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Look at you.""You're not the one I'm terrified of, Dora!" I said with suddenimpatience. "I don't know what's happening! I am earthbound, yes,that's true. And I... and I killed your father. I took his life. I'm theone who did that to him. And he talked to me afterwards. He said,'Look out for Dora.' He came to me and told me to look out foryou. Now there it is. I'm not terrified of you. It's more the situation,never having been in such circumstances, never having faced suchquestions!""I see!" She was stunned. Her whole white face glistened as ifshe'd broken into a sweat. Her heart was racing. She bowed her head.
Her mind was unreadable. Absolutely unreadable to me. But she wasfull of sorrow, anyone could see that, and the tears were sliding downher cheeks now. This was unbearable.
"Oh, God, I might as well be in Hell," I muttered. "I shouldn'thave killed him. I ... I did it for the simplest reasons. He wasjust... he crossed my path. It was a hideous mistake. But he came tome afterwards. Dora, we spent hours talking together, his ghost andme. He told me all about you and the relics and Wynken.""Wynken?" She looked at me.
"Yes, Wynken de Wilde, you know, the twelve books. Look,Dora, if I touch your hand just to try to comfort you, perhaps it willwork. But I don't want you to scream.""Why did you kill my father?" she asked. It meant more than that.
She was asking, Why did someone who talks the way you do, do sucha thing?
"I wanted his blood. I feed on the blood of others. That's how Istay youthful and alive. Believe in angels? Then believe in vampires.
Believe in me. There are worse things on earth."She was appropriately stunned.
"Nosferatu," I said gently. "Verdilak. Vampire. Lamia.
Earthbound." I shrugged, shook my head. I felt utterly helpless. "Thereare other species of things. But Roger, Roger came with his soul as aghost to talk to me afterwards, about you."She started to shake and to cry. But this wasn't madness. Her eyeswent small with tears and her face crumpled with sadness.
"Dora, I won't hurt you for anything under God, I swear it. Iwon't hurt you....""My father's really dead, isn't he?" she asked, and suddenly shebroke down completely, her face in her hands, her little shoulderstrembling with sobs. "My God, God help me!" she whispered.
"Roger," she cried. "Roger!"And she did make the Sign of the Cross, and she sat there, sobbingand unafraid.
I waited. Her tears and sorrow fed upon themselves. She wasbecoming more and more miserable. She leant forward and collapsedon the boards. Again, she had no fear of me. It was as if I weren'tthere.
Very slowly I slipped out of the corner. It was possible to stand upeasily in this attic, once you were out of the corner. I moved aroundher, and then very gently reached to take her by the shoulders.
She gave no resistance; she was sobbing, and her head rolled as ifshe were drunk with sorrow; her hands moved but only to rise andgrasp for things that weren't there. "God, God, God," she cried.
"God ... Roger!"I picked her up. She was as light as I had suspected, but nothinglike that could matter anyway to one as strong as me. I took her out ofthe attic. She fell against my chest.
"I knew it, I knew when he kissed me," she said through hersobbing, "I knew I would never lay eyes on him again. I knew it. . . ."This was hardly intelligible. She was so crushably small, I had to bemost careful, and when her head fell back, her face was blanched andso helpless as to make a devil weep.
I went down to the door of her room. She lay against me, still likea rag doll tossed into my arms, that without resistance. There waswarmth coming from her room. I pushed open the door.
Having once been a classroom perhaps, or even a dormitory, theroom was very large, set in the very corner of the building, with loftywindows on two sides and full of the brighter light from the street.
The passing traffic illuminated it.
I saw her bed against the far wall, an old iron bed, rather plain,perhaps once a convent bed, narrow like that, with the highrectangular frame intact for the mosquito netting, though none hung from itnow. White paint flaked from the thin iron rods. I saw her bookcaseseverywhere, stacks of books, books open with markers, propped onmakeshift lecterns, and her own relics, hundreds of them perhaps,pictures, and statues, and maybe things Roger had given her beforeshe knew the truth. Words were written in cursive on the woodenframes of doors and windows in black ink.
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