It was April, and things were sprouting in the garden. Little heads of lettuce and sweet pea shoots and apple blossoms on the trees.

So much had changed, but the smell of apple blossoms remained the same. Drusilla remembered last year, when Mama had baked bread and little cakes and sent the four girls out for a picnic near their apple trees the first day the ground was warm and dry enough.

"Shoo, lambs," she had said. "Get some sun into your cheeks. You're far too pale!"

And her sister Lucinda , the vain one , had fretted about freckling, and little Maria had spilled the pitcher of lemonade all over the clean tablecloth, and Georgina had spent the whole time sulking because Peter Amberson had chosen to waltz with another, richer, girl the night before.

They are talking to her now, telling her to leave, to join them. She shivers. "Grandmummy won't like it if I go out on my own," Drusilla told her sisters, and began picking apple blossoms to weave into a crown as she listened more closely to the voices inside the house. Grandmummy was speaking.

"You had your fun with her last night, remember?" she asked. "Didn't even ask me to join in. I had to go get my supper all by myself. Let me have a turn tonight."

Angelus threw up his hands in defeat. "Yes, Madame," he said. "But I'll be wanting to hear all about it when I get back from the opera." A door slammed, and Grandmummy came into the garden, all rustling silk and rouged lips.

"Drusilla," she said, "What are you doing?"

"The flowers called out to me," Drusilla explained, dark hair tangled with blossoms. "They said they wanted to join the stars." She turned an intent gaze on Darla. "I want to join the stars, too. Shall we?" She began swaying in a dance of her own.

Darla slapped her. "Stop that!"

"Yes, Grandmummy. But the flowers so want to dance." Her face morphed. "And, Grandmummy, I'm so hungry , can we go find some nice, fresh, little girls to eat?"

Darla sighed, jerked Drusilla's arm. "Damn it, can't you ever talk plain? And no, no little girls tonight. Between you and Angelus, it's a wonder the magistrate hasn't come around yet." She paused to think. "How about a pregnant whore or two? You can taste the baby's blood mingling with theirs."

"The little lambs , I can hear them screaming."

"I'll take than as a yes," Darla said, guiding Dru as they gathered cloaks and bonnets and freshened their hair, stopping the dark-haired girl from pinning a live mouse to her hat.

"But it would squeak so! Music wherever I went, think of it, Grandmummy."

"You can wear it around the house later. For now ," Darla sighed. "Let's just go find some dinner."

They walked down the street to a pub, the Silver Raven. Darla ordered red wine. Drusilla peeped out, shyly, from underneath her bonnet and asked for gin.

"I thought we'd decided you wouldn't drink," Darla hissed when the barkeep turned away.

Dru pouted. "Daddy lets me have it. I like it , the taste reminds me of forests and bears and screaming kittens."

Darla, letting it drop, scanned the room with a practiced eye. It was a sorry lot, mostly workmen getting in a furtive drink before going home. No true whores, even, though the few women probably could be had for enough silver. She reached behind her to grasp the glass the bartender had slipped to her. Sipping it slowly, she took another look to see if anyone looked like decent prey.

An old man in the corner , missing teeth, and gamy from sweat , smiled and lifted his hand to her in a salute. Darla dropped her eyes in disgust and turned away, swiveling towards Drusilla. "We should go," she said. Drusilla said nothing, staring across the room.

"Those men," she said, gesturing to two men in bowler hats bent over pints of ale. "They keep smiling at me, like the king of hearts."

Darla sat up straighter. "Smiling at you, are they?," she said, noticing that the men looked plump and useless, the sort that would come with them easily and be missed slowly. "Well, I'll have to take care of that." She smiled across the room, looked down, in the old flirtatious dance. When she was sure she had the men's attention, she walked slowly across the room, allowing her fingertips to just brush one man's jacket as she sauntered past.

"But you promised me mamas and babies, Grandmummy!," Drusilla whimpered.

"Later," Darla started to say, just as the man with dark hair emerged from the pub.

"Grandmummy?," he said, eyebrows raised.

"It's a sort of nickname," Darla answered, smiling as she slipped her arm through his. "My name is Darla, and this is Drusilla."

The man nodded. "I am Albert, and my friend is Tom. And where should you like to go this evening?," he said.

His companion , blond and stout , took Drusilla's arm as he looked from Drusilla to Darla, calculating. "We have a room," Tom said. Albert shot him a dirty look and he amended the statement. "That is, if you are visitors, or weary, and wish to have some tea before going home."

Darla made herself laugh. "I don't think that will be necessary. We live nearby. This way,"

The two couples walked along the avenue, the men staggering a bit from drink. Albert wanted to talk to Darla: He asked if she was an American, and when she admitted she was, he wanted to know where she was from and how long she had been in England. Darla, finding it all boring, answered as she thought about the night, and Angelus' return, and the hunger in her belly, and contemplated whether the pleasure of eating him right then would make up for the likelihood they would be seen. It wouldn't, she decided with regret.

As for Tom, he just looked at Drusilla, who stared right back at him. "Magnetism," Darla thought. "I didn't know such a pious girl would be interested in such a faddish talent."

Albert kept babbling in her ear, now about the price of maize compared to that of oats, until they reached the house.

"This is our home," Darla said. "Should you like to see the garden?"

"Of course," Albert said, smoothly. And leaning against an apple tree, Darla kissed him, his hands making their way from the back of her hair to her rump and back up. "You are so beautiful," he mumbled. "Shall we-?"

"Let's," she said, changing her face from that of a coquette to that of a monster. He did not have time to scream.

Her needs sated, the body stashed under a privet hedge, Darla wandered back towards Drusilla and Tom. "Come now," she said, noting that they still did not speak, merely gazed. "Daddy will be so worried if we are late."

Drusilla nodded and drew a sharp fingernail across Tom's throat. She nibbled at the slit, tasting the blood. Tom moaned in ecstasy as the life flowed out of him.

"It is April. Things must sprout in the garden," Drusilla said, not unkindly, tossing his body to the ground as she followed Darla indoors.

~finis~

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