Page 40 of The Rising Dark
When they stepped into the living room, Mum was the first to greet them.“My dear!”she shouted across the room, squeezing past Bob and Michelle’s Aunt Sarah and Uncle Damien.She descended on them with arms spread wide like a bat.“I thought you wouldnevercome.I even said to Bob, I don’t think she’s coming now that she’s got this fabulous girlfriend.We will be left all alone!She won’t think for a moment of her old mother, who just wishes to spend her birthday with her family.”Michelle hugged her, wondering whether there was a genuine edge to her mum’s usual dramatics.Mum truly had been worried.There was real relief in her expression.“And you must be Lavinia!I am sothrilledto meet you!Michelle hasn’t brought a girlfriend home in so long, and Bob and I have been wondering…well, we’ve been wondering whether she would ever tie the knot!”
“Mum,” Michelle complained.It was one thing to be worried, quite another to harass Lavinia.Lavinia was currently in Mum’s patent grip, smiling calmly under the onslaught.She envied Lavinia’s ability to stay cool.“But now she has you, and we’ve heardsuch great things about you.We’re so happy that you’re here, aren’t we Bob?”Michelle’s stepfather Bob stood behind Mum, smiling sheepishly.When Mum got on one, it was best to just wait for it to pass.“You’ll have to tell us everything, we want to know everything about you!And between us two,” Mum’s voice dropped down into what could hardly be called a whisper.Everyone in the room heard her next words.“We are so glad that you’re taking care of our Michelle.She’s been so lonely, all by herself in her apartment.”
“Okay,” Michelle said with emphasis.“That’s quite enough of that.Let’s get Lavinia a drink, shall we, Mum?”With some effort, she pried Mum’s hands from Lavinia’s arms.But the implication that she was being a poor hostess was like catnip, and she finally released the bemused vampire into the benign care of Bob, while Michelle dragged her mother into the narrow kitchen.
“Could you dial it down, just a little bit?”she hissed when they were alone.
“Oh honey, we’re just so happy for you,” Mum said, filling the kettle for a new round of tea.“She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?Tall and statuesque.Like an Amazon, and with that beautiful blonde hair.I can see why you like her.”
“Well.Yes.I do,” Michelle stuttered.Perhaps this had all been a terrible idea.It had seemed so straightforward.While someone was after her for some unknown reason, Lavinia had to be around.It would be easy to explain her presence if they were dating.But she hadn’t quite expected this welcome, though now she was here, perhaps she should have.It was all just an excuse; she wasn’t dating Lavinia.And now it seemed like Mum would be devastated if she found out it was fake.
Michelle didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, especially on her birthday.She would have to bear their enthusiasm, and at some point in the future, invent some reason why they had broken up.She could pretend to be dating Lavinia for one day, couldn’t she?“Just, please, don’t scare her off.”
Mum waved away her concerns.“How does she take her tea?Or does she drink coffee?”
“I think she’d prefer water, actually.She’s not huge on hot drinks.”
“Well, go and ask her, I don’t want her to think we’re rude.”
“Sure.”Michelle went back into the living room, where Lavinia had been given the best seat on the sofa.She looked to be in conversation with Bob, while Aunt Sarah and Uncle Damien listened from the dining room chairs that had been set around the coffee table.
Lavinia looked up the second Michelle took a step onto the living room carpet.
“Would you like a drink?We’ve got tea, coffee…” Michelle asked.
“Just water, please,” Lavinia said.
“Could you bring the coffee pot too, please, sweetheart?”Bob added.
“Of course.”Michelle went back into the kitchen.“Just water for Lavinia.”
Mum handed her a glass of tap water, giving her a knowing smile.“Seems like you two are on the same wavelength.”
Michelle suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.“It’s just a drink, Mum.”
“Well, it’s the little things that are important.The big things will follow,” Mum retorted.
“I guess,” she said non-committedly.She didn’t have the heart to say that, for them, there would be no big things.Their lives were just too different.Hell, Lavinia was avampire.And not just a normal one, either—she was like a vampire commando, running straight into deadly danger.Michelle was glad that the weather was cold enough to wear a turtleneck, the collar hiding the two scabbed-over puncture wounds visible on her neck.She blushed thinking of Lavinia holding her close, her lips on her skin, the heat of her mouth.In a way, it had been more intimate than a kiss would have been.
“Ohhh, you’re blushing,” Mum cooed.Michelle grabbed the freshly made coffee and fled the kitchen and her mum’s teasing smiles.
She found herself ensconced on the sofa with Lavinia, feeling uncomfortably like a teenager bringing a first girlfriend home.Luckily, Lavinia impressed Bob with her knowledge of history.
“Gosh, I never knew that there’d been rumours of Queen Victoria having an affair after her husband’s death,” he said.Michelle wondered what he would think if he knew that Lavinia had been sixty already by the time Victoria claimed the throne.He would probably be ecstatic, to be fair.
Mum was pleased with Lavinia’s good manners and attentiveness towards Michelle, absolutely beaming in her armchair when Lavinia offered Michelle the plate of biscuits so she wouldn’t have to reach.After half an hour of intense scrutiny, it was a relief when her half-siblings arrived, a brood of children of varying ages in tow.The children demanded attention, and Mum and Bob easily slipped into the roles of doting grandparents.
“Sorry about all of that,” Michelle said under her breath when the showing off of a favourite toy had solidly drawn the family’s attention away from them.
“Not at all,” Lavinia said.
It was strange.She often seemed otherworldly, or strangely remote.Right now, on the worn sofa in her mum’s terraced house, she looked like she could have been anyone.She looked like someone Michelle could have brought home to meet her family for real, not as some guise for her protection.She hadn’t realised how easily Lavinia could assimilate into the domesticity of normal people despite her decidedly abnormal life.She deflected any probing questions, telling them she worked in private security at events, and easily spoke of her family as if they weren’t centuries old.Some of the assumptions Michelle had made about her were crumbling.
It had been easy to dismiss her feelings for Lavinia when she hid behind the thought that they could never be together: that they were just too different, that it could never work.Bit by bit, that thought was becoming more and more brittle.Was it really true that it could never work?What if it could?Would Michellewantto be with her?The repercussions of these questions were too big to consider now, surrounded by her eager family members.She would think about all of that later, when she was alone.
Aside from her feelings about Lavinia, there was another subject weighing on her mind.While the others were busy in a conversation of their own, she turned to her mother.
“Mum, I—I wanted to talk to you about Dad.”
