* * *
I awoke in a massive four-poster bed with luxurious bedding, unsure how I'd gotten there. Looking through sheer black curtains, I took in a candle-lit bedroom furnished with beautiful Victorian nightstands, a handsome vanity, and a large wardrobe that, I simply knew without knowing, contained racks of identical black Armani suits. Oil paintings in gilt frames hung along one of the walls, more than a dozen portraits of men who resembled Jakob. The clothes changed from one painting to the next, reflecting past fashions, but the face was the same handsome mug I'd stared into since we'd been together.
Jakob materialized beside me, a wolfish expression on his face. Impeccably dressed, as always. He looked as handsome as ever, and the tight skin over his cheekbones had already returned to its familiar pallor.
"Where am I?" My raspy voice sounded strange to my ears, as if simultaneously too high and too low, and it hurt to talk. I felt different, but couldn't quite say how, out of sorts, like when you've come through a long bout with the flu. My view of the world had changed, but I couldn't tell if it was because the world itself had changed, or if I had. I had seen enough strange things in that cave to make me reconsider my sanity.
"You're home," Jakob said. His concerned features softened when he took my hand. Strange. For the first time ever he felt so warm! He smiled at me, and my stomach flip-flopped.
Remembering the bleeding puncture wound in my neck, I raised my hand to the gash. Someone had bandaged it; I touched strips of gauze wrapped snugly against my throat. I should have known Jakob wouldn't let anything bad happen to me.
"How do you feel, Abigail?"
I tore myself away from his scrutiny for another glance at the room he'd called home. Home? I'd never seen this place before in my life. But it felt comfortable and familiar, like a home should feel. French windows on the other side of the room piqued my interest. I stirred, suddenly impatient to see what kind of world existed behind those heavy burgundy drapes. If I listened I thought I could hear . . . faint thub-thumps?
Before I could give the matter any more attention, pain doubled me over. "Jakob, I am so hungry." I balled the black silk sheets against my body and buried my face in their watery coolness, not caring if my tears stained the elegant fabric.
"Yes, you must be starving, my darling." Jakob spoke from the open window. He'd done one of his disappearing tricks again, fracturing my perceptions of space and time. Silver moonlight flooded the bedroom, and he looked more handsome than ever, bathed in the white light. His anemic skin glowed in contrast to the ebony of his clothes and the depthless night sky beyond. Eager to be with the man I loved, I floated out of bed with a grace I'd never had before.
I looked down at myself and marveled. Jakob had removed the dirty, tattered clothes I'd worn in the cave and he'd dressed me in a flowing black nightgown, the tight chiffon bodice tied in the front with crisscrossing scarlet ribbons. My pale décolletage nearly overflowed the lacy trim, and the flimsy cloth almost made me indecent. Heat crept up my neck at the undisguised passion smoldering in Jakob's eyes as he watched me. He looked the same yet different, more solid, as if there were more dimensions to him than I'd ever noticed before.
Needing to be closer to my lover, I moved to join him by the open French doors. I felt a tiny bump as I knocked over a vase of roses. To my surprise, I had traveled all the way across the room to Jakob's side and still had time to turn around to see the roses land on the floor.
"How can this be?"
Before Jakob could answer, the summer breeze moved the curtains. I anticipated cool night air. Instead, the falling moonlight warmed my skin just as the sun once had. We both laughed at my amazement, until another painful spasm sent me crashing to the floor. Strange. My body felt as solid as the polished oak I rested on. And even though I'd landed hard, I felt no pain.
"What happened in that cave, Jakob?"
"Nothing short of a miracle, Abigail." He reached down and easily lifted me back on my feet.
"A miracle?" My hand stroked his rugged face. The skin felt like ivory, supple yet rigid, smooth yet roughened. I marveled at the feel of every whisker my fingers brushed against.
"Yes. Your love restored me so that I could perform the cure. What we sought for so long, and what so many gave their lives for. The secret of the new moon and the transforming power of the sun's rays during the Spring Equinox. Special invocations drawn with these ancient hands on your beautiful skin."
Jakob smiled as he swept his arms wide and embraced me, kissing me passionately, as he had done in France.
Even through layers of clothing, I felt the furnace heat of his body.
"You have shed the last vestiges of your wounded self and have emerged newly born. Happy birthday." He spun me around as if we were waltzing in a grand ballroom.
I twirled and listened to a symphony of crickets, frogs, and baying wolves. The intoxicating music of the night called to me from the open window.
When I kissed him I felt more connected to him than I'd ever felt to anyone else before. It was as if our souls meshed perfectly together, as if we were two, yet one. What he thought, I thought. What I started, he finished.
Jakob danced me to a spot in front of a large mirror, and I gawked at my reflection. For immortality, I'd traded my blond tangles for a lustrous cascade that shone black as the night, dark and flowing like Jakob's. My face, framed by all that jet-black hair, appeared almost as pale as Jakob's, and my wane cheeks felt strange to my touch. My wide mouth was made up of ruby red lips.
And the fangs!
I was about to comment on my new appearance when another spasm had me clutching my stomach. "Jakob! I hunger!" The burning brought fresh tears to my eyes, tears of blood that dripped to the floor.
No more denying it. I needed to eat. Now. Everything else about this new life would have to wait.
Jakob's laugh sent a shiver down my spine as it once did, but now it burrowed to the core of my being, deep into my soul, a sharp sword piercing my body, my spirit scrambling to reassemble all the broken parts once again. He embraced me with strong arms. His hand stroked my tresses as he breathed me in like a fine after dinner wine. "Let us go hunt, my dear. I owe you so much. I couldn't have done any of it without you." We kissed with abandon.
Before I could tell him I didn't know the first thing about guns and hunting, Jakob scooped me up in his arms.
I sighed, happy to run my hands through his flowing locks. I swear, with this heightened awareness, I could have numbered every hair on his head.
Looking deeply into my eyes, he said, "This is merely our first night. You and I, my love, will be together for eternity." Then, in a moment of madness, he jumped out the window into the night.
I gripped Jakob's neck and prayed I wouldn't slip and fall. Air buffeted the nightgown against my body. I braced for the impact with the stone walkway so far below but approaching so fast.
Instead of plummeting to our deaths, we slowed our descent and then remained aloft, rising, flying high above the trees as though pulled by the moonlight itself. Groups of fluttering bats, with their high-pitched squeaks, accompanied us.
Maybe it was because I felt so alive, so safe, held securely in Jakob's arms as we flew through the night, or maybe because I had in fact died in that French cave. Whatever the reason, I felt deliriously happy.
I saw the world afresh, as if I'd had cataracts cut from my eyes. The earth spread out below us, bright and radiant in the moonlight. I watched other creatures of the night hunt and forage for food, darting beneath undergrowths for safety. They appeared as collections of sparkling lights. The brightest pulsing parts, I knew, were their tiny thumping hearts I'd heard from the bed. Seeing them only made my hunger grow. I swore I could smell their sweet blood—even from so far up.
Other than the hunger pangs I was so content, so amazingly in love that I just wanted to take his hand and fly beside Jakob.
Yes, I had died. But the leukemia also died, along with my body . . . .
And a d
ead man's love brought me back to the world of the living.
THE END
Other works by JT Therrien:
The Well – a sweet love story novella.
Guppy Soup – An eclectic literary collection of short stories.
Sprainter – An inspirational, art-themed, young adult, dystopian romance novella.
The Betrothal – A contemporary/historical art-themed romance novella.
Forthcoming:
Down By Contact - A football-themed romance novella.
Complexities – An art-themed contemporary romance novel.
Dr. Farkas II – The continuation of the Dr. Farkas paranormal romance series.
JT's fiction can be purchased from your favorite e-book distributor.
To keep up with news and new releases, please follow JT online:
https://www.amazon.com/author/jttherrien
https://twitter.com/jttherrien
https://www.facebook.com/JTTherrienAuthor1
https://jttherrien.blogspot.ca
https://sites.google.com/site/jttherrienauthor
Please enjoy these samples from JT Therrien's previous Fine Form Press releases Guppy Soup and The Betrothal.
Summertime
(from the literary collection Guppy Soup, Fine Form Press, 2013)
Bright sunlight filtered into Eugenia's bedroom as she lay in bed dying. Her aged and decaying body shook with each labored breath. At ninety-six, this was surely her final battle with cancer. She couldn't sleep, hadn't slept in weeks: the sharp pain in her lungs too insistent to ignore. And what would happen when she couldn't feel the pain anymore?
She groaned, softly pressed her ear against the wallpaper, a field of repeating pink roses framed with a spray of white Baby's Breath. If she listened hard enough she heard Fred and Ethel Murtz, arguing about plumbing or a leaky pipe. Eugenia was unable to make out any of the details.
"Fred and Ethel," she whispered, pushing stale air through parched lips.
"What's that, Mother Adams?"
Fanny's high-pitched voice felt like an ice pick piercing Eugenia's eardrum. Eugenia groaned again. She pressed her fingers against her temples in the hopes of averting further agony. Fred and Ethel's voices faded away, dispersed by the sickening throbs in her head. Through a veil of rising nausea, Eugenia reluctantly let them go.
Even though Fanny had been married to Martin for twenty-one years of her son's fifty-four years on Earth and, as the mother-in-law, Eugenia had made the required effort to welcome the loud and selfish woman into the family, admittedly mostly in the beginning, but Eugenia had never gotten used to Fanny's grating voice. Whenever her daughter-in-law spoke Eugenia's skin would crawl, making her feel like a nervous cat coiled, ready to pounce. Upon further consideration, she had never taken much of a liking to her daughter-in-law's given name, either. Who in their right mind would name their daughter "Fanny"?
Eugenia sighed deeply, straining to lift the layer of oppressive hot air weighing her down and suffocating the life out of her. There was a time, a long, long time ago, when the hot summer weather had been much more enjoyable. Eating sweet, juicy watermelons, and swimming in the cool running waters of a shallow creek. That's what summers were all about.
"Round up my son for me, will you?" Eugenia asked Fanny without raising her head off the pillow.
Long, thin motes of dust, like wispy marble columns, swayed in the sunlight as Fanny harrumphed and left to fulfill her errand. Not one to be told what to do, that one, thought Eugenia as she chuckled to herself. Too bad. She'll have the run of the house soon enough.
Eugenia closed her heavy eyelids and waited for Martin. Slowly, tentatively at first, as if loitering at the frayed edges of consciousness for their cue, Fred and Ethel returned. The subject under discussion, a full-blown argument really, was a wedding. And a fur coat. Yelling, threats and loud tin-can laughter periodically drowned out the angry couple's voices.
Eugenia laughed.