Tea Time With a Vampire

The tavern doors burst open and two men threw a third out onto the pavement in a fashion that Amber was fairly certain only happened in movies. The man being thrown landed with his face down, shouting obscenities that only the concrete could hear clearly.

"Great, Mom. What on earth did you get me into?” Amber asked. She checked the address on the old, crumpled paper one more time before putting it back into her pocket. She glanced at the aging sign above the door. The Winged Bat. That felt a little too on the nose, but Amber shrugged and stepped inside. She paused in the doorway and took in everything around her from the yellow lights above her, to the bar with five patrons to her left, and the ten or so tables and booths to her right.

Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, “You’ll need to go to the booth in the very back corner. That's the usual meeting place.”

Amber remembered studying the old photo that her mom had held up. They had definitely remodeled since her mother’s photo had been taken thirty years ago. The tables were no longer wooden, but were made of steel and painted black. The booths and chairs were now a maroon color instead of the vibrant yellow they had been but at least the layout still appeared to be the same.

Amber walked to the bar and ordered a beer before retreating to the table in the back corner. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or apprehensive over how empty the tavern currently was.

Amber drummed her fingers on the tabletop while she took a few sips from her beer. She glanced at her watch. Five minutes past. How long was an appropriate amount of time to wait before calling it quits on this whole ridiculous endeavor and catching the first flight back to the States? She still couldn’t believe that she had flown all the way to England for this. She also couldn’t believe that it had only been a week ago when her mother had told her about the meeting she set up thirty years prior and had tipped her entire world on its axis. 

Amber pulled her sweatshirt around her tighter. She wished she could sit closer to the fireplace by the bar. She was pretty sure the fireplace was an original from when this tavern had first been built back in the 1700’s. She knew from her Google search that it had been fixed up and renovated many times, but the stonework was still unchanged. She could understand why this tavern was the favored meeting place.

Amber checked her beer. Three quarters gone. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes past. She was going to give it five more minutes while she finished her beer, and then she was leaving. This whole trip was ridiculous.

“Sorry I’m late,” a voice said close to Amber’s side causing her to almost choke on the beer. She coughed and sputtered and slammed the bottle down onto the table.

“I’m Oswald,” the man said. Amber scoffed at his lack of an apology and looked him up and down. Her heart beat faster in her chest. This was the man. He looked just like her mom's photo.

“You’re expecting me,” he said when she didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just having a beer on my way home from work,” Amber lied.

Oswald was suddenly very close to her face, and Amber couldn’t help the little squeak that came out at his proximity.

“Do not lie to me, child. I can smell Lilliana in your blood. And Lucinda. And Lenora,” Oswald said. Amber tensed at the names of her mom, grandma, and great grandma.

“I can smell Azula, Amaris, and Rosia. Their blood runs through your veins.”

“You’ve clearly done your research on my family tree. But you can smell it in my blood? Really? You’re really going to keep up this ruse?” Amber said, feigning a confidence she didn't feel.

“What ruse would that be, child?”

“Don’t call me a child,” Amber said hotly. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re really going to keep up this charade? This vampire thing?” She got really quiet at the end and cast a glance at the patrons at the bar. None of them seemed to hear her. They didn’t even seem to notice that she was in the corner.

“I wouldn’t have to call you child if you would tell me your name,” he said. “I’ve introduced myself. It’s common courtesy to tell me yours.”

“Amber,” she replied.

“Amber,” he exhaled the name like he had been holding in the breath of something that smelled sweet, and he didn’t want to let it go.

“Look, Oswald,” Amber said putting finger quotes around his name. “You can tell your father and your grandfather that you kept up the act. I’ll go home and tell my mom the same thing. We can pretend that we set up another meeting for thirty years from now, but let’s be honest. This whole thing is ridiculous. Let’s just end it here. I can’t believe my mom is so insane as to make up this whole situation to try and get me a date with her old flames’ son. Just because I’m ready to get back out there doesn’t mean that I need her to set me up.”

“You’re more hot tempered than most of your ancestors,” Oswald observed. “But I assure you that this is far from ridiculous. Why don’t you take another look at the bar around you.”

Amber turned a skeptical look towards the bar. At first she didn’t know what she was supposed to be seeing, but then she realized that everyone was still. It wasn’t that they were just standing still, but they were frozen. Two people were frozen mid laugh, another was frozen two inches off the ground in what must have been the start of a jump. She blinked and then suddenly Oswald was standing behind the bar pouring himself a cup of tea. Before she could utter a sound, he appeared back at the table, seated across from her, and sipping on his tea. He waved his hand and the bar patrons continued as if they had never been frozen in time. The two people continued their laugh, and the jumping man landed with a soft thump.

“So it’s true,” Amber breathed. “You’re really him. You’re the same Oswald that has met my mom, my grandma, my great grandma.”

“Yes, I am. Every thirty years all the way back to your great, great, great, great grandmother 180 years ago.”

Amber was silent.

“You look like you have a million things on your mind right now,” Oswald observed.

“I have a trillion things on my mind right now,” Amber said. “I never believed any of what my mom had told me about you was actually true.”

“Really? None of it?” Oswald said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re here. I can tell that you were not raised here in England. You wouldn’t have come this far if you didn’t think it was true.”

“I guess not,” Amber admitted. “I guess I didn’t want it to be true.”

Oswald gave a thoughtful nod. “So tell me, where did Lilliana run off to after she met me?”

“She moved to the States,” Amber replied absently.

“Good for her. She followed her dream," Oswald mused. He smiled wistfully and Amber saw, for the first time, the two cone-shaped canines that extended down further than the average person’s canines. Combined with his almost mauve pallor, Amber was not sure how no one seemed to know that he was a vampire.

“Oswald, my mom explained a lot about you to me. What to expect, what parts of the folklore around vampires is actually true, and that sort of thing,” Amber said. He turned his attention to her as if he had been lost in a daydream for a moment.

“But she never explained to me why,” Amber said.

“Why I have met each of your female ancestors every thirty years?” Oswald asked and Amber nodded. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m a bit surprised your mom didn’t tell you more about me or tell you about me sooner. I’m assuming from your skepticism that this was something she revealed to you recently.”

Amber nodded. “Last week.”

“I can’t say that I blame her. She was so heartbroken.”

“Heartbroken?”

Oswald gave a sad smile. “Let me start at the beginning. One hundred and eighty-two years ago, I met Rosia, your four times great grandmother. I was already a vampire then and had been for quite some time, but she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I courted her and fell head over heels in love with her and she fell for me too. When I revealed to her what I was, she was skeptical at first, just like you, but she came to believe me. I thought she’d run from me or leave me, but she took my hand in hers and told me that it didn’t change a thing. We agreed to marry and had the wedding set for exactly 180 years ago today.” He stopped and sipped at his tea.

"So are you like my four times great grandfather or something?”

Oswald snorted tea back into his cup. He patted his face dry with a napkin that had not been at the table a moment ago. Amber had barely seen him move to the bar to grab one from the counter there and then come back.

He chuckled. “No, vampires can not reproduce. Not like humans do. Vampires are made by another vampire. Rosia and I never got to be married. There was an evil living here at the time as well. A witch named Darcia. She found out that Rosia and I planned to marry, and Rosia wanted me to make her like me. Make her a vampire.”

“She wanted to drink blood and kill people?” Amber asked. She scrunched up her nose. Oswald gave her a scathing look.

“We do not survive on blood alone. Am I not sitting before you, drinking tea?” Oswald asked. Amber felt blood rush to her cheeks, and she ducked her head.

“Some choose to kill, but I do not. And Rosia was willing to live that life if it meant that she could be with me. But Darcia didn’t believe that a human should marry a vampire. She didn’t want to see her be made into a vampire. So she put a curse on Rosia that poisoned her blood and threatened to do worse if we continued to be together. The poison in her blood kept me from being able to drink her blood to change her. Rosia and I discussed it. We fought about it. In the end, the threat of Darcia was too great. I vowed to take care of Darcia and then I would come back for Rosia and we could be together.

Darcia eluded me for a few years, but I finally got her out of the way. I returned to find two things that shredded my heart into pieces. The first was that Rosia’s father had married her off to a man named Reginald. She had a small daughter with him, your three times great grandmother, Amaris. The second was that the poison in her blood, was slowly killing her. I went to her on her deathbed. She explained to me her plan to have me meet her daughter at the tavern thirty years from the day we supposed to be married. She left a letter explaining everything with her sister with the instructions to give it to her daughter when she was old enough.

I didn’t believe that Amaris would show up. I didn’t think that Rosia’s sister would give her the letter. And if she did, I didn’t think Amaris would believe it. But to my surprise, thirty years from the day I was supposed to be married to Rosia, Amaris showed up at this pub. She was so like her mother but different in so many ways. She showed me the letter her mother had left for her. And it was then that I understood what Rosia had really had in mind. She thought that I could make Amaris my bride instead.”

“Why didn’t you?” Amber asked. She was leaning on her arms on the table, completely enthralled in the story.

“We talked about it. Believe it or not, Amaris had to talk me into it. But we courted, and I grew to care for her. It was nothing compared to how I had felt about Rosia, but I felt like I could honor Rosia’s wishes. But it turns out that Darcia’s curse spans generations. Amaris’ blood was poison to me as well. Amaris locked herself in her room and cried for several days. When she finally came out, she told me that she wanted to continue her mother’s plan. In thirty years, I would meet her daughter at the tavern. And I have each time. The poison has gotten less and less over the generations. So much so, that we thought your mother would be the one that no longer had the poison in her veins. I courted her, or as it’s said now, we dated. She told me how her mom had told her all about me since she was a little child. She grew up believing that she was going to be a vampire’s bride some day. I cared very deeply for your mother and she fell in love with me like her mother and grandmother before her. We were set to marry and I was going to change her like I would have done for my dear Rosia, but when the moment came, her blood still had poison in it. Your mother was heartbroken and beyond devastated.”

Amber raised a hand to her mouth and stifled a gasp. “I guess I can understand why she wouldn’t want to tell me about you beforehand.”

Oswald nodded grimly.

“So I’m here to find out if my blood is still poisoned. And if it’s not, what then? I’m supposed to become your bride?”

“In part. But you do not have to marry me. I did not coerce Rosia into marrying me. And I did not force any of your relatives into wanting to be with me. I’ve shown up each and every time because it was what Rosia had wanted. But if you would choose it, I would make you my queen. I would treat you as I would have treated my Rosia.”

“So you think that the cursed poison is no longer in my blood? How would you be able to tell?”

Amber jumped when Oswald suddenly appeared kneeling beside the booth seat she was sitting on with her hand delicately held in his. Her heart fluttered in her throat making it hard to swallow.

“I would have to taste it,” Oswald said, bringing her hand up to his mouth and placing a gentle kiss on the back of her hand. "Just a small amount won't kill me if there's poison, but it will make me ill."

“Do it,” Amber said. Oswald paused.

“Here? Now?” he asked. Amber nodded.

“It seems like you could have saved a lot of heartache if you had just tried before dating everyone.”

Oswald laughed humorlessly. “You’re right,” he said. “But I was born in a time when men and women barely even looked at each other before they were married. Even something as simple as holding hands was considered scandalous.”

“Well I’m asking you to put aside your chivalrous ways and to find out. I just had my heart broken in my previous relationship, and I’m not looking to have it happen again.”

“Alright,” Oswald said. With a wave of his hand, the people at the bar were all frozen in time once again. He looked up at her through his eye lashes as he placed a few gentle kisses along the back of her hand and trailed them around to her palm. He placed two light kisses on her wrist and, still holding her gaze, exposed his two fangs. Amber took a deep, shuddery breath, and Oswald pierced her skin. She closed her eyes, expecting it to hurt, but it didn’t. She could feel Oswald pulling at her veins slightly, but other than that, she didn’t feel anything. 

She opened her eyes when she felt Oswald pull away. He turned his head away as he wiped off his mouth. He dashed away and came back with a towel in the blink of an eye and wrapped it around her wrist.

“Well?” Amber asked, surprised at how breathless she sounded.

“What is your full name?”

“What?”

“Your full name,” Oswald said.

“Amber Rosia Brenton. My mom liked it because it sounded like ambrosia.”

“Ambrosia means “immortal”,” Oswald said with a faint smile. “And you bear her name as well. It seems fitting.”

“How so?” Amber asked.

“You’re the perfect image of her. And you have her fiery personality. It’s almost as if she’s sitting in front of me again for the first time in 180 years.”

“What about my blood?” Amber asked.

Oswald smiled. “Perfectly clean. Amber Rosia Brenton, you have a choice to make now.”

Amber’s breath caught as she stared into his eyes. She had a hundred thoughts pass through her mind. Most of them reiterating how crazy this whole situation was.

Her heart clenched at the hopeful look on Oswald’s face. Slowly, she began to nod and a true smile spread across his face. “You should know that my close family and friends call me Rosia.”

“Can it be? After all of this waiting, I finally get to marry my dear sweet, Rosia?” Oswald asked as if he didn’t dare believe it.

Amber returned his smile. “Better late than never.”