“Ara,” Vampirie said kindly. And even the way the word left his mouth was so familiar it was like hearing a story told by an old TV personality you heard growing up.
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t get the words out past the shaking down my throat—couldn’t say “You look exactly like him.”
“I’ve tried my best to prepare you for this moment,” Vampirie said, reaching for me, but I broke away from Arthur to cover my mouth, getting as much distance as my two steps would allow.
David rushed in behind me and gripped my arms, holding me up when my knees went weak, the tears streaming so fiercely down my face it was futile to wipe them away. My cheeks, lips and under my nose felt cold and itchy with moisture.
“I knew this would be hard for you, no matter how I went about it.” The man moved a step closer.
I tilted my head up as if I could look at him, but my eyes were glazed and focused on nothing.
“Ara, say something,” he said, waiting at length for my attention. “Ara?”
“You… you look just like him.”
Vampirie laughed; so did Arthur.
“My dear,” Arthur said, clapping the vampire’s back. “This man does not just closely resemble your father.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It can’t be.”
“Ara, honey,” Vampirie said, and I didn’t hear any more. I took a giant gulp of air and threw my arms around his waist, breathing only to absorb every tiny aspect of him: his scent, his warmth, the familiar wrap of his arms around me, and the place my head rested just under his collarbones. That much hadn’t changed. His face was younger, so much younger, and his eyes had lost that sparkling crinkle they’d adopted these last yen years, but everything else about him was exactly the same.
“Dad… you died…”
“I’m so sorry, honey.” He rubbed my back up and down softly, like he did when I was little. “I wish there’d been a better way to break this to you, or perhaps a better time. If I could’ve told you in my living, human state, I know the news would’ve been easier to bear, but”—he held me out from him by my upper arms—“there are reasons I had to wait.”
I leaned back, wiping my nose on my wrist. “I… buried you. I—”
“I know, and if that could have been avoided—”
“I’m sorry.” I backed away, my hands marking an invisible wall to block them out. “I can’t do this. I just need a minute.”
“Ara,” Arthur called, but I heard the strange man tell him to let me go—his voice sounding so like my father’s again that I was taken back, as I reached the library doors and threw them open, to so many nights growing up where I ran for the safety of my room in just the same way.
* * *
I thought I’d cry, maybe curl into a ball and sob myself to sleep, but once I reached my room, yanked my hair out of its ponytail and could finally breathe again, I just sat on the bed, staring out the window to watch the orange orb of light fall closer and closer to the earth before blending with the treetops and vanishing into a thick, smoggy gray.
None of what just happened was sinking in and yet, at the same time, didn’t need to, because it all just made so much sense—so much that I wondered how I hadn’t been certain of it all along. And with that clarity came lines and lines of questions, each one escaping me as I made my own conclusions and found myself grasping for the next one.
Dad was alive.
No, Dad was a vampire—had been a vampire my whole life, and I never knew. But if he was the Original, then he knew who I was. Knew about the contract. Knew what David was to me. Knew what really happened to me at the masquerade. Probably even knew who did it.
How could he not have done anything—said anything? How could he have watched me heal after I woke from the coma and not give me one word of comfort? Doesn’t he know how much pain he could have spared me by just talking to me about it? By just saying that he knew what happened to me—that I wasn’t carrying that secret alone. And then there’s the question of David: so many questions about David—about what Dad knew or didn’t know. What he wanted.
“Ara.” David entered without knocking, his voice soft and melodic—calm, as though he was sure I’d have gone nuts in my ten minutes alone.
I looked up and gave him a quick smile.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said to the view out the window. “I just needed a moment to process.”
David laughed lightly, closing the door. “I don’t blame you.”
I shifted over a bit on the bed and let him sit beside me, noting in the back of my mind how strange it was that he never seemed to make the mattress dip—which wasn’t just a vampire thing, because every other vampire had enough gravity to squish a pillow. It was just a David thing.
“I’m sorry I told you it wasn’t him,” he said. “I didn’t know, Ara—”
“It’s okay.” I reached across blindly to pat his leg but missed and got the bed instead. “You couldn’t have known.”
“He just…” He exhaled. “How can he look so young? I’ve used disguises before—you’ve seen them, and there is no way your dad’s was some Hollywood facemask all this time. No way.”
“Maybe he’s got witchcraft in his blood, like Morgana and Drake.”
“What, like maybe his aged face was a spell?”
I shrugged.
“I’m dead curious,” he said, pausing only a second before asking, “Do you think you’re ready to talk to him now?”
“Kinda. I just need to get all my questions straight in my head and…” I didn’t want to elaborate.
“And get the anger under control?”
I nodded, hugging one knee, since I’d lost the ability to hug both in the ever-continuing growth of my midsection. “Why didn’t he tell me who he was?”
David’s tongue clicked, a noisy breath passing through his teeth after. “He had his reasons, Ar.”
My head turned quickly to look at him. Ar? He never called me that.
“You know they were to protect you, not to hurt you,” he added in a mildly questioning tone.
“Yeah. I guess.” I nodded, resting my chin against my knee after.
“He’s really worried about you right now.”
“He doesn’t need to be,” I said. “If he truly knows me, David, he knows I just need a few minutes.”
“Take all the time you need.” He sat back and let out a long, heavy sigh. “He’s not going anywhere.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“A little. Just a minute or two. I was more worried about coming up to check on you.”
I wanted to say ‘Since when?’ but chose to say nothing, accepting it as a nice thought instead.
“Your hair’s really curly today.” A soft tingle climbed up from a strand of hair running down my spine, feathering the nerves on my scalp. “I never see you wear it down anymore.”
“Guess it just gets in the way,” I said, barely moving even my lips in case he stopped doing that. “I’m thinking maybe it’s time to cut it.”
“Don’t.” He curled the strand a few times around his finger. “I think you should wear it down more.”
“It gets too knotty.”
“I’m sure you have plenty of people to brush it for you.”
“Staff, maybe.”
“What about Em?”
I shrugged.
“Mike?”
“I don’t really see him much these days.”
He swallowed hard before saying, “Jason?”
“No,” is all I could offer, rolling down onto my side then to look out the window from a more comfortable position. I felt as empty inside as the evening looked outside. And it wasn’t just because my dad had come back from the dead. It was everything—it was Sam and Vicki, the fact that they were still grieving his loss right now while I was laying here in my room, angry that he never told me who he was. Then, from that thought stemmed more anger. More thoughts about my life growing up, and that anger turned slow
ly and eventually into a kind of sadness, maybe nostalgia, remembering how easy life had been when I was just a little girl. So much responsibility had fallen on my shoulders since before I was really even old enough to get married, and it all just felt so heavy now. So heavy my limbs were weak, and no matter how much I told myself to get up and be a big girl—go deal with this—I just wanted to lie down and soak up the world, gray as it may be, and imagine for a second that I was home with Vicki and Sam, mourning Dad like a normal person.
“It must be hard for you,” David said softly.
“What?”
“Being so young—trapped out here away from the world—friends. Family.”
I shrugged.
“I know you get lonely,” he added.
I shrugged again.
“You can… I mean—” His hand hovered above my ribcage, retreating to the safety of distance again though. “I know we’re not on the best terms right now, Ara, but… if you find yourself alone, you can come talk to me.”
The sincerity in his tone convinced my heart for a second that I had a friend, but his pendulum antics of late left me feeling doubtful. I didn’t answer him. Didn’t even say thanks. Time would tell.
* * *
The grandfather clock struck seven. One hour to dinner, which gave me very little time to talk to Dad before I had to don my mask and play the role of a queen again. I dusted myself off and clambered to my feet like a weighted beanbag, leading the way to the library with a silent but companionable David behind me.
When I opened the door, Dad stood from the armchair and waited by the fire, still as a statue of reverence.
“I have so many questions.” I ran past the tables and leather chairs and threw myself straight into his arms, nearly knocking him back. “I don’t know where to start.”
“This is a good start.” He cupped my face delicately to his chest and planted a long, deep kiss to my warm hair. “I’ve missed you terribly, Ara-Rose.”
Thick tears pooled at the corners of my eyes, sealed in by my lashes. “I missed you, too.”
He drew back slightly to look down at me. “Why don’t you take a seat? We have a lot to talk about.”
I nodded and found myself sitting in the armchair before I’d even felt my feet move.
Dad sat down across from me in Arthur’s old reading chair, then turned to look at him. “You can go take care of things now, Arthur. We’ll be fine.”
“You know where I am if you need me,” he said, taking a long, low bow before walking away. I heard the library door close behind him, heard him walk the first few steps away, his black shoes clicking on the floorboards, but my thoughts and apprehensions were very much trapped right here in this little circle of vampires by the fire—the warm orange light and softly crackling embers melting the cold block of ice inside me.
My hands were still shaking furiously though, enough that David took them up in his, rubbing them softly while blowing his tepid breath against them.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, making a deliberate effort not to look at Dad—not to divide this moment of affection between the impending conversation with my dead father and the long-desired touch of the man I loved. But Dad’s movements caught both our eyes anyway when he placed a chair beside mine, offering it to David.
“Thank you,” David said, settling slowly into it, keeping my hand the whole time.
“You’re welcome.” Dad sat back in his chair again, leaning slightly on the arm, his fingers curled just beside his mouth. And he smiled then, first at the hands of a king and queen joined between the small space, then at my eyes. “It’s nice to see you two can put your differences aside in times of need. It gives me hope for you.”
“Hope?” I frowned a little, more to myself than at him, wondering what ‘differences’ he knew anything about.
“I’ve been watching you both for some time,” he added.
“How?”
The concentration on his face lifted for his golden smile. “I have my ways. All you need to know is that—” He stopped and looked at David then. “You needn’t fill me in on anything, son. I know all.”
David’s serious green eyes reshaped with the roundness of what looked like fear.
“I’ll explain in due course,” Dad said with a casual nod, then leaned purposefully forward, the leather squeaking under him, and braced his wrists on his knees. “But first, I need you both to understand that what I’m about to say cannot ever leave this room. It is a secret protected greatly by me—one I’ve gone to unspeakable lengths to secure since the dawn of Man.”
I nodded, my silent promise.
He didn’t even need to look at David to know he’d comply. Neither did I.
“You’re both curious about my face.” He smoothed a palm over the air in front of his head. “My youth.”
I nodded.
“Original vampires, all originals”—he presented me—“possess unique abilities to transform and also to hide. One of those is the ability to age.”
My eyes absently searched his youthful face for the wrinkles I knew so well. “And reverse it?”
“Within bounds, yes.”
“How?”
“Blood is a choice for us, Ara,” he explained. “One we can either accept or deny. If we choose to drink, we live eternally, never ageing, never fearing the human condition. However, if we choose to deny our thirst, our bodies will begin, after a period of illness and fragility, to mimic the human limitations. We slowly age, our powers somewhat, although not completely, diminish, and we can, for all intents and purposes, blend in with the human race.”
“Whoa,” I said, but my mind moved away from what he was capable of and I found my eyes on the backs of my hands, imagining them aged and frail. “Do we die—if we don’t eventually drink blood?”
“We can. But it’s not true death.”
“Why?”
“Because, as soon as blood enters our lips, we regenerate. Slowly.”
“So… how did you do it? How did you make yourself have a heart attack?”
“This time”—he sat back—“I forced myself to grow frail and sick after years without blood, adding copious amounts of salt and cream to my diet to wear my heart thin. But rather than to take the risk of actual death and employing someone trustworthy to resurrect me, I paid off a doctor to declare me dead before mortality set in. The coffin you buried was empty.”
I closed my eyes, going back to that day where I stood over my father’s grave, whispering my last goodbyes, and tried to resolve the image I had of him then—stiff and blue in a bed of satin—with a new image: a tall, dark stranger, alive and well, watching on from a distance.
“Not one other vampire, aside from Arthur, knows this,” Dad said. “And it must be kept that way for the safety of our kind. We cannot exist for eternity and derive any substance from life if we cannot ever actually live. I kept you safe all these years because any Warrior looking for the original vampire was looking for a young man”—he swept his hands down his aura, showing his youth—“not an old school teacher named Greg.”
I smiled, picturing the former face of my dad. And even though he was sitting right here in front of me, I still missed him terribly. Missed that version of him.
“Even though I no longer live my human life and therefore no longer need the disguise, it is my eternal duty to keep Vicki and Sam safe. If anyone knew I had another son…” He left the rest of that up to my imagination, his tone painting the story.
“Drake knows though, right?” I asked. “About Sam?”
“He does. But he’s no threat to his own brother.”
Which was something I kind of already knew—judging from the way he protected family above all else. Well, those in his favor anyway.
Dad looked at David, breaking me out of my thoughts when he said, “Yes. And you still can, when I see fit to open the doors.”
Something seemed to slip backward inside David then, as if a vital essence had been drai
ned from a valve in his spine, leaving his soul bubbling with nothing but a toxic cocktail of realization and dread.
“Can do what?” I asked, totally confused.
“Read his mind,” David said, his eyes closed as if reliving a few very uncomfortable moments.
“But Dad’s a vampire—was always a vampire. You’ve only just developed the power to read vampire minds.”
“Which is the very reason, of all the other signs that gave it away, that I never suspected his immortality,” David said.
“Wow.” I flipped my head back a little, seeing a past up there on the roof that was rather amusing—a past containing all the thoughts I shared with David around my dad—thinking he couldn’t hear us. “So, you can let him read your mind, Dad?”
Dad nodded. “When I see fit. Even the average human could read it if I lifted the veil.”
“And you could read mine—all along. Even when I had blocks up?” David asked, without making it sound too much like a question. I could clearly hear the dread, though, which made me wonder what kinds of thoughts he might have had that he wouldn’t want my dad to hear.
“The entire time,” Dad said with a grin, his eyes flicking once to me then back to David.
“So, did you know who David was when he first showed up at school?” I asked. “Like… did you know he was the Knight that was supposed to end up with me?”
“Of course. But it was only upon seeing him that I realized Drake knew where I was and, likely, knew where you were.”
“Then how come you didn’t do anything to protect me?” I said, my voice getting louder. “Don’t you know what your own son did to get me here from Australia, what he did to my mom and—”
“I know now,” Dad cut in, his hand suddenly on my knee. “But I did not have any idea then, Amara, that he would go to such tragic lengths to get you near David.”
“He’s your son,” David said angrily. “How could you not have known what he was capable of?”
Dad sniffed, curling his fingers over my leg until I looked at him, making sure he held my gaze before continuing. “If I had known, I would have moved you far away. I thought maybe he would push David on you once you came to visit me the year you were old enough to bear children. I…” His voice cracked then and he looked down. “No one in this entire world could possibly be more sorry for what happened to your mother and Harry than I am.”
Echoes & Silence Part 1 Page 36
