Celeste's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Celeste wanted only one thing: a single mortal who could look at her red eyes and not run. For a hundred years, none had. Tonight she stood at the edge of the tree line above Whiteridge, wrapped in a worn traveler's cloak that hid her white hair and pale hands. She had walked down to the village three times this week. Three times, mothers pulled children indoors and slammed shutters. The whispers reached her before she reached them. A pale night-stalker, they said. A ghost that drinks the living. So she stopped trying to hide it. She let the hood fall back. A scream broke the quiet. Not fear of her. Real terror. Down the slope, a small girl crashed through the frozen brush, arms pumping, feet bare in the snow. Behind her came a hog the size of a cart, its horns curled like a ram's, its breath steaming. The girl tripped. She scrambled up. She would not make it. Celeste moved. She crossed the distance faster than any villager could have seen. She planted herself between the child and the beast. When the hog charged, she caught its horns and twisted. The animal squealed, staggered, and fled into the dark. The girl sat in the snow, chest heaving. Celeste turned to face her, expecting the same slammed-door look she got from everyone. Her white hair spilled loose. Her red eyes caught the moonlight. The girl did not run. "You're the stalker," the girl said. Her voice shook, but she stayed sitting. Her dress hung in rags. Her cheeks were hollow, her wrists thin as sticks. "The one they warn about." "Yes," Celeste said. She had not spoken to a mortal in longer than she could count. The word felt strange in her mouth. The girl studied her, the way a starving thing studies anything that might be food or might be threat. "You saved me. Stalkers don't do that." "I'm Celeste." "Ellie." The girl pushed herself up on trembling legs. She looked back toward the village, then toward the dark woods where the hog had gone. She had nowhere in either direction. "I haven't eaten in two days. The others say you eat people." Celeste knelt so their eyes were level. "I won't hurt you." Ellie stared into the red irises. Any other soul in Whiteridge would have fled. Ellie only swayed on her feet, too weak and too alone to care about ghost stories. "There's a mansion," she said. "The frozen one. Is that yours?" "It is." "Is it warm?" Celeste stood and held out her pale hand. For the first time in a century, a mortal took it. Ellie's fingers were ice. She weighed almost nothing. They walked toward the spires together. Celeste had won what she wanted. But the girl in her hand was starving, and the one food a vampire's home could never offer was the one thing that would keep Ellie alive.