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When Mircalla Karnstein turned fifteen years old, the year was 1695. She was breathless with excitement, staring at her pale wrist by the light of the candle she’d lit on her bedside table. She wasn’t supposed to be awake at this early hour, and if any of the servants caught her she’d be in trouble with her father. But she didn’t care. Today she turned fifteen. Today she would find out how long it would be until she met her soulmate.
She’d always been curious about the numbers on the wrists of her parents and her elder siblings and the servants. Her parents both had the same date inscribed on the inside of their left wrist, the date they had finally met. It never washed off or faded, it was always there like fresh black ink. Before they’d met, they told her, the numbers had been different. They’d been counting down the days, months, and years until they would meet. Her older brothers all had countdowns, the numbers shrinking day by day. But they weren’t nearly as interested in their numbers as Mircalla.
Her mother had told her it would sting a bit when it appeared, but Mircalla wasn’t concerned about that. She just wanted to know. She just had to know how long she would have to wait to find her other half.
Mircalla gasped when the stinging sensation began. She leaned closer to the little sphere of light her candle shed, eyes widening. The days appeared first… 21. She held her breath. Then the months faded into view, just to the left of the days. 5. She bit her lip nervously. This was the really important one. The years. But as the seconds ticked by, nothing appeared. She frowned. Did that mean it would only be five months and twenty one days before she met her soulmate?
But then her wrist started to burn. She inhaled sharply in surprise, tears prickling in her eyes at the sudden pain. She clenched her fist, staring intently at her wrist. Her eyes widened. The numbers were fading into view. The years.
But that… that couldn’t be right.
The burning faded. Mircalla stared. This must be a mistake.
319 years.
Nobody could live that long. That was impossible. Tears welled in her eyes. Maybe this was just some cruel way of telling her she would never meet whoever she was supposed to be with.
319 years, 5 months, and 21 days.
Mircalla scratched at her wrist, but the numbers didn’t change. She shook her head, her chest tightening uncomfortably, and blew out the candle.
She didn’t sleep that night.
Her mother cried when she saw it. Her father summoned the doctor. Her brothers thought she was faking it until she scrubbed at it with a wet cloth until her skin turned red and the number was still the same. The doctor didn’t have an answer. Nobody had an answer.
Her brothers and the servants were especially kind to her after that. She didn’t want their pity. All it did was remind her she was broken.
She took to wearing long sleeves despite the fact that it was out of fashion. Beneath the sleeves, she always wore piece of fabric tied around the numbers. She didn’t want to see it, but it was still never far from her mind.
When she was murdered and reborn as a vampire, a small part of her was actually relieved.
She unwrapped the cloth from her wrist and cried, showing the numbers to the woman who gave her no name and insisted she call her ‘mother.’ Even as her skin burned with the new life in her veins, even as every small sound and every small movement caused her pain with her fresh new senses, even as her mouth watered and her stomach growled and her mind was consumed by what Mother called the hunger of the newborn, she laughed. Because 316 years was no longer impossible.
It was just a matter of time.
As the eighteenth century rolled on and the Age of Enlightenment burned through Europe, a new philosophy arose around the countdown. Some people chose to cover their wrists and never look at the numbers. A soulmate was an antiquated concept, and if two people were truly meant to be together, the numbers on their wrists wouldn’t matter. The countdown had existed as far back as history recorded, but this was the first time it was rejected. It was a philosophy that lived on through the decades, waxing and waning in popularity every few generations.
Mircalla, or Carmilla as she was now known, fell back on her old ways of covering her numbers. But it was no longer such a burden. Now she just did it so she wouldn’t appear out of place. It helped her avoid suspicion when she met her various targets every twenty years. Maman was a fan of the fad, as it was easier for Carmilla to seduce girls who didn’t know she wasn’t their soulmate.
Elle covered her countdown. She had never looked at it.
It was hard for Carmilla, knowing that she was still 142 years shy of finding her soulmate and falling in love with this girl anyway. She turned to philosophy more and more as time went on. Who decided what a soulmate was anyway? What did this countdown on her wrist have to do with the way she felt? She had free will. She could choose Elle if she wanted to.
So she did.
And she suffered for it.
Carmilla had a lot of time to think as she lied in the endless darkness beneath the earth. After years of internment in that bloody coffin, she was no longer in her right mind. She knew that. But she had moments of lucidity. Moments of thought. Moments when she poured over the last few hours she had spent in the sun, crying as Elle called her a monster and Maman called her a failure. After she took Elle away, Maman had said something that Carmilla was still trying to understand.
She had said she was disappointed that a girl as smart as Carmilla would allow herself to be seduced by something as silly as the numbers on her wrist.
It took her some time, but she figured it out. Mother had thought Elle was her soulmate. She had thought Carmilla was risking it all for her because her countdown had reached zero. But Mother had seen Carmilla’s countdown before. So the only explanation was that she just didn’t care enough to remember.
The woman Carmilla had spent centuries calling ‘Mother’ didn’t know the most important detail in Carmilla’s long life. She didn’t even realize what she’d done.
She lost all track of time in the coffin. Sometimes she imagined she could feel the days and months and years shrinking on her wrist. Sometimes she convinced herself her countdown had reached zero and she would never meet her soulmate. It could have easily been 142 years. It could have easily been a thousand.
When the bombs broke through the earth and she tasted air again, the first thing she saw was the stars. The second thing she saw was her countdown.
71 years, 6 months, 14 days.
She clutched her wrist against her chest and wept under the stars before descending on the battlefield to feed on the dying.
She didn’t manage to fully convince herself she had escaped the coffin and this wasn’t all an elaborate dream until Maman found her again in Paris.
Not even in her nightmares had Maman ever found her again.
In the twentieth century, it had become a faux pas to walk around without something covering your countdown. The World Wars had changed things, made the idea of a soulmate something much more private than it had been. Choosing never to look at the countdown was still a common practice. Perhaps even more common than it had been before.
It was all the same to Carmilla, so long as Mother still believed the date she had met Elle was imprinted on her wrist. She had done the math. She knew that on the date her wrist was counting down toward, she would be at Silas University playing the bait in Mother’s vicennial con game. So she had to be prepared. She needed a contingency plan in case her soulmate ended up being her target.
Carmilla began to practice driving girls away.
She couldn’t do it too often, lest Maman become suspicious. She drove off her first target in 1954 by coming on too strong. In 1974 she saved two, one by being a truly filthy roommate and another by taking advantage of her homesickness. Another two were saved in 1994, both driven off by what she came to refer to as the “roommate from hell” act. She simply turned up her worst qualities and completely smothered any good ones she managed to still find in herself.
By the time 2014 rolled around, she was so focused on being ready that she could almost completely ignore the growing sensation of butterflies in her stomach as her countdown dwindled. Almost.
She couldn’t risk saving any of the other targets. She had to focus her efforts. Betty was first. Carmilla still had over a month on her wrist. Natalie and Sarah Jane were soon after. Still time. She started on Elsie next.
That was four of five girls.
Maybe she wouldn’t be a target. Maybe she wouldn’t have to put all of that preparation to use. Maybe she could just get the five girls for Mother and find her soulmate and leave this place.
There was just one day left when Maman summoned her.
She should have known better than to hope.
There was a girl causing trouble. Betty’s roommate. She was asking too many questions. Carmilla was to become her roommate tomorrow, and once Elsie was done, this girl was to be the final target.
Carmilla sat on the edge of the roof of her now-former dorm building with her legs dangling over the edge, awash in the sunset. She drank slowly from the bottle of scotch she’d stolen from Mother’s office and watched the numbers on her wrist change.
0 years, 0 months, 1 day.
23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds.
She stared at her wrist as the seconds fluttered away. Tears welled in her eyes.
It was her. The girl causing trouble. Of course it was her.
Laura Hollis, Maman had told her. She’d managed to contain her shiver when she heard her name. She was nothing now if not a talented actress.
She would have to scare her away. Use the methods she’d perfected over the last seventy years to drive her back home or to some other school. Chase her off so Maman would have to choose a different target. And then when it was over, Carmilla would find her again. Explain everything. Show her the date on her skin.
“You’re mine, Laura Hollis,” Carmilla whispered to her wrist as the stars came out. “At least… you will be. And we’ll be one forever.”
Carmilla Karnstein had been alive for 334 years, and she had never once been so excited and so terrified as when she placed a hand on the doorknob of room 307. She glanced at her wrist, making sure the studded leather cuff she wore over her countdown was in place. She took in a deep breath she didn’t need.
“Hey.”
“Um, excuse me but who the hell are you?”
“Carmilla. I’m your new roommate, sweetheart.”
She hadn’t counted on her being so damn stubborn.
Save her. That’s all that matters. She’ll hate you, but you have to save her. Maybe she’ll understand someday, but that doesn’t matter now. Just save her. Save her.
“You know… I really am starting to hate this heroic vampire crap.”
Laura wore a wristband over her countdown. She always had. She’d seen her father’s heart break when he lost his soulmate and decided it wasn’t worth it. So she never looked. And she never wanted to.
And then Carmilla came along.
She made her mad. She confused her. She annoyed her on purpose and she didn’t seem to care about anyone but herself. But sometimes when Laura was editing her videos, she would see the way Carmilla looked at her when she wasn’t watching.
It was those moments Laura clung to when Carmilla died.
She managed to wait for two days after the battle before she gave in and took off her wristband.
16 August 2014.
The day Carmilla had walked into her life.
She was inconsolable for longer than she was willing to admit.
The first thing Carmilla was aware of was the blood in her mouth. Then the touch of soft fingertips on the inside of her left wrist.
Her vision was blurry as she sat up.
“Well that was a kick.”
There were strong arms around her, and she let out a light laugh. Lifted a hand to touch her. Warm. Real. She blinked the fog from her vision as she felt her pull away, tentative and breathless. She finally met her eyes.
“Hey.”
Carmilla smiled.
“Hey.”
She was vaguely aware of the redheads leaving, but that hardly mattered. Laura was in front of her. Laura was alive. Laura was okay. Maman was dead and the Light was gone and Laura was alive and smiling at her.
She was rambling nervously, and there was nothing in the world Carmilla would have preferred to hear before she stood and kissed her.
And kissed her.
And kissed her.
She smiled into it, hands sliding down Laura’s shoulders, fingers slipping through her hair, down her arms.
But then Laura’s right hand was softly closing around Carmilla’s left wrist, and the touch burned in the most divine way possible.
Carmilla took a slow breath. Laura’s eyes never left hers.
“Has it always been me?” she asked quietly.
Carmilla released the breath shakily. She nodded, looking down at her feet.
“319 years,” she murmured. Laura’s fingers tightened on her wrist almost imperceptibly. “5 months. And 21 days.” She chanced a look up at Laura’s face and saw tears in her eyes. “That’s how long I’ve been waiting for you.”
Laura looked down at Carmilla’s wrist, running her fingers over the date.
16 August 2014.
Carmilla looked at Laura’s wrist for the first time, and something about seeing that same date on her skin brought tears to her eyes faster than she could stop them. It took her a few moments to put a name to this feeling.
Relief.
She hadn’t had a single moment of relief in over 319 years, ever since her countdown first burned on her skin. She was exhausted and in pain, but dammit, she was safe. She was with Laura. And she was so damn relieved.
Before she knew it, Laura had wrapped her in her arms and she was crying into her shoulder, and Laura just stroked her back and kissed her temple and hushed her. Soon Carmilla was kissing her way from her neck back up to her lips, heedless of the tears and drinking in Laura’s smile. She ran her thumb over the date on Laura’s wrist over and over, delighting in the feel of her shivering each time.
When they parted, Laura was gazing at her with enough adoration in her eyes to make Carmilla feel young again.
“Wow.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. Relief was still seeping into her bones, making her tired, but Laura’s fingertips on her wrist made her feel wide awake at the same time.
“So you’re a giant black cat, huh?”