Stolen Night (35 page)

‘I don’t understand you, love,’ he said.

‘I’m going back to the fifteenth century,’ I said.

‘No!’ he cried, and I dropped my hands from his face.

‘And you to your father’s house. At dawn you will return to the night I stole your soul and made you a demon. You will be the navigator I met, with maps tacked to your walls and
socks hanging over a wash-tub.’

The sky was purple now and the sun would soon crest the hilltop. The first golden glimmers kissed the plateau.

‘Lenah, please, no!’ Vicken cried again, but I turned away anyway. ‘What does that mean?’ he called behind me. ‘Suleen, what does that mean?’

I turned back to Rhode, whose eyes were cast to the ground. His arms hung by his sides; he could have been a modern-day statue he was so still.

I walked over to him, stood just as we had for months now, inches apart.

‘I’m going kiss you now,’ I whispered. Rhode lifted his eyes to mine.

‘I was hoping you would say that,’ he whispered back, and we both cracked a smile. ‘Lenah,’ he said, and I could feel his body heat humming off him. ‘What will I do
without you?’

I shivered as one word travelled through me.

‘Live.’

Our lips met . . . the beautiful pressure of his mouth against mine. The heat of his mouth and his taste. I followed the movement of his lips and the soft pressure of his tongue. His hand
climbed my back, sending goosebumps over my arms.

It was better than I ever expected. My Rhode kissed gently. He cradled the back of my head and pushed deeper into my mouth.
Don’t pull away.

The apple scent, which had haunted me all year, overwhelmed me again, but this time it was coupled with the familiar white light of the Aeris. The images that came to me now showed thousands of
memories from my past with Rhode. A slide show of our years together.

Gold earrings in the rain. Dancing at balls. Laughing under the stars. Rhode and I on a straw bed. By a fireside, Rhode laughing at something I said.

It wasn’t all pain and death, was it? It was love.

He pulled away and the air between us was warm even though the early-morning chill bit at my ears. His eyes were fixed on mine.

‘Having an adventure?’ he whispered with that slight lift of his mouth into an uneven smile. He had said that familiar phrase to me hundreds – no, thousands – of times.
It lifted my heart.

‘Anam Cara,’ I whispered. He gave me a small smile and that was enough for me. I didn’t have to explain what I meant. For it was a new world now, one where our histories no
longer mattered and we were set free.

‘Lenah . . .’ Suleen said, and I could see the gold touching the horizon. Perhaps it was because the Aeris had told me, or that I knew the sun was Fire herself, but I knew. I was
supposed to walk towards that sunrise. I knew it would take me home.

The blue of Rhode’s eyes was so fierce, as always. He loved me. I could return to the fifteenth century knowing that, for once, I had truly loved and been loved. Rhode cupped my face in
his hands and gently kissed both my cheeks, my forehead and then brushed his lips over mine.

I backed away from him, chills rushing over my whole body. When I looked to Vicken, tears, large gorgeous tears, ran down his face. He wiped them away and stared at his fingertips, momentarily
shocked by the power of a cry for which one has waited more than a hundred years.

Suleen held his hand out and, as I had seen him do the year before, he drew it towards him and held it over his heart. The golden glow of the sun warmed me; my whole body was engulfed in its
heat. I was going. The trees behind Rhode, Vicken and Suleen were blurred orange and red smears against the sky.

Last, I looked to Rhode. I wanted him to be the last thing I saw in this world. His lips were barely parted. We could have said any number of things just then. But I was going quickly. I could
barely see Vicken any more; he was a white wash of light. I thought I could smell apples.

There was nothing left to say between Rhode and me. No words would ever be enough. So I brought my hand over my breast, where my beating heart lay. He had died for it – for the ability to
breath and live. I left it there and didn’t break eye contact from the blue of the eyes that I loved more than love could possibly explain.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

The light was all around me now, overtaking me.

This would be a different world. One without Lenah Beaudonte.

And just like that, with the light before me in a wash of gold and silver . . .

I was gone.

Do all our mistakes remain lodged in our hearts? Can we ever really let go? That which is written in stone may be undone. For stone cannot hold sway.

Even stone can be broken.

1418

Apples. Great crimson orbs glisten in the morning sun.

‘Lenah!’

Someone is calling my name. Round apples dangle from a branch outside. I know this view. I know this raw smell – the straw of the bed. I am on my family’s orchard. The sun filters
through the window, washing the wooden floor with yellow light. A roosters crows outside – they wake with the dawn. I remember this!

‘Lenah!’

My father! Joy blooms in my chest. ‘Sleepy girl! Are you ill!’ My father’s voice echoes and I have not heard it in so long. I shoot up. Momentarily, I raise a hand to touch the
thick glass of a medieval window. The light is more natural than in the modern world – it is real, not made by lamps. It filters through the old glass, thick and imperfect.

I don’t care that my sleeping gown is long, covering my feet, I raise it up to run down the stairs, jumping two at a time. There is my father, with his heavy beard and working clothes. My
mother is before the fire, with a tub of water and dirty clothing. I can recognize some of my gowns. I remember!

I throw myself around my father’s scruffy neck. There is a hint of lavender to his skin; he has just bathed. He pulls back from me.

‘Have you stolen the monks’ tomatoes again?’ he asks.

I kiss his cheeks. ‘No,’ I say with a smile. ‘Give me two secs,’ I add, and motion to the stairs.

‘What did you say?’ my father asks.

Oh. I turn. Secs is a modern word – a measure of time. My family cannot measure time this way. Their routine is governed by the movement of the sun. Instead I say, ‘I shall
follow.’

‘Quickly now,’ he calls.

I peek out of the window, with the sounds of my mother’s washing behind me. I forgot over my long history how quiet the medieval world was. The harvest has long passed; most of the trees
are bare. I look about – I recognize this exact scene. The Medici family has taken most of our crop, and the rest has gone to the monks, whose property we live on. To make cider to drink and
for food.

Today is a day of cleaning. After the harvest – we must clean the rows to prepare for the oncoming winter.

I think I know what this day is but I don’t want to believe it – not yet. I will be able to tell this evening – when I watch the sky.

I spend the afternoon in the orchard with my father. I have missed him for so long that I find myself standing behind a bare tree watching him rake the ground, humming. For the barest of moments
I long for the easy push of a button. I have seen workers at Wickham use motorized leaf blowers. I think how much easier this would be for my father’s weathered hands. I wish we could play
some music as well, and of course I think of Wickham and the long fields. The lacrosse practices I watched where they blasted music to help the time pass.

Lacrosse.

I blink the sun from my eyes and pick at the dirt below this bare tree. I hope Justin, wherever he is now that I am gone, is happy. And human.

I wipe the sweat from my brow, watch the sun move across the sky. This world has no cars, no medicine, no rocky-road ice cream. I smile at the memory of Tony’s hands running a brush
through cerulean paint. I will suffer with the loss not only of my friends and Rhode, but of my new-found love for the modern world.

I want to tell my father everything. But I cannot. There is no way that he could possibly ever understand. I squat at the base of a tree, running my fingers through the rich earth. This routine
has come back to me quickly. I remember so well how to prune the branches, how to cut them so the apples will return fragrant and strong.

‘Lenah!’ my father calls, and he points at the house just as dark bulbous clouds hang over our orchard.

I call back and hold the hem of my dress up to walk more easily. Dirt covers my hands as I follow my father and make my way home.

We are due for church, my mother tells me over dinner. I look forward to this. To seeing Father Simon and hearing him speak of God and religion. Once, so long ago, those
services taught me how to live my life – to serve God, to live a life for the afterlife. These were medieval thoughts. I never imagined I would have my own views on religion, on God, on the
ether and life before and after death.

My mother smiles at me over our meal.

‘You seem happy,’ she says.

‘The food is good,’ I reply.

It’s only a simple stew and she says as much. I remind myself that food here is food you cook yourself. You either catch or kill it, or buy it from someone who does. Food here is made by
hand, not created in a factory.

Rhode told me long ago that love was an emotion that existed beyond the confines of the human condition. It could rise to the highest peaks, he said. Even out there in the heavens, love flew,
soared and spread between the stars. As I sit here across from my parents, I believe this is true.

‘You are so quiet,’ Mother says as a crack of thunder vibrates our small house.

‘Rain again,’ my father says with a sigh.

‘Harvest is over. Rejoice,’ Mother says, and kisses him on the head.

The oncoming rain is a downpour I know.

As it finally hits, I know this pelting on the roof as well as I knew my soul.

This is the night I died. This night is the night Rhode made me a vampire.

Hours pass and soon the night’s fire is almost burned out. My mother’s earrings are safe – I did not ask for them today. I did not lose them in an orchard lane.

The Aeris have sent me back to this day to remind me of my choices. I walk to the stairs, to the window that hangs over the eighth stair. It has always been a childish inclination to count, yet
I do it anyway.

I place a hand on the cold glass. My fingers warm it, a halo of condensation billowing out from my body heat. So many things I know from my modern life. How science changes, how music changes,
that people get to live for many, many years.

I spent five hundred years becoming a monster, feeding off people, making them my misery. But I also saw the way of the world. I focus on the end of the orchard lanes. Though I cannot see that
far, once, in a different world, Rhode waited for me there.

There is no Rhode at the end of the orchard lane – I know that. I saved him. He is safe.

I also know I will never meet Justin . . . or Tony.

Wickham will exist hundreds of years from now when I am long gone, gone from the world.

I leave my hand on the glass. My jaw clenches. This hurts, this standing here knowing what I know, aware of how much lies before me with this whole world and all its beauty.

Even though he is not watching me, I do it for history. For the souls that were saved in one moment. I whisper the words:

I will love you forever.

I bring my hand over my heart and the tears well in my eyes. Shivers cover me, head to toe; they roll and soon the tears do too and I say the words only vampires share: ‘Go forth in
darkness and in light.’

I gulp away the tears, turn from the window and stand in the doorway of my parents’ room. They sleep back to back, close together. I wonder if I will live out the rest of my days here in
this house. If I will get sick or if the immunity I picked up in the modern world will extend my life. Perhaps I will even settle for a kind man from this world and marry. One thing I know is that
this time, I shall meet my sister, Genevieve. I will witness her birth and see her grow.

I lean hard in the doorway, watching my parents for some time. I know the night, the ebbs and flows of the hours; I can feel it passing by. The turn of the dark sky from black, to blue, to a
lavender tinged with pink. It is only when I am sure the sun is rising that I dare to lay down in my bed.

No more bloodlust. No more needless death. Only one more thought passes through my mind as I finally drift off . . .

Oh . . . how I will miss him.

Dear . . .

I don’t even know your name, dear. I cannot write it here on this paper for it escapes me. Every day it sits on the tip of my tongue like a sweet candy. I can taste it
for the barest of moments and then it is gone, gone before I can savour it and swallow.

I burn for you.

There is a halo of condensation here on this window that looks out on to a campus barely clinging to summer. Fall will be upon us soon. Yesterday I dreamed of you again. You wore your hair
clipped above your ears and a long gown. A gown not found in the modern world. It was corseted to your body and you stood on a great hill that stretched out far into the distance.

You’re beginning to haunt me in my day too. Randomly, as people speak to me, your face, with your dark blue eyes and knowing smile, will sift into my mind. Always, always, that
knowledge plays on the edge of your lips.

What is your name? Why do you torment me?

Why do I want to tell you that there are students disappearing at this school? Three in total. The first is still missing, his name is Justin. The second, her funeral is today, and the third
went missing yesterday morning.

They discovered the body of Jane Hamlin by the beach, two holes in her neck, drained of her blood. Why is it that your face came to my mind when I heard this information?

You, with your porcelain grace and your unnatural skin.