The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

It was another burning today. I felt the familiar prickle of the flames as they rose higher and higher. The hands of the fire untied me gently so that I once again could use my hands. The soft arms of flame held me close, comforting me. “You’ll be fine,” it whispered and crackled.



I closed my eyes and wished in that moment, as I had in so many moments before, that the flame would take me.



But nothing could take me away now, and in the next instant, I thanked my luck that it was a burning today. I could scarcely imagine plunging into an ice-cold river and being hung out to dry on such a chilly day as this. I drew comfort from the heat of the flame. Now I was impervious to its burning passion. Cradled in its gentle embrace, I slept. The Fearful let the flames die slowly and the rain of logs thrown to feed the fire eventually stopped. I was left alone, shivering in the ashes of the dread sacrifice.







He came the night of the Great Fire.

I was only seventeen, but I was ready for love to reach out to me. I watched jealously as Thomas Becket put the finishing touches on the house he had built for himself and my sister. I had spent the previous years watching and loving him, but he had ended up engaged to my sister.



But I had one last fantastic hope left. Somehow I connected their engagement to the building of that house. Somehow I believed that if only something would happen to that house, they would grow apart and he might at last be mine.



He came as I sat in front of our own house, a churn grasped between my knees. My arms and heart were sore as I watched Thomas joyously shingling the roof as my sister blew kisses and giggled.



But then He came, a whistling potion maker. He would be my salvation and my eternal damnation. I didn’t see Him at first; my eyes were trained upon Thomas’s flexing muscles and my sister’s laughing lips. He didn’t speak, but followed my hardened glare.



“He’s with the wrong woman.” I started at the strange voice.



“I’m sorry?”



“He should be with you, but there she is and there you are.” I tried to laugh it off.



“I’m sorry, sir. I haven’t the slightest-” He latched on to my arm and leaned in intimately.



“I know what you want. I know what you need. You need power. How would you like to have your every whim, your every desire come to be before your eyes? To live for eternity? To only think things and have them become real?” He breathed seductively into my ear. I closed my eyes with a sharp intake of breath. I closed my eyes, imagining the house alight, no, gone. I pictured Thomas beside me holding me close. I opened my eyes and gazed into His.



“I would give my soul for it.” He smiled and drew from his coat a small vial of colourless liquid.



“Drink this.” He was gone so quickly that I thought I had been dreaming. But the vial clutched in my fist showed me that I was awake as ever. I took out the stopper and downed the liquid before I could have any second thoughts. I suddenly felt light-headed, tired, as if I couldn’t go on. The last thing to cross my mind before I lost consciousness was the image of the burning house.



It was the heat that awoke me. My eyes opened slowly, but what I saw startled me into consciousness. The image that I had seen in my mind of the burning house was forced before my eyes. I heard the screaming of women, the wailing of infants, the frantic shouting of the men.



The line of water throwers failed to save the house. Somewhere among the ashes of the house were the ashes of my sister, trapped in the flames as she slept. Somehow, though, Thomas had escaped unscathed.



Everyone in the town agreed on the cause of the fire-witchcraft. And I was the accused witch. Someone had seen me watching Thomas jealously. They had seen me speaking with Him. They had seen me drink the potion. That was enough for the Fearful, and I was imprisoned.



Thomas came down later that night to comfort me, unable to believe that I was the witch who had killed his beloved fiancé and my sister. He took me in his arms and told me that he believed me, that he believed that I was no witch. He told me he would get me out of the prison and free to live. Though I knew I was the witch responsible, I took his aid and made my escape.







I ran. I was terrified because I knew what they did with witches. Images of tumbling rapids, swaying branches, and towering flames danced before my eyes and I ran faster. The branches cut away at my arms and face. The wind howled in my ears, echoing the screams of the night. I ran faster.



Then I tumbled down a hill. I was in the next village. The last thing that I could recall was being lifted gently from where I had fallen and being carried.







I was accepted into this village as Catherine Smith, the adopted daughter of the village blacksmith. He was blessed with many good fortunes after rescuing me, and I lived happily there for months.



But for her.



She was the pompous daughter of the mayor. She made sure to make my life, as well as my adopted family, completely miserable. She would taunt me as I worked the forge. She would attempt to detract from our business by drawing attention to our dirty faces, hands, and clothing. My only comfort day after day was imagining her forced to lower work even than my own, perhaps a farmer or beggar.



Then the mayor caught the pox. He died within the week, leaving his daughter with next to nothing. She resorted to begging the streets.



Talk went out about the curiosity of the suddenness of the mayor’s illness and as was common in the times, witchcraft was blamed. A list of suspects was made up, and it was generally decided that it was the unnatural smithy girl constantly pestered by the noble girl who had turned to the devil and witchcraft to bring the pox to the mayor’s home. I found myself once again imprisoned with only one person there to comfort me. But this time, I refused to let the smith help to spring me from my prison. He would be blamed for it, of course, and I couldn’t let him make that sacrifice. I resigned myself to the dunking the next day.



I awoke the next morning to a warm summer morning. They took me out to the river, tied my arms and legs, and then dropped me down to the bottom of the river. I barely had time to hear the priest’s blessing before plunging to the depths. I choked and spluttered at first, unused to being forced into such amounts of water. I, of course, expected to soon drown and be gone. But somehow I found myself able to survive under the water even without being able to breathe in the air.



I was eventually pulled back and the Fearful recoiled in terror at the sight of a girl coming up alive after being plunged underwater for a full twenty minutes. They determined that I must be a witch and immediately suspended a noose from a nearby tree, determined to do away with me. I was strung up there and left to die. Of course, I did not. But as I dangled, I remembered His words. To live for eternity? I knew then that these punishments would never take me. I was trapped forever in this hell.



I pretended to be dead once someone came to cut down the corpse. A young boy had been sent to do the job, and he clambered up the tree to do so. The moment I was down, I tore down the forest path, never again to be seen in that town.







I have now spent the last 10 years wandering the countryside through many towns, all to the same end. I cannot control this power of mine. It controls me. It always comes out to the same end-I am accused of witchcraft, found guilty, and they attempt always to be rid of me. Sometimes dunking me into icy cold rivers, sometimes dangling me from a tree, most often building a bonfire around me.







As I shivered that night, I thought I saw Him out of the corner of my eye, making his way towards the next town. I followed him, and was there when he approached a girl much like myself. She was crying, having just been tortured by the boy next door. I saw Him hand her the vial, then disappear as He had with me. I approached the girl not a moment too late.



“Don’t drink that.”



“Why not?” Her eyes looked into mine, and I saw the pain that had been growing from years of torment.



“It’s not worth it. The devil cannot help you with your problems.”







I left her there to make her decision for herself, to go to the devil or to go to her own mind. I can only hope that she made a better decision than I did. But it is too late for me, I am already gone to His side, lost to darkness and mischief.