Infinite Days (12 page)

Why didn’t I want to kill this man? Why did I want to leave him in the confines of his house with his mother and father and collection of maps? Had I dared to find another that I loved besides Rhode? Yes, he would be free, I decided. As I turned from the window to rejoin my coven at the inn, I caught Vicken’s eye.

He shot up from the table and ran after me, but I hurried down the dirt pathway, away from the ocean and back toward the main road.

“Wait!”

“I changed my mind. You’re free,” I said, turning to him in the middle of the path. On either side of me were tall trees. “Do you know, you were right? You’re the first man I’ve ever allowed a choice. Go back inside with your family.”

Vicken walked up to me so fast I was surprised for the moment that he was only human. He placed his hands on my cheeks. “I don’t want that,” he said so passionately that he was gritting his teeth. “I’ve let them go. I don’t want to be here, die here, and see nothing else of the world.”

“What is it, then? What do you want?” I asked.

Vicken grasped me by the shoulders so passionately, I didn’t move. He took a deep breath. “You,” he said, almost panting. “Just you.”

I looked deep into his eyes and saw such a need in his gaze. He needed me. I looked down at the strong muscles of his neck and shoulders and then back up to his eyes. He leaned forward, lightly grazing his lips over mine. I took a deep breath just so I could smell his flesh—there was that smell again, musk and salt. Soon it would run through me.

“It is done,” I said, opening my eyes. I grasped onto his wrist and led him away from the manor. “You will be joining the ranks of vampires so ancient in history that no one knows of our origins. But you will be powerful. Beyond your imagination.”

I walked toward the woods beyond the small cottage.

“Will you be there?” he asked.

I took his hand into mine. “Always.”

Perhaps Vicken fell in love with me because of my vampire presence. I don’t know. I’ll never know. Rhode once told me that the aura of a vampire is so powerful that most men were disillusioned without knowing it. I can assure you that when I took him into the woods behind his cottage, he was holding my hand. And when I bit into his neck, he was looking up at the stars.

“Lenah!”

I shook my head, and my eyes refocused on the water lapping against the bottom of Justin’s boat. “Over here.” I looked to the left.

Justin Enos bobbed up and down as he treaded water. The sunlight reflected off the smooth surface and into his eyes, so he squinted a bit, but he was smiling. “Don’t make me come up there and get you,” he said.

As he said this, Tony floated by on an inflatable raft and snapped pictures of me. “Who brought the paparazzi?” Claudia asked. She was doing laps around the boat.

I stood up carefully and stepped back toward the body of the boat. I tried to shake the images of Vicken from my mind, but that invisible clock, the one echoing in my head, reminded me that the days leading to
Nuit Rouge
were near. Soon, Vicken would try to dig me up from the ground. Justin swam toward the ladder, and by the time I got there he was climbing up to join me.

“I’ve never seen the sun shine on the ocean like that before,” I admitted once Justin had climbed back aboard. He was dripping from head to toe.

“I’ve never seen someone as pale as you before,” Roy said from the water.

“Shut up, Roy,” Justin spat over the laughter of the others. Roy called him a swear word I’d never heard before and swam away. Tracy was staring and so were the other girls in Three-Piece, though they were trying to hide it by splashing one another. There was a calm satisfaction in my mind. I remembered…gratitude. Justin had defended me.

“Come on,” he said, and extended a hand. Before I took it, I looked at his palm. His fingers were so smooth. Some vampires, though not all, believe in palmistry. Justin’s life line, which is the line on the palm that runs between the thumb and index finger, was very long—it almost ran down to his wrist. It does not indicate how long you shall live. It is an indicator of your commitment to life, or in other words, your life force. He would have been a perfect member of my coven. Justin grasped my hand before I could think anymore and pulled me on to the top rim of the boat.

“You scared to jump?” he asked.

I nodded. He gripped my hand even tighter. His warm palms, hot skin. My life had been so cold before now. My toes curled over the side of the boat, and I gripped Justin’s hand.

“It’s not like standing outside in the pouring rain or anything,” he said, referring to our conversation in the meadow. “But it’s really fun, I promise.”

“A promise from the boy who called me a whore.”

Justin sighed but kept his gaze on me. “You gonna let me make this up to you or what?”

My jaw dropped. I had no response to that. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re right.”

“Do you want flippers?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Okay. Well, this water is pretty shallow. You can stand on your tiptoes, so don’t dive. Just throw yourself in.” Justin met my eyes and waited for me to look back from the water to him. “You ready?”

I nodded.

“Gotta start somewhere, right?”

I looked at Justin’s assuring glance. “Right,” I said. Justin’s body propelled upward, so I closed my eyes, felt my knees bend, and I jumped into the air. The sun was on my back and I threw my hands up and slid into the ocean so it enveloped me. The water felt like a thousand tons of prickly pressure sweeping over my body. All I could hear was the whoosh and hum of the water. My ears and nose filled with water, but I held my breath. Once I felt the sand squish beneath my toes, I shot up toward the surface, gasping for air. Once I broke the surface, I opened my eyes and laughed and laughed. After I wiped my eyes, I caught Justin’s smile.

Justin pushed through the chest-high water in my direction. Tracy was swimming toward him on his right, though his back was to her. He was smiling brightly and I was, too. He opened his mouth and for a moment, just a moment, it seemed that he had lifted his hand toward me. Then Tracy wrapped her arms around his chest and pressed herself to his back. She had on bright pink nail polish and like claws her fingers pressed onto his chest. Although Justin stopped reaching for me and instead held his hand over Tracy’s, he never moved his gaze from me. Just when he turned to face Tracy, Tony popped up from the water and snapped a picture two inches away from my face.

“So, Lenah, where did you get that necklace?” Tracy asked from the passenger seat of Justin’s SUV. She turned in her seat to look at me. We were on our way back to Wickham. It was late afternoon, sometime around four, based on the placement of the sun. I placed the chain back around my neck. “It was a gift,” I said.

“It’s so cute. Pixie dust,” Claudia said from the seat behind me.

Tony scoffed.

“That vial looks really beat up. You should take it back and ask for a new one,” Kate chimed in.

I didn’t say anything. We had turned onto Lovers Bay’s Main Street. The section of Main Street closest to Wickham’s campus was quite lively and filled with shops. That particular Saturday there was a farmers’ market.

“I haven’t seen anyone wear pixie-dust necklaces since, like, third grade. How retro of you, Lenah,” Claudia said.

We passed a section of vendors selling plants and flowers. One of the signs said
WILD HERBS.

“Can you let me out?” I asked.

“You don’t have to go,” Kate said to me, but she threw a smirk to Tracy in the rearview mirror.

“Yes.
Please
don’t go,” Tony said, but Justin was already slowing down. He pulled to the right side of the road. I could see the Wickham entrance gates just a few feet up from where we were. I stepped out of the car, catching a glimpse of Justin’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Talk to you later, Tony,” I said, and slammed the door behind me. I was sure I would get a mouthful for leaving Tony with the vultures, but I had to do something. Something I should have done when I first got to Wickham.

At the farmers’ market I walked past carts of apples and pumpkins and various blends of apple cider. Finally, I stopped at the cart filled with herbs and wildflowers. Orange mums, purple pansies, asters, and bright yellow chrysanthemums lay in small wicker baskets. A brown satin ribbon held the stems together in a delicate bow.

“Would you have any lavender?” I asked a woman sitting on a patio chair behind her cart. “A small bundle?”

The woman handed it to me with a smile. “Four dollars,” she said.

I paid and walked in the direction of campus. The lavender smelled heavenly, and I pressed it to my nose all the way from Main Street until the great arches of the Wickham campus. I walked through the gate, smiled to myself, and took a deep sigh. The campus was teeming with activity. Some people were lying out on blankets; others studied in groups, passing notebooks back and forth. I took a deep breath and listened to the voices echoing around me.

I can’t read your handwriting! Just e-mail me.

Bio is going to kill me.

I want that sweater Claudia Hawthorne was wearing.

Here’s to the sodger who bled!

I nearly tripped over my own feet. I spun around to look behind me.

And the sailor who bravely did fa!

I spun the other direction. Who was singing that song? A collection of girls on a blanket were reading from their textbooks. One of them had headphones over her ears. There were dozens of people on the pathway. Two younger boys passed by me but they were talking about the upcoming basketball season. I turned back around to look across the green, but no one was singing. I took a step and then another. Just when my steps were even enough and I was in jumping distance to Seeker, I heard it again.

On the wings o’ the year that’s awa!

I dropped the lavender onto the ground and held my hands over my ears. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. I looked at the students around me again, just to make sure. Most of them were walking toward their dorms and enjoying the warm weather out on the green. I took my palms off my ears and bent down to pick up the lavender.

Call me later!

Dinner in twenty!

The conversations were normal. The Scottish man singing was gone.

Ghosts have a way of misleading you; they can make your thoughts as heavy as branches after a storm. It was Vicken’s voice that swirled in the trees haunting me from my memories. Even all the way in Lovers Bay, Massachusetts. I knew it—he missed me.

Once I got to my door, I tacked the lavender right next to the rosemary. Lavender, if you are hunted, will protect you from evil forces. It will bless the house of the door it decorates.

Have you ever in your life wanted to do something terrible? I mean, earth-shattering terrible? Because that next morning, it took everything in my power not to call my coven. When I woke up, there was a silence. A hush to the room and to the world out side on Wickham campus. I focused on needless things. The ceiling in my bedroom was smooth and white. The birds chirped, and tree branches swayed from a light breeze. More than anything, I was aware that I was alone. No trip to the water could cure me. I yearned for Song’s quiet musings; the way Vicken would look at me from across a crowded room and I would know just what he was thinking. I missed the way the hills rolled away from my house and spread so far into the distance that during sunsets, just when it was safe enough to approach the windows, the grass looked like it was on fire.

I gripped the soft sheets of my bed in my hands and rolled onto my side. Rhode’s words slivered through my mind. That final night we talked about so many things. One was a warning:

“You must not contact them, Lenah. As much as you might want to. As much as the magic that you created yearns for them. Calls to them. You must deny yourself.”

I looked up at the telephone on the night table. Did they even have a telephone? If I called and one of them answered, would they know it was me? But I didn’t call. Instead, I rolled to my other side, away from the telephone, and faced my bedroom windows. My thoughts drifted away from the coven. Maybe I would shower. As a vampire, I had no need to shower. There was nothing organic about me; I was magically sealed, inhuman, a dead body, enchanted by the blackest of magic. Now, in the human form, hot water rolling down my arms and back was the closest I came to finding some peace.

I stepped out of the bed, away from the doorway, making sure not to allow my eyes to fall on Rhode’s sword just outside the bedroom door. I did that a lot—for comfort, mostly. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and stepped onto the cool tiles of the bathroom floor.

“Ahhhhhhh!” I screamed, and threw my back onto the wall behind me.

The reflection in the mirror. My skin. It was a honey color. A deep bronze. The top of my nose had a sheen of glimmering gold across the bridge. I had
tanned
.

I stepped within two inches of the mirror. I pulled my skin tight with the tips of my fingers. My eyes narrowed, I checked my cheeks, my chin, even my neck, for redness of the skin. Even with the 50 SPF I had gotten color, though I wasn’t scorched as I had expected. I hadn’t evaporated, either.

I bounced out of the bathroom and hopped into the living room—though I stopped in the doorway. Rhode’s sword remained still on the wall, its plaque holding it frozen in place. Then I looked to the bureau and the photographs of my coven. They stared at me with a melancholy emptiness. But everything was empty, wasn’t it? No one occupied the couch or the lounge seat. No one made the coffee or asked me what I wanted for breakfast. There was only me.

I sat down on the couch. It was too early for breakfast, and Tony said he wouldn’t be up and ready to eat until almost noon. Weekends were different at Wickham. The weekday students went home, and mostly everyone else took the time to study. The first week of classes had been uneventful except for anatomy class. I looked down at the coffee table. The book I took from the library was still open to Rhode’s engraving. I glanced at Rhode’s eyes, those beautiful eyes that would haunt me forever—they stared out at nothing. There was no one who could understand.

Suddenly I was tired again and I wanted nothing more than to curl up for a while.
Yes, sleep would be nice
, I thought. As I walked to my bedroom I hoped that maybe I would dream of Rhode.

That night, I went by Tony’s room to find that his family had come by to pick him up for dinner. So, I wandered the campus alone. Although it was warm for September, still in the seventies, I could smell something in the air; it was cooling off.

Despite the twilight, Quartz dorm was full of activity. Boys passed footballs back and forth in the meadow, soccer balls, too. Rock music echoed from the art tower. Boys and girls walked along pathways and chatted near windows in various buildings.

As I walked, two girls passed by me. I recognized one of them from English with Professor Lynn.

“Hi, Lenah,” she said.

“Um. Oh, hello,” I replied, and found myself smiling. She was a junior, too. That was it. A hello—just for me.

I think I was heading for the beach to watch the stars when I noticed the greenhouse directly past the science buildings. With the scent of lavender still fresh from yesterday’s purchase I headed over another grassy patch toward the greenhouse.

The building was made from glass and stretched back and away from the pathways. I pressed my palms on the glass panels and peered in, but it was dark inside. I focused on the various plants that were in my direct eye line. I gasped, and adrenaline dashed in my chest.

“Nasturtium! Roses, lilacs, marigold, and thyme,” I whispered. All of the herbs I missed and so desired to have back in my life. The double-door entrance was glass just like the rest of the building, and I tugged on the black handles. The doors shuddered back at me. I wanted nothing more than to go inside. As a vampire, you would think I would be completely removed from the natural elements of the world. I could wield nothing natural myself. No need for breath or water, but I loved all herbs and flowers, plants. All flowers have a natural power. All stones have a natural power. Everything, the flowers, the plants, the soil, even the black magic that ran through me as a vampire, came from the earth.

“Greenhouse is closed.”

I spun around.

“Why don’t you stop following me?”

Justin Enos was freshly showered and alone. He came from the grassy patch between Quartz meadow and the science buildings. He was wearing a blue button-down and khaki shorts. He looked like he was glistening.

“I’m walking to the parking lot,” he said, and pointed up the pathway. “Why do you want to go in the greenhouse?” He stepped next to me and looked into the darkened building. “It smells like dirt in there.”

“I love it,” I said with an edge of a whisper.

“Do you?” He gave me a surprised glance. I looked back into the greenhouse and didn’t answer. I didn’t want to explain my love for flowers and herbs. “Still mad at me?” he said.

“One snorkeling trip and I’m supposed to swoon?” I replied. He leaned a hand on the green house and leaned forward almost inches from my face.

“You smell amazing,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said with a flush of breath in my voice. Justin’s eyes pulsated into mine, and then he pulled back to an appropriate distance. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was testing me, as vampires do, through a locked gaze.

“Still gotta do something about you, don’t I?” he said, almost growling. It made me want to purr, if it was possible.

“Justin!” called a voice.

Both of us spun around. Tracy and the Three-Piece headed toward the greenhouse, coming from the direction of the Union. All three were dressed in black, short cocktail dresses, though each one was just slightly different in style from the others.

“Hi, Lenah,” Tracy said when she got to the pathway.

“You tanned so fast,” Claudia said to me.

I looked down at my arms.

“I guess I didn’t notice,” I replied with a shrug.

“Staying in tonight?” Tracy asked, looping her arm through Justin’s. I looked into Tracy’s eyes as a vampire would. A stare that pierced deep into the pupils. Though I saw no depth to her soul. She was flat, a child of the secular universe. In fact, every one of the Three-Piece was a victim of her own self-absorption. Justin on the other hand had a light in his eyes. A window of sorts, where I could see that he was much, much more than an average boy. He had stealth and courage—like Rhode. He had soul. I tore my eyes away from Tracy’s. There was a tug in my chest as though a spell had been broken.

“Yes, I’m staying in,” I said, and refocused on Claudia and Kate. “Sunday isn’t a big night out for me.”

“Just hanging out outside the greenhouse?” Kate asked. She was in an extremely short dress. “Too bad,” Tracy said to me, and then looked at Justin. “Let’s go, I want to get to the club and back before curfew.”

And with that, they started walking up the path. I didn’t want to follow behind, so I pretended I was looking at something in the greenhouse.

“ ’Night,” Justin said with a glance back at me.

“ ’Night,” I said, and soon they were enveloped in the blackness of the path and I was walking home.

Nine a.m., Monday morning, and I found Tony at the library. Turns out he had been there for hours. He was surrounded by hundreds of pictures. I mean it, hundreds of pictures—of
me
. After I put my backpack behind the desk I looked down the long aisle of books toward the back study area. I took off my sunglasses and started down the row of books toward Tony.

I stood above the table, but Tony didn’t look up. The pictures were from the snorkeling trip. There must have been two hundred photos, each from a different perspective. Tony’s head was down, and his fingers tightly clenched a stumpy piece of charcoal. I looked at a white sketch pad on the table and saw the outline of a pair of eyes that looked very much like my own.

“You realize this could be categorized as an obsession?” I said with my arms crossed over each other.

Tony shot back into his chair and I have to admit I took a step back out of surprise. His usual happy-go-lucky attitude was nowhere to be seen. His smooth skin had a few lines of charcoal on it and a black smudge on his forehead where he must have been resting his palm while working.

“I’ve never done a portrait like this before,” he said, and then bent over, back at the sketchbook. “I gotta get the perspective right,” he grumbled, though it seemed Tony was talking more to himself. He looked at me, back down at the sketch pad, and ripped the page out of the notebook. He crumpled it into a ball and dropped it to the floor. I slid one of the photos from off the table.

In it, Justin Enos and I stood on the rim of the boat. Justin’s hand was in mine and the way our profiles looked, it was as though we were washed in sunlight. I was looking into Justin’s eyes and I was smiling. The water directly below us cast a glittery, gold glow on our faces. Before I had a moment longer to look at the curve of my mouth and whiteness of my teeth, Tony snatched the photo out of my hand and threw it carelessly into the pile.

“Hey!” I protested.

“Wrong. The perspectives on these are all wrong.”

“Tony, how could that be? Look how many there are. I’m sure you can find—”

He shook his head quickly and with one sweep of his arm pushed the photos into a canvas bag and stalked away up the long aisle and toward the front door. His backpack fell off his arm and dangled over his wrist. He brought it back over his shoulder just as his baggy pants slid off his backside, showing me his boxer shorts and the top of a very small butt crack. He took a small hop library door.

“Tony, wait!” I called, and pushed out of the library.

I tried to hold in the laughter as I jogged to catch up.

“You don’t get it, Lenah,” he said to me, but he kept walking. “I have to get this right. I mean, it’s not just your portrait. It’s a big part of my scholarship. Every project I choose has to have some kind of learning curve. You know, where I’m applying something new to my work.”