FIC: To the East [Carmilla]
Title: To the East
Author: atraphoenix
Fandom: Carmilla
Characters: Laura/Carmilla, mentions of Carmilla/Bertha and Laura/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It wasn’t accurate to say that Laura moved on after Carmilla’s death. She moved forward, certainly, but that was only because she had no other way to go.
Author's Note: Written for the 2009 lgbtfest.
I had a strange conversation with Carmilla after dinner today. Sometimes I feel as if I hardly see her, as she rarely stirs from her room before noon, but this evening she was in one of her more pleasant moods. We sat together for a long time, talking about everything and nothing.
It was the easy conversation of friends who know each other better than they know themselves, or even the hushed dialogue of two lovers seizing a moment together in the quiet corners of busy ballrooms. (I was eager to savour our time together, so I elected not to protest against the strange intimacy of the moment. I believe that my father, sitting on the other side of the parlour, failed to notice it entirely. He couldn’t fathom the depth of my feelings for my dearest friend even if I did tell him.)
I admit that I do not know her better than I know myself, of course. I often feel as if I don’t know her at all. She is nothing but secrets. It is so hard to fathom that someone as good and beautiful as Carmilla could have anything eerie lurking behind her façade of purity, but that may well be the truth of it.
(Or as close to the truth as these things can be.)
Conversation eventually moved on to our families, as such meandering discussions will when the speakers have no particular direction in mind. She wished to know about my mother, and, after offering a few intimacies, I attempted to persuade her to divulge some details of her own.
She would not tell me about her family - I should not have been so surprised by that - but she eventually consented to tell me a little about her home.
“My home lies in the direction of the west,” she said quietly, her cold hand slipping in to mine, “I’ll take you to see it one day, my dear heart.”
Her voice was soft and low, as if she could scarcely manage to fill her lungs with each breath. If it hadn’t been for the surprisingly strength of her grip, I would have called my father over and told him she was sickening with something. Her gaze struck me as more than a little feverish.
It is strange to think that she plans to take me to a place she won’t even name, but, at the time, I didn’t think to question her.
I should have pulled away. It seems like such an obvious solution now. I am sitting alone in my room with nothing but my diary and my pen for company, and the world has taken on a new clarity. Things seem much more real now I can smell ink rather than Carmilla’s peculiar perfume.
I do not believe that I will ever be able to pull away from her.
I do not believe that I want to.
***
It wasn’t accurate to say that Laura moved on after Carmilla’s death. She moved forward, certainly, but that was only because she had no other way to go.
Her father had assumed that she would return to her former happiness after the vampire had been killed. He didn’t understand the depth of Carmilla’s influence. He certainly didn’t understand that she couldn’t simply forget everything she’d realised at Carmilla’s insistence. You didn’t notice the shadows until somebody pointed them out to you, but, once you had acknowledged them, you knew that they were there even after you’d blown out the candle.
In Laura’s opinion, he was a fool for assuming that ‘dead’ and ‘gone’ meant the same thing, but she did her best to humour him. Though it was generally acknowledged that she hadn’t been in the wrong - how could they blame a mere girl for falling under the spell of a wicked creature like Carmilla, after all? - she couldn’t entirely erase the guilt that stirred in her chest when she thought of what she’d put him through. To make it up to him, Laura put on an overly cheerful façade, smiling and laughing more than she ever had before Carmilla had insinuated her way into their lives. He was so happy to see the mirth in her eyes that it didn’t occur to him to question the sincerity of it.
He suggested - just once - that they leave the schloss, but Laura waved away the idea without really considering it. There was, in theory at least, nothing for them to run away from now.
Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, one of Laura’s two governesses, was inclined to agree.
“There is nothing more dangerous than memories in this house now,” she said with a sage smile. Memories of dark eyes and slender white hands, of footsteps in the hallway outside Laura’s bedroom, of kisses stolen in private moments and secret corners. Memories that were probably dangerous enough.
A month after that, her father suggested finding a new companion for her. Unfortunately, this was something she couldn’t protest against. It was the sort of thing that good, polite girls were supposed to do, and he was very careful to make sure that the companion was suitable. There was nothing remotely mysterious about Ada. She was the daughter of one of her father’s old colleagues. She was said to be quiet, polite, pleasant and a dozen other virtues he was careful to list repeatedly before her arrival. He was attempting to soothe Laura, and, until the girl arrived, it was successful.
She wasn’t beautiful, not like Carmilla - was that one of the qualities her father had included on her list of requirements? - but she was pretty enough, with auburn curls and a small nose that turned up at the end. There was something pleasant in the way she held herself, and the way she laughed musically at every joke, no matter how poor it was. Carmilla had been much more taciturn.
Carmilla. Carmilla. It always came back to her, in the end. Despite her best attempts to accept Ada, Laura couldn’t help but compare everything she did to the vampire.
She couldn’t tell her father how unsettled she was, any more than she could mention how little she’d been sleeping. He would assume she was sickening for something.
Perhaps she was.
The seed Carmilla had planted in chest was growing. The vampire’s death had not been enough to extinguish her wickedness.
It was going to choke her. It was going to choke her, and no new companion would be able to save her.
***
I am trembling so acutely that I scarcely know if I can write this entry, but I feel as I must. If I do not record it now, I will not be able to reflect on the details at a later date, and I will have no hope of forming a more coherent reply.
My father did notice our strange behaviour in the parlour last night!
(He must have. I cannot imagine what else could have prompted his conversation today.)
Carmilla was still in bed when he asked me to take a turn about the gardens with him, and I confess that I was rather surprised by his actions. He is usually content to leave me to myself until my dear companion stirs.
Things have not always been this way. Father and I have spent many hours together since his retirement, walking and talking and taking great pleasure in each other’s company. I truly think that he would be at a loss if I ever married. Not that I can see such a decision on any horizon. Sometimes I wonder if I am the marrying kind.
But I digress. I was sitting in the morning room of the schloss with Madame Perrodon, who was speaking in rapturous French about how pleasant it was to have two young ladies about the place, when he approached. She is not Carmilla’s governess, but seems as taken with the girl as she ever was with me. Not that I can blame her. I do believe that it is impossible to meet Carmilla without being struck by her. However, I was happy to accept my father’s offer and leave my teacher to her poetic monologue. Something about Madame’s words made me feel uncomfortable, as if she was trying to decipher and echo my own feelings for our beautiful visitor.
We had almost reached my favourite bench - I was inclined to ask him to sit a while, so we could enjoy the aspect in peace - when he spoke.
“I have been thinking,” he said, “It has been some weeks since we heard from General Spielsdorf, and the poor man must be suffering greatly.”
I felt an unpleasant stirring of guilt in my stomach at his words. I have not given as much thought to our friend the General - or, indeed, to his poor ward’s untimely death - as I should have. Carmilla’s arrival dulled whatever grief I should have felt, and I often find it difficult to pin my thoughts to one subject when my friend is around.
“We should visit him.”
“Father, we do not know for certain where he is! Besides, Carmilla’s condition is delicate. She would not travel well.”
“She would be quite safe here, with Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine.”
I let out a gasp of consternation. How could he even consider leaving without Carmilla? I could not imagine, at the time, where such an unthinkable notion had come from.
My reaction seemed to be an adequate response in itself, as he continued before I had a chance to speak again.
“I worry that you are becoming to close to her, Laura,” he said, placing a hand on my arm. It did not feel right there. His skin was unpleasantly warm, and I longed suddenly for Carmilla’s cool touch. “She will not be able to stay with us forever.”
I was saved the trouble of forming a reply by Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who wished to speak to my father about some domestic matter. Hastily making my excuses, I returned to the safety of the house. Carmilla awoke soon after this, and I was able to avoid my father’s attentions by spending the rest of the day in her company.
I do not know what he could have meant by his surprising speech. We are not “too close”. He should be glad that I have a little company at last. All young girls are prone to forming intense friendships, particularly friendships that make little sense to those outside. It is our nature.
***
Ada’s bedroom was in the west wing of the schloss. It made Laura dizzy to think of her sleeping with her face turned towards Carmilla’s former home, although she felt even worse when she imagined her bathing or dressing in the same room. Improper thoughts would step, unbidden and fully formed, into her mind as she climbed between her own bed sheets, and there was nothing she could do to shake them. It was all she could do to prevent her hand from straying downwards, between her legs, to compound sinful thoughts with sinful actions.
She wished she could hate Ada, much as she had once wished she could hate Carmilla. Hate was a much simpler emotion than love, or so Laura liked to think. Perhaps it was too close to love? They both required a certain depth of obsession. She should settle for dislike instead.
Unfortunately, it was rather difficult to dislike her as well. She was the opposite of Carmilla in every way. A perfectly ordinary girl, not particularly intelligent or particularly remarkable. To Laura’s intense surprise, that seemed to be what pulled them together. The sense of the exotic, of the unknown, had been the root of her relationship with Carmilla, and now the normalcy of the time she spent with Ada fuelled something equally terrible.
Was she doomed to a life of wickedness? Ada was everything pure and good, but in her dreams Laura corrupted her as surely as Carmilla had once corrupted her.
Horrified by her own thoughts, Laura retreated into her shell and spent as little time alone with Ada as possible. This was a difficult task, given how eager her father was for them to become fast friends. He’d almost lost her to Carmilla. He knew - or thought he knew - that he couldn’t possibly lose her to Ada, so he pushed them together.
Ada, for her part, seemed to think that Laura was shy, and needed to be coaxed out of her shell. Why couldn’t she realise what she might unleash?
She would slip her arm through Laura’s, walking her around the garden as if she was a child who would stray from the path without supervision. Her skin, or what Laura could feel of it through their gowns, was warm, as was her own. Carmilla had been cold - a symptom of her illness, or her rotten core - but at least her unnatural physically had matched her unnatural nature. Laura looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal girl.
Her new companion - she didn’t dare to call her a friend, whatever her father might hope - kept to neutral conversation topics. The weather and the autumn leaves, the new book that Madame Perrodon had suggested for their amusement. Laura rarely listened. In fact, her attention was only truly captured when Ada mentioned something about her home life.
One morning, she talked about some of her friends at home, and it wasn’t until later that evening that Laura identified the strange feeling that had been souring her stomach all day. It was jealousy! She’d been foolish enough to assume that the relationship between herself and Ada - a relationship that she’d been working very hard to avoid, no less! - had been special.
She was a fool.
She had once assumed that the relationship between herself and Carmilla had been special as well, but hadn’t Carmilla behaved in just the same way with Bertha, the General’s ward? Laura remembered the fond way her father’s friend has described the girl - her radiance and intelligence, her sweetness and gentility - and felt her stomach tighten unpleasantly. She didn’t want to think ill of the dead, but she hated the idea of her and Carmilla together, sharing secrets and kisses Laura had once assumed were hers alone.
Oh, she was truly wicked! How could she be jealous or a poor young girl who had died for her love, when she had come so close to sharing the same fate?
She hadn’t been like this before … before Carmilla came to the castle. The witch. The vampire. She had lit a candle in Laura’s head, waking up things that should sleep in the mind of a proper young lady.
Was that why she couldn’t keep her thoughts from straying towards Ada? Was she jealous of the other girl’s normality - of a normality she no longer had - in the same way Carmilla had once been jealous of her?
She suspected that, if she ever kissed Ada - and Laura knew that she never would, never could - she would taste the purity on her lips. It would never be enough to make her good again, but, for a moment, she might be able to believe that she was.
***
For many nights now, I have been having the same peculiar dream.
My sleep has been filled with a great many imaginings since the first appearance of the spectre that so strongly resembled our Carmilla, but this particular dream is different. At first I did not realise it was a dream at all. I changed into my nightgown and performed my usual ablutions with the assistance of my maid, before climbing into bed. I left my candle burning, though now I cannot recall why. The night was strangely hot and heavy, although outside the schloss it was clement at best, so perhaps I could not bring myself to move.
Whatever the reason, I always lie in what seemed to be a state of sleeplessness for many hours, before, at last, my bedroom door opens. It is not my father or one of the servants, but, to my great surprise - and it is always a great surprise, no matter how many times I see it - Carmilla!
She is wearing her own nightdress, and, despite the fact that she is hidden from throat to ankle by white cotton, I recall feeling as if I could see her for the first time. All of her. The curve of her hip as she moved across the room, the swell of her breasts, the shadows beneath her beautiful eyes. It is almost painful to look at her.
Without speaking, she would climb on to the bed and lie down next to me. Our bodies never touch - not quite - but I can feel her there as acutely as if she had wrapped her arms around my waist. Soon, I cannot recall who the bed belongs to, for it truly felt like it belongs to both of us. Our hair mixes on the pillow, strands of golden and strands of ebony tangling together until I can scarcely stand the thought of separating us. I feel as if I am trapped - my limbs turn heavy and lethargic, and my mind too slow for me to comprehend what is occurring - by her presence.
When I wake up, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I hate her - oh, how I hate her! - but I do love her.
How can love and hate be so closely linked? How can I stand this?
***
Laura woke up with a start. She had been dreaming - the details were already fading, and she was struggling to remember if the face she’d seen had belonged to Ada or Carmilla - but the soft tread of a figure in the hall jerked her into wakefulness.
It was Ada, her hair tousled and her eyes heavy with sleep. She looked much younger, somehow, but Laura had barely a second to dwell on that. It wasn’t important, not when she considered the fact that Ada had entered her room of her own volition.
The sky outside was still dark, but Ada was in her room.
She was reminded, inexorably, of Carmilla, and hot panic bubbled up in her chest.
“You were crying out in your sleep,” Ada said quietly, and Laura shook her head. That wasn’t right. The phantom of her dreams - the Carmilla of her dreams - never spoke. The phantom certainly never hesitated at the foot of her bed.
“Are you unwell? Should I fetch your father?”
“No, no, I’m quite all right. Forgive me. I believe I am not quite awake yet.”
She certainly felt half asleep. Her head was heavy and her limbs leaden. It was as if the other girl had crossed an invisible line, and neither of them had been aware of it until it was far too late. Something had changed.
“Were you having a bad dream?” Ada asked gently.
“Just a dream, I think. I can hardly remember it now.”
“Sometimes that is when a dream is the most frightening.”
“When we don’t know what we’re running from,” agreed Laura, in a voice barely above a whisper. Ada was still standing at the foot of the bed, neither advancing nor retreating. The fact that she didn’t make her excuses and flee meant more than Laura could ever say, though she also knew that, as far as Ada was concerned, there was no reason to flee. She didn’t understand Laura’s wickedness. She had never even heard of Carmilla.
“It was only a dream, Laura.”
“Dreams come from our subconscious, do they not?”
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Laura didn’t want to infect her, she didn’t want to corrupt someone so beautiful and innocent with her own sin, she didn’t …
She didn’t want to corrupt her.
Carmilla, on the other hand, had wanted nothing else. That was what vampirism was. It was a fascination with another person. It was a desire that resembled love but fell vastly short of it. It was a need to break down the beautiful and transform it into the sinful.
Whatever else she was, and whatever else Carmilla had left behind in her mind, at least she did not want that.
“I believe that you are a better person than you seem to think you are,” Ada replied, interrupting her reverie, and Laura couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“You do not know me.”
“No,” she agreed, taking a step closer but still remaining at a safe distance, “But I would like to, if you can bear to let me in.”
Laura was struck by a sudden urge to close the gap between them and touch Ada’s cheek, if only to see how the other woman reacted.
“I … I think I can bear that.”
Ada smiled, and, before Laura could speak again, it was the other girl who had moved, enveloping her in a tight hug.
It was not a romantic embrace. It was not one of Carmilla’s embraces - which had always left Laura torn between revulsion and desire, trapped in her own emotions - either. It was Ada’s alone, and Laura could not imagine anything more wonderful.
Gentle breath stirred the hairs on the back of Laura’s neck. The arms that held her were soft and warm. She could even feel a pulse when she pressed her face against the other girl’s collar, and smell the traces of the powder that Ada had failed to wash away during her evening ablutions.
Carmilla had never felt like that - she had never smelled or breathed or even truly lived in response to Laura’s touch - and yet she’d never noticed. It was strange, really, how things failed to be conspicuous by their absence when you had something else to fill your mind.
It was time for Carmilla to become the absent one, not Laura herself.
As the first rays of the sun started to creep over the horizon and through the gap in the curtains, Ada slipped a warm hand into hers and led her over to the window to watch the sunrise.
She knew that Carmilla’s house lay in the direction of the west. It was high time she started to look towards the east.
Author: atraphoenix
Fandom: Carmilla
Characters: Laura/Carmilla, mentions of Carmilla/Bertha and Laura/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It wasn’t accurate to say that Laura moved on after Carmilla’s death. She moved forward, certainly, but that was only because she had no other way to go.
Author's Note: Written for the 2009 lgbtfest.
I had a strange conversation with Carmilla after dinner today. Sometimes I feel as if I hardly see her, as she rarely stirs from her room before noon, but this evening she was in one of her more pleasant moods. We sat together for a long time, talking about everything and nothing.
It was the easy conversation of friends who know each other better than they know themselves, or even the hushed dialogue of two lovers seizing a moment together in the quiet corners of busy ballrooms. (I was eager to savour our time together, so I elected not to protest against the strange intimacy of the moment. I believe that my father, sitting on the other side of the parlour, failed to notice it entirely. He couldn’t fathom the depth of my feelings for my dearest friend even if I did tell him.)
I admit that I do not know her better than I know myself, of course. I often feel as if I don’t know her at all. She is nothing but secrets. It is so hard to fathom that someone as good and beautiful as Carmilla could have anything eerie lurking behind her façade of purity, but that may well be the truth of it.
(Or as close to the truth as these things can be.)
Conversation eventually moved on to our families, as such meandering discussions will when the speakers have no particular direction in mind. She wished to know about my mother, and, after offering a few intimacies, I attempted to persuade her to divulge some details of her own.
She would not tell me about her family - I should not have been so surprised by that - but she eventually consented to tell me a little about her home.
“My home lies in the direction of the west,” she said quietly, her cold hand slipping in to mine, “I’ll take you to see it one day, my dear heart.”
Her voice was soft and low, as if she could scarcely manage to fill her lungs with each breath. If it hadn’t been for the surprisingly strength of her grip, I would have called my father over and told him she was sickening with something. Her gaze struck me as more than a little feverish.
It is strange to think that she plans to take me to a place she won’t even name, but, at the time, I didn’t think to question her.
I should have pulled away. It seems like such an obvious solution now. I am sitting alone in my room with nothing but my diary and my pen for company, and the world has taken on a new clarity. Things seem much more real now I can smell ink rather than Carmilla’s peculiar perfume.
I do not believe that I will ever be able to pull away from her.
I do not believe that I want to.
***
It wasn’t accurate to say that Laura moved on after Carmilla’s death. She moved forward, certainly, but that was only because she had no other way to go.
Her father had assumed that she would return to her former happiness after the vampire had been killed. He didn’t understand the depth of Carmilla’s influence. He certainly didn’t understand that she couldn’t simply forget everything she’d realised at Carmilla’s insistence. You didn’t notice the shadows until somebody pointed them out to you, but, once you had acknowledged them, you knew that they were there even after you’d blown out the candle.
In Laura’s opinion, he was a fool for assuming that ‘dead’ and ‘gone’ meant the same thing, but she did her best to humour him. Though it was generally acknowledged that she hadn’t been in the wrong - how could they blame a mere girl for falling under the spell of a wicked creature like Carmilla, after all? - she couldn’t entirely erase the guilt that stirred in her chest when she thought of what she’d put him through. To make it up to him, Laura put on an overly cheerful façade, smiling and laughing more than she ever had before Carmilla had insinuated her way into their lives. He was so happy to see the mirth in her eyes that it didn’t occur to him to question the sincerity of it.
He suggested - just once - that they leave the schloss, but Laura waved away the idea without really considering it. There was, in theory at least, nothing for them to run away from now.
Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, one of Laura’s two governesses, was inclined to agree.
“There is nothing more dangerous than memories in this house now,” she said with a sage smile. Memories of dark eyes and slender white hands, of footsteps in the hallway outside Laura’s bedroom, of kisses stolen in private moments and secret corners. Memories that were probably dangerous enough.
A month after that, her father suggested finding a new companion for her. Unfortunately, this was something she couldn’t protest against. It was the sort of thing that good, polite girls were supposed to do, and he was very careful to make sure that the companion was suitable. There was nothing remotely mysterious about Ada. She was the daughter of one of her father’s old colleagues. She was said to be quiet, polite, pleasant and a dozen other virtues he was careful to list repeatedly before her arrival. He was attempting to soothe Laura, and, until the girl arrived, it was successful.
She wasn’t beautiful, not like Carmilla - was that one of the qualities her father had included on her list of requirements? - but she was pretty enough, with auburn curls and a small nose that turned up at the end. There was something pleasant in the way she held herself, and the way she laughed musically at every joke, no matter how poor it was. Carmilla had been much more taciturn.
Carmilla. Carmilla. It always came back to her, in the end. Despite her best attempts to accept Ada, Laura couldn’t help but compare everything she did to the vampire.
She couldn’t tell her father how unsettled she was, any more than she could mention how little she’d been sleeping. He would assume she was sickening for something.
Perhaps she was.
The seed Carmilla had planted in chest was growing. The vampire’s death had not been enough to extinguish her wickedness.
It was going to choke her. It was going to choke her, and no new companion would be able to save her.
***
I am trembling so acutely that I scarcely know if I can write this entry, but I feel as I must. If I do not record it now, I will not be able to reflect on the details at a later date, and I will have no hope of forming a more coherent reply.
My father did notice our strange behaviour in the parlour last night!
(He must have. I cannot imagine what else could have prompted his conversation today.)
Carmilla was still in bed when he asked me to take a turn about the gardens with him, and I confess that I was rather surprised by his actions. He is usually content to leave me to myself until my dear companion stirs.
Things have not always been this way. Father and I have spent many hours together since his retirement, walking and talking and taking great pleasure in each other’s company. I truly think that he would be at a loss if I ever married. Not that I can see such a decision on any horizon. Sometimes I wonder if I am the marrying kind.
But I digress. I was sitting in the morning room of the schloss with Madame Perrodon, who was speaking in rapturous French about how pleasant it was to have two young ladies about the place, when he approached. She is not Carmilla’s governess, but seems as taken with the girl as she ever was with me. Not that I can blame her. I do believe that it is impossible to meet Carmilla without being struck by her. However, I was happy to accept my father’s offer and leave my teacher to her poetic monologue. Something about Madame’s words made me feel uncomfortable, as if she was trying to decipher and echo my own feelings for our beautiful visitor.
We had almost reached my favourite bench - I was inclined to ask him to sit a while, so we could enjoy the aspect in peace - when he spoke.
“I have been thinking,” he said, “It has been some weeks since we heard from General Spielsdorf, and the poor man must be suffering greatly.”
I felt an unpleasant stirring of guilt in my stomach at his words. I have not given as much thought to our friend the General - or, indeed, to his poor ward’s untimely death - as I should have. Carmilla’s arrival dulled whatever grief I should have felt, and I often find it difficult to pin my thoughts to one subject when my friend is around.
“We should visit him.”
“Father, we do not know for certain where he is! Besides, Carmilla’s condition is delicate. She would not travel well.”
“She would be quite safe here, with Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine.”
I let out a gasp of consternation. How could he even consider leaving without Carmilla? I could not imagine, at the time, where such an unthinkable notion had come from.
My reaction seemed to be an adequate response in itself, as he continued before I had a chance to speak again.
“I worry that you are becoming to close to her, Laura,” he said, placing a hand on my arm. It did not feel right there. His skin was unpleasantly warm, and I longed suddenly for Carmilla’s cool touch. “She will not be able to stay with us forever.”
I was saved the trouble of forming a reply by Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who wished to speak to my father about some domestic matter. Hastily making my excuses, I returned to the safety of the house. Carmilla awoke soon after this, and I was able to avoid my father’s attentions by spending the rest of the day in her company.
I do not know what he could have meant by his surprising speech. We are not “too close”. He should be glad that I have a little company at last. All young girls are prone to forming intense friendships, particularly friendships that make little sense to those outside. It is our nature.
***
Ada’s bedroom was in the west wing of the schloss. It made Laura dizzy to think of her sleeping with her face turned towards Carmilla’s former home, although she felt even worse when she imagined her bathing or dressing in the same room. Improper thoughts would step, unbidden and fully formed, into her mind as she climbed between her own bed sheets, and there was nothing she could do to shake them. It was all she could do to prevent her hand from straying downwards, between her legs, to compound sinful thoughts with sinful actions.
She wished she could hate Ada, much as she had once wished she could hate Carmilla. Hate was a much simpler emotion than love, or so Laura liked to think. Perhaps it was too close to love? They both required a certain depth of obsession. She should settle for dislike instead.
Unfortunately, it was rather difficult to dislike her as well. She was the opposite of Carmilla in every way. A perfectly ordinary girl, not particularly intelligent or particularly remarkable. To Laura’s intense surprise, that seemed to be what pulled them together. The sense of the exotic, of the unknown, had been the root of her relationship with Carmilla, and now the normalcy of the time she spent with Ada fuelled something equally terrible.
Was she doomed to a life of wickedness? Ada was everything pure and good, but in her dreams Laura corrupted her as surely as Carmilla had once corrupted her.
Horrified by her own thoughts, Laura retreated into her shell and spent as little time alone with Ada as possible. This was a difficult task, given how eager her father was for them to become fast friends. He’d almost lost her to Carmilla. He knew - or thought he knew - that he couldn’t possibly lose her to Ada, so he pushed them together.
Ada, for her part, seemed to think that Laura was shy, and needed to be coaxed out of her shell. Why couldn’t she realise what she might unleash?
She would slip her arm through Laura’s, walking her around the garden as if she was a child who would stray from the path without supervision. Her skin, or what Laura could feel of it through their gowns, was warm, as was her own. Carmilla had been cold - a symptom of her illness, or her rotten core - but at least her unnatural physically had matched her unnatural nature. Laura looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal girl.
Her new companion - she didn’t dare to call her a friend, whatever her father might hope - kept to neutral conversation topics. The weather and the autumn leaves, the new book that Madame Perrodon had suggested for their amusement. Laura rarely listened. In fact, her attention was only truly captured when Ada mentioned something about her home life.
One morning, she talked about some of her friends at home, and it wasn’t until later that evening that Laura identified the strange feeling that had been souring her stomach all day. It was jealousy! She’d been foolish enough to assume that the relationship between herself and Ada - a relationship that she’d been working very hard to avoid, no less! - had been special.
She was a fool.
She had once assumed that the relationship between herself and Carmilla had been special as well, but hadn’t Carmilla behaved in just the same way with Bertha, the General’s ward? Laura remembered the fond way her father’s friend has described the girl - her radiance and intelligence, her sweetness and gentility - and felt her stomach tighten unpleasantly. She didn’t want to think ill of the dead, but she hated the idea of her and Carmilla together, sharing secrets and kisses Laura had once assumed were hers alone.
Oh, she was truly wicked! How could she be jealous or a poor young girl who had died for her love, when she had come so close to sharing the same fate?
She hadn’t been like this before … before Carmilla came to the castle. The witch. The vampire. She had lit a candle in Laura’s head, waking up things that should sleep in the mind of a proper young lady.
Was that why she couldn’t keep her thoughts from straying towards Ada? Was she jealous of the other girl’s normality - of a normality she no longer had - in the same way Carmilla had once been jealous of her?
She suspected that, if she ever kissed Ada - and Laura knew that she never would, never could - she would taste the purity on her lips. It would never be enough to make her good again, but, for a moment, she might be able to believe that she was.
***
For many nights now, I have been having the same peculiar dream.
My sleep has been filled with a great many imaginings since the first appearance of the spectre that so strongly resembled our Carmilla, but this particular dream is different. At first I did not realise it was a dream at all. I changed into my nightgown and performed my usual ablutions with the assistance of my maid, before climbing into bed. I left my candle burning, though now I cannot recall why. The night was strangely hot and heavy, although outside the schloss it was clement at best, so perhaps I could not bring myself to move.
Whatever the reason, I always lie in what seemed to be a state of sleeplessness for many hours, before, at last, my bedroom door opens. It is not my father or one of the servants, but, to my great surprise - and it is always a great surprise, no matter how many times I see it - Carmilla!
She is wearing her own nightdress, and, despite the fact that she is hidden from throat to ankle by white cotton, I recall feeling as if I could see her for the first time. All of her. The curve of her hip as she moved across the room, the swell of her breasts, the shadows beneath her beautiful eyes. It is almost painful to look at her.
Without speaking, she would climb on to the bed and lie down next to me. Our bodies never touch - not quite - but I can feel her there as acutely as if she had wrapped her arms around my waist. Soon, I cannot recall who the bed belongs to, for it truly felt like it belongs to both of us. Our hair mixes on the pillow, strands of golden and strands of ebony tangling together until I can scarcely stand the thought of separating us. I feel as if I am trapped - my limbs turn heavy and lethargic, and my mind too slow for me to comprehend what is occurring - by her presence.
When I wake up, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I hate her - oh, how I hate her! - but I do love her.
How can love and hate be so closely linked? How can I stand this?
***
Laura woke up with a start. She had been dreaming - the details were already fading, and she was struggling to remember if the face she’d seen had belonged to Ada or Carmilla - but the soft tread of a figure in the hall jerked her into wakefulness.
It was Ada, her hair tousled and her eyes heavy with sleep. She looked much younger, somehow, but Laura had barely a second to dwell on that. It wasn’t important, not when she considered the fact that Ada had entered her room of her own volition.
The sky outside was still dark, but Ada was in her room.
She was reminded, inexorably, of Carmilla, and hot panic bubbled up in her chest.
“You were crying out in your sleep,” Ada said quietly, and Laura shook her head. That wasn’t right. The phantom of her dreams - the Carmilla of her dreams - never spoke. The phantom certainly never hesitated at the foot of her bed.
“Are you unwell? Should I fetch your father?”
“No, no, I’m quite all right. Forgive me. I believe I am not quite awake yet.”
She certainly felt half asleep. Her head was heavy and her limbs leaden. It was as if the other girl had crossed an invisible line, and neither of them had been aware of it until it was far too late. Something had changed.
“Were you having a bad dream?” Ada asked gently.
“Just a dream, I think. I can hardly remember it now.”
“Sometimes that is when a dream is the most frightening.”
“When we don’t know what we’re running from,” agreed Laura, in a voice barely above a whisper. Ada was still standing at the foot of the bed, neither advancing nor retreating. The fact that she didn’t make her excuses and flee meant more than Laura could ever say, though she also knew that, as far as Ada was concerned, there was no reason to flee. She didn’t understand Laura’s wickedness. She had never even heard of Carmilla.
“It was only a dream, Laura.”
“Dreams come from our subconscious, do they not?”
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Laura didn’t want to infect her, she didn’t want to corrupt someone so beautiful and innocent with her own sin, she didn’t …
She didn’t want to corrupt her.
Carmilla, on the other hand, had wanted nothing else. That was what vampirism was. It was a fascination with another person. It was a desire that resembled love but fell vastly short of it. It was a need to break down the beautiful and transform it into the sinful.
Whatever else she was, and whatever else Carmilla had left behind in her mind, at least she did not want that.
“I believe that you are a better person than you seem to think you are,” Ada replied, interrupting her reverie, and Laura couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“You do not know me.”
“No,” she agreed, taking a step closer but still remaining at a safe distance, “But I would like to, if you can bear to let me in.”
Laura was struck by a sudden urge to close the gap between them and touch Ada’s cheek, if only to see how the other woman reacted.
“I … I think I can bear that.”
Ada smiled, and, before Laura could speak again, it was the other girl who had moved, enveloping her in a tight hug.
It was not a romantic embrace. It was not one of Carmilla’s embraces - which had always left Laura torn between revulsion and desire, trapped in her own emotions - either. It was Ada’s alone, and Laura could not imagine anything more wonderful.
Gentle breath stirred the hairs on the back of Laura’s neck. The arms that held her were soft and warm. She could even feel a pulse when she pressed her face against the other girl’s collar, and smell the traces of the powder that Ada had failed to wash away during her evening ablutions.
Carmilla had never felt like that - she had never smelled or breathed or even truly lived in response to Laura’s touch - and yet she’d never noticed. It was strange, really, how things failed to be conspicuous by their absence when you had something else to fill your mind.
It was time for Carmilla to become the absent one, not Laura herself.
As the first rays of the sun started to creep over the horizon and through the gap in the curtains, Ada slipped a warm hand into hers and led her over to the window to watch the sunrise.
She knew that Carmilla’s house lay in the direction of the west. It was high time she started to look towards the east.