just one feather. You’d be living all curled up, exposed to the elements, for nothing larger than the tip of your little toe could fit inside his teeny little castle. If I remember well, the vampire lives in a life-size mansion.”
“He cannot be richer than a fairy, can he?” Rosa squealed.
He couldn’t, the young girl agreed. Fairies had more money than the pope in Rome. Why would a rich and powerful vampire care to present her at baptism? Perhaps he wasn’t a true vampire but a goblin.
“But he is,” Victoria replied. She took another spoonful of her soup. “He is immensely rich. He is a member of the aristocracy. He was born many centuries ago, in the old continent, and made his fortune marrying mortal princesses. He has so many nobility titles that his full name takes an entire page of his passport.”
“How do you know that?” Rosa shrieked.
“Mamá told me,” Victoria responded with a straight face.
“No!” Rosa cried. Her face had turned red and tears threatened to roll down her cheeks. “My godfather is the richest and the most powerful of the three. You stupid hag. You’re just saying this to hurt me! My godfather is an English fairy, for God’s sake! A fairy! His name is Gillespie Oakenforest, and he lives in a brugh with walls of gold and mother of pearl in Gloucestershire. He has an army of magical servants! One of his wives is related to the king!”
“Is she?” Victoria asked, feigning surprise.
“She is a distant cousin of King Edward.”
“King Edward?” Victoria repeated. “If that’s so, she must be very short. When was the last time you saw him, sister? I’ve never met him. Has he ever come visit us? Harris has. At least a few times. We went to his wedding.”
At this, Rosa threw her spoon at her sister, but she failed. Victoria reached over the table and smacked Rosa on the nose with her full palm.
Rosa covered her face with her hands, sobbing quietly. She had a good reason to cry, other than getting boxed. Her sister was right; in sixteen years, Mr. Oakenforest had never visited or even sent so much as a postcard.
“You are just one among hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of godchildren that Lord Oakenforest has,” Victoria explained, at this point truly pitying her sister. “Mamá wanted the best for us, and that’s why she asked him to be your godfather. He just happened to be in our garden the day they met. You are not that special. That, on the other hand,” Victoria pointed again to her youngest sister, “may inherit millions.”
The young girl almost fainted.
“Millions?” Rosa repeated twitching her face.
“The vampire does not have any children.”
They started their letters: Rosa and Victoria on beautiful stationery that they bought especially for that purpose; our nameless girl on the back of an old receipt.
To whom should she address the letter? The young girl wondered. She didn’t know her godfather’s name. She didn’t know anything but what Victoria had said at the table. Too afraid to ask, she simply wrote “To HRH The Vampire, My Godfather.”
And what should she say to him? Please take me with you sounded too desperate, but that’s exactly what she wanted to say. Take me away from this family, away from all their mistreatment, away from the yelling, the beating, the insults, the taunting, the mockeries, and the derisions; away from the hard days of doing chores cleaning up after her sisters, away from the ridicule of the freak show, away from everywhere. But why would he? Vampires aren’t particularly fond of ugly little girls, are they? She decided to write the facts as they were, without adornment. Mamá died, she wrote, and now my sisters and I are practically alone in this world, for the man we call father is an irresponsible drunk unable to provide. She scratched irresponsible. Then she scratched drunk.
She thought she could finalize with a request to move in with him. But what if the vampire thought that she was only contacting him because of his money? She couldn’t be that direct. He might take offense and decide not to respond to her letter. She wrote instead that she would love to hear from him, and that if he had the time, he should visit. I know how to bake a delicious pineapple upside down cake, she wrote. If you ever come to Venice, I can bake one for you to try.
That would do. Letting him know that she existed was sufficient. Vampires aren’t stupid. He would guess what a terrible existence she had and send for her.
Since she had no name herself, she signed with an X. If nothing else, the sender’s address would tell her godfather who the letter was from.
Finally, because she didn’t know where to send it, the young girl simply wrote New York on the envelope. Vampires live in secret, she reckoned, so it would be poor taste to write that title on the envelope. She gave the letter to Rosa in hopes that she would know where to send it.
“I know where he lives,” Rosa responded. “But I doubt he will respond.”
Two days later, a package appeared at their door with Rosa’s name written in fancy red letters. Inside, the sisters found a magnificent dress made of spider silk with thousands of fly wings embroidered with golden stitches. There was nothing else in the box—no card and no letter—but they knew instantly it could only be a gift from the English fairy. Only he could have responded that fast and send such an expensive present. The dress shone as bright as if the fabric had been spun out of moonbeams. It was the most beautiful garment they had ever laid their eyes on, and so light that if you threw it into the air, it took a full ten minutes for it to float down and hit the ground.
Rosa immediately tried on the dress, announcing to her sisters that maybe it would magically transport her to her godfather’s castle. It didn’t, and that was a true disappointment. The three girls knew well what the gift meant: a polite and awfully expensive way to say no, I cannot bring you into my tiny castle.
Hence, Rosa lied. She closed her eyes and reopened them a second later: “My!” she exclaimed. “It feels good to be back home after having spent an entire year at my godfather’s castle!”
Victoria and the nameless young girl exchanged a look of incredulity.
“My dearest sisters,” Rosa continued with an affected tone, “I am so happy to see you! Especially you, Victoria. You haven’t changed one bit in all these months. I’m so terribly happy to be back, but so seriously tired too, for I spent most of that time attending elegant balls and hunting. Do pull up a chair for me to sit on, darling,” she begged her youngest sister. The young girl did as requested.
“I have so much to tell,” Rosa continued, sitting down. “I witnessed so many riches and talked to so many elegant ladies at my godfather’s brugh—the silk, the rubies and diamonds! But first, my dearest, you need to bring me up to date. What has happened during my twelve-month absence? How’s that awful man we call father? Is he still alive? Did you ever got a response from your godfathers?”
Victoria replied that nothing had happened, that she had never left the room.
“Wonder of wonders,” was Rosa’s response. “Magically transported to and from my godfather’s brugh in an instant. An entire year in Albion in less than one second. Bloody bollocks,” she added, trying to sound British. “Cockles and mussels, Virgin of Brighton, isn’t that proof of Lord Oakenforest’s infinite power?”
Victoria didn’t, but everyone
