Childe of Passion

Chapter 9: Drink (snippet only)

Cold. That was the first sensation she awoke to. A blistering cold tightening each muscle, goose bumping her skin and coiling her insides. Next, she had an awareness of great emptiness. This wasn't just hunger, but a recognition that there was something (if not many somethings) missing from her body. One of those things was her heart. It's funny how people don't notice their hearts until they absolutely must. In the case of the night before, she completely perceived the power of her heart as it ran ragged throughout her chest. She most definitely noticed it tonight because it was not doing a thing. There was no beat, ragged or otherwise, stirring in her breast. No matter how panicked she became (and she was certainly panicked) nothing disturbed the lead heaviness between her ribs.

Then came the pricking pain inside her own mouth. She opened her mouth and winced. Her bottom gums had a dull throb to them, like they had been knicked. She prodded the inside with a cold finger and paused when one tooth ran longer than she believed it should and ended with a sharp point. Yanking her finger out, she threw off the covers and jumped from the bed. She had little time to consider what happened to her teeth when a crippling hunger pitched her forward. This was something akin to the pain of her courses, but the burning traveled from the pit of her stomach to her throat.

She swallowed, panted from the awful burden overpowering her body. She had to drink! Her eye caught a wash basin in the corner of the room with its spousal water jug. Brief relief washed over her as she grabbed the jug and drank down the contents. She took one step before everything she just swallowed stormed up out of her and splashed onto the stone floor like a violent rain. She groaned and hugged her arms tight to her abdomen. If water would not quench this substantial thirst, she would have to search elsewhere for relief. Staggering to the door, she moped down the hallway to the kitchen in the hopes there was someone left who had the forethought to cook.

Her eyes adjusted easier than they ever had to the dark around her, the moonlight more glaring than subtle now. The house didn't seem so silent either. She heard the animals outside, ranging from crickets to owls in the distance. Simultaneously, her ears rang with the work and movement of bodies in the chateau. Someone was thrashing about in the wine cellar below, another drumming their fingers against wood rooms away and a third scraping paper with a quill. It was maddening.

Her throat tightened, reminding her of the great hungry beast inside. She found a pot of cooled stew hanging and scooped the last of it into a bowl. She took a bite out of the stew, but didn't even manage to swallow before spitting it out. It tasted of some misbegotten child between bad meat and ash. Sniffing the bowl, the contents smelled as they had tasted. Did the cooks have stomachs the same making as the pot that they could not recognize how rotten the meat had become? Perhaps bread or an apple would suit her appetite better. She was wrong. The bread smelled moldy and tasted like swill. The apple soured in her, like cream in the summer heat. By the time she was done experimenting anything and everything available, the floor of the kitchen looked relative to a pig's trough.

A fierce rage overcame her normal stable sensibilities. With strength she never had, she threw the kitchen table across the room and watched it snap and splinter. Pain shook her belly and she cried, whining like an infant. She tugged on her hair from unprecedented frustration. Nothing was satisfying. Nothing even tasted good! Pounding built up between her eyes; the warnings of an oncoming headache. Her fingers gripped tighter on her head, nails scratching her scalp. She pulled them from their black ropes and looked down at the scarlet dotting her nails that seemed longer and sharper than before…like her teeth.

It wasn't the elongation or pointy tips that disturbed Louisé. No, it was the blood at ends of three fingers. She could smell the aroma, like someone waving a rose beneath her nose. It was a welcome smell to the refuse of the food at her feet but she wanted to know why. Why did it smell so much better than stew cooked with care? Better than that, why did her mouth water…temptation demand she lick at her own sanguine? She lowered her hands and wiped her nails off. She distracted herself with the sound of footsteps approaching and moved to meet them. Perhaps they had the answers to her debauch questions and inexplicable malady.