Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle. Carlos Allende
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couldn’t be that direct. He might take offense and decide not to respond to her letter. She wrote instead that she would love to hear from him, and that if he had the time, he should visit. I know how to bake a delicious pineapple upside down cake, she wrote. If you ever come to Venice, I can bake one for you to try.
That would do. Letting him know that she existed was sufficient. Vampires aren’t stupid. He would guess what a terrible existence she had and send for her.
Since she had no name herself, she signed with an X. If nothing else, the sender’s address would tell her godfather who the letter was from.
Finally, because she didn’t know where to send it, the young girl simply wrote New York on the envelope. Vampires live in secret, she reckoned, so it would be poor taste to write that title on the envelope. She gave the letter to Rosa in hopes that she would know where to send it.
“I know where he lives,” Rosa responded. “But I doubt he will respond.”
Two days later, a package appeared at their door with Rosa’s name written in fancy red letters. Inside, the sisters found a magnificent dress made of spider silk with thousands of fly wings embroidered with golden stitches. There was nothing else in the box—no card and no letter—but they knew instantly it could only be a gift from the English fairy. Only he could have responded that fast and send such an expensive present. The dress shone as bright as if the fabric had been spun out of moonbeams. It was the most beautiful garment they had ever laid their eyes on, and so light that if you threw it into the air, it took a full ten minutes for it to float down and hit the ground.
Rosa immediately tried on the dress, announcing to her sisters that maybe it would magically transport her to her godfather’s castle. It didn’t, and that was a true disappointment. The three girls knew well what the gift meant: a polite and awfully expensive way to say no, I cannot bring you into my tiny castle.
Hence, Rosa lied. She closed her eyes and reopened them a second later: “My!” she exclaimed. “It feels good to be back home after having spent an entire year at my godfather’s castle!”
Victoria and the nameless young girl exchanged a look of incredulity.
“My dearest sisters,” Rosa continued with an affected tone, “I am so happy to see you! Especially you, Victoria. You haven’t changed one bit in all these months. I’m so terribly happy to be back, but so seriously tired too, for I spent most of that time attending elegant balls and hunting. Do pull up a chair for me to sit on, darling,” she begged her youngest sister. The young girl did as requested.
“I have so much to tell,” Rosa continued, sitting down. “I witnessed so many riches and talked to so many elegant ladies at my godfather’s brugh—the silk, the rubies and diamonds! But first, my dearest, you need to bring me up to date. What has happened during my twelve-month absence? How’s that awful man we call father? Is he still alive? Did you ever got a response from your godfathers?”
Victoria replied that nothing had happened, that she had never left the room.
“Wonder of wonders,” was Rosa’s response. “Magically transported to and from my godfather’s brugh in an instant. An entire year in Albion in less than one second. Bloody bollocks,” she added, trying to sound British. “Cockles and mussels, Virgin of Brighton, isn’t that proof of Lord Oakenforest’s infinite power?”
Victoria didn’t, but everyone else bought her nonsense.
“Why did he send you back?” their friends at the Boardwalk asked.
“I chose to come back. I missed you girls terribly.”
“Did you go to London?” asked O’Leary.
“A few times. And every time the weather was rubbish.”
In any case, what a gorgeous, beautiful sight it was to see Rosa wearing that dress! Victoria laughed when she saw her dancing, and not with the bitter sneer common to antagonistic sisters, but truly content at Rosa’s gaiety.
Even the drunkard had a compliment for her. “You look nice,” he said. “You remind me of the Blessed Virgin.”
The young girl yipped in delight every time she saw Rosa standing against the afternoon light coming through the window. She truly looked like a Marian apparition, the young girl thought, feeling happy for her sister, especially now that Rosa referred to her no longer as a stinky ass but as a “dahling.” “Dahling” here and “dahling” there; Rosa still treated her like a servant, but it was nice to be given orders in a sweeter tone, accompanied with an affected “please” and followed afterwards by a “thank you.” Maybe she too would receive a dress like that sometime soon, the young girl dared to think. Maybe she too would be magically transported to New York in an instant. But, no, she wouldn’t come back. Not for the love of nothing. Not after one year, not after twenty. Not to this horrible house and not to this city. Not ever. Wonder of wonders, she kept repeating to herself, examining up close the fine embroidery in her sister’s dress but not too close as to actually touch it. She only needed to be patient.
Rosa forwent mourning attire and wore the dress every day and every night for a full ten days. She became the best dressed debutante in Venice; the most photographed, and the most solicited. Alas, the dress was so delicate it tore apart on the eleventh day, when she tried to wash it—more tears, more fists thrown into the air, and more heartbreaking drama!
Thank God she had not been appointed with the task to wash it, the young girl thought with horror. Rosa would have killed her.
A few days later, they received a telegram from Harris: “‘Magnolia and I delighted to have you,’” Victoria read aloud. “‘Rosa welcome too.’”
Anticipating that the fairy may not give a favorable response to her sister, Victoria had asked her godparents to also take Rosa.
“We fight, but we are the best of friends too, aren’t we? It would break my heart to live away from you. I wouldn’t wait a year to come back if I couldn’t take you. I wouldn’t ever leave if it was without my favorite sister.”
Rosa was stupefied. She would have preferred to move to England, of course, and Venice was still fun—the beach, the rides, the dance halls and the gaming houses—but it couldn’t compare to the thrill of living in the burgeoning city of Los Angeles, “a city of over three hundred thousand,” Victoria said, “a size commendable enough to justify our presence.”
Rosa begged for a tissue to clean up her nose. She was moved.
“Magnolia is a bore,” Victoria continued, “but Harris is a lot of fun. What do we have to lose? We’ve worn out all our welcomes in Venice. In the city, we will be incredibly happy!”
What other choice she had? Rosa said yes.
They obtained their father’s permission—it took only one trip to the liquor store—under the condition that the youngest would stay behind to take care of him and of the house.
“But she wasn’t invited,” the girls laughed.
They packed their bags, said good-bye to a few friends and acquaintances, and that same afternoon they took the Red Car to Los Angeles.
In little over an hour the two of them were trudging up the hill on Olive Street, singing Christmas carols (in mid-September!) and congratulating each other on their good fortune.
“We’ll go to the theatre every day,” Rosa commented, admiring the majesty of the high rises along their way.
“And to the opera,” Victoria stroked a column made of alabaster with the tip of her fingers.
“And to the shops on Broadway.”
Back then Bunker Hill was a petit paradis, a Mount Olympus on the outskirts of the city, full of tall apartment buildings, houses with intricate window frames, turrets, steep pitched roofs, and dainty rose gardens, all less than a five minute walk away from Central Park (today’s Pershing Square), a more suitable place, the two sisters reckoned, than Windward Avenue or the Boardwalk to