by Bell Stoires
“Honey, are you alright?” asked Sandra, her thick southern accent bringing only a small amount of relieve, rather than the usual wave of it.
“Oh don’t worry,” said Kiara, smiling sweetly as she made to leave, “I wouldn’t dare touch a hair on her pretty head… not here anyway.”
Sandra, who had ignored Kiara entirely, was still looking at Ari. She nodded dumbly, desperate for a few minutes of solitude to work out her thoughts. What the hell was going on? Did Kiara really know what had happened to her parents? How could she? But why would she have said that? Glancing over at a thick glass window, Ari’s eyes met with a large tree, whose normally dark green leaves had fallen away, replaced instead by many tiny purple flowers- the jacaranda tree. Without looking Sandra or Larissa in the eye, Ari made up her mind; in 10 minutes she would be waiting for Kiara underneath it.
After moving out of the bathroom, Ari ran straight into Ragon.
He seemed to have been looking for her, because he grabbed her by the hand and said, “Where the hell did you go?”
Before Ari could answer, Sandra had replied, “We found her in the bathroom; a bathroom Kiara was just leaving.”
“What? What did she say to you?” asked Ragon. “Did she touch you? Are you hurt?”
Ari forced her face into a smile. If she wanted to find out what had happened to her parents, then she needed to convince Ragon that she was not in danger. Ragon would not leave her alone for a moment, if he thought that Kiara had done something to threaten her.
“She just said that I was the bell of the ball, and that tonight I didn’t need to worry about her,” said Ari, looking anywhere but at Ragon’s eyes.
“I told you; she would be crazy to do anything at one of the Elder’s parties,” said Sameth.
“You don’t think she is crazy?” Sandra asked incredulously.
“What were you doing in the ladies room?” asked Clyde, ignoring Sandra as his narrowed eyes fell on Sameth.
“Checking on Ari,” said Sameth.
Ari pretended to listen to the group’s discussion, but not a single word they spoke registered with her. Only one thought occupied her mind. It wasn’t whether or not Kiara was telling the truth, or if she was about to walk into a trap. No. Ari was consumed by the thought of how exactly she might be able to get away from the coven that was trying to protect her, long enough to find out exactly what had happened to her parents.
Chapter 15- Trick or Treat
Ten minutes later and Ari was pacing around the Jacaranda tree at the very back of the Elder’s estate. Her plan to get away from the others had worked a treat. The group had split in two when William had offered to show them the house, and Ari had managed to make each group think that she was with the other. She’d had to pass a large olive vineyard and two small stables, until she found the characteristic purple flowers of the Jacaranda tree that she had seen from the bathroom window.
“I almost didn’t recognise you,” said Kiara, moving out from behind the tree to face Ari. “But I had a recent reminder of our past meeting.”
Once again Ari was forcibly reminded of how beautiful Kiara was; beautiful and terrible- like a storm at sea.
“You said you knew how my parents died,” Ari said flatly.
“But of course; now I can see how much alike you are to your mother,” said Kiara, continuing with her sentence as if Ari had not spoken at all.
“You knew my mother?”
“Knew is such a relative term; does one really need to know someone to rip their throat out?” asked Kiara.
Ari felt her knees shake. Kiara was lying; she had to be.
“You liar,” hissed Ari.
Suddenly Kiara was laughing, but then she spoke and all traces of humour were lost from her voice.
“It is rather dramatic I admit. When I saw you with Ragon all those months ago, I wanted you gone out of jealously. It was only tonight that I realised who you were; I never dreamed that you were the child I tried to kill all those years ago. Time has a way of slipping past us immortals,” she said sadly.
“Wh… What?”
This time when Kiara laughed, it was high pitched and cruel.
“Don’t tell me Ragon never told you,” she said. “Well, let me set the record straight. Twenty-four years ago I killed your parents and tried to kill you.”
Ari swayed on the spot. It couldn’t be true. Her mind groped at a memory, and she recalled Ragon telling her a story of why he had left Kiara: ‘I thought perhaps she had killed the parents because she had remembered how I craved humanity and wanted to keep the child. I think she thought that somehow it could make us whole once more, like a family.’
“No,” said Ari, more to herself than Kiara. “Ragon told me that you took a child to try and make him go back to you. But… but he would have told me-”
“-he would have told you if you were that child?” asked Kiara, her voice ringing with laughter as she mocked Ari. “Ragon is a romantic fool. I was surprised when he found me that night. I thought perhaps he had wanted to re-join me. I guess he thought I meant to keep you? Men can be foolish. But before I could stop him and kill you, he had taken you.”
Instantly Ari’s knuckles were tense and one of her eyes went green, while the other stayed blue. A wind rolled down the valley from the mountains that lined the estate, and swept over the fields, settling in the Jacaranda tree and causing masses of the purple flowers to begin to fall from it.
“But why?” asked Ari, desperate for answers.
“It was a favour,” Kiara replied indifferently.
“A favour?” repeated Ari. “You killed my family as a favour?”
“Yes, and now I am keeping that promise; I get rid of you and kill two birds with one stone. Thank you for making it so easy for me. Tracking you down would have been a nightmare,” said Kiara, advancing on Ariana just as more purple flower fell from the sky, like lavender coloured snowflakes.
Ari wanted to scream but couldn’t; her body was paralysed in fear. Knowing that there was no chance for escape, she squeezed her eyes shut and held her hands out instinctively, ready for the blow. A moment passed and Ari kept her eyes closed, waiting. For a while she remained like this, until enough seconds had lapsed without anything happening, for her to become curious. Slowly Ari opened her eyes. Tears slipped down her face and when she had blinked them away, she saw Kiara, standing about a foot away, fangs poised as if about to strike. But something was wrong; Kiara was not moving. It was as if the moment she had gone to attack, she had frozen. Her dark brown hair stood on ends, as if suspended underwater, while her witches’ hat was half way off her head. Her pupils were wide, giving her unblinking eyes a ruthless yet unfocused appearance.
Ari inched forward but Kiara did not respond. When Ari was so close so as to see a small freckle on Kiara’s right cheek, she waved her hand in front of Kiara’s face- nothing. Looking up at the tree she gasped. All around her were suspended purple flowers. It was as if someone had taken a photo of a snow globe after shaking it. Everything was quiet, a little too quiet, as if the crickets and frogs had all been silenced also. Hesitantly, Ari moved over to the flower nearest her and watched it. Reaching out to push it, the flower moved sluggishly in response, as if it were stuck in something viscous, like honey.
What the hell was going on? She took one more glance at Kiara and ran, not wasting any more time for explanations. Whatever was going on, time had slowed down just long enough to let Ari escape, and she wasn’t going to stand there wondering why.
When Ari had finally reached Ragon and the other coven members, she was white, whiter than most of the vampires at the party. The Elders were talking comically to a group of foreign-looking guests behind Ragon’s coven, and Ari eyed them warily.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sandra, when she saw Ari running towards them.
“And where have you been? I thought you were with Ragon,” said Larissa, who along with Cambridge and Clyde, glided over to Ari and the rest of the coven, having just
realised that Ari had not been with either group. “The Elders are furious; apparently the two boys who attacked one of their dancers were on blood candy.”
But Ari didn’t hear a single word Sandra or Larissa said. Her eyes were wild, and she began spluttering out incoherent phrases, trying desperately to keep her voice low so that the Elders did not hear her.
“Kiara… attack me… killed… she killed… my parents…” she said, clutching at her side where a large stich was stealing most of her energy.
At these words Ragon moved over to her protectively. He made to take her hand in his, so as to calm her down, but as soon as he reached for her, she pulled away. She was glaring at him. How could he not have told her? Why would he think that it was ok for him to keep it a secret? Clyde’s eyes had widened when he saw this, but he remained where he stood.
“But how did you get away?” Sameth asked in confusion, looking around, for what Ari could only guess was Kiara.
“She… froze?” said Ari; her voice was segmented and confused.
“Kiara hesitated? Long enough for you to get away?” asked Larissa, but Ari shook her head.
“No she stopped, and everything around her stopped,” Ari replied, trying to explain what had happened.
“But, I don’t understand,” said Sameth.
Ari made to answer but Ragon stopped her, taking a long meaningful look at a fat vampire who had just come into sight as he said, “No. Not here.”
Chapter 16- Finally
“Do you have a death wish?” Ragon asked Ari, when they were alone in the car together.
Cambridge drove behind them in Clyde’s car, with Larissa, Sandra and Thomas for passengers, while Clyde followed the coven on foot, ensuring that the group were not followed. Only Sameth remained behind at the party, insisting someone should find out what had happened to Kiara.
“She told me what happened to my parents?” Ari said flatly. “Why?”
The mystery of how she had managed to get away from Kiara was completely irrelevant to her. All Ari cared about was finding out what had happened to her when she had been a baby. Ragon knew the answers to her questions; it had been he who had saved her, but he had kept this from her… so the question was why?
“I don’t know why she killed your parents-” Ragon began to say, but Ari cut him off.
“No. That’s not the question. The question is why you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to,” he said, his eyes searching the black bitchermen road before sighing loudly.
“But you didn’t. I don’t have a death wish. I had to know; I needed to know. You’re a vampire. I get that you don’t care about anything living, but these were my parents. And because of Kiara I missed out on a childhood; she took that from me.”
“I tried to tell you,” Ragon confessed, “but every time I went to… I didn’t want you to hate me.”
“Hate you… for saving me?” Ari asked incredulously, unable to make sense of Ragon’s lame justification.
“Hate me because the reason Kiara killed your parents was so she could lure me back to her,” Ragon explained sadly. “If it weren’t for me you would have a family.”
“She didn’t take me to lure you back; she told me that she wanted me dead,” said Ari. “When did you try to tell me?”
“In the alley way after-” he began, but Ari cut him off once again.
“-so that’s what you meant the first time you went hunting with me at that club, when I asked you why you choose me. That’s when you should have told me,” she said flatly.
“You weren’t special because Kiara had taken you; you were special because I wanted to save you. You were crying when I took you from her, screaming, and the moment I held you in my arms, you quietened. I felt you fall asleep as I raced you away from her, and for the first time in many, many years, I felt something. There you were this bundle of life, not recoiling away from me, not shivering at my touch, and you made me feel… alive; like it was ok for me to live again. You don’t know how hard it was for me to let you go, to give you to the orphanage. But I knew I couldn’t look after you, or give you a proper childhood. I watched you go inside and unable to look away, I watched you grow up. I was determined to keep you safe and so I kept you always in my sight; it was selfish, but I needed you… needed to know that you would be ok,” said Ragon.
Ari listened to him intently as he recanted the missing pieces of her life’s story.
As soon as the car stopped, Ari jumped out. Sandra was besides her in a flash, and soon Clyde ran up to her also. They were looking at her with concern. One of her angel wings had been crushed by the way she had sat in the car, and it hung down low, giving her the appearance of a wounded bird. Ari was not oblivious to the way the rest of the coven looked at her, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk to any of them. When Ragon opened the front door a few moments later, she moved straight inside, heard loud music and gasped.
In the living room was Patrick dressed as a zombie sailor, and Ryder, wearing a queen of hearts costume. They were playing twister, their arms and legs wrapped intricately around each other, placed on various shades of coloured circles.
“What the hell?” Ari said.
“What?” asked Patrick, looking up at her in surprise, “I told you that I was ordering in; did I miss something?”
It was all too much. Ari flung her diamonte headpiece onto the floor and ran for her room, with Ragon following quickly behind. She did not collapse as she might have wanted to, but got down onto her hands and knees and began groping underneath her bed for something. She heard her bedroom door open behind her, but did not stop until she had found what she was looking for. When she turned around, Ragon was staring at her, his wide eyes looking in horror from Ari and down to the small wooden box that she was carrying.
“You wrote this?” she asked, opening the box and thrusting the crumpled piece of paper into his hands.
Ragon didn’t need to look at the small hand written note in her trembling hands, to know what it was. Ari had seen how he had looked away from the piece of paper that she had spent every night re-reading as she went to bed. For a moment she clung to it desperately then she drew in a deep harsh breath and let it fall from her hand, as she re-sited the words that she knew by heart:
“To the sisters of the Grace Valley Orphanage, I found this little girl dumped outside of the Prince Charles Hospital on February the 2nd. Please ensure that she is cared for. You will be able to do a better job than I am capable of…” recited Ari, but before she could finish the note, Ragon had picked it up from where it had fallen, and without looking at it either, locked eyes with Ari and spoke.
“What happened to her family I cannot guess, but surely they do not want her if they left her in such a way. She was wrapped in this blanket and there was a hospital bracelet on her arm that said: ‘Ariana Sol. I trust you will look after her,” he said.
Ari could not look Ragon in the eyes. Everything she thought she knew about herself was a lie.
“I have been protecting you for a long time,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Ari blinked back more tears but shook her head. She didn’t know what to say or do.
“If there was some way that I could have changed all of this, been there a few moments earlier to save your parents from Kiara... I would have done anything to change what happened that night,” he said.
Listening to Ragon’s words bought more tears to her eyes. She knew why he hadn’t told her, even understood, but it didn’t change the fact that for more than twenty years she had wondered what had happened to her parents, and now, tonight, she knew.
“I should have realised that you needed to know. And tonight you almost died trying to find out. I won’t ever keep anything from you again,” he added.
Ari looked up at him gingerly.
“You have said that to me before,” she said, just as Ragon reached for her hand and directed her to the bedroom door.
“I need to show you something. You need to u
nderstand,” he said, pulling her with him as he raced down the hallway and pushed open the hidden door that would take them to his library.
Ragon finally released her once they were inside, quickly closing the door behind them and then racing up the stairs to his desk. Ari was just about to ask what the hell was going on, when Ragon reappeared with several canvases in his arms.
“I didn’t keep it from you because I don’t care… I kept it from you because I do,” he said, showing her one of the canvases. “When you asked me why I went to library, what I was sketching… it was you- it’s always been you.”
Ari looked down just as Ragon held out one of the canvases for her. It was an enormous black and white drawing, one which she hadn’t notice the last time she had been in the library. The sketch was of an old Victorian building, in front of which a small girl sat alone on a child’s swing set. Ari didn’t need to see the date below which told her Ragon had drawn it in 1990, nor the familiar high arches of the Grace Valley Orphanage; she knew exactly who the four year old girl in the painting was; it was her. She remembered the old rusty playground from her childhood.
Next Ragon held out a smaller sketch, one with a more recent image of Ari. Ari stared at the smudged charcoal etch and blinked in disbelief. It was a picture of Ari sitting behind a desk at the University of Brisbane. Her head was down and she was studying, her desk piled high with many veterinary textbooks.
“You asked me once what I was doing at the library,” he said, placing the canvases against the wall as he reached to trace his hand down her cheek. “I was making sure you were alright. All these years I’ve watched you, hoped for you, cried with you, but now I see that all I have done is bought you more pain. Maybe it is time that I let you go; let you have a chance to live a normal life. I can take you far away; hide you from all of this…” Suddenly his hand was in hers and he drew it to his mouth, kissing it once on the palm before locking eyes with her, his lips paused over the vein in her wrist. “I can make you forget, make you forget all of this; it could be just as it was before you met me. All the hurt gone, all the pain forgotten,” he whispered feverishly.