Camdeboo Nights

by Nerine Dorman

  Perhaps it was better not to love. Then she wouldn’t know what to miss when she lost it, when he moved on. Could all men be like that? What was wrong with her mother? Could there be something wrong with Helen, by default? Would Damon become like their father?

  With a shudder, Helen suppressed these thoughts.

  “Only one more day of hell to get through, Helen. You at least get to go home tomorrow,” Myrna said, a little too brightly.

  It was Helen’s turn to groan. “Bah, you’re right. I don’t want to think about that comprehension test waiting for us.”

  She could have ended up being a full-term boarder, like Myrna, or Etienne, and only go home every quarter. On the bright side, she had remembered to arrange with Anabel so that Etienne could visit over the weekend. That big old house certainly had enough space.

  “You ready for the math test?”

  They chattered while they dressed and Helen felt glad for the distraction, especially when Myrna began to talk about her beloved horses.

  “I’ve never ridden a horse,” Helen said.

  “Oh, but you must come stay on the farm with me for one of the school holidays.”

  “That sounds lovely.” Helen tried to inject some enthusiasm in her answer. The March holidays lasted a fortnight. Helen could not imagine being away from home, from Trystan, for such a long time.

  “You still thinking about that boy?” Myrna asked while she braided her hair.

  How observant. Helen smiled and allowed herself to giggle. “Yes.”

  “His parents must be hippies. There is a Waldorf school there, you know? I wanted to go to one but my dad wanted me to get a non-hippie education.”

  “That’s what I thought. I don’t think I’ve seen him wearing shoes, either.”

  They both laughed at this.

  * * * *

  Damon already had Etienne deeply engaged in a conversation when Helen arrived at breakfast.

  “Why don’t you go sit with the other grade eights, Damon?” Helen shoved at her brother.

  He flashed her a grin. “They’re boring. All they want to talk about is cricket. And, they’re all Afrikaans, too.”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it enough that I have to put up with you on weekends? Now you’ve latched onto my friends, as well.”

  Etienne sniggered. Arwen feigned interest in the book she cradled on her lap while nibbling at her toast, but she, too, glanced at Helen.

  “It’s probably better if we stick together,” Etienne said. “Especially after yesterday.”

  “See? Etienne has the right idea,” Damon said.

  Helen grumbled to herself and took her seat on the bench next to Arwen. She wasn’t hungry today, a combination of the already warm day and the fluttering in her stomach. The slices of whole-wheat toast in the basket on their table looked bland, and would most likely share many characteristics with cardboard.

  Etienne must have noted her lack of enthusiasm, for he said, “Have some cereal, then?”

  “What is it today?”

  “Oats.”

  “Bleuurgh.” Helen stuck out her tongue. “I’d sooner shovel my brains out with a rusty spoon.”

  “That can be arranged.” Arwen looked up from her book. Then Arwen frowned, her expression thoughtful. “You know, guys, I don’t want to be funny or anything, but I saw something last night.”

  Etienne groaned. “Trust you to ruin a perfectly sunny morning with that, Arwen. It can’t be. The buildings aren’t even eight years old. The first matric class finished the year we started.”

  Arwen leaned over the table, her hair falling into her face. “It’s not a ghost, although I thought so the first night. Since Monday I’ve been hearing footsteps when I go out for a smoke.”

  “I thought you quit.” Etienne frowned.

  “Don’t be such a mother grundy,” Arwen retorted. “It’s not like I’ve a pack-a-day habit, and I can stop any time I want to.”

  “It’s still bad, and that’s what all the addicts say.”

  “Well, you’re losing the thread. We’re not discussing my habit. Last night I sneaked out, thinking to see if there really is a spook or if it’s one of the other kids out when they shouldn’t.”

  “Like you!” Helen laughed.

  “Shurrup! Well, I went to the loo then took a longer route that cut back past the girls’ dorms. I saw someone standing beneath the grade ten windows.”

  Helen’s heart constricted. Arwen’s dark gaze impaled her, as if her next words would have special importance. All the previous levity had evaporated.

  “I saw a guy there. Skinny. Long hair. Just like Trystan.”

  Helen’s hiss was so loud the chatter in the dining room diminished and more than one head turned in her direction.

  Arwen sat back and brushed hair from her face, her mouth set in a smug smile.

  What was Trystan doing all the way out here? Nieu Bethesda was more than fifty kilometers away. Helen’s skin turned cold.

  “Oooh,” Damon said. “Creepy guy. Should have known something was up when he climbed onto our balcony on Sunday. Looks like Helen’s got herself a stalker.”

  “Shut up! Idiot!” Helen lashed out and smacked the back of her brother’s head so hard her fingers stung.

  “Are you sure it was him?” she asked Arwen. Okay, she wasn’t sure how she should feel about this latest development. At least she knew he was really interested in her. Almost too interested. Ugh. But when she was with him, she couldn’t get enough of him. What the hell?

  The girl nodded.

  “You’re not just making this up to give us the willies?”

  Arwen shook her head, still giving that infuriating, knowing smile.

  Chapter 18

  Cutting-edge Remarks

  Arwen knew the day would be unbearable the moment she opened her eyes. A dull, aching pressure formed behind her retinas and threatened to spill over into a full-blown migraine. The weather certainly wasn’t playing along. A day spent walking about in a pair of jeans and a heavy cotton golf shirt would do little to improve her mood–or her body temperature–but she’d rather die than don a pair of shorts.

  The sky looked as if the sun had burned the color from it, the grasses on the flat-topped hills bleached from blond to almost bone-white. She’d much rather be in her room, at home in Nieu Bethesda, even if it meant putting up with her father, who’d had a case of the sulking fits since Friday. Typically, he had a problem with meting out punishment.

  At home she could at least cocoon herself in darkness, draw her curtains across the sash windows so that she could give herself the illusion that she was anywhere but...

  Where? Here?

  She was in a pissy mood. That there was only one more night and day to get through until the weekend didn’t help, for yet another Monday would be around the corner before she’d blinked her eyes.

  Lashing out at the people she considered her friends was not a great idea, but it gave her a small satisfaction to get some reaction. Besides, Trystan gave her the creeps.

  She’d known of the existence of vampires for a long time. Her aunt Caitlin had told her many stories while she was growing up and something in her beloved aunt’s tone had spoken of authority.

  Ghosts aren’t the problem. You can deal with them easily with a solid banishing ritual. In the case of the shuffling undead–the zombies–the clans who used to raise them exist only in Haiti and the most remote places in West Africa. For all we know, that knowledge has been lost with the last persecutions. But, Arwen, my dear, beware the vampires. They have been among the most avid of those seeking to control or destroy us. Their cruelty knows no bounds, for we number among the few who pose any threat to their existence.

  Her father had remained tight-lipped on the topic, but he’d shown her his scars. Dozens of bite-marks covered his arms, the flesh pale and drawn tight over long-healed wounds.

  “I was lucky,” was all he said.

  There had been great rejoicing when first
Caitlin, then Aunt Sonja returned from Cape Town. She’d heard Szandor discuss how they’d be safer here, in low tones with her mother.

  Arwen didn’t bother asking her parents if she could eventually go study fine art at the University of Cape Town. She had a pretty good idea what the answer would be.

  Yet she couldn’t spend the rest of her life rotting in Nieu Bethesda, either. So what if she was having a case of sour grapes? Dog in the manger.

  Instead, she derived great pleasure in scowling at her fellow students. Since the incident with Odette’s card-burning trick, they’d all been giving her a wide berth. The annoyance and the building pressure inside her smoldered and Arwen imagined projecting all her negativity to create a black bubble of residual rage to protect her from the people around her. She fancied the crowds did part before her.

  Like Moses and the Red Sea. She smirked at the thought.

  The headache was to blame for her needling Helen. When she saw how her friend’s face turned ashen at her remarks she felt a small stab of guilt, but not much.

  Etienne caught up with her on the way to assembly, however.

  “Why’re you trying to scare Helen like that?”

  Arwen grimaced, debating whether she should say anything.

  Served Helen right for not listening to her in the first place.

  “I’m not lying, Etienne. Trystan is bad news.”

  “That’s your opinion. Helen likes him. She’s gone through tons of shit with her parents’ divorce, her mom being ill, having to adjust to a new town, a new school and new friends.”

  “What are you trying to imply? Shouldn’t friends look out for each other?”

  Etienne had no answer for that, but he didn’t lose his scowl, either. He hefted his sling bag and stomped after her. She should really slacken her pace because his short legs couldn’t keep up, but right now she enjoyed knowing the little boy ran after her. Soon they were lining up to file into the hall and her friend couldn’t say any more on the topic, for which she was grateful. More than enough gossip did the rounds without half the school listening in on their furiously whispered conversation.

  None of them would understand, anyway. Mention of ghosts was bad enough without having to bring up the topic of vampires.

  Although, strictly speaking, no one was allowed to speak while they queued for their seats, a steady buzz of low conversation filled the hall. Up in the rafters, a pair of feral pigeons flapped about. They must have entered through one of the many small, rectangular windows lining the wall, near the eaves.

  “What I was saying,” Etienne murmured while he stowed his bag beneath his chair, “was that you could have found a more diplomatic way to break the news or voice your concerns. She’s clearly quite nuts about the guy.”

  Serious and blue, his gaze bored into hers, and she couldn’t prevent her cheeks from heating. Damn Etienne for always dredging up her conscience to make her blush.

  “I can’t un-say what I said at breakfast.”

  “Well, at least make an effort to reassure her. Why don’t we sit down at break to discuss, in a reasonable manner, a way to get to the bottom of this claim of yours? Maybe you are just seeing things.”

  “There were footprints. He wasn’t wearing shoes last Friday. Damon says he wasn’t wearing shoes on Sunday, either. There were muddy toe-prints.”

  “Well, here comes Helen now.”

  Arwen managed a tight smile, which Helen returned, but she still looked shaken, her eyes wide and a tremor in her hands.

  Cadaverous Ms. Engelbrecht led them in the singing of the school’s anthem, in a key set too low for the girls and too high for the boys. Everyone mumbled along to yet another plodding hymn that one of the music students pounded out on the piano. Ms. Engelbrecht clutched at the podium, her head bobbing while she sang, her piggy little gaze darting up at the assembled students at the end of every verse.

  Arwen contented herself by pulling faces at Damon, who sat four rows down with the rest of the grade eights. He kept turning around during the prayer and Arwen kept sticking out her tongue, delighting in a sudden bout of immaturity. This was far preferable to pretending to pay attention. She glared right back at one of Odette’s minions, who kept shooting her venomous glances.

  “Is there a problem, Miss Wareing?” Ms. Engelbrecht’s sharp, nasal voice cut through the drone of the Bible reading, leaving a thick silence in its wake.

  Aw, shite.

  Arwen shrank in on herself as all three-hundred-and-something faces present swiveled in her direction. Her headache throbbed in sympathy with her racing heart.

  Damn it, she’d certainly cooked things now.

  Etienne’s snort of disgust sounded awfully loud in the quiet.

  “I said, Miss Wareing, is there a problem?”

  Even as she shook her head, Arwen tried to squirm deeper into her seat. If ever she’d needed the floor to open and swallow her, now was the time.

  “You can stand up for the rest of assembly, Miss Wareing, and you can come see me in my office afterward. Yes, and you as well, Etienne. You think it’s funny to dishonor God while others worship?”

  Muffled sniggers broke out in patches throughout the hall. Ms. Engelbrecht glared and they were quickly quelled.

  “You’d better stand,” Helen muttered, nudging Arwen. “I’ll stand with you.”

  “Wha–”

  Helen pinched her, hard, and Arwen sprang to her feet, surprised when Helen followed. Etienne looked up, grinning like mad, but of course even while standing, he remained hidden behind the students seated in front of him.

  A loud bang from the back exit exploded into the tension-filled hall.

  Arwen wasn’t sure what this diversion meant, for she had fixed her stare on the much-hated woman up on the small stage. Then chairs clattered and screeched across the floor behind her accompanied by a babble of voices.

  Screams tore through the air. Was that blood fountaining, a flash of steel catching a slanted bar of sunlight? What the hell was happening? Fellow students just about trampled each other to get away from something in their midst.

  A hand clamped onto her wrist but she stood transfixed even as Helen attempted to drag her away from the long blade that slashed only a few paces away from where they stood, tense–ready to move yet Arwen’s feet felt rooted to the floor. A small, thin black-clad figure capered between scarlet-blooming uniforms.

  Each stroke arched and flesh parted with the sound of rotted velvet. Stitched together from hessian, a savage zigzagging leer of black thread for a mouth, the attacker’s mask chilled her blood. Red-button eyes bored into her skull and the entity seemed to be grinning for her benefit alone. The brown fabric was spotted with dark drops.

  It was blood. Blood.

  The screaming registered. She had not even become aware that the sounds around her had gone muted. The sword-wielding maniac did not pause. Kids burst over the row behind her and her world turned upside-down as she crashed painfully to the ground, the air ripped from her lungs as something hard jabbed into her side.

  Were any ribs broken or had she destroyed one of the chairs on her way down? The ever-present throb of her head billowed so that sights and sounds brightened and contrasted, overlapping with her other senses. Reality blurred and the metallic tang of fear stabbed her being.

  A shriek pierced through her entire world.

  Strong warm hands encircled her wrists. Arwen tilted her head up to see Helen standing above her.

  “Get up! Arwen! He’s gone mad! He’s trying to kill everyone!”

  Who? The world turned slowly, gelid. Why were her arms and legs so unresponsive, jerky?

  Then a blow to her head shot darkness through her vision, followed by an eruption of stars. A curious lassitude stole over her muscles and, oddly, this didn’t bother her though, on another level, her very instincts screamed at her to get out and get as far away from this madness as possible.

  It’s okay, Helen, Arwen wanted to say, a smile finding its way to he
r lips. Someone must have kicked my head.

  The masked figure hove into view, a dark haze buzzing around his head. Light caught the ruby-washed blade.

  Above Arwen, Helen squared herself. A dull throbbing filled Arwen’s ears. A motion blur attached itself to everything around her, as if she squinted to gain double images.

  Sparkling bits surrounded Helen, which coalesced around her right fist, as she punched the swordsman, knocking him back, out of Arwen’s field of vision. She hadn’t touched him, yet he’d fallen as though jerked away by an invisible force.

  Then a dark spiral started turning at the edges of Arwen’s vision and she knew no more.

  Chapter 19

  Junkie

  Trystan knew Helen’s Essence–that taunting blaze within her–caused his attraction to her. Although his initial reason for befriending her had been to gain her trust while he decided what he’d do, he had to admit that he was, well...

  Trystan was growing fond of the human. A little too fond.

  Damn her, it was her enthusiasm. She didn’t know. The girl was so bloody trusting.

  Any thought of hurting her was like trying to contemplate crushing a newly hatched nestling.

  He should never have taken a look in the first place. He’d been on his own too long. Helen made him forget himself and revert to an attitude he’d held many years ago before he’d complicated his existence.

  Trystan growled with the indecision that left him pacing, restless, until on the Monday night he slid into his car, the steering wheel gripped so hard the leather creaked.

  What if the others found her? What if someone already knew about Helen, and watched, waiting for the right moment to strike, to spirit her away?

  Pure muscle memory guided him as he steered the big car along the gravel road that led back to the N9 National Road. An aardvark lumbered across his path and he swung aside, the beast’s eyes glowing for a brief moment in the headlights.