Craving

by Kristina Meister

  “Any copies of Gray’s Anatomy?” he asked with a hungry stare. “My collection kind of has a theme.”

  “I could look around.”

  Happily, the doctor got to his feet and cast a friendly look at me. “I’m keeping you overnight, but I’ll send you away with enough meds to last you forever and reschedule you to have the stitches out.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  He slid past Arthur with a wave and I was alone with the one person I couldn’t face. He came and sat beside me and I tried to find a way to address what I felt, but wasn’t up to the task. After long moments of my silence, he bridged the gap with a sigh.

  “I am sorry I was not there to save you. I fear you have again lost faith in me.”

  I looked into his eyes and saw the feeling there. For the first time, I wondered if it was real. Two people in one day had warned me about Arthur. Maybe it was time to confront the issue.

  “Estate sale?” I asked, unable to say what I wanted to a face that seemed so honestly worried.

  “Sam told them you got in a fight over the bracelet.”

  “At eleven o’clock at night?”

  “They believed it. You were taken to emergency surgery.”

  “I got that,” I said, sitting up, “but what about Ursula?”

  Arthur stood up and leaned over me to fluff my pillow. His scent filled my sinuses and made my lack of confidence hurt even worse. I felt like I was betraying him to doubt him, but what else could I do? Nothing made any sense and now I had to interrogate him, a person I had come to believe was above reproach.

  “Detective Unger told his coworkers he heard noises and broke down the door, that he saw a woman being choked by Ursula, and that the woman stabbed her in self-defense.”

  I covered my face, extending a thought of silent gratitude to the man for protecting me at the risk of his job and freedom. “Weren’t there witnesses, cameras? Won’t they know it was me? How did he explain being there in the first place?”

  Arthur sat back down and leaned his chin on the guard rail. “He told them he was there to meet an informant on a case and as far as I know, the only cameras were over the bar.”

  “The cash registers,” I muttered.

  Arthur nodded. “At the risk of sounding insincere or cliché,” he began, prefacing even though he had always told me not to, “are you alright?”

  I sniffled and nodded my head even, though in the back of my mind, I was trying to convince myself that the crazy bitch deserved it. I thought over her words and eventually became frustrated enough to turn to him for help.

  “Arthur, what’s a Sangha? Does it share the same root word as sanguine?” It would be just like Ursula to make such a pun.

  He went still, looking at me in profound sorrow mingled with concern. “Yes. The oldest word for ‘stone’ is the same as the word for ‘blood.’ From it we get both ‘sac,’ as in ‘sacred,’ and ‘sang,’ as in ‘exsanguinate.’”

  “To bleed out.” I shook my head. “What does Sangha mean, then?”

  “A gathering of people with a single goal, though it’s usually a reference to a monastic group,” he whispered, and for the first time, looked away.

  The time had come. I knew, and he knew from looking at me, that we had come as far as we could without a further exploration of the blank holes in our shared existences; in other words, Eva.

  I swallowed hard and gripped the sheets in my good hand. “Why would she tell me to ask you about what Eva did to herself, Arthur?”

  He refused to look at me, as if I was scolding him. “I am sorry, Lilith. I kept it from you as long as I could, but now I see I have no choice.”

  A shiver went through me, though the room and everything in it was warm. “What are you saying?”

  Arthur dropped his face. “She became obsessed and soon I realized that she was not . . . able to survive.” He lifted his eyes. “Ursula is not human. None of them are, at least, not anymore.”

  I think my breathing stopped for a few moments until I felt the darkness pulling at me. “What are you saying?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  I scowled at him. “How do you know?”

  “I have been tracking their movements for a long while.”

  I stared at him in dumbfounded shock. Was he really going to reach into that magic bag and pull out such a ridiculous excuse? Then I thought about myself and realized it wasn’t that farfetched when compared to my eerily perceptive dreamscapes.

  “So what are they?”

  “Perversions of a truth,” he said distractedly.

  “Meaning what?” I felt trapped, confined inside a stupid horror movie, unable to jump off the celluloid. How could this be happening to me, to Eva? “Vampires? Real, actual vampires?”

  He tipped his head in an approximation of a nod. “Among other things. There are as many types as there are types of people.”

  “And the Sangha?”

  “As you said, some of them crave blood and cannot help it. Perhaps it began with bleedings and evolved into the craving. I do not know.”

  “Ursula said Eva had done something to herself, was it . . .” I trailed off, unable to figure out if any words I might know actually applied to them. After all, weren’t they supposed to be immortal, unkillable, afraid of crosses and holy water, unable to walk in the sun?

  “It is not as simple as that, I’m afraid,” he replied. Slowly, his hand reached up and tentatively touched my forehead. “An omission is still a lie. Forgive me, but I wanted to keep you from it. Now I see that it is no longer safe, especially in your state.”

  “State?” I protested. “I’m fine! The cut didn’t go that deep.”

  His dark head was already shaking. “You do not understand, Lilith.”

  In one heartbeat, my world halted. “Understand what?”

  “You are turning.”

  I think I retreated into the bed slightly, and thankfully, he let me. “What? What are you talking about?”

  He was still, and his face was so sad he looked as if he might weep. “The visions, Lilith, are a symptom.”

  “Of what!” I shouted, trying to get away from him.

  “Eva seems to have infected you.”

  My mouth fell open, but there was nothing to be said. He seemed so sure and when he was sure, he made me feel as if I had no business doubting. How could I question him, especially when his explanation, however preposterous, topped any I might have for the recently discovered psychic powers? Another shiver hit me, stronger than an earthquake.

  “This is crazy,” I whispered.

  “And serious,” he insisted.

  I punched the bed and the compressor clicked on, hissing angrily at me. “Are you trying to tell me that vampires actually exist?”

  ”They don’t stand a chance,” I heard and blinked my eyes against tears.

  “The myth began somewhere,” Arthur murmured.

  “How?” My voice lifted to a dangerously high level. “How did it begin? This makes no sense! I haven’t been near Eva in years!”

  He lifted his hand to quiet me and, feeling overshadowed by his empathy, I deflated. “The mind is capable of many things. When it is given the permission, it can even stop death.”

  “Stop . . . death?” I repeated in a daze.

  He took my hand, closed his long fingers around my palm. “I want to tell you a story. A story about a parrot.”

  My eyes darted to his face and bashed at his resolve. “A parrot?”

  His expression was insistent. He knew how odd it sounded. “A parrot named Himsuka.” I shook my head, but Arthur held sway with a glance. “Himsuka was owned by a king and was so loved by him that often the king would seek his advice. One day, while flying through the jungle, Himsuka happened upon his father and decided to visit his home. He stayed with them for several weeks and because of this long absence from his friend, the king, Himsuka’s family decided to send a gift back with their son. They thought hard about what to give and event
ually remembered a tree that grew nearby and bore golden fruit. This fruit,” Arthur revealed calmly, “was the fruit of immortality.”

  I thought of the Garden and the Tree of Knowledge, its shiny apples denounced by God.

  “Himsuka took it home willingly,” Arthur went on, “but the journey was long and soon, he had to rest. He hid the fruit within a tree and went to sleep on a branch, but this tree was the home of a serpent.”

  Frowning, I was thrown back again, to my youth, to my father reading me bedtime stories from the books in his mind or reciting the Bible from memory, holding my hand and tucking me in, despite my protests.

  “The serpent was hungry and tried to eat the fruit, but it was not to his liking. The next day, Himsuka took the fruit to the king and presented it. Immediately, the king cut the fruit and was about to eat it, when someone suggested that he let the fruit be tested by a servant. He did so, and the man immediately fell down dead.”

  I let loose a soft laugh. “Damn snakes and their fruit.”

  Arthur bobbed his head. “The king was enraged and hacked Himsuka to pieces. Then he told the kingdom the fruit was the fruit of death and threw it away, but even discarded, it grew into a tree. The king built a wall around it in fear, and no one went near it, until one day, an ailing, elderly couple ate the fruit, longing for death, and instead, awoke revived and youthful . . . and eternal.”

  I looked at him. The pause grew long. “Is that it? What does that tell me?”

  He took my hand in both of his and began to play with my fingers. “The fruit is an idea, a truth, and the snake represents the many things that can sometimes twist the truth. Poor Himsuka was condemned due to a misunderstanding of the truth he shared, and therein lay the tragedy. But the fruit flourished and even now is eaten by those who do not know what it will really do to them.”

  I watched him splay my fingers and gently stroke the creases of my palm. “I’m confused.”

  He planted his index finger into the center of my hand. “It is an idea, Lilith. It changes, evolves, constantly. It spreads and for some, does nothing, but for others, unravels what they are. For them, the fruit is poison.”

  “An idea gave me superpowers?”

  He chuckled and let go of my hand. “Ideas can give you dreams, change the world. Why is it so difficult to believe that they can alter your body? Tibetan monks can slow their heartbeat to extraordinary lows. Olympic divers can go up to fifteen minutes without air. Japanese Zen masters died standing up, having written the last line of their jisei poems immediately before their deaths. Why are visions any different? Humans have been having them for years, tapping into the collective mind, so why can’t that be concentrated in one mind changed by an idea?”

  “But . . . but Eva didn’t do anything to me!”

  His look prodded me, and the last conversation I had had with Eva came back to my mind. She had said a great deal that made almost no sense, could one of them have been the idea?

  “Do you remember everything that happened when you spoke to her?” he asked quietly. “Every word she said?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “And the days that followed?”

  I blinked, determined to turn the earth of my thoughts and find the seed, pluck it out, and show it to him. If I could do that, then I could deny it had ever happened, but to my misery, I could not recall. There were snippets, brief moments, faded and blurred recollections of standing vaguely in my house, looking around in confusion, but until I had shown up in the police station, there was nothing concise.

  I shook my head in disbelief, my eyes stinging. What was going on?

  “You were changing,” he revealed. “It takes a little more than a month for those that change fastest.”

  “My time is almost up,” I breathed. “And the First Sangha? What happened to them?” I reached up and touched my damaged wrist gently. “Why was Ursula capable of seeing lies?”

  He stood up. “The idea is meant to help, but like a fairy tale, people often regret what they desired. Their cravings cause them suffering. To Ursula, the most important thing was truth; it was so important that she lost sight of the one pure truth: that all truth is relative and mutable.”

  I looked up at him in consternation, “That’s a paradox.”

  “Yes,” he replied with a nod. “And so the misunderstanding begins.”

  “Then . . . my dream?”

  “Prevention and the knowledge to facilitate it,” Arthur interrupted, and I thanked him for taking the pressure of saying the word from me. “If you had known what would happen to your parents, you would never have let them leave. If you had known about Howard’s wandering, you would never have chosen to involve yourself with him. If you had known about and understood Eva’s hardships . . .”

  My heart plummeted. “I could have stopped her.”

  I stared at his hands, gripping the rail easily.

  “The fruit of knowledge.”

  My eyes slid up his arm to his shoulder and face. “Why the blood?”

  “It represents life, all the physical things they lack. Perhaps they crave closeness. I cannot say and as I said, it’s different for each one.”

  “Closeness,” I whispered. Eva, all her young life, had wanted nothing but to be close to someone, to be listened to, to be loved completely, without resentment, without anger, without second thoughts. That was what she had craved and that was why she had fallen apart.

  “She could be herself.”

  I fought to get out the words, “I’m going to be one of them?”

  Arthur leaned over me and kissed my forehead. It was sudden, but reminded me that I was not alone. “You are not finished yet. That is why I am fighting so hard to get you to put down the fruit.”

  I laughed suddenly. “So that’s why! All this skepticism, the way you reacted to me going to the club! You were trying to . . . . to . . . train me?”

  He leaned back with an unbelievably kindhearted look. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to compromise your integrity, but I could see immediately what was happening and, though I could not stop her, I wanted to at least help you.” Another kiss was placed on my sleeping third eye. “Forgive me, or I won’t be happy.”

  “Well, desire is the cause of suffering, someone once told me.”

  His Adam’s apple moved in a silent chuckle. “Indeed and you could rid me of some of mine by simply accepting my apology.”

  I don’t know what possessed me. I reached up and tenderly pushed a strand of hair from his face. “I forgive you,” I murmured, “but only if you keep me from ending up like that bloodthirsty witch.”

  His stare hardened and I sensed the determination in his words. “I promise, I will do my best for you.”

  I leaned back against the pillow and closed my eyes, sleepy “I wonder what happened to their Himsuka.”

  A phone rang, and, surprised to find it in his pocket, Arthur withdrew Unger’s old cell and opened it. As if from another era, he seemed delighted to find it worked.

  “Yes, Detective.”

  He blinked at me as Unger’s loud voice ricocheted around the room. After a few moments, he handed the phone to me.

  “Hey, Matthew, nice to hear your shouts!” I said in a monotone.

  “Lilith?”

  “Still with the living,” I said, though my voice was catching every few words, “sort of.”

  He sighed in relief and took a few moments to collect himself. “I’ve been shitting myself for the last four hours wondering, and would have been fine if either of them had answered their god damned phones!” he snarled, accenting each piece of rage with a quieter version of the scathing speech he had given the pleasantly smiling man in front of me.

  “I’m fine, Detective, relatively speaking.”

  “What’s that mean? Is your arm okay?”

  I think the sheer enormity of it had pulverized my ability to stay rational. I laughed outright. “Yeah . . . it’s fine.”

  Though I’m not sure I am.


  I waited for him to hurl another question at me, but it seemed he was finished.

  “Tell me she’s dead, Unger.” I gripped the phone desperately.

  His voice dropped to the throaty whisper of gruff and unpolished sympathy. “She’s dead.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, of course! Moksha’s here though,” he divulged, “and raising bloody hell.”

  “Right.” Because it couldn’t ever be simple. I looked at the scarificator. “Fucking vampires.”

  Arthur raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “What?” Unger demanded.

  “I’m . . . not even going to try to explain this one.”

  * * *

  I carefully stacked the red volumes inside the box from my seat in the happy face.

  “You shouldn’t be lifting anything heavy with that hand,” Sam warned. He picked up the box and looked down at me, his sleeves rolled up to expose the blurred black lines of his military tattoo.

  “I’m being very careful,” I reassured him.

  “Did you take your antibiotics today?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Since when do you put two words together?” At his facial twitch, I waved away his offense. “I’ll take it when we’re done here.”

  He left the apartment to take the box down to the car, passing Arthur on the way in. I avoided looking at him. I still had so many questions and though he made me feel comfortable, even happy, he also made my lack of knowledge apparent. In his company, whenever the footing was obviously unequal, I felt as if I had fallen behind the class and was fighting to catch up.

  Tell the truth.

  The truth was, I still felt bad about having doubted him and couldn’t bear to ask him anything when in that state of mind. I couldn’t make sense of my feelings, whether I was attracted to him because I saw him as stable or had tapped some part of my missing sexuality.

  He unloaded what little there was in the kitchenette and carefully put it into boxes for Goodwill. Unger had decided it wasn’t safe for me to stay there, especially if Moksha wondered what had really happened to Ursula. So while I was allowed to leave the hospital and go to and from the coffee shop, I was never alone. Sam had become my constant companion, and for the ninja mission of rescuing Eva’s property, the entire Scooby Gang had been recruited.