The Halfling Chapter 2: Remembering Mama

Mama had always been Lisara's hero. She was a Curatoria after all, a female human gifted with magic and tasked with protecting halflings and vampire-kind. She had swiftly developed her combat skills and possessed exceptional potential as a Cura-in-training. That was when she had met Lisara's father.

Father was a full-blooded vampire, but never saw himself as superior, unlike some of the other full-bloods. He had lived for over 200 years and through two world wars by the time he met Mama. He had seen so much darkness in his lifetime, and Mama was the first bright thing he had seen in a while. There wasn't a rule that Cura and vampires weren't supposed to be together, but it was not encouraged. Cura had to be ready to lay down their lives for the survival of vampire-kind, and unless their partners turned them, they would not live for the majority of a vampire's life. And yet this didn't stop Father and Mama.

They married in front of the pack, and everyone joined them in celebration. So much of their lives had been spent hiding and living with the upmost sense of caution, that when a celebration came around no one threw a better party than a pack of vampires.

A few years later Mama gave birth to a halfling boy, Anthony. After him followed his sister, Lisara. They were perfect to Mama in every way and she swore to protect them until her last dying breath. Father had said it would never come to that point, as he meant to turn her, but still, she was prepared.

As prepared as everyone was, they never could have predicted Mama growing ill. It was a magical sickness, one that affected her abilities and made her weak. A sickness without a cure. It did not matter that Father had turned her after Lisara was born, her vampire blood could not save her.

Lisara was only 13 when her mother got sick, her brother a young man of 17 years. No matter how much she pleaded with the Universe to heal her mother, her condition only got worse. Lisara started to resent the Universe for making her mother sick. It wasn't fair that she was being taken away from her so soon.

Still, Mama managed to hold on until Lisara's 15th birthday. By then, Father had to help carry her up and down the stairs because her legs couldn't support the weight of her body. Despite all of this, she still managed to smile and laugh when she was around Anthony and Lisara.

Mama used the very last bit of her strength to bake Lisara a birthday cake. She sat at the kitchen counter while Anthony gathered all of the ingredients she needed. Then, she measured and tossed and whisked her way into creating a beautiful three-layer chocolate cake with rich fudge frosting and chocolate running down the sides.

Lisara's favorite, of course.

Mama loved every moment of making that cake for her precious Lisara. But she knew that this cake would be her last.

As Lisara blew out her candles, she knew that wishing for Mama to live would be a waste of her wish. Anyway, she didn't want Mama to suffer anymore. All she could wish for was for her mother to be free from pain and finally be at peace.

Two days later, Mama passed away. Father had tried to wake her up and realized she was gone. He had to stop Lisara from going in their room to check on Mama, he didn't want her to see her mother like this. The pack was alerted and a funeral was planned for that week.

Vampire funerals don't take place in churches, but rather in the forest in the shadow of night. The Universe is asked to watch over the soul of the vampire who has died, and then the body is burned. Vampires couldn't trust humans to leave the bodies alone, and some even said that Saviors could use the bodies to track the rest of the pack. So caution was standard procedure.

Lisara had turned away when they set fire to her mother's body. She did not want to believe that Mama was really gone. She had been a Cura, a guardian of vampires, and eventually a vampire herself. Why did she have to get sick?

Lisara had wailed in that moment, pure agony escaping her lips as she mourned her mother. All the pain inside her chest flowed out into the night air. A Cura had to give her a sleep spell or their presence in the forest would have surely been discovered. Father carried her home and Anthony, tears rolling down his face, walked behind him.

After that, Lisara, Anthony and Father had moved to live with the pack in one of their community houses. It was safer that way, without a Cura in their family to keep them safe. There, they lived for the next five years, until the Savior attacked.

Father had been the second one killed by the Savior. Lisara and Anthony had officially become orphans, and vowed to each other that they would stay alive at all costs. Losing Father and being separated from the pack and Anthony had almost been as awful as losing Mama.

Now it was just Lisara, and she worried that she wouldn't have the strength to keep going.

***

Her eyes fluttered open and she immediately felt the dull throbbing in her side. She tried to remember what had happened, and her mind flashed back to the farm with the burnt barn and the Spotted One. She had fed on it, and then been attacked by an angry bull. Just her luck.

Her eyes darted to an IV in her arm, and she looked around the rest of the room. It was cozy and small. Lisara lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV of what she assumed, and hoped, was pain medicine. There was a cushioned chair in the corner and a wide bookshelf to the left of it. A window was covered with blinds to the left of where Lisara lay. She wasn't sure how she got here.

Her head turned as the doorknob twisted and a young man quietly opened the door. He wore blue jeans and a green flannel shirt, and his brown hair was slightly tousled on his head. Lisara caught a glimpse of his blue eyes and guessed that he had saved her from the bull.

"Oh, you're awake," he said with a hint of surprise in his voice. "Well hi, I'm Teddy," he said with a smile. "I've been waiting for one of you."