Aiden sat next to her on the couch. “Are you okay?” he asked, staring at the floor.
“Yes. Are you?” Charlotte looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was just an accident.”
“I know.” He sighed. “Can you not mention the Lycan to my mum?”
“Mum is the word.” Charlotte giggled, always finding Aiden’s Gaelic accent charming.
Mrs. Price walked back into the room with a large, wooden box. She set it down on the ground, took out some herbs, and began crushing them in a small ceramic bowl. “This will have you fixed up in no time.” She worked the leaves into a fine pulp. “This is a remedy that has been in our family for generations.” She handed Charlotte a wet rag.
“Thank you.” Charlotte started mopping up the dried blood from her leg.
Aiden’s mother started to apply the green mush onto the wound. “Now this stuff will stop any stinging or aching you might feel, and it’ll completely take away any smell of blood. You know…just in case.” She smiled up at Charlotte as she finished. “You know we all trust Valek with our lives, but you can never be too careful around a Vampire,” she muttered as she started to wrap Charlotte’s leg in white gauze.
“What do you mean?” Charlotte frowned at her, stung by the slightly prejudiced comment.
“I meant no harm, dear,” Meredith said. “It’s just…very easy for them to lose control once they smell blood. They can’t always handle their instincts, if you know what I mean.” She dropped the subject and continued what she was doing.
Shocked, Charlotte refrained from any sort of reply. Nothing like that had ever come out of Mrs. Price before. How could she think Valek would ever harm her in any way? She forced a smile after Aiden’s mother finished with the dressing. “Thanks again.”
“Not a problem, love. Now you need to take this off right when you get home. Can you remember that?”
Charlotte nodded.
She bid Aiden and his mother a quick good night, and finally set off down the road toward her own house. The sun was far in the West now, the light swirling fusions of red and gold. It would only be a few minutes before it would set completely behind the mountains.
Charlotte made her way out of the suburbs and into the noisy town square. This was the time of day when it was busiest. The Elves were wrapping up their day shifts and returning to their families, while the Witches and other nocturnal creatures were arriving for another night at the taverns and shops. Charlotte tossed a hellar on the street near a self-playing fiddle.
She made her way down the narrow footpath up to the large home and quietly opened the front door. She peered inside, not sure if Valek was awake yet. It was dark and silent inside, and the evidence of a long day’s rest still lingered in every room. She hung her bag on the coat rack by the door, bypassed the library, and crept up the stairs to her bedroom. She really didn’t need to be quiet. It wasn’t like Valek could wake up because of any noise she made, but it felt respectful.
The window in her room was left open from the night before and a soft, early evening breeze made the translucent curtains billow inward like dancing spirits. Her entire room was white and delicate, with soft accents of light yellow. It looked like a room out of a doll’s house. Valek had created it for her. He always treated her like his doll, which was why it was impossible to imagine him as the monster Meredith Price described him as.
Charlotte peeled off the white blouse, damp jeans, and sneakers, and replaced them with a black dress with sleeves to her to her elbows, and a hem that fell just above her knees. She slipped on matching black flats and sat on the edge of her bed. This was the way Valek liked her to dress. Delicate — his doll. But it was impossible whenever she went out hunting for him. The less attention she drew to herself, the safer. She noticed the way Evangeline's friends had goggled at her the other night. She would be lying if she said it didn’t bother her.
She stared at the floor as Mrs. Price’s words echoed in her head. You can never be too careful.
“Oh!” She’d almost forgotten the bandage. She leaned over and slowly unwrapped the dressing to reveal a completely normal, unscathed leg. It felt as though nothing ever happened at all. Despite her questionable choice of conversation that evening, Meredith Price was an amazing healer.
Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte caught something small and gold glimmer faintly on her windowsill. A lightning bug had landed there. Funny. It was a little late in the year for lightning bugs. Careful not to scare it, she reached for a small, glass jar on her bedside table filled with pencils for her sketches. As slowly and quietly as possible, she dumped them on her bed and moved the jar over the tiny, twinkling fly until she was confident enough to lower the jar mouth and trap it.
It buzzed around inside, clinking against the sides of the glass in a pathetic effort to escape. Charlotte gingerly slid her hand underneath and turned the jar right side up to peer inside. The tiny thing continued to fly around feverishly. She found the top of the jar in her drawer.
“There,” she said when she secured it. “Valek will like you, I think. You’re like a tiny piece of the sun.” She smiled and set the jar back on the table.
Charlotte collapsed backward, glanced at the clock, and then stared up at the ceiling. 7:45. Time seemed to be moving at a glacial pace as her mind spun with too many thoughts. This was the first time in a while she felt like she had nothing to do, and the feeling was unwelcome. She continued to think — always a dangerous thing to do alone. And what most dangerous, was she continued to think about Mrs. Price and what she said about Valek.
She thought about the chapter in Vampire Anatomy she had opened up to last night; the pages on the daily death of a Vampire, and the scientific illustrations of the decomposing monster. Streams of warm sunlight depicted as poisonous rays — the punishment for eternal damnation by God.
She heard Mrs. Price's voice reverberate once more in her head again and frowned. Charlotte rose from her bed after a few minutes and decided to do something she hadn’t ever dared to do before. She wanted to see Valek, actually see him for what he truly was. Meredith’s insensitive comments left a million questions buzzing around in her mind, and she felt he was the only one who could provide any answers. After all, what about him was so awful he felt the need to hide it from her? Surely, death was not something as grossly depicted as it was in her book — something he needed to fight so hard to conceal. The hauntingly graphic images on the pages of her volume were not something she could accept without seeing the truth. She knew the rules and they were simple — stay out of his room unless he was awake. There must have been something more. Perhaps he truly was something monstrous, and she had merely been in denial all her life. Her mind instantly flashed to the vision of Valek wiping the blood away from his mouth the night before. But she wouldn’t focus on that now as she shoved the image to the back of her mind. Grabbing the lightning bug off her nightstand, Charlotte crept into the hallway.
Moving almost silently, a trait she picked up from so many years of living with a Vampire, she made her way closer to his bedroom. The large windows to her right painted long shafts of golden light across the dark, dusty hallway floor. She could see his door in the shadows, shut tight against the world, a few feet in front of her. She pressed her ear against the cool wood and heard nothing but the hollow echo of an empty room behind it. Charlotte’s heart continued to thud in her throat as she mentally braced herself for what she was about to see.