The Valley

by Annie Graefnitz

  “And here she is now.” A man’s voice bellowed.

  Tom froze instantly as if he’d been caught shoplifting. “Too soon,” he whispered letting go of my hand and then scuttling off into the corner of the room.

  I first locked eyes with the skeletal man behind the voice. He looked familiar; he was the old man behind the curtains from the dungeons. Then saw my parents sitting on a cushioned bench next to each other.

  “My thanks, Tomas,” the man said before holding his arms out toward me. “Ah, Camille. He sounded almost giddy when he said my name. Are you enjoying my party? It is only a small gathering, I know. Nothing like what we have in the old country.”

  I instinctively backed away as he strode toward me. His smile pushed his cheekbones even higher up his face creating a heart shape when combined with his pointed chin. His deep-set eyes did not leave mine.

  “You’re every bit as beautiful as I’ve imagined all these years. You mother and father tried their best to keep us apart, but I’m afraid no one can control fate.” He gently rested his left hand on my head sending another shiver throughout my body.

  What on earth was he talking about? My eyes shifted from my parents, who seemed to be in some sort of a trance because they remained completely motionless, to Tom cowering in the corner of the room. He quickly diverted his eyes to the floor.

  “Tom?” I squeaked.

  The man pulled my chin back toward him. He put one hand on my back and held me close to him. We began gliding across the floor in a graceful waltz toward the wall-sized windows. He let go of me and I fell back in to a high backed red leather chair.

  “You are confused, rightfully so.” he said, straightening his cream-colored button up shirt. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Avedis. Some would say that I am the patriarch of our kind. But then again…” he swiveled on his heels and regarded my parents, who still sat with their bodies frozen, “…some favor my brother as the rightful leader. But that is of no consequence, my dear because he is dead and you are the key to solidifying my place.”

  There that word was again – key. I suddenly had a deep aversion to it, especially when it was preceded by the words ‘you are.’

  Avedis swooped gracefully down onto one knee and grasped my hands. “You will help me my dearest Camille, won’t you?”

  I looked my parents, but they were still not responding to anything that was happening.

  He looked over his shoulder and tilted his head. “They are quite beautiful. I knew my lovely new statues would be the perfect witnesses to our union.”

  I was frozen in the chair, unable to move while this lunatic gently stroked the top of my hands with his thumbs. My mouth opened to call out to my parents, but only a raspy screech managed to escape. I found myself stuck in the nightmare that haunted me throughout my life as my cry was lost in the melancholic voice still calling out from the second floor. Hot tears streaked down my cheeks.

  “Shh,” he soothed, squeezing my hands tighter. “Do not cry. I do realize that my appearance at the moment is rather unappealing. I often find myself turning away from my own reflection. But I assure you soon I will be my youthful self again.”

  I didn’t care about his appearance! I didn’t even know what he was talking about. What union? I tried to look around him again, but instead my eyes fell on Tom. He avoided my stare again.

  Avedis stood and drifted in Tom’s direction. When he reached the old man, he put one bony hand on his shoulder and mumbled something too low for me to hear. Tom’s head lowered and his shoulders shook slightly. He nodded again and again while Avedis spoke. Despite Tom’s usual watery eyes, I wondered what Avedis could have been saying to bring actual tears to them.

  I strained to hear, but it was of no use. Even in this massive room, with all of the marble and perfect acoustics, the voice from above made it impossible to hear. Whatever it was, I assumed it wasn’t good and I needed to get my parents and myself out of here-now. I slipped my feet out of my shoes as quietly as I could and slowly rose out of the chair. With Avedis still distracted with Tom, I took the first step toward my petrified parents. But when I lifted my leg to take another silent step forward, my body weakened and I collapsed onto the floor. The loud slap of my hands hitting the marble floor made Avedis’ head snap away from Tom, and he was pulling me off the floor quicker than I knew what was happening.

  With a flick of his wrist into my stomach, I flew backward in to the chair, hitting my head on the wood trim. He was suddenly an inch away from my face. “Do not press your luck with me. I’ve been patient enough while you’ve run around here with all of your jungle friends. Letting them live this long has been nothing short of a miracle for me. They would have been dealt with long before now. I’ve even been so gracious as to not end the lives of your parents for no other reason than to have them witness this momentous occasion. I knew they wouldn’t want to miss it. I’ve done all of this, for you. Now I ask you, Camille. Will you be a good girl and not try to run away again?”

  He wasn’t asking at all, he was warning me. If I tried anything again, he would hurt them. Where were Will and the others? Did they not see me stupidly follow the music?

  I stared into his beady black eyes and slowly nodded my head.

  “Brava!” He clapped his hands together and held them to his face for a moment, staring at me. “Tomas!”

  Tom exited the corner and came to the chair. He grabbed my hands and pulled me out of the chair. I wasn’t sure where he was leading me, but I knew that he would have to support me because just as before, I had no strength in my legs.

  “Take her upstairs, gather our guests, the ceremony begins in at midnight,” Avedis commanded.

  The ceremony. Maybe that was what was making me weak. I was only minutes away from marrying this freaky old vampire man and I had no idea why. How was marrying me going to help him?

  Tom led me up the wide staircase.

  “Tom, what is happening? Why are you doing this?” I croaked as I grabbed onto the banister for stability.

  He remained silent while lightly pushing his hand against my back, urging me forward. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing anymore.

  “You tricked me? Why?” He’d tricked me into swallowing whatever that liquid was so that I was unable to put up a fight.

  No answer. I felt the rage building, but my energy did not parallel the emotion. I wanted to kick him down the staircase. I didn’t care if he was old and fragile. He deserved it. But as it was, I could barely make it to the second floor. It took every ounce of strength I had to reach the landing. I rested my hands on my knees and lowered my head.

  The sound of feet scampering around the floor forced my head up. Three women dressed in long, royal blue cloaks had surrounded me and before I knew what was happening, I was inside one of the rooms. Tom stepped out, closing the door behind him, leaving me with the women. They went to work immediately, silently, tugging at my clothes and hair in every direction imaginable. Their faces were completely void of any expression while they worked.

  “Please,” I whispered breathlessly.

  They did not seem to even hear me. One of the women, the most striking of all three, with short black pin-curled hair, floated to a large armoire in the corner and pulled out a white garment bag. She unbuttoned the bag and pulled out a large mass of fabric. Another woman, much shorter than her, folded my shirt and placed it on the vanity and began gathering the dress from the bottom while the third held on to my waist. If I wasn’t so completely dumbfounded and unable to think clearly, I would have been completely humiliated standing in front of these women in my underwear.

  The woman I was leaning against raised my arms and the other two slid the dress over my head and pulled it down, fitting it against my body. It felt like an extra hundred pounds had been added to my shoulders. My feet were placed into a pair of matching backless heels and the curly haired woman stood back. An expression finally appeared. Her high arched eyebrows raised even more on her forehead and
her red lips pursed. She looked at the other two and nodded. They promptly left the room, their footsteps fading into the hallway.

  She ran her fingers over my hair, twisting a small piece between her red fingernails studying me. She suddenly dropped it and slapped my cheek. I felt my warm blood pooling and then fall. She swiped it with her finger before it fell onto the dress. She looked at her hand and the yellow diamond ring that loosely encircled on her finger. “He doesn’t love you,” she said, before licking the blood from the ring.

  Tom re-entered the room and grasped my hand. He saw the scratch on my face and pulled out a handkerchief to dab my cheek. “Ursula, what have you done?” he growled at the woman.

  Her hand dropped to her waist and she stood tall, looking down her nose at Tom and me. “Only what I’ve wanted to do since our first meeting.”

  The grin that warped her expression struck me harder than her hand had. She was the jogger that I had almost run into. What was she doing there?

  Tom locked his arm around mine and pulled me gently out the door. We walked slowly down the hall, hesitating only for a moment as we passed by the door where the faceless woman poured her heart out in song. Tom drew in a labored breath and picked up his pace. At that point, nearly all of my weight was leaning on him. The weight of the dress was crushing me.

  “Do not be afraid,” he whispered as we reached the edge of the staircase overlooking the great room. All of the furniture, with the exception of the bench where my parents were seated, had been re-arranged in to a more formal setting.

  A dark wooden platform had been placed in front of the wall of windows. On it sat a single chair covered in deep velvet and intricately trimmed in gold. As we descended the staircase, I realized the chair more closely resembled a small throne. Before the platform were two rows of benches. The closest to the platform was the one that held my parents, still frozen and clutching each other’s hands, glaring defiantly in the direction of the chair-throne. The benches behind them and to the left of them were smaller, only able to seat one person.

  Avedis strode into the room. He had changed his clothing as well, and it wasn’t until I saw him that I realized why the dress I was wearing was so heavy. In the matter of a few minutes, I’d been thrown back into the eighteenth century. His tailored silk crème colored jacket was decorated with dark cocoa colored florals down the edging and on the large cuffs of the sleeves. It extended down to just above his knees. Underneath, a dark cocoa colored vest and short pants matched the pattern on his jacket. His dark stockings ended with polished shoes that matched his jacket.

  He walked with his eyes closed and his arms waving in the air, as if he was directing an invisible orchestra. He stopped when he opened his eyes and saw me. He put his fist to his mouth and gasped.

  “You’re simply breathtaking, Camille,” he sang as he glided toward me. “Have you seen yourself?”

  Before I could answer, he pulled me to the wall of windows to see my reflection. The only thing I could focus on was the hundred pounds of fabric pulling me into the floor that had somehow managed to be the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It was exactly the color of Avedis’ jacket. Crème silk with a simple form-fitting bodice. The sleeves ended at my elbow with a thick gathering of lace underneath the silk. At my waist, the dress billowed out around me in the same fabric. It was shockingly simple and beautiful, but the dress wasn’t what I was staring at through the glass. For a split second, I thought I saw a shadow streak across the courtyard.

  I was pulled away from the windows and sat in the throne by the woman while the others that dressed me lit the candles around the room, quickly moving to the benches and seating themselves. Tom stood in the back of the room again and lowered the lighting.

  “All of this may seem dramatic, but I have never been one to disregard the importance of ceremony, even at this hour.

  “As I said before, Camille, we are to be united. And it was the most serendipitous of fates that enabled my dear Ursula to intercept a tiny package on its way home –to you. Without that harmless looking box, we would still be searching for you. How very careless of your mother and father to attempt to maintain their façade in the center of my territory.

  “Ursula hand-delivered that treasure and found you there, alone and unprotected. Imagine my surprise when she informed me that not only were you there, but my old friend Tomas was alive and well. I was under the impression that he had perished long ago after I took something of his.” Avedis’ old wrinkled eyes flickered to the second floor. “He lived there amongst all of you as if he were one of you. It was indeed a great awakening for me.”

  Stepping on to the platform, and lowering himself on one knee, he took my hand and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a stone and held it up, presenting it to me. It was the same stone that was given to me and in all the family paintings from the book at the Inn.

  “You recognize this, yes.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know what this represents?”

  I shook my head.

  “It is a bloodstone. Legend says that it enables a vampire to live many lifetimes without taking one single drop of blood from a human. I have never believed that to be true and have only thought of it as a way to soothe the fears of humans that knew of our existence. Don’t be fooled by the spellcasters and their ridiculous beliefs. In the grand scheme of things it means very little to me.” He held the stone between his thumb and index finger, examining it. “It really is an ugly little thing. But then again, it was my brother that chose this as a symbol for his family and he never had an eye for beauty. I do suppose that it is due to the origins of the stone rather than its appearance that bonded him so tightly to it.

  This stone, yours and those of your family, was originally part of a much larger stone that is stained with the blood of our father.”

  His jaw clenched and he closed his fist around the bloodstone. His fist clenched slightly and then he opened his hand. There was nothing left of the stone but a powder in the middle of his palm that he dumped onto the floor.

  “It was an accident, you see. I was the one who spilled my father’s blood on that rock so long ago. Rasvan did not believe me. Which was not to my surprise, as he always thought me jealous of his closeness with our father.” He stopped abruptly, stood and dusted his hands off. “Again, I know that you are wondering what this has to do with you and me.”

  I nodded.

  “To make the long and tragic story of my life short, after the death of our father, Rasvan took control of our lives, and cast me out, He had a great compassion for humans that perverted our way of life. He’d made our kind live in shame of what we are by hiding in the shadows for far too long. I wanted to correct that, but obviously couldn’t while he was still in power. After centuries of assembling my own army, I appealed to him to meet me in the place of our father’s death on the guise of remorse. It was there that I staked him. That was seven years ago.”

  Something about the timeline tugged at my heart.

  “My dear, Rasvan’s blood runs in your veins. My brother was your grandfather. Isaiah, I believe he called himself for the time that he vacationed. What an imbecilic name. I was unaware that he had actually took a human wife…” His withered body trembled at the thought of it. “until after the assassination, one of his loyalists offered the information that Rasvan had an heir. Someone to take his place after his death, a half- human. A dhampir king of vampires, how absurd. Not to mention, he’d kill every last one of us because by nature, he has the power to kill vampires coursing through his body, no stakes needed! He might even assassinate me, his own blood!” He shrugged innocently before his eyes went blank as he hallucinated the possibilities of what could have been.

  His eyes closed and a thin smile crept across his lips. “It took a few years longer that anticipated, but we found the dhampir. It’s pathetic really, how it all happened.” Avedis turned to my father. “He has my brother’s face, you know.”

  He swung around q
uickly to face me again. “He has the face, but not the brilliance. Your simple-minded parents thought they could scavenge through my empire, depriving me of my resources without anyone noticing. I sent my most trusted advisor to the area to stop the annoyance, and she saw my brother’s face on your father’s body.

  “He and a human woman were happily trotting down the street when she noticed them, so she followed. They entered the building where they attempted to mail the package, but after they left and before the clerk filed the package away, Ursula confiscated it. She decided that the package probably meant for someone important and after seeing the matching names on the postage, she made a decision. The hand-delivered approach would probably be best, who knows whom the recipient was, a child perhaps?

  “She found you, she found Tomas, reminded him of his oath to me, and the rest is history.

  “Our way of life was nearly extinct when I came to rule, but soon it will return and flourish as it did when I was younger. We were kings then and with your blood, I will be once more.” He raised his arms in celebration to the audience smiling and swirling around. I moved my heavy head to watch the cheers that erupted from the audience and found Antoine standing in the back of the room with his arms folded across his chest and an odd look on his face. Was he bored?

  “My blood?” I whimpered, turning back to Avedis.

  He folded his hands behind his back. “Of course my dear,” he replied furrowing his brow. “What else?”

  The women watching giggled to themselves.

  His hand returned to his face and he stifled a laugh. “Oh, I am not going to marry you, that’s inappropriate. Vampires do not marry and you have human blood.” he giggled softly into his bony fist, and waving his other hand through the air at the decorations. “I am going to take all it. At first I thought that draining your father would be the solution for my needs. But his blood is too strong; I thought it was going to kill me. It didn’t. Instead, it ravaged my body for days and left me like this.” His bony index finger traced his cheek. “But your blood, your deliciously diluted blood. Well, I have been assured that history will not be repeated.” He scowled at Tom. “That will be the end of my brother’s line and the end of any resistance.”