The Purity of Blood: Volume I

by Jennifer Geoghan

  Face it, he’s probably not going to show. So why get worked up about it.

  I looked at myself in the mirror as I brushed my hair. I wasn’t completely unattractive, but I certainly didn’t have a face that would launch a thousand ships. Besides, my hair was too red and there was way too much of it. I reached into the closet and pulled out a baseball hat and put it on. Much better I said to myself and headed for the door.

  Walking out the back exit of Capen Hall, I immediately spotted Daniel leaning against his car. Alright, I’ll admit it. I was surprised. Pleasantly so? Honestly, I wasn’t sure yet. After taking a second to gather myself from my surprise, I took a deep breath and started his way.

  From what I’d seen of Daniel, he always seemed to dress like he only shopped in really high end stores. I remembered the feel of his shirt when I was laying on top of him in the bushes. I’m sure it probably cost an obscene amount of money. Today he looked as casual as I’d probably ever seen him, in hiking boots, a navy blue sweater and a pair of jeans that fit him extremely well. But even in his casual attire, he looked well put together, polished. I sighed realizing I probably looked pretty frumpy in my old jeans and baseball cap.

  Walking up to the car, I muttered “Morning.”

  I still wasn’t sure if I should be happy he’d showed up or not. Guess we’d just have to wait and see on that one. Taking note of the reservations in my voice, he leaned down and opened up the passenger door for me.

  “Humm…” he said and paused. “Good morning to you too.”

  Maybe a little hesitantly, I got in and watched as he gently closed the door behind me. After he slid into the driver’s seat beside me, he opened the window and pulled onto the road. He seemed in a pleasant enough mood, which in and of itself seemed suspicious to me but he also seemed tense. Maybe the hike would provide me with an opportunity to understand him better.

  Did I want to understand him better?

  “So I took the liberty of planning out a nice hike for us. There are several beautiful waterfalls and trails that not many people round here know about. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  “Sounds nice,” I mumbled in response as I stared straight ahead, arms crossed in front of me.

  “I see I have my work cut out for me,” he smiled, also staring straight ahead. For some reason, I didn’t want to look at him. But unable to resist any longer, I stole a glance his way out of the corner of my eye.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, my goal was to make sure that you had a safe and enjoyable day. Safe shouldn’t be a problem, but … if you’ll pardon my saying so, you don’t seem much like you’re in the mood for the enjoyable part.”

  A sarcastic Whatever was the first response that came to mind, but I thought better of it. Like it or not, at this point we were spending the day together. I might as well try to be pleasant. For whatever strange motivation he had, he seemed to be trying. As I rolled my eyes, he looked away trying not to laugh. It was true, I was a little resentful that he didn’t seem to think I could handle a simple walk in the woods by myself. Maybe I was subconsciously trying to make it difficult for him. I’d have to give that idea a bit more thought.

  “So, fun hike. Sounds great.” I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but hadn’t succeeded one hundred percent.

  “Your friends were all busy today?” he asked trying to make conversation as we raced up the mountain.

  This was a different road than Ryan had taken. I’d never been up here before, but it did look beautiful. The leaves were really changing colors now, and the picturesque narrow road that wound its way up the mountain was lined with large rocks and boulders.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I guess I’m the one with the worst social life.”

  “What about your friend – I think you called him Ben. Is he your boyfriend?”

  As we raced around another hair pin curve, I clutched the door handle tightly.

  “No, he’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends,” I answered though I wasn’t sure why. It really wasn’t any of his business and I should have told him so.

  “Humm …” I heard him say once again as he mulled over my answer.

  “You do that a lot, you know.”

  “What?” He looked over at me surprised.

  “Humm …” I said, impersonating him.

  “I was just thinking about something.”

  “I guessed as much. Care to share? I tend to think it concerns me.”

  “No. And yes it does,” were his only answers.

  We pulled off the main road onto an unmarked gravel drive and followed it as it twisted around for about a half a mile or so and then branched off to a dirt road that didn’t look like it got much use.

  “Is your car really meant for all this off-roading?”

  “Well, maybe not but she’s never let me down yet,” he said as he smiled and patted the dashboard affectionately.

  A few minutes later, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the car came to a stop. Before I had a chance to finish gathering up my back pack, he’d already gotten out and opened up my door for me. I looked up at him with a somewhat puzzled expression on my face and stepped out. Closing the door behind me, he indicated a direction for me to go.

  “I get the impression you’re not used to being treated like a lady,” he said nonchalantly.

  I turned with a look that wondered why he’d say such a thing.

  “Yes, I knew I was right. Well, you’re just going to have to get used to that around me. I was raised right, not like these kids today.”

  What? Kids today?

  He was like five or six years older than me tops. I didn’t say anything but kept walking until I got to the edge of the road and stopped.

  “We’re heading in that direction,” he said as he pointed up the hill. “Don’t worry, it’s not that bad a climb. You can make it,” he reassured me as he took the lead up the embankment.

  As I followed along behind him, we walked for a long while in silence. Up and down hills with not much to see except the beautiful autumn leaves. The air smelled of wet moss and damp earth. The only steady sound was the rhythm of the leaves crunching beneath our feet. It was peaceful, but something seemed off. I guess I was missing the sound of the playful banter of my friends.

  I decided to break the silence.

  “So, are there any animals in these woods? We didn’t see any last weekend. I was a little disappointed.”

  He stopped dead in his tracks for a moment then continued at the same pace.

  “No, not many.”

  “Oh, too bad. I was hoping to see some deer or something like that.”

  We walked on again for a while in the same somewhat uncomfortable silence.

  Finally he said “So Ben’s not your boyfriend.” He paused for a second then continued. “There must be somebody, you’re a pretty girl. I’m sure the boys are interested in you.”

  We were going to talk about my love life? Really?

  “Nope,” was all I said.

  “Humm …” he said again, puzzling over my one word answer.

  I hid my chuckle in a cough, but I don’t think it worked very well.

  When he reached a summit, he stopped, waiting for me to catch up. As I did, he pointed and following his finger I glanced out on the sweeping vista of the valley below. Filled with reds, oranges and yellows, the valley looked like it was on fire. The effect was made even more radiant by the warm mid-morning sunlight that rained down on it.

  “Wow,” I murmured softly.

  I reached behind and pulled my camera from the side pocket of my backpack and took a few pictures. Glancing around into the woods, Daniel patiently waited until I finished, then we continued on. Looking around, it didn’t seem that we were following any discernable trail that I could distinguish, and I was praying he really did know these woods as well as he’d claimed. I knew there was little chance I’d find my way back on my own if he didn’t. Internally I scolded myself for no
t paying closer attention to the path we’d taken so far.

  “So … no boyfriend. I find that hard to believe,” he idly commented after a few minutes of silent walking.

  “Nope.”

  “Why do you suppose that is?” he asked curiously, but more like an objective scientist than an interested suitor.

  I was following behind him so I couldn’t see his face, and at that moment I found myself wishing I could see the expression it now wore. There were too many ways to interpret that question.

  “I don’t know. – I don’t seem to be interesting enough I guess,” I replied as I shrugged my shoulders. It was an honest answer.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, you don’t know me very well. I think I tend to be a little off putting at a certain point and, well … they seem to lose interest.”

  “How so?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, give me a for instance.”

  I thought for a moment as we steadily hiked along.

  “I think men find me odd because – well, because my hobby is genealogy.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Well, when they find out you like to hang out in cemeteries on your vacations, they tend to get the wrong idea and by the time they figure it out, they’ve already moved on to someone else,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “They probably weren’t worth your time to begin with if that’s the way they behave,” he replied kindly. “You like to hang out in cemeteries?”

  Here we go again.

  “Cemeteries are one of the best places to find genealogical information. Not only the information on a person’s headstone, but who they’re buried next to, that kind of thing. What kind of stone they have can tell you a lot about their social standing, if they were poor or had money to buy a fancy stone. Plus, I love the artistry of the older stones. They don’t carve them like they used to anymore.”

  At this point, I felt I was probably starting to ramble. Since I couldn’t see his face, I was unable to tell if he was really listening or not. Not really caring what he thought of me I continued. As I followed him through the woods, the sound of my own ramblings was better than uncomfortable silence

  “People today don’t look at death the way people did a hundred years ago. Most people today don’t want to talk about it at all. I think back then death was seen as a natural part of life. They had faith that it was just a doorway to another way of living. Heaven, Hell. From what I’ve seen, most folks today don’t want to contemplate what happens after they die, so they feel uncomfortable about subjects that have anything to do with it.”

  “And you don’t feel that way?” he asked without turning around.

  “No, I’m not worried about death.”

  “Now that is unusual,” he said as he stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. “But I can’t disagree.”

  From up ahead I began to hear the sounds of rushing water. As we walked along it got louder until we rounded a thick stand of birch trees and came upon a river cutting its way through the forest. The water moved fast here as it ran down an incline into the valley.

  The rocks that lined the side of the river were wet with spray giving them a violet hue that shimmered in the sunlight. After pausing for a minute to look around, Daniel started down the slow incline of rocks. I watched him for a moment, just observing the way he moved then followed after him. He stopped at the bottom of the first drop of about three feet and turned as I approached. After hesitating for an awkward moment, he reached his hand up to me. Taking it, he quickly helped me down and let go before turning to continue on. I just stood there at the base of the drop for a moment, unmoving. His hand had felt odd. I’m not really sure how to describe it with words. It wasn’t really warm like I would have expected from our mornings physical activity, but not cold either from the damp of the spray off the river. I’m not even sure I would have noticed except that he’d seemed hesitant to offer it to me at all. Standing above him, I’d thought his momentary internal struggle odd for a man who’d said he was going to treat me like a lady whether I liked it or not.

  Following the river, he’d continued on down the rocks and was now about thirty feet in front of me. Probably sensing I wasn’t behind him anymore, he stopped only to turn and see me standing where he’d left me, half staring down at my hand, half up at him. Realizing he was watching me, I quickly shook off the sensation and started towards him as if nothing had happened. Whatever it had been, he didn’t seem to want to talk about it either and without any kind of a smile, he just turned back in the direction we were going and continued on without a word.

  His hand had been hard, maybe that was it, like a taught muscle. Yet it was so much more than a firm handshake. Then I remembered something I hadn’t thought of before. I remembered lying on top of Daniel in the bushes. This was how his whole body had felt under me, except that I hadn’t made contact with his skin in the bushes. I’d only felt him through the fabric of his clothes.

  My thoughts were all over the place as I followed behind his broad shoulders. After the incident on the rocks, I began to notice a subtle change in his gait as I walked behind him. For most of the morning it was loose and casual, but now he seemed stiff, his shoulders more squared, his footsteps heavier as if he was shouldering some great weight he hadn’t before.

  The sound of the water ahead of us changed, and as we rounded a corner we found ourselves at the edge of a rocky cliff. The water spilled over the edge of the cliff into a basin at the bottom of a steep gorge. As the sunlight bounced off the spray it created faint rainbows in the mist. Staring down, I found myself at a loss for words. It truly was breathtaking. We were very high up, much higher than the falls I’d seen last week with Ben and the others.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I muttered, still in awe. “How high up are we?”

  “About a hundred feet – give or take.”

  “My friends never told me there were falls this high in the area.”

  “They probably don’t know there are. We’re on private land.”

  I looked up at his face with an expression that must have showed my concern that we might be trespassing.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he laughed. “I know the owners. Let’s make our way down and take a break on those rocks,” he said causing me to look over and see the totally charming smile he now wore.

  He suddenly seemed at ease with me. Much more so than he ever had before. For some unknown reason I found myself smiling back at him. Shoot, I’ll admit it, I was probably grinning ear to ear and I wasn’t even sure why. I think deep down, I was secretly pleased he’d had some kind of breakthrough and felt comfortable enough around me to smile like regular folks do. Not that his smile could ever be regular in any shape or fashion. It was dazzling and revealed a perfect set of pearly white teeth.

  Dragging myself away from his smile, I followed him off to the right as we began to follow a rudimentary trail. One I was actually able to make out this time.

  He watched me closely as I made my way along the top of the cliff. I was thankful as the rocks were especially slippery and one tumble on the thin path that hugged the edge of the cliff would have seen me lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the gorge.

  It took about fifteen minutes for us to wind our way down the trail and into the clearing at the base of the falls. Walking up to a dry rock, I took off my backpack and set it down, stretching out my shoulders as I did. When I finished, I reached into my pack, pulled out my jacket and slipped it on. I’d taken it off about an hour ago when I started to get warm from the exertion, but the air down here in the gorge was much cooler. Stretching out some more, I took in a deep breath. The crisp cool air felt good in my lungs

  As I sat down on the rock, I felt its warmth beneath me which helped chase the chill out of my bones. Feeling hungry, I pulled a granola bar out of my pack and took a few bites.

  Daniel paused when we reached the clearin
g then walked off circling the area like he was looking or listening for something deep in the woods. A minute later he strolled over to where I sat relaxing in the sun.

  “Want a granola bar?” I asked, holding another one up to him.

  “No, thank you. I’m not hungry,” he answered politely. Then I watched as he smiled to himself as if laughing at some inside joke he was happy I was unaware of.

  I was starving so I couldn’t understand how he wasn’t. I hadn’t even seen him take a drink from the canteen he had slung over his shoulder.

  While I was deep in thought about the depths of his strangeness, he looked down at my water bottle on the rock beside me.

  “You’re almost out of water. I’ll fill you up.”

  Before I could say anything, he took my bottle and headed off behind me to the pool at the base of the fall. After filling it up, he put it back down beside me where it had been.

  “Is that water okay to drink?” I asked.

  “Yes. It comes from a spring a few miles up the mountain. It’s as pure as they come.”

  He paused for a moment and then laughed to himself. Again, another inside joke I wasn’t getting.

  How very annoying!

  Circling around to the other side of my rock, he sat down behind me facing the falls. Leaning back, he put his hands under his head as he relaxed on his back.

  “This is one of my favorite spots,” he murmured.

  I didn’t say anything for a while, I just observed him as he watched the water cascade off the cliff above our heads and the clouds as they rolled by.

  “How do you know this area so well?” I finally asked as I laid down on the rock beside him.

  He paused for a moment as if he wasn’t sure how to answer the question.

  “I spent time here when I was a youngster,” was all he said while he continued to gaze upward.

  Knowing he couldn’t see me, I smirked. That wasn’t much of an answer, for all the deliberation that seemed to go into it. I got the impression he didn’t want to elaborate so I didn’t ask him anymore questions. After all, what business of it was mine? We sat there for a few more minutes in silence just listening to the roar of the water and soaking in the warmth of the sun.