by A. M. Hudson
breath.
“After all these years, you still feel it? You still feel her loss so strongly?”
He bit his lip in and nodded. “There are some things you can never move on from, Ara.”
“So, she died from childbirth—like your mother?”
“No.” The way David said that, his voice laden with detest, made my blood run cold.
“Will you tell me?” I asked cautiously.
David looked up at me quickly.
“Will you tell me what happened?” I asked again, very softly.
Leaving my words alone behind him, he walked over and s unk down on the grass, his back
against her stone—as if he’d sat there a thousand times before. “You look like her,” he said.
“I do?”
He looked up at me and extended his ha nd, his eyes asking for mine; I stood by him and
wrapped my cold fingers around his. “Her hair was long, like yours, but as gold as the sun, and her
eyes—” he closed his, dropping his head as a slight smile lifted his lips, “as blue as the ocean. But
still, nothing as bright as yours.”
When he smiled at me, I sat beside him with my legs crossed and my back on the cold stone.
“She would have loved you—she would have been proud of me to have made such a sweet
girl fall for me.” We bot h smiled. “Ever s ince the day she ca me to ret rieve us from t he
orphanage after my father passed away, she treated Jason and I as if we were her own sons.”
“Why were you in an orphanage?”
“It was only for a few weeks while t hey waited for her to arrive.” He seemed to watch a
memory on the grass between his feet. “She lived in England. It took time for her to arrive. But we
were treated kindly at the orphanage.”
“So, no Oliver Twist scenario?”
David laughed once. “No. Nothing like that.”
“What about your uncle? Why didn’t he come?”
“Set rules. He’s on the council,” David stated.
“Oh.” Of course, silly me.
“Well, in Arthur’s defence, when Ari etta passed, he managed to have many r ules bent in
order to have Jason and I in his charge. It’s never been done before, or again.”
“Whose butt did he kiss?” I joked.
“The King’s.” David stared ahead, his eyes round and lost in some deep, brooding thought.
“So—how did Arietta die?”
He looked sideways at me, then picked up an orange, star-shaped leaf, and twisted it around
in his fingertips. “I knew you couldn’t resist asking me that again.”
“Sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”
“She always wanted chi ldren,” he started; I sa t still, holding my breath in case he should
change his mind about talking it out. “She loved my brother and I, but she wanted a daughter. She
used to play hopscotch with t he little girls on the sidewalk outsid e our house.” Davi d smiled at t he
memory. “The summer after my father’s passing, Arietta was walking down to the market when a
soldier stopped her on the roadsi de. He asked if she wa s okay, and she asked why he would inquire
such an odd questi on to a str anger who showed no s igns of distress. When he said he was just
concerned for her pain—since it must have hurt when s he fell from heaven, she fell completely and
unconditionally in love with him.” David laughed as he recounted.
“Well, he sounds charming…” I grinned woefully. “In a corny kind of way.”
“He was charming, and kind—he treated Jason and I as if we were his own sons. Victor
Stronghold was his name, and soon, became Arietta’s. And we were happy.” He nodded. “Victor
took us fishing and camping, taught us how to play baseball and showed us maps of the world. But
happiness was short-lived. They had tried for so long to have a child, and wh en the days of wait ing
for the stork to arrive became years—we all lost hope.
“I was thirteen when uncle Arthur came to visit. He and my aunt Arietta became close. Victor
was called away to duty in t he Navy for six months, and—” David scratched his brow, “—when he
returned, Arietta was pregnant.”
“So it was your uncle’s baby?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yes. Victor was devastated and humiliated. He left town for a few months, but returned later
and begged her to stay with him—despite her indiscretions.”
“He must have really loved her?”
“Apparently. But she refused—repeatedly. I remember them fi ghting about it …at night…
while Jason would cower beside me, frightened Victor would hurt our Aunt.
“One night we heard her scream out “I’m marrying him, Victor”, and we both knew what that
meant.
“I remember holding my breath when the house fell silent, breathing again only once Victor’s
car started up in the street. Then, we went back to sleep. And life went on.”
“Wait. So, just to be clear. Arthur was a vampire then?”
He nodded. “He was. He planned to change Arietta after the child was born.”
“Wow.”
David plucked the dry edges of the leaf in hand and flicked the debris onto the wi nd. “The
doctor predicted the child would arri ve in the spring, but the snow ha d started to melt, and the days
turn warm, and still, noth ing happened. I stayed ho me from school for more th an fortnight to watch
over her until, one day, she packed my lunch and sent me out the door—told me she would be
fine.” His shoulders dropped and he rested the back of his head against the stone. “I remember it all
like it was yesterday. So many thi ngs aligned to allow tragedy to upturn ou r lives that day. Uncle
Arthur was running errands on the other side of the Port—a day’s travel by foot—and Jason and I
would not be home until sunset, at the earliest.”
“So…” After more than a minute’s silence, my curiosity would not rest any longer. “What
happened then?”
“I—” He rolled his head up to look at me. “I j ust don’t know if I can talk about this, Ara. I t’s
too…” I watched his flat palm smooth circles over the left side of his chest. “It’s too painful.”
Looking down at my shoes, I nodded. “That’s fine.”
“But, I—” He sat up more a nd reached for my face. “I could show you—if you would let
me.”
“Show me?”
“I can share memories,” he said, his voice trickling with hope. “I can show you my memory.
It’s…it won’t be very clear, since I haven’t mastered this technique yet, but it will save me the
lengthy monologue.” His lip quirked up on one side.
“Okay.” I nodded and grabbed his hand, rolling my cheek against it.
“Okay. Close your eyes.” He shuffled closer and rested his other hand on my cheek. “Try not
to fight it when you see memories that don’t belong to you—just watch—like a movie.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
A faint image, li ke a photo taken on a sunny
day, then placed in a dark room at a
perpendicular angle, appeared on the backs of my eyelids. I dre w a d eep breath and watched the
slanted image, kind of squinting a little, even with my eyes closed.
“Sorry. I’m not too good at this.” David’s breath brus hed softly against my ear. “Does it
hurt?”
“No. Is it supposed to?”
“No. But it can.”
“I’m fine,” I said and settled back internally to watch the movie.
Warm sun licked
t he lush, pale green grass at the feet of a boy walking down a d irt road
toward a circle of houses. The sky hugged the ground, blue as far as the eye could see, undisturbed
by cities or cars—only picket fen ces and distant hills where the tan roads seem ed to snake inward
and disappear.
The boy whistled and waved to his neighbour s as he passed, but in his green eyes, the depth
of his worries flared. He walked with an edge to his step, half hurrying, half skipping as if to pretend
he felt no concern.
But, as he looked to the last house, the open front door seemed to stop his heart.
Silence seized the sound of children laughing and shouting playful commands at each other.
Two breaths passed before the thump of his knapsack hitting the ground beside a new spring
blossom brought it all back.
The movie played in slow motion, making the distance between the picket gate and the porch
steps seem like a hundred yards as he ran, his heels kicking up clouds of dust behind him.
He stopped dead by t he open door, and the world gr ew grey, shadowing out the warmth as
the silence faded under the deep thumping of his heart. “Aunty?” he called cautiously, completely
expecting to h ear her call back. He slowly walked forward, each foot tracing the st ep of the o ne
before. “Arietta?” His tiny hand pushed the door; it creaked and waved in the strong breeze.
I watched the image from behind the boy—the scene of a raw pine staircase in front of him, a
door to the left, leading nowhere important, a bright light filtering in through doors of a room behind
the stairs, and as he stepped past t
he front door, a hall table laying on its side, with an
accomplishment of scattered blue pottery and six red roses layi ng snapped, crumpled and smudged
into the hardwood floors.
He held his breath, this boy with gold-brown hair and fair skin, and as he toed the edge of the
table, shifting it away, the sight of curled fingers, tipped red with blood, forced him to his knees.
Wordless, frozen, tears welled into his eyes but became imprisoned by a breath of fear as his
gaze traced the thin white arm, laying outstretched—reaching.
There lay Arietta, slightly hidden by the gate of the stairs, her fragile, slender body twisted
awkwardly, as if s he had fallen from something impossibly high and landed without bones in her
body. Stringy tendrils mocked what was once hair of gold, and as the boy r eached forward and
stroked it from her cheek , he turned her twisted neck toward him and let out a shallow, empty cry,
falling back on his heels to cover his own mouth.
A face unrecognisably human: eyes swollen shut, a deep voi d where the other half of her
skull should be, her lip torn up to her nose, and several teeth missing.
My heart, which had been steady the whole time, suddenly began to beat faster.
Shaking, the boy rose to his knees again and, swiping tears away from his youthful cheeks,
lifted the bodice of her dress and fell heavily upon the lump protruding from her blackened belly. He
felt helplessly around the dome of ski n, searching for the feel of life within, and whi le his body
shook with the fear of truth, he turned his head to see words inscribed on the wall beside him.
The memory didn’t show the words, but only the feeling that followed, and I knew that they
were a passage from the bible, condemning infidelity.
The boy, David, covered t he belly of his aunt and s at up s uddenly, his ears pricked, his
shoulders tense and his eyes wide. Then, he launched to his feet and extended his hand toward the
door. “Jason. Don’t come in!”
A boy, an exact copy of David, s topped dead in the doorway—his boisterous smile slipping
away from his lips at the sight of his blood-covered brother.
“Get uncle, Jason. Get uncle!” David yel led his command down the street, but Jason was
already gone—swift and graceful, he tore down the street, his lanky limbs blurri ng with speed until
he disappeared from David’s sight.
David turned back t o the body of his aunt a nd fell to his knees, weep ing. “I’m so s orry,
Aunty. I should...I should have b een here—” His body began to submit to grief, but then he froze as
the deathly figure beneath him groaned. “Aunty!” He sat up and held his breath. “Aunty!”
“Da-v-id—” She moved her hand to reach for him, her soft gaze suddenly slipping past him
to a white look of terror, t hen, like a tidal wave preparing itself for slaughter, the silence drew in
around them, then cracked apart like a shattering vile of terror when the woman clutched her hands
to her belly and rolled upward, screeching for all the pain Hell could summon.
“Aunty? What can I do?” The boy’s red face streaked with tears, and his voice trembled with
helplessness. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Save him! Save my baby!” She r olled away, covering her stomach i n a tight, protecti ve
embrace.
The memory faded out to white dots around the edges of the film, and the birds in the tree
above us sang a melody I had no mind for a moment ago, but was completely aware of.
I lifted my eyelids, blinking against the grey day, and turned my head to look at David—the
grown up David. “You found her?”
“I delivered her baby.”
I drew a quick breath and covered my mouth. “But you were just a child. How did you…?”
“I—” he swallowed a hard lump, “I was simply there to hold the child as she was born. I did
little else, and there was nothing I could do to help my aunt.” His fists clenched. “No one came to the
sound of her screaming. No one called for a doctor. She was a woman scorned for her si ns, and they
let her die like a dog.” Hi s lip stiffened and anger flooded hi s voice, a kind of anger I ’d never, ever
seen in him. “I wrapped the child in my jacket and cradled her against me, where I laid in the arms of
my cold aunt as the night descended around us.
“When I heard footsteps on the porch outside, I was numb— completely numb. I simply stood,
held the baby out to my uncle as he burst through the door, and told him “I lost her.”
“Arthur took the child from my arms and, though I was only a boy a nd knew nothing of the
world, I saw a piece of his soul die when he closed the lids on his stillborn child and covered her face
delicately with my jacket.
“What my uncl e lost that night I will never truly understand, and at the time, I thought
nothing of the fact that he fell to the floor beside Arietta, with his child crushed against his chest, and
laid there until the dawn.
“Only now do I see it for the madness it stirred within him.”
“Did he ever recover?”
“Can someone recover from that?” David asked rhetorically. “He went on wi th normal life,
like any wise vampire on the World council woul
d, but he never spoke of her. Even now, t
he
mention of children sends his eyes soulless.” David reached over and wiped a warm tear from my
cheek, then smiled softly. “The police came; they took Victor and charged him with aggr avated
assault. He was jailed for a mo
nth, then released with a warn ing, since the evidence was
inconclusive.”
“That’s it? He killed her and he got a month?” I almost rocketed forward in protest.
David nodded and clapped his hands t
ogether, le tting his elbows fall loosely over his knees.
“And life went on. Uncle Ar thur left town for a while, pr omising to return when he had made
arrangements for Jason and I.” He brushed his pa lm across the headstone behind him and nodded
toward it. “We buri ed her on a warm spring day, with her baby in her arms, where she will lay
evermore.”
“David, that’s so sad,” I whispered, feeling the rise of little bumps over my cold skin.
“Hers has been a loss I have never moved past.” He inclined his head to his position on her
grave. “And this is where I’ll sit one day, feeling the grief for another I once loved—with no hope of
ever holding her again. Only…the na me will read a different story; it will be one of true love, of
tragic loss and eternal sadness.” He looked down at the ground. “F or me, Ara, your death wi ll be
only but a breath away; a second in time, and you wi ll be gone. You have your whole life ahead of
you, but for a vampire...it’s nothing but a heartbeat.”
“I’m sorry, David. I wish with all of my heart it were different.”
“I know. But you wi ll never feel the pain of it as I will—for the rest of eternity.” He sniffed
once, nodded, then looked at me—trying to smile.
His words were almost enough to make me change my mind in that breath—to save him from
this horrible reality. It all just seemed so hopeless.
“Come on.” David stood in front of me, his hand outstretched. “I heard the ogre complaining
about ten minutes ago. Let’s get some food.”
“Okay.” Gravity bequeathed me with excess weight as I rose to my feet and followed David.
As the oak tree became smaller behind me, I stole a glance back to the hill where Arietta will stay.
Once, she had been promised immortality, and now, she lies in the ground—never to know
her child’s name.
I could see myself sitting up there beside he r. My feet moved me away, but my heart
remained where, one day, my body would return to meet it.
That idea scared me to the point of shaking; the id ea of death. It never used to, but seeing
those graves painted the truth on a canvas of reality—textured in rough strokes of dark grey, blue and
black. It’s real. Death is real, and it’s coming for me—a little closer every day.
But it’s normal. It’s the way things are supposed to be.