VROLOK (5 page)

“Why, what’s your sister trying to do to you now?”

“She flirts with Nicolae while I’m there.”

“I know lots of girls who flirt with Nicolae and they don’t bother you as much.”

“But Nicolae’s so nice to her.”

“Nicolae’s nice to everyone. I would not feel threatened by her. Nicolae loves you, surely you know that.”

“I don’t know anything of the kind.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“And give him the satisfaction of knowing that I cared one way or the other?”

“Isabella,” Katya scolded. “You know Nicolae could have been married years ago to anyone he wanted. But…”

“I’ll talk to you later,” Isabella cut Katya off. She never liked being scolded or told what to do, especially when the other person was right.

She soon caught up with her sister. “It was very rude of you to ignore Katya like that.”

“She’s not my friend,” said Natasha.

“That’s not the point. Show some respect.”

There was a brief silence. Then Natasha asked, “How long has she been married now?”

Isabella wondered what her sister was working up to but answered her question.

“Her wedding day was a month ago today and she looked beautiful.”

“As beautiful as she can look, I suppose,” said Natasha.

Isabella bit her tongue. She was determined not to let her sister know she was annoying her.

“I think I’ll get married soon,” said Natasha.

“Oh, really…and who’s the lucky man?”

“I think you can guess,” Natasha said.

It took all Isabella’s restraint to keep her hands off her sister. She stopped walking beside her and held back a few steps while Natasha carried on. Isabella slipped into the woods without her sister seeing her. She took a shortcut through the forest and arrived at her grandfather’s house long before Natasha. When Isabella arrived there she pounded on the door. Nicolae opened it.

“Where’s my grandfather?” Isabella shouted.

“He’s gone hunting.”

Isabella pushed by Nicolae, knocking him against the wall. Nicolae smiled; he knew as soon as he saw Isabella that she was furious about something.

“My sister will be here soon.”

“I’ll leave the door open for her.”

Isabella looked up at Nicolae. “Will you be glad to see her?”

Nicolae shrugged in answer to Isabella‘s question.

“She seems quite taken with you,” Isabella said.

Nicolae started to laugh. “Are you jealous?” he asked in disbelief.

“Jealous! Why would I be jealous? It is no concern of mine what you do. I think you two deserve each other.”

“You are…you’re jealous,” Nicolae said as he continued to laugh at Isabella. This infuriated her even more. She grabbed a cup that was sitting on the table beside her and threw it at Nicolae. The cup just missed his head.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he protested. “Now, just calm down,” he said with a sigh and then he went on, “You must know, Isabella, I realise who Natasha is and I know what she has put you through. I love you, Isabella…no one else. I always have and I always will. Even though you are hot tempered and vain.”

Isabella tried to make some rebuke to Nicolae’s last comment but he pressed his finger to her lips to silence her. “You treat the people you love with kindness and generosity and I have always loved you for that and although you are far from perfect, I love you despite your faults. Whether or not you are more beautiful than Natasha is irrelevant to me. You are the person I love.”

Natasha arrived and heard him speaking. She stayed back and started to listen secretly to the couple’s conversation.

“As far as your sister is concerned I would not look twice at her. Not when I could look at you,” Nicolae said to Isabella.

Hearing this made Natasha almost unbearably envious of her sister, but she remained quiet and kept listening.

“Alexei once told me never to tell you how beautiful you were, but I am telling you now!” Nicolae held Isabella in front of him and stared into her eyes and continued, “You are beautiful Isabella. I could never look at anyone else or think of marrying anyone else.” Nicolae took Isabella’s face in his hands and kissed her tenderly.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Isabella asked. She was completely relieved and overjoyed by this revelation.

“I always assumed you knew. I’m flattered really that you were jealous of Natasha. But she could never compare to you.”

Natasha then made them aware that she had arrived. Isabella looked superciliously at her sister and started to speak to her in a disdainful tone: “Wonderful news, Natasha…Nicolae and I are going to be married.”

Nicolae would usually object to this sort of behaviour from Isabella, but today he would let her have her little moment.

“I am happy for you,” Natasha said, her face twisted in a sneer.

“I can see you are,” Isabella responded with irony.

“I think it’s time for my lesson,” Natasha said.

“Alexei’s not here,” Isabella answered.

“You usually teach me, anyway.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” said Nicolae as he left the room. Natasha went over to get a book. Isabella just watched her sister. Isabella was enjoying her little triumph. She never got the better of her sister and she was revelling in this moment. Natasha looked up at her.

“What are you smiling at?” Natasha asked her sister. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Enjoying what?” asked Isabella calmly. Natasha put the book back on the shelf and went over to sit beside the fire. She lifted a poker and started stabbing at the hot embers.

“So, Nicolae does not think I am as beautiful as you.”

“I think his words were that you could not be compared to me.”

“My parents think I am just as attractive as you are.”

“Have they ever said that to you? Have they ever looked at you and said you are just a beautiful as I am?” Isabella asked. She turned around and sat down. “I would not worry about it, Natasha. I am sure your graciousness, charm and wit will see you through. I am sure you will find quite a…decent husband.”

Natasha did not know what graciousness meant but she knew her sister was insulting her and at this final remark. Natasha took the now red-hot poker and leaped towards Isabella with it.

“I wonder how attractive Nicolae will think you are with a scar across your beautiful face!” Natasha shouted.

Isabella was not expecting this sudden outburst, but she managed to spring up out of the way so that the poker only hit her shoulder. At first she felt no pain, but as the poker struck her skin a maddening rage swept over her. This rage had built up in Isabella over the years. Natasha had continually tormented Isabella by rubbing her father’s affections towards her in Isabella’s face; every gift Natasha had received from their father she would parade in front of Isabella. Now, just because of Nicolae’s rejection, Natasha wanted to disfigure her sister for life. The hatred that Isabella had suppressed for seventeen years, since Natasha had been born, finally welled up into a raging fury.

Isabella snatched the poker from her sister’s hand and was about to strike her back with it when she suddenly stopped, not because she had regained her senses but because Nicolae had put his arms around her waist and pulled her back. Isabella was now wrestling, trying to loosen herself from Nicolae’s strong grip.

“Go home and don’t ever come back!” Nicolae shouted at Natasha. Natasha just sat there staring at her sister, afraid to move. “Get out of here or I will set her loose on you.”

With this, Natasha ran for her life. Isabella struggled to get free but she soon realised that Nicolae would not let her go until she had calmed down. The pain from Isabella’s wound started to reach her. Nicolae loosened his grip, sat Isabella down, and started to dress her wound. He sat beside her and waited for Alexei to return. Isabella, who had been silent since her sister had left, started to speak.

“I would have killed her.”

“No, you wouldn’t have, Isabella; you would have regained your senses in time.”

Isabella knew this was not true but she did not argue with him. Nicolae was always sure that Isabella’s values were the same as his own and she never wanted to disappoint him.

“What do you think she will tell my father?”

“It doesn’t matter. Alexei is your real father. He has been a father to us both.” Isabella nestled her head on Nicolae’s shoulder and fell asleep. After watching her for a while, Nicolae fell asleep, too. They were both awakened by a knock on the door a few hours later. It was Dragen’s father.

“Come with me. Alexei has collapsed,” He said.

Isabella ran out the door after Dragen’s father. Nicolae grabbed Isabella’s coat and followed. When they reached Alexei it was too late…his heart had stopped beating. Isabella fell to the ground and wept and Nicolae placed her coat around her shoulders.

A few months later Isabella and Nicolae were married.

Anna stopped reading. A silence had come over the village. Anna knew by the silence that Isabella had returned. She continued to read…

VROLOK
VAMPIRE 

CHAPTER THREE

The ensuing months subsequent to Isabella’s wedding were the happiest of her life. She stayed well away from her family, and her family stayed well away from her.

Isabella soon became pregnant and looked forward auspiciously to the birth of her child. Unfortunately for Isabella, her happiness was to be momentarily interrupted by a visit from her stepmother.

Nicolae answered the door that day and was surprised to see Adriana, Isabella’s stepmother, but welcomed her into his and Isabella‘s home. She came in and sat down, not being able to bring her gaze up from the floor. She sat for a few minutes in silence trying to gather up the courage to speak. When Isabella saw her she noticed how tired and pale she looked; this was a woman who had suffered and the harshness of life had broken her, but Isabella was far from sympathetic. Sensing the hostility that Isabella felt towards her, Isabella’s stepmother took a deep breath to compose herself and began to speak.

“Your father is asking for you,” she said, her voice wavering as she spoke. Every word was hard for her to utter. Isabella was amazed at what her stepmother was starting to say to her.

“My father…I don’t understand. Why have you come here? Why are you telling me this?” retorted Isabella.

“I want you to go and see him!” Isabella’s stepmother said, her voice seeming more determined.

“Go and see him,” Isabella said in disbelief. “Go and see him,” she repeated, “I don’t….”

“Isabella, he is dying. Your father is dying! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Adriana said, her voice breaking.

“Why should it? It certainly would mean nothing to—”

“Isabella!” Nicolae silenced his wife. Isabella’s stepmother looked at Nicolae with a subtle look of gratitude and continued to talk to her stepdaughter.

“I did not come here to argue with you. If it were up to me I would not be here at all. Your father asked me to come and ask you to go and see him.”

“Why?” Isabella asked. “Why now?”

“I don’t know. All I can say is that a priest came to see him yesterday and told him he had to make his peace with this world.” Isabella’s stepmother rose. “Decide for yourself. It’s up to you and your own conscience. I have tried…my conscience is clear.” Isabella’s stepmother left the house without saying another word.

“How dare you talk to me like that in front of her!” Isabella hissed when her stepmother had left.

“Show some compassion, Bella—her husband is dying.” Nicolae’s words managed to silence Isabella again, which was quite an achievement. Only Nicolae would have been able to silence his wife twice in such a short period of time. Nicolae paused for a moment and then said, “I think you should go and see him.” This broke Isabella’s momentary silence.

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you want me to go and see him. I can’t even believe she dared to come here and ask my forgiveness for him. Of all the people in the world, my father wants my forgiveness.”

“Isabella, he is your father,” Nicolae admonished.

“My father! How can you say that? He isn’t my father! You said it yourself—Alexei was the only father I ever had. I would have been better off if he had died along with my mother.”

“Alexei would have wanted you to forgive him.”

Isabella threw Nicolae an icy look at this comment. How could he say such a thing to her?

“That’s unfair, using Alexei’s memory to pressure me into going.”

“That is not what I’m doing and you know it,” Nicolae scolded.

“I don’t know anything of the sort and anyway, how could you possibly know what Alexei would have wanted me to do?”

“You know yourself that Alexei would have wanted you to forgive him, Isabella. Now, answer truthfully, what do you think Alexei would have wanted you to do?”

Isabella made no response.

Nicolae left the room and returned with part of a letter. He handed it to Isabella.

“Alexei left this for me. I want you to read it. He wrote it just before he died. Read it, it’s important, Bella.”

Isabella began to read.

Nicolae

I am writing you this letter because I think my life is coming to an end. I have started to get pains in my chest. They are becoming more and more frequent and every attack is worse than the last.

Isabella looked up from the letter. “He knew he was dying.”

“Read the rest,” answered Nicolae.

Isabella continued reading:

I have watched you grow up, Nicolae, and I am proud of you. You have become a fine man and there is not a malicious bone in your body. I know you and Isabella will eventually start to make a life together. I want you to know you have my blessing. I have a few misgivings, though.

I love Isabella. She is my granddaughter. She is a beautiful, intelligent girl who is kind and gracious to those she loves and who love her in return. Yet she can be malicious and spiteful, and I see darkness within her and it concerns me greatly. Isabella does not begin to hate without just cause, but when she does it’s like a poison within her. It fills her with a bitterness and she has no capacity for forgiveness, and this is what concerns me.

The way she talks about her father has always been foremost in my mind. Her father has treated her shamefully and definitely deserves her enmity. My daughter, Isabella’s mother Clara, was different. She in lots of ways was like you, Nicolae. She saw goodness in everyone she knew, including Isabella’s father, Guy.

The first time I noticed him was when they were both children. Guy was watching Clara from a distance and he continued to do this until they were both adults.

Guy himself was handsome, but he was quiet and I soon realised that it was not gentleness that kept him silent, but harshness. I could have counted the number of times that I saw him smile on my fingers.

My daughter Clara, on the other hand, was a happy child. Her smile would light up a room and I suppose I thought she could smile enough for both of them. One thing worried me about my daughter, though. She was always a weak child, always prone to ill health.

Sometimes it even astonished me how long she held on to her life. Clara was never strong like Isabella. If she even got caught out in the rain she would fall ill for days.

For years Guy watched over her, always keeping his distance, like some sort of guardian angel. If she fell, he would always be there to pick her up and then disappear before she had a chance to thank him. He loved her. He possibly loved her too much, if you can imagine such a thing.

In the winter of Clara’s eighteenth year she took it upon herself to care for a sick child in the village. The child’s mother was ill also and so could not care for the baby herself. Come rain, hail or storm my daughter would get up early in the morning and go to care for the child and its mother. Every day Guy would come to the house and beg me not to let her go. I told him there was nothing I could do about it. She was doing what she thought was right and I respected her for it. I was also worried about her, for I knew she was not strong to begin with and the exposure to illness could have a serious detrimental effect on her own health. Every day when she returned home she was becoming increasingly more frail. Her eyes had become dark and dull. She had become frighteningly thin, yet she still insisted on going. Isabella’s wilfulness and stubbornness she gets from her mother.

When I challenged her about going there she would not shout defiantly at me the way Isabella would. Clara would talk quietly to bring me around to her way of thinking, through gentle persuasion. I don’t think I ever had the heart to say no to Clara. She was the best person I have ever known and if she had lived I am sure her gentleness would have been passed on to Isabella.

Clara’s health still deteriorated and I continued to worry until eventually one evening on the way home she collapsed and, as always, Guy was there to pick her up. Guy must have carried her for three miles; heaven knows where he found the strength.

Guy arrived at the house. He was soaked to the skin and gasping for breath. He set Clara down on the bed gently and then raced to get the doctor.

Clara lay there on the bed completely motionless. Her skin was deathly pale and her lips were blue with the cold. When the doctor arrived he thought she was already dead. He felt for a heartbeat; then he told Guy and me that she was still alive but just barely and he doubted that she would last the night.

A rage swept over Guy. He wrenched the doctor away from her and flung him out of the house. Guy then started frantically to build up a fire. When he had finished this he sat down on the bed beside Clara and started to rub at her skin, trying desperately to get some heat back into her body.

Clara survived the night and the next day. A week passed and she was still alive. Guy had stayed with her constantly when he wasn’t keeping the fire going— he just sat watching her. Praying, hoping, willing her to live. When the news reached us that the child that Clara was caring for had died, I heard Guy whisper under his breath that the child deserved to die. I wanted to chastise him for this, tell him he was being unfair and that it was a noxious thing to say, but I could see how much he cared for my daughter and how distraught he was, so I stayed silent.

In the early hours of that morning Clara opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Guy and she smiled at him and took hold of his hand and kissed it. Clara’s recovery was slow at first. She was too weak to walk. Guy took it upon himself to carry her everywhere. He would have done anything for her.

She eventually did recover and within a few months she was as healthy as she had ever been and it was mostly due to Guy’s care and attention. And I think he believed that it was his will alone that had brought her back from the brink of death.

Guy’s visits were becoming more and more infrequent as Clara grew healthy. He grew distant again and eventually he stopped coming to see her altogether. My daughter had grown to love Guy. He loved her so much I think she felt compelled to love him back. So when he stopped visiting, she went looking for him. She found him easily and asked him to marry her and they were married soon after.

Clara’s health continued to be good until she became pregnant with Isabella. Her health worsened with each day of her pregnancy and the night Isabella was born Clara did not have the strength to hang on to this world any longer; she died in childbirth. The midwife carried the newborn baby to Guy. He looked at the midwife and then looked at the child.

“Take that thing away from me! It killed my wife!” he cried.

At first I thought it was just the grief at losing his wife and that he would eventually come around and grow to love the child that Clara had left him. So I refused to take her and insisted that Isabella stay with him. I was there every day, of course, checking on the baby. I tried to reason with him, telling him every day that the child needed someone to look after her. I told him that it was what my daughter would have wanted. Guy obviously paid some heed to my words, but not in the way I had hoped.

After a year of my pestering him he just suddenly broke down in front of me. “I know my wife would be heartbroken at the way I treat her child,” Guy said through his tears. “I try to force myself to care for her but I cannot bring myself to even look at her. Even now she looks like her mother, the same black hair and green eyes. I thought Clara would always be with me. When she got really ill the first time I really believed that it was me and only me who kept her alive and as long as I wanted her to live she would. But I couldn’t keep her alive; she died giving her own life to that child. I knew she was ill during the pregnancy but I thought I could keep her alive simply by willing her to live. The night Isabella was born I wished that if only one of them could live it should be Clara. I try not to think like this. I try not to blame her, but when I look at her I can’t help thinking that she slowly sucked the life from my wife!” Guy sat silently until he was ready to speak again.

“Anyway…” he began again. “You don’t have to worry about the child. I am getting married again. My new wife will take care of it.”

This worried me. Guy had just poured out his heart to me telling me how much he loved my daughter and now he was telling me he was getting married again. I felt sure that this would make matters worse for my granddaughter and I was right. The first day I met Isabella’s stepmother, Adriana, I noticed how plain she was in comparison to Clara. Also, I noticed the way she looked at her future husband. She obviously adored him. Nevertheless, he looked at her with little more than indifference.