Darlings of Darkness: A Vampire Anthology Part 57

Just at that moment, the sisters' black cat wandered in behind them. It immediately began purring at my feet and rubbed itself against my legs. It had never set foot in our apartment before and it was strange that it did so then, when my mother and father appeared to be missing.

It jumped up so that it balanced on its hind legs and leaned against me. I momentarily forgot all about the commotion that I had caused and leaned forward to pick it up, cuddling it while it continued to purr. "That's strange," said June, "she's usually terrified of people." The cat was clearly not terrified of me. It was the first time I had ever stroked an animal and I felt a strange affinity with it. It was a wonderful feeling as it rubbed its head against my neck. Looking into her deep, warm eyes, for a moment I felt a strange sensation within me. It felt as though I was being loved. I didn't want to lose the feeling so I sat down on the floor and stroked her soft fur, smiling.

"I'm going to call the police," one of the sisters said as the other tried to coax me off the floor. I didn't feel myself, for some reason. An odd trance-like state came over me.

"Come now, dear. Come and sit on the sofa. You'll catch your death on those cold floor tiles."

I did as I was told and followed her to our uncomfortable hard red leather sofa, where we waited until the police arrived. The cat sat on my lap and the two sisters sat on either side of me.

Dorothy and June told me that they had kept an eye on me and my parents throughout the years that we had lived next door to them.

"We know that your mother leads a strict routine, my dear, so to hear you banging on the door like that had us worried," said June.

"We've never known anything ever happen to you like this so we thought we'd better come over straight away and find out what's going on," added Dorothy as she gently patted my hand with her own wrinkled, yet perfectly manicured, fingers.

My calm moments with the cat were cut short by the arrival of two young uniformed male police officers, followed by a third woman. The cat jumped out of my arms like a shot. She was clearly spooked by the presence of strangers and had vanished from our flat, presumably to return to the safety of her home. My calm feeling faded the moment she was gone.

The female police officer was very kind and polite and asked me a few questions about myself and my parents. When had I last seen them? Where did they work? Was it common for them to leave without telling me? Did they have mobile phones? I didn't even know the answer to the last question, although if they did, I never saw or heard them. Technology wasn't a word I heard used in our home. Not that there were ever many words used at all. More questions were asked of me and so I answered them as best as I could before the other two police officers managed to literally knock the door down. I wasn't prepared for what I saw and I don't think they were either. There was almost nothing. Just a simple room, painted black the floors, ceiling and walls all painted black. There were no chairs, no desks, nothing. The only things to be seen in the room were a small black shelf which contained two gla.s.s vials. One was filled with a thick deep red liquid and the other contained what appeared to be something from the insides of an animal I couldn't identify it, but it looked disgusting. A pang of fear shot through me. Fear for my parents' safety.

"Do you have any idea what substance this is, Miss?" asked one of the police officers.

I shook my head. "I've never been in here before."

The two men gave each other a sideways glance that was way too obvious for me not to have seen.

"Right then, Miss, would you like to wait outside while we gather some of this evidence together?" said the first officer as the other led me out of the black room.

Snippets of conversation could be heard as I waited for them to finish.

"This is definitely blood. What on earth do you think has been going on in here then, Pete?"

"Beats me, Dave. I tell you one thing though, it's weird, whatever it is. It's almost like something out of a horror film. Here... look at this."

The female officer appeared by my side and cleared her throat. The conversation in the black room suddenly became quieter.

"Don't worry, Lilly. We'll get to the bottom of this," she said, smiling. "We'll find your mum and dad."

After about half an hour, the officers appeared from the room, carrying the vials in two clear plastic bags.

"Okay, Constable Madley, we've all the evidence now. We'll take them to the lab for tests," said the taller of the two.

He tipped his hat to me and smiled before carrying everything out of the flat.

Following behind, the other one stopped in front of me and crouched down, looking me in my eyes. His dark brown eyes and the soft laughter lines around his mouth gave him a look of kindness. I hadn't noticed when they'd first arrived. "Lilly, we'll be in touch as soon as we have any information as to the whereabouts of your parents. Don't worry. We'll find them." He stood up then and patted Constable Madley on the back. They were clearly friends, as well as colleagues. He smiled at her, "Thank you, Constable Madley. We'll see you back at the station."

CHAPTER THREE.

My parents' disappearance continued to be a complete mystery. The police had told me that even though they had followed several lines of enquiry and spoken to countless people; they had come up without a single clue to go on. Not one person had seen them. I was the only one that had seen them that day. Well, I had seen her. I hadn't actually seen my father. I had just a.s.sumed he was there. I rarely saw him anyway, I rarely even heard him. Every now and then I would hear her speak to him but I never heard him reply.

It had been a hot and humid summer and, unusual for England at that time of year, it had lasted for quite a few weeks. Naturally, there had been a hose pipe ban as happened every time the sun shone for more than a week there. I had only been aware of it because my teachers were keen to teach us all about current environmental issues.

Not that I noticed the ban. We didn't have a garden, we didn't even have any plants. Our home was a bare flat in London where I had lived all my life all thirteen years of it. I can't say I was happy, nor can I say I was particularly unhappy because I wouldn't have known the true meaning of either word.

I was very much a loner with no friends until December came along. Luckily, the majority of kids at school were pleasant enough to us but we didn't feel like we belonged with any of them so we simply avoided contact. Of course there were a few that taunted us every now and again, but we took little notice. They seemed to taunt a lot of people at school, having silly nicknames for everyone - apart from December. The kids were amused enough by her name not to bother making up another. Mine was Mellow Yellow probably because I was so quiet and wore a lot of yellow. Not by choice though. The few clothes that I owned were bought by my mother and for some reason they were all yellow, not even a nice shade of yellow. All were second-hand clothes and none fitted me properly, but I certainly couldn't complain even if I hated them all. Like I said, my parents and I didn't really talk.

December and I preferred being in our own little world, alone with our thoughts or curled up with a sneaky book under the large chestnut tree in the playground.

At school, we blended into the background. We were courteous to most people and most of them were courteous to us. Yet if you asked anyone about me, even my name, I doubted very much that any of the kids would know. At least that was the case until my parents mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth. Then everyone seemed to know my name. Everyone knew I was Lilly Taylor.

Word had spread rapidly as I walked through the school gates a few days later.

Out of habit, December had waited hidden behind the walls for my arrival. She needn't have, of course. There was no one watching me from our window. She hugged me tightly but didn't say a word. Somehow she just knew how I felt.

Shame the other kids didn't have a clue. Fingers pointed, people whispered and stared at me. Not a single other person approached me. Had it not been for December, I would have felt even more alone than I had ever felt before. I could easily have cried on her shoulder but the tears did not come. As much as I wished they would, they wouldn't come. It was a strange feeling because I had never really had much of a relations.h.i.+p with either parent. I never felt loved. I never even felt liked. But they were my family.

The closest people to me at that time of my life, other than December, were the kind neighbours who had offered to take care of me until my parents were found. Or, in the event that they did not return, until plans were made for me to travel across the world to stay with my grandfather in Canada. A grandfather I knew nothing about. December would be crushed. I was her only friend and she needed me as much as I needed her. I would hate to have to leave her, but deep down I knew that it was likely.

Rather than put me into temporary foster care, Social Services had agreed that my staying with the sisters was the best thing for me. Familiarity, they said, would be better than handing me over to complete strangers. Dorothy and June were spinsters. They had never married but had been happy enough living together their entire lives. They were good and honest and they were trustworthy. I couldn't have stayed with December and her family even if I had wanted to. She didn't have the best relations.h.i.+p with them. After her elderly father had died, her young mother had dumped her with his family and returned to America without her. What the wealthy family gave to December in financial security, they lacked in love. She was as lonely as I was and they would never have allowed her to take me home with her.

Later that afternoon, I had rushed out of the school gates and looked up at the window to see if my mother had come back. She wasn't there, of course. No vision in white.

As I stood there, it occurred to me that for the very first time in my life I could do anything I wanted. Anything in the world. But I had no idea what to do. I looked around and watched many of the other kids laughing and joking. Some kicked around a football, others sat on the wall sneakily smoking cigarettes, while some of the younger ones were collected by their loving parents. December sadly waved goodbye from her chauffeur-driven car.

Instead of heading 'home', I gingerly walked in the opposite direction, looking back over my shoulder afraid that someone might swoop down and pull me back. Yet for the first time ever I felt no pull to return to that place. If it wasn't for Dorothy and June, I would probably have just carried on walking, but deep down I knew I was too honest a person and couldn't hurt them like that. Especially when they had shown nothing but kindness to me.

So I turned around and headed back up those stairs. The ones I had walked up a million times before. Yet this time, I entered the apartment across the hall from my parents' place. As I unlocked the door, the most delicious smell of home cooking invaded my every pore and the sounds of laughter came from the living room. I followed the sounds and instead of finding the sisters, I found the television switched on. I sat down and watched for a few minutes, laughing at the silly man who pranced around like a complete idiot getting himself stuck in silly situations. Watching until it finished, I discovered that he was called Mr Bean. It was then that I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for doing something I was never permitted to do. I peered over my shoulder guiltily before getting up and walking into the kitchen.

"Oh h.e.l.lo, dear. You're just in time for dinner. Come in. Don't just hover by the door. I hope you had a good day at school. I've made us a Shepherd's Pie. I hope you like that," said Dorothy as she gently pushed her white blonde curls behind her ears before spooning the food onto a plate for me.

I had no idea what a Shepherd's Pie was, but I nodded enthusiastically nonetheless. It was delicious. Easily the most delicious meal I had ever had, considering my mother never cooked anything for me. Everything came straight from a tin. Tinned spaghetti, tinned beans, tinned peas, tinned mince, tinned potatoes, tinned soup, and so on. And most of it was given to me cold. Stone cold. I only knew it was all tinned food because of the time I had sneaked in when she wasn't looking and had opened the cupboards to find a lifetime's supply of the stuff.

I had never been allowed to spend any length of time in our kitchen, other than to quickly eat, so I had no idea how to prepare food. I guess back then I had a.s.sumed that everybody ate tinned food.

"Did this come out of a tin, Dorothy?" I asked.

"Oh my dear!" she said, "Of course not. We cook everything fresh in this house. Did your mother never prepare you a home cooked meal?"

I shook my head and told her about the kinds of things I had eaten and she looked shocked, as did June.

"I take it that means she never taught you to how to cook?"

I shook my head again and told them I wasn't allowed in the kitchen.

"Well, while you're staying with us, we'll just have to change that, won't we? We'll show you everything you need to know. But first, eat up and enjoy dear. We'll start to teach the basics tomorrow after school," Dorothy smiled kindly as she patted my hand.

As I enjoyed those wonderful mashed potatoes with the tasty meat beneath, I felt another pang of guilt. Guilt that my parents had vanished and there I was, stuffing myself like some sort of famished orphan. But then, perhaps that's what I had become. An orphan. And I was hungry. Very hungry.

That evening, the guilt continued to consume me. So much so that I felt the need to do something about it. Something drastic. And there was only one thing that I could do. I secretly borrowed a pair of scissors from the kitchen and sneaked into the bathroom. After locking the door, I stood looking at my reflection in the mirror and before I could talk myself out of it, I took those scissors to my hair and hacked it all off. As I stared at myself, I wished for that guilt to disappear. It didn't. I needed to do more. Searching through the sisters' belongings in the cupboard, I came across a box with a picture of a woman with the same coloured hair as Dorothy. Without giving it a second thought, I opened the box, emptied the contents on the floor and sat on the bath mat as I read everything on the leaflet inside the box. As instructed, I mixed the contents of the bottles together and began covering my hair with the cream. The strong odour made my eyes water as I slowly began to bleach out the black from my hair.

Over an hour later, I stood staring at my reflection, a mountain of long black hair covered the floor by my feet. I inched closer to the mirror and stared into my eyes. Their usual shade of vivid green seemed flat and lifeless. Murky. I wished the guilt would disappear. I wished for tears to come. I wished for the return of my parents. But it was no good. There was no one to make my wishes come true.

I crept back into the spare bedroom and pulled out all of my awful yellow clothes. Spreading them on the soft pink carpet, I used the same pair of scissors to cut them and rip them so that they didn't hang loosely from my body any more. Just for a moment, I forgot my circ.u.mstances and enjoyed the creativity. What I was left with, however, wasn't what I had intended. They were still a mess, and they were all still yellow. I didn't want to wear yellow any more. I didn't want to be the Mellow Yellow girl.

I walked into the living room where Dorothy and June sat glued to the television, and I stopped in the doorway to watch the screen for a few moments. I listened as a middle-aged man talked about a recent spate of mysterious attacks on horses that had taken place within the London area.

A minute later, the cat jumped off the sofa and started making a fuss of me. The two women noticed and turned to see what she was so interested in. Dorothy cried when she saw me. June gave me a hug. She just seemed to understand why I had done it. I sat down in between them both on the sofa and told them what I had done to all my clothes. Their look of sadness didn't go unnoticed by me and I felt bad for making them feel that way.

As the cat rubbed itself against my bare legs, Dorothy suddenly stood up and smiled with a twinkle in her.

"I have an idea," she said, "come on."

June stood up too and laughed, "Of course."

"We always wondered why your mother dressed you in yellow, dear. It's really not a flattering colour for you at all. I know we're just a couple of old spinsters, but we've still got our clothes from when we were younger. We just might have some things that will fit you. Let's go and have a look," added June.

I followed the sisters into a fourth bedroom, a room without a bed, instead filled with hangers and hangers of clothes. I had never seen so many bright and beautiful things. It wasn't just the colours that were so beautiful to me, it was the feel of the clothes, soft and silky. So unlike the hard and scratchy fabrics I had always worn.

However, as much as they tried to give me colourful skirts and blouses, I found myself drawn to black. With my newly-dyed white hair, I told them I just wanted to wear black. Deep down, I felt unworthy somehow of wearing anything else. Eventually they conceded and pulled out everything they had in black. There wasn't much but it was a far cry from Mellow Yellow. That night, the sisters' sewing machine went into overdrive making all my new clothes to fit my small frame.

Walking through the school gates the following day I held my head up high and let them point and stare. There were whispers but there were also wolf whistles from the heartless boys that didn't care for my emotions. But I couldn't care less. n.o.body called me Mellow Yellow after that. I was finally just Lilly.

"Your hair!" were the first words from December's mouth. "As much as I loved the black hair, I do love the white, although I'm not so keen on the hacked look," she giggled. December was always good at making me feel better with a well-timed, and much-needed joke. She didn't mention my missing parents or the lack of yellow. She didn't need to. She was just there and that was all that mattered.

As the weeks went by without any sign of my parents, true to their word, Dorothy and June began to demonstrate how to cook all kinds of simple recipes. They tried to keep me busy to take my mind off the fact that weeks had pa.s.sed and still we had heard nothing. The police concluded that the blood they had found was my father's, but they neglected to tell me what was in the other vial. However, as they had made no further discoveries, it looked as though the case may well be shelved, unsolved. An X file. I didn't know what to think. A vial of my father's blood? Did that mean he was injured? Or worse? I tried not to let my imagination run wild.

From conversations with the Social Services, the authorities and Dorothy and June, I knew I would have to move to Canada. My grandfather telephoned me and told me that all the arrangements had been made. We didn't have much to say to each other. Not just because I didn't know the man, but also because I simply wasn't used to talking on the telephone.

In just a few short weeks, I would no longer live in England. A sense of sadness overcame me but still the tears did not come. I was upset that I was leaving my parents behind... wherever they were. But it was the fact that my life had actually improved since they'd disappeared that made me feel guilty. The guilt turned to sadness and the sadness turned to guilt, like an unstoppable swinging pendulum.

CHAPTER FOUR.

One night as I lay on my bed drifting off to sleep, there was a tapping sound on the window. Opening my eyes, I saw two black birds sitting on the windowsill staring solemnly in at me. Having never taken any notice of local birds before, I wanted to know what they were, so I trundled out of bed and tiptoed into the living room where the sisters kept all their books. There I found an encyclopaedia from which I managed to identify them as ravens. After watching them for a few more minutes, they flew away. Exhaustion soon set in and it didn't take long for me to forget all about them and fall asleep.

But the following night, they re-appeared. There was a tap on the window and as I looked up from the book I was reading, I saw them both sitting in the same spot looking in at me again.

This happened every night until my move to Canada. Why they visited me there I had no idea. But there they were, every night, sitting on my windowsill, as if protecting me from something.

Although I had the feeling that they were friendly and their presence was soothing, they also frightened me a little. I dared not open the window. I never closed the curtains because, although I was fearful, I was also comforted by them. They became a constant in my strange, lonesome life.

I almost wished they could go with me to Canada, a country that I had few expectations of. I hadn't always known that my grandfather Gabriel was Canadian. In fact I hadn't even known of his existence until my thirteenth birthday, nearly a year earlier. Oddly, I had b.u.mped into the postman at the bottom of the stairs and so I had taken our mail directly from him, instead of letting him place it in our post box as usual. I hadn't intended to look through it but a Canadian postmark had caught my attention and it was addressed... to me.

So I sat down on the edge of the step and had almost torn it apart with eagerness. I had never received mail before. I started to read it...

My dearest Lillian It is thirteen years since you were born and you are missed terribly.

I have written to you before but I can only imagine the letters have not reached you. I wish I could see you again, Lillian. I am your paternal grandfather after all....

But before I had the chance to read on, the letter was cruelly ripped from my hands and torn into shreds by my mother. She had been so angry that I had opened that letter. More so when I told her it was addressed to me. I tried to ask her about my grandfather but she refused to say a word. So all I knew was that I had a Canadian grandfather yet I longed to know more about him. I couldn't ask my father because, on the rare occasion that I did see him, he was never alone. My mother never seemed to allow us to be together, just the two of us.

All I knew about my grandfather was that he was Canadian. I didn't know what to feel. There was a sadness there. A numbness too. I missed my parents so much that I had a deep ache in my stomach. Yet during those weeks, I didn't miss the life that we'd had at all. But that didn't detract from the fact that they were my parents and I needed to know where they were. Even though I had December, Dorothy and June and their beautiful cat Iris I still felt lonely, as if a huge piece of me was missing.

As I boarded the plane to Canada, I knew I had been completely left in the dark and that my life was about to change, possibly forever. I wished to know what I was going to... and to whom. If my parents had filled me in on their backgrounds, their childhoods, perhaps I would know where I was heading. My only knowledge was that I was boarding a flight to Vancouver and that someone was collecting me. On the brief telephone call with Gabriel, he had told me (for reasons he neglected to explain) that he was unable to come and collect me but that a 'very close family friend' would be picking me up. That friend was called Ben. I didn't even know to where I was going after Vancouver.

The airport was hugely confusing to me. Dorothy and June had wanted to come with me but I confidently told them that I'd be okay. That I'd manage. They were old ladies, they didn't need the ha.s.sle. Eventually, they agreed to let me go alone and had arranged it with the airline, and as we said our goodbyes, I thanked them for everything. I promised I would stay in touch and let them know how everything was going. They cried as I waved to them from the back of the taxi cab and secretly, so did I. I waited until they could no longer see me and then the tears that I had managed to keep at bay for so long, began to stream down my face. I don't know how I'd managed to keep from crying for so many weeks, but I felt as though the tears had been building up as I sobbed and sobbed in the back of that car, as I drove away from the only life I'd ever known.

I cried not only for my missing parents and for leaving my home behind, but because I would desperately miss those two ladies who had become like family to me. I would miss them, and I would miss my best friend, December.

I didn't know how I would live without her, but she had promised to keep in touch. "Lilly Taylor, you're my best friend in the whole world. I can't imagine life without you but we'll manage... for now. It won't be too long until we're together again. We'll see each other soon," she'd said the day before as we'd hugged goodbye. It had sounded so rehea.r.s.ed but I figured it needed to be, otherwise we would have just been in floods of tears. She was the brightest star in my life and I couldn't imagine being without her.

The airport was bigger and brighter than I imagined it to be. It seemed to go on for miles but after reading my ticket, and with a little help from the taxi driver, we figured out where I was supposed to go. I felt like a very tiny fish in a very big sea, but as soon as I had checked in and asked a few questions, I was told that the airline staff would make sure I was in the right place at the right time.

The next few hours were spent watching people coming and going before I finally climbed aboard the plane that would take me to my new home. Excitement, as well as panic, flowed through me.

Soon after take-off, darkness clung to me and I felt cold. I s.h.i.+vered.

As I sat there alone, cold and dazed, a friendly flight attendant approached me with a warm blanket and a pillow.

"I couldn't help noticing you s.h.i.+vering," she said warmly as she handed them to me.

I took them gratefully and wrapped myself up tightly.

"Would you like some hot tea or hot chocolate?" she asked. I opted for some hot chocolate and she smiled and turned away.

I was pleased the flight was quiet. I had the back row to myself so I put up all the armrests and stretched my legs out as I watched her walk towards me bearing the hot drink a few minutes later.

She looked a little like me. At least like me when my hair had been its natural colour. Jet black hair, bright eyes that were wide apart, pale skin and of delicate build. Her face was pretty and friendly and I was glad of the attention. It was as if she was taking extra special care of me.

The hours soon pa.s.sed by and it seemed like no time at all when the pilot announced to the crew that they should prepare the cabin for landing. I must have looked frightened as the kind attendant came over to rea.s.sure me.

"Don't worry. You're almost home now," she whispered.

It was odd. It was as if she knew something that I didn't.