Lilah (3 page)

Many years ago, one man in my employ was Frederik.
I had raised him from birth into a hulk of a man and he had repaid me with
loyalty. He knew that I had special powers and had become accustomed to the
darker practices needed to sustain me. He would often go into town and come
home with much gossip so that it was easier for me to rid the streets of
violent filth. When Frederik died years ago, I had felt a loss but this was not
something I admitted to others of my kind. Any such feelings towards humans
were meant to be a sign of weakness. It was my belief that humans were put here
for many reasons and not just to sustain the life force of the strigoi.

This particular day I had ventured a little
closer to the monastery to examine the girl. She was not so meticulous with her
garments as the other, and wisps of her fair hair escaped her loosened habit.
It was her unpretentious beauty that initially attracted me. Her profile showed
a small, straight nose and pointed chin, and her eyes were large and pale,
ringed in a darker blue, like the glass eyes of a doll I had seen in a shop
window in Venice.

She was surrounded by children, something I
much admired about women
;
their protection of the
young. Her darting eyes and her quick, deliberate movements told me she was
more streetwise than many of her kind. It made me think that perhaps she had
seen more of life than her habit suggested. There was a confidence about her
and a strength that few humans carried successfully. I have always been keenly
attracted to the more daring and charismatic of the female order; those with a
will of
their
own.

This was someone who appeared dissatisfied with
dull duties, indicating that perhaps this occupation was only temporary. Her
abandonment of propriety in the way she played with the children like a child
herself was intriguing, giving me the desire to meet her. Oh, you might say
that she was of the holy orders and why would she want anything to do with me?
Again, women found me somewhat of a find; many had stowed me away secretively
into their journals knowing that perhaps I was not good for them, their hearts
eventually breaking when I failed to turn up without a fond farewell.

There was another girl too, a few years
younger. I did not notice her at first; her movements were steady and focused.
Tall and graceful with narrow brown eyes and high angular cheeks reminding me
of a sculptured Roman queen. Her movements were fluid and gentle, even to reach
for the wrist of a restless child. Every so often the light would catch the
gold in her eyes. At one point she seemed to look toward me and tilt her head
and then I thought my leafy guise discovered. But a slight frown and she was
back to her rapt attendance of the children. She was genuine
;
her mind clear of inconsistencies and contradictions.

These two young women did not yet realise they
were so unalike: one, driven from something deep within, carried by her will
and not her conscience, and the other with purity and measuring each purposeful
step.

While
studying the younger, my chest suddenly tightened as if crushed, so strong was
the connection we shared. Of course, it was
her
, the one I had promised to
watch. The one whose name I had whispered into the wind that travelled up the
drafty hallways of the monastery and into the ear of the abbess, the day the
child appeared on the steps.
Lilah
:
the name secretly given by her grandmother, who had foreseen it written far
into the future.

A few
years ago I had checked on her briefly but now grown and with nun’s garb I
failed at first to recognise her.

The pair
sat closely like rushes: swaying together with the breeze so that I could not
separate their thoughts. I waited for them to part but their heads remained
bent, whispering; the older not yet realising that she was ripe for an exciting
adventure. I imagined her in my room with the moonlight streaming in –
the blue of her eyes would surely turn to violet in such light.
My reverie was interrupted by the loud clanging of a bell to summon
them inside
.

I made a
point to visit the monastery more often to keep a closer eye on the younger of
the two. As for the older one, I had found a new conquest to coax from the
confines of fake Christian conformity to journey with me into a bewitching
world; something unfathomable by ordinary persons.
 

Chapter 3

Lilah

For almost a year I had been curing.
Our secret was kept between us. I became the keeper of the children. I was born
for such a mission and prayed that what I did would not be punishable in the
afterlife.

I had no map for the future and could not
imagine how my life would have been
were
I not left
there. There were moments at night when I yearned for a homely farm life with
parents and siblings, but for the most part any other life seemed less than
perfect.

I had already decided that should my parents
arrive one day to reclaim me – though at no time was I given any such
hope – I would not go. It would be some kind of punishment.

Punishments did still come. Just not in this
way. Someone would die, my secret practice would be revealed, and I would be
betrayed. All this was to happen without warning and providence would steal me
from my childhood, throwing me headlong into the arms of a life meant only for
those with hearts of steel.

One of the sisters, Nora, spent much of her day
inspecting the children with disdain. She contributed very little to the trials
of the poor, sniffing out those to berate or those who appeared to have too
much happiness in their heart. Nora took this to be a sign of ungratefulness.
She did not see her own self-indulgence as a sin rather as a right, taking more
rest periods than most; and her supervising duty at evening meal gave her such
opportunities to steal extra portions of bread and bacon to fill her pockets to
later feast on in secret.

Nora was annoyed at the sounds of the children,
expressing horror at the diseases they brought with them. I did not believe for
one moment that the monastery was her calling. Handed to the church from
wealthy parents who felt that sacrificing one of their own to
God
had given them their place in heaven. She had been
watching me for some time, always curious that I would sleep so long into the
morning and angry that
I was given such a privilege by Sister
Arianne
. More than once she had complained to Sister Gertrude who
dismissed her concerns as trivial compared with the real problems of the
homeless.

Arianne had convinced me that my healing gift
was a calling and I accepted her words as always. She had been like an older
sister
;
enlightening me with knowledge from her own
early tutoring and experiences, and ensuring that my basic needs did not fall
short. But in return, she had sometimes asked too much. There were times she
had dragged me to a healing before I had sufficiently recovered. These were the
hardest times so I was glad when summer arrived bringing with it less disease
and loss, and I could enjoy caring for our charges without the use of magic.

For three months we had been enjoying the
sunshine that fed our spirits and swallowed our worries. Those dreamlike
moments in the beautiful monastery gardens were some of my happiest. But on the
day of the drowning, they were taken from me forever, smashed and stamped upon
until every fragment became grains of earth.

Arianne and I had enjoyed playing with the
children, marvelling at the colours of the calendulas growing wild in the large
central garden beds, with mixtures of pinks, blues, and gold. A sudden shower
had surprised us and we were giggling at our rain-soaked shoes that made us
slip and stumble, and so distracted in our games that I would later consider
this a selfish act. Though, later still, a kind man would console me by saying
that I was only a girl myself at the time.

We had just set down under a tree to escape the
raindrops when we heard a scream. With her robe hitched up to her thighs
Arianne sped towards the sound. I too followed with the other group of children
in front of me

One of the sisters held what looked like wet
sheets. Arianne seemed to know immediately what had happened and rushed to the bundle,
placing it on the grass. As I neared I saw that it was a small girl, her
complexion blue. The distraught sister who had discovered the child said that
she had found her face down in a pond. With the distraction of rain, which set
the children to run in excited mayhem, none of the sisters had seen her wander
away from the group.

I knelt down beside the child and with my hand
felt no hint of a heartbeat. Tears flowed for death had been less common in our
little world since the use my skill.

‘You have to try something,’ Arianne whispered
so that none but me could hear.

‘It is not possible,’ I said, understanding her
suggestion immediately.

‘You must!’ Her dry eyes bore into my
conscience. As far as she was concerned this child was not dead. She turned
away angrily and it was the first time I had seen her so displeased with me.
Curing the sick was one thing but the dead was quite another. Could she not see
that?

Arianne carried the lifeless form to the main
hall as several of the other nuns lit candles and crossed themselves. Sister
Gertrude lectured us both on keeping a better eye on the younger ones and I
knew that Arianne was taking this reprimand badly. The abbess organised for the
child to be kept in the church until a mass was performed the next day to send
her spirit onward.

I returned to my room and prayed for the soul
of the child and it did not take long for Arianne to seek me out. Her face had
a look not unlike the deranged. I did not like her visit this time. I knew why
she had come.

‘No, Arianne,’ I said. ‘I have never done such
an act before. Healing is one thing but to bring back the dead? … It is
crossing a line.’

‘But surely not.
Jesus performed as such.’

‘Arianne, I am not the Holy Son. I was born
with these skills but something tells me that tampering with death is going
beyond my calling to make a pact with Lucifer himself.’

‘Rubbish,
child!’ she scolded. She only ever addressed someone as
child
when she
was angry. ‘You cannot really believe as such.’

I did not know what to believe. So often I
would swing between feelings of guilt and euphoria when I would see a child
whose illness I had cured.

We argued for
an hour before she left. When I went to sleep that night I dreamt of the child
crawling out of the water wet and sodden, laughing, but when I looked closer
the child was a disguise for a far more sinister creature. Its eyes were yellow
and its mouth had the fangs of a dog. The creature fixed on me.
Who are you?
it
asked without opening its mouth. I woke with a
start, shivering from the sweat on my body that had cooled. I could not sleep
and it was some time after midnight when Arianne returned begging.

‘Please! I will never ask you this again. I
promise.’ For the first time I thought her voice sounded hollow and insincere.
She squeezed my hand. ‘I love you. Please do this for me.’ You have to
understand that she made it impossible to refuse her anything.

Later that night we would steal into the chapel
and I would put my healing hands on the child. I wondered whether this act was
a way of absolving Arianne from her failure to prevent the child from drowning,
and I tried not to believe that this could be her motivation. Living with being
the indirect cause of death went against everything Arianne had set out to do
in her life as a Cistercian nun. She had high hopes for herself to replace
Sister Gertrude one day.

As we entered the chapel that night I thought
my heart would leap from my chest. Everything felt wrong. Even the summer air
felt heavier that evening as though smothering me. The child lay in an open
coffin. She would later be buried without the wood for such items were in heavy
demand. Her fine silk wrap would be removed, her body incinerated, and ashes
scattered across the gardens in the monastery courtyard. Burning was a common form
of burial to prevent the spread of disease and people who died there were often
the last of their line. There would be no etched nameplate for this child but
evidence of her existence would at least be entered into the church records.

I touched the girl, her face now a grey hue
under a frame of light brown curls, and her body stiffening. Her small limbs
had been laid to rest by her sides. I put my hands on her body and no heat
arose. It was if my body rejected the idea. After several minutes I turned to
Arianne.

‘Keep going,’ she said, her eyes wide and
terrifying, and jaw clenched
;
her conviction still so
keen. Unfortunately, it was this determination and my anxiety that kept us
unaware of our surroundings and the other pair of eyes watching us from the
darkness.

I put my hands on the child again. I felt a
touch of heat and believed then that a resurrection was possible, but it would
still prove very difficult. Heat grew in intensity but my body shuddered and
there were pains in my back as if part of my own life force was being torn from
me. I entered the child’s body in spirit and saw the heart floating. It was
like travelling through a cold gusty passageway and around every corner fog
hindered my path.