It was unseasonably warm and the grass was soft under Gretel’s bare feet. She pulled her hair over her shoulder and began to run, the fabric of her dress streaming out behind her in the wind.

Her legs could hardly go as fast as she wanted them to, just as it felt like her body would spring out of her skin and explode with sensation. Beneath that hot sun she sensed every piece of grass, ever beating of her heart, and she laughed out loud at the beautifulness of the feeling.

His name was Henry, and although she’d known him for all her life, his face flashed now through her mind like a dream. She had realized the day before that she was in love with him - what else, she thought, could this be, this ten-times-magnified beating of my heart? - and, ever since, she could hardly keep herself silent. Either she told him or she died from it, and even if she held it in and it broke her, they’d guess: she knew they’d guess. Gretel could not hold a secret. She burned with it and laughed it out of herself, and it did not take much to read her openly, like she was a book with her thoughts written out on the pages.

Finally, finally she was there, her feet feeling the abrupt shift from soft wild grass to the dirt of the road. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out but kept going at her former pace. The people in the village stared but they knew her far too well to think she was anything but strange, and it was not just things like this that made that opinion.

Henry was, as Gretel knew he’d be, in his father’s shop, but his father was not there. Doubly good. She finally stopped running at his door, pushing it open. No customers, only him and the soft smell of shaven wood, the sawdust in the air. He was a beautiful picture, a bead of sweat running down his tan skin, carving a way through the featherlike layer of dust that had settled on him. Gretel could see every muscle in his arms as he worked, but as the door clicked shut behind her, he stopped and turned.

“Oh. Gretel, you need something?”

“No - I’m, I’m not buying anything.” She hadn’t expected him to speak first. “Ah, Henry. How are you?”

“Busy. It’s too hot.”

“You should step outside for a moment,” she suggested, hoping he would so she could see him more clearly, beneath the sun’s light. “There’s a nice wind you can’t get in here.”

He nodded and even gave the barest hint of a smile, which she responded to in kind, and then they both went through the doors. Henry leaned against the wall of the shop, panting slightly. He wiped the sweat off his brow. “You’re right, Gretel.”

“Oh. …Thank you.” She grinned, playing all the while with a piece of hair that had fallen against her face. “Henry, we’ve known each other forever…”

“For a lifetime, anyways.” He was a few months younger than she but had more responsibility, and to Gretel he acted endlessly older. “Something bothering you?”

“Oh - no, not really.” She couldn’t stop smiling; it was like a disease. “But I was thinking. I really like you, Henry. I realized that lately. I think of you a lot.” She swallowed. She was going about this all the wrong way… “Do you think of me like that?”

He was silent a long time, a very long time, and when he spoke again his voice was soft, almost kind. “Gretel, I don’t. I might have, in a different time and place, but I - I’ve already got someone. I can’t think of you in that way.”

“What? But you’re not married or anything…”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “But as soon as the time comes…”

“Who is she?”

“I can’t tell,” he said, and now she knew he was being purposefully gentle, like his voice might break her in two. Her smile was long gone and actually Henry was blurring from the tears in her eyes. She sniffed, feeling pathetic. “I’m sorry…”

“Sorry? No,” he said. “Gretel, you’re - you’re a great girl… I’m the one who should be sorry. But I have to get back to work. So, goodbye for now.”

She forced a smile, even through the tears of her eyes, and then bolted away as quickly as she’d come, but this time running away, not towards.

Gretel didn’t know quite why she was running so fast. It wasn’t that she wanted to get away from Henry, exactly. The way he’d smiled at her even when she’d begun to cry showed that her strangeness didn’t scare him. It was circumstances. That was what books said a lot. Circumstances. Circumstances kept them apart. But now circumstances meant a girl, someone who, although she really didn’t want to stoop so low, Gretel couldn’t help but try and imagine. Doubtless she’d know in a year or so, when they married - or when the love affair broke apart and the girl ran away, or got pregnant. Who knew what would happen?

Gretel ran until her legs burned and even the wind couldn’t cool down the heat of her body. The tears were gone, though, and she slid down beneath a tree, her back aching against the roughness of the bark. She grimaced as she heard a sharp snag, the material ripping, but shifted more gently until she found a comfortable place, and then rested, looking up at the sky.

It was a long time - she had no estimate, but it felt like an eternity - before anything happened, and Gretel wondered if she was falling asleep. Then, out of the emptiness of the air came a voice, a woman’s voice, soft as to be barely audible. “That wouldn’t have made you happy, anyways.”

“What?” Gretel sat up straighter, restraining a yelp as the bark once more scraped her back. “Who’s there?”

There was a crunching of needles but no one appeared, and again, the voice spoke: “I can swear to you you’ll recover. I’ve been down that path before.”

“Who are you?” She was practically screaming, more impatient than anything.

From the shadows of the trees stepped a woman, dressed entirely in black. She had on thick, heavy-looking pants like a man’s, and a shirt made of some supple material that Gretel wanted to touch, because she could not from sight tell what it was made of. Her head was bare, showing long black hair tied up neatly but plainly. On her hands were black gloves, made of what looked like silk.

“You know who I am,” the strange woman said.

“But I’ve never met you,” Gretel said, staring and feeling quite ordinary in her white dress, loose hair, and bare hands and feet. “I’ve never met anyone like you.” Then it dawned, like someone had placed the thought into her head. “You’re a vampire.”

“Yes.” The woman looked down at Gretel, the wind playing with loose strands of her dark hair, and the girl looked her over with a curious eye. That beautiful, cloud-pale skin, the strange way of dressing, and most notably the unfamiliarity - she spoke with an odd lilting, faintly foreign accent - were all key signs.

“I knew you wouldn’t be afraid,” the woman said, not kind but not unkind either. “I’ve seen you in the village, down below. I saw you today. I watched you come.”

“How long have you been watching?”

“Not too long. A few weeks,” the woman vampire said, her arms crossing lightly. Even beneath the long sleeves of the shirt, Gretel could see that she was muscular, that those were the arms, if not the hands, of a worker. “But I can’t come down, of course.”

“They’d kill you.”

“They’d torture me and kill me,” the woman said bitterly, the first taste of emotion she’d shown so far. “I can’t ever go down there. I can’t talk to any of them.”

“Can you pretend to be human?” Gretel said, but even as she spoke the words she knew it was a stupid thought. The same things that had shown her the woman was a vampire would show the rest: they were cruel, perhaps, but not stupid.

“No. And if I show myself to anyone here, they’ll go crying back to their fellows, and get out their pitchforks to spear me with.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.” The woman smiled. “My name is Matiya.”

“Gretel.”

“Can I stay with you for a little bit? It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken with someone new,” Matiya said.

“Oh. Sure.” There really was nothing else she could answer with. If she refused, the woman could do just about anything with those muscles and with the teeth Gretel guessed she possessed.

Matiya lowered herself down slowly onto the grass, so she was just barely on top of the edge of Gretel’s skirt, and laced her gloved fingers together. “It’s lovely in this area,” she said. “My home is more in the mountains, so I don’t get flowers like this.”

“Your home?” Somehow that thought had never entered her mind.

“Yes. I don’t live by myself, but… it’s different, not having someone to talk to. A person can be surrounded by other people and still be alone.”

Gretel looked at her a moment before speaking. “Why do they hate vampires?”

“I don’t know.” Matiya met Gretel’s eyes; the vampire looked sad, or perhaps just thoughtful. “I have never gotten the chance to ask.”

“But do you drink peoples’ blood?”

“Not without their permission. And I don’t do it to kill them, not ever.”

“Oh.” Gretel folded her legs, shifting to get comfortable. “That doesn’t seem too bad, then.”

“Do you know a lot about vampires?”

“No,” Gretel answered slowly, choosing her words with care. “I’ve never had the opportunity to learn. As you can see.” She laughed, horribly self-conscious next to this beautifully-dressed woman. “But I have nothing against them. Against you.”

“I know. And that’s why I’m inviting you to come with me.”

“Come - with?”

“You’ll learn everything you could not here. Not only about vampires,” Matiya went on, “but about life, about the world, and so on. You can leave whenever you choose. But I want you to know… I’ve seen your life. I’ve seen the people you are surrounded by, your village, the books you have, the things they tell you. I want you to know, whether you come with or not, that that’s not the only way to live. That’s not what all the world is like. If you stay here, I can tell you exactly what your life is like. It will be exactly as it’s always been. Sure, you’ll get a husband - I won’t even say maybe; there is no maybe, because you are pretty and smarter than you seem - and then life will change a little. You’ll have children, and life will change a little. But you will live and die here, hardly meeting anyone beyond these people, these people you’ve known your entire life, learning nothing but what they know. Do you think that will be enough for you? It certainly would not be enough for me. You want to grow old here, watch yourself fade away without ever truly having lived? I don’t think that will satisfy you in the least.”

She stood up, her hand on the tree for support, and Gretel stood up with her as if they were bound by some invisible tie. “Wait! Don’t go, I haven’t said my answer.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll come with. You said I could leave if I want? So I will, if that’s what I choose. Take me with you. I want to go.”