Heart of darkness, p.21
Heart of Darkness, page 21
part #8 of Dark Secrets Series
“What did he say?”
“He said we might have to accept Jason’s death.” I looked into my coffee cup, swirling the brown liquid around. “Being Vampire, he can’t just live out his life and wait for death. He has to choose it. They do this big ceremony and everything—”
“I won’t let him do that.”
“It might be cruel not to.”
Jules nodded, obviously understanding the depth of Jason’s despair like I did. “If I’d stayed with him, would it be different?”
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” I stated. “It would only have been a matter of time before you both realized that his love for my mother was a bigger ball and chain than you first understood and, by that time, a child might have been involved.”
Jules nodded. “I’m glad I let him go.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, sipping her coffee. “I love and respect myself enough to want someone who loves me, and only me. And I think that’s fair. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. And Mike says the same.”
I grinned into my coffee. Of course he’d say that. He was hot for her, big time. “So you guys sit up late-night-talking, huh?”
Jules didn’t miss the inflection in my tone, hiding her smile. “I think maybe he’s my new best friend. We have a lot in common and he’s super sweet, like, super super sweet.” She laughed, her pretty smile so open and honest. “Jo thinks I’m falling for him.”
“Oh?” I said, thinking about the sassy, pragmatic young woman I’d met in New York when I went to find Jules. Jo didn’t mince words, and didn’t make assumptions lightly. If she thought Jules was falling for Mike, then it was probably true.
“It’s not that, though,” Jules assured me with a wave of her hand. “It’s probably just a rebound thing.”
“Probably.”
“But… I think it’s okay, right? Because he’s not attached, and if we end up having sex or something, it doesn’t have to be anything.”
“No. It doesn’t, and I know Uncle Mike can keep sex and friendship separate. But just… don’t make him fall in love with you if you’re going to dump him, m’kay?”
“I won’t hurt him. I promise.”
I looked down absently at my mirrored necklace then, wondering about them—their closeness, their friendship. I wanted to look ahead and see where it went, but a small flicker of curiosity flared within my heart. I knew the feeling well. It was the ‘tap’ from my Seer’s eye, telling me to look, so I looked. But I didn’t look into their future or their past. It was an alternate path I saw, and I smiled.
“What is it?” Jules said.
“It’s a vision,” Mike advised, coming in to the room to sit down beside her. “She does that all the time.”
“What was it? What did you see?” Jules asked, eyeing my mirror.
“She won’t tell you,” he added. “She doesn’t like to tell people their future.”
“Yeah, because I suck at foretelling. I’m always wrong,” I announced, and Jules laughed. “But this wasn’t a future. It was one of six possibilities.”
“For what?”
“For how you two met,” I said, sipping my coffee to deflect their shock.
“So we met in alternate paths?” Jules asked, smiling at Mike and elbowing him softly to get a reaction. But he just frowned, coming forward on his seat.
“Well, that was bound to happen if she knew Jason,” he scoffed, downplaying it.
“Yeah,” I said casually, “except this version, right now, is the only one where she met Jason first.”
They both exchanged glances, mouths hanging open a little. And my work here was done. That pull I’d felt earlier, urging me here, that’s what it was: I was supposed to set something in motion, and now that it was done, I felt complete. And I also felt the same old hunger—for ice-cream and vodka—that followed the completion of a pull.
I left the house with a bit of pep in my step and headed back home to hug Uncle Jason and tell him I was sorry. Tell him I couldn’t imagine a world without him in it, and maybe even look in on his future, if he’d let me, and see if there was any conceivable possibility where he might one day be happy.
Aubrey
Drake came and went many times, as the sun fell and rose again around me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. It felt like my body was in transition, and if I’d had blood, I’d be certain this was blood hunger. I heard them say it—say my body needed feeding, but they didn’t know what it needed.
All I wanted was to sleep, but they kept waking me every time they came in to probe me and make sure I was alive. I heard my mom’s voice on the phone a few times, but I barely had words to speak, and as the days passed, drawing us closer to December, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to wake up. I felt stuck, lodged between worlds.
“Should we give her blood?” Morgana asked.
“Out of the question,” Drake demanded, both of them standing above me. I opened my eyes for a moment and then rolled over, slipping back down into a deep sleep.
Elias was there in my dreams, as always, and even though I didn’t know him, hadn’t made any real friendship with him, I wished he was here in the real world, right beside me. I wished my mom was here. Or my dad. Or Mia.
“She took so many souls out,” Morgana suggested, waking my mind again. “Do you think she needs to put some back?”
“Frankly, I don’t know what she needs. If she doesn’t start to recover soon, I may need to send her home. It’s been eight days.”
“She brought ten back,” Morg advised. “Maybe give her ten days. It could be a day for a life.”
“Very well. If she’s not awake within the next two or three days, we will need to send her home. I can’t have her die on me, Morgana. Her mother would never forgive me.”
“It’s me she’d never forgive, Father. I’m the one who did this to her.”
“It won’t matter if Ara can ever forgive either of us,” he said, his voice coming now from near the door, “I will never forgive myself.”
Morgana sat down beside me on the bed, sweeping my hair back. “I’m so so sorry, little Aubrey. So sorry.”
I fell back asleep, opening my eyes again in what seemed like two minutes. This time, I felt rested. Awake. I looked around the room at the dawn shadows, seeing someone asleep in the corner on an armchair, and rolled over to flex my body. The blankets were warm, even though the fire was out and the room was cold, and I could hear the subtle sounds of the birds outside beginning to wake the world.
Beside me, there was a handwritten note on yellowing paper. I picked it up and sniffed it, knowing instantly who it was from.
Aubrey, my dear friend,
I hope this letter finds you well. I have received word that you were weakened by your ability to transform spirits to the human form, and I want to assure you that I am doing my research as I write this.
However, in my ancient library, I have come across only legends of creatures whose myth appears to fit your abilities but not your nature: necromancers. I am at a loss, to be honest, but I will find a way to make you all right again, I swear this to you.
I had hoped to share one last dance with you at the Christmas ball before we part ways again until September 7 next year—my birthday—so please, rest, recover, and be well, my darling friend, so that my wish may be fulfilled.
I will see you again very soon, if you are well or not, and please know that you are in all of my thoughts. Until then, fondest regards.
Your friend, as always,
Elias
I pressed the note to my chest and let the goofiest grin consume my face, safe from judgement in the darkness of pre-dawn. He was so old-world and gentlemanly. My dad was like that too, and I guess they say girls fall for guys who are like their fathers. But Elias’s old-world charm was really winning me over. He was way better than the turd boys I went to school with.
I sat up a little and looked at the person in the chair. Nate. When did he get back?
“Psst,” I hissed, trying to wake him, but feeling bad about it, so not really wanting to just shout and say wake up! “Nate?” I whispered.
He shot up out of the chair and appeared beside me, rubbing a hand over his shaved head. “You’re awake!”
“So are you.” I laughed, rolling my covers back to get up.
“Whoa!” He tried to stop me. “You can’t get up yet. You’ll be too weak.”
“I’m fine.” I got up, spreading my arms to present my not-so-weak-self. He stood back but kept a hand nearby in case I fell over. “See?”
“Okay. How do you feel?”
I did a scan of my entire body, thinking about it. “Rested. But starving!”
“Good.” He chuckled. “Come on. I’ll ask the chef to make breakfast early.”
“I don’t wanna be any trouble.”
“He won’t mind.” He grabbed my arm gently and dragged me along.
“So, when did the note come?” I nodded to it on the pillow. “How long was I out?”
“Eleven days,” he said, handing me my dressing gown and kicking my slippers over as he opened the door. “Drake was getting real worried. And Morgana’s beside herself.”
“I’m okay though.”
“I know. But they love you. They’ve been beating themselves up over this.” He shut my door and locked it with the big key. “Morgana doesn’t want to do anymore research on you for a while. She had to go back anyway. Back home.”
“Why?”
“She’s got a coven to run, remember?”
“Oh.”
“I better text her though,” he added. “She wants hourly updates on you.”
“Oh.”
He stopped for a moment and thumbed against his phone, while I put my hands in my dressing gown pockets and looked down the black corridor, seeing a man in the distance who was lighting the candles. The phone rang a second later, so Nate handed it to me.
“Hello,” I said quietly in the early-morning darkness.
“Aubrey! I am so sorry!” she practically yelled. “I had no idea that would happen to you. I—”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “I’m fine now. I just needed to sleep it off.”
She exhaled. “You don’t know how much relief I feel. I thought I’d killed you.”
I laughed. “Maybe we’ll keep the ghost resurrections down to one or two at a time from now on.”
“Or none. Just… we know now, okay. We know you need a full day of rest for each ghost, and we know that neither your temper nor the resurrections trigger the touch of death, so I say we leave it at that for now. Go back home, live your life. Be a kid. We can figure the rest out when you’re older.”
“But—”
“Aubs,” she said, and I knew I’d grown on her in my time here, because she’d never called me that before. “My biggest fear when I thought I’d killed you was that you haven’t lived yet. You don’t belong in a musty old castle. Go home. I mean it.”
“But the ball. Elias will be—”
“Forget the ball. Forget Elias. Date some stupid young guys and get in to all kinds of trouble before you invest yourself in an eternal courtship—”
“Who says Elias is eternal?” I smirked.
“I read that letter he sent, Aubs. And I bet you gushed over it.” She laughed. “It’s eternal. Or at least very long-term.”
I grinned, feeling the heat of that delicious uncertainty that came with new love push up into my cheeks and warm them. “Yeah, I think it could be too.”
“So, go home, okay. Fall in love too quickly, have sex with a jerk, and get drunk from your parents’ liquor cabinet, all right?”
“Okay,” I said, handing the phone back to Nate as I muttered, “Right after the ball.”
* * *
All day, as I waited for the time to come where I could put on my ball gown, then, as I did my hair and put on some make-up, I couldn’t stop my heart from flipping around in sudden and very rapid little fits of excitement. I’d waited so long here in the dingy castle to see Elias again, and even Beth would be here tonight, along with Falcon, and Nate. Everyone I either loved or was growing to love would be here and, for the first time since I arrived, almost three months ago, I wouldn’t be alone.
Nate had been here on and off since I woke up from my really long nap, and Drake spent every Tuesday and Thursday with me, as I watched him rehearse for the upcoming theatre season—where he hosted a castle tour and vampire play—but most other days I’d been on my own, reading books, watching too much tv, or talking to Mia on the phone. I’d also written a few letters to Elias. Kept some, threw some out, but never sent any of them. I’d managed to read through most of the journals that Morgana sent me too, but hadn’t yet got to the part where Jason and Falcon had been… ‘close’. One thing I did know for sure was that Jason was a much darker person than I ever would have imagined. He kept that hidden, really hidden, but I could see why he made a good king. He was fair, generous, and loving, but… wow, he was a killer at heart, and he didn’t stand back from this love he longed for with as much poise and grace as we all thought. I was actually surprised he hadn’t killed my dad and run away with my mom. And what’s worse: he wrote some of those journals while he was with Lily! No wonder she got so jealous.
Here, I’ll show you a passage:
I know why he followed me here. After the First Woman’s Curse was broken and Ara went back to her old life, to her husband, with her memories now restored, there was no place for Falcon there. He’s an outsider to her heart, just as I am. And though I have Lily now, it eases none of the burden. Lily is my soul mate, and yet my love for Ara is so set in my bones that I can’t let her go.
I never will.
I am now, and forever will hold out hope that there is a way to make her mine.
That’s why Falcon came to Loslilian. We’re kin, in that sense, and when we sit for these long hours, drinking whiskey by the fire, nothing ever need be said. We can talk about life, about politics, responsibilities, but we never talk about Ara, because everything that needs to be said is done so, better, in silence.
See what I mean? It’s pretty messed-up. I love Uncle Jase, but I feel super sorry for him, and for Falcon. I wanted to call him and tell him I understood. I wanted to wish him, Mike, Harry, and Mia a happy Christmas, but I didn’t want to talk to Mom and Dad. At all. So I had to play it like I’d just missed their calls, speak to no one so I wouldn't have to speak to those two. I would never forgive them for sending me away, didn’t really even want to return home anymore. Even in my isolation, I liked it here and I liked hanging out with Drake and waiting around for moments when Elias might visit the castle. This is the life I wanted now, and it was their own fault for sending me here.
In a red dress, strapless, of course, that was fitted to the base of my ribs and then puffed into a gentle outward flow, I inspected myself in the full mirror. My eyes shone against this color, and with my hair up, exposing my neckline to entice the vampire, I felt like I’d turn all the right heads: all one of them: Elias’s.
He wanted to wait until I was eighteen before we got closer, but I wanted to kiss him tonight. Just one kiss—maybe lasting a few hours. Just something to hold onto, dream about, over the next year. I was certain my parents would force me to come back home, back to school, to be a normal teenager for a while longer, and Drake would support them in that. But once I turned eighteen, I’d trade it all in for a life as a Lilithian and a trip to London to see where this friendship, this… feeling might go. It had only grown over the last three months, and so had I. I didn’t feel like the same young, somewhat innocent and playful girl I was when I first arrived here, and I hoped Elias saw the differences tonight.
In my letters—the ones I never sent—I’d gone from writing ‘Hey, Elias’ to ‘Dear Elias’ and the common appearance of an ‘LOL’ here and there or an exclamation mark to support my excitement had reshaped instead to more mature, sentimental lines of text. I grew up in those letters to Elias, and I was ready for what came next, even though no one that loved me would allow it.
I opened my door and quickly slipped my hand into my bra to lift my boobs up and make them look fuller, then shut the door and headed down the corridor, grabbing Nate as my escort on the way in.
“You look pretty tonight,” he noted.
“Thanks. So do you.”
He straightened his red bowtie and then his dorky Christmas vest, winking at me. “This is my favorite season.”
“Me too.” I looked up at the festive splendor around the ballroom as we entered. Drake really had gone all-out for this ball—to make it special for me—with garlands of lemon-scented pine, adorned with red baubles and holly, curled around almost every pillar. Little yellow fairy lights twinkled among the brush, while red-and-green candles marked every table or stood proudly in candelabras between chairs at the edge of the room. The dim light made the space more intimate, while a giant banquet table with glistening crystal glasses and polished silver invited us to be hungry by the hooked finger of wafting turkey and mince pies.
Nate walked me to my spot at the table, and I greeted everyone with a gentle nod, feeling Elias’s eyes on me the second we walked in but refusing to look at him. I only had to look at Falcon’s defensive glare, turned in that direction, to get a sense of what Elias thought. And I just felt so adored.
Nate sat me down and pushed my chair in, sitting beside me after. I nodded a greeting to my grandfather, who pressed a hand to his heart, shaking his head with an expression of complete awe.
Thanks, I mouthed, tipping my head to my shoulder as if to bashfully accept his praise when, in truth, I knew I looked perfect because I’d planned it that way.
Over by the windows, a man sat at a piano, a woman beside him with a violin, and they played gentle Christmas tunes to set the tone of the evening. Everyone laughed and talked as though there were no cares in the world, and as I let my eyes stray down toward Elias’s seat, watching him tip his head back as he laughed at someone’s joke, I wished I’d been sat there beside him. I got a sense then that I might always feel that way now.
