The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 3 - Alfa Romeo

Sometimes I looked in on them while they slept. Their bedroom was completely dark, with thick, heavy curtains. In the summer, it was humid in there, and I could barely stand it for very long. However, at times they slept at night with the window open, and by moonlight I could see them, curled up together under the white bedsheet. They always slept facing each other, in arms, and it comforted me more than anything.

Being curious however, and often bored, I went into the study while they slept. I wasn't expressly forbidden from going in there. It was only that it wasn't a room for children to play in, so I knew that I wasn't supposed to snoop around. I would pull open the drawers of the big oak desk and look through the files for things to read. The most interesting were from elsewhere in the country, as those from abroad were all in French and I couldn't read them. Quinn kept all of the letters they ever received carefully filed away. Dasius's letters were in a cramped, elegant hand, and some very old and falling apart at the folds. From these I learned that Dasius thought of me, and sometimes sent me presents I didn't receive.

"For Jackie there is a jumper enclosed, but I imagine that it may be small by now. I have held onto it from Him in Paris, uncertain if you would allow it him or not. I think not, and yet it is a gift. Here it is for you and your decision." Clearly, Quinn had decided not to give it to me. There was news of cookies from Paris, a china doll, a set for lawn bowling, endless clothing, foreign books, a television. How I longed for television! I tucked all these letters back away, with their long itemized lists of numbers and general chitchat. I thought, "Being old is terribly boring", and went outside to play. 

"Him", I thought. By then, La Perle had taken on the character of dreams, of false memory. Paris, too, was a fantasy. I had seen pictures of other places in books, but I had only ever even seen one film. I spent most days running around the fields and woods playing make believe by myself. Occasionally there were men in the house, and they would show me how to hand fish, or to tie knots, or ask me to help them. Help them? I thought. They never lasted very long, disappearing as quickly as they had come. If I asked Father about them, he would say politely, "Who?" Things were quite neat that way. I never saw carnage as a child, though the threat of it sometimes seemed close when Father felt in a mood.

But he was rarely in a mood in those years. Sometimes he would retire to his room for some days, and it would just be Leis and me. I understood that he did not want to be my parent, not in any way, to influence my development. He had beautiful blond hair and he left me touch it sometimes, because he liked for me to rub his head and make soft animal sounds at him, to climb on him. He often seemed ill, and I would find him outside by the farm sink sometimes during the day, while Father slept, coughing up blood. "Sh," he would whisper to me, "don't tell him." I promised that I wouldn't, and so we were closer because of our secret from Father.

On occasion the coughing racked him so deeply that he needed me to help him back into the house, and at those times, he would let me hold his hand, because he said that he couldn't feel much in his fingertips and he wanted a human touch. Other times, I would find him wandering outside in the early morning, and he would seem rattled by my presence, like he didn't know quite who I was. I would go up to him and pull on his shirttail, because his aloofness disturbed me. He might say, "Who is that?" to which I would say, "It's Jackie" and he would give a soft, uncertain, "Of course." He touched my hair only once, which had grown long, and said "You look wild. Poor orphan." It confused me, but I had stopped longing for him to like me, even though I thought him very handsome, and funny, and I wanted to be like him. 

He said that he didn't like me, but he did. Sometimes he tied my shoes for me, and turned me around and around until it made me laugh, making sure my shirt was tucked in properly. If I fell and scraped my knees, it was invariably him who washed them and bandaged them, and cooed at me. Father's love was absolute, and occasionally smothering. Leis's was elusive and rare, and never more than when he began to disappear, and Father began to lock his door. For I was really alone then, with no idea of what was going on.