I asked her about the relationship with Jean. We had not had many conversations, preferring each other’s company without too many words.
She said that Jean came from a wealthy merchant family but he did not want to carry on trading silk, preferring instead to wear it. He had been brought to the circle many years earlier, and had been a loyal favourite of Oleander’s.
‘Are they something other than friends?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Zola. Then she bent her head. ‘Perhaps once, and something that Jean would like to rekindle, but Oleander is driven by other interests.’
‘On what is she focused?’
‘On creating a better life for our circle.’
There were so many questions but there was one in particular that had been burning a hole in my thoughts up to that point. ‘How does she afford to live and have so many staff?’ She did not appear to have any obvious means.
‘Why do you not ask her?’ Zola said, somewhat guarded. From that I gathered she was loyal also. And I was left in the dark once more still knowing little about my sister and wishing that witches could read the minds of their own kind.
‘And what of you?’
‘You know about me.’
‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘I know that your parents died and left you all alone in your house. I also know that you prefer to spend idle days at Oleander’s castle.’
‘If you had the choice of living alone in a city that is suspicious of single women of independent means, or living in a big house with friends and celebrating your very existence night after night, what would you prefer?’
‘I take your point but one can get sick of so many festivities surely?’
‘Well, I can assure you that Oleander never gets sick of them. Ever since Lewis left she likes to have a lot of her kind around her all the time.’
‘Lewis?’
‘Yes. He was the original circle leader. Our life to that point was comfortable but more staid.’
I thought that the current lifestyle seemed a bit overindulged but I did not say so. I most certainly wanted to ask more about this Lewis but refrained as by then we had arrived at our destination. We crossed a short and narrow bridge that took us into the town with its cobbled streets. In this part there were many wooden buildings lining the river where tanners, fisheries, glassmakers, tinkers and loading docks were available to sailing vessels. There was black sludge on the banks where waste has been thrown mixed with other foul liquids.
I took the opportunity to voice my desire. I did not want the moment with Zola to disappear: ‘Zola, will you come with me to meet my father when I go back to my island?’
Never had we had so many moments just to talk freely without others listening. As irrational as it seemed, even in my room I felt that others were watching.
Zola’s face was hidden from me but her voice suggested she was not smiling.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you aren’t going back.’ Before I had time to protest and disagree, Zola was way ahead of me and calling my name. I lost sight of her behind the buildings. At this time of night, while the more respectable professionals were sleeping, many in the underside of the city were active – thieves, whores and shady dealmakers. Men leaning against buildings leered at me and I read their evil thoughts, not necessarily about me, but about their heinous plans. The sound of their thoughts grew louder as I approached each of them. I wished I knew how to shut them out.
I caught sight of the hem of Oleander’s skirt trailing around the corner of an alehouse. At that moment I heard the sound of a man screaming, the noise even louder in my head. I clutched at my ears to drown out the noise but it did not work. It was deep inside my own thoughts.
As I neared, I could see that Oleander was kissing a man, her mouth over his in an intimate embrace. Stepping back, I was deeply embarrassed but she turned sharply, sensing me there. In the dark, her eyes glowed amber like a cat’s, but there was more to see and I stopped dead for what was to come was, and is still now, unbearable.
Oleander held the man limp in her arms. He was nothing more than a husk, a shell, a shadow of what a man should be. Oleander’s mouth was open and I shut my eyes in this present moment of recall, for the image was pure horror. Her teeth and lips were glistening with blood.
I ran past them down the next alleyway only to find Jean. He too was in a similar embrace with a man. He looked up and laughingly threw his head back, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth.
Running back the way I came, and through the forest, it was there I retched. There was a hand on my back and I could see from the skirt whose it was.
Zola took my hand gently. ‘Oleander was wrong. Perhaps it is too soon.’
I was too ill to ask her what she meant. All I wanted to do was be free of them all. We did not speak as we returned to Oleander’s castle. So upset and confused, I can barely remember the return.
‘Marek, our instincts, desires and methods of survival differ from humans. It is perfectly normal.’ I could not bring myself to respond nor to look at her as I dragged myself, stupefied, up the long staircase to my room. My head filled with thoughts and images I wanted to erase. I knew I could not have imagined the fishermen. Zola had lied after all and this deception cut me deeply. I felt betrayed.
My sister was not human and while I lay there on the floor the next morning, clutching blankets to thaw my chilled bones, I had to believe that I still was. The only thought that kept me from slipping into madness was the image of my father and my plan to return to Gildoroso.
Throwing the velvets and frippery into a corner, I packed my bag with items I would need and put on my old clothes.
I held my troubled stomach and crept down the stairs. It was silent but for a few servants who walked light-footed during their nightly cleaning tasks. They were without the craft, and I could hear their thoughts. None of them had sensed me near, and I would at least know straight away if they were to report my whereabouts.
Opening the heavy door the light was blinding, the glare burning my eyes. Not even the island sun competed with such fierce icy light. Water nearby sounded like it was rushing through my brain, and my footsteps were magnified: each step a hammer blow against my skull. Temples and limbs ached, and stabbing pain gripped my abdomen in waves.
Once through the trees a short distance I turned to look at the castle. It stood grey and sombre in a field of white, its stone guards watching me. Movement in one of the windows tore me from my trance. I had to hurry but my legs felt like they were made from lead. The frosty winds failed to cool my skin, which tingled and burned. I rubbed at the itch but it did not help.
I had no idea which way I was headed but I came upon a lake that had frozen and looked solid enough to cross. Something had drawn me here and I felt the presence of one of my own kind. There appeared nothing in my wake except the trees that stretched on endlessly. Halfway across, I caught the sight of something moving beneath the ice. As I put my hand on the surface there was a thud against the ice from beneath and I jumped back, my feet slipping from under me. It seemed just for a moment the ice would crack and swallow me.
I carefully crawled back to where the object was. A face pressed against the ice. It was the servant, Irene, with her eyes and mouth open. I could hear her gurgled screams as she scratched at the surface for her life. The skin on her fingertips was raw from trying to claw her way out, and there was a faint murmur inside her head. She was attempting to speak to me but water gushed into her mouth. Instead, I saw inside her thoughts with images of my father. I became frantic, for this woman and I were connected in some way.
With all my dark strength I hit at the ice with my fist. A tiny fissure formed with water leaking through. Irene was slipping away with the current. I smashed at the ice one more time and this time a loud cracking noise echoed across the forest. My arms entered the freezing waters and I grabbed Irene’s hair, pulling her back and up through the hole.
; I turned her on her side to let the water rush from her mouth. Her face was purple as I carried her back to the edge of the lake.
I called her name, cradling and stroking her head in my lap, but she was gone. This person had known my father, a link to my past now broken. My healing hands were to no avail for my strange sickness had weakened me and after several moments I felt her last moments of life float past me like a warm breeze. This death was wrong like everything else to do with my sister.
‘Too bad,’ said a distinct voice behind me, since no-one else could sound syrupy and masculine at the one time. ‘She was so loyal to your mother.’
It took a moment for his words to release some memories from my previous life. Irene. Of course! She was my mother’s friend and my father had talked of her. How could I have missed that? I stood to face him, Irene in my arms. ‘What is going on? How did this woman die?’
‘She took her own life. Isn’t that obvious?’
‘You lie.’
Jean smirked. ‘You must come back. Oleander is worried. She has asked me to come and fetch you.’
I would have argued but for the pain in my stomach and the noises in my head of voices far away, of sounds like gushing water.
‘What is happening to me?’ I asked as I sank back down into the snow feeling as if the ground beneath me was swirling.
‘You need to rest,’ said Jean. ‘Your body is changing. It is craving its new life.’
Jean’s words sounded so far away. I wanted to ask what he meant but I slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter 8
Celeste
I lay in prison of obscurity. I was neither here nor there. I just was.
Sometimes I could hear sounds, like voices through the walls. I could not move my body or lift my arms. It was like I was suspended in the night sky. I did not feel pain, hunger or cold. Sometimes I thought I slept but it was hard to tell because it was always so dark.
What I remembered was blood. Lots of blood. I remembered screaming. Was it my own or had I imagined such a sound? I remembered Oleander’s perfect face, her faraway cold eyes. But that was all. And when I was awake the world was empty and I lay there suspended in a black cloud with just memories.
Did I die? Was I in purgatory? Had my bones been picked over by forest animals? Or perhaps I was buried alive.
Marek! Mama! I would call soundlessly. Where am I?
Zola
Marek was becoming one of us. He could feel the change but could not explain the way his body fought an unseen force. His stomach cramps worsened by the day. One night I visited him in his room where he lay on the floor. He had tried to eat meat but it made him sick. Human food was not what he craved, though eventually he would again if not for the taste but to blend in with humans. But it would never fill a need. I found the practice quaint but it was human life force that sustained us.
He was gaunt and his eyes darted around the room suspiciously. He ranted that he must see Oleander, demanding answers. His sister was a monster, a liar, a murderer, and he accused her of poisoning him.
In one way he was right. Oleander had been feeding him a few drops of human blood into his wine and food. And only a few drops were needed for a witch’s body to know what it needed and the cravings worsened until the hunger was satisfied. I knew that from my own experience and watching the others turn. I was worried though, about Marek. He was powerful. And the extent of his power was something that perhaps Oleander was unaware of just yet, and something I did not choose to share with her at that time.
Oleander had breathed new life into the circle yet sometimes I still craved the old one. Things seemed simpler in earlier times, less intense, less mysterious. Was that disrespectful towards the chosen one amongst us? For I could not forget that she was part of the reason I was what I became. Perhaps I was just tired of feeling indebted.
I felt Marek’s power back in the forest when he saw Celeste over the fire. That night I had helped direct his dagger to that idiot’s neck. I stood watching him from the darkness whilst those animals attempted their pathetic little ritual of burning anyone they were suspicious of. I felt the force of Marek. He did not know it himself at the time but had he been trained he could have turned the whole village into a fireball. Only a few were capable of such magnitude, one of them being Oleander and before her, Lewis. Jean and I were stronger than most but we did not match their power.
I took in a tray to Marek, with fruit and sugared rolls and thick mead laced with blood.
I entered the room quietly. He sat in a chair looking out the window. I detected the trace of tears on his cheek. He wore the clothes I first saw him in, coarsely tanned items often worn by lowly merchants. Still, there was a certain attractiveness about this: a ruggedness, a strength of character that sometimes stopped me short. His hair hung limply over his broad shoulders. He was perhaps still pining for his island. I had to admit, it sounded quite dull when he used words like paradise, golden, free, warm, open, to describe his home. I on the other hand loved cold, barren, empty places – the touch of the first winter wind from the north, the short days that fell quickly into night, and the cover of the Black Forest. No…his island would never do for me. And definitely not for Marek, now that he was coming into his real form.
He turned to look at me, his face awash with misery and his eyes sunken from lack of rest. There were beads of sweat on his forehead.
‘Zola, why must I be here? I still don’t understand what Oleander wants from me. Am I a prisoner?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then why is the door always locked and I have no strength to open it?’
‘It is exactly that. You are weak and your sister wants you to be safe. You could not be safer anywhere else than here.’ His island would be the most dangerous now but I could not say that, which might have enraged him further.
‘What is this on my arm? I do not remember how it got there.’ There was a tiny circle of purple ink no wider than an inch.
‘You are marked now. You are a strigoi. All strigoi must be marked with the circle. You are one of us.’
‘I do not want anything to do with you.’ He scratched at his skin trying to erase the circle of ink but I gently pulled his hand away.
I could see the questions in his eyes. Only a few nights ago I was in his arms and he was looking at me with puppy eyes. Now he was tortured, a prisoner inside a body he no longer knew. I should not have been confronted with the situation. Oleander should have warned him of the changes but I felt I must say something. I was frustrated that Oleander had left him so. He was bound to her by blood and I could not understand how she could treat him in such a way.
‘Marek. You are what humans refer to as a life-taker. A hated demon. An aberration. You can no longer live with people.’
‘Are not the servants downstairs people?’ he spurted resentfully.
‘They come from generations of humans who have served our kind for centuries. We would not abuse their loyalty and they would not betray our hiding places. We both have our boundaries and we can coexist in some circumstances.’
‘Was Irene one of those? For it seems her loyalty counted for little.’
I could not speak of Irene. It pained me. She was a good person but she had changed her loyalties once Oleander became the chosen. At any cost I was not to talk about it. She would know.
‘You are different now. Your islanders would have seen the difference. If you go back you will be persecuted, exiled at the very least, but more likely tortured to death. What Oleander is doing is for your own protection…’
‘My father will protect me,’ he interrupted emotionally, standing up and clutching at this chest. ‘Now I am just a monster. I think about killing people all the time. I have nightmares about taking the life of people, draining their blood until they fall like a bag of bones…’
‘It’s perfectly normal…’
‘Oh, God, what am I becoming?’ He fell back into the chair and moaned. He was handling this far
worse than I thought he would, than any of us thought. For three days he had been asking for Oleander and he grew sicker by the day. I knew it was just a matter of time before the cravings consumed him and he would have to act. It was the basis of survival; that first kill when you thought you would die if you didn’t.
I reached and touched his shoulder but he drew away from me, preferring to turn to the wall instead. I had developed feelings for him. At first it was just for amusement. This young boy so besotted with my beauty. I seduced him as I had many others; those who had since run their course with me, their appeal eventually wearing thin. Marek had been a welcome distraction. He was certainly not the most charming or desirable of men I had met, but most appealing in an awkward fresh sort of way, and there was the potential for ruthlessness under the candour. Sometimes, I found myself staring at him for long periods should I miss something about him that I had not seen before. At parties I was not so interested in other men. They were shallow in comparison, even Jean; though occasionally, to flatter Jean’s vanity, I still competed for his attention.
The festivals I was tiring of. If I were to spend several nights without the beautiful silks, without enchanting melodies of the lyra, I would not mind as long as I was in the company of Marek. What was happening to me? If I was human, one might say I was in love but it was wrong to have these feelings. The strigoi were not meant to be so vulnerable with human conditions, nor feel consumed by anyone. I did not ache for Jean like I did for Marek.
For my own sake, I would have to dispel my feelings. Oleander’s laws did not allow for lengthy intimate partnerships or to desire another exclusively of our choosing. Since she came to rule, such actions, unless sanctioned by Oleander, were considered collusion against her.
‘I want to see Oleander. I am tired of being a prisoner,’ said Marek.
‘You are not a prisoner. Jean has asked you to accompany him to town several times.’
Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) Page 15