Little Vampire Women

With the holidays over, the girls had to take up their packs, which, after the week of merrymaking, seemed heavier than ever. Beth lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with a cat and three juicy kittens she’d found hiding in the basement. Amy was fretting because her lessons were not learned and she couldn’t find her rubbers. Meg, whose burden consisted of four spoiled vampire children, had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way.

“Where’s the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I’m pretty or not?” she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk as she thought of Mrs King and her family. “I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then because I’m poor and can’t enjoy my life as other girls do. It’s a shame!”

“Well, that’s just the way it is, so don’t let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I’m sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea

(#ulink_fb55e2e3-0c0e-51ae-9787-718412287fa4) to me, but I suppose when I’ve learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan’t mind her,” said Jo, whose resolute speech didn’t match her dejected attitude. She had been so despondent that she didn’t try to marshal the girls into their usual sunset training session of karate, calisthenics and boxing, with which they complied with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to protect her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old vampire’s will, but the unworldly Marches only said…

“We can’t give up our girls for a dozen fortunes. Rich or poor, we will keep together and be happy in one another.”

As well, they knew Aunt March was a tough old bird who had been around for more than four hundred years and would likely be around for another four hundred. Their chances for inheritance were already decidedly slim.

The Marches, in their fondness for family over fortune, were not that unusual amongst their contemporaries. Vampire affection, though not as heartwarmingly sentimental as human affection, was deep and sincere. Parents sired their children and kept them close until they reached their majority at fifty chronological years, at which point they could sire a lifemate and settle down. Freshly sired children usually followed.

Mr and Mrs March had themselves followed that path, with Mr March siring Mrs March and then a century later siring the four sisters, whom he found in an orphanage about to be separated by an unfeeling proprietress. Marmee’s kind heart went out to the benighted foursome and she knew upon seeing them that they were meant to be hers. Her husband complied with her request, feeling too that these unfortunate children needed a strong hand and a stronger soul to lead them, and twenty-four hours later, the giddy new mother stood over the four little graves from which her newborn daughters would emerge. It was the happiest day of her life.

Since then, the Marches had come down in the world, for Mr March had lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend. The friend turned out to be a slayer who stole Mr March’s money through an elaborate counterfeit stock scheme.

That Mr March allowed himself to be swindled out of ownership of his ancestral home disgusted Aunt March, who urged him to hunt down the cowardly slayer and consume him in a fiery fit of rage. Her nephew resisted her counsel, for he believed strongly in his humanitarian principles and was happier to let the villain live than to compromise himself.

His stubbornness made his aunt so angry she refused to speak to them for a time, but when her husband was beheaded by one of his own servants, she was forced to re-evaluate her connections and decided the only associates she could trust were family. It was beyond shocking that Uncle March, the premier vampire defender in New England, was slain in his very own home. Well schooled in stealth and an experienced practitioner of the scientifical method, he should never have fallen for the cartoonish pratfalls of the Buffoonish Butler Hoax,

(#ulink_23ea80e0-0022-52be-a8a9-fb8eb206cdfc) a well-known ruse in which a deadly opponent infiltrates a household by pretending to be a harmless servant who is for ever tripping over the silver and spilling the china.

Terrified, Aunt March immediately dismissed the entire staff (after, of course, they removed her husband’s gooey remains) and recruited her niece Jo, who hoped one day to be a defender, to look after her. The Concord police enquiry into the unfortunate affair concluded that the slayer had worked alone. But Jo’s aunt did not accept the findings because she assumed that the team of human investigators was part of the conspiracy. She therefore remained convinced that a worldwide cabal watched her daily, waiting for its moment to attack.

Being her aunt’s protectress wasn’t all Jo had hoped it would be, for the job provided little opportunity for her to use, let alone hone, her defender skills, but she accepted the place since nothing better appeared. The work was tedious and dull, but it gave her full access to the large training study, which had been left to dust and spiders since Uncle March’s decapitation. Jo remembered the fierce old gentleman who used to let her play with his dart gun and told her thrilling stories of do-or-die hunts. He nurtured her love of adventure but stopped short of teaching her the mechanisms and techniques of modern-day slayer hunting, for he thought it a most unsuitable profession for any woman, especially his niece. The dim, dusty room, with its potions cabinet, investigative instruments, strategical maps and, best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could now wander where she liked, made the study a region of bliss to her.

The moment Aunt March took her nap, Jo hurried to this well-equipped place, and curling herself up in the easy chair, studied the many tactical guides and first-person accounts of successful apprehensions of vicious slayers. But, like all happiness, it did not last long, for as sure as she had just reached the heart of the story, the pivotal part of a stratagem, or the most perilous adventure of her defender, a shrill voice called, “Josy-phine! Josy-phine!” and she had to leave her paradise to secure the perimeter, check the points of entry, or wind yarn.

Jo’s ambition was to do something very splendid. What it was, she had no idea as yet, but left it for time to tell her, and meanwhile, found her greatest affliction in the fact that she couldn’t read, run and ride as much as she liked. A quick temper, sharp tongue and restless spirit were always getting her into scrapes, and her life was a series of ups and downs, which were both comic and pathetic. But the training she received at Aunt March’s was just what she needed, and the thought that she was doing something to support herself made her happy in spite of the perpetual “Josy-phine!”

(#ulink_bab44ca1-8c74-56af-b8b7-96ab453f4d70) A reference to the old man from the story “Sinbad the Sailor” in The Thousand and One Nights, which some critics argue is coded text about systemic vampire oppression by citing the fact that the Persian king killed his bride every morning as proof that the virgins were vampires. In referencing it here, Jo could be referencing her own systemic oppression.

(#ulink_623b236c-f204-504f-9ab5-a6df25be1dd8) Also known as the Silly Servant Stratagem and the Volatile Valet Ploy.

Chapter Five (#ulink_b2b95599-7074-505b-aefc-051e4476f27a)

BEING NEIGHBOURLY (#ulink_b2b95599-7074-505b-aefc-051e4476f27a)

“What in the world are you going to do now, Jo?” asked Meg one snowy evening, as her sister came tramping through the hall, in rubber boots, old sack and hood, with a broom in one hand and a shovel in the other.

“Going to hunt vampire slayers,” answered Jo.

“I should think two treks at twilight would have been enough! It’s wet out, and I advise you to stay dry by the fire, as I do,” said Meg.

“Never take advice! Can’t keep still all night, and not being a pussycat, I don’t like to doze by the fire. I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.”

Meg went back to reading Ivanhoe,

(#ulink_f91223ab-f320-5b91-9979-fee7911615a8) and Jo began to search the paths with great energy. A garden separated the Marches’ house from that of Mr Laurence. Both stood in a suburb of the city, which was still countrylike, with groves and lawns, large gardens and quiet streets, all of which provided excellent cover for a slayer. A low hedge parted the two estates, offering additional concealment. On one side was an old, brown house, looking rather bare and shabby, robbed of the vines that could further hide a predator. On the other side was a stately stone mansion, plainly betokening every sort of comfort and luxury, from the big coach house and well-kept grounds to the conservatory and the glimpses of lovely things one caught between the rich curtains.

Yet it seemed a lonely, lifeless sort of house, for no children frolicked on the lawn, no motherly face ever smiled at the windows, and few people went in and out, except the old gentleman and his grandson.

“That boy is suffering for society and fun,” Jo said to herself. “His grandpa does not know what’s good for him, and keeps him shut up all alone. He needs a party of jolly boys to play with, or somebody young and lively. I’ve a great mind to go over and tell the old gentleman so!”

The idea amused Jo, who liked to do daring things and was always scandalising Meg by her queer performances. The plan of “going over” was not forgotten. And when the snowy evening came, Jo resolved to try what could be done. She saw Mr Laurence drive off, and then sallied out to the hedge, where she paused and took a survey. All quiet, curtains down at the lower windows, servants out of sight, and nothing human visible but a curly black head leaning on a thin hand at the upper window.

“There he is,” thought Jo, “poor boy! All alone and sick this happy night. It’s a shame! I’ll toss up a snowball and make him look out, and then say a kind word to him.”

Up went a handful of soft snow, which cracked the window, as Jo frequently forgot how powerful her vampire strength made her, and the head turned at once, showing a face which lost its listless look in a minute, as the big eyes brightened and the mouth began to smile. Jo nodded and laughed, and flourished her broom as she called out…

“How do you do? Are you sick?”

Laurie opened the window, and croaked out as hoarsely as a raven…

“Better, thank you. I’ve had a bad cold, and been shut up a week.”

“I’m sorry. What do you amuse yourself with?”

“Nothing. It’s dull as tombs up here.”

“Don’t you read?”

“Not much. They won’t let me.”

“Can’t somebody read to you?”

“Grandpa does sometimes, but my books don’t interest him, and I hate to ask Brooke, my tutor, all the time.”

“Have someone come and see you then.”

“There isn’t anyone I’d like to see. Boys make such a row, and my head is weak.”

“Isn’t there some nice girl who’d read and amuse you? Girls are quiet and like to play nurse.”

“Don’t know any.”

“You know us,” began Jo, then laughed and stopped. “But you’re not girls, you’re vampires,” cried Laurie.

“I’m not quiet and nice either, but I’ll come, if Mother will let me. I’ll go and ask her. Shut the window, like a good boy, and wait till I come.”

With that, Jo shouldered her broom and marched into the house, wondering what they would all say to her. Marmee did not protest the visit, for she firmly believed that the only way to improve vampire-human relations was to increase vampire-human interaction, and, after fortifying her daughter against any unbecoming urges with a tall glass of pig’s blood, sent her to the neighbour’s house with her blessing.

Laurie was in a flutter of excitement at the idea of having company, and flew about to get ready, for as Mrs March said, he was “a little gentleman”, and did honour to the coming guest by brushing his curly pate, putting on a fresh collar, and trying to tidy up the room, which in spite of half a dozen servants, was anything but neat. Presently there came a loud ring, then a decided voice, asking for “Mr Laurie”, and a surprised-looking servant came running up to announce the vampire.

“All right, show her up, it’s Miss Jo,” said Laurie, going to the door of his little parlour to meet Jo, who appeared with a covered dish in one hand and three kittens in the other.