I couldn't even keep up with this speed, so he lifted me up with one hand as if I were a doll. All I knew was that I hadn't seen such fierce anger in my life—then again, I had been imprisoned in a castle amidst the snow; I was, in many ways, naive beyond recognition.
I tried not to stare as he killed people left and right, spattering my face and dress with blood. Spattering the air with blood. I closed my eyes. As traumatic as the experience was, I could feel darkness growing in me. Something in me wasn't right. Something in me wasn't who I'd always thought I was. I just didn't know what as I enjoyed Angel killing every one of them. Maybe I was learning that goodness sometimes needed to be spread to the world through blood, not smiles.
Angel's anger was dark and inhuman. He roared like a lion when he removed heads with his bare hands. I knew he was roaring to keep his dark soul from succumbing to his father's wishes. Angel was basically two people. A devil named Angel.
Later in the years, when I remembered this moment, I thought about how all lovers have their "firsts." Usually it's a first kiss, a first song, or a first date. Angel and I were different to any other lovers. We had our first lies, first scars, and first kills. Our first blood.
"Believe in me, Carmilla," Angel begged me as he continued the massacre of his own people. "Believe in me."
And that was when I knew how he did it. Through my longing for him. It felt unfair, to be honest, that all I had to do was believe in a man who killed his own people to do the right thing. But it was how it worked. With so much killing going on, and having not seen so much blood and death before, I fainted in his arms eventually, believing in him more than ever, but with blood on my hands as well as his.
Before I fainted, I remembered my mother's story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and how the gods honored their love with blood-red apples. I began to see the resemblance to my story with Angel. We were the new Romeo and Juliet, but fiercer, bloodier. We were called Angel and Carmilla.
21
I woke up in my bed in the Karnstein castle some time later.
I was safe and sound, surrounded by family and friends. I was back in my royal life, wrapped in sheets of silk and pampered like a princess all over again. I was back home where I belonged, back in my mother and father's arms of protection and safety, back where one should feel at ease and love.
But still I felt so alone, not knowing why. Something huge was missing from my life, an irreplaceable void, and I had no idea what it was.
Day after day, I walked in a shadow of what I was meant to be. A harsh and dizzying feeling of having no identity, of pretending to be someone other than who I really was.
But this was my home. This was my life and I supposedly hadn't known any other. It was a good life that any girl would have dreamed of—so good that I felt ashamed.
Seven days later, I realized what was wrong with me. I realized I didn't remember what had happened to me after escaping the castle and wanting to see my reflection in the water—of course, I regained my memory later.
Angel hadn't just saved me from his evil clan—and himself—he had also erased my memory of what had happened. One of Angel's most dangerous skills was the ability to erase mortal beings' memories.
My family told me that I had been lost in the forest, and that they found me in a golden-painted carriage—shaped like a pumpkin—outside the castle two days later. They said they didn't know who'd brought me back, but that they were more than grateful. My mother joked that it must have been my secret admirer, my knight in shining armor.
Of course, I knew they were lying to me, because they never mentioned the dead soldiers by the castle's gate, executed by the dark man whose face I hadn't seen.
I kept spending my days lost in a web of strange hazes, of faintly remembered memories, mistaking them for daydreaming. Although I didn't remember what had happened to me, I couldn't escape the feeling of having lost something dear to me—Angel.
Long walks in the castle's gardens, long days picking apples from trees, and long sleepless nights couldn't bury that feeling. It stayed with me like a suppressed childhood memory that you can't remember but can never forget.
I was trapped in that haze for two years, until I turned nineteen, keeping to myself, with no interest of seeing my reflection, making friends, or meeting men. Seasons changed, one after the other, trees died, babies were born, and I stayed the same.