Night and Day

     Elissa Baines wasn't surprised by the arrival of a mob in her lane. She had made too many mistakes in the last few months – enough to bring the townspeople to suspect her. Elissa knew she wasn't the only vampire in the area. She knew there was a hunting pair who were responsible for most of the deaths. They had not made mistakes. She had and now would be paying for those mistakes with her life. At another time, she would have had the ability to apply a geographic cure to the problem. Twice before she had left her home when the rumours started. Not this time. She just didn't have the strength. If she were still human, she would have believed her nursing work at the clinic had caused her illness. Vampires did not become ill. They could become weak if denied blood. They could be injured by a wooden stake to the heart, or contact with holy water. They could even be killed -- by fire, beheading, and the light of the sun. As far as Elissa knew, she was the only vampire to become ill. She had fed regularly. She had even drained a victim, which repulsed her. No amount of blood gave her strength.

     Elissa stepped to her cottage door and waited for the mob. She knew these people, had become acquainted with them over the past year. She had provided herbal remedies for them when they had asked her, since most of them could not afford the care of a physician. The butcher, the baker, the tailor, the schoolmaster, the blacksmith and the farmers and tanners from the outskirts of the town. None of the doctors, nor the lawyers, nor the clergy had joined the mob – a fact Elissa found strangely comforting.

     Elissa opened the door and addressed the mob as it writhed before her doorstep like a mindless beast. “Good neighbors, why do you come to my home this way? How have I earned a midnight visit with torches, guns, and swords drawn?”

     The schoolmaster came to the fore. “Mistress Baines, we have heard rumours about you and some of us have seen you in the dark doing unspeakable things.” The volume increased at these words, and Elissa feared that the schoolmaster would lose control. He raised his hands and cried out “Peace! Peace, my friends!” For a wonder, they quieted. He spoke to her again. “We cannot be sure that the evil things we have heard are true. You have been so kind to so many people here with your nursing and your herbal remedies. Some of us cannot believe that you are a – a” he stuttered and voices from the mob shouted “Bloodsucker!” “Demon!” and then a change began of “Vampire! Vampire! Vampire!”

      Again, the schoolmaster motioned them to silence. “Since we cannot be sure, we will not wound you, nor put you to the fire. We will tie you to the Hanging Oak in the green. If we are mistaken, the sunrise will not harm you and we will release you. If not – you will disintegrate and we will be free of your horror!”

      Elissa was so tired. She did not have the energy to fight them. “I will come with you. Please have someone smoor my fire, and blow the candles out. I should hate for the cottage to burn down by mischance.”

      The blacksmith moved Elissa out of her doorway by main force, and saw to the fire and the candles. Then the schoolmaster took one arm and the blacksmith the other, and they lead the mob to the green and the Hanging Oak. Elissa sensed that her weakness had worried her escorts. They had borne most of her weight during the mile-long walk from her cottage to the center of the town. They brought her a stool to sit on and bound her securely to the tree.

      The hours that followed were a blur to Elissa. The leaders of the mob offered her both water and wine, and she remembered drinking some of each and feeling oddly refreshed. She heard the voices of the mob ebb and flow around her, as if a huge tidal wave had made the journey inland from the sea to surround the tree and drown them all. She knew she was tied to the tree, but she also saw faces of those she had loved and those she had nursed in the Crimea. She saw the piercing eyes of the Romanian Count Racozy, heard his devilish laughter again and again, as she relived her death and her change. She also heard the voice of the tree and the voice of her Father telling her to have courage. The memories were so painful, Elissa longed for the light of the sun. At least her release would be swift!

      All of a sudden, Elissa came to herself and realized that the crowd had gone silent and still – as if this entire portion of the world was holding its breath. Slowly, the sky lightened in the East. The Chariot of Light sprang suddenly into the sky, full and bright. Elissa saw it, took a deep breath (how could she breathe?) – and remained whole! The mob gasped with one voice and unraveled into individuals who were horrified at the ordeal they had forced upon her.

      The leaders untied her, and escorted her back to her cottage, apologizing profusely all the while. Elissa thanked them with as much grace as she could muster and watched their retreating forms. She sat down in her favorite chair and looked with wonder on the first new day she had seen dawn in sixty years.

©Michelle R. Owings-Christian, August 21, 2009

(Another story based on the main character in my Work In Progress. I had remembered writing it and the general premise [mob, tied to tree, does not die].  I find it interesting that in this story, before I wrote matter that will take place before it, Racozy is evil.  In the novel, he is not.)