Chapter 18: Rose
I ended up climbing out of bed in the early hours of the morning and, placing my blanket and pillows near the front door, lay there. I obviously wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep that night, so I figured that I might as well wait by the door in case someone came to give me breakfast in the morning. I needed to catch whoever it was.
I was right in my presumption. At about nine o’clock according to the old clock in my corridor, the door creaked open. I scrambled to my feet and stuck my foot in the gap, wedging it open. Gripping the door, I pried it open further.
Standing in the doorway was Frieda, another tray of what appeared to be more gruel and a jug of water in her hands. She almost dropped the tray from the surprise of seeing me.
I had to think fast. “Frieda,” I said, “I really can’t stand oatmeal. In fact, I’m allergic to oats. I didn’t eat the portion you gave me yesterday. Can I please have something else?”
She stared at me, as though not sure what to make of me.
“That’s just the standard fare we feed all humans here. Afraid we don’t have much else.”
“Can you please take me to the kitchens? I’m sure there must be something better…”
“Listen, I’m no cook. I’m just bringing you this up because Caleb specifically asked me to—I don’t know why he requested me.”
“Okay, well, just tell me which direction the kitchens are in and I’ll find it myself.”
She frowned at me. “Caleb didn’t tell me that you could be wandering about by yourself.”
“Well, your witch said I’m a guest here. Not a prisoner.”
When she continued to look hesitant, I said, “Look, I promise you that I’ll be back within half an hour. I’ve been locked up in this little room for ages. I need to stretch my legs.”
“All right,” she said, sighing. “But I’ll come with you. I’m sure Caleb wouldn’t object if I accompanied you.”
She put the tray down on the ground inside my apartment, then caught hold of my hand and led me away down the dark corridor.
As we descended down to the lower levels of the castle, I didn’t notice many other vampires roaming about. Perhaps because it was still early. “So do you steal away humans regularly then?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but failing miserably.
She stopped in her tracks and eyed me, as if wondering whether or not she should answer.
“Hm,” she said. “We go once every few months. It’s getting harder and harder.”
“What do you mean?”
She frowned at me again.
“Well, obviously after years of disappearances, we can only go to open areas where there aren’t CCTV cameras, or we’ll get caught on film. It will be much more difficult if our faces are publicized everywhere.”
Years of disappearances.
Why am I so ignorant of all this? Why didn’t our parents tell us?
“And all those humans you catch, you just use them for blood?”
“That’s not your business.”
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Well, can you tell me where all of you vampires came from? Because I’ve lived in The Shade all my life and I never knew there were any other covens left.”
“One thing you’d best learn sooner rather than later is that the less you know, the better.”
I refrained from asking more questions as we arrived in the kitchens—a chamber underground. There were shelves filled with bottles containing a red liquid that made me shudder. There were also bottles of liquor.
As it turned out, Frieda was right about not having much more than oatmeal. There were several sacks of oats in the corner of the room, and the only other thing I spotted was a bowl of apples and bananas. I grabbed two apples and a banana. If I had to eat oatmeal, at least these would make it a little more bearable.
We walked back up the staircases until we arrived again outside my room. She opened the door for me to step inside. Just as she was about to close the door, I held out my hand to stop her.
“What goes on up there at night?” I asked, pointing toward the ceiling.
Frieda glared at me.
“What goes on up there is between him and the witch, understood?”
With that, she stormed off.