The night had no right to be that beautiful.
I leaned on my windowsill with my chin in my hands, and the stars stared back at me like a thousand tiny lanterns somebody had forgotten to blow out. The moon hung over our village, thin and bright, a silver claw scratching at the dark.
One star, a small one at the edge of the sky, kept blinking at me. Just me.
"Hello, Brightness," I whispered, and I grinned like she had told me a secret. "You're always glowing, you know that?"
The wind drifted in and tugged at the leaves of my favourite tree, the Purple Leaf Sandcherry. Its flowery scent curled around my face, and my shoulders dropped as if somebody had lifted a heavy coat off them. I breathed in until my lungs ached. Nothing in the world could be wrong. Not from up here, with our little house glowing warm behind me.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Blade! Nice hat!"
Below my window, an old vampire was shuffling down the lane with his hands behind his back and a hat tilted like it had lost an argument with the wind. Mr. Blade was three hundred years old, at least. Maybe more. Nobody had ever dared to ask. The whole village called him Mr. Bold because of the shiny, hairless head hiding under that hat, and he pretended to hate it. I knew better. His shoulders always shook when someone said it.
He looked up and his wrinkled face folded into a smile.
"My little star, beautiful as ever. I must go home. My belly is grumbling louder than a thunderstorm." He patted it, and it actually wobbled. "Oh, and send my greetings to Mr. Klanson and Mrs. Drusella! Good night!"
"Good night, Mr. Blade!"
I was still giggling when I closed the window.
"Lilith, my darling! Dinner is ready!"
Mom's voice floated up the stairs, warm as bread. I scooped a ball of fluffy brown fur off my pillow and let him scurry up my arm to settle on my shoulder.
"Come on, Hoffer! We're going to eat! Yay!"
He chittered in my ear. He loved dinner more than he loved me, I was sure of it. But that was fine. I loved him enough for both of us.
I took the stairs two at a time, with Sindy swinging from my fist by one cloth arm. Sindy was my doll, and my best friend, and the only one who understood everything I never said out loud.
At the table, the smell hit me first: iron, warm and rich, rising from a pot on the stove. Rabbit's blood. My favourite. My stomach twisted with happiness.
"Hello, Father!"
Dad dropped into his chair like a mountain sitting down. He looked so tired. His eyes were red around the edges and his shoulders sagged, but when he saw me his whole face lit up, and a huge hand ruffled my hair until it stood up in every direction.
"Hello, darling."
"You look exhausted," I said, folding my arms like a tiny doctor. "A big man like you needs a long nap. A very long one."
"Yes, yes, I'll do as you say, I..."
"Wait!" I held up a finger. "Shhh! Sindy has something important to say!"
I pulled her up to my ear and listened very seriously. Her stitched mouth said nothing, of course. But Dad was already trying not to laugh, and Mom was biting her lip over the pot.
"So? What did she say?" Dad asked, leaning in.
"She's too shy to tell you herself." I leaned in too, whispering like it was a state secret. "But she thinks you're our superhero."
Something in his face melted. He looked at Sindy, then at me, then he put his hand over his heart like a knight.
"Then thank you, Sindy. And I swear to you, I will never disappoint you."
Mom laughed softly. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and for a moment the room went quiet in the way rooms do when two people forget anyone else is there. Fifty years of marriage, and she still looked at him as if he had just walked in from the rain with flowers.
Then they took each other's hands, and mine, and bowed their heads.
"O Dark Lord, bless the food and drink of Thy servants, for holy art Thou, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen."
"Can I have a glass of rabbit's blood, please?"
"Of course, my little baby." Mom set it in front of me with both hands, like it was made of glass. "Enjoy."
"Thank you, Mother! You're the best!"
I leaned toward Hoffer, who was nibbling a peanut on the edge of my plate.
"Hoffer," I whispered, "one day I'm going to find someone who looks at me like Dad looks at Mom. Someone who treats me like a princess. They're so cute together, right?"
He answered with a squeak and kept chewing.
I lifted my cup to my lips and took my first sip.
And the glass moved.
It was small. A ripple, as if someone had breathed on the surface. But the table hadn't shaken, and I hadn't touched anything.
Then it happened again.
My palms went slick against the cup. Something cold crawled up the back of my neck and settled behind my eyes, the way you feel someone staring at you before you turn around. The feeling swelled with every second, until my chest felt too small for it.
"Mom... Dad..." My voice came out thin. "Something's wrong. I... I can feel it."
I watched their faces change.
It happened so fast it frightened me more than the feeling did. The warmth drained out of Dad's eyes as if somebody had pulled a plug. Mom's hand flew to her throat. Her green eyes, my favourite green, the green of the forest after rain, bled slowly into red, and two tiny fangs slid down over her lip.
I had never seen my mother's fangs. Not once.
"We know," Dad said, in a voice I didn't recognize. Flat. Hard. "Be quiet. Don't move."
So I didn't move. I sat frozen in my chair, with Hoffer's tiny claws digging through my sleeve and Sindy crushed against my chest. The silence spreading across the village was wrong. No crickets. No wind. No dogs. Even the night had stopped breathing.
Then the scream cut through it.
"NO! HELP ME! DON'T TOUCH ME! GO AWAY! GO... A... WAY..."
"That's Mrs. Kassandra," I heard myself say. My voice was a stranger's, scraped and broken. She lived three houses down. She had given me honey cakes last week.
Outside, someone else was already shouting.
"WEREWOLVES! IT'S A WEREWOLF ATTACK! RUN! HIDE!"
"What?" Dad stood so fast his chair crashed backward. "How is that possible? How?"
A shadow I had never seen before crossed his face. It wasn't only fear. He looked like a man who had been waiting for a knock on the door for years, and had just heard it. His eyes darted left, right, left, searching the room for an answer that wasn't there.
"I don't know," Mom stammered. Her hands shook so badly she dropped the dish towel. "I... Lock the door! Lock the door!"
Then she turned to me, and everything about her changed again. She dropped to her knees and gripped my shoulders.
"Lilith. Go to your room. Close the door and don't open it, no matter what you hear. Do you understand me? No matter what you hear. Okay? Please. Please, please..."
Her voice wobbled on the last word.
She pulled me against her chest, hard, so hard I could feel her heart slamming through her dress. Her tears fell onto my shoulder, one, two, three, hot and quick. I was terrified, and still I felt safe, because I was in her arms, and her arms had never failed me.
She tightened them until I almost couldn't breathe. Then she whispered into my ear:
"You're fine. We're all okay. Trust me. I will never leave you. I promise."
The door shook.
Something heavy hit it from the outside, once, twice, again and again, each blow rattling the frame and dropping dust from the ceiling. And behind it, a howl, long and low and ugly, the sound of a throat made for tearing.
"THEY'RE HERE!" Dad threw his whole body against the door, boots sliding on the floor, veins standing out in his neck. "HIDE! NOW!"
Mom kissed my forehead. Her lips were trembling.
"GO!"
I ran.
I ran with Hoffer clinging to my collar and Sindy squeezed against my ribs, up the stairs, into my room. I dove under the bed and pulled the sheets down around me like a wall. My heart pounded so loudly I was afraid it would give me away.
Downstairs, wood splintered.
"NO! DON'T KILL HER!" Dad's voice. It cracked like a boy's.
"YOU'VE BETRAYED US, KLANSON!" A stranger's voice answered. It was deep and cold and certain.
Betrayed? I pressed my fist into my mouth. Betrayed who? What did Dad do?
"NO ONE TOUCHES HER!"
That was the last thing my father ever said.
I cried without making a sound, with my eyes squeezed shut and my blood turning to ice in my veins, and I held Sindy so tightly that her stitches popped.
Three hours later.
I don't know when the screaming stopped. I only know that at some point I noticed how quiet the house had become, and that the quiet was worse.
I opened the door slowly. The stairs creaked under my feet, one by one, and I counted them like I could count my way back into yesterday.
The smell reached me first. Smoke and ash and something metallic underneath. Then I reached the bottom step, and my fingers slid out of Sindy's hand.
She hit the floor without a sound.
Our living room was gone.
Not damaged. Gone. The black sofa lay on its back with its belly ripped open. The table I had eaten at three hours ago was kindling. Moonlight poured in through the places where the windows used to be, and ash drifted through the beams like grey snow.
Our family portrait lay face-down in the rubble, the glass shattered into a thousand glittering pieces. Mom's piano, the one she played every night, the one that had taught me what Beethoven meant before I could spell it, had been smashed into splinters and strings. A few of them still hummed faintly, like it was trying to finish her song.
Nothing was left. Not one thing.
"Mom?" My voice shook. "Dad? Where are you? Are you outside?"
I picked my way across the glass, and the cold night air hit my face.
Fire.
The entire village was burning. Every house I'd ever waved at was a torch. The flames roared and leapt from roof to roof, and the sky glowed orange, so bright that my star was gone. Bodies lay in the street. People I knew. People who had said hello to me this morning.
My legs began to tremble so badly I thought they would fold.
Somewhere in the smoke, other vampires were screaming. Crying. Begging. The sounds crawled inside my ears and stayed there, and I knew, in the part of me that was only six years old, that I would hear them for the rest of my life.
"Mom..." I whispered. "Answer me. I'm scared."
I kept walking, with the heat on my face and tears running into my mouth. I couldn't see the road. My foot struck something soft, and I fell hard, and my head cracked against the stones. The world rang like a bell.
I rolled over to see what I had tripped on.
"Mom?"
It took my mind a second to understand. Then it understood everything at once.
"Mom... M... Mom... MOM! NO! NO, NO, NO!"
Her dress, the blue one she wore on Sundays, was soaked dark and heavy. Her face... I couldn't look at her face. Her skin had gone the colour of candle wax. Her fingers, those gentle fingers that had braided my hair every morning of my life, lay twisted in the dirt.
I crawled to her. I took her cold hand and pulled it against my cheek, as if I could warm it back to life with my own breath.
"You're just sleeping," I said. "Right? You're just sleeping. But it's cold out here, Mom. We can go inside. Where's Dad? Why did he leave you out here alone?"
I stroked her hair with my little fingers. I waited. I waited for her eyes to open, for her to say my silly baby and pull me against her chest the way she always did.
She didn't.
I lay down beside her and rested my head on her shoulder. She smelled of smoke and roses.
"Wake up," I whispered. "Please. Please wake up. You promised."
I will never leave you. I promise.
Something opened inside me then, a hole with no bottom, and I felt myself falling into it with no one to catch me.
Then I heard the footsteps.
Heavy ones. Slow. Each step made the ground shiver beneath my cheek.
I stopped breathing.
Through the black smoke, two yellow eyes glowed, wide and hungry. A massive shape stepped out of the dark behind them, taller than our front door. Long grey fur covered its arms and legs. Pointed ears. A bushy tail swaying behind it. Claws like razors. Strings of drool hung from a mouth full of fangs, longer than my fingers.
It looked like a wolf, if a wolf had been built by someone who hated the world.
I had only ever heard of them in bedtime stories. I never thought they were real.
Werewolf.
My whole body went hot, then cold, then numb. And then something stronger than fear took over, something that didn't belong to a six-year-old.
"GO AWAY, MONSTER!" I screamed. "DON'T TOUCH MY MOM! LEAVE HER ALONE!"
I threw Sindy at his chest, and she bounced off like a dead leaf.
He didn't attack. He just stood there. Staring.
"What do you want, you stupid wolf?" I shouted, stumbling to my feet with my fists clenched. "Did you do this to my village? STOP HURTING US! Vampires are stronger than you! I'll prove it!"
I grabbed a handful of pebbles and hurled them. They pattered against his legs like rain.
He bent down, slowly. He picked up Sindy.
Then he walked toward me.
I couldn't move. My promise to Mom pounded in my head: stay strong, stay strong, stay strong. But my knees had turned to water. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt his breath roll across my skin, hot and damp and heavy. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up. When something brushed my arm, I almost screamed my lungs out.
Then something was pressed into my palm.
When I dared to look, the wolf was gone.
Only smoke. Only fire. And in my hand, soft and stitched and whole, was Sindy.
I stared at her.
He gave her back.
Why would a monster give her back and then disappear?
"Oh, my poor girl. Come here."
I spun around. An old man stood a few steps away, a vampire, with a chunky body wrapped in torn clothes and a bearded face crossed by scars. A silver sword hung from his hand, gleaming in the firelight. Everyone knew old vampires were weak. Their blood thinned with age.
He didn't look weak. His eyes were steady, as if he had already seen everything the world could do and decided to stay standing anyway.
"Don't be afraid," he said, in a low voice. "I won't hurt you. You've seen too much."
He took my hand, gently. My head began to pound.
"Let's go home. You need to rest."
"NO!" I tore at his grip. "I want to stay with Mom! She needs me! She has to wake up first! Mom! MOM! Please... please, Mom, don't leave me! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
The pain behind my eyes grew sharper than before. The world blurred at the edges, and his voice began to stretch, stretch, stretch, until it sounded like it was coming through water.
Don't leave me...
Don't leave...
I woke up gasping.
My sheets were soaked. My face was wet, and I didn't know if it was sweat or tears. My chest heaved in and out like I had been running for hours.
The room slowly swam back into place. My ceiling. My desk. My window, with its silver curtain of moonlight.
By the fireplace, in the big armchair he never let anyone else sit in, Mr. Malsiver was reading. Orange light flickered over his scarred face. And curled on the end of my bed, one tiny paw twitching in his sleep, lay Hoffer, alive and warm and perfectly fine.
Everything was normal. Everything was quiet.
"You had the same dream," the old man said, without looking up from his book. "Didn't you?"
I pulled my knees against my chest and wrapped my arms around them.
"Yes," I said, and my voice cracked on the word. "The same night, eleven years ago."
He nodded slowly, as if he already knew.
I lay back down and stared at the ceiling. I waited for my heartbeat to slow. After a while, I turned my head toward him, wanting nothing more than to see something familiar.
And I noticed something I had never noticed in eleven years.
Mr. Malsiver hadn't turned a single page.
I watched him for a long time. The fire crackled. The book stayed open to the same spot. His eyes were on the words, but they weren't moving.
And leaning in the shadows beside his chair, wrapped in an old cloth, was a long, thin shape that I had always assumed was a walking stick.
A shape with a silver glint at the edge of the cloth.
"Mr. Malsiver," I whispered. "In the dream... why did the wolf give Sindy back?"
The fire popped.
He didn't answer.
His hand, resting on the arm of the chair, curled slowly into a fist.
Thank you for reading! Chapter 2 is coming soon. Tell me what you think happened that night in the comments. I read every one ❤️