Something happened here and I want to tell you about it. Sarah brought someone 'over', a little soul named Larry. He's two years old... and now he will be two years old forever. I know I owe you more tales about Jeanette and my life with her in medieval France. I think it was France. Borders change so over the years. But then this thing happened and I just want to talk about it.
I've mentioned 'cherubs' before, back when this strange bit of vampire therapy began. You don't know how many times I've wanted to stop, but I can't. I know you know it's me. I know you know it's Jonathon.. Some might recall periods when I went as Tomas. Well, so what? They're both me.
A vampire. I'm a vampire. And others are Elferinas, or Elferinos, or witchy-folk, or 'born' witches, or my God, what's the name of those others?... the Red Paint People! Yet we're all manifestations of the same thing. We're all touched by 'magic.', or 'the magic,' as I should say. But it rests differently on each and every one of us. Those labels I just mentioned are types. They're just basic varieties. Not every vampire is the same as every other. Many of the 'noxious' types are little better than glorified zombies. But we still call them vampires.
Cherubs are vampires. I hate to say that. Such sweet, innocent things they are... among the rarest of night-folk. Please, I'm trying to control myself, but she took a little toddler and made him into what we are.
They're upstairs now. He's sleeping. She has him in bed with her. She's sobbing. Said he was sick. Said the attendants at the home didn't care. Lying in a crib, coughing. All alone. He didn't understand. He didn't know what was going on. Kept saying - A hug... A hug... But no one came. They were all in a rush to get out and get ready for New Years Eve and the ones who had to work were sharing a five dollar, pepperoni pizza at the front desk. Mariah Carey was more important than the little ones. Besides, the doctor said he'd probably fade. Not much more they could do and stay in budget.
When she told me, I said - Couldn't you have just given him a few drops like you do all the others?.... She cried. I hate when Sarah cries. Sometimes the attraction is too much. We can't stop and the ones we love most die. A lot of vampires destroy themselves after that. But at the last moment, before the spark goes out, a few pull back and give the marked one a deep, deep drink... and that does it. The blood in their body is vampire blood... the blood in their heart... the blood in their brain. The fluid that gives them 'life' is not, itself, alive. But they 'live' and they 'breathe' and the laugh with delight..... Sarah said when it happened to Larry his baby laughter sounded like chocolate. And when went - A hug! A hug! A hug! She wrapped him in her arms and sublimated out of there.
So now he's ours... and he'll never grow up... Every day will be filled with wonder... Toys will be miraculous things, until he discovers he can fly. Cherubs can, you know. The caretaker's wife, at Laurel Hill Cemetery used to knit warm, little outfits for the three or four cherubs she kept in their cottage. They'd flit through the trees, monuments and mausoleums at night, when no one could see. Sometimes we hear reports of child vampires who, after decades and decades develop something resembling 'adult' souls. But they're older. Those like Larry don't do that. Maybe they're better off?
And they go on. There are cherubs in London who date to Roman times and now they love books about Sophia the Giraffe. I suppose we'll have to get some of those...
The little ghost boy, the polio victim, who stays downstairs in the basement... or used to, wants to see him. He knows about Larry. He's excited. He has a baby brother.
Does all this sound strange?
We're night-folk... It's not strange.
We have 'lives' and we live them and we do the best we can.
I know our friends will understand... They've been with us for six years and that means a lot...
<more next time>
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Oh, it would be less burdensome if I could say this in Vahmperigo or another of our ancient tongues. But I want you to know and understand. There have been whispers... All over the Earth, people wonder. Some have seen the actual site. Others have read accounts... a prophecy... a new age... Not since the Titans gave way to the Olympians have we seen such a thing. And if a life-eater speaks of it you know it's true. We are old. We know.
Your Jonathon fights his own internal battles. He reads his Scriptures and listens to sacred music. That one so wants to change the world. But wanting and doing are not the same. While his consort, Sarah, simply goes about each night doing what she can. Some people die. Some are saved. Maybe the world still inches toward salvation? Progress is slow, yet so is geological erosion. Yet the outcome is unmistakable.
I am The Khan, an old life-eater from the Plain of the Ganges. I lack the years of 'Papa' or 'The Lady Renate.' Perhaps in your Vampire Wonderland wanderings you've stumbled upon them? But my years are not measured in eons, though five thousand passes 'round the sun is long enough. And all that time I have never seen it. The sun, I mean... Imagine that.... Think on it. Think of what it's like for a Hindu soul, like me... So many wasted years spent in this body... one distorted lifetime stretching on toward God knows where. I have been walking down a vast unending gallery with no exits. How I hunger for release. How I want to move on. I can destroy myself. I can see the sun. I can stand in the fire. I can sublimate till the particles of my being are spread so fine any type of reversal is impossible and I blow away like smoke. But I will not do those things. I will not.
What I will do is tell you what I know. The Georgia Guidestones are real. The philosophy behind them is genuine too. Not that it will work. Not that humanity, or their version of it, will benefit, but the actions outlined on them will happen. In a few years approximately ninety two or ninety three percent of you will no longer exist. The worlds population will be rolled back to five hundred million souls. They have the means. They have the people. They're so brazen, they brag about it. You've been watching it for years. And while there'll be little flesh eating, something like 'zombies' will exist... for a little while....
What's this? You think you'll stop them? How will you do that? The truth is you'll be one of them. You'll put down your burdens and shuffle off like lemmings. The spark is already in you... the drug... the poison... the thing. Old people and young will all walk off, staring down at the ground, leading their little children, carrying babies. Remember The Time Machine? Remember the Morlocks and that piercing siren? Well, this time it'll be silent. They won't eat you. They'll just make you disappear. The acid will do that. There's an installation right near where you live. Probably been strolling by it for years. Don't worry. You'll see it. You'll jump right in.
<more next time>
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There's an old shuttered fast-food place on a little highway, a few miles west of the north-east extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. People used to take it to the Poconos, but no more. That's why the burger joint is a relic. Weeds and vines slowly devour the old, asphalt parking lot... Deer come by to nibble them. Sometimes errant Jersey Devils fly over, on their way to the even vaster forests of the Alleghenies. The site looks dead and it mostly is dead, except for a trickling bit of energy from a forgotten buried power line that quickens an ancient, walk-in freezer in the back. They say there're lots of ghost lines like that, especially since the advent of computers. They send out the bills, after all. Maybe they want it this way?
Sometimes I watch the place at night. I see things step out from the woods. Do they see me? I don't know. I am a ghost. I'm still me, just minus my body. Will I always be here? Can't tell. I guess when you're one with eternity a few decades spent in among the trees isn't so bad. I can talk to them, you know. They have souls. What you see as one tree is only a part. Think of each tree as a footstep... each seed-line as a being. All the oaks in a grove might be one soul. Two or three souls might be intertwined. And the souls themselves evolve, as they absorb genetic material from others. Life is everywhere, both physical and otherwise.
There are bodies in that freezer... a few whole ones... a few carefully butchered parts. The bodies are in more or less fetal positions... arms hugging knees... ankles tied... wrists tied... all shaved and exfoliated... eyeballs cleanly scooped out of the sockets. Whether that happened before or after death I don't know. Couldn't 'taste' any souls around them. Maybe they didn't want me to.
People fall into tight fetal positions when they freeze to death, especially when they're shaved, blind and naked. Hell, every middle school kid knows that. Well they dooo.... Oh, and the bodies were encased in a thick 'shell' of smooth ice. In some places it was clear. In other places it was cloudy. The butchered parts were in heavyweight plastic bags twisted shut with big, thick rubber bands. A lot of the hand and forearm combinations were manicured. I mean lady manicured, with fancy nail polish and all. No rings. Somebody must have swiped the rings, because, you know, these days they all got rings. One bag has a credit card and a toenail clipper. I can tell what they are, 'cause they're right up against the plastic. Please know that it's dark in there. No lights in the freezer. I sense all this with spirit vision. If I concentrate on a thing it becomes vivid, like shining a little l.e.d. flashlight from the dollar store. I know what those things are, because I've wandered through the turnpike rest stop on the big highway smelling egg and sausage patty sandwiches and pink, sugary bubblegum.
I asked the tree-souls if they saw who did the killing and in some cases butchering. They said they didn't know. I don't think they were interested. But they could go on for hours about who cut down the trees up on the hillsides and what different varieties of bird shit smell like.... squirrel shit and bug shit too.
The other human ghosts around here I can talk to. There's a dead carnie woman who got her throat slit by another carnie back in the nineteen forties. She's OK. And I know a camper who was mauled to death by a bear and some other guy who just died, 'cause he messed up on his meds, or something like that and a few others. You know how it is. We meet up every once in a while... float around a little... Passing through each other is a real intimacy. Not a sex thing. Just an intimacy. One likes ice cream, so we pass through this premium ice cream plant up north of here. You may have eaten some flavors we've swam through. I'm told my 'essence' ethereal as it is, leaves a trace of Cantonese ginger. Although I myself have no idea what that fragrance is like.
Most days and nights the old burger joint sits quiet and forgotten. Orange, autumn sunlight filters through the trees.... Moonlight gilds the snow. A rabbit pads by.... a coywolf. There's little, if any, automobile traffic. Some places simply 'disappear.' But one soul knows it's here. The thing that brings the bodies knows.
He shambles through the brush. Does he carry them for miles?... How could we ever tell? The tree-souls might be willfully oblivious. Let them ruminate on bird shit and the scent of carbon-dioxide in the air. I think they're a bunch of communists.
But I saw him. I saw the beast, hunched like an ape, silently making his way one midnight, or perhaps it was three or four hours passed that time. He had a companion, a bound and gagged individual, thrown over his shoulder like a slaughtered, or about to be slaughtered animal. The eyes were opened wide, the head already shaved and naked in the weak, silvery darkness. How hopeless and forlorn.... Did I just say 'forlorn?' It's just that I can't help it. The magic of my 'situation' seeps in and takes me to another place. Soon I'll forget my mortal life and drift through shadows like a wraith. Believe me, I don't look forward to it. Maybe I'll pass to a loftier plane long before?
The fiend had a key. He put his trembling burden down in the dirt and fiddled with the corroded lock on a metal door covered in chipped gray paint. The victim moaned. He impatiently turned, delivering a most unsympathetic kick to its stomach. I think it cried, lying there on the damp earth, wrapped in a worn painter's cloth, facing death, or something worse. Then the beast went back to his task. He opened the door and dragged the baggage in. Then he closed it... soundlessly and quick.
I passed through two layers of plywood and a plate glass window to join them.
The demon rummaged through the pockets of his loose, dusty coat... more a cloak than a fitted garment. He took out a short, fat candle and lit it, powdering all with a feeble glow. Then he grinned, exposing a mouth filled with sharp, broken teeth, the rest of his face veiled by lank, filthy hair. The still living body on the floor did nothing.... Then, perhaps five heartbeats later the grin disappeared, as with a smooth, practiced flourish, the ghoulish figure snapped the old painter's cloth off the victim, revealing a form so emaciated, gender was irrelevant. The thing on the floor mewed like a kitten, as the refugee from a penny dreadful unsheathed an old straightedge razor, got down on the cold surface and proceeded to make quick, whip-like hash marks all over the meager flesh on its body. Blood oozed up till the red glazed sacrifice looked like nothing so much as a honey roasted Chinese suckling pig.
After wheezing with glee the fiend rose to its feet before the victim died and tarried by the door watching the rats stream out from an assortment of hidey-holes to start their candlelit feast.
<more next time>
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Jonathon speaks - On this night of spiritual power I just wanted to say some things. Is this the first time I've said them? No, but these things are fundamental to my nature and I think most readers ignore them. I am a life-eater and I have never been an instrument of evil. Those I take, those I 'cull,' are marked for 'the taking.' I simply provide a means for them to exit this plane of existence and sin no more. Their blood does not sustain me. It is the faithful execution of my duties that sustains me. It is the taking of the unworthy life. And I did not chose this burden, though I bear it in dignity. It is not my faith, but the test of my faith...In the past people seemed to understand this. 'Vampires' as many insist in calling us, were valued allies. In many instances, the wicked knew we were coming for them. They made choices. Many preferred 'le bon mort' to all other deaths. They wept. They prayed. I prayed with them and remember almost all of them. They'd say - Take my soul back with a kiss, Lord... believing themselves in some way patched onto Moses the Redeemer .... But they're not him and I'm not God.... Not the Shepherd, but the sheepdog.... That's what we say. In later times, Europeans made a temporal, earthly kingdom out of faith. Every special thing, whether thought, or recorded scripture became a threat. Trembling boys from the universities were boiled alive in vats of pitch and sulfur for expressing views that have since become the hallmarks of humanity. So we were enemies, diabolical creatures meant to be crushed. I am not that and neither were my brethren. Tonight, at this time of year, I walk the streets saving the despondent. Many are alone. Many are in pain. I do not kill. I preserve. A young mother and child, with none beside them, has an 'angelic' visitor. If that helps her accept the gift, so be it. They receive my kiss and the merest droplets of my blood saves them. Earthly ills vanish. Are they vampires? Of course not. Do you think I would do that? Before parting, I leave gifts... rare diamonds of great worth, plus the names of honest, reverent brokers who will buy them. It's easier than cash, although sometimes I give that as well. The quiet homeless man knows me... The hardworking soul trudging back from endless toil knows me. Children in foster care know me. I especially like helping those nearing eighteen years of age. They feel so scared... so abandoned. Well, I let them know they are not. Be 'the good friend.' You have the power. .... That's a redundant phrase. Everyone knows that. The thing is to act on it. We're all taught worthy things. Muslims hear their words. Christians hear theirs. Jews do too. Remember your 'words.' Let them become deeds. We are all clean potential vessels for The Holy Presence. Let your souls ring like bells. Look, I am Jonathon ben Macabi, also called Tomas de Macabea. I heard these words... the ones Moses said to the faithful after The Revelation at Sinai ... 'I have given you this day the Good Doctrine. Chose 'life' and live. Go and do Good Things' Well, life is all about us. Remember your 'words.' Go and make them live. And one other thing before I take my leave. If, at times this tale dispenses blood and gore, please know that happens because many of you prefer it. Strange as it may seem, I and those like me have learned to read 'stats.' We know what draws eyes and what doesn't. Do I enjoy such episodes?... What do you think? But I hope they keep you coming back to see such truths as this. A joyous and meaningful Season of Miracles to us all. And a heartwarming and spiritual Feast of The Nativity to everyone. God is a verb... <PEACE of the Season, till next time> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ click Peace of the Season to all to browse every part of Vampire Wonderland, but first we must click on the 'subscribe' rectangle toward the upper, right of the screen, because the site governors have changed things. supposedly there's a direct link, but I don't know it yet. when I do, I'll share. click Peace of the Season ... to browse every part of Vampire Wonderland, but to do that we must also click on the rectangular 'subscribe' button toward the upper right of the screen. the governors of this site havs changed things. they say there's a direct link. I don't know it yet. when I do, I'll share. click Welcome ... to join me and a whole lot of even more worthy people on Twitter. kindly leave a comment? thank you.
And now, I tell you about Long Night, quite possibly the oldest, continuously celebrated 'holiday' in the world.... or in our part of the world. I'm sure denizens of the Night Wood in Patagonia, the Antipodes, or the old lands of The Zulu Empire, possibly the Maoris too dance a mean Stampanada on June twenty first. Our globe is but an exercise in opposites. One end 'north,' another 'south.' One side light, the other dark.
Well, this is our dark time. How the very physical particles of our bodies revel in it. I am Tomas de Macabeus, also known as Jonathon ben Macabi and I know. We all do. Little Annie capers about like a giggly, stringy haired spider, scampering up walls and skittering across ceilings. The wan, pubescent elferinas and elferinos drift through the streets and walls and mausoleums too.
I find others, vagabonds, from different shadows. They don't threaten us. It's Long Night, after all, a time for freedom and pixilated wonder. The bright, white heat of summer will be here soon enough.
The glass-like, icy cold, how it calms me. No garment sheathes my body, nor the bodies of any other Life-Eater. Our vampire flesh delights in each freezing caress. We resonate with a frequency undetectable to mortal eyes. We pass unseen among you, stopping only to cull the wicked as they sleep... a bad dream... a hungry incubus... a parched, dry succubus. How they purr as we lap them up... an easy death and quite undeserved. But their wickedness is gone. When they die, hallelujah, bye and bye, they'll fly away. Where to, is not our problem. Therein lies our purpose.
At other times, we dine but once each moon. On this night, rules are few.
We do mischief, flitting by those not foul enough for death, yet deserving of some troubling penalty. Snatch a heavy, golden wristlet. Pluck a diamond ear-bob, a fat wallet, or precision trophy watch. After centuries of such harvesting our casks are full. It's not leprechauns who have treasure. It's us.
The feast goes on... madmen and monsters... fools and mountebanks... heartless courtesans... poisoners and liars. Something for everyone. Such comedy tonight. Not all things 'funny' are clear and bright.
Little Annie, our sly child vampire, returns with an old Flintstones jelly glass filled with toes. She bites them off just before the 'finality'... just before death comes and spits them out, gristle, fat, moldy nails and all... There are dozens of such glasses on a little shelf in the cellar...all closed tight and sealed with wax. I suppose they are her treasures.
Now, please know that some 'cullings' are effortless. The bad folk slide into wherever it is they slide into. But every so often one fights. We're forced to persuade them. Ripping out livers works for me. You should see how surprised they look. Sometimes plucking an eyeball works. Sometimes it doesn't. You know how that is.
Then, with bellies filled we reconnoiter atop an urban tower, or in some small, unseen clearing in the park, to dance the Stampanada and howl. None can see. We're still invisible. Some mortals pick up the sound. They talk. They tell people. The press blames ghosts. Let them blame ghosts. Ghosts don't care.
But I do care for our ghost. I do care for the nice, little boy, the polio victim in the townhouse. We all do...
Now excuse me. I have an appointment to eviscerate and destroy a rather evil, toothsome loan shark in the Northern Liberties ( a nineteenth century district hiding narrow, cobbled streets on the northern ramparts of Center City). He doesn't know, but I do.... Vampires are privy to so many things...
And I want to dance the Stampanada once more 'fore the dawn...
<more 'Long Night' accounts next time>
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I might tell you of the minutiae ... of each little thing that happened. Vampires are like that. We have so much time to study and think. I know. They who follow this account understand. They've read the words and imagined these things. They've 'seen' me sit before paintings in dimly lit museums. They've seen me trace each brush stroke with my eyes and count dust motes on crisp, dry mummy skin. Some mummies 'talk.' I hear their words... the tiny scratching of scarabs upon the sand.
And now, of Jeanette...
She traveled with her newfound companion till they reached the hamlet where I found her. They spoke. He told her of his life in the south. That part of France is foreign territory to people in the north. French holdings along the Mediterranean are more akin to Italy's Piedmont and Spain's Catalonia than Picardy or Champagne or even Burgundy. Kings grab what they can. Culture means little. It always has. And the Jew she met lived not in those sun kissed lands but up by the Channel. Still, people value their memories, whether true or not..
Jeanette became Hannah, his kinswoman. He taught her a few Hebrew liturgical terms... the names of holidays... a prayer or too. Women, in the general population, were never expected to know as much as men. Jewish women were taught enough 'prayer book' Hebrew to follow the service. Maybe the head of a convent might be literate. Maybe not. Some dictated daily records to a male clerk sent over from their brother monastery, who in all likelihood tailored her words to suit his lord and father abbot. Too much distaff knowledge hinted at witchcraft. Everyone knew that.
Her benefactor, the money lender Avigdor, meant to find her a place with a group traveling south toward Paris. She could find work there at a market stall and maybe put enough by to start a stall of her own. Any place else, her best hope would be a drudge for some well-off burgers wife, or dying young....
'Dying young' was a glamorous resolution back then.
And it was dangerous for Avigdor to help her, for Jeanette was a Christian. Anything he did would be twisted the wrong way. Besides, the lord of that place owed him five pounds of English silver...
Now every year just after the final harvest, when root vegetables were dug up and the soil had its rest, they made a count. All souls were listed in a book. The church kept count for Trinatarians. Jews in the district were not permitted their own official record, but one of their number was charged with that duty. The tally was passed to the local landowner. But, please know, all Jews existed for the benefit of the crown, or some other august member of the royal family. Lesser nobles served merely as stewards. They may skim off some of the take from the peasants and serfs, but all tax moneys owed by Jews went directly to the king. Woe to the baron with an inaccurate tally.
In this woodsy holding north of Paris but south of the channel things were coming to a head. The lord had sticky fingers. The tally was due. Taxes must be paid. He'd find a way to make things right. So what if others 'suffered?'... So what... So what, indeed.
When the clerk came to count souls all were gathered in a little clearing... Christians to one side... Jews (when there were any) toward the other.... Avigdor prayed. He'd planned for Jeanette to be in Paris by then. He thought she'd be long gone. But she was still there, seated in the dirt, amongst the Jewish women, demure in her simple tunic and robe...
This holding was a small one... a few semi-free peasant families... eighty male serfs and their households... seventeen 'benighted' (as they were always termed) Jews and their dependents...That was it... And then the clerk came to the Jewish women.... Each gave her name, her age, her marital status, whether or not she had reached childbearing age, was in childbearing age, or had passed childbearing age. Things moved at a pace... till he came to the former Jeanette, now known as Hannah.
Avigdor tried to hear, but he sat too far away. Jeanette's back was to him, though he could see the clerk's eyes. The sly, little man took down everything. Then he gave poor Jeanette an incredulous look. She trembled. Avigdor saw her shoulders shake.
Three nights later he was dead, bludgeoned and burned, along with all others in his household... but Jeanette, or Hannah (whatever name the clerk put down) wasn't among them. They slaughtered the entire community. No Jews were left. All debts owed Avigdor or certain lesser personages were cancelled as were the lives of even the little children thrown down the well.
The lord was pleased. He kept his five pounds of silver. Look, not only were all debts cancelled, all records were destroyed. Plus the land formerly occupied by the Jews was now free for crops... Later on, when things settled down, he could lure in other Jews. How would they know about the massacre? Just let the king have one of his fits and (temporarily) banish them from Paris. They'd be begging for any putrid, mud hole they could find. That's the beauty about 'milking' Jews. What other choice do they have?
But Avigdor was the ranking money lender in these parts. He didn't live in a cottage. He had the 'Jew's House,' a stout, stone edifice with thick walls, no first floor windows and only small slit openings upstairs... a secure place to keep precious metals. At one time that was the fortress around here, till they put up the castle and that was still a work in progress.
Now they dug there day and night. All that silver had to be somewhere. They didn't throw it in the well with the babies, after all...
Were they afraid Jeanette would run off? Well, she'd done it once before. That came out real fast. Sometimes all that's necessary is to show the intended victim the instruments of torture. Show and tell. Show and tell. You show. They tell.
Know how they kept her from running? Made her wear a chastity belt... a heavy duty, tortuous chastity belt. Even a blacksmith would have trouble cutting through such tempered steel. Plus there was an engraving along the waistband ---- Kindly return the loathsome device and wearer to the castle in question and collect twenty silver pennies. Nobody wants to die locked in like that.
So she stumbled through the night, never going far, mumbling to herself and visiting the blessed innocents in the well.
That's how I, Jonathon, found her. All it took was a little drink and her thoughts were my thoughts. That's how I'm able to tell you this.
I HAD to save her. A reverent life-eater has no choice...
Would I be compelled to leave that cave? Would I have to cease being the 'Hermit?'... Of course...
But I'd be true to my 'call'.....
Cull the wicked... Save the worthy.
That's what we do...
<more next time>
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It is I, Jonathon, who lived this , but Billy types it out. Sometimes he misses a word or doesn't hear it all. A phrase might get changed. But memory does that too. Life itself edits what was and transforms it into what is. I've lived a long time. I know that very well. And I really did not think of Jeanette for decades, though memories rise up from depths on their own. Now please let me continue. She told me how she left her village and started walking. Women never traveled alone and 'declasse' types without any social standing, never left their assigned places at all. They couldn't. Would a grate leave it's place in the hearth? What difference could her hopes, or aspirations make? She was a serf, a human tool and nothing more. Only fortune prevented her from falling into the hands of a whore-trapper. They loved runaways... completely defenseless and all that. Sold them to the licensed brothel keepers of Paris. 'Licensed'... that's a misleading term. They paid protection money to some lord who ran a few 'dove cotes' on back streets here and there. And the lord passed some up to his betters too. Aristocracy has its prerogatives, don't you know. But, the whore-trappers didn't get her. She never wore the 'ankle bracelet' .... a shackle meant to link up to a stout chain. Some 'Paris Doves' never left their bedchamber. ... The slop woman came round and fed them like pigs. A 'wash hag' bathed them with a shallow bowl of greasy water, a none to clean sponge and something like soap when the stink grew too strong. Bedding was burned every three months. That was considered a Paris affectation. New pillows, blankets, sweet straw mattress and perhaps a sheet cost money. The 'doves' were kept naked. More efficient that way. Those who sickened, or showed signs of 'the taint' were discretely poisoned. New hatchlings were easy to find. I wander like this so I do not forget. So many memories. So many caves to explore. I'm sorry. Please, let me return to Jeanette. She met a man. He rode a mule. Two retainers walked with him. A man of wealth he was. Not a land owner. They had assets, but he had cash. He spoke to her, not in the language of those parts... not in the manner of the Isle de France as men spoke alone the River Seine. But in the older, more Latinate tongue of the south, as heard in Provence. His name was Avigdor, a man of finance and he was a Jew. Was she frightened? A little, for she'd never met a Jew before. One or two passed through her master's house, but she never spoke to them. Few serfs ever laid eyes on actual coinage... not silver. Maybe a copper here and there. This was a man of wealth, yet he made his way with but two retainers for he carried no coin. His business relied on notes of promise warranted by the ducal seal. None would harm him. He offered her wine, not to beguile her, for Avigdor was a devout soul, with a wife and children. It was only refreshment and Jeanette took it. Then he told him her story. She told him of her violent defilement by a boorish nobleman. He nodded. Avigdor knew their ways well. In the south, his people were vintners with hillsides of grapes going down toward the sea. They could own land and that was a very important thing. But where they were now, money lending at all levels was all they could do. Great lords used Jews to concentrate actual coinage, which the nobles in turn squeezed out of them. They traveled this way for a while. At night, the retainers prepared two small lean-tos, one for the Jew and themselves on the left side of the horse and one for Jeanette on the right side. They ate salt cod, carrots and hard bread. They drank wine, or fresh water from the many streams. Others on the road did more or less the same, though most ate salt pork and the way was quiet. Bandits had bigger fish to fry. In this way they progressed to the place where I found her.. But so much happened before that.... <more next time, hopefully real soon> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ click bit.ly/297pDxg to see all episodes of Vampire Wonderland, but they who operate this site say we must also click on the 'subscribe' rectangle toward the upper right corner of the screen... All of us... me too.. There might be a one click way to get there, but I don't know it. I'll share it when I finally discover it. click Twitter.com/wilkravitz ... to join me on Twitter.... please comment. thank you. ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
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