Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  “Crenoral brought home his bride. He has made his final insult, I have taken my Clan and gone. I could no longer bear to be there with him. She is my Gregan's wife. She does not know me … us, but I have often seen her. It is unforgivable.”

  Dovan and his Clan left the Family then, moving far enough away that Crenoral's jealousy and Bestin's control was not so absolute. They were not far enough away, however, that they should not hear the next extraordinary news Crenoral announced to the night. “It was not possible, and yet all reports said that it is true. This woman whom my brother stole from my son's hearth was with child. Somehow it survived the death of its mother. What manner of monster will this child be? Will it bear resemblance to its human father? What will Crenoral do with it? I fear for its life and yet I fear its existence as well.”

  “Amara?” I sat up as if guilty, looking to the doorway where Dovan stood. Somehow he contradicted the image his words had created in my mind. “Are you well?”

  “Yes. I am quite well, Dovan. Please, come in.”

  “You've been in here so long, I was afraid something was wrong.”

  He came to sit beside me, picking up one of the discarded journals I had already devoured. “Justine told me she had given these to you. I always meant for you to have them, I didn't think you were ready.”

  “You write beautifully. I don't know how to put them down.”

  “Thank you. Where are you?” He gestured to the leather bound journal in my hand.

  I blushed, a little embarrassed, as if I had been caught reading a hidden diary. “Crenoral has just announced Mother's pregnancy.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, the next pages are full of reports of predictions by the eldest of the Family that you will be the end of us all. Even Bestin told Crenoral he should kill you as soon as you were born.”

  “Which he didn't do.”

  “He never was very good at taking orders. No, he was enamored of you, right from the beginning, as he had always been of Justa, my wife. You look very much like her, you know … except you ended up with your mother's hair.”

  “My grandmother … now there's a thought I haven't ever entertained. I always assumed I was simply born, and Mother and Crenoral were all I knew of Family for so long that I forgot to wonder about the rest. Tell me about her.” I tried to imagine what she would look like, what my life might have been like had Crenoral never come for my mother.

  He stretched and sighed. “She was a good woman, strong, healthy. She knew how to get the best from the people around her. Her parents died when she was only eleven. I married her four years later. I would have married her before that, but she kept refusing me, said she couldn't leave her brothers until they'd all married their own wives.”

  He looked at the floor, and I saw the reflection of an old pain in his eyes. “She lived a long life for the time … long indeed. She saw our grandchildren born … all but one.” He smiled and looked up at me. “She would have liked you, Child. You have her strength of will.”

  I smiled too and set the journal aside, pleased somehow that he would think so. His presence was soothing, and a part of me marveled at how comfortable I had come to be with him. “It is odd, to read of one's birth like this, through the eyes of someone you've never known.” If I closed my eyes I could almost picture them, the three brothers and Mother, with Mother's belly round with me. “I wish I had known you then, Dovan. I wish I could have grown up with you around.”

  “I was forbidden. Once Crenoral realized that you would be my granddaughter, he forbade me from ever coming near you. His damned jealousy. I guess he thought I would steal you away.”

  “And you probably would have, at least once I started to realize I was different from them.” I suppressed a yawn, suddenly taken with the need to sleep. “Does she haunt you yet, Dovan? Justa, I mean? Can you still see her face when you sleep? Do you see her in Justine?”

  “Aye, sometimes when she smiles, she is Justa, just as she was when we were both young.”

  “Could it be that she truly is Justa?” I lay back, sliding down to find a comfortable position.

  There was a sadness in his eyes as he shrugged. “I have heard of such things, though I have seen no proof. I miss her often, and perhaps that is why I see her in Justine.”

  I nodded at the logic. My limbs felt heavy with the fatigue. I sighed and he stood to leave. “She will be there for you when it's over,” I said, already half asleep. “Are you ready to be with her?”

  He sat beside me on the bed, brushing my cheek in a fatherly gesture. “Aye, I am. I'm tired, Amara. Tired of myself.” He seemed old and frail, though his appearance hadn't changed. It was as if all of the years had come to sit on his shoulders. I caught his hand and pressed it to my lips. I felt a warmth between us I had never felt before, a love that wasn't caught up in bodily passions or the need to please or impress.

  I didn't have the words to express it though, and the simple gesture was enough, as he returned it and rose from the bed. “You should sleep. I can see it in your eyes.”

  I yawned and struggled against the pull of sleep, but it was stronger than I and eventually my resistance proved futile. I woke through the day once, long enough to drink from the bottle Justine had left by the bed, then fell into the deep sleep of my kind. The next weeks are somewhat hazy, filled with long bouts of sleep and hours of reading, hunger, and feeding.

  Nearly a year after he pulled me from that grave, I went out to hunt alone for the first time. I fed that night insatiably, taking a deer, a boar, and more rabbits than I could count. I was beginning to feel whole and myself again. My reason had returned, my desire to live and my strength came with it. I was no longer a shell of myself. I was ready to leave.

  It was several months before I could broach the subject with them, but when at last I did, Dovan already knew. “I was hoping we would have longer together.” Was all he said in way of changing my mind. “But, I knew it would come to this.”

  “I'll be back this way again one day,” I said, and I truly meant it. I had learned a great deal in that place, my perceptions of myself had changed and so had my understanding of my history, my place in the flow of time.

  “The world is not as it once was, Child. Take it slow and easy.” Dovan's smile was soft, conveying both his affection and his sadness at my departure.

  “Don't worry about me, Grandfather. I have a talent for surviving.”

  “I've noticed. Still, I've given you a little to help you along,” he said handing me a leather satchel filled with the things I would need. “Just promise me you'll stay away from those Hunters and keep a low profile.”

  “I will.”

  “And should you need us, we'll be here,” Justine said. She kissed my cheek, and he my forehead as I shouldered my satchel and began the long trek down the mountain.

  It was a long journey into civilization, and when at last I reached a village, I kept my distance for a week of nights, observing the life there. Things had indeed changed. I tried to remind myself that it had been well on to eighty years since I had last been among man. The streets there were paved with some manner of stone, looking almost like brickwork. Men and women passed through those streets in odd-looking dress. I passed as a shadow, unseen at least until I passed a still pond and caught my own reflection.

  I was dressed fashionably enough, in a dress gifted to me by Justine, but I looked strange, even to myself. My hair hung to my knees like a black blanket. My eyes were sunken, my face long and ashen. Like the specter of death. As I stood gazing at the image I saw my mother in my eyes. I tried to see the person Dovan saw when he looked at me, but couldn't. I could only see the monster I had been when last I wandered in civilized company. I shook off the feeling and moved on, ambling north and east, toward the cities I had known, the places familiar enough for comfort. I was to find that the religious fervor that had swept the European countryside before my fall had left off of Vampyres for the time, concentrating on more human deviants and the governing of coun
tries.

  Those nations that had begun carving up the lands of Europe were becoming more established, ruled over by royal houses that fought over tiny strips of land and traded their daughters in marriage for peace and prestige. As I neared the place of my darkest deeds, war raged between the various nobilities of France and England. It was said that a woman led the French troops in victory over the English at Orléans. I knew little of the political causes, but the battlefields were easy to find, the smell of blood and fear called to me.

  It was not far from Orléans that I found myself missing Dovan, and the solitude of the mountain. I had found a place to sleep in a half ruined stable, where the debris had fallen to create a space just big enough for lying in where the walls blocked the light of the sun. From my satchel I pulled the small book Dovan had given me, words he had written while I was with him, poetry and thoughts he had said he needed to share with me. I could still smell him on the paper as I opened it. It was too dark to read in my hideaway, but I held the book to me and listened to the sound of his voice in my head.

  It seemed odd to be so alone again, though I had spent more time that way than I had with Dovan. I had grown accustomed to feeling him near me, comfortable with him as I had never been before, even with Adroushan or Jesse. There was no need to fight myself, no desire to kill. With Dovan I was simply myself. Perhaps that is what it was to have family, not in the sense that we were all Family, but the physical relation that came of sharing the same blood.

  As I moved to put the book away, a creased parchment fell from its pages. I unfolded it, but couldn't see in the dark. Carefully, I inched forward, closer to the deadly light that beat down on the ground just a few feet away. Eventually I was close enough to read. It was in Dovan's hand, a letter of credit, giving me access to accounts he held at a bank in Paris, and another in Barcelona.

  I changed my plans then, for I had seen Paris, but had never ventured to Barcelona before. A city was a place I could find myself again, with a little money to spend, I could find a room, buy clothing, and re-enter the world of man.

  Chapter 14

  My first night in Barcelona I was forced to kill a man. It was well after midnight and I presumed most would be fast asleep, affording me the city streets so that I might learn my way around unmolested. Unfortunately, this man was not asleep, but prowling the streets. I have no clue as to his business before he crossed my path, but upon seeing me, he ran at me with a blade in his hand, screaming obscenities. Seeing as my understanding of the local dialect was primitive at best, nothing I said had any effect on him and I backed off slowly, into the passage between a tavern and a dark stone building.

  He sliced my hand as I sought to disarm him, and I turned my ankle as he lunged at me. I willed the Change to come as I fell beneath him, my hands abandoning the knife in favor of turning his head to free up his neck. He bucked above me as I bit and drank. When I felt him relax, his weight pressing me into the dirty ground, I stopped, short of killing him and wiggled my way out from under him. I took the knife from him and bent to retrieve my satchel, torn from my shoulder. I was bleeding, and wearing a fair amount of his blood. The ankle was swelling, and it was likely that I had sprained it. As I limped toward the tavern, I heard the man rise and come at me again. This time I didn't hesitate, riding him to the ground and drinking until I felt the heart stop beating. I was shaking as I finished, both from the rush of blood and from the deed itself. It had been a long time since I had taken a human life.

  Thus it was that I presented myself to that tavern, my clothes torn and bloody, limping, my hand wrapped in cloth I had torn off my own skirt. The barmaid came to me as soon as I opened the door and I made great show of my injuries. I needed a place to stay and help getting around, and I figured that this was one way to get both. “I was attacked.” I said, as she sat me in a chair near the fire and started to tend my wounds. “I just came into town. I have nowhere to go. He took everything.”

  I spoke haltingly with my faltering grasp of their language, letting myself shake, as she checked my hand. “Settle now, child,” she said with a soft smile. “These streets are no place for a young woman at this hour. Luís, make up a bed.” She finished pulling off my hurried bandage and winced. The smell of blood filled the air around us, and I started shaking anew. The earlier taste of blood only whetted my appetite for more. “Let me get some water and bandages. Then, you can rest. Tomorrow we'll see to getting you taken care of.”

  I thanked her, and when she had finished winding clean linen bandages around my hand, followed her to a dark back room with a cot. I was grateful when the door closed and collapsed onto the bed. I was weak with desire, but forced myself to lay down on that bed and close my eyes. I didn't sleep, wouldn't trust myself to leave the room, so I lay, waiting for the dawn and the return of the woman.

  The only window in the room faced south, and was further blocked from the sun by the walls of the building behind it, rising up three stories and shuttered. I was quite safe from the dangers of the sun, but something about the growing light outside that window reminded me of the dungeon where Rebeka died. I found myself moving involuntarily into a corner of the room, my eyes fixated on the pale light visible through the cracks around the shutters.

  I jumped when the door opened, startled out of my corner. The woman who entered was not the same as the one the night before. She was much younger, though the similar features marked her as a relative, likely a daughter. She dipped in a light curtsey. “Morning, ma'am. I'm Brana. My father sent me to see if you need anything.”

  I inclined my head in return. “Thank you, Brana. I'm grateful for the hospitality.” I moved closer. She was little more than a child, perhaps fifteen. She smelled of the earth, fresh turned soil and the greenery of a garden. “I find myself with little left to my name, but what I managed to keep in my bag. I have a letter to a banker here in town however. I wonder if you might be able to fetch someone for me? I'm afraid I would only get lost.”

  She nodded. “I can send my brother, Phillípe. In the meantime, would you care for breakfast?”

  I would indeed, but not the kind she was offering. Still, I needed to feed, if I were ever to remove the specter of death from my face. “That would be lovely, Brana, thank you.”

  That day passed slowly, and it was well past midday that the banker finally arrived. He was an older man, with gray hair at his temples and wrinkles around his eyes. We spoke briefly, and I was startled to discover he knew Dovan personally. “I understand you suffer the same affliction as your Father,” he said, squinting at me. “Sensitive to the sunlight? A shame, really.”

  “Y-Yes, it is. Family trait though. We all suffer with it.”

  “That won't get in your way too much, once you set yourself up with some servants to take care of things for you. Will you be purchasing a house?”

  I felt a little overwhelmed, trying to fathom just what Dovan had given me. “I wouldn't expect to be, no,” I said. “I'm only stopping here for a time. I will be moving on soon.”

  “Well then, let me see to some arrangements. I can get you a room, a maid, and set you an evening appointment with a dress maker. That should get you started.”

  “And some compensation for the family here,” I added. “They took me in when I was wounded. They should be compensated.”

  He nodded and handed me something to sign, then he was gone again, promising to return after sundown. By the next evening I was comfortably ensconced in a bigger room, with windows shuttered tightly from both the outside and the inside. There was a young maid to handle the things I needed but could not attend to myself, and five dresses being made by a local dressmaker. I was able to set up my equipment and send the maid for the supplies I would need to make the formula again. I realized it wouldn't be enough to bring back the appearance of health to my face, but it would be a start.

  I knew I would have to hunt eventually, and the thought repulsed me. I was afraid of what I might become again if I allowed myself blood. The
taste of the attacker was still strong in my mind, the frantic beating of his heart as I fed dancing about inside me.

  I made furtive forays into the streets, long after the maid had gone to her bed, in the hours when only those with foul plans would be about. For many of these nights I did nothing but watch them, feeling the desire to feed, yet unable to act upon it. Finally, as spring was beginning to become summer, I chanced upon a drunkard stumbling along in the dark. He was a rough looking sort, with a few days' growth upon his face, his brown coat covered in dirt and his breeches torn in more than one place. At his belt was a small purse and a dagger, though his sword's sheath was empty. He had been injured and reeked of the blood oozing from a wound I couldn't see. I fell on him like a starved animal and left him just as the brooding clouds began their deluge, taking his purse with me.

  It was easier after that. I would eat an early supper in my rooms, brought in by the maid before she left for the evening, and drink formula until the night was dark enough to hide me. Then I would venture out and feed, returning long before dawn and falling deeply asleep. In several months, the woman in my mirror looked less like death and more like a mortal woman in her early twenties. The feeding became less frequent after that, only once a week, then once a month. Eventually it stopped all together.

  I was, however, growing restless and determined it time to journey. Staying in one place too long had been my mistake with Rebeka. I didn't want to make it again. After settling my accounts with the banker, and my landlord, I purchased a small carriage and fitted it with heavy curtains. I hired a driver who desired passage into France. From France, I headed to Austria. I was restive, and the idea of visiting places I hadn't yet seen interested me.

  I didn't care for Venice much, and headed northward, into what had been Germania, to see Berlin. From Berlin, I ventured west. In London I heard that ships had crossed the ocean and found a “New World,” a place filled with wonders and freedom. I considered it wild speculation when first I heard of it, for how could there be land across that vast sea, beyond who knew what manner of monsters? Still, the stories continued, and grew to be far more convincing than the extravagant fairytales being told about the Vampyre.