by Claudia Gray
"The blink of an eye." Mom sighed.
Dad smiled at her, and something about his smile reminded me that he was about six hundred years older than her—that even the centuries they'd spent together might be, to him, the blink of an eye. "There's no such thing as permanence. People drift from place to place, getting lost in pleasure or luxury or anything else with the power to divert you from the occasional boredom of immortality. Life moves on, and those of us who aren't alive have trouble catching up."
"Which is why there's an Evernight," I said, thinking of Modern Technology and how confused people got when Mr. Yee introduced the concept of e-mail. Many of them had heard of it, and several even knew how to use it—but I was the only one who understood how it actually worked before Mr. Yee explained. It was one thing to bluff your way through twenty-first-century life, another to really comprehend what was going on. "What about the ones who look too old to be in school?"
"Well, this isn't the only place we've got, you know." Mom reached down for another garland. "There are spas and hotels, places like that where people are expected to be somewhat isolated from the rest of the world, and where you can control who gets in. Back in the day, we used to have a lot of monasteries and convents, but it's difficult to establish new ones now. The Protestant Reformation took out quite a few—Huguenot mobs, fires, stuff like that. The residents couldn't exactly explain they weren't Catholics without making things a whole lot worse. These days we mostly stick to schools and clubs."
Dad added, "They're opening up a fake rehab center in Arizona next year."
I imagined all of us, scattered throughout the world, brought together only here and there, and only once every century or so. Was that the way I would lead my entire existence?
It sounded unbearably lonely. What was the point of having unending life if that life was without love? Mom and Dad had been lucky enough to find each other and be together for hundreds of years. I'd found Lucas and lost him within just a few months. I tried to tell myself that someday it would seem like nothing—that the time I'd spent with Lucas would be "the blink of an eye"—but I couldn't believe that.
So, for the first week of vacation, I mostly stayed in my room. A lot of the time, I just stayed in bed. Once in a while, I'd check my e-mail in the now-deserted computer lab, hoping against hope for a note from Lucas. Instead, all I got were various joke photos of Vic on the beach, wearing sunglasses and a Santa hat. I wondered if I should write Lucas instead of waiting for him to write to me, but what could I possibly say?
My parents drew me out for holiday activities whenever they could, and I tried to go along with them. Just my luck, to be born to the only vampires in the history of the world who baked fruitcake. Every once in a while, I'd catch them exchanging glances. Obviously they realized that I was miserable and were on the verge of asking me what was wrong.
In some ways, I wanted to tell them. At times I wanted nothing more than to blurt out the whole story and cry in their arms—and if that was immature of me, I didn't care. What I did care about was the fact that, if I told my parents the truth, they'd have to report it to Mrs. Bethany, and I didn't trust Mrs. Bethany not to go after Lucas and make his life miserable.
For Lucas's sake, I had to keep my unhappiness to myself.
I might have carried on that way for the whole holiday break if it hadn't been for the next snowfall, two days before Christmas. This was more generous than the first, blanketing the grounds with silence, softness, and blue-white glitter. I'd always loved snow, and the sight of it, shining and perfect across the landscape, nudged me out of my depression. I tugged on jeans and boots and my heaviest cable-knit green sweater. My brooch safely pinned to the lapel of my gray coat, I trudged downstairs for a walk. I knew I'd get chilled to the bone, but it would be worth it if mine were the first footprints on the grounds and in the woods. When I reached the door, I saw that I wasn't the only one who liked that idea.
Balthazar smiled at me sheepishly above his red muffler. "Hundreds of years in New England, and I still get excited about snow."
"I know how you feel." Things between us were still awkward, but it was only polite to say, "We should walk together."
"Yeah. Let's go."
We didn't say much at first. It wasn't strained, though. The snowfall and the pinkish-gold early morning light asked for silence, and neither of us wanted to hear anything louder than the muffled crunching of our boots in the snow. Our path took us across the grounds and into the woods—like the walk we'd taken the evening of the Autumn Ball. I breathed in and out, a soft gray puff of warmth in the winter sky.
Balthazar's eyes crinkled at the corners, like he was amused, or at least happy. I thought about all the centuries he must have known, and the fact that he still didn't have someone to share them with. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
He blinked, surprised but not offended. "Sure."
"When did you die?"
Instead of answering me immediately, Balthazar walked a few more steps. The way he studied the horizon made me think that he was trying to picture how things had been for him, before. "1691."
"In New England?" I asked, remembering what he'd said.
"Yeah. Not far from here, actually. The same town where I grew up. I only left it a handful of times." Balthazar's gaze was distant. "One trip to Boston."
"If this is making you sad—"
"No, it's all right. I haven't talked about home in a long time."
A hungry crow perched on a branch of a nearby holly bush, black and shining amid its sharp-cornered leaves, plucking at berries. Balthazar watched the bird at its task, probably so he wouldn't have to look me in the eyes. Whatever it was he was preparing to say, I knew it was difficult for him. "My parents settled here early. They didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they weren't far behind. My sister Charity was born during the voyage. She was a month old before she ever saw dry land. They said it made her unsteady—that she wasn't rooted to the earth." He sighed.
"Charity. That was a Puritan name, wasn't it?" I thought I remembered reading that in a book once, but I couldn't imagine Balthazar dressed up like a Pilgrim in a Thanksgiving pageant.
"The elders wouldn't have said we were among the Godly. We were only admitted to membership in the church because—" My face must've betrayed my confusion, because he laughed. "Ancient history. By any modern standard, my family was deeply religious. My parents named my sister for one of the sacred virtues. They believed in those virtues as something real enough to touch, just far away—the way we believe in the sun or the stars."
"If they were so religious, why did they name you something edgy like Balthazar?"
He gave me a look. "Balthazar was one of the Three Wise Men who brought gifts to the Christ Child."
"Oh."
"I didn't mean to make you feel bad." One broad hand rested on my shoulder, for just a minute. "Very few people teach their children that any longer. Back then, it was common knowledge. The world changes a lot; it's hard to keep up."
"You must miss them all very much. Your family, I mean." It felt so inadequate. What must it have been like for Balthazar, to have not seen his parents or his sister for centuries? I couldn't begin to imagine how badly that must hurt.
(What will it be like when you haven't seen Lucas for two hundred years?)
I couldn't bear to think about that question again. I concentrated on Balthazar instead.
"Sometimes I think I've changed so much that my parents would hardly know me. And my sister—" Balthazar paused, then shook his head. "I realize that you're asking me how different things were then. How much things change. But we don't change, Bianca. That's the scariest part. And it's one reason a lot of people here act like teenagers, even when they're centuries old. They don't understand themselves or the world they have to join. It's sort of like perpetual adolescence. Not so much fun."
I hugged myself as I shivered from the cold and from the thought of all those years and decades and centuries stretching out
before me, shifting and uncertain.
We walked on for a while after that, Balthazar lost in his thoughts, and me lost in mine. Our feet kicked up small plumes of fresh snow as we left the only footprints in a still sea of white. Finally I got up the courage to ask Balthazar what was really on my mind. "If you could go back, would you bring them with you? Your family?"
I thought he might say yes, that he would do anything to have them with him. I thought he might say no, that he couldn't have brought himself to kill them, no matter what. Either answer would tell me a lot about how long grief lasted, how long I would have to endure the misery of having lost Lucas. I didn't expect Balthazar to stop in his tracks and give me a hard stare.
"If I could go back," he said, "I'd die with my parents."
"What?" I was too stunned to come up with any other response.
Balthazar stepped closer and laid a leather-gloved hand on my cheek. His touch wasn't loving, like Lucas's. He was trying to wake me up to something, to make me see. "You're alive, Bianca. You still can't appreciate what it means, to be alive. It's better than being a vampire—better than anything else in the world. I remember a little of what being alive was like, and if I could touch that again, even for a day, it would be worth anything in the world. Even dying again, forever. All the centuries I've known and all the marvels I've seen don't compare to being alive. Why do you think the vampires here are so vicious to the human students?"
"Because—well, they're snobs, I guess—"
"That's not it. It's jealousy." We looked at each other in silence for a long moment before he added, "Enjoy life while you have it. Because it doesn't last—not for vampires, not for anyone."
Nobody had ever said anything like this to me. My parents didn't wish they were still alive—did they? They'd never spoken a word about it. And Courtney, Erich, Patrice, Ranulf: Were they all wishing to be human after all?
Perhaps recognizing my doubt, Balthazar said, "You don't believe me."
"It's not that. I know you're telling me the truth. You wouldn't lie to me about anything important. That's not the kind of person you are."
Balthazar nodded, a slow half smile playing across his lips, and I felt like I'd said more than I meant to say. The hopeful light in his eyes now was something I hadn't seen since the night of the Autumn Ball, before I'd let him down.
What bothered me more, though, was the fact that what I'd said was true. Balthazar really wouldn't lie to me about anything important, even when that truth was difficult for me to hear. He was a trustworthy person—a good person. I wished I could've been as good a person, someone who would have put other people's interests first, one who would have deserved Lucas's trust.
Then I thought, Maybe it's not too late.
After we returned to the school, our footprints winding a track all around the grounds, I waved good-bye to Balthazar and hurried upstairs to the computer lab. Luckily, the door was unlocked. As I waited for my computer to boot up, I remembered the print of Klimt's Kiss above my bed. Those two lovers held each other for eternity, two parts of the same whole, fused together in a mosaic of pink and gold.
If you loved someone, you couldn't let lies come between you. No matter what happened—even if you'd already lost each other forever—you owed each other the truth.
With trembling fingers, I typed in Lucas's e-mail address and put as the subject line "and nothing but the truth." Then I started typing, spilling out everything I'd held back from him all this time. As quickly and simply as I could, I told him that what he'd seen that night was real.
That I was a vampire, born to two other vampires and destined to become like them someday.
That Evernight was full of vampires, that the school existed for us to teach us about the changing world and to protect us from people who were frightened of us because they didn't understand.
That I'd bitten him the night of the Autumn Ball, not meaning to hurt him but because I'd wanted to be near him so much.
The words gushed out of me. It was a mess, really; I'd never tried to tell these secrets before and I kept repeating myself, putting things badly, or asking questions I wasn't sure of the answer to. That didn't matter. What mattered was telling Lucas the truth at last.
Finally, I wrote:
I'm not telling you all of this because I expect to get you back. I know I don't deserve that, not after what I did, and even though you're not in danger at Evernight, I guess you don't want to come anywhere near the school ever again.
Mostly I'm writing to ask you, please, if you haven't already told anyone what you saw here, don't. Don't show anyone this e-mail. Keep this secret for me. If the truth got out, my parents and Balthazar and a lot of the other students would be in danger, and it would be all my fault. I couldn't bear it if I were responsible for hurting anybody.
I didn't tell any of them that you saw me and Erich up on the roof. I did that to keep you safe. You can do that much for me in return, right? That's all I ask. Maybe it's more than I deserve, but it's not about me. It's about the people who could get hurt.
I also wanted you to know that I do care enough about you to tell you the truth. I'm sorry that I waited until too late. But I hope it means something to you when you understand how I really feel.
I'll never stop missing you.
Good-bye, Lucas.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I quickly hit Send. As soon as I'd done it, a chill swept through me. What if Lucas didn't listen to me? What if the e-mail I'd sent didn't convince him to remain silent—but instead just provided him with evidence?
Maybe I should have regretted it, but I didn't. Maybe Lucas couldn't trust me any longer, but I still trusted him.
I didn't really expect Lucas to answer. However, expectations are different from hopes. I kept rechecking my e-mail that whole next day, and the next, and then throughout Christmas Day, whenever I could slip away from the unwrapping of gifts.
No answer from Lucas.
New Year's Day. Nothing.
I'd told myself that the truth was worth telling for its own sake, and I believed it. But that didn't make it any easier to face the fact that my confession had meant nothing. Lucas was still gone for good.
Chapter Twelve
When the students returned to the school, I stood on the front steps, hoping to see a friendly face. I knew Lucas wouldn't return. Although I kept fantasizing that I saw him, it was just my imagination playing cruel tricks. In some ways, I told myself, today would be a turning point. When Lucas didn't show, I'd at least be certain. Instead of torturing myself with useless wishes for something that couldn't be, I could face the hard facts and force myself to keep going.
If I was going to do that, I'd need the few friends I still had at Evernight.
I glimpsed Raquel making her way through the crowd, huddled over and nervous. I realized why she was so nervous when I turned my head and saw Erich watching her intently from the top of the steps. Quickly I went to her side and shouldered one of her bags. "You came back," I said. "I wasn't sure you would."
"I didn't want to." Raquel kept staring down at her feet. "No offense. I would've missed you. But I didn't want to see him again." There was no need to explain who she was talking about.
"Didn't you tell your parents?" I'd figured they would call Mrs. Bethany, furious that Erich hadn't been expelled, and maybe withdraw Raquel from the academy altogether.
She shrugged. "They thought I was making a big deal out of nothing. They always do."
I remembered how moved Raquel had been when I'd said that I believed her; now I understood why. "I'm sorry."
"Whatever. I'm back. I have to deal. Besides, I lost my favorite bracelet here right before the break. Had to come back to find that, at least."
I glanced over my shoulder at Erich. His dark eyes remained locked on us. When he saw me watching him, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk. Disgusted, I turned my head back toward the crowd—
Lucas.
No. It couldn't be. It was
just my imagination trying to fool me again, so that I'd get my hopes up. There was no way Lucas would ever come back to Evernight, not after what he'd seen and what I'd told him.
But then the crowds parted, and I saw him clearly, and I realized that I was right. Lucas had returned.
There he was, just a few steps away. He looked scruffier than he had before—his bronze hair unruly, his threadbare navy sweater more beat-up than his Evernight uniform was. On him, it looked amazing.
I brightened when I saw him; I couldn't help it. As soon as our eyes met, Lucas turned away, like he didn't know what else to do. It felt like a slap in the face.
My first impulse was to drop Raquel's bag and flee to the restroom before I started bawling right there on the steps. But that second, a plaid blur raced by me and tackled Lucas from behind. "Lucas!" crowed Vic. "My man! You're back."