Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  I smiled too, my own mind twisting that thought into a memory of a time when something I ate had disagreed with me before he died. She must have seen an echo of it and she laughed faintly. “You know what I meant,” she said.

  “I am going to walk a bit,” I said after a long silence.

  I was restless, the anxiety of the early evening still burning inside of me. I walked a long time, not really paying attention to where my footsteps took me, except to keep the house within a distance to reach before sunrise. My stomach rumbled and an echo of that other hunger followed. A part of me longed to follow after Moira and Leonard, who must surely be somewhere in America, enjoying the growing culture around them. I missed culture, operas, quiet dinners among the denizens of a bustling city.

  Yet, a part of me too was content, happy. The image of Francis asleep in her bed warmed me as I paused beside a cold stream. She was an amazement to me, still. I sighed and it seemed to echo around me.

  Squatting beside the stream, I let my hands play in the icy water for a moment, retrieving a shiny, smooth stone that Francis would giggle excitedly over. I dried it on my skirt and went to put it in the pocket of my dress. My hand brushed something in the pocket and in curiosity I pulled it out, angling it to the slip of moonlight that filtered through the trees.

  It was a letter, the last that Lu Sin had brought up from town the week before. I had forgotten about it. It was from the parents of the beautiful child in San Francisco, warm news of her excellence in school, her adoration for her new studies, and news of their small family.

  I had maintained a correspondence with Joy and her parents, gifting her with trinkets and invitations to visit. There was some connection there, even across the miles that separated us. The parents wrote, telling me about the mysterious benefactor who had left a small fortune to them, of the promotion he had received, and all the news of the child who had so enchanted me. I used those letters as a guide of sorts of what to expect from my own child, though I took into account the difference in their developmental patterns.

  I longed for her still, with five years and half a world between us. I could still see her eyes staring up into mine as if they knew everything. Perhaps it was this longing, more than anything that had brought the restlessness. I hungered for the first time in years. Replacing the letter, I made for home, covering ground quickly. I found Lu Sin tucking Francis into bed, already nearly asleep. I kissed Francis goodnight, then withdrew to my room, to sip off a bottle of formula and re-read the letter.

  I drifted to sleep thinking of Joy, and my dreams brought images of an older Joy, blonde curls and blue eyes, playing with Francis in the night. The next morning, we started our lessons, setting times for reading lessons and simple math. We also agreed to a new schedule, in which Lu Sin would rise several hours before sunset, wake and feed Francis, then take her out into the sun to learn of things which can only be seen in daylight.

  Francis proved to be a quick study, nimble with numbers and with a desire to read that surpassed anything I had ever felt, even when my hunger for knowledge had driven me. Within the first year, we ran out of material for her, and she surprised us by moving onto the readers for older students. Our advertisements went out, seeking a tutor accustomed to hard living and few amenities, who spoke English and Latin at a minimum. It took quite some time to receive responses, and most were rather demanding. Finding a suitable tutor was going to be a difficult task.

  More than a year after beginning to look, a letter arrived which showed much promise. It was a young teacher from London, who was seeking travel and work. She was single, with no children, well-schooled and offered good recommendations from two previous employers, both of whom had employed her in a private manner similar to ours. She offered us four years, after which we could re-negotiate, and her only desire for salary was room and board and a small stipend for personal items.

  By the time she would arrive, Francis would be nearly seven. Lu Sin made another trip into town to post our acceptance letter, as well as to pick up the things we would need to prepare a room for the new person. We had several unused rooms, though they were all filled with cast off items of furniture and clothing. For the next months we sewed curtains and bed linens, moved boxes and furniture and made ready for the arrival of the teacher.

  She arrived by coach a month before Francis's birthday, and Lu Sin escorted her up the mountain to our home, arriving with the setting of the sun. She was a small woman, barely five feet tall, with a mousy face, creamy cheeks and small, dark eyes. She smelled of lavender as she stepped down out of the carriage and introduced herself to Francis, who clung tightly to my hand.

  “It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Francis. I am Miss Willemenia Brockard. You may call me Miss Willy.” Her voice was slightly nasal, with a lilting accent that was more courtly than Cockney.

  Francis put her arms around my leg and held me close. I could feel her heart racing against me. “Welcome to our home, Miss Brockard. I am Amara.”

  She inclined her head, then looked around her. “It is lovely here. Thank you for having me.”

  I smiled and offered to show her inside, with Francis still clinging to me as if I might disappear. Lu Sin set about preparing a meal, while I took Willemenia to her room, showed her around the small house and went over the schedules and ground rules. She seemed surprised by our odd schedules, but accepting of them.

  As we ate, I watched her, trying to place the odd sensation that had come upon me. Nothing about her aroused me, to hunger or to hate, affection or desire. She was blank, unknown. I could not sense her thoughts or her emotions, I could not feel her heartbeat. She felt my eyes and looked up. Embarrassed, I looked away.

  After dinner, Lu Sin reviewed our course of training with our new tutor, while I played with Francis. “I am impressed,” she said after a long while. “You ladies hardly need me at all.” She smiled, and her eyes pinned me. “I shall only make a few small changes. We can begin tomorrow.”

  She stood and nodded, her brown hair bobbing in time to the movement. After she had left the room, Lu Sin came to sit with us. “She's an odd one, isn't she?”

  I looked up at her. “It isn't just me then?” Lu Sin shook her head. “Well, she's nice enough, and seems capable. And it isn't as if we are the image of normal,” I said, still trying to place what her oddity was.

  “Shall we go see if we can catch some fish for dinner?” Lu Sin asked Francis, who was up and half way to the door before she had finished. I watched them go and sat back against the wall.

  Chapter 20

  Adjusting to having Miss Willy with us was a little awkward, in no small way due to the oddities I couldn't place about her. Francis took quite some time to warm up to her, her dark eyes tracing her movements whenever they shared a room. I had a measure of concern, though Lu Sin assured me that it was Francis's lack of experience with others, and nothing untoward with the teacher.

  I left her pretty much to herself her first week with us, giving her a chance to settle in and become accustomed to the soft working rhythm of the house. I watched her though, my senses all keyed in her direction. She could move through the shadows nearly as quietly as I, and seemed to always know where each of us were, whether she could see us or not.

  Francis and Lu Sin were out getting the carriage ready for a trip to town for supplies, nearly a month after the arrival of Miss Willy. She sat at the kitchen table, going over some of the work Francis had completed the day before. The scent of her lavender perfume wafted my way and brought my eyes to her. I was surprised to find her looking at me.

  “You wish to know more about me,” she said with confidence. “I am a very private person. I sense there is something about me that makes you uneasy. Let me set you at ease. I shall not cause harm to any in this house, nor allow for harm to come to it. My secrets are mine to keep, as yours are to you.”

  Her eyes were dark, the pupils dilated. I could read nothing in them but her sincerity. I felt no danger, just
the vague unease of not being able to know her in the way I had come to know everyone in my life. I nodded slowly, and she turned back to her work.

  For my part, I chose to go outside and help Lu Sin, sending Francis back inside to begin her lessons. Under Miss Willy's tutelage, Francis learned quickly. The new tutor was far more patient with the myriad questions Francis always had than either Lu Sin or I had ever been.

  There were orders for new books in just a few months, and a growing understanding of a new need for our tiny family. The money was beginning to run short. I had seldom had to think about it in my life, having first simply taken from my victims, later from my family. There was still some in the bank in town, and a few remaining pieces of jewelry that could be sold, but the time was coming when we would need to find another source of income. It was a concept foreign to me.

  I took to hunting in the night, bringing home meat to compliment the vegetables Lu Sin planted in our gardens. We wanted to spare no expense on the education we gave Francis, but that would mean sparing expenses elsewhere. It was while I was hunting one crisp autumn evening that I heard Dovan's voice whispering through the trees, drawing me further up the mountain to where he waited for me in a clearing under the waning moon.

  It had been some time since I had seen him. He looked pale, but happy, his smile wide as I came around a large oak into the clearing. He opened his arms and I let him wrap me in a hug that had become our customary greeting. The dust of his most recent travels paled the black of his clothing and painted his face a shade darker than its norm. “It is good to see you again, Dovan.”

  “And you, my dear. We were on our way home when I sensed you about. I sent Justine on ahead.” He felt solid, secure beside me. I liked the feeling after so long in the company of Willy's nebulous presence. “How fares my great-granddaughter?”

  I smiled. He had been the doting grandfather since Francis was born. “She is quite well. She has a new tutor.”

  We were walking toward the edge of the clearing and he paused, his eyes narrowing as he read me. “You don't care for her.”

  I shook my head. “She is capable, and good with Francis. She is just … odd.”

  He chuckled. “All of mankind seems odd to me, Amara.”

  I could see his point. “True enough. It just unsettles me.” We resumed walking, following some unseen path into the trees. We were quiet for a time before we spoke of his recent travels, to Paris and Madrid, and the things he had seen. He had brought gifts for Francis and promised to bring them down the mountain in a few days. We parted ways, with several hours till dawn and I turned for home.

  As I came into view of our cottage I paused, leaning against a tree and watching as I used to watch humans in my childhood. Lu Sin was reading beside the fire. Francis sat at the kitchen table, her head bent over some task, her dark hair cascading to hide her face. Willy was beside Francis, her chin resting on her hand, staring off out the front window. I found myself wondering what she was thinking or feeling. I could sense no malice, no joy, no contentment from her. I had never heard her raise her voice or seen her cry, or laugh. How odd it must be to live a life with no emotion. I wondered if that was the strangeness that distanced her from me.

  Lu Sin must have felt my eyes upon her, for her head raised and she looked around, eventually looking out the window in my direction. She seemed pale again, though I supposed that could be the lack of sunlight, or lack of sleep. I marveled at how much affection I felt for her, and how little I actually knew about her.

  With a sigh, I headed toward the door, breathing in the warm scent of burning wood, mingled with the remains of the stew Lu Sin had made for dinner. I smiled at Francis as she looked up expectantly. Willy excused herself and went off to bed. I felt at home, content. I was happy with my life.

  Thus it continued for a time. Francis grew, time passed, and I watched. Lu Sin began making trips to town more frequently, occasionally taking Willy with her. She assured me always when she returned that there was yet enough money left. Then came the news of tragedy. Lu Sin returned from town, with a letter from America. There had been some sort of accident; Joy's parents were dead. The child was alone in the world.

  The parents, having no relatives, had left instructions that were anything to happen to them, Joy should be sent to live with me, knowing I would care for her. She was to arrive two nights before Francis's eleventh birthday. I contemplated leaving Francis home with Willy, but she begged to be allowed to come along. She had never been to town, had never met anyone who hadn't come to the cottage. I knew it was time she started to know the world, so I dressed her in her best dress and we set off down the hill to meet the stage in town. Lu Sin drove the carriage, while Francis and I remained safely hidden in the darkened interior. Francis was wide-eyed, for never had she been away from the house like this before. She had seen Lu Sin go into town in the carriage, but had never ridden in it. She jumped with every bump in the road, clutching my arm for comfort, but not wanting to express her fear.

  “Mama, who are we going to meet?” she asked, as if to distract herself from her fear.

  I pulled her up into my lap and thought about how to answer her. She had grown so much, and physically resembled a child of eight or nine. Mentally however, she was well beyond her eleven years. “Well, many years ago, before you were born, I met a lady who had a child. The child was a little girl named Joy. She is coming to visit us.”

  That seemed to content her for the moment and she returned to looking out the windows, which had me somewhat nervous. It wasn't quite dawn yet, but being away from the comfort of my stone walls, I worried about the amount of shelter the small carriage could provide. As her normal bedtime neared, she curled up beside me on the padded seat and fell soundly asleep. I was asleep soon myself. When I woke that evening, Lu Sin had stopped the carriage for rest and was asleep on the opposite bench. I stretched and yawned. I had forgotten what a long trip this could be.

  I let them sleep, and after making sure the sun was down, I climbed into the driver's seat. Six hours later we pulled into town. Joy wasn't due to arrive until 10am that morning, so I parked the carriage just outside of town and coaxed Francis from its dark confines. Her little eyes grew big with excitement and apprehension as they wandered the foreign sights. Lu Sin joined us as we walked around the buildings furthest from town, a blacksmith and a livery and the brothel's staff's sleeping quarters. Francis clung tightly to our hands, and yet ran to every new sight to explore. “What is it, Mama?” she would ask of everything, and then not wait for an answer as she hurried on to the next thing.

  Lu Sin smiled a lot in those early morning hours, and I suppose now that I think about it that I did too. She was a wonder to me, as much as the foreign air of town was to her. However, it couldn't last as long as I would have liked, for dawn approached. Probably earlier than was necessary, I was carrying her back to the carriage to wait out the final hours in the cool darkness. She was asleep quickly, worn out by the thrill of the entire trip.

  I held her in my arms, not quite as easily as I had once, her long form draping from my shoulder to below my knees. I was struck with how much she had grown in the last year, suddenly, as if I hadn't seen it in her as the days passed. “I love you,” I whispered into her hair as we settled to a seat on the cushioned bench.

  Lu Sin smiled. “And I'll bet you never anticipated how much you would, did you?”

  “No, I could never have thought that I was capable. Not that I have never loved … it was just … different.”

  She nodded. She was quiet then, unusually so. It occurred to me then that there was something more wrong than the normal disagreements. We had argued over my bringing Joy into our lives. She hadn't thought it wise, given the precarious situations of our lives. I, as usual, had insisted. But it was more now, I could see that.

  “What are you keeping from me, Lu Sin?”

  “As if I could keep anything from you.”

  “Not for long, anyway. What is it?”
/>   “I have a hard favor to ask of you.”

  I squinted at her, as if that would project my thoughts beyond the protective wall she had around her. “Ask me anything, you know that.”

  “I'm not sure you'll say that once I've asked.” She was genuinely uncomfortable, her hands folded in her lap, hunched forward as if to make herself as small as possible. “I am not well,” she said it softly, hushed, but it cut through to my heart. “Indeed, I have little more than a year or two left of my life, if the doctor is to be believed.”

  The breath left me, and I stared at her for a long moment of silence, trying to see it in her, trying to figure how I had missed its coming. “I have kept it hidden a long time,” she said, as if in response to the unspoken thought. “I did not wish to worry you.”

  “What is it?” I asked in a whisper, wanting to reach out to her, but prevented by Francis's body in my lap.

  “They do not seem to know. It is eating away at me from the inside, and there is nothing they can do.”

  “We will send for another doctor.”

  “I have seen two already. That is not the favor I would have of you.”

  I held my breath and waited, anticipating everything, everything except what she ultimately asked me for.

  “Bring me to you,” she said, looking me in the eye so there could be no denying what she meant.

  I recoiled, physically leaning away from her. “No,” I said instinctively, reactively. I couldn't think beyond it, about it. There was only “No” in my mind at that moment. I was frozen by the request. In all of our years together it was the first time she had spoken of such things, or asked anything of me. It was the first selfish thing I had ever heard her say. I could see in her eyes that she had convinced herself of it, and would stubbornly refuse any logic I offered to dissuade her. I shook my head, trying to fathom what she was asking. “You have no idea what you will become. You will not be like me, you will be like Dovan, like the others. You will require human blood to live.”