Bella Vita (4 page)

The vision didn't last as long as I thought
it would and I never got near Mike in this one. Instead I was taken
to a place right out of a storybook. It was a small waterfall
flowing into a river with a little bridge over it. Everything was
very green and full of life. I sat on a rock and just enjoyed the
time there. This place was magical. I knew from the moment I saw
it, it was the place where I needed to go to find some answers.

Violent shuddering flooded my body and I was
snapped back into my present situation. Apparently, we hit some
turbulence. My hands gripped the arm rests and my knuckles turned
white. I had the faintest idea that the pieces of metal would
probably need to be replaced after this plane landed. The plane
shuddered once more. The captain's voice came on:

“Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen. As you can see this turbulence is getting a bit bumpy.
We will be turning on the seat belt sign and would like everyone to
remain seated. We will begin our descent into
London
Heathrow Airport. We're hoping that this will get better once we're
through this patch of clouds. Thank you.” The captain's godlike
voice disappeared to be replaced with the random gasps of the other
passengers.

I looked back and saw that everyone was
a little jarred from this bumpy flight- except the nuns. That one
factor chilled me to the bone.
Holy crap,
the only ones close to whatever is out there are calm.
My panic was taking over my body slowly. My heart
pounded behind my rib cage. My breathing was fast and short- I was
definitely going to hyperventilate. And then the strangest thing
happened to me- one of the nuns had risked her life to come and
touch me on the shoulder.

She whispered into my ear, “Do not fret,
Young One, all will be fine,” and then was ushered back to her seat
by the man in the blue suit from earlier.

Just her words bouncing around in my head
seemed to make everything a little better. I don't know how the
rest of the flight ended except for the fact that we made to the
airport in one piece. I wasn't aware of anything, all I wanted to
do was focus on that inner hope and try to make it grow- when we
landed I was very close to jumping up and dancing a jig.

I followed all of the
procedures to get into another country- apparently I wasn't
considered dangerous for England. I walked out to the front of the
airport and realized two things. The first was that I didn't know
where Betty lived and the second was that even if I had, I didn't
have a ride to get there or the correct money to get a cab-
are they called cabs here?
I felt my panic begin to rise again as I felt surrounded by
strangers. And just when I thought I'd go nuts, I saw the
sign.

“
Miss Emma Hutchinson.” A
man in a driver's uniform held it. He was tall and looked very
vampirelike in my mind, but also like Lurch from
The Addams Family
- the
original, of course.

Miss Emma?
His mind was probing out to the crowd.

I'm here.
I waved at him.

He walked over to where I
was and held out a hand for my small underpacked bag. I handed it
to him.
Please follow me, Miss.

Okay, what should I call
you?
I thought it polite to have a name to
go with this guy who could've easily been with Betty since her
beginning as a vampire- whenever that was.

My name?
He paused for a second- clearly he wasn't used to
being asked what his name was.
My name is
Aldrich
. He looked back at me and smiled-
his fangs were present, and his teeth were only slightly tanned by
age.

Hi, Aldrich! Please just
call me Emma.
I beamed back at
him.

I'll try, Emma.
He walked forward with long strides that took me
multiple steps to keep up with.

We finally made it out to the car. It was a
1929 solid black Pierce-Arrow Limousine- now when I say limo, I'm
not talking about today's kind, oh no, this thing was beautiful and
old and spooktastic.

“
Oh my goodness! This is
the freaking coolest car I've ever seen!” Was the best thing I
could say as I tried to explain the sheer awesomeness of this
car.

“
I'm glad it pleases, Miss
Emma.” Aldrich grinned. I could tell he took good care of this
car.

He opened my side of the car and held out a
hand to assist me getting in. It was like I was suddenly stuck in a
weird old movie- strangely enough, I was really enjoying it.

“
Thank you.” I replied as I
hopped into the vintage beauty. Aldrich said nothing, just silently
closed the door and got in the front and pulled away.

I stared out the window,
but there was too much to see and my mind drifted back to
everything that had happened to me. I saw the rows of similar
houses and the shops, but I didn't see them. I looked through the
glass as the city slowly gave way to the countryside.
I never thought Betty would be living out in the
sticks.
I continued to look out the window
and that was when I saw the huge house looming- no house isn't what
it should be called, rather a mansion.

The place was clearly from
the 1890s or maybe even the late 1880s. It was a French Renaissance
chateau. The roof was angular and a bluish shade. The building
itself was beige with brown trimmings. To be honest, it looked a
lot like a place I had seen before in a magazine- the Biltmore
Estate.
Maybe they got the idea from
here.
It didn't matter where it came from,
it was beautiful and utterly too big for Bettina alone.

The long drive up to the house was an
incredible way to see some of the vast surrounding estate. I could
tell there were various gardens, pools, and all sorts of other
things. Aldrich made a turn and parked directly in front of the
door. I watched as he turned off the car, opened his door, walked
around the front of the car and then opened my door with the same
gesture as before.

I climbed out and thanked him once more, he
merely tipped his hat and walked back to the driver's door and got
in. I was about to ask what I was supposed to do when a small squat
woman walked up to me and tapped me ever so gently on the shoulder-
she held a gold pocket watch.

“
I suppose you must be Miss
Emma Hutchinson, coming from Italy, originally from the United
States?” The woman was soft spoken and her words were quick and
efficient- she understood how to make people listen to
her.

“
That would be me.” I
smiled at the woman that was probably three inches shorter than me-
making her roughly five feet tall.

Her lightly glossed lips
turned down at the corners- an expression that was clearly common
for the woman. “You are late.” With that she snapped the watch
shut, turned, and walked back into the house, her cream colored
dress suit barely moved as she walked.
Not
too sure about wearing cream with blonde hair and fair
skin.

I followed the woman silently.

Click.

Clack.

Click.

Clack.

The small woman's heels sounded like a
military march. As we walked by the rows of shiny suits of armor, I
imagined them saluting her. I heard a chuckle and realized I had
let my guard down and allowed my thoughts to float pass me. I saw a
tall wiry man step out from behind one of the tin men, he held a
feather duster. I raised an eyebrow.

Merry Meet, Miss Emma. Do
not fret, most of the staff are not of our kind. She didn't hear
your thoughts.
He lowered his head, his
black ringlets fell forward and cover his honey brown
eyes.

Merry Met ?
I wanted to know his name- he seemed
young.

Bernard.
He smiled shyly.

Merry Met, Bernard. I
assume that the staff keeps the guests' thoughts private.
I raised my left eyebrow and grinned more to the
left than the right.

Most certainly, Miss Emma.
If you need anything feel free to call upon me during your
stay.
He lowered his gaze.

Thank you. Now I must catch
back up with that woman. Merry Part.
I
said as I ran until I was right behind her- I was lucky that the
hall was so long, otherwise I would've lost her and she never even
checked to see if I was behind her.

The more I walked behind her, the more I was
growing to dislike the woman. She said nothing. The only sound was
that of her heels and the tiniest sound from her rough fabric
moving- I'd learned to move silently. It only took another ten
minutes before I started to get angry.

“
You know, you could at
least tell me your name or where we're going.” I huffed at the back
of her rigid self.

“
Some things are best left
to the mystery of life,” was all she said as she walked up to a
door, I could feel my temper raise just a little higher.

The door was a rich
mahogany. It held the appearance of being both old and heavy. Along
the panels a story seemed to be carved. I stepped closer and found
that the story was the prophecy-
m
y prophecy-
all laid out in tiny pictures. I looked at the small woman
who had shrunk in comparison to the door. She was searching for a
key on a massive key ring.
Where did she
pull that from?
I could tell that it
wasn't something she was used to doing often from her lack of
familiarity with the keys.

“Ah, there you are.” She
said as she pulled a small plain iron key forward. From what I
could tell it wasn't anything special.

The key fit the lock on the door with the
embrace of lovers reuniting. The lock gave the slightest click that
sounded almost like a sigh, and the door creaked open. I wanted to
stand and look at the door as much as possible, but the woman
pushed the door open and started talking to me.

“My name is Elizabeth. This
room hasn't been opened since Bettina had it constructed. After she
had the vision of some prophecy, that I see you recognized on the
door, she had the room sealed until the bearer of this burden came
to her house. Now you've come to Bettina's house and she says it's
your burden, so this room has been opened for you. This will be
your lodgings. She'll come for you when you're needed. If you need
anything simply ask someone. I'm not sure what's in this room as it
was constructed before I came into service here. If there is
anything I can help you with right away then I'll be getting back
to my normal duties.” Elizabeth exhaled and looked at me
expectantly.

“No, I'm fine. Thank you
for everything, Elizabeth.” I smiled and tried to sound nice, not
too sure if it worked.

Elizabeth bowed slightly and then
disappeared back down the long hallway.

I was slightly afraid of what I'd find when
I walked into the room, so I stood out in the hall debating on
going in or not.

“The room won't bite.”
Bernard was standing to my left, he had a crooked smile on his
face.

“I know, but if it was
built for me, what am I going to find?” I was unsure.

“I can go with you, if you
need someone.” He held out his hand.

I thought about it. This was my burden to
hold, not his. I needed to stop hiding behind others and face this
demon alone, or with the guidance I could get from someone that
knew about visions. “Thank you, Bernard, but I must face this
alone. I think it's the best thing for me.” I smiled at him and
walked to the doorway.

“Miss Emma, I don't know if
there is light in there. Please take this.” He held out his hand
and a thick, cream colored candle appeared, he flicked his fingers
above the wick and it lit.

I reached out my hand with my mouth hanging
open. “Eh, thanks.”

“Betty keeps on a few
vampires with special gifts. If you need me, know I'm here.” He
winked and walked away.

I held the candle and
touched the fire.
Real flame. Wow.
I walked toward the dark room and gripped the
candle tighter.
It would've been better to
have a hand to hold through this.
But I
knew this was something I had to do alone.

The room had an
encompassing darkness. As I stepped in, the candle cast a small
golden circle of light around me. The air was surprisingly fresh-
not the musty scent of old things and dust. I tried to look around
for a light switch, only to find rows of candle holders. I walked
up to one and lit it from my candle. I heard a sudden
whoosh
and the rows of
candles lining the room all lit. My senses heightened at once. It
was scary to see something out of the movies- but nothing strange
happened. I realized that I was standing in a long
hallway.

My feet felt heavy with
uncertainty, but I managed to take tentative steps down the hall.
There was a soft warm glow produced by the candles. The quiet
padding of my footfalls seemed to calm my fears. As I walked the
long hall, I found all the walls to be bare.
Odd. Surely something should be here.
I didn't stop to investigate any further. When I reached the
end of the hall, I found another thick door- it wasn't as elaborate
as the first one.