Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  Caleb would not have her work magic yet; he kept insisting that she needed to rest and to heal, so they waited. She had given him instructions about the simple set-up she would need, but beyond that, Caleb had not spoken of his training with her again. He seemed afraid of something, but she could not read him clearly when he endeavored to maintain distance, so she looked in vain for the right words to calm him.

  Days passed by slowly and peacefully, and her fears of exile, imprisonment, and attack gradually faded. Torin, Se’, and her father all faded, remaining more as nightmares than memory. After a few weeks of being in Caleb’s care, she laughed easily again, smiled regularly. She felt safe and slept deeply and, finally, grew bored.

  Caleb, of course, noticed; she appreciated now that not much escaped his supervision. He saw everything, though he didn’t always understand what it meant. At first, he badgered her: Why was she sad? What had he done to make her angry? After days of reassuring him that she was fine, she finally convinced him that she was bored, not upset, and he just nodded, apparently satisfied, returning to whatever business occupied his nights.

  A few days later, though, he announced that “surprisingly” a schoolhouse on the edge of the city needed help, and that, if she wanted, she could spend her evenings there as a volunteer. She agreed, though she suspected that he had arranged everything. She hugged him and decided not to say anything about his well-intentioned meddling. He seemed pleased, and she was happy to have something to do.

  Now Libby was waiting in the school’s courtyard for the teacher to come with the charges. Finally, she heard the loud energetic approach of the children. In her village, these children would range from around eight to twelve years old. The wolves’ human bodies aged the same as any normal man’s — well, until a certain point, after which they aged imperceptibly. But she had no idea what to expect with vampires. The children were accompanied by a beautiful vampire female who was pale white, thin, and luminescent. She glowed, from her skin to her long silvery blonde hair. Caleb had told Libby that the woman’s name was Aifric Rowe, but he had not prepared her for how stunning she would be. Aifric had been a teacher — a mentor, she really must remember that the vampires did not use the word teacher — for over three decades, but she did not look to be more than twenty. Collecting herself, Libby walked over to the teacher and opened her mouth to say hello.

  Before Libby could speak, and without looking at her, Aifric said, “You can’t participate today because I’ll need to prepare the students for your help. As you can imagine, some of them will be afraid or even angry about working with you.” Finally, deigning a glance toward Libby, she said snidely, “However, I agree it would be good for them to have such diverse instruction.”

  She said the word “diverse” a little awkwardly, but Libby wouldn’t read into it. Aifric had agreed to this, and now she had something to do, something she knew she would be good at. So she merely smiled at Aifric, and reminded herself to make the best of it.

  • • •

  Caleb waited for Libby outside the schoolhouse, optimistic that his plans had worked, hoping that teaching the children would keep Libby happy and distracted.

  Where was she, though? This waiting around made him feel foolish. In fact, after a few minutes outside the school, he had considered simply walking back home. After all, did she really need him to pick her up?

  But although he knew she didn’t need him here, he was worried about her evening. Aifric could be cruel, blunt, and she certainly had no love for wolves. Caleb felt responsible for whatever had happened, and he needed to hear as soon as possible how it had gone.

  “Caleb,” Libby called out, running toward him, breaking his train of thought.

  “Libby,” he answered. “How did it go?”

  “Well, following Aifric’s brilliant plan, I just watched the children tonight, which — well, you know me — I can’t stand just sitting there. So it was kind of tough, especially when they started horsing around, and I just wanted to play with them.

  “One of them threw a ball at my feet. I rolled it back. That sounds hopeful, right? I mean, I don’t think tossing that ball at me was an attack simulation, do you?” She giggled and went on. “Still, the teacher’s attitude made me a little worried, but maybe it was just my nerves.”

  Caleb struggled for a minute. She seemed so eager, so pleased. Should he tell her he had already spoken with the mentor? Should he tell her he had arranged it all beforehand and that Aifric had been incredibly resistant? He had needed to threaten the woman and remind her that she would do as her king bid. Of course, if he revealed all this to Libby, she would know that he had observed her interests in children before she arrived. She would also know that he had predicted what she would want and that he had arranged it for her. This made him both excited and afraid. She might appreciate his attention, but what if she felt pressured and put out? Besides, she seemed to enjoy the possibility that the mentor might, after all, be kind and trustworthy. It made vampires look pretty positive. It put a nice spin on the world, and she was giddy with it. Best not to tell her then. Instead, he just enjoyed watching her chatter on about the evening.

  “She didn’t think I should start the first night, but she seemed pretty eager to let me help. I think this is going to be great, really great. Don’t you?”

  “Yes.” He laughed softly. “I think it’s definitely going to be great.” Now, if only he could force the students to be nice to her. But what was she always telling him? He just needed to have some patience and see what happened. Well, maybe the kids would be nice. Kids could be, sometimes.

  “Now, Caleb. Since I am starting to teach here, don’t you think it’s time I started to teach you, too? Don’t you still want my help?”

  “Yes,” he answered, reflexively, although he wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore.

  “Why don’t we start over, begin again?”

  He was unsure what she meant, but he wanted to start over, somehow. He wished, suddenly and unexpectedly, that he could return to a day where she did not know what he was. “Sure,” he muttered, confused by her sentiment and by his errant thought, but willing to say what he believed would make her happy. “Sure, let’s start over.”

  Chapter 26: UNHEARD CONFESSIONS

  Promising to start anew, the easy camaraderie of their last few weeks faded. They found themselves trapped in a limbo, a parody of their first meeting at the school, staring at each other, sizing the other up, but saying essentially nothing.

  It wasn’t entirely Caleb’s fault, though, she admitted to herself. She was also retreating, avoiding the truth about how she felt. Realizing this, and deciding to end this stalemate with her own honesty, she finally convinced him to let her work her spells again.

  As Caleb entered the room he had set aside for this session, he said nothing to her. But despite his foul mood, perhaps even because of it, she was glad he had come. There was a certain charm — a charm she could not explain — in his refusal to be polite. Noting how his frustration was written on his body, Libby studied Caleb moving about the room, the straight line of his hips, the tension in his back as he twisted, tossing his shirt in a nearby chair, and after days of worry over how she could describe what she wanted for them, she discovered a potential solution.

  Caleb settled down wordlessly in front of her, implying that he would not accept any waste of time. In response, Libby wrapped her arms around his waist and, falling quickly into her magic, sent Caleb a flurry of sensations and images: her feelings as she watched him cross the room. She admired the stretch, skin over bone, the long, straight lines of his arms, his torso, a poem of its own, the difference between his body and hers. She shared how her heart seemed to beat just for him, always quickening, beating at a pace that, while rapid, was now so frequently felt, it was comfortable, like coming home.

  Finishing the quick spell and breathing heavily, she open
ed her eyes. Caleb sat before her, unmoving, his neck stretched, tilted slightly, taut. Was he angry because of what she felt? Had he misunderstood? She waited for some sign. Staring at his nape, she was insanely struck by a desire to press her lips against him. Shocked at herself, she released him hastily and leaned away.

  “Libby,” he said, shaking his head.

  She was unsure if he was merely reflexively trying to clear his mind of her thoughts or if he was subtly telling her no.

  “My shift is coming, tonight. I am leaving soon, while it is yet day. I need to prepare,” he said, standing without once looking at her.

  “All right.”

  “When I return, I want to talk with you about whether we should continue my lessons or if … well, I am concerned, Libby, that we are wasting our time.” Putting his shirt on, he continued, “Perhaps there are things I will never understand, even with your assistance.”

  “Caleb, when you return, I will convince you. We already decided, didn’t we, that you should learn things beside pain? Caleb, there is so much that … Look, we can talk when you return, and I assure you, you will find I’m right. Now, walk me to the training area.”

  • • •

  Tonight was the traditional celebration of mating for vampires, though they did not refer to it by such a name. They called it hand-fasting or marriage, and, unlike the customs of Libby’s people, children were not allowed to attend.

  According to Caleb, because vampires had difficulty conceiving, they believed that a child at a hand-fasting ensured that the couple would not be further blessed by a babe in marriage. Tonight, Aifric had decided to leave Libby with the sole supervision of the children in her class — either because she finally trusted Libby or because she wanted to attend so badly. Anticipating that her students would feel deprived and excluded from the festivities, Libby had planned something special. Plus, she needed something to distract her from the full moon and Caleb’s shift.

  Typically, she taught the children science or math, not magic, and certainly not the ways of her kind. Of course, she didn’t hide herself from them. If she wanted to teach them about the life cycle of a butterfly, for example, she used her spells, and she showed them. Her father would be furious. He would call her a traitor, and some days she spent a lot of time wondering if he wasn’t right.

  But she simply did not know how to live separated from her magic. It wasn’t merely a list of spells to her. Her magic was a way of seeing and understanding the world. And, really, that’s all she was sharing with the students.

  Wasn’t it possible that she was an emissary? Couldn’t these young vampires learn to empathize and respect her kind if they knew her better, if they had a teacher once that had been wolf? Her father would accuse her of being too much of a dreamer. Was he right? She couldn’t be sure, not until the future came to pass, and maybe not even then. She had to have a little faith in something though.

  In their innocent ignorance, these children, unlike their parents, had few preconceptions, fewer prejudices, so she would invest her hopes in them. Tonight, she would teach them about her kind. She would tell them about “marriage” in a wolf pack. She had learned during her time with the vampires that they understood very little of her culture and that the wolves’ marriage practices, for some reason, generated hostility in Caleb’s people. She could still recall Torin hissing his criticisms of mating in her ear. So tonight she was going to share the tale that all wolf children knew by heart: the story of a wolf who felt love, so much love for one old woman that he learned to speak, just so he could tell her. It was the story of why wolf became man.

  • • •

  As Libby finished her story, there was movement behind her, rustling in the brush. The students giggled, seeing the visitor, their night vision more acute than her own.

  “Mentor, you have a new pupil.” They laughed again.

  As she stared into the wood, Caleb emerged from the shadows of the trees and stepped into the moonlight: Caleb, and not his wolf. “Libby,” he whispered. “I didn’t shift.”

  Chapter 27: ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

  Sitting in the high balcony, Libby could feel wind all over her skin, cooling her, moving her hair around. She felt alive in the wind, and normally she could sit for hours here, just enjoying it, but today she was too bothered.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Caleb. What did it mean that he had not shifted? What did his silence at the end of their last session mean?

  Had he sensed that she wanted to be more than his prisoner, more than his teacher? Was he disgusted that one of her kind would want to be with him? She knew that the vampires did not understand the mating rituals of her family. Wolves mated for life, but they searched for their mates by experiencing relationships with others. They knew they had found their fated mate if, after intimacy, they were both marked. This mark meant that you complemented the other, that your partner needed you and you needed your partner. Of course, this meant that most of the wolves in her village had had several partners before they were truly mated.

  The vampires saw this as barbaric. They saw her people as little better than rutting animals. It was true that, for her, she had not felt such desire before. She had never wanted to bed any of the men in her village, She didn’t think her family was wrong, but she had never wanted to mate, not before meeting Caleb. Being near Caleb made it hard for her to even breathe. Like sitting in the wind, sitting next to Caleb made each of her nerves tingle. She felt his presence and his energy over her entire body. Holding his hands to work her magic, she was aware of a strong desire to have those hands touch her, to press them into her hair, against her body.

  Her powers had their limits, and she had a growing awareness of Caleb’s personal difficulties. It was possible that, even if he glimpsed pieces of her feelings, those small fragments would not be significant enough for him to gather them together. He could, conceivably, not know. Should she remain silent? After all, until she was sure that he felt something for her, almost anything would do, even friendship.

  Perhaps she could simply ask him, “So, Caleb, do you like me? Do you think you could?” Sometimes she amazed herself. She couldn’t ask that.

  • • •

  Last night had been a special night for his people, the hand-fasting, the night where the men and women chosen by the council Elders formed their marriage, linking their blood and their lines together. Though the hand-fasting did not always align with the evening of his shift, he was never included in the event, and he would never be chosen as a mate by the Elders. They saw, while Libby did not, that he was no male, that he was not even a man — yet, last night, he had been a man. Three times now, the wolf had not come. Three times now he had remained the man he was.

  Now he was wandering his grounds, trying to comprehend what this all might mean for him and for Libby. He knew she was outside, somewhere near him. He admitted that he was aware of precisely how long she had been out of the house — thirty-seven minutes — but he was definitely not seeking her out. It was pure serendipity that he smelled her on the wind right now. He wouldn’t focus on it. He refused to play this kind of game. He wasn’t a child. He was king, and he certainly did not have the time to play hide-and-seek, especially with someone he was beginning to suspect. What else could she have been doing in their last session? Heart. Liver. Kidney. Jugular. Subclavian artery. Spleen. All vital spots. She had clearly been focusing on them, and what other reason was there other than assassination?

  Pivoting, he walked away from her, directly away from her — at least, he thought he had, but despite his training and the wolf’s survival instincts, he somehow turned a corner and nearly ran right into her. He must have made some sound, because she looked up almost immediately, surprised to see him.

  “Hi, Caleb. I was just, well, did you … is everything … ” She stopped and then said weakly, “How are you?”

&
nbsp; “I am sorry to interrupt you. Clearly, you wish to be alone. I will see you tomorrow,” he mumbled, turning away. How had he brought himself here?

  “What? Caleb, wait,” she said, calling after him. “Sit down. Talk to me.” She pressed her hand against the stone seat beside her.

  When he hesitated, she smiled and raised her eyebrows in challenge. “What? You can have a share in all of my feelings, but you won’t share any of your thoughts, not even a simple one?” She teased, “Really, Caleb, can’t you tell me even how your night has been?”

  He didn’t sit, but he did walk closer to her. He was certainly not afraid of her. He was wary and he was cautious, but he was not afraid.

  She smiled. “Ok. Let’s try it again then. How are you?”

  He wanted to answer. The problem was, even if he honestly thought about it, he couldn’t tell if he was excited or nervous, happy or scared. His heart pounded rhythmically in his chest, fast, faster, so fast now. Was he scared of her? Or was he stupidly hopeful? Laughing at himself, he admitted he would need to ask her to find out.

  He said, seriously, “Actually, I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I don’t understand emotions as you do.”

  The laugh brimming behind her eyes settled, calmed, and then disappeared as she considered what he had said.

  He hadn’t meant to chastise her or make her sad, so he quickly added, “Could you tell me what I am feeling? Couldn’t you use your powers to sense it? Don’t you have that gift?”

  She frowned a little and a crease appeared on her forehead over her nose. “I can, but … ”

  “Is it against the rules?”

  “Pretty much all of this is against the rules.” She laughed guiltily and then shook her head. “No, that’s not the problem. No, it’s just that … Well, are you sure? Do you really want me to? It’s very different from sharing my own feelings with you, and you seemed bothered the last time that I looked at your memories. It was invasive, but this is even more so.”