Status: To be updated in micro-segments.
It's Only the Rain
Eleven Coven
When I was sixteen, I finally got an answer from my brother to the question I held above all others, the question I had been asking since the day I discovered my tongue. ‘What do the Other Ones look like?’
His answer was simple. ‘You.’
That was the night I learned the truth. There was laughter in Taylor’s eyes, the one cut clean and sharp as a gemstone, and the other filmed over with suffering and blindness. It wasn’t quite a mocking laughter, although it was definitely the laughter of an inside joke. Alastair laughed with him, in hearty guffaws, and even vixen Daphne joined in, laughing with her eyes and smiling with her appleless cheeks. They laughed because I had accused them of killing Mama, and of trying to kill me.
‘You didn’t give her the antidote!’ I yelled. ‘You could have, but you didn’t!’
‘Hush, now.’ It was the first time I heard Daphne’s velvet soft voice, sweet as nectar and dark as demise in the belly of goddess Venus’ flytrap. She bent over me, whispering in my ear rather than sharing her words with her brother or mine. ‘It would have been a waste. Your mother was frail. You’re a part of our family now, and our main rule is that we do not waste resources on the feeble.’
‘You never suspected you were a vampire, did you?’ This time the voice was Taylor’s. ‘Even though we always referred to ourselves as a coven, rather than a ‘family’, as you would have read in books, you never noticed.’
I shook my head, for I had to admit that I had not.
‘You never saw the slaughter of the weak ones who hold us back. You only saw the symptoms of “the sickness”, without knowing who was being drained of life, and by whom. Likewise, you never noticed it when you grew up, becoming stronger, faster and stealthier. You only noticed your desire to be outdoors, nearer to the hunt. This feeling, you misinterpreted as Wanderlust. You never even noticed my black shape when I knocked you out in the gloom– the same shape that blocks out your stars every night.’
His answer was simple. ‘You.’
That was the night I learned the truth. There was laughter in Taylor’s eyes, the one cut clean and sharp as a gemstone, and the other filmed over with suffering and blindness. It wasn’t quite a mocking laughter, although it was definitely the laughter of an inside joke. Alastair laughed with him, in hearty guffaws, and even vixen Daphne joined in, laughing with her eyes and smiling with her appleless cheeks. They laughed because I had accused them of killing Mama, and of trying to kill me.
‘You didn’t give her the antidote!’ I yelled. ‘You could have, but you didn’t!’
‘Hush, now.’ It was the first time I heard Daphne’s velvet soft voice, sweet as nectar and dark as demise in the belly of goddess Venus’ flytrap. She bent over me, whispering in my ear rather than sharing her words with her brother or mine. ‘It would have been a waste. Your mother was frail. You’re a part of our family now, and our main rule is that we do not waste resources on the feeble.’
‘You never suspected you were a vampire, did you?’ This time the voice was Taylor’s. ‘Even though we always referred to ourselves as a coven, rather than a ‘family’, as you would have read in books, you never noticed.’
I shook my head, for I had to admit that I had not.
‘You never saw the slaughter of the weak ones who hold us back. You only saw the symptoms of “the sickness”, without knowing who was being drained of life, and by whom. Likewise, you never noticed it when you grew up, becoming stronger, faster and stealthier. You only noticed your desire to be outdoors, nearer to the hunt. This feeling, you misinterpreted as Wanderlust. You never even noticed my black shape when I knocked you out in the gloom– the same shape that blocks out your stars every night.’