The evening sky hugged the ground in the distance, red bleeding into night. For as far as the eye could see, the undisturbed horizon ran off into hills, tan roads snaking inward and disappearing among them. The last dregs of light turned the grass orange where it lined the dirt road under a boy’s feet. He whistled and waved to his neighbors as he passed, but in his heart, the depths of his worries flared. He walked with an edge to his step, half hurrying, half skipping, as if to pretend he felt no concern. But when he looked up to a house at the end of the street, the open front door seemed to stop his heart.
Silence seized the sound of children laughing, dogs barking, and his own quiet thoughts. I couldn’t understand why, but I could sense something was off. So could the boy.
Two breaths passed before the thump of his knapsack hitting the ground brought all life, all sound back.
The movie played in slow motion, making the distance between the picket gate and the porch steps seem like a hundred yards as he ran, his heels kicking up clouds of dust behind him. But everything stopped, the color draining from the day, shadowing out the warmth as only absence greeted the boy’s call. He stood in the frame of the door, his eyes tracing the raw pine staircase, the archway to the left, and finally falling over a table knocked to its side. Shattered blue pottery lay among twelve rose stems, the red petals crumpled and torn, smudged into the hardwood floors all around his feet.
“Arietta?” he called again, expecting to hear her reply. He held his breath, this boy with gold-brown hair and fair skin, and bravely entered, though he could feel the grip of tragedy climbing the walls.
When he toed the edge of the table to shift it away, four curled fingers, tipped red with blood, revealed themselves.
“Aunty?” He rushed to her side, falling to his knees at the sight of her fragile, slender body, twisted awkwardly as if she’d fallen from something impossibly high and landed without bones in her body. Stringy red tendrils mocked what was once hair of gold, and as the boy reached forward and stroked it from her cheek, he turned her face toward him and let out a shallow, empty cry, falling back on his heels.
An unrecognizable face stared back at him, eyes swollen shut, a deep void where the other half of her skull should be. Her lip had been torn up to her nose, revealing several teeth missing, and my heart suddenly beat faster.
The boy got to his knees again, swiping tears from his cheeks, and lifted the bodice of her dress. With another panicked cry, he felt helplessly around the blackened dome of skin, searching for the feel of life within.
As the seconds passed, staining his shaking hands with truth, he turned his head to read something inscribed on the wall beside him. The memory blanked out the words, leaving only the feeling that followed, and I knew they were a passage from the Bible, condemning infidelity.
David covered the belly of his aunt and sat up suddenly, his ears pricked, eyes wide. Then he launched to his feet and extended his hand toward the door. “Jason. Don’t come in!”
A boy, an exact copy of David, stopped dead in the doorway—his boisterous smile slipping away at the sight of his blood-covered brother.
“Get Uncle,” he said shakily.
The hesitant boy tried to look past David, so he stepped into the path of his gaze.
“Jason, run. Get Uncle!” David yelled his command, and Jason moved. Swift and graceful, he tore down the street, his lanky limbs blurring with speed until he disappeared from sight.
David turned back to his aunt and fell to his knees again, his body submitting to grief. But he stopped suddenly as the deathly figure beneath him groaned.
“Aunty!” He held his breath, not sure if he should touch her. “Aunty!”
“Da-v-id…” She moved her hand to reach for him, her soft gaze suddenly slipping past him to a white look of terror. Like a tidal wave preparing itself for slaughter, the silence drew in around them then cracked apart like a shattering vial of terror. The woman clutched her belly and rolled upward, screeching for all the pain Hell had summoned.
“Aunty? What can I do?” His voice trembled with helplessness. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Save him! Save my baby!” She rolled away, covering her stomach in a tight, protective embrace.
The memory faded out to white dots around the edges of the film, and the birds in the tree above us sang a melody I had no mind for a moment ago, but was completely aware of.
I lifted my eyelids, blinking against the gray day, and turned my head to look at David—the grown-up David. “You found her?”
“I delivered her baby.”
I covered my mouth. “But you were just a child. How did you do that?”
He swallowed a hard lump. “I was simply there to hold her as she was born. I did little else, and there was nothing I could do to help my aunt.” His fists clenched. “No one came to the sound of her screaming. No one called for a doctor. She was a woman scorned for her sins, and they let her die like a dog.” His lip stiffened and anger flooded his voice, a kind of anger I’d never ever seen in him. “I wrapped the child in my coat and laid in my aunt’s arms until nightfall.
“By the time I heard footsteps on the porch outside, I was numb—completely numb. I simply stood, held the baby out to my uncle as he burst through the door, and told him I lost her.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He took her from my arms and, though I knew nothing of the world back then, I saw a piece of his soul die as he closed her eyelids and covered her face delicately with my jacket.” He sniffed, his jaw set hard. “I will never truly understand what my uncle lost that night and, at the time, I thought nothing of the fact that he fell to the floor beside Arietta, with his child crushed against his chest, and laid there until they came to take her. Only now do I see it for the madness it stirred within him.”
“Did he ever recover?”
“Can someone recover from that?” David asked rhetorically. “He went on with his life, like any wise vampire on the World Council would, but he never spoke of her. Even now, the mention of children sends his eyes soulless.” David reached over and wiped a warm tear from my cheek, then smiled softly. “The police came; they took Victor and charged him with aggravated assault. He was jailed for a month, then released with a warning, since the evidence was inconclusive.”
“That’s it? He killed her and he got a month?”
David nodded and clapped his hands together once, as if closing the door on the past. He rearranged his facial features then and laid his elbows loosely over his knees. “And life went on. Uncle Arthur left town for a while, promising to return when he had made arrangements for us.” He brushed his palm across the headstone behind him and nodded toward it. “We buried her on a warm spring day with her baby in her arms, where she will lay evermore.”
“David, that’s so sad,” I whispered, feeling the rise of little bumps over my cold skin.
“Hers has been a loss I have never moved past.” He inclined his head to his position on her grave. “And this is where I’ll sit one day, feeling the grief for another, with no hope of ever holding her again. Only the name will read a different story: it will be one of true love lost tragically to poor timing.” He looked down at the ground. “For me, Ara, your death will be only but a breath away; a second in time, and you will be gone. You have your whole life ahead of you, but for a vampire it’s nothing but a heartbeat.”
“I’m sorry, David. I wish with all of my heart that it were different.”
“I know. But you will never feel the pain of it as I will.” He rocked his jaw, nodding as if to make himself stronger. “When you die, I will never see you again. Can you comprehend what that feels like for me?”
His words were almost enough to make me change my mind in that breath—to save him from this horrible reality. But his sadness would never make me want his life. It all just seemed so hopeless.
“I’m not telling you this to make you change your mind,” he said.
“Then why did
you bring me here?”
“It was supposed to be… I just wanted to let you into my past. I never meant to make it about our future.”
I laughed softly. “I get it. I find myself doing the same thing—turning the simplest situation into an argument with myself about what I should do.”
“Come on then.” He stood in front of me, his hand outstretched. “I heard the ogre complaining about ten minutes ago. Let’s get some food and stop dwelling on our problems.”
“Okay.” Gravity pulled on me as I rose to my feet and followed David, still pushing as I stole a glance back to the hill where Arietta would stay. Once, she had been promised a future, and now she was in the ground—never to know her child’s name. I could see myself sitting up there beside her, and though my feet led me away, my heart remained where my body would one day return to meet it. And that idea scared me to the point of shaking: the idea of death. It never used to, but seeing those graves painted the truth on a canvas of reality, textured in rough strokes of dark gray, blue, and black. It was real. Death was real, and it was coming for me—getting a little closer every day.
* * *
Bowling had never been my forte, and even though David rolled a perfect strike every time—with the exception of one, because I shot him an inappropriate thought which put him off his game—we still lost. Ryan and Alana took home the win: a giant stuffed bowling pin purchased by all the losers. It was nice to spend an evening being normal, not thinking about the bleak future I had to face.
“I’ll see you guys at school.” Emily waved as we headed out the door.
“Actually, I won’t be attending tomorrow,” David said.
“Why not?” Emily stopped beside Spencer.
“I’m going away.” His matter-of-fact tone disguised all the agony he was in, knowing he would never see any of them again. “My uncle is taking me on holiday, so tomorrow is my last day here.”
“So you’re skipping school too, Ara?” Ryan asked, raising his brows a few times.
“Probably.”
“Ara’s going to be so lost without you, David,” Emily said.
“One can only hope,” he beamed, “then I can be sure she won’t give her heart away to someone else while I’m gone.”
“Not a chance of that. I think you might be stuck with this one.” Emily winked at me.
David’s strong arms wrapped my waist and pulled me close. “I hope so.”
“What about the concert and the ball?” Alana stepped around the giant toy, and her wide jet-black eyes reflected the neon lights behind me.
“I can come back for the concert, but as for the ball—well, I may make the last dance,” he said.
“Well, good luck, David,” Emily said, her tone holding way too much gravity.
David tightened his grip around me.
“O…kay. See ya, guys.” I waved again and dragged David toward the car.
He opened the door and grabbed my wrist as I bent to climb in. “What is it, Ara? What are you thinking?”
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“Not clearly. You had about four different thoughts at once.”
“Oh, um… well, I was wondering why you didn’t tell them you’re never coming back.”
David smiled. “We never do that. That’s why telling you about leaving in the first place was such a big deal.”
“Really? So you just disappear in all aspects?”
“Yes. Mostly. We send letters to people in positions of authority, like schools or employers, once we’re safely away, but if there had been any suspicions surrounding our stay, announcing plans to leave could spark a sudden need to investigate before it’s too late.”
“Oh.” I traced the rubber seal along the base of the window. “But there’s no suspicion this time, so why not just tell them?”
“There’s no way of knowing that. People mostly keep their suspicions to themselves, and besides”—he pulled my finger away as I peeled the rubber back—“it’s the way we do things. We’re consistent in our behaviors.”
“But you told me you were leaving.” I smiled sheepishly, forcing down a rising yawn.
“Which is rare, mon amour, like I said. Now, come on”—he offered the seat—“let’s get you home before you fall asleep where you stand.”
I sat down and the door closed behind me, giving my head support as I drifted away. I felt my seatbelt clip around me a second later, followed by a cool kiss on my hand, then nothing more until the quiet thud of his door woke my mind a little.
“Shh,” David whispered into my brow, lifting me from the car.
Quietly conscious of his embrace, I rolled my head into the hollow of his shoulder and fixated on the gentle, soapy smell of his shirt with each restful breath.
“Oh, she’s exhausted,” Dad’s voice hummed as a pale ring of light broke the darkness under my eyelids.
“Shall I carry her upstairs?” David asked, holding me a little closer.
“Uh, yeah, sure. No need to disturb her further.”
The front door closed behind us. I stayed in the blissful elation of dream world, in David’s arms, until the cold touch of my pillow fell along my cheek and I sunk into the softness of my mattress. My shoes came off and a still silence filled the room; it sounded like no one was there, but I could feel David’s presence.
“Goodnight, my love.” He pressed a cold kiss to my brow.
I lifted my mind out of sleep just long enough to whisper, “David?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Stay with me tonight?”
“I planned to,” he whispered, and the bedroom door closed, leaving me in darkness.
Outside, I heard Dad saying goodbye to David as his car pulled away from our house. And the only other sound, after Dad’s footsteps trailed away behind his bedroom door, was the rhythmic tick of the clock on the wall by the front door, timing my dreams while I slipped away.
Just before the grasp of sleep possessed me, two cool arms fell around my shoulders, and I let myself wander into the peaceful harmony of the night, against David’s chest.
* * *
The sweet chocolaty smell of David stirred my senses through the night, waking me with surprise when I looked up and saw the morning sun on his cheek. “You stayed!”
“Of course.” He stretched his arms out above us. “You asked me to.”
“Hasn’t mattered in the past.”
“Yes, well,” he said, his arm landing back down around my shoulders. “In the past, I didn’t only have two days left with you.”
That put a dampener on the day.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” He rolled me onto my back, his long body against the length of mine. “Just don’t think about it. In fact”—he couldn’t help but smile, his eyes drifting to a thought—“why not go back to thinking about that dream you were just having?”
My mouth popped open. “You saw that?”
“My love.” He kissed my nose. “I saw everything.”
“Goddamn mind readers!” With a feisty huff, I threw the covers back and headed for the shower—and maybe a few minutes of unheard thoughts.
“Your thought patterns are not muted by short distances, Ara. I can still hear you,” he called out as I shut the bathroom door.
“Argh! Stop it.” I covered my ears, as if that would help. But I couldn’t stop seeing those images: David and me naked, tucked in a loving embrace. And the worst part was, all of it was my own desires—like writing a porn entry in a diary and having someone read it out loud. It was just too personal to share.
I took off the jeans and green sweater I slept in last night and stuffed them in the laundry basket, burying my undies and bra in case David needed to use the bathroom.
“I’ve already seen your underwear, my darling girl,” he called out. “You don’t have to hide them now.”
My shoulders dropped with a vocalized breath. At least there was one good thing about
having a mind-reading vampire boyfriend: I’d had plenty of practice at emptying my thoughts and focusing on nothing. I was sure, in some odd way, that that could be a good skill to have.
“Speaking of skills,” David said from just outside the bathroom door, “we need to rehearse for the benefit concert. I’m not even sure which song we’re supposed to be playing now.”
I reached into the shower and twisted the faucet, then stood back and waited for the water to get hot. “Um, we’re doing that one from that movie—the one Nathan liked.”
David chuckled softly. “He liked a lot of movies, Ara.”
“Well, you know which one I mean,” I said. “I can never remember the title.”
“Are you still doing a solo performance?” His voice echoed slightly too loud through the door, making me cringe a little in case Dad should hear.
“Yeah, and we’re also doing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I waited in case he replied, looking over my thin body in the reflection of the shower glass. But when the silence lasted a few seconds, I stepped into the welcoming steam whorls and ran my hands over my hair. The running water and locked doors offered me a kind of privacy I wasn’t used to anymore—one where I could imagine my thoughts were unheard… just like my shower singing.
“Ara!”
I jumped out of my skin at the sudden thud on the door.
“Save some water for future generations, please.”
Jeeze. “Yes, Dad—just rinsing my hair.”
“It doesn’t take your mother that long.”
By mother, he meant Vicki. “She has short hair, Dad.”
He groaned loud enough that I heard it through the door.
“Hmph. You’d do a lot more than just groan if you knew I had my boyfriend in my room right now,” I said under my breath. Thing was, Dad would freak if there was a boy in my room, but I bet he’d take it really well if I told him David was a vampire. I think he’d see it as a rare opportunity to hear tales of History firsthand.
I finished washing my hair and hopped out, just slipping my blue cotton dress over my head when the phone on my desk rang.
Dark Secrets Box Set Page 45
