a thing was possible, jerked with every part of her body. I gave her no respite, licking up and down her cleft and side to side on her little pink nub, until she made a deep growling noise in her throat as she convulsed again.

“Please, Carmilla, no more,” she whispered after two more orgasms. “You’ll kill me with pleasure.”

I slipped up her sweat-slick body and embraced her. “You’ll learn to love every bit of it, my darling,” I whispered.

“But what about you? I didn’t give you any pleasure.” My heart thrilled to hear that. This girl, moved to her very foundations by sensations that she’d never even imagined existed, was asking about my satisfaction. “I want to do things for you, too.”

“You will, my love. I’ll teach you.” I kissed her brow. “Rest now.”

I held her in my arms and little by little her breathing became regular as she fell asleep. I lay awake and watched her, and wondered how I would manage this complication in my life that I had no idea of how to deal with.

By the time dawn had appeared on the horizon and I had to wake her to get dressed and return to her room so nobody would find her with me, I was no closer to an answer.

The next few days fell into a regular pattern. We’d go for a walk in the morning, with a packed lunch, taking a different route every day and returning in the early afternoon. When out with Laura, I would never permit any kisses or intimacy, mindful of peering eyes. After returning I would retire for a while, sleeping for a few hours until the advent of dusk brought me back awake. After the pretence of supper, I would retire to my room, and await Laura’s coming through the bathroom door, already naked and eager for the lovemaking to come.

I taught her well, those few nights. She learnt to give as well as take pleasure, to probe my nub and canal with her tongue and fingers, to push and pull herself to orgasm on my thigh. She learnt how to drive me to desperate need with her tongue on the side of my neck, and how to sate that need with her mouth and hands and breasts and more.

Of course I knew it couldn’t last. I could not stay much longer and I would very soon need to feed again. And yet this was the first real intimacy I had known in my century and a half of existence, excepting Brunhilda’s perfidious embraces. The only way out I could think of was to turn Laura, but she did not even know what I was. If I turned her without her knowledge and permission, in what way would I be better than Brunhilda? In what way would I be worthy of her love?

I’d admitted that I was falling in love with Laura. I knew she was in love with me. But there was no way I could think of to solve the problem.

I should have left already. I knew this, too. But I could not cut the ties that bound me there, to that beautiful ruddy-faced blonde girl with her curious mind and her increasing skills in bed.

I began to have thoughts of asking her to run away with me, to leave her little Schloss behind and see the world by my side. Maybe, then, little by little I could show her what I was, so that she’d agree to be turned, and be with me for eternity. But her obvious love for her father and her affection for Perrodon – for de Lafontaine she never showed any particular good feeling – made that idea stillborn in my mind.

One day, while we were out, we saw a pedlar come down the path towards us, with a bag over his back. Those pedlars were a common sight back then; they not only sold things but did such work as shaving people and extract teeth. He looked at us and gave a gap-toothed smile. “Ah, you lovely young ladies! I can give you anything you want from my sack. Artworks, magic spells, charms against demons, anything at all, at a very cheap price! You just have to ask!”

“I’m sorry,” Laura said, politely, “but while I’m certain that you have wares we would love, we don’t have the time, and in any case we have no money with us.”

I was keeping a close watch on the pedlar, and saw his eyes shift craftily. I knew what he was about to suggest before he even opened his mouth. “Come on, Laura,” I told her, taking her by the arm. “Let us go on our way.”

As we passed the pedlar he hissed under his breath at me. “Whore.” I did not deign to look at him.

Later, it would be averred that this pedlar saw my fangs and tried to warn the Davenport family about me. Like everything else that happened, it was a lie.

When we’d just returned from our walk, Perrodon met us with eyes round as saucers. “Laura! Fräulein Carmilla! I’m so glad you’re back, safe!”

“Why, Madame Perrodon? What happened?”

“There’s word of a dreadful disease in the village.” That village was a good ten kilometres away. I had used it as a source of food more than once, but not in recent months. “The pedlar came by, and said people were dying of it.”

“We won’t go that way, then,” I said.

“You should not go out at all!” I hadn’t noticed Mademoiselle de Lafontaine behind Perrodon. “Monsieur Davenport should forbid it.”

I looked at her, and reminded myself that I should not take her lightly. Unlike Perrodon, she was still convinced that I was an enemy. “Mademoiselle,” I said, “you can be sure I will do nothing to put Laura at risk in any way.”

She sniffed. “I will have a word with Monsieur Davenport.”

“Don’t mind her,” Perrodon said. “Come now, and drink a glass of port. It will protect you against the disease.”

Laura laughed. “Oh, Madame, you think port is a cure for everything!”

I declined the port. “I’m a little weary,” I said. “And,” I murmured for Laura alone as Madame Perrodon preceded us into the Schloss, “my darling, I am afraid my time of the month is beginning. I will be unable to entertain you tonight.”

She sighed in vexation. “I can only hope the next few days will pass swiftly. I need to be in your arms every night, as much as I need to breathe.” My heart broke a little at those words.

As soon as we’d all retired that night, I changed into dark clothing and exited the Schloss by way of the tree and the drawbridge. I’d already decided to visit the village and see what was going on.

Running as quickly as I could through the forest, avoiding paths, it took me rather less than an hour to arrive. There were candles burning in many windows, and some movement between houses, proof positive that something was wrong. Creeping up to one window, I saw a rather pitiful sight; a woman in her early middle age weeping pitifully over a bed on which lay a girl scarcely in her teens. Even from outside the window I could smell the blood.

It was the same in several other houses I spied on. People bleeding from their noses, mouths, and other orifices, the smell of their suffering coppery and thick in the air, almost too strong for me to control myself. One in particular drew my attention; a thin, tall girl in her late teens, with black hair like mine, sat in a corner with a cloth clamped to her nose and mouth. As I watched the white of the fabric turned red and the blood-stench filled my nostrils. I quickly withdrew before it could fill my brain.

To this day I don’t know what the disease was. I can only surmise that it was a virus like Ebola, which somehow took root in a remote Styrian village for a while before burning out. Later, of course, they blamed it all on me; but then they blamed, quite literally, everything on me. I’ve often thought that if a meteor had struck the Schloss they would’ve blamed that on me as well.

I fed on the way back, on some unfortunate on the fringe of the village. He was not bleeding yet, so I took him as yet unafflicted with the disease. Back then, remember, the link between germs and disease hadn’t even been established, so I was unconcerned about carrying back the illness to my beloved. In that at least, I was successful; I arrived back at the Schloss with no lethal microbes on my body or in my clothes.

As I walked quietly across the drawbridge, I saw something that piqued my interest; a candle aglow in the room where Davenport and de Lafontaine had been talking on the night of my arrival, and which, I had since discovered, was the former’s study. It was surprising that anyone should be up so late, so I crept up to the window to find out if I could discover anything.

The window was open, and I heard the voices at once, again speaking French; Davenport and de Lafontaine. “Now will you believe me?” the woman was saying. “Look at it! They’re identical.”

“I don’t understand,” Davenport said. “Is this why you asked me to meet you here so late? I thought you’d long ago destroyed the painting.”

“I did not. I thought it might be necessary at some future time. I kept wondering why this guest of yours looked so familiar, and just tonight it struck me. Please, Monsieur, look!”

There was a pause, long enough for me to be able to edge an eye around the side of the window. Davenport was sitting at his desk, the candle before him. De Lafontaine stood beside him, holding a small picture frame out for him to see. Davenport took the picture, studied it for a while, and put it down on his desk. “I suppose there is a resemblance,” he said finally. “But so what? How does this make our Fräulein Carmilla anything but what she claims to be?”

“Don’t you see it?” The frustration was clear in de Lafontaine’s voice. “See, on the back, it says Mircalla, Gräfin von Karnstein.” I’d already half-expected it, so I managed to not make a sound. “Monsieur, the von Karnsteins have been gone for a hundred years.”

“Perhaps she is a descendant. I still see no reason why you are so upset.” Davenport leaned the painting on an inkwell, facing me. Even in the uncertain candlelight I instantly recognised my features, and even recalled that it had been painted for my eighteenth birthday. The artist had been a young Italian, passing through. Somehow, over the years, it had made its way, perhaps via a looting pedlar, from Schloss Karnstein to this Schloss and to young Laura’s hands. “I’ll think about this further. But it is time we retired, Mademoiselle; our other guest arrives tomorrow afternoon. I have just had word this evening.”

Other guest? I would have loved to find out more, but they took the candle and left the room. They took the painting, too, but I didn’t need a closer look at that. I returned up the tree to my room, and finally, at long last, began to make contingency plans. My mind was a mess, my thoughts chaotic and rambling, and the only one I settled on was one that I could not really believe I would ever need.

The next day was Sunday, the first since my arrival. And shortly after the luncheon I found I had an unanticipated problem. The entire family and the staff were expected to gather at the Schloss chapel for prayers.

Now, of course, as we both know, crucifixes and holy water and the like have no effect on our kind. But I had long ago, from the time I’d been turned, rejected religion, and while I could pretend to mumble along at Grace at supper, the very idea of sitting for an hour or longer listening to some hypocritical old priest ramble through a sermon set every hair on my body bristling. “I’m sorry,” I said to Laura and Madame Perrodon, “but I have severe pains in my belly due to it being my time of the month. I cannot sit down for a long time, or kneel at all.”

Later they said that I had a violent aversion to religion. They were correct, but not for the reason that they thought.

Laura was disappointed; I think she was pleasantly anticipating sitting with me in the pews and perhaps taking the opportunity to quietly mock the priest and the sermon. I’d already discovered that she was far too intelligent to be a good believer. Perrodon merely looked mildly worried; she probably had an inkling that de Lafontaine was intriguing against me, and was afraid that I’d given her colleague fresh ammunition against me. But they left to the little chapel without further ado, and I saw de Lafontaine preceding them along the path.

I was about to go back up to my room to rest as much as I could during the remaining hours of daylight when I discovered that one other person had not gone to the chapel. Davenport was in his office, standing looking out of the window. He had not seen me, and looked as though he were waiting for something.

A moment later I heard the sound of hooves and carriage wheels on the drawbridge, and swiftly retreated up the stairs, just in time. Davenport left his study and went to the door. “General von Spielsdorf! My dear fellow, how dreadfully you are changed!”

Peeking down from the staircase, I saw a white-haired elderly man enter. I’d never seen him before. “Herr Davenport. I wish I could have come in better circumstances.”

“Come along to my study. My staff are all at prayer, but they will unload your luggage once the services are over.”

I crept down the stairs and to the door, flattening myself against the wall. “What happened to your niece?” I was just in time to hear Davenport ask. “How did she die?”

There was a brief pause. “Thomas,” von Spielsdorf said eventually, “forgive me, but how much do you know of the dark love some women have for other women?”

“You mean?”

“I brought up Bertha as my own daughter,” the General replied. “You know that as well as I do. I could never have imagined…”

“Here, have some wine. Imagined what?”

“…that those dark forces could so easily lead her astray.” Again, that lead her astray. I felt my jaw muscles clench. “She was fine, quite fine, until just a few weeks ago. I had kept her away from any unchaperoned contact with young people of the opposite sex, of course…”

“Of course.”

“…but I made the mistake of thinking young women were safe for her to be with, unsupervised.”

“Oh. You mean?”

“She had a friend. A girl from one of the oldest Salzburg families. They spent a lot of time together, and this girl used to stay over at my house a few nights, almost every week.”

“…I see.”

“One night I came back early, much earlier than I anticipated, and went up to Bertha’s room to tell her I was home. We were supposed to leave for here the next afternoon, and I wanted to make sure that she got proper rest. And when I opened the door, I found my niece and this girl…”

“Oh.”

“…yes, in déshabillé. And….kissing and touching each other.” Von Spielsdorf was silent a long time. “My niece threw herself from the window that same night, after I had ordered her to never see this girl again. Now you know all, and why I could not refer to this in the letter I had written to you. I could not risk your daughter hearing of it.”

“What happened to the other girl?”

“She fled past me into the night. I have no knowledge of what she did afterwards. I tell you, Thomas, some women are only on this earth to tempt and ruin others. I am convinced that they are demons in disguise.”

“You know…” Davenport’s voice was very low. “I have a young female guest here, too. She is my daughter’s friend, and her governess has kept warning me that she is evil.”

“I would not doubt it. Where is this young woman now?”

“She is at prayers.”

“Introduce us later, if you please. I want to see if I can detect the same signs of evil that I am now convinced I saw in that vile girl who defiled my niece. I only wish I could have noticed them in time.”

“I will. For now, let us speak of more pleasant things. Will you have more wine?”

I went back upstairs. I knew now that I would have to leave. My heart was breaking as I thought of Laura. I had found love, and right then I was certain that I would never find it again. Yes, I did, thank you for reminding me, Enid, but it took two hundred years.

Later, at supper, I was brought face to face with the visitor.

“This is my daughter’s…friend…” There was a distinct hesitation there, for the first time Davenport had spoken about me in my hearing. “…Fräulein Carmilla. And this is General von Spielsdorf.”

I felt, more than saw, Laura stiffen. “What happened to Bertha?” she asked.

“We will talk about that later.” Davenport bent his head over his food. I pretended to do the same, but could feel the General’s eyes on me. Laura bristled by my side, knowing something was very wrong.

At length the meal concluded. I was very uncomfortable, having been compelled to consume some solid food, although I at least stuck to water. Afterwards Laura followed me upstairs.

“He’s horrid,” she said, as soon as we were alone.

“Who, von Spielsdorf? He’s just mourning his niece.”

“No, it isn’t just that. Did you not see the way he was staring at you? I think he hates you.”

I was struck again by how intelligent and perceptive she was, and wished it were not too late for me to reveal what I was to her. I regretted it for many, many years, until I met you, Enid. I became convinced that I could never find love again, and I still cannot believe my good fortune that I found you, and that you love me, too. But back then I could never have foreseen any of that. “What really matters, Laura,” I said, “is whether you trust yourself. Do you trust your own heart, your own feelings?”

She blinked. “…yes, I do. Why do you ask me that?”

“Never mind. Just remember, my love…never, ever, doubt yourself. Never change to suit another.” I smiled at her, briefly, and closed my bedroom door.

That was the last time I ever saw her. I still wish I’d kissed her goodbye. I still to this day wish I’d done that. And I hope that, despite all that her family and von Spielsdorf said afterwards, despite all the lies that they told about me, despite everything she herself said later, that she kept my last words to her in mind, and that, at least in her heart, she forgave me.

As soon as I could – I had no time to waste – I climbed down the tree outside my window. The candle was glowing in the window of Davenport’s study, and the window was open. Naturally, I stepped to my accustomed spot by the wall. I needed to know what was happening.

I immediately heard Mademoiselle de Lafontaine’s voice. She was speaking German this time. “…and this is the painting. You see that they look exactly the same.”

“Mircalla, Gräfin von Karnstein…who was she?” It was von Spielsdorf. So that was why de Lafontaine was speaking German.

“She was one of the Karnstein clan from the old Schloss a few kilometres from here,” Davenport said. “I keep telling Mademoiselle de Lafontaine that Fräulein Carmilla must be a descendant and there’s nothing strange about that.”

“There is,” de Lafontaine exclaimed. “Today I looked in the books in your library, Monsieur, for the history of the great noble families of the region, and found an account of the Karnsteins. Mircalla was the last of them, the only offspring of either gender, and she died, unmarried and childless, in 1697.”

There was a long pause.

“She is a demon,” von Spielberg said eventually. “I am convinced of it now, even if I hadn’t watched her earlier and noted the same signs as the girl who…corrupted my niece Bertha.”

“What do you mean, signs?” Davenport demanded.

“She kept looking at your daughter in a way no woman should look at another, indeed, in a way no unmarried woman should look at anyone. And your daughter looked at her in exactly the same fashion. Once I had seen it in my own Bertha and her…friend…and realised what it meant, I could never mistake it again.”

“I have noticed that she is very close to Laura,” de Lafontaine replied. “I have wondered if she even sleeps in her own bed at night…or in Laura’s.”

I could almost hear the shock in the silence that followed. “You cannot be serious, Mademoiselle,” Davenport said eventually.

“Oh, but I am. I almost went to Laura’s room last night, but held back at the last moment because I thought I should speak to you first…again.”

“So what is it that you want me to do? Ask Fräulein Carmilla to leave? She was going to do so anyway.”

“No. If she just leaves, she, like the other she-demon that killed Bertha, will only spread her poison elsewhere.” Von Spielsdorf coughed and cleared his throat. “I think the lady here…what was your name again, Mademoiselle? I think Mademoiselle de Lafontaine is right. We should go up and visit this Carmilla’s room and see if she is in her own bed. If she isn’t, there is only one place where she could be, is that not so?”

I heard noises of them rising. “All right, let us go and see.”

For a precious few moments I was paralysed by indecision, then I acted. Swarming up the tree, I leapt through the window into my room, but realised that I had no time to undress and get into bed. I could already hear their tread in the passage. My only option was to rely on my contingency plan, the one I had never actually thought I’d have to use.

Snatching up one of the dresses Laura had lent me, I jumped to the window and threw myself out, scarcely touching the branches on the way down. I sprinted across the drawbridge and out into the night.

I’ve very little memory of my wild run to the village. I must have sprinted all the way, and even with my enhanced strength my ribs and legs were burning when I found myself on its outskirts, my heart racing as I tried to get my breath under control.

I hoped, desperately, that I wasn’t too late. The last house I’d looked into the previous night still had a candle in the window. When I peered in, I saw the girl from last night, the one with the same build and black hair as mine, lying on her bed. For a dreadful second I feared that I was too late, but then I heard the harsh, agonised sound of her breathing.

I did not have time to be gentle with her. I jumped in through the window, picked her up, slung her over my shoulder and was already outside before it occurred to me that I should have checked if someone else had been in the room and seen me. But I was fortunate, and she’d been alone.

With her on my shoulder it took hours to make my way to my destination. With every step I could feel her life ebbing away, but if I went too fast I might kill her. It was almost dawn when I finally saw the silhouette of Schloss Karnstein against the sky.

I was exhausted by then, but I had to keep driving myself. There was no time; I had to set the scene convincingly, before the sun rose and returned me to merely human strength. I looked around and chose the cemetery of the ruined village of Karnstein, as close to the walls of the Schloss as I could get. With the second wind born of desperation, I managed to dig up a grave, drag out the ancient coffin it contained, and throw the bleached bones within into the bottom of the pit, after which I replaced the coffin. The girl was unconscious, but still breathing, when I then stripped off the ragged nightdress she had on, and dressed her in the clothes I’d been wearing. Blood trickled from the corners of her eyes and mouth and her body was burning with fever when I lowered her into the coffin and gently replaced the lid.

Yes, it was cruel, but there was nothing I could have done for her. She was on the point of death either way. Even today, with modern medical science and the best treatment available, I doubt she could have been saved. I did whisper an apology to her as I threw the earth back over the coffin, but there was no way she could have heard.

Then the sun came up, and I had only enough strength left to pull on the dress I’d snatched up as I’d fled my room and crawl into a corner of the old church, to rest and hide until the night.

It was mid-afternoon when I was woken by voices. Two I readily identified; Davenport and von Spielsdorf. There was a third, a deep baritone that I hated as soon as I heard it.

“…but, Baron Vordenburg, are you certain?” Davenport sounded as though he would rather be anywhere else. “She was not in her room, but she was not in Laura’s room either. Maybe she has just gone away.”

“Yes, I am certain. I have had much experience with these creatures. And from what you tell me about this Carmilla and of Mircalla, she must be one of them. I am glad you contacted me.”

“It was fortunate that Mademoiselle de Lafontaine had heard that you were in the locality. We are not used to hunting demons.”

“They are not demons. That is why they can be hunted down and destroyed. Ah.”

“What is it, Baron?”

“Do you see that grave? It has been recently dug. The earth over it is fresh. But there is nobody living in this village any longer to be buried here.”

I stayed where I was, curled up small in a corner of the old church, not daring to take a look for fear of discovery. But I could hear enough to be able to tell what was happening. I heard Davenport call for spades and mattocks. I heard the sounds of iron blades cutting into earth, the thud of tools on wood.

“Gently,” Vordenburg, whoever he was, called. “Be careful opening the lid.”

There was a long pause.

“It is she,” Davenport said. “It’s Carmilla. I recognise her clothes.”

“It’s…she’s breathing,” von Spielsdorf said. “There’s so much blood everywhere.”

“She must be destroyed.” Vordenburg sounded excited. I could almost feel the delight in his voice. “Give me a hammer and that piece of wood there. It will do well enough for a stake.”

There was a thud, a gasp, and a little scream. My poor village girl had lived much longer than I’d thought she would. She’d lived just long enough.

“Tell your men to cut off her head and burn the body. Leave nothing but ashes. And then bring the ashes to me, so I can personally throw them in the river and see her disappear forever.”

“What do you think I should do about my daughter?” At least, I thought bitterly, they hadn’t brought her along to watch, then. At least they’d spared her that.

“That is up to you,” I heard Vordenburg’s fading voice. “I suggest though that you take her away from here. Go far away, maybe to England, but far away.”

I stayed where I was, and listened to the sounds of Davenport’s men doing as they’d been told, until night fell.

Then I walked away and did not look back again.

______________________________

ENID:

“Did you ever find out what happened to Laura?” I asked.

We’d finally stopped for a rest as the sun was going down in the west. Marcilla had told me that but for my whingeing we could’ve kept going through the night. I’d rather whinge, I’d told her.

So we took the bikes up into the woods a way and as the stars came out she finished her story.

“I mean, afterwards?” I added.

“No. I tried, some years later, in the late 1830s, when I could be reasonably certain that I was safe again. But I found no trace of her.”

“Maybe she changed her name? They could do that kind of thing back then, couldn’t they?”

“It’s perfectly possible. Of course, the tale they gave out to the world says she died, but literally everything in their story was a lie, so how can I trust even that?”

“She could be alive somewhere.” My heart sank a bit when I said that.

Marcilla chuckled. “Hardly. She’d have to be over two hundred years old. Why, are you worried?”

I sighed and owned up to myself that I was bricked solid. “Yeah…I’m stressy depressy that you still love her.”

“You are? Whatever for?”

“Come on, Marcilla, just look at me.” I indicated my chubby body in disgust. “From what you said she was a proper bonnie lass, apart from being, you know, brainy, spoke languages, and knew how to behave with the toffs. And what am I?” I felt the bitter rise in my gullet. “Someone who can’t even learn the things you try to teach me. You’d have been much better off with her.”

“Enid.” Marcilla took me by the chin and turned my mug towards her. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, in all these centuries. You gave yourself to me, knowing what I was. There can be no greater commitment between us than that.”

“I…”

“No, don’t put yourself down any more. Kiss me and I’ll prove to you how much I love you.”

We snogged. Her hands slipped under my tee and cupped my boobs.

“Enid,” she whispered against my mouth, “let me make love to you, now.”

Dumbly, I let her strip me. Lying naked on the grass I watched as she took off her gear, and though I’d seen her starkers many times before, it was like the first time, and also like it could be the last.

Then she was lying on me, rubbing herself slowly up and down, her nips making circles on my boobs, and my mind went away in the explosions of pleasure that took over my tits and my fanny and then everything else.

Later, we lay in each other’s arms, and my mind came back to me, and I made a vow.

I would fight for Marcilla’s love. I would overcome this Laura. No matter how long it took, I would beat her memory.

At midnight, we set off again.

“Come on, Enid,” Marcilla called. “Pedal faster. Put some effort into it.”

I put some effort into it. The tyres kept turning.

We went on.

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