Anna von Wessen by Mae Ronan Read Free Book Online Page B

as he.
    England? What should she hope to find there? It was not hers; it was not home. Why should she rejoice?
    She sat back gloomily against the headboard, listening silently to Greyson’s ceaseless jabber concerning their upcoming peregrination. By now she could not even bring herself to feign enthusiasm.
    At twelve she left Greyson, and betook herself back to Ephram’s study. There Valo was already waiting.
    “Ah, Anna!” said Ephram, rising from his chair to cross the room. He took Anna by the hand, and led her to her seat. Before he released her, he pressed her hand affectionately, and offered her a smile free of what weight and fatigue he had seemed earlier to be feeling.
    Valo eyed this little proceeding with obvious displeasure, and badly disguised malice. He seemed, at times, to mind his father’s especial treatment of Anna, while at others he did not. It was almost as if, on these particular occasions, he realised once again – and each realisation was like a fresh wound – that his father indeed and without doubt preferred Anna to himself. Perhaps it was his initial and infinite love for Vaya, whom Anna represented; or perhaps it was his little concealed disinclination towards the woman who had borne Valo, and by whom he had never originally anticipated to bear a child.
    Her name (which we will give, seeing as some time ago we were free enough to provide you with the identity of his first child’s bearer) was Abigail Brown: born August third, 1884; died December twenty-sixth, 1909. She was only one of the many female slaves whom Ephram took from time to time, rendered unexpectedly pregnant one autumn, with a child he had never intended to keep. Ephram had of course never said as much; but most who knew him had inferred it. He hated Abigail Brown to no end, and kept her only, really, for that exact purpose. She was a way by which to vent his many frustrations, and he regularly abused her. We will not be so discreet as to hide the manner of this abuse from you, and we shall tell you, that Ephram kept Abigail Brown locked in a room at that very house on Thayer Street, frequently beating and raping her. Surely you cannot be overly or disproportionately shocked. After all, you must remember that humans are nothing to the Lumaria, nothing but food and occasional playthings.
    Surely we can appreciate the magnitude of the tragedy. A beautiful, kind young woman, abducted from a happy home, a loving husband and her own dear children, only to be confined in a chamber made especially and intentionally dark, dank and cold, and mauled repeatedly by one of the very strongest creatures upon this earth. Do we not cry out at the injustice? Do we not weep? Surely we do – for if we did not, we would not be human.
    But what can we expect, from someone (or rather you might like to say some thing ) like Ephram?
    Anyway – after the child was born, and Ephram discovered that it was male (this was the part of the story that he had no reservations about sharing with sincere joy), the tables turned, and he became a father once again. To have a male child, whom he could rear up in his own image – and thereby avoid any possibility of a repetition of his previous child’s indiscretion – was an opportunity he could not discard.
    And so, little Valo was inducted into the high house of Ephram. He was the apple of his father’s eye, his very pride and joy, for a mere seven-and-twenty years. Then came the 1936 meeting of the Night Council in France; and then came Anna. At first Valo despised her. Slowly he began to tolerate her, then almost to be fond of her. Finally he came to love her; and presently the case was no different, excepting these bouts of spite which he experienced ever and anon. Yet his expression had turned blank, by the time Ephram left Anna, and returned to his chair.
    “Have you gotten some sleep, my darling girl?” asked Ephram.
    “Not much,” Anna answered.
    “Ah – yes, I see. This is a very serious