I stammered something incoherent and began backing towards the door I’d come in my hands in front of me.
“As I suspected. You were weak and directionless in life and so you are in undeath.” The word tore through my stomach in a wave of nausea and I swallowed. The room seemed so empty without Mary. I cursed my inability to cry as the desire to release my sadness and desperation in tears built up. I wondered if the feelings would build up continuously for as long as I remained undead until I went mad. “If you’re looking to get warm there’s a fire roaring in the dining room for your kind.” I realized then that the chill in my bones had been melted away by the heat radiating from the big black stove on which several pots sat simmering away. Then I remembered all the vampires clustered around the fire on one of the long wooden benches while the men sat further away. The thought of sitting with them revolted me. What if one of the ones who had drank my blood were there? Would I recognize them? The images of their lips and fangs dripping with blood and searing eyes floated through my mind but not a complete vision of their faces. I could be sitting right beside them all the time and never know it.
“No, not thank you,” I said. I could see a harsher version of my mother in her eyes and I felt like a guilty child especially with unnatural feeling of my body. I would have run right back outside except the thought of the cold settling back into my limbs kept me rooted there. “Can I just stay here for a little while.”
She looked at me sharply and the young girl at her side gasped. “Well I can’t stop you, but mind you stay out of the way. I won’t have anyone clogging up my kitchen when I’ve got so many people to feed.” Her voice then shifted and lowered somewhat as she slipped into a what sounded like a well traversed rant. “I keep telling him. I need another kitchen. I need another stove. More pots, more pans, more girls, or at the very least more talented ones.” She glared the young girl beside her who began kneading vigorously. “Now girl don’t wear it out or it’ll be so tough the old men won’t be able to chew it. But he doesn’t care. Men don’t ever care as long as the food shows up.” I tuned her out then even going so far as to close my eyes and simply soak up the heat from the stove. Heat was peace. When I reopened my eyes, I felt completely relaxed, even my hunger having subsided further. I watched their hands moving through the dough. Three pairs of small hands with immaculately trimmed nails, now dirty. One pair of old hands wrinkled but steady and confident. She moved the dough without even paying attention to it while the young girl to her right watched hers as if she expected it to spring away. The air was filled with the scent of raw flour, wood smoke and of course the scent of the women. Liza stepped back from her dough wiping her hands on her apron and then stepped to the stove where she gave each pot a quick stir, then opened the stove and stoked. She then moved to a small table in one corner of the room and began dicing onions. The two young girls working for her began whispering to one another. I watched their lips moved and I watched the knife slicing through the onions as Liza’s hands expertly guided them. It was exhilarating. I felt as if I were an unnoticed piece of furniture in the room and I loved it. Before I knew it, the plates and bowls were clacking as they stacked them then carried them out to a table in the dining room.
I slid out the door while they were gone leaving before the farmhouse filled with people returning from their work. The day was still cold, but the clouds had dissipated somewhat allowing a dim sort of light to fill the air. I began shivering immediately and squinting my eyes against the light as I walked away from the farmhouse. I walked into the pasture past a young boy following a group of cattle despondently as they grazed, but as I drew closer to the tree-lined rim of the valley a figure emerged from the camp and began to follow me so I turned towards the concrete thrall barn. Even as a vampire I found the scent disgusting and overwhelming, but I wondered how did vampires feel about thralls. The common wisdom was that thralls were treated like vampires’ pets. A sort of mule/dog combination that was tossed the leftovers from the vamp’s hunts in exchange for tracking and flushing the prey. Vampires avoided killing thralls but weren’t particularly upset if one died. I examined my own feelings and was surprised to find that they had not changed. The thought of the thralls shuffling back and forth behind the stained concrete walls still frightened and appalled me though I thought that they should no longer do either. The thralls were now my own species and should no longer show any interest in draining me. Even if they did, I suspected a vampire should be able to escape or at least deal with thralls. Still
