Chapter 33
My waist looks even smaller thanks to the corset and the bustle over my hips. The off-the-shoulder detailing highlights the line of my collarbones, and the dress fits perfectly, like it was tailor made. Oscar may be a psychopath, but even I have to admit he has very good taste.
‘Take a seat so I can do your hair,’ Mrs Parker says, patting the chair by the dressing table.
‘Where is your hairbrush?’ I get a flash of that silver hairbrush from Jonathan’s memory of me, and resentment simmers.
Because if Oscar had just chosen a different house to enter the night he turned me, Jonathan and I would have lived out our lives together, and I wouldn’t be here right now. Like this.
I reach into my handbag and pull out my brush, hand it to her then carefully sit down, so as not to damage the wire of the bustle.
She expertly twists my hair up into a low knot at the base of my neck, securing it there with the ornate hairpin.
As she moves, I wonder how many other women she has done this for.
How many other vampires like me Oscar has made.
Abandoned. Then waltzed back into their lives on a whim to mess it all up.
Where are they now? Could we form a club? Could we take him down?
‘There,’ she says, and I look back to the mirror, turning my head from side to side, the stones of the hairpin sparkling in the light.
‘One more thing,’ Mrs Parker says, reaching for a small velvet bag in her pocket.
She pulls out two small clip-on pearl-drop earrings.
And of course they are clip-ons—I can’t pierce my ears, they just close up, no matter how long I leave the earrings in for.
Control-freak Oscar has thought of everything.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I say. As I put them on, the sound of music floats in through the door and I look towards it. Someone is playing a piano. And there are stringed instruments playing too.
‘Right, it’s time,’ Mrs Parker says.
I nod and stand up.
‘I can go myself,’ I say.
‘You might find the stairs a bit hard to navigate in that dress,’ she says as she opens the door, and I’m hit by the full swell of music and chatter coming from downstairs.
A wave of nerves bubbles up in my stomach.
We head out into the hallway and I glance down over the banister.
I can see people arriving and moving through the opened-up rooms, all dressed up like me.
We move towards the stairs and I realise Mrs Parker was right.
I could probably get up the stairs okay if I picked up the bottom of my dress with one hand and held the banister with the other, but going down I might well trip on the fabric of the train.
There is a loop on it for dancing, that I could put around my wrist, but it’s been a long time, I don’t trust myself.
I imagine myself tumbling down the stairs in front of all these people and grip the banister tightly with my right hand.
I pick up my dress with the left, and Mrs Parker holds on to my elbow, offering extra support.
We move down the wooden staircase slowly, watching more and more people filter in from outside as I try not to trip. When Oscar said, a little soiree, I didn’t realise he meant . . . this. It’s not little at all.
When we reach the bottom of the stairs, Mrs Parker lets go of my elbow and I drop my dress and follow her towards the music, the chatter, the laughter.
We walk through a long, narrow room, towards another set of double doors. ‘This is the gallery,’ Mrs Parker says, like a practised tour guide. How many other women has she said these exact words to? We step into a huge and opulent room. ‘And this is the ballroom.’
I look around. It has white marble floors and glittery chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, oil paintings on the ornately wallpapered walls, off-white pillars, and a series of chairs upholstered in stone-coloured fabric along the walls.
A few people are sitting on them, but most people are milling around what I suspect is a dance floor in the centre, chatting happily while the trio, consisting of piano, violin and cello, play.
I scan the crowd. There are around 200 people here, all dressed in ball gowns and suits, while waiters circle bearing silver trays of champagne and tiny hors d’oeuvres.
Up close, most of the outfits are cheap-looking, and from differing eras—some dresses are Victorian, some come from the Edwardian period, others from the 1920s.
It’s like everyone shopped on but nobody was entirely clear on the brief.
That said, everyone has made a huge effort.
It’s like being surrounded by the ghosts of fashions past, and I’m filled with a nostalgia for how things might have been if I’d never become what I am.
I would have had a family. I don’t know what kind of life I would have lived, or exactly what I’m missing; I just know I didn’t get to live it.
And instead, I’m here, among all these people who get to be alive.
I listen to their hearts beating and smell their blood, hating myself for everything I am.
‘There he is,’ says Mrs Parker and I follow her gaze towards the edge of the room.
Oscar.
He’s leaning up against a wall, wearing a crisp white shirt and a black jacket, talking to a woman dressed in a pale yellow, Edwardian-style dress that drops from under the breast and skims the floor.
Her hair is the same colour as her dress, half up and decorated with some sort of feather clip, and she’s standing on her toes, whispering into Oscar’s ear.
I should just ignore them, but I can’t help myself.
I home in on them, wondering what she’s saying .
. . wondering if she’s like me. In fact, is anyone here like me?
Or is this lesson number one? Is this about to turn into some sort of feeding frenzy, like in From Dusk Till Dawn. A vampire smorgasbord?
‘Tell me something real . . . about you . . .’ Yellow Dress says.
He puts his hand on her waist and leans in to whisper back.
‘Emma, I want to do very, very bad things to you . . .’
My insides recoil.
She giggles and Oscar stands up straight and then, like he can sense I’m there, he turns to look right at me.
Our eyes meet. A shiver rolls down my spine.
He turns back to his companion and says, ‘I’ll see you later on,’ then he smiles at me and moves my way.
Shit.
‘Aubrey,’ he says, offering me his forearm to hold onto. Mrs Parker leaves us to it, and as we walk through the crowd, I’m intensely aware of eyes on me. Suddenly, I’m not sure what to do with my free hand and I need to concentrate on every step.
One of the waiters moves past us and Oscar grabs a glass of champagne off their tray and hands it to me.
‘Thanks,’ I say, glad to have something to hold onto. I take a sip and try to ignore the curious glances. I’m anxious. I don’t like not knowing what’s coming next.
‘Smile,’ he mutters under his breath. ‘I hold this ball every year for the village. We put all proceeds towards town maintenance projects. There’s even a reporter here doing a nice write-up about it for the local paper, so at least pretend you’re happy to be here.’
Phew. No feeding frenzy then. It’s just a dance. A big, elaborate dance to make everyone think he’s a good guy.
Then, out of nowhere, a raven-haired woman appears before us, stopping us in our tracks.
Her skin is so pale that it’s almost translucent, she’s wearing a cream dress and she’s flanked by two men.
One has dark skin, short dark hair, blue shimmering eyeshadow above big doe-eyes and a necklace of sparkling teal sapphires and a matching ring.
The other has blond hair, wild and curly, and his skin is greyish and waxy, like he does too much cocaine.
He’s wearing a white shirt just like Oscar, but with a charcoal jacket, and there’s something about the way he’s looking at me that makes my skin crawl. Even more than Oscar’s gaze does.
‘Oscar,’ she says in a posh voice, ‘who’s your friend?’ The woman eyes me up and down. My gaze moves from her to her companions, and that’s when it hits me: I can barely hear their hearts beating. I can’t smell their blood either, and they all have the same golden rings around their irises.
They’re like me.
And there are three of them.
That makes five vampires in this one room alone. How have I only found two in 150 years? Maybe vampires usually flock together, unless they’re cast out, like me.
‘This is Aubrey,’ Oscar says, ‘my protege.’ He adds that last bit in a tone I can’t quite decipher. ‘Aubrey, this is Carmilla,’ he says, motioning to the raven-haired woman, ‘Rupert,’ he indicates the darker skinned man with the eyeshadow, ‘and Felix,’ he finishes, motioning to the blond man.
Carmilla nods at me, gives a little tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, and I wonder if Carmilla is her real name or if she changed it to be like that vampire novella by Le Fanu.
Rupert is scanning the room like he’s looking for someone more interesting, while Felix grins at me, then looks at Oscar.
‘A protege, nice. Nothing like a bit of youth to keep things exciting.’
Oscar’s jaw clenches. A tense moment passes between them and I can’t figure out what’s going on, but then the other guy—Rupert?—the one with the necklace, says, ‘Lovely to meet you, Baby-V.’
The chandeliers dim just a little and the music stops.
A new song starts up and I recognise it, though I haven’t heard it played in a public setting in a very long time.
It’s a waltz, ‘The Blue Danube’. Oscar turns to me.
‘Time to dance,’ he says, taking my hand and leading me over to the empty dance floor.
And now I can really feel everyone looking at me. My insides twist as I reach for the loop on the train of my dress, and thread my wrist through it.
In one quick manoeuvre that tells me he’s done this hundreds—maybe thousands—of times, one of his hands holds mine tightly while the other is on my midback.
My hand lands on his shoulder, and now we’re moving and I know the steps, even if I am a bit rusty.
They’re from a long, long time ago, before Gangnam Style, before the Twist, before the Foxtrot.
Oscar’s movements are strong and sure and I follow his lead, scanning the room as others follow us onto the dance floor until it’s full.
Oscar twirls me, and as he pulls me towards him again, all I can think about is Jonathan, and that rug in his living room, and how we slow-danced on it and I was so sure we’d be together forever.
We still will . . .
‘Aubrey,’ comes Oscar’s voice and I turn to look at him. His eyes have narrowed. ‘Stop frowning,’ he says under his breath as his hand tightens around mine. He twirls me again.
I swallow hard, plaster on the kind of smile I use at work, and look away, back to the crowd as we do a side step. And there are Carmilla and Felix, she’s nuzzling into his neck—are they a couple?—while Rupert looks a bit bored. I wonder if they live here too?
I’ve seen that on TV shows, where vampires all live together in nests, and bring out each other’s darkness. I’m going to have to work really hard not to let them bring mine out while I’m stuck here.
The music stops, and Oscar’s grip lessens. As the next song begins, I say, ‘I’m going to take a little break. My feet are tired.’ He shrugs, like he’s bored of me anyway, and releases his grip.
I drop the loop on my dress, walk over to one of the seats near the entrance and watch as Oscar strides up to the woman in the pale yellow dress—Emma?
—and then leads her onto the dance floor.
Unlike me, her eyes don’t move from his, and her cheeks are getting rosier every time he speaks.
I feel this need to protect her. There’s no way she knows what he is, what she’s in for. But what can I do?
And also, hang on . . .
Oscar is preoccupied, and Mrs Parker is nowhere to be seen. Oscar’s car is parked right outside, my phone in it . . . Dare I? I need to know what’s going on and besides, I might not get another chance.
I glance behind me, to the doors I came in through, and take a step towards them. But then a hand touches my arm and a high-pitched voice says: ‘Do you know Mr Carmichael well?’
Shit.
There’s a woman with bright pink cheeks and mousy hair smiling at me.
She’s wearing a black flapper dress and long fake pearls, holding a fake cigarette holder in one hand and a champagne glass in the other.
She’s with another woman—also in a flapper dress, though hers is silver—who could be her sister. They look around thirty-ish.
‘Not really.’ I smile, looking away, keen to shut the conversation down quickly so I can get back to the plan that is quickly forming in my mind.
‘He’s lush,’ says the other one, who is slurring a bit. ‘And so very rich.’
‘We all fancy him,’ says the first woman, leaning in like she’s telling me a secret.
‘But he’s so mysterious, isn’t he? Are you from the village?
’ There’s interest in her expression, young and naive.
But there’s a hardness in her eyes, too, like she’s sizing me up as competition.
And this is the one thing that saddens me most about the modern world.
After everything women’s lib has done for us, we are still taught to view each other as competition.
Honestly, if I’m stuck on this earth for eternity, I truly hope that one day I get to see us band together, stand up and change that.
But from the look in her eyes, it’s safe to say that today is not that day.
So, I put her mind at ease. ‘No, I’m from London, just visiting. We’re old family friends.’ I’d love to warn her off him, but that would probably only make her want him more. And besides, I need them to leave me alone. ‘But I hear he’s single,’ I add. ‘Why don’t you ask him to dance?’
They both let out a nervous giggle and I watch them head across the room to watch Oscar as he begins another dance with Emma.
Screw it.
I pick up my skirt and move quickly through the double doors, across the gallery and back into the entrance hall, trying not to look suspicious as I glance back over my shoulder. But nobody is watching me. I rush over to the silver bowl and pull out Oscar’s keys, then creep out into the cold night.
There are so many cars parked out here now, neatly lining the driveway. But there’s nobody around; they’re all inside. So I stand tall, like I’m not doing anything wrong, and walk briskly over to Oscar’s car.