New
🥀
1933
After
I had yet to speak with any of them. Over a week had passed, but all I did was sit in their attic all day, saying nothing to no one. Not a hello, not a question, not even a thank you.
I had no reason to thank the doctor—not after what he had done.
The room they kept me in was smaller than my bedroom at home, but well-appointed. Heavy brocade curtains were drawn across the circular attic window, letting in no light. The iron-frame bed boasted a thick mattress and heavy down duvet with rose-patterned sheets—not that I had need for a bed. The vanity pushed into the corner was made of maple, though the mirror was missing.
I was thankful for that.
I didn’t want to see what they had made of me—
I froze. Someone was coming. I could hear soft steps climbing the stairs to my attic room. My body tensed, and I spun around to face the door, waiting for the inevitable knock.
The knock came, as expected, followed by the soft, timid voice of the doctor’s wife. “May I come in?”
I was a stranger in their home, yet they skirted around me like I was the Lady of the house.
I didn’t answer.
I could smell him with her, so I knew I wouldn’t need to answer any of her questions.
And just like that, he knew it, too.
“She doesn’t mind,” I heard him tell her in a whisper on the other side.
She opened the door and stepped inside.
Her honey-brown curls were pinned close to her head, and her bright golden eyes were warm, almost motherly, and full of concern.
Behind her stood the sour-faced redhead. He stared at me—his eyes were not as kind as hers, bright and hard as topazes. He studied me for a moment before flitting away.
The doctor’s wife paid no heed to the redhead’s exit. Instead, she stepped closer, careful to keep her movements slow and deliberate. In her arms lay a small bundle of white fabric. Stopping a few feet away from me, she unwrapped her ‘gift.’ I had no idea why the fabric was needed—it wasn’t a secret. I had been able to smell it since it had entered the house.
The glass bottle resembled those used for milk, though its mouth was narrower and the liquid it contained was not snowy white, but thick ruby red.
My fingers massaged my neck, trying to soothe the flames that had ignited in my throat.
“Carlisle—I mean, Dr. Cullen—prepared this for you,” she said, setting the bottle down on the floor between us.
I flicked my gaze hungrily between her and the bottle.
She gave me a knowing smile and nudged it closer. “I won’t judge.”
With lightning speed, I snatched up the bottle. It took another fraction of a second for me to uncork it and press the bottle’s mouth to mine, letting its thick, syrupy contents slide down my flaming throat.
It didn’t taste good, not exactly—it had a gamey edge that reminded me of the hideous spoils Daddy would bring home after his hunting trips—but it quenched the flames instantly, and that was enough. Gasping with relief, my mouth parted from the bottle. I greedily licked my lips, not wanting to waste a drop.
“Better?” she asked.
I gave a quick nod, then turned my back on her.
Somewhere in the house, I heard the redhead give an exasperated sigh. I rolled my eyes. The woman made no such noise, simply gathering up the bottle I’d been given yesterday—or what was left of it. I had shattered it in an effort to extract every last drop. I would probably do the same to this bottle.
Despite my back being turned, my enhanced hearing caught her every movement. I listened to the soft clinking of the shards as she meticulously picked them up, one by one, and dropped them into her gathered apron. I listened to this delicate noise—half fascinated, half furious—for what seemed like ages until the floorboards squeaked as she stood and headed for the door. Her steps lingered at the threshold as though she were giving me one last glance before closing the door, its latch snapping into place.
Alone again, I turned—only to find that I wasn’t alone. The doctor stood against the wall in his white coat, hands clasped before him in a gentlemanly manner that was all a bit much, even for the high-society circles I ran in...
Or used to run in.
Until Royce...
My eyes focused on the doctor’s face. I thought back to our first meeting—when my mother introduced him at some dreadful party. To the ignorant eye, he had simply been a young genius doctor. Like everyone else, I was at first taken by his beauty until I noticed something unsettling about him.
I had chosen to keep my distance.
I knew now that I was right to be repelled.
His youth and beauty were lies.
He was a monster.
A different kind of monster than Royce, but a monster all the same.
And he had made me one, too.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” the Doctor said, breaking my reverie.
Intrude! I nearly scoffed. Again, he was treating me as if this were my domain when, really, I was a prisoner.
“I was just wondering how you are... adjusting.”
I glared at him. What did he think?
“This transition can be difficult.”
Suddenly, a snarl ripped through the quiet attic, unlike anything I’d ever heard. I reeled back, readying for attack, but none came. The room was empty. I could hear his wife and the redhead downstairs—they were nowhere near. And the good doctor only looked shocked, not as though he meant to strike.
So, then where...?
Then I realized.
The sound had come from me.
The doctor regained his composure and bowed his head, calmly accepting my rage. “I am truly sorry. I was only doing what I thought was best, what I could to save you...”
I made a noise that was almost a hiss. Save me! The doctor thought he had saved me by turning me into this hideous, ravenous creature! What Royce and his band of merry thugs had done had been unspeakable enough. But what the doctor did after...
I shuddered again. The memory of the flames that had consumed me for several days was, in ways, worse than the memory of Royce.
“I understand that this was all a shock to you.” Carlisle continued. “It may take some adjustment, but I don’t want you to feel like this is the end—”
“But it is,” I said, my strange new voice—higher and sharper than before, like the chime of a bell—filling the room. My first words from this new mouth. “I can’t go back to my old life, can I?”
His angelic face twisted like that painting of Lucifer’s devastation as he was cast from heaven.
“No.”
My eyes prickled strangely, like tears were trying to emerge but couldn’t find a way out. I hadn’t been able to cry since I woke up in this house. Not cry, nor sleep, nor drink anything that wasn’t blood. “Can I go see my family? Even if just to say goodbye? To let them know what happened to me?”
“I am afraid not. The change would be too—” he gave a sigh and hung his head, the first sign of exasperation I had ever witnessed in him, like he didn’t wish it was so, “—obvious.”
“Obvious?” I echoed. “In what way?”
The doctor contemplated me. His golden eyes shifted to the incomplete vanity, lingering for only a second before settling back on me. “I didn’t want you to see until you had time to adjust a bit more, but I suppose it is time. Allow me to show you.” He waved his hand to the door like a gentleman offering to guide a lady.
I narrowed my eyes at him. I no longer believed in so-called ‘gentlemen.’ But I pulled myself off the floor and stood up to face him. He looked so young, younger than his wife and barely older than the redhead. Despite this, he held himself like he was much older, the head of a family.
He waited for me to go ahead of him.
“You first,” I said.
I wouldn’t let any man sneak up behind me again.
He didn’t argue; he simply nodded and stepped ahead, and out onto the landing. I followed. He waited for me at the top of the stairs, making sure that I was, in fact, coming, before descending.
He led me quietly through the house. The house was large and beautiful, as well-appointed as my attic room—traditional but with every new modern amenity and convenience. If one didn’t know it was them living here, it would’ve appeared to be the perfect family home.
Perhaps that was the point.
The other two kept out of sight. I could smell them, hear the distant creaking of their steps in other parts of the house. Up in my attic room, I had little need to flex my newfound senses, but out here it became quite obvious how sharp they were—just like my ever-present hunger.
The doctor took me all the way down to the main floor, leading me into the sitting room. Over the mantle of the grand fireplace was a mirror, and he stopped in front of it. As I came up behind him, he stepped aside and gestured for me to step forward and look into the glass. He said something then, but regardless of the acuity of my new senses, I didn’t hear a word of it. I was already distracted by the glorious creature on the other side of the reflective glass.
Who was this angel?
I stepped closer, and she did too. I tilted my head, and she mimicked me.
No, not a mimic. A reflection.
This was me.
I had long been accustomed to my beauty. I had always known that people found my smooth skin, rosy cheeks, and thick golden curls captivating. Even as a baby, strangers would stop my mother and father as they pushed my buggy through the park, just to remark on my beauty. And it only continued as I grew, from a child to a young lady.
But now...
Whatever beauty I had possessed before now paled beside this new form. Before, I had been pretty but clumsily hewn, an imperfect work made by a promising amateur. Now, in my new form, I was a work of art, lovingly rendered by a true master artisan. My features were perfectly symmetrical, my skin was as smooth as marble, my eyes as bright as gemstones...
Only they were no longer sapphires, but deep red rubies.
Despite this new level of perfection, I longed for my old face, my old self. My hair, soft and golden. My eyes, so deep blue they were like violets. My skin, flawless velvet with the softest tint of rose from which I had gotten my name—Rosalie.
Now my skin was just as flawless, but pale white and hard—no longer the tender flesh of a petal, it was a bright, luminous stone. I ran my hand over my cheek and found it unyielding, the planes flat, like the facets of a diamond.
The doctor moved from his watchful position to the window. The curtains had been drawn, and I hadn’t realized until this moment how odd this was. I had glimpsed the sun through the windows on our descent.
If it was day, then why were we all shut in?
He pulled back the curtain’s edge and out spilled a beam of bright, golden light. It cascaded over the room, hitting the mirror in a great flash. Instinctively, I went to shield my eyes, only the bright light didn’t hurt them
The flash I had seen hadn’t been the mirror, but me.
The beam of sunlight had landed on my exposed arm. My skin shattered the light, scattering it through the room. I became entranced, flexing my arm to shift its prismatic surface, watching as the facets of rainbow flickered across the walls and floors. It was as if when the doctor had put me back together, I had been remade of the diamonds I had once coveted.
“With your beauty,” my mother had once told me as I admired the jewels she donned for a party, “you will have all the diamonds you could ever want.”
“What am I?” I asked, my bell-clear voice ringing out. It was still so disorienting to hear. “What did you make me?”
In the mirror, I could see the doctor had moved closer. He shifted uncomfortably, his golden eyes searching as they met mine in the reflection.
“A vampire,” he said.
🥀
