The cobra queen, p.8
The Cobra Queen, page 8
Blood buddies.
I stayed tense, fists filled with uncooked rice, unsure of what to do. Why were they gathering like this, on the street? As I watched, my nemesis Athanasia, my undead friend Samantha and the two remaining Sanguine models of Athanasia’s lethal posse got down on their pale and slender knees and bowed to me.
That’s right. Bowed.
To me!
On the streets of Spektor.
‘The Seventh,’ they said in unison.
I could not have been more surprised. Maybe I wouldn’t be needing uncooked rice anymore? I thought, and pulled my hands from my pockets. My, how things had changed since they’d seen me suspend Celia’s old lift in the air.
They stayed bent over.
I stared.
That had been it, right? The pivotal moment? I’ll admit, stopping that lift from smashing on the ground had been something of a feat, albeit an unconscious one. I would have been well and truly dead if my powers of telekinesis had not kicked in to stop the speeding elevator mid-air. The moment I’d realised what I’d done, I’d freaked out (wouldn’t you?), and the lift had crashed the rest of the way down, causing quite a bit of damage to the lobby floor but not much damage to me. Vlad had spent weeks and weeks getting the lift going again, though some of the old tile work would never be the same. So this grovelling figure at my feet had expected me to die in that little ‘accident’ of cut lift cables, and now she was in awe of me, along with her little blood-sucking posse? Life was full of surprises.
I stared at the tops of the four Sanguine heads for a moment, unsure of what to say or do. I couldn’t count the number of times these creatures had tried to kill me. Well, the supermodels among them, not so much poor Samantha, though she had deadly impulses too. Some deeply immature part of me found this new behaviour of theirs quite, well … satisfying. I guess I’m not above that. It felt pretty good for a moment, and then I turned and noticed Skye DeVille approaching me from the other side. An ambush?
My former boss at Pandora magazine was glaring at me. Petite and stylish in life, she’d really taken her whole undead turn to the next level, wearing an edgy all-black ensemble of vinyl mini and lacy top, and slicking her short, dark hair back from her forehead. Her face was pale and her lips were thin and painted a dark, blood red. It was a regular undead convention here. Was this a … trick? I was surrounded.
‘I should, uh, head up to my room,’ I said and waved awkwardly at the grovelling Sanguine. I turned around and tried to walk past Skye towards the mansion and the safety of Celia’s penthouse. Skye stepped into my path. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, waiting for her to step aside. She didn’t.
‘Ugh, look at her, with her pathetic hair and her old clothes,’ Skye spat, pointing at my cardigan and slurring slightly as fangs like a panther’s slid out from under her lips. She was referring to the vintage clothes I was wearing. They were very nice vintage clothes, as a matter of fact. And there was nothing wrong with my hair. Skye had been rude in life, too. I ignored her insult and tried again to pass her. She stood in my way a second time.
‘God, get off your knees. Look at you all!’ Skye shouted with evident frustration while her colleagues continued to grovel with their heads down. ‘She’s nothing!’ she shouted, arms in the air. ‘She’s just some clueless small town hick!’
And then, before I knew what was happening, Skye’s white face contorted in shock, eyes bulging, and she flew backwards across the footpath.
Flew!
I blinked. How odd. I realised my arms were extended, and, confused, I brought them to my sides and watched with horror while my former boss, who was someone I was admittedly not exactly fond of, hit the pavement with a sickening thud and sprawled out like a rag doll, her short, black skirt fanning out around her hips. It seemed to happen in slow motion, but I was powerless to intervene. Skye had flown several metres through the air like she’d been shot out of a cannon. Had her black stockings been torn beforehand? I couldn’t recall, but they looked bad now. That must have really hurt.
‘Oh my! Are you okay?’ I exclaimed, running forward to see if she was all right, as if I finally had control of my body once more. None of the others got up, I noticed. They would not go near her. Or was it me? Yes, it was me they would not go near. They stayed down, knees and palms on the pavement, watching silently, heads still partially bowed.
I did that, didn’t I?
What had come over me?
‘Sorry,’ I said, realising. I offered Skye a hand to help her up. She just stared at me, wide-eyed. Her fangs had disappeared. She didn’t move.
‘She is The Seventh,’ I heard the others say in creepy unison, as I collected myself and sprinted away, holding my satchel. ‘She is The Seventh.’ I hauled open the heavy front door of Celia’s mansion and shut it behind me, sliding down the inside of the door, the cold lobby a comfort in contrast to the confusion outside.
I ran a trembling hand down my face.
What just happened?
‘And then what happened, you say?’
I had arrived in Celia’s penthouse buzzing with adrenaline, any ideas of a long sleep put aside for the moment, and my great-aunt, a perpetually astute observer, insisted I take tea with her. Her tea was always strengthening. After her careful preparations, during which I paced back and forth by her tall windows, running over events in my head, Celia had calmly pulled a chair out for me and taken the seat in her book-lined alcove. As usual I was drawn to her stunning ensemble, which seemed like something for a night out – a long black taffeta dress with a sweetheart neckline and a belted waist, the fabric of which caught the light – but I did not attempt to grill her about where she was going. I knew she wouldn’t tell me. Over sips of tea, I told her about Athanasia and all the Sanguine on their knees on the streets of Spektor, and then my former boss Skye flying through the air.
‘Great-Aunt Celia, I threw her through the air!’ I repeated in shock. ‘I hadn’t even touched her, but my arms were out like this,’ I said, standing up to demonstrate, ‘and she flew through the air and hit the pavement hard. I mean she just flew!’
My great-aunt tilted her head and nodded sagely. ‘Well done, Pandora. That will teach her.’
‘What do you mean, well done? I didn’t even know I was doing it!’ I said, still standing, and now throwing my arms in the air with frustration.
Celia’s red lips curved into a subtle smile. She stroked her albino cat, Freyja, who meowed softly, then picked up her teacup again. ‘You do need to keep them in line, you know, show your authority,’ she said. ‘You can’t take insults like that without reprimanding them. I’m sure Deus would approve.’ She crossed one elegant leg over the other and leaned back into her alcove. ‘And you are getting stronger, aren’t you? This is as it should be.’
I resumed pacing, agitated.
‘Your mind movement skills are proving quite expert,’ my great-aunt added after a minute. ‘Think of the Janus coin, and how important your talent proved when you raised it in that crucial moment, or the elevator, and how stopping it from plummeting saved your life. You already know this telekinesis is a gift of yours. What surprises you then?’
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I continued to pace around the sitting room, and then stopped and looked out over the Manhattan skyline. ‘I guess I just don’t think it’s my place to throw people around for insulting my clothes,’ I finally said.
‘She insulted your clothes?’ she asked.
It wasn’t my first time unconsciously enacting telekinesis. But it was my first time doing it for a reason other than real self-defence. ‘I think maybe she hit a nerve,’ I admitted. ‘But who cares what she thinks? It’s so silly …’
‘Go on.’
I came back from the window, took a breath and sat down again. ‘Maybe that’s part of what’s bothering me so much – that something so trivial would set me off. It’s just . . . sometimes I feel so uncool,’ I confessed, adjusting my sleeves. ‘At work, I mean. My boss is trendy and self-assured. She always looks perfect. I don’t think I’ve seen her come into the office in the same outfit twice.’
My great-aunt frowned. ‘A person who can’t wear the same thing twice is rarely self-assured, Pandora.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘No woman need change their entire style every day, or even every three months, though the magazines and the dress shops will certainly encourage you to. First it’s a round toe shoe, then pointed,’ she said, making a dismissive gesture to her elegant slippers. ‘Flared jeans, then skinny. Short hems then long. Don’t buy into it, Pandora. The marriage of these disparate, ever-changing elements seldom works, and so it necessitates a whole new look. It is that way by design – not the design of clothes, the design of the market.’
Celia would know what she was talking about, having been a designer for so long, though I didn’t think the term ‘dress shop’ was used a lot anymore. ‘What do you mean by disparate elements?’ I asked.
‘The fashions today change too rapidly. In my day they spent years – even the better part of a decade – perfecting certain looks,’ she explained. ‘It was refined over time, the changes being subtle. A different expression here, an original interpretation there. True, there may not have been as many dresses or fabrics to choose from as there are today, but there were a lot of exciting designs and different ways to wear them – with scarves, capes, hats, gloves, different hairstyles. You could have innovation and this excitement of the new without changing everything. The shoes and hems, colours and cuts worked together. It was harmonious. You didn’t have to change your whole wardrobe to suit a pair of shoes or a new jacket.’
‘Do you mean there was a kind of … style synchronicity?’ I ventured.
‘Proportions went together, and you made or bought what suited you best, and altered it as you wished. There are some exciting designs today, that’s true, but in the forties and fifties people were generally more stylish than they are today,’ she said. It was hard to argue she was wrong there. Perhaps that was why she dressed in her own forties style. ‘Yet they spent far less on things, Pandora. They bought less. If a woman owned, say, four dresses and two pairs of good shoes, she could make it look different with scarves, with hats, with jewellery. She might get a new dress every few months, or once a year. Now there is constant buying, nothing matches, and few things are made to last.’
I nodded. I was beginning to see her point. Still, I did need to blend in with the fashion world better.
‘The fashion world today is driven largely by commercialism, not aesthetics. A few good pieces are all a girl needs. Think of the times during the Second World War, when there were fabric rations. Women – and men – mended and reworked old clothes to keep up to date with the style of the time. Women tried different hairstyles and a new scarf and voila, it was a new look. They looked better than many people in their street clothes today.’
‘You are right, of course. But I work at Pandora. Don’t I need to try to keep up with what is happening in fashion?’ I said, thinking of Pepper and Ben and how they seemed in quite a different league.
‘No,’ she said, to my surprise. ‘As I always say, darling Pandora, fashion changes, but true style is timeless.’
My great-aunt certainly did seem timelessly elegant.
‘These clothes suit you well,’ she said, patting the fitted shoulders of the dress. ‘No, you shouldn’t listen to Skye. She has her own issues.’
Like becoming a bloodsucker. She had a point there, or two.
‘I know we’ve talked about this before, but I guess I’m still sensitive about it. I know I’m judged around the office on what I wear. And my boss intimidates me in so many ways, and Skye had put me down before I threw her.’ It had, I could now confess, been satisfying.
‘You don’t need to worry about clothing, Pandora. You have your job and you are doing it well. Don’t be afraid to look unique.’
Celia did have a way of making problems seem smaller. We finished our tea and when she placed her cup on her saucer she said, ‘You should go through that box you received from your mother. Don’t put it off. You’ll be fine.’
She was right. And before I knew it Celia was wishing me a good evening and standing to leave, Freyja at her ankles. I thanked her and watched her go, her heeled slippers made faint clicks on the hardwood floor and she was gone.
I ate a late snack alone, as usual, and in time I retreated to my room and changed out of my things, hung my vintage clothes up on the edge of the antique wooden wardrobe to air them (a trick Celia taught me to prolong the life of the clothes and avoid damaging them through over washing), bathed and got into my long white nightie. It was time.
Soon I found myself sitting on the edge of my four-poster bed, absolutely wide awake. The long, warm bath had not done the trick of helping my heart to slow to a normal pace. Not when flashes of what had happened on the street kept flickering across my mind: my arms extended. Skye flying through the air. That sickening thud. The look of shocked terror in her eyes. The Sanguine grovelling and chanting in unison, She is The Seventh …
I glanced at my clock. It was nearing ten now. I would do this. I would go through this delayed parcel and savour it. Nothing to fear but memories …
I rose, took a breath to steel myself and hauled the mysterious box from my late mother up on to my bed.
I’d been thinking of this box all day, holding out for this moment, yet I found I was daunted by the prospect of opening it. What was I afraid of, exactly? Learning something I didn’t want to know? Or perhaps I was afraid of finding that even with a few more of my mother’s precious things in my life, I still did not have enough of her, still did not have enough questions answered. The hole left when my parents died was not one that could be adequately filled, I knew.
But why had this box been delayed, if there had been instructions?
My Aunt Georgia had meant well, I was sure, but the older I got the stranger her choices seemed. Why had she taken all the photos of my mother down? Why had she given away so many of my mother’s books? She’d effectively cut all tangible links to my mother out of my life. This box, at least, meant that there would be something more of my past to keep. The older I became, the more I realised the importance of keepsakes. Some objects held strong memories and even seemed to retain some essence of their previous owner or experience. That sense of history and belonging could be a comfort to someone with so little living family. This stuff mattered.
And then I realised that something very specific bothered me about receiving this box. This was from my mother, not from my Aunt Georgia. Or at least that was how Celia had described it, and she was not one to be careless about details. A box organised by my mom. Did a lot of parents box up belongings for their kids when they were still so young? My mother had been just thirty-six when she’d died, and my father the same age. They’d not yet been middle-aged. Boxing something up to pass on to younger generations was something a grandparent might logically do, something for those in their late years or those who were unwell and knew they were not long for this world. Although I’d had a day to get used to the fact that my late mother had compiled a box of things for me before she died, a lump formed in my throat just looking at it. Had my mother somehow known she would die before her time? How could she know? Did this prove that she knew? I wavered back and forth and realised I was procrastinating once more. I wouldn’t know more if I didn’t open the box again and get started.
Come on, Pandora.
Barely aware that I was holding my breath, I pulled open the cardboard flaps to see what was waiting for me. I reached in and my fingers soon found white lace. Carefully, I pulled a delicate garment from the box and laid it across the bed.
Lovingly, I smoothed out the wrinkles and flattened the edges. I couldn’t see clearly now, the tears were falling too freely, and without thinking I crawled on to the bed and lay on my side, placing my head on the empty bodice of my late mother’s beautiful dress. The old lace felt good against my cheek, comforting somehow. I lay there, curled in the foetal position, remembering what I could of the mother I’d lost. My eyes were closed, my hand sitting gently on the dress, and when I finally opened them again my gaze fell on the black-and-white wedding photo of my parents on the antique writing desk a few feet away. There were my mom and dad gripping each other joyfully, my mother’s veil pulled back to frame her face like a snowy halo. They both looked so young and carefree. And there was the same white lace wedding dress with its delicate cap sleeves and sweetheart neckline, with my mother inside it. Smiling. Living. She was right there. So close. So near in my thoughts. I felt her presence keenly.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again, savouring the feeling of the lace against my cheek. That old photograph had been waiting for me when I arrived from Gretchenville. Great-Aunt Celia had instinctively understood its value, that it would make me feel more at home, not less. I needed my past to cope with my future and there was so much I had not been told about my family history by my own mother. I’d spent so long in the dark. Perhaps I would always be in the dark. Perhaps it would always be like this. My mother so close and yet so far away.
In time I sat up, noticing little damp patches on the lace where my tears had temporarily turned it a faint grey. I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands, then found a tissue and wiped them some more. And then I forgave myself. I forgave myself my procrastination and my surge of fear. Even if this dress was everything I found in the box, even if that was it, I’d let out a flood of tears on encountering it. It was wonderful and hard to have this gift from her, and there could be no other way. Of course it would be emotional. Of course.
