Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 47359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 237(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 237(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Lara laughed. “I can relate to that.”
“My grandfather says he had first wondered if she had put a spell on him, since gypsies were notorious for casting spells and curses. When he asked her if she did, my grandmother got furious and told him to leave and never return if he believed she could do such a thing to the man she loved with all her heart. My grandmother can be very dramatic at times, and she has a temper, though it’s quick to fade. She claims it’s the gypsy in her.”
“But your grandfather couldn’t stay away,” she said, knowing how he must have felt, since the thought of leaving Michael filled her with sadness.
“No, he couldn’t stay away. He returned night after night, and then two things happened that changed everything. His father discovered that his son was involved with a gypsy woman and the gypsies discovered that my grandfather knew they were vampires. My grandfather was ordered to take part in a raid on the gypsy camp and kill the gypsy woman to break the spell his father had been convinced she had put on his son.” Michael paused a moment, his face suddenly shadowed with sorrow. “My grandmother was ordered to kill my grandfather.”
“Did they run away?” Lara asked, thinking it was their only way out of the horrible situation.
“It wasn’t a choice. My grandmother said her band of vampires would hunt him down and kill him. There was only one way—my grandmother had to make him a vampire.”
Lara gasped. “That’s when she cursed him.”
“That’s when my grandfather gave up being human for the woman he loved and as he says to this day, he has never regretted it.”
“So, she cursed him.”
“No, she cast a spell on him.”
“The book,” Lara said, pointing to it.
Michael picked it up, opening it and turning the pages with care. “My grandmother complied this book of spells, writing some lines in English and others in her native gypsy tongue. She felt it was safer that way, even though there were certain observances that needed to be met before a spell could be cast. She didn’t want to take any chances.”
He stopped at a page, though didn’t look at it as he recited the spell. “In the darkest time of night, when no moon shines fully bright, I call on the forces that be, to grant my impassioned plea, this love that beats strongly in our hearts, cannot survive if we must part, and so with love I curse his soul, as through the ages has been told, take our souls and combine, so that he/she will be forever mine, and in the years those we sire, will forever be born of fire, it is done and will always be, a love that lasts through eternity.”
“What happened to your grandparents after the spell was cast?”
“Once he proved to my grandmother’s people that the spell had worked, they married to seal his commitment to her and her people. My grandfather insisted my grandmother leave right afterwards since he knew the raid on the camp would come soon. He planned to join her after he spoke with his father. She refused to leave him and waited in a safe place in the woods. His father and he had a vicious fight and being my grandfather was so new at being a vampire, he couldn’t control the urge to show his fangs when threatened. His father ordered a stake to be driven through his heart and his body burnt. My grandmother could read my grandfather’s thoughts and sense his feelings, as I do yours, and she didn’t hesitate to save him. With constant wars in their homeland and changing times, they eventually came to the New World and made a new life for themselves and generations to come. But you will not see that story in the books on the Village of Mull and I know you will understand when I ask you to keep the story to yourself.”
“Of course,” Lara said, “though who would believe it? It sounds more a myth.”
“But somewhere in a myth is a basis of fact, something that gave birth to the myth.”
“Like the suggestion that this town was founded by a vampire. However, did that myth, though actually fact, get started?” she asked.
“My grandfather credits my grandmother with that one. It seems Grandma wanted to honor her family or band of gypsies. They were known in their own circles as the band of mulla...band of corpses. Grandpa shortened it to Mull, and curiosity—which you are very familiar with—had a journalist putting two and two together and coming up with the idea that the Romanians who settled Mull were gypsies. He insists that the original town name was probably Mulla, which then of course had to mean that the founding family had to have been vampires. The story stuck, though the town has fought hard through the years to negate such a ridiculous claim.”