The Other Side Of Midnight

I will die a human being.

I do not know why, but I am drawn to listen to Zelena’s voice. Even though she has betrayed me and Rocco, the songs she is singing are oddly familiar and dear to me. I feel as if I have heard them before. Where I do not know.

In my mind’s eye I see tall weeds swaying in the wind and hear the sound of water rushing by. “Autumn,” a woman’s voice calls. I’ve heard her voice before. It is sweet and full of love. Is it an angel coming to collect me? I know I should go with her, but not yet. Let me say goodbye to my Rocco first.

More and more blood flows out of me and into their rapacious mouths, and I feel my life force ebbing away into their bodies. I can even feel them becoming strong with my blood. They have won, but I have no one to blame but myself. I sent the note to Zelena, and I left the house when I was commanded not to.

The edges of the room start to go black. It’s almost like the way a photograph burns. Now the middle starts to yellow. Soon it will be all black. And I will be dead.

In a daze of pain and resignation, I look into Rocco’s horrified face. He cannot believe his eyes. He fights against the metal constraints, but they are thick, meant to hold down mighty vampires. I want to tell him it’s okay. Not to be sad. I don’t mind dying. I never wanted to live forever. And I definitely didn’t want to be a creature of the night.

I can die in peace because I know now that he loves me. I try to open my mouth to speak, but I am already too frail. I’m so cold my body is shivering. The voice in the reeds calls to me again.

“It’s me, Autumn.”

I gaze at Rocco’s face, and let all the love in my heart shine in my dying eyes.

“No,” he roars, the veins in his neck are bulging as he rails against his metal trap.

Then, suddenly, without warning, his mother jumps away from my neck with a scream of terror. Clutching her chest, she falls on the ground and starts to writhe and roll in agony. Both her husband and daughter instantly cease drinking from me, and turn to look at her.

When they let go of me, I am so weak I cannot even stay upright. I collapse on top of Rocco. Disorientated and half-alive, I watch them as if from far away. I cannot understand what is happening. Something must have gone wrong.

“What the hell is going on?” Rocco’s father demands, looking from the horrible sight of his wife writhing and choking, to Zelena.

She has stopped singing and looks at him expressionlessly. “She drank without permission.”

“You told us to,” Rocco’s father shrieks like a madman. He no longer looks old and withered, but nearly as young and powerful as Rocco. His eyes are frightening.

“I lied,” Zelena says softly.

“You, you, worthless gypsy traitor,” he screeches incoherently.

With blazing eyes, he picks up the same knife he’d used to cut his own son and lunges wildly at her. He stabs her in the stomach. Then his dangerous eyes widen, and he seizes his own chest and falls to the floor where he twists and writhes in extreme agony. Isadora grabs her throat and stares at her parents in horror. Then she too begins to twist on the floor in agony. Rocco’s mother starts to vomit. What comes out of her is like bits of egg pudding, only they are the reddish brown color of liver. More horrendous clots heave out of her.

“Quickly, set me free, Zelena. I have to give Autumn my blood before she passes out,” Rocco shouts, and I hear the desperate panic in his voice.

Blood pours out of Zelena as she crawls slowly towards us. When she arrives, she pushes me gently onto my back.

I look at her with love. She didn’t betray me. I was right to trust her. My pendant. I threw it at her. Tears fill my eyes.

“Don’t cry,” she croaks.

“Let me loose, Zelena,” Rocco begs urgently, his hands shake furiously inside the steel bands.

“It is not your blood she needs. It is mine.”

“Don’t do that, please. You will kill her. She needs my blood to survive,” he cries frantically.

“You do not know who she is, my Prince. She was never meant to drink blood.” She pulls the knife from her chest and her blood rushes out of her wound. Uncaring of her own blood loss she uses the tip of the knife to make a small cut on my chest.

“You are my granddaughter. I am your grandmother. And this was foretold,” she crones in a hypnotic voice as she mixes her blood with mine.