The Heart's Ashes

by A. M. Hudson

  I think, of all the people I hurt over the past few days, Emily was hurt most. But she was so calm, mainly because she didn’t really feel she had a right to be upset with me. She did, though. I nearly did something really stupid in a moment of passion with the guy she loves. She has every right to be mad. I kind of wish she’d yell at me or something—anything but these overly-polite, meaningless conversations.

  I swirled the badly mixed, discoloured sludge in my cup a few times, listening to how well her and David got along.

  It’s so strange they never fell for each other. They’d make a good couple—especially now she’s immortal. Funny thing is though, I don’t know if she’s his type. He’s never really talked about a preference to blondes or brunettes—never really mentioned anything to do with girls in his past. I mean, everyone has an ex story, right? And sharing them is a part of getting to know each other, but David never tells me anything. Wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been with other humans before and only told me he hadn’t. It’s not like I’d ever find out. Suddenly, I don’t feel so special.

  Out of my peripheral, I saw Emily nudge David with her elbow as she placed the milk in the fridge, laughing.

  He reacts differently to her than he does me. She’s so easily beautiful. I guess it’s good that he likes her, that he thinks she’s so pretty. At least when he leaves, or when I’m gone, he’ll always have her to keep him company. I don’t have to worry about him being alone forever now.

  David whispered something to Emily and she nodded. All I got was a huge lump in my throat as I tried to swallow the sugary sludge in my cup, washing down the distaste of insane jealousy. I wondered if they could see me sitting here, or if they didn’t care. Emily even went as far as to offer a sympathetic smile as she passed me, closing her bedroom door; I returned it, because, even though she was flirting with my vampire, I wanted things to be okay between us.

  Silence seeped into the house again. I could feel David’s stare burning into my back. If he wanted to make me hurt, it worked. I’ve never addressed the possibility that David may be human inside, that he may be capable of straying from me, capable of getting sick of me. If he doesn’t usually put up with my kind of rubbish, I wonder what sort of girls he dates. Probably very level-headed, career-minded girls. Girls who wear suits and walk fast, talking on mobile phones.

  Or maybe he prefers the well-organised, work-from-home girls; the ones who can make casserole, juggling phone calls and emails at the same time.

  Stupid thing is, none of those sound like the kind he’d like. I slumped on my hand a little further. But then, I’m not the kind of girl he goes for, either. I wonder how much longer he’ll put up with me before he just decides to be with Emily.

  “Here.” David replaced my cold coffee cup with a warm one.

  “Oh, um, thanks.” I half smiled, dropping my gaze immediately.

  With a sigh, he sat at the table, his knees facing me. “Why are you going down that path?”

  “What path?”

  “Thinking about my type of girl.”

  “Oh.” I gently blew the edge of the cup, then took a sip. “So you can read my mind today?”

  “I just caught some of that stuff about casseroles and emails.” He looked into his own cup. “I’m here, with you, don’t you think that means you’re my type?”

  “You flirt with Emily.”

  “Flirt?” He almost leaped out of his seat. “Ara, that is not flirting. We’re friends. That’s all.”

  I nodded, tinkering with the rim of my cup. “But she’s...so normal and, I mean, she’s blonde and pretty and...”

  “Ara, I’m a vampire—” his jaw set stiff as he spoke, “—a reasonably old one, at that. You know I’ve had other girls. You know they’ve been different to you, but if they were better, I’d still be with them. I’d have stuck around when I caught them kissing their ex-fiancé, I’d have fought to be with them, even though their life would be at risk for it.”

  “I know.” I shrugged slowly. “But—”

  “But it’s human nature—to wonder,” he said with a nod.

  “Yes. And, well, I was quietly wondering. You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “But I’m glad I did.” He leaned back, tucking his feet under the table. “There is only one thing worse than discussing a past you wish to leave behind, Ara, and that is when people make their own assumptions based on facts others have given them. So, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Really?” A smile lifted my cheeks.

  “Discretionally.”

  Which means he won’t tell me anything, but will make it seem like he has, until I think carefully about it later. It’s a talent of his. “Is Emily your type?”

  David looked up at her door, his long fingers tapping the table. “No.”

  “How many girls have you dated?”

  He went to laugh, covering his mouth with a soft fist. “Um, really? You want to know that?”

  I nodded; David sat taller.

  “Um, okay. Well, uh—I don’t know.”

  “Ten...fifteen...?”

  “Ara, I’m a hundred-and-twenty years old. I’ve had three serious relationships in my life, and the rest have been...”

  “Not so serious?” I suggested.

  He looked at Emily’s door again, scratching his brow; I looked too.

  “What? What’s the deal with Emily?” I said.

  “She’s laughing at me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, Ara—” He leaned forward, placing both hands on the table in front of me. “I dated girls for one reason, and it wasn’t love. I hardly had time for my own primal needs, let alone relationships.”

  “So, you were a fly guy?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Were they all vampires?”

  He went to answer but trapped his breath between his lips for a second. “Yes.”

  “Do you still see any of them, were they from your Set?”

  “Some.” He nodded. “The vampire community becomes very small after a few decades, my love. I’m pretty sure everyone’s dated or been in love with everyone at some point. And there’s really no way to avoid seeing them again.”

  “I guess that must suck—not really having a great selection.”

  He laughed. “Yeah.”

  “So, have you ever loved someone enough to want them for...forever?”

  “Uh, well, not for forever, no. Or I wouldn’t be here. But, I thought I wanted to marry a girl once.”

  I looked up quickly. “Who?”

  “A girl named Morgaine.”

  “Who was she?”

  “She was a vampire, of sorts. She—we were just too different.” He shook his head, staring at the table. “But yes, I had girlfriends, and I loved all of them, in ways—not for long though, Ara. I’m not...I wasn’t that kinda guy.”

  “So, what happened to her—to Morgaine?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I like long stories.”

  He nodded, then motioned toward my cup. “Drink—while it’s hot.”

  I took that as David severing this direction of conversation. But I was in no way done with our walk through time. “Did you have to give up the love of a girl when you became a vampire?”

  His distant smile seemed to reflect days gone by. “Not love, no.”

  I stared at him for a moment, waiting for an elaboration. He grabbed my hand and stood up. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “For a walk in the past.”

  “The past?” I moaned, leaving my tasty coffee to go cold on the table.

  “Yeah, I wanna teach you a thing or two about history.” His eyes lit up on the corners, a perfect toothy smile slipping across his lips.

  We hopped out of the car and wandered the wooden steps of the town museum, featured in an old house donated by one of the founders. It smelled of polished wood and freshly printed paper, while the cool breeze, floating through the o
pen space, carried the scent of engine fuel and aged books. Soft voices of pre-recorded history lectures hummed gently through the thin walls, making it feel as though someone was home, despite how empty and quiet it was in here otherwise.

  “I don’t see what you can teach me about history that I haven’t already seen here,” I remarked snidely as we dropped a gold coin in the wooden box by the door and grabbed a pamphlet.

  David strolled causally with his hands behind his back, a smug grin on his lips. “We’ll see.”

  “Oh, you just love being right, don’t you?”

  “It’s just so easy for me.”

  “Well, I’m going to make it my mission to prove you wrong now.”

  He nodded, unperturbed. “You can try.”

  “It’s probably not worth the effort.”

  “See, you’re already learning” he said. “You’ve heard of Harry Houdini?”

  “Yeah. The magician, right?” We stopped in front of an aircraft display; the old Cessna on the roof, hoisted to the rafters by metal cables, still smelled of oil—gritty and dry.

  “Yes,” David said. “But what most people don’t know, is that he was also a pioneer of flight.”

  My brow creased. “You’re making that up.”

  He dropped his head and laughed. “No, I’m not, sweetheart. I wouldn’t do that. You see?” He pressed a fingertip to an image on the carpet-backed pin-board; two men sitting inside the open-aired cockpit of what looked like a toy plane. Wings of wood, longer than modern planes—stacked on top each other—with wheels that belonged on a bicycle. “That’s Harry Houdini,” he said.

  “Wow. Hey, did you ever meet him?”

  “You lived in Australia, did you ever meet The Crock Hunter?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly.” He shook his head, looking back at the image. “But, I know his story. I followed it in the papers. Harry—” he pointed to the man, “—was the first person ever to fly a powered aircraft in Australia.”

  “Really? I should’ve known that.”

  “It’s not really common knowledge.”

  “So, what kind of plane is that?” I leaned closer. “I know what a Cessna and a bi-plane are, but that’s, like, wooden or something, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is.” He smiled. “It was a French, Voisin bi-plane. He paid five thousand dollars for it, I believe. Here, it says, He shipped it over to Australia in nineteen-ten.” David rubbed his chin. “I think it was at Diggers Rest, near Melbourne, that he made the flight.”

  I scrolled down the page of information and, sure enough, the words Diggers Rest stood out. Okay, I’m impressed.

  David kind of skipped on his toe then; his hands behind his back as he walked away.

  “Guess I was wrong,” I noted, catching up to him. “You did teach me something I didn’t know.”

  “There’s so much to learn about the world, Ara.” He seemed to motion around the museum, or maybe the world, with a kind of fascination I’d never seen alive in him before. “I’ve had nearly two lifetimes, and I still have not seen even half of its wonders.”

  “Yet you always seem to know everything.”

  “No, mon amour. I don’t know everything. In fact, when I visited a museum last, I learned something new.”

  “Really? What was that?” I said with a laugh.

  “That Leonardo da Vinci didn’t, in fact, invent the scissors, despite what you learned in history class.” He turned his head to one side, bringing his shoulder up with the rise of a very cheeky grin.

  “Well, I feel smarter now for having learned that useless little fact.”

  We wandered side by side through the house, David pointing out interesting facts from a firsthand experience of history, and as we came to an almost deserted section, we stopped. “This is why I brought you here.” He took my hand, shocking me a little; I hadn’t expected he’d ever touch me again after what I did with Mike.

  “The World War One display?”

  “Yes.” When the other visitors left the room, David looked over his shoulder, then spun around slowly—checking for more spectators, I assume. “You’ll love this,” he said, dragging me to the centre of a large, freestanding pin-board. “I first noticed this about ten years ago. Ever since, I almost feel like this place connects me to my old life.”

  I stood before the collage of paper cut-outs and faded sepia images, mixed among black and whites, all thumbtacked carefully to the carpet wall. “You need to come here to feel connected?” I didn’t even know he needed to feel connected.

  “I still have feelings, Ara. Nostalgia being one of them.” He looked away. “Sometimes.”

  “Okay, so...what am I looking at here?”

  He scrolled along the different images, then pointed to a group-shot of about ten men—standing together—some in uniform, some shirtless. “Look closer at this picture.”

  Reluctantly, since I had no idea why I was looking closer, I leaned over a little and scanned the image, passing over a boy with a moustache, a boy holding a gun and a boy smoking, but stopped, stark-still, my blood running cold in the tops of my arms, when I saw the boy with dark hair, his easy smile and aura of confidence standing out among the few, emaciated men beside him. “This is yo—”

  “Shh. It’s not something I like people to know.” He nodded to an old couple who’d slipped into the room, unnoticed by me.

  “Sorry,” I said, my cheeks burning. “It’s a dumb thing to say, but...you look exactly the same.”

  “Yeah, will you look at that?” A man, suddenly poking his head right between David’s and my shoulders, pointed to the picture we were gawking at. “Ancestor of yours, son?”

  “Uh, yes, he was my great-grandfather,” David said, as though it was a fact he’d shared many times.

  “Dead-ringer for the old codger, ehy?” the man said, clapping David on the shoulder.

  David just winked at me, both of us smiling in our private moment of amusement. When the man and his wife walked away, I took a closer look at the picture—at my David, looking so dashing in his uniform. “Was anyone else like you? A—vampire?” I whispered the last word.

  David looked at the image again, his lips pressed thin. “I wish it had been possible. I lost a lot of friends.”

  “Did you fight in World War Two, as well?”

  Without a word, he nodded, growing taller.

  “You’re very brave,” I said.

  “No—I’m not, Ara. I went in knowing I couldn’t die. But these guys—” he smiled, nodding at the photo, “—these guys put everything on the line to protect what they loved—to stand up for what they believed in. I was just there to eat the bad guys.”

  I could tell from the way he was smiling that he meant that as a joke—a really bad, vampire-humour joke. “That’s not entirely true, David. You said your uncle changed you because you wanted to join the army. So, you can’t have been craving human blood then.”

  A broad grin broke out across his lips, making his eyes sparkle. “Okay, you got me there. But I wasn’t afraid to die, because I wasn’t going to war, remember? I joined before war broke out.”

  “Then why did your uncle change you? If there was no risk of death?”

  “Because, when you join a cause where guns are involved, there is always death. It was naive of any of us to think otherwise. My uncle was not so. He’d been around for many centuries and knew exactly what war entailed.” David leaned a little closer and whispered the next part. “He fought in wars as far back as The Hundred Years’ War.”

  “Wow, that is really cool.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I know. We grew up hearing stories.”

  “So, you always knew what he was then?”

  “It was never a secret.”

  “You must have loved him, to be boys so young and keep that to yourselves.”

  “There is a certain level of respect my uncle commands.” David’s shoulders straightened. “Which is why, when Jason and I told him we wanted to join the army and
he insisted we’d be going to our deaths, we heeded his words—despite what we believed.”

  “Lucky you did.” I remembered the gravestones David had shown me before he left last year—the ones of him and Jason, dying in the wars.

  “Yes. Lucky. But he’d have forced us to change if we’d not obliged.”

  “Is he allowed to do that?”

  David’s thoughts stayed hidden behind his smiling eyes. “No.”

  “So, how old is he—your uncle?”

  “Old?” He frowned. “We don’t really measure age after a few thousand years.”

  “Oh, so, ancient is a better word.”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Well, how ancient is he, I mean, like, how long ago was he born?”

  “He never told us that much, only that he’d been around to see a first-hand account of the Bubonic Plague and was the first member of the Council. Probably met Merlin, too.”

  We both laughed softly.

  “That’s kind of gross. Being that old. Doesn’t he, like, rot or something?”

  David laughed. “Nope, fresh as the day he was born—just smarter.”

  “So, he’s not really your uncle, then? If he was born all those centuries ago.”

  “Not technically. But we’re descendants of his brother.” David and I started walking again to a display near a large, open window. The corner store down the road was cooking sausage-rolls, and the scent wafted in with the breeze.

  “So, he kind of is your uncle—distant uncle,” I said.

  “Yes, but I have only ever thought of him as my uncle. And yet, he’s always been more like a father.” David stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. “He swore in blood, to his dying brother, to protect and watch over the blood of Knight, for eternity.”

  “Must be hard for you, then—to be an outlaw—not be able to see him anymore?”

  David nodded, looking at the ground. “More than you know.”

  “I’m sorry.” My heart dropped into my stomach.