“It will make your life harder, though,” Jack interjected.
“Jack!” Mae snapped. “You can’t make this choice for her!”
“I’m not trying to!” Jack sighed dramatically and shook his head.
“Well, what are some of the things that I can expect? You know, if I do turn.” My voice was timid and shaky, and even my hands were trembling, so I linked them tightly together to keep it from being more visible.
“The thirst at first is a bit overwhelming, as Jack can probably still attest to,” Ezra gestured to Jack, who nodded heavily in agreement. “All your senses become much more heightened, and all your movements feel exaggerated.
Walking across the room, for example, takes half the effort it used to, so you’ll find yourself stumbling and misstepping until you get the bearings of how your body works. Your emotions are stronger, too. They’re all right at the surface, and you’re generally very volatile. You’re libido increases, and your general lust for everything. Anything that feels good you want constantly. Pain is also extreme, but its much more fleeting than it ever was in human form.”
“It’s almost like being a child again,” Jack elaborated. “Everything feels so new, and you’re clumsy. Anything can make you laugh or cry, and even though your brain is so much faster and you can understand things so much easier, everything is strangely confusing at first.”
“Your body has to acclimate to a whole new way of being. It’s not a simple process,” Ezra continued. “The hardest thing to deal with at first is the bloodlust. The hunger you feel now can’t even compare to what you’ll feel then.
We only need to eat about once a week, but in the beginning, you’ll think you need to eat every hour. It’s a hard thing to learn to control, but it is very manageable once you do.”
“So, you guys are always hungry?” I asked nervously.
“In a way,” Ezra admitted. “But it’s not that intense. If it was, you wouldn’t have survived this long.”
“Thanks,” I muttered and wondered how I could feel so safe in the house with them.
“It’s not meant to be a threat,” Ezra laughed warmly. “It’s just the way things are. For the most part, being a vampire is a wonderful, amazing gift with very little in the way of misery. But there are two things that are double- edged swords.
“The first is the blood,” Ezra went on. “Its life giving, and there aren’t words to explain how it makes you feel. The greatest drug or sex or anything doesn’t even compare to drinking blood. But when you can’t feed for any prolonged length of time, say several weeks, it is the most excruciatingly painful thing imaginable. You would kill anyone or do anything just for a drop of blood.
And before you get your bloodlust under control, the frenzy of feeding can have horrendous ramifications. It is an immeasurable pleasure, but unless it’s properly controlled, it is devastatingly dangerous.”
“That’s good to know,” I swallowed hard.
“I’ve got it under control for the most part, and I have horrible impulse control,” Jack offered, and I did find some comfort in that. As much as I tempted him, he hadn’t bit me, and if it was as extreme as Ezra made it out to be, than that really was saying something.
“The second thing is immortality.” Ezra breathed deeply and looked down at Mae. She had a faraway, sad look, and I hoped that someone would explain it to me. “We’re not truly immortal. If you damage our brain or our heart, or we go long enough without feeding, we will die. But we have no natural cause of death. Barring another vampire attacking us, there really is very little that stops us. We are slow to turn other vampires as a result of it. We never die, so our population needs to be kept in check. So, please, don’t think this is a casual invitation we are giving you.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled, feeling humbled. It actually hadn’t occurred to me that there would be a limit on vampire membership, but it was incredibly flattering knowing that I was even being considered.
“But there is a very heavy price with that,” Ezra continued gravely.
“Everything around you will die. You will see everyone you love whither up and die. Jack is already on his second dog, but I’m sure he’ll eventually tire of burying them and stop getting pets all together. Even this town, it will change, and things you loved and held dear will be destroyed. You will outlast everything. There is more of a burden in that than you can possibly imagine.”
“Does that mean that I can’t see my brother? Or just that it will be painful watching him grow old?”
Ezra shared a look with Mae, who nodded, and then she stood up, saying, “I have to show you something.”
“You’re gonna take her?” Jack groaned and got up. “She doesn’t need to see it.”
“You’re just saying that because you think she’ll change her mind,” Mae said to Jack.
“Uh, yeah!” Jack exclaimed.
“If it would change her mind, then it should!” Mae snapped. “If she doesn’t have all the facts because you kept them from her and she makes a decision that she later regrets, then she’ll spend the rest of eternity resenting you. Is that really what you want?”
“No,” Jack mumbled and rubbed the back of his neck.
“What’s going on?” I asked nervously, standing up.
“I’m going to take you to see something,” Mae forced a smile at me. Then she turned back to Ezra and kissed him. “We won’t be gone too long.”
“Okay. Be safe.” Ezra looked sad to so her go, but he smiled reassuringly at me. “It’ll be alright.”
“What’s going on?” I asked Jack, feeling strangely frightened as I followed Mae out of the living room.
“I guess you gotta go see,” Jack sighed and sat back down in the chair.
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Where are we going?” I was right behind Mae, but I could see the drawn look on her face, and I was afraid of what we were going to see that would cause her to look so pained.
“I’ll explain in the car.”
By the time I got into her Jetta, I was filled with nervous anticipation.
Whatever she was going to show me would apparently scare me off of becoming a vampire. I half-expected some horrifying monster or a stash of human corpses or something equally disturbing. What else could there be that would completely change mind about turning? The soft music of Nina Simone playing out of the car stereo did little to make me feel good, and I just stared apprehensively at Mae, who in turn, just stared straight ahead, looking rather tragic.
“I was born in Reading, England in 1928,” Mae explained in a voice so sad, it barely sounded like her own. “When I was very young, the second World War broke out. Towards the end of the war, American soldiers were stationed all over England. Philip was the most dashing young man I had ever met, but at the time, I’d never met Ezra.” She smiled lightly at that, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Despite my best attempts at being virtuous, I ended up pregnant at sixteen, and Philip was a very upstanding man, so we were wed. My first child, a son I named Samuel, was born while he was still fighting in the war, and I was still living with my parents in Reading.
“Samuel was five months old when Philip finished his tour of duty, and we moved to the US, to a small flat in St. Paul, where Philip and his family were from,” Mae continued. “The first few months we lived here were truly wonderful.
They were some of the best memories of my life. Then, one night, three weeks before Samuel’s first birthday, I went in to check on him, and he wasn’t breathing.” A solitary tear slid down her cheek, but she chose to ignore it. “The pain never gets easier. Don’t listen to what anyone tells you. Losing a child is… an impossible loss.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, unsure of what else to say.
“Everybody kept saying, ‘At least you’re young enough to try again.’” Mae smiled bitterly at the memory, and then glanced over to me. “But I didn’t want to try again. After Samuel died, I spent months curled up in bed. My family, everything I had known and loved, was a million miles away, and my husband, as much as he did love me, was very young himself and he was busy trying to work and start a life for us…” She had a faraway expression for a moment, but then she remembered I was there and snapped herself out of it.
“I was just a little older than you when Samuel died, so you can imagine what it would be like,” Mae looked at me warmly, but I sensed an uneasy warning underneath her gaze. “I understand the excitement of being offered a whole new life with an attractive stranger. But you isolate yourself from everything you know. It’s terrifying.”
“I–I don’t feel isolated,” I offered lamely.
