The Blood Confession, page 18
I watched Anastasia carefully that night as I sat quietly before the fire, trying to calm my breath. It was important that she not notice any difference—there had been many nights that she came here to clean for me, and this night was no different from any other. I saw her hover over my dressing table and touch a gold comb encrusted with pearls with delicate, wary fingertips.
"Pretty, isn't it?" I asked her. She pulled her hand away, startled.
"Do not be afraid." I smiled. "Sit down."
She sat stiffly before the dressing table, and I swept up her golden locks and secured the teeth of the comb close to her scalp. Her eyes moistened, but she did not flinch. This girl already understood the marriage of beauty and pain.
"You look like a princess," I murmured in her ear, glancing only briefly at the sapphire glinting from its hiding place in the bodice of her gown. She devoured her own reflection, the metallic comb reflecting the warm candlelight onto her glowing face. I smiled at her reflection in the glass, and she basked in the warmth of my praise. I held her left hand in my own—my own hands were clammy, trembling slightly. I watched her face to make sure she didn't notice, too distracted by her own reflection to sense my fear.
"I feel that I can trust you, Anastasia," I told her. I pulled a chair close to hers at the dressing table. Without slackening my grip upon her hand or breaking our gaze in the glass, I reached down and grasped the wooden bowl I had hidden beneath the table. I rested the bowl upon my lap. "I feel that we are more alike than you realize," I said, gently brushing my finger across the delicate skin of her wrist, the web of pale blue veins.
"Really?" she asked me, and her eyes fluttered bashfully. "You've been so kind to me, my lady."
"I like being kind to you," I told her. "You've helped me feel a bit less lonely these last few weeks."
"Why do you feel lonely?" she asked. "Is it because your friend is getting married?"
"You're right—see, you do know me." I smiled at her reflection in the glass. I reached beneath the layers of my skirt for the cold, hard handle of the blade.
"I'm always happy to help you, my lady. You've been a kind mistress to me."
"I'm happy to hear you say that," I told her.
She smiled at my reflection in the mirror, then looked back at her own. She was concentrating too hard on her own reflection to see me lift the knife.
I had little time to think, only to act: one delicate slash across the thin skin of her wrist would do, I knew. But concealment was vital. I pulled up the sleeve of her gown and pressed the point of the blade just below the wrist, then sliced quickly across her flesh. It was more difficult than I had expected, for my hands were shaking, and the line I cut was crooked. For a moment it seemed that nothing would happen, that perhaps I hadn't cut deep enough. Then the blood welled up all along the slice. The blood looked red-black in the candlelight, startlingly vivid against the whiteness of her flesh.
We both gasped at the intoxicating sight of it, and for a moment we just watched her arm bleed, the dark red tracks of it running off the sides. I gasped with delight at how easy this was, the precious blood welling out of the wound and running into the bowl below. I wondered if Anastasia was also taken aback at the beautiful sight of the blood. I had never felt so much power at my fingertips. It made me feel light and warm at the same time, my fingers tingling as I held her arm steady over the bowl.
She gasped and tried to stand, but my grasp upon her arm was firm. I turned her arm upside down so that the sliced area was facing the bowl below.
"I'm sorry, my dear, I didn't mean to startle you," I said, nearly laughing, still a bit nervous. "I thought this was the easiest way. I didn't want you to be frightened."
"What are you doing?" she asked, breathless. I smiled at her reflection again, measuring my expression carefully—I had rehearsed every moment, alone, before the glass.
"Just a little bleeding," I explained lightly. "Haven't you ever been bled by a doctor before?"
"I suppose," she murmured, watching her blood form a small, glistening pool in the shallow center of the bowl.
"You told me I had given you so much; I was hoping that I could take just a little bit more from you in return."
"But why my blood? What will you do with it?" Tears began to well in the corners of her eyes.
"Hush, dear. There's nothing for you to worry about," I told her, smiling gently at her reflection. I lifted my other hand and placed it on her shoulder. She flinched from my touch.
"Just breathe," I told her. "This is a great gift that you are giving me. I hope that I can give a gift to you in return. Bleeding rids the body of bad humors, did you know that?"
"Yes, I have heard that," she said, sniffing, her eyes trained on mine in the glass.
"I'm letting you in on a great secret, my dear. How do you think all those noble ladies stay so fashionably thin and pale?"
"Bleedings?" She was suddenly motionless.
"Of course." I nodded. "I won't take very much, but you will feel light as air when I'm done. You will feel—new." I smiled at her reflection, and she smiled back. Vanity was a powerful weapon; I already knew this to be true.
I looked down at her arm, still suspended over the bowl in my lap. The bowl had filled considerably. It was imperative that I move quickly: I wrapped a length of gauze around her arm and tied it taut. I put the bowl on a nearby table out of her eyesight and turned from the glass to look directly at her.
"This is our secret, Anastasia. I'm asking you to hold this secret of mine inside of you—can you do that for me?"
"Of course I will, my lady." I could see myself reflected in the flat pools of her eyes.
"You will be my personal handmaiden, and you may keep the comb as a gift, from me to you. That, too, will be our secret." I folded her arm close to her body and helped her up from her chair.
"It looks very pretty on you, Anastasia," I said admiringly. "And don't worry, I think we may find a proper match for you."
She lifted her other arm and touched the comb with her fingertips. "Thank you," she breathed, then turned and left the chamber.
XXVII
Day twelve, night
The ghosts in this chamber play tricks on me. First emerging from the dimness of the mirror, one by one they climb out of the glass and crawl along the walls. Anastasia is the most mischievous; she smiles at me, white teeth gleaming in the dark like fangs. She steals my gloves when I'm not looking: my ruby ring, my string of pearls. I seem to be always in search of some lost treasure, and that is when I hear her voice, from inside the mirror again. Her laughter shivers like icy water down my spine.
It's certainly too cold here to undress. I pull a velvet robe over my shoulders for warmth, slip my hands into the once-missing gloves. Other eyes glimmer in the darkness.
"Sinestra?" I ask, my voice desperate. The glimmering vanishes and I'm surrounded only by flickering candles. Where is he when I need him most? The mirror turns from dark to golden and I can't resist the face reflected there.
Marianna's face is cast in vivid, warm colors over my vague outline. The sight of her face makes my heart feel like cracking open; I have to hold my hands to my chest and remind myself to breathe. Her cheeks flush red at the sight of me, her brows furrow over wide, glittering eyes.
How could you do such a thing? Marianna asks me again.
She looks too angry to cry.
I told you, Mari, that I must start at the beginning to confess.
This is where it all began. I assure you it was not as hideous as you might think.
***
As soon as I had dismissed Anastasia I sat at this wooden table where we so often concocted our magical potions. The candles glimmered darkly in the shallow pool of blood in the bowl before me. I knew there was no chance for hesitation, lest the liquid cool and congeal, drying black at the edges of the bowl.
I leaned my face forward, suspended over the bowl, and tentatively dipped my fingers into the blood. Thankfully it was still warm. I began to bring it up to my face with my fingertips, as though covering my face with paint, or a new cosmetic. At first the odor made me pause, but I urged myself forward. The blood felt warm and soothing on my skin. Of all the poisons and paints that women use to coat their faces, what could be more natural than the source of human life, the most basic element of our human selves? I slowly grew accustomed to the musty, metallic scent; women have grown accustomed to strange things in the quest for beauty. But this felt pure to me, like entering the womb again.
You shrink from this, Mari, but remember that blood has always been the first sacrifice: the blood of a goat, the blood of a virgin, the blood of a son. The Bible I write these words in now admits that this is true. On the day of your wedding, as you knelt in your white lace gown in the stained-glass sunlight of the chapel, Father Pugrue handed you a goblet of wine with which to sanctify your marriage vow. Each time you sipped that wine, you drank the blood of Christ. When the wafer was placed over your tongue, you consumed the flesh of Christ.
This was my own sacrifice: the pure blood of a beautiful virgin, given, if hesitantly, still willingly. We all have our own religion, Marianna. All I wanted was to be beautiful, and deathless. Beauty is, after all, a physical manifestation of the divine. I would be somehow more than human, living on earth but knowing the secrets of the angels. In this chamber I found my sanctuary: bathing my face in the sacred blood of life.
I had a basin of warm water nearby, to rinse my face as soon as the blood had lost its natural warmth. The water was a fresh contrast to the blood upon my skin. I washed carefully with a soft wet cloth, making sure to clean my hairline and down my neck. Once clean, I wiped my face with a dry cloth. When I stood and looked in the mirror, I looked renewed. Reborn.
I stood the next day in the castle chapel, my beautiful chapel nearly garish in its effusion of ecstatic angels. I watched you commit to your wedding vows. I stood as still and as beautiful as the sculpture of the goddess Athena, upon whose perfection only priests are allowed to gaze. I watched as you closed your eyes and savored the taste of the sacrament, heavy upon your tongue, and I smiled. Sacraments keep us all safe, Marianna: God's sacrifice of blood will protect you. A sacrifice of blood will protect me as well.
You were not as innocent as you thought.
XXVIII
Because of the toll that war with the Turks had taken upon the ravaged countryside, I insisted that Marianna and Konrad be installed safely in a guest wing of the castle until the danger had diminished. Though they offered polite protestations, they were relieved to have a safe place in which to wait out the war. Not long after their wedding day, Konrad visited me in my sitting room.
"I hope I'm not bothering you," he said, with his characteristic awkwardness.
"Not at all," I told him. "I trust that you and your new bride are feeling well?" I smiled over the words, though the smile made my cheeks ache.
"We are well," he said, bowing his head. "I wanted to thank you again for offering us rooms here in the castle. It's true that life in the countryside is still uncertain."
"Is not life in the countryside always uncertain?" I asked him, still a petulant child.
"I suppose you're right, accustomed as you are to life in this castle," Konrad answered, "but there is much about the village and the riverside that Marianna and I miss dearly. I was born in a village much like this one, after all."
I did not acknowledge his musings, but gazed calmly into the fire. I did not want to hear about my Marianna desiring to leave, much less to live in some poor peasant village by the filthy Vah River.
"There is something else for which I feel I must thank you," Konrad began again, cautiously. "It seems that I have taken from you something which you highly treasure," he said, the color rising in his cheeks. I turned from the fire and looked at him directly. His eyes seemed liquid black and warm as the fire that crackled beside me.
"I assure you that I will treat her well," he said, "always."
"Thank you, Konrad," I uttered, again smiling and extending my hand, which he kissed, though quickly. "I know that she shall do the same for you."
***
Despite my yearnings to visit Marianna after her wedding day, I was wary. I could only imagine how the vows of marriage and, even more, the wedding night could have altered my young friend. But there was more than simply the wedding that had taken place. While Marianna had undergone her transformation from young woman to bride to wife, I had undergone a change of my own.
Each night, Anastasia and I spent time in the tower chamber, alone. Each secret bathing in her blood temporarily rejuvenated me, and my reflection in this oval mirror on those nights seemed to offer evidence that my experiments were taking effect. My skin did appear more clear and even-toned; my cheeks even seemed softer and firmer beneath the gentle press of my fingertip.
The entire ritual was a heady experience for me: wielding the blade, watching the blood pool, then wrapping the wound in cotton once I had taken just enough, infused me with a new power. Not only could I expect a young woman to care for me, serve me, and cater to my every whim, but I also proved that I had the authority to take the essential ingredient of life itself. Blood is sacred, and I treated these rituals with the quiet respect they deserved. As I began to crave the feeling of the blood upon my skin, the bleedings became more frequent. Anastasia was increasingly obedient and compliant to all of my demands in the tower, certain that if her blood was extracted a handsome reward would be paid in return.
I worried, at first, of any relationship she might have engaged in with the count. It was the blood of a virgin I desired, just as I had learned from the Bible—a virgin girl-child is the most valuable sacrifice, her blood the most pure. I had to make sure Anastasia would be unavailable if the count were to return, so I made her my most devoted servant. Her presence was required every evening in the tower, and often during the day as well. Anastasia was simple and greedy enough to be more than willing to enter into this arrangement.
One evening I pulled a string of delicate pearls from a carved wooden box. I held them over a candle for a moment, enjoying the way the golden light reflected off each pearl. Anastasia was vigorously polishing the flagstone floor and did not see the gift.
"This will surely draw attention to the delicacy of your neck," I told her, for I knew she loved to hear such things. Slowly standing, she abandoned her rag upon the floor and stood before me, lifted her hair so that I might fasten the strand around her neck. She spun and stood before the mirror.
The bleedings had transformed Anastasia: her high color had paled and her cheeks and limbs turned thin, a style quite popular among aristocratic ladies who viewed eating as crude, unladylike behavior. Her eyes were pale and glassy, like twin mirrors I could see myself reflected in.
"They are lovely," she uttered, swallowing; the harsh movement of her throat made the pearls jump. I was certain I was assimilating her former youthful, vigorous beauty by bathing my face in her blood, sometimes adding a drop of blood to my wine to savor the salty taste. Though I found myself shuddering at the sight of her now-drawn face, Anastasia only smiled, clearly pleased with her reflection.
We sat across from each other at the table, her right arm poised over the bowl. I had already marked her left arm with cobwebs of thin scars, always careful to choose areas easily hidden by a sleeve. The slice of my blade had become deft with practice.
"These marks will disappear completely before your wedding night, I assure you," I told her, tracing my fingertips over the abandoned paths of the blade. She giggled, almost soundlessly, then gasped as the knife cut into new flesh.
"Do you not think of such things?" I asked, holding her arm steady over the bowl; this cut was in the soft, unscarred flesh just above her elbow. "Of course you do. You're a young woman—it's natural to think of such things."
Her pale cheeks blushed suddenly, her eyes turned down.
"I'm afraid there is something I must ask you, my lady," she asked, eyes focused on her bent white arm. "I will not be able to help you tomorrow night. The cook has asked me to assist her in the kitchen, very late. She needs my help, and I was hoping you would understand."
"I see," I murmured.
"It's not that I don't like working for you, in your secret chamber. I'm very grateful for all you have given me. But when I am needed elsewhere, it's difficult to keep it secret."
"Certainly you can keep my secrets," I assured her. "It is your duty as my servant to do so, don't you agree?"
"Well, yes, of course," she uttered. "I understand if you need me here."
"I will tell you another secret of mine. About the blood." We watched it slowly pool in the bowl between us. "It's pure blood that I need—the blood from a pure young girl, a virgin. Do you understand?" I asked her, but she said nothing.
"If you are spoiled, I will have to find someone else," I told her. Her gaze was still vacant. I seized her bleeding arm with sudden force.
"Would you tell me?" I asked her. "Would you confess your sins to me? Or would you lie, for the sake of a string of pearls and a silver comb?"
"No, I wouldn't lie to you, I wouldn't!" Her glassy eyes turned up to mine in fear. She shivered so drastically I had to renew my grip upon her arm. I watched as the fresh blood stained my fingertips.
"Would you lie to me and take my gifts, like a dirty whore?"
"No, I wouldn't! I wouldn't!"
I released her suddenly and she sat crouched before me, pitiful, her body racked by deep, wrenching sobs. Her blue eyes looked like melting ice. I thought of my mother for a moment and wished that she could see this girl whose beauty had once enraged her with jealousy. I wished she could see her for the pitiful, greedy creature she was. I watched for a moment, relishing the disgust I felt for her.
