by Cameron Jace
My curse began to bother me. Who was that witch who cursed me, and why weren't we allowed to speak her name, let alone know it in the first place? Why did she curse me?
Although I repeatedly asked my parents about her, they never succumbed to my wish to know her name, or where she was from. All I knew was that she hated our ancestor and I was supposed to be her nemesis. That was all. They said it was for the best for everyone.
Those unanswered questions weren't helping me occupy my mind, as I needed to forget about my curse. They didn't help me forget about my reflection and pretend I was the only one in the world who didn't need to see it.
My father and mother grew more concerned about anything resembling mirrors, including my mother's precious copper mirror.
Still, my father and mother worried if my blossoming into womanhood would urge me to break the rule and have greater interest in watching myself in the water's reflection, like any normal teen would do. This resulted in me being almost cut off from meeting any boys.
As obedient as I was, I seemed to forget all about mirrors again—which also worried them. Why isn't she curious about her looks? What is wrong with her? You know how parents are. Sometimes there is no way to please them.
My parents worried whenever I neared any kind of water: rivers, streams. Any shining metallic objects, like armors, worried them, although they believed the curse specified my reflection in either water or a mirror.
I spent my days hearing about girls staring at their reflections in the Pond of Pearls, debating who was the "most beautiful of them all." The famous and shiny pond looked like liquid pearls underneath a full moon from far away. I could only see it from my mother's chamber when I visited, now that I wasn't even able to leave the few chambers I was allowed to enter in the castle. Each day I contemplated if I should burst out of the castle and run to the Pond of Pearls, defying my parents' wishes and having to live with the consequences of breaking the curse.
I didn't want to be special anymore. I didn't want to be a hero, saving the land. I didn't want to be pampered. I just wanted to be a normal girl—something I was never granted, neither then nor now.
***
On my seventeenth birthday I had asked for a bigger chamber with a better view of the Pond of Pearls. My wish was granted a few months later only after endless debate between my parents.
I had to promise them each day that I wouldn't break the rule. A look at the pond from afar wouldn't hurt anyone. My father's soldiers guarded the gates leading to the Pond of Pearls anyway.
It was only a few days until I realized the luxurious castle I lived in had been nothing but my personal prison.
But whom was I fooling? Watching the Pond of Pearls each day from my window intensified my need. I have never seen girls giggle as much as when they saw their reflection in the water.
The curiosity was also sparked by admiring my mother's beauty—the more she aged, the more beautiful she looked to me. Older, but more beautiful, more graceful and elegant. She didn't know that, though.
"You're so beautiful, Mother," I told her, fiddling with strands of my golden hair, which I had to keep ridiculously short so I couldn't see it often—they were afraid the sight of my beautiful hair would increase the need to see my face.
"Not as beautiful as you," she said, combing her hair.
"Do I look like you?" I asked, although she had told me I did so many times. "My father, maybe?"
"A bit like both of us," she said. "Didn't you see the pictures our artists have drawn of you?" We had many of them, but my face painted in oil wasn't satisfactory. What if they just lied to please me?
"You have your father's eyes," she said. "Ocean blue, almost like the pearly waves of the pond…" My mother shrugged, and averted her eyes from the window. She did it abruptly, as if she'd seen a ghost there. She just didn't want to talk about the Pond of Pearls. "I'm really sorry, Carmilla," she said. "It's all for the best."
"I don't need you to tell me this is for the best," I said. "I just need you to tell me that I'm beautiful."
"Oh, God," she almost shrieked, her eyes moist. "You have no idea how beautiful you are. If it wasn't for this curse—"
"I want you to tell me I am the most beautiful girl in Styria," I said. I guess my need for appreciation had suddenly kicked in. Aggressively. The desire of being beautiful crawled up my spine. It messed with my brain. I had been tolerating my curse, suppressing my emotions, and lying to myself for seventeen years. The anger had suddenly surfaced and reddened my soft cheeks.
My mother, who was about to hug me affectionately, stopped suddenly. Something about the way I'd said my last sentence worried her.
"Tell me, Mother, that I am the most beautiful of them all." I nodded at the girls playing outside in the castle's garden, those girls who saw their reflections on a daily basis, those girls who combed their hair by the pond for hours, those who pinched their cheeks to show ripeness and youthfulness through the redness of their face. Those girls I was never going to be like. "Tell me, Mother," I demanded.
Come to think of it, this was my first brush with the darkness in my soul, which surfaced many years later. I don't think you have any idea what it felt like.
"Fairest," my mother said, doing her best to hide her worries.
"Fairest?" I asked.
"You are the fairest of them all, Carmilla," she said, her smile old and wrinkled and dry, like early autumn leaves.
"Fairest?" I repeated. "What does that mean, fairest? I want to be the most beautiful of them all." I pointed at the girls gathering by the pond as I stepped forward. I waved at the girls who had suddenly become my enemies, those girls who could do things I couldn't, things any seventeen-year-old girl should've been doing. The truth was that I didn't want to be the most beautiful. I just wanted to be normal. "I don't want to be fairest!"
"Carmilla." My mother hiccupped against the tears promising to leave her eyes. Theodora Goldstein's eyes were flooded with empathy that didn't quench my thirst to be the most beautiful of them all.
"Tell me I'm the most beautiful of them all, Mother." I wasn't myself anymore. I was the beast of anger and unfairness in me. I was all my darkness. I was all that I wasn't supposed to be: angry, envious, and hurt. "Tell it to me every day. I don't care if you're lying to me. I don't care if I am ugly. If I am paying the price to keep all of Styria happy then this is the least you can do."
I found myself running into her arms and crying myself to death. It felt better that way. The weakness I cherished in my mother's long arms helped the beast in me to rest in sleep. The beast inside was in pain. A pain I couldn't explain myself. Again, I don't think I understood completely by then.
As I dozed off in her arms, feeling the need to crawl back in her womb and hide away from this unfair world, several apple trees caught my eye through the window. It made me feel I hated apples the most. For those silly fruits to grow, for those silly red things to bring prosperity to Styria, I had to pay too much of a price. And by looking at them, all I could see was the color of blood the vampires had sucked out of the Karnsteins.
***
To this day, I still respect my mother for not succumbing to my insecurity and wanting to be called "most beautiful of them all." Somehow, the phrase "fairest of them all" rang better with her, and I accepted it eventually.
I began watching other girls closer, noticing their beauty—or ugliness—and realized how much it affected their lives. To be honest, I envied some of them. But I also pitied most of them; girls who were average looking and had lesser chances and opportunities in life because of their looks. I thought it wasn't fair how some boys preferred the beauties to them without knowing who these girls really were. For a girl who was never going to see her own reflection, I felt occasionally blessed when I realized that I could imagine myself the most beautiful in the world and never have to face the contradicting truth.
But again, not seeing how I looked drove me crazy day after day. I couldn't even get a feeling of it i
n the eyes of other boys my age. None of the boys in our land dared to lay eyes on me. They feared my father, who, although kind and gentle to me, was a feared warrior and count outside our castle's walls. His overprotectiveness turned the beautiful boys away from me.
One day I sat weeping for hours under a willow tree, wondering how I was going to ever meet my knight in a shining armor—although I preferred his armor wasn't "shining," so I would not see my reflection and be the cause of my family's pain.
The other disadvantage was that I never learned how to swim. In fact, I began fearing water in many ways. All circumstances led me to give in. I was never going to see my reflection. Ever.
Until…
13
Until my whole world crumbled when the most beautiful boy in the world laid eyes on me for the first time.
The first boy to ever dare lay eyes on me in spite of my father's promise to punish whoever did. If you were a boy, looking at me equaled an iron maiden slicing your throat.
He was an unusual boy. His boldness and steady gaze were admirable, yet intimidating, as if I had wished to be looked upon by softer eyes. The boy's eyes promised great passion, intense desire, but also dire consequences. I could read it all in one glance.
But it wasn't only the boldness in his look. It was the admiration for my looks that shook me all over. He looked at me as if his life depended on coming closer, as if he had been parted from the air he breathed when he saw me, and as if he had known my soul since long ago and was about to not only introduce himself to me, but introduce me to my real self.
I estimated him to be two years older than me. He was taller than my father. His eyes were black with that unexplainable hue of gold, like meteors that fell from the sky every now and then. His hair was black too; so black it wouldn't show in the darkest nights. It fell down his shoulders, caressing his pale face, which was a bit paler than usual, but still hard-edged, with a light stubble. Not many Austrian boys had dark hair, so it was a most desired trait.
The world around me froze for a long time. I was entrapped by his gaze. None of my father's guards stopped the boy—which was abnormal. I was almost sweating in this cold when he began approaching me slowly. I shrugged and blinked repeatedly. No boy in this land had ever dared look me in the eye, let alone approach me.
"No wonder apples bloomed the day you were born," he said with a sincere smile. Too sincere—I was so infatuated that no words dared escape my open mouth. I could have told him this was one of the silliest lines a boy had told a girl, but I loved it. No boy had said anything to me before, let alone this one, in whose presence I felt both fear and desire.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked, doing my best to hide my feelings behind a mask of irritation.
"So you can heal my soul," he replied. I swear a gleeful tear was about to fall from my eye while snow fell from above. "Your face is like sunshine piercing all this cold in the world that surrounds us. I wonder how my life would be like if I woke up to these eyes every day."
The world was spinning around me, and all I feared was that I'd faint and fall to the ground and embarrass myself. I had never shared attraction with a boy before. Feeling such unexplained intensity was premature death to my fragile heart. I still couldn't shake the idea that I must have been only dreaming. Who talked like that? Who said things like these when first meeting someone? This sounded crazier than romantic stories I read by Shakespeare.
And then the strangest thing happened…
"Angel Hassenpflug!" my father hailed with welcoming arms from behind me. I turned my stiffened neck in wonder as I watched him hug Angel as if he were his long-lost son coming back home.
"Count Karnstein." Angel bowed his head, taking off his hat. "I should apologize for my delay, but me and my crew faced a heavy snowstorm in Hungary on our way."
"I heard about the storm," my father said. "I hope it wasn't her doing, if you know what I am implying."
Angel nodded with a slight smirk, as if he had a toothache or something. They were talking about the nameless witch. I didn't want to talk about her now. I wanted to look at Angel.
"I knew a young and strong lad like you would pass through," my father said. My mouth was still agape. How was he talking casually to a boy who had just approach me? "How are our friends in Lohr?" he asked Angel.
"They love your apples, Count Karnstein," Angel said, suppressing a laugh. "They not only devour them, they believe they could heal their sorrows." I think my father hadn't noticed that Angel slightly shrugged when saying "sorrows."
The two men laughed, and I was burning in silence. Not only did my father not worry about Angel's proximity to me, he also seemed to respect him dearly. Angel, the beautiful apple trader from Lohr.
I coughed so they would pull me into the manly and loud conversation.
"Ah, Carmilla," my father said. "I see you met Angel." I nodded. My father had never introduced me to a boy before. "Angel is the biggest merchant and trader for our apples. I know he looks too young for it, but he is the finest lad I have seen in Europe for some time. He is from Germany."
"Nice to meet you, Angel." I offered a hand.
He didn't hesitate kissing it and shooting me another deadly look. It was as if no one else existed in this world but me. I made sure my internal shivering didn't show on my face or body. "My pleasure," he added.
"Carmilla is the girl who—"
"Lifted the curse, and blessed Europe with the Austrian apples," Angel said, his eyes still on me. "On behalf of all German people, I must thank you," he told me with a graceful bow.
"Don't stare at my daughter for too long." My father patted him jokingly, but underneath the joke lay a silent warning. "He is a sweet talker." My father turned to me. "Sweet as the Blood Apples he trades. Still, sometimes they are plagued with worms." My father winked.
Angel seemed to detest my father's joke, but my father didn't notice. He laughed out of courtesy. Our eyes locked briefly again, and I wanted to make sure I let him know I liked him. I didn't know to show a boy I liked him. I had no idea how. Was I supposed to just smile, or maybe throw him a seductive look? How did a seductive look look on me? Or should I have just thrown myself blatantly in his arms?
I ended up staring like a loon for a few seconds with dilated eyes. Then when I still wasn't sure if he'd get the message, I tiptoed, my body slightly stooping forward.
Angel's eyes skewed down to my feet. I blushed and he smiled.
However, Angel couldn't say more. Nor could I. My father excused him from my company and urged him to go discuss business, leaving me undone, not knowing if I'd ever see Angel again.
All Angel did was look back at me one more time, sneaking a peek over my father's shoulder as the two men walked far away from me.
For a single heartbeat, something told me it was better that way. It was better that I never see him again. It was an absurd and illogical moment, and I hated it. I didn't care much for what people said about love at first sight. I didn't give a damn. This wasn't first sight; this wasn't teenage impulsiveness. This was destiny. He was my soul mate, in all the wrong ways. I felt like I had known him before. In another lifetime, maybe. Most important of all, the way Angel Hassenpflug looked at me made me feel better than a thousand mirrors.
14
Although I didn't see Angel for some time after, all I could do was think about him: the way he looked at me, the way he saw me, the way he made me curious about what I looked like. What in the world made him look at me that way? What in the world made him look so deeply into my eyes?
I had never felt the urge to break the rules and run to the nearest pond outside our castle to get a glimpse of my features. Not even when I had gone crazy on my mother.
This feeling, this need, with Angel—it was different.
It was euphoric, enchanting, and ecstatic. There is some kind of a beautiful surrender when we are looked upon by someone like him. Someone like an angel.
Who named their son Angel?
> Not that I didn't like it. I adored his name, and I couldn't imagine what his parents had expected of their son when they honored him with it. As a Karnstein, supposedly destined to fight the devilish vampires, Angel's name, let alone his manly beauty, had me captured for many sleepless nights. Angel made me look forward to life and its infinite possibilities—I know you might be skeptical, thinking I was head over heels too soon, but I was a friendless girl, deprived of looking into a mirror. Angel was, in many ways, my mirror.
Then again, Angel as a mirror wasn't quite enough. It only made me want to see myself in a real mirror even more. I needed to see what Angel saw in me that caught his attention so much. I pondered all night if I should go to the Pond of Pearls, but couldn't bring myself to it.
The next morning, I walked to the fields with the peasants to collect apples from the trees. A lame excuse to occupy my mind. Suddenly, the apples I hated looked sweet and attractive. Love for life surpassed all fears, I supposed. I felt like a real girl for the first time in a long time, wearing my white dress, smiling, and collecting apples into a small basket.
The peasants always demanded I take a bite from the first apple they collected. They considered it good luck for them and the land. They showed me how to cut an apple from the middle and examine it. They taught me how each apple had a five-star shape on the inside if cut horizontally in two halves. A pentagram, some called it. Some said it was a good sign, while others associated it with evil—a sign associated with the nameless witch who had cursed the land. A pointed five-star inside an apple was the universe's way of showing us how evil was just inside everything good and sweet, I learned. A lesson I should have paid attention to.
But I couldn't. Angel was all I could think about.
By noon, Angel was still in my head, an image of him in front of my daydreaming eyes. The feeling wasn't subsiding. It was intensifying. I had to ask the peasants about the handsome apple trader. The girls snickered first, knowing I liked him already, and then shocked me with the fact that he had ridden his horse back to Germany, and that he wasn't coming back until the next season to buy more apples.