The Purity of Blood: Volume I

by Jennifer Geoghan

  Once inside, I immediately noticed the thick layer of dust that covered everything in sight indicating that no one had been up here for a very long time. I breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, this place would do nicely. Unfortunately, when I flipped the light switch I discovered there was no electricity, but I’d kind of expected that. Satisfied that this place would do, I started to carry in the bags from the porch and piled them on top of the rather beat up looking antique kitchen table.

  I’d heard that the last owners had rescued the house from the dilapidated state it had found itself in after decades of inattention. I’d seen pictures of what it had looked like before, and it truly had been on the verge of falling down around them when they’d begun the restoration process. Leaving much of the original architecture in place, they’d done a great job in restoring the house to its former glory. Adding an addition onto the side of the house, they’d expanded the kitchen and updated it with electricity and running water. Thankfully they’d left most of the original home looking as it must have shortly after it was built by my ancestor all those years ago. The builder of this house had been a Wells grandfather of mine, my fourth great grandfather if I recalled correctly. My cousin who I’d come up here with, was going to school with the son of the folks who’d owned the house at the time. That was how we’d been allowed up here to take a look around all those years ago.

  I walked into the living room and placed my hand against the large stone fireplace that dominated the bottom floor of the house. I’d make a fire later after it got dark, when the smoke wouldn’t alert the outside world to my presence. Up here on the hill sheltered amongst the tall oak trees it would get cold after the sun went down and a fire would be a necessity.

  I set to work pulling out the cleaning supplies I’d purchased, and after opening up all the windows I could, I wiped away the accumulated layers of dust collected over the past few years of neglect. When I finished, I used a broom to sweep out all the rooms. Luckily, most of the furniture was gone so they were mainly empty rooms. I stopped only long enough to eat a sandwich I’d picked up at the market and a bag of chips before digging right back into my work. Strangely my appetite had come back. I could only attribute it to hard work. Dad always did call it the best therapy.

  After my meal, I shook out a couple of throw rugs the previous owners had left behind, and with my limited resources, beat the stuffed chair in the living room out in the yard to try to get it as clean as I possibly could.

  Why was I cleaning? Well, two reasons mostly. One, because I was trespassing and the least I could do in repayment was to clean the place up and leave it in better condition that I’d found it. And secondly because if I were going to stay here for a while, I needed to know for certain that nothing that creeped or crawled was going to surprise me in the middle of the night. Besides, busy work kept my mind otherwise occupied. Well, sort of.

  I could have kissed the previous owners who had left the old hand water pump in the kitchen functioning and simply put in a new kitchen sink next to it. Amazingly, after a little priming, I got the pump working and had clean water to drink and wash up with.

  As the sun started to set on my long day of labor, I put a chair out in the front garden and looked out on the overgrown lawn bathed in the amber light of the setting sun. It was the most tranquil place I think I’d ever been too. At the far edge of the lawn was a rock wall that ran along a line of towering elm trees, separating the lawn from the field beyond. Searching my memory, I vaguely remembered horses grazing in that field when I’d come up here all those years ago. I sipped on a bottle of water and wondered how different the view had been back when my great, great, great, great, grandfather Wells had built this place. I’m sure at one time or another he must have sat here like I was, looking out over a similar view in the dimming light at the end of a long day. Did he wonder if his descendants would someday sit here like I was, and what kind of view they would see?

  I remembered telling Daniel once that I wished he’d known some of my ancestors and that he could have filled me in on the personal details of their lives aside from the dry facts of the birth, death and marriage records they’d left behind. Sitting here, I almost felt like I knew something of this ancient grandfather of mine. – If for no other reason than leaving this tranquil oasis behind for me in my most dire hour of need, I couldn’t help but like him.

  From the comfort of my chair, I watched the light change and finally fade away. I was deep in thought about how thoroughly I’d managed to screw up my life when a cold breeze found its way up the valley to chill my bones.

  Pulling my arms around myself, I considered that I was really just frustrated that I didn’t have control over things I was never meant to. Ultimately whether I liked it or not, God was in control. I should have found this comforting, but I didn’t. Control is always an illusion. We really have no control over things at all when you come right down to it. But it’s the illusion that we do that allows us to get up out of bed every day and go about our lives in relative peace. At the core of it, this seemed to be my problem. My illusion had been shattered.

  Reluctantly, I got up and took the chair back inside the now somewhat clean house and decided to start a fire. In my afternoon of exploring I’d discovered a pile of firewood stacked neatly behind the old outhouse and had brought in enough to last me the night. After crumpling up some ads from the newspaper I’d bought to read, I stuffed them under the wood in the fireplace and watched it slowly catch fire from the match I’d lit. Sitting back on the ancient wood floor as it creaked underneath my shifting weight, I watched the room slowly begin to glow under the flickering light of the growing fire. In silence, I watched the sparks grow to flames, and listened to the old wood as it snapped and popped while it met its fate.

  Two of the pieces of furniture left behind by the previous owners were an old cushioned wing back chair upholstered with tattered and faded red fabric and a small well-worn wooden coffee table. I pulled them closer to the warmth of the fire and settled down into the comfy chair. I was glad I’d come here, glad that I’d found this quiet place devoid of memories of my recent past. I was a stranger here and yet it somehow felt as comforting as home. Maybe it was because it was my grandfather’s house. He’d once lived within these walls and raised a family here. I don’t know what it was, but it felt like a warm blanket around my soul somehow comforting it without words. I wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened, but somehow I’d managed to escape the glass house on the cliff with all its jagged edges and dangers for this cozy home nestled on the hill.

  I wondered if Daniel and the Professor would find me here, or if in the end it would be the blood hunter that found his way up the twisty driveway below. I wasn’t sure why, but I had a feeling that either one or the other would eventually find their way to Hopkinton in search of my blood.

  I wasn’t suicidal, but some part of me wished it would be the hunter. At least then all my other problems would be meaningless. Other than running as fast as I could, I had no idea how to mask my trail from a vampire. In retrospect, I wondered if Daniel had really wanted to keep me safe, why he hadn’t taught me how to evade a hunter. These were skills I certainly wished I possessed now. From a practical stand point alone, he must have known no matter how hard he tried, he could never guard me twenty four hours a day for the rest of my life. Of course, this was all assuming he cared enough to really give a damn. Somehow this thought only seemed to galvanize my new found understanding of the game he’d been playing with me in my prior innocence.

  I’d managed to keep busy all afternoon, but sitting here with only the quiet silence of the fire as my companion, my anguish slowly and inevitably ebbed its way forward. Staring at the flames, I could feel the tears silently make their trails down my hot cheeks. I didn’t try to stop them. I knew it would be useless to try. How could it have all been a lie? He must have loved me at least a little. I couldn’t have been that wrong, could I? I could only think I must have loved him so much that I only saw
what I wanted to and willingly allowed myself to be deceived. I’d been no better than Tabitha shaking hands with Daniel. Sitting there in front of the fire, I felt as if I had only myself to blame. A sob escaped my heart as I buried my head in the side of the chair and cried, grieved really, for my Daniel, for my love as it slowly started to die inside me.

  After a while the tears finally subsided and I just sat there staring vacantly into the fire. I didn’t have the will to move, to expend energy in some fruitless endeavor that wouldn’t bring him back to me. How long I sat there, I don’t know, hours certainly. Compared to the flames and the silence in my soul, time seemed meaningless.

  Eventually and with great effort, I emptied myself of pity. After all, had I been smarter and kept my guard up, none of this would ever have happened. Trying to force myself into a better mood, I got up and went into the kitchen to open up the bags from the sporting goods store. I’d purchased a couple of battery operated lanterns with lots of extra batteries and a sleeping bag among other things. I spread the sleeping bag out on the floor in front of the fire and took a seat on top while I turned on my laptop. I wanted to look up what info I had on my grandfather that had built this house. I needed to feel a connection to something and he seemed as good a thing as any.

  When my email in-box automatically popped up, I emailed Ben with my notes from our project. Not knowing when I’d be back, I wanted him to be able to continue on just in case I didn’t make it back in time – or at all.

  I was surprised that Ben hadn’t pestered me with questions last night. He seemed oddly understanding of a situation he couldn’t possibly have a clue about. He really was a good man, and his ability to just be there for me in my time of need without getting all Lets work the problem was one of my favorite qualities about him. He’d shown me that quality in the woods that day as we sat atop the cave. Sometimes he very much really reminded me of my father that way.

  I’d thought about our kiss more than I should have since that night. Knowing it wasn’t fair to Ben, I regretted it. My heart wasn’t available, but I’d made it seem that there might be a chance it was. I thought a lot about that and also about his lips. They were soft, and warm, and most of all … attached to him. The feel of his hand on my arm when I’d reached up and kissed him, and the look in his brown eyes just after lingered on the fringes of my mind. If I could choose who to love, it would be him. He would never hurt me like Daniel had. Ben would cherish me for as long as I’d let him, of this I was certain. But in the end, we don’t choose who we love. It’s not like respect that can be earned or friendship we can grant. Love is, of its own accord, a living thing that no man can control, humans and vampires alike its pawns. Or so it seemed.

  I pulled up my genealogy program and read what notes I’d compiled over the years on the builder of the house and his wife Lois. Like most of my other ancestors of the same era, I had the basics but I deeply wished I could know who he had been as a man, a husband and a father. Was he a good man? Would I have been proud to be called his descendant? Statistics are black and white but I wanted to know the colors of his life.

  I knew he was born September 30th, 1747. He was a farmer by trade and served in the Hopkinton militia during the Revolutionary War. When he died in the fall of 1821, he was buried in a small family cemetery across Route Three back in the woods somewhere. I’d heard his headstone was missing now, but I’d never been able to locate the cemetery anyway. It was pretty far back in the woods and my one attempt to find it years ago had failed miserably, leaving me with nothing but a few ticks to show for my efforts. He married and together he and Lois raised six children in this house. This was most of what I knew about him. Not much to show for a long life such as his. Yet here I was, camped out in his living room in the house he built with his own two hands.

  I laid down on my back and stared at the ceiling. Large wooden beams ran across it, punctuating what looked like white plaster. In fascination I watched as the flickering light from the fireplace playfully danced around the beams for me like a demented puppet show with an endless story to tell. I felt myself sigh. I wished I owned this house. I certainly wouldn’t have neglected it as it had been these past years. Strangely within its walls, I felt oddly cherished and wished I could repay the favor in some tangible way.

  Getting up, I walked into the kitchen and forced myself to eat a prepackaged dinner over the kitchen sink. It was unsatisfying but at least I wouldn’t go to bed listening to my stomach growl. Besides, I’d eaten very little over the last few days and needed to keep my strength up.

  I went back to the computer and returned a few emails so my friends wouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary was going on. When I turned off the computer, I was beginning to feel better. Setting it to the side, I placed another log on the fire and curled up in the cozy sleeping bag. It really was a good laptop. Dad had given it to me right before I’d left for school. He said it had all the newest technology and would get internet pretty much anywhere I’d go. Seems he was right. As I pulled the sleeping bag tighter around me, I prayed the big brothers of the dozens of spiders I’d killed today wouldn’t come back in search of revenge during the night. The house was far better than a tent, but somehow I still felt lost in the wilderness.

  Tired, yet reluctant to close my eyes, I watched the fire and thought of my grandfather Wells and his wife Lois in this house. How many times over the course of my life had I dreamed of meeting my ancestors like them? What I could learn if only I had them alone in a room for just five minutes. Even though they were dead and long gone, part of them seemed to linger in this room with me. I sighed when I realized this was as close to living my dream as I was ever likely to get on this earth. Something about that both gladdened my heart and depressed me at the same time.

  For being on the run for my life, I had to admit I was kind of having a good time. That is if a good time could be had while nursing a broken heart. I tried not to dwell on the fact that I’d committed two major crimes in the last two days, grand theft auto and breaking and entering. Not to mention that I was on the run for my life. Melodramatic as it sounded, if it hadn’t been for the events of the last few days, I’d never have found myself reestablishing a family homestead and falling asleep in front of a fire my great, great, great, great grandfather might have started. Maybe it’s the excitement only a genealogist can truly understand. It ran along the same lines as a person who visited cemeteries for the enjoyment of establishing some strange connection with relatives long lost to time.

  The fire cracked as the logs shifted in the hearth. Turning on my side, I studied the stones that made up the fireplace. They were neatly stacked, large rectangular stones that looked too square not to have been chiseled into their current shapes. Layers of stone were stacked up for about five feet and then there looked to be a wooden beam set among the layers of stone which seemed odd to me. Above that there was another three feet or so of stacked stone up to the ceiling. It actually continued through the ceiling and was the fireplace in two of the second floor bedrooms as well as a smoke house up in the attic third floor. The fireplace opening here in the living room was rather small for the large area of stone. The opening was only about three feet square.

  The large room was L shaped and wrapped around the back of the house. The side of the stone fireplace that faced the back wall of the house was much larger with a warming oven built into it. I assumed that room was the location of the original kitchen, and was converted to a dining room when the modern kitchen had been added years later. But even the modern kitchen was built to resemble the 1700’s design esthetic with simple solid wood cabinetry and shelving.

  Feeling the heat of the fire on my face, I closed my eyes. But even as I did, its warm glow was still visible through my eye lids. Behind my eyes I pictured what my life at NPU would have been like if I’d never seen Daniel in the hallway that day. I’d have been just another coed on campus going to classes and hanging out with my new group of friends.

  Someh
ow I had to wonder if Ben would still be interested in me. Our major interactions always seemed to be in response to something Daniel was involved in. The incident in the bushes, the trip to the caves, our kiss – were all because of Daniel. I smiled as it occurred to me that Daniel didn’t like me spending time with Ben, yet strangely he always seemed to be the one that pushed me towards him. If I ended up with Ben, we would only have Daniel to thank for it, and it pleased me immensely knowing that this would piss Daniel off something awful.

  I ached inside for my Daniel, but some small part of me felt freed. I was free from the nagging doubts I’d carried around ever since we’d first met. He was so superior to me in beauty, grace and intellect that I’d always known it was only a matter of time before he left me for someone like himself. He professed undying love, but realistically I didn’t see how that could possibly be. It’s amazing the capacity we humans have to lie to ourselves. I guess I wanted to believe that he loved me so badly that I allowed myself to completely ignore how utterly illogical it was for him to do so.

  As my worst fears had found their confirmation over the past few days, it was somehow a relief to know that I had been correct. That even though my feelings would remain forever unchanged, I no longer had to carry around that ticking time bomb of a burden that made me hold back parts of my life from him. If he were going to leave me someday, – and even while my heart happily lived in denial, in my mind I’d always known this to be true – then why lay bare my inner most being to someone, who in the end would only leave me in his wake?

  Much to my disappointment, when all was said and done, I agreed with the Professor. Good things didn’t happen when vampires got involved with humans.

  Just as the sun started to peak through the windows, I found myself awake. Rolling over, I looked around. The room was chilly and dimly lit by the faint light filtering in through the windows. I’d survived the night. Now I had to face today. I leaned up and stretched. The house was filled with stale air while the distinct smell of ashes from last night’s fire clung to my hair and clothes.