I take most of my jewelry, including my jet mourning brooch, my gold locket with miniatures of the twins inside, which I fasten around my neck, and a sapphire ring Mother gave me for my debut. My pin money is still inside my dressing-table drawer: three dollars and some change. I pocket all of it. I briefly consider rifling through Rebecca’s things—I could take some of her jewelry, too—but guilt stops me. My sister and I weren’t always the best of friends, and we were often rivals, but I will not steal from her, even in death. I already have more than enough. As I pass her bed, a memory accosts me, sending another stab of guilt into my gut. I imagine I see Rebecca sitting there, fingers running idly through her long hair as she watches me, her eyes filled with unspoken hurt. I secure my traveling cloak over my shoulders and close the door softly behind me.
A familiar cough comes from downstairs. My muscles tense. Papa. I flatten myself against the wall and watch the soft glow of candlelight swell on the main stairs as he shuffles up the creaking steps. Thankfully, when he reaches the top, he turns right instead of left, toward his study. I remain hidden in the shadows until he enters the study, leaving the door open a crack. A cone of yellow light bleeds into the hall. Damn it. I’ll have to pass his door to get back to the servant stairs.
I shoulder the carpetbag and pad silently forward—not easily done in my heavy boots. As I pass the study, I glimpse Papa’s reflection in the mirror above the mantel. He’s hunched over his desk, inspecting his ledger. I watch him for a moment—his soft jowls hanging above the collar of his nightshirt, his face lit with candlelight. He smiles at something he reads and lifts the book nearer to his eyes. It’s not his ledger. He’s looking at one of my old journals. I recognize the cover—a small, red book stamped with a gilded daisy. I thought myself a poet in my younger years and filled several little books with my childish scribbling.
He turns the page and chuckles. I wrestle my threatening tears into submission. I long to go to him, to sit at his side, as I so often did in the past, watching him as he wrote clandestine letters to senators and congressmen, pleading with his words and money to end the abomination of human slavery and the things he’d borne witness to.
I win the fight against my foolish heart and back away from the door. Downstairs, in the kitchen, I quickly gather half a loaf of bread, three tins of kippers, a jar of jam, and a good, sturdy knife—something I can use for protection, if need be. With another pat to Walter’s head, I leave, closing the door soundlessly behind me. I replace the key beneath the rosemary pot and rush across the garden. In the lane, I turn and take one last look at the home where I was born. Papa’s study window glows in the darkness. Comforting. Warm with his love.
I hold back my tears until I’m halfway down the block, then sink onto a stranger’s tabby stoop and cry for everything I’ve lost and can never have again.
A Vampire’s Diary
Sally
A flash of coin and a smile. That’s all it took with Sally. I’d been following her for weeks before I struck. I knew her habits, how she prowled the avenues south of Broad early in the morning. I watched as Charleston’s finest young men had their way with her, their spirits high after twirling virtuous maidens over parquet floors. They used Sally instead, slaking their callow frustrations inside her eager body. And she was ever eager. Angel-voiced and graceful. In another time, another place, she might have become a famous courtesan or elevated herself to a king’s mistress. Her beauty was singular. Splendid.
She beckoned me with a coy, knowing glance, pocketing my money and pressing herself against me as we kissed. Her mouth tasted of rum and cinnamon, her supple body yielding and warm. So warm. She invited me to follow her back to her rooms so we might take our time. She liked me. Wanted me.
But my needs were too urgent for a leisurely dalliance. I pulled her into a nearby churchyard, which amused her at first. When she realized what was happening, panicbloomed in her eyes before she fell into a swoon, which made my work easy. I waited until her heart stopped pumping, then covered her with my cloak and carried her back to the corner where I’d found her. I retreated into the shadows, Sally’s essence with me, the rich treasure of her blood. Although she wasn’t exalted in life, as she should have been, her death will make her immortal. Both of us were cut from the same cloth, after all. Used by the chivalry, only to be disregarded and forgotten about as soon as their needs are met. Well. Now I will use them as they have used me.
Four
Time slows to a trickle without a home. The days blur together. I measure the hours between waking and sleeping by the next meal. The next place to shelter for the night. The next drink of water.
Water.My parched tongue reminds me of my thirst as I uncurl from my cramped position beneath the deep eaves of the Huguenot church. I’ve sheltered here for the past three nights, out of the wind, but I’ll need to move along soon, before someone notices and reports me for vagrancy. I stand and stretch. I finally abandoned my carpetbag yesterday, its weight too cumbersome to justify. I hadn’t bothered to change into any of the clothing I took from home, anyway, apart from fresh underthings, preferring the freedom the stolen breeches give me. Much better than heavy, long skirts. With my slight frame, and my breasts hidden beneath the too-large shirt, I resemble a boy. I’m fine with the ruse. There’s safety in it.
The sun is a faint, ash-gray glow below the horizon as I make my way to the public cistern. It hasn’t rained for the past few days, so the water in the basin lies stagnant. I dip the ladle and bring it to my mouth, wincing at the stale taste. Thoughts of typhoid fever and cholera accost my mind, but I drink deeply all the same, trying not to gag.
If this is to be the rest of my life—survival in the shadows, with nothing more to look forward to than my next meal—I wonder at my wisdom in trying to live at all. Despair has taken hold of me more than once in the past, especially in prison, when the nights closed in and myregrets got the better of me. I contemplated ending my life many times. Many prisoners did, unable to bear the jail’s unceasing torments. But for some reason, I held on.
Now I wonder why I’ve been given this second chance. Why I’m still here. I see the looks of disdain people give me. Or how they dismiss me outright, turning their heads. I’ve become invisible to them. A nuisance. Charitable souls are rare. In the past week, I’ve encountered only one—a fellow vagrant who offered me a crust of bread. I’d foolishly eaten through most of my pilfered supplies within the first three days.
It’s time to pawn my jewelry and plan for my unsure future. I think of all the places I might go, with enough money in my pockets to buy passage on a steamer or a train. Savannah. New Orleans. Up north. I might disappear anywhere—but with Charleston’s mild winters and familiar streets, I’m loath to leave. It’s home. It always has been. Besides, Papa and Mother are here, their hearts forever tethered to my own with an invisible thread, even if they have no knowledge of my survival. A reunion is impossible, but leaving the city would mean abandoning them forever. I’m not ready to do that. Not yet.
Dawn is breaking when a scream pierces the air, near the corner of Market and King, halting me in my aimless amble. By the time I round the corner, a small crowd has gathered outside a shuttered storefront—a lamplighter, a City Guard officer, a woman in hysterics, and the bespectacled man doing his best to calm her. At their feet, a body lies prone on the cobblestones, covered with a woolen cloak, one white hand outstretched.
I approach cautiously, trying not to call attention to myself, and tuck into a closed storefront’s recessed entryway, leaning forward to listen and catch glimpses of the scene.
“For god’s sake, Cass. Pull yourself together.” The gruff voice belongs to the bespectacled man. In response, the wailing woman snuffles, blows her nose.
“If I may, Mrs. Humphrey, was the young woman entertaining a gentleman last night?” The officer. His voice is cool. Detached.
“I assumed so. She went out around three, as she does. Sally’s my best girl, you see. The prettiest of them. Catches the eye of fancy gents coming home after the balls. I run a fine establishment, sir. The best in the city.”
“Did you know the fellow she was meeting?”
“No.” Another sob. “She didn’t tell me. But when I saw her, just an hour or so ago, she wasn’t with a man. She was alone. Walking down by the docks.”
I watch as the officer kneels next to the corpse, raises the cloak. I see a wan face. A tangle of copper hair. A shiver walks across my shoulders. “I’ll need to fetch the coroner and the morgue wagon. All of you stay here until I’ve returned.”
“I must see to the rest of the lanterns, sir,” the lamplighter interrupts, lifting his snuffing pole. “Any wasted oil comes off my pay.”
The officer stands, lowering his voice. I strain to hear. “I need someone trustworthy to keep an eye on those two, Sam. Make sure they stay here. I’ll return soon.” He dusts off his pin-straight trousers, frowns beneath his mustache, then departs at a brisk clip.
I slump onto the step, examining the ridges of my dirty fingernails. No more than a quarter hour later, the clatter of hooves rings out against the cobbles. The morgue wagon parts the morning fog and pulls along the curb, its pair of mules huffing steam. The coroner, a befuddled-looking man wearing a beaver hat, descends from the wagon, followed by the stern officer.
The madam’s wailing crescendos as the coroner removes the cloak shrouding the body on the cobbles. I gasp. The woman is naked as a babe, her long, slender limbs a preternatural white. Her beauty, even in death, is undeniable, the rouge on her cheeks the only color present apart from the flaming red of her hair. An image of Rebecca on her deathbed flashes across my memory, her sunken eyes, the bluish-purple cast of her mouth. Sally looks like a graveyard angel by comparison. I draw my cape tightly around me to chase the chill from my skin.
