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My eyes are drawn to a shelf, where the books appear to be older.
Holy shit. Is that an original Shakespeare?
I draw one of the books from the shelf.
It’s his first folio, and it was originally published in 1623.
1623.
Jesus, this thing is heavy. I take it over to the window, making sure to keep it out of the direct sunlight to keep the ink and pages from eroding. I run my hands in awe over the unbound original before slowly flipping to the first page.
Wait…
This can’t be.
“Holy fucking shit,” I whisper as I thumb carefully through the pages. This isn’t Shakespeare’s first folio. The pages are stamped with ink. They’re handwritten in a messy but still legible scrawl. There are notes scribbled on the side with actions and directions. The ink bleeds into the pages at points, which tells me this wasn’t someone simply copying the plays.
This is the…
“Shakespeare gave that to me just before his death.” The sudden intrusion nearly causes me to drop the precious item in my hands. “I have a few more just like it, with all of his other works, tucked away for safekeeping.”
“He kept his manuscripts?” It was an odd thing for a man in his day to keep handwritten copies of manuscripts. They held no significance for authors and were worth no money. Most playwrights and authors burned copies of their originals so that they could not be copied. Roles were kitted out to actors. They only received their lines and not the whole play. It’s one reason why quarto copies are of such poor quality. They’re produced from the actor’s memories and not from the playwright themselves. His poems were designed to be printed, and once they were, he would have had no use, besides sentimentality, for the long form copy.
“Surprisingly so for someone as paranoid as he.” Weylen steps up so that he’s standing to one side of me and not blocking the light. “His greatest fear was that someone would take credit for his work. But he was also a sentimental man. I’d known him since he was a young boy. I offered to turn him, but he refused. Even on his deathbed.”
“Why?”
Weylen shakes his head, sorrow lining his eyes. “Because back then, even a man like William Shakespeare, who enjoyed the primitive side of life, had his prejudices against our kind.”
Our kind.
“Vampires?” I ask curiously.
Weylen gives me a devilish smirk and a wink.
Wait, when he says our kind is he not talking about…
“Did you give William Shakespeare syphilis?” It’s out before I can stop it. Weylen barks a laugh, his shoulders shaking.
“No, little lamb,” he chuckles. “Vampires can’t pass on diseases, but the lifestyle I introduced him to probably didn’t help. Young Shakespeare had a thing for loose women and pretty men. All that, of course, before he met his wife, Anne.”
“So he didn’t die of syphilis?” No one has been able to ascertain how he died. Some say syphilis, others say he was murdered.
Weylen grins. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
My face falls. “You don’t know, do you?” I deadpan.
The vampire sighs harshly. “Nope.”
“What are you even doing here?” I ask. “Drystan said you were all occupied for the day and that I should behave myself.”
And there’s that wolfish grin again.
“And have you?”
I furrow my brow at his question. “Have I what?”
“Behaved yourself.”
