Writer's note: Sorry, gentle readers, there are no graphic sex scenes in this prequel to MAGE AND SPIRIT. You won't even find a description of a woman's breast since we see things through the innocent eyes of our pubescent heroine, Elizabeth. Besides, everyone knows that male vampires are more interested in blood than in sex.
*
Lizzy was a happy little girl in December of 1919. School at Madame St. Pierre's School for Young Ladies was ending for the holidays and her father would arrive soon to take her back to New Orleans. Christmas was coming and best of all her big brother had received his discharge from the British Army. His ship would arrive before New Year's Day and they would all be together for the first time since 1914. Perhaps Lucius Carter would even be in New Orleans, and just maybe he would see her as more than a playmate.
Some of the girls had already left so the dormitory was half-empty on that cool December night when Miss Sherrie put her charges to bed and retired down the hall to her room. Lizzy followed Sherrie like a puppy for a little "girl talk". If any of the older girls had heard them they would have called her a "silly little Irish tart" for envying Sherrie's well developed nineteen year old figure, but for ten year olds beginning to feel their hormonal changes Sherrie was a role model. Several girls had entered puberty already during the school year and in the absence of their mothers and older sisters Sherrie had taken them aside and educated them on personal hygiene. Sharing close quarters in the dorm had taken the "yuck factor" out of the experience for the younger girls, including Elizabeth.
"D' ya' think I'm silly for wantin' Lucius t' notice me?" Liz had asked Sherrie. The concept of the "crush" was unknown to young ladies of good families and "proper" schooling had all but erased her Ulster accent.
"I think he'd be a fool if he didn't" Sherrie replied. "You've grown breasts since you've been here. He's what, thirteen now? He'll notice you, if he's anything like my brothers."
Too old for toys, too young for boys as grandmothers would say, Lizzy eventually returned to her bed and fell into pleasant sleep until she heard someone calling Sherrie.
Mercy, thought Liz, i' must be midnight. Who wou' call Sherrie a' this hour? Then she heard it again, only not with her ears. It was like a dream. Oh, I mus' still be asleep she reasoned, but then she saw Sherrie pass the open door heading towards the stairs. Sherrie's white nightgown swept the floor as she walked, reminding Liz of a bride's gown that needed an attendant to hold its train up off the floor. Who better to hold it than she?
