I stepped out into the London fog and shut the weathered green door. Keys jingled in my hands as I turned the lock with a satisfying clunk. I slipped the keys into the pocket I sewed into my blue gown and straightened the jacket overtop. Satisfied, I took to the cobbled sidewalks with an umbrella in hand.

People moved past like ghosts in a haze, ladies climbed into coaches or clutched at mens arms while men strolled with a black cane in hand,  each looking similarly attired in a suit, occasionally smoking. Carriage drivers called out their approach as I made my way towards St Martin's School of Art. I came to pause at the corner of a street as a massive four-horse team wheeled by.

I raised a scented kerchief to cover my delicate nose from the stench of sweat, dung, and a pale sweet scent akin to red wine, and stepped across the dirt road. Together we people evaporated into the fog. Nameless faces passing faceless strangers along corridors of two story stone buildings. I came to another pause a block away from the school. 

The man hidden nearby smelt unwashed and of a particular metallic tang that I favored. I made a point to stop and ask for directions before moving towards a park that edged against an old estate house. I opened my umbrella in a quiet spot and set it against the grass before I leisurely began to remove my jacket.

I heard the quickening crunch of boots against dry leaves as my attacker lunged. I turned with a mock expression of fear as he fell upon me with the blade, but, to his surprize, I caught his arm. I let him pull away, to raise his savage blade in a second blow while I shifted the jacket over my hand for protection. This time when I caught his blade overhead I turned it around with the snap of his wrist and shoved it through his eye. My jacket speckled with his guts as his empty eye leaked trails of red.

He dropped to his knees like the beggar he was, his head lifted by the point of a blade in his skull, held in my hand like a steak at the end of a fork. His fingers twitched as dark blood dripped into the grass. I licked the juice from the salt of his skin. Then I spat on his face and tossed the blade and all back into the grass. Spoilt meat. 

"Beautiful," the gentleman vampire spoke.

Ugh. As if I didn’t have enough human stalkers, the fool males of my species had to pester.

"Disgusting," I told him, describing him. I daintily pulled the soiled jacket from my arm and looked at him. "Listen. When I want someone in my life, I ask. Piss off before I call the police."

"How rude, I wasn't..."

I tossed the jacket at his face, but before he could worry over his image, a loud pop made him fall back dead. I tucked the small pistol back into my pocket.

"Asking," I finished. 

I checked her pocket watch. "You both made me late." 

The lesson was...

The lesson was about finding extraordinary beauty in ordinary things. The lady beside me was sketching an odd house-shaped teapot likely given as a consolation prize while I drew a lopsided mailbox on which small white flowers nestled at the weathered  base. A little piece from my hometown.

The session was quieter without my new friend Rita. Perhaps...perhaps she gave up. A sharp clap, clap of hands and we students' attention went to the door. Two ladies holding a tray of sandwiches were framed in the doorway. 

"Our culinary class made too much food so we want to offer it to your class," one explained. 

"That's generous. Ladies, let's stop for lunch."

As classmates gathered around the food, I lightly smudged a pencil marking and tried to ignore the chewing sounds. Enhanced senses were a nuisance when you wanted alone time.

"Evalyn, why don't you join us?" the teacher asked.  

"I'm on a diet," I gave my usual excuse.  

My digestion would suffer. 

"Just one," a classmate insisted,  offering a ham and spinach sandwich resembling dead flesh and dirty grass.  

My stomach clenched in rejection.

"I...I need to use the washroom," I said weakly. 

*

I saw my childish self reflected in the bathroom mirror…a finger pressed to the gums on my upper right tooth, a thin ribbon of blood running down the side. I lift the pricked finger away. Food had been caught there and rub it away had caused a spasm of muscle, a pricking of finger to fang. 

Blinking back to reality I watched my pale reflection in the splotchy mirror as my left hand rested on the slender tap shut against the flow of water. The water did little to decrease my craving for blood, but it calmed my stomach. 

At the sound of boots, I lower my hand and turn to the door. A girl from art class sees me in the bathroom and pauses on her way back to the classroom.

"Um, the class is going to continue. Did you not like the teacher's sandwiches?"

"I forgot to clean my brushes," I say harmlessly.

I had hastily tucked them in the sash of my dress to get to the washroom before I retched on the floor. I was sadly not equipped with an all-consuming human stomach. 

"Do you want me to tell the teacher you're going home?" the girl asked.

Actually, I thought about knocking her unconscious and biting into one of her fat thighs. I could take her to the nurse with the story that she had passed out in disgust, but given the lack of privacy and that she was a nice classmate, I let it go.

Given enough time, even eating could feel pointless. Repetitive. The reasons one bothers to do anything get muddled. Again seeing my reflection in the mirror, I take out a tube of red paint which I squeeze on my index finger and use to sign Clara at the bottom of the glass to mark the completion of such a canvas. 

"Evalyn," a familiar voice calls.

I turn to Rita.

"They told me you were unwell." 

I lazily hold up my hand with fingers smeared in red paint. 

"And what if I am?"

It was a good thing artist's were allowed to be subtly absurd because I really wasn't like other girls. 

"I see your inspiration strikes at the worst times. But why change your signature. Are you trying to dedicate that masterpiece to another?"

"Can't you tell. It's a self portrait."

Rita steps in seriously to stand by the mirror. Then casually takes out her hankerchief to wipe what paint hasn't dried, and scrubs away all traces. 

"The original is much better, you know."

"What original?"

I was the original. 

She grabs my sleeve.

"I'll show you."

And somehow she did. There was a painting I had thought removed, now hung in the teacher's lounge. This architecture rendering by the American painter Clara was of an estate surrounded by blue hollyhocks. The grayish cloud above and tiny figure half hidden behind a white front for pillar made the scene haunted. I had half a mind to cover it. 

"It's not exactly a self portrait, " I told her.

"Of course it is. I could always tell what the house was feeling."

"Well, enlighten me. How does it feel? "

"Like protection and seeking distance from outside corruption. They say they the mansion was burned down because of rumors it was a devil house," Rita said beside me, "But people who set fires are not exactly innocent." 

"No. They are not," I respond simply. "And do tell what you're innocent self needs from me." 

"You could tell. Well, can I...can I come over again?" Rita asked.