by T. S. Ryder
I like his touch, the way he holds me after drilling the life out of me. His hand is cupping my breast, and his arm is around me like I am his property. But I still feel like it is a fad, like he will soon be done with me, so I have to continue playing the game. He has already badgered me with questions, like why haven’t I left if I can? The truth is that I don’t know too much magic or spells, and even if I did, I don’t have the ingredients. In a fortress chock full of vampires, how can I leave without getting caught?
Suddenly I have this weird cramp, a warm feeling in my stomach. It must be the vampire food, I think, although I had only had human food and it was very normal.
“I don’t feel so well,” I tell him. He looks at me with his stone cold eyes, his mouth moving to form words, but nothing comes out. Clearly, he hasn’t dealt with sickness in however long he has been a vampire. A wave of nausea hits me and I get up to run to the bathroom, but I can’t make it. Kneeling on the floor of the Harem, I throw up. What comes out is mostly water, but the strange thing is the way the girls in the room look at me. I look up, embarrassed, sitting on the floor naked. They start talking among themselves as if discussing something important, then start nodding their heads. One of them smiles at me, then two others, and then almost all of them look gleeful. Valnoir comes with a bedspread and wraps it around me.
“Let’s go back upstairs,” he says. This is a kind gesture, free from his usual petulant behavior, and it feels like things are beginning to change at that moment. I don’t give him shit either. We saunter back upstairs to his room. He brings me food and drinks and then gets in bed with me. Even though I haven’t really done anything aside from having wild sex, I feel exhausted. We have sex again and then we just lie in bed, naked, our bodies intertwined. We don’t say much, just enjoy being together in each others’ arms. His hand runs around my body, fickly changing its attention from one part to another.
When morning comes, I sleep and he stays with me in bed. At least he is there when I go to sleep and is right beside me when I wake up. A week in the vampire house has me living by their hours, as the same hours were kept in the Harem downstairs. I wake up in the evening to the usual din of the place.
“Oh, you brought my clothes upstairs,” I say, seeing my clothes on the dresser.
“Yeah,” he says. “The girls at the Harem are saying the craziest things about you.”
I pull him closer and kiss him, then nuzzle up closer and bury my face in his neck. “What are they saying?”
“Well, they aren’t the brightest, but they seem to think you are pregnant. How ridiculous is that?”
“That’s hilarious,” I say with a laugh. “But we won’t have to wait too long to find out. My period starts in two or three days.”
“Yeah? Let’s see whether you get a period or an abortion.”
“Why would I get an abortion?” I ask, rather annoyed at the absurdity of the question.
“Err…because we didn’t plan a baby.”
There’s a knock on the door and then an old, glamorous woman enters without permission.
“Lady Mary,” he says. “What brings you to my room?”
I gather up the sheet to quickly cover myself. “Your father sent me to take her upstairs.”
“Whatever for?” he asks, incredulous.
“I am sure you already know what for,” she replies, then looks at me. “Come with me.”
“Give me a minute, I gotta dress up,” I tell her.
“I will wait outside the room,” she says, and leaves.
“What’s that all about?”
“I don’t know,” he says.
I get off the bed and start to get dressed. As I’m leaving, he says, “We aren’t done talking about this.”
“About what?”
“The improbable pregnancy.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say, and leave.
I join Lady Mary outside, and she asks me to follow her. We climb a single set of stairs and make our way through the lavish corridor to a room. She knocks and then opens the door herself, urging me to go inside. I follow her in. There is someone lying on the bed, her back toward us.
“She’s here,” Lady Mary announces.
The old lady turns around.
“Grandma?!”
Chapter Eight - Valnoir
5 Days Later - Sunday
Women these days are weird. People are also crazy, and even the vampires have gone nuts. They took Lola to the Wicce, who turned out to be Lola’s grandmother. How ridiculous is that! Lola might become the new Wicce for the Fort, my father announced, and now she’s busy learning from her grandmother. I have seen her only a handful of times since she left my bedroom, and aside from a polite greeting, I haven’t been able to get much out of her. She’s starving me for her pathetic attention, ignoring me purposefully as she walks about with an air of superiority and purpose. But I’m determined to settle things when I see her next.
“Viktor,” I call out, as I see my father.
“What?” he says, without looking back.
“What’s the deal with Lola? Why is she not talking to me?”
“However would I know?” he says, continuing on his way.
“Well, she was fine with me until you sent for her that day,” I say, catching up with him. “She hasn’t talked to me since then.”
“Grow up, Valnoir,” he says. “I don’t have time for his. Solve your own problems, and leave her alone while you’re at it. She has to learn a lot from the Wicce and we don’t have much time for a petty lovers’ spat.” He walks away.
Undeterred, I go to the Wicce’s room and knock. Lola opens the door.
“What?” she immediately says. “What do you want?”
“I just want to talk.”
“Then talk,” she says curtly.
“Not like this.”
“Oh, grow up,” she says.
“Lola, look, I am not going to be around and take your attitude and shit. You want to be left alone, say it and I’ll leave you be. But think about it before you give me an answer.”
“Who is it, Lola?” says the Wicce from behind her.
“Nobody,” she says back.
“I can hear him, bring him in.”
She moves aside without a word and I go inside. The Wicce is sitting in her bed, propped up with the help of two or three pillows, looking haggard and deathly pale — almost as pale as us.
“So, this is the man that has you all worked up?” she asks, looking at Lola.
“Leave it, grandma!”
“Well, have you told him?” she asks.
“No, and it’s not important. Just drop the subject.”
“He needs to know,” the Wicce says. “It’s his right.”
“What’s my right, what aren't you telling me?” I say.
“I think you should leave,” Lola says.
“Don’t mind her,” the Wicce says. “She isn’t herself.” I mouth a ‘thank you’ to her. “So, what’s this all about? She won’t tell me, so I have to ask you.”
“Beats me,” I say. “Before coming up to meet you she was completely fine. Then she flipped suddenly.”
“Oh yes, I see,” she says. Lola stands by the door with her arms crossed, staring at the wall.
“Tell me already,” I say, getting up.
“Patience, my dear,” Wicce says.
“Well, I am all out of it,” I say, and turn to leave.
“Well then, it’s a good thing she hasn’t told you. Off you go,” Wicce says, and I leave, slamming the door shut behind me. The grandmother is just as arrogant as the granddaughter. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Fuck Lola!
Chapter Nine - Lola
2 Weeks Later - Tuesday
I am not entirely sure what I have been doing, but whatever it is, I can’t stop now. In the beginning I didn’t like him, then I was playing hard to get, then things got out of control, and now I haven’t seen him since the day he came to see me
in grandma’s room. If he hates me, I guess he has a reason to, but I had my own reasons for acting the way I did. I had a lot on my mind and he was the last person I wanted to see then — that was probably because I got to see him every now and again, and I didn’t realize how awful it would feel to not see him. But he didn’t come to get an answer from me and started ignoring me. I have tried talking to him but he speeds up and disappears whenever I see him. The Head of the Fort has asked me to be their next Wicce, to replace my grandma when she dies, and while I don’t really want to do it, it feels like an honor to take the place of my grandma. And so I have agreed.
On top of having to learn in days what takes years to learn, I have missed my period. I am probably pregnant. It is something that I really want, have wanted for a long time, but it comes at the cost of love, and I am not even sure whether he loves me or not. Was I just a passing fancy? At the same time, I can’t bring myself to take the pregnancy test. What if I am just sick and not pregnant? I don’t want to have to choose between Valnoir and my child. But he was pretty clear about not wanting to have children, so where does that leave me? At times like this, I want to go back to my mother’s house. Like they say, ‘Home is where mother is.’
“Grandma, I want to ask you something,” I say, after my lesson with her ends.
“Ask, my dear.”
“Why does mother hate me?”
“She doesn’t hate you,” Grandma says.
“We both know that’s not true. I don’t have a single happy memory with her. You were there, you have seen all that. Or is that not true?”
“All of that is true, but none of that means she hates you.”
“What does it mean then? I tried to be there for her when my father died, and she practically kicked me out of her house. She didn’t even invite me to the party she held to honor him.”
“It’s not that she hates you,” Grandma says. “It’s just that she doesn’t love you in the way you want.”
“Why? Because I’m a witch and she isn’t?”
“She’s got prophetic abilities—”
“But she hates me for it because she didn’t get to be a witch. Is that not true?”
“Lola, you surprise me. I could never have imagined that you would become this negative. Your mother hides her feelings for you because she doesn’t want to get hurt.”
“I have never done anything to hurt her—”
“Let me finish,” Grandma interrupts. “When you were born, your mother in all her motherly concern did a tarot reading to see your future. I was there when she did it. Nobody knows what she saw, but the moment she read those cards something in her shifted. She took one look and immediately pushed them back into the deck, and never spoke of what she saw. But I figure whatever it is that she saw, it wasn’t good.”
“So I’m doomed?”
“You’re not doomed, silly. I said what she saw wasn’t good. She may have misinterpreted the cards. The thing is that predicting the future isn’t a precise art. Look at it this way, somebody tells you that there’s a ‘stroke’ in your future. What would you think of it?”
“Maybe that I’ll get a heatstroke, I think.”
“Precisely. But it could also mean a stroke of good luck, or that you will have a baby.”
“Oh.”
“But your mother refused to tell me what she saw, and withdrew from you. It hit her hard, you know. She’s been hiding in her shell since then.”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that she hasn’t been there for me. And she doesn’t let me get close to her.”
“It doesn’t. I’ll say it like it is. Mayumi May is an arrogant, conceited, vain woman. And she has been a bad mother.”
“Do you think I should try talking to her? I haven’t talked to her since father died.”
“There’s no point in trying, she has gone too far. Let her live her life the way she wants, but don’t let that stop you from having a good life of your own. You are a grown woman now, stop seeking her approval and love and make your own way. After all, you are going to be a mother soon.”
“We don’t know that for sure yet.”
“Yes, we do,” she says. “Look at the way you’re glowing. Don’t run from it, just embrace it. You are not your mother. And go tell that prince about it.”
That is all I needed to hear. I am not my mother. I won’t be like her.
“Thank you, grandma,” I say, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “This means a lot.”
I leave the Fort for the first time in weeks, ready to take the reins of my life. I head to the pharmacy first, get a pregnancy test and go back to my apartment. As I pee on the stick and wait for the results, I pray to the forces of nature: Please, please, please be positive. Please let me be pregnant. Please let me be pregnant! Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, I look at the stick. It is positive. I am pregnant!
I have to start a new chapter in my life. I go back to the hospital and hand in my resignation letter, then book an appointment for a scan. Having contacts in the hospital, it doesn’t take long. The doctor lifts my shirt and spreads the gel over my stomach, then points to the screen as he moves a scanner on my body.
“There’s your baby.”
“It’s so tiny,” I say.
“You won’t believe how fast they grow. Congratulations!”
“Is everything fine with it?”
“It’s too early and a number of things can go wrong, but so far everything looks perfect. You have nothing to worry about.”
Next stop is my mother’s place. The guard lets me in with a warning: “She isn’t in a good mood.”
“She never is,” I reply.
I find her perched on the same stainless steel sofa in the same posture. Everything about her looks the same, except her clothes and shoes.
“Mother, there is something I want to say to you.” She doesn’t reply, just looks at me, then nods lightly for me to go on.
“I am pregnant,” I tell her, and wait for her to respond. She doesn’t, just looks at me as if I haven’t said anything, as if I am not there at all. “And you know what, I won’t fail my child like you did. I won’t become you. I will be there for my child and I will be a good mother. I am not you.”
“And you came all the way here just to tell me this? Is it money you need?”
“No, I just wanted to tell you that you failed me to your face. You’ll never see me again.”
“What makes you think I would have wanted to see you again after all you have said to me?”
“One day when you are old and miserable, you will realize how wrong you were about everything. Those friends of yours will abandon you, and this money that you so love and all your fame, none of that will buy you the love of family. That’s when you’ll want to see me, and I won’t be there.”
Okay, I might have gone a little too far, but that woman just sat there in front of me with a poker face. So I get up and leave, going back to the place that I am getting used to: the Fort, my new home. Whether Valnoir accepts me or not, I will be there and he will be around.
Chapter Ten - Lola
Wednesday
“Valnoir, wait,” I say, when I see him as soon as I get back to the Fort. “We need to talk.”
“Oh, now you want to talk? You didn’t seem to like the idea when I was at your door.”
“Just hear me out,” I say. “And whatever you decide, I will accept and respect your decision so long as you respect mine.”
“What makes you think you are entitled to my respect?” he says in a voice that fails to mask his anger.
“I know you are angry for the way I have been acting, but I can explain.”
“I don’t want to hear your explanations,” he says and disappears.
“Valnoir,” I shout into the empty air. “I am pregnant.”
Whether Valnoir hears me or not, I know not, but someone else sure does.
“Is he the father?” a voice says. “Valnoir?”
I turn
around to see who the voice belongs to. It is a slender woman with a beautiful face and a svelte figure. She is daintily dressed — nothing too flashy, but definitely old. “Who are you?” I ask.
“Harriet. I am Valnoir’s mother.” She holds out her hand for me to shake, or kiss — it is hard to tell.
“I am Lola. Pleased to meet you, Harriet. It’s funny, Valnoir never told me about you.”
“You haven’t known him long enough then, I presume.” That sounds like a statement, so I don’t say anything.
“So,” she continues. “Is he the father?”
I think for a moment before telling her, then say, “Yes, he is.”
“Is he pleased about it?”
“I don’t think he knows yet. He didn’t hear me, we aren’t exactly talking.”
“He will come around,” she says. “Would you like to come into my room for tea?”
“I’d love to, but I have a lot on my mind right now. Maybe some other time?”
“As you wish,” Harriet says.
After that I go to speak to my grandma, to tell her all about my day, but she is asleep. She seems to be doing that a lot these days, and in all the time I have spent with her so far I have noticed that she sleeps a little more each day. I know what is coming, but nothing prepares me for how painful and sudden it is. Knowing someone is dying is supposed to make things easier, or so you think, but when it happens, it still blows you away.
When Victoria and Viktor come to my room to tell me that she has passed, it hits me like a wrecking ball. In that moment I feel as if my soul has been knocked out of my body. I don’t remember much of what happens next, except that Viktor’s arms are underneath me as I fall.
Chapter Eleven - Lola
Saturday
I can’t believe she is gone. There is so much she had to teach me, so much I wanted to learn. Valnoir is still ignoring me. He was present at the cremation, but he didn’t look at me or talk to me. Being so lonely and alone is scary, and my newfound strength and resolve are already diminishing.