I own nada. English is not my native language. All mistakes are mine.

She watched the dark haired woman who stood under the trees, shielded somehow from the rain that had been watering the earth for the past few days, making everything muddy and even sadder. The graveyard was silent - except, of course, the steady drumming of the rain against stone.

She sighed a heavy sigh and traced the leather bound books in her arms with a gloved fingertip, re-reading the golden letters on it: L. H. K.

Until the day she read those journals she thought the stories her old granma used to tell, to be, well, just that - stories for a little child. Never thought that they were real. Maybe, her mother - if she lived - could have told her otherwise. Maybe she would have told her about the rides she got on the back of a giant panther or playing peekaboo with large, black paws, or being rocked in strong arms that never seemed to get tired, falling asleep to the sound of a raspy, bourbon filled voice singing old forgotten lullabies in German… It was all in the journals of her Grandmother.

Carmilla.

The name, written down on those pages with the deep passion of a young woman that turned into a gentle smile on her granma's face… She didn't find photos, as if every photo of Carmilla would have been carefully put away to a hidden place from the photo albums. She remembered her, tho. Vaguely, like a strange dream - a panther keeping her warm when she got lost in the woods near their house after her mother's death, ancient German words lulling her into sleep when she was sick, and a deep, bourbon filled laugh in the middle of the night coming from her granma's room… the memories slowly came back to her after she read the journals.

After her mother's death, she moved to Granma Laura, and always felt like there was someone else living with them, too.

The entries after her mother's death were messy, so she couldn't exactly figure out why her grandparents thought it would be better if she didn't know about Carmilla - a vampire -, also she didn't understand why Carmilla didn't turn Laura into a vampire. She had an inkling that it had to do with her mother's death and that she had to be taken care of - she was only 5 years old.

After she read the journals she realized - Carmilla never left, she just hid.

She was the soft cuddles after a nightmare, the deep chuckle in the middle of the night, the laundry her granma did when she was in school, the old punk records on the shelf and the hundreds of philosophy books in 3 different languages, the vague smell of cigarettes in the living room, the missing cookies and the mysterious cat fur on pillows.

She was the feeling of being watched and safe on late nights when she had to walk home after work, the mysterious cookies that seemed to turn up in her cupboard and the sudden move of her perverted neighbor who kept hitting on her.

She was the bouquet of white roses that arrived to her doorstep on her birthdays even after Laura's death. She was the one taking care of her Grandma's garden on the weeks she had to work like crazy. She was the fresh flowers on her grave every Sunday. She was the large paw print in the snow.
She gave her the journals on the first anniversary of her grandmother's death, because she was crying for a week, lost weight and almost got fired.

And now, on Laura's birthday, she was the one to bring beautiful red roses.

She could see them even from the distance, as they lay on the grave with Carmilla standing in front of it.

She slowly started to walk towards her and could see as she lit a cigarette. She remembered the smell of cigarettes in the mornings in the living room after waking up. Her ex used to smoke and she hated it. But in her grandmother's living room, she loved that smell. She missed it now, that it was her living room.

"I miss that smell from my living room." She said in a deep, quiet voice when she got near the grave. Carmilla froze for a second then looked up at her from under her wet bangs.
"Really, cupcake?" She asked with a crooked smile, and that was the first moment she really looked at her. She remembered her now, from before her mom died. She was still the same, beautiful young woman. She remembered her mother's words now - she was her grandma's young friend who visited her.
"Yeah." She swallowed her tears.
"I missed you, Oma."