Relax by taking slow, deep breaths. Count down from eight. Seven. Six. Feel the tension leaving the body. Five. Four. Three. If the mind wanders, note the thought, then let it go. Two. One.
The sun bled through the stain-glass and bird song chirped. Charlotte wanted to remember a time she stopped to enjoy it. The memory refused to surface, or it was something she failed to notice. Forcing the imagination to recreate the scene was difficult. Charlotte never appreciated the reality of her human life. The grass swayed with an earthy, tranquil eloquence, creating whispers answered by trees. Rays of light splintered through the leafy branches and danced on the grass. Oliver’s voice guided her through. Charlotte failed to grasp the intention. It appeared bizarre, asking a vampire to visualise the warmth of a summer’s day.
Oliver persisted with his meditation. He hoped in doing so, Charlotte could gain a fresh perspective on her life stressors. He wanted her to be present in the room, self-aware and give her the tools to assess each critical moment. These sessions were to help her understand what drove her to make certain decisions. Oliver asked Charlotte to think back to the most painful memory of her childhood. He wanted Charlotte to express how she felt when Eliza ran away from home.
Charlotte closed her eyes, using the bizarre notion of breathing to focus on that night. She had been sleeping, twisted in her green bedspread and sweating. The nightmare image had long since vanished from her mind. She woke startled by the vision and ran across the landing to where Eliza slept. Their parent’s bedroom was next to hers, but Eliza always made room for Charlotte. She climbed into bed trembling, clutching the pile of pillows covering the bed. Charlotte screamed. She realised Eliza had turned to synthetic fibres stuffed into layers of cotton. Their mother Emilie checked on a sleeping Patrick. This meant Rylan needed to track their dog Sparky. She smiled, recalling the oversized lump that had been Eliza’s dog. He seemed to know Eliza had left and the direction she fled, but even he failed to find her.
Charlotte felt abandoned. Her big sister vanished without a note or waking her to say goodbye. She was gone. Eliza lived in the city for months, and despite being sixteen, she never aroused suspicion. Rylan expected Charlotte to go on with the everyday. She had to act like Eliza would come through the door at the end of the day. The world evolved around the sun, not her missing sister. Eliza’s room remained untouched until Rylan died.
The breath came heavy and filled with rage Charlotte swallowed for years. She could feel it boiling inside her, never confronting Eliza about the decision. The eldest sister could have died, and the family would be none the wiser. It’s what she did to her children, Daciana and Luliana, except Charlotte never planned any of it. Walking out of the house to find Caleb, she made a choice. There was no note, phone call or explanation, and this time, there was a death, her death.
The parallels drawn were the beginning of her journey. Charlotte’s mind unravelled after Eliza’s departure. Their father, Rylan, grew anxious about his stage in life. His father, Jose, died young, suffering a stroke, leaving them with their mother. With Aria, Rylan had a distant relationship, which echoed through each of his children. Charlotte inherited his fear of dying, and the desire to become immortal, a vampire. The other part was the legacy of building a wall between parent and child.
As the tears broke her eyes, Charlotte knew Rylan’s behaviour pushed her sister away. He wanted her to succeed. Eliza was a genius with a natural flair for anything she tried. Rylan was hardest on Eliza for that reason. Charlotte repeated his mistakes, albeit in a different way. She believed a better life for her daughters resided with Patrick. Wanting what was best and knowing what they needed were two different things. Charlotte searched the room for some sense of comfort in the decision she had made. But all that came back was the reminder she was the sum of all she experienced and repeated.
By the Grace of Sim Gods 