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Family. The word sounded foreign on his tongue. The family he spoke of felt more like a crumbling castle, its foundations eroded over time just like the schloss.The only family I had left now was the only I was starting to form with Carmilla, a girl whose very existence was a rebellion against everything, everyone, that had imprisoned me for so long.
A dam had broken within me, a torrent of anger that had been barricaded up. My voice rose, echoing in the confines of the study. “I deserve to have a say in my own life.”
“Don't raise your voice against me.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you as of late. You’ve changed.”
He was right. Carmilla had unleashed something within me. She hadn't just unlocked my hidden desires; she was the spark that ignited the dormant fire of my voice.
“I won’t be your bargaining chip,” I said. “Nor will I cling to the general’s offer like a barnacle to a rotting ship as you so easily do." The words were laced with a venom I hadn’t known I possessed.
“How dare you —”
I turned on my heel and the heavy oak door slammed shut behind me with a resounding finality.
Heat scorched me from within, a furnace stoked by unadulterated rage. My life felt like a marionette show, with unseen hands pulling the strings and writing a script I never had a say in. The men in my life were drawing the map of my life with bold strokes, ignoring the path I wanted to choose for myself.
I ran upstairs to the only haven in the schloss. Carmilla's room.
I burst through the door and threw myself into her waiting arms, the dam of my emotions finally breaching. Tears streamed down my face, hot and relentless, staining her nightgown, but Carmilla held me tight.
She pressed a kiss to my temple. “My darling, what’s wrong?”
Between choked sobs, I poured out what had just happened.
"That pompous relic will never claim you. You are mine," she said fiercely, cupping my face, "and mine alone."
I buried my face in the haven of her neck, the familiar scent of jasmines and something else, something primal and intoxicating, filling my senses. How I yearned to be hers, completely and irrevocably.
She tilted my chin up, her eyes burning with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine. "I won't let them," she said, voice low and dangerous, a promise laced with something that tasted suspiciously like a threat. "They won't take you from me. You are mine. You shall be mine; you and I are one forever."
In that moment, I craved to be consumed by her, to become a single entity.
Chapter 6:
The atmosphere at dinner was tense. My governesses exchanged nervous glances at each other, knowing something had happened between my father and I, but neither dared to ask.
After we had finished eating, we all retired to our rooms for the night, except for me. I waited until my governesses had extinguished their lamps before making my way to Carmilla's quarters.
“I was waiting for you.” She opened the door, her lovely face bathed in the glow of a single candle she held. “I should like to get some air before retiring for the night. Care to escort me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Downstairs the grandfather clock chimed the witching hour as we slipped out of a side door in the kitchen. The cool night air washed over us like a balm. Outside, the moon hung full and luminous in the inky black sky, casting an ethereal glow over the orchard. The sweet, cloying fragrance of spring enveloped us. Apple blossoms, camellias, and roses.
“Look at the full moon,” I said. “It reminds me of that night you arrived.”
“Are you glad I came?”
“More than you know, dear Carmilla.” The stagnant waters of my existence craved a tempest. I envisioned myself as a wave, gathering momentum, yearning to crash against the sharp edges of her presence. To be broken down and remade. To rise from the churning sea; reborn and alive.
Carmilla brushed a stray curl from my neck, her fingers lingering. “Then stay with me forever.”
“Nothing is forever, Carmilla.”
“Galaxies and the elements cycle in different forms but never disappear…these things are forever as an eternal afterlife.”
“I would stay with you forever if I could, dear Carmilla.”
“What if I offered you forever?” she asked, her voice a silken thread. “Would you take it?”
