by Am Hudson
We made the last turn toward home, and David pointed up ahead. “See that house on the corner—the big white one?”
“Yup.”
“That’s our home.”
“Nice,” Jase said dismissively. “And I won’t recognise anything, will I? Since I’ve never been here before.”
“You’ve been there,” I said. “But only to visit.”
“Does anything look familiar?” David asked, and when Jason shook his head, I saw the visible relief in David. I was beginning to think he liked this young and naïve version of his brother and he not only wanted to keep the horrific abuse buried, but the darker vampire side, too—the side that did horrible things to me.
“Hey… bro?” Jase said in a seemingly hesitant way.
“Mm?”
“S’there something you don’t want me ta know?”
David pulled the car up in the driveway and leaned forward to look up at the window of our room, where we could just see a bit of movement inside.
“Bro?” Jase prompted.
“What?” David asked, distracted, as if he hadn’t heard the first question.
“Why do you do that—why do you look relieved every time I tell you nothing’s familiar?” He stared him down for a moment, but David refused to look at him. “I thought the point was to make me remember.”
“It is,” David said simply, and pushed the door open.
Jase sighed and undid his seatbelt.
“Jase?” I said in a pretty small voice—hoping David wouldn’t hear.
He stopped just as the door opened a crack, and turned to look back at me.
“Some bad things happened…” I swallowed hard. “Both to you and because of you.”
“Like what?” He closed the door fully and sat back, facing me. “Tell me, Ara. I can handle it.”
“David doesn’t think you can.”
“No.” He leaned a little closer to whisper. “David can’t handle it. But whatever it is, it happened to the other guy—the other version of me. And it’s better that I know, so I’m prepared for it when I remember.”
He had a point. A very good point. “I’ll talk to David about it, but you’re his brother. It’s up to him.”
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s my life. It’s up to me. Now tell me.”
I was a little taken aback by this assertive and determined version of him, but not enough to stupidly go spilling all the beans and end up having David pissed at me for the rest of our lives. “Say that to David,” I muttered, and opened the car door.
“You’re really beginning to shit me,” Jason said, slamming the car door as he got out after me. “Both of you.”
David looked up in surprise and his eyes followed Jason as he moved around to the trunk of the car to get his things. “Problem?”
“Yes,” he said, slamming the trunk shut as well. “If neither of you are going to tell me what the hell happened to me, at least have the decency to give me my journals—the current ones.”
“I’m not—”
“Sam!” Vicki’s voice cut David off. She ran out onto the porch after him as he stormed down the steps in much the same mood as Jason. “Samuel get back here now,” she called again.
“Forget it, Mom,” he said, walking faster. “I’m not staying under the same roof as that sicko!”
“Samuel!” she shrieked.
“Did you tell him?” Sam stopped by David, towering over him a little now with his continually growing legs. He glared at Jason, his face scrunched up. “Did they tell you what you did to my sister, you sick piece of shit!”
“Samuel Thompson, I am not kidding,” Vicki demanded, her hand on her hips. “You stop this right now. That boy doesn’t remember a thing.”
“I know. And that’s the problem.” He stared Jason down, who shrunk slightly, not knowing why Sam was so mad with him. “Everyone here is willing to just sweep everything under the rug—forgotten, like it never happened.” He leaned closer to Jason, tapping his own head. “But I won’t. I won’t ever be able to forget the way she cried herself to sleep every night, or how pale she was when she spoke about what you did to her. I sat there and watched her day after day after day trying to recover from the physical damage, the wounds, the breaks, the rehabilitation, and her body healed, bur her heart never did. Her mind never did!”
“Sam.” I walked forward and stood slightly between them. “Don’t—”
“Don’t defend him, Ara!” His voice squeaked with rage. “What he was doesn’t make what he did okay, and I’m tired of this supernatural world that allows bad things to happen to people because it’s just how it is. It’s not okay.”
“I know, Sam, but there’s more to the story—”
“No there’s not. He hurt you. He—” He covered his mouth with a fist, trying to control his voice. “He brutalised you and threatened to rape you—”
“Whoa.” Jase stepped in, dropping his bag to the ground. “I did what?”
“Jase, it’s a long story,” I said, putting my hands up against his chest to keep him back. “There’s this whole other side to that story and—”
“Ara.” He released my name like an apology, eyes hollow with shock. “Whatever I did to you, I want you to know that I… this person I am, who I… who I think I am, I would never—”
“Jase, you don’t need to explain,” I said, my own voice breaking. “It was a long time ago and I forgave you—”
“Why would you do that?” Jase backed away from me. “Ara, that’s sick. I…” He folded over and put his hands on his knees. “I’m sick.”
“At least one person around here has sense enough to see that,” Sam said. “Even if it is the mentally retarded one.”
“Right. That’s it!” Vicki said, and stormed down the porch steps toward Sam. “You will take your sorry butt upstairs right now, Samuel, and you will spend the rest of the afternoon in your room, until you are ready to come down and apologise to Jason!”
“Apologise to him?” He shouted, pointing at Jason. “I won’t do it. He doesn’t deserve it. He should be in prison, Mom! He should—”
“Sam! Go. Now!”
Sam looked at Vicki’s pointed finger, aiming in the direction of the house, then at her cold, steely eyes, and turned on his heel, following orders.
When the blue front door slammed shut, Vicki looked sadly at David as he wiped a hand down his face. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He should never have behaved that way, and I—”
“You don’t have to apologise, Vicki.” David moved past her to Jason. “What’s done is done.”
“Is this what you didn’t want me to know?” Jason asked as David pulled him aside by the arm, leading him away from the house. “Is this what you tried to hide from me?”
I let them walk away, closing my eyes for a moment. I couldn’t go with them and help David explain everything. I’d lived through that with Jason once and I just couldn’t do it again. I hoped David had the same idea that I did: just erase it all—lock it up again until he was ready to deal with it. Much later.
“He loves you,” Vicki offered. “Sam. He just loves you and he’s angry still. It was hard on all of us watching you go through that.”
“I get that.” I nodded, opening my eyes. “I’m not mad at him. He’s fiercely loyal to his family, Mom—that’s a good quality.”
Vicki nodded to herself, but I could see the guilt eating her up. She hadn’t been in Jason’s court since she found out the truth about who he was to me from the beginning, but I know that she felt sorry for him—for everything he’d been through—but that was only because she had the full story. She’d been told the things I couldn’t tell Sam for fear of tainting the image of his father even more. But it was time to tell him. He had to know what his dad did to Jason—how he tainted his mind and started that whole mess.
***
David tucked the blanket around Jason’s shoulders as a cool summer breeze swept in through the den windows, bringing the first signs of
a storm. It had taken all afternoon, but he finally managed to settle Jason enough to convince him to come inside and, as soon as Jason sat down, he fell asleep.
“Poor thing.” Vicki cocked her head, considering the sleeping boy. “A long journey here and then an emotional recall. He must be exhausted.”
“He’ll be okay in the morning.” I knelt beside him and pushed a thick lock of dark hair away from his temple. “I’ll talk to him about it all.”
“I’d rather erase it,” David said, waiting for me in the doorway, his arms folded.
“I thought that too, but… now, I dunno. I think he can handle it.” I stood up and looked past David to Sam as he came down the stairs. “He said to me in the car that he needs to know about his past—to be prepared when the memory hits him.”
“If it ever does,” Vicki corrected.
“He is right, though—in a way.” David dropped his arms as he sighed. “Maybe we should give him the current journals, and if he remembers Hans, we erase it.”
“Hans?” Sam said, clearly a little edgy about stepping into the room.
“Hans molested him, Sam,” I said, pulling the blanket up a little closer to Jase’s chin.
“A man?”
“Yes,” I said. “Repeatedly.”
I saw this new information hit Sam in the gut so hard his face went blank. “Really?”
“Yes,” David said flatly, and wandered into the kitchen, leaving the blank-faced Sam with a clear view of the ex-vampire, who really was just a kid, sleeping on his couch.
“He’s been through a lot more than you know about, Sam,” Vicki offered. “You need to cut him some slack.”
Sam just nodded, swallowing hard as Vicki passed him and followed David.
“So, I know you hate him and all,” I added, “and I understand that, but are you gonna come help me clear out my old room so we can put Jase in there, or are you going to let me do it all myself?”
“I’ll help,” he said with a nod, his eyes staying on Jason.
“Good. Because we need to talk.”
“About?”
“Everything.”
He turned and followed me up the stairs, the creaks and groans of the old wood drowned out by the roar of thunder outside. As we reached the top I heard Vicki closing the windows downstairs just as the rain came down in a soft, constant patter over the roof outside.
I pushed the door to my old room open and studied the space with a pair of folded arms and an appraising eye. In a few months, when Jason was well enough to function in the world on his own, this would be Elora’s nursery. I found myself mapping out where her crib would go and how much room I’d have in the cupboard for all her pretty dresses, and I smiled as I realised Vicki would have done exactly the same thing when she first learned that I was coming to stay for good. Of course, in the same thought that she planned out my wardrobe, she would also have realised that I hated shopping, and that explained why I arrived that year to a closet full of amazing clothes—handpicked by my new mommy.
“I’ll go get the mattress from the attic,” Sam said, moving toward the door.
I stepped right into the room to let him pass, wandering in a dreamy state over to the window.
Outside, my tree swing rocked and twisted in the strong breeze, the ropes sinking on the ends with the heavy rain. I could almost see my dad out there—tying the swing around the trunk so it wouldn’t blow away—and it made me miss him. The human version of him.
“Mattress,” Sam said, dusting his hands off as it hit the floor with a thud. “Bed frame next. Come help.”
“I’ll get it, Sam,” David called as he passed.
“And I’ll get the baby,” Vicki called up the stairs when Elora let out a tiny little grumble. Sam and I looked at each other and laughed.
“She’s been like that the whole time you were gone,” he said. “The poor kid couldn’t get a moment to sleep.”
“Well, what are babies for if not to cuddle and fuss over.”
“I agree completely,” Vicki said from the room across the hall.
Sam leaned in and whispered, “Did you have to turn her—couldn’t you have waited until I turned twenty-one. She hears everything.”
“Everything,” she echoed with a stern undertone.
Sam rolled his hand out in offering, as if Vicki was an example.
I laughed.
“One bed,” David announced, flicking on the light as he entered, the bed head tucked under one arm as if it weighed nothing. A golden glow spread over the stormy shadows in the room, darkening the glass across the window so we could no longer see outside.
Sam helped David with the bed, positioning it against the wall where it used to go, and when David went back up to the attic to get the base, Sam turned to me.
“I’m sorry, Ara.”
“For?” I asked, busying myself with the set of drawers near the door.
“I went nuts—this afternoon—when Mom told me your brother-in-law was coming to stay. I should’ve had more… self-control.”
My tight shoulders dropped a little. “No, Sam, we should have told you long before now what happened between Jason and I.”
“Just tell me now then.” He walked closer, his voice raspy with urgency. “Explain to me how you can forgive him for what he did to you.”
With a long, breathy sigh, I turned and faced the window, seeing the tree outside as a bolt of lightning lit up the night. In this moment of peace, in this moment after the chaos and madness, the echoes of a tragic past fell silent, leaving me with nothing but a tale to tell and a distant feeling of sadness. Enough time had passed now that things didn’t matter in the same way as they did before—they didn’t hurt in the same way. I could wear the scars without laying blame. And for Sam to understand how or why that was even possible, he needed to know everything. He needed to go right back to the beginning—to when a scared, broken little girl met a boy.
“Come on, Ara,” Sam prompted. “Open the door for me. Let me in. I’ve been here, I’ve watched, I’ve seen things, and I’m not a little boy anymore. It’s time you all stopped shutting me outside the vault of family secrets.”
I smiled at him, a brief moment of pride washing across it. “You sound so mature, Sam.”
“I’ve had to grow up fast, sis,” he explained. “Everything that happened—you know. I had to.”
With a bit of hesitation, planning out in my mind where I would start my story, I walked over to the window, hugging myself. Outside, the storm had blown over, leaving nothing but distant flickers of blue-grey light and the occasional rumble.
I picked up the Tree of Life from my under my shirt and studied it in the dim glow of light.
“In truth, this whole story began with Life,” I said. “But if we go only as far back as when this room was being set up for a scared young girl that just lost her mom, then I guess you could say it began with a secret…”
***
Jason didn’t even stir as David carried him upstairs and tucked him into bed. I stood in the doorway, my hand poised to turn out the light, not really intending to catch that sweet moment of brotherly love, so as David leaned forward and kissed Jason’s head I looked away as though I hadn’t seen it. He was slowly growing more comfortable with this whole love thing, but I knew it still needed time to flourish and grow—without ridicule or even acknowledgement. Despite our open book pact—to always talk about our feelings—I knew there was still a part of David’s complex relationship with his brother that he hadn’t yet revealed to me. Maybe because he hadn’t yet realised he was still hiding it. From what I’d read in Jason’s journals about the cruelty and bullying inflicted on him by other vampires, I also knew that David had protected him from things unseen. He had protected him from Hans, and to have Jason just handed over that way, and David not being there to rescue him, he must have felt the same sense of helplessness I felt when I knew Safia had my baby. But Elora was lucky. She was completely unharmed, if a little hungry and wet. I could
n’t imagine how I would feel if she’d been hurt, and so I could only try to empathise with how David must feel. And being that the ultimate emotion was vulnerability and a feeling of being totally and utterly weak, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be revealing that any time soon. Or admitting it to himself.
“Hit the light,” he said in a gentle, questioning tone.
I flicked it out and David stood back, reaching out to move the curtain aside where it allowed a thin strip of moonlight onto Jason’s face.
“He’ll be okay,” I whispered, filling that sentence with reassurance.
David smiled at me. “You sound so sure of that.”
“That’s because I am.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed him tight. “We love him, David. We won’t stop trying until we make him okay.”
His arm came down around my rib and he squeezed me tight. “Thanks, Ara.”
“For what?”
“I just… that makes me feel a little less alone.”
I drew away, looking up through the shadows of night to the sharp angles of his face and the pair of predatory eyes. “Why would you feel alone at all? Do you not understand that I’m here for you? That—”
“I do,” he cut me off, walking away. “It’s just that… I’m all Jason has left now.” He waited by the door for me, cupping the handle, and closed it as I passed into the hallway. “Uncle Arthur was the rock in our family. He knew what to say, what to do. I know I have you, Ara, but without Arthur…”
“You feel like it’s just too big a responsibility?”
He opened our door quietly, casting his eyes across the room to the crib by the window. “I’m just scared for him,” he whispered in a very small voice. “And I don’t know what to do with that fear.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“I can’t lock it away. I can’t shut it out. I feel scared for him all the time.” He pressed his hand into his chest. “He’s human now—vulnerable physically as well as emotionally. And I can’t protect him from the pain—from the things that’ll hurt him in the world.”
