“No,” said Miss Froom. She sounded a little offended.

“What about only being able to come out at night?”

“Edward,” she said, patiently. “We’ve just spent an afternoon working in the garden.”

“Oh,” said Edward. “Right. Stake through the heart?”

“That’ll work,” said Miss Froom. “But then, it would work on anybody, wouldn’t it? I expect the same would go for cutting my head off, but I can’t say I’ve tried that either.”

“What about swift-flowing water?”

“I have swimming medals,” said Miss Froom. “From when I was a girl.”

“Garlic?” asked Edward hopefully.

“Never cared for it,” said Miss Froom, “except in casseroles.”

“Sleeping in a coffin?”

“Be serious,” said Miss Froom.

Edward thought for a moment.

“Look,” he said, “apart from the drinking blood thing, are you sure you’re a, well, a you-know-what?”

“Well,” said Miss Froom, “the ‘drinking blood thing,’ as you put it, is rather a large part of being a ‘you know what.’ In addition, I’m very old, older than I look, older even than this village. I am what I am, and have been for a very long time.”

“But, er, your kind attack people, don’t they?”

“Not me,” said Miss Froom. “I like a quiet life. You start biting people and drinking their blood and, frankly, someone is going to notice after a while. It’s easier to prey on forest animals, the odd cat, maybe even sip from the neck of a cow or two, although it’s not very hygienic.”

She sighed loudly.

“Unfortunately, my scruples about preying on people mean that my strength has been gradually failing over these last decades. I’m not sure I could even hold on to a cow any longer, so now I’m reduced to rats. You know, it takes about fifty rats to equal the nutritional value of even one pint of human blood. Do you know how hard it is to trap fifty rats?”

Edward opined that it was probably very hard indeed.

“But I can live for a few months on a pint, if I’m careful,” she said. “At least, I could in the past, but I am weaker now than I have ever been. Soon I will begin to age, and then…”

She fell silent. As Edward watched, a single tear trickled down her pale cheek. It left only a trace of moisture behind it, like a diamond slowly sliding across a patch of ice.

“Thank you for your help with my garden,” she said softly. “Perhaps you’d better leave now.”

Edward stared at her, unsure of how to respond.

“And Edward?” she added. “I beg of you to say nothing of this to anyone. I felt that I could trust you, but it was weak and unfair of me to do so. All I can hope is that you are as honorable as you are handsome, and as decent as you are kind.”

And with that she buried her head in her hands and spoke no more.

Edward left his corner and walked to her. He laid a hand gently on Miss Froom’s shoulder. She felt very cold.

“A pint?” he said at last.

Miss Froom slowly stopped sobbing.

“What?” she asked.

“You said that a pint of blood could keep you going for months.”

His voice was very soft, and a little hesitant.

“A pint’s not much, is it?” he said.

Miss Froom looked at him, and he drowned in her eyes.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she said.

“You didn’t ask,” said Edward. “I offered.”

Miss Froom didn’t speak. Instead, she ran a cold hand across Edward’s face and touched his lips with her fingers.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Perhaps there’s something I can offer you in return.”

Her hand touched her chest and a button on her shirt popped open, exposing a little more of the fabled bosom that had kept many a frustrated rose grower awake at night. Edward swallowed hard as, gently, she made him sit down once again on the kitchen chair.

“Would you mind if I drank a little now?” she asked.

“No, not at all,” said Edward, although his voice trembled slightly. “Where do you want to take it from?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Miss Froom. “The neck is good, but I don’t want to leave a visible mark. Perhaps…your wrist?”

And she rolled up his sleeve, revealing his clean, freckled arm.

Edward nodded.

“Will it hurt?” he asked.

“Just a sting at first,” said Miss Froom. “Then you won’t feel anything else.”

Miss Froom’s mouth opened, and he saw that her canines were a little longer than a normal person’s. Her tongue flicked at them, and Edward felt a surge of fear. Her mouth descended on him and twin needles of pain shot through his forearm. He gasped, but then the pain faded and he felt a kind of warmth, and a sleepy pleasure. His eyes closed and beautiful images came to him. He dreamed that he was with Miss Froom, together in a wonderful intimacy, and that she loved him dearly, even as he drifted into a deep, shadowy redness.

When Edward was dead, Miss Froom, her strength now restored, carried him to the cellar. There she worked on him, removing the major organs before placing his body in a large wine press. When he was fully drained, she removed what was left of him, separated the bones, and put them through a grinder. She took the fine powder and placed it in jars, so that she could mix it into the soil over the coming weeks, assuring herself of another fine crop of vegetables and roses for the coming year. Lastly, she disposed of Edward’s bicycle by tossing it into a patch of marshland a short distance from her home. When all was done, she treated herself to a little tipple from her new stock, her fingers lingering at her neck as she remembered the first taste of the young man.

Men, thought Miss Froom to herself: they really were the sweetest of creatures.

Nocturne

I don’t know why I feel that I must confess this thing to you. Perhaps it is because I do not know you, and you do not know me. You have no preconceptions about me. We have not spoken before, and it may be that we will never speak again. For now, we have nothing in common except words and silence.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about silence, about the spaces in my life. I am, I suppose, a contemplative man by nature. I can only write when there is quiet. Any sound, even music, is an unwelcome distraction, and I speak as one who loves music.

No, let me rephrase that. I speak as one who loved music. I cannot listen to it now, and the quiet that has taken its place brings me no peace. There is an edge to it, a constant threat of disruption. I keep waiting to hear those sounds again: the lifting of the piano lid, the notes rising from the vibration of the strings, the muffled echo of a false key being struck. I find myself waking in the darkest spell of the night just to listen, but there is only the threatening stillness.

It was not always this way.

Audrey and Jason died on August 25. It was a sunny day, so the last time I saw them alive Audrey was wearing a light yellow summer dress and Jason was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was yellow too. Audrey was taking Jason to swimming class. I kissed Audrey good-bye and ruffled Jason’s hair, and she promised to bring back something for lunch. Audrey was thirty-five. Jason was eight, just one year older than his brother, David. They died because a truck driver swerved to avoid a fox while he was coming around a bend, only a mile or two from our home. It was a stupid thing to do but, looking back, almost understandable. He ran straight into their car, and they were killed instantly.

About a month ago, shortly after the second anniversary of their deaths, a job was offered to me. A council far to the north had received an unexpected boost to its arts funding, in that it had gone from having no arts funding to having a little. Fearing that even this small allowance might not materialize the following year if it were not used in this one, the wise burghers advertised for someone to teach their citizens the rudiments of creative writing, to speak at local schools, and to edit, in the course of the year, a volume of work reflecting the talents that the presence of a writer in the town would undoubtedly uncover and nurture. I applied for the post, and was duly accepted. I thought that it might help us. Every day, on his way to school, David had to pass the place where his mother and brother had died. I had to pass it too, whenever I was required to leave the house. I thought that taking a break from it all might be good for us both.