It was dark outside and the attic wasn’t really built for making into rooms. There were two windows that looked out onto the front and back yards of the main house. But on either end the walls rose up at angles with no way for light to penetrate; moonlight or otherwise. The nook made by the curtain was illuminated by several oil lamps and hurricane lanterns and nothing else, making Clarissa feel like she were living in an older time. Or when Hurricane season was in full swing and the power was out. But in this moment she felt it was the former.
A chaise lounge had been placed near the wall with a decorative antique table set just in front of it. Several old tin lanterns hung from the ceiling, the cut-outs creating eerie shapes on walls. Placed a few feet in front of the ‘set’ was an easel and stool. Sketches and paint splatters marred the wooden floor and at once Clarissa realized this was where Corrigan did his painting work.
Corrigan led Clarissa over to the chaise lounge, pushing on her gently until she sat down on it. Clarissa couldn’t stop the smile from showing on her face as Corrigan, with an artist’s serious face, moved her limbs around on the chaise until he was satisfied. Like a puppet she was adjusted and rearranged, her hand at one time up close to her face then down by her side.
Clarissa reclined on the lounge chair which was surprisingly comfortable despite it being as old as her boyfriend. She reached to grab a cobweb that dangled in front of her face, caught and hanging from the lighted lanterns from above her.
“Don’t move,” Corrigan barked the order as he sat on his stool holding a pad of sketching paper in his hands. The canvas was set up on his easel but he wasn’t ready to start there. First he needed to practice. Soothing his voice he said, “I need you to be very still so I don’t mess this up. I haven’t worked with animate objects in awhile.”
“Yes, Mr. Artiste,” Clarissa quipped, feeling like Kate Winslet in Titanic. She adored that movie. She’d watched it recently at Eleanor’s house and Eleanor had made the statement that if she had been Rose she would have managed to get her fat ass over on that door and let Jack have room so he didn’t have to die. But that was only much later after the movie had ended. When she could talk without crying ‘I’ll never let go, I’ll never let go’ over and over again to the television screen as poor Jack Dawson sank into the cold depths of the Atlantic Ocean.
Corrigan ripped the top sheet off his sketch book, crumpling it up as he threw it on the floor next to him. He’d sacrificed a few of them in the last few minutes he’d been sketching and a small set of paper tumble weeds were rolling around the floor, moved by a portable fan he had set up next to him. He made grumbling comments to himself as he looked between the pad and Clarissa who couldn’t help but mimic his expression.
Several more minutes ticked by. She could almost hear them ticking in her head.
“Shouldn’t I be naked or something,” Clarissa questioned, breaking the silence in the room. “Don’t all painters have their models in the nude to create the perfect expression of human nature?”
He didn’t comment. More silent minute’s glugged by as Corrigan continued perfecting his sketches.
Clarissa saw a particle of dust as it flew by her face and reached out to capture it like a bug in her hand. “I’m sure I could manifest a look-alike diamond necklace.”
“No,” Corrigan finally drawled as he once again added to his collection of tumbleweeds. “This isn’t Titanic and I think it would be best if you kept your clothes on while I work.” He adjusted his posture on the stool while he tried to dispel the image of Clarissa lying naked on the chaise with an encouraging sirens smile on her beautifully otherworldly face. “You’re moving too much.”
“Oh,” she said, watching him as he squirmed on his stool, keeping her smile in check. “Sorry.” She returned to her proper position and tried to keep still. Her species wasn’t very good at keeping still. It was their very nature to move and flow with the energy and movement of the earth. But she tried really, really hard because Corrigan was immortalizing on to a canvas. This was a special moment and she didn’t want to spoil it.
After several more agonizing minutes of silence, however, she had to talk again. “So you know about Titanic, do you?”
Corrigan nodded his ascent as he drew the curving lines that outlined her jaw. He was finding it difficult to get it just right, not too pointy and not too round.
“Which, the actual ship or the movies they made about it? There was even a musical if I’m not mistaken.” He moved to her hair which flowed almost as if it were suspended in another time and didn’t adhere to the laws of this world. He liked running his fingers through it as her hair felt like he was running his fingers against a living stream that had somehow been electrically charged sending currents through her to his hand, yet the currents remained cool instead of hot.
“The movie obviously,” Clarissa answered, trying to talk while keeping still as death. Though why people thought death was still was anyone’s guess. Death was always on the go. “Why, were you there when the actual ship sank?”
“I read about it in the circulation papers, but no, I wasn’t in New York when the Lusitania carried in the survivors. I am however aware of the movie you’re referring to, one of many, but as young as you are you’re likely not aware of the others. So I know about Jack and his Rose and the whole three and half hour cinematic spectacular that put the two lead characters into pop culture infamy.” He started her eyes, trying to capture the perfect slant of them, the dark lashes and the sweep of her brows. “Helen has requested that we have a family movie night and I and several others were outvoted when choosing the movie. I fell asleep when they were changing the tapes. If a movie requires two VHS tapes to watch someone was too much of a wimp in the editing department. I got poked awake just before the boat finally keeled over and went under.”
Corrigan shook his head as if trying to get the extremely drawn out love story out of his memory cells. “For days I heard My heart will go on, coming from downstairs. And when it got to be so much that I knew every damn word I went outside to get away from it. I found Margaret Ann in the gardens with her portable CD player, singing loud and off-key the same nauseating tune. I swear those women wouldn’t shut up about the whole thing for another year after it came out. By then they had moved on to some other obsession, I know designed merely to irritate me.”
“I liked that movie,” Clarissa told him, a little sad that he didn’t see the beauty of the tragic love story the way she did. “My friends were obsessed with the Jack character. They had Leonardo Decaprio posters and calendars and who knows what other promotional stuff. I have to admit I did have the soundtrack and I played that Celine Dion song on an endless loop for hours. I had the movie marquee poster over my bed.” She made an overly dramatic sigh. “Leo was so cute in that movie, wasn’t he? He was like the Robert Pattinson of the nineties,” she told him with a wave of her hand.
“I have no idea what you’re rambling on about but can you do it without moving your arms and legs?” He had moved on now to outlining her figure. It didn’t matter what she was wearing at the moment, he could put another outfit on her once he’d started the actual painting process. He just needed to get the sweep of her waist and rounded hips set perfect with the line of her legs. Corrigan had placed her slightly turned on her side and he was wondering now if he shouldn’t have put her fully on her left side. The pillow he’d stuffed behind her kept her somewhat elevated in the right position but she had a tendency to move her legs and arms. She was starting to slide in the opposite direction from where he’d begun to draw her body which confused him as he’d start to continue a line that would no longer look the same seconds later.
“Oh don’t give me that line,” Clarissa teased as she once again slide further away from where he’d place her. “Everyone knows about the vamp people. Even Mrs. Connors knows who he is except she always calls it the Twilight Zone movie. Which is kind of appropriate because people can go ‘a little nuts’ and enter their own little ob
sessive zones when they think someone is making a poor comment about their vampire friends.”
Corrigan set his sketch pad down for a moment, coming across the space to where Clarissa was grinning up at him. He still wore the expression of a man focused on his craft. Putting his hands under her body he moved his muse back into the proper position. Brushing his fingers through her hair he bent down to place a sweet kiss on her lips, pulling back after several seconds to say against them, “Try not to move, love. I’m almost finished.” Then he pulled away and went to his seat to continue his work.
Clarissa touched her mouth, holding his kiss in before putting herself back to where he had placed her. Corrigan’s eyes continued to swing from her to his sketch book and each time she would catch that look of unconditional and unpretentious love revealed in his iridescent blue eyes.
The bonds of her love for him stretched tight around her heart – his heart. She was sure that he loved her as irreversibly as she loved him. And even though both their worlds and those they cared in it were fraught with murder and deceit, here in this quiet attic it was just them; a man and a woman no longer a flesh-eater and a bokor ghost.
You will kill him… Kill him….
Chapter 22-
Trueman’s laboratory was located on the first floor at the back of his house facing the gardens Margaret Ann had built for him and Debora more than thirty years back. It boasted a twenty-two foot ceiling with three of the walls stacked high with built in shelves and made for a large open space. The fourth wall was made almost entirely of glass and faced the garden.
Late afternoon sun streamed through the stained glass mosaic windows mixed between panels of frosted glass. The waning light filtered through the religious gothic images of the passion of Jesus of Nazareth and modern secular images of fields and flowering plants which highlighted the odd interior. Long wood plank tables held various medicinal plants. Flat leaf bilberry bush and feathery marjoram, along with the aloe Vera plant and ginkgo balboa as well as wormwood took up much of the space. A potted Linden tree sat on the floor next to a metal watering can. Contrasting sharply with the conservatory theme were the harsh and sterile metal tables and modern laboratory equipment including several blood staining machines and high powered microscopes that gave the room a forensic-mad-scientist appearance. Shelves upon shelves of medical journals and reference books protruding with scraps of paper used as book marks with more lined in abstract piles on the floor.
Trueman sat in his leather recliner, an opened book in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other. He was wearing his reading glasses again except this time he had them placed slightly askance on his slightly unkempt blonde head. He lifted his head from reading when he heard his brother make a grunting noise.
Corrigan held the cotton swab firmly against the bend in his elbow. He watched with a frown as Debora held the latest blood phlebotomy from him. Once a week, each of them endured this process of collecting and examining their blood and while it was done religiously and with good intentions, none enjoyed being a guinea pig to Trueman and Debora’s experimentations on them.
“I don’t understand why you’re so difficult to draw from, Corrigan.” Debora turned her head to the side as she examined her brothers blood in the light, turning it this way and that. “Stop grumbling, please. That’s no way for a grown man to behave. You act like I took an entire pint out of you.”
Corrigan ceased his mutterings about her trying to drain him out of all his recently obtained blood supply as he pressed down firmly with the cotton swab to his arm. In a moment it would stop, but until then if left unchecked even a tiny bleed could become fatal. Because of this, nature had made the layers of their epidermis hold a stronger compound of denser tissue that prevented most tearing made by common accidents, even scratching, so as to decrease the risks of bleeding out.
Unfortunately that meant normal medical needles and syringes had a more difficult time pushing through the layers. Trueman had developed a unique diamond headed tip to his needles to puncture the skin’s surface so that they could extract or insert fluids into their system. It was also a very precise puncture wound which prevented needless injury and the build-up of scar tissue. Healing time was quick as their tissues consistently regenerated themselves and even substantial injuries if given the proper care would work themselves out over several hours contrasting with the usual days it required in the typical human system.
Deborah did a Wright’s stain and differential of her brother’s blood, putting it under the scope to have a better look at his cells. With each of her siblings, her husband and herself, she would perform a Complete Blood Count to evaluate all cellular components of the blood and determine the volume of each. Then each new sample was evaluated against the previous samples. Two commercial grade refrigerators were set between the stack of shelves on one wall to store the samples.
After several more seconds Corrigan removed the stained cotton swab, throwing it into a brightly colored hazardous waste bucket next to him. He moved his finger over the area where Debora had taken his blood but finding no puncture wound to his flesh, only a slight blush to the skin to even hint that she’d stuck him.
“He’s not so bad, actually,” Trueman said, joining the conversation. Placing the glass of tea and book on the end table next to him he rose from his recliner to join them both by the lab equipment. He’d set up most of the room for work, but had included a living room setting out of part of the space. Because in Trueman’s mind work and leisure didn’t exist too far apart he always wanted to be near his equipment and plants if inspiration struck.
“Xavier has a more difficult time. He’s a stubborn man, so much so that even his veins refuse to give in most of the time.” Trueman placed his hand gently on his wife’s back causing her to look up from the scope. She smiled up at him as she moved aside to let him have a look.
As her husband was engrossed in focusing the microscope, Debora returned to Corrigan’s side to go through her next process of tests and questions she did with each of them. Debora had been an apprentice of sorts to Trueman since they’d first come together, their relationship being the longest running in the family.
Corrigan performed the standard eye roll in his mind as Debora pulled out from a desk drawer a notebook she had dedicated solely for information obtained from her tests and questions of him. Corrigan’s name was written in her precise copperplate handwriting on the cover of each manual. There was also a shelf on the wall dedicated to his medical records alone and with her borderline obsessive organizing nothing was ever forgotten or misplaced.
“So,” she began, using her doctor/patient voice. “How have you been sleeping lately?”
“Fine,” he said. She made notes on his chart. It was only the beginning of a serious of questions about his overall health. And each of them was required by decree from Ambrose himself to sit patiently and answer all these questions.
After many more questions, which were each answered by Corrigan using as few words as possible or simply a nod or shake of his head, they moved on. Corrigan always felt like he was a horse or a cow when Debora began looking into his ears and shining lights in his eyes before insisting that he open his mouth while she stuck what looked like a Popsicle sticks bloated cousin inside. When she was finished poking and prodding him she gestured for him to step onto a portable scale she took out from another drawer.
She made some quiet comments to herself as she was jotting down her results into his chart. Trueman, who was holding another notebook full of Corrigan’s charts from some time back, looked over his wife’s shoulder as she was making her markings into the new chart. He nodded when she looked up at him and pointed at something on the chart. But they said nothing to Corrigan.
He left them alone as they talked in hushed tones and pointed to the two charts punctuating their words with taps of their identical pens. Corrigan walked over to the Linden tree, which had only recently been planted. Because of its fast rate of growth, in a few months it w
ould be too big to remain indoors.
Much of the tree population on the property was made up of these trees. The stalwart tree was a plant extensively used in medicinal practices for curing headaches and as a sedative as well as being ‘rooted’ in the world of mythology. He knew a portion of the lore of a woman, Philyra. Who after giving birth to a centaur child, asked the gods to take her humanity from her. They turned her into a Linden tree. But he couldn’t remember the rest of the story or whether, after becoming a tree, the woman was satisfied. He didn’t realize so much time had passed until he heard his name being called.
“Corrigan,” Debora spoke his name, drawing it out using a deeply concerned tone to her voice.
“Yes,” he answered, fingering one of the leaves.
“Will you come and sit over here with us?”
He looked up to see both his adoptive siblings sitting in the living room portion of the room which housed Trueman’s leather recliner as well as a sofa and two other chairs. There was also a gas fireplace set in the wall which was more for show than for producing heat.
Corrigan made his way across the room to one of the chairs. Debora had chosen the striped printed sofa while Trueman was back in his recliner. As he sat he watched their identical level stares. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something in his charts had displeased them.
“Would you take refreshment with us, Corrigan?” Debora asked as she gestured to a service tray that held an etched glass pitcher of iced tea, several matching glasses and a plate of homemade pastries that Maude had made and sent over earlier.
Corrigan was figuring out how best to decline her offer when he caught sight of Trueman holding up a tiny metal flask. When Debora wasn’t looking he made a gesture with it over his own glass of iced tea. Quickly changing his mind, Corrigan forced a smile on his face and nodded.
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