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Miss Karnstein sat on her bed, lazily playing with the sheets, her gaze intent on Valerie. “Up from the North. A rather remote, uninteresting village, I think.” She then raised a brow, chuckling. Valerie could not help but picture her with a glass of wine in her hand, relaying the journey of her life to her awed audience. “Perhaps I’m simply too adept in blending in, so people either take my presence for granted or do not acknowledge it at all.”
The answer, while polite, was evasive. Still, Valerie flushed a bit at her nonchalant remark, embarrassed once more. She decided to change the subject. “And your carriage,” she asked, “Did you find help, or…”
“Sadly, beyond repair,” Miss Karnstein interrupted, a touch of wistfulness in her voice. “But thankfully, your hospitality renders that loss a mere inconvenience.”
Valerie lingered by the bed, her heart pounding in her throat, and smoothed the creases on her skirt because she did not know what to do with her hands. “I must confess, your companionship was the only thing I was aware of that night, the pure bliss I now have the chance of reminiscing about.”
Miss Karnstein turned, and their eyes met and something inside her ribs stirred. “I must confess, our conversation was the only thing worth staying for.”
Ethel burst into the room with a clean set of sheets and a nightgown in her hands, and when she saw them, she muttered an apology. Valerie stepped back, her face burning, as if she had just admitted a crime. She had lost track of time. Darkness had swallowed the room whole and only a candle stood alight. It was so much colder than it had been in the evening.
“Please light the fire and use oak. It burns the longest, so it will keep our guest warm for the night. Prepare the chicken soup as well.”
She left the room without another word, wringing her hands, and her heart was beating like it might rip her chest apart.
In the night, the woman came back crawling. Her hands slipped under the quilt, a trail of blood following her, and she bore a touch that was familiar yet cold, creeping up her legs. Valerie was seized by a heavy and cloying sense of agony when the woman pulled up her skirts, climbing up her thighs. She lay pinned on the sheets drenched in her sweat, and her moan echoed in the vast emptiness of her room.
She shuddered, not from fear, but from a nameless yearning that clawed at her stomach. She saw, or fancied seeing, a blank, featureless face like a clean slate, except that the features quickly arranged themselves into Mircalla Karnstein’s pallid countenance as Valerie had seen her last. Her loose curls brushed Valerie’s cheeks as she climbed on her, her gaze sharp as a blade, and a pair of scarlet eyes narrowed on her, a bottomless hunger reflecting the moon. She wanted to say her name but her mouth was tightly closed as if sewn shut.
Miss Karnstein traced the quickened pulse at her throat, then she leaned in, and Valerie felt a sudden twinge on her breast, followed by a sense of strangulation. Valerie’s whole body went numb, sending a searing fire through her veins, arching into Miss Karnstein’s demanding touch.
And then, as swiftly as it began, it was over. The night stretched before her without limits, Valerie in the center of it. Mircalla Karnstein pulled away, leaving behind another set of puncture wounds on her skin. A moan, half-sob, half-shiver escaped Valerie’s parched lips. She was agony, she was sweet ecstasy, she was the spark of defiance, akin to a forbidden desire, Valerie had been craving.
Valerie awoke to the sound of her screaming. The candle was guttering out. She stirred the embers in the hearth, watching the sparks dance. Beneath her nightgown, her fingers reached for her neck first, running a finger over the scab on her neck. She then moved a little lower, feeling her heartbeat under her palm. Black spots flooded her periphery when she touched the fresh puncture marks, still bleeding, hot and throbbing. The mark of a beast. She was afraid of closing her eyes and picturing that blank face that nefariously took the shape of Miss Karnstein.
13
The scene of painwas still there, at the crack of dawn, when Valerie began to rouse, shivering; the searing kiss piercing her breast, the blood-soaked hands wandering up her thighs, the loose curls caressing her cheeks, and Miss Karnstein swelled from it. She was perplexed by it all as she pressed cotton pads to her wound. It was a ghastly side, she thought, worse than she’d imagine. A part of her flesh was pulled away and feeling queasy, she could not examine it further. She grunted as she rose and lit a new candle, walking down the dark hall with a new resolution.
She wanted to look at Miss Karnstein, study her face for signs of disturbance and grotesque attitudes. It was just an easy way to put her nightmare-ridden mind at ease without causing any embarrassment. Her husband would laugh at her story but what scared her was the doctor. It was possible that he would treat it as a fanciful notion, a disquieting effect, yet a part of her knew that he would be alarmed, for the wounds could be taken as the sign of the plague that ravaged their town. She was not in excruciating pain, so it seemed pointless to alarm him.
Valerie knocked on Miss Karnstein’s door softly, afraid of waking her up, yet still too conscious of decorum for some weird reason, then twisted the knob. The door creaked but did not open. “It’s most strange,” Valerie whispered to herself and tried again, this time pushing it harder in vain. It was locked. She put her ear to the door and listened for any sound that Miss Karnstein might have roused, stirring up in her bed. Nothing but a dead silence upon the air.
Miss Karnstein did not come down for breakfast. Valerie wiped a rolling bead of sweat off her brow before she reached for the butter. Ethan did not seem to notice the absence of his guest nor was he paying particular attention to the presence of it. With a sigh, she turned to her husband who was scribbling furiously on a yellow sheet of paper, his head bowed.
“The state of the weather is absolutely awful,” she began with a shaky voice. Accepting a stranger into the house seemed less sensible now. “I wonder how long it’ll stay like this.”
Ethan nodded without looking up, puffing away at his cigar. Valerie fidgeted in her seat.
“Are winters always this harsh here? Nothing but snow for months on end? I am asking because…” She trailed off, a lump forming in her throat as Ethan looked up, his pen in the air.
“Yes?” he said, sounding like he was very bored. Valerie spread another thick layer of butter on her bread. Her fingers were all sticky.
“Well…Do you remember Miss Karnstein? From Mrs. Harker’s dinner party?”
He put down his pen, wiping the ink off with a crisp white handkerchief. He wrinkled his nose, as if the room were thick with stink. “I’m afraid not,” he said at last.
“Lady Karnstein kindly requested our help as her carriage unfortunately broke down in the middle of the storm yesterday. She arrived here on foot, poor thing, rattled and freezing. The doctor advised a good night’s rest, so I insisted she spend the night here.”
“And?” His brows arched to the hairline, puffing on his cigar slowly.
“I just-I just thought maybe her presence can be of assistance to our…situation. It doesn’t look like the weather will begin to turn anytime soon.”
He tilted his head on one side to study her, eyes narrowed behind a smoky film. “You need not concern yourself with the matter. If you’re longing for a close confidante to liven up the wintry days, just say so. I am not fond of word games.”
“Yes, dear,” Valerie replied. She had lost her appetite. She was startled when he spoke again. He was not looking at her, buried in his work again, yet his voice floated in the air, seeping through her body like spilled ink.
“I am aware that I did not do a proper job of fulfilling my duties as a husband. My expectations might have exceeded your…” He paused for a better word then puffed another cloud, “knowledge. Let us be tolerable, shall we?”
