Here's my attempt at an Edgar Allan Poe style story. The plot comes from a vampire folktale the Poe story I used as a model is “Ligeia”
Happy Halloween!
In the years since, I have yet to quit my mourning for the woeful events that lead me to my current situation –which, though rooted in tragedy, awarded me some semblance of contentment after unbearable horrors. The source of these fears was not always so –I still remember his face as it was –with beloved association – his angelic image, a ghost from long ago. His eyes –the emeralds I treasured above any precious stone, his hair curled –and I could imagine a crown of laurel upon him –the very likeness of Apollo –reminiscent of classical portraits familiar to me. This adoration that signified our love was not maintained respectively after the malicious rejection of the disapproval of my family. My love transcended a state of melancholy into pure hopelessness which was such in its power as to drive him from life itself. He did the deed upon a rotten tree that had long ago, after being struck by lightning, begun to waste away its insides –barely strong enough to withstand the weight of the village children in their games –and yet it held him. Oh! Wish I that it had demolished into a thousand pieces under such pressure as I had done. My love! My angel! He is gone –though I regret now desiring him restored to me.
Amid my grief I would often recall his image to my mind –I began to receive a notion that my sorrow had borne about some manifestation, for his face, looking at me through my mind, began to appear more and more tangible. One night as I lay in the darkness of the bed in my room –after my nightly prayers –and, once again, called forth the memory of my love, I felt the eerie caress of a whiff of cool air upon my cheek that seemed to have no source. I expected shadows to grow across the illuminated patch of moonlight –nothing stirred –no apparition appeared. On the next night there was the same occurrence only this time a shadow formed at the foot of my bed –I trembled with the fears of hell – then the figure stepped around the bed frame and into the recognition of the light –there stood my lost angel, no longer lost and no longer angelic –returned with a darker disposition, but with no weakening of our love. He returned every night, yet I would always receive him without joy –it was fear which prevented any celebration of his restoration –he was no longer my love, but some creature –a vampire as I had heard them named.
There was a wise old woman that lived in one of the oldest houses in the village –its foundation was crooked and sagged with age –the aged lady was known for her mystical knowledge and was the authority on all things otherworldly. I pleaded for her advice and she acquiesced to my desperation. She quoted to me these lines which I was to commit to memory:
You who live in fear
Of vampire visit every night
What you must do is rather clear
To rid this creature from your sight
Follow him to where he goes
Before the dawning of the light
Pin a string upon his clothes
Then follow when the sky is bright
If he asks you where you went
Do not divulge a word
Despite the threats he may have sent
Do not tell him what occurred
If he kills you after this
Though this may seem absurd
Through door or window is amiss
Then in the forest is preferred
So that night, when my vampire lover made ready to leave, I pierced his coat with a needle –which was connected to a ball of thread. I held the ball loosely tangled in my shaking fingers as it rolled around in pail palms. Then suddenly it stopped –my heart paused in response –and I summoned up all courageous intelligence left in me to stand and follow. The thread guided me –I conjured up an image of the Fates with their thread of life –if the thread in my hand should be cut then perhaps I would collapse into the waiting arms of death. The thread at last lead me to the churchyard, where I could just make out –by the dim morning light –the thread disappeared into the earth. The next night he visited me he asked me where I was the day before –I replied, “Nowhere”. “If you don’t tell me where you were,” he threatened, “your father’s life shall be forfeit”. I became distressed, but if I tell him he would plague my family further. I became consumed with guilt and sorrow two day later –my father had passed. When next he visited me –which was not for some time after his first interrogation –he confronted me again about the night I followed the thread. “Tell me! Or your mother will perish this time” his words imposed upon my very soul –still I refused him. Two days passed and I became an orphan of my own actions. The next night he visited me was his last –this time he threatened my own life –I gladly allowed this consequence and made my wishes known to my diminished family. When I died, a hole was made in the wall and I was carried out through neither window nor door –then buried not in the churchyard, but in the forest.
It so happened that a flower which had grown out of my grave, caught the eye of the emperor’s son and coveted it so that he had it dug out and brought home. My mind did not stay with my grave –I soon discovered –instead I haunted this beautiful plant as though it were my own body. I felt the emperor’s son’s admiration grow into a peculiar sort of love –it empowered me –and soon I was able to achieve the form of my living self during the night. By moonlight my love for him, in turn, began to grow, as I grew more corporeal each night I spent beside my sleeping love –until, finally, I could restrain myself no longer as I observed him affectionately –his breathing the rhythm of my heart. I kissed him –he stirred in surprise and viewed me with pleasant astonishment –I could see the recognition in his eyes –he saw the flower in me. Soon after we were married, but the occasion was tainted by a shadow of fear –my paranoia often turned to the vampire that still haunted my new existence –it compelled me to lock myself inside –never setting foot outdoors.
On one occasion, however, my husband convinced me to accompany him to church, so I tentatively stepped into the carriage followed by my fears. And Lo! There he was –the vampire waiting to ensnare me. We raced to the church –he was on my heels –my heart was so erratic –I felt it should leap from my chest and rupture with such disturbance. At the church I could do nothing but hide behind the portrait of an angel for protection, but he found me there. He reached out for me –fortune seemed to smile upon me then as the portrait unbalanced in space and fell upon the vampire –crushing him –destroying his sinful soul. At last! I was free from him –left only with memories that had threatened to rip me apart.
