“Good morning, vampire.”

 

“My name is Amelie.”

 

“I know.”

 

“You made a whole show about asking me for it. Might as well use it.”

 

Katherine sat down with a sigh. 

 

“I’m not in the mood for your games, vampire.”

 

Amelie cocked her head. 

 

“Something wrong, Katherine? You don’t seem to be your usual chipper self.”

 

Katherine didn’t say anything, simply put her bound papers in front of her. She’d had a stern talking to from the Lord Inquisitor after asking him about Amelie’s soul. She didn’t understand why the question was a wrong one. After all, the vampire had been born a human. She could still repent, and salvage her soul, couldn’t she? The tongue-lashing she’d received afterwards had told her that, no, a vampire could not repent. The woman had died and in its place was simply a demon wearing her face.

 

Katherine looked at the woman opposite from her. Amelie didn’t come across as demonic, a curious, helpful expression on her face as she leaned forward, eager to listen. It was hard to believe she was as monstrous as the Lord Inquisitor insisted. Her faith kept her strong, however.

 

“Nothing you should… concern yourself with.” She paused. 

 

“I’m going to be concerned anyway, Inquisitor, you might as well tell me.”

 

Katherine shook her head. “It’s nothing. I have more questions for you.”

 

Amelie sat back in her chair. “All right then. On one condition.”

 

“You don’t get to demand... “

 

She sighed. Katherine really wasn’t in the mood.

 

“What is your condition?”

 

“I get to ask you a question first for every one you ask me.”

 

Katherine squinted.

 

“You are going to use your foul magic to--”

 

“You know as well as I do that I can’t do anything magical like that. I’m just interested. Think of it as a… fair trade.”

 

Katherine drummed her fingers on the table. Might as well, right?

 

“Sounds agreeable. What is your question?”

 

“I get to ask you anything, and you answer truthfully?”

 

“No secrets of the Inquisition, obviously.”

 

“Obviously.”

 

“Or the Holy Church.”

 

“I genuinely could not care any less about the secrets of the Holy Church;”

 

Katherine smirked. “Very well. Ask me your question.”

 

“How did you become an Inquisitor, Katherine of Cornwall?”

 

Katherine mulled the answer over in her head. She wanted to be honest - honesty was a virtue, after all - but this veered close to Inquisitorial information.

 

“It’s a… family tradition.”

 

“No choice in the matter, huh. Ouch, sorry to hear that.”

 

“That’s not…! That’s not how it is! I just chose to… follow in my family’s footsteps.”

 

“Mm-kay. That is fair enough, I suppose. Your turn, Katherine.”

 

“How did your parents respond to your… transformation? I take it the Ardent-On-Tyne family was not keen on suddenly siring a vampire.”

 

“Things did not go as you’d expect.”

 

---

 

I arose the next day feeling fresh, feeling like my old self, to a degree, though the sensation of dread appeared to have followed me to dawn. I realized, instinctively, that sunlight would have been the death of me, and so I had drawn the curtains closed before sun-up, and told off every manservant who had attempted to open them. But other than my newfound aversion to the dawn’s light, I felt strong and healthy. My parents did not notice any changes, initially, as I had always been a night owl. 

 

The first day was mostly quiet, though my mother was ecstatic to see me up and about. It had been heartwarming to have seen her fear for me turn to relief. I have seen too many childless mothers over the years, and having spared her that pain made the horror of my choice more tolerable. They remarked on my pallor, but also that I seemed more virile than I had before. I would have been happy to let the matter rest, if it hadn’t been for the other transformation I’d undergone, the mental one, the night before. 

 

It took me days to say something. I wrote countless letters, both to them and to myself, trying to figure out how I would explain to them my revelation. How would I tell them I had no desire to be their son, and possibly never had been, that my life-long malaise and melancholy had its roots not in bad humours but something more profound and life-altering. 

 

Perhaps, I thought, I could talk to my father first. I had the briefest of delusions that my feelings were commonplace, but I remembered plenty of talks with contemporaries that had told me, over and over again, that this was not the case. My father would, I feared, find my experience revolting, offensive, or perhaps even heretical, worthy of disownment. Despite being their only child, it was something I deeply feared back then. 

 

My mother, then. I approached her in the afternoon while father was out hunting. This way, if she’d made it clear in no uncertain terms that I was too much of an abomination to stay in their home, I could leave before the lord of the house returned. I thought it a solid plan. I began my story to her with much of what I just told you, that I’d had a realization that could cost me her maternal love, and my right to stay in the household, and her jaw tightened. Which mother would not fear a confession that began with such a preamble?

 

But when I told her that I felt unwelcome in my own skin, that my name and my face did not feel, and had never felt, like my own. Once the words had started, they were impossible to stop, and I found myself unable to stop. I told her how I’d longed, not for the life of my father, but of the one she’d described when she’d been a debutante. Of how drab menswear was and how much it hurt that I’d never be able to be truly myself. I wished I’d been a woman. 

 

Once the words had come out of my mouth, the room fell silent. My mother sat there for what felt like an eternity, but it’s only in retrospect that I realize that she’d slowly released all of the tension as I’d spoken. And when she took both my hands in hers, she looked me in the eyes, and I will never forget what she told me next.

 

“I know,” she said. “We’ve always known, dear.”

 

I was shocked, of course. Like many a young adult, I was convinced I’d grown into my own person enough for me to know myself better than my mother did, but apparently I was wrong. She told me how I hadn’t played the way sons were supposed to, instead hanging off my mother’s skirt for most of my childhood. But I’d never been a needy child, instead choosing to imitate her wherever possible. Apparently, on more than one occasion, I’d been found rummaging through my mother’s clothing from when she’d been my age, and the maids had chased me around the estate trying to get me to stop wearing my mother’s dress.

 

She laughed at the memory, and even I found the humour in the situation. She told me she’d always suspected, that I’d taken more after her than my father, and that they’d both decided when I was very young that, regardless of how I’d live my life, they’d support me. 

 

“Father knows?” I asked her. She nodded, and told me they had prepared a joint statement of sorts. We waited together for father to return, though I admit I cried at least once before he did. When father arrived, she simply walked up to him and said “our child has realized.”

 

Father’s face flashed a series of expressions, as if his face was trying to decide if he was proud or somewhat disappointed. But he seemed to come to a conclusion, and took my mother’s hand in his, before addressing me.

 

“You will always be welcome here, child. You are ours and you are as you were meant to be, and as we raised you. If your name causes you pain, we will change it. If your dress causes you discomfort, we will send for tailors. We ask only for two things.”

 

I was crying at this point, of course. This kind of unconditional love is much rarer than one might assume, and to think I was the lucky recipient was almost overwhelming. In between my tears I asked them what they would want of me. 

 

“We ask that you do find yourself a wife, and sire a child, so as to preserve our name, lands and titles. And that, until you do, to the outside world, you limit your…”

 

He paused, seemingly at a loss for words.

 

“Expression,” mother helped him. “At home, be yourself, and we will help you feel so. But we ask that you keep the expression of your true self muted until the future of our house has been secured.”

 

This seemed entirely reasonable to me, and I agreed. My father seemed a tad worried that I would bring home male suitors, but I told him in no uncertain terms that I had no intention of doing so, that, even though I didn’t wish to do so as a man, I still greatly preferred the company of women. My mother told me that many women did, and would often spend a lot of time in the company of one another until it was time to find a husband. My father looked like my mother had sprouted wings, and she laughed it off. 

 

This all came as a huge relief to me, and for a few days euphoria hit me in waves. I sat with my mother a lot, and she helped me with all the patience of a saint. She is the one who suggested the name Amelie to me, after a great-aunt of hers. Apparently Aunt Amelie had been told to marry a local lord, and she’d not only refused but set off and went adventuring on her own. She had spent her remaining days somewhere in Greece with a local woman who, my mother said in hushed whispers, was rumored to be much more than a handmaiden. She thought I’d appreciate such a relation, and I most certainly did. 

 

The house staff took some time to convince, but my mother was very convincing. I had always treated the staff with courtesy and respect, and they showed me the same, now, in return. The male staff somewhat longer than the women, but it took most of them only a few days to try out the name Amelie as if it was a new foreign delicacy that took some getting used to. 

 

Several of the handmaidens, especially, were excited to help me figure myself out. My form, of course, was not feminine, not as much as I’d like it, but many of them had experience with needle and thread and helped me find clothing that would fit my body shape. 

 

It was a blissful few days, which, of course, couldn’t and wouldn’t last. Not that any cataclysmic event happened, of course, but euphoria is only momentary. My shape would not change, could not ever change. My parents would notice, certainly, but the biggest problem was my immutability. I knew that if there was the possibility of becoming one of the undead, there was the possibility of a more gentle transformation. I could feel it. 

 

Additionally, I had a friend who I hadn’t talked to in weeks, a friend I’d deeply hurt and that I’d been too self-absorbed to remember. 

 

I decided to pay them a visit. 

 

---

 

“Your parents sound like good people.”

 

“They were. I’m a proud daughter.”

 

“Did they…”

 

“They never knew what I was, no,” Amelie said. “I made sure to keep it that way.”

 

She paused. “I did not see them often. They would have noticed my agelessness.”

 

“I see why they would,” Katherine said empathetically. “But it seems you did find a way to change your… femininity.”

 

This shook Amelie out of her melancholy reverie with a grin.

 

“Something like that. But, sweet Katherine, I hear the toll of your evening bell. I’m afraid your time with me today is up.”

 

Katherine smiled. Not particularly bashfully, or shyly, or even haughty or defensively. She merely smiled a genuine smile, and, though she didn’t show it, it hit Amelie like a ton of bricks. 

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Amelie,” Katherine said, got up, and left, leaving behind a speechless vampire. Once Katherine was out of earshot, Amelie effortlessly wrested her hands out of the manacles and sat down in the corner of her cell.

 

“Girls,” she sighed to herself.