Chapter 38
The drawing room walls are covered in blue and white wallpaper yellowed with time.
There are huge arched windows letting in the darkening sky, and a series of Persian rugs covering the vast hardwood floors.
The room smells of the fireplace that crackles to my left, mingled with the leather and furniture polish of the dark brown sofas and matching chairs all arranged to face it, the glow of the flames flickering in their brass studs.
And in the far corner, in front of one of the windows, stands a floor to ceiling Christmas tree.
Tiny lights blink from the branches, and beneath it lie an array of gifts wrapped in matching thick cream paper and tied up with golden ribbons.
I try to imagine Oscar wrapping them all himself, sticky tape in one hand, scissors in the other. It makes me smile.
Carmilla sighs loudly and I look towards her, watching as she plonks herself down on one of the sofas in front of the fireplace, then stubs her cigarette out in the silver ashtray beside it before immediately lighting another.
Rupert sits down quietly on the rug by the fire and gazes into the flames.
None of us need the warmth, but it’s pretty and mesmerising.
While Oscar goes over to the tree and starts picking up presents, I sit on one of the chairs and neatly fold my hands in my lap.
‘Carmilla,’ Oscar says as he hands her a strangely shaped present. ‘Rupert,’ he says, handing one to him. And then he turns to me. ‘Aubrey.’
He hands me a flat, square gift.
‘You’ll have to take Felix’s to him,’ he says to Carmilla, handing her another gift.
‘Maybe. If he ever answers me,’ she says as she angrily tears open her present, clearly pissed off. I can’t help but wonder if she knew what Felix was really like, if he’d ever done that to her. To anybody else.
I look down at my present, at its careful wrapping, the ribbon that’s curled just so.
And this is what I’ve always wanted: to belong, to not be alone on Christmas night when I woke up.
But now that it’s happening, I’m anxious.
Because what’s inside this box he’s just handed me?
Some sort of weird vampire paraphernalia?
Something he’s going to make me wear or use?
So, I don’t open it. I just turn it over in my hands, half-heartedly tugging at the ribbon.
‘Oh wow, is this a first edition?’ asks Rupert, and I look over at him. He’s holding up an old leather-bound book.
‘Of course it is,’ Oscar says and looks towards Carmilla who is still ripping at her gift.
I watch as she starts to laugh and says, ‘Very naughty, Oscar, but thank you,’ and pulls out an old-school whip and a pair of ancient-looking handcuffs.
‘Come on, Aubrey,’ Oscar snaps, looking straight at me now. ‘Hurry up.’
I set my jaw and tear open the paper to reveal a black velvet box inside.
And after seeing Carmilla’s present, I’m even more worried. But everyone is watching me now, so I hold my breath, tell myself don’t react, no matter what it is, and open the box.
Inside is a piece of jewellery. It’s clearly very old—a cameo necklace with a woman on the front. I take it out and inspect it.
‘Put it on,’ Oscar says, and I look up at him.
‘Now?’ I ask. Because I’m wearing pyjamas.
‘Yes, now. So everyone knows you’re mine.
’ And then he sits down and lights a cigar and watches me.
Disappointment rolls through me. I shouldn’t be disappointed, I shouldn’t even be surprised, but he seemed almost normal last night.
Tender. Kind. Now his voice filters back from when he introduced me to Carmilla and Felix and Rupert: ‘This is Aubrey, my protege.’
Ah, I think, realisation dawning.
He gives these to all his ‘proteges’ . . . like a kind of branding. So everyone knows I’m off limits.
The events of last night are quickly recontextualising.
The ice in his gaze this evening is not a cover.
And his fury—eyes flaming, chest heaving—at Felix last night was not because he has some hidden empathy or softness.
It was simply because he thinks I’m his possession.
He didn’t like Felix playing with his toys.
As I realise all this, my hope that maybe he’ll go easy on me, won’t make me do things I don’t want to, dissolves like the smoke from Carmilla’s cigarette. Anxiety takes its place.
‘What about you, Oscar?’ Carmilla asks as I struggle with the latch on my necklace. ‘We didn’t get you anything.’
‘Aubrey has a present for me,’ he says, looking at me. ‘Don’t you?’
My stomach twists. He stares at me, his gaze boring through me like he’s challenging me to defy him.
And it’s then that I finally manage to make the necklace catch. But right as I do, I hear the doorbell ring. Then Oscar says, ‘Here’s my present now.’