‘It was a dark misty night. Rain was falling violently on the frozen soil. Lord Bryan sat by the fire as it crackled, consuming with red tongues the wood that lay so calmly in its fiery belly. In his hand he held a glass of sweet red wine and on his lap was a letter from his late lover, Lady Emmanuella.
Lady Emanuella had passed away recently in a way so mysterious that even the most knowledgeable and experienced physicians were unable neither to explain nor to understand. She was found one cold misty and cloudy morning just outside her family’s private chapel. She was as pale as a ghost and all her blood seemed to have drained away, although she showed no signs of wounds, apart from two small punctures on the left side of her neck. It was believed that she was attacked by a ferocious wild animal that happened to wander onto the estate that dark and terrible night.
Questions were asked. Why was Lady Emmanuella out of bed and wandering the grounds in the dead of the night? That was a question that lingered upon Lord Bryan’s mind. What was she doing staying up so late. Every night, when everything would go silent, he would sit in his chair by the crackling fire and read her letters as this torturous question lingered on his mind.
As he was falling asleep, he heard an eerie voice calling his name: ‘Bryan. Bryan’.
Lord Bryan stirred at the sound of this voice but his heart wanted to continue listening to it. It resembled so much the voice of his late beloved Lady Emmanuella.
‘My love, where art thee?’, he murmured.
‘I am there, where you left me and where you come to visit me every day’.
‘Where at your eternal resting place?’
‘Yes, my dear Bryan. My love I am here and I am waiting for you’.
‘Wait I will come for you’.
‘I am here. Please come. Do not forget me’.
‘I will not!’
And suddenly Lord Bryan awoke from this strange dream. It was morning but the sun did not arise. Only a faded daylight broke through the thick clouds lighting up the intense fog. The fire had gone out and it was very cold. Next to him, between the arm chair and the fireplace, lay shards of broken glass. Lord Bryan got up, put on his coat and set off to the final resting place of his beloved Lady Emmannuella.
Oh my love, I dreamt that you were here. I wish it were true, he said into the silence as he walked through the lonely, leafless forest leading to the cemetery. He arrived at the bleak and solitary cemetery. The tombs covered the barren land, an occasional leafless tree silhouetted against the dark sky.. As he made his way through the forgotten tombs, he finally arrived to the resting place of Lady Emmanuella.
The candle he had lit the previous afternoon had burnt low. He took out a piece of paper, and after writing a small love letter to his beloved lady, burned it in the fading candle flame. As the love letter burnt away, he closed his eyes as his tears began to fall.
‘My love where are you?’, he whispered.
‘I am here, my dear’, a familiar voice said.
Lord Bryan looked up and could not believe his eyes. Before him stood his long lost love, Lady Emmanuella in a long white dress with embroidery of flowers and crows. She had pale skin and her lips were slightly red and her eyes were piercing blue.
‘My Lady you are alive’.
‘Alive I am not yet not dead indeed’.
‘How can that be?’
‘It is simple yet so mystic. If you follow me I will show you’, the apparition said as she offered her hand to him. Lord Bryan took her into his embrace. Suddenly he felt two deep stings on the left side of his neck. He felt his own life abandon him as he fell to the ground and the apparition kissed him with her bloody lips and whispered:
‘Soon you will be like me and together we will walk this earth every night for all eternity until we are no more’.
‘And with you I shall perish until this world is no more’, said Lord Bryan. His eyes changed colour and took on the shade if a black raven. His skin was pale and his lips slightly red, resembling Lady Emmanuella. Now he was an undead creature like her, a blood drinker that could not die unless a stake was driven through his heart. They held hand as together they vanished into the mist that lay ahead of them before the birth of the coming night.’