I climbed over, and when my boots touched Main Street I stayed in the shadow of the wall, as though somehow the shade would protect me from Rhode’s gaze. Rhode kept walking, duffel bag swinging in his hand, past the Lovers Bay public library, past the herb shop, past the last store on Main Street before it turned into a suburban neighbourhood.
At the entrance to Lovers Bay Cemetery Rhode hesitated. I pulled back into the shadows, listening to the rain patter on the sidewalk. I waited until he walked through the entrance. He was going into the cemetery. Why? Was this a hint? A clue to what had happened last year?
I followed behind Rhode, keeping pace just enough so I wouldn’t lose him among the granite tombstones and trees. He navigated the pathways so easily. He didn’t stop and refer to a map. He didn’t need one. He knew exactly where he was going.
Ahead of me, I found a place to pause and regroup. There was an enormous grey stone mausoleum in the centre of the cemetery. Nearby was Rhode’s tombstone, the one I had put up the previous year in his honour, thinking him dead. But he passed right by that. I pressed my back even harder against the cold stone of the mausoleum.
He turned at the row where Tony was buried.
I hadn’t been to Tony’s burial. I couldn’t bear to see his parents’ sorrow, knowing the part I had played in his death. But I had known the location of his grave. Of course I had known.
Curiosity churned in my stomach. ‘Oh, go home, Lenah,’ I whispered, but I could not make myself turn around. My boots squelched in the soggy ground as I padded quickly over the grass. I had to fall back to avoid him hearing me.
Rhode stood, his back to me, and looked down at what I assumed was Tony’s tombstone. A couple of rows behind him, I got down on to my knees and crawled forward. The earth was wet and smelt of cut grass. I stayed close to the ground – I didn’t see any other way. If I stood, he would catch sight of me out of the corner of his eye.
I stretched my arms forward and crawled down the wet row. I peeked up to see Rhode unzip the duffel bag. Out of it he pulled his longsword. I drew shallow breaths. What he did next was very calculated. He dragged the tip of the sword through the earth in a circle around Tony’s tombstone. As he did so, he cut into the earth so it made a deep groove in the muddy soil.
Rhode was almost done drawing a complete circle around Tony’s grave. This was no spell, at least not one I knew. Then he lifted the sword high in the air and plunged the sword into earth. Imbibed with magic, imbibed with his intention, for whatever reason, the sword slid easily into the soaked ground. In the dark of my mind, I imagined the metal slicing through the soil, the blade breaking the jagged clumps of earth protecting my friend and pointing at his wooden casket.
Rhode fell to his knees and wrapped one hand around the hilt of the sword, then rested his other palm flat against the tombstone. He dipped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes in a silent meditation. Silent until he began to whisper quick words.
‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ he said, over and over like a chant.
I recognized this as the official motto of the Order of the Garter. ‘Shamed be he who thinks evil of it,’ was the English translation. Rhode was performing a ceremony from back when he was a knight. I had never seen him do anything like this before. I stayed frozen to the ground, unable to look away.
Rhode sat back on his heels and brought both his hands to his face.
Why? Why Tony’s grave?
This made no sense to me. I wanted to call out to him but I knew better. I shouldn’t interrupt him during something so sacred.
Rhode then fell forward, extending an arm so his fingers curled over the top of the wet headstone. The gauze wrapping his injured fingers was soaked through. My eyes locked on a bright red blood spot that had seeped through the dressing. It was so bright in that grey rainstorm. He had punched the mirror, just as I’d seen in my dream.
Wait. He was speaking again. What was it? I held my breath so I could make out the words. I drew a tiny gasp, for all I could hear, all that travelled through the air to me, lying with my cheek on the soft grass was, ‘Forgive me.’
I could not bear witness to this in secret. It was a betrayal. I stood up in the aisle behind Rhode. I needed to make a sound. Just the movement of my body was enough for him to realize I was there.
He lifted the sword from the ground, swung it through the air and pointed it directly at me. The ferocity in his eyes stunned me. I watched the recognition pass over his face and he dropped the sword to his side.
‘I taught you well,’ he said.
‘Lovely day for a visit to the cemetery,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Paying respects,’ he said, and squatted down, placing the sword in a leather wrapping and then back into the duffel bag.
‘To my friend?’
Rhode started walking out of the cemetery. I followed behind.
He went quickly down the soaked paths, back into the less wooded, more open part of the cemetery. We passed the mausoleum.
‘You said we shouldn’t be alone, but yet here you are,’ I said, trying to provoke him into having a conversation with me.
He stopped and looked at me. He said simply and definitively, ‘I am not without a weapon.’
‘Do you want to explain this?’ I asked, pulling the newspaper cutting from my pocket. I blinked the rain out of my eyes. ‘It’s in the bloody newspaper. The Hathersage house burned down. Now it’s overrun with historians! It’s gone!’ Just saying it aloud sent a stab of pain through me.
He glanced at the newspaper but did not respond.
I threw the soggy shred to the ground. ‘Enough games. Explain yourself. The date on that is August thirty-first.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Rhode asked. The rain continued to cloud the air between us – I could barely see him.
‘Did you see it burn?’
Rhode placed the duffel bag on the ground and let the rain drench us both.
‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I saw it burn.’
Sorrow laced through my chest.
‘How could you? Just let it?’
Rhode maintained his infuriating silence.
‘Fine,’ I continued. ‘So you’re not just lying to everyone else about a blasted car accident. You’re lying to me. I asked you if you were in Hathersage. You never answered.’
‘Should I tell everyone that I was beaten within an inch of my life? That the only way out of that house was to set the place on fire?’
‘You set it on fire?’ I asked, horrified.
The rain pelted so hard the cold drops were actually hurting my nose and cheeks.
After a few moments he said, ‘Vampires came looking for us. I had to torch the place to kill them and burn any evidence of my survival. So I did.’
I ran my hand through my soaked hair, my fingers catching in the wet tangles.
‘Who attacked you? It was Odette, wasn’t it?’
Rhode bent over, snatched up the bag and started walking out of the cemetery again.
‘When the vampires saw me and realized I was mortal, they attacked. I ran for my life.’ Rhode, my fearless Rhode, shuddered in that horrible, drenching downpour. ‘I didn’t think I would make it out.’
‘You could have died,’ I said.
‘What’s it to you? You thought I was dead for a whole year,’ he said.
‘And you think I could survive it again? That I don’t worry whether you are all right every day? Every minute?’ It took me a couple of tries but finally I got the words out. ‘Tell me. Did you watch me last year? Did you know what I was doing?’
Rhode dipped his chin to his chest. He seemed to think it over a moment, then said, ‘Yes, I saw you. After your friend Tony’s death, I could not come to you. At the time, it seemed . . . fruitless.’
An explosion of relief flooded through me. Finally, something.
‘But you knew the coven were after me. Yet you did nothing?’
Rhode’s eyes were focused on my neck; he
didn’t answer.
‘Rhode?’ I asked again.
He took a step to me and lifted his hand. Was he actually going to touch me? My stomach jumped. But no. He took the collar of my cold, wet T-shirt between his thumb and index finger and pulled the fabric down a bit. The bandage had slipped in the rain, exposing the cut. He examined it for a few moments, then let go, all the while careful not to touch my skin.
‘That day when we discovered that I had had a sister, you swore we would always be together,’ I whispered.
I took a step towards him, intending to take his hand into mine.
Rhode jumped away from me and I saw fear, actual fear, pass over his eyes. I drew my hand back, hurt and embarrassed that he had rejected me yet again.
‘I can’t!’ he cried, and I froze. ‘I will never leave you, Lenah.’ He met my eyes but the look in them was pained, struggling. ‘But I cannot love you any more. Not like this.’
After a moment of silence, when the only sound was the rain pelting on the grass, Rhode said, ‘Our circumstance is absolute.’
Our circumstance.
‘Our house. Our portraits. Our library,’ I dared to reply, ‘are all gone. It’s like they’re erasing our history.’ I brought my hand to my chest. The water drenched my shirt and slicked my fingers. ‘And all those beautiful books,’ I said.
‘You’re worried about the books we left behind?!’ he said, and his blue eyes cut through the misty grey air. ‘You should be worried about the skeletons we left buried in the walls or the goblets of blood we left sitting on tables, forgotten. They’ll test the contents of old goblets. But we don’t have to care any more. It’s over, Lenah. Aren’t you relieved? Glad you can leave it all behind?’
I pulled back from him. All my belongings. All the old photographs and jewellery. The great halls where we took life so willingly were now empty and ruined.
What Fire had said to Rhode and me on the archery field replayed in my mind.
Vampires are dead. Supernatural night wanderers. We cannot hold you responsible for the killings you performed in that world.
Rhode was right. I was glad the years of destruction and sadness were over.
And then . . . the rain came down even harder. It pummelled the grass and I had to wipe the water away from my eyes with both hands.
‘Everything was destroyed. It’s irrelevant now,’ he said, his words clipped. ‘We’re human.’ He picked up the duffel bag and took a few steps towards the cemetery exit.
‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’ I asked.
‘For you,’ he said gently. But my wonderful Rhode was hiding something more. I could tell from the curve of his back and the gaze of his eyes to the ground.
‘If the Aeris had not interfered, would you be happy with mortality? Wherever you were?’ I asked, hoping this would lead to him to continue opening up about his whereabouts the year before.
Rhode turned back to me, a black-clad figure in that drenching rainstorm. ‘I’m not really mortal. I may be flesh and blood but I’m something else. Stuck.’
‘What are you then?’
‘Something forgotten. Archaic. Put me in a glass case and shut the door.’
‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ I asked.
‘I believe I met a girl in the rain. Who had lost her mother’s earrings. And I killed her. Now I stand here in a time I know nothing about. I watched the death of kings far greater than any man living now. And I am still here,’ Rhode said, his face soaked with rain and his blue eyes piercing me through the grey of the storm.
The image of a pair of ancient golden hoop earrings came to my mind.
Rhode held my gaze through the curtain of rain. I understood him – we understood each other completely.
‘My mother’s earrings,’ I said, ‘were in the house.’
Rhode considered his answer, then said, ‘And so were the ghosts of all our pasts.’ The rain pelted the bag housing the longsword. Rhode looked at me. ‘Est-ce que tout ça valait la peine?’ he asked in French. ‘Was it all worth it? For the sense of touch?’
He turned from me then and left the cemetery. He did not need to say that I should follow; we both knew that neither of us should be alone.
When we got back on to campus, I stopped at Seeker. Rhode disappeared into the crowds of students. As I watched him go, I finally understood why the knight of Edward III had visited the grave of my best friend, Tony Sasaki.
He felt responsible.
CHAPTER 14
Later that afternoon I walked out of Seeker dorm. The sun broke through the grey clouds and I was barely able to focus my eyes when Vicken screeched, ‘I was just coming upstairs to get you!’ He grabbed my hand. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What are you doing?’ I asked as his strong grip led me down the pathway. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘We need a lot of people. We’ll go to the union, that’s it. A lot of people are there usually.’
‘Have you gone mad?’
‘There!’ Vicken pointed at the lacrosse field behind Hopper. ‘Throngs of people.’ We had managed to walk into a crowd of middle- and upper-school students watching a Wickham lacrosse scrimmage. Half the team wore white jerseys, the rest were in dark blue. Vicken didn’t care; he led me to the sides of the crowded bleachers where he finally let go of my hand.
‘You! You there,’ he cried.
He pointed at a tiny ninth-grader who clutched a backpack to her chest. She quivered under his pointed index finger. ‘Look at me. Look in my eyes.’ He waited a moment then spat out, ‘Damn it!’
I grabbed him by the back of his T-shirt. ‘Stop it!’
The girl turned away. Her little feet seemed to explode with speed and she ran off towards Hopper. Vicken continued. Every few seconds he stopped people. ‘You! Hey, you! What are you thinking! Get back here! Don’t you run from me!’
‘What are you doing? You’ve gone mad,’ I hissed at him.
‘Have I? I’ve lost my sodding ESP. Spend over a hundred years with something and then, poof, it’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ I parroted dumbly. This was not in our favour.
‘ESP – gone!’ he yelled, and slapped his hands against his thighs.
‘Shhh!’ I said, and motioned to the crowded bleachers behind us. Claudia and Tracy were sitting way up high watching the game. Claudia waved at me and I smiled back. I could feel Tracy’s eyes on me even though they were hidden behind her sunglasses.
‘Oh, you think anyone knows what I’m talking about?’ He extended his arms. ‘ESP! ESP!!’ he yelled to the sky.
I slapped his arms down.
It was as though Vicken suddenly realized where he was. He turned to face the field, his back to the bleachers.
‘What the hell is this?’ he asked with disgust, raising both arms from his sides.
‘It’s a sporting event.’
‘I realize that. What the hell are they doing?’ he asked.
‘It’s called lacrosse.’
A pause, then, ‘Well, I’m not staying for this shite. Let’s go.’
As he turned to leave the field, cheers erupted around us and I could hear Tracy and Claudia’s voices chanting, ‘Justin! Justin!’
On the field Justin, in his full lacrosse gear, ripped off his helmet, threw it to the ground and marched up close to another player. He jabbed his finger to the other guy’s face and was yelling something I couldn’t make out.
I placed my hand on Vicken’s arm. He stopped and we stood at the base of the bleachers looking out at the scrimmage. Vicken stepped close to me and said in a low tone, ‘You’re a human for two minutes and already you’re a sports fan?’
‘No . . .’ I said. I couldn’t remove my eyes from Justin on the field. ‘Wait.’
Vicken sighed.
‘Cut it out, Enos!’ the referee yelled, and Justin picked up his helmet as the players reassembled.
I sat down on the bleachers. Vicken groaned, sat beside me and crossed one motorcycle-booted leg over the
other. He leaned his elbows on the row behind.
On the field one of the players slapped his stick against Justin’s and the white ball flew in the air. Once Justin realized who had the ball, he smacked his stick against the other player’s so hard that the player stumbled backwards. Then he whacked the player’s stick again and again, until the referee blew the whistle.
‘What?’ Justin yelled at the referee. He lifted his shoulders and arms out to the side. ‘What’s your problem?’
‘I’m not telling you again, Enos. One more and you’re out!’ the referee shouted back.
The whistle blew, signalling the scrimmage was beginning again. The players assembled and immediately Justin slapped his opponent’s stick, sending the ball into the air and down into his own net.
Justin ran down the field so fast that no one could catch him. He slammed into other players so hard it was as though he wanted to throw them to the ground. When a defenceman from the other side smacked the ball out of his net, Justin threw off his helmet again and punched the player in the stomach.
‘I’ve never seen him play like this,’ I said.
‘Like what?’ Vicken asked.
‘Like he’s out for revenge or something.’
Cheers and raucous rounds of ‘Justin! Justin!’ echoed about us again.
Another whistle.
The referee pointed to the bench. Justin bowed to the crowd walked off the field. When he passed by the defenceman who had got the ball out of his net, Justin lunged at him, pretending he was going to punch him. When the other player recoiled, Justin threw back his head and laughed. He then plopped down on the bench and shook the sweat away from his face. As the crowd continued to call his name, Justin turned back to the bleachers and laid eyes on me.
He licked his lips and the twinkle in his eye reminded me of the first time we met. It was right after Rhode had performed the ritual and I was human for the first time. I saw him on a beach walking hand in hand with Tracy Sutton, long before he broke up with her and dated me. There on the lacrosse field, he broke our gaze and turned back to the game.
Stolen Nights Page 13