The Tale of a Vampire

Chapter 2

The ticking of the clock seemed to echo in the room. Aileen's sudden silence hung over the two like a vulture and the boy wondered if he should speak up or not. Finally he did, clearing his throat and asking Aileen if marrying Ellis was as bad as she thought it would be.

"Yes and no," the woman replied. "Yes because, in the end, I was forced into a repetitive life of dinner parties with people who were hardly my acquaintances, of being submissive to my husband's whims whether I wanted to or not, and of being stuck in my home with child; all of the things that I never wanted.

However, I say no due to the fact that I eventually got used to that monotonous lifestyle to the point that it no longer bothered me. Mind you, all of these things did not happen at once or even within a year of us being married. It took three years to be exact; three years of resentment; three years of arguing and crying and screaming; three years of wishing for another life; and three years of being forced to carry three different children- two being twins- only to have them die in my arms.

By the third year of our marriage, I had lost all urges of mine to explore and to rebel in even the smallest way. I had also lost all hope that I would ever see Gavin again, instead, accepting that would be my life from then on."

"And what did ever happened to Gavin?" Elijah asked. "Was he ever caught?"

Aileen shook her head. "No, he never was. The bounty that had been placed on his head was a handsome one, but no one ever turned my esquire in for it. The horse that he had acquired for us was found a week after his disappearance in the forest. The creature was dead, supposedly ripped apart by wolves, but there was no sign of Gavin anywhere. Eventually, people just... forgot about him and continued on with their lives. I imagine that even Gavin's father grew uncaring of his son, and perhaps was even glad that the boy was out of his life."

"But you never forgot about him, right?"

"Of course not. For months after Gavin left, I dreamt of him. I dreamt of me riding away with him instead of refusing him, of exploring faraway lands and drifting to sleep in his arms beneath the stars. Why, once I even dreamt of Gavin and Ellis' roles being reversed, with Gavin being my prince, while Ellis was the lonely esquire. But, dreams like that weren't useful in my new life, and, as Ellis would cruelly say, 'if it were not immediately useful, then it was more worthless than pig guts'."

Aileen gave a heavy sigh. "God, I hated Ellis when we first married. He had a temper. He was overly serious and cynical and reminded me far too much of my father. I felt stifled beneath him, and- for months after we were wed- felt entirely alone. My family and my friends all felt that I should be honored to be a part of the royal family. My old friend, Cedany, even dismissed my sadness over marrying Ellis and told me that I was being ungrateful. In the end, I had no one to talk to, and did not realize just how much my talks with Gavin meant to me and my sanity.

Meanwhile, Ellis compared every little thing that I did to his late wife, Josephine, who had died a little over a year before due to a fever.

Josephine would do this, and Josephine would do that. My Josephine would never be so daft as to- etc. etc. This nitpicking only increasing my feelings of hopelessness and dread even more. My only saving grace was that he would eventually stop these comparisons after supposedly consulting with a priest on the matter. And eventually, like I said before, I had no choice but to suck up my despair over my situation, and try to make the best out of my situation as my brother Barric's wife advised me.

It was only then that we began to live in relative peace."

Elijah took the words in and thought on them. Then, a sudden thought came to him.