But the love was the same.
‘Lenah?’ A feeble voice called me.
I twisted to see who was calling my name. Everyone was still in their costumes, their eyes lined in sparkly glitter, lips and noses painted or furry. Beyond the groups of students huddling together on their way to Quartz dorm, two paramedics carried someone on a stretcher. As the stretcher passed by, Tracy turned her head slowly to me.
‘Lenah!’ She said my name again.
I jumped up from the grass but stopped and groaned as a shooting pain travelled along my arm. I reached up to hold on to my right shoulder; I hadn’t needed such arm strength the last time I’d wielded a sword.
I walked past students talking about Justin and his changed appearance. There were dozens of excuses: drugs, an adrenaline junkie, maybe he’d joined a gang. All words and phrases I had learned over this human year. They were just excuses people made to explain what they could not understand.
‘Can you wait one moment?’ I asked as I approached Tracy, and the paramedics stopped.
A tear rolled over Tracy’s cheek. She wiped it away and looked at me.
‘I tried,’ she said. ‘I brought a small knife but she just kicked it away.’
‘I couldn’t get to you,’ I replied, squatting down to her eye level.
‘Is everyone I love going to die?’ she asked, and her voice was so shaky. ‘I don’t want to go home, Lenah, but they’re closing the school.’
‘Not forever,’ I replied.
‘Is he going to come back and kill us all?’
‘He’s a vampire,’ I said softly, so only she could hear. ‘But I don’t think you have to worry about him any more.’
She wiped her eyes.
‘What you did. Tonight. It was amazing,’ she said.
‘It’s because of me that you had to see that at all.’
Under the moonlight, I could see her pain so clearly.
I reached out and took her hand. I was so used to embracing Justin or Vicken, young men with strong shoulders and wide backs. But Tracy was just a young woman – like I should have been. She felt frail to me, as if I was holding the hand of a small child.
‘I can’t believe they’re cancelling school,’ she said, and let go of my hand to wipe tears from her cheeks again. The men who carried the stretcher started walking again towards a collection of ambulances in the centre of the green. In front of those ambulances were six bodies. Four vampires including Odette, and two students. Just when I turned away, someone behind me said, ‘The news crews are coming.’
‘See you soon, Lenah,’ Tracy said, and she was carried away into the fray of emergency workers and flashing lights.
‘Sure,’ I said, though I knew I would not, in fact, see her ever again.
When I turned back to face the chaos on campus, the police were corralling students by class. Everyone was on their cell phones. Ms Williams pointed some students towards the dorms.
I met Rhode’s eyes as he joined Vicken by the great oak tree. Vicken had a white bandage wrapped around his head and they talked with quiet confidence. It had been hours since Justin had run off to the woods and only now, with midnight long past, did the police officers and firefighters usher the students back to their dorms. Statements had been made, notes taken – it was time to go inside and try to rest for whatever was left of the night.
I exhaled as a cool wind swept through the campus, making the leaves shiver. I knew that a shiver was a sign. A familiar knowing feeling swept over me.
I looked past the students, up the archery hill, where at the top finally, finally, stood Suleen.
I walked towards Vicken and Rhode. On my way Ms Williams stepped before me. Her mouse nose had worn off. All that was left of her costume were some smears of whiskers over her cheeks.
‘I’ve been waiting to get you alone,’ she said.
Her eyes, a blue-grey colour, penetrated mine in that pre-dawn.
‘What did you do?’ she asked. ‘How did you know? You, Vicken and Rhode?’
‘Ms Williams, I have to go.’
‘Those men. And Justin . . .’ she started to say.
I touched her on the shoulder, as she would have done me, like a parent to a child. Because really I was so much older than she would ever be.
‘It’s over now,’ I said, repeating the words Rhode had said to me, and I walked towards the tree.
As I went, I ignored her calls.
‘Lenah, wait. I don’t understand. I don’t . . .’
When I reached the tree, I saw that Vicken’s bandage stretched from his eyebrows to his hairline.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘Nothing but a scratch, love,’ he said, and we shared an exhausted smile. At the top of the hill behind him was the white garb of Suleen. He reminded me of the grey orb that hung over my heart in the onyx ceiling at the house of the Hollow Ones.
I looked back to the crowds of people behind us. No one turned in our direction; no one demanded we go inside. I knew this was Suleen’s doing. He made us invisible, to allow us a clear getaway.
It also gave me time for one last look. And I did. I swept over the campus, stopping, of course, on Seeker dorm in the distance. Its brick structure was framed by trees bursting with orange and yellow leaves. My heart pained me.
‘It’s time to go,’ I said to Vicken, and started walking up the hill.
‘Go?’ Vicken asked. ‘Go where?’
‘Come on,’ I said gently, and took his hand in mine. He looked down at it and then up at me.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. We climbed the hill. Rhode squeezed my other hand hard as we ascended. He was on one side of me and Vicken on the other. Three generations of murderers walked to their rectification. The reckoning was by my own doing this time. When we crested the top of the hill, Suleen stood ethereal and silent.
I wanted to be angry with him. Wanted to know why he hadn’t come after I’d called him with the summoning spells.
The truth was that I already knew the answer. He didn’t come because I didn’t deserve it. Because coming to save Rhode wouldn’t have solved anything. I would have just found another way to try to break the decree, to do magic that I was specifically asked not to do.
As we walked towards Suleen, I drew a breath. The fall was finally upon Wickham campus. As we made it to the top of the hill, huffing and puffing, we could see our breath in the air.
‘Suleen,’ Vicken said in a breathless wonder. He had never seen the vampire before – not in the flesh. ‘You came,’ Vicken said. ‘We didn’t even have to burn any appendages.’
Suleen smiled kindly but then turned his gaze to me.
‘I am proud of you,’ he said. Rhode stood by my side. Suleen looked to him next. ‘And even prouder of what you could not give up.’
Rhode nodded once.
‘Now for a proper introduction,’ Suleen said, and turned away from Rhode and me. ‘Vicken Clough of the Twenty-first Regiment,’ he said, and Vicken puffed out his chest. Suleen reached out and held Vicken’s forearm. Vicken held his in return, a common way for vampires to greet one another; it was a shake that protected the wrist. Vicken’s eyes lit up, more than I had ever seen as a mortal. This must have been a very important moment for him.
‘He doesn’t know,’ I said to Suleen.
Suleen stepped back, and it was only then that I realized the sky was no longer black but grey, soon to be lavender, and then the burning orange of the day. The sun – the harbinger of change. The reminder, though this time my chariot.
‘Tell me what? What’s happening?’ Vicken asked.
I threw a glance at Suleen, ‘How long do I have?’
‘Just a few minutes,’ he said softly.
I turned to Vicken and put my hands on his cheeks. I met his look with mine and held it. It seemed hard for him to keep my gaze; his nostrils flared a little. He would cry, though I was not sure if he knew it yet. Or if he was fighting it. I watched his eyes slowly remembering the huma
n reaction when the body cries. I met his brown eyes and said, ‘Do you know why I saved you last summer in the gymnasium?’
He shook his head.
‘Because when I met you, you danced and sang on tables. You loved the world, and I had made you a spectator in it.’
‘Lenah?’ he said gently.
‘You’ll be a spectator no more.’
‘I don’t understand you, love,’ he said.
‘I’m going back to the fifteenth century,’ I said.
‘No!’ he cried, and I dropped my hands from his face.
‘And you to your father’s house. At dawn you will return to the night I stole your soul and made you a demon. You will be the navigator I met, with maps tacked to your walls and socks hanging over a wash-tub.’
The sky was purple now and the sun would soon crest the hilltop. The first golden glimmers kissed the plateau.
‘Lenah, please, no!’ Vicken cried again, but I turned away anyway. ‘What does that mean?’ he called behind me. ‘Suleen, what does that mean?’
I turned back to Rhode, whose eyes were cast to the ground. His arms hung by his sides; he could have been a modern-day statue he was so still.
I walked over to him, stood just as we had for months now, inches apart.
‘I’m going kiss you now,’ I whispered. Rhode lifted his eyes to mine.
‘I was hoping you would say that,’ he whispered back, and we both cracked a smile. ‘Lenah,’ he said, and I could feel his body heat humming off him. ‘What will I do without you?’
I shivered as one word travelled through me.
‘Live.’
Our lips met . . . the beautiful pressure of his mouth against mine. The heat of his mouth and his taste. I followed the movement of his lips and the soft pressure of his tongue. His hand climbed my back, sending goosebumps over my arms.
It was better than I ever expected. My Rhode kissed gently. He cradled the back of my head and pushed deeper into my mouth. Don’t pull away.
The apple scent, which had haunted me all year, overwhelmed me again, but this time it was coupled with the familiar white light of the Aeris. The images that came to me now showed thousands of memories from my past with Rhode. A slide show of our years together.
Gold earrings in the rain. Dancing at balls. Laughing under the stars. Rhode and I on a straw bed. By a fireside, Rhode laughing at something I said.
It wasn’t all pain and death, was it? It was love.
He pulled away and the air between us was warm even though the early-morning chill bit at my ears. His eyes were fixed on mine.
‘Having an adventure?’ he whispered with that slight lift of his mouth into an uneven smile. He had said that familiar phrase to me hundreds – no, thousands – of times. It lifted my heart.
‘Anam Cara,’ I whispered. He gave me a small smile and that was enough for me. I didn’t have to explain what I meant. For it was a new world now, one where our histories no longer mattered and we were set free.
‘Lenah . . .’ Suleen said, and I could see the gold touching the horizon. Perhaps it was because the Aeris had told me, or that I knew the sun was Fire herself, but I knew. I was supposed to walk towards that sunrise. I knew it would take me home.
The blue of Rhode’s eyes was so fierce, as always. He loved me. I could return to the fifteenth century knowing that, for once, I had truly loved and been loved. Rhode cupped my face in his hands and gently kissed both my cheeks, my forehead and then brushed his lips over mine.
I backed away from him, chills rushing over my whole body. When I looked to Vicken, tears, large gorgeous tears, ran down his face. He wiped them away and stared at his fingertips, momentarily shocked by the power of a cry for which one has waited more than a hundred years.
Suleen held his hand out and, as I had seen him do the year before, he drew it towards him and held it over his heart. The golden glow of the sun warmed me; my whole body was engulfed in its heat. I was going. The trees behind Rhode, Vicken and Suleen were blurred orange and red smears against the sky.
Last, I looked to Rhode. I wanted him to be the last thing I saw in this world. His lips were barely parted. We could have said any number of things just then. But I was going quickly. I could barely see Vicken any more; he was a white wash of light. I thought I could smell apples.
There was nothing left to say between Rhode and me. No words would ever be enough. So I brought my hand over my breast, where my beating heart lay. He had died for it – for the ability to breath and live. I left it there and didn’t break eye contact from the blue of the eyes that I loved more than love could possibly explain.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
The light was all around me now, overtaking me.
This would be a different world. One without Lenah Beaudonte.
And just like that, with the light before me in a wash of gold and silver . . .
I was gone.
Do all our mistakes remain lodged in our hearts? Can we ever really let go? That which is written in stone may be undone. For stone cannot hold sway.
Even stone can be broken.
CHAPTER 27
1418
Apples. Great crimson orbs glisten in the morning sun.
‘Lenah!’
Someone is calling my name. Round apples dangle from a branch outside. I know this view. I know this raw smell – the straw of the bed. I am on my family’s orchard. The sun filters through the window, washing the wooden floor with yellow light. A roosters crows outside – they wake with the dawn. I remember this!
‘Lenah!’
My father! Joy blooms in my chest. ‘Sleepy girl! Are you ill!’ My father’s voice echoes and I have not heard it in so long. I shoot up. Momentarily, I raise a hand to touch the thick glass of a medieval window. The light is more natural than in the modern world – it is real, not made by lamps. It filters through the old glass, thick and imperfect.
I don’t care that my sleeping gown is long, covering my feet, I raise it up to run down the stairs, jumping two at a time. There is my father, with his heavy beard and working clothes. My mother is before the fire, with a tub of water and dirty clothing. I can recognize some of my gowns. I remember!
I throw myself around my father’s scruffy neck. There is a hint of lavender to his skin; he has just bathed. He pulls back from me.
‘Have you stolen the monks’ tomatoes again?’ he asks.
I kiss his cheeks. ‘No,’ I say with a smile. ‘Give me two secs,’ I add, and motion to the stairs.
‘What did you say?’ my father asks.
Oh. I turn. Secs is a modern word – a measure of time. My family cannot measure time this way. Their routine is governed by the movement of the sun. Instead I say, ‘I shall follow.’
‘Quickly now,’ he calls.
I peek out of the window, with the sounds of my mother’s washing behind me. I forgot over my long history how quiet the medieval world was. The harvest has long passed; most of the trees are bare. I look about – I recognize this exact scene. The Medici family has taken most of our crop, and the rest has gone to the monks, whose property we live on. To make cider to drink and for food.
Today is a day of cleaning. After the harvest – we must clean the rows to prepare for the oncoming winter.
I think I know what this day is but I don’t want to believe it – not yet. I will be able to tell this evening – when I watch the sky.
I spend the afternoon in the orchard with my father. I have missed him for so long that I find myself standing behind a bare tree watching him rake the ground, humming. For the barest of moments I long for the easy push of a button. I have seen workers at Wickham use motorized leaf blowers. I think how much easier this would be for my father’s weathered hands. I wish we could play some music as well, and of course I think of Wickham and the long fields. The lacrosse practices I watched where they blasted music to help the time pass.
Lacrosse.
I blink the sun from my eyes and pick at t
he dirt below this bare tree. I hope Justin, wherever he is now that I am gone, is happy. And human.
I wipe the sweat from my brow, watch the sun move across the sky. This world has no cars, no medicine, no rocky-road ice cream. I smile at the memory of Tony’s hands running a brush through cerulean paint. I will suffer with the loss not only of my friends and Rhode, but of my new-found love for the modern world.
I want to tell my father everything. But I cannot. There is no way that he could possibly ever understand. I squat at the base of a tree, running my fingers through the rich earth. This routine has come back to me quickly. I remember so well how to prune the branches, how to cut them so the apples will return fragrant and strong.
‘Lenah!’ my father calls, and he points at the house just as dark bulbous clouds hang over our orchard.
I call back and hold the hem of my dress up to walk more easily. Dirt covers my hands as I follow my father and make my way home.
We are due for church, my mother tells me over dinner. I look forward to this. To seeing Father Simon and hearing him speak of God and religion. Once, so long ago, those services taught me how to live my life – to serve God, to live a life for the afterlife. These were medieval thoughts. I never imagined I would have my own views on religion, on God, on the ether and life before and after death.
My mother smiles at me over our meal.
‘You seem happy,’ she says.
‘The food is good,’ I reply.
It’s only a simple stew and she says as much. I remind myself that food here is food you cook yourself. You either catch or kill it, or buy it from someone who does. Food here is made by hand, not created in a factory.
Rhode told me long ago that love was an emotion that existed beyond the confines of the human condition. It could rise to the highest peaks, he said. Even out there in the heavens, love flew, soared and spread between the stars. As I sit here across from my parents, I believe this is true.
‘You are so quiet,’ Mother says as a crack of thunder vibrates our small house.
‘Rain again,’ my father says with a sigh.
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