by Paul Barrett
She tugged at a strand of hair and cocked an eyebrow, which gave her a mischievous appearance. “Corby said you asked a lot of questions about me. Why?”
“Because I wanted to know about you. Corby talked about your generous spirit.”
Elissia laughed. “There are others who would offer a different opinion, but I am good to Corby. He’s like my—” She stopped and frowned. “He’s my only real friend in town, and I’m his. But I guess you are now, too.”
Erick didn’t know if she meant he was Corby’s friend, or hers. He desperately hoped she meant both.
“So, did Corby answer all your questions?”
“All the ones I asked him,” Erick said.
“I’m here now, so you can ask me whatever you didn’t ask him.”
Erick shifted on the bench. He couldn’t ask what he really wanted to know. He had learned enough from his parents to understand that some questions were off limits, especially with someone you just met. “I don’t really have any questions right now.”
Elissia smiled, and Erick suspected she didn’t believe him. “Okay.”
They sat for a time in silence, Erick enjoying Elissia’s presence. He found it different than his experiences with Corby, when they sat at the fence and talked. Different, and profoundly, inexplicably better. Erick had learned about the physical nature of the relationship between men and women, and he knew his parents loved each other. But he found that an abstract notion. No one had ever explained the intangible joy of just being in the presence of a female. Erick had never been so giddy, and he had no idea why.
“How come you never came into town?” Elissia asked.
It took Erick a moment to register she had spoken, lost as he had been in enjoying her closeness. “I was forbidden.”
“Why?”
Erick shrugged. “Same reason you were. If I went down there, I would have been killed. That’s what my father said. Blink flew in at night sometimes and looked at things for me. It was the closest I dared.”
She studied him with an unreadable expression that nonetheless made Erick feel she considered his worthiness. He must have passed whatever test she put him through, because she smiled. “Well, now that your father can’t keep you locked away and fill your head with nonsense, maybe you’ll see how wrong he was.”
Shocked by such an unexpected statement, it took Erick a moment to reply. “You never knew my father. Don’t talk about him like that.”
“I didn’t know him, but I know listening to a father isn’t always the best course.” Elissia’s voice rang with bitterness.
The resentment in her statement stopped Erick’s angry retort. What had her father done to her to make her so mad? It didn’t matter. Her problems gave her no right to talk about his family as if she knew them.
“My father was a great man and a wonderful teacher.” His tender throat wanted to close up as a wash of grief tried to intrude, but he pushed it aside. He stood and turned away.
Cloth rustled as she stood up. “I’m sure your father was all those things, but the other night it sounded like someone was lying, and I know it wasn’t Brannon.”
He turned to her. The setting sun ignited her hair like a burning coal. She was beautiful, but her spiteful mind dampened Erick’s interest. “I know it wasn’t my father.”
“Do you really? His vow to Sangara aside, Brannon has no reason to lie. Are you so certain your father didn’t have a reason?”
“Yes!” Erick’s voice wavered as tears threatened.
“Really?” Elissia asked. “He became a vampire without you knowing it. What else did he do you weren’t aware of? Parents keep secrets. They’ll tell you one thing and mean another. They’ll expect you to be something you’re not and try to make you do things you don’t want to do.”
“Your parents, maybe, but not mine.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot that you were free to come and go as you pleased. I forgot that you weren’t cooped up in a creepy house with corpses, or that your parents were so happy that they didn’t throw themselves off a cliff. And of course, you knew your father would come back as a monster and kill eight people.”
Erick wanted to hate her for rubbing his parents’ suicide in his face, but something in her voice wouldn’t let him. Where Fathen’s tone had pushed him over the edge, Elissia’s filled him with confusion. She didn’t seem angry so much as...sad.
“Maybe you should leave,” Erick said, afraid that if she stayed any longer and said any more, he would end up hating her.
“Maybe I should,” Elissia agreed. “But you need to be your own person, not your father’s. He’s not who you think he was. They never are.”
“And he’s not who you think he was, either,” Erick said.
“Maybe,” Elissia said, eyes downcast. She shook her head and walked away from the garden.
Erick watched her go, wondering if he had seen the last of her.
As she stepped outside the manor gate, Elissia finally released her anger. She kicked at the ground, jumped around, shouted, and shook her fists.
“Have you lost your mind?” a soft voice asked.
She turned to her left to find Corby sitting, back against the iron fence, quill in hand, a piece of parchment laid against the haversack in his lap. Lines of black dotted his thin lips from where he had rested the pen against them. In her anger, she hadn’t noticed him as she stormed from the manor house.
“I’m furious,” Elissia said.
“That much is obvious.” Corby put the quill down. “Why?” He put the lid on his jar of ink.
“Erick is naïve beyond belief. Can’t he understand what his parents did to him? They ruined his childhood, keeping him locked up with dead things.”
“Did you tell him that?” Corby set his haversack aside and pulled his knees up to his chest.
“Sort of.”
“And I’m sure you did it in that understanding tone of voice you use so well?”
“Yes,” Elissia answered, softening her voice.
“And you’re surprised that he took offense?”
“No,” Elissia said, letting her shoulders slump.
“So, what are you really mad about?”
Elissia sighed and flopped down beside Corby, who laid his head on his knees and stared at her.
“I’m mad that Franzen is dead. I’m mad that you almost died. I’m mad that I’m still stuck here.”
“And,” Corby prompted when she stopped for a moment, her face tight.
“I’m mad at myself for being such a bitch. Poor Erick wakes up after three days unconscious, the first thing he does is take the blame for something he couldn’t control, and I tell him his dead parents were imposters who spent their lives lying to him.” She let out a growl of frustration and tore up handfuls of grass.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
Corby nodded, unfolded himself, placed the haversack and parchment on his lap, and continued writing.
That was why Elissia loved her cousin so much. Unlike her aunts, especially the childless Beatru, Corby knew just what to ask, when to listen, and when to keep his mouth shut. She had heard others their age complain about his snobbishness and how much he showed off his superior knowledge, but she suspected jealousy brewed at least half of that poison. Corby was the smartest person she knew, aside from his father, and he wasn’t afraid to use his intelligence.
Elissia knew she had lashed out at Erick as payback for his revelation about his father. She had lost her only friend to the monster that ravaged Draymed. She had almost lost Corby, and the part of her most like her father blamed Erick and wanted retaliation. So she had used the tactics her father used every day against his enemies. She told Erick not to be like his parents in the same manner her father employed. And only after she left did she realize what she had done.
Anger had been her father’s gift to her, one she could never return. It disgusted Elissia that she had fallen so quickly into his mode of thinking,
his use of words and innuendo to get his way. Even three years and an ocean apart, he influenced her in ways unexpected and disconcerting.
“Can we ever escape our parents?” Elissia asked.
Corby stopped writing and put the pen to his lips. After a moment, he took it away, leaving another thin line. “Probably not. All we can do is hope to take what they give us, improve on the good parts, and leave the bad ones behind.”
Elissia nodded. “Erick’s father was hiding something from him. Nobody spends that much time alone in a basement for a noble purpose.”
“Did you tell him you had been up there spying on them?”
“I almost did, but then we got into the argument, so he can wait.”
“Oh, the famous Elissia silent treatment.” He went back to writing. “What I can’t believe is that you didn’t tell me until yesterday.”
“At least I just looked around. You talked to him. And for almost a year.” She gave her cousin a light slap on the arm. “And you told me nothing.”
“I love you, cousin, but some things I want to keep to myself as long as I can. Now that the whole town knows about him, I’ll lose him.”
“You won’t lose him. He’ll still be your friend.”
“Yes, but he won’t be just my friend. He’ll find others, people he likes more, and then he’ll abandon me.”
Elissia sighed. Although Corby spoke with no emotion, like a teacher stating facts, his placid demeanor hid great turbulence. His soft-spoken intelligence and unwillingness to stand up for himself made him an easy target for the other boys in the village. In Erick, he had found someone who appreciated him.
“Cousin,” she said. “Erick risked his life to save you from a vampire. Do you really think he’s going to leave you behind?”
Corby continued to write. After a moment, he stopped, “Perhaps not.”
Elissia smiled, and Corby offered a small, tentative grin.
“Do you like him?” Corby asked.
The question came out casually, but Elissia suspected it was fraught with meaning. She picked up one of the ripped blades of grass, long and thick, and began tearing it into thin strips. “I don’t know him well enough yet to say. He’s not like any other boy I’ve met, that’s for certain.”
She remembered his ivory skin, which blushed so quickly, and the curly brown hair that hung to his shoulders. His eyes, the pale blue of sapphires, gave her a warm sensation she had never thought to feel with anyone. They made her feel, oddly enough, safe. “He’s more interesting than anybody else around here. Except for you,” she added when Corby pouted.
“No, he’s much more interesting than I am. All I can do is remember things. He can raise dead people. Do you think he might teach me how, or at least let me watch sometime?”
Elissia shrugged and let the grass fall from her hand. “Maybe. Did you know he owns three hundred acres?”
Corby whistled. “There’s a perfect reason to like him right there.”
With an indelicate snort, Elissia said, “Maybe for you, but I could give a piss about land. If I can keep the other harpies from sinking their claws into him and convince him there’s more to life than Keystone Island, I can get him to go with me to Kalador.”
“Are you still harboring that fantasy?”
“It’s not a fantasy,” Elissia said, hands balling into fists. “I reach my majority in less than a year, and I can go, Beatru be damned. But Erick is legal now. If I can convince him to leave, he can take me with him. The sooner I’m away from here, the better.”
“And you really think you can swoop in and oust your father? Overthrow him and take your ‘rightful’ place as leader of your people?”
“With Erick’s help and his undead, yes, I do.” Elissia face heated up, and she forced herself to calm down. “But it’s more than that. I miss Marcus. Every day. You can’t know what that’s like.”
“No, I can’t,” Corby said. He ran a hand through his hair. “And what about me? I’m a year younger than you, so I’m to stay behind? Left here alone, without your protection?”
Elissia pursed her lips. “I didn’t think about that.”
“You never do. When it comes down to it, you only think about yourself. I wouldn’t expect any less.” Corby spoke without rancor, but guilt assailed Elissia anyway. Selfishness. Yet another facet her father passed on to her.
“Don’t worry,” she said, putting an arm around Corby’s shoulder. “You’re smart, and I’m sneaky. We’ll figure out something.”
Erick closed the kitchen door and slumped into a dark wooden chair beside the dining table. “Elissia won’t be joining us for breakfast.”
“I gathered that,” Blink said, setting a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of Erick.
“She shouldn’t have spoken about Father like that.”
“Agreed.”
Erick picked up his iron fork and stabbed at the eggs. “Who does she think she is? She knows nothing about me, nothing about my family, and she feels like she can say anything she wants to me. Damn her.” He stuffed eggs into his mouth.
“You like her, don’t you?”
“I’ve liked her ever since Corby first described her, but that’s not the point. What good is her beauty if she’s also spiteful and rude?”
“I think what you’re most afraid of is that she may be right.”
Erick stopped eating as Blink expressed the thing Erick couldn’t. Elissia had no right to put doubts in his mind, planting them like evil seeds, even as he stood there protesting his father’s innocence. “Is she? Did Dad lie to me?”
Balancing on a three-legged stool, Blink placed the dirty iron skillet in the sink and poured water from a bucket onto it, causing it to sizzle and smoke. “I don’t know, but like I said the other night, why would he?”
“I don’t know either,” Erick said. “I don’t think he would, but she’s convinced Brannon wouldn’t.”
Blink sat the bucket on the counter, jumped off the stool, and trundled to the table. “There’s always the possibility Fathen is lying to everybody.”
Erick gaped at Blink. “I never thought of that.”
“That’s because most of your brains squirted out of you when you created me, and I got them.”
“Yeah, but at least I kept all the beauty for myself.”
“Oh, that hurts.”
Erick gave a faint smile. “It makes sense. Fathen tells the townspeople my father demanded they stay away or he would do something wicked to them, and he tells Father the family is not welcome in Draymed or they’ll be killed. Maybe he hoped the isolation would chase us away. It must have driven him mad when we didn’t leave. I wonder if Elissia even considered that.”
Blink sat in the chair beside Erick. “Why do you think they stayed?”
“You know how stubborn Father could be. If he were working the manor, he wouldn’t stop until he finished, and Mom would have to drag him to supper. The last few months she complained that he stayed in the lab too late every night. Besides, this was home. Mom often said, ‘better the evil you know than the one you don’t.’”
“Still, it must have been a lousy way to grow up.” Although he and Erick were close and often shared thoughts, Erick never offered much about his past, before Blink’s creation four years ago. Blink didn’t know if shame or lack of interest kept his master reticent. Out of love, he didn’t seek out the memories entwined in Erick’s thoughts.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Erick said. “I had Mom and her books, and my studies, and the two priquana children to play with. I don’t think I missed much not being around people. If they’re all like Elissia, I didn’t miss anything.”
Blink grinned. “Perhaps, but you haven’t stopped thinking about her since you came back through the door.”
Erick glared at the homunculus. “Haven’t stopped thinking about how rude she is.”
“More like how pretty she is. Planning on making a few homunculi tonight?” Blink asked with a wink.
“Y
ou’re disgusting,” Erick said with a glare that quickly turned into a shy smile as he stared at the table to avoid eye contact.
“But I’m right,” Blink said.
Erick shifted in his chair and placed his elbows on the table. “The possibility that Fathen lied is a good theory, especially since it would give me a reason to have the quana beat him half to death. My parents never talked much about the past, but I know they lived here before Fathen showed up. We need to find some others who lived in Draymed before Fathen and see if they know anything that could help us.”
“How are we going to do that?” Blink asked.
Erick grinned. “We’re going to go down to town tomorrow, like normal people, and ask.”
6
“I find the Gods to be of little use, but I do feel the hand of Denech may have been involved with my meeting Erick. As for the rest, we managed that on our own.”
- Elissia of Kalador, speaking to Corberin of Draymed
The next morning, Erick stood with Blink outside the manor as a warm breeze blew across the grass. He wore a white linen shirt and green breeches, both clean thanks to Elissia. He had bathed and applied a tincture of oakmoss, strong and earthy, from his father’s shelf. He hoped he hadn’t put on too much.
He stared down at Draymed, a large square of about fifty wooden houses. A few stone buildings occupied the center, the temple to Caros the largest. Another twenty or so wooden buildings stood scattered outside the perimeter. Farm and pastureland bordered three sides, and the ocean held the town’s eastern edge. Two piers extended into the water. Small fishing vessels tied to the closest dock bobbed in the gentle swell. A dirt road, barely a cart’s width, headed northwest, and a footpath led southwest toward the jungle, two hours away.
“I’m not going,” Erick said. Despite his easy assertion last night, the thought of walking into the village alone terrified him.
“Yes, you are,” Blink said. They had decided he should stay behind since several of the townspeople had not seen him up close. They didn’t want to frighten anyone unnecessarily. “I’ll be here and can be there almost as quick as you call. Do you really want Fathen to go unpunished if he’s guilty of lying? Think about how different your life could have been.”
