"I can't."

Eugene looks up at Heli from where he sits at the table. A book lays open in front of him, its pages covered with symbols and swirling text.

"Can't what?"

"I can't live like this."

Eugene frowns. "You're getting better at completing sentences though. Isn't the spell getting weaker?"

Heli shakes his head. More aggravating than the muddled thoughts, the crushing pressure on his forehead has not let up in the least. If anything it's getting worse.

"Please take this off, it hurts so bad." He rubs his forehead, knowing full well nothing will remove the ink from his skin.

"I had an idea about that, actually," Eugene stands and places a hand on Heli's shoulder. "How would you feel about experiencing some of the things you missed out on in life?"

"Like what?"

"Sleepovers at grandma's."

So Heli finds himself staring at the door of a tiny cabin in the middle of the woods, left alone with the promise that Eugene would come back for him before morning.

He blinks at the door. What had Eugene done the last time they were here? He raises his hand and makes three hesitant knocks.

"Come in," a voice calls from the inside. He opens the door and steps inside.

Oma's home is as cluttered as ever, but unlike his previous visit, the air isn't pungent with garlic. Rather, there's a light citrusy scent. Oma smiles as she rises from her stool by the fire.

"Come, come, sit." She grabs his hand and leads him to the round table. "What's this on your face?"

She tilts his head in her hand as she studies the sigil.

"Eugene drew it," Heli explains.

"How does it feel?"
"Horrible."

Oma chuckles. "He tried to modify a seal used to bind negative energy. No wonder!"

"Can you remove it?"

"Of course."

Oma hums as she shuffles around the cabin, pulling various bundles of herbs from the walls. She lifts the kettle from its place near the fire and pours steaming water into a small bowl. A few leaves from each of the dried plants are crumbled and mixed into the water.

"A bit of rosemary ought to do it," Oma mutters as she works. "Perhaps some lemon balm, a couple dill seeds. There we go!"

It doesn't look like anything remarkable is happening, but Oma dips a small cloth into the mixture, and uses it to wipe the sigil from Heli's face. As she pulls her hand away, Heli can see it's stained with black ink.

The effect is immediate.

Heli lets out a sigh of relief. Along with the headache disappearing, he feels more alert and focused, like fully waking from a lucid dream.

"Oh!" Oma exclaims. "This is a curious development."

He takes that to mean she can hear his thoughts now. Her smile confirms it.

"That was such a nice emotion, and you're spoiling it."

"I don't know how to stop," Heli groans. "I mean, projecting everything. Thinking out loud. I don't even know how I'm doing it."

"You weren't able to do this before?"

"I don't think so," Heli pauses. Perhaps there had been a time or two it seemed like others had an usually appropriate response to something that had been on his mind, but not said out loud. Perhaps it was related to Lamia's uncanny ability to find him anywhere in the castle. Or the way they called to each other. But it was never anything to this extent. He had assumed it had been only Lamia's power he responded to.

"Think back," Oma says as she replaces the tea kettle back on the fire. "When did it start?"

Heli recreates the night at the disco, the loud music and the bright lights. Sitting outside with Viken, the unintended confession he'd made about desiring his blood and everything that had happened after.

Oma chuckles. "Our Viken is indeed vibrant and full of life. It's only natural someone like you would be drawn to him. He can be more than a handful though." She stokes the coals, sending a spray of embers up into the chimney.

"It wasn't Viken who started hearing me think, though," Heli says. "It was Eugene."

"Have you considered," Oma leans towards him. "That you're just happier?"

Heli gapes at her.

"If I were happy, they wouldn't all be complaining that I was making them feel anxious."

"Let me rephrase," Oma says. "Perhaps happy is not the word. You are more comfortable."

That may have been true but he still doesn't see the correlation. Maybe he had been more relaxed than usual after their night out, finally knowing that at least Jakah was safe, surrounded by friends on their way back to a cosy home. But they were also protected in the castle, and no one there had complained about being able to hear him think.

"You let your walls down," Oma explains. "You relaxed and thus." She claps her hands together and separates them as she lifts her arms into the air. "You opened your mind."

"So…" He pauses. "I should just be guarded all the time?"

"Goodness, no," Oma plucks two teacups from a shelf. "Constant tension is no way to live. It is good to relax."

She makes another round through the cabin for more herbs. The water in the kettle bubbles and she prepares a tea.

"What's in this?" Heli asks as she pours steaming liquid into each cup.

"There are many delicious herbs meant to purify," Oma says. "Unfortunate that you cannot drink them. This will be good for you." She pulls a small vial from a pouch tied around her waist and tips the contents into one of the cups and slides it to Heli. Deep red liquid swirls around in the honey-coloured tisane.

"Is this going to help?" he asks.

"With your mental woes? Not in the slightest."

He watches the steam rise and dissipate from the cup. He takes a tentative sip as Oma watches, a slight smile on her lips. Along with the iron flavour of whatever blood she dropped into it, there's a hint of lemon, and a sweetness. He vaguely recollects drinking something sweet and warm on a cold winter's night, but the full memory is long eroded.

"It is not good to put up so many walls," Oma says. "But without them, your resting state is just an open door. What you need to do is figure out how to close it."

A door? With something to visualise, Oma's theory makes a little more sense. If he can just close himself off, then the leak would stop, and his current problem solved.

"I did not say to close off completely," Oma smacks the back of his hand. "Do not create another wall. You have been blessed with many gifts, it would be too shameful to waste them."

"I'd hardly call myself blessed," Heli retorts, earning another slap on his hand.

"A door." Oma repeats, emphatically.

Alright then. He pictures doors. The heavy wooden double doors of the orphanage is the first that comes to mind. He hardly wants to associate himself with that place after all these years. He instead summons the image of the castle's door. Equally tall and thick, but carved with ornate figures.

Smack

"Why are you making it so heavy?" Oma says. "You must be able to open it as well."

"Why?"

"So the thoughts can go in or out, as you wish."

He frowns but switches his mental image again. The front door of the little cottage. The door of Viken's room. This one slams shut in his face. He sighs. He can feel the tension in his body as he holds the mental door closed. He relaxes his limbs and it swings wide open again.

"I felt more relaxed just having a wall."

Oma takes a sip from her cup. "You've spent so much of your life this way, with the feeling like you're standing on a precipice, ready to fall at any time. So much that your body thinks this is normal. Which is why you must learn to relax, with that door closed."

As far as Heli understands, Oma is telling him to change his entire disposition. Of all the impossible things he's been asked to do, this one really tops them all.

But he isn't going to give up. He'd been able to accomplish everything else until now though. There was no reason he couldn't do this as well. At least Oma isn't threatening to throw him out into the sunlight.

Oma refills his cup as she watches in silence.

If he can just hold the mental image of the closed door, and little by little let the tension go. Eventually the image dissolves into just a feeling, something he can summon as the need arises.

"You've already made quite the improvement," Oma says. "You're getting quieter."

"Still not enough though," Heli mutters.

"Enough? You've come along a lot further than I expected for one night. It's not an easy feat, retraining one's mind, even this much is incredible."

"The others don't even want to be around me lately because I made them uneasy. I don't want to always feel this way."

"You carry sorrow in your soul like Atlas with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Just who is all this grief for?"

Heli stares. Grief? He runs through a mental checklist of the people in his life. Is it himself he feels sad for? The six other boys whose lives all but ended the day he wandered into Lamia's tent? The children Lamia sacrificed?

The shadow of someone else flickers in his mind's eye, but the more he tries to focus on the thought the blurrier it becomes.

"I don't know how to let it go," he says.

"Perhaps you shouldn't. The same as that curse of yours, perhaps it is a burden you deserve. It points to something that cannot be taken back, and should not be forgiven."

Her tone isn't harsh, but phrasing it like this still hurts. How can she say he deserves such a curse, when he thought he had been doing everything possible not to hurt others? Not knowing who placed it on him leaves the nagging additional question of why.

"Didn't you just tell me to relax?"

"Different problems, dear. You have too much weighing on your soul, yes, but let's just worry about containing your thoughts."

A comment Viken had made replays in his mind.

I thought it was because vampires are soulless.

"Oma," Heli starts.

"Yes, dear?"

"Isn't it true that vampires don't have souls?"

Oma puts down her cup and folds her hands on the table. "Do you not think and feel, all the same things as you did before?"

"Yes, but…" he trails off.

"Vampires are monsters who kill without remorse and who drink the life from their victims. They push away their own heart, suppressing everything good in their souls until nothing that made them human is left."

Heli stares down at his empty teacup. Oma places her hand on his arm.

"You still have your heart. It's wounded, but whole. You should take care to protect it." She leans back in her seat and turns towards the crackling fire.

"How do you know so much? About vampires, and everything?" Heli asks.

Oma smiles. "The wisdom that comes with old age. You're still young, but one day you'll understand."

"I'm not young," Heli says.

"Of course you are. You don't get to call yourself old until you're also one hundred and three." She chuckles.

Oma finishes her tea as she sits by the fire, watching the flames burn down into glowing coals. Her eyes drift close and she nods off into sleep. Heli lifts the old woman and carries her to the bed. As he pulls the quilt over her, she grabs his wrist.

"Many years ago, I met an old German doctor," she says, her eyes still closed. "He had a particularly strange tale about some boys in an orphanage. When he described it, it seemed to me something supernatural, in fact."

"What did he say?" Heli whispers. Could she have met Dr. Himmel? He doesn't want to keep her awake, but he's afraid she'll fully succumb to slumber before finishing this story.

Her words are growing slower. "I told him I was interested in whatever research he had on the matter, and he gave me the complete notes. A strange case it was, a blood disease he'd never before seen, and had never seen again. And his greatest regret, losing the boy who had assisted him to complete some of the work."

Her grip loosens and her breathing deepens.

"Oma, please tell me what happened to him. Where is the notebook now?"

"What he had was the same across much of the folklore I'd also found through many years of search. Truly a fascinating topic." She pats his hand. "Don't go too close to the fire. I understand you're quite flammable."

He implores her for more, but she's drifted away. He can tell by the flicking under her eyelids that she's fallen asleep and dreaming. He draws the little curtain that encircles the bed and eyes the rest of the room. Was it possible his notebook was here? The cabin has grown dark so he places another log in the fireplace. He's not particularly concerned about the flames as he doesn't actually need to approach the fireplace to add wood into it, but he's careful to keep a good distance from the rising embers nonetheless. In the renewed light he scans Oma's shelf of books until he spots a familiar black spine.

The last time he had seen it, it was fresh and sturdy, the pages firmly bound. Now the pages are creased and worn, the edges full of small tears and the wear of fingers flipping through them, over and over through the years.

His own handwriting graces the pages, his account of everything and the lists of observations.

Anaemic…diseased…normal.

Now it's also annotated with another hand, one he assumes to be the Doctor's. Next to the numbers in the diseased columns, he added names.

Jakah, Solon, Shion.

After the familiar notes are more additions, dated from the days following the fire.

Remains of children found in sick room exhibit signs of having already been deceased before the fire was set. No trace of those who "survived" the illness - very unusual.

I suspect they have escaped.

He traces over Dr. Himmel's words, his theories, and his hope to solve the mystery of where the diseased boys may have disappeared to. He glances over at the curtain behind which lies Oma's sleeping form. She had to have known the connection between him and Dr. Himmel, why else mention it?

At the same time, he wonders why it matters anymore. He places the notebook back on her shelf and takes a seat on the three-legged stool by the warmth of the fire. Everything in those notes he'd already told Taho.

Perhaps she'd heard his desire to know about what had happened to Dr. Himmel.

Perhaps it was just a vague association surfacing in her mind as she fell asleep.

He adds another log into the fire and lets his mind wander as he gazes into the flames.

He'd come here to sort out his current problems.

For the rest of the night he envisions doors, opening and closing again, and the feeling that accompanies. If he wants to actually be able to relax, he's going to have to figure out how to close off his thoughts without actively thinking about it.

Oma awakens before dawn.

"You've made good progress," she remarks, filling the kettle for her morning tea. She instructs Heli to clear the dishes from earlier in the evening, and by the time he's finished that there's a rapping on the door.

Heli opens it to see Eugene.

"How'd it go?" he asks.

"Wonderfully," Oma calls. "I think you'll find him much improved."

"I can tell," Eugene smiles. "I can still kinda hear you, but it's more like a faint, unintelligible whisper."

Still a work in progress, but Heli's relieved.

"Is there anything you needed, Genie?" Oma asks.

Eugene shakes his head. "Just came for the kid before it gets light."

"I'm not a kid," Heli mutters.

"In terms of life experience, you're younger than Viken."

The trip back is fast, which is lucky for Heli as the sun is quickly rising. As they turn down the narrow road leading to their cottage, Eugene suddenly stops.

"The bloody hell is this…?" he mumbles and rolls down the window.

Heli can hear a voice from outside.

"Explain yourself! What were you doing out in the middle of the night?"

He recognises the voice of the butcher's wife. A chorus of agreement rises from behind her.

"None of your business! What are you doing in front of my house at the break of dawn?" Eugene answers.

"We don't want your sort in our town."

"I heard they keep devils in their house," someone shouts.

"That's absolutely absurd," Eugene lets out a laugh.

"My son and his friends were attacked by one of them."

"Eugene, that's-" Heli starts, but Eugene raises a hand in motion for him to stay quiet.

"Please listen to yourselves. And get out of my way," he says. The van rolls forward, just a bit. There's banging on the side of the door.

"Red eyes he said! Dressed in black robes!"

"Get lost!" Eugene shouts, and lays on the horn.

The banging stops and he's able to pull into the drive, though the shouting behind them doesn't cease. He parks and turns to Heli.

"We were having such a nice morning weren't we?"

"Eugene, they were-"

"Stop. Don't apologise," Eugene says. "This isn't your fault, and it's not Viken's fault, and it's not anyone's fault other than the people standing out there who think it's alright to harass us. Got it?"

Heli nods. "Yes, but I think she-"

"Good, then let's continue having a nice day."

The projector screen has returned when Heli steps downstairs. It's fully set up and this time Taho and Jakah are fighting with a different contraption. Unlike the slide projector, this one has turning reels that Taho is trying to thread a length of film through. He smiles when he spots Heli enter the room.

"I know we said we'd go to a cinema, but with the mob at the end of the driveway, it's probably not a good idea for you to go out for a while."

"What's this then?" Heli asks.

"A movie projector. I know it's a little old, but Viken dug it out of the cellar and it still works."

"I used to have one back in the '40s," Jakah is grinning. "I'm excited, these were so fun."

"You're all stuck in here?" Heli's caught up on the fact that the townspeople still haven't left.

"Eugene and Soule went out to the city earlier, but they had a hard time. You, him and Viken are on something of a house arrest though," Taho nods towards Jakah. "Don't worry about it too much, they'll get bored and give up eventually. Soule just thinks you should lay low and not add any fuel to the fire so to speak, until then."

That seems reasonable enough, and Heli hopes it won't be too long.

"MOVIE NIGHT!" Viken screams as he flies down the stairs, skipping steps. Avys is close behind him. "What are we watching? Got any good snacks?"

"I got some of that toffee popcorn you like," Soule says from the kitchen. "The market today was a mess, no one had any bread..."

"Oh!" Viken grabs Heli's arm and pulls him into the kitchen. "Remember when you said the blood we got was more like jelly?"

Heli nods.

"It made me think of those Dracula ice lollies, so I thought, wouldn't it be funny if they were made with real blood? And then I thought, how hard could it be to make? But then I realised, I don't have any way to taste test them. At least, not if I wanted it to be a surprise. But then I asked-"

"Did you try to make blood lollies or not?"

"Of course," Viken grins. "Well, I definitely tried, anyway. Jakah gave me some ideas for the flavour, but, er, it might be better to eat it with a spoon."

He reaches into the freezer and pulls out a plastic lolly mould in an orange tray. Inside the translucent plastic is black with smears of red, a noble attempt to create a blood confection frozen in candy coating.

"I'm sure it's good," Heli grins back. "I really appreciate the effort."

They settle back into the living room with their snacks as Soule flips off the light. The glow of the fireplace embers cast an orange light across the room. Jakah grabs one of Viken's ice lollies from the tray.

"What are we watching?" Avys asks again.

"Listen," Taho starts. "Our choices were a little limited. Full length films are expensive and also I couldn't find all the reels for a couple of them."

"Alright, so what do we have?" Avys continues.

"We also don't have anything that plays sounds."

"Just play it already," Eugene interjects. "You're stalling now."

"Okay," Taho flips on the motor, then the lamp. Several black lines flicker by, followed by the opening title card. Taho adjusts the focus and the words become clear. "I hope it's not weird that it's a vampire movie."

"A Symphony of Horror," Jakah reads. "I remember this one!"

"You've seen this before?" Heli asks.

Jakah nods, a drop of melting blood rolling down his chin. "I went to see it with Shion and Noa. We probably went to every vampire film that came out, actually, to see how much they got right."

"Is it scary?" Avys asks.

"No, it's pretty hilarious."

The characters come of life on the screen, interspersed with static screens of written dialogue. There's only a few minutes in when Viken complains about the complete lack of sound.

"If you had anything nice in your record collection I'd suggest that," Eugene grumbles through a mouthful of toffee popcorn.

Instead, Viken starts humming to himself, earning a pillow thrown at him from Eugene. Heli doesn't mind the soft hums of makeshift music, but it almost doesn't matter because in addition to the noise of the turning motor and flickering of the winding film, Jakah is wheezing.

"Look!" He leans into Heli in his laughter. "They called that a wolf but it's a hyena! A hyena!"

His giggles continue even through tense scenes, which may be ruining the suspense. He stops when one character rises from her bed, clearly sleepwalking.

"This kinda looks familiar doesn't it?"

Heli elbows him in the side. "I don't want to talk about it."

Jakah is quieter as the film progresses. Soule looks like he's about to leap up and run, and even Viken jumped once. Watching them is just as entertaining as the movie. Though some parts of it are eerily similar to his own life, other things are just as goofy as Jakah's uncontrolled laughter.

Either way, he's enjoying it. Viken's homemade confections are falling apart but they're sweet and surprisingly delicious. He glances over at Viken sitting on the rug next to him. He can feel a quiet energy emanating from him, and he reaches out to it.

Viken

Viken jumps for the second time.

"I thought you'd gotten a better handle on that mind thing," he hisses.

This is on purpose.

Viken shakes his head. "So is the light mood in here you, too? You should have just felt this way all the time, we wouldn't have had a problem."

Heli smiles. Viken is right. For the first time, in perhaps ever, he's not worried about the future, not anxious about where he's going to go next. Even though he wishes he knew where the others are, or what had happened, he's not thinking about that now. Jakah is here, and whole, and they're surrounded by people who care about them, passing the rainy evening in an exceedingly pleasant way. Even if it's only temporary, a bit of his melancholy lifts away.

For the first time, in perhaps ever, he might actually be able to say he's happy.