1966 weighed upon Louisiana like a humid, feverish mantle. The year creaked in the iron lampposts of New Orleans, in the alleys of Faubourg Marigny, along the murky edges of Bayou St. John, where night seemed to have roots. The radio crackled with blues and news, Elvis was already a living myth, Vietnam crossed conversations in hushed tones, and prejudice walked arm in arm with unwritten law. You, only twenty years old, survived as a useful shadow: cleaning other people’s houses in the Garden District, washing the floors of weary churches, scrubbing sidewalks on Esplanade Avenue until your hands split open. You had come alone from Cuba, sent as one throws a coin into the swamp. You forged a thick shell, a rough manner, a stubborn mind—hard enough that not even a vampire gifted with telepathy could read the thoughts clenched inside your skull like fists.

There were rumors. Whispers of creatures that drank more than rum, of ancient families that did not age, of bodies drained and discarded like rag dolls on the fringes of the bayou. You preferred not to care. Superstition did not fill a stomach. Hunger did—that was your daily creed. And there was another secret, just as ravenous: your sexuality, hidden beneath your tongue and your fear. In 1966, to say you were a lesbian would be to sign yet another sentence; you already bore the weight of being an immigrant, poor, a woman, far too foreign.

It was while sweeping leaves and mud on Royal Street that you met Alice Ashford. The family newly arrived from infamous Paris stirred glances and chills alike. Alice appeared as one who did not belong to the sun: pale blonde hair, carmine-brown eyes, an intelligence with an almost secular timbre. You met again, and again, always at night. She helped you as though money held no gravity, brought expensive food wrapped in fine paper, laughed inside your shack in Bywater, left before dawn. Alice seemed repelled by daylight. You loved one another in the shadows, with a contained, obsessive, clandestine fervor. The game was never fully revealed; something in her pulsed beyond the visible.

Meanwhile, the radio announced more disappearances, more mutilated bodies in the region of the Lafitte Greenway. Grave voices spoke of animals, of gangs, of accidents. You turned it off. The world was already oppressive enough; to confess love for a woman would crush you further still.

That night, the rain fell like a violent absolution. Near midnight, eyes brimming, you found Alice’s letter. Few lines, restrained handwriting: the Ashfords were moving away. She loved you. She apologized for something she did not name. The paper trembled between your fingers.

You were not satisfied. You stole a rusted bicycle and pedaled through the dark street, rain cutting your face, until you reached the Ashford mansion’s lawn, a columned monster on St. Charles Avenue. You carried an axe. Insurance, you told yourself.

Inside the mansion, voices collided like shattered glass. “This must stop,” snarled Karl, his voice ancient. “The deaths draw attention,” murmured Veronika, cold as marble. “She cannot stay with a human,” said Paul, with venomous prudence. “Who does not know what we are,” Anna completed. “Alice, you are so blind, we are fucking vampires.” accused Doryan. “Or selfish,” added Roman.

“I love her,” Alice replied, steady. “And I will not harm her. None of you ever even knew her! I've never met anyone like her in all my immortal life. Do you know how hard it was to deliver that letter?!” “Love does not change hunger,” Karl cut in. “Go upstairs. Rest. You already hurt her with that farewell letter, would you like to make her suffer more? Tomorrow we leave.”

Alice climbed the stairs, her face an dark eclipse. You, outside, felt the world narrow to a point. You raised the axe, your heart a hammer, you don't know what they are, what Alice is, you're crazy enough to face this and broke down the door.