Magic and Shadows: A Collection of YA Fantasy and Paranormal Romances

by T. M. Franklin

  “Is it safe for Isaiah to be here, and listen to us?” I asked, worried that Isaiah would hear us talking.

  “He can’t hear us. He is busy looking at the books in my library. I sent him that way,” Jeremiah said, smiling at me.

  I was shocked that Isaiah left me, knowing how worried he was as we were driving here.

  “It was my power of persuasion,” Jeremiah said, as he shrugged his shoulders. “We can talk freely. He will not remember anything that I don’t want him to remember.”

  “Why did you really give me away?” I looked into his dark eyes as I asked this question, wanting to look at him to make sure he was telling me the truth. I wanted to hear the story again. I think maybe I was hoping that this time he would change something, and I would know that he was making this up for some unknown reason.

  “Well. As I told you before, your mother had just died. There was no one to take care of you. I had no one that I could ask to help me with a newborn child, no one to answer any of my questions. I was fearful that others of my kind would find out about you, and that they would be very angry if they learned that I’d had a child with a human.

  “Remember, I told you that no one I had ever known had thought it possible for a human to have a half-vampire child? I didn’t know what to do. I started wandering around the streets, staying in the shadows. I carried you wrapped in a blanket in my arms. My heart was breaking as I mourned for the love that I had just lost. I mourned for the child she so desperately wanted, and I knew that I couldn’t keep.” Jeremiah shuddered, as a cloud of sadness washed over his face of such loss that it tore at my heart.

  “When I passed the hospital the humans use to have their children, I heard nurses crying over a newborn who had died, and talking about how sad her parents were going to be. I thought that maybe I could make you safe by exchanging you for the dead human infant.

  “I promised myself that I would watch over you, and keep you safe. No one would be the wiser. I would watch you from a distance, and step in if the time came when you started showing any vampire traits. If you never did, then I figured you would be happy living in your mother’s world.

  “I made my way into the hospital, and listened by the door to the room where the two humans were waiting to see their little girl. Listening to them talk, they sounded like wonderful people. I reached into their minds, and felt and saw the love that they had for their child. I knew that this woman would love you. I felt that she would love you as your mother would have loved you. She seemed so sweet and kind.

  “I made my way into the nursery and replaced you for the infant who had died. I erased the memories of the nurses who were there mourning the baby.

  “Everything has been fine for the last seventeen years. I promised myself that I would always remember and mourn the little baby whose life was lost, because you would be safe living with her parents.

  “Then, this summer, things started to change. Suddenly you were in my mind, probing into the house and its history. I know this sounds strange, Elizabeth, but I think that the reason you may be having the dreams is because your mind is becoming more aware of mine.” He looked at me, his eyes imploring me to believe in him.

  “So I was seeing this house from your memories and your mind? How can that be?” I felt like I was stepping into someone else’s life, like I was becoming a character in a book someone had written. “How can any of this be true?”

  Even as I was asking him this, something inside of me knew that he was telling the truth. The story had remained unchanged from when he started telling it in the library.

  Looking around, I suddenly felt like I was home. I can’t say if I felt relief or sorrow over that.

  “Let’s go for a walk, Elizabeth. I want to show you more.” He started walking towards the back of the house. I followed, looking around at the pictures on the walls, getting glimpses of rooms as we walked. As we passed by a large room I stopped and saw the picture I had seen often in my dreams. The painting was of Jeremiah, my mother and their dog sitting under a beautiful old tree. It seemed that my mind had maintained details from my dreams that I had forgotten.

  We walked out a set of French doors and into the most beautiful garden I had ever seen. I felt my breath catch in my chest.

  I turned towards Jeremiah. “This garden is breathtaking! I have never seen such beautiful flowers before.” I couldn’t believe the colors and the array of different plants the garden held. Off to my right there were beautiful azaleas sitting among large rocks, oak trees shading them just enough to allow the flowers to be large and bright. I hadn’t known there were so many different shades of azaleas. I saw red, pink, and watermelon colored blooms. There was even one that appeared to be blue. I had thought my mothers’ azaleas were amazing. These were like no other flowers I had ever seen.

  Off to the left was a lovely rose garden; here, too, there were colors that I didn’t even know flowers blossomed in. A little birdbath sat tucked in the center of the rose bushes. As I looked past the rose garden, I saw a fence covered with climbing roses that were loaded so heavy with blooms you almost couldn’t see the leaves. It seemed, no matter which way I looked, there was nothing but flowers blooming.

  “Your mother planted this garden. She loved flowers and beauty. She would come out here and sit under that tree just there,” Jeremiah whispered, pointing to a lovely little tree that shaded a small round table. I notice two curved benches, one on either side of the table. “She said she felt more alive when she was surrounded by nature and beauty.

  “I would sit on one side of the table, and watch her. She would laugh, and look up from her needlepoint, and ask me why I was staring at her. I couldn’t help staring at her. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t take my eyes off her.” He turned towards me. “I was terrified the day she told me she was having my child. It was the first argument we ever had. I told her she couldn’t have you. I was so afraid. She took my hand, and told me not to be afraid, that everything would work out and that she wanted you more than anything in the world but me.” He gazed into my eyes, and laughed. “Can you imagine a vampire being afraid? Not something that happens often, trust me, Elizabeth. I don’t remember ever being that afraid in my entire existence.

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want a child with her, you have to understand that, Elizabeth. Like I told you before, a child with a human was something that we vampires had only been told to fear. I was told it would kill the mother, and the child would not live long after birth. I was terrified. I didn’t want to lose her.” He stopped abruptly. “Is this too much for you?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

  “No, please go on, I want to hear everything,” I answered in a whisper, almost afraid to hear what he would say next.

  “Of course she refused to listen to me. She said that you were a sign, a gift from her god. What kind of god takes away someone like your mother?”

  He wasn’t looking for an answer. I could see he was back in the pain of his past, reliving it as he was telling me about it. My heart was starting to ache for this man.

  “Nothing I could say would make her change her mind. As the months went on and she grew heavy with child, I started to have some hope. She was so healthy and happy that I really started to believe that everything would be all right. He looked towards me. “She loved you beyond reason. We stayed hidden from her world as well, you see, fearful of what might happen if a human started to get suspicious.”

  “You saw the stories when you were doing the research. Humans fear anything that they can’t explain. No one, no human, or any vampire could know for sure what a child of a vampire and a human would be like. We couldn’t let her family know because they didn’t know about my true self, and we couldn’t let my world know because of our fears. But she never complained; she said as long as she had me, and the baby she was carrying, that she would never be lonely.”

  “The night that you were born was the best night and the worst night of my life. When her labor started, she was
so happy. We had everything ready in the room. She even had a small bassinet sitting by the bed, ready for you to sleep in. She had made the little blankets herself.”

  “I helped her to bring you into the world, Elizabeth, and you were so beautiful. I placed you in her arms. She was beaming with pride and love. She looked at me, and made me promise not to let anything happen to you, that I was to protect you and keep you safe, no matter what. She kissed your face and your little neck. She was so happy.”

  He stopped talking, and I could see the pain in his eyes. Something compelled me to reach over and take his hand. He turned and looked at me, a slight smile forming on his lips. Just as I was about to say something he turned away again. “Let me finish. I need to get this out before you say anything, or ask me any questions.” He sighed and continued.

  “We sat there for a little while. She looked so beautiful laying there, holding you. She was so full of love. She looked up, and asked me if we could name you Elizabeth after her grandmother. I told her I thought it was a lovely name for you. I think it made her very happy.”

  “Suddenly, your mother told me to take you. When I looked at her face she was so pale. I took you from her arms and placed you in the little bassinet, and covered you with the blanket she had made.”

  “When I turned around again, she was gone. I knew it as soon as I looked at her face; there was nothing I could do. I was stricken. I held her in my arms, heartbroken. I couldn’t understand why she was gone. There was nothing I could do. I tried, Elizabeth, I really did!” He looked at me with such anguish in his eyes that it startled me.

  “I held her in my arms until you started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. How could I keep you and protect you? With your mother gone, how could I raise a half-human child, with no knowledge of what to do? I had never been around an infant, let alone taken care of one. I couldn’t ask anyone for help because no one knew about you. That is when I took you, and ended up at that hospital with the humans. When I got there I was just going to leave you, in hopes that someone would adopt you.”

  “But when I heard the nurses talking about the young couple whose child had just died, talking about not wanting to tell them, of the heartbreak it would cause, I knew what I had to do. So, as I said, I quietly took you into that nursery, erased their memories and placed you into that bed. I kissed your forehead. When I went to kiss your neck, where your mother had kissed you, that is when I saw the mark—the kiss of the vampire on your neck. I took the little dead baby and left the hospital, barely even aware of what I was doing or where I was going to go. I brought the baby home, and buried her here in the garden. I visit her grave and grieve for her Elizabeth, as she has no one else to do it.

  “I have been watching you all these years. Careful to make sure that you would do nothing to hurt any of them. Careful to keep you off the radar from the vampire world, hoping no one would notice the mark on you.”

  When he said those words my hand went to my neck, and touched the spots that had always been there. Warmth spread through me, thinking of my mother kissing me there when I was just a newborn. Tears spilled out of my eyes for the loss of her before I ever got to know her. I looked at Jeremiah, waiting to see if I could now ask him any questions or if he had more to say. He was sitting with his head down, looking like it had taken a great toll on him to tell me about her. “She loved you very much, didn’t she?” I asked gently.

  He turned his head and smiled. “Yes, as I did her. I could deny her nothing, and because of that I lost her, but I got you. I wish that you could have lived with me all these years. I still don’t know what to do about any of this. I could be putting you in danger just telling you about your mother and I, telling you of your heritage. You understand that you can’t tell anyone about this, Elizabeth?”

  “I think I understand, but why would these ‘others’ you talk about not accept me if I’m of both worlds?”

  “Because no one knows anything about a being like you, Elizabeth. There is so much that is unknown to us. Remember, there are the legends both from the human side, and from our side. As I said before, no one knows what the child of a human and a vampire will be, what that child will or will not do. Or, for that matter, what they can do. There are legends that they will become vampire hunters, hunters who track us down and show no mercy in destroying us. Other legends that say they will do evil things to humans, and other legends that they will only live for a short time. Humans fear the unknown; so do we, Elizabeth. I couldn’t risk your life by letting anyone know you existed. So I have stayed in the background, watching and loving you from a distance.”

  “When you started doing the research at the library and found the information about Tucker Hill, and you started asking questions, I was afraid that the others would notice you and discover what and who you are. I knew that I had to talk to you, and tell you of your heritage and my existence to protect you. I didn’t want the last seventeen years to be for nothing. I have to keep you safe. I promised your mother.”

  “You have done a good job. Here I am, sitting in your home, safe and sound,” I said with a smile, hoping to make him feel better.

  “You have to stop digging around, Elizabeth. You have to listen to me, and keep a low profile. No one can know about you.”

  He looked so troubled that it worried me more. Here was a man who thought he was a vampire, someone who should, according to all the legends, be afraid of nothing or anyone, worrying about me. How could anything he was saying be true? Wasn’t I just a normal girl from a small town? I lived in a regular house, with four sisters and a mom and a dad. I had a boyfriend, and friends. I did not drink blood.

  “Are you sure that you have the right person?” I asked him. “You know, I have no powers or anything.”

  “I know this is hard to believe, Elizabeth, and I know you have been living a normal life. But you know in your heart that what I’m telling you is true. You have been having dreams about this house. You have wanted to know more about vampires, so much so that you are suddenly researching and reading everything you can about us. You have the vampires kiss on your neck. And yes, I’m sure that you’re the correct person. I took you to that hospital, and placed you with the family that you have been living with. I watched you come into the world. You don’t think I would remember your face? And, I think maybe the human side is why you don’t need blood to survive. Like I told you before, you are like no other creature that I have known, so I don’t know anything about what to expect. As far as I know, you’re one of a kind, Elizabeth.”

  It still felt strange that he could read my every thought. I looked at him with tears in my eyes. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing that you are not willing to give to me, I promise. I just want to know that you are okay, and I want to continue to keep you safe. That’s what I promised your mother.”

  “I think I need to find Isaiah and leave now.” As I stood up to go, I could see the hurt in his eyes. “I just need some time to think. You have given me a lot to think about, a lot to take in here. Do you think that you can let me have some time? If what you say is true, what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Of course I can give you some time. I know this is a lot for you to hear. I have lived with this knowledge for seventeen years.

  “There is one more thing I have to tell you.” He glanced around and leaned a little towards me. “Isaiah comes from a good family. His great-grandfather was one of the people in this town who stood by me when all the others were trying to prosecute me, and run me out of town. The only thing is, if Isaiah somehow finds out about your heritage and finds out the truth about me, it could put him in danger, too. So you must not say anything to him. His family can never know about us, Elizabeth, do you understand that?”

  “I think so. It’s just that I never lied to him about anything until I met you. Since the first day he and I met, I felt attached to him. He told me he was drawn to me, that I was irresistible.” Suddenly a terrible thought flew into my mi
nd. “Is that because of the vampire in me?” I felt sick to my stomach at the thought. I didn’t want him to only like me because of a vampire trait.

  He smiled. “As vampires, we are irresistible to humans: our looks, our smell, everything about us draws humans to us. It could be that the vampire part of you is coming out as you are growing.”

  “That’s what I am worried about. I don’t know what other changes will come about with you. We are on unknown ground, here. I worry that others of my kind will start to notice you as well.”

  I looked at him. “Well, I guess we’ll figure it out together. Can I call you if I need to talk, or ask you anything? Jeremiah, how many of your kind are there around here?”

  “Yes, you can call me anytime you want, I would like that. There are a small number of us in the area. If anyone new comes in, they are supposed to notify me.

  “I’ll continue to watch over you. Keep your mind open to me. Who knows? Maybe you will start to develop the power to read my mind, too. I would like it if that happened because it would make it much easier for us to keep contact with each other.”

  “Do you think it would be okay if I gave you a hug?” I asked suddenly, surprising both of us. “Guess that is the human side of me,” I said with a shrug.

  “I think that would be just fine.” He opened his arms, and I stepped inside. His embrace was not what I expected. I had always heard that vampires were cold, but he felt cool to me, not cold, and, surprisingly enough, I felt very safe in his embrace.

  “We will talk soon. Just remember everything that I have told you about being careful and keeping safe.”

  “I will, I promise. Now, where do you think Isaiah got off too?” I asked trying to make my voice sound calm.

  “Let’s go see,” Jeremiah replied, smiling down at me. “I have a feeling we will find him still in my library.”