Bella was found on the doorstep of an orphanage in a tiny coffin shrouded with black lace….what a surprise for the nuns when they found the strange baby inside! The handwritten parchment note said simply “Bella Bara” in blood red ink.

Bella grew to be a odd girl, flapping around like a bat, avoiding the sun at all cost and insisting on watching Dracula at the cinema over and over, staring at the other children in a an oddly menacing Bela Lugosi-ish way that frightened them nearly to death. Bella was over the moon with joy when they showed old silent films of Theda Bara. She told all of her little friends she was a “Vamp”….they all just shook their heads and avoided poor Bella.

But somehow, Bella just knew she was the daughter of Bela Lugosi and Theda Bara…surely it must be true! Again, other orphans laughed and the nuns scolded Bella for such sinful imaginings.

Finally Bella could bear it no longer….she put on her nicest black velvet frock and climbed out of the window and down the old rose bush, and ran off into the night to find her real parents. She walked in the lovely cool moonlight, so excited to find her fortune at last….but soon, the moon dropped low in the sky and the sun began to rise. There was nowhere for Bella to hide.  Her mystery may never be solved, and the nuns have forbidden the other children to speak of Bella ever again….but the all know the truth of the tale, the poor orphaned half-vampire girl knew just who her parents were after all.