My first visual impression of the place was a jumble of things: each wall (painted varying shades of blue) had a mural, or framed paintings, or a bookcase, or an alcove holding statues, flowers, and herbs. The furniture was simple, low and modern, most upholstered in white. Carpets and cushions were scattered everywhere. She led me down a corridor, into a room with periwinkle walls, a vast white bed, and an ivory chaise next to a floor lamp with a mother-of-pearl shade.
It was so different from the ornate Victorian furnishings of my father’s house. I’d always assumed that my mother had decorated it, but now I wondered. And that thought brought me back to the one that kept me from happiness: why had she left us?
She looked at me, and I tried to hear her thoughts, but couldn’t. “You probably have questions, Ariella. I’ll answer them as best I can. But first, let me get you into some clean clothes and feed you. All right?”
“All right,” I said. “Sorry about the socks.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes, and I wanted to melt into her arms again. “You need never apologize to me,” she said.
My mother — Mãe — ran me a bath with rose petals floating in it. “To soften the skin,” she said. Her own skin was like velvet. And while her voice shared Sophie’s Savannah accent, its pitch and rhythm were more like those of Mr. Winters. Her voice was gentle and light, as hypnotic as my father’s voice, but in a different way.
“You look like your wedding photo,” I said.
“I thought your father would have put all of those things away.”
“Sophie showed me. She gave me an album.”
“So you’ve been with Sophie?” Mãe shook her head. “It’s a wonder she didn’t shoot you. You must tell me all about her, after your bath.”
She left me in the bathroom — a hexagonal room with cornflower-blue walls, and a large stained-glass window over the tub depicting a white horse against a cobalt background. I shed my clothes and slipped into the water, rose petals floating over me, and I looked up at a skylight that framed the leaves of a vine-covered tree and a small patch of lazuline sky. On the wall over the tub, shelves held small green plants, each in a mother-of-pearl pot.
When I left the bathroom, wrapped in a fragrant towel (she added geranium or thyme oil to the laundry rinse water, I found out later), I saw that new clothes had been left on my bed: a shirt, pants, and underwear, all made of the same soft cotton, the color of blanched almonds. They looked comfortable — but they wouldn’t protect me as the metamaterial suit had. Maybe I wouldn’t need to be invisible, here.
I dressed, slathered on sunscreen — a ritual automatic by now as breathing. Humans and vampires alike need constant protection from the sun. I hope you will remember that. If more humans realized it, they wouldn’t age as horribly as they do.
On the table next to the bed lay a wooden comb. I tried to un-snarl my hair, not altogether successfully.
Mãe knocked and came in, a small spray-bottle in her hand. “Sit,” she said.
I did, and she sprayed something on my hair, then worked the comb through the tangles. “Do you recognize the smell?”
I didn’t.
“Rosemary,” she said. “Mixed with a little white vinegar.”
“I know about vinegar,” I said. “And I’ve read the word rosemary, but I never smelled it before.”
She worked the comb gently through my hair. “What did he teach you?” she said.
“He taught me a great deal,” I said. “History, science, literature, philosophy. Latin, French, Spanish. Some Greek.”
“A classical education,” she said. “But not Epona, or the smell of rosemary?”
“He didn’t teach me about some things,” I said slowly. “I’m not good with road maps. And I don’t know much about goddesses.”
“He didn’t teach you mythology.” She said it decisively. “There, your hair is like silk. Now let’s have lunch.”
The kitchen was another large, high-ceilinged room, with stone tiles of alternating shades of blue on the floor and walls of turquoise-colored plaster. Copper pans hung from the ceiling, and a saucepan simmered on a blue-enameled stove. Eight chairs were pulled up to a long, battered oak table.
I wondered how to tell my mother about my diet, for want of a better term. “I don’t eat the same foods as most people,” I said. “That is, I can eat them, but only certain foods make me feel strong.”
She ladled soup into two large blue bowls and carried them to the table. “Try some,” she said.
The broth was dark red, with a hint of gold in it. I took a cautious spoonful, then another. “Oh, it’s good,” I said. The broth had vegetables in it — carrots, beets, potatoes — but I couldn’t identify the other flavors. It was thick and sultry, and it made me happy.
“It’s red miso soup.” My mother took a spoonful herself. “With beans, lentils, saffron, and some other things — fenugreek and lucerne and such — added for flavor. Plus some vitamins and mineral supplements. You haven’t had this before?”
I shook my head.
“That’s right, eat,” she said. “You’re too thin. What did he feed you?”
Her voice wasn’t critical, but the references to “he” were making me nervous. “My father hired a cook especially for me,” I said. “I was on a vegetarian diet. And he and Dennis monitored my blood, and gave me a special tonic when I was anemic.”
“Dennis,” she said. “How is he?”
“He’s well,” I said politely. Then, more honestly, I said, “He’s worried about his weight, and about getting older.”
“Poor thing.” She rose and took my bowl to refill it. “And Mary Ellis Root — how is she?”
She’s horrid, I thought. But I said, “She’s always the same. She doesn’t change.”
My mother brought me the bowl. “No,” she said, her voice amused. “I don’t suppose she does.”
She folded her arms on the table and watched me eat. I felt her pleasure — probably every bit as much pleasure as I had, consuming the wonderful red soup.
“Did anyone teach you to cook?” she said.
“No.” I reached for the tall blue glass of water she’d poured me. This taste, too, was a surprise, charged with minerals and an icy metallic aftertaste.
“The water comes from the mineral spring out back,” she said, “After lunch I’ll take you around.”
“I can cook a little,” I said, thinking of my sorry attempt at vegetarian lasagna. “And I can ride a bike, and swim.”
“Can you row a boat?” she asked.
“No.”
“Do you know how to grow an organic garden? Can you sew your own clothes? Can you drive a car?”
“No.” I wanted to impress her, somehow. I can turn invisible, I thought. I can hear thoughts.
She cleared the table, saying over her shoulder, “I have my work cut out for me, I see.”
A small cat with blue-gray fur and with pale green eyes strolled into the kitchen. It sniffed my leg, then rubbed its face against me.
“May I touch it?” I asked.
Mãe looked up from the sink. “Hello, Grace,” she said to the cat. “Of course,” she said to me. “Haven’t you ever had a pet?”
“No.”
“Well, here you’ll have several.”
Grace sauntered over and sniffed my hand. Then she turned her back on me. Clearly, I’d have to prove I was worthy.
The three of us, Grace trailing my mother and me, walked around the stable: a long blue building behind the house, each stall empty, smelling of sweet hay.
Mãe had four horses, grazing in a paddock. She called their names: Osceola, Abiaka, Billie, and Johnny Cypress. The horses came to her, and she introduced me to them.
“May I touch them?” I’d never been this close to the horses in Saratoga Springs.
“Of course.”
She stroked Osceola’s neck, and I petted Johnny Cypress. He was the smallest of the four, with a light gray coat and blue eyes. T
he others’ coats ranged from pure white to ivory to cream.
I asked about their names, and she said they came from leaders of the Seminole tribe. “I guess you haven’t learned about them?” she said.
I shook my head.
“Native Americans who were never conquered. Osceola led them in battle against the United States. And you don’t know much about horses?”
“I sometimes watched horses at the racetrack,” I said. “We’d go early in the morning, when they were exercising.”
“We meaning you and your father?”
“No. I had a friend. Her name was Kathleen. She was murdered.”
I told her what I knew about Kathleen’s death. She put her arms around me when I finished.
“The killer hasn’t been caught?” she asked.
“Not so far as I know.” For the first time in months, I wanted to call home.
“Raphael doesn’t know you’re here.” She said it flatly, as if she knew it.
“I left a note.” I didn’t want to meet her eyes. “It was kind of vague, though. He’d left to go to some conference in Baltimore, and I felt — I wanted to find you.”
“Baltimore? He left in January?”
I nodded.
“Some things don’t change.”
Osceola whinnied, and she said to him, “It’s all right.”
“Could I ride one of them, someday?”
“Of course.” She took my hands in hers, and examined them. “Have you ever ridden?”
“No.”
“All right then,” she said, “we’ll add riding to our list of things to learn.”
Next she showed me the honeybee hives: stacks of wooden boxes like the ones Mr. Winters kept, near a grove of orange and lemon trees. “You can taste the citrus in the honey,” she said.
“Does it taste different from lavender honey?” I was thinking of her cookbook, back in Saratoga.
She stopped walking. “Yes,” she said, her voice soft. “Nothing compares to lavender honey, in my opinion. But I can’t grow lavender here. I’ve tried. It always dies.”
The path circled a garden patch, and she named the crops: peanuts, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, gourds, squash, and beans of all sorts. A small blue-painted cottage bordered the garden. Mãe called it the guest house.
“We breed the horses, and that makes enough money to let us do the rescues,” she said.
Rescues? I thought. I had more pressing questions. “We meaning you and — what was the name?”
“Dashay. She’s at a horse auction today. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Are you and Dashay a couple?” I’d barely met my mother, yet I felt jealous. I wanted her undivided attention.
She laughed. “We’re a couple of idiots. Dashay is my good friend. I met her when I was running away, like you. She helped me buy the land here, and we share the work and the profits.”
I stared at my mother — sun glinting on her hair, topaz eyes. “Are you in love with anyone?” I asked.
“I’m in love with the world,” she said. “How about you, Ariella?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
May in Florida is a curious time. My mother called it the last-chance month; with June 1 came hot humid rainy days, she said, and the start of hurricane season.
That night the temperatures fell into the sixties, and we wore sweaters when we took a stroll after dinner, down to the river. A small wooden dock jutted into a harbor, and tied to it were three boats: a canoe, a motorboat, and a pedal boat. “Want to take her out?” Mãe said.
“Which one?”
“Let’s start the easy way,” she said.
I climbed awkwardly into the pedal boat, and she untied the lines and jumped in, so lightly that the boat barely moved. Then we pedaled off, down the river.
The full moon slipped in and out of clouds, and the night breeze was sweet, smelling of orange blossoms. “You live in a wonderful world,” I said.
She laughed, and the sound of her laughter seemed to sparkle in the dark air. “I’ve built it carefully,” she said. “I gave up my heart when I left Saratoga.” Her face wasn’t sad, merely thoughtful. “We have so much to tell each other,” she said. “It can’t all be told in one day.”
The boat moved into open water, and ahead I saw the lights of the hotel where I’d spent the previous night, and the thin beam from the lighthouse on Monkey Island.
“Poor monkeys,” I said. I told her about watching them from the hotel.
My mother’s eyes flashed. “Do you know the story? The original monkeys were put on the island after they’d been used to develop a vaccine for polio. They were the survivors — the ones who weren’t paralyzed or dead. So their reward was to become a tourist attraction.”
We pedaled closer. Bob sat on a rock, staring at nothing. The other, smaller monkey hung from a tree branch and watched our approach. Mãe made a funny clicking sound with her tongue, and Bob stood up. He walked down to the rocks on the island’s edge. The other monkey sprang out of his tree and loped after Bob.
What happened next is hard to describe. It’s as if my mother and Bob had a conversation across the water, though no words were spoken. The other monkey kept out of it, and so did I.
“All right then,” Mãe said after a few minutes had passed. She looked again at Bob. Then she steered the boat to the side of the island not visible from the resort. We hit bottom several yards from the shoreline. She waded ashore, moving so gracefully that she barely made a splash. I sat and watched, wanting to cheer, not making a sound.
When Mãe reached the shore, Bob was waiting. He wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist. The other monkey climbed onto her shoulders and clasped her neck. She waded back, more slowly now. The monkeys stared at me, their small eyes bright, curious. I wanted to greet them, but kept mum as they climbed into the boat. They sat on the floor, in the stern.
We left the harbor as quietly as before.
I was thrilled beyond words. Not only had I found my mother — I’d found a hero, and two monkeys as well.
Bob wasn’t his real name, it turned out. He was Harris.
My mother and Harris sat in the living room later that night, working out the details. The other monkey, Joey, had a snack of apples and sunflower seeds, then went off to bed in the guest house.
Mãe and Harris communicated with gestures, eye movements, grunts, and nods. When they were done, they hugged each other, and Harris nodded at me as he left for the guest house.
“How did you learn to communicate with monkeys?” I asked.
“Oh, we’ve had monkeys here before.” She stood up and stretched her arms. “Some were pets who’d been abandoned, and some came off Monkey Island. You realize that the hotel will replace Harris and Joey, don’t you? They always do.”
I hadn’t thought of it. “Then we can rescue the new ones, too?”
“It depends.” She rubbed her eyes. “Some like it on the island. Joey might have been perfectly happy there. But Harris hated it, and Joey didn’t want to be left alone.”
“Will you teach me how to talk to them?”
“Sure,” she said. “It takes some time, but not as much as learning French or Spanish.”
“I want Harris to be my friend,” I said. I imagined holding his hand, talking walks, maybe even trips in the pedal boat.
“He will be, for a while.” Mãe looked hard at me. “You realize he can’t stay here?”
“Why not?”
“It’s not safe, for one thing. Someone might see them and then we’d have the hotel to deal with. You don’t know yet how small this town is.” She walked around the room, switching off lamps. “Even more important, Harris and Joey will be happier at a primate refuge. There’s a sanctuary in Panama where we’ve sent monkeys before. They’re rehabilitated and taught how to live in the wild again.”
I thought this over. Sadly, it did make sense. “I really wanted him to be my pet.”
“Someday, a monkey m
ight turn up who wants to stay.” My mother yawned. “But not Harris. He absolutely hates Florida.”
How could anyone hate Florida? I wondered later. I lay in my soft white bed, watching the orange-blossom-scented breeze lift the white curtains, listening to the rhythmic song of tree frogs punctuated by the percussion of bamboo stalks clacking against each other. I felt as close to happy as I’d thought I’d ever be.
The next morning, after writing in my journal, I went out to the kitchen and no one was there. I sat down at the big oak table, not sure what I should do. A newspaper from Tampa lay at the table’s head, and I read the front-page headlines upside down. Then I picked up the paper and skimmed it, story by story: Wars. Floods. Global warming.
Toward the bottom right side of an inside page, I read: “No Clues in Vampire Slayings.” The story summarized the deaths of Robert Reedy of Asheville and one Andrew Parker of Savannah. Police asked the public to call with any information about the murders. Parker’s family offered a reward for any tips. I carefully re-folded the paper, wondering how I would tell my mother I’d killed a man.
She came in a few minutes later, talking to a tall woman with the most interesting hair I’d ever seen: it had been rolled and twisted and pinned up into elaborate shapes like cabbage roses. Her eyes were enormous, caramel-colored.
“Dashay, this is Ariella,” my mother said.
I said hello, feeling shy. I’d never known before how beautiful and animated women could be. No one like these women walked around in Saratoga Springs. I stared down at the table, listening to their voices.
Dashay talked about the horses she’d seen at the auction, about the people who were buying and selling. She hadn’t been tempted to bid, but she’d met with three owners interested in breeding mares with Osceola.
Mãe asked detailed questions about the owners while she stood at the stove, cooking oatmeal. She set steaming bowls before us, and Dashay handed me a glass honey pot shaped like a hive. “Drizzle it on,” she said.
We ate, and I savored each mouthful. The honey tasted of flowers and spring air, and the oatmeal’s texture was creamy, soothing. Last night’s dinner — grilled mahi-mahi with citrus sauce and puréed sweet potatoes — had been equally delicious. I didn’t miss my tonic and protein bars at all, but I wondered when I’d need blood again.
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