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Lamaddia Di Verney 4/06/2026


As I returned to my apartment that night I found myself unable to settle, for although the image of the churchyard and those two poor children refused to leave my mind, I could not bring myself to accept what it seemed to imply, and so I attempted to reason with myself, telling myself that fear and darkness had played their part and that there must be some more ordinary explanation for everything I had scene.

Belladonna could not be a vampire, for such things belonged only to old stories and superstitions.

And yet, whenever I closed my eyes, I still heard her singing, and saw her standing amongst the graves as though the earth itself recognised her, and worse than the fear was the shameful truth I still found myself longing to see her again.

It was then ai decided there was only one man who might give me answers, and that was Edmund.

I left my room without a drink and made my way to the western wing of Hollowmere Hall, which always seemed colder and more detached than the rest of the house, as though it belonged to some separate order of things, and as I passed along the corridor I saw Belladonnas servants moving away together, speaking softly in their strange language before disappearing from sight.

When I entered the apartment, Edmund was alone at his desk.

The curtains were drawn, the room dim, and he was writing continuously whilst murmuring to himself as though caught in some private disturbance of thought.

“Edmund” I said.

He did not respond at once, and only when placed one hand upon his shoulder did he slowly turn and look at me.

“Micheal,” he said, almost as though he were recalling my name rather than recognising it.

And I confess, gentlemen, I was struck at once by how altered he appeared, for although he had never been particularly robust man there was now something deeply diminished about him, as though some essential part of his character had been slowly worn away.

“Edmund,” I asked him, “what is happening to you?”

He looked at me for a moment before saying quietly that he did not know, though at times he felt as if his mind itself were changing, as though he were growing younger in thought rather than older, and that there were moments when he could only remember what he could not remember what he had been doing only moments before.

Then he gestured towards papers upon the desk and said there were arrangements he needed to complete, documents that required attention before something was lost or forgotten.

When I asked what arrangements he meant, he immediately became guarded and told me that he could not discuss them.

“Why not?” I pressed him

He hesitated before answering that Belladonna would not approve.

I tried not to laugh at that and asked him when he had begun needing his wife's permission to speak to me, but he looked at me strangely and said it was not permission, it was simply that she did not like certain matter being spoken aloud.

I leaned closer and asked how exactly he had met her.

“Letters” he said.

“When?” I asked.

“When I was a child,” he replied, as though this were the most natural thing in the world.

I stared at him and asked how she had been at the time, but he did not answer directly. Instead he looked at me for a very long moment and said that I was asking the wrong questions, because I was trying to understand her as though she were like other women.

Then he added, very quietly, that she was always to be desired, and that this was beyond dispute.

I told him he very sharply that he and I had never quarrelled over a woman before, never desired the same woman, and he only smiled faintly at that, not in jealousy but in certainty.

“She is always desired,” he said, “that is not the question.”

Then he looked at me more closely and said:

“I can see it in you Micheal. You think I do not notice. You think Im not good enough for her, you have thought that since the first moment you saw me with her.”