Amelie's Daughter

The Truth

Chapter 7

The castle stood proud on the hilltop. Its dark windows possessing dark drawn curtains, the door shut tight and the castle firmly built with granite bricks. "This is my castle, it is now yours too. It was built for myself and you in 1989 as a family home that I could rule in and look over onto my kingdom.", my mother explains, " come, let us get inside it will not do to stand around all night. You want to talk as do I so let us go and sit down inside." She leads the way. Its very vast inside the castle furnished with dark red carpets, rose wood furniture and family portraits (painted of course) of Amelie dressed in a long red dress in the 10th century, a portrait of someone called The Bishop in the 15th century, various others of Amelie and on the end a portrait of Amelie holding a child (I'm guessing its me). The portrait has this label underneath:
"Amelie and daughter Alayna 1208"

My jaw drops. Amelie, noticing I have stopped, turns and sees what I have stopped to look at, she smiles and says, "yes, your name is Alayna and you were born in the year 1208."

"Ok this just gets stranger by the moment, so I am not 16 years old I'm actually eight centuries old? This is crazy", I mutter. She walks over to stand in front of me.

" Yes you are 807 years old and I know it seems strange now but all will become clear soon enough.", she answers and takes my hand.

"I've never held the hand of my mother before, I mean I don't remember..", I drift off from the sentence. Amelie smiles and walks side by side with me. " You know what? I have never held my daughter's hand before either", she whispers almost to herself but I still manage to hear it and I smile at her in response.

We walk along the corridors and in two grand stair cases hand in hand and we finally reach the place that we have been aiming for, the library. As soon as the doors open I am in awe of the thousands of books that are displayed in rows of shelves that stretch up towards the ceiling. "You like books?", my mother asks casually I nod in reply knowing that if I speak my voice will probably crack, " good, there are books here in multiple different languages. Some classics" she picks up a first edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker and laughs, "If only they knew what the world had within it." We walk down the aisles and I contemplate what she just said, I know that I'm not human but what am I? As I glance in the shelves I spot Jane Eyre and many vampire novels...wait, vampire novels? I think I'm catching onto something here! I stop.

"There's a reason why you brought me here first isn't there?", she turns to face me taking both of my hands this time (still holding the copy of Dracula) and says, " yes, come and take a seat." She takes me over to the sofas.

"First things first, I would like you to have this copy of Dracula I have a feeling that you like this novel" (I do!) She pushes it onto my lap, I open it and see the date 1897 making it a first edition.

"Yes, you are correct I love Dracula!" I exclaim.

"Well that may be a stroke of good luck then!" She says.

" Ok I'll now tell you everything. I had you out of wedlock in Paris 1208 which was very illegal back then, my father did not accept it but my mother fought with him to let me keep you at least for a while.

"I named you Alayna which means 'beauty' in French. You were born human as I was a human at the time and I got to watch you grow up over 16 years. My father had met with a man to marry you off to, he was a very wealthy French gentleman who was very close to the King. My father set the wedding for a few weeks after your 16th birthday. I strongly disagreed but he would hear none of it saying that I was a disgrace to my family and that I didn't deserve to have a child. My father got turned that year at the age of 42 when he was nearing the end of his life, he turned me a few days after at the age of 29. I also turned you but as soon as I did the man who was to be your husband took you away from me and I didn't see you until 1864 in Chicago."

"But, I don't understand...I don't remember anything other than the past..maybe 12 years.", I say clearly confused.

" Ah, I'll get to that part in a moment just let me tell you the story first and then I'll answer questions after ok?", I nod, "Good. It was the year 1864 that I saw you again, you was alone walking along the river at night. So I went over to see you, you cried a fair amount as did I and we then came to Morganville and built the town together as a sanctuary.

We lived together in our kingdom for more than 140 years when in the year of 2002, 12 years ago, someone paid a visit to town. The person was a warlock and practised in dark magic, I don't know how he got past the borders but he did and he somehow took your memories away from you so that you thought you were an ordinary 16 year old girl. I had you moved to Summerdale until I could find this warlock.

" I didn't find him, it turns out he was killed in a demon attack but I found a young witch who is pure and good. She will help you to get your memories back and she will do a protection spell on you so that it will not happen again. You have to be unconscious for the spell to work properly, I am sorry." A hand came up from behind the shelves of books and comes in front of my face. There is a putrid smell and then I slump to the right, the last thing I see is a young girl come out from behind the shelves and then everything goes black (again).