The Heart's Ashes (50 page)

“
Ara has her period and doesn’t want us vampires to
know.”

“
Emily!” My cheeks flushed hot, mortification travelling
through me in a rush of cold.

“
Ara.” Mike raised a brow. “Grow up. David’s not gonna leave
you because you’re woman. He doesn’t care. What’d you think we did
when you were in a coma? You still had your period then—he didn’t
freak out.”

I fell back on
my pillow. Gross. That’s not something I want to think about.

“
We’re guys, Ara, okay, but we get it,” Mike reasoned. “We
just wanna help—make you feel better.”

“
Then leave.” I covered my face with the blankets. Light
intruded my solitude when a pair of hands slid under my shoulders
and knees—scooping me from the warmth of my bed. “David! What are
you doing?”

“
Your bath is ready.”

“
I didn’t even hear the taps.”

He smiled,
carrying me past the end of my bed, the dresser, then, manoeuvring
through the door, without hitting my head on the doorframe.

“
Put me down. I can walk myself.”

“
I know.”

“
David!”

“
Ara. Let me take care of you. I’ll just deliver you to the
bathroom—I won’t stay. But, please, I love you, and I can sense how
much pain you’re in. Just let me do what I can to help.”

“
Fine!” I huffed, folding my arms.

“
Thank you.”

He placed me
on the ground in the candlelit surrounds of my bathroom, then
stepped back, smiling down at the bath; I drew a breath when I saw
the rose petals floating on milky water, the steam rising up in
soft plumes, and a box of chocolates on the small table. “You are
something else, aren’t you?”

He reached
across and turned my face to look at him. “And you are everything
to me, Ara—even when you’re not feeling well. Don’t ever forget
that.”

I folded my
arms, smirking. “Make sure you’re always around to remind me
then.”

“
That, my love—” he bowed slightly, “—I can now promise
you.”

He closed the
door, leaving me with my privacy, and I smiled; I could get used to
having a vampire around for eternity.

Chapter
16

The clicking
grind of the winding crank rotated seven times; I counted them as I
walked toward the soft, blue glow at the centre of a pitch-black
room. Smoke plumes guarded my steps, licking my ankles as I came to
a stop, my toes an inch from a small, wooden box.

“
Hello?” I called, but my voice fell flat into a dense hold—no
echo, no answer, despite the airy, open space.

No one came to greet me or inquire of my business here. When
I looked back at the polished wooden box, a small tag appeared,
dangling from a green ribbon:
OPEN
ME
.

Unsurprised by
the request, I crouched down, then lifted the lid; a chime rang
through the air; a spinning, intrinsic melody—sad, like the long
walk of a lonely soldier, on his way back to a war-ravaged home. It
was strangely familiar, the song, full of loss and sadness—the kind
that had never had the chance to heal.

I sat
cross-legged, with the box in my lap, watching the ballerina spin
gracefully on her perch in front of the cracked mirror.

“
Do you hear it too?” a small voice asked.

“
Yes. We all hear it.” I looked up at the child who sat beside
me; her dark eyes hollow, her dirty face framed with wispy blonde
hair.

“
Do I scare you?” she asked.

Smiling, I
looked back down at the music box. “No.”

“
Why does she cry?”

The
ballerina’s cheeks sparkled with a streak of tiny tears. “Because
she can’t hear the music.”

The little girl closed the lid on the box, ending the song,
leaving us in silence. “You’re wrong. She can hear it
now
, but the others
can’t.”

“
What others?” I looked over my shoulder. “There’s no one else
here.”

The girl shook
her head. “They’re here. They’re afraid.”

“
Afraid? Of what?”

She cupped her
hand to her mouth and leaned closer. “Of the light.”

Feeling the
slight tingle of heat along my bare arms, I looked up to the
roof—to the source of the blue glow. “This light?”

“
Yes.” She sat back and looked up too, rolling her palm as if
to feel the glow, like raindrops. “There’s no music in the dark—it
belongs with the light.”

I stole my
eyes away from the heavens and looked back at her. “But, music,
light, these aren’t things to fear.”

“
Not if you’re human.”

I studied the
girl more carefully; her round face, ashen eyes, the small
dirt-filled cuts in the cracks of her lips. “How come you’re not
afraid?”

“
I’m not one of them.”

“
What are they?”

“
The damned.”

“
The Immortal Damned?” I placed the box on the ground. “The
children? Where are they?”

“
Can’t you hear them crying?” She sat dead still, back
straight, eyes wide. “Listen and you’ll see.”

The box stayed
in the safety of the glow while I stood, letting my white silky
nightdress fall softly around my ankles, walking into the darkness.
Even with no light to orient sight and no sound to give me bearing
on earth or sky, I continued, seeming to float smoothly along the
slick surface. Step by step, my feet moved, and as the darkness
swallowed me whole, I stopped.

The blue glow
I felt safe in before disappeared, leaving me in the world of
nothing, alone, cold, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. I closed my
eyes and listened carefully, wrapping my arms across my body.

There has to
be something in here; there has to be some kind of sound.

My eyes
flicked open again; a face appeared for a spilt second, just long
enough for the memory of his sunken cheeks, his soulless gaze and
his ash-grey hair to stain my eyes with imagery.

“
Who are you?” I called, hearing the words only in my head.
“Where are you?” No sound again—like watching TV on
mute.

“
We want to play a little game,” a child’s voice echoed from
every direction.

I spun around,
searching for anything visible in the dark room. “I don’t want to
play. You’re scaring me.”

“
You have to play. To get home—you have to win.”

“
Well—” I hugged my arms across my chest again. “How do I
play?”

“
You hide,” one voice said.

“
And we seek.” Another giggled.

“
But—” I spun around again to the sound of the voices. “—I
don’t know where to hide.”

“
Then you better run.”

My eyes
snapped open and daylight filled the space around me—flooding in
like a cup of sand over a spring daisy. I rubbed my face and sat up
on the couch. Nothing had changed; the minute hand on the clock
still pointed to the six, as it did when I last looked at it, and
even the hour hand stayed the same. Did I fall asleep?

Across the
road, the sun sparkled off the frozen lake, making the snow-covered
banks glisten. It looked so desolate out there in the winter; no
children playing by the water, no joggers taking their dogs for a
run, and today, there weren’t even skaters circling the ice.

After a deep breath, the sinking feeling of my nightmare
eased and I ran my fingers over the scribble on the open page of my
diary:
The clicking grind of the winding
crank rotated seven times.

My dream? Did
I dream this and write it down, or write it, then dream it? What
ever it was, it was awful. I couldn’t remember exactly what
happened, only that the feeling of hopelessness and loss was so
consuming I wanted to run away.

“
Everything okay?” Emily asked from the armchair beside the
lounge.

I nodded, and as I read further down the page, my heart
skipped at the words
Immortal
Damned
.

So that’s what
it was—the vampire children. “Emily?”

She looked up
from her book.

“
David was fighting the case of the Immortal Damned,
right?”

She placed her
book on the coffee table where her feet had been. “We’re not
supposed to mention them, Ara.”

“
Who says?”

“
David.”

“
Really?

“
Yes.”

“
Oh. Sorry.”

“
S’okay.” She shrugged and went back to reading.

“
How do you feel about it?”

“
About what?”

“
About them—about their existence.”

“
I don’t really put much thought into it.”

“
How can you not?”

She shrugged
again. “Guess it’s just like world hunger or pollution.”

“
But, they’re real, Emily. They—”

“
They’re not my problem.”

“
Then whose problem are they?”

“
Well, I suspect no ones, now—since David’s here.”

“
Wasn’t there anyone else fighting for them?”

With a huff,
she dropped her book into her lap. “Probably, Ara. Look, who cares?
What is it with you today, anyway?”

I flipped the
pages of my journal, stopping on one dated a week before David
returned, the words restoring a memory. “I keep dreaming about
them.”

“
You can’t help them, Ara. Stop worrying about it.”

“
But, I...sometimes I see Harry.” Emily stiffened a little; I
never talk with her about Harry. “It’s, like, he’s in a dark room,
screaming, reaching up with his chubby little hand. And just as I
touch him, as I’m about to make it okay, white hands, so thin and
bony, come up out of nowhere and drag him so far into the darkness
that I can’t get to him.”

A cold finger
brushed my cheek, scooping a tear I didn’t know was there. “Don’t
cry, Ara,” Emily said; I looked up suddenly from where she was
across the room to where she now sat beside me. “I know it’s
horrible. But so is pollution and hunger in Africa. You can only do
so much.”

“
But we’re not doing anything. And now David’s here, for me,
he’s not advocating for their release or proper care. They’re just
children, Emily.”

She hugged me
to her. “That’s not what I’ve been told. Apparently they’re locked
away because they’re not fit for society. They’re vile and cruel
and have no restraint.”

“
Couldn’t they be trained?”

Emily shook
her head. “Vampires aren’t cruel by nature, Ara. I’m sure they
explored those avenues.”

“
But—”

“
I know,” she said. “I know, and I’d give anything in the
world, even Mike, to see them freed, Ara—any of us would, but—” her
voice, though she kept talking, trailed off in my thoughts as I
stared out the window.

She’d give up
Mike for their freedom? David tortured his own girlfriend for
creating one?

The
realisation hit me so hard I was glad there were already tears in
my eyes.

I wouldn’t. I
wouldn’t give up David, my love for him, our eternity,
Lilithians—Paris. I wouldn’t give any of it up to save the Immortal
Damned. What sort of person does that make me?

“
What is it Ara?” Emily asked.

“
I—” My nightmare left me feeling weak and hollow, but the
darkness those children suffer must be far greater. Only
they
can truly
understand what fear, desolation and darkness is.

I looked to
the lake, hoping to see signs of life, the children, the families
that usually brought me back down to the safety of normality, but I
was offered only the pain of a lifeless, empty park—cold and
brittle, devoid of the magic it had in the summer—the magic that
made me buy this house in the first place. The absence of joy felt
sudden, making the solitude and loneliness wider, deeper, more
damaging to my already saddened heart.

I wonder if
that’s what it was like for those children; if they had birthday
parties planned or family holidays, only to have them stolen when
they were dragged from their beds in the middle of the night,
promised eternal life, then locked away for that which they did not
choose.

The soft
ringing of the piano in the other room stopped; I hugged my knees
to my chest and closed my diary.

I don’t want
to think of them anymore.

“
Look—” Emily stroked my hair. “In a few months, you’ll be in
Paris and all this will be behind you.”

“
I know.” I nodded and smiled. But there’s a connection I feel
to the Immortal Damned, one I can’t explain, one I can’t deny. I
feel them screaming in my heart, and the truth is, all I want is to
get away. That’s the depth of my selfishness, and I hate myself for
feeling that way, but I can’t lie to myself either, and I will
never admit the truth to David—or in his eyes, I’d not be worthy of
life.

“
Come on, sulky.” David extended his hand, cutting through the
sudden dusky-darkness in the house. I looked around for Emily,
vaguely remembering her leaving with Mike a few hours ago. “Come
on,” he said again.

“
Where are we going?” I stood up and David slid my beanie over
my hair then handed me a pair of skates.

“
We’re going across to that lake you keep staring
at.”