Daughter of Darkness (Kindred 1)

“Speaking of big, he looks… pretty big.”

“Will you just say hello? Please? Don’t worry, I won’t tell him you’re married. It will just take a minute or so, and you can go.”

With obvious reluctance, the young man got out of the car. Brianna took his hand, and they walked toward the front entrance. I couldn’t see around that far, but I waited by the window, expecting that he would come back to his car. I wondered if Brianna would walk back with him and maybe go to the motel he had suggested. But instead of that, I heard the young man shout and then scream like someone in great pain or danger.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I leaned too far out my window to try to see around the corner. I lost my grip on the windowsill and fell to the ground. Luckily, I wasn’t that high up. I brushed myself off, but the shock of falling and the pain in my shoulder caused me to call out for Daddy and then cry.

I started for the front entrance and saw Daddy backing up into the house with the young man in his arms. The young man was unconscious, his arms dangling, his legs dragging. He looked like a big doll. Daddy paused when he saw me.

“Brianna!” my father shouted, his voice deeper and louder than I had ever heard it, and he did look bigger than I had ever seen him. His shoulders were wider, his neck much thicker, and his arms and hands longer. His eyes glowed.

He closed the door. Brianna spun on me, a look of panic and shock on her face, her eyes almost as luminous as Daddy’s were in the moonlight. It was as grotesque an expression as I had ever seen on her.

“Lorelei! What are you doing out here?”

“I fell out of my window,” I said, moaning and rubbing my shoulder.

She hurried down to me and seized me at the back of my neck. “Why would you fall out of a window?”

“You woke me up, and I wanted to see what was going on. Who was that man? Why did he scream? Why was Daddy carrying him into the house? What happened to him?”

“Quiet,” she ordered.

She marched me forward, waited a moment at the front door, and then opened it. She pushed me in, but as we turned toward our bedrooms, I looked up toward the top of the stairway. Daddy was leaning over the young man. He looked as if he was kissing him on the neck and shaking his body the way I might shake a rag doll.

“What’s Daddy doing?” I asked Brianna.

Daddy heard me and started to turn our way.

“I told you to be quiet,” Brianna said. She lifted me at the waist and hurriedly carried me down the hallway and back to my room, where Mrs. Fennel was waiting at the door. The sight of her standing there looking even more furious than Daddy had looked frightened me even more.

“You fool,” she told Brianna. “How could you let this happen?”

“I didn’t let it happen. She leaned too far out of her window and fell.”

She ripped me out of Brianna’s arms roughly. “Go to your room.”

“But what about the car?”

“I’ll do what has to be done,” Mrs. Fennel said. “As always. I’m the one left to look after the messes you and your sisters cause.”

“I didn’t do anything. I…”

“Go,” Mrs. Fennel said. Then she took me into my room and slammed the door shut on Brianna. I was able to glance back at her before it closed. She looked even more terrified than I felt.

I started to cry. Mrs. Fennel ignored that, as usual, and slammed me onto my bed. It was always hard for me to believe that anyone who was as slim as she was had such strength in her arms, but I often caught her lifting heavy things, things I imagined most men would have trouble lifting.

“Stop that crying instantly.”

“I didn’t mean to fall out the window. It just happened. What… who is that man? Why is Daddy carrying him on the stairway? Daddy looked so big and angry.”

She stared down at me for a long moment. There was something about her look, her posture, the way her anger subsided, that told me she wasn’t just going to leave me wondering about it. I quickly caught my breath, flicked the tears off my cheeks, and sat up a bit, folding my hands in my lap.

“You must never tell anyone about that young man or any young man who is brought here,” she began.

I was afraid to ask why not, afraid she would simply turn and walk out, but how could I tell anyone anything anyway? I had no friends.

“I can’t tell anyone. I don’t know anyone,” I said.