Marcella Unbound

I catch myself dreaming of her again and again. Her face never more than a blur, but her body in focus as she comes towards me. I know that I must be dreaming, but why awaken and ruin the moment I’ve longed for all these months? I tell myself it has to be enough. That her need to keep me at arms length, to maintain the integrity of an enchantment that makes it impossible for anyone to retain a functional memory of her face, is for the best.

Only my heart and my overly active mind refuse to get on the same page. I catch myself drifting into thoughts of my inadequacy. I tell myself it must be an issue with me, that if Marcella wanted to let me in, she would. But it isn’t that simple. None of this is simple because we aren’t designed for one another. There are miles of empirical evidence laying out for all to see that our relationship, no matter how desperately we long for each other, could never work long term.

Marcella is a vampire, and I a human of little to no merit. Well…maybe I shouldn’t say that. I suppose what I mean is I’m just your typical junior in college. And with a double major in english literature and theater to juggle, I don’t have time for much outside of school. But that has always been how I like it. I like being busy, dedicating myself to my course work and the pursuit of ever expanding knowledge. I’ve loved school ever since I was a little kid struggling to get past level one of our readers in the first grade. Once I got past the embarrassment of taking home those bright red readers in a clear bag for all of the carpool line to see and point and laugh at me for being so far behind, the rest was a relatively easy to digest slice of cake. I mean except for math, but who doesn’t struggle with math at one point or another? Math and I share a reciprocated level of hatred and that is just fine by me.

My point being, I never anticipated any of what would happen that night, nor the days that followed. It felt like I was swept up into something that had a current all its own. A conflict hundreds of years in the making and here was little ole me acting as the ignition point.

Marcella and I met through the english department and before you get all judgmental, I’ll admit it now. I fell in love with my college professor. At least I think it’s love. No, no I hope that it’s love because it is the only way I can describe the total loss of functional thought I experience every time she enters a room. It had been months of back and forth, of us pretending we didn’t notice the way the energy in the air would shift. That the electricity between us was nothing more than a harmless crush or simple infatuation. But the more we learned about each other, the harder it became to deny what we both knew.

And so a month ago, Marcella sat me down and told me in the most sane way a person could manage and in no uncertain terms that she was a vampire. She couldn’t give me much in the way of her history but she told me there were people from her past she had to be wary of. She warned me that us moving forward in any way could turn me into a target, but I didn’t care. I’d rather face the possibility of becoming a target and have Marcella than keep telling myself I could walk away from her.

As I walked across campus from my study group meeting in the library, I felt someone watching me. Sure, it could have just been the fact that I was a woman in my early twenties walking around a university campus at 10pm, but it felt like more than that. I followed the path Marcella had shown me the night after she told me the truth about herself. She made me promise I would follow this same path after sunset, I assumed so she could keep an eye on me. I had felt her presence a few times, but this was different. The air felt heavier and so I hurried along to my dorm, only to realize as I locked the door behind me that I’d been partially holding my breath the entire time. It took a long shower and some sleepy time tea in order to calm myself enough to drift into long awaited sleep, but it worked. The moment I closed my eyes, there she was. Only something was different tonight. What was this look of worry upon her face and—I could see her face. Clear as the day we met, every last gorgeous aspect was here in a way I had longed for all this time. “I want to show you my face, pet. I want you to see me.” Her voice was distorted, but I didn’t care. I wanted to lose myself in her voice, in her beauty and effortless stillness as she continued, “I want to let you love me as I love you”.

The moonlight shining into my window and across the tile floor catches my eye, just in time for me to see the window slide open and suddenly she’s hovering over me. “Shh, shh. It’s okay love, it’s just me. Don’t move, okay? Stay nice and still for me. I know I told you we couldn’t do this. That writing letters and seeing your life from afar had to be enough. But I saw you after class a few nights ago walking around campus, and I couldn’t get you off of my mind. Are you sure this is something that you want?” I long to assure her I’m up for anything. That I can handle whatever comes our way, but my voice sticks in my throat. I settle for the most reassuring nod I can muster. “I promise to be as gentle as I can, but this will hurt. It will be painful and exhausting but I will not drain you. Are you ready?”

All at once, I feel her breath on my skin. Her lips dancing along my collar bone and up my neck, finding a home just below my left ear as I do my best not to move. She pauses to whisper, “Keep breathing, good girl. Wouldn’t want you to pass out on me.”

I feel the pressure mount as she sinks her teeth into my sensitive skin. I instinctively reach out and grab hold of her elbow as she pins me to the bed, pulling her closer as she begins to drink her fill of my blood. I can’t explain it, but I need this. The pressure on my neck, her weight on top of me, the way my head grows dizzy as she drinks. I need this. I need her. And then just as soon as it began, Marcella has finished. Her now warm lips kiss my forehead and as she goes to get up, I cannot release my grip on her arm. I don’t want this to end and I think a part of her doesn’t either. We both know we are doomed to be nothing more than we are now, but neither of us wants to admit it. “It’s alright, Bria. I won’t leave you alone tonight. I’ll stay as long as you’d like.”

I scoot over and into her arms, her body warming as my blood courses through her now. I fight to stay awake, but her fingers in my hair are not making it any easier. Her voice reverberates as my ear rests on her chest, “The enchantment was always meant to protect my identity and in turn, it protected you. You knowing who I am will only make things all the more difficult, my love. It was never my lacking affection for you, and even now I’m afraid we are not in the clear. If either of us are caught exchanging even so much as a glance, you could be in grave danger. The letters and our alone time, like now, will have to be enough. At least until I can figure out another way.”

It takes summoning up all my courage to tell her how I’ve felt all this time. “You know that it isn’t. How could it ever be enough when I’m forced to dream without you? My heart longs for you to let me in. How much longer must I wait outside in this cold before you deem me worthy of you.”

The tears begin to trickle down my face and as hard as I fight it, the hitch in my breath that has always given me away when I attempt to stealth cry, gives me way once again. “Oh no, no please don’t cry little one. This is exactly what I wanted to avoid. Why I tried for so long to keep my distance. I spent months longing for you before I ever sent you a single letter. Marveled at the way the moonlight danced upon your skin as you sat on the bench by the big oak tree, looking up at the stars.” Marcella’s hand continued to absentmindedly play with my hair as she became lost in her memories. “The way you would sing to yourself as you walked through the darkness, doing your best to convince yourself you weren’t afraid when I could see your heart beating out of your chest from the rooftops I traversed to keep track of you.”

I think her voice is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure if that is part of the whole being a vampire thing or not. I’m not naive, i just don’t care. I’m with her now and that’s all that matters. Marcella leans down and kisses my forehead, lingering there a moment as though beginning to say goodbye. “Sweetheart? Are you still with me or have you drifted into dreams again?”

I try to say something, anything. Even just a nod, but my body has overtaken me. She kisses my forehead once again and as I begin to let myself shift into dreams, I feel her stiffen against me. “Don’t move and don’t make a sound, I mean it.” I have never heard Marcella so firm, at least not with me. I was her soft spot, her adorable weakness, but something was very wrong. I want to call out, to hold tightly to her hand as she climbs out of my bed and crosses to the open window, but I haven’t an ounce of strength left in me.

That’s when I hear the footsteps outside my dorm room. I lay frozen in bed, attempting to regulate my breathing as my door slowly creaks open and what sounds like two people step inside. One stays by the door as the other moves closer, their footsteps barely audible until I sense them standing at the head of my bed. “She was here,” he barks. “I can still smell her on the human. You wait here, I’ll track her. If anything comes up, use the human as bait.”

“But boss said—“ The second voice attempts to intercede, but the man is obviously the one in charge as her concern goes unnoticed. He cuts back, “This is exactly what we’ve waited for, so don’t go messing it up. We’re only going to get one shot at her, Blythe.”

I hear my window slide open but before he can climb out, there’s a loud crash. I’d thought she’d run. That she left me behind, but she was here the whole time. She hid in this room and they had no idea. I hear them crashing all around me but keep my eyes shut tightly, remembering what she’d told me about some vampires ability to confuse and enchant with a simple trance. I knew in my weakened state I was even more susceptible, and so like a small child hiding in plain sight from monsters in the closet, my eyes remained closed.

I hear a series of punches exchanged but the presence at the head of my bed remains there, motionless. It’s as if she is taking in their fight but wants nothing to do with it just as much as I want to vanish into my mattress. “Quit standing around like an imbecile and grab her, Blythe. Now!” The urgency and desperation in Locke’s voice is almost palpable now. Marcella must be the one landing a majority of the punches I think, just as I feel Blythe over me.

Tripping over my shoe on the ground beside my bed, I feel Blythe’s cold hands grab me by the shoulders, ripping me out of the relative safety of my bed. I try to call out, but my body is still much too weak. I hear her take a hard punch to what must have been her stomach. Hear the thud as she falls to the ground and he continues to kick her. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes closed as the sounds of her fighting back get further and further away. “I’m coming! Just keep your eyes closed. Don’t open them for anything, love. No matter what—“ Marcella barely gets her words out before Locke kicks her in the stomach.

I feel Blythe rushing down the stairwell with me in her arms. She does not struggle or strain. It is as though I am no more than a feather, drifting down further and further into a world I was never meant to know exists.

The freezing wind whips and tears into my skin as she carries me outside. I have no idea who she is, where I’m being taken or why, but I know that if she gets too far from the building, Marcella won’t be able to find me. In the letters, I remember her telling me about some powerful people from her past. People who had no qualms about immorality if it got them what they wanted. This is exactly what she had tried so hard to shield me from.

“Shit. Where’s the car?” Blythe’s panic begins to surface as I feel her whip her head from one side to the other, scanning the parking lot for their car. “I could just kill you now and dump you in the alley. Be a hell of a lot easier than keeping you alive and waiting for Marcella to come to us.”

Suddenly we stop moving, her body stiffening as she lets out a low growl. In an instant, I am on the ground, landing with my right arm between me and the frozen pavement. I feel the thud as she falls beside me. I squeeze my eyes closed even tighter, no longer committed to pretending I’m asleep or unconscious. All I want is to get up and run, but my legs refuse to cooperate, still too exhausted from the blood loss. I know she never would have taken so much had she thought this could happen. I feel myself being lifted into the air, unsure who it is who has me now until I feel her pull me close to her. Out of breath, Marcella whispers “I’ve got you, pet. I’ve got you.”

She is still out of breath as she takes off running with me in her arms. I do my best to hold on, hoping I’m not adding too much to her exhaustion. I hate being this helpless. Hate that when she needed me most, all I could do was lay motionless in bed. This is what she meant by us not being together. I’m the weak link. I am her weakness now. After staying hidden from these people for longer than I’ve been alive, a few months with me has done her in. As much as I want to stay awake and hate myself, being safe in her arms has me drifting off once again.

I wake up to the sunlight creeping in under the curtains, alone in what must be her bed. I crawl further under the covers, wrapping myself in her smell, wanting to stay here forever and forget all about last night. I catch myself drifting back off again and shake it off. I can’t just stay in here without her. I sit up to find a glass of water and a robe waiting for me beside the bed. Finally up and ready, I make my way into the living room only to find her asleep in a chair facing the front door. I grab a blanket from the couch but before I can lay it across her, her hand shoots out and grabs my wrist.

“Hey, hey it’s just me. It’s just me.”, I cry out. I do my best not to scream in pain as Marcella’s grip holds fast. It takes her another moment to register what’s happening, but by then it’s too late. The instant Marcella lets go, I instinctively hide my wrist behind my back without so much as glancing down to see the bruising I know will be waiting. But as stealthy as I think I am, Marcella always knows. She sees right through me, as though I am an open book who’s pages she gently caresses, only her usually calm demeanor has been replaced with anxiety levels the likes of which I have never seen in her. Her voice shaking, “Oh my god. Are you alright? I hurt you, didn’t I?” I want to smile and tell her no, that I’m fine, but I know it’s of no use. “Let me see your wrist, love. Please?” And so with great trepidation, I relent, taking my arm from behind my back and resting it wincingly in her hand. “I’m so sorry baby! I didn’t—“ I interrupt her as my instincts kick in. “It’s not your fault, Marcella. Truly, it was mine for not being louder. Here you’ve sat, all night I’m assuming, ready to go a second round with those people should they find us here, and I come tip toeing in from behind. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

As her eyes look up at me, it is all I can do not to turn inwards and do my best to vanish in a puff of smoke. “That is enough. I will not sit here while you perform some intricate mental gymnastics in order to shoulder the blame, when it is mine to shoulder. I know that you mean well, but I will not allow you to take the blame for this or anything else that may happen going forward.” She rises from her chair, taking my now lowered chin in her hands and gently lifting so my eyes must meet hers once again. “I know you do it out of habit, but not here. Not with me, alright?” I nod, cursing myself as I feel tears form and cascade down my cheeks. I hate how much I’ve cried in front of her in the last twenty four hours. This should be the happiest time we’ve spent together. Marcella finally is letting me in, in ways I had not dared to dream, so why is there so much sadness between us?

“Sit with me for a bit?” Her silky voice cuts through my ever twisting thoughts. “I couldn’t sleep earlier but I feel a bit exhausted at the moment.” Walking over to the couch, the thought is out of my mouth before I can catch myself. “You….you sleep? Like, you get tired? I'd always thought vampires just kinda, I don’t know. Ran on endless wells of energy or something. One of the many perks of being immortal and all that jazz.” Her laugh catches me off guard in the best way, shaking her head as she pulls me into her arms. “There is a lot no one knows about us and honestly? That’s sort of the way we like it. Better to be these all powerful, all knowing creatures in the minds of the human population. That fear is good for us.” I shift as I try to take it all in. I want to memorize every inch of her while I still can, and I’m not sure why. Something deep within me knows that this can’t last. That our beginning was our undoing, but I won’t let that sadness overtake me.

She tells me about the enchantment that she has always used to protect her identity and I marvel at the intricacies of it. A spell so subtle, you would never notice anything amiss while speaking with her face to face, but the moment you walk away, so too goes your ability to properly recall her face. “It’s not something meant for more than a brief encounter, and once they showed up last night, there was no point in hiding myself from you any longer. It would have taken far too much of my rapidly depleting energy to maintain and besides, we’re in this together now. Or so it seems. As hard as I tried to prevent this, we are in it all the same.”

The weight in Marcella’s words begin to take their toll upon me. What is the this that we are in and if she is this concerned, why aren’t I? Have I fallen prey to the oldest of mistakes? Have I cast Marcella as an unstoppable force, able to shield and protect and rescue me—oh god. I’m white knighting her, aren’t I? My mother always used to tell me all that time with my head in books was going to bite me, and thus far in relationships it kind of has. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some little girl lost in fantasy, but I also realized when I started dating that I had all these grand ideas of what love would be like. Only I rushed it. I was so desperate to be loved, I didn’t stop to ask myself if it was love at all. And now here I was again with Marcella, casting her as the hero to my protagonist, when really she just seems like a woman with a painful past who wants nothing more than to be loved herself.

We spend the next few hours telling each other as much as we can, like some sort of emotional and life story speed dating. I tell her about my childhood as the quiet girl in the corner and youngest of four kids, while she tells me about the woman who sired her in 1702. “I was in my twenties when I encountered Amelia. I had been the english teacher in my small town for a few years and it was not uncommon for me to look after a few of the children after school had ended for the day. The town wasn’t particularly small, but we all looked after each other all the same. It was up to me to make sure the children could roam freely, but to keep them from the edge of the woods. But you know how children are. You tell them no and their longing to indulge their curiosities only grows stronger. That day, as I cleaned up and helped a little girl finish her writing assignment, I suddenly heard screams coming from behind the schoolhouse. I will never get the sound of little Jacob screaming for his mother out of my mind, nor the sight of his barely recognizable body when I ran into the woods after him.”

“There still hovering over him stood a werewolf, and as he tore into my flesh, I made my peace with my ending. Felt a calmness wash over me, and that was when I saw her. It was as if she had materialized out of thin air. Amelia, my soon to be savior, was able to destroy the werewolf and whisk me miles away to safety before any other creatures caught the scent of all the blood that had been spilled. Took her a long while to piece me back together. Her siring ripped me back from the brink of death. But it was my leaving her that saved my life.”

I sit a long moment after Marcella has finished speaking, attempting to process all she told so casually. As I begin to give my mind permission to accept the existence of not only an entire underground society of vampires, but also the existence of werewolves, I hear the cry of a barn owl pierce through the stillness. Without a word, Marcella rises from the couch and walks to the window on the other side of the living room, sliding it open and then standing with her arm outstretched. Before I can ask her what she’s doing stood there frozen, a snowy barn owl flies into the apartment and lands on her arm, crying out once more.

“It’s time,” Marcella says resolutely, as though I should know what any of this means. I’m still not convinced I’m awake and here for at all. Maybe I hit my head and am laying in my dorm room on the cold tile floor, in a pile of my own drool? “Amelia will be coming and I have to leave with her if I want to resolve any of this. I’m not sure when or if I’ll be back, but I promise to leave word with you as soon as I can.”

I go to stand but the entire room begins to spin as I sputter out, “What do you mean you’re leaving me here? You can’t just up and go with the woman you’ve been running from for hundreds of years, all because she what? Sent you a letter via owl? This isn’t a children’s book, Marcella! This is insanity, is what it is. Absolute insanity.” As I finish and turn to look at her, I see a smile dance across her perfect lips. Oh how I long to lose an afternoon discovering the magic of her lips on mine, but there simply isn’t time. She walks over to me, still carrying the owl on one arm with the wax sealed envelope in the other hand.

“This is what I’ve waited for, Bria. I have run for hundreds of years because that was all I knew to do. It was all I could muster up the courage to do, until I found you. You have reawaken my long dormant heart, given me the love and care I needed to finally be able to stand up and say enough. And though I’m not sure how things will turn out once I meet with Amelia and the council, I do know that I will do everything possible to get back to you. Because who in their right mind could ever stay away from someone so enchanting?”

I feel my cheeks warm at her words, but I do not turn away. I do not hide my face because I am not ashamed. I want Marcella to see what she does to me. Want her to feel the ways her seeing me has made me stronger, more sure of myself. She kisses me softly, taking her time, but it feels like goodbye. It feels like an ending and as I tumble into her arms once again, I say my silent goodbyes as well.

We spend the next hour in bed, cuddled up and sharing every little thing that comes to our minds, finding laughter and joy within the pain until Marcella asks me if I’m ready for my gift. We had not discussed it at length, but I knew it was time. I knew that I had to be able to fend for myself now that I had all this coveted and closely guarded information at my fingertips. She promised to find a way to send her old friend Eloise to stay with me once she reached the grounds of the councils mansion in the French countryside. I did my best to hold my tears, but there was no stopping them. We cried a long moment in one another’s arms and as Marcella sunk her fangs into my neck once more, I said goodbye to my mortality as well.

I would awaken hours later in her apartment alone, to find a letter detailing everything she couldn’t find the words or the courage for before she left. She had loved me before we even knew one another and now it was my turn to love her from afar. As I tore into my first bag of blood Marcella had labeled for me in the small fridge hidden in the vault in her closet, I wondered what would happen next. How I would ease away from my three older brothers and the friends I had made in this life.

For now I too was timeless

on an adventure all my own

Hopeful that one day soon

Our love could once again grow.

Marcella, unbound

finally free

I give of my soul in return

freely betrothed to thee.