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No, not again. Not her and not her, again. Not again.
Laura straightens with a sharp crack of her neck, and though Carmilla can’t see her face, she can tell from the posture. She can tell as Laura – or her body, rather – turns; she can tell as a smirking face turns upon her. She can tell the glint in those eyes is not Laura’s.
“Mother.”
“Hello, sweetheart. I thought it was time we had a little talk.”
She shouldn’t be surprised, and she isn’t. She’s mostly just tired. Tired of not moving fast enough, tired of too many sleepless days in a row, tired from protecting Laura. Or failing to, now. She isn’t surprised by that either, but she had hoped.
That was her first mistake. Such a fool, even after all this time.
As if reading her mind (and she’s wondered on several occasions before if that’s just one more sick power the woman possesses) her mother smiles. It’s Laura’s mouth, but sinister and twisted in a way Laura’s lips have never curved before. Carmilla wishes she had never started paying so much attention to the details in Laura’s lips, because they’re haunting her in a waking nightmare now.
“I hope you didn’t really think I wouldn’t drop in to check on you,” her mother says in a sweet tone.
“And yet you still cannot come to me yourself,” Carmilla returns.
“I think we both know you wouldn’t want that.”
Her mother takes a step forward. Carmilla steps back automatically, wincing as her mother sneers. The woman eyes her for a moment – it’s the first time Carmilla has ever felt uncomfortable under Laura’s gaze – and then takes a second step forward, leaning in towards her. Carmilla doesn’t move this time. She keeps her face blank.
Her mother laughs. The sound is harsh, high-pitched, and unnatural coming from Laura. Something must change in Carmilla’s eyes because her mother stops laughing at once. She cocks her head to the side and tuts.
“Oh darling, I thought you knew better,” she says.
So did I.
Her mother sighs and moves away. She crosses to Laura’s side of the room and sniffs, passing a critical eye over everything. “Nothing to do with the name, I hope?” she continues.
Carmilla stiffens, but remains silent.
“Laura…Ell…I’m sure you must wonder at what similarities they share.”
When Carmilla still doesn’t speak, her mother looks over her shoulder with raised eyebrows. There is a different sort of glint in her eyes this time, and for several seconds Carmilla isn’t certain if it’s Laura or her mother staring back at her.
The moment passes and the eyes change so that she can recognize her mother’s gaze. Another sneer.
“So weak.”
She looks down.
“So easily manipulated,” her mother muses. “Both of you.”
“Don’t.”
Carmilla’s voice comes tumbling out, unbidden, halfway between demanding and pleading. She closes her eyes for a beat. Weak. Her mother is right. She’s always right.
Her mother doesn’t look back. She regards Laura’s bed and then carefully, deliberately, reaches down and runs a finger over the comforter.
“Don’t touch her –”
Carmilla takes a step forward, but as soon as she has her mother has spun around. But it’s Laura she sees – Laura’s eyes flashing dangerously, Laura’s jaw clenched, Laura’s lips curled into a snarl – and it’s enough to make her falter. Her mother seizes her misstep and surges towards her. Carmilla retreats until her knees nearly buckle against the side of her own bed. She glances back and puts a hand down to steady herself. When she looks forward again her mother, and Laura’s face, are inches from her own.
Carmilla’s eyes drop to Laura’s lips before she can catch herself.
Her mother grins.
“Fetch your brother.”
Carmilla does as she’s told.
---
“You really screwed this one, didn’t you, kitty?”
She just stares at him, jaw tight and face blank.
Her little brother frowns knowingly and tilts his head towards her. “Or no – the problem is you didn’t get to screw –”
“Silence, William.”
Their mother is perched on Laura’s bed, legs crossed and staring at him. Her features are pleasant enough, but Will straightens and falls quiet at the edge in her voice.
“If my memory serves me correctly,” she reminds him, “you failed to do as I asked as well.”
Will glances sideways at Carmilla and rubs his jaw, recalling where she hit him that night. They glare at each other, but he knows better than to say anything. Carmilla wants to be satisfied but the Laura who is not Laura is still sitting on the bed with her legs crossed and a sharpness in her gaze that doesn’t belong there –none of them belong there, so she settles for staring at the yellow pillow propped against the headboard.
“Furthermore, what is this all about?”
She inclines her head towards Laura’s desk. Will and Carmilla look over at the same time – Kirsch is sitting there, arms crossed and face set. Carmilla can tell he’s fidgeting though, and if she can see it, her mother can too. And her mother’s perception is always dangerous.
She gazes at him, lips curved into a bare smile. None of the comforting steadiness with which Laura had last looked upon him is visible in her face now. Carmilla has to readjust to staring at a spot on the floor so that she doesn’t watch all of the wrong details pass over Laura’s features.
“He wouldn’t let me come here alone,” Will says finally.
Her mother makes a sympathetic noise and leans back. She splays her hands out on either side for support. “Touching,” she says. “You’ve found yourself a puppy as well.”
“I’m not a puppy.”
Laura’s eyebrows go up. It’s her mother’s smirk that takes over her features though, and Carmilla still can’t look at her properly.
“Oh?”
“My name is Kirsch.”
Carmilla has never wanted to punch him so badly, for his own sake, to tell him to shut up and get the hell out while he can. But from the corner of her eye she can see that he’s returning her mother’s gaze, nervous but defiant, and that’s more than she has ever managed.
“Well then, Mr. Kirsch, I’m afraid you don’t realize what you’ve gotten yourself involved in here,” her mother tells him.
“No, I don’t,” he agrees. “But you – Laura – told me to keep an eye out. Will might be a vampire, but he’s still a Zeta.” He pounds his fist to chest. “He’s still my bro.”
Carmilla glances at her brother. He’s watching Kirsch with something more affectionate than indifference.
“How noble,” her mother remarks. She grins fully as she looks Kirsch over once more before returning her attention to her children. “He may remain – he is disposable anyway.”
What little bravery Kirsch mustered seconds before slips off his face. Will looks up sharply and glances between Kirsch and his mother. He crosses his arms over his chest. Carmilla can see his fingers dig into his skin even as he schools his features into a blank mask.
Interesting, she thinks.
For a moment, in spite of herself, she wants Will to understand. She wants Mother to take something from him too, wants to see how he would crumble in the gap of what was once his. Mother owns both of them. It’s only fair they suffer in equal parts.
But when Carmilla glances up, she’s the one her mother is staring at, not Will. For a moment, Carmilla thinks she can see Laura struggling to reclaim her own gaze, but then her mother purses her lips into a twisted smile and Carmilla looks back down.
No, I take it back, she thinks. She wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Not even her little brother. Let the world keep taking from her instead.
---
Her mother transforms once again when the door closes behind the boys. She stares at Carmilla again, but it’s with sultry eyes and simpering lips. She tilts her head and trails a finger along the bare skin of Laura’s neck. Carmilla follows the movement with her eyes and bites down hard on the inside of her cheeks.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t tell me you’re no longer interested,” her mother says with a pout.
Carmilla doesn’t answer.
Her mother lets the finger trace lower, down and across the neckline of Laura’s shirt. Carmilla looks away.
“Perhaps if we were closer,” her mother muses. She gets to her feet and walks closer with slow, deliberate steps. Carmilla still doesn’t look up. Her mother stops so that they’re a foot apart. She reaches up and drags Laura’s index finger along her jaw. The touch is soft, like Carmilla has imagined it would be, but then the finger dips and scrapes under her chin, forcing her to look up and she knows it’s all her mother.
“I don’t know how you believed this game could go on,” her mother whispers. “Even without my interference.”
Carmilla still can’t bring herself to meet Laura’s eyes, but her mother has a tight grip on her chin. She settles for focusing on the tip of Laura’s nose.
“Do you really think you would be able to retrieve the sword for her?”
Carmilla keeps staring at Laura’s nose, willing herself to keep a blank face.
“Down in that deep underwater cavern?” her mother continues. “How far down was it again? Do you know how dark it can be in the sea? It’s infinite – you go that deep and it’s just vast, empty darkness in every direction.”
Carmilla swallows.
“It’s all around you. It would consume you,” her mother says, nipping at her for emphasis. Carmilla ducks her head and her mother misses, but pulls her back with an even tighter grip. “And the pressure – all that darkness pressing down against you, an inescapable void –”
Her mother keeps talking but Carmilla closes her eyes and sees blood dripping down the sides of a coffin. She opens them and finds Laura’s eyes looking back at her with a maniacal glint, leaning closer and closer and her mother won’t stop talking.
Stop, stop please. Stop.
“Stop, stop it,” she finally cries out loud, wrenching herself away from her mother’s grasp. She bends over halfway, feeling bile at the back of her throat, but her mother cackles and shoves her back, and she doesn’t have time to think about it as she falls against her bed.
“Have you forgotten which one of us is in control here?” her mother asks, leaning over her. “Have you already forgotten your last punishment?”
Carmilla tries to sidle up further on the mattress, away from this menacing and shrieking version of the girl she loves, but her mother pins her hands down and all Carmilla can do is sink her fingers into the comforter.
“Actions are not without consequences,” her mother reminds her. She brings Laura’s face so close that Carmilla can feel the other girl’s breath on her cheeks.
“She loves you.”
“Stop.”
“She’s quite the screamer too, did you know that?”
Carmilla closes her eyes again even though she’s still reeling from the trapping darkness of the coffin. Her mother moves so that she’s standing between Carmilla’s legs and brings her lips to her ear.
“Maybe you can find out now,” she says. “Isn’t that what you wanted from her in the first place?”
Carmilla turns her head to the side, eyes still pressed shut.
Not like this, not like this, not like this, please never like this.
Her mother pulls back and scoffs. “You are so weak, sweetheart.”
Carmilla opens her eyes but keeps her head turned.
“I’m doing this for you,” her mother tells her. “To make you strong.”
Don’t look at her. Just don’t look at her.
“And while I’m certain William will solve our one-short problem, you must not go unpunished.”
Not again, not again, please not her, not again.
“So I will leave it up to you – give this one up, as I had asked, or bring me another.”
“Who?”
The question falls out before she can stop it. She knows she should be ashamed, but anyone but Laura. Anyone else. She might be in love, but she has never claimed to be anyone's hero. Anyone else is worth it.
She looks back at her mother, who smiles.
“The tall one. The redhead.”
Danny.
Carmilla blinks at her. “But Lawrence isn’t a –”
“Bring her to me,” her mother interrupts. “And this one goes free.”
But she’ll hate me. And she understands then, that’s the point.
“I can’t –”
“You have a week.”
Carmilla opens her mouth again but her mother leans in close and she shuts it at once.
“You know I love you, darling,” her mother hisses. “You belong to me. Don’t forget.” She presses a kiss to the side of Carmilla’s cheek. “I’ll be watching.”
And then she’s gone. Her exodus is enough so send Laura – the real Laura, the one who Carmilla isn’t sure she’ll ever be able to look at properly again – stumbling back onto her own side of the room.
It takes a few seconds before Laura starts calling out to her, voice questioning, and then panicked when she doesn’t get a response. Carmilla can’t get up, can’t move, can’t even breathe, it feels like.
Her chest heaves as she stares at the ceiling.
Don’t forget.
As if she ever could.