Her Dear and Loving Husband (31 page)

“Here I am in the daytime at noon, in the sunlight streaming through my window. I haven’t exploded. I haven’t withered away. I’m not melting. I’m sitting here the same as you. Would you like me to share a soda with you so you can see me drink something too? I’d be happy to oblige.”

He opened the icebox door and looked in. He almost laughed out loud when he saw the cans of diet soda and candy bars filling the two short shelves. Sweet Sarah. Beautiful Sarah. You may have saved my life today, he thought. He removed a can and popped the top.

“That won’t be necessary, Doctor Wentworth. I made some misguided assumptions. I got some faulty information from a source I trusted. I apologize for wasting your time.”   

The reporter stood up to leave.

“Are you going to stop hunting now, Mr. Hempel?” 

“Not at all. I’m still on the hunt. I still have leads on others who might be vampires, but you’re off the hook. I can see I was wrong about you.”

“But why would you keep hunting? If you’re so sure vampires are real and one killed your father then you must find them frightening. Aren’t you afraid you’re putting yourself in danger?”

“I’ve always known hunting vampires is a dangerous occupation, but I’m prepared to make the sacrifice if that’s what I need to do. Have a good day.” He extended his hand, which James shook. Again, Hempel wouldn’t let go. 

“You’re warm, Doctor.” 

“What did you expect?”

Hempel nodded. He looked at James, as if this last glance would confirm or deny whether or not James Wentworth was guilty as charged. He must have decided that the young-looking professor sitting in the ribbon-like streams of sunshine with a healthy flush to his cheeks couldn’t be anything but human. The reporter left without another word, closing the door behind him. 

James sat without moving. He heard the heavy, plodding steps of the reporter as he walked to the elevator, went in, and disappeared down the shaft. He continued waiting, stone-like, like the carved statue
The Thinker
, afraid that the slightest movement would bring Hempel running back, pointing his finger, exuberant like a hunter bagging his prized game, or Ahab netting Moby Dick. James waited longer, then longer after that. Finally, when he felt safe from prying eyes, when the sunlight on his face felt like someone had run a blowtorch along his skin, he stood up to close the blinds. And then it began again, the world falling away, the axis tilted on the wrong diagonal. He felt himself slipping down an inward spiral where he would never reach the end until he found the bottom of the darkness, the darkness calling his name, after all those years, calling him home. All the fist-held stubbornness that kept him strong that afternoon was gone, dropped down the elevator with Kenneth Hempel. Oh Sarah, he thought, I came so close to saving us today. 

And it was the thought of Sarah, her face, her smile, her love that gave him that final push forward. He staggered to the door and stepped into the hallway. He just had to make it downstairs, he thought, and then he could see her again. He smelled her…strawberries and cream…
right, left, right, left, Sarah where are you, right left right left, I can hear you Sarah, I can hear you talking to Jennifer and I know you’re afraid but don’t be afraid Sarah, right left, I will always be with you my strawberry Sarah, Sarah you saved me today Sarah, sweet Sarah beautiful Sarah, rightleft, Sarah I love you…

CHAPTER 24

Sarah heard him collapse from the first floor. Everyone inside the library heard him collapse. It wasn’t just a man falling to the ground but the roar of thunder, an earthquake, or an apocalypse echoing from the third floor in booming waves. Students yelled and ran for cover. Library staff wanted to call security, but Jennifer calmed everyone, saying not to worry, they were reorganizing some things on the other floors, they must have dropped something heavy, don’t panic. Everyone settled down, everyone but Sarah because she knew what the crash meant. She raced to the stairwell because the elevator would have been too slow. Jennifer was right behind her.  

When they got to the third floor they saw him, Timothy, his chest heaving as though he were desperate to breathe again after suffering from empty lungs too long, an unconscious James in his arms. Sarah had to stifle a scream when she saw them.

“James?” she cried. “Jamie?” 

But he couldn’t hear her. His face was blushing red, not ghost white, and he was so still.    

“Bring him in here,” Jennifer said. She already had the faculty lounge on the third floor ready in case there was an emergency. The blinds were down and black butcher paper was taped over the windows. Timothy laid James on the sofa, then stepped back and looked at his friend.

“How did you get in here during the day, Timothy?” Jennifer asked.

“I snuck in last night. I’ve been in here all day, hiding in the storage room down the hall. I wanted to be here if he needed me.”

“How did you know he was going to be here today?”

“I overheard him talking to Hempel the other night. I told him to call me so I could help him. He never called, but I was worried so I came anyway. He sounded fine while they were talking. I didn’t know anything was wrong until I heard him fall. Why didn’t he call me?” 

“He didn’t want to put you in danger,” Jennifer said.

“But he needed me. Look at him.”

Sarah sat on the table in front of the sofa, stroking James’s hand, brushing his gold hair from his eyes. She would have cried, but she was dry inside. She was afraid to ask Timothy if her worst fear had come true because she didn’t know what she would do with herself if it were. She held James’s hand to her cheek. “He’s so warm,” she said. “He’s burning up like he has a fever.”

“Then let’s cool him down.” Jennifer took the ice cube trays from the freezer. “Let’s start with this.” She cracked the trays and dropped the ice over James’s still body. “I’m going to run to the store to buy a few bags of ice. Maybe that will help.”

While Jennifer was gone, Sarah and Timothy waited. Sarah couldn’t look at the boy because that would make this real and she couldn’t pretend it was a bad dream. She would have gladly spent every night for the rest of her life trapped in a nightmare if it would make this waking terror go away. She took one of the ice cubes and rubbed it along James’s face, along his forehead, across his temples, down his neck and chest. The blush on his cheeks reminded her, through Elizabeth’s memories, of his human days. He looked like he was sleeping with his head turned, his chin tilted. She wouldn’t take her eyes from him because she was afraid that if she stopped seeing him, even for a moment, then he would disappear, like he was never there. Maybe this was one of her famous nightmares. Maybe she was still living in Los Angeles married to a man she didn’t love in a city that didn’t agree with her. Maybe James was too perfect to be anything but a dream. She kissed him, his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, trying to wake him. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, she thought. I need you. 

Jennifer came back with Olivia, both carrying two bags of ice, which they placed around James’s still body. Olivia locked the door from the inside so no one else could get in.

Too much time passed with no change. Jennifer pulled a corner of the black butcher paper from the window and peeked outside. “It’s dark,” she said. She pulled the paper down and opened the blinds. She stared at the stars, the lights in the sky staying respectfully distant and dim. Then she turned to Sarah. “Why don’t you take some time for yourself. If there’s any change I’ll call you.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Sarah said.

“You need to take care of yourself. You need to stay strong for James.”

Sarah didn’t want to go, but Jennifer pressed her until she left. She stumbled away, checked the hallway to be sure no one was around, and closed the door behind her, softly, as though a slam would disturb James from his sleep. She didn’t go far, just to the women’s faculty lounge to wash her face. Then she sat on the floor in the hall. Through the closed door she could hear Jennifer talking to Timothy.   

“Why don’t you go stretch your legs?” Jennifer said.

“I don’t need to stretch my legs.”

“But you need to stay strong too. You’re crowding James hovering over him like that. You need to pull yourself together.”

Timothy walked into the hallway. He didn’t seem to see Sarah as he disappeared into the stairwell. After a few more minutes, Sarah decided that the only place she needed to be was near James. When she walked into the lounge she saw Jennifer’s face set in determination as she spoke to her mother.   

“I’m going to cast a spell for James. I’m going to cleanse the weakness from him, give him strength.” Olivia began to speak, but Jennifer used her hand as a stop sign. “I know you’re the one who tells me we can’t use our spells to interfere in people’s lives. And I know James isn’t conscious and can’t give his consent, but I’m going to do it anyway. This is for James, Mother, our friend James, the first one you called the day I was born, the one who has always been there for us, for our whole family back generations. If I can’t use my magic to heal him, then I don’t want it any more.”

“I was just going to ask if I could help, dear. I’m the one who taught you how to cast spells, remember? Did you bring the sage incense and the white candles?”

“Of course.”

Jennifer saw Sarah and nodded, saying, “I’m going to cast a spell for James. He can’t give permission, but you can. Do you give me permission to cast a spell for him, Sarah?”

“What kind of magic spell?” Sarah asked.

“Sometimes we can help when people are ill,” Olivia said.

Sarah stared at them with fear and awe, then nodded her consent.

From her bag, Jennifer pulled incense, white candles, and a glass she filled with water from the tap. She took matches from her bag and lit the incense and the candles. 

 “Do you think it will work?” Olivia asked. “I’ve never cast a spell for someone like James.”

“I hope it works, Mother, because I don’t know what else to do.” 

Jennifer took her mother’s hands, and the two witches stood over James and closed their eyes, whispering, “Angels of protection, angels who clear, remove all weaknesses that don’t belong here.”

Jennifer put her hands on James’s temples. “Heal James’s spirit. Make him well. Give him power and strength. Make him endure as he is made to endure.” 

She took the glass of water in her hands and held it over him, her eyes shut in concentration, pressing the glass as if she would shatter it, as if she directed the negative energy in the room, in James, into the water. When the water bubbled and steamed, Jennifer poured it down the drain.  

“It’s okay, James,” she said. “Your weaknesses have been flushed away. You can be well again.”  

But he didn’t move. He looked exactly as he had, flushed, unstirring. Dead. Jennifer shook her head and wrung her hands in circles, over and over, rubbing until her skin was red. The three of them hovered around him, waiting for some sign that the spell had worked. Sarah looked at the counter near the sink and saw the candles still flickering, and her lungs burned from the spicy incense. Jennifer and Olivia wouldn't look at her. She saw their melancholy faces and understood what they were trying not to say.  

“It didn’t work,” Sarah said.

Jennifer shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”

Sarah was heartbroken, torn outward from the soft organs inside. While she was washing her face in the women’s lounge, feeling like the mirrors would shatter around her in jagged teardrops, she felt the resignation settle over her, not unlike the resignation Elizabeth had felt in prison when she knew she was dying. She didn’t want to die, but it didn’t matter, she died anyway. Sarah wasn’t ready for James to die, but she knew that didn’t matter, either, if it was time. Sometimes events turned away from you so quickly there was nothing you could do to try to reel them back and send them in the direction you wanted them to go. She wanted to be with James. She wanted to live out the happy lives they had started over three hundred years before. The more she and Elizabeth melded into one woman, the more she knew there was nowhere else for her to be but there with him. And he was already leaving her again. It didn’t make any sense. But life would do what life would do, and she never felt like she had complete control over the direction of her destiny. She could only wish there was still some way she could keep him with her. Unless there was some universe-driven practical joke that had gone badly wrong and was never meant to be funny but only tragic, then it couldn’t be possible for them to go through everything they had for such a brief reunion. There had to be more. 

Suddenly Timothy burst through the door. “I know! Let’s feed him!”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Olivia asked.

“I saw it on television. That’s what the vampires do when they’re hurt. They drink.”

Sarah thought she should go to the refrigerator for a bag of blood, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave James’s side. She sat on the edge of the table and stared at him. Most of the ice had melted, so she took one of the last cubes and rubbed it down his temples and across his forehead.  

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” she said. “You’re my dear and loving husband. I’ll never leave you ever.” She kissed his lips.  

Then she felt it, the cold that made her lips tingle. Not from the melting ice, but from James.

“He’s cold!” she said. “Jennifer, he’s cold!”

Olivia took James’s hand and held it between hers. “He is definitely colder,” she said. 

Sarah tapped his cheek with her fingers. “James? Jamie? Can you hear me?” When he opened his eyes she began to cry. “Oh James,” she said. 

He blinked a few times, saw everyone watching him with hopeful smiles, and he sat up as if he had woken up from a nap. He looked like nothing strange had happened, he hadn’t gone out during the day, he hadn’t seen the sun. He hadn’t tricked his hunter and sent the man limping away. He looked like it was an ordinary way to spend the afternoon after finding his way in the nighttime world so long.