Chapter Text
Once upon a time a little girl who lived with her horrible aunt and unpleasant uncle. Every day they reminded her how grateful she had to be for the roof they put over her head and the little food they gave her because it was her fault that her mother had died leaving her with her father, but unfortunate for her, he would have abandoned her.
Every Sunday she prayed fervently to God, wishing with all her heart to be good enough so that her life would improve, wishing to be like one of those pretty princesses in the stories that one of the neighbors secretly read to her.
One day God answered her prayers and the nasty uncle disappeared. There was no longer anyone to spy on her secretly and make her feel uncomfortable. But rejoicing at her over the death of another was a sin and God punished her, hardening her aunt's heart as she had done with Pharaoh's. The girl didn't want to question the scriptures, but a part of her wondered why, if God was love and wanted good for his people, he would allow so much cruelty to happen to them (weren't they good enough? pure enough? were they? worthy enough? Should even the one who tried hardest to follow his messages wander in the desert until death for sins committed in ignorance?)
And then, when the girl repented enough, a miracle happened.
The house, which had been her prison for as long as she could remember, was burned down by black-hearted men who had gone from spitting hateful words at her to carrying out their threats. The girl was trapped in a fire that could only be compared to that used to punish ungrateful sinners. She was desperate, she was scared, she was resigned .
And a beautiful angel appeared.
An angel that looked like her, not like the representations in the Church. An angel with bright green eyes like grass in spring who carried her as if she weighed nothing and took her to the castle where he lived with another angel, this one with eyes blue like the sky in summer and hair golden like gold. There they tended to the wounds inflicted by hate using love and care.
Now the girl's life was filled with the softness of pink, satin and silk. Foods like ambrosia and attention and affection like she had never had before. It was almost dizzying and intoxicating, a dream out of her wildest fantasies that she prayed would never end.
That was the first time she experienced love.
She still didn't know that love could be false, that love could be transactional, that someone who was never loved could only provide (distraction, mockery, entertainment) would never be loved.
Lestat had not hesitated to use his money quickly and generously those early days of yesteryear, when he indulged the delirious fantasy of his beloved Louis, which meant giving in to the capricious designs of a 14-year-old girl who had never had anything and now They told him that the sky was the limit.
Those from Pointe du Lac were slower and more careful. The first thing was to decorate the room that had been emptied and cleaned at some point during the week she spent weak with her lungs hurting and a slight fever covering her body (it turns out that recovering without help from the vampire blood made everything more difficult. Who would do it? would say?). The beautiful lilac walls reeked of fresh paint, even to her now deficient sense of smell. But it was a pretty, calming color that was a departure from the whites and pinks of her vampire childhood.
Secondly, the night before her new “grandma” and “dad” arrived it was a beautiful and expensive gift. A dressing table certainly fit for a princess. Grace watched, her fists clenched in her dress as Louise showed her, everything (even the secret compartment in the third drawer that she hinted at so Grace wouldn't notice) might as well have been ripped out of her memory.
Her eyes burned as Claudia thought about the beginning of a story, a story she had told herself during that first week before she had her diary and learned the truth. Claudia smiled feeling like she was on stage again, like a puppet reciting lines from her memories while she wanted to die and kill them all under those blinding lights.
She hugged Louis, Daddy Lou the whisper escaped her against her will and she scolded herself as she heard Louis inhale sharply and hug her after the slightest hesitation.
"It's late and Claudia still has to rest. Maybe you should leave" Grace interrupted, relaxing when Louis was once again two feet away from Claudia.
"Gracie" the vampire said with a voice that mixed reprimand with prayer and agony.
"I'm trying. But you asked me to take care of her ," she told him in the Creole French she could hear throughout New Orleans . "That's all."
(Claudia knew that she also spoke the other French and felt a flash of strange joy because Grace refused to speak it for the same reasons Claudia had refused to learn it.)
"Yes, I'm sure so. It's not your attempt to throw me out" he replied in the unpleasant tone he adopted when he stopped playing well. When he was being mean and cruel and enjoying his own darkness.
(It was the same tone in which he had assured her a lifetime ago or six months ago that whatever misfortune and misery she felt she had brought on herself)
"It sounds funny when they do that French thing" Claudia laughed, she was even more memories and strings than a real girl.
As with Louis and Lestat, that earned her complacent smiles and dissolved most of the tension.
(The setting and actors had changed, but the play continued to rhyme, as if it were a new performance of a Shakespeare classic, the question was: Was Claudia in a comedy or in a tragedy? Was this Romeo's version? & Juliet where none of them died? Or the version in which Paris took revenge for the wrongs that the loves inflicted on him in his selfishness?)
Florence and Levi arrived. He was worried, she was livid. She questioned Claudia and a part of her clawed and roared to rebel and show the fangs she no longer had. She feels so tired, but she keeps going. Claudia always continues and moves forward.
An act, an act of lying until she got what she wanted and needed, so Claudia didn't notice it at first, too busy trying to settle in while avoiding memories of those golden days with Dad Lou and Uncle Les.
Claudia's body, frozen at 14, with just the slightest hint of breasts and barely any body hair is not something she likes to think about, she doesn't like seeing herself naked, too uncomfortable with the body she inhabited. Her dress was another matter, she could use clever tricks to at least manage to look a few years older, an advantage that she now does not have and that has relegated her to simply choosing the dresses that she finds least offensive.
So she don't notice when her breasts become rounder, her hair increases and thickens, her curves widen a little more, and her hips begin to protrude. She's too busy fighting not to make a misstep like she did with the coven.
It's a fight of attrition that Claudia loses from time to time, her temper flares and then she must bite her tongue and apologize for making one of the children cry or being rude to one of the real adults.
Scream underwater and smile during dinner. He lets out some of her feelings in his diaries and sometimes on loose sheets of paper that he then tears into tiny pieces and throws away. Her body that only ached from damage and hunger now feels uncomfortable in a thousand small, constant ways.
Her lower back hurt and she had a stomach ache that has lasted for a couple of days. Grace and Florence looked at her askance and Claudia was glad that Louis hadn't come for a few days because she doesn't think she could have stopped herself from yelling at him, confusing him with the father brother who was easy to take out and get angry with because he would never hurt her (until he did it, but never seriously never like Lestat, Bruce, Santiago Them ).
Claudia tossed and turned in bed, uncomfortable and hot and bothered. Her back killed her. After what seemed like hours that left her feeling sullen ( Dear diary, being human sometimes sucks ) she pulled at the sheets and touched moisture. With a frown she ran her fingers between her legs, hoping to get the sticky liquid that sometimes came out of her, out of habit she brought it to her face and sniffed. She sniffed it again and then tasted it.
The taste of blood was no longer appetizing, in fact it was a little disgusting, but I would recognize it anywhere.
Claudia had her heart in her throat, scared and worried. She stood and her trembling legs carried her to the ground. To do? She… She… She needed… the thought of her floated and disappeared, of the man who had always been too afraid to tell her the truth and hurt her and of the man who had not hesitated to use cruel words to hurt her.
"Grace!" Claudia shouted and her eyes filled with tears. Grace was always there when Claudia woke up screaming, always kind and compassionate (with a heart as bleeding as hers, Louis), but she was suddenly terribly afraid that this time she wouldn't show up—Mom!
Grace staggered down the hallway, bringing light with her. Claudia looked at her, a sob caught in her throat, and with her lip trembling she told him.
"Mom, I think I'm bleeding" then she started crying and laughing uncontrollably, clinging to Grace's nightgown tightly "I'm a woman, now I'm a real woman" Claudia laughed and her laugh sounded like a sobn "I never thought that I would live to become a real woman" she threw her head back and laughed with hot, crystalline tears instead of sticky red ones running down her face "I'm-a-woman~ she sang to herself in disbelief.
Dear Diary,
For a long time I wondered what it was like to be a woman. Is it accumulated knowledge? Is it having a specific age? Is it bleeding? Is it adopting a specific behavior and clothing? I have not always been able to meet these requirements, not because of a lack of will, but because they were denied to me. Eternally a child, viewed with hidden disdain by others of my former species and belittled by humans who couldn't help but recite her unsolicited advice about “avoiding growing up too quickly.” Trapped between two waters, being a girl and a woman at the same time without ever fitting into either role. Most days I hated Lestat to convert me, but deep down I always knew who the real culprit was. The one who brought me and asked for my sentence. Sometimes, on the worst days, I still hate him more than Lestat.
From today I am a real woman. For a while I worried that nothing would really change, that maybe I was just as doomed as I was before, but I think I finally dare to hope.
On Claudia's bed, a week after everything happens, there is one of the gifts that sometimes appears, a little secret that Louis had "convinced" her to keep so as not to upset Mom Grace (although it is obvious that she and her grandmother know where they come from even if they pretend not to).
Inside the red box with a note is a necklace. Claudia's heart fell when she recognized it, even if the handwriting is not Lestat's this is a gift from both of them. She walks over to the dresser and places it on slowly, fingers that feel clumsy even though they hold steady.
This time, when Claudia tries on a gift that had been as cruel as it was thoughtful, the necklace fits her.