James smiled. He looked at his wife, her dark curls loose around her shoulders, her lips full, open, and smiling, the spaghetti straps of her pink nightie with the lace lines falling down her shoulders. He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her peach-like shoulders.
She wasn’t as distracted as he was. “So am I right, Doctor Wentworth?”
“You’re always right, Mrs. Wentworth.”
“They’re just stories.”
James leaned back, twisting Sarah’s curls between his fingers. “But the legends originated from people’s fear when they encountered the magical,” he said. “Anything related to the supernatural people assume is evil.”
“You’re not evil, James. I’ve never known anyone more loving than you.”
He kissed her shoulder again. “At least I was able to write up a syllabus. The class will look at the earliest vampire folklore and legends and how those legends evolved over time. Then we’ll compare and contrast the legends with the progression of the vampire novel. The theme will be ‘The Curse of the Vampire.’”
“You’re not cursed. You’re special.”
“I’m very special.”
“I’m serious, James.”
“So am I. The earliest folktales from Eastern Europe say vampires were cursed by Satan to outwit death. Perhaps they’re right.”
“You have nothing to do with Satan.” Sarah slapped her hand in the air, dismissing the Devil himself. “I don’t believe in Satan. And I don’t believe hell is a pit in the center of the earth. I don’t believe in Dante’s Inferno or that Bosch triptych with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden on one side and the torturous punishments of Hell on the other. We’re our own Satans. We create our own hell.”
“That’s what my father used to say.”
“Your father was the wisest man I’ve ever known. Except for you.”
He didn’t argue with her. He would give her whatever she needed, do whatever she wanted done, say whatever she wanted to hear. As long as she smiled, that sweet, beautiful smile, he would be content. He would protect her whenever she needed protecting. He had superhuman strength, extraordinary sight, supersonic hearing. Immortal life. As long as his secret stayed safe, there was nothing to fear. A scratching thought, like sandpaper on his spine, gnawed at him, and he heard the name Hempel somewhere in his middle ear, but he shook his head and sent it away.
Sarah kissed his cheek, and he leaned into her, savoring her warmth.
“There’s no such thing as the vampire’s curse,” she said.
James held her head to his chest, loving her. He looked out the diamond-paned window and saw the blackout night stretching from one horizon to the next. He heard Sarah’s breath slow, felt her body grow limp, saw her eyes close. He slipped his arms around her to carry her to the bedroom, but she started suddenly and stopped him.
“I’m not going to bed yet,” she said.
“It’s nearly three in the morning. You need to sleep.”
“Not yet. I’m changing my schedule. I’m asleep most of the time when you’re awake, so if I went to bed later and woke up later, we’d have more time together.”
“You’ve never been a night owl. Even three hundred years ago you were ready for bed as soon as the sun went down.”
“No, James, I mean it. I’m going to change my schedule.”
“All right, honey. Whatever you want.”
He rubbed her back, down her spine, up to her shoulders, down again. He wasn’t surprised to hear her breathing slow to sleeping. He carried her to bed, laid her down, covered her with the blanket, and kissed her forehead. She opened one eye as he walked to the door.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you more.”
She was already sleeping. He turned back, kneeled by the bed, stroking her hair, kissing her forehead. He thought about the night in front of Jocelyn’s house. Sarah’s need for a child was so tangible then he felt it reaching out to him. That child she was so certain was there—he felt the child touching him, clutching its tiny fingers around his, and it scared him. How could he be a father? How could he explain?
“Daddy is cursed,” he could say, or “Daddy is a leech. But don’t worry. Daddy won’t ever suck your blood. Sure, Daddy used to bite people and suck them dry until they died, but things were different then. We didn’t have technology like we do now.”
He would have to explain why he could never visit their schools, meet their friends, attend Fourth of July barbeques. He could be there for the fireworks, he supposed. He would have to explain why he was so pale, why he didn’t eat dinner with them, why he always looked the same. It couldn’t possibly work.
Besides, Sarah hadn’t mentioned the child since that night. Not with her words anyway. Sometimes, when things were quiet, when they were at home together, he saw her stare off at something far away, and he guessed she was imagining the child. Sometimes, whenever they were out, walking the Salem streets, when he was taking her to a restaurant for her dinner, or to Jennifer’s, or to Olivia’s or Martha’s, they would pass a family and he saw her eyes cloud as she watched the mothers with their children. Then, when they visited the Endecotts, she would light up joy whenever little Billy appeared, running to him, laughing, clasping him to her heart. And, when she thought he wasn’t looking, her hands went to her stomach, reaching for the baby that was no longer there. She thought he didn’t see her, but he did. The sight of it sliced at his chest where his heart used to be, and he knew what it felt like to be staked by wood. That’s what it felt like to him every time he saw his wife long for that child. But he stayed stubborn. It was for the best, he thought. They were enough for each other.
He watched Sarah sleep, heard her soothing heartbeat, and he felt a new wave of calmness. Suddenly, someone unseen but all-knowing whispered in his ear. “She’ll be a wonderful mother,” he heard. “And you’ll be a wonderful father too.”
James shook his head at the formless voice. “No,” he said.
“Yes,” he heard.
He looked around, expecting to see someone standing beside him. It was a rich voice, a deep voice, formal yet comfortable, strong yet familiar, and it left him warm inside when normally he was oh so very cold. He was certain he knew it, but it sounded detached somehow, like it was distorted through a scratchy intercom. He shook his head again, trying to separate the fantasy of the voice from the reality of the room around him. He saw no one but Sarah asleep in their bed. He must have imagined it, he decided, though he continued to feel warm inside. Suddenly, he felt a starburst of truth illuminate every concern he ever had about bringing a child into their home. The light was so bright he shielded his eyes with his hand.
Was it possible? He knew Sarah would be a wonderful mother. She had the kindness, the patience, the affection, and, most importantly, the love any child would need. And he would love the child too. He never doubted his ability to love a child, only the child’s ability to love him. But Sarah loved him, turned as he was. And their child could too.
Their child.
James smiled. He leaned over Sarah, kissing her cheek. He thought of that sad time all those years before when he had mourned not only Elizabeth’s passing but their child’s too. He blinked away the bloody film blurring his sight. He laid down in bed next to her, spooning her, and closed his eyes.
The voice spoke again. “Yes,” it said.
James smiled as he relaxed into the radiating warmth.
“Yes,” he said.
CHAPTER 6
James awoke to the clunk-clunk-clunk of nails hammered into seventeenth century wood. He pulled aside the blackout curtains and raised the blinds, seeing the sunrise-colored autumn leaves drop one-by-one to the wilting lawn while storm clouds gathered over the bay, adding more gray than black to the night. He was waking earlier since it was getting darker earlier, a good thing with Sarah waiting for him.
Orange and black. That’s all he saw when he walked into the great room—orange and black. And pumpkins. Witches, g
hosts, skeletons, Frankensteins, even, he sighed, vampires decorated the walls and the bookshelves while strings of glowing plastic pumpkin lights lined the diamond-paned windows. A display of autumn harvest squash sat in a Happy Halloween basket on the granite island in the kitchen, and he saw the witch-themed potholders hanging from hooks.
Sarah skipped toward him like a dancing preschooler. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Is this a joke?”
“You live in Salem and you think Halloween is a joke?” She stood on her toes and reached her arms around his neck. “Besides, who better to celebrate Halloween than a vampire husband and his ghost wife?”
James was too distracted by the decorations to answer. He hated Halloween for all the same reasons he hated Dracula. If humans thought ghouls and goblins were their greatest threats, how little they understood. When he looked at Sarah he half-expected her to be orange and black and wearing a pointed witch’s hat. She must have seen his agitation because she dropped her arms and stepped away.
“Jennifer told me you’re a grouch around Halloween. You’re looking a little puckered, Doctor Wentworth.” She walked toward the decorations as though she were siding with them against him. “They’re decorations. They’re meant to be fun, allow grown-ups to feel like kids again for a little while every year, but if you hate them that much I’ll take them down. I don’t want to look at that annoyed face for the next two weeks.”
James looked at the caricatures of green-faced, sharp-fanged, cape-wearing vampires, cackling witches on broomsticks, shapeless, booing ghosts, howling werewolves, glaring square-faced Frankensteins, and he shook his head. But he saw Sarah admiring the pumpkin-painted porcelain plates, the haunted house flags, the Witches Brew cauldron by the door, her face flushed like a costumed girl ready for candy Halloween night. He reached for her hand when she smiled that smile he lived for. He would do anything to keep that smile happy.
Again, the thought that she would be a wonderful mother.
Again, the voice. “Yes,” it said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Fine. I’ll have everything down by tomorrow night.”
“No, Sarah…” He put his arms around her though she tried to push him away. “Keep the decorations. Keep whatever will make you happy. All I want is for you to be happy.” She stopped resisting and relaxed into him. “What do you want, Sarah. Tell me what you want to be happy.”
“You make me happy,” she said. “You’re all I need. And…”
“And what? A child?”
Sarah pushed the air from her lungs. She pulled away from him, her dark eyes unsure. “I thought there was no way…”
“If you want to adopt we should.”
“What about all the reasons you had about why it could never work?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Are you sure?” She held herself still, as though she were afraid he would change his mind and this joyous moment would fall away from her like water through cupped hands.
“There’s only one thing I have ever been more sure about, and that’s you.”
Sarah smiled. James could see the peace settle over her, an iridescent halo. She crossed her arms, pulling him, closer, closer, as though she wanted to merge with him. They were already one, James thought, each a part of the other.
Sarah looked at the orange and black. “You’ll have to get used to the decorations. Kids like Halloween.”
James laughed. “I know, honey. I know.”
While James was at work that night, Sarah felt the restless leg syndrome shaking her bones. A child. James agreed to adopt a child. Where she had managed to subdue the longing when she thought he would never agree, now that he was open, he was willing, the manic I-have-to-have-it-now need she felt outside of Jocelyn’s house returned, its full force rattling her, trapping her under an avalanche of want.
“It’s going to take time,” James said before he left. “There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out, and there’s interviews, and background checks…” Sarah laughed at the look on his face when he said ‘background checks.’ Then he winked at her. “How far back do you think they check?” he asked.
In search of something to keep her body busy and her mind occupied, she went for a walk. She walked far and fast, away from the bay down Derby Street to Essex, around Washington Square and the green expanse of Salem Common. The night was crisp and cool, not yet cold, the richness of autumn with the barest hint of winter fade. The houses, the shops, everywhere she looked was Halloween. Round, orange pumpkins sat bundled on porches, some left whole, others carved jack-o-lanterns lit from the glowing candles inside. She pulled her sweater around her neck and headed down Hawthorne Boulevard, passing the red-brick Hawthorne Hotel, walking along the thin strip of sidewalk separating the sides of the road, past the statue of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Salem’s favorite son, then back to Essex Street and Central, around the Old Burying Point Cemetery, the oldest graveyard in Salem. She passed that quickly, ignoring the stone-carved headstones. Suddenly, she remembered that the remains of John Hathorne, Hawthorne’s ancestor, a magistrate at the witch trials, were buried there, and she understood her sudden chills. Then she laughed at herself. Hathorne is dead and bones, six feet under, while you’re walking home where you’ll see your dear and loving husband soon. Hathorne can’t hurt you now. Besides, when your husband is a vampire and you’re a ghost, is there anything left to frighten you?
Sarah didn’t wait to be rational. She hurried back to Derby past Pickering Wharf. It was quiet along the dock except for the people eating at the restaurants, some outside under the umbrellas watching the serenity of the night-tide bay. She thought about stopping by the Witches Lair to see if Olivia was there, but it was late and the shops were dark. She wondered if she should get another psychic reading after all. She couldn’t live like this, swinging from the tips of dangling nerves, unable to settle until they brought their child home. James was right. It would take time. And Jennifer was right too. Olivia had helped her before. True, Sarah had been frightened out of her wits at the psychic reading, but then, when Sarah was wrought with angst over those chain-filled nightmares that jolted her awake, Olivia had pointed her in the direction of Martha, who had pointed her in the direction of Elizabeth, which was who she had been all along. Maybe she would go for another reading after all.
Maybe.
Back home she was just was as agitated as she was before she left. Looking for something to do, she wandered through the newly remodeled stainless steel kitchen with the modern marble island in the center, though everything was clean and there was nothing to keep her occupied. She saw the wood ladder so she climbed up to the open, loft-style attic. She sighed when she saw everything strewn about, old feather mattresses, silverware, cooking utensils, blue and white Delftware dishes, mugs, rolled up seventeenth century maps. She picked up a pile of moth-eaten linens so threadbare they disintegrated in her hands, but beneath them was a seventeenth century chest with the lock unlatched. She pushed open the top, looked inside, and gasped aloud.
“Hello.”
Sarah was startled to see James at the top of the ladder. She was so distracted she didn’t hear him come in. Normally, she heard him open the front door, the old-time wood frame creaking like an old man standing from a low chair.
“Hello yourself,” she said.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping busy. It’s a mess up here, did you know that?”
“Everyone’s attic is a mess.”
He stepped onto the attic floor and held out his arms. Sarah pushed herself into him, squeezing him, closing her eyes, losing herself in him. When she stepped back he was intent, looking over her shoulder at the brown material she pulled out of the trunk.
“I didn’t know you kept my clothes,” she said.
“I kept everything. This whole house was a tribute to you. I left, sometimes for decades, but I always came back. I thought I should sell everything and move on, but I could never bring my
self to let go.”
Sarah held the dress out, inspecting the stitching, running her hand over the fabric. “It’s a little worn,” she said, “but it isn’t too bad. Maybe I could bring it to someone to restore it.”
James took the dress into his hands and held it close to his face, dwelling on the details, intent the way he was when he was reading or taking notes, or the way he looked at her.
“Whenever I missed you, I took this out and held it in my arms as if I were holding you again.” His mellow voice cracked. “I’d cradle it, bury my nose in the folds of fabric, aching for any sense of you. It didn’t bring back your dark curls or your full lips, but it was something I could hold.”
He shook his head as though pressing the sadness away. “I haven’t pulled it out for nearly a year now. I don’t need it any more.” He nodded at the brown Pilgrim-style dress. “You haven’t seen this before tonight?”
“I haven’t been up here since I moved in.”
James nudged her, a playful smile on his lips. “You should put it on. You know, like old times.”
“You always hated all the laces and straps.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
Sarah skipped away, then took a book from the chest and handed it to him. “I found this too,” she said. “Don’t you recognize it?”
James turned the tattered volume over in his hands. The binding was torn and a few pages fell loose. “It’s our family Bible,” he said. “This was one of the few belongings my father brought with us on our journey from England. I remember how, when we were packing for our trip, my father wouldn’t leave without it.”
“Tell me,” Sarah said.
James smiled as he always did when talking about his father. “I remember standing in our home when he gestured at the fashionable furnishings in our fashionable house in a fashionable part of London. ‘Most of this, ‘tis not necessary, James,’ he said, his hand sweeping across the room. ‘The chairs, the tables, even the expensive dishware your mother loved so. They’re only things, and when we die we cannot take them with us. Our Lord has no need for them. They shan’t come with us to the colonies, either. We’ll find new things, whatever things we’ll need, right there wherever we are.’
Her Loving Husband's Curse Page 6