by M. L. Desir
Bela stretched out her hands to him.
Gabriel wondered if she were going to strike him back or wrestle him to the ground, but instead, to his disgust, she wrapped her arms around his legs, pleading with him to forgive her. “I’m sorry. Please, I’m so sorry. Believe me. I meant no harm! None!”
The expression on Seth’s face matched the eerily soft and strangely loving tone in his voice. “You’re a coward, Bela. So weak. You only apologize because you fear what more I will do to you. But do not fret. Let your heart be at rest. I won’t torment you. Not tonight. Go away.”
She rose to her feet, the blood tears already drying on her snow-white face, and left.
Seth sank down into his seat and glared at where Bela had been groveling seconds before. He removed the crystal pin Gabriel had seen from earlier at the party. Seth cupped it in his hand, and a genuine smile appeared on his face. The smile of a child opening presents from Father Christmas.
The air became still, quiet. The birds and insects stopped their incessant chirping. It was as if nature itself held its breath—in fear? And then, Gabriel began feeling uneasy. He could feel something. Something not human, watching him. He stared at the crystal in Seth’s hands. The crystal mesmerized him, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
“Beautiful Light?” Seth whispered. “What should I do? With this one called Gabriel? Tell me, Beautiful Light.” The sound of the name made Gabriel cringe with dread. He felt cold. So unnaturally cold. A part of him wanted to leave, needed to leave, but there another part opposed him, a twisted part in him that wanted to stay and gaze at the crystal in Seth’s hands. The crystal glowed brighter and brighter, like some terrible star.
“Ah, ahhh,” Seth moaned. “Is that so?” he whispered as the crystal’s light expanded. Gabriel imagined his smile growing obscenely wider, as if he were being told a great many things. Things Gabriel couldn’t hear. .
That Seth. I sense a light in him that isn’t light. Nikolai’s words mingled with his own thoughts. Gabriel tried again to travel through time and space, but couldn’t, as if someone or some power were holding him in place. His skin broke out in a cold sweat with the overexertion of trying to vanish.
Too slow he realized that Seth had turned to look at him through the window. Gabriel shut his eyes with the sudden ridiculous and childish idea that if he couldn’t see Seth, then Seth couldn’t see him. With his eyes closed, the paralyzing glow of the crystal had faded.
And by the time Seth peered over his shoulder, Gabriel had managed to disappear.
* * *
Long after Gabriel returned home, the coldness remained. He reclined in front of the fireplace, drinking from a bottle of dry sherry. He thought about the name that had assaulted him with strange, frightening sensations: Beautiful Light. He tried pushing what he had seen and felt from his mind, but the thoughts continued seeping through. “Is there method to Seth’s madness after all?” he asked himself aloud. He drained the bottled liquor and then retired to his bedroom. Behind closed doors, he stripped down to his trousers and slipped into the soft, silky covers. He didn’t fall asleep until several hours later.
CHAPTER 22
Poor Dead Creatures
GABRIEL DREAMED OF THE GIRL. She came into view, sailing in a white crescent-shaped boat, her back to him and long, unruly black hair billowing around her. She sung a wordless, tuneful melody in a sweet voice, rising high above the music of the ocean. Though he couldn’t see her face, he knew that it matched the beauty of her singing. The white twin sails billowed against the violet sky, and the boat bobbed along a blood-colored ocean. He walked out to the sea to meet her, to see her face to face, and just as she turned to look over her shoulder at him, his sister, Abigail, broke through the surface of the water like a vengeful mermaid. Her wet, wine-red hair coiled around her face and naked shoulders like seaweed. With her strong, white hands, she held his throat in a tight grip, choking him, strangling him.
Opening his eyes to darkness, a strange tension around Gabriel’s neck startled him.
One small white hand wrapped loosely around his throat, and the other played with the wavy ends of his hair. Gabriel drew in his breath and slipped out of the bed. Nikolai (yes, he mustn’t forget that it—the child—had a name) stared at Gabriel with his enormous, innocent eyes.
“You were having a nightmare. So I came to comfort you. My mother says that you’re never too old to be held.”
“Did your mother ever tell you it’s stupid and rude to come into a stranger’s bedroom?”
The boy smiled. “A stranger? You are my host, Gabriel. You can’t be both, can you?”
“No. I suppose not.” What time was it? Birds chattered outside, so he guessed it must still be light out. Gabriel looked to the window. The heavy curtains were outlined faintly with light. He walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back. Bright fingers of sunlight tore at his eyes. Still morning.
“You must be hungry. Go downstairs, and Colin will prepare you something to eat.”
Nikolai grabbed one of the pillows and pressed it against his chest. “I’m not hungry anymore since I’ve comforted you. May I keep you company? In case you have another nightmare, I can help you. I’m good at keeping nightmares away. My mommy taught me how to catch them and eat them.” Nikolai bit at the air with his full mouth. He licked his lips, and with upturned eyes, uttered a drawn out, “Yummm.”
Gabriel sighed, feeling uneasy, but unable to put a finger on why. “It wasn’t really a nightmare,” he whispered. The thought of the child devouring his dreams of the girl bothered him. Even though his sister’s phantom had ruined the dream, he still didn’t want to lose any part of it. He hoped he could fall back asleep as soon as possible so he could see the girl’s face.
Nikolai nodded in the way that adults did when they’re pretending to understand. “You were screaming, and I know the difference between a happy one and a scared one. Your scream wasn’t the happy kind. Don’t be ashamed! You were having a nightmare.”
Gabriel gave a throwaway gesture with his hand. “Never mind that. Do as you’re told and go downstairs.”
Nikolai made no attempt to get out of the bed. He only sat there, looking amused. “But what will I do once I’m done eating?”
“Colin will take you shopping for—”
Nikolai’s pale blue eyes brightened like the ice lit by the sun. “More books, eh? And the seeds, they’re taking forever and a day to sprout. I’d rather have toys. I love toy soldiers and wooden swords.” He bounced a little on the bed.
“Yes, yes! All the toys you want.”
The mutual happiness didn’t last long. The light sank from Nikolai’s pale blue eyes as if dark storm clouds had sailed over, and he looked sullen again. “But what will I do after that? The day is so long.”
“You had a governess in your old estate, right? So, most of your day will go according to a similar schedule. I shall have Colin tutor you until I hire someone else.” If I hire someone else.
“Then Colin must know how to speak Russian and French. He must know a great deal of history and arithmetic to continue where my governess left off.”
“He’s good enough.”
“Once my lessons are done, what will I do after that?”
Gabriel thought for a minute. He willed himself not to curse or to show the slightest hint of irritation at the boy. “Mikel can teach you how to play the piano. You’ll like that. You have fingers for the piano.”
Nikolai held his fingers up to his face, examining them.
Gabriel noticed a silver ring inlaid with black stone on the boy’s left hand.
Nikolai scowled at his hands. “No. My hands are too small. A hundred times smaller than yours.”
Gabriel let out a sigh. “You’re only ten. Of course they are. But your hands have rather long fingers, which are just perfect for playing the piano.”
“Nikolai,” Gabriel warned him.
“Hmm? You want me to leave now?”
“Yes. That’s a marvelous idea.”
Little manipulative brat. Gabriel remembered what he had been like as a child. Vaguely, he remembered. When he was around three or four, before he was old enough to know about fearing his parents, he used to grate on their nerves with questions that ranged from how many stars were in the sky to why are horses called horses and not unicorns.
This was retribution.
For every answer he had given the boy, Gabriel knew that Nikolai would counterattack with twenty more. The clever little horror had been trying to prolong the inevitable: banishment from his room. And had almost succeeded.
Nikolai rolled onto his side and out of the bed. He hopped on one foot toward Gabriel as if he were playing on an imaginary hopscotch board. “Will you be coming down as well? It’s morning, you know.”
“I prefer sleeping during the day, so no, you’ll have to excuse me.”
“I suppose that could be a way to kill boredom,” Nikolai replied. “But the sunlight is so pretty.”
“That man—did he—treat you as if you had never changed?”
Nikolai tilted back his head and looked up at him. “Man? What man?”
Gabriel stared at Nikolai hoping, wishing, and praying that he chose to continue his childish game of questions and answers. “The man,” he replied through clenched teeth, “who turned you. Enlightened you.”
Nikolai’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh him? That man. What if I told you there was no man?”
Gabriel stared at him.
“What if,” Nikolai went on, smiling from ear to ear, “I were to tell you that this is all a grand, marvelous joke!” He threw his hands over his head and ran circles around Gabriel, laughing like a mad man and breaking into a gallop here, a skip there. He stopped laughing in the middle of a daring spin.
Nikolai looked up into his face, still smiling. “I’ll go and help Colin in the garden.” Then he dashed out of the room.
Gabriel sank back onto the bed, wishing more than ever that he had never woken up from his dream.
* * *
Refreshed from his nap, Gabriel opened his eyes and got out of bed. He drew back the curtains and saw the sun setting. White clouds filled most of the darkening sky. Where the horizon and the sky seemed to kiss, red and amber light glowed. A new night. The ones before seemed like nightmares.
Someone knocked on his door, but he ignored it, hoping that the pest on the other side would wisely go away.
“Master Gabriel,” Colin said. “I’ve something to tell you. May I come in?”
Gabriel opened the door. “No, I’m going out.” He walked past Colin, who followed him down the hallway. He walked into the parlor where Nathaniel stood, his head tilted toward the open door of the adjacent room, listening to Mikel’s piano playing. The familiar strain of Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier echoed from the other room. The fugue continued to build and become more complicated while Mikel murmured to someone in the room before he stopped playing. Gabriel didn’t have to look into the room to know that he spoke to Nikolai. His distinct French accent in the presence of women took on a seductive edge, but with the child, it sounded anything but.
“All twenty four parts! I have to learn all twenty four?” Nikolai asked.
Gabriel pictured Mikel nodding sagely. “I learned it by the time I turned thirteen. You’re only ten so don’t fret, ma petite.”
Then the intricate melody began again.
“Master Gabriel,” Colin called after him.
“What is it?” he snapped. He must’ve raised his voice louder than he intended because Nathaniel jolted suddenly as if coming out of a trance. Then he walked toward him.
Colin frowned. “Something terrible.”
Gabriel glanced at Nathaniel, whose face held a blank expression that told him nothing.
Colin sighed, opened his mouth, and then drew in a deep breath. “A child,” he said at last, “a child strayed into the garden near the lake while I was planting the bulbs and seeds that you wanted. He appeared so full of innocence and an energy for life while he chased the butterflies with a net.” He paused and looked at Nathaniel, his eyes wide, as if pleading for encouragement or help with what to say next.
Nathaniel raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and glanced around the room.
“Colin, what is it that you have done?” Gabriel pressed, not wanting to know.
“Come, and I will show you, Master Gabriel.”
Gabriel moved toward him. “No,” he said. “I insist that you tell me—now.”
“The child,” Colin began again. “He’s really just a little boy. His name is Charlie, and he’s going to school next year, he said. He loves to draw, and he loves horses and sharks. I liked horses, too, Master Gabriel. They’re gentle just like Charlie—”
“Damn you, Colin. You talk too much. Get to the bloody point.”
“If you’d stop interrupting him, perhaps he would,” Nathaniel said, smiling. “I don’t think you really want to know.” He had a point, but Gabriel wouldn’t acknowledge it.
Colin lowered his head to his chest, and his eyes dropped to the floor. “I led him into a field of weeds, and I suffocated him with my handkerchief.” He said it so quickly that it took a moment for Gabriel to register it in his mind.
He stared at him, and slowly Colin’s eyes lifted. “Take me to him.”
Colin’s head rose up, eyes narrowed with confusion. “Don’t you want to know why?”
Gabriel glared at him, filling his eyes with the disdain he felt for him. “The why won’t save him, Colin.”
Colin must’ve taken in his loss of patience and raised an unsteady hand in mild protest. He led Gabriel to the back of the house. They waded knee-deep through a jungle of weeds and grass and stopped fifty feet in to find the boy, Charlie, lying on his back. He looked like a miniature king dressed in blue short trousers topped with a shirt edged with fluted white ruffles. Long, cotton stockings absent of holes or tears, covered his legs. His hair, a mass of yellow curls, framed a cherubic and chubby-cheeked face. Charlie—a child of wealth, a child of the West End, had been sent into the world with a kiss, where a beautiful mother and handsome father waited for him. A child, Gabriel concluded, that would be missed. A child whose absence would draw attention to him. He knelt beside him.
Colin twisted the handkerchief in his hands. “I thought that it would be better for him to perish, Master Gabriel, while he still has his innocence, his purity. I lost those things long ago, kind sirs. And not even an eternity will bring them back. Why should th’ young suffer?”
Gabriel let out a heavy sigh. It seemed as if Colin’s past had caught up with him and grabbed him by the throat. No, it had been there all along, like a monster lurking in the background, ever ready to accuse and condemn. He didn’t think now was the right time to tell Colin exactly what he knew about his past . . . that he knew more than Colin would’ve liked.
“Innocence, yes,” he replied. “But purity? You never had it. None of us did.”
Colin didn’t seem convinced. “I’m tainted, Master Gabriel. Impure. If you knew what I’ve done, could you look at me without cringing? But it doesn’t matter. If I were given a second chance, I’d have no regrets.”
Nathaniel walked over to Colin and laid a supportive arm around his shoulders. “What Colin is trying to say, Gabriel, is that he wanted to send this young man to heaven. To the distant but loving God that many people believe in.”
Gabriel laughed alone. “If I believed in God, Colin, I don’t think that I’d like him very much.” He paused for a long while, staring at the child lying on the patch of broken weeds. No visible bruises were on the surface of his skin. His face was white w
ith a bluish tint, and the lips had a ghastly pale purple hue.
Colin’s eyes snapped wide open. “No! That’s not what I meant!”
One of Nathaniel’s eyebrows rose, which intrigued Gabriel. It was nice to see that even he could be perplexed. “. . . No?”
Colin shook his head and closed his eyes. “Well, no. Not exactly. I mean, if you can’t save him then let him die.” He opened them again and held Gabriel’s gaze.
“I save him?” Gabriel tried to restrain the confusion in his voice. He hoped he kept his expression blank. “And how would I do that?”
“I’ve watched you in th’ shadows these several months. You’re like some Apollo come down from the heavens to this bloody earth. We’re all just rott’n, stinkin’ corpses. All of us, just poor dead creatures. But you could change that, Master Gabriel. I know it, but I had to make sure.”
“Let me repeat what I think you just told me, so that I can make sure I understand.” Gabriel propped a hand under his chin and leaned against one of the trees. He sighed, giving the illusion of supernatural patience. “You tried to kill this innocent child just to see if I could bring him back to life?”
Colin nodded. “For the most part. Will you?”
He didn’t answer him. Instead, he checked Charlie’s pulse. He sighed with relief. A faint pulse drummed through inches and inches of muscle and flesh. He leaned over and placed his mouth over Charlie’s and blew into it. A thin film of sweat on the child’s upper lip tasted salty and sweet. The coloring and warmth of his lips reminded him of blood. The little boy needed air. Not blood. Not blood. Gabriel waited before blowing into him again, waiting for the desire to bite into his tender neck to subside. He leaned over again and saw that Charlie’s eyes had opened.
“Hello Charlie. You were chasing butterflies and had a terrible fall. Your mummy and daddy are probably out looking for you.”