Come Little Children: Book I

The Dream

Katerina deduced that she would grow mad if she remained awake, waiting and left to wander. She lay on the soft coverlet on her bed and allowed her eyes to flutter to a close. She then allowed herself to be engulfed by darkness, expecting a dreamless sleep. She was wrong.

Katerina was seven years old again. She was wearing her white nightgown, her wispy blonde curls hiding the intricate lace pattern. She peered out the small window listening to her mother sing, the children piling into the garden in a deep trance.

Indeed, Katerina was entranced but not like the other children as she wasn't entranced by the song or even her mother but by the process in which Jacquetta proceeded in doing each evening, the  one she would soon be doing in her place.

She watched in awe as, Jacquetta gently lay her hand on a little girl's copper haired head, making every movement appear a dance. "Lay to sleep, dear children. Eternal slumber awaits."

All the children fell to the ground, making a small thud as they did. This had always been Katerina's favorite part, watching their innocent corpses fall to the ground and never to watch them awaken again. 

 Jacquetta started with the copper haired girl, sinking her teeth into her pale neck. Katerina often wondered if she too would be able to make the process look like a graceful dance. She watched her mother intently and as she dropped the girl to the ground, almost carelessly before moving onto the next child. Katerina let a giggle escape her heart shaped lips and she watched her mother's dance falter, as if she had overheard her daughter's faint titter.

At the end of the night when all was still and the pale sun of gushing blood threatened its way onto the horizons, once the children had been 'disposed of', Jacquetta sat on the ledge of her daughter's bed, stroking her curls softly.

When Jacquetta realized that her daughter's eyes of emeralds had been opened she asked, "Why did you giggle when I Took the girl, Kitty? Was it amusing to you?"

Katerina sat up, allowing her mother to twirl a stray lock around her slender finger. Little Katerina had no way of explaining to her mother why she had permitted herself to do such a thing, to most it wasn't a laughing matter after all.  She settled for, "Yes, very much so. It seemed very amusing."

Before Katerina could have uttered another word, Jacquetta smiled. The smile was beautiful but it was also eerie and could send the most cold blooded harlot running in terror. It was the smile of a sadist. If it had been any other child, they would have sobbed and begged for mercy, writhed away from the iron grasp she had on her hair but Katerina wasn't just a child.

Katerina was a Taker.

Katerina took the smile as pride but then yawned and lay back down, closing her eyes ever so slightly. "I should like to sing your song, Mother."

Jacquetta tensed, her gentle fingers working their way through her daughter's locks of honey now rigid. It was such a delicate topic.  "Darling, you musn't sing my song. 'Tis not done."

"Well, why not?"

Jaquetta inhaled sharply at her daughter's slight pout, never one for insolence. Only now did Katerina realize that her mother was fighting the urge to snap at her, which she seldom did. Jacquetta never missed an oppurtunity to lose her temper.

Despite herself, Jacquetta calmly resumed stroking her daughter's hair. "You shall have a song of your very own to sing, pet."

"When?" Katerina asked, unaware that her mother's fists were clenched, biting the inside of her cheek with her sharp canines.

"We shall begin practising tomorrow, if you wish it but know this, daughter, you must never sing my song. Never." Jacquetta said, her voice grim and serious, a tone that did not match the dazzling woman that sat before her.

"I still don't understand!" Katerina wailed, pounding a fist onto the matress to express her chagrin. Normally, this would have earned her a slap for acting ridiculously childish (another thing Jacquetta did not tolerate) but seeing as the circumstances required her to be cool-headed, she did not react.

"But you shall, all in good time, sweet girl." Jacquetta rose from her perch, kissed Katerina on the forehead and blew out the burning candle on her right, chuckling to herself as if she saw her daughter's questioning expression.

Katerina listened to her mother scuttle off into the garden once more, she fluttered her eyes to a close once more in chagrin and then, all was still.

~

Thank for reading!

Giuliana xox