A vampire came into view; a short skinny female, its silhouette moving more smoothly across the floor than any human could have managed. My brother and I stood side by side and he spoke to me in a quieter but stern voice as the vampire approached. “There’s a war coming brother. I’d like to have you on my side, but either way, it’s coming, and I intend to be prepared.” The vampire stopped in front of him as he continued speaking to me. “You go back down to the camp. We’ll find something more suitable to your talents than mucking.” Then he turned away dismissing me with the abrupt shifting of his attention.
As I walked slowly away unsure as to where I should go, I heard the vampire say in a low voice to my brother, “Sir, there’s a group headed to the valley.”
“To or towards,” my brother asked.
“To, sir. They know it’s here.”
“Send a couple of vampires up there to scare them off. You know the drill. They can take one or two, no turning.”
“Not this time sir. They know of us.”
“How much do they know,” my brother growled in a whisper, but I did not hear the response as I pushed the door open and stepped into the sunlight. Dust seemed to be flying everywhere under the shade of the barn’s extensions as I stepped out amidst the group of vampires sitting outside the doorway. They looked sluggish and wan, even the one that had been involved in my capture. He didn’t get up, just glared at me suspiciously, his brown eyes glinting in the sunlight, his big head the only taut part of his body. I moved quickly past them and didn’t slow until the horse barn was behind me. Then I ambled down the hill towards the camp, a tight knot of humanity in the green valley. The sunlight turned the river orange and glared from the tin roofs so that dozens of suns shined up at me. Dogs trotted up to me, sniffed warily and then loped up towards the barns. What was I to do? Find Dottie and ask her for more work. The path I walked on had been worn down by feet, hoof prints and even the tracks of carts and vehicles and little puffs of dust erupted from beneath me with each step before fading away. My stomach growled and I took its answer as to my course of action.
A few minutes later I clomped my way up the stairs to the farmhouse and stepped onto the porch before my footsteps reminded me and I stepped back down to knock my boots off against the side of the house. A few women in the yard in front of it looked askance at me but I just ignored them and made my way inside. Inside the fire had burnt down to nothing but glowing embers but it was still hot and stuffy. The only light inside came from a couple of wax papered windows which cast the room in a gloomy yellow. I hesitated as I entered, taking one step and then another as I looked around the empty room. The smell of corn filled the air and set my stomach to growling and my mouth puckering up on itself as it began to water. My footsteps clunked in the empty room as if I were a giant and I walked slowly across the room to keep the sound at a minimum. I expected Dottie to burst in at any second and reprimand me for my laziness and my undue disturbance. From behind the door a burst of female laughter erupted and then subsided. As I drew closer, I could hear their voices chatting and clinks and sloshes and other sounds I assumed were related to cooking. I pushed the door open tentatively, stuck my head in through the crack and found myself under the stare of a hawk nosed woman with bright blue eyes and raven dark hair. Around her Mary and two other women stood in the actual kitchen of the house, though the useless appliances had been stripped out. My head swam with the heat of the room. It was worse than the dining room had been when I’d fallen asleep in front of the fireplace. The heat emanated from a great black stove that sat along one wall with a stack of firewood beside it. The hawk nosed woman held a thick and ragged wooden spoon dripping a thick sauce onto the floor and she pointed it at me. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as Mary, the girl who served me earlier hid her mirth behind her small hand. One other lady looked astonished and the fourth just rolled her eyes as if she’d seen all this hundreds of times.
“Just looking for some food,” I said.
“You smell like a mucker,” she said and turned back to stirring never indicating whether I could enter, so I swung the door open slowly.
“Let him be Liza,” Mary said warmly and waved me in with her hand. “I didn’t see you at lunch, but then again I didn’t see your brother either.” She looked at me with bright blue eyes.
“He was mucking girl,” Liza said looking up at us as she picked up a knife and an onion and moved to chop it on an unstable table against one wall. The blade rang against the wood in quick succession as she worked the knife up and down filling the air with the pungent odor of onion that set my eyes to watering. I stood awkwardly for a moment as Liza threw her onion bits into a large pot on the stove and grabbed another onion.
“I don’t let anyone eat in my kitchen. It’s hard enough to get any work done without people standing around wasting your time. You go on out to the table
