Jasmin

Her mother was on her way to the market together with Jasmin. They walked past the many small and colorfully painted houses to the small marketplace where traders offered their goods. The market was modest but well attended. At the edge of the market square stood a large statue of the first king of the vampires. He looked sternly down at his citizens.

The statue had once been painted, but much of the paint had faded. So the king, with one white and one red eye, looked rigidly into the crowd. A finger of the left hand was also broken. A sign indicated that the city was planning to restore the statue soon.

"Mom?", asked Jasmine, bored.

"Yes, honey?" Her mother held a note in her hand and a basket in the other. On the note was everything written she wanted to buy. Jasmin could already read some of the words: fruit, bread...

"Can I wait at the statue?" Jasmin did not want to go to the market. She wanted to accompany her father to work with Poppy. That sounded much more exciting than shopping. Why was only Poppy allowed? Her mom said this was because her dad had promised this to Poppy. But Jasmin thought about this as unfair.

"By the statue?"

"Yes! I won’t be naughty. Please, please! Pretty, please!" Jasmin relied on her best begging. And it worked. Smiling, her mother agreed.

"You don't go with any stranger!", she told her daughter. "And you stay where I can see you!"

Jasmin nodded. "Yes, Mom!" Then she hurried to the statue and sat down on its pedestal. At the king's feet. From there, she watched people do their shopping and argue with the market vendors. She watched as an old lady, presumably human, hit one of the merchants with her purse. Jasmin giggled.

"Who are you?", someone asked her suddenly. "I've seen you before!"

Confused, Jasmine spotted a boy standing next to the statue. He had brown-red hair and dark blue eyes. The boy she had seen on the hay wagon.

"And who are you?", she repeated instead of answering him.

The boy wrinkled his nose. "I asked first, but okay. My name is Killian. And yours?"

Jasmin grinned. "Not Killian."

"So then not-Killian, are you bored too? My mom is working. Do you want to play with me?"

Jasmine grimaced. "I'm not allowed to go with strangers."

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "We're playing here. By the ugly man." He pointed to the statue.

"That was the first king!", cried Jasmine, shocked.

"Then, the first king must have been ugly... He looks like a toad..."

Jasmine looked at the statue. The king indeed resembled a toad. A fat toad. "My name is Jasmin and I’d like to play with you! Catch me!" And she ran around the statue. Killian followed her laughing. Chasing each other, they circled the stern-looking toad king.

But it wasn't long before her mother picked her up from the statue. She looked at Jasmin's playmate skeptically, but she greeted him warmly and waited until Jasmin had said goodbye to her new friend. Then, they went back home. Jasmine's mother was strangely quiet on the way back and barely listened to her daughter as she happily talked about her game. This did not bother Jasmin. For the rest of the day, the girl played in the garden and made wreaths out of flowers.

Shortly before sunrise, when the family was sitting together at the dining table, Jasmin learned why her mother had been so quiet.

When everyone talked about her day, her mother looked at her amused. "Jasmin made friends with a human boy at the market. I was reluctant to stop them from playing, even though it was a human. You had fun, didn't you, honey?"

Jasmin nodded. "Yes! Killian is nice."

"A human?" Her grandfather shook his head disapprovingly. "Jasmine? You won't play with him anymore. Humans are food. We don't make friends with them!" The rest of her family quietly agreed. Her father gave her a disappointed look and her uncle snorted.

"What?" Jasmine looked to her mother for help. "Mom!"

"Oh, my darling... I..." Her mother shook her head and looked briefly at her brother, who squinted his eyes angrily. "Do what your grandfather says. It's for the best." She looked sad.

"But we are friends!" Jasmine crossed her arms. "That's mean. First, I can’t go with Dad, and now I'm not allowed to play with Killian!"

"I know." Her mother stroked her hair. "And I'm sorry for you, but your grandfather is right. This one time was enough."

Poppy giggled softly and whispered something about humans to Alfie. Jasmine kicked her under the table, whereupon Poppy stuck out her tongue.

"Poppy", her grandmother scolded her quietly. "We do not tolerate such behavior here."

After dinner, Jasmin sat angrily in front of the fireplace. Sunlight came through the window, and the song of a bird could be heard. Jasmin was supposed to go to bed, but she didn't want to. Poppy came into the room with her stuffed bunny and sat down next to her.

"Are you sad?", her sister asked. "Because you're not allowed to play with humans?"

Jasmin nodded.

"But that was just a human. Tomorrow we're going to school! You'll make better friends there, I promise. We both get into a great class, you in the first and I in the second, and we find a lot of vampire friends. After that, you will forget the boy quickly and you  will no longer be sad, yes?"

"Yes, okay", Jasmine murmured.

As they walked to their rooms, the two heard their uncle arguing with their mother. He reprimanded her for allowing Jasmine to play with a human.

"You make other friends", Poppy repeated, squeezing Jasmine's hand restlessly. "Better friends. And then nobody will complain anymore."

"You're exaggerating!", they heard their father shout from the room. "She's only seven!" Then something crashed. As if a vase had been broken. The girls quickly ran to their rooms.

In her sleep, Jasmin dreamed of walking the streets of the small town with the human boy while her grandfather and uncle pursued them furiously. Her uncle demanded that she eat the boy instead of playing with him. But the boy grew white wings, and he carried Jasmin away into a new life.