Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence

by Am Hudson

  “What’s not?”

  “You were right—when you once said that we couldn’t raise our daughter as a…” he lowered his head, and his voice, and said, “Princess—among vampires. I’m beginning to see that.”

  “But. Then. So… what do we do?” I asked, rolling my hands out in a questioning gesture.

  His lips arched with thought and then his brows pushed up. “We accept Vicki’s offer—move in with Gran.”

  “What!” A few people turned and looked at us, going back to their own business when I glared at them. “You can’t be serious?”

  “I am.” His grin stayed on his face the whole time. “I think we should raise her there—in your old house. Around family.”

  “And what about Safia?”

  “We’ll stay at the manor until both Safia and Walter are dead, and Jason is found, and then we’ll move. And then you can use your carseat-stroller-thing every day if you like.”

  “And what will you do?” I asked, inching closer to press my shoulder lovingly against his. “If we’re not King and Queen, we’ll need real jobs.”

  He laughed loudly, tossing his head back a little, and the baby jumped, settling quickly again as he patted her. “We’ll still be King and Queen, my love. We’ll just run things from the outside world.”

  “You mean the real world.” I started walking. “And in the real world, if a mom at school asks what my husband does, I don’t want to say he runs a monarchy from home.”

  That comment was rewarded with another of his very human laughs. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to tell them I’m a bloodsucker.”

  “So you’re going back to law then?” I asked, smiling when the laugh I was waiting for filled the aisle again.

  “I suppose I could,” he said thoughtfully. “We don’t need money, and without the restrictions of the Set Council, I can pursue any career I desire.”

  “That must be liberating.”

  “It is, and…” He walked a step quicker and took my hand, balancing the baby carefully in the crook of his forearm. “I just realised that, for the first time since you and I met, we’re actually free to live together, no more restrictions and rules. Just… completely free.”

  I squeezed his hand, grinning up at him like some lovesick puppy. “I love the way you just so neatly put things into perspective for me. You know, we’ve just been through so much hell lately—the breakup and everything before it, leaving Loslilian, winning it back, having the baby.” I nodded at her. “I hadn’t even stopped to think about all the things we’ve gained while we’ve been so busy thinking about what we’d lost.”

  “And we’ve gained a lot.” He leaned over and kissed my head, then the baby’s. “Nothing else in the world matters but what I’ve got right here within my reach.”

  I snuggled into him for a second. “And the carseat-stroller.”

  “And the carseat-stroller,” he corrected, laughing.

  “Oooooh, will you look at that!” A fluffy hen with a very frizzy perm rushed over to us, waving her hands about as if to rid the world of all its flies. “Ooh, a little baby. Look at that angel. Will you just look!”

  David looked scared, but I’d been waiting for just this sort of moment all my life.

  “Oh, he’s so tiny,” she clucked. “How old is he?”

  “She,” I corrected politely, moving aside so she could paw over the sleeping child in my husband’s arms. “She’s one day old.”

  “One day!” She gasped, her head spinning on her shoulders to gawk at me. Her bulging eyes went down my body then, and back up to my face, travelling along then to David’s. “Oh, she’s not yours. I thought for a moment that—”

  “She is ours,” David said proudly. “She was born early yesterday morning.”

  The woman looked taken aback. She touched her sweaty clavicle. “My, but you’re both so young. And you—” Her sharp gaze turned on me. “You should be resting. Feet up. Not wandering about a store.”

  I laughed. “I’m okay.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s on account of how small this little angel is.” She leaned in to get a closer look; David kindly folded the blanket down to reveal the blossom-white, skinny little arm, with all its folds. “She must be at least four months early. She should be in hospital—”

  “She’s only about eight weeks early,” I corrected.

  “But she’s so small.”

  “She was small for dates,” I said, thinking quick. “And small babies run in my family. But she’s fully developed.”

  “And so pretty,” the old hen remarked. “Look at that precious little face.”

  “She takes after her mother,” David said sweetly.

  The woman’s eyes went from David’s to mine, and she shook her head. “You’ve got your work cut out for you—both of you.”

  “We know,” we both said, and smiled at each other.

  “Well, that’s all it takes,” the woman said. “That love you obviously have between you. Don’t need nothing more than good love to raise a child.”

  “But all this stuff does make it easier,” I quipped, tapping my overloaded shopping cart.

  The woman gave a small laugh and wished us well, then moved along.

  David was clearly relieved to have her out of his face, but I’d enjoyed the attention. Being locked away from the world throughout my pregnancy, and having such a tiny belly, I never got to enjoy all the clucking and fussing that came with that stage of life, so it was nice to show off my amazingly cute and sweet little baby, even if it did earn me a few snide remarks or stares because I looked fifteen, not nineteen-going-on-twenty.

  “If we’re to remain in the real world,” David said, “We need to phone Age Assist.”

  “Phone what?”

  “It’s a company that helps vampires to look older.”

  “Oh.” My mind went back to the old man hobbling down the street with his bowler hat—in what seemed a lifetime ago at my old house. “Is that where you got your old man look?”

  He nodded, his eyes lost in thought on something else.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Call Falcon and have him bring the truck around for all this stuff. And take the baby.” He handed her over to me. “I haven’t seen Drake in a while. I’m gonna go take a look around.”

  “O…kay,” I started, but he was gone before I finished, leaving me with an arm full of baby and a shopping cart full of stuff. I looked up and down the aisle, chewing on an eerie feeling. But the old lady at one end, with long grey hair, and the portly lady at the other end with a toddler climbing the shelves, put my gut at ease.

  I slipped my phone from the back pocket of my pre-pregnancy jeans, glowing inside when I realised I was actually wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans, and dialled Falcon’s number.

  “You finished already?” he said, before I even realised he picked up.

  “Done. And David’s just run off to find Drake. We haven’t seen him in a bit.”

  “Oh, he’s with me,” he said. “We went to get burritos.”

  “Burritos?”

  “Mm. Why?” He chewed the words out around whatever he was eating. “Were you worried?”

  “No. It’s fine. David was worried,” I said. “I just want a burrito. That’s all.”

  “Consider it done. I’ll order now.”

  “Okay, and hurry up. I can’t push this cart with one hand. It’s too full.”

  “Okay, little queen. Be there soon.”

  I pressed the end call button with my thumb and put the phone back in my pocket, readjusting my hold on the baby then, and pretended to look carefully at the packet of nappies in front of me—so I didn’t have to look like a new mom that was just abandoned on the spot by her husband.

  When the little bundle started wriggling, moving her head from side to side in search of milk she’d never find, I turned her over and held her slightly out from me to get a better look, her little head in the palm of my hand, her body along my forearm.

/>   “What’s the matter?” I said in a probably rather pathetic ‘mommy’ voice. “Are you getting hungry, my little fusspot?”

  At the sound of my voice, she stopped wriggling and stared up at me, her wide, inquisitive eyes taking me in like a new experience. I couldn’t help but to smile at her.

  “What are we going to call you?” I asked her. “We can’t keep calling you Baby.”

  I looked around then for ideas, as if the packets of nappies might give me a clue, and laughed when I saw the word ‘Baby’.

  “What do you think?” I asked, drawing her upward so our noses touched. “Does plain old Baby suit you? We certainly can’t call you ‘Pudding’, like we used to call…” And my voice trailed off with the memory of a round little face. So much time had passed now that I couldn’t remember what colour Harry’s eyes were. I couldn’t remember the way his voice sounded when he said “Bub”, or the way his hand felt in mine.

  I cradled the baby close to my white mink sweater and let the sudden emergence of grief eat me up for a moment. It would do no good to ignore it. I knew that. But it did make me feel incredibly blessed to be holding my little girl against my chest today, and I was glad my biggest problem with her now was that she didn’t have a name.

  “Ara?” Falcon said softly, leaning around one of the shelves to look at me. He stepped into the aisle fully when I looked at him. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, swallowing down the griefy lump in my throat. “I was just trying to remember Harry.”

  He walked forward and put one arm around me, filling me up with a nice warm feeling as he hugged me tight. “It’s natural—to think of him at this time—”

  “I know,” I said softly, wiping my cheek along the baby’s fluffy hair. “It’d just been so long since I thought about him.”

  “Maybe you’ll see him again,” he suggested, leaning out a little. “You have the power to see spirits, right? Have you ever thought about looking for him?”

  My head moved in a gentle no. “He’d be long gone now—crossed over.”

  “Well, that must bring you some peace?” He kissed the top of my head. “To not just wonder, but to now know that he’s living again—happy?”

  I smiled. I never really did think of it that way, but to think of him out there—playing and happy—it did make me feel a bit warmer in my chest. “Thanks, Falcon.”

  “Hey, what are personal guards for?” He elbowed me playfully in the arm, turning to take the shopping cart.

  I laughed and followed him down the aisle.

  “I’ll take care of all this if you wanna head outside. Drake’s waiting with your burrito at the shop across the road.”

  My tired toes curled over and I stretched them straight, lifting the increasingly weighty premature baby onto my shoulder. “I think I will. I really need to sit.”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “You do. I know you’ve had magic vampire blood to help you recover, but it will still take time before you’re at full strength—both physically and emotionally,” he added.

  “I know.” I offered him a soft smile, which he returned, and then I left him at the counter with a massive load of baby stuff, thinking, all the way out, how sweet the baby would look in all her pretty new dresses.

  ***

  David shut the trunk and looked back at Falcon—struggling to get the cradle box to fit alongside the stroller.

  “Hold up, buddy. I got it,” he called, rushing to aid Falcon with his own incapabilities.

  I shook my head, watching as David attempted to rearrange things, pulling half of it out and laying it on the sidewalk for pedestrians to step over. If he’d loaded the baby into her seat instead and let me help, we’d be done by now. I could see from here exactly how to fit it all in, and they were both, for all their smarts, going about it the wrong way.

  “Not my problem,” I told the baby, carrying her to the car. As I pulled the front seat forward, I decided it wasn’t the best idea to take David’s car—with its tiny backseat and only two doors—but he assured me it would be temporary. Especially now we’d decided to live in the Human Realm. We’d need some kind of mommy van.

  I pictured myself then—carpooling for dance class, school, or soccer—and smiled as I leaned forward, straining my back, and gently laid the baby in her seat.

  No one warned me before I fell pregnant that babies can be incredibly difficult to strap into a seat—with their heavy, floppy little limbs, and all the things I needed to keep in mind about car safety: the pinch test to check the seatbelt was tight enough but not too tight, make sure she’s not wearing too much clothing, double check the seat is strapped to the car. So many little notes pinging off my skull and hitting my brain, but I managed it and had her safely buckled up before David and Falcon had even come close to being ready.

  I shut the door to keep her warm and leaned on the car for a moment, watching. But as David took the bookshelf out, with one hand—oblivious to the passing humans—and started taking out the bathtub and the swing, I decided it was too cold to stand here and watch two men figure out a puzzle that didn’t need to be a puzzle.

  I climbed into my seat and checked the clock on my phone. I fed the baby while my burrito went cold and inedible, but based on her feeding pattern throughout today, she would need another one in about half an hour from now. There’s no way we’d make it back to the manor by then. We’d have to stop off somewhere—maybe have some lunch—I decided, thinking with my own stomach.

  The door swung open then, just as I began planning what I’d have on my burger, and I turned to smile at David, the grin dropping as a puff of pink dust filled my eyes, forcing them closed around the outline of a white-haired woman.

  ***

  A cold, dull and very familiar ache pulled against my wrists, sharper on the front than the back. I moved my feet to stretch my knees, and opened my eyes to exactly what I expected.

  “Goddamn it!” I said, bowing my head in irritation. “I am so bloody sick and tired of waking up in chains.”

  Even in the dark, with the choking stench of sweat and faecal matter, I could sense vampires—many of them. This was clearly a large cell—holding about fifteen or twenty. Maybe more. None of them a threat, I gathered from the whimpering and groaning. Although, I was a tasty Lilithian—food to nourish them. Yet, none of them were munching on me.

  I looked around a little more carefully to see if there was a reason—or perhaps a baby. If they had a human infant to feast on…

  I shut that thought out with a violent shake of my head. I couldn’t think like that. I needed to think smart. Worry would only serve to put me in a panic. No one thinks rationally in a panic.

  “Okay, Self,” I whispered to myself, looking around near my feet. “Where are we exactly?”

  If I had to guess, I would say Drake’s dungeons. It always did have a unique, pungent kind of odour. And since Safia’s white hair was the last thing I saw, chances were she’d brought me to the castle.

  I was still clothed in my white mink sweater and jeans, thank goodness, and no damage had been done to my body. Which meant they obviously needed me intact.

  In that case, they wouldn’t mind if I attempted to escape.

  With a deep lungful of air, I released the Cerulean charge in my blood cells, focusing the entire strength of it on the cuffs. They heated up around my wrists, leaving my skin unharmed, and the chains fell loosely against the wall as the cuffs melted through where they touched my skin.

  A few short gasps jumped out at me from around the rims of darkness as I freed myself, giving me a chance to pinpoint the whereabouts of the other vampires.

  “I can smell you,” I said. “And I know where you are. All of you. Show your faces, or I’ll melt you like I did those chains.”

  I stood near the slimy wall for a breath or two, my chin held high, my arms straight by my sides, ready for a fight if any guards heard me. No one made a move to present themselves before their Queen, though, which meant they probably had no id
ea who I was.

  “Okay, let’s try this a different way,” I said, stepping over a pair of legs—attached to an unconscious man. “I am the Lilithian Queen. For those of you that haven’t heard, the monarchy belongs to me now—”

  “And yet you’re in here, with us—chained up like a petty criminal,” said a woman’s sarcastic voice.

  “A minor setback.” I rubbed the sore red ring around my wrist. “But I’m free now. And I’m about two seconds away from busting that door down and—”

  “Busting the door down?” some unseen vampire scoffed. “With what?”

  “I’m more powerful than I look,” I offered.

  “Sure you are,” said a very thin woman on the opposite side of the cell, crawling forward on her hands and knees, grubby and clearly weakened by what appeared to be years in darkness. “Go on then, so I can laugh when you fail,” she finished.

  “Before I do, if you must know, I need information,” I stated, looking her square in the eye. “And the only way to get that is to bribe you all with your freedom.”

  “What would you like to know?” a pale, spritely girl stood up, the fire of eagerness igniting her gaze.

  “Taylor, sit down!”

  “This could be a test,” said another.

  “It’s no test,” I stated harshly, “and I don’t have time for games. Someone brought me here and chained me up. I need to know what happened to the baby they had with them.”

  “We didn’t see a baby—”

  “There was just a white-haired woman—”

  “And she told us if we drank from you, Hans would be in charge of our torture this week,” said the spritely girl, not so spritely.

  I gathered from the fear in her eyes that Hans was not a good thing. “Do you know where she went—when she left?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say she’d be back?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” I clapped my hands once. “Then who’s up for a dramatic escape?”

  Four more women rose from the shadows, their faces dirty and pale, slimmed by shadows and starvation. “Count us in,” they all said at the exact same time, and then laughed.