Within seconds, I became aware of the heavy weight pulling me down; my soaking cloak, like a sack full of rocks, drove me deeper underwater. My hands moved quickly around my neck and shoulders to untie my cape. And as soon as I released it, I sensed immediate lightness, enough for my sixteen-year-old body to boost upwards.
It was me now, who faced the odds, whose quivering hands searched for that chunk of ice by the embankment. I emerged and opened my eyes, and the ruthless wind struck my face as sharp as a hundred knives while I held onto that shore, that frail piece of hope.
I am not dying! I am not weak!
Those desperate seconds until I reached the shore broke into a thousand pieces, each one slow and full of chaos. And in my struggle's pandemonium, I caught sight of him. A man. His tall figure, dressed in black garments and a red cloak, stood motionless before me as he witnessed the entire scene.
My body slipped into the water, and once more, I found the strength to pull back up. And this time, I placed both arms over the lake's shoreline. I pushed my body upwards and slithered out of the water like a serpent. And there I lay for a little while, my heart racing, coughing water, unaware of the freezing cold because of the rush of blood still pumping through my every artery.
Then everything went black.
I was out.
For how long I was unconscious, I do not know. But when I came to my senses and saw the lake's broken ice, my eyes filled with tears and my heart constrained in one hard contraction, and it seemed it quit pumping blood to the rest of my body for a while. On my knees, I saw no signs of Viktor—dead or alive. With trembling hands, I covered my face, which was so numb I could not feel the tears pouring. I only knew I was weeping because of my blurred vision.
I would have stayed locked in this painful trance if not for Lucifer's sudden thump on my back. Somehow, Lucifer had set loose, and he remained by my side. Viktor's mare was pacing by the lake's shoreline, uttering a horrible cry as it moved frantically from side to side.
It was then that winter embraced me, inside and out. With no control over my trembling body, I sobbed. Lucifer tucked his nose on my face, and his warmth gave me comfort.
I had to head back if I wanted to live.
My arms clung onto Lucifer's neck.
“Take me home,” I whispered with failing breath as my body all but collapsed on his back.
I was conscious on and off during the way back home. By the time Lucifer arrived at the house's gates, I had reached a point beyond exhaustion. My body slid off the saddle and landed on the snow. And I embraced this moment dearly because it came as the final release of my senses.
Whether I would live or die remained a mystery to me. And I cared little to unveil it.
“Open your eyes, boy! Wake up!”
Father's desperate screams resounded somewhere beyond oblivion's sweet embrace.
My state of awareness escalated slowly, and I sensed the hearth's fire nearby, but my body was freezing within.
“Wake up, Ivan!”
Pain brought me out of my much-desired stupor. He slapped my face. It was the very first time he did so, but I felt so numb it barely made a difference.
“Where is your brother, Ivan? Where is Viktor?!”
I heard the words, but it took a while for my brain to discern their meaning. Mother was sobbing in the background of this one-sided conversation.
All the pieces of the puzzle sunk in my brain like piling snowflakes and portrayed one dreadful image: the image of my brother, dead in the lake, followed by the nearness of my own death and the vision of the man dressed in the red cloak, a bystander to our tragedy.
“The lake…,” I mumbled, “…the lake!”
No other words poured from my mouth, and the more I repeated them, the clearer the horrifying reality became. And I wept, heartbroken, sick to my stomach to have witnessed my brother's agonizing death.
Mother and Father ran out the door with a couple of servants, leaving me alone in the parlor, weeping and sobbing like a child. I could not breathe, for every breath hurt like hell. My body was shuddering. Whether this happened because of my ongoing grief, or as a result of my body's low temperature, I did not know. The reasons elude me even to this day.
Heartache, pain, regret... Misery consumed me. I longed for nothing more than to return to that delicious state of unawareness, that wonderful place where my mind shut off and detached from all possible suffering.
I closed my eyes, willing to let go and perhaps never return. But the warmth of her hand brought me back.
Her soft fingers touched my cheek.
“You will survive this, Ivan,” she whispered.
“I may not want to.” I tried to say the words, but no sound came through.
“John, take him to my room. Quickly!” she ordered a servant.
Everything went black.
The sight of woolen tapestries filled my eyes when I came back.
Embroidered tales of dragons and damsels in distress... or was it a hunting scene? I blinked and fixed my focus. It was the goddess Diana, stretching her bow and arrow, taking the aim at a herd of deer.
“The goddess of the hunt...” I mused. “She vowed never to marry...”
For a split second, the tapestry's figures moved. Diana fixed her curious eyes upon me and then turned to her prey as she stretched the bow's string. The deer stood paralyzed—frozen, as the red fox.
He placed me on the bed.
“Leave us,” Alisa said.
The minute John closed the door, she ran to my side. Her deep-blue eyes loomed over me. Was this a dream?
Alisa removed all trace of my drenched clothing and dried my body with a washing cloth.
The room was warm. The hearth's heat swarmed upon every inch of my bare body in waves of comforting warmth. Alisa pulled the heavy covers over me and topped them off with her furred white cape.
She hurried about the room, but I could not make a clear image out of her. The details of her delicate face appeared only when she drew near.
“You will live, Ivan. Do you hear me?” she said, indifferent to my stupor.
She unfastened her gown and removed layer after layer until no clothing covered her body. Her lustrous hair fell down her back in locks of black waves.
My mind drifted between dreams and reality.
Next thing I knew, Alisa's body lay next to mine. Beneath the covers, her soft arms wrapped my chest. And despite my mental torpor, a faint sense of shock stirred in me as I sensed her body's warmth against mine.
My brain shut off again. But this time, it did amidst the comfort of her warming embrace and the seductive perfume of her skin.
3
Cruel Mother Nature
Darkness engulfed me for quite a long time. I embraced it with all my heart. Whether I dreamed mattered little to me. My mind was safe and detached, and somewhere far away from facing any consequence derived from my actions at that lake.
At one point, the comforting dark veil dissolved before my eyes.
I was forced back into the four walls that confined me.
A new set of clothes and a steaming-hot bowl of broth waited for me on the bedside table.
The tapestries on the walls reminded me where I was.
The room's dim lighting granted my mind ease. In a hypnotic trance, the hearth's licking flames rose and receded; shifting light and shadows scurried on the walls.
Alisa's embroidered shawl lay on the chair beside me, its floral motifs of wool and silk tinged in amber by the fire's faint illumination.
She was not in the room.
The figure standing before me was not hers.
Between the bed and the hearth, it stood. A shadow with a man's shape. In silence, its dark stare was fixed on me. Without making a sound, it moved closer to the fireplace.
Time to face Father's reprieve... What more could I expect, if not his scolding words after such a tragic incident? However, it soon became clear, this was not my father.
The shadow r
eached its hands towards the fire as if to touch its flames. Against the fluttering light, he became visible.
Water dripped from his wet blond hair onto the wooden floorboards while his quivering hands reached for the fire's warmth. The drenched shirt stuck to his back and elbows as did his breeches to his legs. No signs of footwear did I see.
“Viktor,” I said. “Is that you?”
He remained silent, his eyes set on the flames. But I could not fool myself. It was him. It was my brother, Viktor. He was alive. And probably very angry.
“Viktor, I am sorry for—”
“I am so cold,” he said.
I reached to the bedside table for the set of fresh clothing. “Here,” I said. “You can have my—”
He was gone.
I turned to the door. It was locked. There was no other possible exit from this room; unless of course, he tried the window, but that was shut close too.
Where did he go? How many hours had passed? Piling questions stumbled upon my mind to the point of confusion.
I sat on the bed, pondering upon my memory's every frame concerning my brother’s fate, from the moment we had stepped out of this house, to the last time I had seen him emerge from the waters. Ingrained in my brain, Viktor’s vivid image gasped for his last breaths as his life reached its end.
He was dead. I was sure of it.
Horror crept on my back. I had seen him in this room but a few seconds ago and nothing would dissuade me from it! I had seen Viktor with my own eyes, and he was as alive as anyone could be.
“Am I losing my mind?” I whispered.
A voice answered in my head. It was loud and sullen, and ominous too. It uttered the words I had feared the most ever since I opened my eyes to this room. Merciless, it spoke.
Your brother is dead, Ivan. And you killed him.
Pain struck me harder than Father's slap across my face. It hollowed my heart. I had never tasted pain before, but its foulness hit my palate for the first time that very instant. Unbearable as it was, my body arched and fought against it. No sooner had I grabbed the basin beside me than I filled it with a repulsive dark liquid pouring from my mouth.
After that was finished, I wept. Between sobbing cries, my spirit broke in half and plummeted into a dark soundless void. Had I remained asleep, there would have been nothing but silence embracing me.
“Why am I awake? I want to sleep!” I tossed the bowl of broth and vomit across the room. “I don’t want to feel anything!”
But I did feel. And it was despair. It was dark, deep, and richer than any other feeling I had ever experienced. As poisonous ink running through my veins, it spread across my entire being, casting a permanent trail of hopelessness on everything it touched.
Something died in me then. And although my grief impeded me from seeing it, I sensed it well enough to suffer for it.
The door opened.
It was her.
With soundless steps, she entered the room. The subtlety of her every move made it seem as though she danced. In my mind, Alisa had a melody of her own; it was delicate as was she, feminine and light. It played in my head whenever I’d meet her as of recent. I thought my misery would have taken away that too but thankfully, it did not.
She sat by my side, on the bed. Her gentle hands landed on her lap, one on top of the other. Her pink lips pursed as she shook her head.
“This will not do, Ivan,” Alisa said. “You have to eat.”
“I will not,” I muttered, crossed by her motherly attitude. Then I rephrased as I gazed at the bowl filled with my vomit. “I cannot...”
“So I see,” she mused and took the basin away.
“How long have I been out, Alisa?”
“Three days,” she whispered.
It seemed a long time to be unconscious. I should have worried, but I did not care. I only wished there were more of those days to come.
“What happened?”
“It would surprise me if you remembered anything at all...” She paused. “You were taken ill, with a fever. The doctor gave us no hope. Mother was convinced you would pull through... and so you did.”
I could have died. That peaceful silence, the darkness without end... they could have been my permanent home.
Three days had passed...
“Did they find him?” Viktor's corpse, I meant.
“They did,” she said.
I had assumed I was ready to hear it, but I was not. Regret, pain, and misery pierced my heart like sharp-pointed needles that took turns in bleeding it little by little.
“I left him...” Tears loomed in my eyes. “I should have stayed with him... I should never have come back!”
“Hush, now.” Alisa held my hand between her warm hands. “You had to come home, Ivan. You would have died had you stayed out there, in the cold.”
“I would have died...” I smirked. “I only wish I had.”
She slapped my face.
“Never say that again!”
I frowned and held my pulsing cheek. It seemed being slapped had become quite a thing for me in the last few days. However, the pain on my face meant nothing compared to the ripping my heart experienced, and I let it pass.
“His mare... she knew!” I bit my hand to hold back from sobbing. I couldn’t care less if my sister saw me weeping, but once I had started, I knew I would not stop.
“It’s over, Ivan. Think no more of it.”
“But I cannot,” I whispered. “I will never forget.”
Weeks passed.
A recluse in my own bedroom, what little peace I could afford I found contained within its comforting walls. I did not dare take a step beyond the room's threshold; it shielded me from the harsh reality waiting outside in the world.
Life went on.
Beyond my windows, merchants managed their shops, mother's fed pottage to their children and men drank and gambled in the local alehouse after a day's arduous labor.
The world kept spinning even though my heart had frozen in that accursed lake... and I hated it for it.
How dare it move? How dare it carry on as if nothing had ever happened? Within seconds, the light of a man's life was extinguished and regardless, cruel Mother Nature kept its steady pace. And no matter how much I wanted to hold Time between my fingers, to cease its ticking long enough for my brain to process the sudden changes storming over me... I knew it could not be done.
I realized then that I was nothing.
Men are but infamous specks of dust in the vast wasteland of eternity. Unmeaning, unimportant, inconsequential... thus, what point was there for me to leave the sanctity of my bedroom?
Life as I knew it was over.
Alisa remained my one link to the world. I had not seen nor heard from my parents since the day I lost Viktor.
Once or twice a day, Alisa would visit my room in an effort to pull me away from my detachment. However useless this endeavor, I became accustomed to her daily routine and in time, learned to cherish those precious moments we shared.
It struck me as odd that I had not seen her today. Maggie, the parlormaid, had sent my meals for the day, along with such sullen glances one would think she saw in me a ghost! She was scared of me, that one, though I saw no reason for it.
In the past weeks, I had grown used to the house's newly-acquired silence. But as most things in this wretched life, one does not appreciate one's gifts until met with their sudden loss, and my beloved stillness now vanished. Something outside my bedroom's door stirred the entire household.
A door slammed, loud footsteps came out of Father's parlor, muffled voices spoke aloud and with a certain degree of anxiety... What on earth was happening outside my small haven?
Still in bed, I sat and focused my hearing enough to make out the words being exchanged in what seemed a heated discussion between Alisa and my father.
“I'm sorry Father, but my answer is no.”
“This is outrageous! Think of your future, Alisa!”
“Believe me, Father,
no one thinks about it more than I do, which is why I have refused him!”
“You will accept his offer! You will come to your senses, child!”
“Let us hope for my sake, I do not.”
“Alisa Lockhart! Get back here this instant!”
Loud thumping steps ran up the staircase as she drew near.
Alisa slowed her pace when she moved down the hallway, and then her steps stopped altogether.
I gazed at the door. What would she do next? Would she lock herself in her bedroom? Would she return downstairs and face Father's wrath?
A few minutes passed, and no sound came through the door.
How odd.
What kept her standing in the middle of the corridor?
A slight creak came from my door. It opened but an inch and her blue eyes peered into the room.
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, and there she remained, motionless.
I hugged my knees and studied her demeanor, careless of what she would think of my prying gaze. Her hands clasped, one on top of the other, while she rubbed them with her thumbs; Alisa's blushing cheeks and shimmering eyes could only mean one thing.
In silence, I waited for her to speak. This was not a considerate gesture on my part, no. My reasons were quite selfish, in fact. By giving her time to collect her thoughts, I granted myself the opportunity to observe her in detail.
She pursed her reddened lips before speaking. “Our brother died less than a month ago, and he would dispose of me—he would sell me to that awful creature...”
“Are you all right?” I whispered.
“I will not marry him.” A tear slid down her cheek.
“Marry?” I raised my brow. “Whom are you supposed to marry?”
“Mr. Price,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she folded her arms over her chest.
“Fatty Price?” I said.
Mr. Fatchett Price was Father's long-time friend and business partner. Successful in his trading endeavors, true; but it was also true his face brought much to mind that of an ireful mastiff. Add a spiked collar to the picture and it made the perfect match. Not to mention, Mr. Fatchett happened to be quite obese—hence my ingenious nickname for him.
Written in Blood: A New Adult Vampire Romance Novella, Part One. (The Unnatural Brethren Book 1) Page 3