CHAPTER 8 Father Zosimos
The next morning, Alex needed to talk to her grandmother. She was not feeling right, and it was not just one thing but several. She liked sunlight even less than the day before, and she still hadn't started her period. She wondered if female vampires had periods. Oh yes, she wasn't a vampire. Not quite, anyway.
Alex got out of bed late, walked through the house and found that her grandmother wasn't home. She anguished over what had happened with Jaklin and Mikhail. She obsessed over seeing them again, lots of lewd fantasies, and that worried her, a lot. The thought of them all three being royalty, sort of, was a powerful aphrodisiac.
When her grandmother finally returned from the market with seedlings for the garden, Alex cornered her. "I'm not feeling well," she told her. "And I'm getting scared."
"What's the matter, child? What would bother you so?"
"I'm ashamed that I didn't tell the complete truth about what happened two nights ago, when I saw that man in the forest."
"I thought so. Tell me everything. I'll do whatever I can to make it right."
Alex pulled the curtains, and they sat facing each other on the sofa.
"To begin with, it wasn't just a man. I saw a woman on the ground by the graveyard. I thought she was dead, but when I tried to roll her over, she grabbed me. Oh, Bunică! How can I say this? She bit me on the neck. I think I've become a vampire."
"Nonsense, girl. Don't let me hear you say that again. So you made up the man?"
"Oh no! He was there too. He did think I looked like Queen Marie. I went again last night because he said he could help me. He says I'll be okay. But I don't trust him. What have I gotten myself into?"
"Don't know, child. But I know someone who can help. A local priest."
"Oh no, Bunică. I couldn't look a priest in the eyes."
"Don't worry. I won't let him scold you." With that, she left.
Alex set on the sofa with her head in her hands. She became drowsy and thought that now she seemed to want to sleep more in daytime than night. She fidgeted and paced the floor to keep awake. She couldn't stand waiting for the priest. Soon she heard a car in the driveway and muffled voices and footsteps outside the front door. They entered, the priest in his black cassock and cylindrical flat hat, and carrying a small wooden box. He had a full gray beard. She heard him call her grandmother by her given name, Margareta. Alex's grandmother hung back and the priest introduced himself.
"I'm Father Zosimos," he said. "Tell your problem, and I'll provide a prayer to remedy the situation, hopefully."
Her grandmother sat with him on the sofa, and Alex sat in a chair opposite. The priest held his wooden box in his lap. Alex told him what happened to her in the forest, the woman biting her. She also told him of her second meeting with Catalin. She closed with, "He said she was a very good person, in spite of what she'd done."
"Yes," said Father Zosimos, shaking his head no. "A good apparition who bites people on the neck and sucks their blood? I don't think so."
"Yes, that's very much the point," she said. "He said that Velinar was not an angel."
"You mean, not a very nice person?"
"No. I had asked him if she were an angel," and then her voice got quiet, and she said slowly, almost a whisper. "He said she was a divine being who'd taken on mortal form. She was on a mission to..."
Zosimos held up a hand to stop her. "Divine beings..." he shook his head again. "Your neck. Let me see."
She pulled her hair back and leaned her head to the side.
He pursed his lips. "Nothing."
Alex looked at her grandmother. "He'll never believe me. I'm not sure I do myself."
"Did you suck this woman's blood?" the priest asked.
"No!" said Alex, offended. "Of course not. She stank."
"I know these evil beings do exist," he said. "A few are right here in Sinaia. One must take care, but generally they stay off to themselves and don't bother the population."
"Then that concerns me even more," Alex said. "I've been bitten."
"Vampires generally come from Royalty. Something about interbreeding weakening royal bloodlines. Let me see your teeth."
This was the first Alex realized that her mouth had felt a little different. Opening it for this priest to look inside felt like a violation of her person.
"Wider," said Zosimos, pushing back her lips to see her gums. "Hmmm. Canines not extended. Although they do have a curious length and are rather sharp."
Alex closed her mouth and shrunk back from him.
"Look," said the priest. "The crucial issue, whether I believe you or not, is: Are you a vampire? That's easy to determine, young lady." With that he pushed the box from his lap to his knees. "Close your eyes."
Against her better judgment, she obeyed. She heard him rustling about.
"Now open them," he said.
Alex jerked her head back. The priest had open the box and was holding it close to her face. It was filled with crosses.
"Not good," the priest said. "Do they frighten you?"
"No," she said slowly. "You startled me."
"Yes. Well, we'll see about that," he said. "Touch them, please. Pick up one."
She admitted to herself — but would never have told him — that she didn't like the looks of them much, and she was afraid of what would happen when she touched them. But slowly, she put her hand into the box. Her fingers tingled, and the sensation ran up her arm to her elbow. She said nothing of this, but she did pick up a cross, although it wasn't very pleasant.
"Well then," said the priest. "This is a good sign. Your grandmother tells me that you don't wear a cross. Why is this, girl? Do you not believe in our Lord?"
"Well, yes, I do, Father. I've just never felt the need for an ostentatious display of faith."
He snorted. "Perhaps you do now," he suggested. "Select one you like, and I'll let you have it free. It's just that you must promise to wear it."
"Oh," Alex said, "I'd love to have one." If it would ward off the Forces of Darkness she'd gladly wear it. She looked through the box, pushed them around with her fingers. They were all gold and silver, some inlaid with jewels. These seemed pretentious, inappropriate. Besides, she didn't think she could take the tingling. Then she noticed one with diamonds. "Wow!" she said. "That one is beautiful."
"Yes," he said. "Just as I expected. The most expensive the Church has."
"Well," Alex admitted, "although it is beautiful, I'm still not interested in wearing it. I don't see anything I really like. None seem as though they would belong to me, if I claimed one."
Her grandmother finally spoke up. "Please, child. You must select one."
"Ah," she said. "What's this?" She held up a rather small wooden cross. It looked old and worn. "I'm in love."
"I'd meant to discard that one," he said, leaning back and looking out the window. "I would have, except for the legend."
"What legend?"
"Well, one can't put any confidence in such things, particularly one that came to us through an old Rom. He wasn't even a believer."
"A Gypsy? Please, tell me anyway," said Alex. "I'd like to know."
"So the story goes," he said, looking up at her, a little embarrassed, and then back at the cross, "St. John at the Crucifixion broke off a piece of Christ's cross and carried it always. He took it with him during his exile on Patmos where he wrote Revelation, and later at Ephesus, where he died. From John, the cross was supposedly passed from priest to priest and worn during the Second World War, where it came into the hands of a homeless Rom who was given it by a dying priest." Father Zosimos stopped his story there. "Like I said, not much to recommend it, coming from a Rom. Yet, I've kept the aged cross out of respect to the dying priest who gave it to him, so the Rom said. I had to pay him a leu for it. But that was forty years ago. Little to give a young girl to carry with her the rest of her life."
"Oh, but I disagree!" said Alex. "I find it immensely satisfying." And she was really, quite unaccountably, thrilled. Th
at old rugged cross meant something to her.
"You can't be serious," said the priest. "It's a trivial keepsake. Not much of a devotional relic. It has no polish. I like those that radiate with internal light, enlightenment."
"Was Christ's cross not of wood?" Alex replied.
"Yes, yes, yes. Have it your way. At least you've selected one, and the rest of these have proven that you're not a vampire. A good days work for an old priest," he said, still obviously not satisfied with her.
"Thank you," Alex said. "And I promise to wear it always. It has warmed to my hand already."
"Here. Let's do this properly," he said, taking it from her. He crossed himself first and then her, both times saying, "In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." He then placed the chain over her head and let it fall around her neck. "If it comes apart on you, call on me for another."
"Christ's cross would never fail the wearer, now would it, Father?"
Finally, he smiled at her. "And now that the old priest has received his catechism from the child, he shall withdraw to his solitary chamber."
Alex glanced at her grandmother, saw her scowl.
"I'm sorry, Father," Alex said. "I'm just pleased with your gift."
"Then so am I," he replied with complete conviction. "And may it serve you well."
Her grandmother walked the priest to the door, and they whispered in private for longer than Alex would have expected. She heard him call her "Marg" with marked familiarity.
When he was gone, Alex went to her bedroom to look at the cross all on her own. It was simple and carved from a single piece of wood with great care. She teared up at that. The wood was old beyond imagining. "And the legend is that it was carved from Christ's own cross," she said aloud. Alex couldn't imagine that anything would offer her more protection from a vampire. Perhaps it'll also cure this dreadful passion I have for Jaklin and Mikhail.
That night when she slept, she again dreamed of being lost in a dark place where others milled about beside her. She held her cross close, and the dreams dissolved.