“Jo! Jo! Where are you?” cried Meg at the foot of the garret stairs.
“Here!” answered a husky voice from above, and, running up, Meg found her sister deeply engrossed in a well-worn copy of The Seven Signs of a Vampire Slayer and How to Spot One,6 curled up in an old three-legged sofa by the window. This was Jo’s favourite refuge, and here she loved to retire with a nice book, to enjoy the quiet and the society of a pet rat who lived nearby and didn’t mind her a particle. As Meg appeared, Scrabble whisked into his hole. This Scrabble was in fact the eighteenth such one, for Jo could never long resist the easy lure of a close-by snack when feeling peckish. The kitchens were several floors below, and despite her superior vampire strength she could rarely bestir herself to make the long journey downstairs.
“Such fun! Only see! A regular note of invitation from Mrs Gardiner for tomorrow night!” cried Meg, waving the precious paper and then proceeding to read it with girlish delight.
“‘Mrs Gardiner would be happy to see Miss March and Miss Josephine at a little dance on New Year’s Eve.’ Marmee is willing we should go, now what shall we wear?”
“What’s the use of asking that, when you know we shall wear our poplins, because we haven’t got anything else?” answered Jo.
“If I only had a silk!” sighed Meg.
“I’m sure our pops look like silk, and they are nice enough for us. Yours is as good as new, but I forgot the burn in mine. Whatever shall I do? The burn shows badly.”
“You must sit still all you can and keep your back out of sight. The front is all right. I shall have a new ribbon for my hair, and Marmee will lend me her little pearl pin, and my new slippers are lovely, and my gloves will do, though they aren’t as nice as I’d like.”
“Mine are spoiled with blood, and I can’t get any new ones, so I shall have to go without,” said Jo, who never troubled herself much about dress.
“You must have gloves, or I won’t go,” cried Meg decidedly. “Gloves are more important than anything else. You can’t dance without them, and if you don’t I should be so mortified.”
“Then I’ll stay still. I don’t care much for company dancing. It’s no fun to go sailing round. I like to fly about and cut capers.”
“You can’t ask Mother for new ones, they are so expensive, and you are so careless. She said when you spoiled the others that she shouldn’t get you any more this winter. Can’t you make them do?”
“I can hold them crumpled up in my hand, so no one will know how stained they are. That’s all I can do. No! I’ll tell you how we can manage, each wear one good one and carry a bad one. Don’t you see?”
“Your hands are bigger than mine, and you will stretch my glove dreadfully,” began Meg, whose gloves were a tender point with her.
“Then I’ll go without. I don’t care what people say!” cried Jo, taking up her book.
“You may have it, you may! Only don’t stain it, and do behave nicely.”
On New Year’s Eve the parlour was deserted, for the two younger girls played dressing maids and the two elder were absorbed in the all-important business of “getting ready for the party”. Simple as the toilets were, there was a great deal of running up and down, laughing and talking.
After various mishaps, Meg was finished at last, and by the united exertions of the entire family Jo’s hair was got up and her dress on. They looked very well in their simple suits, Meg’s in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood, lace frills and the pearl pin. Jo in maroon, with a stiff, gentlemanly linen collar and a white chrysanthemum or two for her only ornament. Each put on one nice light glove, and carried one soiled one, and all pronounced the effect “quite easy and fine”. Meg’s high-heeled slippers were very tight and awkward to walk in, though she would not own it, and Jo’s nineteen hairpins all seemed stuck straight into her head. This was not at all comfortable but necessary should vampire slayers attack the party, for the hairpins were dipped in poison and doubled as paralysing darts.
“Have a good time, dearies!” said Mrs March, as the sisters went daintily down the walk. “Don’t eat much supper, and come away at five when I send Hannah for you.”
Down they went, feeling a trifle timid, for they seldom went to parties, and informal as this little gathering was, it was an event to them. Mrs Gardiner, a stately old vampire lady, greeted them kindly as they passed through the area set apart for the screening of weapons. The March girls were from an old and established family, but even they had to submit to an examination by Pinkerton agents.7 Everyone did, as the company was mixed and no hostess wanted to inadvertently admit a slayer to her party, for not only was it personally mortifying for a vampire to be slain at your soiree, it was very damaging socially.
Like all society matrons, Mrs Gardiner welcomed nonvampires into her drawing rooms, for some of the oldest families in the neighbourhood were human, making interaction unavoidable. The two groups rubbed together tolerably well, united by a common purpose to keep newcomers out of their circle, and disagreements over a missing servant or an unfair accusation of colluding with slayers broke out only rarely. Although Mrs Gardiner considered humans to be inferior to her in every way, those of exceptional social standing at the party had nothing to fear from her and her kind. It was the height of rudeness to dine on your guests, particularly if they were your social equal. Likewise, it was unforgivably vulgar to stake your host.
The poor were not afforded the same courtesy and frequently fended off attacks from vampires and nonvampires alike, both of whom fed on them, the former literally, the other metaphorically. For centuries, vampire philosophers had argued that their treatment of humans was kinder; they took only the blood in their veins. Nonvampires took the sweat of their brow, the fire in their belly and the joy in their heart.
Slayers swore nobly to protect the desperate and the destitute from predators, but in targeting vampires only, they revealed their bigotry. Some vampires were indeed the cruel and thoughtless killing machines that many in the sensationalistic press8 portrayed them to be, but what of the factory owner or the slave holder? Were they not also cruel and thoughtless? Yet they were exempt from retribution.
Jo, like her mother, knew vampire slayers were mere vigilantes. They dispensed justice as they saw fit, which naturally made it the opposite of just. Marmee’s way of helping the poor, providing them with food and shelter and solace, was the only method to save them from their despair. If the system itself was broken, it needed to be changed from the inside; randomly selecting vampires to assassinate wasn’t the answer.
When the March girls were cleared by the security agents, Mrs Gardiner handed them over to the eldest of her six daughters. Meg knew Sallie and was at her ease very soon, but Jo, who didn’t care much for girls or girlish gossip, stood about, with her back carefully against the wall, and felt as much out of place as a colt in a flower garden. A big redheaded youth approached her corner, and fearing he meant to engage her, she slipped into a curtained recess, intending to peep and enjoy herself in peace. Unfortunately, another bashful person had chosen the same refuge, for, as the curtain fell behind her, she found herself face to face with the “Laurence boy”.
“Dear me, I didn’t know anyone was here!” stammered Jo, preparing to back out as speedily as she had bounced in.
But the boy laughed and said pleasantly, though he looked a little startled, “Don’t mind me, stay if you like.” “Shan’t I disturb you?”
“Not a bit. I only came here because I don’t know many people and felt rather strange at first, you know.”
“So did I. Don’t go away, please, unless you’d rather.”
The boy sat down again and looked