by Becket
That whole night was a gift. Wyn can be very thoughtful. He’s a good thinker.
Wyn explained that Blood Memories are temporary. For most Blood Vivicanti, Blood Memories last for about four to five days. Then they fade away.
Wyn and Theo can only remember having the Blood Memories of their victims. They can’t remember the fine details of those memories. They can’t remember the new skills that Blood Memories give them.
Yes: Blood Memories give us new skills.
If Wyn drank the blood of the modern Dickens, he’d become an era-defining author.
If Theo drank the blood of today’s Casanova, he’d become a historic lover.
If I drank the blood of Bill Watterson, I could bring back Calvin and Hobbes.
Wouldn’t that be grand?
Wyn theorized that I would be a different kind of Blood Vivicanti.
“Your photographic memory might change things. You might be able to keep Blood Memories inside you for much longer.”
That was the first time I understood a difficult truth: Now I had to drink blood. I had new powers, increased strength, and superhuman speed. Yet the thought of drinking blood was not appealing. I was still very human then.
“What happens if I don’t drink blood?” I asked.
Wyn had to think about his response. “We probably won’t die if we never drank blood again. Yet we would most likely grow incredibly weak.”
“How weak would we get?”
Wyn mulled this over. He shrugged. “An infant field mouse comes to mind.”
Blood Vivicanti can drink as much blood as we like. We can be bottomless pits of blood and memories. But Wyn wants us to drink only a pint of blood a week from one person. He worries for the health of our victims. Drinking any more of their blood might be too much trauma for them. Wyn doesn’t want us to be murderers.
I reminded him of the two men who’d chased me to the cliff’s edge. I didn’t know yet that they were Sleeper Devils made by Lowen the Dark Man. They had seemed so human, especially when Wyn snapped their necks and tossed them away like ragdolls.
“Wasn’t that murder?” I asked.
His tone was objective. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Those two men weren’t human.”
Ms. Crystobal raised her eyebrow. Rarely have I seen her look so curious.
The metabolism of a Blood Vivicanti burns blood cells like calories. The more we work, the more we drink.
Lately I’ve gotten into the bad habit of drinking more than a pint of blood a week. One week, not too long ago, I all but breathed the blood I drank. I almost killed a whole family. The more blood I drink, the more memories I have of other people’s lives. The more memories I have of other people’s lives, the less I have to think about my own life.
For me, it’s easy to escape inside your head. It’s a pleasant way to escape the madness of my mind.
I returned to my room in the upper floors of the mansion.
I had been around too many new people. I needed some time and space. Being with too many new people was too tiring. Being alone with myself was rewarding.
I loved my new room. It was like an enchanted chamber.
As I lay on the bed with its multitude of soft pillows, I didn’t think too much about my peers or my parents.
When you’ve been living alone inside your head for so long, the strange things that happen in life really aren’t all that strange.
My parents used to punish me for not socializing enough. They thought I was being antisocial. They punished me the way their parents had punished them: I had to go to my room. They punished me for being an introvert. For me it was a win-win. An extrovert’s punishment for an introvert is to be more introverted.
Go figure that one.
They never learned. I liked going to the solitude of my room. It was the one place a platypus feels safe. Punishment would have been making me participate in team sports.
I didn’t sleep that night. I wasn’t tired. I had much to think about.
The noises of the nighttime world surrounded the mansion. I heard so much – cricket song blaring – mountain lions prowling – worms slinking through the moist earth.
Inside the mansion was mysteriously silent. Everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells.
I walked around my new room and opened my curtains. I piled my pillows up and sat back. I planned to watch the sunrise. It was a good view.
While I waited I walked deep into the library of my mind. I perused the stacks of my photographic memory. I pulled from one shelf a favorite old book – Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There.
I remembered every word from every page. I reread it in minutes. Then I reread it again. I love that story.
Perhaps it was my love for that story that helped prepare me for becoming a Blood Vivicanti. It was as if I had stepped through my own looking glass and entered my own Looking Glass Kingdom.
Like Alice, I would soon discover the fullness of my queendom.
There were so many changes in my life. I was now a Blood Vivicanti. I now had silence and space. My room in Wyn’s mansion was mine and I could stay there as long as I liked.
But reality did start to set in and questions started to pester me.
What would I tell mom and dad?
What would I tell my friends at the Academy? And should even I go back to school?
I’d never before considered leaving school unfinished, even though I could have graduated with a few PhDs by then and become a successful entrepreneur. I could have developed big rocket ships that might sail me home, wherever that might be in the thick soup of the Milky Way.
I imagined what life might be like if I never went back to the Academy. I could picture MISSING signs of me beside Theo’s.
Cute couple, I thought.
And think of the devil – Theo knocked on my door.
Theo entered and strode toward me. His supple movement made no sound.
I wanted to hide in my shell. I slid lower beneath the duvet.
He sat at the foot of the bed.
I hugged my knees to my chest.
How come he never went back to school?
His mom and dad had died long ago. He had been an orphan. He had won a scholarship to the Academy. He had no one in his life. Wyn had become Theo’s big brother.
“I was a dance student,” Theo said. He had wanted to be a dancer his whole life. His Blood Vivicanti power made him more graceful than ever.
“If I went back to the Academy, I’d have to tone down my skill for the other students. And I just don’t want to do that. I like how I’ve grown. Returning to that place would make me as old as a crab going backwards.”
I think he just referenced Hamlet, I thought. I was smitten.
Theo was beautiful. He had a dancer’s body. He moved like water. I used to love watching him dance. It was like watching the tide.
Theo wouldn’t return to the Academy. So I wouldn’t return either. My personality was so weak then. I needed Theo’s stronger personality to tell me what to do. I thought it would make me happy. I hoped it would help me feel safe.
We talked for a while. It seemed like hours.
Theo had come to my room for one reason. And he explained his reason by leaning toward me.
I backed into my pillows.
He drew his face very close to mine.
I counted all his freckles in an instant.
He smiled. He had a perfect smile. Then he leaned a little closer and tapped me on the shoulder.
I admit: I hadn’t expected that.
The motherboard of my photographic memory searched its vast database for the cause of his strange behavior. And I drew a blank. I could recall no precedent for a teenage boy tapping a teenage girl on the shoulder. I blinked at him stupidly.
Theo laughed. Then he moved as fast as wind and in the next second he was standing in my doorway. His grin widened.
“Tag,” he said. “You’re it.”
; Then he was gone.
I could hear his voice coming from down the hallway.
“Can’t catch me!” He sounded like Peter Pan.
Somehow he knew I’d never played tag before. No one had ever invited me. Somehow he knew I needed to get out of the house. Theo was such a boy at heart. He was a good man too.
I chased him. I never knew I could move so fast. Maybe I never had a reason to. Not until then.
My legs were strong. They rocketed me through the house. I was happy and awkward. More than once I tripped over my feet and careered into couches and clocks and cupboards.
I felt bad about breaking Wyn’s $20,000 Russian table.
He laughed it off. He could afford to.
Ms. Crystobal would clean up the mess. That was her work.
My work was being a kid for a moment. I hadn’t had many chances to do so. I wouldn’t have many more later.
The forest surrounding Idyllville was vaster than I’d imagined. Tens of thousands of acres. It wrapped throughout the San Jacinto Mountains.
Theo and I sped past the thick pine trees. We rushed through open fields. We were a blur to the herds of cattle and deer. Coyotes and rabbits weren’t fast enough to scurry off. We leaped over them. We ran around Lake Hemet, scarcely scaring the fish. Our step was so silent.
Sometimes it’s good to run to avoid escaping. Problems fade when you’re panting like a racehorse. But before that moment, I had not begun to doubt my theory: I was a platypus begotten by a platypus.
That night, however, sparked a slight revision: I was a platypus who just hadn’t hatched yet.
Oysters live in their shells. They’ve been content closed up in the mud for millions of years. Some creatures were never meant to evolve.
For years I thought I was never meant to grow beyond the limits of my suffering. I’d thought my shell was my life.
Wyn helped me grow when he broke into my shell.
Theo helped me mature when he drew me from my broken life.
Theo led me to Mount San Jacinto, very near Tahquitz Peak. We stood at the foot of Suicide Rock.
Theo told me its story. “It’s named after a Native American girl and her lover. The tribal chief said they couldn’t marry. So they threw themselves off together to their death.”
The story of Tristan and Iseult seemed to be in every culture. England has Romeo and Juliet. Japan has Orihime and Hikoboshi.
I’ve never liked stories of star-crossed lovers. Too much teenage angst is like too much coffee.
Theo leaped inhumanly high into the air. He soared toward the steep face of Suicide Rock.
The moonlight was bright and vivid. The nighttime sky was coruscating with clear constellations.
Theo landed against the rock face several stories up from the ground. His fingers were like metal spikes. They powerfully dug holes into the rock. He scaled up the mountain like a spider.
I followed him. It was all I could do then. As I wrote: Following the stronger personality of others had become my habit.
It wasn’t bad then. It just isn’t me now.
Theo and I climbed Suicide Rock. We stood at its steepest point.
I could barely believe that I had climbed so high.
More mountains would follow. The mountain of my self-doubt has been the hardest pinnacle to surmount. Daily I still work to confidently plant upon that peak my flag of positive self-possession.
Veni, vidi, nearly vici.
The whole world seemed to stretch out before us.
Moonlight bathed the desert valley in the far distance. Human eyes wouldn’t have seen anything without daylight. Blood Vivicanti eyes saw much.
The desert valley was a sea of light brown sand. Tumbleweeds bounced along the roadways. Rattlesnakes were coiled up between the rocks. Owls were perched with wide eyes, ready to hunt. Critters were crawling everywhere. The windfarm near Palm Springs appeared to be perfect order. White windmills in rows like headstones were spinning madly out of balance. The cities of the valley before us glistered with electric lights – amber, green, and red – like gems from a treasure chest. Clusters of neighborhoods sparkled brightest. Families through windows gave the appearance of peace. Parents slept open mouthed. Children were tumbled together in beds like puppies.
The world had never seemed so magical.
Theo nudged my shoulder. His smile was infectious.
“You have the magic now.”
He faced me.
“You have no idea who you are. You have no clue what you’re capable of now. The power surging through your blood has elevated you beyond anything this planet has ever seen or known or heard of. You are a creature newly born out of creation. You’re a being of pure grace in movement and faculty.”
No one had ever spoken to me like that. I had caught my head by then. He was stealing my heart.
All my life I’d lived with the feeling that I belong somewhere else. Anywhere but where I was. Yet right then I didn’t want to be anywhere else. Right then I was happy. Standing beside Theo felt right, and feeling right felt good, even though feeling right and good was felt very strange.
What a shame I had gone so long without feeling so right and good and strange all at once.
Theo had a knowing smile. “You’re about to move mountains.”
Then he turned and leaped off the peak. It was a beautiful swan dive down into the still ocean of the forest’s green canopy far below.
The drop was over seven thousand feet. It left no scratch on him.
I followed. Had to. I hadn’t learned to make my own way yet. And I wanted to follow him too. He gave me a reason to take a leap of faith.
Unfortunately, mine wasn’t a supple swan dive. More like a platypus flail.
It was interesting to watch firsthand how Blood Memories work in us.
Theo had drunk the blood of a rock climber. That was how he had climbed Suicide Rock with such self-assured deftness. The Blood Memories of the rock climber had increased his skill and finesse.
During that first week Theo went off on his own.
“He’s always doing that,” Ms. Crystobal told me one morning as she was serving a breakfast of eggs benedict.
Wyn was there. He sipped his morning coffee while he read The New York Times. “He’ll be back when the Blood Memories fade.”
Wyn was right. Theo returned after four days. He had travelled all over Southern California. He’d climbed all sorts of mountains. But now his Blood Memories were fading away. Forgetting them made him brooding. Losing the skills that came with the Blood Memories made him very sad. He would never again remember the skill of mountain climbing, unless he drank again the rock climber’s blood.
The only memories Theo had were his own. He could recall how happy he’d been climbing to the top of Suicide Rock.
I’ll never forget that night either.
Wyn’s Blood Memories lasted a little longer. This made him very happy. My Blood Memories were in him. They gave him my talent for remembering everything.
Wyn read every book in his library in three days. He didn’t sleep a wink. He moved with superhuman speed. He remembered every word he read.
Then he spent the next day locked in his study with only his laptop. He didn’t take a break. He typed 250 words a minute. His laptop barely kept up.
What did he write?
A manual on the Blood Vivicanti. It outlines twelve psychological steps for nurturing a race of Blood Vivicanti adolescents. The book is over 350,000 words.
Is it any good?
I confess I haven’t read it.
But it is more popular than The Joy of Sex and the Harry Potter series.
Booksellers put it in the fiction section.
That disappointed Wyn. He always considered his book to be “the greatest work next to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.”
The publisher titled it Life’s Okay! They put on the jacket cover the image of a boy and a girl walking hand-in-hand through a field of summertime violets.
Wyn ha
d based the book on my own personal experiences. He had titled it very differently:
The Platypus Theory
Wyn was also very sad when my Blood Memories faded from him. He had truly enjoyed having a photographic memory for a week. He can still remember reading books on poetry, on cooking, on fitness, on science and psychology and astrophysics. But he can’t remember anything about them. Not even the titles.
Sometimes I catch him looking at me, not leering, just gazing nostalgically. The way a father might gaze at his daughter on her wedding day. Indeed, Wyn’s been a gentleman. He’s never asked me again to drink my blood. He’s never again expressed the hope of eating my Blood Memories.
I would let him. He need only ask. Gifts are meant to be shared.
Once the week passed, it was time for us three Blood Vivicanti to feed again.
“One person, one pint,” Wyn told Theo and me before he left.
Wyn would hunt alone.
Theo offered to show me the ropes. He planned to drink the blood of a good cook. He’d always wanted to be skilled at cooking. The chef’s Blood Memories would give him the skill to whip-up savory meals for the next four or five days.
Who was I going to drink from?
No clue.
It was the first time I had to feed off a person – I had to hunt – I had to pierce someone’s neck with my tongue – I had to drink blood – and I had to eat memories.
It felt a little too intimate for an introvert. I wondered if I could stay home that week.
