In the beginning, my mind was so infantile that after a short while together, I had forgotten completely about my mortal life. Things were blissful then. Lestat as my teacher and father, took me out to hunt, my newborn vampire eyes showing me a mass of black velvet night sky. From him I learned to feed my unnatural bloodlust, and how to savor doing so. Louis was also my father, but it seems to me now that his role was more like that of a mother. He taught me with great enthusiasm to appreciate art, poetry, and writings. I would play for him a sonata by Mozart or perhaps read for him a work by Boethius. Indeed things were blissful during those beginning years. We made quite a family, Lestat, Louis, and I.

For sixty-five years we inhabited a townhouse on Royal Street. I was lavished with affection, my fathers presenting to me fine gifts of dresses and elegant dolls. Things might be different this day had my mind stayed unchanged as my body did. I was growing, though, more than my makers could understand. My mind was maturing, as certain as any child's eventually will do. I started to become aware that I was something incomprehensible, some kind of monster, different than the rest of the waking world. I would take a life with little compunction, yet still I felt some kind of kinship to those I'd slain. The more my mind matured, the more I began to understand mortal life. Mothers and daughters, women and children. One would be born a hopeless child daughter, and grow to be a shapely mother, and yet still I stayed unchanged. The thought of staying in such a petite guise throughout eternity was so unsettling I thought I might go mad from it.

As angry as I was, I wanted to rid myself of them both. Alas, my vampiric powers were limited because of my stature, so I decided that I needed a companion, someone to care for me and do the things I could not. It was Lestat I would take my vengeance on, as Louis was much more amiable and did love me so.

With deception and trickery, I thought I had killed Lestat. Louis and I fled the townhouse, and fled New Orleans altogether, in search of other vampires. We ended our quest in France, where in the city of Paris we were to encounter at last what I deemed to be Our Kind. We were invited to attend a theater run by a coven of blood drinkers. Theatre des Vampires, it was called, acting out on stage our most horrible of immortal secrets. There Louis and I met Armand, the seeming leader of this coven. These vampires I did not care for, as they looked to be slaves of the night, the devil's children banding together in this awful place.

I felt threatened by Armand, by Louis' obvious attraction for him. I despised these vampires of the Theatre, as they despised me. Louis, I thought, will leave me for Armand and I will be left alone, alone to care for myself, when that is something he and Lestat made sure I could not do. I would find a companion to care for me, as that is what must be done.

I found Madeleine, a mortal, a maker of dolls that so resembled my very likeness. Graceful and elegant, the shapely mother I so craved, someone who I could love without contempt. Madeleine, who grievously suffered the loss of her own daughter. I begged Louis to make her my eternal keeper by performing the Dark Trick on her. My asking such a thing distressed Louis, but I demanded it.

Lestat had lived through all that had been done to him and had the coven come in search of me, giving them cause to punish me. They came to find me in the Hotel Saint-Gabriel with Louis and Madeleine. They captured us, and took us back to their lair beneath the Theatre des Vampires to make us suffer for those crimes I had committed. Here I suffered indeed, suffering the loss of my vampiric form, Armand torturing me, working his witchery on me, doing deeds too terrible to speak of. Death was our punishment, burning from the sun in a filthy airshaft. Locked together, Madeleine and I screamed curses to the damning sun as it hideously burnt our flesh to nothing but ash. Armand saved Louis for himself.

I remember nothing of time or anything even remotely identifiable after my horrible demise. I remember nothing because, perhaps, I was nothing. Roaming, so much roaming. And darkness, nothing but mile after mile of blackness.

I was wronged. I can not rest because of this. I felt, in this extensive gloom, drawn to the very townhouse where I once lived. Jesse, Jessica Reeves, I have possessions, you have my possessions, why do you call me from here?

I felt a pulling, a longing for forgiveness from those who had wronged me, a need to seek redemption from those I had wronged, and unless I satisfied this urge I would never be peaceful.

Lestat, would you make me again? I, Claudia, your evil creation, would you do that thing again?

Lestat, I'm afraid, I would receive no sobbing confession from. Predictable in his self absorbed ways, Lestat, for his own pleasure, would make me again, would make me suffer the things that I have. In my hatred for him I had loved him as well, loved him deeply and pitifully and needed so his remorse to know he loved me in this same way. I would get no such thing.

Again, I am here amongst nothingness to wander for all time.

Darkness. I was alone, wandering, thinking of my immortal stay on Earth, vague and like a dream.

And then I was called again through this gloom, surely enough. Louis. Louis, who I have not surrounded with my presence because I received his redemption, of some sort. He called me; he wanted to speak to me. He spoke the name of my mother, my mortal mother. I would have haunted him, as his calling to me angered me so, as his questioning and pondering and need for sorrow upset me wholly. The fear of the unknown might have driven Louis mad after some time, I suppose. He called on a witch to summon my spirit, to call me forward to answer what I thought to be his selfish inquisitions.

Merrick Mayfair, she too speaks the name of my mother, she too calls me to come to her, she who calls me and then damns me to hell!

Merrick, a Mayfair Witch of high ranks turned vampire, so strong in her power to summon me forth, so strong that my spirit had possessed more substance from her calling than I had ever known appearing to those who I haunted in the past. I was so angry at this seance, so angry that I had been distracted in my unsettling wanderings by one who I did not wish to contact. I did then strike out on Louis, strike out as I would have all that time ago out of sheer resentment.

Louis, you who loves me, you wish to know where my spirit resides? Come to me, come to me, father, and I will show you.

Merrick did indeed curse me back to hell, but alas, that is not where I went at all. Her powers were extraordinary, enough so to keep my spirit around in some sense. I remained in this mortal realm after she had called, remained to haunt and see and speak to those I wish to. Here I reside now, in the form of the ghostly eternal vampire. I speak now to those who I have known throughout my time. We speak of the past, of penance, of repent. I seek love from those I have hated, and I seek to love those who have hated me. I must admit that know I have some feeling of peace, some sense of relief in this, the state of an apparition. All I have mentioned in this tale, my history, my hatred, my love, my fear, all of it, are, if you will, crosses I have to bear. I realize now that I shall remain in this guise, this spirit, my small figure with the same accoutrements that I thought horrifying and full of disgust during my preternatural life. My soul will stay steadfast in this way, united again with those from centuries past. For all eternity.