Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

at night?
    We were living just outside Rhinebeck, New York, at the time, in an old Queen Anne–style house with more than fifty acres. The house had been refurbished without losing its character. Daddy had moved in his furniture and paintings, and as all of it would in houses to come, it seemed as though all of it was made just for this house. Everything fit perfectly; every color coordinated. When I commented about that after we had moved into our Brentwood home, Daddy cryptically replied, “All our homes were built especially for us.”
    It did seem as if nothing happened accidentally or by coincidence. Everything Daddy did was well planned,and there was a network of support, not only in America but seemingly all over the world. All our needs were always anticipated and fulfilled, no matter where we were or when we were there.
    The Queen Anne house was, of course, the only family home I had known. I had been brought there directly from the orphanage. Mrs. Fennel, who didn’t look much different to me then, had a large herbal garden just behind the house, and when I was old enough, I often had to work with her, weeding and nursing her plants. As far as I could tell, they were the only things toward which she showed any affection. I was actually jealous of the plants and sometimes wished I had been planted in a garden. She spoke to them as though they really were her children, encouraging them to grow and be healthy and complimenting them on their maturation. She’d stroke their leaves lovingly and even kiss some. Nothing was worse than my accidentally stepping on one of her newly placed plants. Her rage made me tremble and start to cry.
    “Don’t drop your tears in my garden,” she would tell me, her whole body poised and slightly tilted, giving me the impression that she would turn sharply and slice me in half. She made me feel I could contaminate the earth and kill her plants with my tears, and that feeling more than anything, perhaps, had me suck back my sobs and stop crying quickly. Apologies didn’t satisfy her back then, either, even from a small child.
    “I don’t want to hear it,” she would say, sweeping the air between us as if my words were as clearly visible as soot to her. “Just be more careful.”
    I would look back at the house to be sure Daddyhadn’t been watching from some window and seen my blunders. Of course, I hoped she wouldn’t tell him. He never said anything, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know. There wasn’t much about me, what I did or what I said, that he wasn’t aware of, just the way an omnipresent deity might be. Other children might hear their parents say, “God hears and sees everything.” Mrs. Fennel told me, “Your daddy hears and sees everything.”
    Ava was in school and didn’t have these chores to do with Mrs. Fennel, and of course, neither did Brianna. Afterward, I would go into the house with Mrs. Fennel, wash up, and have my lunch. Then Brianna would take control of my day, and I would be at the piano or learning words and other important basic information. All the toys I had seemed to have some educational purpose, whether they were coloring books that taught me about animals and geography or little plastic dining sets to teach me how to sit at a table properly and eat properly. The dolls I had were mainly there to serve as props for my education in social graces. I was never permitted to develop any sort of relationship with or affection for one particular doll and take it to bed with me. When I tried that once, Mrs. Fennel smashed the doll’s head.
    No, the security and comfort I would find had to be found inside myself. There was never any hesitation about closing my bedroom door at night. If something frightened me and I screamed or cried, Daddy was the only one who would come to comfort me.
    “You’re one of my precious little girls,” he would tell me. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Why, it would be like letting something bad happen to myself.”
    Little did I know how true that was to him.
    But I got my first hint of it that particular night, when I woke suddenly and heard Brianna. After her laughter, she sounded as if she was pleading with someone. My room was at the corner of the house closest to the driveway that led to the unattached garage. I slipped out from under my comforter. It was the beginning of fall, and although we hadn’t yet had a night with temperatures below freezing, it was cool enough to justify sleeping