6

1831 

It had been a century since the Salem sorcerers performed resurrection magic after I witnessed their very own burn at the stake in front of a sea of vengeful on-lookers, skin withering and melting until it was replaced by a pile of ashes. Lazarus and his witches had done a spell that brought the accused witch back to life after dying, and the thought had sparked a fire deep within me. Up until then, I had lived a life of unfulfillment and emptiness since the passing of my love, but that spell ... that strange magic ... had given me hope that we would be reunited. But after that night, the coven was nowhere to be seen. The witch trials paired with a vampire's presence in Salem likely made them wary, and so they fled, leaving behind no trace of their destination.

The coven was gone, but the fire within me burned brighter with each passing day, motivating me to find the one who could do the same magic. I would scour the Earth, every continent, every country, every civilization, and I wouldn't stop until I did.

I became a scholar, burying myself in every school of thought, religion, and spiritual practice that could lead me to the ones capable of this magic, and my journey had led me to the antebellum south in Southampton County, Virginia. The period was characterized by the greedy and barbaric exploitation of coloured people throughout the Americas, and with it brought the birth of spiritualism and witchcraft among the oppressed. I had heard stories of flying spirits with the same benevolent and malevolent nature as humans who the slaves regarded as the true dictators of nature, and I had to know more.

It was difficult, at first. My appearance as a white woman made it unfavorable for the slaves to trust my intentions—something I had never quite experienced until then. I had no difficulty convincing others to do my bidding before, but the slaves viewed me as a demonic entity because I appeared to them after sunset and gave them feelings of terror—even more so than their masters. The slaves had held one of their own, Nat Turner, in high regards because he knew how to read. His intelligence alone garnered respect among them and made relaying my cause even more challenging.

"I ain't talkin' to you, cracka," he would tell me in a variety of different ways.

"Even if I give you my word," I would propose.

Nat would give me a look of disapproval, turning up his bottom lip and scrunching his face. He was bold in the way he talked, authoritative. He made a good leader, that was certain. "I ain't listenin' to the devil. I smelt it on you. You ain't anymo' human than the massa."

"If you know I am not one of them, then why won't you help me?"

"A cracka is a cracka, human or not. I ain't helpin' you 'cause you damn sure ain't helpin' me," was his usual response. I didn't get very far in my inquiries. It didn't matter who I tried to converse with or what senses I appealed to because one thing was clear—the slaves saw me as their enemy, and you don't help the enemy.

That was until one, dark fateful night when the moon hung low in all its fullness, bathing the estate in its cold glow and providing the only source of light in that erie darkness. It was past the time the slaves would head to their quarters for a dreadful sleep that would undoubtedly prepare them for an even more grim day on the plantation. After being rejected by yet another, my hopes of continuing to follow this thread grew very thin. I probably would have stopped then, if it wasn't for a silvery voice to answer my prayers had I believed in God.

"What you want to know," the voice asked, soft enough to barely be heard above the warm breeze, but still loud enough to make its presence. The voice's owner was a petite female with large, expressive eyes. Even though her irises resembled the night's sky, I could still see the flicker of fear and curiosity in them. Her skin was a rich, deep umber, radiating effortlessly in the moonlight and was probably a delight to see in the warm sunrays. Her dark coarse hair was strategically hidden behind a kerchief, but I would bet it was just as beautiful as the rest of her. Her beauty stunned me, and I wasn't easily stunned.

I had to be reminded of her question when her full defined lips opened once more to speak. "Miss?"

I smiled. "Pardon, I—see, I want to know more about the flying spirits. I hear they are capable of great magic?"

Her eyes didn't grow any less skeptical, but she continued to entertain me. "How do you know 'bout the flyin' spirits?"

"A woman in Ghana told me a story of a group of spirits who traveled to the New World during the trade. She says that the spirits live among you."

She cracked a smile but as soon as she realized, it was gone, and her dubiety returned. "And you believed ha?"

I shrugged.

"Spirits and magic?"

"I know it exists," I told her. "I'm just trying to find it."

"Why?"

An immortal life was a lonely one without anyone to share it with. I had true happiness with Joham once upon a time, but unlike most fairytales, I didn't get my happy ending. Fitting, since it was what humans spent their entire lifetimes trying to find.

"Let us go for a stroll," I suggested to which the girl was immediately frightened by. She glanced over her shoulders at the slave quarters in the distance under the realization she was being missed, and yet, she didn't move. The conflicting desire of whether to leave or stay was written all over her countenance, but after a moment's pause—as though by some touch of fate—she stepped towards me and followed me further into the woods.

And it became our thing. Every night after the last meal when everyone had gone to slumber, we would venture into the woods together where she would recount the stories of her ancestors and it was during our nightly rendezvouses, she told me her given name was Ann, but she went under many other names with other masters. Her name had changed so much so that she had forgotten the real one. She was like me in that way—always adapting and assimilating to the world around her in fear of death.

Nat taught her and some of the other slaves to read for a hopeful moment in time when they would need it, though she didn't specify further. She was kind to me, risking her own life to answer my questions when no one else would. But I already knew that I liked her far too much to let anyone harm her. I realized this on our fifth night together when it became apparent to me that the flying spirits angle was leading nowhere but instead of following my next lead, I wanted to stay with her.

"They say you a demon," Ann blurted on the fifth night.

I couldn't help but laugh. "I am not a demon, but I will admit I have done terrible things. I still do. I don't want to, but I need to."

But Ann wasn't afraid. "You are betta than the rest of 'em. They do terrible things 'cause they want to. They like hurtin' us."

Hearing Ann talk about her life on the plantation made me feel sorry for her. I had never thought too much about slavery and the fairness of it all because it didn't matter. I had been alive for far too long and had seen far too many human conflicts to think otherwise. Humans were very unkind to each other and have been since the beginning of time. This was no different. If it wasn't slavery, it would be something else. Four hundred years and the cycle always continued—war, famine, death—transformed in many ways. And still, Ann managed to cause a series of emotions to stir in the pits of my stomach—emotions I hadn't felt since the last time I was in love.

I didn't know it was love until we kissed on the sixth night, and it made me feel like I was human again. I made love to her on the seventh night, and it made me feel like I was in heaven.

"This is bad," Ann told me when it was over. I held her close with her head resting on my breasts, providing her with as much warmth as a cold-blooded creature like me could muster. She trembled with the fear of getting caught by her master, and I didn't know how to ease her mind. I would have to leave eventually. My life wasn't in Southampton. My life was with Joham. I had made it my life purpose to reunite with him that staying here would've been wrong. I would be betraying him.

But I couldn't promise Ann's safety if I left.

"Hey," I said to grab her attention as I traced her hands. "What if I told you I could make it so you never have to be hurt again?"

Ann sat up abruptly and turned to face me with those round curious eyes of hers. Tears welled in the corner of her eye, but she didn't let them fall. "How?"

"I can make you like me. You'll be faster, stronger, and you'll be able to kill anyone who tries to hurt you. You won't die of diseases ... you won't even feel pain!"

Ann shook her head in disbelief. "I don't understand."

"Remember the story I told you about trying to get back the love I lost?"

She nodded.

"That was three hundred years ago. We were betrothed."

"Three hundred...?"

"I'm a vampire," I said, shocked at my own words. I had spent much of my life hiding in the shadows that the thought of sharing this information with someone else frightened me. I trusted Ann, much like I had trusted Joham, but the truth never became any easier to say. "I am five-hundred-and-six years old. What you and the other slaves said was true. I am not human, at least, I haven't been human in a very long time."

"You want to make me a vam....pire?"

"You'll never have to be scared of anyone again, I promise," I assured her, and it was the truth. Fear was an emotion that died with me when I turned, and instead, a new hunger emerged. "But I will not tell you it's a perfect life. I must drink human blood to survive, and sometimes the hunger consumes me. Sometimes I kill people."

Ann's eyes widened to resemble saucers as she continued to shake her head. I sensed she wanted to run away from me, but she didn't. "I can't kill people! They gon' find me."

"Ann, they'll be no match to you. You told me they do terrible things. You can stop them from doing terrible things to you. You can kill them and they won't be able to kill you. They won't be able to find you!"

"Madeleine," she spoke my name so softly, causing a chill to run down my spine. Joham was the only other person to make my name sound so wonderful. "Why? Why would you do this fa me?"

I reached out to caress her check, reveling in the warmth it brought my hands. "Because I love you."

Suddenly, all her fears and apprehensions vanished when a smile crept onto her face. It was all the confirmation I needed to bare my fangs and sink them into her neck. Her blood tasted sweet just like her, but even though I wanted to fully embrace in her essence, I was careful not to hurt her. I had over three hundred years to perfect the technique of using my fangs without venom, but now I had to purposely paralyze Ann to give her the gift of a new life.

I vividly remembered when I felt the venom for the first time, penetrating my blood and working its way into my organs with the sole purpose of killing me from the inside-out. It was a slow agonizing pain that exceeded any other emotion I felt as a human. It can take weeks, sometimes days, to move through the body, slowly shutting down every defense in its path. The physical symptoms often manifested as a fever, body aches, general malaise, and had the potential to escalate into something far worse and unsightly. If the symptoms got worse enough, the body would be rendered useless—just barely existing until the organs succumbed to the venom. The only relief I felt in the twelve days of my transition was from drinking my handmaiden's blood until she fell, unmoving, at my feet.

And there, my thirst for human blood began.

In my first few months, I had been careless—not having any remorse for the trail of bodies I left behind after satiating my thirst and certainly not having any concern for the attention I was drawing to myself and others like me. I walked on a teetering line between embracing the monster and hating its existence, but I quickly learned the only way I could live with myself would be to hate the monster but embrace it anyway.

So as I sat on the weathered soil beneath us, patiently waiting for Ann to regain consciousness, I decided I wasn't going to let her make the same mistakes I did. I would teach her the tricks I learned along the way so she would never have to feel bad about being a vampire. She wouldn't hate herself, and she wouldn't fall off the deep end if I was there.

And I wanted to be there, every step of the way. 

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a/n: hey guys! I really like the way the story is headed now and I'd really like to know your thoughts! Chloe is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters I've written.