by P. Mattern
Cass propped his son on his knee, selected a brightly colored teething ring (which Cory immediately grasped with both of his baby fists and pulled into his mouth), and cleared his throat.
“Mitzi, everyone tells me you filed for an annulment-is that true?”
Mitzi flushed and hated herself for not being able to meet his eyes.
“Yes. I thought it was the best thing to do. You’re not being able to remember our relationship… Turning me… loving me… I didn’t think it was fair to try to continue with each other after we lost our history together. I think an annulment is the fairest thing, don’t you?”
Cass frowned.
“Well if you’d asked me that a few days ago I’m sure I would have agreed. To tell you the truth I’ve been sowing a lot of wild oats lately, kind of continuing in the same mode I was in when we first casually met. And not thinking a thing of it. But then last night something happened… and I came here today to ask you about it.”
‘Finally she looks at me’ Cass thought to himself as Mitzi raised her eyes from the infant with the startlingly blue eyes and silver blonde hair to look at him directly and asked, ”What happened?”
Cass cleared his throat again.
“I had a dream last night. A vivid one. And you were in it. You were wearing some kind of lacy blouse and we were in a porch swing, sitting together. And you were asking me questions and I was laughing.
And then we started kissing, and I took your hand, and we went inside the house. And I could hear the grandfather clock ticking… and then… and then…” New Cass’s voice trailed off and a sudden flush appeared on both sides of his neck.
“And we made love.” Mitzi finished quietly for him.” That wasn’t just a dream Cass… that really happened.”
New Cass was quiet for a moment. Then,
“I wonder why THAT memory though, you know? Something that seems so random, yet…” and he looked up apologetically at Mitzi again, ”I can’t remember the BIG events… like our marriage. I’ve tried, but… nothing comes.”
Mitzi looked at him compassionately, but he noticed a small ironic smile playing about her mouth
“I know it may SEEM that way, but, the memory you described was actually a VERY important day in our history together Cass…
It was the first time that you ever said that you loved me. She finished, looking down at the top of the baby’s head again, stroking the fine tendrils of his hair with her small dainty fingers.
Cass seemed fixated on her hand.
“I remember something else, too, just now. I love your hands.” He said.
It was Mitzi’s turn to blush, just a little.
“You always did.” She said.
Cass thought it might be the perfect time to go for broke.
“Mitzi I realize it’s not much, but I do have these small pieces of our time together returning to me now. Even Dr. Caligare says it’s completely unpredictable if my memories will return, and how much of my past that has disappeared will ever resurface again. And Lux says he can tell that my intellect has even ramped up a bit. So I also came here to ask you for a little more time… a little more time before you give up on us. Just to make sure that it’s the best thing. Would you be willing to do that?”
Mitzi was about to shake her head no-she had never been one to prolong the agony in any situation… and in her mind that was exactly what New Cass was asking her to do: Stay in a frozen, hopeful, holding pattern waiting for a miracle whose chances of manifesting grew dimmer with each passing day.
But looking into his kind brown eyes full of silent pleadings, she found that she couldn’t say no.
“I will wait, Cass. Not forever, but awhile.” She sighed.
His name was Blue-and he was the palest vampire that any of the vamps had ever seen. His skin was so pale that he seemed powder blue around the edges. The shadows underlying the planes of his face had a bluish tinge. The shadows under his large cornflower blue eyes were blue. He was as white as paper whites, white as the moon in winter, white as bleached bones.
He was also the fattest vampire any of them had ever seen-a condition so rare that it was practically unheard of. A physical condition in vampiredom that was a rarity, not to mention an anomaly.
Yet, there he was, sitting gingerly on the edge of one of Fress’s overstuffed couch cushions, having a cup of Earl Grey tea with the vampires Celeste, (who had transported him to the Cottage), and the beautiful Ariel, her immortal life partner.
Celeste was speaking for the obviously shy and ill at ease young man.
“Blue was raised in the mountains of West Virginia. He believes he was bitten when he was out hunting one day-he was 17 at the time. He was an only child, a late-in-life baby for his mother, and his parents were quite elderly at the time. He was taking care of them, in their primitive conditions that meant hauling water, heating it outside, caring for crops, livestock and chickens… pioneer lifestyle, like most of their neighbors around them.
Anyway, he was attacked from behind by something unseen. When he came to his senses he was weak and had the telltale fang marks, but he was still alive…”
Celeste paused for a moment and slipped her arm around Blue. He was so large in girth that her arm only went partially around him.
“His parents were not as fortunate”, Celeste continued-“when he returned home he found they were lifeless- they’d been drained. Probably by the same rogue vampire that attacked him. He panicked and ran. He had a compass and kept going roughly west for awhile, discovering some of his new powers as he traveled. Surviving in the woods was no trick for Blue, because he’d done that his entire life.”
Fress reached out to place a sympathetic hand on Blue’s huge, pawlike hand.
“You are welcome to stay here as long as you want. My brother Lux and his friend Pierre have moved to a condo together. We do have other houseguests that you’ll meet-Cary and Avinash are the guys and Cary’s wife Kimbra lives here of course. My brother Cass is staying here also.”
Blue looked up into Fress’s beautiful and kind face. To him she looked like an angel.
“Thank you.” He answered. His voice was masculine but it was a boy’s voice rather than a man’s, and had a gentleness to it. ”You are kind to take me in. And I’ll try to be a help to you. I can fix most anything around a house or yard. I can cook too!” He added, looking up at her briefly and adding a shy smile before he dropped his eyes again.
Fress clasped her hands together as she often did when delighted.
“I think the first thing we will do is go shopping! There is a great large and tall men’s shop nearby and we want you to have a working wardrobe. And there are so many members of our tribe that you haven’t met yet. I have two younger brothers, Cass and Lux, and of course Charley Rabbit and Daniel Cook and Orry Preville and Merilee my bff-you’ll be meeting them all shortly!”
Blue was chewing nervously on his lower lip.
“Miss Fresssenda-what if they don’t like me… I’m pretty different. Not even Dr. Caligare can figure out why I’m so big compared to other vampires.”
Fress resisted an impulse to hug the young man… he did have a winning quality in his own way. And he really had a nice face. It was rounded because of his girth but he had choirboy good looks, shiny brown hair and a nice smile when you could get him to smile a little. And he was nearly six feet tall, slightly shorter than the twins and Charley - close to Daniel’s height.
She looked at him and winked.
“We all are honored to meet YOU Blue! And you came at the right time because I hate for the cottage to get too empty. So it’s settled then! We’ll run out to the clothing shop and then you can assist me in the kitchen. Grab a Sango from the kitchen… it’s a carbonated blood drink and it will give you an energy boost while we shop till we drop.”
She stopped to eye his ample waistline. ’We’ll probably start with a 50 waist and maybe 38 inseam’ she thought.
He was a pretty big boy.
Ian
was a welcome addition to the household at the farm. Cass had previously purchased horses- a roan mare for Mitzi and a black stallion for himself to ride. Ian knew something about horses from his previous human life, loved them, and loved to be around them. As soon as his wounds healed enough so that he could get around fairly well, he spent literally hours taking care of the horses. When Dr. Caligare cleared him to be able to ride, Mitzi encouraged him to exercise the horses whenever the mood would strike him.
One day Mitzi joined him on a late afternoon ride across the meadows of Sunnyside Farm. It was full on Summer now, the days were humid and hazy, and Mitzi spent as much time outside with the twins and Buttercup as possible, feeling that the fresh air was good for them. Riding gave Mitzi a break from her demanding duties as the single mother of twins, and she was glad that Ian had some equestrian skills.
He was pleasant company, especially since she and Cass were separated, but didn’t often make references to his past. Mitzi noticed with amusement that when Dendra visited she always managed to ask after Ian if she didn’t see him around. Dendra had always liked younger men, and now that she was in her glorious vampire body she had confessed to Mitzi that she’d been cutting a swath among the ranks of V-net vampire males in Fort Hunt. Mitzi actually looked forward to Dendra’s visits in which she recounted in sordid detail her sexual adventures, and was actually glad for her friend. They had known each other a long time and had both spent many celibate years raising their sons without the benefit of having a father around. Dendra had been divorced for ages, and of course Charley’s dad had died when Charley was very young.
Mitzi and Ian had stopped for a few minutes under a shady tree so that the horses could rest and graze. Nearby a small stream made a merry gurgling, splashing sound as it traversed the flat stones and occasional boulders in the water and along its edge.
“It’s hot,” Mitzi commented, taking a scrunchy from the back pocket of her jeans and twisting her hair up into it. I was so hot that she could feel perspiration running between her breasts, but she didn’t really mind at all, there was something about the drowsy hum surrounding them that relaxed her and made her feel as though her problems were a thousand miles away.
“That it is.” Ian agreed. It seemed to Mitzi that the vampire had a slight accent that she couldn’t quite place. She decided to ask him about it.
“Ian where do you hail from –originally I mean? You have just a bit of an accent. I actually do too-I was born in Virginia, and I don’t think that I have ANY accent, but the rest of our tribe tells me I do… especially if I get mad or excited!” She finished, hoping that her confession would put him at ease and encourage him to open up a little.
“Well I’m originally from Blaenavon, Wales, quite some time back.” He answered. ”It’s a trite and typical story. We were poor of course. Generations of coal miners, spending much of our lives below ground in what we called ’The Big Pit’, many of us dying in the mines. And there was always danger… cave-ins, bad air, floods and the like.
But there were other things below ground that weren’t much talked about. Strange things. Things that would make suffocating in the falling dust and earth, or being crushed in a rockslide seem like a kind and easy death.” He said his gaze far away and the timbre of his voice changing.
A furrow appeared in Mitzi’s usually smooth brow. She was no stranger to horrors since she’d been fatefully thrust into the vampire life. Sometimes she remembered her bland, boring and placid life as a human and wondered if she and Charley were truly better off. It was that ‘monkey’s paw’ feeling haunting her again… it seemed to her that there was always a price to be paid for making extraordinary choices. The latest toll exacted had been losing her husband Cass, since he had been radically changed by the Oublier Demon’s venom. Aloud she asked Ian, ”What ‘things’? Did you see them yourself?”
Ian looked at her seriously. Mitzi marveled at the clearness of his beautiful blue green eyes. She thought briefly to herself that he was a dead ringer for the singer/musician Gotye, with his shoulder length curls, long limbs and graceful long fingers.
“I started going down into the mines when I was 6 years old.” He answered, “I was what we termed a ‘trapper’-a boy hired to sit in the dark, opening and closing the ventilation doors. Because candles cost money we worked in the darkness. Darkness is not kind to a child’s eyes… many children went blind. There were thirteen of us children… too many to feed and I was the 5th born, after my brothers Trystan, Selwyn, Cian and my sister Bedwyn. All of us boys worked the mines. And later, some of my sisters also.
There was always danger there. Sometimes we would be working ‘easy seams’ that had good air and plenty of the coal. ’Black diamonds’ we termed it.
We were on a good seam-or so we thought one day-when a group of workers broke through into ‘old workings’-the old mines that had already been worked. My eldest brother Trystan fell through and was lost. Selwyn fell also but was able to crawl up when they threw down ropes, and he and two others crawled to safety. Selwyn did not speak for weeks afterward, and though he was but 12 years old, a thick lock of his hair in the front had turned pure white.
When he finally recounted what had happened down in the hole, before the rescue, he told us that Trystan did not die a natural death-that he and the other two, a grown man Aron and a youth Evan, saw a glowing white lady with hair like swirling smoke who had come at them from the back of the tunnel on their left and had taken Trystan. He was screaming as she dragged him down into the black, and they heard ripping sounds, not unlike a pack of wild dogs savaging a deer.
The rest of them were too terrified to move-by the time Selwyn was able to regain the use of his feet the light was gone. Then they saw torches and candles, and the other miners helped them up.
Selwyn was the last to be taken up out of the hole. As he tied the rope about his waist he noticed something glittering on the ground near his feet, reflecting the light. Instinctively he reached for it-sometimes there are rough diamonds in kimberlite to be found when you’re mining.
But when he picked it up it was soft to the touch, and bloody.
It was Trystan’s eye.”
Mitzi, repulsed, instinctively covered her mouth with her hand .
“Oh Ian!” she exclaimed. ”How horrible! How many years did you continue to work in the mines after that?”
“Quite a few,” he answered. A breeze sprung up and ruffled his brown curls, which now had been burnished bronze by the summer sun during his frequent riding sessions to keep the horses healthy and exercised. Mitzi couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was. Although he had a more slender natural build than Cass, he was nonetheless strikingly attractive, with a long perfectly straight nose and large eyes that seemed to look right through her. His lips were the lips of an Egyptian Pharaoh, generous in a lateral, masculine fashion. His thickly lashed eyes looked kohl rimmed at the bottom.
But there was a sadness there also. It was a beautiful but nonetheless haunted face.
“Miss Mitzi,” he said, somewhat hesitantly, ”Can I presume to ask you something?”
It wasn’t at all cool but somehow a chill ran up Mitzi’s spine. She realized that she was still staring into Ian’s eyes.
“Yes,” she said, not sure for a disorienting few seconds what she was saying ‘yes’ to.
“I know you are married to Castor Noble-and I fully respect that institution and that commitment, I really do. But he is not with you now. I know why - EVERYONE in the V-net knows why… but I wondered how it is with you now. I wonder how you do it. I watch you with Buttercup and your sons and you seem so full of joy… yet on some level your heart must be breaking…”
Of all the things Mitzi expected to come out of Ian’s mouth the words that he actually had voiced weren’t remotely close to her expectations. She wasn’t used to talking about her feelings with anyone but Buttercup or Fress… and NEVER to another man outside of Cass.
Something began to rise from her core-
at first she thought that it was indignation and a prelude to assuring Ian that her emotional state was NOT an open topic for casual conversation - then as she waited for her mouth to form words, she realized with a growing horror that what had now gathered enough speed to burst forth from her like a torrent was not a rebuttal, but a flood of long repressed tears.
As she covered her face with her hands in an attempt to stem the flood of emotion she felt Ian’s arms pull her toward him. Then he cradled her, murmuring to her in a strangely comforting foreign tongue (‘Welsh?’ She wondered).
Within a few minutes she was spent, and terribly embarrassed. Ian took a clean white handkerchief from his back pocket and pressed it into her hand - she noisily blew her nose on it.
She couldn’t raise her eyes to look into his face, but he spoke above her head as she dabbed at her eyes and looked downward at her own-and Ian’s - riding boot shod feet.
“You are a strong woman Mitzi, any fool could see that. Brave and loyal and true. No one would hold it against you to look for love again. And when the clouds of sadness have cleared from your eyes, I hope you will look to me.”
She felt him turn to get the horses, and as he helped her up onto the strawberry roan as if she were light as a feather she couldn’t help but smile down at him.
“Ian you are a true friend.” She said, feeling suddenly lighter and more buoyant than she had in days. In truth, she felt as though a weight had been lifted.
Things were not perfect - they never were, though she had always mentally dug her nails into those ecstatically joyous moments trying to prolong them.
But she had Charley, and the babies, Buttercup and the rest - and now a new loyal and caring friend in Ian.
And as she took off on her roan, trying not only to catch up but determined to surpass Ian in a race back to the barn, she found that she was happy again.
