Daughter of Night

Chapter 10

Margaret's POV

After Maeve got me cleaned up, I was wrapped in a towel, shivering and waiting for her to decide which dress "brought out my best qualities", as she put it. I tied the towel tighter around my chest and went to look in the little mirror that hung by the door. I was beautiful, I suppose. My eyes are a beautiful shade of green. My skin is fair and smooth. I pulled my hair over both my shoulders. It just barely covered both my breasts. It's grown quite a bit in the past few years. It used to be very short, cut all the way to my jawline. At the time Mary's hair was where mine is now. But hers is now all the way down to her hips. Mary...I miss her. I wonder if any things happened to her...will she find me? Does she even know things went wrong?

I was caught up in my own thoughts when Maeve walked in with my dress.

"Here we are!" She said in a sing-songy voice. "You're bound to look ravishing in this one." It was beautiful...

I took it into the other room to try it on in front of the full body sized mirror. Maeve turned me so I wasn't facing the mirror, and helped me get into the dress. It was simple, but pretty. It was just a white, puffy, long sleeved slip that went down to the floor, covered by a pine green brocade jacket that corseted under the bust. The sleeves were loose and flowed out when I moved my arms. There were patterns of gold embroidered intertwined circles near the bust. It was comfortable and form-fitting, and beautiful in it's own simple way. "How do you like it?" Maeve asked, starting to brush my blonde hair and work it into a side braid.

"It's beautiful," I murmured and admired the way my body looked in the dress.

"Oh, I knew you would love it. Now come, I was asked to show you around our small village." She placed her hand between my shoulder blades and gently guided me out of the dressing room. "There are many things I need to explain to you, and I'm sure you have many questions." She opened the main door for me and closed it behind her. "Why don't you start?" I had so many questions when I arrived, but now that I was asked to bring them up I couldn't remember a single one. I looked around and spotted the silver rose bushes that made up most of the environment.

"Why are the roses painted silver?"

"They're not painted, my dear. Immortalized." I arched my eyebrows.

"Why?"

"In our population, our special abilities and food choice give us immortality. Immortal youth, immortal beauty. We believe in immortalizing all beauty around us so we never see anything wither and die. All our crops are immortalized as well, so when we consume them they give us their lifespan." This was a lot to take in. "But with plants it's different. Since a plant still must continue to grow and develop to keep producing, it's lifespan is only a few years. For example," she walked over to a silver grape vine and picked off a small cluster. "Now that I have removed the fruit from the plant, it's individual lifespan is five years. When I consume it, I will gain five more years of immortality. The years differ in all fruits and vegetables."

I nodded, trying to soak in all this information she was throwing at me. "What about these special abilities you speak of?" Maeve's nose wrinkled for a moment, probably thinking of a way to explain it.

"You know how in old tales, when a werewolf bites a person they become infected?" I nodded. "That's like how it is with us. We're a combination of a werewolf and a vampire. We have the occasional thirst for blood like a vampire, we have fangs like vampires, but we have the k9 abilities of a werewolf and if we bite you, you become one of us." A knot started to form in my stomach.

"Is that what Lucy is going to do to me?" I whispered, fear crawling into my voice. Maeve put a soft hand on my cheek.

"No, dear. Lucy has other plans for you. There's no need to be afraid."