Blood Rites (12 page)

The house at the end of it was smaller than Helen imagined—a single-story cabin dwarfed by the towering pines around it. It had been built in a narrow wooded valley sheltered by snow-topped mountains. The Austra family owned three hundred acres. This wasn’t much land, not here, but it bordered the north end of a national forest. The nearest campgrounds were forty miles away, the nearest hiking trails thirty, the nearest town sixteen. “The main roads are always plowed,” Stephen assured her, “and the clinic in Dawson is excellent.”

This was exactly the sort of place Helen wanted—rustic, isolated. But as she stood beside the truck and stared at the long log structure, so low she thought she’d have to duck to get through the door, she wondered if her request had been the right one.

Stephen opened the trailer, then tossed her the keys. “Go and look,” he said.

As she walked closer to the house, she saw that it was partially earth-sheltered, with steps going down to a tall front door. When she reached the bottom, undid the padlock, and pushed the door open, she found herself in a single, apparently windowless room. Though her eyes adjusted immediately to the darkness, she knew she wouldn’t like it here. Stephen, who possessed the family’s natural claustrophobia, would undoubtedly hate it.

She heard a rustling by the far wall, then the creak of hinges and saw a thin line of colored light across from the door. Others followed. She ran to the first window, unlatched the inside shutters and pulled it open, then did the same to the rest, following Stephen around the house. When she’d finished, she surveyed the space again.

The single large room reminded her of the main room in their house in Chaves. Like there, this room was dominated by a huge stone fireplace and tall multicolored windows. The floor was of pine planks and dark rough-hewn beams supported the roof and walls.

“James built it in 1920,” Stephen told her as they dusted the floors. “Michael used it from 1938 until last year when he left for Alpha to take on Laurie’s role.”

When the dark wood floor was polished to a rich depth, Stephen brought in the carpets, unrolling the large oriental in the center of the room, the smaller ones in other spaces where they fit. He reassembled the platform for their bed, put the grey suede sofa, the oak table and chairs where she directed. He brought in the music—a small hammered dulcimer, a guitar, and the
naizet
, the pear-shaped stringed instrument that he’d played for her a few months—a lifetime—ago. He brought in their treasures—the crystal cat Charles had made for him, the stemware from Alpha, the etched crystal candleholders Rachel had given Helen as a welcoming present, her self-portrait that they hung above the fireplace. And last he brought in their work—an easel, canvases, and paints for her, a loom and yarn, carving and carpentry tools for him.

When they’d finished, the space looked sumptuous, at odds with the wilderness around them.

Well after dark, she left Stephen building a fire and went outside.

She saw nothing in the growing darkness but trees and the brighter stars. Instinct had told her to come here but it seemed a mistake now, one she would feel obligated to see through.

Then she saw the wolf.

She might have missed him altogether were her other senses less acute but she had heard him breathing in the trees near the door. She froze and waited for him to notice her and run. Instead he walked closer to her and, when he was a few yards away, sat back on his haunches waiting for her to make the next move.

Helen did what seemed correct, crouching down, one hand flat on the snow-covered ground, studying him.

He had just eaten, she knew; had just killed an injured deer. He was an older wolf, she sensed eight winters in his thoughts, and had recently lost his mate. Spring had come. He would be alone until autumn when the packs formed. The musky Austra scent had drawn him here, and though he had expected to find Michael, not her, he accepted her as well.

She learned all this without any real concentration. She smiled in delight at her power and the wolf, confused by the sudden change in her expression, turned and ran.

Without thinking, she bolted after him, almost touching him as she followed. When he started to climb over the icy rocks, she abandoned physical pursuit, letting her mind chase him, until he traveled too far to reach. She pulled back, hearing his distant howl, hearing it answered from the house, the echoes falling off the mountains around her.

Oh, yes! She had made the right choice in coming here. She was certain of it now, as certain as she had been on the night of her changing when she decided that she belonged in Stephen’s world.

The wolf came every day at dusk and sat quietly outside the door waiting. She learned to talk to it, to give it orders as Stephen did, and though it was nobody’s pet, it obeyed.

If the night was calm, she and Stephen would hunt with it. Stephen’s arms were almost as long as his legs and his hips were double-jointed so he could run on hands and feet. His body was immune to even bitter cold and he wore very little, often nothing at all. Helen, restricted to two feet rather than four and her human flesh covered with boots and clothing, struggled to keep the pace.

With practice, she did. Her heart grew stronger, her lungs seemed larger, and her reflexes quickened, making her more surefooted. At last, sensing she was ready, Stephen ordered the wolf back and let her take the kill. She jumped, sinking her small hunting knife in the deer’s neck, straddling it, pulling back the head so she could drink.

She felt its heart flutter with fear, its mind trying to fight hers. She held it easily, devouring its life, feeling its fear fading, life falling easily into death.

And she felt her sons inside her, growing stronger with this feast. She could almost see their tiny fingers held out, demanding more. Yes, if this was what they needed she would provide.

On the nights that followed warm summer days, a fog would form, rolling into the valleys, covering the low cottage walls and windows with its damp, lacy solitude. Returning from the midnight hunts, Helen would pass through it, into the cottage where she would lay beside Stephen and listen to the muffled sounds of the world around her.

Invariably she would move closer to him. There were so few choices left her—actually, none at all save to understand what she had become. But she wished, with human impatience, that understanding would strike like a bolt of lightning and she would be at peace with her new life.

Instead, the nights flowed interminably one into another and, she thought ruefully, while full comprehension of her powers seemed years away, she already had too great an understanding of eternity.

Though she desired to be isolated from humanity, she found herself drawn to them even more than before.

She and Stephen became regulars in the Dawson community, hiding behind their aliases. Stephen posed as an author who had ghostwritten a number of travel books for a firm in Toronto and was making his first attempt at a novel. Helen was an amateur artist who wanted to paint landscapes and wildlife. The house had been in the family for years. When Stephen’s brother, Michael, had taken that job in Quebec, they decided to move to Dawson and start a family.

Helen met a number of Dawson women through her regular doctor’s appointments. They clucked with sympathy over Helen’s isolation, gave her experienced advice on her pregnancy, and tried to keep their eyes off her husband. For the most part they managed to hide their envy, though Stephen Audet’s looks were the subject of many morning coffee klatches.

The doctor, who first saw her when she was five months pregnant, judged her to be along only three. Austra children grew slowly, even in the womb. When he examined her, he noticed little unusual though her pulse and blood pressure were rather low. She said her blood type was O positive because that was the most common. She could use any type now; why concern him with something rare. When he asked to confirm this, she refused and produced a donor card from a hospital in Toronto. He didn’t argue. The woman was healthy and he anticipated no problems. Besides, he always grew tongue-tied in her presence.

While she waited for Stephen to finish his errands, she would often visit the Dawson library, where she requested books from Edmonton after she read what interested her in the town’s collection. She devoured history and philosophy and fiction with the same voracious energy she had once poured into her work. She took out books on the culture of the native tribes of the area—the Kaska and the Sekani. Astounded at how quickly her mind absorbed information, she learned French, then Spanish and, of course, the language of her new family.

And at last, when there seemed to be nothing else left to do, she began to paint again—formless brilliant splashes of color that would never be for sale, created haphazardly as if she were searching for the artist she would become in her next public life.

Through it all, she sensed her children waiting, absorbed in the throbbing of their own hearts, her blood flowing through them and the touch of one another.

She painted what they felt in the womb.

In September, when the snow began to fall, Helen’s pregnancy made it awkward for her to hunt. Then Stephen showed her how to stand motionless at the edge of the woods, pick her prey, and call it to her. The closer an animal came, the more able she was to control it, until she could stand beside it, hold it frozen with her mind while she drank.

She tried her hand at other mental exercises as well, working jigsaw puzzles of increasing complexity, first picture up, then picture down. When she could work a thousand-piece puzzle in less than half an hour, she began doing them blindfolded.

And as her children grew, she merged her mind with those of the twin boys inside her. Though both were Stephen’s, the smaller one had a far stronger mind. At six months, she began to sense his feelings, his contentment, his primitive annoyance when his brother, “the brute” she called him, kicked.

The snowplow came weekly, the driver who did the main road automatically diverting to handle their private drive. AustraGlass would shut down soon and the family, those in the world and those exiled from it, would be assembling in Chaves for their solstice sharing, the yearly bonding of their minds. Stephen and Helen had planned to go but Helen was obviously close to term and, though she tried to hide it, growing weaker day by day.

She slept almost round the clock, finally waking with a start, bathed in sweat.

“What is it?” he asked.

“They sense something has changed. They can’t understand. They’re frightened.”

“They . . . or you?”

She didn’t answer directly. “Sing to me,” she said.

He had been doing this for months, training her ears to hear the range of his voice, teaching her the language of her new people. Usually he played the dulcimer or the
naizet
. Tonight he let his mind supply the music, holding her while he sang the story of an ancient warlord who loved an Austra woman. He tried to carve an empire for her and returned to her, wounded, to ask her to kill him because he had failed.

Helen watched the song unfold as he sang, saw the tents with their tattered banners waving in the dry desert wind, heard the stomping of the horses of the warlord’s men. Helen felt the warlord’s shame and the woman’s pity as she denied his request, nursing him until he was well, then leaving him alone with his dreams of conquest.

The story took hours to tell. When it was over, afternoon had turned to night. Helen lay with her head resting on Stephen’s shoulder, her body close to his, sharing his warmth.

He lit a fire and fixed her some tea.

“Why do you think humans take such pleasure in war?” she asked him.

“Because their only immortality is through history. That is the moral of the story I think. She had no need of the warlord’s gift.” And he had chosen this tale, to impart to her through legend a confidence he could hardly feel.

Helen winced. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She laughed. “The Brute is just making his presence known. I think we should name him Richard, after my uncle.” She sipped her tea. “I feel so strange tonight, as if I’m being emptied and filled all at once.”

Let it be the human half taking control
, he thought.
Let it be nothing more than that
.

III

Rachel arrived on New Year’s Eve bringing boxes of books, gifts from the family, and Hillary Dutiel. They flew up from Edmonton on a ski-plane and borrowed the postman’s spare truck to make the drive. Stephen hadn’t asked them to visit and he didn’t want them here, especially when Rachel made it clear she had come to act as midwife. No, he wanted Helen safe in a hospital, surrounded by nurses and doctors who knew nothing of the Austra family and would not consider it tradition to snap the neck of the mother’s corpse after the children were born.

If Helen hadn’t been close to her delivery, Stephen would have dispersed his rage in a solitary week-long hunt. Instead he stayed, avoiding Rachel and Hillary as best he could in a one-room cottage.

That evening, after Hillary had fallen asleep in a makeshift bed near the kitchen stove, Rachel pulled a folder from her suitcase and handed it to Stephen. “This is the first historical meeting you’ve ever missed. I knew you would want to see the report as soon as possible. I also brought last year’s report for Helen to read.”

Helen put down the novel she’d been reading and joined the two at the table. “Historical meetings? What are they?” she asked.

While Stephen paged through the more recent report, Rachel explained to Helen that Historical Projection was the AustraGlass department responsible for all the family’s long-range planning. Experts in politics, sociology, and science worked year-round on annual reports that they presented to the family at the end of the AustraGlass winter shutdown. “Outside of the solstice sharing a few days earlier, this meeting is the most important annual family event,” Rachel concluded.

“And I hadn’t even given a thought to it,” Stephen admitted. “Incipient fatherhood has altered my priorities, yes?”