As soon as Mary noticed my tea was gone, she jumped up and said, “Let’s go get their rooms ready.”
When she started around towards the back of the house, I asked, “Aren’t the rooms inside?”
“Nope. There’s not as much space since the fire, but Asa had some cabins built just past the gardens. Said it’s best to keep guests within reach, but not under your nose, or somethin’ to that effect.”
“That sounds like Asa.”
Mary chuckled and continued to crack me up as we worked to ready the cabins. We dusted, positioned fresh linens and blankets on the mattresses, fluffed the down pillows, and hung bouquets of wildflowers from tacks on the walls so the rooms wouldn’t smell musty.
When we finished with the last of the three cabins, she waited at the door while I lingered, wondering how to phrase the question I was thinking. “Out with it,” she said. “Best to be blunt and get it over with.”
I smiled. “How do you feed?”
“You’ve never seen a vampire feed?” she asked, raising her eyes. “Enoch’s never bitten you even a little?”
My face heated. “Not on purpose.”
“Well,” she said. “I tend to be a little harsh with those I feed from. I have a lot of ghosts from my past, and I’ve found comfort in making those that once haunted me… dinner. I imagine it would be different feeding from someone I cared about. I would be careful, and tender, I think.”
I loved this woman.
“Come on. Benjamin and his men just arrived. They’ll be makin’ themselves comfortable in here soon, and be ready to fill their bellies with food and wine soon enough. We need to get you ready.”
“Enoch doesn’t care what I wear,” I argued, warning her against what I was dreading – that she would stuff me in the frilliest, gaudiest gown my clone owned. She’d certainly left plenty from which to choose.
Mary asked for a tub to be sent to my room and for hot water to be boiled to warm the cold water drawn from the well. Asa filled her request for the tub and cold water, and Mary helped me clean the mess I’d made the night before, fussing over the wrinkled gowns and a missing shoe. It had to be here somewhere. Asa brought in a pot of steaming water. “Another is ready. I’ll be right back.”
“You do that,” Mary clucked, shooing him from the room. She swished the water with her hand, mixing hot into cold. “It ain’t even lukewarm. You can’t get in that,” she tutted under her breath. I didn’t tell her I’d taken a completely cold one yesterday. Most of these folks didn’t bathe every day, so they probably thought I was spoiled. I wondered what the clone did about hygiene. She seemed high maintenance enough. The colorful fabrics and frills teased me from the wardrobe. Enoch’s wardrobe, I reminded myself.
“Do you have paper and something to write with? An envelope, maybe?” I asked.
“I’ll see what I can find,” she answered. “Give me a few minutes.”
Asa returned with the second pot of boiling-hot water. “Asa, when you finish dumpin’ that, Miss Eve would appreciate it if she could borrow parchment, a quill, and a well of ink.” She smiled at him like a proud mother would her son.
“I’ll get that for Miss Eve,” he replied, gritting my name as he turned to leave the room.
“Ignore his manners. Enoch brings out the worst in him,” Mary scoffed. I turned my attention to her.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Those two have a history as violent as Cain and Abel, and neither one can die. Not that Enoch hasn’t tried to kill Asa plenty of times.”
“Is that what Asa told you?”
She put her hands on her hips. “That’s what I seen with my own eyes. Now, I know you love him, but you best know what you’re givin’ your heart to. Enoch is not a human man. You can’t expect him to act like one.”
“And Asa’s a saint?”
She quirked a brow. “Not even close.”
Asa returned a short time later with the items Mary asked him for on my behalf. She gave him a pat on the shoulder and told me she’d be back in half an hour to help me dress. “Lord knows she needs all the help she can get,” she whispered in an ornery tone to Asa.
He grinned and walked further into the room as Mary’s footsteps faded down the hall and trailed down the stairs. “Miss Eve,” he said, offering a few pieces of paper, a quill pen I’d have to figure out how to write with, and a small crystal inkwell.
“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, taking the items from him and placing them on a nearby chest of drawers.
Asa lingered. “She wasn’t lying to you,” he began.
“About Enoch trying to kill you?”
“About anything she said, but yes. He’s tried to kill me.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “But you’ve never tried to kill him, right? You’re a victim?”
His eyes turned cold. “I have tried hundreds of times.”
“And failed.”
“Failed, and in the process, learned what doesn’t work,” he volleyed.
“Does that mean you’re still trying to find a way?”
He shrugged a shoulder, refusing to comment further.
“Well, thanks. My water’s probably getting cold, so you best go.” I knew it was rude, but I didn’t care in the least.
“He told me your theory about your clone, and what you found in the wardrobe. Tell me, why did you think to search her room for anything at all?”
He didn’t deserve the truth, but I gave it to him anyway. “I thought maybe since she was made from me, we might think alike, and that if she was as motivated as I was before I met you, she might be willing to do anything to complete her mission.”
“Including stabbing herself in the stomach.”
“She had her suit, right?”
He nodded.
“Then she had nothing to lose. If you didn’t turn her, she could use the suit to heal herself.”
“Which is exactly what she did…” he said slowly. “But I wonder what you’d be willing to do to complete your mission and claim victory over us.”
“I abandoned that mission in thirteen-forty-eight.”
He gave a cruel smile. “Before or after you slaughtered our people?”
“I had nothing to do with that.” He gritted his teeth. It wouldn’t matter what I said, he still believed I was involved with the attack. Wait, no he didn’t. “If you really believed what you just said, I wouldn’t have made it out of your camp the first day I landed in this time.”
“My sister –”
“Will say anything to make you doubt and hate me.”
“Then you won’t mind proving that you’re being truthful?” he led.
“How can I do that?”
Asa’s fathomlessly cold brown eyes locked onto mine. “You’ll kill Abram.”
“If I get the chance, I will,” I promised.
He shook his head. “Some chances must be made and not left to fickle fate.” With those words, he pivoted and left the room.
I closed the door behind him and looked between the warm water and the writing supplies. In the end, writing to Maru took precedent over the steaming bath.