"Before me, no things were created,
but eternal;
and eternal I endure:
leave all hope, ye that enter"
-canto III, Dante Alighieri
🩸

(TW: Suicide)

1831

Almafi, Kingdom of Two Sicilies

I was once a little girl who believed I could fly.

I understood little of our money or privilege. I never complained when my mama took me to our villa in the South every Summer, away from the chaotic and luxurious cities of the North. I did not yet understand that was her idea of flight.

The coast was an endless blue sky, where I could stretch my arms and leap.

The sea would catch me in its glittering turquoise depths. Our villa stood proudly on a cliff, clinging to its surface. A warm collection of terracotta bricks and a roof, that held all our happiness under its tiles. Mosaics of old stories decorated the floors, a mixture of sea glass and pearl. They caught the light in every direction, creating stars along the walls.

My room was my favorite place of all.

The walls were high and lime-washed. Wooden beams were exposed on the ceiling, so high I could not reach them. Even if I stood on my bed. The floors were light and slightly bruised with age, and they creaked. My room in Florence did not creak. I still liked this room much better.

My window was open to the outside, making me a part of nature. I was the sea in every breath. I was the olive trees as they rustled along my windows. I was a lizard, scrambling through brush and the jagged cut of earl grey rocks.

I wanted to be the gulls that screeched in the sky. Diving into the ocean to catch their prey, and then disappearing into the horizon. 

So I watched the sky every night, as the golden hue of summer faded into a violet. The sea morphed from blue to indigo, as the silver of the moon crested upon every rippling wave. The air would cling to my body, my waves now a curled mess of salt and sea. Sometimes, I would see a black stray cat pass through our garden, green-eyed and mischievous in the dark. Sometimes I would fall asleep on my sill, my white linen drapes as my blanket. I would wake up in bed, knowing my mother moved me as I dreamt of the next day.

My mother lived in the kitchen. Even when she was not cooking, she was there. Like a cat, she would stretch under the white light of the sun that entered through the window. She was a kind woman, just tired. She never ignored me, never pushed me away. Even when she could not stand, or when lavender showed up under her eyes. She hugged and kissed me till my limbs ached. Her scent of rose lulled me to sleep. When I was younger, I called her Venus. I thought it was she who had emerged upon the beaches of Cyprus. Dark thick hair, the largest of ink-lined eyes. A full mouth, and high elegant bones. She was all that I thought I should be. It was why my father had been willing to marry out of his station in life.

Her beauty had stolen his good sense, and he had stolen my mother from what she loved the most.

Her home.

I had asked, too many times, why my father never came with us to our special summers.

"Here, he feels the same way I do about the north."

"And how do you feel?"

I was so little then. I would not understand why my father felt out of place. Unhappy. How could he be when he was surrounded by such beauty?

How could he when he was with us?

It would make even less sense if she told me he could not. That his family was already on the brink of estrangement with him. And that their summers away were not only for us to enjoy, but for us to be hidden from high society's prying eyes.

"Like a bird who lost its wings." That is all my mother would say, with a far-off look in her eyes.

I did not like watching her cry. So I would escape to the outside, where I could forget all that I did not understand.

My mother taught me everything there was to enjoy about life. She taught me the importance of reading, of finding yourself within stories. She taught me to paint and to play the piano. I liked having the notes trickle from my fingers, and into the air. I imagined the sea dancing to its melody.

We would collect lemons all day, and bite into them until our jaws ached from sour saturation. We would take our arms filled with endless sunshine, and march them into the kitchen. We collected olives and pine nuts too, but as a child, the bright burst of yellow is what kept my attention. She would get a bowl and squeeze, her hands working the fruit. She would always smile as I bounced with excitement beside her. My 'limonata' was always perfectly sweet. My mother would ask how much sugar I wanted and sprinkle some on my nose until I could not stop laughing.

I tried my mother's lemonade one day when she wasn't looking. Without her reprimanding me, I vowed never to steal from her cup again. It ended up all over the floor when I spit out its acrid, bitter taste. She never knew I used the drapes to clean it up.

Our last summer together was different. From the first moment we set forth to the dazzling coast, the air was frigid as it opposed our arrival. Turn back now. I heard the wind warn us.

We did not heed its voice.  

My mother was no longer tired. She was exhausted.

I pulled on her hand, asking her to make food. Begging her to read. Pleading with her to look at me. She would not.

She could not.

Her tears were endless, she was blind. Her books became dusty in the corner by her bed. When I fell asleep at my window sill, I woke up there the next morning. I tried making my lemonade, which only made my mouth sore. I attempted to make my food, but I ended up feeling ill within the next hour.

The sea had become dull, the trees and grass following suit. Our rocky cliff grew soft, shifting under our feet.

She was my home. And when she crumbled, so did everything with it.

It only rained one day that Summer. The last day before we returned to our apartment in Florence.

I sat on my sill, watching the rain battle the sea. A gray mist clinging and covering all the colors I grew to love. Even at that age, a sense of doom filled me. A panic as my eyes tried to take in every little detail. I did not know why, since I knew there would always be next summer.

Until there wasn't.

A figure caught my eye. To my right, and barely visible through the sheet of rain.

My mother. She was dressed in white, an angel against the darkening sky. I lifted myself halfway out of my window, unafraid. I did not care as my body became soaked. All I cared about was that my mother was standing. She looked out into the sea, her face blank.

"Mama!" I had called her.

She did not look in my direction. The rain was deafening. She did not see me smile. She did not know I called for her. She did not know that I needed her.

When she floated like a petal from the window, I did not cry.

I only wanted to fly too.

It was my chance to do something together with my mother, who had been a ghost the entire season.

I climbed up onto my feet, wobbling as I looked at the water below. It had swallowed her, with only a ripple of white left. I needed to jump past the green pasture of our yard. I needed to make it past the large olive tree that reached out to me.

I stretched my arms. The rain tickled my palms as I held them up to the sky. Crucified by my ignorance. I looked down, and I could feel my body pulsing. It is high up, I thought.

An even stranger feeling. What if I cannot fly? I pushed that one away. That couldn't be true, because my mother had jumped.

I was left with little choice when my toes slipped over the ledge, and my whole body with it.

I never made it to the sea.

When I awoke, I was puddled in my blood under the shadow of the branching olive tree. My arm bent at a strange angle. The pain was excruciating for someone as little as me, who experienced maybe a scratch or a bruise. It was the first day since I was born that I could conceptualize hurt, pain. That I could indeed not fly, and that I could not get up. That my mother had fallen further, harder.

And that my mother would likely never rise above the waves again.

I did not die that day. Though some days, I wish I had.

I cried, unable to move. Believing that I would soon join my mother. We were alone, always alone. There would be no one to save me. I was sad. And let me feel all the anger my childish heart could understand.

I had not been alone, I had my mother. She left me.

Something meowed in my head. I could barely move my neck to crane to see it. I could not help wanting to see it.

It was a cat. Its feline face blocked out the sun, its tourmaline eyes seeming to sharpen with recognition. It was the stray that I often saw in our garden. My cries grew louder when the small, black animal curled up at my neck. Its soft mewls sound in time to my distress.

It was hours later when I had given up on crying that I heard my father's voice.

"Serafina!" He let out a breath, "Thank god."

He said my name once and crouched down beside me. His dark eyes were shaken, his hands trembling. I had never seen my father less than composed.

"Where is your mother? Where is she!"

I could not answer him. I just began to cry. My father fell back onto his knees, his expression more haunted than the misty rain. He ran a hand through his golden hair, his yell reaching towards the heavens.

I tried to bring the cat closer to me, afraid. But it had disappeared.

My father shook his head, repeating my mother's name a hundred times. A thousand. A chant to bring her back. But even I knew it would not work.

"Your mother, she was not happy with me. I was coming to get her-I was coming to be with you both. To change. I am sorry, Serafina."

I could not yet comprehend the finality of death, but I knew one thing. He had finally come to be with her. And it was too late.

My father lifted me into his arms gently, calling for his assistant to bring the nearest doctor. His salty tears were nothing like the sea. His eyes did not crinkle the way my mother's did when she smiled at me. He smelled like smoke and wood, and I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep to the scent of rose. He apologized to me with every breath, but it did not matter.

I thought to myself, how much happier my mother would have been if she had chosen the sea over my father.

It would have saved her life.

•

1851

Firenze, Kingdom of Two Sicilies

I was a young woman. I no longer believed I could fly.

Instead, my wings were clipped, butchered, and discarded so that freedom could never find me.

My life in Florence without my mother's reprieve was a torture I could hardly endure. I learned all of my wealth, my station in life. And how much I wished summer lasted all year round. Not that I could go back to our villa. It was forever tainted by what had been, and what could have been.

My father tried. But every time he looked at me, he saw my mother. Which meant our distance was fated. He was trapped with the guilt of feeling like he pushed her. Uncertain as to how to raise me alone without my hatred growing. I loved him. But he was not who I wished would bid me goodnight.

High society was brutal, and the question of my low birth from my mother's womb was always in question.

My dresses were pretty. My hair and makeup were done to perfection. My language and learning were in the hands of the best tutors. And still, my grandparents looked at me like I was a problem that should have sunk under the ocean with my mother.

Worse, every other person of ancestral nobility saw me as one of them. Which meant playing the part.

I had dreams of becoming a pianist. They were traded in when I debuted amongst the single gentleman of our stature. Traded in for the duty of being a good wife to a wealthy man.

Traipsing along the coastline turned into embroidery, creating shapes and lines in the fabric as I sat in my chair by a large window. I longed to be outside.

It all seemed contrite until I met him in my twentieth year. His name does not matter to me anymore.

It is my story, not his.

Dark hair, glittering dark eyes, and golden skin. That is all I could see amongst the crowd of my late debut. A slice of the South, and what I held dear to me.

We married in my twenty-second year after he had returned from a long deal of business in Paris.

I parted with my father, and dreams of my old home. I was ready to start a new life, and to not repeat the mistakes I saw my family make. I no longer wanted to live in the purgatory of my past. My love was the sunshine, the trees. He liked to cook and make limoncello, which now tasted as sweet as my lemonade. We read together by the fireplace in our apartment every night and counted the stars. He told me he loved me openly, without restraint. I could feel no resentment, no worries. Just bliss.

It seemed that by forfeiting my freedom, I gained love. And I loved him. Truly, dearly. I knew over  time it would satiate my glutinous heart.

But alas, my body betrayed me. And he took my betrayal and sunk his claws into it. I could not deliver him a son. Each time, the bed turned dark with merlot and tears.

It rained every day.

He drew further away the harder I clung to him. I pleaded, pleaded for him to stay home as I healed. Pleaded to keep away from bars and gambling tables. Begged him to stay and hold me so that I could finally get rest.

He never stayed behind with me.

And so one night, I followed.

I should have known that when I follow those I love, I get left behind. But still, I crept through the streets. My wounds still aching, I pressed into crowds, disguised. Watching his head dip in and out of clubs, just to move on to the next.

He passed the gambling tables. He passed the bars.

He landed between the legs of a woman at a brothel. One who was not at home grieving the loss of their child.

I left him without saying a word. What good would it do?

Coming home felt like knives across my skin. I no longer had a home. Each had been tainted by the carnal truths of life; death and deceit.

It did not matter that I let go of the things that made me who I was. No, it did not matter that she felt my body ripped apart and sewn back together just to get disloyalty in return. Maybe this was how my life was meant to be; barren and cold. Maybe I was supposed to die that rainy day, and every moment since had been a testament to the wrongness that comes with living past your expiration. At twenty and five, I had already dealt with more tragedy than I ever could expect. All that I ever wanted got stolen from me.

The sea was far away, and yet I could feel its pull.

So I dressed into my best nightgown, one that was trimmed entirely with lace. Pink ribbons adorned the front bodice, similar to one I wore as a child. I let my hair hang freely around my shoulders, a dark waving mess. I placed on my mother's favorite rose perfume and rouged my cheeks.

I then climbed over to the window, where I had once gazed at the stars with my love.

The ledge was cold under my feet, as I stared at the ground below. The streets were empty. My heart was silent in my chest, unfeeling. There was nothing left. I waited for that same sensation as a child. That tug on my gut told me to step back, to save myself.

It never came.

I no longer believed I could fly. And still, I jumped.

Somehow death feared meeting me, more than I him. I was filled with disappointment when my eyes opened, taking in the world.

Let me leave, I begged God. Let me fucking go.

My body was broken in several directions. My nightgown was torn. I could not feel the agony of it over my rage. And a much sharper pain that radiated through my neck, and was increasing with the pulse of my undying heart.

I screamed. No one came. My husband had not yet wanted to part with his new treasure.

My throat burned like wine drenched over open flesh. I could not take it. I could not. My vision swam, the veins in my eyes flooding with black. My skin boiled, and my blood curdled. I choked, my limbs freezing.

Something was happening to me.

I had met death. Whatever this was, was infinitely worse.

I could not stop it.

I could do little as my body involuntarily convulsed, my teeth grinding into a pulp as it pained me to yell.

A shadow moved by my head. My husband? I wanted to ask him to put me out of my misery. I could not clutch my necklace adorned with Mother Mary, which sang at my chest.

But alas, he never came. Instead a black cat with green eyes.

I would have laughed if I could have. Instead, I died. I thought it was over. I thought I had finally made my peace with the stain that was my existence in the world. Some believe themselves to be above dying, and I never believed that of myself. I knew I was insignificant to the world as the dust that collected on shelves.

And yet I awoke anew. In the same spot, and yet I had changed.

I was no longer in pain. Every breath did not cause stabbing in my lungs. My blood had returned to my body. My heart no longer beat, it was only a silent echo of what had once been. I could see into windows, I could see the veins of leaves from afar. I could smell alcohol from the sloshing men from miles away, I could hear the drip of bath water.

I was strong, impossibly. I was without limit. My body no longer sagged under the weight of my dissatisfaction, my contempt.

I was different.

The cat had watched over my body until I returned, for it remained at my side when I picked myself up off the ground. But before my eyes, the animal began to shiver and change. Within seconds becoming a man with eyes of the same shade. Familiar. His eyes were the only thing I had carried with me to my new life.

He welcomed me into the underworld, and I gladly went.

Death and I both shared defeat. I was no longer human. Somewhere suspended between the dead and the living. I was no longer angry. No longer void.

No, I was filled with rapacious hunger.

I did not have a word for what I became then, but I know what I am now.

A Vampira. I am a creature forged of the night.

I found my old love that night. My heart soared when I drained him of all of his blood, right in front of his mistress.

I am more alive than I ever have been before.

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(A/N: Thank you for reading! Again this is different from my usual writing, but I care about telling this story.

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