Merrick (6 page)

I woke up to the
sounds of crows and the sensation of smooth, cool skin beneath my cheek.

Oh, no.

Merrick was gently
extricating himself from my arms.

Oh,
no
.

Blinking in bewilderment
as the man slipped out of my embrace and left me with one arm reaching across
his side of the bed where it seemed his chest had been, I was too stunned to
move a muscle before he left the room.

Oh, God. How long
had I had my arms around him?

My eyes felt
funny, and I shut them tightly. True, embarrassment on this level was worth a
tear or two, but I didn’t need to feel any worse about my manliness.

For God’s sake,
how much humiliation was I going to put myself through?

Merrick was in his
chair when I slowly came out of the room, and greeted me as normal.

“Good morning,” I
mumbled, and cleared my throat. I served myself my breakfast and sat across
from him.

“We’ll be
journeying on foot today.” He leaned back in his chair and took a drink of tea.
“There may be mushrooms to gather near the creek.”

I nodded, finding
it still a bit hard to speak through my embarrassment.

We set out on a
different path from the one I usually took, one that led us through the damp
savannah and into denser forest.

I could no longer
stand it. “I’m afraid I disturbed your sleep last night, sir.”

“Not at all,” he
replied calmly.

I shut my mouth.
There was nothing more to say, I supposed. That would have to do it.

We went into a
little valley, then up the other side. The terrain became difficult. I could
see no path. I watched Merrick’s sure feet, his confident movements beneath his
cloak. “Are there more like you, Master Merrick?”

He always paused
before answering my questions on this matter. “Yes.”

“Do you know them?”

“Yes. But not
here.”

“Are they kind
people?”

“I wouldn’t say
so.”

“Ah.” So he was
the benevolent one.

“When you lose
mortality,” he said, “You gain strength and lose consequence. It does not bring
out the best in anyone.”

“You can’t die at
all?” I asked, intrigued.

“Not easily.”

I kept following
him. I was thinking I would have had it figured out, if not for one thing that
didn’t make sense. And it didn’t seem right to just come out and ask him.
Do
you drink blood, sir?
No. That didn’t seem altogether polite. “Does it
affect you when the moon is full?”

He glanced at me,
or his hood did. “No more than it affects you, I’m sure.”

I let it go for
awhile.

After an hour
walking through the woods, we reached the stream. Merrick advised we sit for a
rest, and I joined him on a pleasant little knoll.

Sitting there with
him, the warm breeze rustling through the leaves above us, it suddenly occurred
to me that I was quite content.

I thought back on
that first morning when the carriage had left the city like a chariot bound for
Hell.

I recalled the
moment I first saw Merrick, his frightening wraith-like form looming by the
side of the road. It had seemed I was descending into a dark and terrible trial
to repent for my carelessness.

But now…

“What has happened
to your books, William?” Merrick asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“I suppose they’ve
been sold off, if my mother didn’t get to them.” Or discarded. But I wasn’t
about to imagine that.

“Where they of
value?”

“They’d fetch a
modest sum all together.”

Merrick sat very
still, as always, and it was impossible to know where he was looking or what
his expression was through veil behind the hood. “You must miss the city.”

“No, sir,” I said
slowly. “Curiously, I don’t.” I looked up at the leaves, frowning thoughtfully.
“I miss the book shops, I suppose.” But Merrick had books – some of the finest
books I’d ever seen, in fact. “Not the shops,” I mused. “So much as the
foraging.”

He nodded
slightly.

“But you’ve a fine
collection of books, yourself,” I said, and smiled. “And there’s no lack of
foraging.”

There was a slight
pause, and then Merrick asked, “Are you touched, William?”

He may as well
have slapped my mouth, for my smile was struck down at once.

Here came the
reckoning. This was it. Merrick was going to call out my ill behavior, my
unseemly demonstrations of misplaced passion. It had to happen eventually, I
knew. I lowered my face, ashamed.

“William,” Merrick
said with surprise in his voice. “I mean no offense. Merely that…”

I stared at the
ground, a hole in my chest.

Yes, I was
touched. I was ill. I was diseased with desires I could not control, and they
were set on ruining me. Remembering my arms about him that morning, I felt I
might actually be ill. I dimly hoped I would make it to the creek if my
breakfast came up.

His leather glove
brushed my hair from my temple, making me jump.

“William,” he
said, his voice gentle with concern. “Forgive me. I meant to remark on your
affable company, your openness to me despite my ghastliness.” He smoothed my
hair tenderly before he placed his hands in his lap again. “No sane young man
would be so warm with an old ghoul. And so it’s my good fortune if you are mad
enough to accept my company.” He rose to his feet. “Are you rested?”

I took to my feet,
speechless. My heart was still trembling from the terrible dread I’d felt when
I thought Merrick was going to address my perversions, but I was distracted by
what he had said instead.

Ghastliness? Old
ghoul?

Had he not seen a
mirror lately? I nearly asked him, but then realized the last thing I needed to
do was bring up how I admired his features!

God’s sakes.

I wasn’t even
fighting it anymore.

When he touched me
like that, even with just his gloved fingers on my head, it felt like every
molecule in my body was drawn to the point of contact.

Was it loneliness?
Was I lonely? Was that made me want to press against his broad chest and
breathe in the warm, male scent of him? Was it loneliness that made me dream of
his lips on my skin?

Merrick turned
back to me, and I realized I’d fallen several paces behind. “Are you all right,
William?”

“Yes, sir. Pardon
me.”

He waited for me
to catch up. “Are you unwell? You’re flushed.”

“No, sir.” Lord, I
could feel it. I was flaming red. “It must be the air I’m unaccustomed to.”

His dark hood
stayed fixed on me for a moment.

I fumbled. “Don’t
you suppose that um…living in the city all that time, the lack of fresh air and
all…maybe when a man gets out into nature, he feels so much more for the first
time, say…that is, his body might experience a whole new spectrum of…”

Oh, for the love
of... That wasn’t where I’d meant to head. “That is,” I tried again. “Of taste,
and scent…senses, little parts of his body he’s never used, suddenly waking up,
now that there’s something to stimulate them…”

I cursed myself
silently
.

“I think you’re
right,” Merrick said simply, and turned away to continue on.

I grabbed my own
face, scowling fiercely before I shook my limbs out and rushed to catch up to
him.

For the rest of
the morning, we gathered mushrooms that grew under great sheets of bark.
Merrick cautioned me never to eat a mushroom I didn’t know, or any plant, for
that matter. He shared a few terrible poisoning cases he’d witnessed for good
measure. As if that were necessary – a city boy like me would never eat
anything in the woods without specific instructions!

“Were you an
apothecary before you stopped being human, sir?”

“No.”

“When did you
start?”

“Soon after.”

“You’ve been doing
this for two and a half centuries, then?”

He nodded. We were
heading back to the cottage now.

“You’re still
interested in it?”

“I have not done
it continuously.”

I looked at him
curiously. “Oh? Did you try other trades? What else did you do?”

“I do not
generally work. I do what pleases me.”

“How is it that
after two and a half centuries alive you end up in a stone cottage in the woods
outside an American colony?”

“I wanted to be
alone.”

And yet he’d
gotten himself an apprentice? I left off questioning to puzzle over this, having
still too many inquiries to choose the next one for that moment.

I did the usual
chores when we returned, and took my usual bath. I was reading at the table
when Merrick excused himself to go into the cave.

“How big is the
cave, sir?” I asked as he passed the table.

“It’s quite
large.” Merrick said. “And it joins a network with several exits. I will show
you some time in the future.”

No hurry.
Not
that I wasn’t curious, but it was rather creepy. I watched Merrick disappear.

Merrick came up
after I’d gone to bed. I was having a bit of trouble getting to sleep, too busy
worrying about staying on my side of the mattress. It was not the most restful
night, all in all.

I was a secret
wreck.

Day after day, I
tried to cure myself of my feelings for Merrick.

But each day, he
was the same kind and gentle host, the same patient teacher with the same
smooth, magnetic voice. I was drawn to him. It didn’t matter that he still wore
his hood most of the time. I wanted to curl up in it, nestle my face in the
neck of it and play with the folds.

What the hell. I
was smitten.
Smitten
.

And then on
occasion he would remove his robe and I would see his perfect face, and each
time my eyes wandered to his well-shaped shoulders and I would remember how his
muscles had felt in my grip and be overwhelmed by a terrifying certainty that
it had not been a dream, that night when he’d touched me. But then I would be
distracted again by his calm and brilliant eyes, and the surprising smile that
came without warning, and the soft, pale pink lips.

And then he would
lie in bed beside me and I would suffer.
How
I suffered! I was
suffering
!

And so it truly
seemed like a merciful act of God when one night, while Merrick worked quietly
in the main room and I lay struggling to sleep, a young woman came calling with
an unusual plea.

“Master Merrick,”
she implored in hushed tones, her voice wearied and distorted by tears. “I
cannot go on this way. I beg you.”

“I’ve told you
before, Jessica,” Merrick said, his tone as stern as I had ever heard it. “I
will not entertain such notions.”

I nearly tuned her
out. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard a villager ask Merrick for a love
potion. He always refused, and scolded them for thinking he’d do otherwise.

“No, sir,” she
wailed softly, and began to cry. “I know you won’t make him love me. But I know
you can cure me of this terrible desire! Mary Blackson told me you gave her
mother a tonic that stopped her from lusting for the – ”

I was suddenly wide-awake
and attentive.

Merrick had
interrupted the girl to scold her for her gossip and for believing talk of
magical tonics. He then lectured her on the inevitability of heartache. “It is
a fact of life, as any other sorrow. You must bear it, as we all must.”

“Sir, I cannot! I
cannot go on!”

They went on like
this for some time, until at last Merrick calmed her tears by agreeing to give
her a tincture to help her through her troubles.

She was beside
herself with gratitude. Through her tears, she asked what it was made of.

I strained to hear
the ingredients he quietly listed, then repeated them in my mind as I lay
there. I even put them into a little melody to help myself remember. Lavender,
wormwood and thyme. Lavender, wormwood and thyme. Lavender, wormwood and thyme…

I held no
illusions that I would be able to recreate one of Merrick’s concoctions with
any accuracy. But wasn’t there a chance that the ingredients could produce at least
some of the desired effect? After weeks of feeling alarmed and helpless under
the onslaught of these sudden desires, the thought of being able to show some
resistance was a small comfort. And perhaps the brew would trick my mind and
body into curing itself, like when my mum used to give me a bit of sugar water
to stop the pain of a skinned knee.

All right, so I
was desperate. I knew it. But what did I have to lose by a small, earnest
attempt at preserving my pride?

The next night, as
soon as Merrick went into the cave, I got up and went to the kitchen.

Lavender, wormwood
and thyme. I found the first two clearly labeled, but the fourth and most
common herb of the bunch escaped me. I had to look over the bundles hanging and
all the loose leaves and coarse grounds in jars before I recognized what I
needed.

Mixed in roughly
equal parts, he’d said. I set water to boil and prepared the herbs in my
teacup.

As I sat at the
table to down my brew, I indulged in a bit of self-pity. How things changed,
indeed. If I’d been in the city at that moment…

Oh, what was the
point in thinking that way anymore? I wasn’t in the city. I was in a stone
cottage at the mouth of a cave, apprenticed to some kind of otherworldly
creature, sharing his bed and lusting for his body. I was drinking a bitter tea
at a wooden table in a symbolic attempt to purge myself of the multitude of
fantasies that had been plaguing me for weeks. I was imagining Merrick’s hands
on me, my hands on him, his smooth skin against my lips, his breath on my
stomach, his fingertips trailing up my thigh, his…

I downed the last
of the tea in a large swallow and set the cup down hard. Then I quickly cleared
the evidence, leaving the kitchen as I’d found it.

Lying in bed
again, I felt quite cheerful. My heart was even beating a little faster from
excitement.