Mourning the Silence

Her steps were soft on the solid brown earth and her hair glittered with pins as it was lightly tossed by the wind. I easily snuck behind her and bent down to her ear. “What are you doing here all alone, Aislin? The garden isn’t much anymore.” She turned and came face to face with me.

She yelped, “Oh!” She fell backwards onto a bench, the white gown spilling around her.

I laughed softly. “Careful now. Didn’t expect me here did you?”

She shook her head, “No.”

“Well someone’s got to watch over you besides that creature…” I was agitated because of the werewolf that fate had sent to take her in. I was tired, worn, but I still felt triumphant, as if there were still some hope left. I was dressed in all black silk and calf-high boots, to blend with the shadow. Smugness lifted a corner of my mouth and I came to sit beside her on the bench. The bench was small so, in order to fit, I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. It felt nice sitting here, in the quiet, oblivious to the rest of the world. It seemed almost human in a way, even though we lived in a strange society of creatures and men. It was certainly a welcome change. I smiled and relaxed.

I looked at her, after a long silence, curious. “Did you know I was here?”

She met my eyes, smiling. “No.”

“Shame.” I smirked and pulled a strip of cloth tucked in my belt. “Close your eyes…”

“What?”

“Close your eyes, Aislin.” I sighed but wasn’t annoyed, “Must I say it again?” I reached over and tied the cloth over her eyes, blindfolding her. “There.” She reached for my voice but my hands on her shoulders steadied her. “Now...follow me.”

I helped her stand, gripped her hand. “Where are you…?”

“No, no, no—you’ll have to see.” My voice was light and amused. “I won’t let anything hurt you.” Her heartbeat fluttered wildly in her chest and she gasped. My step was purposeful and patient. I followed the stone path and focused on the familiar feeling of cool stone beneath me. For the last few days, it felt as if I’d been standing on thin ice, about to fall, so this comforted me. I led her off the path, near the garden, to a patch of dry grass. She was giddy and her heart sounded as if it would burst, her grip on my hand was secure. In the sea of darkness in which she was thrown, I was her lifeline.

She sat with me and tried to find my face. I squeezed her hand. “I’m here.”

“Where—?” A cold finger to her lips stopped her.

I leaned in to whisper in her ear. She shivered involuntarily. “Just listen, little lark. You need a little solitude—listen to yourself, let that be your song to dance to tonight.”

She smiled and took a deep breath, concentrating. I could hear the crickets, the flapping of some distant bird, people chattering…so soft, so distant. My finger drifting along her jaw. My voice floated through her, a whispering wind through the leaves of her mind. “Closer, Aislin…look a little deeper,” My hand drifted to her collarbone, tracing a faint scar along the skin—a symbol of innocence, of gentleness of character and patience under suffering.

Her face looked surprised but then turned contemplative. I chuckled softly. “Just imagine you’re by yourself.” I said. She sat there in angel’s robes, her eyes blindfolded against the shadows. The silk was dark against such wan skin. I focused on the notes, strummed my harp. The notes, so soft, sung across the bleak atmosphere, into the night. They were for the girl—my fate was already sealed. Sometimes I was still surprised to see the pale sheen of my skin, the dark circles under my eyes. Unearthly beauty. Like the flower opening to reveal a cobra, this strange new image would woo prey to me, then like the cobra, I would strike and kill. But this girl’s memories were so diseased, her mind delighted by such simple pleasures that the flower had closed over the cobra and tried to suffocate it. The cobra fought and it’s still fighting but I won’t let it go. The predator had not been subdued by just her mind, the blood still sung in enticing rhythms in her veins, traveling across layers of prickling skin. I bent close to this breathing statue of innocence and inhaled her scent. She smelled clean, of soap. Her hands drifted up to shift the blindfold. Her wrists smelled like the perfume of her blood. She decided against it and folded her hands in her lap. I could see her visibly relax and my fingers unconsciously flitted across the strings. Her lips parted and her breathing was soft. The air around me smelled of strawberry wine and I shuddered with ecstasy. She was intoxicating, inviting. I was the serpent in this captivating play of sight and sound and she, Eve of the Garden, tempting me to seize and take her for my own. She was an unspoken curse, a burden to most, but to me she was a flower, wilted even in the sunlight.

I was afraid to admit it but now I think maybe not, maybe things will change for the better if I told her. No. Things won’t change, I’ll still thirst for her, want to drain her, tear her apart. And she, too innocent for any serpent, any creature, will still be this way. Her poor mind will suffer in agonizing ways, twisted and deformed. My love would do nothing, even if she did accept it. My gift was of no use, any hallucination I gave her were not reality. She needed something real, something to stay with her, care and protect her. Deep in my heart I knew she trusted me but even I couldn’t trust myself. I’d lose control, let the cobra from its iron cage of petals, and kill her. I’d finally found someone who was like me in the mind but in the body she was so different. She had a heartbeat, breath in her lungs; and warmth to her skin but I had someone that everyone craved even over status: Beauty. Magnificence I didn’t deserve, beauty that hid the beast, lured women to me and entrapped them in a snare that eventually sent them to hell, to the Court of the Damned, ruled by Kriagen—the one who changed me into a killer and dear vain Morgan.

She took a deep breath and it was lost just as quickly in a gasp as I reached over and tugged the blindfold loose. She opened her eyes. A shade between blue and silver, they released the storm on me and I smiled. It felt nice to drown for once in eyes that weren’t my own in the mirror, to know I had mastered the cobra long enough to let my conflicting natures confide in each other, to let predator and prey cease to exist, and to love another human.

But who was I to talk? I too had been human once, forced into this guise of a killer to protect and guard myself from me. Pandemonium. Madness, chaos—my gift of shaping objects into whatever I desired. Coldstone. My heart, detached from the last beat to the first kill, carefully fortified with cunning and wit. Pandemonium Coldstone. Only an alias but I was so used to it being called that, my mind hung onto my human name, just barely, in my thoughts. Just like she hovered between sanity and madness, light and dark, life and death, teetering on the edge and about to fall. But unlike my name, unlike my gift, she had begun to thaw my heart, cling to the core of me, squeeze herself into a corner that was steadily growing, to push everything else aside. Still the desire, the utter craving for her blood doesn’t stir, doesn’t wane.

I want her.

Need her.

But I suppressed it. “I can help you, if you’ll help me,” I smiled gently, my fingers tucked under her chin, forcing her to face me. “You can understand all that was unknown to you, all you were in a past life, my little lark. You and me.” I swallowed and took her hand, so warm in mine. I stood and helped her up. She was clumsy and awkward in the gown. It still amazed me to see the trust in her eyes, the absolute acceptance. The wind stirred and the flowers beckoned, spilling petals around us. The garden of my childhood wasn’t as grand as it had been. The pillars of the archways were garlanded with ivy and insignificant green buds. Cracks had formed along the base of the arches and traveled up to mar the carving of a labyrinth, engraved deep into the granite. I remember traveling with my father to the center of one and running off. He’d called after me and ran. I can’t remember what I’d seen to make me stray but I still could see the long coiling halls of green hedge if I closed my eyes. Ivy had grown so thick over the pillars and stone but the garden at the center of the courtyard lay tended, trimmed, and unspoiled.

I led the girl through the garden, watched as she delicately touched daisies, pansies, snapdragons, Anne’s lace; marveled at the dazzling colour that played with the eyes, swooned with the heady, merging smells. The labyrinth of my mind would never comprehend why she found such joy in this. There were too many stone-fortified walls, too many winding halls, upswept, and overgrown corners in it—my mind was a puzzle to myself. She was like a child trapped in an adult’s body and her emotions were like an open book, flitting from page to page, from wonder to curiosity. Reaching out, I plucked a few roses from a trellis and began shaping them into a coronet, not as embellished as Morgan’s teardrop crystals or Kriagen’s silver and onyx, but one just as beautiful because of its simplicity. Just like her mind. She watched me, her face tranquil, curious. I focused on the twine and twist of the stems; the roses flush bright against my pale hands. Slivers of moonlight dug deep into their scarlet crevices and outlined the spiraled interior with light and shadow. I closed my eyes and felt my mind shift and shape the crown, felt it bend to my will and create something tangible that wasn’t at all deformed, and if it was, I’m sure its exquisiteness outshined it. I cut off the thorns, deepened the blood in its petals, enforced the stems with liquid iron that was light enough to wear but strong enough to withhold. I created lifeless roses, ones that would never die. I opened my eyes and looked at the construction in my hands and down at her expectant eyes. She had kneeled and was smiling, silent. So much she could say with a gesture, a glance, those eyes. It was enough to make me understand, shape her thoughts; assume nothing but the truth. I watched her mouth break into a small smile as I placed the thorn-less crown of roses on her crudely cut, flaxen hair. She stood and her eyes filled with tears. She took my hands and pressed them to her forehead. I smiled, “You’re welcome.”

She giggled, “Pan.” I smiled as if agreeing or acknowledging her, but I knew my mind was a lie too. It wasn’t me: it had been conditioned and perverted to become part of me, of who I was. I’d snuck into the ballroom to catch a glimpse of Alice and Valentine Boon. My parents were not as I remembered, but worse. My mother was small and insecure, looked as if she’d shatter at a word, a glance—oh, how she would thrive on the power of a vampire! My father was the opposite, protecting and loving Alice, but hard and stoical all the same. He would most likely become like Kriagen if he could understand what the bloodlust and the strength did. It hardened the heart, strengthened the will, but made you mourn for something…love without desire? Lust without murder? Life with a peaceful end instead of the flames of hell? I had touched, played with, all three in a single moment, but the control was straining against its bonds and the wishes bursting and fading like falling stars. Aislin couldn’t see, could hear, the battle I fought but these last few moments—if they could be called that—were imprinted in my mind like stone footprints, never eroding, always treading and facing the same position. I took her hand and pressed my lips to her hand. She looked up and there was some sort of conflicting emotion in her expression. Surprise, shock, confusion, answers? I ran down the stone halls of my mind, mentally running through all the possibilities—only to have them slip from my grasp, too complicated or never plausible, to disappear in smokeless vapor soon forgotten. My brow furrowed and she shook her head, looking amused. Touching her fingertips to my temples, they moved in slow, small circles. I closed my eyes and the sigh I let escape was nearly a shudder. “Aislin…” My voice was a soft growl. She tangled her hands in my hair, passing through, her fingers snagging and interweaving. I felt her lips touch mine, quick and inept. My eyes met hers and her skin turned a light, soft pink. Her cheek warmed considerably, and I laughed softly. She shivered involuntarily and I smiled against her throat, feeling her pulse beat faintly like a moth’s wings against a ribcage. I pulled away and she leaned against me, standing on her toes to whisper in my ear. Her breath was warm and sweet. “Dance with me.”

I grinned and took one hand, resting the other on one hip. Leading her, swaying to some imaginary lullaby that either came from the night or her heartbeat. I led her across the garden, twirling, and stepping, harmonious, together in time. Her gaze never left mine and I could feel her mind pressing against mine, the labyrinth against the open book. Together, we drew upon those blank pages an understanding of complicated matters, a simple string of thought, of knowledge and logic. Our dreams united into this, our hopes and, eventually, our hearts. Stripped bare of protection, I let her see what I was, what I could be, could have been. Understanding lit lamps in my eyes and she stopped suddenly. I looked at her, confused. She drew close and rested her neck against my shoulder. “Do you want me now, vampire?”

“No.” I replied. Her expression was teasing. Was she tempting me? I couldn’t let her know the dire consequences. I drew away and turned to face the garden, glancing one last time at the home of my childhood before glancing at Aislin, a half-smile on my face. “You’re testing my control little lark.”

“I shouldn’t, should I?” She immediately became cautious and coy. I laughed and pulled her close. The fabric of her white gown clung to her form and I felt every curve and bend of her body. She smiled up at me, a curious sparkle in her eyes: the moon’s reflection. The child’s mind inside a woman’s skull craved knowledge, answers, but was I prepared to give them? Her eyes crinkled and I could see where the lines of age would begin to appear in time: At the corners of her eyes, and mouth and along her hands. Already she was a woman, still a girl in her mind, and still aging. The hourglass was spilling sand already, her death was inevitable and the only way to freeze the sand caught in the neck of the bottle was by a simple scar, a puncture of the jugular and release of venom. A fiery pain for an endless existence—the flames for the light. I took her hand and shook my head, she was worthy of something better, deserved to live. The transformation would never fix her mind and if she regretted the decision later, there was no turning back. I gazed up at the moon and saw, through the translucent violet clouds, the phase of the first quarter—the phase just before full moon. I had been taught astrology but it was critical nowadays, to find out when the werewolves would shift into their wolf counterparts. A sick fear filled me and I held her close. Tightly, desperately. The wolves would never touch her; never harm her as one did me. I vow this; swear it by my silent heart, by whatever would suffice as a soul. Taking a deep breath of her scent, I sighed and felt almost human again. No, not human. In my human life, I had been mad, steadily slipping away like sand eroded by ocean waves. In my immortality, I am sane, I’m rational, my body and mind made sense. I supposed for all the flames took, they gave something back, perhaps something better: A chance for redemption, a chance to help guide, let another soul live. And maybe, just maybe, to let myself taste what I’d left behind, all I’d neglected when they locked me away and threw away the key.

But this war is coming—it’s possibly unavoidable, and if the werewolves saw her as my one weakness then they’d manipulate her, bend her views to suit their cause. And Kriagen could just use her as a tool to make me participate in a war I wanted no part, use her as a pawn to place me as far from the monarchy as possible to play their obedient dog who ran and fetched the prey, played and inveigled, brought it right to them. Was I doing the same with Aislin? Leading her to a downfall she couldn’t escape? I dreaded the outcome, almost visibly shrank away from it. My heart seemed to clench in my chest and I couldn’t meet Aislin’s eyes, for fear of what I’d see. She smiled up at me, searching my eyes for something I couldn’t tell. Then, taking my hand, she led me back to the glass doors. I could see the werewolf dancing with someone and my fear and uncertainty raised its ugly head. Aislin saw it and she gazed at me with a question in her eyes. Won’t you come? I shook my head and she held onto my hand a few more seconds before disappearing through the door. The warmth left me only seconds later but, as I disappeared back into the night, watching the rain clouds gather and growl, I wondered what she thought as she entered the room, back into that room of laughter-drunk, warm-blooded mortals. Did she remember what happened between us? Did she contemplate it long? I shook my head, smiling. Why would she debate on something she couldn’t decide? I was falling for her, no questions asked. It wasn’t something I was used to but then again it was like wondering when did human blood begin to smell so tantalizing? I laughed and lingered a bit longer, memorizing her features, how her eyes lit up, how her body swayed. I saw that she still wore the crown of roses and nodded. She had thought; she was just trying to hide it from the rest of the world. I couldn’t blame her.

Before leaving down the stone path, into the shadow, I caught her eye. She looked happy and content and I smiled back encouragingly. When she disappeared into the crowds, mingling and hiding, that’s when I finally turned to leave. As my feet traveled the stone path for the second time that night, taking another route to exit the garden, I missed the sound of a second pair of pattering feet, the whisperings of a gown. But most of all, I mourned the silence that declared me a recluse, an outsider to Aislin’s world of the living and mortal.