Jane Slayre (3 page)

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it rose. Or was it all a dream? I closed my eyes, I thought for just a second, but when I opened them again, the light was gone. As I sat squinting through the darkness towards the dimly gleaming windowpanes, I began to recall Bessie's nighttime tales of dead men coming back to earth as ghosts to right past wrongs or simply to visit those once known to them. Again, I might have slept. What happened next was more likely the result of losing so much blood, making my head swoon, my imagination wax fantastic, instead of any real occurrence.

A light shone brighter through the window, a small dot of light not large enough to be the sun, yet growing brighter and larger as it neared until it almost filled the room. I heard a voice, a deep male voice--my uncle Reed?

"Jane," he addressed me. "Dear Jane."

"Uncle?" I responded, a little frightened to contemplate that he was speaking to me. I could not see him, only light, bright yet soothing light that blinded me to all else in the room.

"Jane, you are a Slayre. You must fulfill your destiny."

"My destiny?"

"To slay. It's in your Slayre blood. Your aunt and your cousins need you to end their earthly tortures. They're abominations. Monsters. Only in death can they be reunited with their mortal souls. Save them, Jane, as only you can."

"I don't believe they want saving. And how--" What did he ask of me? To slay? I was but a child, too easily injured myself. Yet my mind flashed to my earlier vision, standing over John Reed with a wooden stake in my hand. "How would I begin to know what to do?"

"When the time is right, you will know. Seek out your kindred spirits, your family. There are Slayres living still. You must find them, study with them."

"I know no other family." My heart raced. Family? Someone else, besides the Reeds, who might care for me, take me in, dare I hope--might love me? "My parents are dead."

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"Your parents died attacking a band of vampyres. Your father's brother, a master slayer, sent for me. His life's vocation, hunting vampyres, was too dangerous to allow for the safety of an infant in his care. Though estranged from my sister due to her marriage to your father, who was inferior to her in birth and station, I was a magistrate with a wife and children of my own, a suitable situation for raising a baby. Quite honestly, I missed your mother. I loved her. I wanted to make amends."

"And so you agreed to take me in?"

"But on the way home, a terrible thing happened."

"The vampyres."

"The county was rife with them at the time, before your uncle brought the region under control. They surrounded me. Fortunately, tucked away as you were in a basket under the carriage seat, they never found you."

"Oh, Uncle!" My heart ached. If not for me, my uncle Reed might never have been transformed. No wonder my aunt Reed hated me so! I could hardly blame her.

"You were an infant, an innocent. I'm only glad that I could keep them from finding you."

"By becoming one of them!"

"Not my wisest choice. And now you must undo my crime of bringing such a curse home to my family. Save them. Save them all!"

"But how?" I cried.

"If they are repentant of their choices and eager to reclaim their souls, you need only drive a stake through the heart and end the torture."

I barely contained my laugh. Repentant? Even if I could manage to drive a stake into John Reed's heart, I could not imagine he would ever be repentant. My uncle charged me with a heavy task, nay, an impossible one.

"All things are possible, Jane. You have the tools, the natural ability. You merely need the training and the discipline."

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"I can be disciplined," I offered, eager for him to believe me. I couldn't say as much for the tools or ability. Had he seen me run? "But where to seek the training? You speak of family. How can I find them?"

The light grew dim. The room, silent.

"Uncle?" I called to him. "Please!"

I must have shouted in my sleep, for surely it had been a dream. Upon opening my eyes, I saw Bessie and Abbot leaning over me, their faces bathed in candlelight. Bessie checked my wound and pressed a hand to my forehead.

"Miss Slayre, are you ill?" said Bessie.

"You were making a fuss," Abbot intoned.

"I want to go to my chamber," I said. "Please, let me go."

"Have you seen something?" Bessie demanded. "I saw a light from under the door and I thought a ghost had come."

The servants all believed in ghosts, and why shouldn't they? They lived with vampyres, and Abbot. And of all rooms to be considered haunted, the red room was at the top of the list. Yet, they had left me in here. Alone. And bleeding. In the cold darkness without fire or even a candle. I took hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.

"No ghosts. She has screamed out for attention," declared Abbot in her usual monotone. "And what a scream. If she had been in great pain, one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here. I know her naughty tricks."

"She has been bleeding," Bessie observed, as if it had escaped Abbot's attention. "The flow seems to have stopped, but she might have lost too much."

"What is all this?" another voice demanded, Mrs. Reed's. She came along the corridor in her nightcap and gown, ready to settle in for a good day's sleep. She cut it perilously close to sunrise all for the sake of furthering my punishment. Perhaps I should have been flattered. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Slayre should be left in the red room until I came to her myself."

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"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," Bessie pleaded. "You would let her wait until evening?"

"Let go of Bessie's hand, Jane" was her answer. "You'll win no sympathy from me. Your problems are brought on by yourself and well deserved. It is my duty to show you that tricks will not be tolerated. You will stay the day here, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you at nightfall."

I said nothing. I formed great plans to watch the sun rise and arch over the azure afternoon sky for as long as I could manage to keep my eyes open. Punishment indeed.

If only I hadn't been so weak as to faint at her feet before realising my fantastic dream.

CHAPTER 3

AT DUSK, I WOKE with the feeling I'd had a wonderful dream, and seeing before me a beautiful white glow. I heard voices, too, speaking softly as if desiring me not to hear. I became aware that someone was handling me, lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm and felt easy. In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved. I knew that I was in my own bed, and that the soft glow was the nursery fire. Day gave way to night. A candle already burned on the table. Bessie stood at the bedside with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.

I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that a stranger was in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed.

Turning from Bessie, I scrutinised the face of the gentleman. I

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knew him. It was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing. For herself and the children, she avoided medical attention at risk of exposing them all for what they were. Vampyres weren't often in need of physicians, besides.

"Well, who am I?" he asked.

"Mr. Lloyd."

"Yes. You're doing well." He smiled, took my hand from where it gently gripped the lace edge of the coverlet, and held it. "You're colour is returning, though I dare observe there's not much colour to return. How long has it been since you've been in the sun?"

"Mrs. Reed's not one for sunlight," Bessie interjected too quickly. "She believes it bad for the complexion, sir, if I may."

Mr. Lloyd pursed his lips, as if he knew more than Bessie suspected. "Hm. That might be the way of it for her, but this child"--he smiled again, turning to me--"this little one needs sunshine, fresh air. A few afternoons out of doors would work wonders. Don't you like the outdoors, Jane?"

I nodded. If only I could roam the hills with the sun shining overhead! My heart soared. It seemed too much to hope.

"I'll see to it she gets out more," Bessie answered dutifully.

"Very well." Mr. Lloyd had no reason to disbelieve her.

I had no idea if she meant to keep her word. Still, my nerves tingled with excitement--to be given time to play outdoors in the sun! True, there were not many fine days in mid-November, but I could make the most of what I had.

Mr. Lloyd issued further instructions that I was to sleep through the night, not to be disturbed, and he should call again the next day. To sleep at night! I didn't think sleeping would be a problem. As delighted as I was at the prospect of sleeping at night and going out during the day, I still felt weak and light-headed from my injury. He took his leave, and Bessie claimed the chair at my bedside.

"Do you feel as if you should sleep, miss?" asked Bessie rather softly.

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"Oh, yes. Without a doubt." I feared that she would try to keep me up, to stay in step with the Reeds and their regular schedule.

"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"

"No, thank you, Bessie."

"Then I think I shall go wake the others, for it is past six o'clock. But you may call me if you want anything in the night."

Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question. "Bessie, I will be able to play in the sun, won't I? I won't turn into a vampyre just because John Reed took more than a taste of my blood?"

Bessie smiled. "No, dear. He would have to take even more than that, and then you would have to have a fair taste of his as well. You won't turn into a vampyre. And I will speak with Mrs. Reed. I believe Mr. Lloyd has offered a solution to benefit all of you. It's sheer folly to expect you to keep up with them, different as you are. If you sleep at night when they're awake, and they sleep during the day when you're up, you won't have to tolerate much of John Reed."

Or Mrs. Reed's prejudice. But Bessie's main objective, I supposed, was to make sure Mrs. Reed no longer had to tolerate seeing much of me.

"It's a wonder Mrs. Reed had not thought of it before now. I suppose she felt it somehow disloyal to her promise to Mr. Reed to raise you as one of her own."

"But I'm not one of her own," I said defiantly.

"No indeed. Get some sleep, then. You'll be better soon, no doubt."

Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near. I heard her say, "Martha, come and wake them with me. I daren't for my life be alone with John Reed if he's still hungry for blood. He took enough from that poor child last night. She might die. We should have called for the apothecary sooner if Mrs. Reed hadn't been in such a state that he should guess at her condition."

Martha Abbot clucked and made some disagreement on the risk

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of exposure to the Reeds and how much I might have cost them with my antics. They both went to the other part of the house, where the Reeds kept to closed caskets in windowless rooms during the day.

I tried to sleep, but my head ached and I kept thinking about strolling the orchard in the afternoon. At last, the fire and candle went out, and sometime after that I must have fallen asleep.

Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. My spirits soared, but I felt physically weak and broken-down, too weak to go out of doors. I had the curtains open, and I could watch birds flitting, from windowsill to rooftop, from rooftop to sky. It was almost as good as being out. I felt cheered to know the Reeds were all shut up for the day while I was able to sit up and glory in it. I tried not to seem overjoyed lest Abbot and Bessie report me to Mrs. Reed as unabashedly pleased with my situation.

Abbot was sewing in another room. I had no idea when she slept if she stayed awake during the day and still managed to serve the Reeds all night. Perhaps it explained her narcolepsy. Bessie had been down to the kitchen, and she brought up a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand to examine more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege.

This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. I smiled at it. It smelled sweet, of berries, and the crust glistened with a sprinkling of sugar. No chunk of meat was left bleeding on my plate, no sign of juice or entrails. I took a bite. "Thank you, Bessie."

Bessie asked if I would have a book. Sun outside my window, sweets, and a book! I felt thoroughly spoiled and not about to question my good fortune, even if it might fade as soon as the apothecary returned to declare me nearly recovered.