Her Dear and Loving Husband (33 page)
Read Her Dear and Loving Husband Online
Authors: Meredith Allard
When Sarah stepped away to speak to her mother, Geoffrey grabbed James by the arm and pulled him to the far end of the yard. “When are you going to turn her?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Don’t be daft, James. That perfectly nice little human person you’re married to, that’s who. If you leave her be she’ll die.”
“Tonight?”
“Of course not tonight. But soon. A human life is like a snap of our fingers.”
James watched Sarah. Sweet Sarah. Beautiful Sarah. She was laughing, joyful, stealing glances at him. He closed his eyes and savored the sweetness of strawberries and cream. She was perfect. He didn’t want her to change.
“She doesn’t want to be like us,” he said.
“You don’t need people’s permission to turn them.”
“I’m well aware of that. But I would never do to Sarah what you did to me. If this isn’t what she wants then I’m not going to force her to it.”
“James.”
“We have time before we have to worry about it.”
“Humans always think they have time. Then before they know it they’re eighty-five years old, eating through a tube, shitting in a diaper, and what do they have to show for it?”
“A lifetime of memories.”
“Will that be enough for you when she’s gone again?”
James clutched Geoffrey’s shoulder. “It’s my wedding, Geoffrey. Give us this one night to be happy. You can sing your tale of woe for us some other time.”
James stepped away, shaking aside the hollowness he suddenly felt. But he refused to dwell on the sadness Geoffrey’s words could bring. There would be only joy and light that night. He and Sarah had decided. And as for the rest of their time together, they would take each night as it came, appreciating what they had while they had it. They would know not to take their love for granted this time. There were no guarantees in a human’s life. They were not guaranteed health. Or wealth. Or time. Or happiness. But right now, that night, he and his wife were married again, caught up in the bubble of joy they could find only with each other. They were fulfilling their destiny with the only person they could. When you love someone and cannot exist in any form, human or otherwise, without her, when you’re sure you were created for her and she for you and no one else, you will always love her. No matter how many centuries pass, despite whatever comes, you will always love her. And, if you’re lucky, you will find her again. Even in Salem. Especially in Salem.
He found his wife, grabbed her hand, and led her across the yard to introduce her to Howard Wolfe, a biology professor at Salem State College and Timothy’s guardian. She seemed happy to meet him.
“I’ve seen you in the library near the human physiology section,” she said.
As they chatted James waited for her to make the connection between the wolf that howled for Timothy and the man they were speaking to, but she needed some prompting. After Howard was called away, James pulled her close.
“Have you noticed how he always cancels classes the night of the month when there’s a full moon?” he asked. He saw the recognition in her eyes.
“Timothy called that wolf Dad,” Sarah said. She watched Howard as he laughed with his vampire son. “He’s a werewolf?”
“Yes, but he won’t be any trouble tonight.”
Sarah looked at the slice of the crescent moon hanging above them. She didn’t look worried, James thought. Perhaps a bit apprehensive.
“Are you sure there’s no such thing as Frankenstein?” she asked.
“There is no such thing as Frankenstein. That I’m aware of.”
Everyone moved from the backyard into Jennifer’s house, drinking or eating and talking and hugging each other. Through the window, barely visible against the shadows of the night, James saw a wisp of streaming light that beckoned him. When he looked again he was certain he saw his father standing there, looking him in the eye as he had done so many times before, smiling, his hands pressed together as if in prayer, joy in his kindly eyes. He seemed happy for James and his new bride just as he had been oh so many years before. As if no centuries had passed since his death, James ran outside to greet him.
“Father!” he said. But his father was no longer there.
Sarah followed him out the door. “James? What’s wrong?”
“I just saw my father standing here. He was smiling.”
“Your father was always smiling.”
James put his arms around Sarah and pulled her close. He thought he was hallucinating again the way he did the day he was in the sun.
“Do you think he was really here?” he asked.
“These days I’ll believe anything.”
He held his wife even closer and kissed her.
“You’re right,” he said. “Anything is possible.”
The next night James was shaken awake by his wife. She stood over him, Sarah, just as she did when he called her Lizzie, poking his shoulder, shaking his arm, laughing.
“James? Jamie? It’s been dark for over an hour. It’s time to wake up.”
She walked to the window, threw aside the blackout curtains, and raised the blinds. The sky was well dark, the moon clearly visible, the stars winking at them from the distance. They had seen this dance between James and Sarah many times before in years gone by. James was awake, but he loved how she was playing with him and he didn’t want it to end. It felt right for them to be that way again.
She pulled the blanket from him. “James Wentworth, it’s over three centuries later and you are still the laziest man ever born!”
He pulled her into bed with him and kissed her. They dissolved into each other like no time had passed and they had been together that way every night for three hundred and nineteen years and they would be there still for three hundred and nineteen years more.
Some things never change.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I remember the day, three years ago, when one of my students handed me Stephenie Meyer’s
Twilight
and told me how much she loved it. Having never been one for vampire stories, I read the book solely on her recommendation. While the student shall remain unnamed, I thank her.
Laurin Wittig, who read an early draft of the novel and pointed me in the direction this story needed to go.
My mother, who has always supported me in my endeavors.
The editors and staff at Copperfield Press.
The contributors, authors, and devoted readers of
The Copperfield Review
. I hope
CR
continues for many more years.
As I said in an earlier work of historical fiction, I am not an historian, though I ride on the coattails of talented historians who do the hard labor digging through layers of the past to find the facts. While my intention was to remain true to the history of the Salem Witch Trials, and to the town of Salem, Massachusetts itself, in the interest of full disclosure I admit to taking some creative license in the representation of both. As a former history teacher, my hope is that readers will become intrigued enough by the Salem Witch Trials that they will seek out historical accounts of the era.
The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
by Marilynne K. Roach is a good place to start.
As to the history of vampires, I'll leave that for Book Two,
Her Loving Husband's Curse
, to comment on…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meredith Allard received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from California State University, Northridge. Her short fiction and articles have appeared in journals such as
The Paumanok Review
,
The Maxwell Digest
,
Wild Mind
,
Muse Apprentice Guild
,
Writer’s Weekly
,
Moondance
, and
CarbLite
. She has taught writing to students aged ten to sixty, and she has taught creative writing and writing historical fiction seminars at Learning Tree University and UNLV. She is the executive editor of
The Copperfield Review
, an award-winning literary journal for readers and writers of historical fiction. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can visit Meredith online at
www.meredithallard.com
.
Her Dear and Loving Husband
is Book One of
The Loving Husband Trilogy
. Book Two,
Her Loving Husband’s Curse
, will be available 2012. Look for more titles from Copperfield Press coming soon.
Her Dear and Loving Husband
Copyright 2011 Meredith Allard
All rights reserved
Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or printed, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Copperfield Press
Visit our website at
www.copperfieldpress.com
Cover design by Dara England
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and events portrayed in this book are a product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious way. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, events, businesses, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet and “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats are in the public domain.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents