The woods of Tobolsk

                        THE WOODS OF TOBOLSK

                           PART ONE

She woke up with an ache. A normal human being experienced headaches, stomachaches and backaches all throughout their lives. But an ache that felt like their eyes had been scooped out? It wasn’t so common. Golden feathers of light streamed through what seemed like tiny ruptures in the sky and she inched away from it. She didn’t know why she did it. She just knew that she shouldn’t be near it.

“You’re awake,” said a voice. It was soft and steady and it sounded all too familiar. Who did it belong to? If only she could remember. She looked up at the white-haired woman hoping she could get some sort of clarity. None befriended her.

“We’ll establish that later,” she said taking something wet off her forehead. “The question is who are you?”

Annoyance stabbed her. What kind of question was that? It was the kind of question a stranger should ask, yet every cell of her body told her that she knew this woman. Anyway, who was she? And how did she find herself up the shortest tree in this whole mass of trees? She looked around. Trees hugged each other as if something terrifying approached them. A pack of wolves fled beneath them. Was she in the woods?

“I …I don’t remember who I am?” she finally said. “Or where am I either? Where did you find me?”

“I was here the moment you were born,” the woman said nodding to her. “That moment, I believe, happened ten minutes ago.”

“Very funny,” she said. “If I were born ten minutes ago I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you. I’d be crying my lungs out. And anyway, haven’t I met you before?”

“You have,” she said. “But not in this life.”

She looked at the woman. She was short and stout and had a face that was smothered in wrinkles. Yet, she didn’t look mad. She had kept a washcloth over her head and brought her to this rickety sheltered platform, which, she guessed be called a tree house. Besides, her instincts told her that this woman could be trusted. And she always trusted her instincts.

“Uh…I’m sorry but I didn’t quite understand you.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain,” she said. “So let me show you? Are you hungry?”

She was. She felt a beast rage beneath her chiseled stomach and wondered if she ever felt this hungry. The woman plucked a fruit from the tree.

“Go ahead and eat,” she said. “It isn’t poisonous.”

But as she held it to the girl’s mouth the smell of rotting meat engulfed the air. The fruit was revolting. 

“It stinks,” she said. “I’m not eating that. Do you, whoever you are, have something else? Anything would do.”

“Of course, I do,” said the woman. “And you may call me Annalise.”

Annalise came back with something struggling against her grasp. A storm of black and white fur covered up everything but its fear. 

“It’s some sort of wild dog,” Annalise said. “I caught it terrorizing another pack so I brought it home for dinner.”

She did not listen to a word Annalise was saying. Her eyes were now on the hound that covered away from her. She liked her lips at the sight of his throat and without a second thought; she pounced. 

Minutes later, as she awoke from the glorifying sating of her hunger, fear gripped her heart. Her nails, polished and decorated, sank into the fur of the corpse. Her teeth, if these long things that were protruding out of her mouth were teeth, sank further than his fur. The creature’s blood tinged her lips a deep red.

“Annalise?” she said, “Who am I?” It was the question she felt that she thought best to ask. What she really wanted to say were the words; ‘What am I?’

“You have fangs, you fear the light and you have blood all over your lips?” she said showing her similarly long teeth. “You tell me?”

She hit the floor hoping that this time, she would never wake up.

                             PART TWO

“Hey,” the same soft voice said as she felt another cloth slide off her head. “You’re okay.”

“Who am I?” she snarled.

She didn’t mean to be rude. Some long ingrained belief about kindness stopped her from grabbing Annalise by the throat and shaking the truth out of her. Her sense of kindness lasted even when she was stranded with a strange woman in a strange wood. But she still needed to know.

“Your name is Jelissa,” she said.

“Or at least it was. We can never call you that now, you need a new one.”

‘Jelissa?’ she thought to herself. ‘Yes the name did sound familiar.’

“And why can’t I be called Jelissa?” she said licking the last remnants of blood from her lips.

“It’s a nice name.”

“It’s a nice name that was meant for a nice girl,” Annalise said. “A girl who shouldn’t be alive.”

Jelissa shuddered. She’d read all of those fantasy books which everyone promised would be amazing. Frankly, she thought those books were a waste of time. She wanted romances that made her cry for days. Vampires? They weren’t her favourite.

“And why shouldn’t I be alive?” she said looking around at the gloom around her. It suited her. The canopy of trees was only broken by slight pinpricks of light. Those must be avoided at all times.

“That’s a good question? And it’s one that I would answer to if I knew the answer myself.”

Annalise shrugged. “One moment you were the spoilt little girl who didn’t even know how to cook her own food and the next moment you were kidnapped, put into some house and had a bullet put through her heart.”

“What?”

“You’re dead Jelissa,” she said as she offered another cup of the same red liquid she drank earlier. “You were a girl named Jelissa Prinsloo. A beautiful one by the look of it.”

“But you said I was spoilt?” Jelissa said. “So I was a horrible little brat.”

“Well, you were,” she said as she shrugged. “But don’t take it so personally, a lot of rich kids grow up to be brats.”

“And how many of them grow up to be vampires?” Jelissa said.

“You’re the first one I’ve seen and quite frankly…..” She smiled. She was about to tell Jelissa how she had been with her for the past seventeen and a half years of her human life and how she would be with her for all eternity. But then she stopped. A high pitched whine rang through the woods .

“Come on boy,” a man said as he pulled a leash. The large hunting dog attached to it pulled away in terror but the man kept on forcing him to move. ‘He was a cruel man,’ Jelissa thought as she watched the dog whine at the thought of encountering her. 

“Come on boy,” he said. “Can you smell her? Her corpse was supposed to be lying around here somewhere.”

“Maybe she was eaten by a pack of wild dogs,” another voice snorted. “There are savage packs of them here in Tobolsk.”

“I just left her here for a few minutes,” the first man said. “Is that really enough time for a pack of animals to make a meal out of her? And you know what the boss said. She wants photographic evidence of the girl’s death. It doesn’t help that the team that ended her life got decimated by some wild animal.”

“An animal that tears up throats and drains their blood,” his friend said.

“Well, I’d rather meet the beast than the boss.”

“Jelissa, there’s a hidden branch over by the roof,” Annalise said indicating a twisted branch.

Jelissa winced. It looked rather uncomfortable. “Stay there and you’d not be seen. I’ll introduce these men to the beast.”

Jelissa did as she was told and with only a moment’s glance at the teenage girl, Annalise pounced.

“You want to tell me what you had to do with Jelissa’s murder?” Annalise growled with her teeth inches away from the men’s throat.

“Nothing,” they said. Every inch of them trembled.

Despite judging them to be horrible men, Jelissa couldn’t help the burst of sympathy in her heart. If she had ever had an angry Annalise in front of her, she’d be trembling too.

“You didn’t kill her, I know that,” she said. “If you did your bloods would be splashing in my stomach. But what I want to know is who wants her dead?”

“I don’t know,” the man said. “We were sent on a mission to dispose her body by some person in Pretoria. I don’t know why, but he told me not to fall for her pretty green eyes. He told me that he wants to see her dead.”

“I believe you,” Annalise said as she reached for the man’s throat. Without any hesitation she pulled.

                                PART THREE

“What did you just do?” Jelissa spat as she came down to two headless corpses lying on the tree house’s floor.

“What did you want me to do?” she said. “Let them free so they can tell everyone they came face to face with a vampire? To have people come for us with wooden stakes and fire?”

“Yes,” Jelissa screamed. “No one would ever believe them. They’d probably have a fun ride to some asylum somewhere.”

“We’re in the woods with only a few villages surrounding us Jelissa,” Annalise said. “Trust me, people here are pretty superstitious. Besides, the existence of our kind has been recorded in these parts.”

Jelissa just looked confused. Part of her just wished that this was just a bad dream. 

“Vampires aren’t just born, you stupid girl,” she snapped. “Someone has to make them. Some new vampire around here saw a young girl who was about to be killed and gave her his blood. I put the blood in your last meal.”

“How did you become one of them?” she asked.

“The same vampire gave me some blood too. I then drank some villager’s pesticide and it did not taste good.”

Jelissa laughed. She imagined the short-tempered Annalise drinking a whole bottle of poison. 

“Now speaking of blood, someone wants yours. This means that we’ll never be able to call you Jelissa. Now take a look at your hair,” she said.

“What?"

“You’re hair?” Annalise said.

“What colour is it?”

“Umm…blonde,” Jelissa said as she scowled. She didn’t like the colour of it. It seemed pale, a dangerous pallor which made her uncomfortable.

“Good, because I bleached it just before you woke up,” Annalise said. “And now for a new name. You can be…..” 

She never did finish her sentence. That was because the rustling of leaves had told them that something was approaching.

“Jelissa hide,” Annalise said. But her instruction was worthless. Jelissa was already scrambling up that twisted branch.

The face of a stranger showed through the thin canopy of leaves. He had come face to face with Annalise and she did not look happy.

                           PART FOUR

“Hello stranger,” Jelissa whispered as she looked at his tall figure in hunger. Well, not in literal hunger, but desire. Okay, maybe there was a tinge of literal hunger in there too. It had been hours since she had last eaten.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he said before Annalise had time to bare her teeth at him. “I’m Ian Van Rooyen. I came all the way from Pretoria to investigate that heiress’s disappearance.”

“Heiress?” Annalise said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jelissa Prinsloo disappeared from her hotel room in Saint Petersburg a few days ago,” he said. “She was visiting Russia before her eighteenth birthday. And she disappeared.”

“And you came all the way to the woods?” Annalise asked. “Saint Petersburg is miles away. This is Tobolsk.”

“The woods of Tobolsk are where I believe the girl was last seen,” he said. “Sure, many of my superiors disagree with me.”

“Superiors?”

“I work for the police,” he said flashing something shiny in her face. “So if you have seen, or know anything about Miss Prinsloo, I’d appreciate it if you told me.”

Jelissa bent down to get a closer look at the stranger. He was looking for her! She was found and safe from whatever monster was out there. As she bent down, she felt the thick skin of the branch. Then she felt it no more as she plummeted to the hard floor of the tree house.

“Uh…who is this?” he said as he looked at her with clear grey eyes. They were eyes that reminded her of the morning sky.

“This is my granddaughter, Lilith,” Annalise said. “She was researching the Jelissa Prinsloo disappearance too.

‘Lilith,’ Jelissa thought. ‘What a horrible name.’

“Well, then maybe we could help each other unsolved this thing,” Ian said as he reached for Jelissa’s hand. As his fingers wrapped around hers, she knew what she had to do. 

She needed him to get to know her past. She needed him to track down her killer.