by E. C. Hibbs
“What are we doing here?” I asked under my breath. I wasn’t sure why I was trying to keep so quiet; perhaps I was just nervous that someone would see us. We were behaving enough like kids to hide in the bushes at the first sign of any adult presence, giggling and holding our hands over our mouths. Maybe it was because the brilliant experience of my first proper boy-girl night out – as Anya would have called it – didn’t completely suppress the nerves I’d held every night since my stabbing. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But there was no-one around, and no faces leering from the shadows.
Frank didn’t answer. He led me along the Serpentine towards a slightly more secluded area, and then stopped, turned to me, and opened out both of his wings. I stared as he lifted them above his head, my mouth dropping open in wonder. He took hold of both my arms, and his eyes shone with a thousand smiles.
“What are you doing?” I hissed. “Someone might see!”
“There’s no-one here, don’t worry,” he assured, and his voice was enough to drive any doubt away. “Now, I think it’s time you saw one of the ups to all of this.”
I frowned. “Ups?”
He chuckled. “Just hang onto me.”
I paused for a moment, but then gripped, hooking my cane on my elbow. I shifted my weight onto my left leg to make it a little easier for him to support me, and then nodded to show I was ready.
Ready? I thought. Ready for what? What the hell are you doing, Bee?
But I already knew. And I was euphoric. Frank flapped his wings – the mist blurring them against the sky – and the cool air swept past my legs. Then I felt my feet leave the ground. My heart leapt into my throat and I swallowed it back down. I clung to him, the deep beats of his wings all around me, but he calmly rubbed the small of my back.
“It’s alright, you won’t fall,” he told me. “Relax.”
I couldn’t believe what was happening. We were flying.
I looked down, and the ground seemed so far away. It vaguely registered that we were only about fifteen feet in the air, but I was so excited, it felt like we were heading for the stars. Every nerve in my body was electric, and all my senses picked up everything around me. I couldn’t help but laugh, overcome with amazement – and when I looked back at Frank, I saw his eyes bright in his face; no longer green, but a brilliant red. He hovered, shoulders moving slightly up and down to counteract the movement of his wings.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I had no words. I could only nod ecstatically. My cheeks were aching from the smile.
He chuckled. “Okay, now feel your body getting lighter. Try to take your own weight.”
I mulled over that for a second or two, trying to figure out how I could possibly take my own weight when there was nothing but air under my feet – especially when I couldn’t even take it on the ground without my cane. But I tried, closing my eyes and forcing myself to reduce my grip on Frank. I felt him holding me, secure and strong; and knew he wouldn’t let me fall. I swallowed, warily pushing myself away from him a little.
I stayed in the air. By myself. My mouth fell open.
Frank smiled widely. “Well done.”
I stared down at my feet. “What’s happening?”
“You’re hovering,” he explained, then spoke more slowly. “Alright, I want you to let go of me with one hand.”
My brows shot down. “What?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he promised. His gaze was steady and calming, and I immediately felt better for looking at him; the safest I’d felt in years.
“Don’t let go of me,” I snapped.
“I won’t. I swear.”
I kept my eyes on him for a while, and then carefully began to slide my left fingers down his arm, away from him. My heart was slamming against my ribs so fast that it felt as though I had a whole orchestra’s percussion section imprisoned inside my torso.
“That’s it,” Frank coaxed softly. “That’s it, keep going.”
I swallowed nervously, closing my eyes to listen to the sound of his wings. The air stirred up by them cooled my face; and I forced myself to breathe deep, keeping to their rhythm. I moved my fingers further, and then felt the sudden stop at his wrist.
“Alright?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and nodded. “Yes.”
“Go on,” he encouraged. “You’re almost there.”
I held my breath; then let go. My hand immediately snapped over and grabbed my cane, just so I felt as though I was holding onto something, but I nearly dropped it in shock. It was one thing to be in the air, with Frank’s wings around me, but another entirely to be in the air and not being held by him. I was staying where I was under my own power.
Frank’s smile almost split his face. “Well done!” he laughed. “You’ve done it!”
I stared at the ground underneath us. “I... I have!” I stuttered “Ó istenem... Hey, what are you doing?”
I cried out in fright as Frank shifted his hold to clasp firmly around my middle, pushed me underneath him, and then thrust his wings down powerfully. My hair whipped back as we flew into the wind, and I heard him chuckling above me. I held out my arms and watched the black shapes of his wings come down on either side of me, as we soared over the treetops. Distantly I worried that someone would see us – surely we couldn’t do this and not be noticed. But the excitement threw all of that down and I didn’t care. It was too incredible to worry about anything, and I knew that I was in no danger. If there had been any, Frank wouldn’t have brought me up into the sky, and taught me how to fly.
The breeze blowing in my face didn’t help, but a few tears escaped the corners of my eyes. I must be dreaming, I told myself. Humans can’t fly. And who hasn’t dreamed of flying?
But no, I wasn’t dreaming. That made it all the more thrilling. I’d accepted my limp – and with that came acceptance of never being able to run, or skip, or jump using my right leg, ever again. But up here, there was no call for anything that might label me as disabled. And for the first time since I searched the mirror, and set eyes on what would become the scar on my neck, I admitted that I was grateful for what the Lidérc had done to me. He might have turned me with the intent to make me suffer, and I was crippled because of him – but he had also given me this: the power of flight; the power to override anything else he might have done to physically hurt me. Behind my joy, every laugh was at him. He had set me on a path to destruction, but I could never have thought of a more brilliant route towards my fate. Through his curse, I had found Frank – and in killing me, he had given me my life back.
Eventually, Frank brought me back down to earth, and tucked his wings away effortlessly. My cane was shaking as I held it, trying to keep my balance and readjust to the feeling of solidness under my feet. I could hardly contain myself.
“I can’t believe it!” I babbled, feeling my eyes flashing red like lights being turned on and off. “I can fly! I flew!”
Frank nodded; the smile still wide on his lips. “Yes, you did. That was excellent, especially for your first go. I’m very impressed.”
I could have still been in the air, for all I knew. I felt sky high: so full of adrenaline that the feeling of riding a rollercoaster wouldn’t ever satisfy me again. I had the feeling that he’d held back from what he could really do on the wing: that if he went around shouting his existence to the whole world, then every single trapeze artist would be out of a job and hanging their heads in shame. But I didn’t care. I didn’t even know what I was doing until I’d thrown my arms around him.
“Thank you,” I said, and felt another tear fall off my cheek. “Thank you so much!”
Frank laughed. I felt it reverberate through his chest and into my ear. It was the complete opposite of the snigger that had haunted my dreams: warm and friendly, and alive.
“Count yourself lucky,” he joked, gently patting me on the back. “You know what happened for my first flight? I got pushed off a twelve-storey building.”
I stared
at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yep. It was either fly, or break every bone in my body.” He paused, eyes shining. “But she did stay under me in case the bone breaking looked more likely.”
“She?” I repeated. I let go of him and we made our way over to a bench close to the bank of the Serpentine. Frank helped me sit down first, and I rested my cane against my leg.
“My turner,” he explained, seating himself next to me. “Her name was Hanna Bernstein.”
I ran over the name in my mind, and was surprised. I wouldn’t have thought that he’d have been turned by a woman, for some reason. “Bernstein?” I said instead. “That doesn’t sound like an English name.”
Frank shook his head. “No, she was German. She was a nurse – that was how she managed to get blood units, instead of knocking people out. And it’s why I do it. She taught me how to get to them anywhere. Both of us preferred it to people – it was less stressful for both parties.”
As he spoke, his eyes lingered over the dragonfly tattoo on his wrist. I wondered if it had something to do with Hanna, but didn’t say anything. His face was reserved, but behind the composure, I noticed that there was a hint of melancholy. I decided not to press matters.
“So that was when you lived there, I take it?” I asked in the end.
Frank leant back against the bench. “I was friends with her when I lived there. We lived in the same town in the Black Forest,” he admitted. “She was quite a few years older than me, but I used to give her help in caring for her father after he had a stroke. I lost contact with her when I came back to England, but then I decided to have a gap year. I’d just finished college in Torbay and wanted to go exploring.
“So I followed the Danube Cycle Trail: I went through Romania, Hungary,” he nodded at me, “Austria, and then Germany, and went back to the town where I’d lived: Donaueschingen. It didn’t take me long – about three months – but that suited me fine, because it meant I could spend more time there.
“Not long after I got ‘home’, I ran into an old friend, and we went for a whiz on his motorbike, but we had an accident and I broke four of my ribs. I ended up in the hospital, in intensive care, and ran into Hanna again while she was working there. And when I came back out and into the world, I was a juvenile.”
He glanced at me, and I quickly looked away so he wouldn’t see the shock on my face. He’d never really told me much about his past, only mentioned that he’d lived in Germany and had returned on his gap year – the handful of Hungarian words that he knew were, of course, what had gotten us talking in the first place. But I’d learned over my time at the Museum that he didn’t let on much unless he was prompted to. And I finally understood why.
But what struck me was how similar the circumstances of his turning seemed to my own. It was like some warped twist of fate. However, I kept my mouth shut about my own experience. I knew that he could probably help me, but I was having the best evening of my life. I didn’t want to ruin it by bringing up my past, and having all those memories come searing back to the surface.
I caught Frank looking at me. “What’s the matter?”
His eyes sparkled. “Penny for your thoughts?”
I frowned, having not heard that before, but I managed to guess roughly what he meant and shook my head. “No, it’s nothing. Really.”
He gave me a smile which made me shudder with elation. It might have been a small gesture, but if it showed on his lips, then it meant it was a million times bigger. Then I noticed that his arm was resting on the bench back behind me.
I swallowed and my heart beat like a rabbit’s. The whole world boiled down to that one moment as Frank moved towards me. I held back at first, but then just let myself be taken. I closed my eyes, waiting for the touch of his lips on mine.
How sentimental.
A burning chill shot through my whole body and I wrenched my eyes open. And I recoiled to see not Frank, but him; the pearly face inches from mine, black hair darker than the sky and eyes flaming. I jumped away so fast that I fell backwards off the bench.
“Nem, get away from me!” I screamed in Hungarian. I thought I heard Frank shout my name, but all I saw was the Lidérc. I crawled away frantically on my back. He leered at me, surrounded by the writhing grey mists.
A young harmless. How convenient for you. But he cannot save you from me, Farkas. Nothing can completely substitute for me. I made you what you are, and you will never cease to long for me. You cannot escape me.
I felt the wispy fog curling out around my ankles and quickly grabbed my amulet, brandishing it at him. “Mondtam, elávozik tőlem!” I said, get away from me!
“Bianka!”
Arms closed around me and pinned my own to my sides. I screamed, but when I looked around, the demon was gone. There was only Frank: his face contorted with fright and confusion. I spun around, eyes wide as I searched – but there was nothing. Just the two of us, alone by the Serpentine in Hyde Park.
The emotions that I’d tried to hold back burst through the fragile shield of the day, and tears spilled down my face, as though a dam had burst inside me. Frank repeatedly asked what had happened, but I couldn’t hear. I jabbered in Hungarian through my sobs, but doubted it was anything that even I could have made sense of. I was hysterical, still clutching my amulet with one hand as though my life depended on it.
My amazing evening was ruined. Inside, I was screaming out at the top of my lungs; so loud that I made sure the monster could hear me loud and clear. I loathed him with a passion – so much that I’d never known a loathing so strong could be confined in one mind – and it was instantly slammed back into me. Like it had on the day when I watched him force Lucy into his arms, and had looked on helplessly as he crushed the life from her. I could almost imagine the snowy ground buckling under my feet, and then my uninjured human body falling down through the bloody air.
Is that was this is all about? I mentally bellowed across the continent. I know you hate me as I hate you, but is it all because of that? Because I did what any friend would do, and tried to save her from you?
Frank eventually managed to calm me down and held me for what seemed like forever. But the feeling of safety he had given me was dinted. I still felt secure with him, but I sat stiff at his side, terrified that his face would morph into that other one again.
“Bee, what happened?” he asked me, but I didn’t reply.
CHAPTER XIV
After Frank had made sure I was alright and dropped me off at my flat, I didn’t even bother to change out of my dress before I lay down on my bed, staring at the ceiling. I fell asleep almost immediately, and through a dream-haze, watched as a young couple posed with an infant for a photograph. There was a plume of smoke as the flash exploded, lighting up his pale face and gleaming blue eyes. I started, and went to look again, but the image vanished as quickly as it had come. I was flung backwards, until I was standing in front of a shrieking priest with a receding hairline, waving his arms frantically. Behind him were a blurred crowd – all of them dressed old-fashioned – singing passionately. Then I fell down into nothing.
I had a day off between seeing Frank and returning to work, so I used it to inspect the lines of birch twigs around the walls of all the rooms. I knew I’d have to tell Frank sooner or later what had happened, but decided to leave it until I’d completely calmed myself down.
I remembered back to what he’d mentioned about that mental link that juveniles share with their turners. I’d seen the Lidérc in my head ever since I came to London, but never before had he appeared so vividly in front of me, like that evening in Hyde Park. Not since I really had faced him in Budapest. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried to push him out, he still managed to keep a grip on me.
He must be strong, I told myself, to be able to do what he did, and appear in Frank’s place – especially when there’s the majority of a continent separating us. Or, perhaps it was just me, and getting panicky about being kissed. Don’t forget what you were diag
nosed with, Bee.
That led me to think about the venom running through my veins: that blackness under my skin, changing me, in every passing moment, closer to something I was sure I’d never wanted to be. But apparently, somehow, I had given my permission. How could my love for Lucy mean that I had wanted to become a vampire?
I fleetingly thought of her, and of Anya and Apa. He always used to say that I had a photographic memory, because of the way I could sometimes recite whole passages of books after only reading them a few times. Then there were those test-games we did when I was younger: seeing how many objects you can remember being on a tray before they’re hidden by a cloth. Once, Emily had jokingly referred to me as the ‘Encyclo-Bee-dia’. I knew that it was one of the reasons why I remembered so much, even when I wasn’t prompted. The past would simply present itself, like watching a movie in my head. It was a part of me which I couldn’t control, or escape from.
Desperate for some kind of distraction, I checked the twigs again, but even though it was a routine that I did occasionally, it suddenly seemed too similar to laying down my lopsided circle around the couch. I even fancied that the faint smell of hot chocolate was just out of reach in the air.
I instantly gave up on finding any kind of solace in my flat, so I caught a train at Farringdon station. Not long after I’d left the Underground, it began to rain, and I quickly grabbed my old collapsible umbrella out of my bag. I walked through the streets in silence. They were still busy, but I’d surpassed the surprise by then. London never stopped, not even when you were sure there was more water falling from the sky than there was sitting in the ocean.