VROLOK Read Free Page B

before.
Dear Reader,
My name is Isabella Zelonka. I am not the Isabella that you will read about in this book, although my name will be mentioned. My mother’s name was Katya. The last thing she asked me to do before she died was to write this book, so that generation after generation of our family could read it and know our family’s story.
I have pieced this book together from stories my mother told me, stories Isabella told me, and rumours and whispers that I have listened to ever since I was a child.
My advice to any future reader of this book is to read it carefully and pay heed to every passage. For this book was not written as a historical account—it was written as a warning.
 
Written in the year of our Lord Fifteen Hundred and Fifty.
    Anna sighed and began to speak: “This book was written over three hundred years ago.” She turned the page and began to read aloud.
     
    The chapters of this novel that are written on the succeeding pages are not the passages that were written by Anna’s family, but they are the story that was told to the author. What follows is Isabella’s story, an account of how she became a Vampire. Anna’s family gave testaments to these events, but those were destroyed more than one hundred years earlier.

TRANSYLVANIA
THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST 
     
    CHAPTER TWO
    Our story begins in a different time. Anna’s ancestral book has not been written and fifty years have passed since Vlad Dracula collapsed on the mountain at the news of his wife’s death.
    The story of Anna’s family begins in a village in the Carpathians. The village is bustling with activity because a young girl is about to be married and this young girl’s name is Isabella.
    Isabella was beautiful. No, more than that, Isabella was perfect. Her hair was raven. Her lips vermilion. Her eyes were the darkest green, like the forests in the north, and her skin had an ivory glow. She shone like a goddess among mere mortals.
    Isabella was aware of her beauty—how could such a creature not be aware of her own elegance? Despite this, she was good-natured. She was proud, not arrogant, precocious, yet respectful and very, very, impetuous.
    Isabella had few friends, not because of circumstance nor even because of lack of favour, but by choice. Isabella would not consider anyone she could not trust completely to be her friend. One of the few friends she did have was a young girl named Katya. The two girls had known each other and been friends all their lives.
    Katya had been born with a crippled leg and when she was very young she could hardly walk. One day when Katya was only four years old she had lost her footing and fallen. The other children of the village were making fun of her and laughing, but one child came apart from the others, kneeled down beside Katya, wiped Katya’s tears away with the hem of her dress, smiled and helped her up. This child was, of course, Isabella. She looked like an angel coming to rescue Katya from the harshness of the other children. On this day their friendship was formed and it would be an enduring friendship, and Isabella’s loyalty to Katya would last for longer than either girl could possibly realise.
     
    Katya had recently been married and was on her way to help Isabella prepare for her wedding. When Katya arrived Isabella was ready and waiting for her.
    “You’re dressed already,” Katya began.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” replied Isabella.
    “You look beautiful, Isabella. But, then again, you always do.”
    Isabella gave her the usual obligatory coy smile. “And you get bigger every time I see you!” she said enthusiastically.
    “I know,” Katya said patting her stomach. “If it is a girl I’ll call her Isabella.”
    Isabella smiled at her friend. “You are so sweetly sentimental, Katya,” she said, and then she looked over to where her grandfather’s sword stood against the wall and began to speak again. “I wish he could have lived just another year longer.”
    Katya saw