Clan: Toreador

Loretta Carlile Father: Dwight Carlile Born: 1901 Mother: Mary Carlile Embraced: 1923 Sire: Louis Faure

Dwight Carlile, my father, came from a lower middle class family. My grandmother told the one thing that I remember hearing the most of about him. What I remember hearing the most about was his great collection of heroic stories. My father liked to cut out articles from the local newspaper and books about people doing things to help others in battle, people saving others from death or from injury. As my grandmother told the story it made it apparent why my father joined the British military one day. It was in 1885, at the age of 16, that my father decided to enlist with the 34th infantry. There he learned to fight with a rifle and bayonet and became a good shot. Later, during the Boxer Rebellion in 1889, he was placed in charge of the unit he was fighting in when their commander was taken down by one of the boxer rebels. He did well and fought in many wars after that. It was while on one of his many assignments that my father met my mother. She was a civilian that he grew to love and, when he left, he took her to England with him. It was in 1901 that I was born and given the name Loretta Carlile. I had the normal life of a child born to an English field commander. At times, to deal with my emotions, I started to create artwork with colored pencils and a limited supply of paints. I got to see little of my father when the troops were called to fight but when he was home I was always sure to take time and play a bit of music for him. He loved to hear me play cello and after I heard that he had died and in the Great War, what we now call more often WWI, on the battlefield, I quit. After hearing this both my mother and I hid ourselves in our rooms. As I got out my paints I heard her crying through the wall and could picture what I would have seen if I had decided to enter her room. What I then began to paint was what my mind saw, my mother clutching a pillow in her hands as she sat on her bed and tears fell from her blood shot eyes. In the background her mirror showed a faded picture of my father looking on as I reached out to grab him and call his name. When I finished the painting, late that night, I still heard the cries, but never saw my mother leave for a single thing. She stayed in there night after night, day after day, and when I offered her something to eat she refused. She refused to do anything but stay in her room, sleep and weep for the one that she had lost. It seemed as she had refused to even live and because of that she died from the grief of having lost my father, a grief that I was able to suppress. During the time that funerals were taken care of after my mother's death I went to live with a distant cousin of my father's, a cousin that did little but to give me a roof over my head, clothing and food to eat. I was free to stay and leave as I wished and did little to interact with the new people I had started to live with. I heard them tell the little kids there that I should be left alone, that there was something weird about me and that I was to be left alone, and that was what was done. I stayed with them until the August of 1920. At that time I decided to sell my cello and take what few things I had a value and travel towards the southern shore line of England. I passed trough many cities, a few of them being Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Oxford, Reading. Ocassionally I would stay longer in a place where I had found a person that would give me work, but most of the time I just passed through the cities and minded my own buisness. In 1923 I reached Southhampton and tried to find a ride to France. I had very little money and every person told me they needed more to cover a ticket. It was at this time that I met Louis Faure one night, a guy that offered me food and travel to France on a private boat. He said that he was on his way home from England and would enjoy the company. It was also then that I became what I am now. A creature that can no longer enjoy the sunlight or feel it on their skin. A creature that is condemed to have a pale complexion and drink the blood of other creatures so that he/she may fuel their existence. I hated the fact that Louis made me what I am but I began to enjoy his company. We traveled a lot, mainly to watch fencing competitions, a sport that he enjoyed tremendously. He knew how to make the weapons for the competition and knew even better how to use them. After a while he started to teach me the art of fencing while I started the pointless task of teaching him to paint. 'I shall leave that to you my dear Loretta. I admire that you can paint, but painting is a task that I will never be able to master as you have.' For several years we kept eachother company and traveled around Euorpe watching competition after competition and occasionally going to see art galery showings we had heard about. In November of 1939 we decided to leave France and head for the United States. It was around this time that WWII had begun to show its face and it was also around this time that the two of us thought that it would be best to find a change of secenary. When we left we ended up in New York and lived there for a while. Later we traveled down south, going through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennesee, Arkansas, and ending up in Texas. Every place we went we pretty much stayed out of people's ways and did very little to interact with others. I continued learning how to fence and still painted quite a bit, but I longed to see my family agian, a task that I knew would never be accomplished, a task that had been prolonged because I had become the creature that had envelped my existence. I hate it but learn to live with it every day. I get to see how times change and that is the one benifit. Here though, here on the outskirts of Huntsville, I have found little to comfort me. I have fought a lot with Louis and no longer stay in the same house as him much as I used to, though I am there when I feel I need a break from what is going on. I have meet a few guys here that have allowed me to stay with them for extended periods of time in Beaumont. The one I met first was Malekai, a guy that later introduced me to Lucias. Though Lucias is the one that I care for more I find interest in both of them and enjoy their company. I think that because of this Louis fears I will never return to stay with him fully, a fear that may one day become true because of the irrational ways that he has begun to act lately. Maybe he means to protect me, but I would rather he just let things be, let me do as I wish and not worry so much.