Page 4 of Blood Lovers

In this case it is lavender and I see woods. A thick forest. Somewhere I have never been.

The color of the fog is how I orient myself in the dreamwalks. If it’s light, and misty, and tinted lavender then I am in the present. There is a quaint little paradox attached to this fact. Because my present is occurring in my grandmother’s room, but I’m here in these woods at the same time.

That’s why we call it the dreamwalk. It explains this paradox away. Kind of.

Sometimes the haze is dark, and purple, and thick, and then it’s not the present. It’s a memory, a past event, or sometimes even the future.

It’s hard to tell when it’s very purple. The only certain thing I really know about the dreamwalks is that they are always connected to him.

The vampire called Paul.

I have never actually seen him. Not in the dreamwalk or with my own eyes. This is because I am cloaked. The magic my grandma stole from my mother just moments after I was born was used to hide me from Paul and him from me. I have never heard him speak, or touched his hand, or smelled his scent. I don’t even know what he looks like.

But I know he’s real.

One glance at my shriveled-up grandma is all it takes to be convinced.

She was his, once upon a time.

As was my mother.

As am I.

This is what having Black blood means.

It means I belong to him. And these dreamwalks are how he reminds me he is my master. He has been communicating with me like this my entire life. When I was small, the dreamwalks would take me to a pretty place—a garden, a beach, a lake house. Sometimes he even threw me birthday parties. There would be a room with people, and presents, and a cake. And my name would be on that cake.

It’s a sick thing, I think. I wasn’t really there. I would walk around the lavender dream and take it all in. See my name on the cake. Watch in silence as the people I didn’t know celebrated my milestone.

He threw these parties twice. My first night at the Guild—the day I turned seven. And then again when I was fourteen.

Both times the haze was lavender, like this one. In the present. What were those people at the party thinking? That the event was pretend? Was it some kind of photoshoot? Did they know they were celebrating the birthday of a Black witch who could only see them in a dreamwalk?

And who were they? His people? Strangers?

Was he there?

He was there. But I didn’t see him and he didn’t see me.

My grandma did that. She hid me from him. Those unspeakable things she did to my mother were for my benefit. Those unspeakable things saved my life. Spared me from ever having to interact with the vampire Paul.

But they couldn’t save me from the dreamwalks.

So he is here, somewhere in this forest, looking for me. Trying to hear me, or smell me, or feel me.

So that one day he might taste me.

But something feels different about this dreamwalk. They are always silent, but this place has a darkness to it that goes beyond the twilight sun filtering though the tree boughs.

This place is death and I suddenly realize what he’s trying to tell me.

He is waking up and I am about to be caught.

The lavender fades and the forest morphs back into the little room. My grandmother is still dying on the bed. The party is still going on outside. I am still cursed.

I need to leave, and I need to leave now.

Paul is waking up from his slumber and I’m here, where I should not be, and when he finds out that my grandma is dying, he will come for me.