three
In the morning, Carlisle rapped his knuckles upon my door and called out to me. I swore to myself that it was merely his accent which made those three syllables of my name upon his tongue so pleasing to the ear. I granted him permission to enter, upon which point I saw he had brought a platter laden in breakfast.
I thanked him sincerely, and quipped, "Do all your guests receive such treatment?"
"Only those who so politely suffer through one of my monologues."
"You should know that I resent the insinuation that I suffered. Quite the opposite, I revelled in hearing your passions, and would have continued to listen had I not been so tired from the excitement of late."
Carlisle stood respectfully at the end of my bed. I split a roll of bread and offered him half, but he held up his hand, shaking his head. "I have already eaten today," he explained. "Besides, I am rather picky about food. Poor stomach. I rarely eat."
Limply, my hand lowered. I frowned. "And here I believed you when you said you were fond of feasts."
His brow smoothed, as if he recalled the words spoken between us in the study.
"Indeed, I am fond," he said slowly.
I looked at the bread on my platter. "I see."
Carlisle cleared his throat. "I would very much like to show you the rooms of the castle," he said. "Here in the west wing, if it would please you."
"It would please me greatly."
Upon hearing that I was willing to join him, he smiled; so beautiful was his smile it chased off all curiosities about his eating habits.
x
Carlisle led me through the great looming hall. It was a veritable labyrinth of large rooms with doorways sometimes connecting to smaller side-rooms, mostly filled with old furniture. Yet no dust coated the windowsills, no cobwebs strung from lamps nor drooped from chandeliers. All was clean and welcoming, a considerable feat given my host had been without staff for several days.
It was in one parlour that I noted a peculiarity: the curtains were drawn.
Pulling them apart, I peered out at the snow which Carlisle had promised to stand tall enough to disallow any travel. Indeed, he had not embellished. All around us were piles upon piles of snow which swallowed up the trunks of tall trees and heaped atop statues in the gardens, so that only the stone crown of cherubim peeped out between the white folds.
I heaved a sigh, and turned around to face Carlisle.
He stood at the other end of the room, his back almost pressed against the wall as if evading that bleach-white light so typical of winter.
I asked, "Does the light disturb you?"
Carlisle turned his head minutely. Once again, I sensed an uneasiness not unlike that which had occurred in the bedroom when I had attempted to stand only to suffer a sudden bout of dizziness. He had become stiff and distant. Here again he stood rigid and cold, far from me, though this time, he attempted a smile - it was watery and weak in comparison to those he had shown me only moments beforehand in the hall.
"I am not used to it. I prefer to read in the evenings, in much less well-lit rooms."
Then it struck me that he was quite right.
"Candlelight weakens eyesight," I said. "It is so feeble that it forces you to squint to better see your books. Natural light must seem blinding in comparison. You ought to attempt studying in better conditions, Carlisle, or your eyesight will suffer."
With curtains cinched, he unwound himself from his tensed position. "Is that my physician I hear?"
How easily he made me laugh! I was unable to linger on his eccentricities. Instead I wandered the room, brushing my fingertips across glossy walnut-wood dressers and lush armchairs. All the while, his eyes followed me, eyes which had grown blacker, I was sure of it.
But humour sedated me. I suspected he was amused that I had scolded a physician on matters of health and well-being.
I said, "I have not studied medicine to such depths as you, Carlisle, but it does not mean I am incorrect. You would do well to heed me."
No longer was his smile watery and weak. Neither was it beautiful and polite. No, it was a smile unfamiliar to me ere that moment between us.
It was wicked, coy, alluring.
"Rest assured, sweet Lydia, that there is no world in which I do not heed you."
x
Grief was like a wound which seemed about to fully heal until one absent-minded movement split the scab and set blood streaming once again. Carlisle was a wonderful distraction from the throb which arose whenever I thought of my grandfather or even my family at large.
Often I found myself on the brink of recounting some amusing tale from childhood, in which my grandfather had a starring role, only for my voice to quit on a certain syllable, and for tears to spring to my eyes.
One afternoon in the study, where it had become habit for us to sit and wile away hours upon hours together, such an event occurred. Carlisle sensed the emotion that swelled within me and politely offered his finest handkerchief, patterned in paisley.
"How many of your beautiful handkerchiefs have I spoiled?"
"Worry not for my possessions, Lydia," he said. "All that I own is yours as well."
"Yet again I wish I could return your kindness."
Carlisle turned to his book which lay before him on his desk. He flipped a page, took up his fountain pen, dipped it in his inkwell, and set about writing in the margin of the page. All while his pen scratched the page, he said, "Yet again I tell you there is no debt between us."
"Thank you. How sorrowful it will be when winter thaws and we part ways"
Ink blotched the page. He had slowed his hand and let its tip fall. He glanced over at me, his smile half-hearted and faint.
"Indeed," he said. "It shall wound me beyond all measure."
When his eyes met mine, for the briefest of seconds, I witnessed grief reflected in them; and it was grief, in its plainest, most unforgiving form, causing him to wince in pain. I wondered, then, if I had not been right in suggesting that Zeus had divided us, for it seemed Carlisle and I shared this wound, which flared and throbbed in me just as intensely at the suggestion of separating from him.
It startled me so much that I stood abruptly, bidding him goodnight and fleeing before he questioned the quickening of my breath and the sweat beading my brow.
x
That night, it was not a dream about that old, creaking carriage which stirred me from sleep. Rather it was a sudden thump in the hall. I jolted upward, heart alight, and clutching the bed-sheets around me. Though my legs were leaden and heavy, I stood from the bed and hurried to the door, pulling it open to peek out into the hall. All was dark and quiet.
I hesitated and then called out, "Carlisle?"
Never before had he left me unanswered. I tread a careful path to his study where candles burned and books remained open. But he was not there. I first suspected that he had ventured to the kitchens to freshen his teapot, but heard no clatter, no sounds at all from that end of the castle. I checked rooms at random.
In moments which follow fright, there is always a fraught, tenuous relief upon no further disturbances. One is lulled into a natural self-admonishment, assuring oneself that it was merely a breeze in these draughty halls which had tipped over a book, or it might have been the thump of a door swinging shut in that same frosted breath. I was succumbing willingly to these notions when I heard the heavy groan and churn of the wooden door opening at the entrance of the castle.
Had Carlisle gone outside? What could have drawn him out there where snow fell in darts, splitting the skin as brutally as any whip?
There were logs of wood aplenty in the hearths; food in the pantries, from what he had told me; all that was needed for an unusual pairing such as ourselves to survive in this isolated world. I continued toward the main hall of the castle, which connected all the wings, and where large doors led out into the front courtyard.
I had never left the castle and I was not dressed appropriately to do so, either. But I worried for Carlisle. Surely if he was not in the west wing, and I heard no other noise in the castle to suggest he was anywhere else, then that must have been him outside.
With a grunt, I heaved apart the doors and peeked out. Overhead yawned a stone arch which spared me an assault of needle-like snow hitting my skin, but it offered no protection against the cold, which nipped and bit at me like an angered wolf.
Though it seemed futile, I called out into that white whirl: "Carlisle!"
No division existed between cloud nor ground with all that white around me, and I dared edge forward. I was not at all dressed for the weather, but I had begun to think that he had gone out into that biting cold, and worried that he was trapped out there.
Something loomed behind me; the hairs on my nape rose and I let out a scream. It turned me around and caught hold of me by the arms.
"Lydia!"
Carlisle stood in front of me.
"Lydia," Carlisle said again, "what has taken hold of you?"
The fiery coils of fear were cooled at the sight of him. He encased my upper arms with a firm grip to anchor me. Laughter bubbled in my throat. How silly I had been to think anything untoward crept through the castle. My lips lighted with a smile.
Until I noticed a smear of blood on his throat, and another right under the hollow of his jawline, and my smile fell away.
"There is blood on you, Carlisle. Have you injured yourself?"
But I understood instinctually that it was not his own blood. There was no wound from which the crimson liquid could pour. And his eyes, so black before, shone now a pretty golden shade, the brightest that I had ever known.
"Your eyes have changed," I whispered. "It is not the light. It cannot be."
When he had grabbed me, I had taken hold of his shirt, and realised only in that instant that it was slashed across its front. There was blood, too, but again I was sure it was not his own. My eyes fell; so too did his own. I became aware of his dishevelment, so unlike himself that I further estimated I had disturbed him at a moment he was not anticipating it and he had not been able to prepare himself appropriately.
There was a dampness soaking his collar, his cuffs, and his entire pants to his knees seemed wet.
He had been in the snow after all.
But there was no smarting redness on his cheeks nor his nose. He was as pale as the hand which had reached through the carriage door to grasp hold of my ankle. He was as cold, too, as every other time that he touched me and as cold as that hand had been.
Cold and pale and -...
And so it dawned upon me, and prickled the hairs on my nape once more.
Carlisle had not answered me about the blood. It seemed that he, too, was aware of a dawning change between us. Fear flooded me, and its source was the differences in Carlisle; his eyes, his skin, his unexplained hold over me. The slamming of my heart against my ribcage was painful. Horror sealed my throat. I disentangled myself from him, moving ever more slowly away from him.
Pain rose in his eyes. "Lydia," he whispered, speaking my name for the third time, "recall what I told you when first you woke."
"Was it you? The creature that touched me in the carriage - so cold -..."
"I told you that I mean you no harm," he continued. "And I do not mean you harm, I swear it to you. I would never do anything to put you at risk. So I beg of you, please - …"
"Was it you?"
He stilled. "Please listen to me," he finished. "Please, Lydia -..."
"Speak my name no more! You have no right to it!"
Carlisle flinched as if I had plunged a dagger into his chest.
"Answer what I ask of you," I hissed. "Was it you?"
"No," he said. "But it was one of my kind."
In a cold whisper, I asked, "And what is your kind?"
"Vampire." His answer was soft, miserable. "I am a vampire."
Black spots assaulted my vision. There was a tinny whistle in my ears, which rose and rose in pitch. Nausea assaulted me and brought a hand to my stomach. Holding his hands in surrender, Carlisle inched forward the slightest step. I startled so badly at his closeness that I clipped my hip against a dresser and hissed at the sting of pain. It was dulled, instantly forgotten.
How could I care for so minute a pain when a vampire stood in front of me?
Perhaps maddest of all, I believed him.
Instinct forbade me from baulking at him. I believed him fully and that was what terrified me: that he had a power unknown, and an influence unknown. Was that the reason that I often felt myself lulled into a trance in his presence? Was he capable of controlling me? Had he plotted to trap me here?
"Have you brought me here to kill me?"
His response was immediate and passionate: "No. I repeat that I shall never harm you."
"But you could."
Torment stirred in his eyes. "Please do not fear me."
Hesitantly, I asked, "Why should it concern you whether I fear you or not?"
His laugh chimed hollow and cold. "Why should it concern me? You have spoken of an innate bond between us. Indeed, you have even compared it to Zeus splitting apart one soul and body, have you not?"
I was still stinging with fright and snapped, "What of it? It was made in jest."
"But it was not untrue," he countered. "Was it?"
Adrenaline finally seeped from me. Fatigue filled its place. "No," I said. "It was not."
"Do you fear me, Lydia?"
Trepidation coated his question and surprised me in its potency. He gazed upon me with similar uncertainty. He seemed in that moment more mortal and human than he ever had; chest risen, hands balled, so that I realised he was bracing himself.
Thus I considered what he asked and searched within myself for the answer.
And it was plain and simple and slipped from my lips so easily: "No."
He made no attempt to mask his contentment. His shoulders sank; his gaze grew soft.
"But I have questions," I said. "And I want honest answers."
"You shall have them. Shall we retire to the study?"
Carlisle offered his arm, as he had done each time before. Upon glimpsing anxiety on my face, his arm dropped immediately and he appeared shame-faced, lowering his head in acquiescence. No spear could pierce him more brutally than my reluctance to touch him; no knife could sink more savagely into his heart.
In the study, I had almost thought his pain transferred to me when I had said that one day we would separate.
Once again, in this hall, his agonies were mine; his torment, his sorrow, his woes, all were mine as he turned from me.
Nervously, I shifted my weight from foot to foot.
"Carlisle," I called.
Without facing me, he paused his steps and waited for further conversation. But I could not imbue in words what instinct had placed in my soul and so I strode forward to his side, whereupon I grasped his arm and linked with mine. His mouth was parted, his eyes alight.
He whispered, "Thank you."
So it was then that I learned, looking into his eyes, that all his happiness was mine as well.
x