Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  I slept fitfully for several hours, tossed by fevered dreams of Jesse and Joshua and Rebeka, and woke to distant shouts and the sounds of dogs. The pain from my wounds crashed into me as I pulled myself from my hiding place. It almost forced me back to my knees, but somehow I managed to come somewhat upright and begin to move once more. The sounds of pursuit grew close, then backed off again as they lost my trail. I tied the cloak around my shoulders and took off at a sort of run, heading uphill, into the mountains. I was delirious with fever and pain, leaving a trail of bloodied footsteps for them to follow. I ran the entire night, until my wounds and the cold brought me to my knees. A small, cold stream offered some respite for the burns, and for my torn feet, which I then bandaged with pieces I ripped from my ruined dress. I crawled upstream in the water, hoping to throw off the scent the dogs were following, then dug myself a grave. The thought terrified me, to once more consign myself to the earth, but I needed the rest, the chance to recover. I needed the safety only a secure place could afford. So, fighting my own memory, I dug a shallow grave with my bare hands and crawled inside. I struggled to pull the dirt back over me enough to protect myself from the coming sun, but finally succeeded. With the damp earth pulled over me like a blanket, I closed my eyes and slept.

  When I woke, I listened for nearly an hour for signs of my Hunters, but there were none. I had no way of knowing how long I slept, how many days and nights had passed since I had buried myself in the earth, or whether or not they had given up pursuit of me. I rose cautiously, pulling myself up from the ground slowly so as not to jar my injuries too much. I trapped a rabbit and fed, but it lay cold and hard in my belly. I need to fully feed, to rest in blessed darkness. Daylight was coming once more. My hunger brought me to another rabbit and several small birds. I move painfully, slowly, limping on feet that gave out on me often.

  In a meadow filled with wildflowers I fell to my knees in combined exhaustion and agony. My breathing was ragged and the small amount I had put into my stomach threatened to explode violently from me. I had little hope at that moment besides crawling back into the earth. Then, my eyes fell on the tiny little cottage, nestled back among the trees, its windows lighting up in the wee morning hours. With nowhere else to go, I staggered to the door, and collapsed.

  Chapter 17

  The woman who opened the door was perhaps sixty, and instantly maternal, calling her husband to help me inside. They questioned me as they washed and dressed my wounds and fed me a loaf of warm bread, but didn't seem bothered that I didn't answer most of their questions. I was shivering in shock and hurt, barely speaking. After she had seen me eat the better part of the loaf of bread, the good woman wrapped me in a quilt and laid me down in a soft feather bed in a loft room with no windows. I gave up caring about anything, and fell deeply asleep as I imagine daylight was rounding the horizon outside.

  Horrifying dreams chased me into the day, nightmarish visions of Hunters and their prey, fires that lit the night skies and Jesse's voice condemning what he had become, what I had always been. Somewhere in the long hours they drifted away and I settled into the ethereal sleep of my mother's people, where the wounds could begin their healing and rest might restore my fear-crazed mind. I woke just after sunset to the aroma of dinner cooking and the sound of humming. I sat up stiffly, taking inventory of myself now that I was at the very least rested. My feet and legs had burned pretty badly, and the mad running had done them little good. My hands had been scorched some too, and my wrists and ankles chaffed from the chains. There was a long gash down my left leg from some shattered glass or whipping tree limb and my face was bruised from the beating. The wound in my shoulder was severe, stiff and crusted over with blood, and my stomach was bruised an ugly shade of black and purple beneath the tear in my dress. The healing had already begun, as I had known it would. The intense need grew within me. I craved that which would speed my recovery. I was well enough. I rose on shaky legs and wrapped the quilt around me. I shuffled to the door and opened it onto a very safe and domestic scene. The woman and her husband were sitting at the table to eat, and beside them a man, a young man whose eyes never left his dish. I must have started at seeing him, for the woman rose and came to me. “Don't be frightened, dear. This is my son, Francis.”

  She gently steered me to a chair between Francis and her husband. “Sit, I'll fetch you some dinner.”

  I felt awkward and out of place sitting there, as she put a plate full of a rich looking stew in front of me. “I apologize, for intruding this way,” I said after a long time. “And, for not answering your questions this morning. I was frightened, and I had nowhere to go.”

  “Don't worry yourself, child. Eat your supper. I'll set you a bath after and you can tidy up. Then, if you're up to it, we'll talk.”

  Sitting there I could smell them, the warm, inviting smell of life. It resonated around me under the more powerful scents of the dinner, of the damp earth outside, of the rain due to fall, of the burning logs in the fire. I wrestled the demon within as I ate, chewing each bite so thoroughly as to have nearly nothing left when I at last swallowed. I dared not speak, nor look at them for fear I might lose control of it. I felt the Change within, begging to be released, the voice of the hunger whispering in my head as they made pleasant small talk about the day. It would be so easy, it said, so easy. They're old and won't fight. Old blood is thick and rich and filled with so much life. The young man won't even see me coming. Three of them would have me whole in no time. I swallowed it over and over, trying to ignore the words, the thoughts. I closed my eyes so I couldn't see them, but it only made the smell of them stronger. My breathing was becoming ragged … they would notice soon.

  I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. If they had noticed they didn't say a word. I bit harshly into my piece of bread and forced myself into their conversation. The voice in my head subsided, but I could still hear it whispering insidiously. I learned of them that night, all that there was to know was there at that supper table. They loved each other immensely, and the child they had raised here to protect him from the cruelty of the world. They were hard working people, good and kind and generous. It only made me want them more.

  Francis never said a word through dinner, and when he had finished eating he left the table without even excusing himself. I watched him walk away, and sighed. The woman took this as some manner of cue, and rose to fill the bath she had promised me. The water was rather cool as I slid into it, feeling some of the tension and ache drift away. When I began to grow chill, I rose, and found a clean sleeping gown awaiting me. I pulled it on, followed by the robe lying across the chair nearest the tub in the little kitchen, and went back out by the fire where the woman and her husband were sitting.

  I told them a story of my husband who had been killed, by men who had wanted him to help them rob the bank where he worked. I said that the men who had done it had come after me as well. I even threw in the truth about the fire, to explain the burns. I told them I had barely gotten away and had run through the woods for days before finding them. I let enough of my hunger show to make my face as afraid and desperate as I could. I said I was afraid that if I returned they would finish me off, to keep me quiet. When I finished my tale, they appeared to believe the better part of it, and being the kind folks I could already tell them to be, they invited me to stay on, to rest and recover. I thanked them and sat with them for an hour or so, making small talk and exchanging pleasantries before I excused myself back to the bedroom. I was shaking from head to toe with barely controlled desire. I lay down on the soft bed, but sleep was a long way off now. The hours spent in the company of so much warm blood had me so agitated I wouldn't sleep now until I had tasted it. I needed to feed.

  I waited until the old man and woman had retired and the sounds of a house settling in for the night had ceased. I rose from the bed and pulled the robe close around me. The Change was full upon me as I opened the door to the little room and tiptoed through the cottage. Before I knew how I stood at t
he door of the old couple, looking in on them sleeping curled together. Her long, white hair draped the pillow beside her and over his one shoulder. I know my teeth were bared as I fought myself in that door and had either of them woke, they might have died in fright of what they had let into their home.

  It took every ounce of myself to pull me away from them, clenching my hands around my elbows in an iron grip as my feet stumbled through the unfamiliar rooms and out into the night, walking softly on raw and tender feet. There were any number of wild beasts about and I had little trouble finding what I sought. I fell upon a deer first, ripping its neck savagely and gulping its blood greedily. I was insane with it, stalking the shadows for each quivering life I could find. When I was sated and full of life once more, I returned quietly to the small cottage and to my bed. The next weeks were filled with manic hunting and fighting myself. Each night I would rise hungrier than the night before. I would eat with my hosts, and retire once more to my room until they slept, then into the night I would run to feed.

  I kept largely to myself, easy enough to do, upon explaining to my benefactors soon after that first night that my skin and eyes were too sensitive, and sunlight bothered me immensely, the result of a childhood ailment not treated early enough, I had said. Thus, they did not question my long days sleeping in the darkness of my room, or my appearance only after sun down.

  I healed, in direct response to the food and the feeding, my body reclaimed itself, the pains eased, the aches dissipated. I saw little of the young man, Francis, and less of the husband, but thought that fair enough in the measure of safety. My nightly visits to the forest kept me alive and healing, and offered me the solace and solitude I needed to come to terms with myself once more.

  One night while returning to the cottage from my hunt, I saw Francis, standing barefoot on the stone path, his hand on the rope railing. It was early summer, the night warm, moist with the hint of coming rains. Only the slightest of breezes stirred the heavy air. He was standing with his face turned toward the full moon, his eyes closed. He appeared to me serene, like a man who knows exactly his own place in life, and is perfectly at home within it. I watched for a long moment, then walked in his direction.

  “It's a beautiful night, isn't it?” I said softly. He jumped a little, startled at my voice so close, but didn't open his eyes.

  “I love nights like this,” he said in response, once he had recovered from his shock.

  “Hmmm … me too.” I turned to look up at the moon which had held his interest so. “I do my best thinking at night.”

  “Sometimes, standing here, when I know the moon is full, I can almost imagine that I can see it, all full and bright.”

  I squinted in his direction, for I hadn't known that he was blind. “Since birth,” he said as if he could hear the question. “I've never seen that moon, or the sunrise, or this wonderful mountain we live on.” He sighed and it sounded lonely, and yet not.

  “Would it help if I told you that I have also never seen the sun rise?” I asked softly, a flash of my only sunrise returning to me as I came to stand beside him, turning my face back to the giant moon above. “This is the only light I know. But, somehow, the moon suits me.”

  “Yes, me too,” he said.

  That was the beginning of our friendship, and our nightly ritual. He would always be there, waiting for me on that path when I returned from my walk, and we would stand there and talk until the first rays of dawn were just making themselves felt in the far distant east. I understood then why I had seen so little of him in those early days. Like me he was more comfortable in the dark, and he seldom ventured out of his rooms until I had already left the house to hunt. There was a place, at the end of the path with its rope railing where he would pass the time, listening to water gurgling through a creek. My path seldom brought me near it, preferring the easier way through the meadow.

  I healed faster than I imagined, and my appetite eased. I began making short trips down the mountain to a small town north of the city I had fled. The old man was increasingly ill, barely able to tend the small field he planted to sell, and the trip was difficult for him. I started going for supplies, trading the family's crops for things they required. Fortunately for me, the trip was short, and I only had to reach the farm of the old man's brother. He had no problem meeting me in the early hours before dawn, and he brought me the supplies so I didn't have to go into the town itself. I was fearful of mankind, and kept to myself on the road and in town. It was almost irrational, but well understood given my last experience in civilization.

  Three trips over two months in the crisp fall air and I brought back the last of the food and other necessities for the winter. I managed to trade a few rabbit pelts and deerskins for enough equipment to begin making my formula again. I set up my lab in a cavern not far from the cabin I now called home, but distant enough not to be easily found. Once I had re-learned the formula, I slowly weaned myself off the taste of fresh blood once more. I took easily to the quiet life there in the hills, the ease of things, the serenity of nature. I seemed to fit smoothly into their lives, taking up chores that once the old couple might have done, but which had fallen into undone. I was like a mostly unseen guest, a ghostly wraith who flitted through the shadows, leaving only neatly piled wood and well-tended gardens in her wake. As winter settled in, I made a formal request to stay out the winter. They were kind enough to offer me the continued use of the loft, in exchange for my continued help.

  Early that spring, the old man died, quietly, in his sleep. The old woman seemed to lose her desire for life, and by the time planting season came along, she had passed away as well, leaving their only son into my care. The old woman asked me to stay and look after him, which seemed only fair and fitting after all they had done for me. Besides which, I had grown rather fond of him. We shared a great many things in common, other than our love of the dark. He had a great passion for music, both classical and common, he loved to pass hours by the fire while I read to him, and long walks beneath the moon. Ours was a deep, abiding friendship, not the hot passion of my love for Jesse, or the playful, gaming relationship I had shared with Joshua, but a calm, almost soothing bond.

  He was approaching middle age, still a slight man with brown hair just beginning to grow gray at the temples, and long blind eyes that still sparkled when he spoke of poetry or music. He was intelligent and witty, understanding my complexity perhaps better than I myself. We spoke of ancient times, and sometimes I thought he sensed the truth behind my observations. Once or twice I nearly told him, simply blurting it out as he held me in his arms after the gentle lovemaking that was ours. Always something withheld me from it though. He suspected I had secrets, hinting at them without ever actually asking about them, and pulling back away from the intrusion with a small pun and a smile. I even considered bringing him to me, to share this calm, tender love into eternity, but then I remembered Jesse and how he detested what he became. I couldn't have done that to Francis.

  We talked at length about family and children. He wanted a daughter he said, and asked me if I had ever thought about having children of my own.

  “I have a daughter, of sorts,” I said in response, thinking of Moira for the first time in years.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Hmmm, well, she's not really my child, but I found her when she was young and taught her, raised her to be who she is.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “More than I thought possible. She is the closest thing I will ever have to a child of my own.”

  “Where is she?” he asked, sensing perhaps the vague melancholy that had settled over me.

  “Oh, I'm not sure. She's fully grown, living a life of her own. I haven't seen her in a long, long time.” I laughed and ran my fingers through his hair. “What does it matter?”

  “I would like to have known her. She must be wonderful.” He sat up and reached for his glass of wine. “There are a great many things about you that I would like to
know better.” The look on his face was distant, as if he were attempting to picture me, or some aspect of my life he had imagined.

  “I'm sure there are,” I said playfully, getting up to take our empty dinner plates into the kitchen from the sitting room where we had dined on the floor by the fire.

  “Still going to pretend it's some big mystery, my dear? Shall I guess at them?”

  “Please don't. I'm not sure I want to know what grand tales you've created in that mind of yours,” I responded upon returning to the room. “I would much rather forget the history of it and move on to now.”

  “Oh, afraid I might have figured you out?”

  “No, afraid you might paint my life more interesting than it actually is and then I would get depressed and have to go out and jump off the cliff.” As I said it, a memory of my one particular journey off a cliff flitted past. It was almost as if he had somehow shared the thought.

  “Ouch, that hurts,” he said softly.

  “You have no idea.”

  I took a deep breath to shake the memory and kissed him. “Come on, let's walk.”

  And, so we were, when I began to hear the whispers of the others. It had been many years since I had marked the passing of any of my kin, but in the space of only several months, I had counted six passing by, and two who had stayed long enough to investigate what dark soul hid away in these hills. I dreaded the moment that was inevitable, and I fretted about poor Francis and what to tell him, how to warn him … or if I shouldn't simply leave before they arrived. We had talked about moving him down to his uncle's farm, but he was dead set against the idea, preferring the solitude his parents had brought him up the mountain for.