“I don’t know how she did it. They’d had their system in place for years. For a nine-year-old to get away, with a five-year-old in tow, must have been the luckiest combination of cleverness and chance. I wish I could remember. It deserves to be remembered, however it happened.
“We slept on the streets on that first night. We weren’t used to sleeping in the night hours, but the city was too noisy and full in the day. I was amazed by it. I wanted to stare at everything. Look in every window. Sofie was more practical, thank goodness. She stole clothes and food for us, so that we looked a little less like refugees from a horror story. I can still remember the taste of it. Chocolate cake. I’d never had chocolate cake before. Now I eat junk all the time. It’s amazing I’m thin. I figure it’s gotta be a metabolism thing. I’ll hit thirty and be the size of a car overnight.
“Maybe it was the theft that got the police onto us. On the evening before the second night, they picked us up. Sofie’s hair was a tangle. Mine was short and brown and a mess too. We still had blood smears on our skin. Even clever children don’t always think to be fastidious.”
Jay doesn’t look up, or move, but he pauses to catch his breath—he’s been speaking slowly, but his lungs ache like he’s been running. He closes his eyes, waiting for his heart to settle before he begins again.
“We were at the hospital for a day. When the doctor told us that our foster father had called, we were terrified. We thought that they had found us. Liam came in and Sofie screamed. She’d been bitten enough to be able to smell vampires. I hadn’t. I couldn’t tell. I can tell better now. I don’t even need the smell. It’s not hard to tell if you know what to look for. I know what to look for.
“Sofie screamed so loudly. I’d never heard her make a noise that loud. She cowered in the corner and kicked and fought when he tried to get near. The doctor offered to sedate her. He had a hypodermic. I saw it in his hand and I wet my pants. I was only five, remember.
“Liam told the doctor no. He asked the doctor to leave us alone. We didn’t know it then, how he had heard about us escaping and already had all the papers he needed.
Liam had learned forgery many years before. It was the most useful skill he’d ever gained. That’s what he always used to say. The mechanics had changed from being able to mimic handwriting to graphics manipulation but the basics were the same. The important details. That’s what he always used to say.
“We found that out later. Found out that the fostering documentation he’d made said that we were prone to freaking out like that. It was all exactly what he needed for the doctor to trust him. He was an excellent forger. The doctor left us alone with him.
“Sofie kicked and screamed. I was too afraid to move. I was sure that Liam was one of them. They would kill us for sure. Liam crouched on the floor in front of her and held her arms still. She was small for her age, and ate very little. She’d had a lot of bites already. It would not have taken much to restrain her thrashing. For Liam it was no effort at all.
“Sofie collapsed into sobs. She’d given up. She knew she couldn’t fight him. She’d tried to get away but they had caught her. She was going to die anyway. Her crying was so small. So defeated. Her hair was pale and lank around her face.
“Liam held her arms still carefully. So carefully. He looked at her and said ‘I promise I will never hurt you’. His voice was steady. Then he let her arms go and stood up. He waited for her to get up. He could have lifted her but he didn’t. He waited.
“Liam looked like he was thirty-five or forty. Most vampires look younger. His hair was. Is. Was sandy. Tenses are difficult when describing vampires. He had a scar on one cheek down to his chin. Past tense feels easiest for describing the dead.
“He was a killer. He loved killing. We had to change cities twice growing up, because the police were close to catching the serial killer at large in the area. That was Liam, both times. He loved killing. But not kids. It seems arbitrary to me, but it meant something to him. He never hurt kids. I guess all morality is arbitrary, when you think about it.
“He’d known about them for a long time. He didn’t do anything because it wasn’t his to do anything about. You guys don’t tell each other how to live. He told me once that vampires don’t even kill hunters unless you consider the hunters a direct threat. But as soon as Sofie and I escaped from them we were fair game for him to save. If he didn’t take us from the hospital, they would. So he did.
“He was a good father. I have no basis for personal comparison when I say that, but I think he was. We went to good schools. We had good clothes and good food. Sofie had the best doctors. I learned the guitar. Children are resilient. I healed fast, body and mind. There was nothing wrong with me. I’d never been bitten. Sofie was as healthy as she could be, considering. Body and mind.
“It would have been a good scene for a comedy movie. The vampire dad explaining the facts of life to his mortal son, I mean. After one of Sofie’s worst episodes, Liam decided it was time to talk to me like an adult. I was nine. Sofie was thirteen. It got worse when she hit puberty. Nine meant something much younger in my life than it had in hers. But it was old enough.
“Liam explained that kids always died from being bitten. Their bodies can’t handle the toxin, even temporarily. It’s never temporary for kids. The condition sticks them in a kind of in between. Not alive, not vampire. That’s the best case scenario. Either you turn them into vampires, or they just… die. Kids who get bitten can’t stay human. They go crazy, and then they die. She was losing her mind, and her heart was failing. Liam had always known it would happen to her, and maybe to me. Just because I couldn’t remember being bitten didn’t mean I hadn’t been.
“If she survived another year, maybe two, she’d be old enough. He refused to make her a vampire before then. I don’t know why. He was so arbitrary. I was probably safe. If I hadn’t manifested any indications yet, after four years of Liam watching for them, then I was probably safe.
“It sounds unhappier than it was. We were a family. It was wonderful. We loved one another very much. Sofie and I fought, as brothers and sisters do when life is comfortable and safe. We raged against the restrictions and curfews Liam gave us, because we were sure in the knowledge that he would love us anyway.
“I wasn’t scared of Sofie. Never. Even at her worst, even when she probably was a threat to me. She never felt like a threat. Even when a boy she got into a fight at school with ended up dying in the emergency room from his injuries. She’d bitten his femoral artery open. Even then I wasn’t scared.
“On her fourteenth birthday, I wasn’t even ten yet. I went to school and when I came home, they were gone. They’d packed a suitcase each and they were gone. Liam had left me… he’d left me a lot of money. I don’t need to work, not really. But I try not to touch his money. It’s all I have.
“I tried the foster thing for a while but I never fit. Now I just live alone. It suits me better. I’m really too young for it, but. But sometimes I use his money. Money makes pretty much anything happen, if there’s enough of it. I’ve got enough money to get left alone. I tried the foster… I said that, didn’t I? I’m probably babbling.” Jay looks at Blake, holding his gaze steadily. Blake doesn’t blink.
“Tonight I saw a woman go into labor. I held a newborn in my arms,” Jay tells him. “And I didn’t feel anything. Not awed, not amazed. The baby was beautiful, but that didn’t… I just didn’t feel anything, not at all. I say I want to be just an ordinary person but I don’t fit there. There’s no place for me in the world. I don’t even feel properly alive when I’m as close to pure distilled life as anyone can get. When I’m holding a brand new person. The only place that’s ever felt like home was with Liam and Sofie. I don’t want to be a vampire. I never want to be a vampire. But I can’t stay with vampires any other way. They leave me. They pack a suitcase each and leave. And so…” Jay blinks down, mortified to feel the hot fall of tears from his eyes as he does so, and the waver in his voice. “And so I’m lost,�
�� he whispers to himself.
BETTE
Bette manages to avoid detention for once, so in celebration of actually haven an afternoon for a change she takes the long walk home over the overpass bridge and down past the boutique stores. The lightweight clothing in the windows of the boutiques still looks vibrant and hasn’t started to sun-fade, even though the displays haven’t been changed in forever. It’s like this warm weather is a special bubble of time that doesn’t play by normal rules, but Bette’s mom says everyone feels like that when they’re a teenager. Whatever, Bette’s mom is nearly forty, she obviously can’t really remember what being a teenager is like. She’s just going off the same stuff all the self-help books say about it, and they all believe in some stupid TV-movie type of teenager who always has big Consequences when they do dumb shit.
Those self-help books are full of things about girls having sex and getting pregnant because they don’t have enough self-esteem to use condoms. The books don’t say what to do if the boy you like is a totally mean asshole but you want to hang around with him anyway, or what to do when he’s horny but you’re on your period, or how mortifying it is when Rose and Tommy’s mom could tell that Bette wasn’t a virgin anymore after last fall even when Bette hadn’t said anything to Rose or Tommy yet or anything. The books are all self-esteem, self-esteem, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that actually has anything to do with bullies or detention or seeing bands or anything important.
Bette’s phone rings in her schoolbag. She has a totally boring ringtone, because Tommy’s always stealing it and changing the setting to these awful, obnoxious songs he downloads especially. Bette’s gotten into the habit of switching it back as plain as she can whenever he’s been near it.
“Hey, it’s Bette speaking.”
“Hi, it’s Gretchen here.” She sounds hesitant, and a little sad, though that might just be because Bette’s not used to the accent. “I don’t know if you rememb —”
“Yeah, from the club, I totally remember,” Bette says, trying not to grin too widely.
“Oh. Good. Uh… How’re you?”
“Same old, same old. What’s up?”
Gretchen doesn’t answer right away. “It’s… I, well. Can you come to the hospital with me?”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. My grandfather’s a patient and I visit him as often as I can, but…”
“But sometimes it’s too much on your own?” Bette asks, feeling sympathetic. Her dad had been nursed at home, mostly, so it’s not exactly the same as having someone in hospital, but she remembers how much time she spent in Rose’s room reading just because she couldn’t cope with going back to her own life. Rose had been glad of the company—that was the same year that Tommy was really sick. Bette knows how comforting just having company sometimes is.
“Yeah,” Gretchen says again. “I know this is a lot for somebody you barely know to ask of you, but I don’t know many people locally and —”
“No, it’s cool, just tell me where and when to meet. I can call Rose, too, if you want. She’s good at cheer-up hugs.”
“I’d like to see her… but perhaps after? Too many things at once, you know? Plus, what a shitty way to spend a first date,” Gretchen replies. Bette laughs out loud.
“Okay, sure. Gimme the address, and I’ll come meet you.”
The hospital’s one of the small, private ones in the leafy old-fashioned part of town, with wrought-iron railings and ivy and white stone walls making each of the stately townhouses on the block look inviting and solid. It’s really more of a hospice, as far as Bette can tell as they arrive, but if it helps Gretchen deal for her to think of it as a hospital, that’s cool with Bette. People do what they have to.
“Do you want to meet him? You don’t have to. There’s a waiting room on every level with books and a TV and sofas. Some families sleep here overnight, sometimes, the ones with kids here,” Gretchen says as they walk the cobblestone path from the gate to the front door. She’s wearing a black silk slip dress with crocheted lace around the hem and bodice, a dark grey cardigan which she keeps fidgeting with, pulling the ends of the sleeves down over her palms and thumbs, and a pair of black leather ballet flats. Her hair’s pulled back from her face into two haphazard pigtails, and she doesn’t have any dramatic makeup on her small-featured face. Gretchen is acting and looking her age, letting some vulnerability show in the low evening light.
Bette finds it easier to like this Gretchen than the one she met at the club. That Gretchen seemed too cool and smart and sure to have any reason to hang around somebody like Bette, but this one’s just ordinary and fucked up and scared and sad like a normal person. It seems strange to Bette that this secret, private Gretchen could live behind the spiky beauty of the other one.
“No, I can come in if you want me to,” Bette replies as they step inside. The foyer is lit with bright gold lamps, warmer than the stark white of hospitals Bette has been to before. The walls are pale green. Upstairs is the same, and the room Gretchen leads Bette into is as welcoming to look at as any in an ordinary home. A very frail-looking man is lying on the bed, which is raised into the upright position. He waves hello at the pair of them.
Gretchen says something which Bette assumes is a greeting. It doesn’t sound like German. Polish, maybe.
“And this is Bette,” she adds at the end, in English. “Bette, this is Artie.”
“Hello,” he says, smiling at her. “I was afraid my little darkling had no friends at all.”
Gretchen’s foreign words sound a little chiding, this time. Artie waves a dismissive hand and responds. It sounds like they’re retreading an argument they’ve had many times in the past.
Gretchen crosses the room and climbs onto the high sofa underneath the window, and the rain outside looks so cold and gray against the glass behind her that Bette can’t help but feel warm and safe and comfortable, even if they are in a hospital ward.
“Come on, slowcoach,” Gretchen says to Artie teasingly, patting the cushion beside her. Bette’s not sure if she should offer to help the old man get up from the bed or not, and shifts from foot to foot, indecisive and feeling more than a little like an intruder in a moment she has no claim on.
As if she can hear Bette’s awkward thoughts, Gretchen turns her gaze to Bette and grins. “Let him do it himself. He’s got all the nurses wrapped around his finger, the last thing he needs is you coddling him as well.
Come try the rocking chair. It’s got a massage panel in the back rest; the controls are on the arm of it there.”
Bette steps over, her sneakers making little squeaky noises on the linoleum floor as she walks. The rain-sounds from outside are muted by the double-glass of the windows, which is just another of those tiny touches that remind Bette that this room is designed for treatments and medicines and, eventually, for dying. It’s a place with a purpose, built for a particular kind of inhabitant, even if it wants to pretend it’s a normal everyday room with a normal everyday couch and rocking chair and a watercolor print on the wall and a vase of flowers on the nightstand. It’s not an ordinary room at all. Gretchen’s pretending like it is, but Gretchen’s not who she pretends to be either.
Bette doesn’t know what all of it means. Mostly it means she really hates hospitals a lot. It’s funny how she can even hate the double-thick glass on hospital windows, for no reason except that it is what it is.
Strangely, her thoughts stray for a moment to Remember the Stars. She’s not sure why. Maybe her brain is pondering how some vampires can pretend to be people but they’re not, just like a room designed for people to die in can look like it’s a room for people to live in.
Artie has shuffled across to the sofa, which he eases down onto to sit beside Gretchen. Bette realizes that the cushions are plumped up higher than usual so that elderly people don’t have to bend their legs as much as they get up or down. Another tiny skew of perspective which, once noticed, screams Different! Different! about the room.
Like how vampires seem human until they suddenly don’t, when the differences all add up to a different image.
“What’re you thinking of so seriously?” Artie asks, leaning back against the sofa with an exhausted sigh. Gretchen rests her head on his frail shoulder, lacing her hand with his. Bette’s never felt that close or comfortable with any of her own grandparents, and if they weren’t in such a sad situation right now she might feel a little twist of envy for Gretchen, for having that kind of familiarity and love with Artie.
He’s speaking to Bette, and she answers without thinking. “Vampires,” she says, tracing the pad of her forefinger around the edge of the brass control plate set into the armrest of the rocking chair. She doesn’t touch any of the buttons. Automated furniture is a totally weird and alien concept, as far as she’s concerned.
“What about vampires has you looking like you want to jump off a bridge, then?” His eyes are a bright blue, and he’s smiling. Bette’s never really noticed the color of an old person’s eyes before. If anyone had asked her before now how she expected them to be, she might have said that their hue would be washed out, faded from age and weariness. Of course, if she said that, then Rose probably would have smacked her on the back of the head and given her a lecture about being more observant and honestly, it wasn’t like it was fucking difficult to pay attention to the world, Bette, why don’t you ever notice things properly and just always say what you expect to be true or what you think sounds cool as an answer?
But Artie’s eyes are vivid and young, even though his face is papery and age-spotted and wrinkled and his body is thin and fragile and his hair is balding and white. His eyes don’t look that different to Bette’s or Gretchen’s, really. Not any wiser, or sadder. Bette doesn’t know if that means he’s had an easy life, or if it means that she and Gretchen have already gone through a lot in their own comparatively short lives.
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