Dawn Of Hope: Charity Anthology

by J. A. Culican

  “How is she?” I pull my knapsack off and step towards the bed where the fragile figure lies resting. My fiancée. I swallow. I’ve been betrothed to her since I was born. Oldest boy in the pack marries the eldest girl. But I’ve never gotten used to it, even now we’re adults it seems weird.

  “Did you get the stuff?” Lucia asks, her gray eyes piercing me as she yanks her long black hair off her shoulders and ties it hastily into a bun.

  I bring the two small bottles of oil out of my bag. They look tiny. I have no idea how they’re going to help, but the witch of Verona said these were the best. “Yeah.” My gaze stays on Violetta, who lies amongst the blankets, skin clammy, head tilted back, hair plastered against her pale face.

  “You should let me die,” Violetta murmurs.

  “Never.” Lucia is perfunctory, already pulling the corks out of the oil bottles and preparing to blend the ingredients with the coconut oil resting on the stained side table. She pauses for a moment, sniffing at the concoction with a small wrinkled nose. Hands on hips Lucia scans the table. “I thought I had it out,” she murmurs, pressing a hand against her face. The constant care of her sister is wearing her down.

  It’s an odd comfort to watch her work. Reminds me of Mama when she would hear one of us sniffle or cough, she’d immediately grab an oil to rub it under our nose or around the back of our necks. I was always self-conscious about the way it made me smell in class, but now I miss it.

  Lucia moves to a tall cabinet along the wall, pulling at a ribbon she wears around her neck. A key is tied to the end, which she uses to unlocks the door of the cabinet. From inside the dark chamber she picks the only thing on the shelf. A small purple and gold vial.

  She takes one droplet out of the vial and bleeds it into the mixture of oils. It’s as if the mixture comes to life, bubbling and gurgling and emanating a soft orange glow. It turns into thin smoke, quickly fading away in the stale air.

  “That shit tastes horrible.” Violetta’s voice is weak and soft as it rises from the bed.

  “I’d make you eat a dead rat if I thought it would help you feel better,” Lucia says without a touch of remorse.

  “I’ll get you a straw,” I say.

  “And the chocolate,” Violetta says. “Get me my chocolate.”

  “Of course,” I say with a mild smile. Violetta is nothing if not predictable.

  The penthouse we’re renting in Firenze has a strange layout. The back of the apartment is the kitchen and the terrace comes of that, stretching all the way along the flat. I stand and watch the dying sun for a moment as it sinks over the red tile rooftops, which create a patchwork to the edge of town. Beyond the red roofs, it’s all green rolling hills surrounding the famed city. If I tilt my head just so and leaned forward, I can even see the Duomo from here, it’s red top like a giant bishop’s hat poking up over the town. It’s a far cry from our tiny village life.

  Our clan has owned this flat for generations. Violetta insisted on staying here instead of in the village. She’s right. We don’t know what is driving her sickness and we need to make sure she’s not contagious. Even I don’t stay here with her. Lucia does. I’m secretly grateful for that, even though I always offer to stay. But I want to be back home in Soriano, enjoying the wide-open spaces and green rolling hills of Lazio, farther south, warmer, and not so claustrophobic.

  Having her here was safer if a Berzerken attacked, too. If the Berzerken discovered their home in Soriano, well, we wouldn’t be able to move quickly enough to protect the clan from the bear shifters. I grab a glass out of the cupboard, filling it with water. The city water is nothing like the purity you find in the country. But it must do. Everything will have to do.

  “Hurry up,” shouts Lucia.

  “I had forgotten you have no patience,” I murmur, returning from the airy kitchen to the claustrophobic sick room. She has every right to have no patience. She’s been living under the stress of her sister’s illness for a year now. When the illness started taking the older members of the family, no one thought it would descend on us.

  I hand the glass back to Lucia and watch from the side, arms held tight against my chest, and watch as Lucia nurses her sister.

  This is all so fucked.

  “I’m going to go and check the Orvieto camp,” I say, pushing myself off the wall.

  “Did something happen?” Lucia’s worried gaze searches my face.

  “No,” I shake my head. It hadn’t. Not at all. “I’ve got a couple of the pups watching it and I just want to make sure they’re okay.” I duck my head so she can’t see the truth in my eyes.

  “You can’t fool me,” she says, swatting my elbow.

  “Huh?” I cringe. Has she used her-

  “I know you just want to go to the summer jazz festival.” Her smile is generous.

  I can’t stop the flood of relief that pours through me. “You know I love a good clarinet run.”

  “It’s okay,” she says pushing me to leave. “Go.”

  I rest in the dark hallway for a moment. This is wrong.

  But I can’t not go.

  ***

  I stand there for a long time, watching her sit on the grass. Her long pale blonde hair floats in soft curls around her. And her ass… like a cherry bomb. A slight pressure between my legs makes me look away from her figure and gaze at the stage, where some old ugly farts play music. My body calms.

  Constance, this random American girl I happened to meet in Brindisi a couple of summers ago.

  Why am I drawn to her so much?

  She’s just as stunning as when I saw her two years ago. Others may just see her as some girl, I’m sure, but to me, she’s the perfect rose. Her lips are full, but delicate. Her eyes… fantastic, gently slanted, with long curling lashes. She’s all sorts of innocence that I don’t feel I’ve ever known. She holds a golden curl and dances the tail of it lightly against one of her palms. Every now and then she gazes around the crowd. And I know she’s looking for me.

  What is it about this girl that makes me want her so much?

  It’s not because Violetta is ill. I have never wanted Violetta like this. She has always been my companion. The one I will be with, the one I must be with. We are mated through requirement, not through the heart, but this girl... This innocent girl who knows nothing of the world we fight in, the world we struggle in. We are hunted by our own kind and by humans. I have many more things to do, and yet I want this one and part of me needs this one. Even as I stare at her, there is something about her that feeds me.

  Everything else in my life is for my family or for my fiancée. For our future. A future I never chose but I am required to uphold. And I want to uphold it. But I never realized I was missing something until I met Constance.

  She is the air I never knew I was missing. Seeing her is like being able to take a breath of life and my whole body relaxes in a way it never has before.

  I don’t believe in any of the “true love” bullshit these others go on and on about. Romeo and Juliet were idiots. You don’t die for love.

  Especially when you first meet somebody, one so damn pretty. Where the light sparkles off her hair and in her eyes. A girl who gets your attention. You don’t chase her and you certainly don’t die for her. You turn and walk away.

  That’s what I should do. It’s my duty.

  But somehow I can’t walk away from this. Knowing she exists makes the ache inside me abate. It transforms into a driving force pushing me forward, instead of holding me back.

  She looks around again, her pale blue eyes taking in the milling summer jazz crowds. But her jaw is set, unrelaxed. My arms tense to reach for her, fingers tap nervously against my jeans.

  Am I capable of talking to her without touching her?

  I don’t know the answer, but I didn’t come this far to not find out. At least in public, we will be safe. Nothing can happen anyway.

  Slow steps take me towards her. I want to know the moment she sees me. Every step my feet are on fire, yet
cool rain is finally washing the ache from my heart. I’m torn by the soothing shower and the nervous flames. It all mixes inside me like a whirlwind.

  But it stops dead when she looks at me.

  All I can see is her face, which cracks into a rainbow smile.

  I must have one, too, because the world gets a little darker as my eyes crinkle up and sting a little. Her smile is breathtaking. It makes me want to press my face directly against hers so I can lose myself in it.

  She propels herself up from the grass, twisting herself towards me. I’ve never seen a pair jeans look so nice, ever, and all I want to do is cup her ass in my hands.

  Everything about her makes me want her.

  I slip my hands in my pockets.

  “Ciao.”

  It sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. I lean forward to hide my embarrassment and kiss her on both cheeks.

  “Ciao.” she grins back.

  I almost forgot she’s fluent in Italian. What a strange thing. But her accent is perfect. “How do you find the music?” I nod towards the old guys on stage.

  “Boring,” she laughs. “It’s so weird to see you.”

  I nod. It is. “I think this makes it what, a total of six minutes I have ever stood with you. If we include the five minutes when we met two years ago.”

  Her laughter trills down my spine. I want to do more of that. More of making her laugh and hearing it infiltrate my body.

  “Come on,” she says.

  There’s something about the tone of her voice that touches some part of my body. It seems like the back of my neck, but it might just be my dick. And I want to do whatever she asks me to do, as long as it’s not leaving her side. I can tell by the way she laughs and looks up at me, she doesn’t want me to leave either.

  Maybe ever.

  I shove this away.

  “Maybe we should just sit in the park and kiss,” I shrug, not daring to touch her again.

  “No way,” she grins pressing a hand against my chest. “My parents are going to ask me what I did all day. Kissing you won’t go down well on their list of things I should do.”

  “Do you tell your parents everything?” I ask. Her voice relaxes my body and looking at her is like sitting in a warm bath.

  “No,” she shakes her head. “But I don’t lie.” There’s a darkness in her gaze. Violetta. She is thinking of my fiancé. In all our texts and emails and facetimes and every connection we’ve ever had over the last two years since we met, there has always, always, always been Violetta.

  But there is so much more that she has no idea about. An entire world.

  “Let’s go and see the church.” She reaches forward and tugs on my wrist, pulling my hand from my jean pocket.

  “No!” The word shoots like a bullet out of my mouth.

  “But I love churches,” she says. “I want to see it.”

  Dark knots of fiber weave their way through my stomach and tighten like a noose.

  The church.

  I don’t want to go in the church. But how do I say that to her? How can I deny her anything?

  “Don’t you want to see the castle? Or the museum?” My tone cajoles and I dare to touch her hand because I really hope it will sway her my direction.

  “There is no museum in Orvieto.” She rolls her eyes. “Don’t you know anything?”

  I can feel my mouth tug up with a smile because I’m falling for her. She is so light and airy and easy-going. A world away from everything I know. I let her hand go and push it through my stiff brown hair, yanking it off my forehead.

  “The castle, then.” I give her a little nod and a quick smile, hoping she’ll give up this quest for the church.

  But she doesn’t. She grabs my fingers instead and holds them up into the light. “Strange,” she says, “You’re out in the daytime, yet you’re afraid of churches. Are you a vampire?”

  I’ll go with that if it’s got a chance of swaying her. “Exactly! And I want to suck your blood,” I lean in, trying to bury my face in her porcelain neck. But she pushes me off. She doesn’t pull me towards her and she doesn’t turn her mouth to mine like she has so many times in my daydreams. I stifle a groan. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. The whiff of cherry blossom and honey floats off her skin.

  “No way,” she smiles, softening the rejection. “What have you got against churches?”

  “Nothing,” I lie. “I just would prefer to see you outdoors where the sun plays in your hair and on your skin.”

  “Seriously? Is that what they teach you in Italian school?” she laughs. “It’s a bit much. Now, come on.” And she starts to walk away from me.

  I have been waiting for this moement to see her for the last two years and after two minutes she is walking away!

  What the fuck?

  And I love that about her; the persistence. She’s so sure and so clear. Even the way she figured out who I am and how to get a hold of me and she emailed me out of the blue. There’s no way she’s not gonna let me go to the damn church. I press my lips together, letting them go with a popping sound as I move after her.

  “Okay,” I say, but there’s no smile in my tone. We have been forbidden from going to the church. Our entire clan, for generations upon generations upon generations, back for as long as any of us have ever known, we have never been permitted inside. Sure, some of them might’ve snuck into a church now and again, on the off chance we wanted to see what one looked like. But for us, the Domani, the church is the home of the enemy. Church is where the Hunters live.

  It doesn’t mean there are Hunters in Orvieto, though. It’s just so consistently ingrained in my system to not go into any churches that my stomach roils at the thought.

  “You look a little green around the edges,” she says.

  I feel worse than that. Saliva sticks in my throat as I try to respond, but can’t.

  She unrelenting keeps walking forward.

  It’s such a dichotomy. She weakens me, even though I am stronger around her. I feel like I am one with her, as if she is part of who I am and why I was born. everything about her makes me want to throw away my life and my honor and my people and my fiancée and everything and just be with her. I suppose going into the church is a small sacrifice to make. She’s holding my hand and pulling me along and I simply do not have the strength to say no. For her, I want to be strong, but she makes me weak.

  The cathedral in Orvieto is medieval and glorious. As much as I hate to go in them, I have often stood outside and enjoyed the spectacle of a sunset on it’s golden façade. The shadows of the saints’ statues create dark shapes along the soaring peaks.

  She walks straight up the stairs and into the church only glancing back at me as I hesitate, before she barrels up the short stack of stairs. I jam my hands into my jeans’ pockets and bow my head as I stare at my feet, which are about to tread onto the steps of the church.

  I hesitate.

  She laughs and turns, disappearing into the church. I stand outside, feeling as if my world has been taken from me. This woman I can never have, this life I can never hold, she’s gone.

  I stare idly around the square. There’s no way I can stay here. I can’t sit out here in the village square while she is inside alone She is but a threshold away from me, but I feel like there’s walls separating us. And in the time I’ve known her, in the two years since we met, I’ve always thought about her. Every day.

  And now she’s here.

  She’s in my country and I am too concerned about the church to go and stand next to her? To breathe the same air?

  No. I am not a slave to my clan.

  I’m going to do it.

  I don’t think a second longer. Instead I step onto the marble steps leading up to the entrance and into the darkness.

  The smell of incense clings to my nostrils and makes my nose twitch. It’s a heady, deep scent infiltrating my lungs and making me stop for several seconds in choking silence. The chalky smell of stone underlies the heavy incense.


  The interior is magnificent. Soaring columns of alternating dark and light stripes lead the way towards the alter where the glint of sun catches on gold icons.

  It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. And as they do, Constance grabs my hand.

  “Come here.” She pulls me toward her with a throaty whisper. All I want to do is grab her, throw her on the ground, and press myself into her. Not on her. Not against her. Into her.

  But it’s not possible. Not here.

  She leads me around the corner and I stare at how her ass looks in those jeans.

  “Quit looking at my butt,” she giggles. “You’re in a cathedral! Can you believe this place? It’s stunning.”

  But when I look around all I see are bare stone walls. They rise rather majestically but somehow still seem a cage to me. A hollow vast space. Maybe it’s different when all the parish is in attendance. Maybe their voices raised in hymn change the ambience of the space.

  “Look at this carving,” she motions towards the statue in the alcove.

  St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. She’s standing staring at him, her back to me. I approach her slowly, almost as if I’m stalking her. But she doesn’t run.

  I gently place my hands on her shoulders and stand behind her. Let her think I’m looking at the statue. But I lower my head just above her hair and breathe in deeply.

  “Why did you come for me?” I ask.

  I don’t even realize I’m saying the words out loud, but she reaches up and grabs my hand. She doesn’t take her eyes off the statue of St. Francis in front of us. All the animals hang on him the same way I am hanging on her.

  She is like a saint to me. Pure and open

  “It’s simply that I couldn’t not come to you,” she says. “It’s not what you say or what you do. It is just what is.”