Grief For Heart: The Vincent Du Maurier Series, Book 4

by K. P. Ambroziak

  Saba turned to face her sister, her eyes wide. “What about Peter?”

  “I just thought—”

  “No, not him either.”

  Hannah narrowed her eyes, searching her sister for honesty. Then she shook her head, and settled on a quip. “You’re more hopeless than a two-legged reindeer.”

  She put her arm around Saba’s shoulders, pulling her close. “Come, see me to the gate,” she said.

  “What about the twins?” Saba glanced at the two girls, now bent over plucking up the soil.

  Hannah waved a hand at them. “They’ll be fine.”

  The two rose, and Saba followed her sister up the path to the gate. She waited as her sister rummaged through her satchel for a piece of copper. “Here it is,” she said, holding it up. “Take it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A pin.” She proceeded to stick the piece of copper into the material beneath Saba’s pelt. “You wear it on your clothes like this.” She patted the pin down.

  “What is it?”

  “A butterfly.”

  “What for?”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “You’re truly hopeless, you know that?”

  “I just don’t see the point—”

  “Maybe there isn’t one. It’s to make you look pretty, that’s all.”

  Saba scoffed at her attempt to soften her. “I’m going to need more pins.”

  Hannah reached up and pinched her sister’s cheek. “Oh you little fool. You’ve got to be the most beautiful woman in our camp. Such a waste.”

  She chuckled as she sauntered up the path, turning back to wave goodbye before disappearing over the heath. Saba watched her go, then returned to the yard, which had grown short two little bodies.

  “Nikka, Oleana,” she called.

  She didn’t think the children had gone far, but she couldn’t wait for them to return. To search for them meant picking up the infant, and she wasn’t ready for that, either. She called out to the girls again, several times before she took a breath and braved the torture.

  Starlet stirred as Saba reached for her, but she didn’t wake. The young warrior held her stiffly, unable to find the best way to transport the bundle in her arms. A strap would be much more efficient, she thought.

  She headed past the place the twins had set up their imaginary game, looking for clues in the grass as she passed. A few stray toys marked the way, but no clear evidence was found. The baby grew heavy and she readjusted the bundled, tucking Starlet up under her arm. The baby slept like the dead, which made her thank god for small favors.

  She followed the path to the ravine. The water was shallow there, with plenty of rocks and branches to trip over, not to mention the many things sticking up from the ground on either side, things upon which little bodies could be impaled. Saba couldn’t help the threatening thoughts, at times gore was her master.

  She walked the stream for a few legs before she heard one of the girls squeal. She raced toward the sound, Starlet bouncing under her arm, jolted awake. The infant squealed, too, and Saba’s heart raced. She couldn’t put the baby down, so she closed her ears as best she could. Her eyes alone would guide her. She thought of other things, happy things, like Peter’s mouth on hers.

  “Saba!” One of the twins called out to her, a strike of panic in her voice.

  Saba saw them then, on the other side of the stream, the foot of one lodged between two rocks.

  “Are you stuck?” Saba yelled from across the way.

  The one wearing blue waved her over, so she held Starlet against her chest, bouncing her up and down, losing the battle she’d started. Nothing would settle her now, the beached whale no longer a fitting epithet. The baby shrieked as she crossed the water to meet the girls.

  “Olee’s foot stuck,” the one wearing the blue said. Saba tried to remember Nikka’s blue vest so she could tell them apart.

  “I see that,” Saba said.

  “We were running,” Oleanna joined in. “I slipped on the muck.”

  “What muck?” Saba passed the squealing infant off to Nikka, who held the baby with skill, much better at coddling her than Saba. Born into it, Saba thought.

  “That.” Oleanna pointed behind her. “Red gunk.” She made a sour face.

  “Looks like blood,” Saba mumbled. Her curiosity was piqued. “Are you bleeding,” she said, inspecting the girls at once.

  “Nup,” Nikka and Oleanna chimed together.

  “Must be a wounded animal,” she spoke to herself most readily. “I’ll tell Andor.”

  “It’s from the—” Oleanna began, as Nikka slapped her hand over her sister’s mouth. “Shush,” Nikka said.

  “What are you two up to?”

  The girls blushed, their father’s hardy face beginning to show in their looks.

  “Noffing,” Nikka said.

  Starlet had finally settled, issuing soft coos, Oleanna reaching up to take her from Nikka.

  “Nothing what?” Saba asked.

  “Tell her,” Oleanna mumbled. “Or I will.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Noffing—” Nikka repeated, her denial squashed by Oleanna who said, “There’s a boy over there.”

  “A boy?” Saba craned her neck to see. “What boy?”

  Oleanna shrugged, and Nikka rolled her eyes. “I told you not to tell.”

  “No, it’s good you told me. Is it a boy you know?” Saba continued to search the ravine’s edge, unable to see the body. She juggled the two views, the children at her side and the body she longed to spy.

  “Nope,” Nikka said. “He’s not from here.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Somebody else.”

  “Can you show me?”

  Oleanna took the lead, careful with her step, unwilling to get stuck again.

  The three of them headed up the ravine with the baby in tow. Saba could’ve taken the infant from Nikka’s arms, the twins trading her off as each grew tired, but she figured they’d less chance of dropping her.

  They hadn’t gone far before Saba saw him, the boy they’d found along the shore. Saba told the girls to stay put, and rushed to the body, her winged feet gliding over rocks to get to the other side.

  His legs were in the water, his upper body splayed on the knoll of the bank. His torso was bare, and his hair shorn. He didn’t look like the other men of her colony. They’d long manes like hers.

  She concluded he was a perfect stranger, with no markings except for blood on the side of his neck. She turned him over carefully, holding his head. She leaned forward once he was facing upward, and put her cheek close to his. He’d a fish odor on his breath, a breath she hoped to reinvigorate.

  Saba smiled, as she gazed at him, holding him in her arms. She put her hand to his chest, feeling his heart thump. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got you now.”

  He was alive, if barely. She touched his forehead, wiping the sweat from his brow. He was at least her age, maybe older. But he wasn’t like the colonists. He was no Hematope. Like her, he was a descendant of man.

  * * *

  Finn rested his head on the ice. His plunge into the frozen sea had made his skin blue and his heart stop. He died for a time, pulled back to life by the one who’d killed him.

  Conflicted, the vampire saved his quarry and stifled his desire to steal his life. He’d pulled the boy from the water, taking him into his arms, propelling the two of them up and out of the sea. They landed on the floe, together in one embrace. The vampire didn’t mourn the young hunter’s soul, but he grieved for his blood. Racing to save what life he could, he blew a mass of warm air through his body. The vampire’s skin shook with cold as he poured all of his heat into his boon. He would recover with his next tug on the hunter’s vein, but he couldn’t get that tug if the hunter didn’t recover, too.

  The vampire built a raging fire, praying to his god once again. The flames licked the ice, making a wedge in the floe, though not penetrating it. A perfect balance had been st
ruck. The cold from the water below keeping the ice from melting, despite the heat of the fire.

  “To you, my god,” the vampire said, holding an open hand up to the animated sky, bursting with more stars than he’d seen in his lifetimes. “To the new world.”

  He chuckled to himself, tugging at his god’s ear. The young hunter wouldn’t wake for hours, and he found comfort in the constellations above him. He told himself the stories he recalled from memory. The bear and her little one, running from the hydra with two heads, being chewed up and spat out, and sent into the sky to light the way forever. And the archer, who held his bow with perfect tension, never able to release the dart of fire he held in the sky. But his favorite was Thuban, the Alpha Dragon, who spewed out fire of gold, consuming village upon village across the globe until he reached the polar most tip of the world to confront his mortal enemy, ice. Thuban blew his gold onto the ice, and the ice took it in, all of it, draining the dragon of his power and his weight. Soon Theban was as light as helium and floated up to the sky, into the pitch of outer space, where he remains a cutout of his former self, goldless, and dipped in lead.

  “Food,” Finn said, pulling the vampire from his reverie.

  This time the vampire was prepared. He’d already cooked fish on the spit, with the intention of waking him with the smell. He tossed a mound at his quarry and Finn took to it like a ravenous animal.

  “Eat,” the vampire said. “Yes, eat your strength back.”

  They sat in silence for a time. The knock on Finn’s head had made him woozy, but he hadn’t forgotten the whole of his story. He recognized his kidnapper, and longed for his home where his brothers and mother, and even his ornery father, had loved him despite his rebellious heart. Finn had never been easy to love, but they loved him still. He looked up at the stars and tried to pull himself off the ice floe and into the fire above him.

  “That’s Andromeda,” the vampire said. “Do you know her?”

  Finn shook his head. His father had taught him other names for the fires in the sky.

  “Would you like to hear her story?” The vampire moved closer to Finn.

  Finn shrugged, but held steady where he lay by the fire. He’d no strength left to fight and didn’t care anymore if his captor drained him of every last drop of blood. He was numb to pain now, and perhaps a bit taken with the unruly man-beast who seemed a contradiction to everything he ever knew.

  “She was beautiful,” he said, pausing to study the young hunter. “Do you know what beautiful is?”

  Finn shrugged.

  “You will see beauty, and you won’t soon forget it. You’ll never forget her once you’ve laid eyes on her. She’s even more fierce than me, and she is beauty.”

  “Who?” Finn held his breath, unsure why he opened his mouth to speak.

  “He calls her Evelina.”

  “Who does?”

  “The god who made her.”

  Finn’s look of confusion aroused the vampire. He wanted another nibble, but he forced his desire down and carried on with his story.

  “Andromeda, do you know what her name means?”

  Again, Finn shrugged.

  “Ruler of men.” He chuckled to himself, then looked up. “I suppose Evelina means conqueror of men, maker of gods.” He smiled, as a star shot through the sky, leaving a streak across the darkness. He took that as confirmation his god was listening.

  “Andromeda’s mother was the foolish one,” he said. “Her hubris too big for her skin. She bragged of her daughter’s beauty to the wrong father.”

  The vampire looked at the young hunter to see if he was paying attention. Finn’s eyes were no longer drowsy, his concentrated gaze betraying his interest. The vampire was glad to see his story intrigued him.

  “The ruler of the sea was not pleased with the mother’s arrogance. He collected the fine daughter and stripped her to the skin, then chained her to a stone near his lair. But he didn’t want her for himself. No, he was saving her for another.”

  “Who?” Once again, Finn’s interest pleased the vampire. He drew near the young hunter, closing the gap between them.

  “A beast as ugly as she was beautiful. A great sea serpent with teeth as pointy as mine.” The vampire smiled and flashed his subtle fangs. The young hunter didn’t flinch, but reached out and touched them, brushing his hand across the vampire’s mouth. The vampire took in a breath, culling his scent up into him, delaying the pleasure in which he’d partake.

  “Do I frighten you?” The vampire asked with a voice as pleasing as Finn’s mother’s.

  The young hunter shrugged, but his eyes belied his truth. He’d fallen under the vampire’s spell, titillated now by the beastly man.

  “Do I frighten you?” Finn asked.

  The vampire grinned, his hungry eyes soaking up the bare chest of the quarry he longed to taste anew. “Yes,” he confessed. “You do.”

  Finn perked up, propping himself on his elbow. “How can I?”

  “You understand too little to know of what I speak. But trust me when I say, the loss of you would be the end of me.”

  Finn swallowed, then moistened his cracked lips with his tongue.

  The vampire hadn’t thought of his basic need, that the water around him wasn’t worthy of drink. By now his thirst would have been tantamount.

  “Forgive me,” the vampire said. “I must find you water.”

  The young hunter looked out at the sea. “I’m fine,” he groaned.

  He turned his body away from the vampire, his unseemly gaze too confusing. A heat that had begun in his belly, slowly inched its way between his legs. He stared out at the blackness, pulling the cool air into his lungs. A sparkle caught his eye, like the flash of glass in the sun. He looked back at his captor to see if he’d noticed it too, but the vampire had moved away from the boy to the front of the floe, standing at the edge, peering out into his own bit of darkness.

  The young hunter searched the water again, and this time an eye peered up at him, closer than before. He gasped and pushed himself away, sliding across the ice to its middle. A gust of water blew up at the side of the floe, and the mammoth eye descended once again into darkness. Their raft rolled as the blue whale made waves beneath them.

  “Land,” the young hunter muttered. “Take me to land.” He crawled on all fours toward his captor, reaching for him as he got close.

  “We are approaching her,” the vampire said.

  His gaze remained on the shore, where he could see her island perfectly. He scanned the grassy land, hoping for a glimpse of her, but his eyes couldn’t rise above the mound at the shore’s edge. No matter, he thought. We are floating to her, and soon we will be reunited.

  “Shall I tell you what happened to Andromeda?” The vampire bellowed out to the shore, thinking the young hunter was still on the other side of the floe. He couldn’t contain his chuckle when he looked down to find his quarry at his feet, trembling at the darkness. “What is this,” he said. “Have you come to beg from me?”

  He bent down, taking the young hunter into his arms, holding him to his chest to warm him once more.

  “The sea serpent ate her,” Finn said, his voice a whisper on the wind.

  The vampire grinned at the young hunter’s wit. If he hadn’t decided before, he would’ve at that moment, the boy wouldn’t die by his hand. If you’re worthy, he thought, I shall make you mine.

  “She survived her captivity, rescued before the jaws of the beast could snap her up,” he said. “Shall I show you?”

  All at once, Finn’s head fell back, his neck exposed to his captor. He expected the pain to come, but it didn’t. Instead, the two seemed to float in midair, then tumble downward for longer than Finn could count. The frost touched him first, before anything else. Then he heard the splash of the water, and felt the toss of his stomach, as his body lurched into darkness.

  “Swim, Finn, Finn, Swim,” was the last he heard, the vampire’s shout rising above the storm in his head. The coldness numbed h
im, until his thaw came with the rounded back of a mammal, carrying him to shore. He coughed up the sea, then dropped into oblivion, embracing the long sought relief to come.

  * * *

  Finn washed up on shore one minute before the day ended, and lay in the darkness until the sun was in the middle of the sky the following day. His body ached in many places. His head throbbed and he was cold. When he opened his eyes, he was grateful to see the ground. But his stomach turned and he retched on the grass beside him, throwing the sea back onto the shore. A pain grew in his stomach like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Worse than the vampire’s bite, worse than the porpoise’s dorsal fin, worse than the sorrow in his heart. He groaned and looked up to the bright sky. He whispered his father’s name, and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Come for me,” he whispered. “You said you’d always come for me. Come for me now. I need you.” Finn couldn’t help the tears, he’d stuffed them down for too long. They came now, gushing from his eyes, down his cheeks, over his chest and into his heart. His sorrow was circular. Again and again it came upon him, like a tide rushing to the shore, crashing up on it to stain it with hurt.

  Was he dreaming, he wondered. Was it all a bad dream?

  When he finally gained the strength to stand, it was his hunger that drove him, his spirit long since gone into retreat.

  He crawled at first, pulling his knees across the rocky grass. He’d head toward the center of the island, away from the water. I must hunt, he told himself. If there was one thing he could do, it was hunt.

  Finn wrestled with his muscles for a time, then found his stride. The air revived him, the frost seeping into his limbs. The cold was comforting, its mix with the sun just what he needed. He walked for hours before he found a stream. The fresh water beckoned to him, as if he’d been led there by some magical fay, driving him on his course.

  He recalled all of this much later, when he and I sat at the hearth, reminiscing about his brush with death. He told me he heard a voice, a song that guided him on his path. “It’s still with me,” he told me, his cheeks hot with his confession.