A Bride Contested By Vampire And Angel

Chapter 3

I watched as the green vehicle drove down the road from the sidewalk. I was clutching onto the handle of the basket with my quivering hands when the red door behind me opened and Mary's head of gray hair neatly combed underneath her headpiece came popping out.

"Hurry on up. I don't have all day," she yelled out to me. I had been distracted by what was in my hands, but when I heard her voice, I held onto the basket with my left hand, and picked up the plastic bag with the cartons of milk and the cake flour with my right hand. As I walked closer to the door, head turned to face the ground, Mary became more observant of the solemn expression on my face. She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest when I was close enough to her.

"You looked inside, didn't you?" She asked and I raised my head only slightly to see her face before I nodded.

"Normally the packages are well hidden so as to avoid wandering eyes like yours. That damn geezer did this on purpose," she said and grabbed the basket from my hand. It seemed that that took more priority than the rest of the items I had bought.

"What are they for? The... things in the basket?" I asked as I entered the house and closed the door behind me. As soon as I entered the foyer a musky and pungent dusty smell struck my senses. I also noticed that the house was very dark as the curtains had been closed. It was already the middle of the day but the inside made it seem as though it was nighttime outside.

"Our masters don't have a taste for normal beverages, you see. Come. You should get changed," Mary said as she walked deeper into the house. First we stopped by the kitchen where I left the milk and flour, then she took me up to the second floor where my new room was. I did not remember the days when I had my own room while I was living with my parents. I was too young to know that I was supposed to appreciate what I would soon lose, including my parents, of course.

The room was actually big and had one large bed in it. At the orphanage, I would sleep on a single bed right next to the other children. Occasionally, I would share mine with the children who were afraid of thunderstorms or had nightmares that night. It would take a while to get used to the idea of sleeping alone.

On the bed was a new maid outfit laid out, freshly ironed and ready to be worn.

"Put that on. It won't be long until the sun sets. We need to prepare for the festivities," Mary ordered with the authority an old maid was supposed to have over a younger one.

"Was I brought here just to be a maid?" I asked, somewhat offended but relieved at the same time. I did not expect much from my new parents. Being a maid in a new home was no different from living at the orphanage where we had daily chores assigned to us.

"What do you mean 'just to be a maid'? Our masters have no use for children, especially not fully grown ones like yourself," Mary responded with a scoff. There was a tint of humor in her voice, as though she was about to laugh at me for thinking that I, a mere orphan, would ever be someone as important as I thought I would be. I took off my top and the rest of my clothes under her watchful eyes and put on the maid outfit. Being a maid wouldn't be so bad, and it wasn't either.

I was already prepared to give the new job my best when we left my room. The masters' quarters were on the third floor where we were not allowed to roam while they were asleep. They slept a lot during the day but were very active the entire night. It was no wonder that they needed a second maid as Mary could not do all the work all day and night by herself. From then on it was my duty to handle the day tasks while Mary would tend to the nightly ones, that way I would not have to worry about working around my sleep schedule.

"The masters are hosting a party tonight. I would prefer it if you would finish up before nightfall and quickly head on to bed. Our guests tend to take a liking to new and naïve human maids such as yourself," Mary explained as she took me down to the kitchen. First, I had to help her with preparing dinner. There wouldn't be that many guests present. Just enough for Mr. Phillip's special packages to cover and leave satisfied. Once we were done in the kitchen, the curtains were drawn and the cleaning went underway.

Mary had always had an easy time with tending to the mansion on her own since she had only half of it to deal with. Now she that she had some assistance, her job was made more easier. Once the house was spotless and the furniture arranged in a guest-friendly manner, I finally had a short break to myself. There was an hour or so left before the sun would set. Mary did not need me anymore and I retreated to my room where I sat down to contemplate to myself.

There wasn't a television set anywhere in the mansion. The masters did not fancy watching television. The orphanage was boring but at least we had some entertainment every once in a while, what with it being built right next to a theatre. Living next to the theatre did not mean that we had a free pass to watch any of the movies. It was Martha who had discovered a little opening in the wooden boards of the theatre building behind a dark alleyway. After exerting enough strength, the boys were able to tear away the loose wooden boards just enough that the children could slip through without breaking down the entire wall.

When we had slipped through - only three of us could go in to watch a movie at a time so as to not arouse any suspicion - we entered a small room right next to the control room where the movie would be projected onto the white wall on the opposite side of the hall. We exited the room one at a time and ran straight to find an empty seat right at the front for the best viewing experience and where none of the staff would think to search for us. Thinking back to those times brought a smile to my face. Before I realized it, I had spent an entire hour reminiscing about the times at the orphanage and thinking about how I would miss it and the children. I was shocked when Mary came knocking on my door and yelled out that it was nighttime. It may have been nighttime already, but we slept at 10PM back at the orphanage.

Well, I obviously was not at the orphanage anymore and there wasn't a chance that I would go back. I did as Mary instructed when she told me to turn off the lights and to never turn them on until dawn. She told me to lock the door and never to open it to any knocks, even if it was her standing on the other side. I found it very strange that she would give me all of those instructions, but I was not in the right mood or state of mind to be asking many questions. I turned off the lights and locked the door as told.

I wasn't really tired or sleepy when I changed into my night dress and got underneath the bed sheets. In fact, I was more than awake. The constant ringing of the doorbell and the occasional knocking on the front door had me more alert than ever. I had an idea that the guests along with the masters weren't exactly human. The blood and nighttime activity convinced me of it. But I could not quite wrap my head around what they could have been. Angels could not roam about in the sunlight just like the masters, but vampires were the ones that feasted on blood... just as the masters did. Perhaps they were just eccentric human beings that lived a different lifestyle. A cult of some sort filled with many people who wanted to be different from the rest of the humans.

'Yes, that's all it is, Charlotte. Don't think too much about it,' I thought to myself constantly throughout the next few hours.

It was very quiet around the house. There was no indication that a party was taking place downstairs. Well, it did not matter to me. Soon enough eight o'clock arrived and I finally felt ready to close my eyes and enter the dream world. It was too early for me to sleep as compared to the orphanage's time schedule, but according to the mansion's, it was way past my bedtime. Laying in the bed doing nothing made me sleepy and so I slept away for the next four hours.

A little over midnight, I was woken up by some shuffling outside my door. I did not know what time it was or if it was dawn yet, but the sounds made me sit up in my bed. They continued on for a few seconds until I heard a knock on the door. That was when I froze in place. Was I suppose to answer the door? Mary had told me not to open it for anyone including her until it was dawn. I would have known immediately if the sun had come out but it hadn't. It was completely dark outside.

"Come on, now. Open the door," Mary's voice said. I knew my ears weren't deceiving me. It was definitely Mary standing outside the door. But what did she want, knowing fully well that I was not supposed to open the door at nighttime? Was she testing me? I thought to myself. A smile crawled onto my face as I rested my head on the pillow. Yes, it was obviously a test, but I would not fail so easily. I decided to ignore her and closed my eyes so as to return to sleep. Another knock came and I opened my eyes again.

"This isn't the time to be playing around. Open the door," Mary said once again. This time her words sounded like an order. I was instantly convinced that she was being serious about me opening the door. I got out of the bed and put on my slippers. I walked over to the door and took ahold of the key which was still lodged into the keyhole. I was about to unlock the door when a cold shiver ran up my spine. I was prompted to release the key and take a step away from the door. An unknown terrible feeling overcame me right at that moment. I wasn't certain about opening the door anymore.

"Wh-What's my name?" I called out loud enough for the person on the other end to hear. Silence ensued.

"You're nothing but a maid. Do you honestly expect me to remember your name?" Mary's voice replied. Something was wrong. Mary had forgotten my first name when she first saw me but at least she had remembered that I was a 'Charles'.

"Then what's my last name?" I asked again and more silence followed. It was not possible that Mary could have forgotten that as well. The person standing outside of my door was not Mary and I had made a grave mistake by letting them know that I was in the room. I took another step back into the room as the person began to loudly bang on the door. Each banging made the middle of my chest painful as I flinched. The banging did not stop even as I ran to the other side of the room and huddled up in the corner. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I covered my ears with my hands, but the banging would not stop. A minute passed until it became silent once again. I moved my hands away from my ears and raised my head to observe the darkness.

From that angle, I could see shadows from underneath the door thanks to light in the hallway. There were two of them, indicating a pair of legs. I watched for every second until the person turned and walked away from the door. I stayed at the corner for the next few hours, expecting the person to return... anticipating more loud bangs on the door. None came until the sun finally rose in the sky. It was dawn and I had spent the entire night huddled in the corner and watching the door. When a knock echoed throughout the room and the voice of the real Mary called out my name, I ran to door, unlocked it, and embraced Mary's figure as though she had just saved me from a tragedy that would have fallen over me.