The Heart's Ashes

by A. M. Hudson

  If he won’t tell me, someone will.

  The fleeting winter sunshine went on holiday, which was perfect because I wanted nothing of the blue skies. Darkness and solitude were on the menu, and I found them under my blanket, my body cradled by the indent in my mattress.

  “What’s wrong, Ara?” David stood in the doorway.

  I hugged my knees to my chest, pinning the hot water bottle closer to my tummy.

  “Oh.” He nodded, dragging out the vowel. “Well, I guess you’re not stressed anymore.”

  “Go away!” I ditched a pillow at him. “Emily! Get the vampire out of here.”

  David maintained his chuckle, tossing the pillow onto the floor as he landed gently on the bed, without so much as creasing the covers. “I’m not going anywhere, my love. You’re in pain. I’m staying until it goes away.”

  “But I don’t want you in here. It’s embarrassing.” I rolled over—away from him.

  “Oh, come on, Ara,” he moaned, “I’m not the first guy to know when his girlfriend has her monthlies.”

  I smiled to myself; he can’t even say the word. “But it’s blood…and you…y’know…”

  “It’s a very different kind of blood, my love.” He laughed. “I don’t see it that way. Now grow up and stop being such a baby.”

  “Baby? I’m not being a baby.”

  “Yes, you are. I bet you’ve been around Mike a hundred times when you’ve had your period.”

  Hmpf!

  “I thought so. Now—” he appeared in front of me, squatting down, face to face, “—I’ll go make you some tea and run a bath for you. Sound good?”

  I nodded. “That’d be nice.”

  He kissed my nose and stood up. “I love you, Ara, okay? Especially when you’re being human.”

  Emily popped her head in as David disappeared into my bathroom. “Everything okay?”

  “Em.” I sat up and hugged my pillow. “Go get me some tampons. Now! I’m so not wearing those other things around a vampire.”

  She laughed. “It won’t make any difference.”

  “It will to me.”

  “Hey girls, what’s all the commotion?” Mike popped his head in too; I shook mine at Emily.

  “Ara has her period and doesn’t want us vampires to know.”

  “Emily!” My cheeks flushed hot, mortification travelling through me in a rush of cold.

  “Ara.” Mike raised a brow. “Grow up. David’s not gonna leave you because you’re woman. He doesn’t care. What’d you think we did when you were in a coma? You still had your period then—he didn’t freak out.”

  I fell back on my pillow. Gross. That’s not something I want to think about.

  “We’re guys, Ara, okay, but we get it,” Mike reasoned. “We just wanna help—make you feel better.”

  “Then leave.” I covered my face with the blankets. Light intruded my solitude when a pair of hands slid under my shoulders and knees—scooping me from the warmth of my bed. “David! What are you doing?”

  “Your bath is ready.”

  “I didn’t even hear the taps.”

  He smiled, carrying me past the end of my bed, the dresser, then, manoeuvring through the door, without hitting my head on the doorframe.

  “Put me down. I can walk myself.”

  “I know.”

  “David!”

  “Ara. Let me take care of you. I’ll just deliver you to the bathroom—I won’t stay. But, please, I love you, and I can sense how much pain you’re in. Just let me do what I can to help.”

  “Fine!” I huffed, folding my arms.

  “Thank you.”

  He placed me on the ground in the candlelit surrounds of my bathroom, then stepped back, smiling down at the bath; I drew a breath when I saw the rose petals floating on milky water, the steam rising up in soft plumes, and a box of chocolates on the small table. “You are something else, aren’t you?”

  He reached across and turned my face to look at him. “And you are everything to me, Ara—even when you’re not feeling well. Don’t ever forget that.”

  I folded my arms, smirking. “Make sure you’re always around to remind me then.”

  “That, my love—” he bowed slightly, “—I can now promise you.”

  He closed the door, leaving me with my privacy, and I smiled; I could get used to having a vampire around for eternity.

  Chapter 16

  The clicking grind of the winding crank rotated seven times; I counted them as I walked toward the soft, blue glow at the centre of a pitch-black room. Smoke plumes guarded my steps, licking my ankles as I came to a stop, my toes an inch from a small, wooden box.

  “Hello?” I called, but my voice fell flat into a dense hold—no echo, no answer, despite the airy, open space.

  No one came to greet me or inquire of my business here. When I looked back at the polished wooden box, a small tag appeared, dangling from a green ribbon: OPEN ME.

  Unsurprised by the request, I crouched down, then lifted the lid; a chime rang through the air; a spinning, intrinsic melody—sad, like the long walk of a lonely soldier, on his way back to a war-ravaged home. It was strangely familiar, the song, full of loss and sadness—the kind that had never had the chance to heal.

  I sat cross-legged, with the box in my lap, watching the ballerina spin gracefully on her perch in front of the cracked mirror.

  “Do you hear it too?” a small voice asked.

  “Yes. We all hear it.” I looked up at the child who sat beside me; her dark eyes hollow, her dirty face framed with wispy blonde hair.

  “Do I scare you?” she asked.

  Smiling, I looked back down at the music box. “No.”

  “Why does she cry?”

  The ballerina’s cheeks sparkled with a streak of tiny tears. “Because she can’t hear the music.”

  The little girl closed the lid on the box, ending the song, leaving us in silence. “You’re wrong. She can hear it now, but the others can’t.”

  “What others?” I looked over my shoulder. “There’s no one else here.”

  The girl shook her head. “They’re here. They’re afraid.”

  “Afraid? Of what?”

  She cupped her hand to her mouth and leaned closer. “Of the light.”

  Feeling the slight tingle of heat along my bare arms, I looked up to the roof—to the source of the blue glow. “This light?”

  “Yes.” She sat back and looked up too, rolling her palm as if to feel the glow, like raindrops. “There’s no music in the dark—it belongs with the light.”

  I stole my eyes away from the heavens and looked back at her. “But, music, light, these aren’t things to fear.”

  “Not if you’re human.”

  I studied the girl more carefully; her round face, ashen eyes, the small dirt-filled cuts in the cracks of her lips. “How come you’re not afraid?”

  “I’m not one of them.”

  “What are they?”

  “The damned.”

  “The Immortal Damned?” I placed the box on the ground. “The children? Where are they?”

  “Can’t you hear them crying?” She sat dead still, back straight, eyes wide. “Listen and you’ll see.”

  The box stayed in the safety of the glow while I stood, letting my white silky nightdress fall softly around my ankles, walking into the darkness. Even with no light to orient sight and no sound to give me bearing on earth or sky, I continued, seeming to float smoothly along the slick surface. Step by step, my feet moved, and as the darkness swallowed me whole, I stopped.

  The blue glow I felt safe in before disappeared, leaving me in the world of nothing, alone, cold, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. I closed my eyes and listened carefully, wrapping my arms across my body.

  There has to be something in here; there has to be some kind of sound.

  My eyes flicked open again; a face appeared for a spilt second, just long enough for the memory of his sunken cheeks, his soulless gaze and his ash-grey hair to stain my ey
es with imagery.

  “Who are you?” I called, hearing the words only in my head. “Where are you?” No sound again—like watching TV on mute.

  “We want to play a little game,” a child’s voice echoed from every direction.

  I spun around, searching for anything visible in the dark room. “I don’t want to play. You’re scaring me.”

  “You have to play. To get home—you have to win.”

  “Well—” I hugged my arms across my chest again. “How do I play?”

  “You hide,” one voice said.

  “And we seek.” Another giggled.

  “But—” I spun around again to the sound of the voices. “—I don’t know where to hide.”

  “Then you better run.”

  My eyes snapped open and daylight filled the space around me—flooding in like a cup of sand over a spring daisy. I rubbed my face and sat up on the couch. Nothing had changed; the minute hand on the clock still pointed to the six, as it did when I last looked at it, and even the hour hand stayed the same. Did I fall asleep?

  Across the road, the sun sparkled off the frozen lake, making the snow-covered banks glisten. It looked so desolate out there in the winter; no children playing by the water, no joggers taking their dogs for a run, and today, there weren’t even skaters circling the ice.

  After a deep breath, the sinking feeling of my nightmare eased and I ran my fingers over the scribble on the open page of my diary: The clicking grind of the winding crank rotated seven times.

  My dream? Did I dream this and write it down, or write it, then dream it? What ever it was, it was awful. I couldn’t remember exactly what happened, only that the feeling of hopelessness and loss was so consuming I wanted to run away.

  “Everything okay?” Emily asked from the armchair beside the lounge.

  I nodded, and as I read further down the page, my heart skipped at the words Immortal Damned.

  So that’s what it was—the vampire children. “Emily?”

  She looked up from her book.

  “David was fighting the case of the Immortal Damned, right?”

  She placed her book on the coffee table where her feet had been. “We’re not supposed to mention them, Ara.”

  “Who says?”

  “David.”

  “Really?

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “S’okay.” She shrugged and went back to reading.

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “About what?”

  “About them—about their existence.”

  “I don’t really put much thought into it.”

  “How can you not?”

  She shrugged again. “Guess it’s just like world hunger or pollution.”

  “But, they’re real, Emily. They—”

  “They’re not my problem.”

  “Then whose problem are they?”

  “Well, I suspect no ones, now—since David’s here.”

  “Wasn’t there anyone else fighting for them?”

  With a huff, she dropped her book into her lap. “Probably, Ara. Look, who cares? What is it with you today, anyway?”

  I flipped the pages of my journal, stopping on one dated a week before David returned, the words restoring a memory. “I keep dreaming about them.”

  “You can’t help them, Ara. Stop worrying about it.”

  “But, I...sometimes I see Harry.” Emily stiffened a little; I never talk with her about Harry. “It’s, like, he’s in a dark room, screaming, reaching up with his chubby little hand. And just as I touch him, as I’m about to make it okay, white hands, so thin and bony, come up out of nowhere and drag him so far into the darkness that I can’t get to him.”

  A cold finger brushed my cheek, scooping a tear I didn’t know was there. “Don’t cry, Ara,” Emily said; I looked up suddenly from where she was across the room to where she now sat beside me. “I know it’s horrible. But so is pollution and hunger in Africa. You can only do so much.”

  “But we’re not doing anything. And now David’s here, for me, he’s not advocating for their release or proper care. They’re just children, Emily.”

  She hugged me to her. “That’s not what I’ve been told. Apparently they’re locked away because they’re not fit for society. They’re vile and cruel and have no restraint.”

  “Couldn’t they be trained?”

  Emily shook her head. “Vampires aren’t cruel by nature, Ara. I’m sure they explored those avenues.”

  “But—”

  “I know,” she said. “I know, and I’d give anything in the world, even Mike, to see them freed, Ara—any of us would, but—” her voice, though she kept talking, trailed off in my thoughts as I stared out the window.

  She’d give up Mike for their freedom? David tortured his own girlfriend for creating one?

  The realisation hit me so hard I was glad there were already tears in my eyes.

  I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give up David, my love for him, our eternity, Lilithians—Paris. I wouldn’t give any of it up to save the Immortal Damned. What sort of person does that make me?

  “What is it Ara?” Emily asked.

  “I—” My nightmare left me feeling weak and hollow, but the darkness those children suffer must be far greater. Only they can truly understand what fear, desolation and darkness is.

  I looked to the lake, hoping to see signs of life, the children, the families that usually brought me back down to the safety of normality, but I was offered only the pain of a lifeless, empty park—cold and brittle, devoid of the magic it had in the summer—the magic that made me buy this house in the first place. The absence of joy felt sudden, making the solitude and loneliness wider, deeper, more damaging to my already saddened heart.

  I wonder if that’s what it was like for those children; if they had birthday parties planned or family holidays, only to have them stolen when they were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, promised eternal life, then locked away for that which they did not choose.

  The soft ringing of the piano in the other room stopped; I hugged my knees to my chest and closed my diary.

  I don’t want to think of them anymore.

  “Look—” Emily stroked my hair. “In a few months, you’ll be in Paris and all this will be behind you.”

  “I know.” I nodded and smiled. But there’s a connection I feel to the Immortal Damned, one I can’t explain, one I can’t deny. I feel them screaming in my heart, and the truth is, all I want is to get away. That’s the depth of my selfishness, and I hate myself for feeling that way, but I can’t lie to myself either, and I will never admit the truth to David—or in his eyes, I’d not be worthy of life.

  “Come on, sulky.” David extended his hand, cutting through the sudden dusky-darkness in the house. I looked around for Emily, vaguely remembering her leaving with Mike a few hours ago. “Come on,” he said again.

  “Where are we going?” I stood up and David slid my beanie over my hair then handed me a pair of skates.

  “We’re going across to that lake you keep staring at.”

  The unruly cold meant no one else came out tonight. The quiet lake, that looked desolate from my window, suddenly seemed so open, so welcoming; our own private little place to be. The houses, trees and power lines all turned black against the backdrop of the setting sun, while the snow glowed almost pink along the banks.

  “So, you don’t have the co-ordination to play video games, but you can skate like an Olympian?” I grinned at David, who landed perfectly from a pirouette.

  “Like you can talk—” He took my hand and tucked me in his arms. “You were a ballet dancer. Bet you skate better than I.”

  I’ll rise to that challenge.

  David flashed a winning smile, then bent his knees and twirled me out from his body; I angled my feet to swerve into the spin.

  “See?” he said, “I knew you could dance on ice.”

  “Dance?” I scoffed. “That wasn’t dancing.”
>
  “Then, by all means, ma belle amie, do demonstrate.” He posed in offering of the floor.

  “It would be my pleasure, he-who-cannot-speak-English-when-he-speaks-from-his-heart.”

  Before he could object, I crouched low to skate fast over the lake. As the wind brushed my face and neck, splaying my beanie-covered hair out behind me, I pressed off one foot, heaved my shoulders to the right and spun through the air, the world becoming dizzying lines around me. Beneath me, glass-like ice scraped noisily as the blade of my skate cut the surface and I swivelled into a turn—my leg high behind me, my arms spread wide, like an eagle’s wings.

  “Very nice.” David tucked his beanie under his arm and clapped loudly. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “Yes,” I muttered, skating past him. “Figure my own head out.”

  “Hm, but I like you that way.” He pressed his hands behind his back, skating alongside me. “So, don’t change that, okay.”

  “Sure.” I nodded.

  “Hey, Ara?”

  “Yes, David?” I responded with same playful tone.

  The air became light then, a flirtatious energy charging us both. “You love me, right—for eternity?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, you know I love you, too.”

  I said nothing, just smiled to myself—my own secret smile. He laughed, zooming past, making circles around me as I skated in a straight line.

  “You have to answer me. It’s part of the game.”

  “The game?”

  “Yes.” His cheeks looked almost pink, as if the frost made him cold. But it was just the orange glow from the sun. He looked so young and free and vibrant—human David.

  “You know I love you forever. Why do you ask?”

  “I was thinking.”

  “Mm.” I shook my head, my warm breath mingling at our chins as he took me in his arms. “You shouldn’t do that. Thinking isn’t safe.”

  “Some of us can’t help ourselves.”

  “Some of us don’t want to help it.” I looked right into his eyes; the sunset reflected off the green for a flash moment before we circled again, angling away from it, but in that second, they looked so clear, almost a lighter, pale green.