The Vampire & Her Witch

Jocelynn padded softly across the thick rugs to the washbasin and broke the thin sheet of ice that had formed on the water’s surface overnight, splashing her face with the icy water to wash away the stains of tears that had dried on her cheeks overnight.

The shock of the cold water against her face made her gasp, but she scrubbed methodically: forehead, cheeks, jaw, the back of her neck, until her skin felt raw and awake. Her hands, she scrubbed three times, but even that couldn’t wash away the lingering feeling of hot, slick blood or the leather-wrapped hilt of a knife in her hand.

It hadn’t the day before either, but at least this morning, she managed to stop after washing her hands three times. Yesterday, it had been five before she gave up.

A quiet knock at the door announced Mary and Anne, who entered with a taper and began their work without being asked. They had laid out the mourning dress the night before, simple black wool, well-made but deliberately plain, with long sleeves and a high collar that would keep the cold at bay without drawing the eye to her figure. It was a dress for grieving, not for display, and Jocelynn had chosen it for precisely that reason.

The maidservants moved around her with the practiced efficiency of women who understood that this was not a morning for idle conversation. Mary held the dress while Jocelynn stepped into it. Anne worked the laces at the back, her fingers quick and sure. Neither woman spoke beyond the small, necessary words of the task at hand, and Jocelynn was grateful for their restraint.

She could feel them glancing at each other over her shoulder, the silent language of servants who knew that something was wrong with their lady but lacked the standing to ask about it or to offer unsolicited advice.

She wanted to reassure them, to provide some kind of comfort that she would be all right, and that she just needed more time, but she couldn’t. She had nothing to give them this morning, not even a polite lie that she would eventually recover from her time in the Lothian dungeons.

A person had to want to get better, and Jocelynn knew very well that she didn’t deserve to, so how could she want something that she wasn’t worthy of?

Once she was dressed, Jocelynn turned to the small jewel case on her dressing table. She opened it and looked down at the only pieces she would wear today: a strand of pearls, luminous and cool even in the dim candlelight, and a pair of matching pearl earrings.

The earrings had always been hers, a legacy of her late grandmother. The necklace had been Ashlynn’s, given on the same occasion because their grandmother believed that sisters should each have something to remember her by.

Ashlynn had worn the pearls against her throat on several formal occasions that Jocelynn could remember, and each time, Jocelynn had envied how the pale luster of the pearls seemed to glow against her elder sister’s skin as though they had been made for her.

Now both pieces belonged to Jocelynn, and there was no joy in the possession.

She fastened the earrings first, then lifted the necklace and held it for a moment, letting the weight of it settle in her palm. The pearls were cool and smooth, and when she closed her fingers around them, she could almost imagine that she was holding Ashlynn’s hand, that the coolness was her sister’s fingers interlaced with her own, the way they used to walk together through the corridors of Blackwell Manor when Jocelynn was small and the world was a place where elder sisters could keep you safe from anything.

She fastened the necklace around her throat and felt the pearls come to rest against her collarbone. They would warm with her body’s heat before long, but for now, they were cold, and she let herself feel it.

”The chest, Mary,” she said quietly. It was the first time she’d spoken this morning, and her voice sounded strange even to her own ears. Flat. Hollow. Rough and missing the light and warmth that usually flowed so easily from her lips, or the practiced polish that she used so often in gatherings of young ladies.

That wouldn’t do. Today was important... She had things that needed to be said and a song that she needed to sing...

”Anne,” she added, finding a little more strength in her voice. ”Please fetch me a cup of tea. Use plenty of honey,” she added, even though she had no interest in something sweet.

”Of course, your ladyship,” Anne said, stepping out to brew a quick cup of tea. For a moment, she almost asked if she should fetch a roll or something else to eat from the kitchens, but one look at Jocelynn was enough to quash the idea. She could try, but she doubted Lady Jocelynn would eat anything she could fetch quickly, and there wasn’t time this morning to have the new Master of Kitchens prepare something special for her.

High Priest Aubin seemed to have the most success finding things that Lady Jocelynn would eat when he hosted her for tea... since they would be heading to the temple this morning, she could only hope that the kind old man would have something else prepared to help care for her lady when her lady barely seemed to want to care for herself.

The chest that Mary brought her was small and wooden, made of dark walnut and banded with brass. It resembled the chests that sailors traveled with to protect their most precious treasures on long voyages, and it had traveled all the way from Blackwell County.

The chest had belonged to Ashlynn once, a keepsake box that had sat on the shelf beside her sister’s bed for as long as Jocelynn could remember. Now it held a small collection of Ashlynn’s things that Jocelynn had put together for today’s memorial: a book, a silk scarf, and a collection of worthless trinkets that meant more to Jocelynn than everything else she owned combined.

She took the chest from Mary’s hands and held it against her stomach, finding comfort in its familiar weight. She would carry it herself. No one else would carry her sister’s things.

Anne returned with a cup of steaming hot tea that smelled of wild cherry bark and cinnamon, along with a generous amount of wild honey. Jocelynn drank it without really tasting it, allowing the warmth to spread through her chest while the honey soothed her throat.

”That will be all,” Jocelynn said once she’d finished, sounding a bit more like herself, though her tone still lacked its usual warmth.

The two maidservants exchanged a brief, worried look before they curtsied and withdrew, leaving her alone in the candlelit chamber with the ghosts of a nightmare and the weight of what remained of Ashlynn Blackwell pressed against her body.

She stood there for a moment longer, her eyes closed as she let the memories wash over her, both the dark ones from the dungeons and the light, happy days with Ashlynn, before she firmly pushed down the darkness and clung to the light that her sister had given her when she was too young to understand how precious it was.

Then she turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor beyond.