by Carol Robi
“What do you think you’re doing!” I cry out in anger. But he just smiles, before kicking off the jagged rocks and jumping again.
I scream, watching him descend, sharp rocks waiting for him below. But just as I think he’ll crash into them, his hand finds yet another nook to hang from. I hear his laugh even from all the way down there, and it infuriates me to see him laugh so happily at something that has me so scared.
“Gauthier! Gauthier you get back up here right now!”
“Woohoo!” Is all he says in answer.
“Gauthier!” I let out yet another scream when he let’s go, and jumps. My heart stops when I see him do a somersault in the air while falling, the scream leaving my mouth as I shut my eyes so as to not see him crash onto the jagged rocks. Only there is no sound of impact, which makes me start to open my eyes cautiously, a silent prayer escaping my lips.
I start back when my eyes open up to find dark eyes gleaming back at me.
“Boo!” He say, and I react by reaching out and slapping him, my hand moving so fast that it catches both of us by surprise. My hand falls away limply as soon as it lands on his face, my body plopping onto the ground listlessly as I feel my whole body go flaccid.
“Sophia!” He cries out with concern and fear, reaching out to me and then stopping.
“Gauthier..”
“I can’t touch you,” he says, reaching for his phone. “I’ll call.. an ambulance. for help..”
“Gauthier!” Now he turns to look at me. “I’m alright,” I tell him. He looks at me astonished, not believing his eyes.
“You can talk,” he says with disbelief, getting close to me.
“I can talk,” I tell him proudly. “I’m just really tired but I’m alright.”
“But you touched me.”
“Yes, I touched you.”
“Your bare skin on my bare skin..”
“Yes, Gauthier.” I am now smiling, though weakly.
“Then.. ” My tired laugh interrupts him. He looks at me questioningly.
“I’m really tired. I don’t want to answer your questions anymore.”
“Of course, my love. Of course. I’ll just.. Don’t move. I’ll bring you some water.”
He is gone and back faster than I’d have expected, or maybe I am just really out of it. He uncorks the bottle and then remains kneeling beside me, unsure of how to help me drink as I am lying on my stomach, too weak to turn myself, and he is too scared to touch me and flip me himself.
He then get’s hold of my jacket’s lapels and turns me over roughly, though I know he would have been more gentle if he could, my head landing on his jacket that he’s folded and placed where my head lands. He tips the bottle and patiently feeds me the water, the concern in his eyes captivating.
“I’m alright,” I tell him between sips. “I feel great already.”
“No you don’t,” he says with a scowl.
“I didn’t die,” I tell him.
“No, you didn’t,” he says. His voice tries and fails to hide the fear in it. “It was stupid of you to..”
“To do what? Slap you? Why don’t you think how stupid it was for you to scare me like that..”
“I did not mean to scare you. It was just a joke.”
“A stupid joke! I thought you’d.. I thought you’d get hurt.”
“I can’t get hurt..”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“I told you I am immortal.”
“Well excuse me for I don’t know what happens to an immortal when they fall against rocks about two hundred feet below. I was scared!” I am now crying out with frustration.
“Sophia, I’m so sorry. I did not think.. I thought it was funny..”
“It wasn’t!”
“Now I know.” He says, kneeling beside me, looking into my eyes, his hands lying restlessly on either side of me. “I didn’t know you cared so much..”
“Of course I care,” I scowl at him.
“Now I know,” he says, smiling at me
“Wipe that smug smile off your face.”
“It isn’t smug. I keep telling you. I’m just happy.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says smiling again, his hand reaching up to me, and then falling away.
“Go ahead,” I tell him. “Touch me..”
“Sophia, I can’t.”
“Yes you can. Your hand is gloved. I touched you with my bare hands and nothing..”
“That was for a split second.”
“Then touch me for a split second,” I tell him.
“Don’t tempt me. It’s hard enough already.”
“Coward!” I say. He chuckles now.
“I’m a coward for not wanting to hurt the girl I love.”
“The girl you love?”
“Yes, the girl I love.”
“How do you know you love me yet you’ve never even kissed me?”
“Because I love everything else about you.”
“I could be a lousy kisser,” I say. He smiles cheekily.
“I highly doubt that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have tasted the fire in you.” I look at him confused. “Each time I am near you, small pockets of your energy sip into me, and I feel the fire in you. I taste it. I can hardly wait to hold you in my arms and kiss you, Sophia. But today is not the day.”
Chapter 19
“I’m nervous,” I tell him, tugging at my hair nervously.
“Don’t be,” he says, slapping my hand away as he tousles it.
“Hey!”
“What? I love playing with your hair.”
“You’re messing it up!”
“Really? It’s just wild curls everywhere. I’m not messing anything up..”
“Excuse me!”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry if I messed it up. I just really like the fact that I can touch your hair now and not risk hurting you. It’s the only part of you I can touch ungloved, and you have no idea how it feels to just run my hands through it.”
“Oh,” I say softly, my face burning up again.
“Yes, oh!” He says chuckling, right before burying his face in my hair and inhaling deeply. A tingling sensation runs through my whole body, one which I know it would be a matter of life and death should I decided to relax into it, so I opt to fight my every instincts and choose to remain firm and strong.
“You’re getting really good at resisting me. I’m almost offended.” I laugh at this.
“You told me to resist you!” I remind him. “If I don’t I’ll die,” I point out to him.
“Exactly,” he says breathlessly, lost in my hair. “Exactly Sophia.”
“Gauthier if you do that one more time I doubt I could resist you any longer,” I tell him, my knees weakening, turning to jelly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s getting harder to remain standing. My mind is screaming at me to just throw caution in the air and collapse into your arms. To lie against your chest, to press my lips against..”
“Stop talking,” he growls, his breathing laboured. He inhales one last time before taking a step back with difficulty.
I giggle nervously, noticing his visible discomfort as he paces about before me. He comes back towards me, then seems to change his mind.
“I.. One minute,” he tells me, his hands held behind him, before he suddenly walks away before I can protest.
I see him walk through the crowd gathered outside Nuit Noire hoping to get in. I know what he is doing. He is feeding off them. Taking a little at a time from each, not enough to kill them, or visibly weaken them.
When he struts back towards me, his smile is confident and his eyes are dark once again.
“Feeling better?” I ask him laughing.
“Slightly, I am still assailed with a different hunger,” he tells me. “A hunger only you can quench.”
I struggle to look anywhere but in his eyes, and he seems dissatisfied with anything but that. I final
ly give in and look into his eyes.
“I think I should start teaching you to manipulate my energy. It’s time you graduated from just resisting me.”
“That sounds great!” I cannot help but exclaim, for that step will bring me closer to kissing him, and God knows it’s getting difficult not to just do it.
“Ready?” He asks.
“As ready as I can be,” I tell him.
His gloved hand finds mine and our fingers interlock, as we walk together towards a side door that deposits us in the backroom. I shiver, even though it is considerably much warmer in here than it had been on the streets. Gauthier feels my shiver and squeezes my hand in his. We have been practicing for months now, throughout winter, and it is not taxing to fight for my life anymore when he touches me with his gloved hands. I almost don’t even notice the struggle anymore.
“It’ll be alright,” he says, as we step into the corridor that I know will lead us into the nightclub.
Walking forward by his side, my hand in his, we don’t get pushed around. People form a wide berth around us as we walk across the large dance floor space.
“How..? Are you telling them to step aside?” I ask him above a whisper, as the music is still blaring loudly around us.
“To what?” He asks, without turning my way.
“To clear away from us?” He shakes his head, his lips pursing.
“They feel it. They feel that I’m a predator. Subconsciously. They know it’d be stupid to touch me. All living beings know it. Just like in school. People talk to me, are attracted to me, but don’t get too close or try touch me. Instincts.”
“I’m touching you. Does that make me stupid? Are my instincts inferior?” Now he turns to me, a grave look in his eyes.
“That makes you my xana,” he says, right before we step out of the line of crowded bodies to the empty floor at the front, looking on towards the table of Gauthier’s family members.
“Gauthier!” His father calls, rising from his seat and walking around the table, striding quickly over to us, and enveloping his son in a warm embrace.
“Sophia,” he says when he steps back from his son. His eyes assess me, but I am glad he doesn’t get closer to me or move to touch me. He still scares me. “You look less terrified than you were last time you were here.”
“And I feel less terrified too,” I say, which causes him and the rest of Gauthier’s family to laugh.
“Welcome to my family, Sophia.” I feel the familiar claustrophobic feeling I get each time Gauthier mentions the whole family and eternity-together topic. It makes me feel as though my fate is not my own anymore.
“Thank you Ælderic,” I choose to say instead, which causes the older man before me to smile almost warmly.
“Come, sit with us. Meet the rest of the family,” he says, so I follow him, my hand still clinging to Gauthier’s as I follow his father.
“Move over for your brother and his xana, Hemming!”
Hemming pretends to scowl, as he vacates the seat, but when he turns to me, the young man smiles at me warmly, and makes a mock bow, before walking around the table and sitting himself at the opposite end. I smile back at him as Gauthier helps me into the seat, and he takes the empty one beside me to my right, while his father seats to my left.
“Welcome to the family, Sophia,” Hemming says from the opposite end. “Now I’m the only one left without a mate,” he makes a scowl. I am about to say something endearing when the middle-aged woman on the other side of Ælderic speaks up.
“You’re too womanising for me to have any pity on you. It will be a most interesting day indeed the day you run into your xana and have to explain yourself!” The whole table laughs, Hemming included, not appearing to be the least bit sad now.
“I’m Hilda, by the way,” she tells me, her wrinkled face endearing. “And this here is the love of my life Peter,” she says, wrapping an arm around the shoulders of a middle aged man. I study him more curiously. “Yes,” she answers my unspoken question. “He’s human.”
“How..?”
“We met over twenty years ago in our forties,” Peter now speaks up. “I mean, I was forty two. She was three hundred fifty something,” he says laughing. “She just made herself look forty.”
“You can make yourself..?” I start to ask confused. She laughs.
“We can make ourselves whatever age we want, but the younger we make ourselves than when we died, the more we have to..” she draws off uncomfortably.
“To feed?” I ask. She laughs.
“Yes, to feed.”
“When did you die?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Sorry I..”
“No it’s alright,” she says good-naturedly. “I died at fifteen. It’s probably why father felt weighted to save me..”
“It is why,” their father says. “You died too young. I hate seeing children die so young. However I can’t touch all children,” he says sadly.
“Of course not, father.” Hilda says, reaching out to touch his hand. “We are growing old together, Peter and I,” she continues telling me. “It’s fun. And when he dies and comes back to me, we’ll live on together.” Forever, I think, my heart constricting again. That same foreboding feeling settling over me, reminding me just how long forever is.
“That’s beautiful,” I choose to say.
“You’re lying,” she surprises me by saying. I look at her confused. “You’re scared,” she tells me. “Of course you are. Your whole world just turned upside down. You’re questioning everything you ever knew. Words like soulmate, xana, love, forever- are being thrown around you. You have every right to be scared.”
“I..”
“It’s okay, Sophia,” Peter now says. “It’s alright to admit that you’re scared.”
I turn to look at the intensive dark eyes to my right, and I squeeze his hand in mine.
“It’s okay,” he tells me. “Just tell me if you’re scared.”
“I’m terrified,” I whisper, spellbound by his eyes.
“It’s alright to be scared, Sophia,” Hilda says. “You have no idea how often Peter kept running away from me.” I chuckle at this, Peter putting his hands possessively around her.
“How long did it take before you could touch each other?” I ask. everyone at the table laughs, and I look at them puzzled.
“I remember Peter asking that the very first time he sat at the table with us too,” Hemming says. “It’s a good sign,” he says winking at me. “It means you are finding it very difficult to keep your hands off him.” My face is now burning, and I turn to face the table. “Oh, she’s shy..”
“Shut up Hemming!” Hilda calls.
“Please don’t start, you two,” Gauthier says. “They always fight,” he explains to me.
I smile amused, thinking how odd it is that a woman that looks sixty something is arguing with her brother that looks twenty something, and is being reprimanded by yet another brother that looks sixteen, and their father looks to be in his early thirties.
“And big bro is always there to break up the fights,” Hilda laughs. I look between her and Gauthier amused.
“You’re the eldest?” I ask Gauthier surprised.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “Hemming is the youngest. A Hundred and twenty.”
“Oh!” I say.
“You look overwhelmed,” he tells me. I laugh lightly.
“Just a teenie bit,” I say smiling.
“I’m sorry..”
“Don’t be. I want to know all about you,” I tell him, sending a warm glow over his features.
“How old are you?” This I direct to his father.
“One thousand five hundred and forty eight,” He tells me, lifting the goblet before him to his lips. My mouth falls open, and he chuckles.
“What have you been doing all that time?” I ask in disbelief.
“Living,” he says laughing. “Eating. Drinking. Loving.”
“Do you have a.. xana.”
“Aye, my Leman, Xristina.”
“Where..?” I start.
“Our mother is sleeping,” Gauthier tells me.
“Sleeping?”
“Yeah,” Hilda now says. “She’s been sleeping for eighty nine years now.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, looking around the table, settling my gaze on Gauthier.
“Mother is more than a thousand years old,” he tells me. “She gets tired of living sometimes, so she goes to slumber for a few years, then wakes up and goes on living again. Dad does it sometimes also, and leaves mom in charge of the family.”
“Do you do it too? Sleep for years?” I ask Gauthier.
“Not yet.”
“None of us would do it unless we’d found our xana,” Hilda says. “The risk that we’d miss our xana while we are sleeping is too great for anyone to take.”
“Oh,” I say quietly.
“He’s been searching for you for a very long time,” Hemming says. “Longer than I’ve been alive, and that feels very long to me already.”
“I know,” I say, playing with Gauthier’s gloved fingers, wishing I could just take the stupid gloves off and actually touch him.
“I am just glad I finally found you,” he tells me.
“Me too,” I tell him.
“Once upon a midnight dreary,” he mutters. I think I have misheard him, and lean in closer.
“While I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,” his family members continue to recite at the tops of their voices laughing. I look up confused.
“He’s been reciting those lines since he first sensed you. It had been one night in a pub we owned downtown Southampton, just slightly past midnight. He'd been sitting alone at a bar table looking outside when he felt his heart flutter the moment you came of age. Ever since then, he can't shut up about that verse. We’ve had to sit through it and listen to his constant rambling..”
“Shut up, Hemming,” Hilda says. “We are very glad that he found you, even though it was (and here her voice rise in pitch and she lifts her face to the air as though making a theatrical performance) Une nuit noire, you seated tormented on the edge of the water looking out into the darkness, sad, attempting to forget, or hold on to your father’s memory, and he came a-knocking!” She finishes, smiling at me, Hemming laughing opposite me, but I turn them off and turn to Gauthier.