The architecture dwarfed me as I hung, like a vapor, in the shadows. Something was different here; I could taste it in the air.
I hid from it.
There was a niche not far from me, a statue of the Madonna, flanked in candlelight. The flickering light flitted off her indigo veil, her eyes concealed in darkness yet still bearing down at me; judging me, guiding me. Sliding toward the statue, I lit a candle and offered a silent prayer, not knowing whether God could still hear me, or even wanted to. My prayer for solace, I thought, would surely fall on deafened ears.
As I was exiting the church, I heard the faint whispering of thoughts. They pressed me; they rushed me. They crashed into my skull.
I heard his name. A name I had heard before – in Mainz. The priests and the bishop had been whispering it in their corner. Wanting to hide within, I shut out their thoughts. Now, however, these thoughts were too loud to ignore. Martin Luther, the man’s mind screamed, is dying. Please Lord, the man prayed, forgive him, he knows not the gravity of what he believes.
“Who is dying?” I asked, boldly, walking from the shadows to sit at the man’s side. Startled, he attempted to shuffle further down the pew but my hand, clamping on his shoulder, stopped him. “Tell me, please.”
“Martin Luther,” he whispered, eyeing the priest before glancing my way.
“What consequence is that of yours… of a Catholic?”
He tensed at my words. His shoulders squared as he sucked in a breath, his hawkish eyes widening. A rich chanting filled the back of the nave, coming from a separate part of the church. A woman, young but burdened by pregnancy, sauntered in and sat two pews ahead of us. “His wife is my cousin,” he replied, his voice hushed. “I do not agree with him, with his preaching, but I do pray for his soul.”
I confronted him. “His preaching? Which ones? I beg of you, divulge.”
“I beg your pardon?” he replied, bewildered by my questioning.
“Do you oppose the assertion that one cannot be absolved through his purse? Or, do you oppose his recent madness, that the Jews should have their homes destroyed; that we should burn their synagogues, or that we should confiscate their moneys, their properties?”
“I oppose it all,” he answered. His chin, firm and proud, jutted from his neck as he edged his upper body closer to me. “Every last word that man speaks is a lie.”
“And yet you sit here praying for him?”
“It is not too late for him,” the man said, easing back into the pew, observing the priest as he knelt at the altar. “It is not too late for you either.” The man’s eyes met mine. “You, too, can repent.”
“I have nothing to repent for.” His voice was sharp, cutting the air. The woman sitting ahead of us turned and glanced our way, her finger to her mouth – her eyes piercing with intent.
“Repent for your intolerance,” I told him as I stood. “Repent for your own wickedness. You, surely, are not blameless. Why then do you judge your fellow man? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.” The words, long since implanted on my psyche from days spent in study, effortlessly rolled off my tongue.
“Who are you to quote scripture to me? You do not sound Catholic, so who are you to judge me?” He grabbed the back of the pew in front of him clutching the hardwood until his knuckles whitened. His eyes, beady slits, peered at me.
“I am not Catholic,” I told him, my voice trailing into the past. “I am… nothing.”
I left him, the reality of my own words violently assaulting me; I quickly paced down the aisle, clicking my heels softly on the stone.
I reached Mansfeld Castle as the sky morphed into pre-dawn, the purples easing from the horizon, reaching for golden daylight. The whispering traveled high in the wee hours as Eisleben awoke. My eyes grew heavy with the coming light, and as I found shelter from the coming heat, I heard the news: Luther was no more.
When the evening returned, his soul had already begun its march into eternity. I listened to the city speak of him, of his controversy, of his life. Then I ventured on. There was no longer anything left for me in Eisleben. That is, if there had ever been anything there for me at all. Germany still held precious treasures for me to explore, the wine country of Esslingen and the Merseburg bible, and the city’s now famous Domburg. But, the Domburg’s Romanesque triple nave held nothing new for me, either. Its stain glass windows of saints made grotesquely distorted images on the slate floor when the moonlight hit them. They reminded me of Norway, but I was unsure as to why.
The Merseburg bible, held in the Domburg’s library with other dusty tomes telling the history of these proud people, was just another decrepit volume. It was not even that old when I first saw it, only a spot over three-hundred years. It was wildly unnaturally that I was older. It was wrong.
Time passed swiftly for me as I traveled about. Almost four years flew by since I left Russia and I had found no happiness, no peace. My attempts to detract from humanity were futile; in every city, in every landmark, people surrounded me. Their thoughts inundated my mind, corrupting my solitude. Their blood intoxicated the air, making me long to unite, forever, with something other than myself. I was lonely, lonelier than I had been when I left. I had to return. The running had to cease.
FOURTEEN
Why do you keep that picture?” Wesley asked. “That girl; she is lost now. You will never get her back.”
Three nights had passed since I returned to Russia. Not once did he question me about my absence. Not once did he pry into where I had been, whom I had seen, or why I had now returned. Nor did I question what he had done in my absence.
“And who is responsible for that?” I asked.
I snapped the locket shut, its aging hinges creaking, and tossed it back into the velvet bag hanging from my waist.
“Being here with him, with them, it will kill you, Bree. You should not have returned.”
The fire lit his eyes; the black orbs looked sunken by the dark, gloomy room. Time had forgotten both of us. But sometimes, in the light of the fire, or in the way he scrunched his brow and wrinkled his nose – time caught up with Wesley. It made me fear what we had become.
“It cannot kill me, my brother; I am already dead.”
I gathered the rest of the jewels, the ones resting on the mantle – my precious links to a past I could scarcely remember – and crammed them into the pouch. “I have to go to him.”
“You will regret this. So much has changed.”
“It is only been four years, Wesley.”
“Four years for mortals is longer than you realize. Be careful, my sister, you may be dead, but your heart can still be broken.”
The shadows frolicked against the walls; the plaster images – peacocks and flowered vines – shimmered and danced. The flames were the only things alive in the room, and their warmth reminded me of my utter coldness, my lifeless existence in a world inhabited with mortals. Their blood constantly coursed through their bodies, taunting me. Their heartbeats, haunting my ears with vibrant rhythms, seduced me back. And there I was, a specter, a monster, tainting their perfect world – lusting to be with it, among it, yet consuming it.
“Perhaps I will. However, I will also regret not going back. How do I choose which future will haunt me?”
The fire was dying, its glow fading. It was time.
“What will you do when he dies?” Wesley asked, taking my hand. “And you will remain the same. His hair will gray, he will get sick, and he will be no more! Yet your hair will never gray, you will never get sick, you will never die.”
“How will you explain to the children your unchanging form?” he continued. “A child’s keen eye can see through a disguise, Bree.”
He grabbed my chin and turned my face to his.
“What will you say when those girls ask you how their mother died?”
“I will tell them everything, Wesley. There will be no secrets. Not anymore.”
The fire had died, bathing us in a darkness that matched the s
ilent recesses of my heart. His doubt now poisoned the air.
“You are a fool,” he said, dropping my hand. “Maybe,” I replied. I walked to the door, twisting the knob, and peered into the night, its luminous canopy of stars beckoning me. “Perhaps I am, yes.”
I slipped into the night, its ebony cape shrouding me from the living. He was behind me, not too far, but there. That night, I found Tver changed, and still somehow the same. The mellifluous rhythm of Viktor’s heart euphorically called me home. I could not ignore its siren cry.
Tracks of rainfall collected on the cobblestone streets and glistened in the starlight. Wesley had landed behind me, his hand now on my shoulder.
“Go to him,” he whispered, “Nothing I could say is going to stop this, so be off with you, then.”
I embraced him, feeling his hard coldness against me. I needed human warmth, human comfort, not his frosty tightness.
“Just remember why you left and do not get lost in the humanity’s dream world, in his dream world, again.
Remember that you are a vampire and not even he can change that.”
Wesley’s words swam circles in my mind as I descended. The castle was still except for the candlelight shining in Viktor’s quarters. His curtain was open to embrace the brisk night air.
That is how it always was on nights like this. His curtain would be open, the fire raging; and he would be on the bed, sprawled out, reading a book. His eyelids half open and half closed as he turned the pages. By now the candelabras would be near to the quick, the wax pooling and spilling into colored icicles, gently cascading down the silver bases.
“Miss me?” I whispered as my feet landed on the cold slate floor.
I could have snuck up on him, tapping his shoulder as he read, but I did not. Instead, I stood just inside from the balcony, preparing for his response.
“I must be dreaming,” he remarked, rising from the bed.
“No dream, Viktor.”
“No dream?”
His fingers fondled my hair; his eyes glanced about my face, dancing with excitement under his heavy eyelids. My smile reassured him of reality, and his arms wrapped about me, embracing me with their warmth.”
“I thought you’d gotten lost. That you had forgotten your way back to me.”
“I am back now, that’s all that matters,” I told him as he held me. “That is all that will ever matter, Viktor. I am never leaving you again.”
His hair had grayed more that I thought it would in four years. Heavy creases graced the corners of his eyes, and his face showed the weariness of time in each wrinkle.
“Where has the time gone, Viktor?” My fingers traced over them, slowly, wondering about each wrinkles history. “I am getting older and you have stayed the same, just as you said you would,” he said, kissing my cheek. “This will end, even though you have come back to me, one day this will end, will it not?”
“One day, you will die. That is the only way you will get rid of me,” I told him as I smoothed his graying hair. Four years before, there had been more black peppered in, but now the black had nearly faded.
“Turn me, make me what you are. Then this will never end,” he urged.
“No. I cannot. This life, living forever, you eventually get tired of constantly watching everything you know, everything you love, fade to dust. Everything ends, Viktor. Even I will eventually cease being.”
“For four years I have longed to see your face again, to feel your lips on mine, Bree,” he said.
“For four years I knew that if you ever came back, I would make sure we were never again parted.”
“I will never turn you, Viktor.”
“But can you not see how beautiful you are to me, my eternal love?” he urged, pressing his palm to my cold throat. “How unchanged and mysterious you are?”
I laid my head upon his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him. His warmth struggled to permeate my hard coldness.
“If you love me, you will stop asking for this. You pain me with your pleas, and I will flee again. Flee forever.” “You will not hear my voice utter those words again, then.” His voice softened with defeat.
“You will ask me again, just one more time,” I told him.
“When? Have I not just promised such?”
“When you are dying,” I told him. My grip tightened around his torso.
He was silent, his hot breath whispering across my neck. His chest swelled with a deep breath, which he hung onto as tightly as I hung onto him. I heard his soul mourning; crying over its utter mortality, the eventual journey to a place I could not venture to. I nearly succumbed to my weakness, my teeth almost sinking into his tender flesh, when he released his breath and his soul was at peace with my decision.
Aleksandra had grown into a delicate child, her features a perfect blend of her parents. However, Anastasia could not hear. She lived in isolated quarters, communicating in grunts and crude hand gestures, a wet nurse her only companion. Violent seizures gripped the child and wracked her frail limbs with uncontrollable spasms. The sound she made, a guttural yowl, as servants struggled to hold her down during these episodes made even me shudder.
A little over a year before I returned, Viktor had the girls separated because Anastasia’s fits frightened her sister. Anastasia would bite Aleksandra, drawing blood. She could not function with other children, and so she could not be trusted around those her age. Viktor went to Anastasia often, but she could not hear his words, and he felt powerless – unable to communicate and connect with his darling girl. Even he, on a hidden level – one Viktor was not proud of – was afraid of the child.
When the girls turned seven, I convinced him to send Aleksandra to an English boarding school. Her Russian tutor stunted her intellectual growth. She tired easily with the mundane and had a seemingly limitless thirst for knowledge. She would become a noble queen, I had told Viktor; she just needed room now to blossom.
Viktor was torn, but even he could not fail to see the connection been Anastasia’s disabilities and how it affected Aleksandra – restraining Aleksandra’s growth. Aleksandra pitied the weakened mirror image that was her twin. Pity was not enough to foster love.
My attempts with the child, who was always exquisitely dressed, having the most gentle and skilled nursemaids available to the Crown’s richly purse, were futile. She was kept comfortable, but we were powerless to do anything more for her.
When the girls were ten, I convinced Viktor to send Anastasia to a school in Paris ran by one Abbe Charles Michael de L'Épée, a prominent teacher of signs for those who could not hear. The school, using a theory that deaf people could learn to communicate through hand gestures, was a dawning concept, but one I found hope in. Her struggles, her fits, I reassured Viktor, were because she could not hear us; she could not communicate. Others in the castle and beyond its walls however, felt they derived from evil; much like her mother.
In 1558, six years after we sent her to Paris, a letter arrived from a man, a doctor who treated the students at Anastasia’s school. He begged for her hand in marriage. I can care for her better than any other man can. I love her. She loves me, he wrote, his nervous scribble scrawled on the parchment in a series of smudged, disorganized pen-marks. As the weeks passed, I encouraged Viktor to accept this match for his daughter. Even with her royal title, the disability left little to no chance of any marital match, and this one would prove beneficial to Anastasia.
The pair returned to Russia and were wed in a simple ceremony in a Tver church that has long since burned and been forgotten. The groom, a meek man of thirty wearing wire-rimmed glasses, gladly accepted the dowry Viktor offered. The purse made him a rich man, yet the couple returned to Paris and invested the funds in the same school where their love dawned. Their life was comfortable and pleasant for several years.
Anastasia had matured into a charming woman. She wore her hair curlier than Aleksandra, and had a small scar on her chin. Their hair was the same blazing red – a fiery color, bold and brazen.
Their features were delicate and regal, and their emerald eyes sparkled in the candlelight. Anastasia was a bit thinner than her sister was, but made a stunning bride regardless.
Having been in an English boarding school of my choosing, Aleksandra returned to Russia to stand with her sister.
Unlike her sister Anastasia, Aleksandra resisted the notion of marriage. Several prominent men had pursued her hand, but all without success. Her quest for knowledge, for answering life’s unanswered questions, left no room for attentions of men. Her books were her companions.
Yet her compassion extended from the page to the cities poor. She welcomed the needy with open arms – and a bottomless heart – as she fed, washed, and clothed them in droves. While her exterior was calm, her patience was short for the ignorant of mind; those who never questioned, never wondered, never showed concern.
After the wedding, Aleksandra took residence with Wesley and me. Her father allowed it without question. Viktor and I would spend most nights together while Wesley entertained Aleksandra, educated her. I did not speak of England, the memories of my life there were too painful; but Wesley filled her head with exotic images and tales, of lands and times long forgotten. She begged me to take her back. She wanted to explore, to travel beyond the borders bordering the school’s village. Wesley would argue with me, offer to go himself, but still I refused.
Her studies in philosophy and religion, her readings of Aquinas, Heraclitus and Ephesus, even of Diotoma of Mantinea were no match for Wesley. Their debates, in those earlier days, were something to watch and rival. For hours, the two would toss words, truth fueling their passionate exchanges. In the end, regardless the winner, they would come together as friends, embracing each other with warm smiles.
Then Wesley left, as we all eventually do. He was running – hiding, but from what I could never have guessed.
My eyes were blind in those days. All I could see was Viktor, once a noble, youthful man with ebony hair and piercing eyes. Now all that remained, time having waged its war and won, was a frail, ill and fading remnant of the man I loved.
Descent Into Madness Page 14