"Ah, Carmilla," my father said. "I see you met Angel." I nodded. My father had never introduced me to a boy before. "Angel is the biggest merchant and trader for our apples. I know he looks too young for it, but he is the finest lad I have seen in Europe for some time. He is from Germany."
"Nice to meet you, Angel." I offered a hand.
He didn't hesitate kissing it and shooting me another deadly look. It was as if no one else existed in this world but me. I made sure my internal shivering didn't show on my face or body. "My pleasure," he added.
"Carmilla is the girl who—"
"Lifted the curse, and blessed Europe with the Austrian apples," Angel said, his eyes still on me. "On behalf of all German people, I must thank you," he told me with a graceful bow.
"Don't stare at my daughter for too long." My father patted him jokingly, but underneath the joke lay a silent warning. "He is a sweet talker." My father turned to me. "Sweet as the Blood Apples he trades. Still, sometimes they are plagued with worms." My father winked.
Angel seemed to detest my father's joke, but my father didn't notice. He laughed out of courtesy. Our eyes locked briefly again, and I wanted to make sure I let him know I liked him. I didn't know to show a boy I liked him. I had no idea how. Was I supposed to just smile, or maybe throw him a seductive look? How did a seductive look look on me? Or should I have just thrown myself blatantly in his arms?
I ended up staring like a loon for a few seconds with dilated eyes. Then when I still wasn't sure if he'd get the message, I tiptoed, my body slightly stooping forward.
Angel's eyes skewed down to my feet. I blushed and he smiled.
However, Angel couldn't say more. Nor could I. My father excused him from my company and urged him to go discuss business, leaving me undone, not knowing if I'd ever see Angel again.
All Angel did was look back at me one more time, sneaking a peek over my father's shoulder as the two men walked far away from me.
For a single heartbeat, something told me it was better that way. It was better that I never see him again. It was an absurd and illogical moment, and I hated it. I didn't care much for what people said about love at first sight. I didn't give a damn. This wasn't first sight; this wasn't teenage impulsiveness. This was destiny. He was my soul mate, in all the wrong ways. I felt like I had known him before. In another lifetime, maybe. Most important of all, the way Angel Hassenpflug looked at me made me feel better than a thousand mirrors.
14
Although I didn't see Angel for some time after, all I could do was think about him: the way he looked at me, the way he saw me, the way he made me curious about what I looked like. What in the world made him look at me that way? What in the world made him look so deeply into my eyes?
I had never felt the urge to break the rules and run to the nearest pond outside our castle to get a glimpse of my features. Not even when I had gone crazy on my mother.
This feeling, this need, with Angel—it was different.
It was euphoric, enchanting, and ecstatic. There is some kind of a beautiful surrender when we are looked upon by someone like him. Someone like an angel.
Who named their son Angel?
Not that I didn't like it. I adored his name, and I couldn't imagine what his parents had expected of their son when they honored him with it. As a Karnstein, supposedly destined to fight the devilish vampires, Angel's name, let alone his manly beauty, had me captured for many sleepless nights. Angel made me look forward to life and its infinite possibilities—I know you might be skeptical, thinking I was head over heels too soon, but I was a friendless girl, deprived of looking into a mirror. Angel was, in many ways, my mirror.
Then again, Angel as a mirror wasn't quite enough. It only made me want to see myself in a real mirror even more. I needed to see what Angel saw in me that caught his attention so much. I pondered all night if I should go to the Pond of Pearls, but couldn't bring myself to it.
The next morning, I walked to the fields with the peasants to collect apples from the trees. A lame excuse to occupy my mind. Suddenly, the apples I hated looked sweet and attractive. Love for life surpassed all fears, I supposed. I felt like a real girl for the first time in a long time, wearing my white dress, smiling, and collecting apples into a small basket.
The peasants always demanded I take a bite from the first apple they collected. They considered it good luck for them and the land. They showed me how to cut an apple from the middle and examine it. They taught me how each apple had a five-star shape on the inside if cut horizontally in two halves. A pentagram, some called it. Some said it was a good sign, while others associated it with evil—a sign associated with the nameless witch who had cursed the land. A pointed five-star inside an apple was the universe's way of showing us how evil was just inside everything good and sweet, I learned. A lesson I should have paid attention to.