YOUR NARRATOR: 

Hello

Hello friends. 

Hello.

Are you there?

Are you listening?

Are you still with me?

I'm still here. It's still me. I'm just, even still, confused. Perhaps even more confused, still. Because...when you admit to yourself that you have no idea who you are or what you are or what your purpose is, but you know that you must march forward and stay on the road, no matter where it may lead...well, there is a sort of abandon, a sort of surrender, to that kind of power. The only other option is to get off the road, and that is no option at all.

Unless there's another road.

There isn't, for me. 

Does that make sense? 

Do I make sense?

Does any of this make sense?

Tell me. For the love of everything good and green and natural and innocent, tell me if I'm making sense. 

Forget it. Forget what I said. Just listen to my voice and let whatever stress the day brought you fade away. 

I bring peace. I bring shadow and the cry of the wind and the moonlight peeking through barren autumn tree branches and I bring peace. 

Let me do that for you. If maybe only for a little while. I can be a beautiful haunted forest for you.

I must slow down. Things are moving too quickly. Changing too drastically. I feel like change is a drug. It's addictive and it makes you restless and it feels wonderful, but it fills me with a sort of dread....like this feeling must snowball into self-destruction. There is no happy ending to ruthless ambition. 

We must be careful.

We must play our cards right. 

And, you know what?

I miss her. 

I miss that sad girl in the mirror. 

More on that another time. I can't really bear to even begin thinking about her. 

More about splendid Me. 

...

All right. I have nothing more to say about me. 

I've said enough about me lately. 

Instead, I shall tell you a story.

A story about a splendid and formidable someone alone in a fortress. 

Where to begin about this creature?

[a sad, slow melody on piano plays]

First of all, She. Though she might have expressed some kind of bitterness - or was it pride - towards being called She, as there is a more popular "He" with her story.

She was (and, perhaps, still is) immortal.  A child of a medieval age, if not earlier, and of a vicious, cruel place where you had to be vicious and cruel to survive.

And she thrived. 

Some said she made a pact with the Devil. Some said she drank the blood of her enemies and it cursed her. Others said she cursed herself after the death of a loved one. 

She, herself, only laughed at these concepts, though she didn't tell me what the true reason behind her long and formidable life was. I think this would forever be her secret. 

She hid, for many long years in her fortress. A layer of dust covered everything, including her hair and her clothes - resplendent robes that grew less and less colourful with each passing decade. 

She told me a story. It's not an unfamiliar story. In fact, it's a very popular story. It's just that they always get the protagonist wrong. 

She was, as I said, living alone in her fortress of dust and decay. Unlike the story, she did not have a secret room where three hidden lovers lived. No. Like most of us (at some point in our lives, perhaps at most points of our lives, depending on who and what we are), she lived alone. If one could call it life. 

And she dreamed. She dreamed to herself all day, and at night she paced around, thinking on her dreams. She dreamed of a companion. Perhaps a companion like one she might have had in the past, though more and more, their faces seemed to fade from her memory. Her memory was long, but her life was longer. Oh, I understood this feeling all too well. But her dreams. She imagined a Him, for whatever reason. Coming to the house. Bringing her out of the dust and the decay and into the light and the air. Even though she could never really go out into the real light, not sunlight anyway, she imagined being shown this new world that she sometimes read about in books that somehow made their way to her castle. Newspapers. The whispers of her sometimes-present, always-fearful servants. 

She read of cities that were, at night-time, especially thanks to the invention of electric light, bright as day. She read of beautiful homes across the sea that were close to such cities, and would allow her to be a part of this new world, while still remaining safe and careful, calculated. Just as I seek to be. 

And she read of a man. A young solicitor, ambitious and newly appointed with his firm. She saw his photograph. Somehow, somewhere. She learned of him. And when she saw his photograph - ahh, photographs! What a marvelous thing, to be able to see someone so clearly from so far away in the world - when she saw his photograph, it stirred some sort of memory within her. It was unclear - foggy, blurred and obscured, like all of the ancient mirrors in her own home from when she was young and vital and, frankly, alive - but the memory was there. And it was fond. Loving. Gentle. And this memory of these feelings, stirring in her so many centuries later, was so new and so powerful that she had to find him. Had to somehow bring him to her. Had to somehow have him close.

Easy enough. She wrote to his law firm. She was interested in property overseas. She requested him by name. She would have none other than the young, ambitious solicitor. She wanted someone with energy and life. Blood. She needed young blood in her home. But she needed his blood. 

She received word. He would come to her. It would take some time - he would travel by ship - but he would come. 

She could barely contain herself, but he was coming. He was on his way. 

She prepared her home as best as she could. She prepared herself as best as she could. But, as I said, she had no mirrored reflection with which to see her own appearance. She had no idea what the conventions of hosting a guest were anymore. She felt, suddenly, quite lost. 

No matter. He would come. And he would guide her. That was, after all, what she was "hiring" him for. To help her find a home overseas. To familiarize her with their customs. To hold her hand through this strange and frightening new age. 

And the day - or, rather, evening - arrived. The evening where he would be coming, and she would meet him, face-to-face. See if those feelings arose in person, when she saw his face again. Again, she could not be certain, but she tried to look lovely. She hoped that she at least looked presentable. She found the least ancient and faded of all her gowns. She tried as best as she could to replicate the images of modern women she had seen in newspapers in her hair, her posture, her expression. She knew that it was all off. But she tried. She had to. 

And she had to do some other things. Things she hoped were not considered deceitful. She did not want to startle him with her anemic features. She sat at her mirror, again, the reflection in it blurred and unfocused and empty, and she carefully applied an ancient red paint to her lips. She rubbed a little into her pallid cheeks. Her hair, though it once had been dark, was now stained with so many years of dust that it seemed grey somehow. And it had grown so long, it dragged behind her past her feet. She normally didn't care, but now, she suddenly felt self-conscious. She gently rubbed a black sort of wax into it, trying to conceal the evidence of her hundreds of years. Oh, poor thing, I understand. I understand how loneliness can make you ashamed of your wisdom and power and any physical signs of it. She looked at magazines and advertisements and tried to pile her hair on top of her head and pin it in place like the women in the photographs. She had to feel it with her hands, since she could not see the results. It would have to do. She was shaking with fear and anticipation. 

But when he arrived, the fear went away. His warm smile and his well-practiced etiquette did his job and put her at ease, despite the fact that she saw - just for a split second - a little shock and confusion in his expression when she answered the door. She could smell his fear when he saw the size of the castle, and how dimly lit it was on the inside. She had practiced her own etiquette many times. She had been practicing to speak English - not only English, but the modern version of English they were speaking in Victoria's London. Her strange accent was thick, but her vocabulary was excellent. She had had years and years and years and years to learn many different languages. But she couldn't bear to shake off the evidence of her mother tongue. Extinct though it was. 

She had him to dinner, though she didn't eat. She watched him with fascination as he drank wine and ate the sumptuous feast she had had a servant prepare for him. But they were alone now. They spoke of his home, and of the world now. He wanted to speak more and more of business; of the home she might want in this new world across the ocean. He wanted to speak of transactions and investments and deposits. And she was fine with this. She indulged him. Money was no object, she insisted. She had royal blood, and gold to spare. She didn't care about this. She wanted to learn more of him. She wanted him to speak, about anything, really, just so that as she listened to his kind and gentle voice, she might remember why he seemed so familiar. What was he to her, in the past? She had lived long enough to learn that people don't really disappear from the world; there are, simply, breaks in the cycle of existence sometimes. Except for her. She was strong enough to bear the burden of existence without rest or reprieve. 

As he drank wine, she could tell that he grew a little more comfortable with her, with every glass. This pleased her. And it was true; the initial shock of his host's strange appearance, her unusual expression and countenance, and her confused evening wear, had wore off. He was now faced with perhaps the most wise and interesting woman he had ever met. He was entranced with her; drawn, like a moth to a flame. 

"That locket, by your pocket-watch." She pointed out, just noticing it as he drew his watch out to see the time, about to apologize for the late hour. "What is inside?"

He smiled bashfully, and yet proudly pulled the locket out and opened it. A lovely young lady's photograph lived inside. "Oh, this is my fiance. Lovely, isn't she?"

And the woman clenched her jaw so tightly that, were she human, her teeth would have cracked. 

"We are to be married once I return. I miss her terribly; we've never been apart this long." 

And, in a moment where timing was not on either of their sides, his hand slipped as he tried to cut his meat through all the wine he had been drinking. He cut his finger. Wincing, he stood up, about to excuse himself to take care of it- 

but she was on him in a flash. She had a great degree of self-control and poise in most situations; but with her heart suddenly breaking itself in two, followed by the sight and smell of fresh blood, our Dragon Queen here - whatever you would like to call her - could not control herself. She thrust him against the wall, a hand on his throat, his feet off the ground, and she snarled at him with two canine fangs. 

And then, the bloodlust in her eyes faded as she realized the gravity of her error. 

She lowered him to the ground. 

He was shaking. 

She turned from him and apologized. The wine must have gotten to her, she quipped, though both of them knew full well she hadn't been drinking any wine all evening. She never drank...wine. 

She sighed. She instructed him to go and refresh himself. Perhaps have a good night's sleep. Tend to his injury. Rest well. Your room is ready for you. Don't explore the castle, you may get lost. 

He quickly ran to his quarters without another word. And she went down to her cellar. In her cellar, there was nothing. Only stone, wet and cold and uncaring. And, of course, the coffin in the centre of the room. She locked the door with several heavy deadbolts that only she had the strength to pull and lock into place. She tried to rest in the casket. But she couldn't. She ground her teeth. She wept. She screamed. She pounded on the lid. She had ruined everything, hadn't she? 

As she had years ago with the man that this man reminded her of. 

If only she could remember it. 

You see - and you must know that I speak from experience here, I think, or I once thought - when you live so long, your memory becomes confused, and your curse is more that you are doomed to repeat your mistakes. Over, and over, and over, and over. 

Poor thing. 

The next evening she rose for her appointment with him. 

But he had somehow left. 

You remember that I told you how the stories about this women confused her with a man. I think it was a thing more of convenience. There was once a ruler born in the same time and place as her, and he simply fit the romantic story better than her. Imagine! A fierce immortal man living in a castle, demanding the world bend to his will! But no. It was her. And she was fierce and powerful, but she was also quite sad. 

Sad, and lonely, and confused, and in love. 

That does not make for good horror, does it? 

Well, it did. 

The man had left her in the night. He had wit enough to get out of the place, at all costs. And no, she didn't have infernal hounds defending her by day, or strange blue flame marking her omnipotence. She was just a creature, asleep in a cellar. Of course he escaped. 

She let out a roar. She tore at her long hair. She tore at her horrible modern garments. She raged through the castle, tearing at paintings, knocking over priceless artifacts, screaming and crying until she was too exhausted to move any more. 

And she stood in her dining room. Her eyes red and wild. 

She saw the papers she had pored over with him the night before.

The papers she had signed. 

She had purchased a home.

A home in his city. 

She smiled. 

[The same melody as before on piano, starting quietly and sadly, but becoming much more rousing, more of a rhythm, strong, decisive, as it goes on.]

I will follow you, she said to him, though he wasn't there.

And she started packing.

For, you see, the thing that all these stories about this creature who made such a journey to terrorize a fumbling, unfortunate group of people in London forgot the one thing that this quintessential vampire's tale fully hinges on...

Is the fact that Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned. 

And as I carefully bring my spider-web peace to you and to your lives, one day at a time, calculated and deliberate, 

I want you to remember that. 

Do not scorn me, friends. 

Do so at your peril.

For now, though, imagine that black night-time sea that that lonely, ruthless woman sailed across to find the man she loved. 

What a lovely thing.

Sweet dreams.

Hello everyone, thank you very much for listening to me tonight. Thank you for listening to me every night that you do listen to me. What a nice thing it is, to be heard. This was Episode 36 of On a Dark, Cold Night, and I'm Kristen Zaza, your writer, producer, actor, and source of confusion for both you and myself and probably everyone around me. 

First off, a few big thank-yous to a few more reviews. First, to Elaine-ah, who left a review on iTunes that gave me 5 stars titled "Dark & Good" and goes on to say, "Creepy but cool!". Thanks so much, Elaine-ah! I strive to be dark, good, creepy and cool. Next, thank you to a couple of folks who recommend the show on Facebook. Starting with Justiny, who calls the show: "Poetic without being unintelligible. Passionate without overdoing it. Right in the zone!" Wow, thanks Justiny! I will tell you that I know this person and this is high praise from a very critical consumer. So it means a lot. Next, thank you to Stacey, who recommends the show and says "Love the stories! One of my fave podcasts." Thank you so much, Stacey! Every time someone says this podcast is one of their favourites, I start to grow a little tiny pair of black wings of my own. Thanks so much, friends. 

As always, if you'd like to help out the show, please leave a review on iTunes, Stitcher, Podknife, or on my Facebook page, and maybe you can hear your words read out here as well! You can also tweet me @ADarkColdNight, or find me on instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast. You can email any thoughts or questions to darkcoldnightpodcast@gmail.com. I'm always happy to hear from you guys. It's a lonely world, let's connect. 

You can also help out by listening to the show on the RadioPublic app. It's free for you to use, and every listen goes towards me being paid for my work, since I'm a part of their amazing Paid Listens program. It would be so awesome if listened there. 

Finally, you can donate to the show via Ko-fi or Patreon, and this would be such a huge help. I would love to eventually buy some equipment to improve the quality of the music on the show, so every little bit helps. You can buy me a coffee at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight, or become a patron on patreon.com/darkcoldnight. 

Thank you again for listening. Again, what a nice thing. I hope you're enjoying the show. Looking forward to talking to you next week too. Have a great night, take care.