To that I will dedicate my life, however long I am given.
Screams echoed through the castle, high shrill screams that shivered on the air like the rubbing of fingers round the rim of crystal glasses.
Jane was still writing when the door to her chamber was struck open by an angry hand, and Maria Crewfyrd stood on the threshold, her eyes quite wild. “What have you done?” she demanded.
“I employed my genius,” Jane replied, but her accuser was too incensed to suspect irony. So she explained, “I used my imagination to summon the galvanic powers gathered here, and described the opening of all locks, the unfastening of shutters, that we might gain the benefit of light and air.” She pointed her quill at the window, from which slants of golden afternoon light patterned on the stone floor.
“The Count—what have you done to the Count? His face—he’s transformed into a vile Semitic peasant!”
“I described him with the countenance he despises most,” Jane said. “I hope his new face will teach him compassion, if not wisdom.”
“You stupid fool!” Maria advanced on Jane. “He’s gone! The vampires are all gone down to the crypt and locked themselves within!”
Actually, that was not quite true. One remained, watching.
“My brother is trying to rouse them now—it might be months—it might be years before they dare emerge!”
Jane had packed her belongings. “I trust they will have cause to reflect. After all, if one is to claim to be a superior being, should not one’s actions reflect a superior standard of civilization?”
Maria’s face twisted with hatred. “And so, with your hypocritical countrified convictions, you condemn us all to a short existence and ugly old age. Jane Austen and her duplicity! I am glad you will never amount to anything.”
“I hope I am no hypocrite. But that is a battle we must fight every day, to choose what is right even when we are surrounded by foolishness and venality. Or evil.” Jane indicated the rest of the castle with her quill, trying to hide how frightened she was.
“Fight for what?” Maria retorted. “The only battle worth fighting is against age, and ugliness. There is nothing I will not do to remain young and beautiful. Nothing.”
Jane did not point out that the hatred distorting Maria's features did not make her beautiful now. Instead, she put pen to paper, and looked at up Maria Crewfyrd with intent. “I think I will—”
Maria turned and fled.
“—put you in a book.”
o0o
The servants stripped the castle of its treasures as they fled. The Crewfyrds departed in the only coach, leaving the Austens and Miss Evelyn behind, but some of the servants—perhaps aware of who their benefactress had been—aided them in leaving.
In the chaos of departure, Jane Austen’s papers vanished, but she was too hurried to search for them. By the time they reached civilization again, Charles Austen had recovered from Maria Crewfyrd’s spell, and Miss Evelyn had never noticed anything amiss. She had been too bespelled by her visions of fame to notice anything around her.
Those visions had to remain just that. The world was not agog at her drawings, and as she had not thought to sketch any of her companions, even a later mention of having traveled with Jane Austen did not raise much interest, as she had no proof to offer but a cross-hatched series of ruins and gargoyles much like anyone else’s.
As for Jane Austen, she had only sixteen more years to live—an eyeblink in the existence of a vampire—so she could not know that the Count and some of his companions would eventually dare the world again, nearly a century later. And because they had not learned either the compassion or the principles that Jane had tried to teach them, they were again defeated, this time more permanently.
That left the castle to me—the one who had taken Jane Austen’s papers, and who eventually obtained her other writings, as well as the subsequent imaginings of the men and women Jane Austen influenced, minds both wise and foolish, visionary and telluric.
It has been well over a century since the Count, driven by passion and greed, emerged to attempt the recovery of his powers, and two centuries since his first defeat via the pen in the small hands of a plain little woman. Though he desired the regenerative influence of genius, he did not understand its power.
I will not make the same mistake.
Copyright & Credits
Jane Austen After
Sherwood Smith
Book View Café 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61138-556-4
Copyright © 2015 Sherwood Smith
Cover illustration © 2015 Amy Sterling Casil
Production Team:
Cover Design: Amy Sterling Casil
Proofreader: Sara Stamey
Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital edition: 20151004vnm
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About the Author
Sherwood Smith writes fantasy, science fiction, and historical romance.
Book View Café Ebooks by Sherwood Smith
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A Stranger to Command
Senrid
Fleeing Peace
Remalna’s Children
A Posse of Princesses
CJ’s Notebooks
Over the Sea
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The Wren Series
Wren to the Rescue
Wren’s Quest
Wren’s War
Wren Journeymage
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Jane Austen After (collection)
Excerpts from the Diary of a Henchminion
Being Real
Book View Café Anthologies
Beyond Grimm
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Ways to Trash Your Writing Career
Dragon Lords and Warrior Women
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The Exordium Series by Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge
The Phoenix in Flight
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Sherwood Smith, Jane Austen After
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