The AltoBy Meltha
Sarah
1608-1610: Jamestown, Virginia ColonySarah was restless. The long sea journey had been a strange experience for her. Never before in her life had she been forced to keep so still and do so little for so long. Weeks upon weeks had passed with the ceaseless beating of the waves on the hull and the full bellies of the sails the only discernable proof that they weren’t standing perfectly still in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. At first, it had been rather pleasant. Lady Worthshire had secured a small compartment, hardly a luxurious accommodation but still adequate, and Sarah was troubled very little by the seasickness that violently attacked so many of the other passengers. She had lost her breakfast a time or two at the beginning of the voyage, but, as always, she adapted to her surroundings with remarkable speed.
She had seen a few wonders in their travels. By day, she often stood on the deck, careful to stay out of the way of the sometimes dangerously irritated crew, and looked out over the ocean. The white-tipped waves spread in an endless dance all around her as far as the eye could see. There, far behind them, England had disappeared into nothingness. The New World lay invisible ahead of them, still shrouded in complete mystery. Here, in this space that was really no place at all, there was nothing but the pale blue of the sky and the dark blue of the water, the salt tang of the air and the wind that sped them on their course. Once, far off in the distance, she had seen a pair of whales spouting and breaching, their giant flukes slapping the water into foam. Aside from them, she had seen no one else except the passengers and crew for weeks.
There was precious little privacy on the ship. The other women tended to gossip about this and that in low tones, but Sarah took no part in their tales. Anything they learned about her would either be fodder for causing her problems later on or else flat lies, and those could be liabilities if, as lies so often are, they were found out. Hence, the other women, at least half of whom seemed to be named Sarah as well, regarded the pretty young miss as stand-offish and proud, and they spun their own tales about her, most of them missing the mark by miles.
After so many days that Sarah had finally lost count, she saw a gull circling above the deck. Its loud screams were delicious music to her, for they could mean only one thing. Land must be close at hand. Like many of the other passengers, and the crew as well, she strained her eyes to the west in the setting sun, trying to catch a glimpse of solid ground, but still the ocean seemed endless.
It was very early on the morning of the second day after the gull’s appearance that the cry went forth of “Land ho!” Even though dawn had barely broken behind them, every soul aboard the ship raced pell-mell to the bow, and there, shining orange and gold in the first rays of the sunrise, lay the thin, long line of land at the very edge of the horizon. The New World, Sarah thought. A place where no one knew her, and she knew no one. On the edge of the world, she was utterly alone.
Later that day, the ship sailed up the inlet near the Jamestown settlement in the Virginia Colony, and the boats were lowered to take the passengers and gear ashore. It was while she was waiting her turn to be ferried to the beach that Sarah first had the opportunity to study the land she expected to be her home for the rest of her life.
It was green, save for the areas that had been cleared by the colonists, and the trees looked like another ocean of endless waves. It felt strange to smell the scents of land wafting in on a breeze from the remote distance, but these weren’t the fragrances of home. The earth smelled different, she thought, and the trees and flowers of this world weren’t the same as the ones she had left behind. If she had been dropped on another planet, Sarah couldn’t have felt more utterly disorientated.
When the landing boat was grounded, she was in for an even deeper shock. Jamestown, which was all the Virginia Colony was so far, was nothing but a little triangle surrounded by high wooden palisades on all sides. The sharpened, interlocking sticks did little to quell the nerves of the fresh load of colonists who had disembarked. What were these defenses meant to keep out? The tiny colony was so small compared to London that it felt like the whole thing could have been contained with room to spare in one of the cathedrals back home. In the immensity of the continent, this tiny outpost was perched on the edge of nothing, and at its back lay the dark green forest, looking almost black, hungry enough to devour them whole.
They were met by a group of other colonists, some of whom had been there now for years, and their enthusiasm for the landed ship was almost overpowering. Sarah was quite sure, though, that the supplies they had brought were far more the cause of their joy than another shipload of mouths to feed.
Still, they seemed a pleasant enough lot. All males, the sight of women was a most welcome one. Sarah took a moment to realize that she was just the same as any other female here; that not one of these men thought of a price tag hanging around her neck, and strangely enough, she smiled. Perhaps going somewhere no one recognized her had its benefits. She took in the gaggle of men in their rustic clothes that all looked in desperately need of repair. Well, not the life she would have wished for herself, she thought, but if she had a chance to possibly belong for once instead of living on the scandalous fringes of society, she might as well take it.
Unfortunately, it was not to be.
No sooner had she entered the town’s gates than she heard a voice she knew all too well.
“Mistress… Mistress Isabelle?” said an unmistakably shocked voice to her left.
“Damn,” she muttered, thoughts of being just another one of the others crashing down around her.
“Sir Edward,” she replied as she maneuvered the pair of them behind one of the crude cabins that served for homes here, “my name is Mistress Sarah Gimble now. I beg thee to use that name.”
“Aye, most assuredly,” Sir Edward replied. “But of all the necessaries in the world that I expected the mother-county to send unto us, I never would have suspected they’d send along my favorite wench in the bargain! Come now, let’s have a look at ye, old girl. As pretty a whore as ever ye were. They certainly didn’t throw ye out for ugliness’s sake. We’ve been without female company so long that ye’ll be a most welcome commodity.”
Sir Edward was a greater fool than most, for he completely missed the look of disappointment followed by stoic acceptance that flitted across the woman’s features. She had entertained for a moment the possibility that she could impress upon Sir Edward that she was no longer what she had once been, but the thought had drained away in the same moment. Sir Edward was a blabber mouthed idiot, which was probably why his family had sent him to the opposite side of the globe. There was no chance he would ever agree to keep her secret.
Her new life was lost before it had even begun. In only a few hours, Sir Edward had spread the word through the camp like wildfire. The line of communication skipped over those very few men who would have taken offense to having a woman of her occupation in the colony, and by nightfall at least five had propositioned her. Firmly, she had rejected each one, claiming fatigue and illness from the long sea voyage, and while one had needed to be threatened with the tines of a hayfork before he accepted her answer, the others had been relatively understanding.
In truth, Sarah didn’t feel particularly well. The land seemed to be bucking like the sea had when their journey first started. Her complaint was not unique. The whole company was having trouble finding their land legs, and some of the worst were walking as though they were drunk. It was quickly decided that rest was in order for all. The new arrivals were led to a common house and given beds. No sooner had her head hit the pillow than she was asleep, and she remained so for nearly a full day.
Upon the next day after she awoke, the new colonists were called together with the old at the center of the town.
“Our purpose,” said the governor of the colony, one Mr. Charles Craft, “is to farm this area, to search for precious metals, and to find a water route to the East Indies. At this time, those of you who have but newly arrived in this land are yet in need of shelter and education on the ways of this place. Our laws are simple and few. We live by the principles of our mother England. Final authority for punishment is given over to me. Our food stores are replenished through farming and work, and all are to participate in this, even the ladies,” he said loudly, throwing a rather rude and disparaging look at the womenfolk. “You are to earn your places here. In return, dwellings are being prepared for you even now, and you shall eat of the food shares that have been grown thus far. Worship is at sunrise each Sabbath. Now, to your own chores, each man and woman of you.”
Thinking this a rather cold welcome, Sarah decided it was best to follow the line of women to the outdoor kitchens. Several large pots full of water were boiling on fires, and when the food stores were brought forth, stew was begun. While the others still thought her too high and mighty and too pretty to be one of them, she quickly proved her usefulness, and while not accepted she was at least let alone.
It was a full week before the men came around once more, and this time Sarah could give no excuse. Assignations were made in any number of highly uncomfortable and sometimes disgusting sections of the town by night, and by day she worked as the other women did: cooking, sewing, and tending to a thousand other endless tasks. Her price had dropped considerably. There was almost no gold in the town, but she found that the men had stashed away a considerable number of vegetables and dried beef that the Honorable Charles Craft knew nothing about. Thus it came to pass that by the time Sarah had a home, her small larder was well stocked beyond the lot of her fellows.
The New World, though, was not a particularly agreeable place for her. In fact, she very quickly developed a rash on her hands and feet, something she was sure was due to the strange plants in this place and the ceaseless biting of ticks in her bedding. Again, half the people of Jamestown had similar afflictions, but while theirs seemed to improve with time, her skin refused to heal. The itching drove her nearly mad, and she was reminded unpleasantly of her time with the measles. She wore gloves to hide the ugly, brown, coin-sized spots on her hands, and she applied all manner of remedies to them, but nothing gave her the slightest ease. Finally, after a few weeks, her skin seemed to have grown accustomed to the climate and the rash disappeared completely. A strange tiredness came and went now for her, though, and there were times a mild fever would strike her for a short time, but she refused to let such small matters bother her.
Eventually, winter came to pass, and the freezing temperatures of her new home made Sarah rethink the discomfort of being burned alive in nice, toasty-warm flames. The wind here was ten times harsher than in London, and the ice and snow piled high around the small town. Food stores were small, and even she found her supplies starting to grow thin. Still, there were men willing to trade with her, and she was able to keep her belly full enough as she always had.
It was in January when a firm knock on her door woke her from a sound sleep sometime past midnight. She had answered it and found Craft himself standing outside. He pushed his way through the door and into the small home. With the air of a man who considered himself as good as alone, he threw his heavy woolen coat over her only chair.
“Governor?” she asked uncertainly. “Is something you need of me?”
“Shut yer mouth, woman, and do the only thing it is ye’re good for. I’ve no need for aught else from ye,” he said as he continued undressing.
Sarah stared for a moment, then blew out her candle and did exactly as she was told.
Though he ruled the colony with an iron grip and preached forbearance and the importance of resisting temptation as hallmarks of their mission, he didn’t seem to apply that particular lesson to himself, at least not in private. Craft became one of her regular callers. He never treated her with any kindness, rarely speaking to her except in commands or insults. His demeanor was one of pure mastery, though truth be told he was far from the most skilled she’d ever had. He also never paid so much as a walnut. Sarah knew this game of old: it was a bit like being back with Martin. Power meant privilege.
Unfortunately, Craft’s desires were more demanding than most, often becoming brutal. There was anger and hatred in everything he did to her, and his tastes ran to the extremes of cruelty. She began to fear the man profoundly, half convinced that he might decide to kill her. He broke the lock off her door eventually, refusing to allow her to fix it, and many nights she would wake from a sound sleep to see him hovering over her like a crazed demon, the light of fanaticism and loathing making his eyes gleam in the darkness. He was a nightmare that wouldn’t disappear when she awoke, and there were times she wasn’t sure whether he had really been there or if evil dreams were plaguing her again until she saw the blood and bruises in proof. He was always very careful never to hit her anywhere that might be seen, and her other visitors, if they noticed at all, never spoke a word in question.
The winter seemed to drag on forever. February, March, April… it wasn’t until May that the last of the snow had melted and the icy blasts from the Atlantic finally stopped. Springtime in the New World had some charms, she thought. The wildflowers were pretty enough, and the birds sang sweetly in the newly-leaved trees, but it was entirely foreign to her. She’d spent her whole life in London, constantly surrounded by the clopping hooves of horses and the loud calls of shopkeepers hawking their wares. Even her own house in Garden Street had been noisy enough, but here there was always a strange, heavy quiet behind the colony’s feeble sounds.
She found the lack of human noise disconcerting at first, but she eventually grew to like it, often slipping outside the spiked wooden palisades and wandering a short way into the forest. Being alone was not new to her, but being alone by her own choice was. Although she knew there could be wild animals about, she was strangely fearless of them. She usually brought a musket with her if she was going at all far, and though the women were appalled her brazenness in touching a weapon, she didn’t trouble herself about what they thought. Oddly, she never encountered anything dangerous. Deer that were as startled by her as she was by them, a few playful squirrels and birds, the occasional black-masked raccoon or other small creature crossed her path, but that was all. Except for one very strange encounter
It had been beneath some of the deepest shade in the forest, which was often nearly as dark as night even in the bright morning. Sarah had suddenly noticed the birds had fallen abruptly silent, and the quiet that she had grown to like grew far more profound as not an insect buzzed or an animal moved. Gooseflesh prickled her arms as she stood perfectly still. She gripped the stock of the musket a bit tighter as the indescribable but certain feeling of being watched crept over her.
“Who’s there?” she said loudly. “Show yerself, or I’ll give ye a new navel!”
The silence remained.
“Out with ye! Now!” she called again, and she cursed the small break of fear in her voice.
For a single moment, in the very deepest brush, perhaps a hundred feet away, she saw a strange pair of eyes, red as flame, catch the light, but then they were gone. A chill ran down her spine, for there was no doubt in her mind that those eyes belonged to nothing human. Intelligence had glimmered behind them, though, and a calculating mind. It was no animal, either. Sarah’s walks had taken a different path since that day.
On a far different day and on a path quite distant from the darkened one, Sarah saw a strange party heading towards her. Several people, all dressed in deerskin and holding baskets, walked in a group. At the forefront was a child who would impatiently scramble ahead of the others down the path at a run and then call over her shoulder in a strange tongue, obviously urging the others to move faster.
Sarah’s eyes bulged for a moment, but as always, she regained her senses quickly. They did not appear to be armed, she registered almost immediately, and they were carrying what seemed to be some kind of unknown food. Also, what war party was ever led by a rambunctious twelve-year-old?
Cautiously, she stood her ground but left room on the path for them to pass. The child, who had closely cropped hair except for one thin, long queue at the back of her head that reached well past her waist, ran boldly up to her and grabbed her hand, smiling brilliantly.
“English?” she asked quite clearly.
“Ehm, yes,” Sarah responded, not knowing quite what to make of the strange apparition.
“Come with us,” the girl said in a surprisingly friendly manner, handing Sarah a handful of berries. “We are visiting the town.”
If the skies had opened and a rain of apples had started, Sarah couldn’t have been more stunned. The rest of the party, she could only take them to be Indians, smiled sympathetically at her as the girl proceeded to swing her arm playfully as she began to half-run down the path, dragging the newfound Englishwoman with her.
“I am called Sarah,” she finally said, thinking that introductions should probably be made.
The girl nodded her head pleasantly but didn’t give her name in turn. In a few minutes, the palisade was in view, and the child clapped her hands delightedly. To Sarah’s surprise, the two men on guard hallooed the group heartily, and one ran into the town while the other came forth to meet the party.
“Tis young Miss Pocahontas,” he called happily. “We wondered when ye’d pay us a visit again!”
“We waited until the snow was gone,” she replied as she threw her arms around the man in a spontaneous hug. “But now, the berries have come back, and so have I!”
It was then that the guard, Hank by name, noticed Sarah standing there. “Ah, ye’ve met Mistress Sarah Gimble then?”
“Yes,” she responded. “She’s very strange-looking. Her hair is the color of sunlight. I have not seen this before. But like all of the English, she is too pale.”
“Hank,” said the pale woman in question, “might ye tell me what it is I have found?”
“This here is Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief in these parts. We’re on friendly terms with them,” he said, but the way his eyes flitted to the sharpened fenceposts made Sarah wonder. “We trade a mite at times.”
By then the girl had run through the gates and into the town, a string of giggles issuing from her lips. It was strange, Sarah thought, but the child reminded her of herself when she was young, during those few moments when the streets had offered up sport of some kind: a game of tig in the alleys or a wild ride with a few friends in a stolen cart. But it seemed for this one that those moments were the rule, not the exception, and she marveled at it. Oddly, she found herself liking this strange, half-wild Pocahontas with her braid flopping madly as she turned somersaults on the green. There was something about her that was more alive, more real than the rest of them. She had a freedom that back home even children never knew.
The months passed, and the crops were planted and hoed and watered and coddled by people who were mostly the second-eldest or least wanted of families of noble birth, and the result, unsurprisingly, was not perfect. The Indians came time and again, always with gifts of food, and the colonists began to grow increasingly glad to see them. No one spoke of it, but it was plainly obvious that the winter stores would be nowhere near adequate for their number.
When the chill of autumn began to bite in the evening air, Sarah noticed a dropping off among her customers, and this alone told her that things had begun to be perilous. The men wanted to keep their food to themselves. To make things worse, the fevers of the summer had worsened for her, and now a constant pain was in her joints. As much as she didn’t want to admit it to herself, the pain was growing worse daily, and there were nights when she lay awake, as close to the fire as she dared, hoping the heat would seep into her bones and take away the ever-present hurting.
It was on the final visit of the Indians to the colony for the year that Pocahontas rapped tentatively on Sarah’s door. She had taken to her bed that day because, as much as she was loathe to admit it, the pain was simply too bad.
“Come in,” she answered, and the tiredness in her own voice shocked her.
The usually bouncing girl entered, a strange look on her face.
“I missed you today. Why were you not with the rest of the English?” she asked.
“Not feeling very well,” she responded. “You’d best not get too close, child. It could be catching.”
Pocahontas looked at the woman for a long moment, taking in the sweat on her forehead. “You are paler than you were. It is not a good color,” she said slowly. “It is not good at all.”
Sarah decided this really didn’t need a response. The effort was too much anyway.
“I’m here to warn you,” the girl said suddenly. “Something bad is in the woods. Do not walk alone again outside the fence.”
Sarah looked at her, intrigued by something that could frighten someone who never seemed to be afraid of anything, apparently not even a white man’s disease. “Why? What is it?”
“I cannot say,” she said simply, “except that it is evil, like what Craft says in his Sunday talks.”
Sarah smirked slightly. “Craft’s definition of evil and my own are probably far different.”
Pocahontas nodded in agreement. They’d spoken about Governor Craft. The child didn’t care for him either.
“Have you told the others about this?” she asked, frowning.
The girl’s eyes stole towards the door, as though she half-expected someone to be standing there, listening. “No,” she answered. “They would only say I was foolish and had the fears of a child. I will not warn those who will not listen. And I have a sense of dread about you.”
“I don’t think you will need to worry about my taking a stroll anytime soon,” Sarah said with a thin smile.
“No,” the girl replied quietly. “No, I don’t think that you will. I hope to see you in spring. Take this. It is maize. It is good to eat, but keep this basket for yourself, not the others. It is a gift of friendship, Sarah.”
Pocahontas disappeared through the door and into the cold air. Sarah stared at the basket. In all her life, there had never been another time when anyone had given her a gift freely. In the few remaining months of her life, there would be but one more.
As the first flakes of snow drifted to the ground in October, Sarah found herself being taken to the town’s sickhouse. There was one doctor among them, but he had not given thought to the complaints of a woman before this, assuming that she was exaggerating, but when at last he did examine her, there was no mistake about the fading eyesight, the loss of control in her limbs, and the stumbling beats of her heart.
“You have the French disease,” he said shortly with a look of disgust.
She stared at him, her mouth agape. It was a death sentence. The prostitutes of London had feared it for years, but she had never thought she would have it. She had made sure to examine her customers, but the times did not yet understand that the disease could be carried invisibly. Suddenly, everything made sense: the rash that hadn’t wanted to leave, the fevers and tremors and pains, all of it. She had simply not wanted to make the connection.
“How long?” she asked.
“Your remaining weeks are few. I suggest you repent of the evil that brought you to this state and pray God not send you to damnation despite your deserving it,” he said none too kindly.
“And I suggest, good doctor, that you pray you shall not come to the same pass. You have visited me often enough, as your God also knows,” she said coldly.
The doctor’s eyes grew momentarily wide, then he swiftly left the room, leaving Sarah to deal with the revelation that her death was coming much sooner than she had thought. It was a bit like finding out her parentage. Fate had played with her again. The only path that could have saved her life was now going to end it. She would have laughed, but the sound stuck in her throat like ashes.
November passed, and things grew nothing but worse as the leafless branches scratched against the gray sky. Sarah’s mind began to play tricks on her, giving her hallucinations of things that had happened years ago or that had never happened at all. The nurses had a difficult time with her. Her sleep was always restless, filled with murmurings and names and speech of deeds that made their ears go pink. One night, no one knew how she managed it, she was found outside in a drift of snow, desperately looking for a woodpile and screaming that Nellie would flay her if the fire were allowed to go out. It took three strong men to carry her back inside. Other times she rained down curses on Martin and Geoffrey and Alice and Millicent and Frederick and a thousand-thousand others who had used her and tossed her aside when it no longer suited their pleasure. Her ravings grew tiresome, and at last the nurses, convinced there was no hope for her in body or soul, tied her to the bed and left her to her own weird delusions, sometimes for days at a time, often gagged.
Christmas had passed, and the new year loomed ahead, but in her few lucid moments Sarah knew she would never live to see it. It was on the 29th night of the month when she had one of her most vivid dreams. Or so she thought.
She was alone again, and the shutters over the window did little to keep out the wind. The fire was so low in the room that the embers were mostly whitish-gray now, and only a few sparks of light crept forth to shed any light around the room. It hardly mattered, though. Her eyes had long since darkened. Only the strongest sunlight or shadow showed to her now. Sarah was staring at where she knew the ceiling must be, not moving, the sores around her mouth aching like living coals. Each heartbeat had become obvious to her, as though it took an act of conscious will to keep the muscle pumping her life’s blood. It was growing sluggish. She was thirsty, but her arms were bound to the mattress though her mouth at least was free, and there was no one to pour the pitcher of water for her. Her tongue was so dry it was clamped to the roof of her mouth. The pelting of sleet on the roof gradually lessened, and only the low tones of the wind broke the silence of the night.
The pitch of the wind seemed to slowly change, become more rhythmic, and for a moment she fancied it was a voice singing softly outside the window. As the minutes passed, the voice became clearer. It was humming tunelessly in deep, soft, full notes. It came and went in her hearing, or perhaps it was that her ears had begun to fail as well. Words reached her ears, blurred and indistinct, slipping in and out of meaning.
“You shall hear the fond tale
of the sweet nightingale,
as she sings in those valleys below;
so be not afraid
to walk in the shade,
nor yet in those valleys below,
nor yet in those valleys below.”The music was unknown to her, but the sound of it filled her mind with strange thoughts. Wordlessly, it spoke of safety, an assurance that all would be well and no harm would come to her. A cradlesong.
“I find it odd,” she said forcing her swollen tongue to move to address the empty room, “that my first lullaby is sung over my death bed.”
“Oh, I did not mean to disturb your rest, dear one.”
Her nerves jumped to attention. This was no phantom of the past. This voice belonged to a man, but the tone was different from anything she had ever heard. She searched her brain for what it was like. His accent was different from any she had heard before. There was a slight quiver in it, but not from infirmity or illness. It was as though… as though the night had a voice, she thought, a night like this one, cold and full of wind. There was a strength to it, and a strange, almost dangerous kindness. Not just the words, though they were polite enough in themselves, but it was like the voice was some sort of caress, a hand on her fevered brow. It didn’t make sense to her, but it did.
Behind that voice, though it could have perhaps belonged to an old man, lay tremendous power. Not the power that the nobles and courtiers and rich had or thought they had, but something much different.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Are you afraid of me?” he questioned back.
“I’m about to die,” she said bluntly. “I don’t really see much point in being afraid of anyone now.”
There was a laugh, and it snapped like twigs thrown on a fire, a bit higher than most men’s and resonating through his nose oddly, but it was obvious she had greatly amused him.
“I knew it!” he crowed. “I knew I’d picked one who had spirit to her!”
Sarah’s head was swimming now. The pain on her face and in her joints was almost to the point where she knew she would probably pass out again. The feeling had become familiar by now.
“Who are you?” she repeated, willing herself to stay conscious.
“Oh,” he said, and the o was strangely prolonged as though he were breathing it in instead of out. “I’m a friend.”
“I have no friends,” she said automatically. “And if you’ll excuse my impatience, I don’t really have time to solve mysteries. I’d rather not die curious.”
Again there was a laugh, and a loud slap, one that sounded as though he had actually just hit his knee in amusement.
“My dear, you shan't die tonight. I know these things, child. You have a little strength left in you. You will live another day, but no more,” he said, his voice rising and falling almost as though he was speaking a song. There was no sorrow or pity in it. She rather liked that.
“Tell me your name,” she said curiously.
A chuckle came from outside her window. “Names can be dangerous things to tell. Isn’t that right, Sarah… Isabelle… Venus… Abelard… Abbie… Have I skipped any?”
“Just Abigail, and how did you know all that?” she asked, a chill running over her, and not from the fever.
“You talk in your sleep,” he explained off-handedly, then added in a darker voice, “and I’ve been listening for a long time now.”
Sarah’s mind kept telling her that there was some kind of danger present, something horrifying, but the thought kept swimming just beyond her reach.
“Will I meet you again before the end?” she asked, knowing the darkness of the pain was about to pull her under once again.
“I give you my word, dearest. You will not close your eyes to this world until you have seen me,” he said, and they were the last words she heard before she slipped into unconsciousness.
It was late afternoon before Sarah opened her eyes again. The shutters had been thrown back on the windows, and the light stung at her eyes. It must be a very clear day for winter, she thought. Warmth from the sun fell on her arms, which lay on the bedcover now, unrestrained at last since it was obvious she would no longer be taking random walks into the open. Even though the sunlight was only the weakened rays of winter, it still soaked into her skin. But her eyes were burning from the light, and it was too much.
“Someone close the shutters,” she asked quietly, and a dark figure broke the line of the light. Well then, she thought. Someone is here after all. Of that much she was glad. “Seems wrong that I should die while the sun is still so bright.”
Darkness abruptly fell across the room, and a voice spoke aloud the words she was thinking.
“You’ll not see it again. Before it sets, you will have left this life,” said a man’s voice, and she knew that she’d heard it before, but she couldn’t place where or when. Everything seemed to be whirling around in her head, keeping time to the increasingly hard, sporadic heartbeat that she swore must be audible to everyone else as well as to her.
She was becoming slowly aware of a figure in the room, and that surprised her. It was a dim outline, but still she knew the cut of the clothing well enough.
“I didn’t ask for a priest,” she said in disgust. Why would she? To be told again and yet again, for the millionth time, that she was about to go to hell unless she sniveled for doing what any person with common sense would have done? Why wouldn’t they just let her go there and be done with it!
“You did,” he replied calmly, taking her abusive tone without the slightest rebuke in his voice. “You cried out for me last night in your delirium.”
Sarah was taken aback. Of all the embarrassing things to happen. “I don’t remember,” she said quickly, then paused, thinking that perhaps she could at least have one last laugh before the brimstone and pitchforks began. “Do you even know what I am?”
What, not who. She’d never been a person to anyone, only a thing, she thought. A kitchen maid or thief or prostitute, but never someone, at least not unless it was a lie, except perhaps with Jane or the strange, copper-colored child. A sudden sadness seized her, but she quickly tamped it down in its proper place.
“A woman of some property. No husband. No inheritance. Yes, I know what you are,” he said softly in the customary, quiet tone used for the dying. Tactful, she thought. I’m sick of tact.
“I’m a whore,” she said, stretching the final word slightly, enjoying that she could at least have the simple revenge of shocking one last hypocrite, and this time without fear of any additional punishment than the one she already had. What did anything she say matter now? It was really quite liberating to have the freedom to do whatever she wished. Pity it would only last a few minutes more.
“Well, yes, that too,” said the priest in a completely unperturbed tone. Her eyebrows rose. Not such a delicate one, then. “You should have asked for a priest long ago, child. Your life may have been the better for it.”
A smirk crept to her lips. “And you should have paid me a visit before today, Father. Your life may have been more interesting because of it.”
“Are you prepared now,” he said in that constantly calm voice - she had to admit that much impressed her - “to renounce Satan and beg God his forgiveness?”
Ah, back to the heart of the matter. Back to calling her the dirty one when they were the ones who had covered her in filth to begin with. They had made her what she was now. She remembered Governor Craft’s angry whispers in the night, calling her names that she was surprised a man of his stature had ever heard, and telling her over and over again how she wasn’t even human anymore, she was an animal, and it was heaven’s will that he should be one of her punishers. Usually, on those nights, he used his belt on her until she bled rivers.
“God never did anything for me,” she said coldly. She’d be damned if she turned back to begging now… not that she wouldn’t still be damned if she didn’t.
“Leave us,” he said to whomever else was in the room. “You can't save her life - perhaps I can still save her soul.”
It wasn’t until that moment that she realized the doctor had been bleeding her, using leaches. It was a sickening process, and she had never understood what good it ever did. Her senses had obviously been dulled even more than she thought if she hadn’t felt it. The sound of quiet footsteps and a door closing told Sarah that his wishes had been followed.
“My soul is well past saving. Let the devil take me if he'll have me. Either way - I die," she said. It wasn’t really an argument. This priest, whoever he was, had gained a small particle of her respect. She’d challenged him to rise to her bait, and he hadn’t. She gave credit where it was due.
“No,” he said softly, and there was a note of excitement in his voice. “You will not die. You will be reborn.”
In that moment, the fog began to clear from her memory. He was so familiar. If only she could see him clearly. There was nothing but a whitish blur, and then a glint of red where eyes should be. Red eyes. Red, inhuman eyes hiding in the undergrowth of the trees, cunning beyond an animal’s ability.
“I know you,” she said, her voice strangely unafraid.
“I came to you last night,” he said, and there was tenderness unlike anything she’d heard before, at least not directed towards her. “I sang to you from that window.”
The lullaby… the strange man who wouldn’t tell her his name. She began to understand why.
“I remember now,” she said slowly, answering her own question. “You’re death?”
A long, slow inhale of breath, as though he found her guess sweetly endearing, escaped his lips. “No,” he answered.
Her heart was beating against her ribs, but shallowly, and she knew it was the sputtering before the candle went out in a draft.
“What then?” she asked weakly, hanging on to the final threads.
“I’m your savior,” he said firmly, as though there was no arguing with this fact. “God never did anything for you. But I will.”
Confusion crept over her features, then she felt a mouth against her neck, then pain: pain like a pair of long, hard knitting needles stabbing through her throat. Something was being drawn out of her; she could feel it. Her blood. This man, demon, whatever he was, was drinking her blood. She moaned quietly as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her more tightly against the rough wool that covered his chest, cradling her. She didn’t know what she’d thought death would be like exactly, but not this. It wasn’t like going asleep or turning to ice. It wasn’t like anything at all, except perhaps falling, falling down an endless chasm that had no bottom.
After a short while, she felt the pain in her neck change from piercing to a sense of emptiness. His mouth was gone. She felt him lay her back against the pillow, propping up her head, then a voice urging, insistent.
“Drink,” it said from very far away. “Go on then, child. Drink.”
Something warm and wet was against her lips. She swallowed automatically, and the taste of blood assaulted her tongue, but it was more than that. There was something unbelievably powerful in it, more intoxicating than the best wine. She began to down it hungrily, her little remaining strength drawn to it like a magnet, inexorably, without thought or conscious will, taking it into herself. And that was Sarah’s final memory.
When the Master was well and truly sure that Sarah was dead, he carefully rearranged her dressing gown to cover the marks on her neck, sponged the remaining drops of blood from her lips, and swiftly put his hood back over his head, throwing his face into such deep shadow that it disappeared entirely. The mortal fools would have to touch his new one, of course, but he could hardly tolerate it. Still, there were appearances to keep up. Traditions needed to be followed.
“Nurse,” he called. The woman appeared in the doorway a moment later. “She has gone on to her new life now.”
“Tell me, Father,” she asked, “were you able to save her?”
“Indeed, I did,” he said. “Most assuredly.”
The nurse shook her head as the priest went off across the snow in the growing darkness, the steam of his breath looking a bit like smoke escaping from under his cowl. It was strange, she thought, that one of the priests from the Spanish mission would come all this way for no reason, but as with any who encountered his thrall, she simply didn’t question it further.
Sarah’s burial was a brief affair. The body was taken from the bed, carried in the sheets she had died upon, and thrown into a shallow hole behind the sickhouse within a few minutes. They had been expecting her death, and the grave had stood open for the last few days. Sarah’s form was covered over with frozen earth, and no cross was put at her head. While the town had pretended to turn a blind eye to her prostitution, no one who died of syphilis would be granted full Christian burial. No prayers were said over her unmarked grave, and no mourners wept beside it. All that remained was quiet, and a vague memory of a pretty woman whom the rest of the women had disliked and whom the men had enjoyed but never known. So it remained while the world went around once on its axis, and in that time, Sarah slept deeply.
It was well after sunset on the last day of the year. The good people of the Virginia Colony had gone to bed following their increasingly pitiful suppers. Sarah’s death had not been the only one that week. Many more were weakening, and the graves would continue to multiply in this little outpost on the edge of the unknown. But in the midst of all the decay, there was one who was growing stronger.
It began with a twitching in her feet. Her toes were buzzing in the way they did when her feet had fallen asleep and sensation was just beginning to reawaken. Her ankles were tangled in something tight, restrictive. Bed sheets? Sarah had been having strange dreams for a long time, but this one didn’t seem to be going away. She tried to move her arms and legs to rouse herself, but she was met with resistance. Her limbs were oddly compressed, and something inside her seemed to be missing.
She listened carefully, and strange sounds began to fill her ears, ones that didn’t entirely make sense. Things creeping within the earth and scuttling over it, wind in bare branches, each barren stick clacking loudly against the other, an owl hooting softly far away, the snuffling of a creature in the bushes of the forest, all of them rang perfectly in her ears. But it was then that she realized what was missing: she heard no breathing, even her own. She heard no heartbeat.
For a long, horrible moment, Sarah thought this was her own hell, and such a perfect one. She would remain inside her grave forever, unable to move or to cry out as her body rotted and was eaten away with her still trapped inside it. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was blocked by the sheet wrapped around her head, and her arms and legs trembled in terror in the cold soil. Her eyes were blind.
Then, she heard it: a soft, brushing sound above her face and growing steadily nearer. At length, she felt a light pressure on the covering of her face, then a loud ripping sound as the wool sheet was torn asunder.
“Good morning, little one,” said the voice of the priest of last night, and her eyes grew wide. “You have nothing to fear. Wake to your new life.”
She had never seen his face properly before, and now she was deeply taken aback. His skin glowed pure white in the moonlight as he set about uncovering the rest of her, an expression of careful concentration marking his features. But what features! His nose was almost entirely gone. Around his mouth were deep grooves, and his head was bald and smooth as an egg. His eyes were what transfixed her most. They were red as the stones of the brooch Abbie had supposedly stolen so many years ago, small and hard, but yet there was an expression of indulgence around the red-stained mouth as he slowly unearthed her body.
“You… you are…” she said, trying to form words.
“Yes, I know. It’s usually a bit of shock when they first see me,” he said understandingly. “I am very old, and the changes that I have wrought within myself have expunged much of the stain of my humanity. Do you find me very ugly?”
Sarah tipped her head to one side, and realized the truth with a start. “No. No, I don’t.”
“There now,” he said with a wide grin, and she saw his teeth, sharp and inhuman, the teeth that must have sucked the blood from her throat. “You are free now, childe. Come, on your feet. Carefully.”
She took his offered hand and rose to her feet unsteadily. She ached all over, and the noises of the night, now that they weren’t muffled by layers of dirt, were so loud they hurt her ears. She leaned heavily against him, and he expertly supported her sagging frame on his arm, allowing her to use him as a walking stick.
“Most new ones are able to free themselves, but you needed help because of how long you had been ill,” he explained as he slowly led her across the open field behind the sickhouse, gradually encouraging her to begin to bear most of her own weight. “It will take a few more hours before you reach your full strength, but then, dear one, you shall never lose it again. The pain will pass away, just as you once did, and all that will be left is power.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, looking at the strange man who held her arm firmly in his own. “I am dead, am I not?”
“Yes… and no,” he said chuckling at some private joke. “Your human self has died, and your soul has flown to who knows where. You are now one of those who walk at night. You are a vampire.”
“A vampire?” she said. “I thought those were tales to frighten children.”
“Ah, but sometimes those stories are very, very true,” he said, smiling so that his sharp teeth showed cold in the moonlight. “It is what I am, and I have chosen to gift you with this as well. You will never sicken or age, and you never need die. Your strength will be greater than that of twenty strong men, and no one shall ever harm you again.”
“But?” she inquired pointedly.
He laughed heartily at her perceptiveness. “Yes, I am sure you learned long ago that all good things come with some bad, and it is true with us as well. Sunlight is your enemy now. If it touches you, it will burn you to dust, as will the stray spark of any fire. Holy water will do much the same, or any holy object. Besides these things, the only ways you can be fatally harmed are with a stake of wood through your heart or if your body and head part ways.”
“None of that sounds terribly difficult to avoid,” she said quietly, “though I believe I will miss sunlight.”
“Bah,” said the demon dismissively. “Moon and stars replace the sun for us, and is it truly so great a price for what you have gained?”
“I suppose not,” Sarah agreed. “Is there aught else I should know?”
“Indeed. You have a great deal to learn, young one, but the most pressing of your lessons is, of course, that now you will live off blood,” he added almost offhandedly, “but that is no bad thing to our kind.”
Sarah tried to study the implications of these words. Her mind told her logically that this was a thing that should horrify her, disgust her, sicken her, but she felt absolutely none of these things. Instead, she found herself experiencing a completely unknown sensation, one that burned in her stomach and emanated into her throat, landing on her tongue, making her lips purse slightly. The only thing she could compare it to was when she had been homeless and passed by a tavern that was roasting capons. The smell of the meat, succulent and mouth-watering, had nearly driven her mad with hunger.
“Do you not find yourself growing thirsty?” asked the demon knowingly.
Sarah found a low growl unfurling in her throat in response, much like an animal’s call. It surprised her, but the man seemed pleased.
“Yes, of course you are. Now, childe, there are rules to this part of the game as well. You cannot enter the house of a human unless you have been invited. It is unfortunate and often bothersome, but there are ways around such things, and you have a ready mind,” he assured her, smiling benevolently. “Are you feeling a bit stronger?
“Yes, some, good sir,” she said, finding she could walk without his aid but oddly wanting to keep her arm laced through his. “If it please you, what may I call you?”
The smile deepened. “Ah, I am called the Master. I am the head of the Order of Aurelius, of which you are now the youngest member. And we must decide upon a name for you as well,” he added, tilting his head thoughtfully.
“But… I have one. In truth I have enough and to spare,” she said, slightly confused once again. “Are all vampires given new names?”
“No, my dear, but you don’t truly have a name at all, do you? ‘Sarah’ doesn’t suit you. I can’t quite seem to decide yet,” he said, furrowing his forehead, which lacked brows to knit. “It will have to do for now, I suppose. All things will be seen to in their own good time. First, a feed. Do you have a preference, young one?”
Sarah knew at once whom she wished, above all others, to seek vengeance upon.
“Our dear Governor,” she said smoothly, and she smiled widely, but as she did so, she felt the planes of her face shift frighteningly. Her hands went automatically to her face in alarm, and she felt bumps and ridges covering her forehead and cheeks, and the teeth in her mouth felt longer, sharper. A moment of terror seized her. “What has happened to me?”
“Oh, don’t fear,” the Master said with a chuckle. “You’ll learn to control your true face soon enough. You will keep your human face, but truly your demon is quite becoming. Our kind will find you charming, though the humans will be terrified. Both are admirable. Now, about this Governor, tell me, what has he done to anger you so?”
“Whipped me. Forced himself on me. Abused me. Treated me worse than an animal,” she said, her voice growing progressively harder.
“And you would like to make him suffer for it?” he said, patting her hand. “Ah, this isn’t the time for it. You are like a child who wants to eat the sweetmeats first! One must work up to that, not start out with it. You must learn the skills for it all first.”
Sarah pouted slightly, but she noticed that the Master was steering them back towards the sickhouse.
“Maybe we should begin with your lovely nurse,” he suggested, pointing with his long-nailed hand towards a figure in the distance. “As good a start as any.”
Sarah suddenly realized her vision was remarkably clear. Her eyes had been failing for months, so even a return to normal clarity would have been pleasant, but her eyes, even in the dim night, were able to see the woman precisely, down even to the frayed hem on her cloak, from a distance of perhaps two hundred yards. Her head swam dizzily for a few seconds as she reeled from the overwhelming increase in her senses. She was also growing aware that sight and sound were not the only differences in her new state. Her sense of smell was beginning to awaken, and the earth still clinging to her held a scent like metal and sand while the odor of the cooking fires that had gone out hours ago was borne to her on the breeze in a delicate scent of ashes. But when the wind blew just right, there was another smell that made its way to her nose, one she was completely unable to describe except to say that it made her stomach burn even hotter and her mouth water. She looked to the Master curiously.
“You smell fear, little one,” he smiled. “Only a trace of it. The woman is frightened by the dark. You’ll find that it will grow stronger soon, and it will become even more luscious.”
Sarah stared at the man beside her, his face lit with a frighteningly vicious light as his red eyes glitteringly followed the nurse. Faint golden flecks dotted his irises, and his teeth elongated even further. He made a horrifying picture, but she found herself not the least bit afraid of him even then. She was not fool enough to ever want to tempt the power she could feel flowing from him, but its vindictiveness wasn’t directed at her, and she suddenly found herself convinced that, unless she were deeply stupid, it never would be.
Her former nursemaid seemed to be walking briskly through the night, her cloak wrapped tightly around her to keep out the biting wind. Judging from her path, she was returning from the privies and making her way back towards her own small cabin.
“How is it done, Master?” she asked, and again she marveled at her complete inability to feel guilt. When she remembered what it had felt like, the place within her seemed to be full of nothing but empty echoes. She could, however, clearly remember this woman tying her to the bed and stuffing wadded cotton in her mouth to silence her, laughing cruelly when she had begun to gag. That was clear as spring water.
“Such a good student,” he said warmly, caressing her hand that still rested on his arm. “Watch me, childe, and I shall show the right way to go about it. Stay close.”
She found herself led swiftly over the dead grass and drifting snow, so swiftly that the distance between them and the human was covered in a moment. Sarah realized that she was watching the Master grab the woman from behind, and his cloak didn’t make the slightest sound in the night air. He struck like some great snake, his arm closing in one swift movement around the woman’s neck, his hand resting over her mouth, as he turned her to face Sarah. The nursemaid’s eyes bulged wide, but her screams were entirely muffled.
“You see, my dear, it’s quite easy. This is the best place,” he said, indicating the woman’s neck with his free hand. “Just there lies a vein that pulses with what you need.”
Sarah’s face shifted once more to its demonic planes, and her teeth grew long once more.
“Very good,” laughed the Master. “Shall I hold her for you?”
“I thank you,” she said, her eyes glittering pure gold in the moonlight. “I simply…?”
“Bite, childe. Listen to your instincts. They will tell you all you need to know,” he guided her confidently.
Sarah leaned close into the other woman, and for a moment she was struck by how intimate the scene was. Her mouth hovered over the pulse point, her eyes locked with the one who had once tormented her, and she delicately lapped her tongue across her skin, a slightly salty taste greeting her. The nurse seemed to panic at last, and began to squirm in the Master’s arms frantically, but his hold kept her still without trouble.
It was exactly as he had said. Her instincts took full hold of her at last, and she plunged her teeth into the woman’s neck, her mouth filling at once with the warmth or coppery, sweet blood. She remembered the taste of the Master’s blood, but this was different. His had been potent, laced with something other-worldly, while this woman’s blood felt more like ale coursing down her throat, warming her and nourishing her, setting her palate ablaze.
“Let it come to you,” the Master said gently, and Sarah was unsure if he was speaking to her or to the woman in his arms. “No need to fight. Let it come.”
Finally, Sarah felt a difference. The warmth was decreasing, the fire in her belly quenched. Her teeth withdrew, and the dead woman hung limply in the Master’s arms for a moment before she was dropped to the ground.
“Very well done, childe! Are you feeling better?” he asked.
Her arms and legs were practically throbbing with new life, and the pains of her illness were completely gone. Strength flowed through her, more strength than she had ever known, and she threw her head back and laughed.
“Much, much better, Master,” she said, smiling broadly. “I have never felt so fine in my life.”
The nights passed swiftly for the new vampire. By day, she and the Master slept in a cave deep in the recesses of the woods, one that was not far from the path she had taken on the walk that had frightened her so much. Oddly, he always insisted upon their resting for the day in separate passages of the cave. In the evenings, they would descend upon the town, usually finding a way to feed from the weaker people and hide their presence. The Master had explained that, while one person killed at night from an animal bite might not arouse suspicion in the wilderness, if it happened too often there would be a commotion that could prove dangerous for them. So the starving were often their targets, and though their blood became progressively more watery over time, it was an ample diet. The wounds at their necks were usually concealed beneath layers of clothing, and the bodies were buried quickly when there was such a high death toll, none bothering to look too closely at what they believed might be their own fate.
Months passed. The cold winter seemed to continue forever, but Sarah found that while she felt the cold, it didn’t actually bother her as it had when she was human. By the time the first tentative signs of spring began to show, the world had changed drastically.
The colonists were much fewer now, and it had not simply been from the two vampires, though a good portion of the cemetery was their doing. Sarah had taken to her new diet with zest, often picking those very men who had been her customers to repay her with their lives. Still, the specter of Governor Craft hung over her, taunting her. The Master had not yet given her permission to kill one that important. His death would inevitably cause a stir regardless of how he died. At times she looked through his window, studying the slow rise and fall of his chest in his sleep, her mouth salivating in response to the tempting show of mortality. She could wait, she told herself.
Eventually, Sarah’s sharpened ears became aware of other sounds in the woods. The Indians were passing back and forth on the trail once more, visiting with the English settlement, and Sarah easily picked out the steps of Pocahontas on the path, springing more lightly than any of the others. For the first time since she had been turned, she experienced a moment of confusion. The child had never harmed her or insulted her. In fact, in life she had actually enjoyed her company. The immediate natural reaction surfaced again of wanting to drain, to kill, but there was something else there, too. While part of her desired the kill, another part, very remote and small, seemed to try to stay her. Granted, Pocahontas was never unaccompanied and came by only in daylight, so the prospect of an attack was almost impossible to begin with and certainly unwise, but the thought of seeing her again intrigued her.
One night, she gave in to the temptation. Following the signs of their trail, Sarah carefully traced their route until she found a village of wood and bark lodges. The silence that reigned over the place was deep, and she could tell sleep had fallen upon the inhabitants. She wandered almost aimlessly from one to another, peering in doors with the wary stealth of a hunting animal, utterly silent as the Master had taught her to be. She had taken to walking barefoot, enjoying the feel of the soil silent beneath her feet and yet walking with such a light touch to the earth that she left prints no mortal could have seen.
Her quarry eluded her this night. She couldn’t find a sign of the child anywhere. As she reached the far end of the village, she suddenly raised her head in surprise. There was someone awake, and they were extremely active.
As she rounded a cluster of birch trees that were just beginning to show signs of budding, she saw the least likely scene she could have imagined. At the opposite end of a long clearing, there was Pocahontas herself, going through a series of undeniably martial movements under the guidance of an older man of her tribe. Her face was knit in concentration, and her limbs moved with an easy grace that was supernatural. For one moment, Sarah thought that the Master had chosen to turn the child as well, and she was surprised at the fact that the thought pleased her. But there were two audible heartbeats in the clearing.
“Fool!” said a voice in her ear as she felt a hand drag her back into the shadows. “What are you doing here?”
Sarah turned to face the Master, who looked utterly livid. His eyes practically threw sparks in his fury, and she found herself frightened for the first time since her death.
“Have I displeased you?” she asked, willing her teeth not to chatter.
He seemed to mentally shake himself, coming to his senses and gaining control over himself. “Of course, you couldn’t have known. That, childe, is one of the things that can destroy you,” he said motioning towards the two silhouetted figures in the moonlight. “You know the child?”
“Yes,” Sarah said, staring at the ongoing training that was continuing. “She was… something like unto a friend, I suppose.”
“She is no friend now,” he said firmly.
“Should I kill her?” she asked, genuinely baffled.
The Master sighed deeply. “No. Stay as far from her sight as you can. You are still only newly-risen, and you are no match for one such as she. She is a Slayer. There is only one human in the world who poses a threat to us, and it is she. Her strength matches our own, and she is cunning. If you wish to live long, avoid them.”
“Them? But you said there is only one,” she questioned.
“Yes, one at a time. But when this one falls, as they all do for they are only mortal, another will rise to take her place. Aggravating, but that is the way of things. Now, come,” he said leading her away from the clearing.
Sarah looked back over her shoulder once to see the young girl continuing to train, an aura of deep concentration around her. She remembered briefly the warning she had been given: “Something bad is in the woods… it is evil… I have a sense of dread about you.”
“They expect a child to save them all from us?” Sarah said, and an emotion something like the shadow of pity fell on her briefly. It was an impossible burden.
“Yes,” the Master said, shaking his head. “Yet, as unlikely as it seems, the plague of humanity still flourishes. But don’t worry about that. It’s nearly day. A good rest and all will be well. And it may be that in a few weeks I shall have a surprise most pleasant for you.”
“The Governor?” she asked giddily. “It’s nearly time?”
“Soon, soon, but not just yet,” he said with a hearty laugh.
The spring turned to summer, and fever ran through the colony as well as hunger, providing yet another cover for their kills. As time passed, Sarah became convinced that the Master was waiting for something. She was quite right.
One early evening, just as she was beginning to stir, she heard an unknown voice conversing with the Master in his section of the cave. It was deep and frankly rather unnerving, but she told herself that if the Master was not disturbed by the intruder, it must be safe.
“Master?” she asked as she rounded the corner into the passage where he had taken residence.
Standing in the chamber was an extremely tall man, the tallest she had ever seen. His head brushed the stone roof easily. He had deep-set eyes, and his demon face was in full evidence. Sarah was forcibly reminded of a living tree trunk.
“Ah, yes, you must meet our newest,” the Master said, practically crowing. “Luke, this is Sarah. At least that is her name for now.”
“Hail chosen of the Master,” he said, bowing deeply, and Sarah barely held back a laugh at the ludicrous formality taking place in a cave in the wilderness. He glanced back at the Master. “She is very fair.”
“Yes, yes she is,” the Master said, nodding approvingly. “Luke has been on an errand of importance for me and was just about to tell me the outcome of his quest.”
“Indeed, your noble intelligence was correct,” Luke said in his thunderous voice. “There is indeed a Hellmouth on the far shores of this continent.”
“You see, Sarah, I sent Luke on a mission to reach the edge of this land. I had foreseen through magic that it would be a long journey but that a place of great power was hidden on the other side. I see now that I was correct.”
“What would you have me do now, Master?” Luke asked.
“For now, we wait. When the next ship comes, Sarah and I will be going back to England. I should like you to pick perhaps three or four of the colonists, turn them, and then lead them back to the Hellmouth. In a few centuries, humanity will have crept that far to the West, building cities and proper places for our kind. I shall see you there in, oh, let us say three centuries? Until then, guard it well and make our numbers increase,” the Master said as though ordering a loaf of bread from the market.
“As it is your will, it shall be done,” Luke said, kneeling quickly. “May I feed?”
“You’ve been feeding for the last thirty years without needing to ask my permission, Luke. Go,” the Master said, rolling his eyes a bit at Sarah over Luke’s head.
“Again, kinswoman, I am glad to know of your existence and hope that at some time in a happy future we may become,” he paused and gave her a look that she had become used to from so many men she had lost count, “better acquainted.”
“Sir,” she said in goodbye as he left, silently thinking that the less she was acquainted with the walking log, the better she would like it.
“What do you think of returning to England, my dear?” asked the Master as soon as Luke had left. “Does the idea sound appealing to you?”
Sarah considered for a long moment before replying. In truth, she’d given it no thought. Still, this place felt so isolated that it sometimes made her dizzy. And she had scores to settle on the other side of the ocean.
“I do believe it does, Master,” she said with a smile.
“That’s well. My court is in London, and there you may meet the rest of your line. They have been waiting for my return a few decades now,” he said his eyes growing distant. “I find that I miss it.”
“Please, Master, may I ask how you came here at all?” Sarah said, wondering if he would answer or speak in riddles as he sometimes did.
“Oh, I had a vision of the Hellmouth in this land, and London was beginning to be a bit too populated with humanity for my taste. A group of Spanish missionaries were heading to this land about forty years ago, and it’s amazing how no one notices an extra robed figure. Things went quite well for me for a time, and I rather enjoyed some solitude. Then a colony began at a place called Roanoke. That is where I found Luke. We had quite the time back then; the entire town, as I recall, simply ‘disappeared.’ Of course, what really happened is that Luke and I took our pick of the strongest and best, turning them, and then ate the rest,” he explained.
“You ate an entire town?” she asked, rather impressed.
“Yes. The ships the next year were completely baffled. There was nothing but the word ‘CROATOAN’ carved in a post. Now, the settlers had said that if they needed to flee the place, they would leave the name of where they were going carved in such a fashion, but with a cross if there was great danger and without if there was not. We did not, of course, carve a cross,” said the Master with a smirk.
“And Croatoan…?” she asked, amused.
“Oh, that was merely the first initials of the ones Luke and I selected to join our kind: Christopher, Richard, Otto, Ambrose, Thomas, Oswald, Anthony, and Nicholas. A bit of a game on their part, and I indulged them,” he said, laughing softly.
“So you’ve been here forty years?” she said. “And Luke has been out scouting for this Hellmouth all that time?”
“No, no, only twenty,” he assured her as though this were a much better number. “It takes even our kind a long while to cross a broad land on foot only by night while looking for a small spot on a faraway shore.”
Sarah began to laugh whole-heartedly, holding her sides in mirth.
“What is it, childe?”
“We’re… we were supposed to look for a passage to the West Indies,” she managed between gales of laughter. “They all think it’s just a few more miles inland before we come to the other side!”
“It is sometimes amazing to believe that the human race has managed to survive this long with such dunderheaded reasoning,” he agreed.
Luke returned as morning was about to break, and Sarah dreaded what she thought was sure to happen, and indeed it did. He looked pointedly at her section of the cave and then asked, quite bluntly, “Would you enjoy laying with me?”
Sarah felt momentarily trapped, but the Master had appeared behind him and given her a reassuring smile over his shoulder along with a look that held a great deal of meaning.
She squared her shoulders, looked Luke directly in the face, and said the one word she had been forever banned from saying as a human.
“No.”
Then she had turned her back and gone to her bed, a feeling of unsurpassed joy swelling through her. In all the years of her life from the time she had gone to Martin’s doorstep, she had never been allowed to have her own desires. It had always been “Yes, good sir,” “Of course, good sir,” “Why I should find that most pleasing, good sir,” “Indeed, good sir, it would give me great pleasure.”
“No,” she whispered quietly to herself, and she thrilled at the power of the word. More than anything else she had experienced, this one simple word had proven to her beyond any doubt that she was truly free.
The very next night, the news came. A ship had docked and would begin its voyage back to England in two weeks. It was nearly time.
The night before the departure, Governor Craft woke with a start. Sarah stood at the foot of his bed, smiling cruelly down on him.
“Nightmare,” he said doubtfully.
“Oh no, Governor,” she said in her best honeyed tones. “You won’t be waking up anywhere except possibly in hell.”
“You are dead,” he said, growing pale.
“Yes,” she agreed, elongating the sound of the s. “And you will be too soon… or perhaps not so soon. And I’d thank your housemaid for letting me in, but she’s already quite dead.”
At this point, Craft attempted to stand up but found his hands and feet tied securely to the bedposts with scraps of cotton.
“How does that feel, Governor?” she asked, suddenly standing close beside him, her face inches above his. “Is it humiliating? This is what you used to do to me before you’d make me bleed, outside and in. How does it feel to lie there, knowing a belt is going to crack your skin wide open and there’s nothing you can do about it? That I can do anything I want to you regardless of pleas for mercy? That I can kill you and there’s no one to stop me?”
“A devil,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “Naught but an apparition. Can’t harm me.”
“Oh, I can, dear Governor Craft,” she said with a sweet smile. “I do believe I can.
The Master looked through the window from outside, then back at Luke.
“This is going to take a while,” he said with shrug as he went back to the cave to finish his preparations for the journey home.
Several hours later, a red glow appeared in the sky over the town. Cries of “Fire!” were heard, and a bucket brigade was employed in a vain effort to quench the flames that engulfed the Craft house. The Master nodded in satisfaction. She had covered her tracks well.
“Tell me, my dear,” he urged as she reappeared in the cave as dawn swept the sky, “did all go as you wish?”
“I killed him,” she said as she sat on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chin. “By the time I left, his bed was a mass of crimson, and I stayed long enough to see the fire lick at his flesh.”
“And how do you feel now, dear childe?”
Sarah twisted her hair for a moment before replying.
“It doesn’t feel like it was enough.”
“It never is, Sarah,” he said, patting her head tenderly. “Still, something is much better than nothing, is it not?
She looked up at him and smiled. “A great deal better than nothing at all, Master. When do we board?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid it will be in a few hours.”
“But that’s…” she said, shocked.
“Yes, daylight, I know,” he said, a note of disgust in his voice. “It cannot be helped. I still have the monks’ robes from the Spaniards. If we keep the cowls up and our hands well inside our sleeves, we should have only a minor, unpleasant burning sensation. Do not, though, expose your skin to the sun.”
“But followers of Rome aren’t welcome in England,” she said, her eyes wide. “They may not let us board!”
“Leave that to me,” he soothed her. “Don’t trouble yourself on that account. I have an ability to sway most mortals to my will, and it has never failed me yet.”
Sure enough, Sarah and the Master boarded one of the landing boats the next morning, the smoke from their cowls mostly hidden by the morning fog. The sensation was deeply unpleasant, like sticking her finger into a candle flame and keeping it there. As soon as they were aboard ship, they walked quickly across the deck and then below. Sarah was surprised to find they had a compartment entirely to themselves, one nearly as well appointed as the captain’s cabin itself. There was a large window at one end, and a great, spacious chamber with fine furnishings, including many bookcases filled with ancient-looking tomes.
“I had my baggage brought here in bits,” he said, surveying the books carefully. “Yes, all here. I simply cannot travel without the wisdom of the Old Ones. Would you draw the curtains, childe? Then we can dispense with these smoke-scented robes, at least until the end of our voyage.”
Obediently, she pulled the heavy curtains of the window shut, effectively blocking all the sunlight from the room and allowing the only light in the room to come from a few lit candlesticks.
“Very well,” he said with a smile. “We have many weeks ahead of us, and I’m afraid we shan’t be able to feed from the sailors or passengers except perhaps once or twice. It’s far too risky. I wonder what we can do to pass the time,” he said continuing to peruse the shelves with his back towards her.
Sarah knew a suggestion when she heard one. She’d heard them often enough. True, he had never so much as touched her, but she couldn’t very well expect him to remain patient. He was a male, after all. Granted, he was far from attractive, but that had never entered into the equation with her before. And she certainly owed him for all he had done for her. She had known this day would come. A sad weight clung around her heart, but she did what he obviously wanted, and when he turned around, he found her standing stark naked in the middle of the cabin.
His reaction was not what she expected.
“Agh!” he screamed in a surprisingly high tone, whirling around so his back was to her. “Great hell, childe! That was not at all what I meant! Cover yourself!”
“I-I’m sorry,” she said stammering as she slipped her dress back over her head. “I thought…”
“Yes, yes, yes, I can see how you would assume given your history,” he said with remarkable quickness, obviously flustered. “But, no.”
“I apologize, Master,” she said, desperately embarrassed. “I’m garbed again.”
He turned around a bit jerkily, and then sat down in an armchair nearby.
“I don’t mean to shame you, childe,” he said softly, motioning her to sit before him on the floor. “You simply startled me. You are, as I am sure you know, extremely beautiful, and there are many of our kind who will be dazzled by you, but my interest in you is not for that.”
“It’s… not?” she said a bit disbelievingly. “Then why did you choose me?”
He shook his head as a sad smile came to his face. “You have never had anyone take an interest in you for any reason other than bedding you?”
“Yes,” she answered. “They’ve wanted to kill me as well. At least all of the men fall into one of those two categories, if not both.”
A look of deep sadness went across his face as he reached out a talon-like hand and touched her cheek, finally ending in lifting her chin.
“I chose you because I saw fire in you. You interest me. Very little does that at my age. I have seen many very great beauties, Sarah, some far more beautiful than even you, and I chose none of them. Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“Because they were idiots without enough intelligence to tie their own shoes or enough stubborn determination to survive for three minutes in the world where you have lived,” he said. “Your beauty is all well and good, Sarah, and I am glad you are lovely to behold for it makes things easier for a woman quite often. But if you were tomorrow to become as ugly as a hag, I wouldn’t care a whit. I chose you because of your spirit, childe. And as for the pleasures of the flesh… let’s just say I forsook those many years ago and leave it at that,” he closed with a small shudder that gave her some unpleasant ideas of what that might mean.
“Then,” she said, completely astounded by what he’d said to her, “how shall we pass the time?”
“Why don’t you read to me, childe?” he said, taking a book from the shelf. “I’ve always rather enjoyed the Codex.”
She took the book from his hands, then bit her lip, embarrassed once again.
“I can’t read, Master,” she confessed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, childe,” he said in a consoling tone. “I should have thought of that. Well, then, we have a way to keep ourselves occupied. I shall teach you.”
She stared at the man, stunned. “You will teach me writing?”
“That and so many other things, dear one. Come, there’s parchment, quill, and ink in that box. Now, we shall begin with the letter A,” he instructed.
Many days at sea were spent with Sarah sitting at a table, the Master standing behind her, carefully guiding her quill to form words until their ship docked in the din and confusion of London once more.
*A.N.: The Master’s song is part of an old Cornish ballad that traveled to Germany called “The Sweet Nightingale” or “Down in Those Valleys Below.” It dates in English back
to at least the 1600s, but the original version may well be older than that.