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1.
Mother cried.
"No," Mircalla heard through the walls, "No, no."
She tried to call out to her mother, her teeth clamped around a shiver. The words came up a horrible cough that bent her body in two, blood staining the sheets when she buried her face in them. Mother, she wanted to call, Mother, I am still here.
Her mother did not answer, a servant coming to her side instead. She brushed the hair from Mircalla's tiny flushed face and whispered useless, unheard words.
Mother, Mircalla had cried against the cool fingers. When someone propped her head up to tug at the sheets wrapped around her chest she thought, please don't make me, remembering the dresses that pinched her waist and the needles that bloodied her fingertips. Please, please don't as she was stripped down in her bed.
Mircalla could not remember the time when her mother finally came to her, a cloth at her mouth and tears in her eyes. She could not remember as her mother cried her name and the doctor pressed his fingers to her wrist. She could only cough until blood speckled her chin and air came to her in stuttering breaths.
"My sweet angel," her mother had whispered, though Mircalla did not hear it. She shivered under her blankets again and ached for the fires to consume her so that they might take her from this hell on earth. "My sweet," mother said, holding her hand as blood collected in a bowl.
Mircalla did not remember crying out as they cut into her flesh.
"Papa," she moaned when mother did not come to her. She could imagine him in the study, slipping books to her when mother was not looking and a whispered smile he was not supposed to give. She was his favorite, the eldest of five.
("But you can't tell," father had whispered after his confession. Mircalla smiled conspiringly, quick to nod. A book was cracked and faded in her hands, but father had hidden it in a wrapped parcel for her after his trip. His hands had been dry and warm when he helped her sound out the words, giving her one of the cook's sweets when she pronounced them correctly.
"You will be a fat old maid at this rate," he exclaimed when the biscuits sat heavily in Mircalla's belly and three chapters trailed behind them. My old fat Mircalla, he had repeated while she giggled.
She was the eldest of five and his favorite always.)
Please, Mircalla sobbed, choking around bloodied phlegm, please won't someone come to me.
She did not understand when a prayer was passed over her head, rosary beads brushing her cheek. She could only ever cough and cough like her body was trying to spit the devil from her bones. A cross was pressed to her sternum and she imagined the black that would drape from her shoulders. Her sisters could place flowers in her hair and father could tuck a book under her hands and -
Mother sobbed and lifted the sheets over her head. Poor tiny Mircalla, too scarred for even her mother's weeping sight.
2.
"Y'know," she started, tears at her cheeks and warmth in her chest. Carmilla did not know if it was from the sword burning her bones to dust or the stupid nineteen year old who managed to pull at her bloody heart. "I really am starting to hate this heroic vampire crap."
Laura blinked even as a watery laugh left her. Carmilla grinned at the sight and let the light scorch her fingertips. Ell was waiting over her shoulder, whispering her name in a low tantalizing whisper. Carmilla thought she might drown in the sound of it.
Laura smiled so beautifully.
She pushed off with her left foot and leapt to the sound of Laura screaming her name in a horrible desperate plea. She felt fire along her old bones when she plunged the heavy blade down into the heart of the light, letting it shriek and stutter beside her.
Ell, darling Ell, she thought, the apology alive in her bloodstream. She imagined the eternal hell they might share, stuffed to the brim with a heavy tragedy.
Something screamed.
She hit the ground.
Her bones snapped and broke through her in a horrifying crunch she did not hear. The sword skittered out of her hand and bounced against a rock, where it glowed in a dull pulse. Carmilla squinted at it through her tears.
Blood dribbled from between her lips.
Something else hit the ground close to her with a wet smack and a muffled shout. Carmilla studied it best she could through her slipping mind, barely making out Maman in the pale light of the blade. Maman blinked at her, legs twisted and protruding from her skin, and Carmilla felt something in her chest ache.
"S - sorry," she croaked once even as her body fought the action.
Tears fell from the bridge of her nose when Maman closed her eyes.
Her hand was black to the bone and numb when she slid it across the rough dirt on the cavern floor. Her fingers extended towards Maman's silent frame, wishing for the touch of someone as her body burnt from the inside out. Carmilla tried to keep her eyes open long enough to see Maman's fingers close around her own, breath halting at the motion.
Time passed.
A heavy grumble woke her from the trance that had taken her and she watched as Maman sank half an inch into the dirt. It climbed up her skin like vines pulling her into its embrace. Her fingers twitched around Carmilla's, the only sign that she was still alive.
Carmilla tried to tighten her embrace but her fingers remained unmoving. Sorry, she wanted to say again, but could not find the energy to do so.
Maman sank another two inches.
Years stretched on in the dark.
Maybe this wasn't so bad, Carmilla thought after centuries, remembering the press of blood in her lungs and soggy cotton at her clawing fingers. At least here she was free to breath without an eternal agony.
She couldn't see Maman anymore.
Hot trails of fire crawled across her skin. She closed her eyes and prayed for the end.
But then, "Come on, get up you stupid lazy vampire," she heard, blinking when the sky opened to blue.
Laura was there, hair brushing against Carmilla's paling cheek, and a grin tugging at her lips. She tried to trace the smile that held Laura but she could not move, her hand encased in thick ropes of mud. She choked Laura's name back instead.
Warm steady fingers brushed a curl of hair from its place against her temple, her fingertips coming back red and stained. Laura smiled and kissed the cuts across Carmilla's face.
Oh Laura, she sighed, the mouthful of blood choking her like she so very much remembered.
Laura smiled so beautifully.
Time passed.
Laura stayed.
3.
Anna giggled into the hollow of Mircalla's throat, her fingers plucking the curves of lace and her toes tapping in time with the muffled music. Sweat was slick along her brow and her eyes were hazed as the opium slowly sunk in her bloodstream. Mircalla giggled back.
"Rejoice, Mircalla!" Anna exclaimed, her fingers tugging from where they interlaced with Mircalla's, "Father says the Turks sue for peace."
Mircalla smiled indulgently, tucking her thumb under Anna's chin to raise her dear friend's face. It will not last, Mircalla knows, but she does not say as much to the girl two years her minor. "I would much rather dance with you then celebrate some distant war," she said instead.
Oh, how Anna had blushed.
The orchestra softened as Mircalla leaned to brush her mouth against the warmth of Anna's cheeks, leaving a wet spot on both patches of red. Her breath softened and she tucked her fingers to the curve of Mircalla's elbows. A low giggle tumbled from her lips.
"We should get back," Mircalla whispered.
Anna breathed a sigh, "Yes."
She pulled away, regrettably, letting her fingers press against the younger girls frame a touch longer than she was supposed to. Mircalla imagined her mother's horrified gaze.
Mircalla smiled.
(Mircalla screamed.
She screamed and cried and pleaded against the hand at her mouth and the knife in her chest. The warm summer air drowned the sounds of her struggles, a gentle groan of air through the pine as she bled out onto dried brown needles.
She wept in harmony with the trees.)
4.
"Maman," she cried, blood stuffing her lungs achingly. "Maman."
Blood sloshed as dirt covered her tomb of ivory. The cotton coffin lining ripped under Carmilla's clawed fingers as her hurried desperate cries for Maman drowned in the blood. It was still hot in her mouth and behind her eyelids, tasting of her promised eternity.
Ell's throat smiled red when Carmilla blinked.
"S'il te plaît, maman," she sobbed. Her nails broke from her fingertips as she scratched the walls holding her in place.
She would be good, Carmilla thought as infinity stretched around her, she'd be a good girl and line up all the sacrifices Maman wanted. She would rip open their throats and smile as they bled out on her tongue. She would lay as many girls down as Maman needed, fucking them quietly while their betrothed drank in the study, if it meant Maman might take her from this place.
She would do anything, anything.
Please, oh dear God, pleaseplease.
1+
With a terrible gasp Mircalla woke.
Dirt stuffed her mouth and maggots crawled between her fingers. Mircalla could not open her eyes, not that she wanted to. Her fingers wriggled through the damp dirt, brushing against slivers of wood and cotton. She screamed once, twice, because dear God above they buried her alive.
She clawed and kicked at the ground, muffled sobs bubbling over her lips against the mud. She felt her hands tear open from the sharp edges of the coffin even as she continued to dig.
She wondered if this was hell for little evil girls like her.
I'm so, so sorry, she thought, remembering Anna's flushed cheeks.
She kept digging.
Mircalla prayed to all the gods she had read in father's books as what was left of the coffin cracked and gave under the weight of ground and her desperate clawing. Her blood filled the soil, an appeasing sacrifice to the ancients that might hear her screamed pleas.
"Lämmchen."
Another sob burst from her as something answered her silent prayers.
"Follow my voice, child."
I'm trying, I'm trying, Mircalla wanted to say to the distant voice, her legs breaking from the box that held her. Her mouth was full and fire when she tried to give her thanks.
Her fingers broke free.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The ground was to her elbow as she gave a tremendous thankful heave. Bits of grass and mud fell from her face in clumps, a maggot wriggled on the back of her hand. She coughed and spit the dirt from her mouth, breathing heavily. The gentle sight of stars greeted her as she opened her eyes, blinking the same way she remembered as when a man split her throat to navel.
"God," she sobbed, a prayer or a desperate plea she did not know. Her chest still burnt from the memory.
"There is no God," the voice said. Mircalla cried at the sight.
A woman sat at her feet, her dressed pooled around her waist and a chalice in between her fingers. Mircalla's mouth burned, smelling the nectar she was certain the silver held. Her jaw clicked and she struggled against the ground that held her, desperate to quench the scorch inside her.
"Settle. Settle," the woman said, shifting as she brushed the clumps of Mircalla's dark hair from its place twisted around her forehead. Mircalla snapped, dragging her nails across the comforting arm. Blood bloomed at the laceration and Mircalla blinked at it.
Fingers closed over her throat, tightening when a snarl fell from her. "Settle yourself," the woman said, stopping the breath from rattling in Mircalla's mouth. Mircalla's head lolled when she shook her hand and squeezed.
Dirt was still stuck between her teeth.
Her hands found the arm keeping her in place, listening as something cracked when she twisted. The woman released her, frowning, and Mircalla kicked her feet. The grass upturned and the mud squished under her skin as she finally broke free.
The woman smiled, all teeth.
"Would you like some, lämmchen?" she asked. Yes, yes, yes. Mircalla reached for the cup quickly only to be pushed back to the ground. Her head snapped back against her own tombstone and she sunk a little in the upturned dirt. "You will not be a brute," the woman said, her lips a thin line.
The contents of the cup sloshed against the ground as she upturned the silver and Mircalla lunged for it, letting her fingers sink in the wet red and lapping at what was left in the dirt. Hands pushed her back again, the slab of stone cracking a little from the force of it.
Her head felt funny and full as she licked the remnants left on her fingers. The woman dropped the empty chalice at Mircalla's feet, and she heard, "Behave yourself."
Soil clung to her tongue and the woman pulled at her arm bent funnily. It cracked and Mircalla whimpered at the sound, sucking her fingers clean.
"Please," Mircalla managed, a whisper around her dry tongue, "Please."
"Oh, darling," the woman said, lettering her fingers fold in Mircalla's hair, tugging gently. "Later."
A desperate whine escaped Mircalla.
The woman smiled again, softly.
"Later."
It was a promise in the heat of the summer night, kissed by death and that holy thing Mircalla craved.
She cried and let the woman wipe her clean.