Death of a Nightingale

CHAPTER 17: ALLURE - GRACE

How to lure a human.

Step one - be confident. Bordering on arrogance. I've found that to be strangely successful. Yes, I know, it's odd to me too. But walking in like you own the place seems to really do the trick. In my few centuries of existence, I found it to be very effective.

I once told a stock trader in the late 1920s which bets to place with such conviction that he put his life's savings down. For me, it was just a little exercise in seeing whether I can be convincing. I can. His hungry eyes, full of greed and hope still sometimes come back to me in a dream. So much excitement to strike it big. All the money in the world couldn't have saved him from me though. I was hungry too.

Step two is mystery. Humans love the unknown. It gives them hope. There is no true logic to it, but I think it affirms their beliefs in positive possibilities. If something like me exists, there have to be angels too, right? So I tend to play with that idea. At least I leave it open-ended for them. It's really a kindness.

I have never once met an angel and I've been around a long time. And before you ask, no, I haven't met ghosts or werewolves or any of the other messy creatures of novelists' imaginations either. Frankly, I'd love to meet a werewolf. Can you imagine? You live a normal life and then once a month you turn into a vicious animal for a night and get to live out all your anger.

That sounds better to me than my existence. I have lived in this state of hunger since that night. Since that crazy night, my father saved my life. I think now is as good a time as any to tell you about that night. It was back in 1692. Before this city was officially a city and right around the time when people started burning women who dared to ask questions. Joyful period. Truly.

Before I was even born in 1673, my father had immigrated and met my beautiful mom in what is now Macon, Georgia. She was a Southern girl through and through. Properly raised, from new money and she had just had her coming out ball on her parents' estate.

But she met my father one evening by the river, playing his violin and entertaining the pondering minds. She couldn't keep her eyes off of him.

A spark in his eyes and this charming, slightly rough accent. He played and fiddled until her heart was his.

Of course, her parents didn't want her to marry a newly immigrated, penniless man without any connections. My lovely father asked for my mother's hand and received conditions instead of permission. Make money and be respected.

Now, they didn't know my dad. He was a very smart and crafty man. Once he wanted something, he would move heaven and earth to get it. So he studied the layout of the local settlements outside of the big plantations. For the rest of the summer, he played his violin at every outing, every get-together, and in between. With the money from that and a loan from a wealthy spice trader, he managed to buy land deep in the Oconee forest. Between peach trees, banana spider nets, and mossy rustle, my dad built a grain mill.

He was a doctor and a great one at that. But he needed the locals to trust him first. People didn't really believe in science and rather agreed to blood-letting and injecting poisonous silver, than actual medicine. Somehow my father managed to do both. He hired a few helping hands for the mill to operate and within six months, he managed to make enough to pay back half the loan and buy my mother a ring. To the dismay of her dad, she married him.

I can still see his smile when he looked at her. I remember that as a small child. They just stopped in normal moments and looked at each other. Then one of them would grin. That lovely, true grin that you cannot help. They still felt that way. Both of them. All the way up until that night.