Page 20 of My Carmilla
Carmilla was unraveling before me. Day into night. Quickly transforming into someone—something else entirely. Fear flared in me along a wave of desire. That I could shake her composure... to affect her like this, I shivered.
"Mm." Carmilla sucked harder. "You taste delicious." She tilted her head, and her hot lips traveled along my thigh.
I drew in a gasp of pain. Fangs broke the skin, singeing every thought to oblivion.
"Carmilla—" I fisted her hair with both hands. If she did anything now, I wouldn't deny her. If she were to keep going, if she were to pin me underneath her, bare and spread wide—
“Darling,” she said, licking the wound on my thigh, “you must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me. Can’t you see how much I need you?”
And how I needed her too. It was almost painful.
“Let me do the same for you,” I said.
My gaze, filled with a desperate reverence, followed the line of her white nightgown where it disappeared between the folds of her legs. I traced her body, a temple of sinuous curves and moon-kissed skin. I knelt before her dark altar and worshiped the juncture between her thighs.
She tasted like nectar distilled from fallen stars; like every black desire of my soul.
***
That night, my head was flooded with images of our recent sordid encounter, her sweet words. I ached to bottle this feeling, to hold these moments with her forever, like a souvenir.
I turned my gaze to the stack of leather-bound journals my mother's family had sent. Each one seemed to hold stories from a life far removed from my own. Perhaps, I thought, one of them could hold mine now.
I picked one, a lovely silver filigreed journal with latticed etchings.The aged leather cover creaked in protest as I wrestled it open. Inside the cover, lay a name in faded ink. "Katharina Karnstein," read a flowery handwriting. My mother's name. A mother who had always remained a distant figure, lost to a fever when I was a babe.
I devoured the entries, each a snapshot into a life vastly different from my own. The loneliness in her words was palpable, the frustration of being a young woman trapped in a loveless union. My father, a stern and stoic man, remained largely absent, focused on his business affairs. Only in mentions of a babe did a flicker of warmth seep through the page.
Then, an entry unlike the others.
June 12th, 1852:
"Tonight a soiree at Marin Manor. A suffocating affair, filled with the usual gossip and posturing. But amidst the sea of forgettable faces, one stood out. A woman of stately beauty. Tall and statuesque, with hair as dark as the night and marble skin. A single black mark adorned her cheekbone, and her eyes... oh, those eyes! Blue pools that seemed to hold ancient secrets. We exchanged a few words, and a strange connection sparked between us. A yearning I cannot explain. Perhaps loneliness breeds a kinship of its own."
My breath hitched in my throat. A tall elegant woman; ebony hair, pale skin, the mole near her eye. The description was an unnerving echo of Carmilla’s mother.
A folded piece of paper tucked within the pages fluttered to the floor. I snatched it up, my hands trembling. I unfolded the letter and my eyes scanned the faded ink:
"Katharina, my unexpected confidante, society suffocates you. I see it in the way you bite your lip when forced into conversation with vacuous men, the way your gaze wanders to the moonlit sky as they drone on about horse races and social graces. I can see it, that wildness in you. A thirst for something more that mirrors the hunger in my own soul. How I long to whisk you away from the prying eyes of society. Meet me near the lake at our usual time. Yours eternally, Lilita."
Lilita. I recalled a similar variation of that name. Lilith, the first wife of Adam, banished from Eden for her defiance, According to the stories, she had become the mother of demons, a night-born creature forever ostracized from the light.
I turned to the next page of the journal, afraid of what I would find.
June 18th, 1852:
Stole away to meet Lilitha at our hidden haven by the lake. There are things that transpired between us. Experiences too intimate, too raw to write onto this cold, unfeeling paper. My body aches in the most wonderful way possible, and my mind replays the stolen moments, each one branding itself deeper into my memory.
June 23rd, 1852:
A wave of exhaustion claims me this week, a lethargy so profound it feels like a strange comfort in its intensity. The insistent cries of the babe throughout the night are the only explanation I can grasp for this bone-deep weariness. I surrendered to my bed for most of the day, dreams swirling me — vivid, unsettling, unspeakable things. They leave me with a lingering sense of unease upon waking. The doctor dismisses it to hysteria, a figment of my imagination, but I think he is wrong. After all, he can't explain the two small puncture marks on my neck.
June 27th, 1852:
I scarcely have the energy to write today. Lilita visited today. She smiles and assures me all will be well.
I turned the page again. Blank.
The entries had stopped. My mind churned, and I clutched the journal to my chest. A sense of foreboding twisted my stomach. Carmilla and the woman who had captivated my mother…I could no longer turn a blind eye to the similarities. The past was reaching out, its tendrils tangling with my present, and threatening to drag me into something I couldn't begin to comprehend.