Vampire - Child of Destiny (Vampire Series Book 2) (13 page)

She had walked into the study with the intention of continuing where she had left off with her current story.  However, she found that she was unable to open her laptop, not because it wouldn't open, but because she didn't want to. 
What's the bloody point,
she thought,
it’s no better than anything I've written in the past, it'll flop, just like they all flop. 

Laying her head back against the old, tattered, but soft and familiar leather of the chair, Mary tried to figure out where she was going wrong.  She knew that most people would look at her life and think she had it made, and she wasn't so stupid or selfish not to know that they were probably right.

She was twenty-two, owned her cottage outright (even if it was falling down).  She also had more money in the bank then it was likely she would ever, in her lifetime, be able to spend.  However, she had no one to share her wealth with.  Her parents had died in a car crash when she was just two years old, and her grandmother, whom she had lived with ever since her parents died, had died just under a year previously.

It was her grandmother whom she missed the most. She found it difficult to remember her parents, but her grandmother had always been there for her.  She missed her presence, her beauty and kindness, and the way they would discuss their writing; warm by the fire, with her grandmother giving, but also receiving Mary's constructive criticism.  After all her grandmother was one of England's greatest authors.  Victoria Howard was known throughout the world for her horrific and hugely popular, 'Nightfall Mysteries'.  When the great Victoria Howard died, she bequeathed the whole of her vast fortune to her granddaughter, but with Victoria went the extent of her family - Mary was the sole remaining member, she was to all intents and purposes, alone.

Well, apart from one person, her best friend Kate, but Kate lived in London, and she mixed with the famous and wealthy jet-setting types.  It was the type of life that didn't really suit Mary, who was shy and reserved, and a woman who blushed at the mere mention of a dirty joke.

They did, however, spend part of the year together, normally when Kate felt she needed the peace and tranquility that only the leafy country lanes of Hampshire could offer her.  She would arrive like a whirlwind, taking over Mary's life, and just as suddenly vanish back to her world of glitz and glamour.  Thus leaving Mary to feel even lonelier then she had before Kate had arrived.  Mary didn't really mind.  It had been the same when they were children, so why should it be any different now?

Kate was the daughter of the late, but very well remembered, Edward Windell, Victoria Howard's long time agent and lover.  Edwards’s wife had died giving birth to Kate, and so it was that Mary's grandmother eventually become his lover.  It seemed the whole world knew of the affair, but no one talked of it.  Least of all the two children that happily played together in their own little world, whilst their guardians discussed business, and, as both the children later realised, partook of pleasure.

Nowadays Kate would laugh about the relationship, often saying that she wished Victoria and Edward had married, that way she and Mary would have indeed been sisters.  Mary would retort that she felt like they were sisters anyway so it didn't really make any difference. 

However, she had never understood their relationship. She had tried; but to her, love was about flowers, hearts, and kisses.  Not about a quick bunk up in the back toilet (she had actually walked in on the lovers in the said toilet one day).  She believed in love, and that was why she chose to write about love.  However, as Kate had so often pointed out to her, "To be able to write about a subject, Mary, you need to understand it."  She knew this and if anyone had asked, she would have been ashamed to admit that she was twenty-two years old and had never been kissed; actually she had never even come close to being kissed.  She knew that was why readers of her books had criticised the love scenes, and why some had stated that her books reminded them of fairy tales.  She needed to understand all of the emotions she wrote about, and not guess at them.  But how was she able to do that, when to even smile at someone of the opposite sex resulted in a bright red blush brightly colouring her skin?

Mary pushed herself up from the leather chair; walked to the fireside, threw on a couple of logs, and then ambled over to the window.  She saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye, but ignored it.  Instead, her thoughts lingered on her love life, or lack of.  When the shadow moved closer, she turned and shouted angrily at the air,

"
And how am I meant to meet a man when I have you lot trailing behind me the whole bloody time?
"

Grabbing her cup, she slammed out of the study, and made her way towards the kitchen.  The shadow didn't follow.

Mary inhaled deep breaths in an attempt at calming herself down.  By the time she had entered the kitchen she had succeeded, well almost.  She looked up at the clock and winced; Dawn, her grandmother's daily cleaner would arrive soon, and although Mary didn't really need her services, she was loath to let her go.  Dawn had worked for Victoria for thirty years, she was part of Mary's home, and she and the gardener Dan were the only company Mary had on a daily basis.  They were part of her life in the cottage, always had been, and as far as she was concerned, always would be.

Mary knew that Dawn would moan if she found her dressed in pj's, and wearily walked back into her bedroom and got dressed in old jeans, and an over-sized warm jumper.  Just as she had finished dressing she heard the back door slam, and she felt her spirits lighten at the thought of exchanging a few words with Dawn.

"Hello, my sweetheart,” Dawn said as Mary walked into the kitchen, "You alright, my lovely?"

"Yes I'm okay.  I got soaked in that downpour earlier, and got a bit irritated about it, but I'm fine now."

Dawn looked towards Mary, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"Why didn't you take the car, love?" she asked casually.

"I've decided to start walking...I need to shift some pounds, but I won’t be doing that again in a hurry."

"Oh dear, Mary, you do get some strange ideas in your head, you do.  You don’t need to lose weight!  Tell you what, I'll make us a cuppa before I get on...How does that sound?"  Mary nodded in agreement, pulled out one of the chairs surrounding the table and flopped down onto it with a sigh.

After placing a cup of hot tea in front of Mary, Dawn placed her own on the table, pulled out a chair and said, "What’s up, love, cos it looks like it's much more than just getting wet."

Mary didn't say anything for a moment.  She then answered, her voice sad, "I feel like my life's going nowhere, my writing is crap, I have no friends, I've never had a relationship...and I have...well I have other problems."

Dawn frowned.  W
hat other problems?
she thought.
Instead she said, "You're the only one who can change all of that, love, you know that, don't you?  Your gran would have told you that if she was here."

Mary nodded in agreement. 
But she didn't know, nobody knew!
she silently shouted.  Gulping down the last of her tea, Mary started to rise, but Dawn halted her progress by placing her hand on her arm.

"But it's more than that, isn't it, love?" 
Can I tell her, will she think I'm crazy?
Mary thought.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Dawn," she said with a sigh.

"Well why don't ya try me and find out...it can't be that bad, love." 

It is!  She'll think I'm mad!
she screamed to herself.

Her troubles rushed briefly through her mind, and she knew, just as Dawn had stated; that she was the only one who could change it all.  Maybe, that change started with her admitting her problem.

"My sweet…?"  Dawn asked, trying to shake Mary from the thoughts that had silenced her.

It's now or never,
Mary thought and glanced up at Dawn's concerned face.  She then dropped her head, and mumbled in a husky whisper, "
I see dead people!
"

Chapter Two

"Well I never!  She always said you could...but you know what she was like, the woman believed in magic, for heaven’s sake.  She would've loved this, been her high delight it would have been..."

Mary watched, dumbfounded, as Dawn laughed.

"Did you
hear
what I said?" she asked, her voice high-pitched and squeaky.

"Yes, of course I did…" Dawn answered, a hint of laughter still vibrating in her voice.

"But I don't understand...What's...Well, what is
so funny
?" Mary snapped.

Dawn paused, realising Mary was far from happy at what she had just heard.  She then clasped Mary's hand in her own and said, "Your gran, love, she knew you had the gift.  She'd mention it to me often, telling me how you followed after her own mother.  She said one day you would admit it, and until you did, you would never move on with your life...She was a clever woman, you know…not much passed her by, did it?"

They knew!  All those years of thinking she was a lunatic, of thinking that people would think she was crazy, and all the time they knew!

Mary pushed back her chair and abruptly stood.  She was angry, she was more than angry, she was fuming.

"
Well I'm glad you think it’s funny, because I DON'T!  All the years I thought I was mad, and it turns out...Oh my God!  It turns out that you both knew...
"  Mary paused in the middle of her rant.  Her eyes were wide, and she was trembling and frantically hyperventilating.

"Now, love, don't be silly now.  Your gran said you needed to admit it to yourself and..." 

"
And what… She was wrong…I needed support,
" Mary said, and throwing her hands up in the air she started to move towards the door.

"Do you ever talk to her?"

Mary stood stock still in the doorway.  Slowly, she turned towards Dawn, tears streaming down her face.

"No, no I don't...and that is what
so
annoying...The one person I want to talk to, and I can't!  It stands to reason really, I'm a failure at everything, including talking to dead people!"

Dawn stumbled from her chair and pulled Mary into her arms.  "Don't say that...don't ever say that, you're not a failure, you're wonderful...oh my poor, poor, girl."  Mary clung onto Dawn's warm, plump body, her tears running freely, soaking the older woman’s shoulder.

"There, there...stop the tears now...come on, stop it...you'll be making yourself ill, you will."

Dawn pulled her towards the table and after pushing her back into a chair, grabbed some paper kitchen roll and put the kettle back on.  Handing the kitchen roll, which served as a make-do hankie, to Mary, she said, "So why now, love...why tell me now?  I mean after all these years, there must be a reason?"

Mary blew her nose and wiped her eyes. 
Why now?
  She repeated the question silently to herself.  She thought she knew why, but even so, it didn't make sense to her.  How many times had she been visited by lost souls?  Souls crying out for help, help that she didn't know how to give, and wasn't sure even if she did know, if she would.  She hated her visitors, and whenever possible she had always tried to ignore their presence.  She had always hoped that if she ignored them long enough they would, in the end, get the message and finally leave her alone.  Nevertheless, her strategy had never worked, and the spirits still glided into her life without as much as an invitation or a by your leave.

Memories of childhood engulfed her.  Visions of a small child, her head buried deep in a hot quilt, and her mouth urgently whispering the Lord’s Prayer in an attempt to stave off the dreaded spirits.  So very afraid to glimpse over the edge of the suffocating quilt, because she knew the faces of the dead waited, their eyes pleading for attention, attention that she was afraid to give.

She knew!
she silently shouted in disbelief.

She was so angry at the fact that her grandmother had known, and more than angry, she was resentful.  Night after night she had suffered without sleep, fear controlling her mind and body.  She had refrained from making friends and having a boyfriend, and all because she was certain they would think she was crazy if they discovered her secret.  But, to discover her grandmother suspected she was able to communicate with the dead.  To realise, that she had experience of the paranormal via her mother, Mary's great grandmother, and that she could have given her advice and support in dealing with her fears.  This realisation shook Mary to her very core, and in doing so made her doubt the relationship they shared.  She shook her head, pushing away her doubts, because if she lost faith in their relationship, she lost faith in everything she had ever known, and she just couldn't face that.