The Harvesting (25 page)

The fox bounced across the rocky
shoreline to an old row-boat that sat on the rocks. She crawled
inside and sat on the bench.

I walked over to the boat. There were
oars inside.

“
Are you sure?” I asked
her.

She laid down.

I pushed the boat into the water and
hopped in, expecting the old thing to sink at any minute. It
didn’t. I pulled out the oars and rowed toward the neighboring
island.

Within ten minutes, the prow of the
row boat slid onto the gravel shoreline.

The fox hopped out and waited for
me.

I jumped out and dragged the boat
ashore. The island was very small but was dotted with exceptionally
tall pine trees. The shoreline where we had landed was pebble,
slopping upward to a very high bank.

The fox turned and headed up the bank
into the woodsy area. I followed. The grass at my feet mixed with
rocks and pine needles. A fresh, earthy smell filled the early
spring air. We walked clockwise around the island until we reached
the side furthest from the hotel. There the fox turned toward the
center of the island. After a few moments, we came to a
clearing.

I was standing at the top of some
earthen steps that loomed about eight feet above a circular pit at
the island’s center. The tall pine trees grew in a circle around
the pit. From this vantage, I found myself looking down on a
labyrinth. Stones had been set into the ground in a circular
pattern that looked like a coiled snake. At the center was the
head. A long, snaky tongue extended from its mouth, spiraling with
increasing smaller stones. The entrance to the labyrinth was at the
bottom of the stairs. There, round rocks, resembling a snake’s
rattle, were piled.

The fox looked back at me and headed
into the labyrinth.

I took a deep breath and
followed.

As I wove around the circle, I could
feel the energy rising. It was that same strange feeling I’d had
before but something about it seemed more intense, wilder. A
pulsing feeling of electricity made my ears ring almost painfully.
The chaotic energy made my skin itch. With each step I took I felt
it even more.

As I neared the center, my heart
started racing. The island’s tall trees loomed overhead. Moments
later, I stood close to the center. I stopped before I reached the
head of the snake. The fox trotted into the space in front of me
and then, before my eyes, shifted into the guise of a human woman.
She wore leather pants and boots and blousy cotton shirt. Her hair
was dark, but the sun’s ray breaking through the trees gave her
hair a reddish hue. She wore a bow strapped across her chest and a
dagger hung from her belt. Her face was painted on one cheek; three
lines blended into a circular solar image. She stood very near the
center of the spiral.

“
Welcome to Ëde-ka
Island,” she said.

I nodded in respect.

“
Ëde-ka means sun. Here,”
she said, motioning to the labyrinth, “you stand at the heart of
the sun, at the head of the snake.”

“
The other island, Enita,
that is the moon?”

She nodded. “The moon, the crescent.
That is why the usurpers have taken the island; they are creatures
of darkness. But they have bastardized that sacred lunar space,”
she said angrily. “Here, however, they can touch nothing. The sun
is their enemy.”

“
They are vampires?” I
said.

“
That is what you call
them. They are not from this land. They came from abroad and took
over this holy space.”

I looked back toward the HarpWind. It
was a shadow in the distance.

“
You must leave this
place,” she told me.

“
They won’t let us just
walk off.”

“
No sooner than a hunter
lets the rabbit off the spit. It will be necessary for you to
destroy them. This place, however,” she said, motioning to the
labyrinth, “is a doorway. We have long kept such doors secret,
locked to your kind. But we are in a new world now. Destroy them,
and our doors will be unlocked to you. Complete the spiral,” she
said, motioning to the snake’s tongue, “and you will pass through
the door.”

“
Did Peryn send
you?”

She cocked her head and looked at me.
“Peryn?”

“
Peryn, the forest spirit.
She’s like you, right?”

The woman simply looked at
me.

“
Why are you helping us?”
I asked.

“
You are now on the fringe
just as we are, just as those dark creatures are,” she said,
motioning back to the HarpWind. “But the outcome is still unclear.
Your kind has finally gone entirely windigo. Yet some of you still
remain. We are not sure why,” she said.

“
The gateway, where does
it lead?” I asked.

She half smiled then. “We shall meet
again, I think,” she said, then turned, morphing back into a fox.
She trotted to the center of the spiral and then
disappeared.

The unanswered question hung in the
air.

Chapter 30

By the time I got back to Enita Island
it was nearly noon. I knew Jamie would be worried, but I could not
let the issue of Pastor Frank’s death go.

I made my way to the back of the hotel
and found the small garden they were using as a cemetery. I noticed
right away that no graves were marked, there were no crosses, and
there were at least thirty bodies buried there.

The two men who had taken Pastor
Frank’s body were dropping the final shovels of dirt on a fresh
grave. They looked up when I approached them.

“
I want to see the
Pastor’s body,” I told them.

One of them smiled sardonically and
turned away. The other looked piercingly at me with steel gray
eyes. “He is here,” he said, looking down.

“
You buried him
already?”

The man didn’t have to answer
me.

I bit my tongue cutting off every
sarcastic remark that wanted to leap from my mouth. The less they
suspected I knew, the better. I turned and left, ignoring the low
sounds of their chuckles. They would get theirs.

Back in the hotel, I wound my way
through the halls toward the infirmary. I arrived at Ian’s room to
find him sitting up. He looked really good, very healthy. His IV
stand, however, was hung with two bags: one was clear, and the
other looked like blood.

“
What is this?” I asked
him, staring at the IVs.

“
One has chemo medicine.
The other is a blood transfusion. They gave me one yesterday too.
They said it would help me build up my white blood
cells.”

My hands started tingling.

“
Rumor came by to see me
last night after you and Jamie left. She was really interested in
you. Man, her tits are something else. She asked about
you.”

I frowned. My head was
spinning.

“
Oh, come on, Layla. I
didn’t tell her anything.”

I stared at Ian. Was my mind playing
tricks on me? He already looked different. “No, I’m sure you
didn’t, it’s just--”

“
I can hear my blood
thundering in my veins,” he interrupted. “Two days ago I felt like
I was on death’s doorstep. Now I just want to . . . I don’t know
what. My head is full of weird ideas.”

I clutched the frame of the door and
inhaled deeply.

“
Layla?”

I looked at Ian again. His sweet blue
eyes had already started to lose some of their pigment. My words
were lost. I did not know what to say to him. My head spun. I
rushed out of the room.

“
Layla?” I heard him
call.

I ran down the hallway.

“
Layla!”

I ran outside and burst into a sob.
After a few moments, I felt someone approach me.

“
Are you alright?” the man
asked. I noticed he was wearing a stethoscope.

“
Are you Dr. Madala?” I
asked, wiping away my tears.

He nodded.

“
I’m Layla. I’m Ian’s . .
. sister-in-law. Can we talk?”

The doctor suddenly looked
uncomfortable. He looked around. “Not here,” he said and led me
back inside. Just inside the door there was an office. The doctor
unlocked the door, and we went in. He closed and locked the door
behind him.

“
You were the doctor who
saw Ian the night we arrived?”

“
Yes, I was.”

“
And what was your
prognosis at the time?”

The doctor looked at me. I could tell
by the expression on his face he already knew what I was getting
at. “He was in the advanced stages of cancer.”

“
How have you been
treating him?”

“
Chemotherapy , mostly,”
he said.

“
Did you put him on the
blood transfusions?”

The doctor looked at his hands and
then back at me. “No, Dr. Rostov started that round of treatment
yesterday.”

“
Isn’t there a third
doctor here? They told us there were three.”

The doctor rested his hand on his
forehead. “She had an accident.”

“
I see,” I said looking
closely at him. “Let’s be frank.”

The doctor sat back in his
chair.

“
Is there any hope for
Ian?”

The doctor shook his head. “He’ll
become one of them.”

“
Why are you helping
them?”

“
I
am
curing people. I
am
helping the sick who
are brought here. It’s just, after they leave my hands . . . Look,
either I help them or they kill me.”

“
How long have you been
here?”

“
Almost five
months.”

“
What are they doing with
these people? Eating them? Killing them?”

“
Many here are pets. Rumor
and the others drain them just a little, drink some of their blood,
enjoy their bodies. In exchange, the pets get a little of the
vampiric gift, a small dose of the blood. It gives them beauty,
strength, health, longer lives. It is a deal many choose to make.
Especially in these days.”

“
Not you?”

“
Not me. I once enjoyed
being human.”

“
And what about
Ian?”

“
Ian is now a pet whether
he knows it or not. But I understand it is Rumor’s intention to
offer immortal life.”

My stomach shook. “I need your help.
Please, talk to my people. They need to see these creatures for
what they are before it’s too late. I need to get my people safe,
and until they believe me, I can’t do that. Please, they will
believe you. Please talk to them.”

“
Every eye in this place
is already on you. They watch your every move. I can do nothing for
you without risking myself. It is a risk just talking to
you.”

“
What if we take Ian off
the blood?”

“
The cancer will return
and kill him.”

“
We saw something strange.
The blood of the undead seemed to, well, it seemed to make one of
Rumor’s people return back to their mortal self. Maybe
Ian--”

“
No,” Dr. Madala
interrupted. “You’re right. It will return him to a mortal life,
but he will return fully intact and with whatever mortal ailments
he once carried. The vampiric seed only provides its healing power
while he carries its magic. Becoming a vampire does not, as we were
lead to believe, kill you. It simply transforms you to another
state of existence, something different from human.”

“
Just like the
undead.”

“
Yes, just like
them.”

I stood. “Then there is no hope for
Ian.”

“
I’m sorry.”

I turned and walked out looking back
down the hallway toward Ian’s room. I had once loved Ian with every
fiber of my being. I had wanted to be his wife, to bear his
children. The echo of that love had thundered loudly when I had
first arrived in Hamletville almost seven months ago, but it had
become clear almost immediately that it was just that—an echo. I
had once loved him, but that is all. In place of that love was
fondness stemming from our shared history. I’d once thought him my
soul-mate, but he betrayed me. Ian didn’t choose the vampire blood,
but his change betrayed all of us. It was truly too late. And while
it made me sad, I felt even sadder for the great loss Jamie would
feel . . . Jamie, who had never betrayed anyone.

I stepped back outside and took a deep
breath. Jamie needed to know. I headed toward the front of the
hotel, but Will intercepted me.

“
Oh my god! There you
are,” he said breathlessly.

“
What is it?” I asked,
wiping a tear from my eye.

“
Kira and Susan are
missing.”

My heart skipped a beat. We rushed
back to Frenchie’s room. When we entered, I saw Frenchie’s face and
eyes were red. Buddie was talking to her in a quiet tone. Jamie
stood over them. Summer and Tom were sitting on the bed
listening.