Page 5 of Nosfer-Meet You

Juliette glares up at me with those fiery red eyes again. Yeah. She’s pissed. I would be, too, if I just exerted all of my energy for some chucklefuck who didn’t want to wade through piss water like a little bitch.

I flash her one of my panty-dropping smiles. She doesn’t return it, of course, but a guy’s gotta try. “I’ll be a good boy from now on. Promise.”

A good boy. Never thought I’d say those words out loud. Especially not to a woman. I’m not exactly submissive. The last chick who tried to tie me to her bed got a fun surprise when I broke out the chains and floggers. She hadn’t been expecting that. At all. In the end, we had a good time, but something about Juliette tells me she wouldn’t be into chains, whips, or teeth in her neck. Not even playfully. No, Juliette looks like she hasn’t smiled in decades, possibly longer.

Wonder why that is?

She nods and holds up a finger. One second, she mimes.

Fine. It’s not like I have an appointment I need to rush off to. And the Helsings are probably still up there doing their sweeps. It wouldn’t do me any good to rush to my true death when I can just lie low, right? My mom was wrong. I do have a few brain cells kicking around up there.

I lean against the wall and wait for her to collect herself. While she’s distracted, I take the opportunity to examine her. Really look at her. The odd curve of her neck, the way her ears look like an elf’s from The Lord of the Rings. The antique lace skirts she seems to care about despite their age and how torn they are.

“I could sew those up for you, if you’d like,” I say.

Juliette lifts her head to look at me in confusion, then straightens the rest of the way, fully recovered. “What?”

“My mom taught me how to sew a long time ago. Your skirts, I mean. I can sew them.” I point at them and give her another cheesy grin.

Juliette looks down at the hem of her skirts and pulls them up to reveal a pair of bare feet. Blue-ish black outlines the spots where her toenails should be, and I swallow down the bile rising in the back of my throat. Don’t gag at her feet, Scotty. Don’t gag. Don’t gag.

Juliette doesn’t say anything in response to my offer. She merely trudges off toward another tunnel. I follow behind like a dutiful canine following its master, and when we finally reach the end of the tunnel, I notice a soft amber glow in the distance. Gods, I hope that’s her home and not something else. Because I don’t think I can handle ‘something else’ tonight.

Chapter 2

Juliette

NOT THE HANDSOMEST GIRL

AUGUST A VILLAGE OUTSIDE OF LYON, FRANCE, 1793

“Juliette! Juliette, are you up? I won’t tell you again!” Maman yells from downstairs in the kitchen while I lie awake in my bed, staring up at the ceiling. The crisp aroma of freshly sliced pears and quince travels up the stairwell and into my bedroom, and I draw in a deep breath. She’s baking and making jam again. Maman bakes every Sunday morning, yet it always surprises me whenever that first sweet note of sugar and fruit hits my nostrils. My stomach rumbles in response to the scintillating aroma, yet I cannot bring myself to eat. It has been several days since I’ve eaten more than a mushroom, more than a single carrot on my plate.

Something is wrong with me. I cannot get out of bed. Do not want to get out of bed. Yet the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it is a sweltering, sticky day. I should be happy, non? I should already be at the market to purchase fresh tomatoes and thick slices of meat for tonight’s supper.

Instead, I am staring at the ceiling and wishing for death to claim me. Again. It does not matter that I am decades away from a natural death—gods willing, of course. But the thought of placing my bare toes on the floorboards has my stomach turning.

“Juliette! What is wrong with you? Are you deaf, or just lazy?” Maman calls again in her deep, husky voice, so loud it makes the shutters on the windows tremble.

My maman has always been known throughout the village as a good, wholesome woman. To them, she is Marion Lefebvre, the woman from a small neighboring village who moved in two decades ago after marrying Louis Lefebvre, a horse trader. Honest, gods-fearing people who you could always rely on for a cup of tea and a kind word. The sort of people who would rip the clothes off their own backs if you were in need.

But to me, my maman has always been my greatest adversary. We have never gotten along. In fact, I am convinced she hates me, probably on account of my nearly killing her while I was still in the womb. As if I, an unborn babe, planned out the assassination while I gestated. What sort of mother hates their own progeny?

Last week was my twenty-fifth birthday, but we did not celebrate it. I ate two cold, greasy eggs for breakfast and washed them down with a glass of red wine. There was not even a slice of pork leftover to accompany them. My father patted me on the head before going outside to tend to the horses.

He either didn’t remember or didn’t care. I’m not sure which would be worse.

When I fail to answer Maman’s summoning shrieks, the door to my bedroom practically flies off the hinges. Maman looms in the doorway, her hands on her wide-set hips and a scowl deeply etched across her once-pretty features. I’ve been told that I take after my mother, looks-wise, but I disagree. She and I couldn’t be more different. We have different eyes. Hers are so blue they rival the rivers and streams outside the village, while mine are the color of mud. The kind of brown you see in the cow patties across the fields.

“She’s not the handsomest girl,” a man once said to Maman while she was buying apples at the market. The man took her coins from behind the stall and pocketed them. Meanwhile, I lingered behind, pretending to be interested in a woman selling goose eggs. He probably believed I was no longer within earshot, but my hearing has always been keen. “Hips are too slender … but she’ll make someone a fine wife someday, Marion. Don’t you worry.”

Instead of agreeing with the man or admonishing him for insulting her daughter, my mother simply shook her head and muttered, “No, I don’t think so. My Juliette doesn’t care about anyone but herself.”

To this day, I’m still not sure why she said that. I don’t think that self-preservation is the same as self-centeredness, but perhaps by being born, I truly was the selfish one. After all, my parents didn’t plan on having me in the first place. Another fact Maman loves to throw in my face whenever convenient.

Once upon a time, my maman was considered a great beauty, and so when I was born everyone assumed I would be, too. While mother’s brilliant blond hair is shorn to her ears now, it once flowed down to the small of her back. I may have the same blond hair as maman’s, and it is easily my most comely asset, but my face deters any would-be suitors. My nose is too sharp, like a bird’s beak. My cheekbones too high. My brow pinched in a permanent scowl.

Sometimes, in a rare act of affection, Maman brushes my hair. But the moment is always ruined by her muttering. Thoughts that should never pass a mother’s lips, spoken aloud. Cruel things that wriggle their way through my skull like worms in the dead of night. Sleep is never easy to come by on nights such as those.