Bill sighed. It was another piece of the puzzle he was hoping wouldn't be revealed quite so soon. But now that the notion had taken root in her mind, he knew Beth wouldn't let it go. He leant forward and looked out at the blue sky. It was beginning to turn golden, the day was slowly approaching its end, but it was calm and warm. “Let's go for a walk.”
“What?”
“Come on. We both need to get some fresh air. It's too stuffy in here to start talking about the past.”
* * *
The vast bombsite opposite their house had finally become the playground the local children were waiting for, but only by day. By night, and especially in the hour or two surrounding dusk, it was a quiet and haunting relic. The roads were clear of the rubble that had spilled over, but without any rainfall a light-colored dust covered the tarmac.
Bill walked with his crutches and his daughter matched his solemn pace. They headed south, toward the River Thames, walking in the shadows of houses and squinting when crossing roads that were like gaps in a giant fence. Bill looked at his daughter and saw the conflict of emotion, and wondered how to begin.
“I think,” he said, “the most important thing you should understand right now, is that I have no intention of killing you.”
Did I really just say that to my own daughter?
It sounded so sinister. It was worse knowing that, while what he'd said was true, he knew the task would fall on his shoulders were she ever to pose a threat. Beth's next question made him feel even worse.
“Why?”
Bill paused. “Because I don't think you're dangerous.”
Beth scoffed. “How can you be sure?”
Bill knew it was unintentional, but she sounded so much like a revenant. “You've always been nothing but gentle.”
“But I'm changing.”
“Yes, but I've known you all your life, and I've a strong feeling you won't let that part of you go.” Bill took a deep breath. “Besides, you didn't hurt anyone when you first fed.”
Beth's pace slowed as she waited for him to go on.
“When I first got back and came to you with blood … your mother told me that hadn't been your first bout of fatigue. You'd had another one, a few weeks prior, from which you miraculously recovered. It was your first thirst, when the revenant within you started to emerge.
“We both know you didn't miraculously recover.”
“I woke up in the park,” said Beth. “I think I … I killed a badger.”
“No suspicious deaths were reported around that time; I checked,” said Bill. “I had to. But that's when I first realized that you might be different. Even when you weren't conscious and you were desperate for blood, you ignored it in humans.”
“I didn't know what I wanted then.”
“Obviously, you did.”
Beth went quiet, processing what he'd said. They walked for a while in silence, approaching the King Edward VII Memorial Park. It was more of a public garden than a park. Only a few acres big, it boasted beautifully kept flowerbeds. Or it had. Bill hadn't even passed it since returning; this walk had taken him the furthest from home he'd been. The park overlooked the wide River Thames, and as they walked through the entrance Bill wondered if the gardens had survived unscathed.
“So,” Beth finally broke the silence.
Bill knew that this was going to be the big question.
“Why did you adopt me?” she asked.
It was a question he'd already been asked, years ago when Beth first realized he and Lynne weren't her biological parents. Then, however, he'd lied. His wife told what she thought was the truth. Here the deception would end, at least for his daughter. He felt he owed her that much. “I didn't know for sure what you were when I adopted you.”
Beth remained quiet while Bill organized the details in his head. They walked up to the edge of the park and stopped, gazing down at the river below. Fire boats bobbed up and down here and there, ready to spray water over blazing riverside buildings. Above them in the sky floated the Thames’ barrage balloons, like those above Victoria Park. They disguised London's famously winding river and threatened to bring down enemy bombers with the anchoring wires. Under the dying light, the gardens were almost empty. They both took a step back and sat on a wooden bench. With no buildings to block the rays, a low red sun warmed the sides of their faces.
“You had the biology of a revenant,” Bill began, “but none of the characteristics. The Ministry have learned more about your kind in the last half-century than in the millennia before that. But even then, a lot of this medical mumbo-jumbo was—and still is—new to us. You had the high white blood cell count and the associated genes, but we couldn't ignore what was in front of our eyes: a regular baby girl.”
“So you didn't know this was going to happen to me?”
“It was always a theory.”
“So why did you never tell me?”
“There was no point unless it actually happened.”
Beth looked out over the river. “So how did you find me?”
Bill nodded expectantly. He refreshed the air in his lungs once more. “When I was first recruited into the Ministry, I spent some time in Italy. It's where we're all inducted and trained. There I met a Spanish recruit, a doctor named Jorge Ortega. We became good friends and kept in contact.”
“What's that got to do with me?”
“He found you, Elizabeth. Not me.” Beth stared through him. She was speechless. “Everything I told about your adoption was true; it just wasn't the full story. You were found on the steps of a church, and you were taken to the hospital by the priest who found you. But all that happened in Madrid.”
“I'm from Spain?” Bill didn't need to answer. “So how did I get here?”
“Jorge wasn't recruited as a Shadow Minister, like me, but as a Sleeper. He had a promising career in medicine, and the Spanish Ministry needed someone in that profession. It was blind luck that you were taken to the hospital where he worked.
“Routine examinations were conducted … that was when Jorge picked up on the oddities. Obviously he was confused. You were a baby, yet despite the lack of any visible bite marks, you seemed to be infected. But you hadn't turned. So Jorge sought council with his High Minister, who then—”
“His who?” interrupted Beth.
“The Ministry has branches all over the world, at the head of each branch is the High Minister. So, Jorge's High Minister sought council with the Minister General—the head of all the branches. The order Jorge received from the top was …” Bill hesitated. “… to have you terminated.”
Beth's mouth dropped slightly. Bill saw her shudder.
“It's a Minister's duty to kill all known revenants. But when the time came, Jorge couldn't do it. In you he didn't see a vampire; he saw an abandoned child.
“But defying orders, especially one from the Minister General, is a punishable offense. So he lied and informed his Ministry that you had been taken care of, and then he fled his country with you in his arms. He went to the only place he had a friend outside of Spain. He brought you to me.”
While Bill told the story, he relived it in his mind. He looked out to the west in time to see the last flash of red light from the sun sparkle off the water. The temperature immediately dropped, but the air was still warm.
“And Mum? How did you get her to agree to adopt me?”
“Your mother's a wonderful woman.” Bill smiled at the warm feeling in his heart. “So wonderful I broke the rules for her. I first met her the day after my dreadful test by the Ministry in the Dales. I didn't know then, but Shadow Ministers are advised to avoid long-term relationships. Aside from the unsociable hours, our duty is dangerous. For us, and anyone who knows us. But I'd already fallen in love and I was too selfish to let her go. And so the lies began.
“I was no longer in the army, but I pretended that I was. It was the perfect cover and I could be away for days or even weeks without need of an explanation. I told the Ministry nothing, of course
, but they have an uncanny tendency to uncover secrets. Being one of the biggest themselves, it's hardly surprising. I was strongly advised to terminate my relationship, but I didn't.
“Before long your mother and I started trying for a baby.” Bill shrugged. “The timing was impeccable, like it was designed. When over half a year later we were still trying, Jorge turned up on my doorstep.”
“So, Oliver is adopted too?”
“No. That's the irony. We stopped trying when we took you in and then a couple of years later, out of the blue, Lynne became pregnant. It was the best thing, and the worst. By that time, of course, I'd been removed from active Shadow Minister duty. I was given a desk job so I could be close to home and monitor you. When Oliver came along it increased the risk of what we were doing, but it was too late. I'd already decided my fate without knowing.” Everything Bill said brought a little relief. This disclosure was liberating, but he saw then the uncertainty in Beth's eyes.
“What do you mean? How did you decide your fate?”
Bill looked at his daughter. He owed her the truth and he would have to deal with the consequences. “My rebellious act of continuing relations with your mother became the reason you were bestowed upon me. I wasn't just the perfect choice; I was the only choice.
“If our theory was correct, you were a revenant. But I couldn't hide you from the Ministry. I had to inform my High Minister, against Jorge's wishes. The three of us were the only ones who knew about you. I had to convince my High Minister that letting you live was in our best interests. And after he agreed, he ordered that I adopt you. I was a Shadow Minister with a wife who wanted a child. It was logical.”
“You didn't want to adopt me, did you?”
“Understand that I had a wife. My priority was to protect her. Did I want you in my house? No. How could I, knowing what you might become?”
Beth seemed to be holding it together well, but she couldn't stop the tears from welling.
“But I wouldn't be telling you this if my opinion hadn't changed. You are a part of my family now.”
Beth shook her head. “I wouldn't be here if you had a choice,” she sobbed.
“Elizabeth.” Bill put his hand on her shoulder.
She quickly stood up, her body tense and her jaw clenched. “Don't!”
“Please, if you only knew what I've done for you …”
Beth turned and began to walk with determination.
“Elizabeth!” called Bill.
“Go to hell!” she shouted, disappearing into the dusk.
TWENTY-EIGHT
BETH DIDN'T MOVE BACK IN from the shelter. Instead, it became even more like a permanent home. It was safer for everyone, but it also afforded her the solitude for which she yearned more than ever. She couldn't help feeling a little sorry for her mother, brother and Mary for their worry of her. But her anger and feeling of abandonment, heightened by her father, prevented her from wanting to do anything about it. Overhearing her mother one night from the shelter, she learned her behavior was being attributed to teenage angst.
That was fine with her.
Wednesday came, accompanied by the faint sensation she knew would develop into her thirst. Bill delivered the blood-box to her door like a postman. He knocked; Beth heard and smelled him linger, no doubt hoping she'd emerge. Instead, she waited for him to leave before retrieving her package.
The blood was a welcome constant. She no longer hesitated to drink it and didn't even pretend to not want it—or that she didn't like it. Instead, she drank it with relish. As the warm red fluid pumped through her veins, replenishing what had died, she felt a modicum of peace.
That evening over dinner her mother announced her plan for the following Saturday. She'd gotten the day off, and they were all going to the park for a summer picnic. Beth felt awful. She was the reason her mother felt obliged to do something to bring the family back together. But only she and Bill knew what had caused the scattering in the first place. She remained quiet and indifferent to the idea … mainly because Bill was invited.
It was dark enough in the house for the lights to be on, but outside the sky was still in the closing stages of daylight. Beth was growing particularly fond of that hour, when it seemed to her like it was neither night nor day. Leaving the shelter door open, she sprang nimbly up to the wider bunk, laid down and stared at the curved metal. She heard the back door open. The footsteps weren't Bill's. She sighed at the harsh words she presumed her mother was about to give. “Beth?”
It was Mary.
Beth propped herself up on her elbow.
“Can I come in?” Mary asked after coming down the steps. She didn't wait for the answer and walked in anyway. She stopped and hummed. “It seems different in here when there are no bombs dropping. Don't you find it a bit … creepy?”
“No. It's liberating,” said Beth in a monotone.
“Feels more like a prison cell,” Mary replied.
“You'd know, would you?”
“Yeah, didn't you hear? I did a stint in Holloway for sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted.” Mary sat on a lower bunk, cementing her intrusion. “So … are you going to tell me what's wrong with you?”
Beth laughed. “Have you got that much time?”
Mary shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
Beth just remained silent. She wanted so much to talk about everything, but the only person with whom she could, was the one person she never wanted to see again. She shook her head, telling herself it would be a bad idea to say anything.
“What? Come on, Beth. It's bloody obvious you need to talk about it.”
It was as if Mary was giving her permission. She wanted to know and before Beth could stop it she'd blurted out something that would require further explanation. “Bill lied.”
“You mean your dad?”
“No. I mean Bill. He's not my father.”
Mary hesitated and then nodded, accepting Beth's feelings. “Okay, so what did he lie about?”
Beth scoffed. “Everything. My adoption; where I'm from; who I am.”
The shelter went silent. Mary was speechless as Beth began to fill in the gaps.
“My parents abandoned me on the steps of a church. In Spain.”
“Bloody hell. How did you end up here?”
Caution suddenly found its way into Beth's consciousness. A survival instinct had been triggered and she knew she couldn't divulge anything that would normally have her institutionalized. She had to get creative. She had to deceive. “The person who found me was friends with Bill. He brought me over here, but Bill didn't want to adopt me. He was forced into it.”
“You're kidding, right?” Mary's eyes darted around the shelter in confusion. “Who forced him? No … hold on—I still don't get why you were brought over here. Why weren't you just adopted by a Spanish family?”
Beth paused for thought. “Well. I wasn't allowed to stay in Spain.”
Mary's eyes lit up. “Why?”
Beth had unwittingly made the story more enticing. The conversation was swaying from her control. One slip of the tongue would lead to another and another. “I probably shouldn't say anything else.”
“What? You can't tell me that you got chucked out of the country you were born in and just leave it at that.”
“It's complicated, Mary.”
“So tell me.”
Beth rubbed her neck, stretching it from side to side. Just like Bill, she thought, straightening up but keeping her hand there. She tried to come up with a suitable story that mirrored the truth, but found flaws in every tale she could conjure. Evidently, she wasn't as good at this lying game as Bill was.
Mary couldn't wait and tried prompting her. “Has it got anything to do with those scars on your back?”
Beth tensed up. She fingered that uppermost scar. The motion was automatic; tracing the raised scar tissue up and down and around. She'd done it a thousand times before, but subconsciously. Why hadn't Bill mentioned anything about them? How could she have forgotten they
were even there?
It was another concealment of truth—something else he didn't want her to know about.
It was the last straw.
Her hand dropped into her lap and she looked at Mary, who was still waiting for some kind of response. Three people knew what Beth was. What difference would a fourth really make?
“I'm not like you,” she began, so involved in the world that existed inside the shelter that her senses were dead to everything else. The barely audible sound of dried mud crumbling under foot went ignored, and the whiff of clothing that had its own distinctive scent, produced by the skin beneath it, should have alerted Beth to an approaching presence. But it didn't. Instead she'd taken a breath and was about to reveal her sinister side in one swift statement when something slammed against the shelter door. Both girls jumped and gasped as Bill burst through like an irate troll.
Beth felt an imaginary spotlight blinding her as the heat of embarrassment rose. It betrayed the secrets she was about to divulge. Mary was wide-eyed and sat silently. She had no idea what to say or do.
“Would you mind leaving us, Mary?” said Bill with quiet fury, all the while staring at Beth, unnerving her. Genuine fear had set in.
Mary stood nervously, threw a fearful glance Beth's way and quietly walked out.
Bill pulled the door closed on the darkening day, laid the single crutch he'd come out with on the bunk and lit the lantern. Rarely had he ever raised his voice. He used the overbearing presence he knew he had to great effect and his silence was more deafening than any furious yell. Worse still was that Beth's sanctuary, her private space, had been tarnished. Bill guarded the door and the shelter had become the prison cell Mary had imagined. “How much did you tell her?”
“Nothing,” said Beth.
“You can't lie to me, Elizabeth.”
“I told her about the adoption.”
“What about it?”
“Where I was born. That I was brought over here …”
“And?”
Beth looked down. “And that you were forced to adopt me.”
Sighing, Bill raised his head. His jaw was tense and he took long, deep breaths.
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