Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  I was drawn in the early evenings in those first months to little Joy. I could hear her cries and laughter from across town and would inevitably find myself outside her window. The mother and father, so in love with each other and their precious gift, they had no notice of me, or the potential for danger I represented. Not that I wanted to hurt them, but I wanted. Deeply I felt the resonance of her tiny voice, sensed something in her I never had before. Her blue eyes knew me, knew what I was. Her heart sensed my presence and reached out to me. I would hover outside her nursery and she would look at me with eyes somehow filled with the knowledge of me. I ached inside to look upon her.

  It was insanity, I should have been leaving that town, but instead I lingered, pausing to bestow gifts upon this stranger's child. I found a lawyer with a reputable firm and set about preparing a trust for the child, a fund to educate her in the finest schools. I contacted the man's employer, and persuaded him to promote the man, by providing a large sum to pay the balance of his salary. I then produced a small inheritance for the woman, some jewelry and money, to be delivered to her as if from some distant and unknown relative. I gave instruction to the lawyer as to how I could be reached once I had left for Europe, and that I was to be notified if anything were to happen to any of them.

  That done, I chanced to visit them once more. It was early evening, the sun barely down when I knocked at their door. I was admitted easily enough, for such a gift as I had given on the street that day is not difficult to remember. I spoke with them for quite some time, playing with Joy until she fell asleep at my breast.

  “I cannot begin to make you understand what your daughter has done to me,” I said, the lilt of my accent adding a foreign touch to my words. “I will be leaving here soon, to birth my child in the lands of my birth. I wonder if I might occasionally write to you, and to Joy? I want to know how she fares, where her life takes her. Perhaps even one day she can meet my wee one.” Her tiny heart beat tangled around mine even in her sleep, so soft and gentle, hypnotic. They had no way of knowing the benefits my affection would bring, for they would be told nothing of it until I was gone. They agreed of course, already feeling indebted to my kindness. I handed Joy back to her mother and rose to leave. “Thank you for indulging me. It is not often in a lifetime one finds such remarkable beauty of body and spirit. Teach her well and the world will bow to her command.”

  That accomplished, I turned myself more seriously to finding the servant I would require in the coming years and to the caring for my physical needs, which I found changing from day to day. I switched my diet to consist almost entirely of human foods, cutting back even my formula to only those moments when the hunger got the better of me. Perhaps I was delusional, or merely foolish, but some part of me believed that if I denied myself my darker nature while carrying this child, it might never have need of that perverse sustenance we survive upon.

  Nearly three months after my discovery of my impending motherhood, I found the perfect woman to join me on my journey. She was a young Chinese woman, orphaned at a young age and raised by a midwife. Her name was Lu Sin. She was quiet, intelligent and easily convinced by the promise of travel and good pay to join me. I bought us a closed coach, fully darkened within by heavy drapes to guard the smallest cracks, and a driver for it. I would use the long travel from the west coast to the east to explain myself to my young companion, to instruct her in all the things she need know about me.

  To my surprise, she took all I had to say without a word, only a knowing acceptance in her dark eyes, and a nod or two as things I said related to similar myths in her ancient heritage. She had a few questions, mostly having to do with my moral choices and how I had arrived at them.

  “How long then, has it been since you last tasted human blood?” she asked, her voice soft, her dark eyes squarely on my face.

  “Let me think a moment. Hmmm … more than a hundred years, unless you wish to count the Vampyre I killed. He had fed on a human moments before I took his life.”

  “And you survive on human food?”

  “Yes, I can. However, the hunger often runs to blood. I have a formula that I make, a mixture of compounds that is and is not blood. My body is mostly fooled.”

  “What of the child? Her father?”

  “He is dead. Gone since before I had known of her.”

  “Will she be human?”

  “I hope so. Her father was, I am half, with any luck she will inherit that and little of the other.”

  “Luck has little to do with it, my friend. It will depend on you, on what happens between now and the birthing, and after as she is raised. We will do what can be done. She will never have need to know her darker side.”

  I had chosen well. We became quiet friends in those first months, as we made the long, grueling journey that I did not remember being so difficult the first time. It did not help that war had begun and we were forced to keep well to the north to avoid the battle lines. The child within me grew incessantly, I could almost feel it expand some days. Others it sat silent and scarcely moving within. By the time we arrived in New York, the little bulge that I had first noticed had become more apparent, and I found it necessary to loosen the waist of my dresses.

  We were two days early for our ship's departure aboard an Inman line vessel, so we arranged to spend them in a hotel not far from the piers. I sold the coach and paid the driver and we waited. Already, Lu Sin had grown maternal in her duties, hurrying me off to the privacy of the bedroom when daylight had only begun to think about arriving, and greeting me at nightfall with more food than three pregnant women could eat. We were at long last given permission to board, and we immediately secured our new lodgings with locks I had brought to guard against the daytime entry of any well-meaning passengers or crew. I had already decided we should keep primarily to ourselves this voyage, and Lu Sin alone would interact with the other mortals aboard. I had brought a meager lab set up and supplies, for those moments of weakness, and found her an eager study. A week out of New York, she was making my formula for me.

  She learned quickly what mortal foods I could and could not manage, and how to tell by my coloring when the hunger was raging and I needed to feed it, whether I wanted to or not. She fit in so well there beside me that I began to wonder what I ever did before she found her way there. Half way to our destination, the seas turned ugly, storms tossing us about and creating fear among once carefree passengers. Lu Sin seemed the only center of calm among them, passing quietly through their ranks to assure them that we were in good hands and that the high winds would only bring us to our destination sooner than expected.

  She was, somehow, correct. We arrived in Liverpool a full week before our scheduled arrival, slipping off the boat in the darkness almost before she had fully docked. The child did not enjoy the watery excursion, roiling riotously within throughout the trip. That morning, as I drifted to sleep in a comfortable room, it quieted for the first time. I woke several hours later. Lu Sin slept nearby, her soft, scarcely audible breathing somehow reassuring to me. I stretched beneath the luxurious linens, feeling my growing stomach against the cloth, and imagining I could feel tiny hands stretching up to feel it too. I listened to my heart beating, to my lungs slowly giving and taking air, then … oh, so tender, so tiny … the other within … beating in echo to mine … not quite in rhythm. I closed my eyes and tried to picture that small, little body, curled up inside of mine. I almost imagined I could feel her respond. I wanted to hold her then, to have this long pregnancy ended and be holding my child in my arms. I drifted back to sleep with a picture of her in my mind.

  I woke once more near sunset and rose to bathe before Lu Sin woke. I wanted to be off to Paris by the following sunset, and that meant we had arrangements to make. Once dressed, Lu Sin and I walked to the offices of a lawyer who was to receive my mail and other necessities from my London agent. The word had come that my new home was fully prepared for me, and that he would meet me in the small town some two days' drive from the villa. A
smaller ship would take us from Liverpool south to Paris, where we would arrange overland passage. We paused for a late supper before arranging for the carriage to take us there. Then, wrapped entirely in heavy black clothing, I braved the setting sun the following day to be underway.

  The late summer weather was alternately balmy and threatening, the night sky dominated by billowing black clouds and the strong scent of the sea. I found myself restless as we sailed, stopping in various ports to unload goods or passengers. By the time we reached Paris I was irritable and anxious. I was at this point quite obviously pregnant and forced to endure the cooing and touching of the female passengers with a grace I did not feel. Lu Sin was a quiet peace beside me, but it did little to affect my mood.

  I had determined that the pregnancy was developing faster than my earlier prediction, though I couldn't be certain by how much. I made mention of this to Lu Sin on the evening before our arrival in Paris and after examining my growing belly she nodded. “Perhaps it is the lack of blood in your diet,” she said, as she finished corking a bottle of formula. “You have partaken of little of the formula, and no blood. Perhaps this has affected the timing.”

  It sounded reasonable. I was beyond caring though as I loosened my skirt yet again and made ready to join the other passengers for dinner. I only knew that I wanted off this damned boat and away from the people on it. The next day, Lu Sin bundled me in black, careful to protect my face with a dark veil she draped from a hat, and we braved the late afternoon, though the sun was scarce to be seen through the clouds, to find a suitable hotel for the night. I wanted to be off the next morning, but after Lu Sin had visited with the agency I learned that we had to wait a few days. Normally, a sojourn in Paris would have brought a spring to my step and a desire to visit the operas and theaters. As I sat in my rooms eating food that tasted completely retched to me, I felt none of it. I was tired in a way I had never felt, worn through the skin. My heart beat was slow, deep inside me as if isolated. My back ached and my hunger was no longer appeased by those things I would allow myself to partake in.

  Two days after reaching Paris, six months after discovering I was with child, I was once more bundled up and scurried off in the early morning light, this time into a private carriage for the long overland journey to the mountains that had been my first home. It had been a long time since I had seen them last and I longed for them. I longed for home.

  I had reached a rather uncomfortable stage in my long pregnancy, and it was stuffy and warm in the carriage, even long after the sun went down. Lu Sin did all she could to put me at ease, but my body was at war with the growing child. My stomach seemed stretched beyond its capacity, my back ached and I had to pause our journey frequently to relieve myself and to eat. The roads were old and rutted and bumpy beyond belief, no help to me at all. The second night out of Paris I was praying to whichever god still fancied me that it all be over soon.

  The nights stretched into weeks, the weeks nearly to a month, bad weather forcing us to pause in a quaint little town only four nights out. By the time we reached the village where we were to meet my agent, I was ill tempered, ravenous, and weary of it all. My words were not kind when I was told we would be delaying what remained of the trip until the following night due to the increasing inclement weather. I ranted about the rash of rain and the moonless nights, raved about the beautiful nights I had left behind me. Even Lu Sin kept her distance from me as dawn broke and my arguments against nature became moot. I sank into the softness of the inn's bed, wrapping my aching body in fresh smelling linens and soft, warm blankets which took the edge of chill from the air.

  I woke early, with the impending feeling of … something … I couldn't place. I waited anxiously as Lu Sin and Gregory, my agent, loaded our things. I climbed clumsily into the carriage for what I prayed would be the last time. The double team of horses pulled and strained in the deep mud, and going was slow, but at long last, near dawn of the second night, the carriage came to a halt.

  Gregory helped me down and I, ill-tempered and all, laid eyes upon what would be my home for the next century. Exactly as I had requested, the perfect image of what my mind only could see, the cottage was small, but adequate for three or four, and built up to the side of the mountain, hiding the caves I knew to be there. The windows glowed with light and with my dark eyes I could see the gardens surrounding it, wood stacked neatly near the door. I held my breath and held Lu Sin by the arm as I stepped toward it.

  Inside, the smell of earth and wood combined with the soft glow of fire and candlelight to offer up a homey feeling that settled deep inside of me almost in a moment. The child felt it too, rolling to one side within and resting there. The kitchen was filled with a giant cast iron stove and a table of solid oak. The cupboards were well provisioned; enough to not need a trip to town for several weeks. Two steps down from the kitchen was a massive common room, carpeted in plush forest green and furnished with hand carved pieces made comfortable with large pillows. Down the hall we entered the mountain itself, where the bedrooms had been built from the caves that had existed there for centuries.

  The rooms were spacious and amply furnished. The bulk of our belongings had arrived earlier and were already put in appropriate enough places. The nursery was between Lu Sin's room and my own, and was filled with clothes to cover a hundred children. Of all the rooms in the cottage, mine was perhaps the most severe, the dark wood of the furniture shining dully in the light of the fire. Justine's painting of Crenoral and his brothers hung there, to remind me of my past, of my own childhood, and all that I wanted different for my child. The bed was stately, like that of a queen, with four hand carved posters and canopy that supported black velvet drapes. Golden candlesticks at the four corners of the room held black tapers that would illuminate it as though it were daylight. Personal things that had once adorned my room in Crenoral's mansion and had spirited away before my escape filled the chamber, making it more of a homecoming than I had anticipated. I sensed Dovan had been there, spotting things that he had given me in another cavern bedroom years before. His own cave was further up that same mountain, and once the child was born I had plans to visit.

  With little preamble, I shed my outer garments and crawled into the bed, leaving Lu Sin to deal with the agent and the business of setting up our new home. I was exhausted, more so than I imagined, and fell deeply asleep almost instantly. My next true conscious thought was one of hunger, not the roaring need for blood, but the more human craving for food that had become a rather constant companion of late. My stomach growled and I felt an echo in the child within. It was enough to bring me from my bed to my feet. I made for the door, but paused as I passed the ancient mirror. The dress I had worn for too many days to count, was dirty and dusty, like my hair which had fallen from its braid. My hands cupped around my enlarged belly, the sensitive fingers almost feeling the baby which slept somewhere beneath them.

  As my eyes rose to the reflection of my face, I smiled, a soft, maternal smile that would become a regular part of my countenance in the coming months. I liked what I saw. I liked how I felt, as if I were now a part of something beyond my own existence. I opened the door to my room and padded softly down the carpeted hallway. I could smell bacon cooking, and warm bread. I hastened my pace, the hunger that had woke me coming to the forefront. I didn't even check to see if the sun had gone down, I was so eager for the food. Luckily, it was dark, and Lu Sin stood at the stove cooking a breakfast fit for a queen.

  “Come, eat,” she said, her voice musical. “You must be half-starved.”

  I sat at the table and let her serve me. She had an eerie way of knowing exactly what I would want. “You've been asleep for days.” She sat lightly opposite me, her own plate more empty than full. “I notice the child has shifted again. We shouldn't have long to wait.”

  It had been a year and a month since I had stood on that dusty street in San Francisco and felt that thrill inside me. By my revised reckoning our wait was to be another two months or
three even, but admittedly, I knew nothing of how this was to work, of what to expect. We took what time there would be to arrange the comfort of our lives, the ease of which still amazes me. Every now and then I can see the two of us by the fire, reading quietly, or stitching some piece of needlework. If I close my eyes I can smell the soft, exotic scent of her. She was the calm spot at my side when I thought the wait alone might make me mad. Two months passed. Lu Sin made two trips down the mountain for supplies while I puttered around with my books and the baby things.

  Chapter 19

  As with all great events of my life, I should have been prepared for the coming of my child, should have seen and understood the precursors that heralded it days in advance. I was so preoccupied with the material preparations, that I neglected the first inklings of it, the first tightening of muscles. I had told Lu Sin to expect strange things from me during the delivery, but hadn't had the time or inclination to actually display myself with the Change upon me to give my warnings focus. I had the nursery as I wanted it, and the rest of the house was in order. I, however, was not.

  The contractions became undeniable, the pain unmistakable. There would be a birthing. Lu Sin was due home that night, having gone to town several days before for supplies. She had not wanted to go, but I had insisted. Now, I wished she were here with me as the contractions woke me somewhere near to noon. I paced my room, through the worst of each pain, and rested when it was gone. This was only the beginning. I knew from the stories Lu Sin and others had told me that I was in for a bumpy ride.