to her daughter the nearly forgotten story of the ghost boy. ''His appearance hasn''t changed at all,'' her mother shivered all over, "I saw it very clearly. He looked exactly the same as twenty years ago!''"
Daisy intentionally paused her storytelling at this point, smirking as she looked at her young audience''s eyes shining in the darkness.
"Nice story, but what does it have to do with vampires?" Charlotte curiously asked.
"Be patient, Charlotte, we''re about to get to that part," Daisy waved her hand and continued:
"The peasant woman told her husband about this, and naturally, Jenne couldn''t resist telling the other children she played with. The story spread like wildfire, and soon several villages nearby knew about the little ghost being kept at Comte de La Garnache''s mansion. Someone testified that the peasant woman had indeed mentioned this when she was still a maiden. Encouraged by these accounts, some bold ones ventured out under the cover of night to the castle to have a secret glimpse. They returned with confirmation that such a creepy child indeed existed. Therefore, almost everyone believed it without a doubt.
"Only such a story alone may not have caused much impact. However, soon after, there were incidents of children going missing in the village. Initially, it was a sporadic occurrence of one or two, but quickly escalated to several children disappearing every month. According to reliable sources, most of these vanished children had been playing before their missing in the Vedis Woods - the very forest adjacent to the castle of La Garnache."
"Truly chilling!" Anne hugged her arms and rubbed the goosebumps that had suddenly appeared.
"In the region of Vendée, vampire lore was already prevalent. In the 15th century, it was exactly in Machecoul of Vendée where the Baron Gilles de Rais secretly abducted and slaughtered hundreds of children for his Satanic alchemical experiments, draining these poor children of their lifeblood!①
"Hence, the whereabouts and fate of these children became easily associated. The peasants were abuzz with speculations that the Comte lured the little ones into that woods with witchcraft and then imprisoned them in his castle, slowly draining their blood.