Butterflies and Vampires

CHAPTER 12.5

Sometimes I see stories. Strange stories in my dreams. Vampires shouldn't dream—or so Sabine and Cecile told me. We are always awake, alert of our surroundings and danger.

But I see it. Stories that are sad, scary, and a bit too familiar for my comfort.

***

There was a young girl, pouting her supple lips as she combed the hair women sitting in the chair before the vanity table. She had long straight hair heavy as though it was wet. Her profile was like an eastern woodcarving, and I knew immediately she was special, foreign but the most beautiful in the clan at that time.

"I want to be queen butterfly too," the girl said. The older woman's face contorted.

"You think it's easy? You think it's fun?" She held on to the pen she has been writing with, clearly triggered.

"But you get to drink blood—"

"You should know, child, you've been cleaning my room for years! Do you not see the blood that stains the room and I cannot drink?"

"I know," the girl sputtered weakly. "But we never get any blood unless you kill. It's all thanks to you."

"No." The woman shook her head before laying down her pen. "It's horrid, the way the blood spurts out of them, men who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She turned, and now the girl was looking at her in fear, clutching the ivory comb she was previously using to her chest, breathing heavily.

The woman's face had changed, into something like vampires did when they were ready to bite someone, fangs bared and eyes wide.

The girl swallowed but continued. "But Mother tells me about how wonderful you are, and how I ought to be like you. You protect us and even this comb, if it weren't for you we wouldn't have so many things. Things the men left behind."

The beautiful woman's face softened and she straightened herself in her chair, her hair making her look like a mermaid.

"Thank you, child, but it's not right. This isn't right. I will save you and the rest of the girls. You children don't deserve my fate."

"Mother wouldn't be happy to hear that—"

"If you dare tell mother I'll rip your hair out one by one," she replied, but there was a hint of a smile. The girl, too, saw, and only laughed.

"I won't tell her. I'll protect you."

The girl, too, was beautiful, with a mole under her left eye. She started combing her own hair.

"Oh, but I do wish I was the most beautiful, like you, Lorelei."

The woman, named Lorelei, slowly looked up.

"I'll teach you the secret to being beautiful, then."

A butterfly came, swaying about in the air before landing on a finger she raised.

"No way—did that butterfly—?"

Then as though they knew her question, ten more butterfly entered the window and fought the wind and one another until they were on her arms and wrists like split blood.

"Yes."

Her red lips curled and then she turned to her covered hands.

"Listen to me, girl, and I will teach you. How to be this perfect lady you and your mother think I am, and how to surpass me. Come, closer," she whispered alluringly, and then raised her hand towards her.

The girl smiled. "Really? But in exchange for what?"

She pulls her hair over one shoulder as butterflies seem to gather in an ominous halo.

"Just to cure my boredom." She puts one butterfly on her knuckle dangerously close to her lips. "It's been years since I've left this horrid tower."

"And you chose me?"

"Yes, now come, you don't want to waste your time..."

***

The room in that dream was only a bit different from mine. We had the same bed, but she had a table I didn't. I couldn't remember, but the same frames of butterflies and chairs proved it was my room.

As well as what Lorelei said; "this tower".

I walked around my room the day after that dream and searched every nook and cranny for something. Something those two must've left, maybe a note or item.

I had that same ivory comb, so I knew it wasn't a dream. Vampires didn't dream.

The door opened and just as I jumped, Uriel came.

"Margery, what are you doing?"

I was huddled over a corner and dug with it with multiple items laid out next to me, from a shard of broken glass to an useless brass key. I stood up.

"Uh, just curing my boredom. I have been in this castle all the time—" I stopped when I realize the familiarity of the lines.

"This will raise suspicion. Please don't do this again." He bent down and picked the items up, but when he bent down the hair flipped over his head and face. I laughed as I touched it.

"Are you not going to cut it?"

He stood up again with my items in his hands. "I thought you liked my hair."

"Suit yourself." I turned twice, then paced around the room before speaking. "Uriel, I had a dream. About using butterflies to—become powerful."

"And?"

"I think it's true."

The two of us stood there and looked blankly at one another.

"A vampire named Lorelei was here, with a child. She called butterflies, those red ones, to her like she—" I struggled for words. He put his hand on my shoulder and I jumped back.

"You don't believe me!" I was irritated, he, as always, looked down on me!

"A dream is a dream."

"What if it wasn't?" I dared. "You know what, Uriel, you're scared. You are scared, and a coward. You don't care for the clan and us at all. You only care for her death."

"And you're right."

I knew, but I wasn't expecting to hear it from his mouth. The times we joked, he grew out his hair—I thought somewhere we had met one another as Cecile and the doctor had. But we hadn't.

I knew I shouldn't have told him.