the name of the sender. Her hands shook as she unsealed the flap. Inside, she found a one-page letter and two hundred pounds in paper notes.
Dear Rose,
You have no reason to listen to me nor heed my advice. But I left you in ignorance, telling you nothing of our world. There are others like you and I, existing all across Europe, and one of them, Julian Ashton, has gone mad and is killing his own kind. My own master is dead, and I have fled to America . . . but only because Julian let me go, and I still do not know why.
So far, with the exception of myself and two other vampires, Julian is beheading anyone he finds. You are not safe in Scotland. I swear that I’ve told no one of your existence, but if rumors of blood-drained bodies reach Julian’s ears, he will come for you.
You must keep your existence a secret. Take the money I’ve enclosed here, go to Aberdeen, and buy passage on a ship to Philadelphia. You will be safe there. Write to me when you have landed, and I will send more money. Leave tonight. I fear too much time has passed already. I would have written sooner, but I’ve only just arrived. Please, Rose, go to America. If you stay in that village, Julian will destroy you.
Your servant,
Edward
Her hands still trembled. After what he’d done to her, done to Seamus, how dare he write such a note, feigning protection . . . and to send money!
“Do you believe him?” Seamus said in her ear.
She jumped, not aware he had materialized right behind her, reading the letter over the shoulder.
But his words jolted her mind off Edward’s act of writing and onto the content of the letter.
So far, with the exception of myself and two other vampires, Julian is beheading anyone he finds.
Vampires.
There. He’d written it down.
She had never allowed herself to speak the word nor write it, but now that he had, it seemed real. She was a vampire.
She was part of a world she knew nothing about.
There are others like you and I, existing all across Europe.
And one of them had gone mad and was killing his own kind.
“We must do as he says,” Seamus insisted. “Leave tonight. Too many people have died or disappeared because of you! Even if we don’t receive outside news anymore, the villages must have set up a militia. The stories must be spreading.”
His reaction surprised her, that he should be so quick to do anything Edward suggested.
“You think we should leave our home?” she asked. “My father’s home? And his father’s? No, Seamus.”
“What if he’s right?” Seamus shouted, his transparent hand pointing at the letter. “What if this Julian cuts off your head?” He sounded desperate.
He did not want to be alone.
“I do not think we can stay here anyway,” he rushed on. “Sooner or later, someone is going to see you leaving one night. I believe people are already wondering what you eat . . . locked away in here. You cannot stay forever.”
“Go to America?” she asked. “A place we’ve never even seen?”
“He said you’ll be safe there.”
The weight of the arrival of Edward’s letter suddenly hit her. She had never been farther from home than Inverness or Elgin. The thought of leaving the enclosed safety of the house brought fear up into her throat.
“Seamus . . . I don’t even know the way to Aberdeen. I don’t know how to book passage on a ship to Philadelphia.”
Rose, who had always considered herself quite brave, realized she possessed a deep fear of unknown places, of not knowing exactly where to go or what to do when she got there.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “I know the way to Aberdeen. Father took me twice when I was a boy.”
Arguments and hesitation and fear ensued, but in the end, Seamus won. Rose packed her clothes and all the money in the house, and they slipped away in the night. Aberdeen was a crushing and crowded place, and once there, Seamus could not materialize in public to communicate with her. Between trips with his father, and later in his horse trading, he had done a good deal more traveling than she had, and she wanted his advice, but she managed to book herself passage on a ship bound for America, and she even arranged for a windowless cabin with a stout door.
The thought of an enclosed space brought some comfort.