The Vampire & Her Witch

The chapel went quiet after Jocelynn finished explaining the storybook that had been precious to her and Ashlynn both. It was clear to everyone sitting in the pews that she needed time to face the memories that came with such an important relic of their shared childhood, and no one begrudged her that time.

Outside, the sky continued to brighten, pouring more light through the stained glass window behind Jocelynn and the altar. Filtered through the colored glass, the sunrise bathed the chapel in warm hues of gold and amber light, with traces of blue and green at the edges of the chapel to mark the sky and verdant hills depicted in the stained glass window.

Eventually, Jocelynn shook herself free of the currents of memories that threatened to pull her under, setting down the well-worn book and reaching into the chest for the next item.

The second item she’d brought was a length of silk, folded with care. When Jocelynn lifted it free and let it unfurl, the fabric caught the light from the stained glass windows and seemed to glow with a deep, rich cerulean blue that matched the color of the Blackwell crest. It was a scarf, long and fine, the kind of thing that a noblewoman might drape across her shoulders at a formal dinner or wind through her hair on a summer evening.

”I thought that I’d bring one of her dresses,” Jocelynn said, starting almost mid-thought when she began speaking again. ”I thought that, since we can’t offer her body to the pyre, at least we could lay out something she’d worn,” she said, blinking the tears away as her hands clutched the scarf. ”Only, all of her dresses went with her to the Summer Villa, and there’s nothing... Nothing left of the things she brought with her.”

It wasn’t entirely true. Jocelynn had brought back many of Ashlynn’s most treasured things, refusing to let Samira treat them like costume props while she masqueraded as Ashlynn. But the dresses had been left behind in order to let Samira keep up the ruse, and there were none left in Lothian for Jocelynn to place upon the pyre.

”Silk from the old countries is so expensive,” Jocelynn said, stroking the scarf and feeling the extraordinary softness of it with her fingertips. ”When Father gave this to Ash for her Coming of Age celebration, I was so jealous because it was so beautiful,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she forced herself to continue with a small confession that mirrored the one she couldn’t give to this audience.

”Ash was always kind to me about it,” she continued, struggling to meet the gazes of the knights and Templars in the front row as the weight of her words pressed down on her. ”She let me borrow it whenever I wanted to. I, I wasn’t always good about returning it,” she admitted, wrapping a loop of the soft fabric around her hand.

”When she came here to start her new life, she left it with me,” Jocelynn said, closing her hand into a fist around the scarf. ”She said, she said that Lothian was a place of verdant greens and growing things, so she was going to leave the blues of the seas to me. She, she didn’t know I’d be following her here....”

She didn’t know I’d try to take everything from her, Jocelynn added silently.

”I, I didn’t do a good job of treasuring what she left for me,” Jocelynn said softly. ”The opportunities she found for me, or the precious gifts she gave me. But I treasured this, and she did too,” she said, clutching the scarf briefly to her chest before she folded the scarf with unsteady hands and placed it beside the book on the altar.

The cerulean blue lay against the worn brown leather like the sea meeting the shore, and for a moment, soft sobs battered Jocelynn’s chest like waves breaking on the sands.

The last item in the chest was the smallest and, to anyone who didn’t know its history, the least significant. But to Jocelynn, it was the hardest one to face.

It was a plain wooden box, no larger than a bread loaf, unvarnished and unadorned. When Jocelynn lifted the lid, it rattled with the unmistakable sound of things too small and too numerous to be valuable. She tilted the box so the room could see what was inside: a collection of wooden carvings, bracelets made of shells, a loop-toss ring made of knotted rope, and a small carved fish with one chipped fin.

”Two years ago,” Jocelynn began slowly, and she had to stop and take a breath before she could continue. ”Two years ago, during the Holy Festival of Light in Blackwell City, Ashlynn and I snuck out,” Jocelynn said.

”I think there must have been two dozen knights with their families who were visiting for the festival,” Jocelynn said, glancing at the row of knights and templars and seeing a nod from Sir Elgon.

There were more than fifty knights in Blackwell County, and even though most would stay home to celebrate with their own people, there were always some knights visiting from the baronies, and sometimes even a few from Keating Duchy or elsewhere in Trevarthen. As one of Rhys Blackwell’s vassals, Sir Elgon had helped to host such distinguished visitors on more than one occasion, and he remembered well how many notable people flocked to the city for the festival.

”With so many visiting knights and their families, Ash told me that no one would notice an extra young lady or two, and our parents were busy playing host to Baron Stormwarden and a group of Guildmasters,” Jocelynn said with a faint, wistful smile tugging at the corners of her lips. ”We thought it was the perfect chance to slip out and enjoy the festival at night.”

”I didn’t find out until afterwards that Father knew what we were up to,” she said. ”He sent men to follow after us, but told them to leave us alone as long as we didn’t get into any trouble.”

”We stayed out all night,” Jocelynn said, her eyes shining with moisture as she stared off into the distance. ”We played loop toss, and fished for rings until she managed to win me the prizes I wanted,” she said, running her fingertips across the bracelet made of delicate sea shells. ”I did my best to win prizes for her too, even if I wasn’t as good at the games.”

”We spent half our pocket money for the month that night, and it was worth every silver penny and snip of tin,” she continued. ”Ash even found someone selling reed baskets, and she filled it with food from what felt like every food cart on the street. Fresh-baked bread, mussels stuffed with rice, whole steamed crabs, and oysters.”

”There were candied nuts and berry hand pies, even a small jug of cool white wine,” Jocelynn added with a smile, closing her eyes as she let herself become lost in the memory. ”There was so much in the basket that we had to carry it between us to go up to our spot on the cliffs where we could look out over the harbor and all the lantern lights in the city...”

When she opened her eyes, they were bright with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. Not yet. She still had just a little more to say.

”We stayed out till dawn, eating and laughing... We both drank too much wine,” she said, her face heating slightly. That night was the last time we were truly happy together,” Jocelynn said. ”That was the night that she told me about Lord Owain coming to court her. That, if things were pleasant between them, she’d be leaving Blackwell behind to become the next Marchioness in Lothian.”

”Everything after that was harder,” Jocelynn said softly. ”I, I understood why. Or, at least, I thought I did. But I still hated seeing her go. And now... Now she’s gone forever, and we’ll never... Never have a night like that again.”

”I miss you, Ashlynn,” she said in a voice that was too quiet to be heard beyond the front row. ”I wish that none of this had ever happened. It would have been better to stay at home together than to come out here...”

”But now,” she said as she slowly began to pack the items back into the chest. ”It’s time for one last journey. Until I see you again on the Heavenly Shores, or find you in some other life...”