Infinite Days (3 page)

I broke from these thoughts when Tony hoisted himself up and let his legs dangle over the edge of the stone wall. He kicked his heels back so they bounced off the stone. We sat there for a moment, and I liked the silence; in fact, it gave me an opportunity to look him over. He was a bit taller than me, and burly, like a wrestler. Sitting this close, I was able to see the wispy lines of veins running along his neck. But that’s not what kept my attention. He wore at least ten earrings in each ear! Some were so wide that they had stretched his earlobe out and I could see right through it.

“So, why are
you
sitting over here by yourself?” he asked.

I pulled back quickly and placed my sunglasses on. I thought it over a moment; the way I would speak, that is. I remembered the way the car delivery boy spoke, and the casual intonation behind Tony’s words; both were quite easy to understand. Words in this century were lazy, and the formulation behind them held very little social expectation. Everyone seemed to speak this way, with very little worry for formality.
I could do this,
I thought. I would have to internalize contemporary cultural references, but
this won’t take long at all
. I exhaled as a smile crossed my face. “Because most of the people here look like they pretty much suck,” I said.

Tony smiled in return. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Sixteen, as of yesterday.” (Was I lying?)

“Cool! Happy birthday.” Tony’s smile widened, and his eyes twinkled. “I am, too. So that makes you a junior, right?”

I recalled some paperwork that I had seen that morning. I remembered an official letter that said I was a junior. I nodded in response. We sat for a bit and listened to the happenings around us. Some people chatted about the beginning of school, and I concentrated on the way people spoke in this age.

I am so not going to even speak to him this year.

Justin Enos is the hottest guy on campus, are you insane?

Why the hell is that girl wearing sunglasses and a hat? Incognito much? Hello?!

Then the chatter changed dramatically. Some people pointed out toward the harbor. I snuck one more glance back at the tall blonde staring me down. She looked away from me and started to jump up and down. I refocused on the water. After all, that was why I was there: to watch boat racing. Not to get the inquisition from a blond girl who would have been a small lunch in my usual circumstance.

“Look!” Tony pointed. “Here they come!”

I could see two boats coming from opposite directions in the harbor. They were strange boats made from white metal and shaped so the bow was a sharp point. One of the boats was painted with red flames running along the sides; the other boat had blue flames. During my existence all boats had been made from wood. This was something new. Though Rhode had briefly explained cars and engines, I wasn’t prepared for the intense roaring that came from these machines. Even on the beach the noise echoed, vibrating within my ears.

“What are they doing?” I asked. The boats were still roaring from opposite ends of the harbor. They moved so quickly toward each other, huge sprays of water propelled from the back of the boats up into an arc in the air.

“They race around the island twice. Whoever gets back to the dock first, wins. They smashed into it two years ago,” Tony said.

“What do they get if they win?” I asked.

“Respect,” Tony replied.

The boats moved so fast I couldn’t tell who was behind the wheel.
Surely this must be some kind of sick joke,
I thought. The boats were coming closer and closer, the pointed bows aimed right at each other. A girl on the beach screamed. Then, within moments, maybe within inches of each other, both boats changed angle. Sprays of water flew in the air. I could see the curved underbelly of the boat with blue flames. They raced away from the beach, each choosing a side and tearing away around the island.

Everyone on the beach screeched, yelled, and whooped so loud that the sound swelled in my ears. Everyone stood, jumping and waving, except Tony and me. Some were chanting the name Justin over and over; others, the name Curtis.

The boats came around again and passed in front of the island. I held my breath because they crisscrossed within inches of smashing into each other. The bows just barely grazed. There was a collective gasp from the beach as the boats disappeared behind the island again.

“This is fun?” I asked. My heart fluttered from all of the adrenaline bashing about my chest.

“This is the least of what they do,” Tony said. “The whole family is crazy. Thrill seekers.”

“They’re brothers, right?” I asked, and a memory of my coven leaped into my mind. “They must be close,” I said. “Trust each other.”

Tony replied to what I said, but I was barely listening. In my mind, Heath, Gavin, Song, and Vicken sat by a fire. We were at my home in Hathersage sometime around the 1890s. Rhode was still gone, angry with me somewhere in Europe, and I sat in the middle of my brotherhood. They surrounded me in a circle and were seated in black wooden chairs. Each chair was carved to match their personality. Gavin’s was marked with many types of swords because he was a brilliant swordsman. Vicken’s was covered in globes and ancient symbols. He was the strategist. My favorite was Heath’s, which was adorned with words in Latin. Song’s was notable as its only adornments were Chinese lettering. My chair was smooth, wonderful wood, with only one adornment—the words of our coven, the lyrical sentiment that I twisted into malice and pain:
EVIL BE HE WHO THINKETH EVIL.

I was wearing an eggplant-colored gown. We were laughing hysterically about something that I cannot remember now. I do remember that behind us, passed out and chained to the wall, was a peasant man I intended to have for dinner.

“Here they come,” Tony said. I blinked, coming back to the moment. “Wow, it’s pretty close,” he said, and craned his neck to get a better look.

The motors were at full throttle. The powerful engines propelled the boats toward the dock so fast that I had the instinctual reaction to get up and back away. But Tony wasn’t backing up, so I sat still. The blue and red boats were neck and neck. The sharp bows headed right toward the wooden dock.

“They’re going to hit it!” I said.

“Maybe,” Tony said casually.

“They’ll die!” I said, half horrified and half exhilarated.

They were now so close that even without my vampire sight, I could see that driving the blue-flamed boat was a tall, blond boy and behind the wheel of the red-flamed boat was a pudgy, blond boy. I focused in, and the red-flamed boat came closer. The pudgy boy wore a necklace with a silver charm. He had silver hoops in his ears. A scar above his left lip. Then, at the last second, the boat with the tall boy behind the wheel skidded by the dock first. He turned his boat in the direction of the harbor so quickly, a huge arc of water rose and then splashed down, just touching the people by the waterline.

There was a collective scream of joy, and almost everyone ran toward the dock. The pudgy boy and a significantly smaller version of him secured the losing boat to the dock. Out in the harbor, idling, was the victor, the tall boy. The engines of his boat went silent, and then a splash. He was swimming toward the beach.

Tony leaned closer to me and pointed at the smallest of the brothers. “That’s Roy Enos. He’s a freshman.” He pointed to the pudgy one. “That one is Curtis Enos. He’s a senior. Class joker,” Tony said. Curtis was much rounder than the others. His fleshy middle pushed out his swim trunks.

Finally, the tall, six-foot-three, blond, gorgeous boy emerged from the ocean. He kicked his legs through the shallow water. He was taller than Rhode. I didn’t know anyone, up until that moment, who was taller than him.

“And that’s Justin Enos,” Tony grumbled. “He’s in our class.”

Justin had a long face with chiseled cheekbones and evergreen eyes. He had a broad chest and sculpted torso. It was the shoulders that kept my stare—square, broad shoulders that seemed like they could do anything: raise a building, swim the English Channel, lift me up with his bare hands. Every boy on that beach was envious of him. Every girl on the beach salivated at the sight of him.

“So you hate him?” I said, breaking my stare to enjoy the sentiment of jealousy—just a little bit.

Tony smiled in return. “Every guy at Wickham does.”

Without another word, I hopped off the stone wall and started toward the steps that led back toward campus. The race was over, and I wanted to reread Rhode’s letter again.

“You’re just gonna leave like that?” Tony called after me. I turned. He was still sitting on the stone wall.

“I’m going home.”

“Generally, you say bye when you’re gonna leave.”

I walked back toward Tony, and he jumped down from the stone wall to meet me.

“Admittedly, my social skills need work,” I said.

Tony stifled a laugh then said, “Where are you from?” A man’s voice toward the shore interrupted before I could answer. “I wanted to push it to eighty, but I didn’t need to! Just maxed out at sixty miles an hour.”

Tony and I stood side-by-side near the stairs. Neither of us could take our eyes off Justin. He took a duffel bag from another boy about his age, walked in our direction, and then stopped at the group of girls who’d given me the eye. He slung the duffel over his shoulder (his biceps were huge), and then slipped a hand around the waist of the conspicuous blond girl. She beamed, clinging to Justin’s arm, and swayed her hips as she walked.

Justin walked toward the stairs. When he saw Tony and me, he stopped. He stared straight at me, not in a dumbstruck way but as though he’d found something on the ground and wanted to investigate it, hold it under a microscope and give it a thorough inspection. I looked at Tony and then back at Justin. Justin was still staring, but now he was smiling. His lips were full, almost as though he were pouting. I wasn’t sure what to say.

Thankfully, Tony spoke. “What’s up, Enos?”

Maybe Justin was waiting for me to join the group of girls, but I just stood there. The tall, blond girl stared at me, her slim nostrils flaring and her high cheekbones reddened. Was this what jealousy looked like on a mortal teenager? How wonderful! I couldn’t help feeling triumphant at her anger and pain. This was a gut reaction. As a vampire, I loved another’s pain because it lessened my own. But now, as a human, as soon as I recognized the pain within her, it flittered away. That instant desire to reach out, inflict hurt—it was gone. Instead, I concentrated on Justin’s green eyes looking at the hat, the sunglasses, and me. I knew the vampire aura was capable of putting spells on humans, enrapturing them so they believed they were in love or that they had found peace. Did Justin Enos love me despite his better judgment? Was this one of the “accompaniments” that stayed with me through the transformation? I looked at Justin, eagerly awaiting what he would say to me. Finally, he spoke.

“Next time you leave your room, think about putting on some pants,” Justin said. He winked and started toward the stairs to the school campus.

I looked down. Rhode’s oversized sweater made it look as though I wasn’t wearing anything on the bottom. The girls cackled as they walked away, especially the blond one. She turned her brown eyes on me. A burning spread in my chest. I knew anger. That emotion had haunted me my entire life, but this was, dare I think it, embarrassment? No one had dared to embarrass me before.

I walked quickly up the path in the direction of Seeker. I just wanted to be in my bedroom, shut the door, and go to sleep. I wanted Vicken, I wanted Heath, I wanted the familiarity of a dark room.

“Hey, wait!”

I kept walking.

“Lenah!”

I stopped. It was the first time in hundreds of years someone who wasn’t a vampire had said my name. Tony jogged up the path from the beach.

“Remember the whole saying bye thing?” he said once he was in front of me.

“I hate those girls.” I crossed my arms over my chest. My cheeks burned with heat.

“Everyone does. Come on. Let’s go do something.”

Do something? What did this mean exactly?

“It’s like three, right? Union is open. You get your books yet?” Tony asked. “I’m headed over, if you want to come.”

So many questions! Did I get my books yet? “No,” I said. “I don’t have my books.”

Tony walked me back to Seeker Hall so I could grab what Rhode left me as my money holder. I also needed some official papers so that I knew what books to buy for class. Wickham students had two days before classes started. Rhode had left me some modern-day clothes, which were mostly all hideous (and revealing), but I slipped on a pair of jeans with the promise to go shopping as soon as I could figure out how to drive.

I spotted the blue car when I came back out of Seeker. Tony sat on one of the wooden benches that were on either side of the dorm entrance. He held his hands behind his head and stretched his legs out.

“That’s mine,” I said. I stepped next to the bench and pointed at the car.

“Whoa,” Tony said. I could see that he was admiring the sheen of the hood. “Lucky. You can leave campus. Restaurants, the mall, Boston.”

“Maybe you could show me how to drive?” I proposed.

“You don’t know how?” Tony stopped walking. I shook my head. Tony smiled. “Your parents bought you a fancy car but haven’t taught you how to drive it? I thought my parents were weird. Soon, Lenah. As soon as possible.”

“Excellent!”

As we passed Seeker, I looked back and saw my balcony, the door still open, and I wondered for one fleeting moment if any of Rhode’s remains were swirling around the patio tiles.

“You hungry?” Tony asked.

I thought wistfully of my tea bags at home and the oatmeal I was supposed to ease into. I also thought of my promise to Rhode. I did not want to meet any doctors so soon into this human experience.

“A little,” I said, noticing my stomach was doing that lurching, tingly thing that meant I needed to eat.

The Wickham Union was constructed like the rest of the buildings on campus: made out of stone, and fronted by glass double doors with silver handles. The shape of the Union was different from the rest of the buildings; it was a large circle. Shooting off from the main room were five or six hallways, all leading toward rectangular rooms. Tony opened the door of the Union, and I was met with the most amazing smells I had experienced since my mother’s cooking during the fifteenth century.

The circular part of the building was a cafeteria. There were five food windows where students could pick out what they wanted to eat. Each one was different. In the middle of the room, underneath a circular skylight, were Formica cafeteria tables.

“We can eat any one of these we want?” I asked. There were windows for Italian food, for burgers, pizza, vegetarian options, salads, and one for sandwiches. Behind each counter was a student or Union employee in a white apron waiting at their station. My eyes were wide with amazement.

“Let’s chow, and then we’ll get our books,” Tony said. Just as the door was about to close behind us, he added, “You act like you’ve never had food before.”

Hamburgers. French fries. Green beans. Lemonade. Chocolate. Pizza with pineapples. Rare steak. How would a person decide? I settled on some bland chicken soup.

“You think we’re in some of the same classes?” Tony asked. I couldn’t help but watch him chew the meat in his mouth into tiny pieces. The blood from the rare steak he was eating washed in a mix of saliva over his teeth. “You’re staring at me,” Tony said, swallowing.

“That steak has blood coming out of it. It’s in your mouth.”

Tony nodded. “The bloodier, the better. I love rare steak.”

As a vampire, I never yearned for animal blood, so I wasn’t drawn to the blood in Tony’s mouth. Though it was strange that I couldn’t smell it. I sniffed a few times, trying to hone in on the rust flavor that I used to love so dearly. I sniffed again, but too many different odors wafted up my nose: perfumes, chicken broth, and soda. The vampire sense of smell was limited to blood, flesh, and body heat. Occasionally I could smell herbs or flowers, but that became rare the more time that passed. If something was burned, such as a rose or a body, its fragrance would linger for a fleeting moment and then dissipate with the smoke. I could smell animal blood from miles away, though I hated the taste of it. The truth was that I hated its impurity. It took away from my status as the most pure, most powerful vampire in recent history.

After our early dinner, Tony talked me into ice cream. Food was so different, so packaged, and appeared easy to make. I had to put so much work into it in my family’s orchard back when I was first mortal. Even in the fifteenth century obtaining food was easier than obtaining blood. During my vampire years, it took coercion to lure someone into my house or alleyway in order to suck their blood and leave them for dead.

“I’ll have a rocky road, triple scoop, in a cup, with rainbow sprinkles,” Tony ordered.

Watching Tony eat his ice cream made me want to tell him that I was a vampire. He scooped and dug into the creamy mass with gusto and delicately savored each bite. He closed his eyes and smiled each time—even if it was only for a split second. It filled me with an immediate affection for him. I, on the other hand, finished my one scoop of strawberry ice cream with four obnoxious digs of my spoon.

My vampire past was a secret lodged in my heart. I wanted to tell Tony so that someone would really understand me, see into my soul. Vampires are haunted by pain, longing, and anger. Every imaginable sadness is pressed upon their shoulders. They are victims of torment and they cannot escape.

Love, oddly enough, is the one respite from this anarchy of misery. Yet, there is a catch: Once a vampire falls in love, they are bound to that love. They will always love that person, no matter what happens. They can fall in love again and again, but each time a piece of their soul is given away. I fell in love twice. Once with Rhode, and a second time with Vicken. The two loves were different. With Vicken, it was less whole than it had been with Rhode. Either way, I was bound. Vampire love is an ache, a hunger, and no matter how much either of them loved me—it was never enough. No matter what is said or done, it is in the vampire nature to be left completely unsatisfied. This was the kind of torment I experienced every day.

I placed my ice cream bowl down when I heard the clacking of trays hitting the Formica table next to me. One of the Enos brothers and a few of his friends sat down. The youngest one, Roy, sat with students who looked a bit younger than Tony. He kept looking over at me, then whispering to his friends.

“You’re a hit,” Tony said, licking his spoon.

“A hit?” I asked. We got up from the table, dumped our bowls, and then walked toward the bookstore, where Tony clarified. “All the guys are staring at you.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I guess, if you’re into guys wanting to date you or whatever.”

I couldn’t reply, because I had never been on a date before. Not in the human sense, at least.

“Want to see the art tower before you go home?” Tony asked. “I spend all my time there. It’s Hopper building. You know, after the painter? On the bottom floor is the gym, some lounges, study halls, and TV rooms. Everyone goes there. Chances are you’ll need to do something and someone will tell you to go to Hopper.”

I kept peeking into my bag of purchases from the bookstore until we walked out of the Union. Tony and I stepped outside and back on the path and he pointed at a building to the left and behind the Union. It was the great stone building. Hugging the front entrance was a medieval-style stone tower. It stood directly to the right of the building and stretched up toward the sky. It faced north, in the direction of the main entrance, but I knew if I were in the tower I could see a full view of the campus.

We crossed over a long meadow. As we got closer I looked left at another dormitory. Most of the buildings I had seen so far were no more than four or five stories high. It was dinnertime, so most students were picnicking outside.

Once we got to the glass door of Hopper, Tony held it open for me. In the foyer, I could either go straight into the building or up to the tower. There was a winding staircase just to the right of the main door. We started up the four flights toward the topmost floors of the tower.

“Wickham is so different from what I’m used to,” I said, holding on to the banister with my right hand and my bookstore bag with my left. “There are people everywhere.”

Tony looked back and smiled. He was ahead of me, leading the way up the circular staircase. “I like your British accent,” he said. I didn’t respond, but a tingle crept through my chest and I knew that I liked the compliment.

At the top floor, we reached the art studio.

“Like I said, this is where you can find me almost any time,” Tony said, and placed his own bookstore bag onto the floor.

Small, rectangular, castle-like windows lined the circular, stone walls. Easels were peppered about, though they were without artwork as the school year hadn’t started yet. Papier-mâché masks dangled from the ceiling by thin wires. Some were made to look like bulls with horns, others like human faces. Paintbrushes and black charcoal stubs lay in metal and plastic bins, and ten wooden desks circled the room, each with their own particularly unique splatter of paint. The room held a vibration, one of promise and creativity. I could tell, no, I could
feel,
that wonderful moments had been experienced in that room. As a vampire, this would have enraged me.

How odd,
I thought.

“I’m not a spectator to happiness anymore,” I said while running a hand across the top of an easel.

“What’d you say?” Tony asked.

“Oh, nothing.” I spun around to face Tony.

“You like Wickham?” Tony paused. “I’m here on an art scholarship.”

“What does that mean?” I examined a painting of a vase of flowers to the right of a window.

“It means I’m too poor to pay for this place, so they let me go to school for free. As long as I produce quality artwork. What about you?”

“I’m not on scholarship,” I said, watching Tony carefully to see if this would matter to him.

He shrugged. “It’s cool. Just promise me you’re not one of those rich girls who only dates guys who play lacrosse or football and drive really nice cars.”

I had no idea what half of that even meant.

“I think I promise,” I said.

“I live in Quartz. We passed it on the way here. It’s one of the guys’ dorms,” Tony said. “I have to live with all the jocks.”

“Justin Enos?” I offered with a sly smile.

“Yeah,” Tony said, rolling his eyes. But in
my
mind, Justin was bronzed and beautiful, pushing his way out of the ocean.

I turned to Tony. “Well, don’t worry. I won’t be one of those girls circling around Justin, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“His girlfriend? Tracy Sutton? Her and her two best friends are in this like, group. They call each other the Three-Piece.”

“Three-Piece?”

Yep, it’s as stupid as it sounds. They each date an Enos brother and they hang out in the dorms in this annoying group. They’re always together, and
always
making everyone around them want to poke their eyeballs out.”

“The Three-Piece’s eyeballs?”

“No, their own.”

I laughed at first, but after a moment, the sheer familiarity of what Tony was talking about echoed in my mind. My fingers grazed the crisp, dried hairs of the paintbrush as my eyes fell out of focus. That sounded familiar—too familiar.

“I was like that. At my old school.” I looked up at Tony, who was listening politely. “I wasn’t part of the group. I
was
the group.” I shook my head quickly, to clear out the crazy thoughts. “Anyway,” I said, “I won’t be like that.”

“Can I paint you sometime?” Tony asked. This was a new twist. “Paint…me?”

I had my portrait painted in the early 1700s, but nothing since, only photographs.

“Yeah,” he said, and leaned back against the wooden shelf that lined the circumference of the room. Above his head was one of the small, narrow windows. Outside, I could see the clouds darkening. “Portraits are kind of my thing. I’m good, too. I’m going to apply to Rhode Island School of Design next year.”