by Tim O'Rourke
“I don’t hate her. I just hate the way she is. When she isn’t attending church or going to prayer meetings, she spends most of her time in her room.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“She’s praying. My mum has turned her room into a mini grotto, like the one in Lourdes. She’s built this big cave-type thing out of papier-mâché and put a statue of the Virgin Mary in it.”
I wasn’t sure what a grotto was or anything about a place called Lourdes, but not wanting to appear as if I knew very little about above ground, I cried in disbelief, “Get outter of here! You’re kidding me!”
“I’ll show you someday,” she said, and I noticed a sadness in Melody’s eyes that I hadn’t seen before. I guessed that maybe she was telling the truth after all about this grotto thing, and a statue of a virgin.
“Is there anything you remember about your father?” Melody asked, bending down and picking up a stone from beneath a huge tree.
“I don’t remember anything about him,” I told her.
“Nothing at all?” she asked me, toying with the stone in her hands.
“My mother never talks about him,” I told her. “I’ve asked loads of times, but she just changes the subject. I don’t even know his name. It’s almost as if he didn’t really exist at all.”
“That’s sad,” she said softly, and again I saw that look of sadness dance across her eyes. Melody was unique. I had never been able to talk so easily with any of my other friends. I supposed it was because Melody and I had similar backgrounds, but all the same, I thought she was a very sensitive person.
Then, changing the subject I said, “Have you ever seen magic pictures?”
“Magic pictures?” she asked, looking confused.
“A movie projector?” I added, wondering if I’d said the wrong thing.
“The multiplex, is that what you mean?”
“I think so,” I said, wishing now that I hadn’t said anything. “We call them movie projectors where I come from.”
Then, stopping and smoothing the stone with the flat of her hand, she looked at me and said, “Where do you come from, Isidor? You’ve never said where home is.”
“Erm,” I stammered. “It’s a long way from here.”
“What, are you from another country?” Melody asked, sounding more than interested.
“I guess,” I said, not knowing what to say next and glancing down at the ground, knowing that my home was some way beneath me.
Then, raising her hand as if to take mine, but changing her mind at the last moment, Melody said, “It doesn’t matter to me where you’re from, I’m just glad that you came to Lake Lure.”
Just wanting to change the subject, I blurted out, “So shall we go to this multiplex and watch Marilyn Monroe?”
“Marilyn Monroe?” Melody said, stifling a giggle. ”She doesn’t make movies anymore. She’s dead and has been for years, way before I was born. Besides, my mum says that movies are sinful, that they fill young people’s heads with wicked thoughts.”
I thought of what my mother had told me about the hundreds of male Vampyrus leaving The Hollows in search of their own human as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe and said, “Perhaps your mum is right.”
We spent the following day mooching around the town. We passed by a shop that was having a new sign painted on it by a man who was high above us on a ladder. At street level, the painter had left a little toolbox rammed with brushes and tiny pots of paint. Before I had a chance to realise what was happening, Melody surprised me by reaching into the toolbox. She grabbed hold of something and then ran off into the maze of narrow alleyways between the shops and houses.
I chased after Melody, her grey dress and apron flowing out behind her. She didn’t stop until I had caught up with her by the lake on the outskirts of town.
“What was that all about?” I asked, pretending to be out of breath.
Melody opened her hand, and smiling, she revealed a packet of Marlboro cigarettes.
“What do you want them for?” I asked.
“To smoke, of course! Haven’t you ever smoked before?” she smiled at me.
Thinking of the pipe weed that was smoked by some of the elder Vampyrus beneath me, I shook my head and said, “No, why, have you?”
“Once or twice,” she replied. “Come on.” Melody headed towards a nearby clump of bushes and made her way inside. I looked about, and then followed. Once inside, Melody bent some of the branches back and made a clearing on the floor where we could both sit down. She took two of the cigarettes from the packet and handed one to me. Melody then took a box of matches from the large pocket in the front of her apron and lit one. She popped the cigarette between her lips. I could see the orange flame reflecting in her eyes, and for the first time since meeting her, they looked full of mischief.
Melody sucked on the cigarette and the tip of it glowed orange. I sat and watched her as blue smoke squirted from her nostrils. She seemed to be an expert and I guessed she had done this many times before. Melody lit one for me, and without thinking, I popped the cigarette into my mouth and inhaled. I was instantly struck by the hot smoke in the back of my throat and I coughed it back out, my eyes watering. Melody giggled and said, “You haven’t tried this before, have you?”
I shook my head and waited for the woozy feeling that I now had to clear. I watched Melody as she thoughtfully puffed away and I let my cigarette burn almost to the butt before I tried another puff. Melody was an enigma to me. On one hand she was this really sensitive person who would talk honestly and openly about her feelings, but on the other, she was someone who lived in fear of breaking the rules that her mum made her live by. But as I sat and watched her, dressed in her bonnet, grey dress and apron, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, I realised she also had this darker, mischievous side. What I couldn’t come to understand about my own feelings, was that I was drawn equally to both sides of her personality.
Chapter Twelve
Isidor
Melody and I spent almost every day together. We would regularly visit our makeshift camp in the bushes down by the lake, and by now I had become quite an accomplished smoker. We would spend the warmer days lying on our backs, boots off, our feet being caressed by the cool water of the lake, enjoying a leisurely smoke or two.
Both Melody and I were keen to keep away from home. Me, because my mother was away and I wanted to snatch the opportunity to come above ground as much as possible. But I soon wondered if my true reason for wanting to come above ground wasn’t to discover what the world above me was really like, but to see and spend as much time as I could with Melody.
Melody had a different reason. Her mother, although she never neglected Melody materially, she did starve her emotionally. Melody described a picture of her home life as being a ‘Religious Hell.’ She wasn’t allowed to listen to music, unless it was classical or gospel and she couldn’t put pictures of her favourite rock stars or any movie star on her bedroom wall. Her mum monitored what she read and Melody told me how she had gone berserk when her mum had found a copy of Shrine by James Herbert under her mattress.
“She took it into the backyard and set fire to it. I wouldn’t have minded but it wasn’t even mine, I’d borrowed it from the library!” Melody said. “I remember her coming home one day and finding me watching MTV.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
“She unplugged the television there and then, and we haven’t had one in the house since. She told me that it was ‘devil’ music and that it would corrupt my soul. My mum then went on to add that if I hadn’t have been born, she could have been a nun.”
I felt terrible for Melody as she told me this. I could only imagine how much this must have hurt her. To offer some comfort I said, “You know, she probably didn’t mean that.”
Then, just when I thought Melody was going to open up to me, she said, “I don’t want to talk about her anymore,” then she lit another smoke.
So we spent lazy days st
retched out on the bank of the lake, smoking, and being caressed by the cool evening breeze that meandered around the trees and our secret camp. We wouldn’t leave until the sun had made its way across the sky and disappeared behind the mountains that framed the lake before us, leaving the water bathed in an orange glow. We would sit together, motionless, lost in the beauty of the spectacle before us. As dusk began to fall, and the shadows of the trees grew tall and dark and stretched across the lake, we would hide the cigarettes in our camp, then slowly walk away, leaving the lake to the night. I would walk Melody through the woods, and once on the road, we would go our separate ways. I would watch Melody disappear into the distance then I’d sneak back into the woods and climb back into the hole, covering it with the grate. Our days never got much more exciting than that, until the day Melody didn’t show up at the lake.
A few weeks after meeting Melody, I arrived early that Saturday morning at the lake. It had been particularly cold that day and I had wrapped up warm with several layers of clothing. I waited on the shore for Melody to arrive. As I stood and stomped my feet into the sand, I puffed warm mouthfuls of breath over my freezing hands. I waited the entire morning for Melody to turn up. In the end, I gave up and headed into town.
Melody had often told me that she liked to read, and after hearing the story of how her mum had destroyed that book, I decided to go to the place that Melody had called the library. I knew that I could take a book from there without needing money, as Melody explained how you could take books home for free. I made my way through the town, which was pretty quiet due to the freezing wind. In the town square, I found the building that Melody had pointed out to me, and I climbed the grey stone steps and went through the double wooden doors.
Just like the streets outside, the aisles between the huge rows of books were quiet. I passed between them, looking at all the brightly coloured covers. I ran my fingers along the spines, and I picked up several and fanned the pages beneath my nose. They had a musty old smell which was wonderful. I continued amongst the rows of books, until I found one that had a beautiful red rose on the front. Melody’s surname was Rose, so guessing that she might like the cover, and knowing that I could borrow books for free from the library, I placed the book inside my coat.
I made my way out of the library, climbed down the steps and started off across the town square, heading back towards the lake. About halfway across the square, I heard someone shout.
“Hey, you!”
I stopped and turned around and looked in the direction of the voice. Sitting on the back of a wooden bench were the three teenagers I had seen bullying Melody in the alleyway.
“Hey, you!” the spotty dude called out again, and donkey-boy sprayed laughter.
I turned my back on them and headed across the square. Almost at once, I heard the sound of feet running behind me. Looking back, I could see spotty dude, donkey-boy, and the girl coming after me. Instead of running, I stood my ground.
“What do you want?” I asked as they gathered around me.
“Haven’t seen you around town before,” the girl said, and up close she looked too pretty to be hanging around with these two idiots. Her skin was pale with a cluster of light brown freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
Before I’d the chance to say anything, spotty dude said, “What’s your name?”
“Isidor,” I said.
“Isidor?” he sneered. “What sort of a fag name is that?”
Hearing this, donkey-boy sprayed laughter again, a stringy coil of spit swinging from his buckteeth.
“My name is Isidor,” I said again, not understanding what was so funny.
“Isidor,” the girl whispered, staring at me. “Isidorable!”
I don’t think spotty dude liked the way the girl was looking at me. He grunted, and then gripped my coat in his fist. “Nice coat,” he said.
“Let go of me,” I told him, fearing that if he somehow managed to take my coat, they would see those purple scars running down the inside of my arms.
“Give me the coat,” spotty boy barked, gripping it now with both hands.
“No,” I insisted. “Leave me alone.”
“Leave me alone,” donkey-boy mimicked in a whiney voice, then started to laugh again.
“Let’s see your muscles,” the girl chipped in, and I detected excitement in her voice. I don’t think it was seeing me being ribbed that excited her.
“Yeah, let’s see your muscles, you fag,” spotty dude shouted and this time, he yanked so hard on my coat, that the buttons came away. The sound of them clinking onto the ground reminded me of Melody’s beads falling from her broken chain.
Not wanting to get into a fight with them – I didn’t want to hurt them – I tried to pull away, but the boy’s grip on me was firm. I spun around, and as I did, my right arm slipped from my coat sleeve. At once I heard the girl gasp as she looked at my arm. Although I wore a T-shirt, you could clearly see my arm and the fierce-looking scar that ran up from the crook of my elbow. Although her eyes were wide open, she didn’t scream. It was then that I realised she hadn’t noticed my scars – not yet anyway – she was too mesmerised by something else.
“Wow,” she murmured in wonder.
Although I was only fourteen, my arms were very muscular. Most male Vampyrus were built like me – it was just the way we were made.
As the girl stood and stared at me, spotty dude shouted at her and said, “Don’t just stand there, Lucy, help take his coat.”
“Yeah, let’s take his coat,” donkey-boy sniggered with a feverish excitement as he begun to tug at the other sleeve. With both of them on me, they pulled my coat free.
“Give it back,” I said, as spotty boy put it on.
“How do I look?” he asked, turning around in front of Lucy.
“You look good, Ray,” she said, keeping one eye on me.
Then, from behind us, I heard a whooping sound. I turned around to see a police car pulling up at the kerb. Then, at the very same moment, I heard a woman shouting.
I looked back over my shoulder to see a lady running down the library steps and across the square towards us.
“Officer! Officer!” she shouted. “That boy stole a book.”
By the time I’d looked back again, the door to the police car was open and a giant of a man in a smart blue uniform was climbing out.
Seeing him, donkey-boy screeched, “Let’s split!” and I watched him and Lucy race away.
Ray was slower to make his escape, and before he had even managed two steps, the police officer had taken hold of the collar of my coat, which Ray was now wearing.
“Well, well, well,” the officer grunted. “Raymond Baines – I might have known.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Ray groaned, as he tried to work his way free of my coat.
“It was him!” the lady said, pointing at Ray. “I know it was him who stole the book because he was wearing that big long coat.”
“I haven’t stolen any book,” Ray protested, his spotty face glowing redder than before.
“Empty your pockets,” the officer shouted, his voice so deep that it sounded like thunder.
I stood there quietly, my arms folded across my chest as I tried to hide my scars. Ray flinched at the sound of the officer’s voice, then reached inside the coat. With his eyes widening, he pulled out the book with the rose on the front from within my coat.
“That’s the book,” the woman insisted, pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose.
“Give it back to the librarian, you thief!” the officer roared at Ray.
“But I didn’t steal it,” Ray protested, handing her the book.
“A thief and a liar,” the officer barked. “What is your father going to say this time? The shame that you have brought upon that poor man, a military man as well. And your mother – what is she going to say? This is the third time in a month that I’ve had to take you home.”
“But I didn’t steal it,” Ray sa
id. Then, jabbing a finger in my direction he said, “He took it.”
As if noticing me for the first time, the police officer glared at me and said, “Who are you?”
“Isidor,” I said, guessing that Melody had been mistaken about the whole borrowing from the library thing.
“Isidor who?” the officer snapped.
“Isidor Smith,” I told him.
“And from which rock have you climbed out from?”
“Oh, no I haven’t climbed out from beneath any rock,” I said staring at him. Did he know that I’d come from below ground? So I quickly added, “It was more like a hole...”
But before I’d had the chance to explain, the officer said, “Right, wise guy, get into the car, I’m taking you home.” Then, looking at Ray, he added, “both of you!”
With my heart beginning to race, I climbed into the back of the police car. Ray followed me. He was quiet and I could see that his usually bright red face was now pale and sick-looking. What was he so scared about? I had every reason to fear being taken home by this police officer – it could be very interesting.
The giant cop wedged himself behind the wheel and started the car. It rolled away from the kerb and the sensation felt kind of strange. Wait until the others in The Hollows hear about this. I was actually traveling in a car, and not any ordinary car – a police car with big red and blue flashing lights and a siren. Cool!
“I’ll take you home first,” the cop said, glaring back at Ray. “I’m sick and tired of having to look at your stupid face.”
Ray ignored him and looked out of the window as the world flashed past. I noticed that he wrung his hands nervously in his lap. We hadn’t been moving for very long when the cop slowed the car, turned up a narrow lane, and stopped outside a house set back from the road.
“Out!” the officer barked.
Following Ray, I climbed from the back of the car. The house was surrounded by a tidy front garden and a white wooden fence with a gate in it. A path led up to the polished front door. I followed. Ray walked ahead of me. He was quiet now, his head slumped forward.