The sound of the cicadas was almost too loud and shrill to bear, with the occasional owl hoot barely audible over the bug’s high-pitched shrieking.
I felt Eloise's hand on my back as she used her cell phone to light our way. I didn't need the light, vampires could see quite well in semi-darkness, but her human eyes were having problems trying to navigate through this thick, forest labyrinth.
Finally, we came to a small clearing; the grass had gone yellow and hard, poking up through the dry earth like finger bones.
I paused in front of the tiny hovel that had once haunted my nightmares and tantalized my dreams for the last hundred years.
Strange.
I looked at the crumbling structure, the porch all but having sunk into the earth, the railings covered in various dark vines, the empty doorway beckoning to us as we stopped in front of the three stairs onto the porch that was now just a mass of broken, rotted wood.
Eloise's hand clenched on my upper arm, a small sound rising from her throat. "Wha—what is this, Arden?"
I pressed a finger across my lips. "All will be revealed shortly, my love."
I slid her hand down to mine and clenched it tight. "Come. There is something else I would like to show you."
She nodded, her hair a dark spirit under the full moon's light. "Okay."
The small graveyard was only about a hundred meters away and I stared at the wooden cross headstones, the names almost illegible under the decades of wear and tear, and not a small amount of graffiti.
Maman. Papa. Marie-Claire. Jacques. Grandmere. Grandpere.
They were all there, in somewhat crooked and ramshackled rows, all of them in worse condition than pauper graves given to executed criminals.
Next to me, I heard Eloise swallow audibly, her hand convulsing in mine.
"I don't..." she whispered, shaking her head. "I..."
I led her to the cross at the very end of the second row and knelt down.
"You see this?"
She stared at the cross I was pointing to, my forefinger a mere breadth away from the faded white letters that were almost unreadable.
Almost, but not quite.
She bent down, her eyes narrowed, mouth working silently as she fought to decipher the ancient and no doubt terribly written lettering.
"O... Oli... Oliver?" She cocked her head to one side and glanced at me. "Oliver Mo... rea...u. Oliver Moreau? Who is this Oliver Moreau?"
I straightened back up and waved toward the other headstones. "This is my origin, Eloise. This is where I come from."
She stared around the tiny graveyard, her light brows furrowed. "I don't..."
Her eyes widened, and she pointed a shaking hand at me. "Oliver Moreau. That's you. Your birth name."
I nodded slowly, grateful that I didn't have to say it out loud.
"You are correct."
She shivered, wrapping her arms around her, even though it was hot and humid, the air almost the same temperature as the blood that flowed through her veins. "This is where you grew up."
"Yes."
She walked a slow circle around the small collection of gravestones; her gaze seemingly unable to leave the deeply cracked and pockmarked earth. Surely by now the cheap wooden coffins would have rotted, leaving behind only the stark white bones of my family members.
She let out a small sound, shaking her head. "I don't understand. Your name...you're here. This is your grave. But how is that possible?"
She stopped at the opposite side of the crooked fence that separated the graveyard from the rest of the tiny property. "Surely it's not your body underneath that gravestone?"
"If there is a body under there, it is not mine." I put a hand over the heart that had ceased beating over a hundred years ago. "As I am here. Before you."
"So there is no body, then?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. There shouldn't be. I can only assume that my family had given me up for dead and buried an empty coffin, if only for closure."
She was silent for a moment, still shivering slightly.
I wanted to go to her, wrap her in my arms, kiss the top of her head.
But I got the feeling that she needed distance, needed to process this on her own without any interference.
"I will be back at the house," I said, taking a step back. "Take as much time as you need."
She said nothing, her gaze riveted to my gravestone, and I quickly retreated, returning to the house that had borne and housed over five generations of Moreaus, ever since we escaped France during the Rebellion in the late 1700s.
My grandmere always used to brag that we, Moreaus, were distantly related to Marie Antoinette, and that is why we had to flee France and Robespierre's reign of terror. That we were once so wealthy, and ate from plates of gold and silver, our utensils studded with precious gems.
Her tales had left a ten-year-old me absolutely smitten, filling my young, adolescent head full of dreams of gilded thrones and rich, soft furs curling about my neck.
Looking back now, I was almost sure that if there had been any royalty or nobility in our family, it would have been bred out of our bloodline long before my father met my mother at a gathering in Shreveport.
Still, those dreams had sustained me.
A corner of my mouth lifted up in a somewhat rueful grin as I thought about Eloise's grand mansion, all the jewels that laid within her jewelry box.
Did anyone ever know that Oliver Moreau would once again elevate the family to the riches that we had supposedly been so accustomed to?
What a strange turn of events.
I ran a hand across the railing, but I did not trust the porch to bear my weight, so did not proceed into the building.
It didn't matter. I already knew what the interior had looked like and had little desire to see what kind of horror it looked like now.
The only thing that mattered was the truth.
It was the only thing I could bring to Eloise.
Honesty.
I will give you all of me.
I hoped her mother didn't have delusions that when I offered everything; it had meant material wealth, because aside from the goods that Jardin gifted me, I was as penniless as a church mouse.
A few minutes later, I heard Eloise returning, the dead grass crunching under her soft-soled espadrilles.
There was a strange, almost tragic expression on her pretty face and wordlessly, she wrapped her arms about me, pinioning my arms in place, her face pressed into the hollow of my chest.
The shirt fabric in that area grew a bit damp, but I said nothing, because in truth, I didn't think there was anything to say.
With a suspiciously loud sniff, Eloise pulled back, swiping at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Th—thank you," she said, in a barely audible, but wavering voice. "Thank you for bringing me here."
I nodded. "Of course. How could I not? I told you that I would show you everything, didn't I? That I would hide nothing from you."
She gave me a lopsided grin, a thin sheen of wetness in her eyes that reflected like glass in the moonlight. "And you have stuck to your word, haven't you?"
I gave a little courtly bow. "Anything for my queen. Shall we then?"
I held out my elbow, and she put her hand at the bend, her other hand on the outside of my elbow.
It was a strange, yet wholly familiar sensation.
As though her hand had been there all this time.
Like it belonged there.
"Are we going back?" she asked as I led her back to the car.
"There is no need to stay here anymore," I replied. "I have shown you the truth. But also, there is something that I have for you. In the trunk. Now that I've shown you my beginnings, I think I would like to show you the future."
My words were somewhat more florid than I felt comfortable with, but underneath the bright moonlight, and her hair shining like gossamer, it felt right.
The way back was much easier as we had already eliminated
all the obstacles between us, and as I went around to open the trunk, I could've sworn that my heart was approaching human-levels of activity.
Eloise peered over my shoulder, curiously, as I pulled out a small box next to the spare wheel.
“What is it?” She paused. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what to call you. Are you Arden or Oliver?”
The large rosewood box was smooth underneath my fingertips, no splinters to catch against the skin as I ran a hand down the slide-away box top. “I haven’t been Oliver in a long time. I have been Arden for much longer.”
Her laughter sounded nervous. “That’s good. I don’t know how I’d feel about having to call you a different name. I’d forever be messing up. But of course, if you prefer to be called Oliver, then I would try my best.”
“Arden is fine, my dear.” I closed the trunk and leaned against it, the box held out to her. “Like I said, you’ve seen my past. I’d like to show you the future.”
Our future was on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t want to come off as too maudlin. Even if she did make me want to break out into godawful poetry, I certainly didn’t want to plague her words with my clumsy prose.
She took the box in one hand, a small sound erupting from her lips at the unexpected heft of the container and that which laid within.
“Wha—what is this?”
Fighting hard to keep the smile from spoiling the surprise, I crossed my arms, head cocked to one side. “Open it.”
She pushed up the sliding lid and stared into the depths.
Her hands began to shake.
“This isn’t—” She licked her lips and looked up at me, her eyes large and luminous in the moonlight. “Arden, is this—”
“I told you.” I couldn’t stop my grin. I felt like a six-year-old child again, presenting my beautiful Maman with a grimy handful of wildflowers. “The future.”
I took the wooden box from her as she withdrew the contents, wrapped lovingly in a square of white silk.
She breathed out slowly, holding the book under the light to better read the title.
“La belle Au Bois Dormant,” I said quietly.
She ran a shaking hand down the thick leather, cracked cover.
“Sleeping Beauty,” she translated. “Oh my God, Arden.”
“First edition. Published in 1698. Rather difficult to procure, but my finder seemed to relish in the challenge.” I tried not to sound as though I was boasting, but I was failing miserably.
I wanted the world for Eloise.
She who had given me a reason to continue this life…
She deserved nothing less.
“I don’t understand.” Moisture shimmered in her eyes as she cradled the book against her chest. “My mother told me that the other books were in private collections. That no one was willing to part with their edition.”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, I think perhaps they just needed a little more persuasion, that’s all.”
And a great deal more money, in fact almost all the funds I had left in the world.
But what was money?
I had Eloise now.
Quietly, she slipped the book carefully back into its box, treating it with such reverence that it made my chest clench painfully tight.
“I’m sorry about your library. I said I’d help you rebuild it. That book was just the first of many. I pro—”
Her kiss was sweeter than anything any mortal could hope to taste on this mortal plane.
“Thank you,” she murmured against my lips. “Thank you, Arden.”
Reluctantly, I pulled away.
“Let’s get out of here.”
She nodded, tucking her hair behind one ear. “Agreed.”
This was a place of death and the past.
Eloise did not belong here.
And now, neither did I.
As I drove slowly back onto the highway that would take us home, I glanced at her.
“You know I love you, right?”
She laughed softly and put her hand atop mine, her diamond engagement ring glistening against her skin.
“Until the end of the world, my love.”
Truer words may have never been spoken.
ABOUT SAMANTHA
SAMANTHA COVILLE is a fantasy author and alumna of the University of Central Florida. Her lifelong love of reading evolved into a passion for writing during the third grade and at the age of sixteen her debut novel, Blood Oath, was released. When Samantha is not writing, she is either exploring the local theme parks with her husband Marsean or watching movies with friends.
ABOUT FIONN
FIONN JAMESON is a USA Today bestselling author of heart-pounding urban fantasies, steamy historical romances, and just about any romantic sub-genre in between. She's a homebody who has lived in Seoul, Chicago, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Taipei, but currently calls Ho Chi Minh City home. She also dabbles in game dev and illustrating, and is very slowly working on her first visual novel/dating sim game called PS: I Love You.
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