Softly Amanda says, “Come inside.”
“No, I don’t want to. I want to stay out here for a while.” I know she is going to try to convince me not to love Andrew. She is going to tell me if I am looking for hope and love, I will not find it in Andrew. I did not want to hear the truth. I just want to imagine for a little while that there could be a chance.
Silently she turns around slowly, away from me, and then she walks toward the house.
I sit down onto the lawn and I let the first rays of sun dance over my skin. Looking up at the sky, my eyes follow a pair of birds swooping through the air.
Much later, I walk into the house and I find her sitting in the lounge, paging through a magazine.
“Where is Shayne?” I ask casually as I sit down in a chair opposite hers. “I haven’t seen him in ages.”
She closes her eyes for a moment and then I see the deep sadness in her eyes when she looks up at me again. She clears her throat and she says barely above a whisper, “Shayne went to fetch you a few days after Ethan took you. Ethan phoned and said that Shayne must come alone and bring the money he wanted. I told Shayne not to go alone, but he insisted and told me we have known Ethan so long and he would be able to talk to him reasonably. Shayne thought he could convince him that what he was doing was wrong. Ethan killed Shayne that day and then the day I rescued you, I killed Ethan.”
I have been so selfish, wrapped in myself, I did not notice the pain and sadness in Amanda’s eyes when I saw her each morning and during the night when I was allowed out of the basement. I never even noticed that Shayne was not around. Always assuming he was upstairs in his room or at the University.
I stand up from my chair and I sink down next to her. I fold my arms around her and pull her into me. She holds onto me desperately for hours. Now and again, she will say something, reminiscing Shayne. How she met him, the first time she saw him, how silly he could be at times, how much she loved him and I sit next to her silently, letting her talk. I could not possibly tell her that I know how it feels, because I cannot imagine her pain, I can only guess.
We sit like this until it is dark and neither one of us have the inclination or a need to switch on the lights.
I say, feeling responsible for her loss, “I am so sorry. You have been together for so long, and now because of me, you have lost him.”
She replies despondently, “No, Susie. It was never your fault. We lived too perfectly, integrated with those around us so flawlessly. We imagined ourselves as normal and we never realized that there was a prize to pay for all of this.” Hesitantly, she continues, “I want to ask you something.”
I reply without a second thought, “Anything.” I felt so sorry for her and I would genuinely do anything she asked for right now.
“I want to go and live at your château in France, if that is okay with you. I want to surround myself with old-world charm and magic. I cannot stay here, because everywhere I look I am reminded of Shayne.”
“Of course, we could go there. You do not even have to ask. It must be falling apart though. We have not been there for decades.”
“No, I did not mean that we should go. Earlier I thought I would convince you to go with me. However, when you told me how much you care for Andrew, I decided to go on my own.”
I feel remorse rush through me. I would want to stay with Andrew, obviously, but I could not let Amanda go by herself either. I say adamantly, “Where you go, I go.”
“You can really stay here, if you wanted to. We can employ a housekeeper and then people will not get suspicious when they see you are living on your own.”
I admit to myself that I am so in love with Andrew, it is scary. It would be better to go to France, before I fall in love with him any further, because honestly where could it lead.
I smile, trying to lighten the mood. “I am going with you, besides what is the use of staying here? How long will it be before Andrew has outgrown me?” I laugh sadly. “If Andrew and I ever did get married I would never have to worry that he would leave me for a younger woman, because I would always be the younger woman.”
She laughs softly at my frivolous silliness and I am glad to hear the sound. I am only acting ridiculous to make her feel better about me going with. It will be heartbreaking, but I convince myself that it would be better for Andrew in the future. Amanda will probably mourn Shayne for a long time to come. She has that same hopelessness about her that humans have when someone close to them dies.
*
I do not go back to school. What would the point be anyway? Amanda and I are going to live at the château and restore it to its former glory. My stepfather, Francois, often told me how beautiful it used to be and I wanted to do it for him. He never managed to restore it completely before his death. I will not go to school again for a while and I will live as a woman of leisure for the next few years. I will miss the young people I have loved to surround myself with over the last decades, but I can always do it again later, once Amanda has learned to adjust to life without Shayne, which could be a while.
*
I am busy packing our personal belongings into a box. We sold the house with the furniture, but we have little things that we have collected over the years, sentimental things.
I hear a knock at the door and pulling my back straight, my hand resting in the small of my back I walk to the door.
I cannot help feeling miserable when I see Andrew standing on our doorstep and he says desperately, “You cannot leave.” I have not seen him for a while because Mr. van Heerden grounded him for falling asleep at school and Carmine must have told him that we are moving.
I explain urgently, “I have to, because Amanda needs me.”
He has a pained expression on his face. “Carmine says I must forget you and move on, but I cannot. I know you can feel it too, this feeling that we should be together.” He looks at me searchingly. “Don’t say that you cannot feel it!”
I turn away from him and walk toward the lounge. I pick up a glass vase that Shayne bought at the turn of the century and I start to wrap it carefully in bubble wrap, when I feel Andrew standing behind me.
He leans past me and he takes the delicate glass container out of my hands. Bending down, he puts it on the coffee table gently and then he turns back toward me.
He reaches for me and he asks enquiringly, “Can you not feel it, the feeling that this was meant to be? I know it with such certainty and I know you know it as well. I have never felt this way about anything. I have always had the feeling that I belonged nowhere, until that day I held you in my arms and I unexpectedly had this sense of belonging, a feeling of promise for tomorrow. Susie, I love you.”
I smirk, “Love? You say you love me, but do you even know what you are saying? It would never work between you and me, because I live forever and you will eventually die.”
“We all eventually die, even you. Look at what happened to Shayne. I bet nobody ever expected that. Besides, I have been thinking, you could turn me.”
I gasp, “Never! It is not allowed and if I did we would be hunted forever by my community until they find us and dispose of us in ways you could not even imagine.”
He takes me in his arms and I hear the doof-doof of his heart again. That sound will stay with me in the years from now, in the imagined dreams I would weave around what could have been.
Pulling away from him, I add, “My world is a completely different world from that which you are used to. Only recently…” I laugh sarcastically. “Before you were even born, we could never come out in the day. Is that not just too far away from anything you could ever imagine? You would never adapt in my world, even if I was able to turn you.” I have to hurt him, so that he will forget this entire episode, so I say, smirking, “You would not survive the turning, you are too weak.”
He pulls me abruptly to him and then I see him bring his face closer to mine. I see his full lips and then I feel them on mine. He moves his lips against mine firmly and I open them under his. His h
and moves around my waist and he holds me close to him, pulling me tightly into him. I know that what he is saying is true, I also felt it when I first saw him and I started contemplating mortality. I know I am supposed to be with him, to love him unconditionally and completely, but I cannot allow him to think about me. I cannot allow him to come after me. When I leave, it will have to be over between us.
Amanda clears her throat as she walks into the room and he pulls away from me. Amanda suggests, “Perhaps you two would like to talk outside on the verandah.”
Embarrassed, I turn away from Andrew.
Silently he takes my hand and we walk out toward the verandah. The moon is full and he leans against the railing looking up at the sky. “It would not be so bad to only live at night.”
“Everybody always wants the whole package, nobody is ever happy with just a part of the deal.”
He reaches out toward me and then he pulls me against his chest again. “I understand that Amanda needs you now that Shayne is gone. I cannot even imagine loving someone for that long and then they are just stolen away in the blink of an eye. If it was me, I would have been devastated, knowing what I feel for you now. Next year, I will leave here and I will find you.”
“No, Andrew. You must not come looking for me and you must find someone else. Please!”
He laughs dismissively. “From that day at the café, there were so many things I wanted to say for so long but the words always seemed to get lost before I could say them. I never thought I would be able to say any of this to your face, to actually come to you and hold you in my arms.”
I sigh. “You are not listening. You don’t understand the full complexity of the situation.”
He brings his head down to mine and close to my ear he whispers, “You have not yet noticed my obstinate streak. I am determined and anything is possible.”
In a halo of moonlight shining down through the tightly packed clouds, where every cloud has a silver lining, I give him my heart entirely. There is the possibility that he would meet another and stubbornly I hope he does.
*
A week later when Amanda and I leave on an airplane to France, Andrew and Carmine come to the airport to say goodbye.
After we have checked in and our bags disappear on a conveyor belt, Amanda says we had better start going up to the boarding gates.
I notice Andrew looking at Amanda nervously and then I see Amanda smile at him reassuringly. Andrew takes my hand and he leads me away from Amanda and Carmine. In a quiet corner away from everything and everybody he stops.
Softly he cups my elbows and he turns me toward him.
I look up at him sadly, while he pulls a little red velvet box from his pocket and then smiling tentatively, he holds it out to me. “I bought you a going away present.”
“You shouldn’t have, I didn’t get you anything.”
“It is just something small.” He hands it to me anxiously.
I take it from him, feeling guilty.
He watches me worriedly, while I lift the lid off the little jewelry box. Inside, there is a gold chain with a golden heart and I immediately notice my name engraved onto the heart.
I lift it from the box and then look up at him again. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
He takes it from me. “Let me help you put it on.” He turns it over and smiling he shows me the flipside. I see his name engraved on the back of the heart.
I turn away from him and I lift my hair. He drapes the necklace around my neck and then I feel his breath on my skin as he fastens the clasp. He softly kisses the back of my neck and I feel the same delicious warmth as always spread itself through my body.
I turn toward him again. I rest my hands on his shoulders, standing close to him, while he looks down into my eyes, smiling demurely.
He holds the chain softly between his fingers and then he lets his fingers trail down the chain. Softly his fingers brush against the rise of my chest, until the heart is nestled between my breasts, safely resting against my skin.
He leans toward me and whispers close to my lips, “Now when you meet someone else, they would have to get through me first, before they can get to your heart.”
I want to remind him that I do not have a beating heart, but I did not want to spoil the moment.
He says, “I need you to know that I would never let you go. I love you, Susie.”
I lean into him and I rest my cheek against his chest. I can hear his booming heartbeat as if it is my own.
Chapter Twelve
Amanda and I arrive at the run-down, sad and ruined château late in the afternoon.
When we drive down the dirt road between the tall trees and past the derelict, once white, wooden fencing, I have a sad feeling of dread. We drive through the overgrown bushes and then there it is, large and majestic, from a lost era.
We stop the car in front of the defunct pond that used to be so imposing. The walls crumbling and the floor bright green, covered in a multitude of moss variants.
Hesitantly we walk up the wide, flowing stairs and then in front of the large wooden doors we stop.
Amanda looks at me apprehensively, while I look for the key I have kept all these years. I pull the heavy silver key from the navy velvet satchel and I push it into the keyhole.
It scrapes as I force the lock to turn and then together we push the heavy doors open. It opens silently and I am shocked when I see the splendor and glitter that I was so used to when walking through these doors, non-existent. Everything is dull and grey, all the color sucked out of the heavy chandeliers, the rich wood and furnishings.
Amanda walks further into the foyer and then into the first reception room. Immediately she starts to pull the heavy white sheets off the chairs and billows of dust explode into the air.
I follow her and then I stop at the door, looking up at the portrait of my mother. It is as if I am looking up at my own reflection, except for our different hair color. Although the painting is dull, I can still see her dark, long hair and the brilliant sapphire eyes. This is the first time I notice the sorrow in her eyes.
When I was younger, I used to look up at her sadly and wish that I knew her. I grew up wishing that she never died when I was born and I often wondered what it would have felt like to feel her arms fold around me. I grew up with Francois as my only family member, and more often than not, he used to look at me with regret and longing in his eyes. I knew when he looked at me he saw my mother and he missed her. The feelings of loneliness and solitude I used to have flood back and I feel like that little girl again.
Amanda’s voice breaks through my dark memories, “Help me. We will clean this room, so that we have somewhere to sleep. Tomorrow we will walk through the rest of the house and plan how we will restore it. It is going to be a mammoth task.” She laughs bitterly. “Not that we have anything else to do.”
I look at her and frown, and then silently I start pulling sheets from the furniture.
After a while, Amanda announces, “I am going to the car to get some dust rags, then we can start dusting.”
“Dusting?” I ask incredulously.
She sighs. Since Shayne died, she has been very bossy and even more motherly than usual. It seems as if she feels she needs to protect me even more now, in case she lost me as well.
“We cannot sleep like this. We do not even know if there is water here. Either we will have to walk down to the river with buckets to bathe, or sleep like this. I prefer to sleep clean and comfortably.”
She turns and walks out of the room, while I continue pulling up dust covers. The dust covers did not really work, because once you pull them off, the dust that rises into the air settles back down onto the furniture it is meant to protect.
When she comes back, she is carrying car interior polish and two soft cloths. Silently we start to clean the room and when it starts getting dark, she is happy.
She sits down in one of the chairs. “I think this is okay for now. We would not be able to clean it all as it sho
uld be. Tomorrow we will drive into the village and get everything we will need to fix this room and then move on from here – room for room.”
I consider despondently that it will take forever, but it would be nice to restore it for the memory of Francois and my mother.
I turn toward Amanda and I say cautiously, “I am going for a walk.”
“Okay, but don’t be long. It is not like the last time you were here. Things have changed and the world is more violent now.”
I give her a peck on the top of her head. “I’ll be fine.” Then I walk out of the room toward the main door.
I walk toward the little graveyard a distance away, past the conservatory. The flowers in the conservatory, or what is left of them, grow wild and I look at them sadly.
When I reach the little graveyard, I walk straight to the grave of my mother. Although the grass sweeps against my knees, I know instinctively where it is. I used to spend so many lonely hours here, talking to her softly, as if she could hear me and wondering whether she would have stayed with me if she had a choice.
I sit down on the grave of my mother and sweeping the long grass away with my hand gently, I look sadly at the headstone. Her date of death matches my original date of birth. I notice the grave of Francois next to hers. I remember the day he was buried, I watched from the shadows of the trees.
From the corner of my eye, I see a shooting star cross the night sky swiftly, and my thoughts involuntarily return to Andrew. We grew close in that last week before Amanda and I left to come here. I doubt I will ever see him again, even if he professed his undying love for me. He did not really understand the concept that we could never be together. Even if I wanted to love him and I wanted to spend forever with him, I could never turn him. If I did go as far as making him like me, we would always be fugitives and looking over our shoulders, waiting for them to catch up with us and to kill Andrew and me brutally and painfully. I must spare him from that, and so, in a way, I am glad that Amanda and I moved away. There might have come a time when I would have wanted to keep him with me forever despite the dangers. Although I used to have a short future planned of going to university and finding a job, the one thing I have learned from all my years is that things never happen the way you assume they will.
The Vampire Pirate's Daughter Page 8