Dear Daddy
Dear Dad
Dad
I got your postcard. Don’t even know how you got it through to me. This place is like a prison. Does Uncle Leland know? I’ll bet he’s hopping out of his chair at the thought.
The beach looks great. I mean, the picture looks like a crappy motivational poster in some dingy office somewhere, but, I like that you’re somewhere warm.
I hope you’re happy.
What I mean to say is, I hope you’ve found …
Nevermind. I don’t really know what I mean to say.
So, I guess you know I’m in New Babylon. Of course, you know. You sent this to me. You have to know my address. Unless we’re both nuts and you just guessed it.
Sorry. Rambling.
I need someone to talk to, Daddy. I need you. You’ll never believe the things I’ve seen. Or maybe you will. The stories they tell here, Dad… They’re real. They come alive, they…
Liza rubbed her eyes.
Rambling again.
School is school. Just like any other. Except for the weirdness. But you know all about the weird, don’t you?
“If there’s one thing I can say about New Babylon, it’s that nothing is ever what it seems.” Remember that? I do. I think about it a lot. Now. I mean, I’d almost completely forgotten, and then I came here. It’s like you knew. Is that why he sent you away?
Is it why he sent ME away?
Does he even know? About New Babylon? Does he know about the catacombs and the blood, and the violence? Does he know that they hate us here?
I think… I think vampires might be real. I think this place might be a nightmare. I mean, an actual nightmare.
I thought I had it all figured out, but then I met a man. A boy, really. He might be a boy. But there’s weight in his eyes. And they called him the Slumbering Prince.
Dad… I watched him turn young in front of me. I watched him kill someone. God…. Don’t call the cops on me. They wouldn’t believe us. He killed my friend. Dominik. But Dominik came back. I don’t know how to explain it, or what to say! Why am I even bothering with this? It’s something out of a damn spooky book for twisted kids, isn’t it? Right from the pages.
Even when the world is crazy, and you find out monsters are real, life just keeps going. It rolls on without you if you’re not careful. And I haven’t been careful, Dad. I-
The pen scratched a line straight through the thin paper as golden light flooded the dorm room from the window.
Liza’s bed shrieked as she leant over to peer outside, discarding the letter for the moment.
A car had pulled up over the gravel in front of the school. The ‘v’ of the entrance guided the headlamps into a solid cone, and it was just blinding enough to make her squint as she tried to see who stepped out.
Lightning crackled in the sky.
Weird.
There hadn’t been a cloud to obscure the moon and stars moments back. But then, she’d been so preoccupied with her dad’s postcard that she hadn’t been looking up to really notice. Storms came and went in New Babylon like birds in flight. Thick banks of grey had rolled in. The lanterns hanging from the door lit up enough that the sky looked like waves crashing against the shore. Only they didn’t crash. They swelled and climbed in shades of grey until the incoming storm looked like it would flood the world.
“Weird,” Heydon’s voice murmured, echoing Liza’s thoughts.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one to be restless tonight. Lights out had been two hours back. But hardly anyone was sleeping.
Liza’s eyes strayed to Landria’s empty bed, and her shoulders slumped.
“I thought the curfew would have-”
“Just a guideline really,” Hannah muttered.
Liza nodded, but it was with barely constrained annoyance. Typical that they’d be locked up for the sake of some fabricated fear. Every night she wanted out, to walk the grounds and smell the flowers that only seemed to blossom when the sun went down. And every night some jerk in antiquated garb with guns and goggles like a Steampunk pirate blocked her exit.
“The Afflicted-” Heydon began.
“Come on,” Hannah said to her twin. “We all know the stories. But we’ve never seen one of them, right?”
“You and I haven’t,” Heydon responded with terse irritation. “That doesn’t mean they’re not real.”
“Even if they are real,” Liza said. “They’re just sick. They’re not dangerous.”
“Says you.”
“Says me.” Liza sighed. “But what do I know?”
The other girls fell silent.
A crack of lightning lit up the two figures that exited the car.
A rumble of thunder followed seconds after that rattled the window panes.
Liza squinted to see the shorter, slick-coated figure. Like it had expected the rain. Satisfaction as fat droplets began to tumble from the sky.
A man with a black umbrella climbed out of the driver’s side door and went to the figure, lifting the wide cover over them both.
The becoated figure pulled its hood down — definitely a girl, with long dark hair and a dour expression. Her eyes were ringed with liner as she glanced up at the dorm’s window. The way she squinted, she couldn’t have seen the three faces pressed against the glass looking down at her.
The similarities to the day Mister Fontaine had brought Liza to St Cathalina’s made her skin crawl with discomfort. She thought she’d had the exact same expression on her own face that morning, even if she’d occasionally broken it with a smile just to keep from getting uncomfortable questions.
“Still though,” Hannah whispered, her voice dropping to a low cadence for no one in particular’s benefit. “Arriving in the middle of the night like that?”
“New student, I’m guessing,” her twin replied.
“Just in time for class tomorrow.”
“Hey, isn’t that-?”
“Everly Hart,” Heydon said.
“Holy shit,” Hannah replied in even softer tones. Afraid of waking the dead.
“What?” Liza sighed. “What now?”
Heydon and Hannah shrugged in unison, now staring at the man with the umbrella. His upturned face, as they approached, revealed him to be middle-aged with a hooked nose and long black pepper hair that looked like it belonged on a Rockstar strumming guitar in his mom’s garage. At least it was tied neatly back from his face for now.
“Guess you’re not the only celebrity in St Cats anymore.”
“I was never a celebrity,” Liza said, but she felt the weight of her family’s heritage like shards of glass in the softness of her skin.
“Whatever,” Heydon replied. “I kind of wondered when Mr Hart would cave and bring her here.”
“Sibhan’s photos were all over the internet.”
“Don’t remind me,” Heydon whispered.
“And after they found her body, Mr Hart pulled Ev from Healton.”
“Stop talking about it!”
“Healton?” Liza interjected.
“Healton High,” Heydon filled in. “Inner City.” She shook her head. “All the old families have been sending their kids here in drips and drabs. It started last year. I heard Everly was one of the last ones left there.”
“You know her?”
“We used to be Healton kids too.”
Liza felt her face crinkle like tissue paper. “Was Sibhan her-?”
“Sister.”
“…What happened to her?”
Heydon and Hannah exchanged a look.
“What?” Liza demanded, her voice pitched higher than she’d have liked.
“Murdered.”
Heydon whispered the word like lightning might strike her down.
Seemingly for effect, some crackled outside, and thunder shook their spirits again.
“On Monroe Street,” Hannah said.
The Harts had disappeared inside, and Liza sat back, away from the window.
“That’s god awful.” She heard her own whisper, leaves in the wind.
The twins didn’t reply, but Liza heard the creaking of one bed as they both curled up on Hannah’s cot.
Liza picked up her pen and paper.
A girl just arrived at the school. The weirdness continues, and I have to wonder… Why is death and misery like heat in summer here?
Liza frowned as she looked at the postcard. Warm light streamed on a white beach as crystal waves tickled the sand.
Wish you were here, Dad.
A hot tear burned her eye before it fell on the page, spreading like clear ink through the paper’s veins.
I need someone.
Anyone.
But you, most of all, I guess. It’s not like Leland would understand, and there’s no one else for me to talk to here. Not anymore.
I don’t think you’d approve. But I think, I think I might love him. The man. The Prince.
And it makes me weak, and stupid, and even a little evil, but I wish he were here too.
And I don’t know why. Why I care, or why it matters that he’s with someone else now. Someone who I thought was a friend. Not that she’d know the boundaries. Not that she’d get that I care that-
God, what a soap opera.
It’s not her fault. I know that. It’s mine. But I can’t talk about it. And now he’s with her, and…
You probably don’t want to hear this.
You won’t.
Liza turned the postcard over, her anger paralysing her for a second before she pushed the pen hard into the paper, almost deep enough to press through.
You could have at least left a return address…
…Wish you were here.
