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Carmilla Karnstein’s small frame is scarily fragile as the firefighters pull her out of the burning vehicle. Her eyes are empty, unresponsive to the questions posed by the endless social workers that kneel before her.
The orphanage is dark and lonely. Sister Marjory tells her that crying is for little children and sends her to the dormitory before lights out. She doesn’t spill a tear after that, not in front of the staff. In the shadows of the night, quiet gasps and choking breaths can be heard from her bed and her pillow is stained with salty tears in the morning. None of the other girls say anything about it and Carmilla is thankful.
Ms Morgan looms large over her, smile appearing more predatory than kindred. She says she’s here to adopt a nice little girl. Carmilla peers up at her with curious eyes and wonders if she means her. Because she’s never been called nice before.
She can’t help but ponder whether or not Ms Morgan will leave her behind too, like the others. As she carefully folds her meagre belongings into a suitcase, the echoing roar of flames fills her ears.
Mattie is there before her, six years older with a quick mind and glinting eyes. She whispers jokes in Carmilla’s ear at the dinner table and lends her battered copies of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. William arrives a year later, his wild black hair falling over his eyes. She takes pride in playfully kicking his shins when their Mother forces them to sit at the piano for hours on end and bandaging him up after he trips over his own feet or falls off of his bike.
They’re there for each other when nobody else is.
Lisping French nursery rhymes do not seem to get her in as much trouble as modern pieces, so Carmilla settles with learning classical tunes to sing to her mother on Fridays after she clears the table. At first, she struggles with the complexity of the Italian opera that Mattie suggests, stumbling over notes and misjudging octaves.
When she slips, perhaps forgetting a line or a chord, her mother doesn’t seem to mind. She always claps when the song draws to a close and Carmilla curtseys.
It’s by accident that she happens across his grave. Her walk home from elementary school cuts right through the cemetery and, on a sunny afternoon when the flowers are in bloom, Carmilla aimlessly zigzags until a large marble stone catches her attention.
Brown eyes widen and a previously steady heartbeat quickens impossibly.
There’s a small patch of unruly grass beneath the gravestone and Carmilla takes it upon herself to erect a small border around it using small pebbles. She trims the grass with bright pink scissors that she digs out from her pencil case and pulls seemingly infinite weeds with her bare hands, simply mumbling about a game at school when her mother tuts disapprovingly at her muddy knees and scuffed shoes.
The other visitors to the cemetery seem to have a routine, she sees them on certain days at certain times. The couple whose son, Alex, died too young, visit on Wednesdays and Sundays. They bring flowers or letters and stand, hands linked, until Mary starts crying and John has to lead her back to the car.
One woman, with blonde hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, perches on a camping chair and reads from collections of poetry. Sometimes, she places the book back in her bag and closes her eyes, mouthing the words silently from memory. Carmilla knows not to disturb any of them and simply nods when they smile at her.
She doesn’t have a schedule, really. She goes whenever she can, to weed the flowerbed and clean the marble until it shines again. Every so often, Carmilla sees a girl crouched in front of the grave next to her father’s and feels her heart tug painfully.
More than once, she considers introducing herself but always resolves that she’d just be a nuisance and continues along the rough path, promising to visit the next day instead.
Room 307 is still fairly empty when she slides into a seat on the back row, the legs of the chair scraping painfully on vinyl. She recognises the teacher as a visitor from the cemetery. Not Mr K, who visits his wife on Tuesdays and rests his hands atop the tombstone as if trying to hold her in his arms again or John or Mary but the woman with blonde hair and soulful eyes.
When they eventually begin their unit on poetry, Carmilla feels as if she’s intruding on Miss Spielsdorf’s soul. Because, surely, nobody else knows that their charismatic English teacher quietly read the same words whilst tears slid down her cheeks. Nobody, except from the girl who sits nearest to Miss S’ desk, she thinks. Because she reminds Carmilla of the girl she used to see on the Sundays that she visited her father and she tries to cling onto that glimmer before it dies out.
Unfortunately, the remains of her childish innocence diminish before she can indulge in further acts of wishful thinking. The bruises don’t fade in time for gym class and she wears long sleeves to cover the hand shaped imprints littering her arms. Will is hurried into his room by Mattie if Mother returns home angry, signified by the slamming of the door and the harsh clicking of heels.
At first, she doesn’t understand why Mattie avoids their mother like the plague. She doesn’t quite get why the words her sister exchanges with Maman are so clipped and coldly polite. When she grows up a bit, when the memories of the orphanage stop being as fresh in her mind, she realises. And it solidifies her fear that maybe Maman never wanted to keep her after all. As time goes on, Carmilla isn’t sure she really wants Maman to keep her.
The cool and unaffected attitude she adopts to deal with the sharp tongued insults fired at her by Maman spills over into her personality and before she knows it, the only people Carmilla allows herself to smile around are her siblings. She dons leather jackets and black jeans, sits alone at lunch and makes dry comments in class. The ability to care about anyone or anything slowly fades away until all she has left is the solitary grave visits and the short moments when she, Mattie and Will find themselves with a moment’s peace.
Until Ell, that is. Her laughter is like nothing she has heard before and makes her feel giddy inside.
In a column of light cast through a gap in towering trees, the moon illuminating the pair, her hands map out the freckles on Ell’s arms, fingers brushing lightly and eliciting small giggles from the both of them. Carmilla whispers the names of constellations and she’s pretty sure she’s in love.
Their idyll doesn’t last long, because Ell’s parents find out. And they’re not pleased. Neither is her mother, she discovers when she is pushed to the ground roughly. It takes a month for Carmilla to wash the dizzying smell of lavender from her clothes and longer to scrub the feather-light kisses from her skin. She feels sick to her stomach as the procession drives past her window. Her bedroom door is locked.
She’s trapped.
It’s her fault, she concludes. It’s her fault that Ell leapt into the treacherous night from the roof of the abandoned factory where they’d gone exploring. Because their daydreams of flight never transpired to reality and she doesn’t meet Mr and Mrs Ryder’s eyes when they pass her in the cemetery. Her father, whose footsteps fell heavily, mutters curses and slurs at her. Her mother, with once rigid posture, spits words of blame before guiding her husband home.
When the girl from her English and physics classes meets her eyes from the row of blue lockers lining the wall, Carmilla expects the usual sympathy or disgust. She receives neither. Instead, they are full of timid, unspoken questions and accompanied by a slight tilt of the head. Before she can turn away, her view of the girl – Laura, she believes her name is – is obstructed by a tall redhead. Scarlet immediately blooms on Laura’s cheeks and she smiles broadly.
Carmilla returns to the arduous task of balancing the books in her locker, trying to act nonchalant when a couple tumble out and scatter on the floor.
The rumble of Mattie’s new car reminds her of the sour sting of smoke in her nose and the burn of it on her eyes. Carmilla doesn’t cry when she leaves for university, Will clutched at her side as they stand on the porch, Mother announcing plans of a grand meal when she returns for thanksgiving. She almost laughs at that, at the sheer morbid hilarity of it, but stops herself because she really does want to go to sleep with a full stomach.
Lilies, that’s what the girl who visits Isla Hollis’ grave leaves. Except for today, Carmilla muses as she tries to rid the stone of a particularly stubborn blemish. It’s a Sunday. She has deduced that this must be the day that Lily-girl visits, a simple process of elimination that’s not hard when you’re a regular. It sounds awful, ‘regular’. After rolling it around in her mind a couple of times, she decides never to think it, let alone say it, ever again.
Somehow, she ends up in the local florist’s, asking gingerly for a lily. She leans it gently against the tombstone and hopes that the weather won’t turn against her. Carmilla doesn’t know why she does it. Since Ell’s death, she hasn’t really given into any sentimental inclinations that flit across her mind.
She picks up her guitar for the first time in months. It feels right, the weight of it comfortable. Carmilla had all but begged for it, agreeing to numerous dinners with her mother’s haughty colleagues and promising to teach Will German for an hour each day. Now, the strings are familiar and the curve of the wood fits perfectly.
Prom is, as she expects, a laughable affair. Outdated pop songs blare obnoxiously from the school’s sound system and embarrassingly sober teens sway to the beat. As her lips press meaninglessly against some girl’s, her mind is cast back to the last dance she had attended. She had been young, happy, head resting on Ell’s shoulder as lights strobed across them. This girl, dolled up in an expensive dress and shoes, would have to do.
Her mother pays an absurd amount of money to get her into a prestigious university, one that is ranked 3rd in the country and ‘only accepts the best, Liebling’. It has lushly furnished dorms and high vaulted ceilings. Arrogant students walk the halls and the professors seem to have lost passion for anything but their subject. Her philosophy professor, who scowls at her and reluctantly gives her A after A on essays, is the only one Carmilla finds herself liking.
Thankfully, the cemetery is merely a train ride away. Mrs S, or Betty, as she now makes Carmilla call her, no longer visits as frequently. She isn’t as quick on her feet as she used to be and has some difficulty getting up out of her chair. Carmilla takes flowers for her, using money dropped into her university pigeon hole every Tuesday.
She also places a lily on Isla’s grave, because her daughter has flown off to a faraway university. It looks lonely, contrasting against grey, but she decides that this is somewhat poetic.
She has the option to stay at school over the Christmas break but Mattie is coming home and it’s Will’s senior year, so Carmilla empties her wardrobe into a suitcase and falls into her brother’s arms when she steps through the door.
Danny and Laura had been the golden couple back in high school, wrapped up in each other so tightly that it was a wonder they ever got round to talking to others. But they did and were stars of the school’s little theatre program, staging endless low budget productions of big West End and Broadway hits.
Carmilla used to think it was sickening, that people couldn’t possibly be that deeply in love. But she comes to the realisation, after blue eyes began to look at her in the same way, that it’s easy to find yourself halfway down the rabbit hole before you’ve had a second to think.
So she knows that Laura truly is heartbroken, when she finds her collapsed against her mother’s grave. Laura doesn’t move when she approaches, but appears to be shaking slightly. It’s raining heavily and Carmilla’s hands are icy as she reaches for her scarf. She figures that it would be best to leave her alone and sits before her father’s grave instead.
The blue of the flower settles into honey locks and Carmilla smiles slightly, because Laura doesn’t seem as distraught as she had been mere minutes ago. And that’s why, in a bought of rash confidence, she whispers into her ear, the words escaping before she turns to leave.
Her mother doesn’t ask where she’s been, or why she’s shivering and soaked through.
She busies herself with music, spends lectures tapping out rhythms absentmindedly on her computer keyboard, faced with unrecognisable strings of numbers and letters when the sound of scraping chairs fills the hall. They never hear her songs, the girls she takes home with her after drunken nights out at bars. She knows that it makes her a terrible person, that it’s awful that she forgets their names as soon as they walk out the door. But she reasons that, when everyone is just looking for a bit of fun, nobody is truly at fault. At least that’s what she tells herself.
Graduation is quiet. Mattie and Will make excuses for their mother and Carmilla forces any reminder of the woman who she once thought could love her to the back of her mind. Her father would’ve liked them, she thinks, as they smile proudly from the crowd, Will waving madly when she is called up to the podium.
Gigs at small town bars and open mic nights don’t pay too well but, as much as she may resent it, Carmilla has never really had to worry about money. She has considered, more than once, cutting herself off from Maman. But it’s more trouble than it’s worth, really, and incurring the true wrath of her mother is not on Carmilla’s bucket list.
It hadn’t occurred to her that agents actually attended shows like hers. It was something that happened to sparky protagonists in indie flicks shown at the pretentious parties her few college friends insisted on dragging her to. But, lo and behold, here was a man with slicked blond hair flashing his business card. At this point, philosophy wasn’t offering up many career paths, no matter how articulate her resume was. She accepts, and, with a flick of a pen, the contract is sealed.
No regrets, my dear.
That’s the motto he told her to live by.
Oliver wants her to do more PR. A mysterious persona just isn’t enough to bring in the profit, and as much as Carmilla likes to believe that Oliver is in it for the love of music, she can’t help but agree with him. That’s why she’s sat, cross-legged, in a park on a chilly September morning. Oliver says that she’s a young reporter, fresh out of university and Carmilla, if she’s being honest, isn’t expecting much.
Boredom is what drives her to start singing before the journalist arrives, gently plucking strings and softly muttering the lyrics scrawled in the leather bound journal at her feet.
She only stops when she hears a voice behind her.
It’s Laura, of course it is. Her eyes flick to the scarf she wears around her neck and her heart jumps. Nervous energy radiates off of her, smile unsure and eyes slightly wide. Carmilla feels the urge to tell her that it’s alright, she was just as jumpy before her first studio recording. But that would ruin her image, corrupt the barrier she painstakingly built around herself and she’s not quite ready to give anyone the key to the gate yet.
They quickly migrate to a diner, mostly because Laura’s hands are shaking from the cold and her sentences are interrupted by the chattering of teeth. It’s already decked out for Halloween, something that Carmilla has to stop herself scoffing at. She doesn’t want to be the one to wipe Laura Hollis’ smile off her face.
When Laura leaves to use the bathroom, Carmilla seizes the opportunity to grab her notebook and scribbles her number on a random page, ignoring the paragraphs of shorthand. She only just manages to return the book to its original position, nearly spilling her coffee on herself in her haste.
Smooth, Karnstein, real smooth.
It doesn’t really come as a surprise when she discovers that Laura is a veritable Doctor Who addict. On more than one occasion before their meeting the following Saturday, Laura had become distracted by the show and had forgotten to reply. Carmilla learns to expect this, trying to quell the feelings of worry that bubble up when she doesn’t respond for hours.
Toil and Trouble is one of her favourites, only a short ride away from Laura’s apartment. Carmilla just winks at her when Laura’s eyes meet the array of baked goods on display on the counters. She’s pretty sure that, if given the chance, Laura would live exclusively off of desserts.
She tells herself that she doesn’t find the dusting of sugar on Laura’s nose endearing. Pretends that her breath doesn’t catch when Laura reaches over the table to grab her hands in excitement when Carmilla tells her that she’s prepared to give Buffy a go.
White lies never truly hurt anyone, right?
Laura still eyes her motorbike warily the third time she parks up outside her apartment. Carmilla just tells her to buckle up and winks, causing a blush to creep up Laura’s neck. She is struck by the beauty of Laura as she stands, hair highlighted by the setting sun, helmet tucked clumsily under her arm.
LaF and Perry are obviously cautious when she meets them for the first time, eyes analysing her every move. Carmilla can’t really blame them, after what happened with Danny, who is referred to only as ‘Laura’s bastard ex’.
They become her friends too, Perry baking her favourite cookies and LaF rambling on about the specialist telescope Laura had gotten for their birthday. The guilt that had been looming over her since Ell's death slowly began to dissipate, dissolving into Laura's laughter and the clatter of pots when she tries to cook.
The restaurant is lit by flickering candles and she spends what seems like hours fretting, trying to stop the thought of Laura not showing up from dominating her mind. It doesn’t work. She lets out a sigh when a message comes through, she’s stuck in traffic. Carmilla wipes her sweaty palms on the coarse material of her black jeans. When Laura arrives, she feels somewhat underdressed.
The dress a deep red, the same colour of the roses that Carmilla is clutching tightly, the pain of the thorns digging into her palm subsiding when Laura steps into foyer. She’s beautiful. Perfect. Hers.
The panic returns, however, when she mentally reminds herself how out of practice she is. Laura doesn’t seem to mind. Instead she smiles sincerely and repeatedly assures her that the venue isn’t too grand.
They return to Carmilla's apartment and she pulls out a pristine vinyl from the collection above the stereo system and slips it onto the record player. Carmilla tries not to stumble as they gingerly waltz, secretly delighted when this evolves into the pair unashamedly twirling through rooms whilst noughties pop reverberated through the apartment, the neighbours banging on the door to complain when Laura attempts a particularly ambitious jump from the sofa.
They kiss under sheets, fingers tangling in hair and laughter mixing effortlessly. They kiss in the park, gentle and sweet. On the kitchen counter, dinner forgotten on the table behind them, dessert fed to each other teasingly.
In the middle of the night, Carmilla often clings a pillow to her chest, the images of flickering flames and the shrill screams threatening to drag her under. Laura hushes her, hugging her close and pressing soft kisses into her hair. Her tears slowly subside, as does the shaking of her hands. The sunrise provides a calming backdrop as they lay, limbs entwined and breathing steady.
Carmilla rolls her eyes when Laura settles down on the sofa to watch her beloved Doctor Who, out of habit more than anything, and still scoots in behind her when puppy dog eyes are cast at her, arm settling around Laura’s waist. Laura laughs at the teasing observations she makes and, some point along the way, she finds herself actually enjoying the absurdity of the show.
It is on one of those evenings, when the two of them are quiet and intently watching Buffy that Carmilla feels it swell up inside of her.
“Laura?”
“Hm?”
“I love you,”
The murmur of voices from the tv dulls.
Blushing slightly when Laura does not reply immediately, she tries to back pedal, “I mean it’s totally fine if you don’t I just thought that –”
Laura turns to her, “I love you too, stupid,”
And those three words are the ones Carmilla hopes to express as she presses desperate kisses to Laura’s lips.