“Go away, go away,” I whispered into the dancing dark.
Ever since I was a little girl, I’d dreamed of vampires.
Well, one vampire. Only no-one believed me. Just as well, because vampires were abominations in the eyes of God. Or so Father Michael had said. I wondered if he’d believed me.
When the night lights were lit, the shadows would make patterns on the walls. Mama would come in and kiss me goodnight, and she’d smile. She’d promise me that nothing could get me here, that Papa would keep me safe. Papa would follow and send her away. He would read to me from classic tales of adventure and mystery, and he’d kiss my forehead and put out the light.
None of that tonight. Lights out for me from the start and sent to bed with no supper. That’s what I got for talking about vampires at the dinner table.
I hated the darkness. And always I begged him to leave the light on, but, he insisted that snuffing it would ‘bolster my courage.’
And so the door to my evening had clicked shut. I pulled the covers up to my chin. The smell, the faint odour of eucalyptus and herbs still floating about in it. With my eyes wide, I watched the lazy reflected shapes of light dance across the ceiling. I could always find shapes refracted by the smoke from the candles or the spirals in the pond outside. Sometimes, like tonight, shapes came shimmering through the window.
On nights like that, I would wait for him.
I hummed to myself to spite the dark; something jaunty, something sweet, something old. Something that would take my mind off of him.
There was a noiseless sound at my window, like the pressure in my head when diving too deeply into the pond.
I felt him as much as I heard him. He was early to my room, but then again, so was I.
A question pressed from his direction. I whispered, like I always did, “Come in.”
Then, again, I didn’t want it. I didn’t, and I uttered as well, “Go away, go away.”
But I’d already said yes, and a breeze caressed my cheeks. I hummed again to keep the darkness away. The deepening night seeped into my bedroom, like a mist curling across the floor. There was nothing to see, or my eyes were too strained from the darkness to see it. But now another voice hummed in time with my own, low and deep. He knew all my songs. My heart drummed like Papa’s fingers on the dinner table.
Tonight it was “As I Walked Forth” and, nervous, my voice piped out from me: “When she had fill’d her apron full-“
“Of such green things as she could cull-” he whispered.
“The green things served her for her bed-“
“The flow’rs the pillows for her head.” I could pick out his form from the other shadows now. A tall pillar of dark amidst the natural shades. He was not the drapes, the armoire, the coat rack, the bookcase or the shelves. They all receded into a deeper black away from the fading ambient light. But as the shadow surged deeper into my room, little flutters followed, the curtains billowed with shifting air. A bell rang once, forlorn in the stillness, accompanying my song.
I paused before finishing the verse: “Then down she laid her, ne’er more did speak;”
The other voice responded, “Alas! Alas! with love, her heart did break.”
There was silence in my room. I could hear Mama and Papa speaking in low voices from somewhere downstairs. Far, far, down in the tower, filtering up like smoke. I wondered, did they not hear us up here? Oh, but, Lolly and Pierre would be shrieking, in their little ruffian manner. And Thierry’s low rumbles subdued all sound within the walls of the house. Was he speaking to divert them? Did he know of my nighttime visitor?
I wasn’t sure that he would actively deceive my parents, but… My guardian, I would trust him with all my secrets. I knew that he had his own. His ghosts; or so he had said when I had followed the sound of his voice and found him, speaking, alone, in his rooms.
Thierry would smile, and, I’d be afraid for him. I couldn’t help it.
The shadows moved beside me. My distraction snapped.
“Hello,” I whispered, shifting back against the headboard as he approached the edge of my bed. His head bowed as if he was looking down at me, or praying. He still had the scarf I had knitted for him. Maybe I’d made it a little long, he wrapped it around his neck and shoulders several times, and it still dangled to the floor. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used all the colours. He seemed to like it though. I relaxed a little.
“Hello,” he replied in a gentle voice.
I pulled the bedding back, gazing up at his hidden features. He bowed his head again, before sliding to lie beside me. His cold hand cupped my head, laying it against his chest. He was still ice, in spite of my knitting.
“You have a beautiful voice, Little Goddess,” he whispered. “It called me out here to you. And that is an old song for such a young thing to call out into the night.”
Little Goddess. “My parents call me that.”
He chuckled. “So they do.”
“You still wear my scarf.”
“It was a gift; it would be crass of me not to.”
“People usually give gifts to people they know.”
“We know each other.”
“And what do I call you?” I lifted my head and inclined it, watching him, trying to see his face in the darkness. “Vampire?”
He pressed his face close to mine and laid a lingering kiss on my cheek. His skin was cold. His heart didn’t beat.
He responded with another deep, quiet laugh. “Ah, my Little Goddess.”
“I am not yours,” I said.
“Yet here I am, in your bed. So… Maybe, then, I am yours?”
I felt a hot flush rise to my cheeks and I pushed away from him. Only, that wasn’t right either, was it? He was not a stranger, not anymore. Everything about him was soothing, comfortable, familiar.
“Oh, it is not all bad, is it?” He lifted my chin and kissed me.
My cheeks burned hot.
“You and I are destiny, Devika,” he said in a low whisper, a whisper that made me shiver. He held me tighter, and I stayed leaning against him, thinking in the dark.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Oh? And what question was that?”
“What do I call you?”
“A strange way to ask my name.” He tugged at the lace of my white night shift. “You’ve never done so before.”
I sighed. “That is because I was not asking for your name.”
There was another pause and he whispered, “For my Little Goddess, I shall be Seth.”
“Seth? What kind of name is that?”
“An old one.”
I nodded, laying back down in the bed. It fit. “Lord of the red sands, where nothing grew.”
He pressed against me, laying a kiss on my lips, chaste, his hands coiling through my hair. He had a distinct smell, of the cold smoke of winter nights, but also of nothing. A sucking nothing, aching to be full once again.
“What have you done?” The question rose to my lips.
He paused his kisses, leaning over me with a faceless expression.
“That which is not dead must eternal lie.” It was like my mouth did its own talking like I was listening to it on Papa’s phonograph.
“I do not know what you mean,” he said. His eyes glowed like little coals, and the shadows in the room deepened.
“Neither do I.” I shook my head, a sharp pain nestled at the back of my skull. But I couldn’t fathom why I had asked that question, or what it was I thought he’d done. The question was there, and then it was gone.
“Little Goddess, you need to know.” He sighed, brushing the hair from my face, combing my rat’s nest curls from my eyes. “You need to know, that no matter what happens in the future-“
“I am yours?”
He paused, and didn’t answer, but, his thumb pushed my chin up, baring my throat. I squirmed without resisting, fearing, of all the simplest things, that it would hurt. His lips touched my neck, as they parted, I felt his tongue. A shrill electricity skittered down my spine. Something sharp, not painful, but hot, pulled at me, and then, nothing. A moan shivered out of me.
He pressed his fingers to my lips, withdrawing from me.
I sat up, pressing my hand to the spot where his lips had touched me. I missed his touch. I leaned forward, he was so close, but there was a distance there now. I wanted him to come closer again, but I just could not cross that vast chasm. Then he kissed me, hands like iron wrapped in silk pressed me into him. He slid his tongue between my lips, the tang of something not altogether unpleasant invaded me, salted and heady. My voice broke free of me again, muffled by his lips.
I closed my eyes, but I could still see the shadows dancing around me, like the flickering of a moth in a flame.
He withdrew again, causing me to fall against him.
“My, God…” I whispered.
In a chaste gesture, he kissed my cheek and stood towering over me. I had bunches of sheets in my hands and was gasping like I’d just run up the stairs. My breath caught in my throat, and a wave of shame coursed through me. It was hot and horrible. I pulled the blankets to me.
He blew me a kiss and turned to leave.
“Wait!” I demanded. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll return,” he answered with a smile. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow.” He slid the drape away from the window.
“Take me with you.” I crossed my arms, more to defend my heart trapped and fluttering inside me.
He stopped, the smile etched on his features, and then it was as if he took my face in his hands from the other side of the room, boring into my eyes. Now the colour of his eyes shone. A vivid, swamp green that made me feel ill and uncomfortable. They were too vibrant for this monochromatic world of downpour and stately grace.
In an instant, I was dizzy. Too dizzy to remain seated. He was holding me upright with his eyes, even though he was at the window. All I wanted was to lie back down, bury my face in the pillow.
Oh, but that wasn’t all I wanted. My gaze followed him. I wanted him there with me. Under, over, within.
“Why can’t I come with you?” I whispered, not caring how impolite I was being. He smiled and left the way he’d arrived.
