‘Lenah,’ Ms Tate said, ‘you’re in your old seat. We have a junior who placed for this class and once she comes you’ll sit together.’ I nodded and tried to keep my eyes away from Rhode as I walked towards my desk.
I loathed that empty chair next to mine. Tony’s. I was about to sit down when Ms Tate spoke again. ‘Oh. Hmm.’
Justin and two other students had walked into the class. Ms Tate looked down at her list. ‘On second thoughts, Justin, you sit with Lenah. And, Margot – actually, we’ll put the two newbies together; you sit with Rhode here. Caroline . . .’ Ms Tate continued to the other new girl who had just walked in. ‘You sit at the back with . . .’
I stopped listening to the jumble of names. Avoiding my eyes, Justin sat down, and when he placed his books on the table I noticed his knuckles were wrapped in white gauze. He gripped his textbook and his knee bounced up and down, trembling from either excitement, rage or possibly too much caffeine.
I swallowed, unnerved by his silence. I twisted the onyx ring again, round and round, and finally, as I opened my mouth to talk to him, Ms Tate called the class to order.
‘Let’s get to today’s plan. We’ll review some basics.’
Justin stared forward purposefully. The aching in my gut surprised me. Why wouldn’t he talk to me or even look at me? For a moment I expected the familiar touch, his warm hand on my knee or my lower back.
‘OK, today we’ll be analysing the pH levels of local water samples from Lovers Bay. I know it’s very elementary, but I think we need to revisit some basic skills before we go forward in our experimentation process.’
I looked over at Justin again and he pressed his lips together.
‘What?’ he said coldly, and blinked a couple of times, keeping his gaze forward. It took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me.
‘Oh. Nothing,’ I replied, and looked back down at my notebook. ‘I just . . .’
‘What?’ he said again, this time with a slow turn of his head. The green of his eyes was hard, cold. ‘Want to humiliate me some more?’
‘Humiliate you?’ I whispered, and glanced at Ms Tate, who was writing on the board.
‘Your boyfriend is up there. You should be sitting with him,’ Justin hissed.
‘I just want to—’
‘If you talk to me again, Lenah, about anything other than this assignment, I’m leaving the room.’
‘Hand me the litmus paper.’ Justin’s tone was icy. Silently I handed it over.
‘Seven,’ he said. ‘What’s yours say?’
I checked the colouration of the paper and then recorded our results. As soon as we finished, he scooped up the papers, dropped our classwork on Ms Tate’s desk and swiftly left. At the front of the class Rhode gathered up his pens and notebook. His jaw was clenched and he winced as he placed his bag on his shoulder. I followed him out of the room.
‘Rhode,’ I called quietly once he was out the door and a few paces down the hall. ‘Rhode!’ I called again, a little louder. He walked quickly down the hallway. I’d had enough of being treated like the Invisible Woman. ‘If you don’t turn around, right now, I’ll scream bloody murder.’
He turned on his heel and looked at me.
‘There was a vampire in a herb shop,’ I began. ‘Here in Lover’s Bay. I recognized her from Hathersage. The maid I killed before my hibernation. And she knows,’ I added, ‘about the ritual.’ I stood a foot or so away from Rhode and watched for his reaction. ‘Vicken and I wanted to tell you earlier, but you were unreachable.’
‘Were you hurt?’ he asked, keeping his stance the same, arms folded, back straight.
‘She’s already killed one friend of mine,’ I said simply. ‘She said she’d be back for the ritual.’
It was as though Rhode was having the conversation with me against his better judgement. He was respecting the Aeris’s demand that we stay apart, but surely he was allowed to speak to me?
‘She’s fashioned her nails to points.’ I gulped, imagining my flesh splitting in two from the strike of her fingers. Rhode brought a gauze-wrapped hand to his chin, nodded once and kept his eyes on my feet. ‘She created a coven. Vicken and I saw the ceremony ourselves.’
‘Five?’ Rhode asked.
I nodded, but couldn’t help myself. I had to know. ‘What happened to you?’ I asked. ‘You look terrible. What kind of fight did this? Was it because of the ritual?’
‘No, and I already told you it was nothing.’
‘You’re lying,’ I said in disgust.
‘I have to go,’ Rhode said, but before he turned completely away from me, he added, ‘We should meet tonight. About this coven. I’ll have Vicken alert you when and where.’ He walked a few steps and I listened to the echo of his heels on the floor. Anger bubbled up inside me.
‘You know,’ I called after him, just a little louder than my natural speaking voice, ‘it was always this way.’
He stopped, keeping his back to me. We were alone again now that the next period had started.
‘For hundreds of years, you were in control and I knew nothing.’
Rhode turned to me now, our eyes locked in a stare.
‘It’s true,’ I said, my voice faint. ‘I had other distractions, but it was always you who held the power. I loved you, so it didn’t matter.’
Rhode walked towards me until we were inches apart. This close, I could see the tiny hairs growing on his chin and the faint bruising along his jawline – bruises I hadn’t noticed before.
‘I don’t care about power,’ he whispered. He seemed to catch himself in a moment of real anger. He took a deep breath. ‘Always, always my thoughts were with you,’ he said in an angry hiss.
‘You kept me in the dark,’ I challenged. ‘Perhaps if I had known about the particulars of the ritual, I could have helped you. We wouldn’t be stuck, cursed by the Aeris with no possible way to be together.’
At the back of my mind I wondered why Rhode had said he would never have come back to Wickham, and where he was for the year he was gone. It kept nagging at me. What could possibly be a strong enough reason for him to stay away? Another secret, another truth he was keeping from me.
‘I told you, I didn’t know we would face these kinds of repercussions from the ritual,’ Rhode said.
‘You said a lot of things, Rhode. Made promises, which you have since broken.’ An image of my sister’s grave laced with jasmine flowers flashed into my mind.
‘Such as?’
‘I do not need to remind you. The point is that if I had helped you with the ritual, if you had told me what you were doing, we might have found another way. Maybe we’d have done things differently. You wouldn’t have had to fake your death,’ I dared to say.
‘I really do have to go,’ Rhode said. He looked at my lips and my anger dispersed. How quickly it evaporated into the air and away from me. We were so close. Close enough that our lips were just a kiss away. My body wanted it so badly that my muscles ached. His eyes, surrounded by those bloody bruises, gazed at me.
We’d never touched before. Not as mortals.
If he just leaned forward, he’d kiss me, lip to lip, skin to skin, and we’d know what it was like to touch. With human feeling. What we’d craved for hundreds of years. The Aeris wouldn’t mind. Would they? Just a simple kiss . . .
‘Can’t you feel that?’ I asked.
I looked up at him, peering into his eyes. I stared at the purple bruising, wondering if it still hurt.
‘Can’t you?’ I repeated.
In the pit of my stomach was a tornado of feeling, churning and spinning, pulling me towards him. I continued to stare at him, drinking him in. My feet were rooted to the ground, but I swayed just slightly. My body was on fire, the glorious feeling of blood racing through my veins and my heart. I extended my hand and watched him do the same. His hand, so different from the cool, smooth skin of a vampire, was now the weathered hand of a human. We stood like that for a moment, almost touching, enjoying the electricity be
tween us. I let every pore, every cell, feel the sensation of heat.
‘Yes,’ he answered at last, and dropped his hand.
It can’t be like this for everyone, I thought. Not everyone feels love like this.
Finally I took a tiny step towards him, but he stopped me.
‘We can’t,’ he said.
I didn’t want to come back. I had to. His words echoed inside me. I ripped my eyes away, and the space between us opened up.
‘You should leave. Permanently,’ I replied, looking at the ground. I took a step back. ‘If it’s such a torment to be near me. If you didn’t even want to come back, as you said, then go.’ Even as I said it, I knew I didn’t mean it. And Rhode was not so easily fooled.
He blinked slowly. ‘You know I couldn’t leave. Not now.’
My anger bubbled again. I swallowed hard. Rhode inched closer. I could breathe him in: soap, deodorant and his skin too. He smelt sweet, of humanity. He clenched his jaw as though he was fighting tears, and when our gaze met I saw that his eyes . . . were glassy.
‘Lenah,’ he said, drawing my eyes to his, ‘I stay because there is an extraordinary difference between thinking of you and seeing you in the mortal flesh. I stay for the one moment you smile throughout the day. Or to watch you run your hand through your hair. Because I must, must –’ his breath was short – ‘must be near you, in any way I can.’
I was speechless. I wanted to say something – anything. Tell him I felt exactly the same way, but I couldn’t stop him before he turned from me.
And then . . .
I was engulfed by the pungent smell of ripe apples. Apples everywhere. As though I was standing above a wooden crate holding dozens of shiny red apples from the September harvest. I shook my head to clear it, but the scent was so strong I was compelled to close my eyes to escape from it for just a moment. Images flooded my mind. A scrapbook of memories from my life ran through my brain, unstoppable.
Rhode and I are vampires. We kiss on the great hill at the foot of our stone manor. I wear a great black gown with a long train. It is moments before sunset. His hands press against my back, drawing me near. My skin has a porcelain sheen. My lips are rose coloured and I can see the points of my fangs. Why can I see myself? A hand holds a cane. I know that cane and its owl-head handle made of onyx.
I opened my eyes, shook my head and focused on my breath. In and out, Lenah, I thought. In and out. Slowly the images dissipated along with the scent of apples. The sound of Rhode walking away brought me back to the world of the present.
I must be near you.
My breath couldn’t catch up with me fast enough.
Rhode walked down the hallway, his words ringing in my mind and the smell of apples lingering on the air.
CHAPTER 9
‘It’s September third. We have twenty-seven days before the start of the month of Nuit Rouge,’ Rhode explained that evening.
As promised, Vicken had summoned me to the library after dinner. I stood at the glass window of a study atrium. From the back of the library we faced the great hill that led to the archery plateau. I tried not to follow the slope of the hill, especially since I intended never to go up there again. I doubted a vampire would watch from there, so exposed. There were no trees to hide behind and no cover of shadow. Vampires liked to watch and study their victims. By knowing their weaknesses, they could kill them with ease. I pressed my body weight against the glass, letting it cool my skin. I used to do that as a vampire to make sure I still retained some vestiges of my sense of touch.
I turned from the window to the two men of my past. Vicken leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. His brow creased and he kept his gaze on Rhode. Rhode sat at the table and rested his bandaged elbow on the study desk.
‘Why does Nuit Rouge matter?’ Vicken asked.
‘It’s when the connection between the supernatural world and the mortal world is at its weakest,’ I said. I could feel Rhode’s gaze upon me. ‘It’s why our Nuit Rouge party was always particularly bloody. Ever notice you felt stronger on those nights? More . . . animal-like?’
Vicken considered this with a frown. ‘Yes. I guess you’re right.’
‘Until October first, it’s unlikely Odette will be able to attack on the campus,’ Rhode said.
‘She attacked on the beach,’ Vicken said.
‘Technically it’s not within the grounds,’ Rhode replied. ‘The ritual was performed on campus more than once. It might be what called Odette initially, but it may offer us protection as well. The energy may be lingering, as a shield. At least until October first, when Nuit Rouge will endow her with extra powers.’
‘Brilliant. So in the meantime we’re prisoners in this loony bin,’ Vicken replied.
I ran a hand through my hair, massaging my scalp to relieve some tension. I finally met Rhode’s eyes. There was a zing in my chest as though he was touching something within me, very near my heart.
I wanted to tell him about Tony’s death and Justin’s defence of me. I wanted to explain how it felt when I was able to wield sunlight. But Rhode had not asked about the coven. He had not asked how they’d died. Again I reminded myself I still had no clue to his whereabouts the year before. He had revealed nothing.
‘Let’s go, shall we?’ he said. ‘I think we’ve covered everything.’
Vicken turned off the lights to the study atrium, bringing our meeting to a close. Rhode glanced at me just as we walked on to the courtyard in front of the library.
As his bruised eyes locked on to mine, I stopped short, inhaling the smell of apples again. But it was different this time. Now the scent was just like when I was a child. I brought my hand to my eyes and rubbed at them and brought with it the smell of cider in winter. In the black of my mind, I saw the geology classroom from that morning.
I am sitting at Rhode’s desk at the front of the room. I look up to the doorway and my chest clenches. I see myself walk into the classroom. I am wearing all black, my brown hair falling over my shoulders.
How can I walk into the classroom and sit at the desk at the same time? This is someone else’s vision. Someone else’s mind!
Beautiful, a voice says. A deep voice, a man’s voice. Someone is looking at me. I am aware of the pain in my hands, the cracking sensation whenever I move my lips. I have been in a battle.
It was all worth it, the person thinks. His whole body aches. But there is something else too. As I walk by, the person inhales deeply, hoping to smell something familiar. He grips on to his notebook so as not to lift a hand to touch me. Just looking at me hurts. This is painful. This love, he thinks, is so deep it cannot be undone.
A realization overwhelms me: I’m in Rhode’s mind. These are Rhode’s thoughts!
I blinked, breathing in the familiar smell of campus: the union, the cut lawns and of course the ocean. The sweet smell of apples had vanished as if it had never been. I took a moment to replay what I had just seen. I could see myself in geology exactly as Rhode saw me. I smiled at the green grass at my feet. He thought I was beautiful. This love is so deep it cannot be undone.
With the mechanical click of a lighter, and a plume of cigarette smoke, Vicken tugged at my elbow. Vicken did not fear my touch but Rhode did. With that realization, another burst of happiness pumped through me. Rhode wanted to touch me, but was resisting. I could feel the conflict within him during the vision. Hope rippled through me again as it had in the hallway that morning.
I stay because there is an extraordinary difference between thinking of you and seeing you in the mortal flesh . . . Because I must, must, must be near you, in any way I can.
‘We will always be in love,’ I said aloud.
‘Oh Lord. Let’s go,’ Vicken growled.
We headed across the courtyard and on to the main pathway.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘The star tower at the top of Curie.’ He called the science building by its official name.
Vicken puffed at his cigarette a
s a collection of junior girls passed by.
‘Hey . . . Vicken,’ one of the girls said, with a curl of her lip and a breathy tone to her voice. ‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ she added with a giggle. He walked backwards for a moment to maintain eye contact.
‘I heard it could kill me,’ he said, with his Cheshire Cat grin.
Another round of giggles and I rolled my eyes as we approached Curie.
‘One of them is jealous. She thinks I have a huge crush on you,’ Vicken said, and I rolled my eyes a second time.
‘Are you ever going to finish that cigarette?’ I asked.
He drew another puff. ‘I like to fully experience things that are bad for me.’
‘You know,’ I said, as he blew out the last breath of smoke, ‘contrary to when you were living your old life, those will actually kill you.’
Vicken exhaled angrily and stubbed his cigarette out on the brick of the building.
‘So will your friend Justin. This actually hurts,’ he said, and pointed at the yellow and purple bruise beneath his right eye. ‘I keep touching it to check. You know, it’s easy to forget physical pain when you haven’t felt it for more than a hundred years. Glorious.’ He brought his cheek towards me. ‘You touch it. I wonder if it feels different if someone else presses on it.’
‘You’re sick,’ I said, and ran my student ID through the scanner – just one of the many precautions introduced at Wickham Boarding School since Tony and Kate’s deaths.
‘I’m sick?’ Vicken said, following me into the building. ‘Need I remind you of the time you killed an entire beach party by yourself?’ He paused and we climbed the six flights up. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said between breaths. ‘It was brilliant.’
After an hour, the bright moon cast a milky light through the glass ceiling on to the observatory floor. We opened the roof windows, and instead of using the enormous telescope, Vicken and I admired the passing constellations with our naked eyes, lying on our backs on the floor. Even though the sun had descended only a couple of hours earlier, with every moment the sky darkened and more stars twinkled in the night sky.