“Did they catch the culprit?”
“He escaped through the window while everyone was watching poor Mr. Phillips’s guts explode all over the carpet. I don’t know if you’ve seen many stakings, but it’s a dreadful business. The maids always complain about how difficult it is to get molted flesh out of the curtains.”
At the words molted flesh, the boy’s eyes glowed. “I’ve never seen a staking. What’s it like?”
“Very unpleasant all around,” she said. “Staking is a terrible way to go. I’d much rather be decapitated. It still makes an awful mess but it’s a lot more dignified than your limbs twittering all over the place.” She shook her arms in approximation and Laurie laughed, appreciating her humor. Jo liked him tremendously, for most of the human boys she knew were particular about vampires and would rather be slayers than friends, which is why she counted so few of them among her acquaintance.
“I’ve never thought about it before, but I suppose I’d like to be decapitated, too,” Laurie said. “One nice clean chop!”
“Oh, but the chops are rarely clean. Usually it takes several whacks before the connection is cut. You have to have a really sharp battle-ax.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said, then paled and stuttered, “N-not…th-that I plan on decapitating any vampires. I like them immensely. I’d love to be one myself.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t bite you. I’m a strict humanitarian, so it’s against my religion to eat humans. We stick to pig’s blood and have small animals only on very special occasions. My sister Beth loves kittens.”
“I’ve never met a humanitarian before. There aren’t any in Europe.”
“There aren’t a lot around here either. Just me and my sisters and my parents. It’s no big deal. I don’t even crave human flesh. Maybe if I’d gone without food for days on end, standing this close to you would give me ideas, but I had a snack an hour ago,” Jo said, with a smile to put him at ease. “Tell me about Europe. I love dearly to hear people describe their travels.”
Laurie didn’t seem to know where to begin, but Jo’s eager questions soon set him going, and he told her how he had been at school in Vevay, where the boys never wore hats and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers.
“Don’t I wish I’d been there!” cried Jo. “Did you go to Paris?”
“We spent last winter there.”
“Can you talk French?”
“We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevay.”
“Do say some! I can read it, but can’t pronounce.”
“Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoufles jolis?”
“How nicely you do it! Let me see…you said, ‘Who is the young lady in the pretty slippers,’ didn’t you?”
“Oui, mademoiselle.”
“It’s my sister Margaret, and you knew it was! Do you think she is pretty?”
“Yes, she makes me think of the German vampire girls, she looks so pale and quiet, and dances like a lady.”
Jo quite glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped and criticized and chatted till they felt like old acquaintances and didn’t even seem to notice the differences between them, which is precisely how Marmee said it should be for humans and vampires. Jo liked the “Laurence boy” better than ever and took several good looks at him, so that she might describe him to the girls, for human boys were almost unknown creatures to them.
“Curly black hair, brown skin, big black eyes, handsome nose, fine teeth, small hands and feet, taller than I am, very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is?”
By and by, the band struck up a splendid polka and Laurie insisted that they dance.
“I can’t, for I told Meg I wouldn’t, because…” There Jo stopped, and looked undecided whether to tell or to laugh.
“Because, what?”
“You won’t tell?”
“Never!”
“Well, I have a bad trick of standing near the window at sunrise, and so I burn my frocks, and I scorched this one. Though it’s nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still so no one would see it. You may laugh, if you want to. It is funny, I know.”
But Laurie didn’t laugh. He only looked down a minute, and the expression of his face puzzled Jo when he said very gently, “So it’s true that sunlight does you great harm?”
“Only those thoughtless enough to expose themselves. I know I should pull the drapes and go to sleep but I love seeing the first rays peek over the horizon,” she said softly.
“Never mind that,” Laurie said. “I’ll tell you how we can manage. There’s a long hall out there, and we can dance grandly, and no one will see us. Please come.”
Jo thanked him and gladly went, wishing she had two neat gloves when she saw the nice, pearl-colored ones her partner wore. The hall was empty, and they had a grand polka, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, which delighted Jo, being full of swing and spring. When the music stopped, they sat down on the stairs, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a vampires’ festival at Heidelberg when Meg appeared in search of her sister. She beckoned, and Jo reluctantly followed her into a side room, where Meg sat on a sofa and held her foot.
“I’ve twisted my ankle. That stupid high heel turned and gave my foot a sad wrench,” she said, glancing down at the unfortunate appendage, which now pointed inward at a most severe angle. “It doesn’t ache and I can stand fine but the cracking sound the bones make every time I step is disturbing the other dancers. I think we should leave.”
“I knew you’d hurt your feet with those silly shoes. I’m sorry. But I don’t see what you can do, except get a carriage, or stay here all night,” answered Jo, tugging on the bent limb, which would not straighten despite her considerable efforts. The vampire ability to regenerate would heal the appendage soon, but not so quickly that Meg could rejoin the dancing.
“Can I help you?” said a friendly voice. And there was Laurie, with a full cup in one hand and a plate of ice in the other.
“It’s nothing,” Meg assured. “I turned my foot a little, that’s all.”
But Laurie could see for himself that she’d turned her foot a lot and immediately offered to take her home in his grandfather’s carriage.
“It’s so early! You can’t mean to go yet?” began Jo, looking relieved but hesitating to accept the offer.
“I always go early, I do, truly! Please let me take you home. It’s all on my way, you know, and it rains, they say.”
That settled it. Jo gratefully accepted and they rolled away in the luxurious closed carriage, feeling very festive and elegant.
“I had a capital time. Did you?” asked Jo, rumpling up her hair, and making herself comfortable.
Meg agreed that she did up until the moment she twisted her ankle and had to leave. Laurie went on the box so Meg could keep her foot up, and the girls talked over their party in freedom.
“Sallie’s friend, Annie Moffat, took a fancy to me, and asked me to come and spend a week with her when Sallie does. She is going in the spring when the opera comes, and it will be perfectly splendid, if Mother only lets me go,” Meg said, cheering up at the thought.
Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home. With many thanks, they said good night and entered the house. The instant the door creaked, two little heads bobbed up and eager voices cried out…
“Tell about the party! Tell about the party!”
“I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown with a maid to wait on me,” said Meg.
“I don’t believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned gowns, one glove apiece, and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them.” And I think Jo was quite right.
Chapter Four
With the holidays over, the girls had to take up their packs, which, after the week of merrymaking, seemed heavier than ever. Beth lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with a cat and three juicy kittens she’d found hiding in the basement. Amy was fretting because her lessons were not learned and she couldn’t find her rubbers. Meg, whose burden consisted of four spoiled vampire children, had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way.
“Where’s the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I’m pretty or not?” she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk as she thought of Mrs. King and her family. “I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then because I’m poor and can’t enjoy my life as other girls do. It’s a shame!”
“Well, that’s just the way it is, so don’t let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I’m sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea10 to me, but I suppose when I’ve learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan’t mind her,” said Jo, whose resolute speech didn’t match her dejected attitude. She had been so despondent that she didn’t try to marshal the girls into their usual sunset training session of karate, calisthenics, and boxing, with which they complied with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to protect her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old vampire’s will, but the unworldly Marches only said…
“We can’t give up our girls for a dozen fortunes. Rich or poor, we will keep together and be happy in one another.”
As well, they knew Aunt March was a tough old broad who had been around for more than four hundred years and would likely be around for another four hundred. Their chances for inheritance were already decidedly slim.
The Marches, in their fondness for family over fortune, were not that unusual amongst their contemporaries. Vampire affection, though not as heartwarmingly sentimental as human affection, was deep and sincere. Parents sired their children and kept them close until they reached their majority at fifty chronological years, at which point they could sire a lifemate and settle down. Freshly sired children usually followed.
Mr. and Mrs. March had themselves followed that path, with Mr. March siring Mrs. March and then a century later siring the four sisters, whom he found in an orphanage about to be separated by an unfeeling proprietress. Marmee’s kind heart went out to the benighted foursome and she knew upon seeing them that they were meant to be hers. Her husband complied to her request, feeling, too, that these unfortunate children needed a strong hand and a stronger soul to lead them, and twenty-four hours later, the giddy new mother stood over the four little graves from which her newborn daughters would emerge. It was the happiest day of her life.
Since then, the Marches had come down in the world, for Mr. March had lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend. The friend turned out to be a slayer who stole Mr. March’s money through an elaborate counterfeit stock scheme.
That Mr. March allowed himself to be swindled out of ownership of his ancestral home disgusted Aunt March, who urged him to hunt down the cowardly slayer and consume him in a fiery fit of rage. Her nephew resisted her counsel, for he believed strongly in his humanitarian principles and was happier to let the villain live than to compromise himself.
His stubbornness made his aunt so angry she refused to speak to them for a time, but when her husband was beheaded by one of his own servants, she was forced to reevaluate her connections and decided the only associates she could trust were family. It was beyond shocking that Uncle March, the premier vampire defender in New England, was slain in his very own home. Well schooled in stealth and an experienced practitioner of the scientifical method, he should never have fallen for the cartoonish pratfalls of the Buffoonish Butler Hoax,11 a well-known ruse in which a deadly opponent infiltrates a household by pretending to be a harmless servant who is forever tripping over the silver and spilling the china.
Terrified, Aunt March immediately dismissed the entire staff (after, of course, they removed her husband’s gooey remains) and recruited her niece Jo, who hoped to one day be a defender, to look after her. The Concord police inquiry into the unfortunate affair concluded that the slayer had worked alone. But Jo’s aunt did not accept the findings because she assumed that the team of human investigators was part of the conspiracy. She therefore remained convinced that a worldwide cabal watched her daily, waiting for its moment to attack.
Being her aunt’s protectress wasn’t all Jo had hoped it would be, for the job provided little opportunity for her to use, let alone hone, her defender skills, but she accepted the place since nothing better appeared. The work was tedious and dull, but it gave her full access to the large training study, which had been left to dust and spiders since Uncle March’s decapitation. Jo remembered the fierce old gentleman who used to let her play with his dart gun and told her thrilling stories of do-or-die hunts. He nurtured her love of adventure but stopped short of teaching her the mechanisms and techniques of modern-day slayer hunting, for he thought it a most unsuitable profession for any woman, especially his niece. The dim, dusty room, with its potions cabinet, investigative instruments, strategical maps, and, best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could now wander where she liked, made the study a region of bliss to her.
The moment Aunt March took her nap, Jo hurried to this well-equipped place, and curling herself up in the easy chair, studied the many tactical guides and first-person accounts of successful apprehensions of vicious slayers. But, like all happiness, it did not last long, for as sure as she had just reached the heart of the story, the pivotal part of a stratagem, or the most perilous adventure of her defender, a shrill voice called, “Josy-phine! Josy-phine!” and she had to leave her paradise to secure the perimeter, check the points of entry, or wind yarn.
Jo’s ambition was to do something very splendid. What it was, she had no idea as yet, but left it for time to tell her, and meanwhile, found her greatest affliction in the fact that she couldn’t read, run, and ride as much as she liked. A quick temper, sharp tongue, and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic. But the training she received at Aunt March’s was just what she needed, and the thought that she was doing something to support herself made her happy in spite of the perpetual “Josy-phine!”
Chapter Five
BEING NEIGHBORLY
“What in the world are you going to do now, Jo?” asked Meg one snowy evening, as her sister came tramping through the hall, in rubber boots, old sack, and hood, with a broom in one hand and a shovel in the other.
“Going to hunt vampire slayers,” answered Jo.
“I should think two treks at twilight would have been enough! It’s wet out, and I advise you to stay dry by the fire, as I do,” said Meg.
“Never take advice! Can’t keep still all night, and not being a pussycat, I don’t like to doze by the fire. I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.”
Meg went back to reading Ivanhoe,12 and Jo began to search the paths with great energy. A garden separated the Marches’ house from that of Mr. Laurence. Both stood in a suburb of the city, which was still countrylike, with groves and lawns, large gardens, and quiet streets, all of which provided excellent cover for a slayer. A low hedge parted the two estates, offering additional concealment. On one side was an old, brown house, looking rather bare and shabby, robbed of the vines that could further hide a predator. On the other side was a stately stone mansion, plainly betokening every sort of comfort and luxury, from the big coach house
and well-kept grounds to the conservatory and the glimpses of lovely things one caught between the rich curtains.
Yet it seemed a lonely, lifeless sort of house, for no children frolicked on the lawn, no motherly face ever smiled at the windows, and few people went in and out, except the old gentleman and his grandson.
“That boy is suffering for society and fun,” Jo said to herself. “His grandpa does not know what’s good for him, and keeps him shut up all alone. He needs a party of jolly boys to play with, or somebody young and lively. I’ve a great mind to go over and tell the old gentleman so!”
The idea amused Jo, who liked to do daring things and was always scandalizing Meg by her queer performances. The plan of “going over” was not forgotten. And when the snowy evening came, Jo resolved to try what could be done. She saw Mr. Laurence drive off, and then sallied out to the hedge, where she paused and took a survey. All quiet, curtains down at the lower windows, servants out of sight, and nothing human visible but a curly black head leaning on a thin hand at the upper window.
“There he is,” thought Jo, “poor boy! All alone and sick this happy night. It’s a shame! I’ll toss up a snowball and make him look out, and then say a kind word to him.”
Up went a handful of soft snow, which cracked the window, as Jo frequently forgot how powerful her vampire strength made her, and the head turned at once, showing a face which lost its listless look in a minute, as the big eyes brightened and the mouth began to smile. Jo nodded and laughed, and flourished her broom as she called out…
“How do you do? Are you sick?”
Laurie opened the window, and croaked out as hoarsely as a raven…
“Better, thank you. I’ve had a bad cold, and been shut up a week.”
“I’m sorry. What do you amuse yourself with?”
Little Vampire Women Page 3