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Legacy
by Leanna Renee Hieber
I would often watch Mother paint, in the corner of the attic that was all her own. She set up her easels at the top of our estate's turret, a circular space lined with windows that looked out over our lawn. Her paints were strewn about, her paintbrushes standing sentry in various jars, and her corset was loosely laced beneath a thin, flowing dressing gown spattered with dark flecks of paint; crimsons, rich blues and black.
"Mother, what are you painting now?" I asked one day, sitting mesmerized by the scene unfolding beneath her brush.
"A ship on the sea," she replied, her voice always gentle.
"During a storm? It's awfully dark."
"Yes, dear."
I looked around at the turret walls that were year by year filled more and more fully with painted landscapes of tempest tossed tides, as if the water were closing in upon us. There were a few frames of white figures upon grey cliffs, and the rest were silhouettes in rich shadows.
"They are all dark," I stated. "Your work is full of storms and midnight."
Mother turned to me then, and her bright eyes sparkled with a strange light.
"I paint the bad dreams, Elizabeth, such that cause me fitful slumber. Then those sights live here only." Mother gestured to the canvass. "And not here." She softly tapped my forehead. "You will tell me, my dear, if you ever have such dreams, won't you?"
There was an inscrutable concern in her eyes I did not understand at my tender age of twelve.
The secret to that concern lay, in part, behind the door beneath the stairs.
On the ground floor of our estate, tucked into the base of our grand entrance staircase was a small white door brighter than all the rest of the walls.
I hadn't thought much of it as it seemed plainly for storage, until I tried to open it one day. Its locks were unusually fortified. This little door, narrow and gothic-arched at the top, began to fascinate me. What hidden knowledge must lie behind its locks?
There didn't seem to be many secrets in our house. But at the age of twelve, I began to wonder about the few that lived.
For years, mother would slip away quietly on a long midnight walk. Sometimes father would accompany her, often she went alone. She usually carried some sort of bag with her.
The day after I'd tried the door, I started asking questions.
"Gram, why does Mother go out so late? It isn't proper, is it?" I asked as my Grandmother sat with me in the parlor, as she always did if ever Mother was out. I was raised to be an immaculately mannered little lady, and so Grandmother chuckled at the eyebrow I raised at her.
"To look at the moon, dear girl." And that was all Grandmother would say. "There's nothing improper about the moon."
There was a period of her life Mother did not speak about.
Again, I was not cognizant of that fact until these other factors were considered. No children are aware of oddities until they begin to wonder about the world at large and that their parents might have peculiar habits.
I often asked her to recount the tale of how she and father met. Occasionally, they spoke about their marriage, however the circumstances surrounding their matrimony were never shared. This meant nothing to me until I thought to question it.
I would lie awake nights and listen for her, watching moonlight pass luminously through my lace-drenched room, waiting for those delicately crafted corners of my curtains to tremble slightly when Mother's footsteps sounded in the hall..
After her long walks her gliding tread beat more heavily upon the floor when she returned, moving down the center hall a floor below my room. I knew exactly how many paces it took her to travel from the front door, across the wide wooden boards and to the mysterious portal under the stairs. I counted the steps each night that she left the house and returned again.
Mother, I am sure, always thought I was asleep.
The locked door opened upon creaking hinges.
Water usually splashed in a wash basin. It occurred to me that a wash basin in a storage closet was very odd.
I listened to these subtle sounds for months before ever daring to creep to the landing and spy on her. But one night I did. A bad dream woke me, and I thought I might as well attempt to catch a glimpse of her.
Out of my bedroom I padded, clutching my nightgown, hoping she wouldn't notice my ghost-like little form peeking from the railings. I should have known better. Mother could sense presences without the benefit of sight.
There she was in her traveling dress and feathered hat, small cloak drawn tightly over her blouse and vest, a bag over one shoulder, leaning upon her umbrella as if slightly winded. Around her neck glittered something. Curiously, I leaned closer and found it to be a crucifix. A crucifix with beads around it; a rosary. Mother never wore such things. She never wore her trust in the Lord in such a symbol; her faith was strong, steadfast, but silent. Hidden.
She sensed me then, for she turned ever so slightly and her eyes went right to me, through the banister rails and directly into my heart. I looked at her sheepishly. Her eyebrows raised in that subtle manner I knew mattered much more than it appeared to.
"Elizabeth Lucille, just what are you doing out of bed at this hour?"
I fumbled a moment, then remembered what she had said to me in the turret. "Bad dream," I murmured, biting my lip. It was, after all, the truth.
"Ah, I see. Well go back to bed. I'll come and sit with you," Mother assured, unpinning her hat.
I noticed her hands with a start. "Mother, what have you been doing?" I asked. She turned to me once again, a weariness in her fair face I'd never seen before.
"Nothing dear, just a little cleaning up."
"Cleaning what?"
"Oh, scourges of the world, that sort of thing." She set her hat upon one of the pegs at the door and her umbrella in the tall vase beside it.
"There's blood on your hand." I pointed.
"Ah, so there is," Mother said nonchalantly.
I made my way down the rest of the stairs and followed her silently, my mouth agape. She did not go to the closet of secret wonders but instead glided to a small washroom in an adjoining alcove, snatched a towel and dipped it in the washbasin.
While she must not have thought I could hear her as she turned away, she muttered: "Messy, brooding bastards."
"What?"
Mother looked over her shoulder at me a moment then returned to her cleaning as she replied. "I said I must've missed, pruning the asters. Weeds are the scourge of the world."
"It must be nearly midnight. You couldn't have been trimming flowers, Mother."
"Inquisitive and a botanical expert." She sighed.
"Mother, you're up to something."
"Am I?"
My boldness took hold of me and I decided she needed to tell me everything I'd ever wondered about. "I want to know what's inside the locked door down the hall."
"Oh, that?" Mother laughed. "Some old heirlooms, supplies and such."
"Why is it locked?"
"It's valuable."
"May I see?"
"I've lost the key, darling."
"No you haven't. I heard your footsteps coming out of there last night."
Mother set her jaw, and I was afraid she was angry with me for my importunity. Instead, her eyes sparkled with pride. My expression must have lit suddenly in response. I loved when Mother was proud.
"My clever girl."
"Well?" I insisted, feeling increasingly bold.
"Well what?"
"Why did you need heirlooms near midnight last night?"
"I didn't. I needed supplies."
"What sort?"
"Cleaning supplies."
"For the scourges of the world?"
"Exactly, now if you don't go to bed in the next five minutes you shall be a scourge of my world," Mother said, flashing a smile I knew was non-negotiable.
Sitting by my bedside in a rocking chair, she sang me a lullaby in a rich warm voice that was the safest sound I could imagine.
The dreams began to come every night after that.
Perhaps they knew I'd begun to wonder, to ask questions. Contemplating Pandora's box.
There were things outside my window. Voyeur things. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I would catch something just beyond the twilight shadows of the attic, watching Mother as she painted. I was terribly frightened to say anything, thinking surely the family would deem me mad.
But one night a dream must have driven me to scream. I found I wasn't in my bed when Mother shook me awake. I was in our entrance foyer, staring at the locked closet door. Mother's eyes were wide and stormy, and her auburn hair caught a reddish fire in the moonlight.
"Come to bed, Elizabeth," she said gently, scooping me up into a cradle hold, her arms stronger than I thought. "Do you remember what you dreamt?"
"Not tonight, it was very vague," I said, clutching onto her, frightened. Lightning lit the sky and thunder growled at us.
"Anything at all?"
I closed my eyes and struggled to remember images. "There was a solitary silhouette. It was very, very sad, weeping perhaps, in a wet, dark room, with a rose in hand. And then a horrid smell came over everything and something dark and terrible encompassed the figure and began to devour it like a wolf."
"Hmm." Mother sighed. "I'd rather you dreamt of lovely things like rabbits or candy." She kissed me on the forehead then stared into my eyes until my unease faded. I smiled at her as she placed me again in my bed.
Her lullaby that night, though still gentle and lovely, seemed far away, as if her voice was crossing the water, blown on the wind from a distant cliff. Just before I drifted off, Father came in and gazed at me with a soft smile, went over to mother and placed his hands lovingly on her shoulders as she finished her song and led her away, his arm around her waist.
Father was a quiet man, always staring at Mother in awe.
I slept restlessly. In my waking hours, I made the firm decision I would, that night, try and open that door.
Having no idea how to pick a lock, it took me quite a bit of fumbling, amid frustrated groans and frightened starts. I jumped at every creak that sounded in our house, terrified Mother would come down and find me struggling to uncover her secrets.
In my nervous state, I had neglected to bring a candle with me. The consequences of this were terribly inconvenient, for the moonlight through the stained-glass front door was diffuse and elusive, not lighting my surroundings with any efficiency. However, I dared not risk turning the gas-lamp. My mission was already underway and could not be deterred.
After quite a bit of wresting, the lock separated in my hand, and I returned my hair pin to my head. I had read in the paper about how a burglar just down the street from us had gained entry into Mr. Sark's tool shed using a woman's hairpin on just such a lock. I felt quite wicked.
There was a surging in my blood as I eased the door open. I winced at the roaring creak the hinges made but was undeterred; my quarry was at last unfolding unto me.
Everything was dark, as if the moonlight refused to cross the threshold. I stood there, discerning only the outline of shelves in the deep shadows of the closet. As my eyes adjusted, I took a tentative step forward. The temperature all around me decreased, like a warning, or an omen. I returned my bare feet to the safety of the threshold. The little room did not approve of my presence.
Upon the shelves, set neatly in stacks, were what appeared to be small piles of timber, thin rods of wood. Various boxes stood sentry along the walls to either side of me. I could glean the faintest outline of what appeared to be a cross marked upon the boxes. On the door's wall were strung small bottles in long, vine-like cords. The tiny glass bottles were corked, and a colorless fluid filled each one. A vague, sickly sweet smell of dried roses wafted across my nostrils.
"What sort of supplies are these?" I breathed. The room made no answer. My heart pounded.
I heard a distinct creak on the stair. Panicked, I hurriedly shut the door, replaced the lock in hopes my tampering would not be apparent, and darted into the parlor, throwing myself beneath the divan whose curtained legs hid me entirely.
I listened as a familiar tread proceeded directly to the enigmatic little room. Mother's steps were firm and precise. A candle illuminated her crossing, seen merely as a floating swath of light down the hall opposite. A swift click as a key fit the lock and I heard the door again, but for Mother it opened easily, not the resistant creak that had scoffed at my intrusion. I yearned to peek my head from my hiding place, to catch another glimpse of the room, but thought it far too dangerous.
There came a sound then, and I determined it to be of one of the stacks of wood being dropped, the rods thumping one another with dull noise as they tumbled into a cloth bag. Next the gentle tinkling sound of the glass bottles being shifted, perhaps lifted. And finally, several lightweight items being sprinkled into the open bag.
Then, with all the calm assurance that accompanied Mother like a piece of orchestrated music, the door was closed, the candle and indeterminate "supplies" in hand, and the footsteps dwindled not down the hall and out the door, but up the stairs and more and more faintly into her bedroom. I thought she might be mysteriously on her way out for the evening. But I was mistaken.
I was left again in the darkness, puzzled. Returning to bed with renewed curiosity, I was no more at peace. I burned to know what all of it meant.
It took me ages to drift to sleep, and when I did, the dreams were painfully vibrant.
This night changed everything.
Behind my fluttering eyelids, struggling to cling to sleep, I caught a silhouette out of the corner of my eye, there in that netherworld of sight. It called to me from just beyond my window, something sickly sweet and entirely incomprehensible to my young mind. I had no idea if I dreamt or if I was awake. Regardless, I was pulled inexorably to it. I feared and delighted all at once. Something was happening...something that tasted of stormy skies, of wild winds, and salty water. I was dreaming... And yet not dreaming...
"Hello, dear little girl," a voice like an angel murmured in my mind, or perhaps in my ear. "Come with me. Mother won't know..."
I have no idea how I drifted out of my front door, but I must have done so. I cannot recall how I ended up down the street at the small cemetery overgrown with vines and tumbled down stones.
All I knew of the next moments was that a beautiful woman was singing to me, and her appearance matched her angelic voice.
She sat me upon a sepulcher, then walked around the marble monument in a methodical circle. I was entranced by her lullaby, but I had an acrid taste in my mouth. If this was a dream, I needed to wake immediately and tell Mother, these were the sorts of reveries she'd warned about. I did not think I had spoken this wish aloud, but the woman before me responded.
"Your dear mum won't find you in time," the woman said softly, sweetly.
I blinked several times.
The woman opened her ruby lips again. "She's so clever, that one, and dangerous. Overpowered the greatest of our time, perhaps the greatest ever."
"What are you talking about?" I stammered after a long moment, my breath ragged, a nervous dread seething in my veins.
"It does not matter, dear Elizabeth Lucille. All that matters is tonight. Not only are you my dear little morsel but you bring me the satisfaction of revenge."
With this, she opened her mouth and I saw gleaming teeth, sharp and pointed. I began to shake violently, suddenly sure this was no dream and she was no angel.
She growled. "This is for him, and for the others... May your family burn in the fires of the pit!"
She shifted her head to the side in a movement more animal than human, and her mouth came hurtling to my throat. I screamed.
A figure moved from behind a gravestone.
"In the name of the Father!" a voice bellowed, a vaguely familiar sound, but never like this.
There was a sharp, plunging and cracking sound, as of bones and wood breaking, followed by a disgustingly liquid sound. The demon-like woman who was breathing down my neck whirled around in a furious rage and loosed an ungodly shriek. A segment of wood protruded from her bosom, a thick black fluid pouring out down her lovely white dress.
I stared in abject shock at the figure that had just appeared at our side.
Mother.
The angel-turned-devil clawed at the air and her pierced bosom, alternately. The monster raised a vicious hand towards Mother, reaching out for her throat.
"And of the Son!" Mother boldly reached forward and placed a small white disc I recognized as a communion wafer upon the demon's forehead and the flesh beneath began to sizzle. Again, the demon cried out.
"And of the Holy Ghost!" Mother whipped an axe from her belt. With two hands, she lifted the blade that gleamed in the moonlight. Swiftly, skillfully she swung it, promptly severing the head from the shoulders of the thing that had just tried to devour me. The head hit the ground near me with a sickening sound and rolled towards me, eyes open, flesh seared, blood dripping and puddling all around me.
I screamed again.
The beheaded body of the creature fell in a lifeless heap.
Wholly unable to speak, I could only stare at Mother, who stood, axe in hand, blood drenched.
"I thought you promised to tell me when you were having bad dreams!" Mother scolded quietly.
"I…I...," I fumbled, tears streaming down my face, my arms outstretched.
"Shh. It's done, Elizabeth, let's go home."
I ran to her and threw my arms around her. Pulling back, I noticed just how much blood, and that it was now all over me.
All over Mother's dark cloak, all over my pale nightgown, horrifying and garish. I shuddered and cried. Mother held me firmly by the hand and led me home.
"What just happened?" I asked fearfully.
"Many dreams are merely harmless bad dreams," she said. "But that was a living nightmare." Mother bent and lifted my hair from my neck and examined me closely.
"What was that woman?" I clasped Mother's hand with all of my might. My body would not stop shaking.
Mother stood again, sufficiently satisfied that my neck was unscathed. "A poor, damned creature of the night," she replied.
"A human?"
"No. Far worse."
"What then? Do other people know about them? How do you know?" My rattled thoughts raced faster than I could speak.
"Vampires have lived as myths for centuries. Those who are destined to know of them do. I was destined."
"Vampires," I echoed. Distantly, I remembered hearing that word once, referenced against some vile thing that I could not recall.
There were a thousand other questions I was desperate to ask, but I didn't even know where to begin. So I stared at the clouds rolling across the sky and we spent the rest of the walk home in silence.
Father was sitting on the parlor settee when we arrived, his face ashen. He rushed up to Mother and I the moment we came in the door. He nearly fainted when he saw the blood.
"Darlings, you're all right?"
"Yes, of course, dear," Mother assured.
I eyed Father, wondering how much he knew about this sort of madness.
After washing me off, cleaning herself, and fixing a hot cup of tea for us both, we sat in silence in the parlor for a long time. Father joined us, and the three of us sat in long, strained silence until I burst with inquiries.
"Mother, you must tell me...what was all that? What did that thing want from me?" My voice was tremulous and weak against the strength of the silence.
"You were about to be dinner, my dear," Mother replied, sipping her tea. She turned to Father briefly. "This one must have been eyeing us for a while."
I gulped. Father gulped, too.
"What…what do you do to them to stop them…tonight… I don't understand what you did."
"I send them on their way with a benediction, with hope their ungodly souls find peace."
"You simply bless them?"
"Oh, heavens no. You saw it, Elizabeth! You drive a sharp wooden stake deep through their heart and cut off their head. That is the only way."
"Darling!" Father said, shocked.
"Our girl was witness to the deed. We cannot keep her in the dark forever. You tried that with me and look how well that worked!"
"Yes, but... must she know every gruesome detail?"
"There's no unseeing what she saw with her own eyes, my dear. And for that matter, just because I was one, dear husband, does not mean I should not speak of them forthright, if asked."
"You were a vampire?" I nearly shrieked.
Father groaned and dropped his face into his hands.
"For a bit." Mother shrugged. "I'm afraid I didn't really have the taste for eternal damnation. It isn't really my sort of thing."
I gaped at her. "But…," I stammered after a long silence, "are you one now?"
"Of course not." Mother laughed. "You see me in the daylight, don't you? I do not sleep in a coffin nor do I sup upon your blood, dear heart. I killed the one that made me, and I was myself again."
"We killed him," Father was quick to point out.
Mother gave Father a look that said many things. Usually that sort of look meant in the end, her version of a story would be the correct one and there would be no further questioning.
"When...?" I breathed.
"Before your Father and I were married. We took a little trip out East to find him. It was all quite exciting." Mother's eyes gleamed. "Well, terrifying at the time, of course, but looking back upon it all now, it was quite an incredible experience."
Father looked ill. "Must we speak of this?"
Mother folded her hands in her lap demurely. "Very well." She turned her gaze to me. "Time for bed."
I looked at her incredulously. "I could not possibly sleep now!"
Mother returned my gaze, sympathetically. "My poor dear. You are dealing with this grave knowledge at a far younger age than I."
I blinked at her, dazed.
"You cut off that woman's head!" I screamed suddenly.
Mother nodded calmly. "Yes. Part of the job."
"Job? Is that what you do every evening when you are out late?"
"Mostly."
"And the room below stairs, its full of things for this...terrible trade?"
"Trade? You speak as if this were a business. Oh, sweet Lizzie, this is my destiny, not my profession."
"Why you?"
"Her strength," Father cut in. "Her gentle yet stoic resolve. Her heart's fortitude and her spirit's redemption."
Mother smiled at him, then slowly looked away. "You see, I couldn't bear that sort of... power over me...not for eternity," Mother murmured in an addendum that seemed as much for her own benefit as mine. She stared at me suddenly, earnestly.
"Please, I'm very tired. Let's all get some rest."
After her actions this evening, I did not dare resist Mother's wishes, though I knew I'd only lie awake, trembling.
Father rose and slipped quietly out of the room.
"May I come next time?" I whispered, leaning in towards Mother.
"Most certainly not!"
That night Mother sat in the rocking chair next to my bed and sang her lullaby, a sweet soft melody that was ever beautiful. She sat with me for a long time, staring at me gently, protectively. I wanted her there near me always, hero that she was.
I feigned slumber so she could feel at ease in leaving me. However, I lay awake all night, clutching my blankets, wary of the shadows, reliving the horrors of the night.
My love for Mother deepened immeasurably as I kept thinking of her staring down that monster, administering the swift and terrible blows. I imagined her standing at the gate of Hell, stoic and undeterred, axe in hand, fearless, with a kind smile.
The next morning, once Father had left for work and Mother took to her painting, I sat at her feet.
"I want to carry on the family business, Mother," I declared.
Mother started. "Oh dear. It is not a 'family business', darling, don't ever let your Father or Grandmum hear that. Their hearts would give out right then and there. I will not have you mixed up in such a nasty trade. Fate gave me my lot, but it is not, and shall not be inherited."
"But when you die, who will do it? I will not stand by and see innocent people become monsters. It is not right. Should I simply step aside and let them take some other mother's child?"
Mother sighed and the light in her eyes, that very distinctive light, told me she wished to speak no more.
But I could not stop thinking. There could be a legacy, Mother's legacy. And I would uphold it. Axe in hand, I would, in turn, see to the destruction of that voluptuous darkness... beautiful and terrifying as it was. Perhaps I could taste a bit of that danger as she had, to become it as she had, and overcome it. As she had.
That night, I followed Mother.
I wanted to know what she knew, all of it. I waited and watched, wanting to see her at work. Her thankless, horrid work.
On this night, she did not track any mysterious silhouettes. On this night, the shadows did not sing or move. I did not taste a sickly sweet presence in the air. Instead I followed her to a remote place in the graveyard where she stood alone.
Mother stared down at the ground. There was a rose in her hand. Her head was bent as if in prayer or concentration.
I moved forward and found Mother was not surprised to see me. She merely nodded to me with quiet solemnity.
In a shaded corner of the cemetery, at Mother's feet there lay a small stone of polished white marble. Into the surface was carved a single title, and there were no dates to accompany the name.
"The Count."
The silence seemed deafening after I read the stone. I looked to Mother, my brow furrowed in rapt curiosity.
"Who...?"
"A powerful nobleman, dear."
"The one that woman spoke of," I said, recalling the monstrous woman's vengeful declaration.
"Perhaps."
"Why are you here?" I murmured.
Mother raised an eyebrow at me. "Why are you here?"
I shrugged sheepishly. And then she smiled.
That smile told me someday she would teach me, she would show me how to do her work.
Mother turned back to the stone and spoke softly. "I am here out of respect for his ashes."
"Ashes?"
"All there was left of him. I brought a bit of them here."
"From where?"
"The wild expanses of Eastern Europe, his native soil."
"Was he...the one that…?" I choked on my words. Mother nodded slightly. I gasped. "Why did he make you one?"
Her expression halted my speech. Though her face was calm, her eyes were full of an ancient struggle. "He loved me. At least, as much as he could love. And in the end, perhaps, that was why he faltered." She bent to place the wild rose upon the stone.
A breeze stirred around us as we walked towards home. Mother's face was slightly upturned as she held my hand. Her mind seemed far away as we reached the cemetery gate. She was so elegant, so full of resolve.
"Mina...," the wind whispered.
"Yes, dear," Mother replied. "I am still here. Rest in peace."