To everyone who has messaged me and commented about updating... here it finally is! I played heavily with mythology and folktale in this chapter, and I sincerely hope my tweaking does not offend anyone. I'm trying to give Gee a vibrant origin, and I think I've created something that should fit. And I know it seems very mystical and supernatural, but we are dealing with a world of coexisting vampires and humans here! I apologize in advance for leaving you high and dry at the end of this chapter, but things will probably start off well in the next chapter as a result (; I hope everyone enjoys! Your comments, favorites, and follows seriously keep me going... ***A recent comment actually inspired me to get this chapter up... So PLEASE comment, it makes me so happy and willing to keep going!***
Being kept in a room for an innumerable amount of hours really brings the word 'prisoner' to reality. Without any windows or clocks, I had no way of knowing how many hours were dwindling away. The silver door had been locked at some point during my many naps, and no one really came to rescue me. I wasn't expecting anyone to—but the fantasy brought some color to the dire situation. I could imagine the doors flying open behind Eric as he stood for me with waiting arms. If only.
Whether or not it was a good idea, the time did allow me to hone whatever ability it was that hid deep inside me—buried someplace between my brain and my toes. I would drag my fingers along the spines of the books on the wall opposite the bed; every once and a while I would feel a twinkle in my eyes. With each book that sent that rush of electricity, I pulled it from the bookshelf and pressed the pads of my fingers into its pale pages. Sometimes I got nothing, but other times I could feel its last holder, and see his fingers speedily pass through pages.
But instead of grabbing a book whose glimpses of the past I could see, I took one that I got nothing from. I opened its cover and saw an ancient, foreign type I couldn't recognize. I pressed my hand flat on the title page and saw nothing. I closed my eyes, clenched them shut, and pressed my hand down hard on the page. Nothing.
I didn't understand why Eric allowed me to build some control over my ability; it didn't make any sense. Perhaps it was because we shared a connection now because he fed me… I did not know. But he gave me a power I had never had before, and the lack of vulnerability he gave me made my heart surge and thump hard in my chest. Ironic, I thought. A deadly vampire made me feel safe from the rest of the world.
Thinking of him, I saw a field before me. The rug was no longer flat, ornate patches of red, gold, and blue, but instead rugged tufts of bright green grass. I reached out with the hand that wasn't touching the book; I felt the sharp but soft blades on the palm of my hand. Several feet from me—where the bookshelf stood in reality—I saw a tall spruce tree waver in the wind. Its branches were covered in dense needles that looked nearly blue in the overcast weather. The same breeze that shook the spruce brushed through my hair and sent ripples through my blouse. I looked behind me, no longer seeing the bed or the armoire or anything else that had once been in the chamber in which I was locked.
My eyes drew up toward the sky as the sun sunk speedily into the horizon and night lurched into the air. Seconds passed and the sun came again, then the night, then the sun. The days flew by and the weather cooled; I felt the seasons changing gradually around me. I turned quickly when I heard the rattle of wood sound behind me. One middle-aged man in woolen clothing dismounted from a horse that carried a cart, and another younger one jumped from the cart. They both drew axes from the back of the cart and walked toward the tree. Both walked through me as though I were only a shadow in the open field, and they set to chopping down the spruce.
"Se Dex me gart, vuel savoir!" The younger man exclaimed. Their words sounded vaguely French, but I was unsure. I'd only ever heard French-Creole, and that hardly sounded like what they were speaking. Judging by their knee-length tunics and linen caps, it did not appear as though these men were from the modern era. Was I seeing the past of what I touched? The book?
I remembered from junior high school a science teacher had told us books were made from the wood pulp of mostly softwood trees, like the spruce tree. Is this the origins of the book in my hands?
"Georgina," I heard a familiar voice call from another plane. I looked around and wondered if the voice came from this world or that of the past, but the two workers did not seem to hear it.
I dropped the book and met reality again, opening my eyes to Eric's—who was leaning over me and studying me.
"Christ's nails, Eric!" I squealed, shocked by his instant closeness. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. "Lord forgive me for takin' His name in vain."
"What did you see?"
"Did you even care to knock?" I asked. His silence hinted at the answer. "You really have a problem respectin' people's privacy, Eric."
"I was actually hoping to walk in on you doing something private."
"What is wrong with you?"
"Do you have to use the bathroom?" Eric asked like he would ask a child he was given care of. I shook my head; whenever I did have to go, I would knock at the door and a tall man would lead me down the hall. In what I estimated was five hours ago, I had harassed the guard and asked to go six times in one hour.
"What do y'want, Eric?" I asked him petulantly.
"To get answers out of you that you won't give to Russell," Eric replied in a hushed voice, as though he didn't want anyone to hear. The doors were nearly seven inches thick and surely soundproof, but still he whispered his response.
"Why would I be givin' you answers?" I asked, raising my brow.
"Because I am the only one who's going to get you out of this house, and I want to know what you are before I let you out into the world," he stated.
"You know I don't know what I am, Eric," I said peaceably, catching his eyes. "But I suppose if y'want to get as much as you can out of me, that's fair. Can y'get a game or something? I'm as bored as a nun locked up in here."
"That ain't a word!" I exclaimed, looking at what Eric had laid down on the Scrabble board.
"Yes it is," Eric laughed lowly.
"Chutzpah?" I asked with incredulous eyes. I sighed complacently. "Fine. Serves me right for playin' Scrabble with a thousand year-old vampire."
"Georgina, answer my last question," Eric ordered, and I now sighed with exhaustion.
"What was it again?"
"Can you do what Sookie does?"
"Read minds, y'mean?" I asked and he nodded. "No, I can't do none of that thankfully. It's only the touching."
"Dimension and time traveling?"
"Come on now, it ain't time traveling! I can just… read the past of things and sometimes—sometimes—bring it to life like you've seen," I said, looking at the board when a slight blush rose to my cheeks; for every time he'd seen it, it was when we were relatively intimate. I refocused on my tiles and laid down 'ibex.'
"You're not bad at Scrabble," Eric responded to my move. "I'm just much better."
"You're too humble."
"Is it just touching that brings images?" Eric asked.
"No," I shook my head. "It ain't. Sometimes I can communicate memories and senses… And I usually don't mean to. But I can put scary things in people's heads—or pretty things, sad things, I s'pose. I usually just do it when I'm desperate."
"Like what you put in Pam's mind?"
"Pam told you that?" I asked with wide eyes. He only smiled as though I were a fool for believing Pam would keep something to herself. "Well, I don't even know what that was. It was some ancient memory—like a book never checked out in a library. And I don't even think it's mine, y'know. I don't know what it was or where it's from."
Eric held out his open palm. "Can you give it to me?"
I laughed. "You know it don't work like that, Eric. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to give it to you."
"Just try," he urged, inching his hand closer. I pursed my lips before reaching out, letting my small hand tentatively land in his. I felt his fingers twist around mine and tighten into a secure hold of hand. I closed my eyes and focused, steadying my brain. I felt like I was riffling through files, lost amongst flying papers. How did I get the memory of the book? I asked myself. The answer was thinking of Eric.
And so I opened my eyes and the moment our pupils met something lurched into my head; the file revealed itself. The beautiful creatures died and drained; blood and tears pooled as one and met the earth, yielding wildflowers of reds and oranges and purples and pinks. Eric's hand tightened on mine when a wail ripped through the air; it was beautiful but so painful my chest hurt with the ache of approaching tears. I won't cry in front of him, I thought, and the memory washed away.
Eric abruptly stood, sending his chair flying backward behind him. The Scrabble pieces knocked against one another and skidded across the board. He turned around and set his hand on the mantle. I heard the rock crunch lightly under his grip.
"What's wrong?" I asked, standing up from my seat.
"That is not your memory," Eric answered. He turned around and looked at me, and a hint of sorrow shadowed beneath his long, fair lashes. "I've been told that story before."
"Story?"
"It's a chronicle—an account. Very few know about it, and it's not recorded in mythology; it's hardly recorded at all. But it happened around the birth of Christ, occurring long before I was even born."
"Then how do you know about it?"
Eric hesitated before answering: "Godric. He was there for it."
"What happened in it?"
"It's a long story, but I'll still start from the beginning," he sighed. "Manannán was a sea deity from ancient Ireland, and his wife was Fand, the Faerie Queen. Fand came from an otherworldly island, later to be made the Isle of Man. Their children lived beneath the land in palaces. The druids believed they caused all the ruckus in the universe—toying with the sea and rainfall, playing tricks on farmers, making the earth shake above them. The people believed they made nightmares and dreams, false hope, ambition, agony, suffering, and sorrow. Fand was called the Tear of Beauty before she was called Faerie Queen, and she put darkness in her children—"
"Eric, this just sounds like a myth—"
"It starts that way, but listen to me and don't interrupt. The children of Fand and Manannán were the water fae. Their palaces beneath the land was only a human attempt to explain their operations on a different dimension," Eric explained, but I still felt great doubt for this tale. "This is only one of the origin stories—the one Godric told me. Myths about water creatures exist in every ancient culture—the naiades and sirens in Greek, the Nine Daughters of Ægir in Norse, Morgens in Celtic, the Neck in Germanic, the Camenae in Roman, rusalki in Slavic… they are a golden thread through every ancient mythology. And they were real."
"Eric, this is crazy."
"Anymore crazy than a vampire? A werewolf?" He questioned me. I opened my mouth at that, but nothing came out. "You have no idea what else is out there. And the water fae are something that existed once."
"Then what happened to 'em?" I asked, biting the inside of my lip.
"Humans," Eric glowered. "Drained them of their blood and tears. Have you ever heard of the Fountain of Youth?"
My eyebrows furrowed in thought, but I remembered something from some history books left behind by Gran that I had perused. Spanish conquistadors looting and burning and conquering for gold, diamonds, slaves, and youth. "Ain't that the mythical spring all the conquistadors searched for but never found?" I cracked my head for answers, then made a revelation. "Ponce de Leon!"
Eric smiled at me like a teacher smiles at a student who correctly answered a question. "Good. But it predates Juan Ponce de Leon… All the way back to five thousand years before the birth of Christ. Chronicles, poets, explorers, narrators, storytellers, discoverers all thought it was somewhere, but it never was. It was someone. The tears and blood of the water fae were salvation, immortality, eternity, and joy. And no one realized this but one man, and his name was Cú Chulainn. He was an Irish hero; a demigod by Irish folklore. His destruction of the water fae is hidden in a story from the Ulster cycle, one of the four cycles of Irish mythology. The story is called The Sick-Bed of Cú Chulainn, in which Cú Chulainn shoots down Fand and one of her daughters disguised as birds so he may make a beautiful cloak for his wife. Fand and her daughter survive, then beat Cú Chulainn with horsewhips as punishment. However, Fand's daughter returns and asks for his assistance in battle; in return, she promises him good health and longevity. Cú Chulainn agrees and assists Fand's daughter in her request, but when he is finished he captures her and all her siblings. He ties them to stilts of wood and drains them of their blood and tears until they are leather-skinned skeletons. From their tears bloom flowers, and from their blood blooms eternal life."
I had sunken quite a distance downward in my chair by the time Eric finished his story, but did not notice my posture when I met his eyes again. They appeared hard and cold, like the ice they resembled so closely in color. "In school they teach you about people from past worlds, y'know—ancient religions, primitive peoples they say some of 'em, and others quite complex," I said, mindlessly letting words fall from my mouth. My voice was only a mouthpiece to consciousness now. "But it all feels so very removed. Like none of it never happened, and like no one ain't never believed in it. That's why I like you folk."
"Us folk?" Eric clarified.
"You've seen everything. I mean I liked history classes in high school, but one of you's like a living, breathing book," I stood up, taking a step toward him. "Just spittin' out memories from a couple hundred years ago like they happened yesterday. Y'all are so…"
"Immortal?" He offered.
"No… Natural," I shrugged. "You're as natural as the ocean. Never-ending, abiding depths, stories ain't no one never heard of or looked at. I'll tell you—I don't know what those Godforsaken churches claimin' you're things of the Devil are talking 'bout, but I can't think of a creation made by the Lord more beautiful and incredible than your kind. And I know what I told you—that the lives that end are the most beautiful. I still stick to that, but I'll be damned if their ain't somethin' near holy about what you are. It is heavenly."
Eric reached out his arm only half its length. I hadn't realized how closely I'd drawn to him, and he pulled me toward him by the elbow with ease. I felt his hand on my forehead—his palm landing on my eyebrow. I hadn't the nerve to meet his eyes, but I could feel him sinking into me; he was achingly present.
"You should have met him," he stated vaguely. His hand quickly dropped to my jaw and tilted my head upward. I had no choice but to look at him directly.
"Who?" I asked quietly.
"Godric," he answered. "He had faith in the human race through all his years. You're why."
No longer did I feel fear to in greeting his eyes. I saw his bottom lids redden with the onset of blood. His pallor always contributed to the pinkness beneath his eyes, but now I saw he neared great sorrow at the thought of Godric. He looked down at the ground between us and I saw the Adam's apple of his throat barely waver. Fuck whoever says vampires can't feel, I thought.
Just enough for one tear of blood curled into the cave between the bridge of his nose and his right eye. Courageously, I reached out my thumb and swiped it away. I pulled away my hand and looked at the bead of blood that built into a round droplet right on the curve of my finger.
I brought my thumb to my lips and let the blood meet my tongue. It may have been a strange reaction, but it didn't matter to me. I knew it was what I wanted to do, and slowly I fell into a spell of listening to myself. For a moment it was just him and I, and when I felt his mouth on mine that credence persisted.