Sunlight...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I

It is a bright and sunny day, and the girl with auburn hair lies totally motionless in the long grass. Back at the house they will be starting to look for her, but she doesn't want to go home just yet. Right now she is content to bask in the sun, alone in her own private kingdom.

II

The telephone rings. It was expected but in the slow and sluggish state that the vampire is in, it still comes as a shock. The noise jangles in her ears and rattles around her brain. She hates trying to operate during the day. Her brain doesn't work properly, and her skin always feels as if it is burning beneath the vengeful sun, no matter how she tries to keep it at bay.

III

It is dusk, and the girl in the battered coat and hat walks through the burnt out streets, walking with rapid, nervous steps. She didn't mean to be out so late and it's not safe to be out alone after dark. Not these days. Not when she's an uncomfortable half breed, with a voice to clipped for one side and too lilting for the other.

The dark isn't safe. Her mother has drummed that into her a dozen times and her mother will be worried now the sun has gone down.

So she hurries home, where she can hide from the dark.

IV

The sun seems strange bright to the girl who is still wearing her clothes from the night before. It stings at her eyes, more than it surely should, and everything seems pale and washed out in this strange dawn light.

She doesn't move at first, but stands in the doorway, blinking. Through the glare, she makes up tall buildings and wide smooth roads. No cars on the roads, nor horses either. Just these great grey roads.

She's afraid. She doesn't know where she is, and the only thing she has to cling on to is a note, which she knows is written in her own hand, although she knows very little else.

You need to get a taxi...

V

It is difficult to tell what the rambling old farmhouse might look like in the daylight. At night, it looks ominous, with the wind whispering through the spiny trees. The girl sitting in the car parked at the side of the road chews on her lip thoughtfully. She seems miles away. The man at her side says nothing, but watches as a dozen expressions run across her face.

At last she says "the roof is broken. It will need tiling."

Her companion says nothing, but waits. At last she nods her head decisively.

"It will serve," she says and then "get someone to arrange it for me."

VI

The sun is falling from the sky. It is toppling off the chimney pots and sliding down behind the broken walls. In its place come creeping the dirty evening clouds that will stain ghe fat and pallid moon. The girl with auburn hair sits perched in a windowsil, watching the sun as it fades. She doesn't move until the last trace of it has gone from the sky, leaving her shivering and alone.

"This is the last time I will ever see the sun," she says out loud.

Somehow that doesn't seem real. Even now, in this house, at this final moment, it doesn't seem real.

VII

It is a bright and sunny day, and the girl with auburn hair lies totally motionless in the long grass. Back at the house he will be waking up soon, and will start to look for her. Soon she will have to walk back to the dark and shuttered house, but she doesn't want to go home just yet. Right now she is content to bask in the sun, alone in her own private kingdom.