I was panting and wheezing by the time I reached Saira’s cabin, which was about halfway up the mountain, a quaint one-bedroom building with pots of red and yellow tulips lining the wooden veranda. I climbed up the steps and knocked on the door. I hoped I would not be disturbing her.
The door clicked open and Saira appeared in the doorway. She wore a dark pink dressing gown and her bushy brown and gray-speckled hair was swept up in a high bun.
“Victoria,” she said, a smile warming her face. “How are you?”
I let out a sigh. “I’ve been better, to be honest. I’m sorry to disturb you. Are you in the middle of something?”
“Only a hot cup of honeyed milk,” she said. “Come in.”
“Thank you,” I said as I stepped inside. The entrance gave way directly to a small living room. It seemed that Saira was the simple type. She didn’t like clutter. The cabin had only the most basic furnishings, yet it was not lacking coziness. A fluffy brown rug stretched out before the hearth, and jumbo cushions the size of armchairs lined one end of the room.
“Take a seat,” she said. “I’ll be with you in a second.”
I lowered myself on one of the pillows and sank into it, even as I admonished myself. I was an insular person. I usually preferred to listen to people rather than talk myself. This wasn’t like me. But with my parents away, along with the rest of my family, I was aching for some kind of refuge.
Saira returned carrying a tray containing a heaping pile of cookies and two steaming mugs of hot, caramel-colored milk. She handed one of the mugs to me and set the tray down on the coffee table in front of me. She took a seat in the rocking chair opposite me.
“So tell me,” she said. “How can I help?”
Setting my mug down, I ran a hand over my forehead, tracing my temples. Where do I start?
“Do you know anything about the Blackhalls?” I asked.
Saira furrowed her thick brows. “Blackhalls,” she murmured. “Not much. Why do you ask? Did you meet them during your trip to The Woodlands?”
And thus I began to recount my journey through The Woodlands. Meeting Bastien—even Saira had never heard of a wolf who could shift at will—discovering that he had been betrayed by his own cousin, then reuniting with the Northstones, before the tragedy that had taken place at Rock Hall.
I still wasn’t even sure what the purpose was of telling all of this to Saira other than to relive it all again. Relive and regret it all over.
Saira, however, did not seem to find my visit curious at all. She listened and responded with compassion and without judgment. I did not know much about Saira’s past before she’d arrived in The Shade. Perhaps she’d once had a child, or children, of her own. But whatever her background, by the time I’d finished pouring my heart out to her about everything—call it maternal or she-wolf intuition—she told me exactly what I needed to hear.
“Wolves have good instincts, dear,” she said. “I can’t say that your wolf friend has survived, of course. But if he has, you’re causing yourself a whole lot of unnecessary heartache by worrying about what he might think of you.” She leaned in closer, her kind eyes fixed on mine. “Shall I tell you a little something about male wolves?”
“What?” I asked.
“They sense a good woman when they find one,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “They may not realize it on a conscious level, but their subconscious knows it. Their affection is raw and often uncontrollable. They’re drawn to protect them, touch them, smell them, keep them close… to a point where they become dependent on the female, and it can intensely hurt them to be apart. Sometimes even psychologically damage them. Male werewolves, in many ways, are more fragile than their female counterparts. They fall harder and deeper. Even in light of so-called evidence of your betrayal, if there was truly a spark between you two, as it seems there was, and if he’s alive… I believe with all my heart that somehow or other, he will find a way back to you.”
Bastien
As far away as I wanted to remain from all that was familiar, I could not venture too far in my boat. Not when my homeland was being bludgeoned and raped. It was like a cord around my midriff, binding me to the land. It was my duty to return, but I was not ready yet.
I sat in the small boat, my back turned toward the shore, while the endless expanse of blue stretched out in front of me. And I wished. I wished that I was stronger than this. I wished that my heart was lined with steel, as hard and enduring as my muscles. I wished that I did not feel all that I felt in this moment.
Would Victoria really have betrayed me? Was she as callous a woman as Brucella?
When she had responded to my kiss, had it all been an act?
All along… had she never been my friend?
It didn’t make sense. Every part of me wanted to reject it. But then, I reminded myself, a lot of things in my world hadn’t been making sense of late. Not since the night I’d lost my family.
Maybe things will make more sense if I just accept Victoria for what she is. A liar. A cheat. A player of hearts.
But then, each time I tried to accept it, I would remember her light blue eyes, the way she’d looked at me. The way she’d smiled or squeezed my hand. The way she’d nestled her head against my chest at night. The way she had pulled me closer as I had caressed her lips. The way she’d breathed my name.
Although evidence for her betrayal was before my very eyes—what kind of a coincidence would it be for the hunters to arrive with their monsters just after we accepted her family into our midst?—I could not ignore the feeling pervading my body that Victoria was innocent. And there simply has to be another explanation.
Life would not be so unkind to me. It would not…
“Bastien!”
My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as a familiar voice shrilled out from behind me.
I whirled around and, to my shock, laid eyes on one of the old port’s large ships gliding toward me. I had been so lost in my own mind, I hadn’t even sensed its approach. Gazing up toward the deck, I was met with the odious face of my aunt. Standing next to her on the deck were Sergius and Rona, along with many others from the Northstone tribe. So they had managed to escape, and they had gotten the same idea as me.
“Climb aboard, nephew!” Brucella called, even as she began to mount the railing. Her ship was more than close enough for an easy jump.
And jump she did.
She hurled herself across the waves and landed at the bow of my boat, causing it to shudder and shake beneath my feet. Then she lunged toward me. But I did not give her the chance to touch me.
I would not climb aboard her ship. I would not allow myself into the Northstone fold. Doing that would be like admitting that I had lost Victoria forever. It would mean putting aside the fact that my aunt and Dane had attempted to kill her, and simply accepting that she had deserved it all along. That Brucella was right, and Victoria had been a rogue.
And it would be one step closer to Rona.
One step closer to falling into a life that I did not wish to be mine.
“No,” I growled beneath my breath.
With a forceful thrust of my legs, I leapt off the boat before Brucella could reach me and dove into the waves.
I did not look back to see if she had followed me—I was sure that she had. I just kept thrusting myself downward into the water, kicking as hard as I could. I did not stop swimming for many miles, until I was certain that I’d lost her.
I did not know what I might come across in these waters. In all my life, I had left my home country only a handful of times, and that had simply been on boat trips with my father to traverse the ocean for a couple of miles.
I did not know many things about the world. Or even about my own life right now.
But I did know that I had to keep running. I could not let them catch me. I had to stay free…
It’s what Victoria would have wanted.
Grace
I was up by five-thirty the following mor
ning. I headed to the kitchen and whipped up a quick breakfast for myself before grabbing my backpack and heading to the hospital.
Arriving at the patient’s room, I pressed my ear against the door. Metal clinked against porcelain. I knocked.
“Come in.” It was Shayla’s voice.
Her eyes widened as I stepped in through the door. She was sitting next to the man, supervising him eating a bowl of broth. I noted that he had changed, now wearing dark green pajamas, and his thin hair was no longer greasy; it was shiny and sleek. His face also looked brighter and fresher.
“Someone’s an early bird,” Shayla remarked.
“Yeah, well, I woke up early and figured that I might as well come straight here… Good morning,” I addressed the man.
He glanced up at me briefly, his mouth full.
“How’s it going?” I asked the witch, taking a seat on the opposite side of his bed from her.
“Great,” she said, chirpy. “Tom already helped with showering, and this is our guest’s second bowl of broth.”
“That’s awesome,” I said, smiling at him.
“I came up with a different potion during the night,” Shayla explained. “Now he’s able to down things a lot better. Also, this broth is a lot easier on the stomach than bread.” She stood briskly. “Well, I’ll be leaving for the time being. There’s more broth in the kitchen, if it’s required.”
With that, she left the room.
The man was still focusing on his food, spooning it slowly into his mouth.
I cleared my throat awkwardly before diving a hand into my backpack and reaching for my polka-dot notebook and pen. I placed them both on the bedside table, within my reach, before turning my attention back to him. Once he had finished his last gulp, I asked, “Would you like some more?”
“No,” he replied.
“Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Well, um, I’m going to be caring for you in between Shayla’s treatments and examinations.… I was thinking that, since you don’t remember your name, why don’t we pick one for you?”
He frowned at me.
“I mean, we don’t have to,” I added, “but it would just make things a bit more personal, you know…”
There was a beat of silence, his face quite deadpan. It was hard to tell whether he loathed the suggestion, or whether he was considering it.
Then he replied, “Josh, I suppose. You can call me Josh.”
“Josh,” I said. “Okay! As you may remember from yesterday, I’m Grace. Grace Novak.”
He merely nodded.
I raised my hand for him to shake. He took it, though his grasp felt weak and loose. I preferred to put that down to his lack of strength rather than extreme lack of enthusiasm.
“The doctor, Shayla, mentioned that she believes I am something called a half-blood,” he said, eyeing me. “She said that your mother used to be one.”
“Yes,” I said, happy that he was showing signs of actually wanting to engage in a conversation. Then I started rambling, “She was. It’s quite normal to feel as cold as you do. It really kinds of sucks being a half-blood, rather than a full vampire, I won’t lie.” I’d given him a brief explanation about vampires yesterday too. In explaining the existence of the IBSI, unavoidably, I’d had to touch on some of the supernatural creatures they hunted. “Although vampires are freezing cold to the touch,” I went on, “they don’t feel as much pain as half-bloods do, since they no longer have human sensitivity. You, on the other hand, do. That’s why it’s important that we keep you wrapped up.”
Then I continued to talk about the rest of my family. In the back of my mind, I was thinking that perhaps talking about my family could possibly jog something in his own memory about his family.
As I came to a stop, it didn’t seem to. He just looked at me, quiet.
He didn’t ask any more questions after that, and I found myself struggling for things to talk about. For topics to engage him with. Having a conversation with a man with no memory was harder than one would think. I could talk to him, but he had nothing really to add to the conversation.
Then he broke the silence by saying, “I want to get out of this bed.”
“Oh, sure,” I said, leaping to my feet a little too quickly. “Um…” I headed for his wheelchair, and pushed it to the side of his bed. He immediately grabbed one of its handles and began attempting to pull himself onto it. I clutched his shoulder and said, “Let me help you with that. Don’t want you falling.”
He grimaced, looking loath to accept my help, and I feared for a moment that I might have even offended him by offering it.
His response piqued my curiosity further about his past. It showed that he was instinctively independent, which appeared to confirm my suspicion that he had not always been paralyzed.
I made a mental note to record that observation in my notebook when I next got the chance.
I reached an arm around his waist, assisting him in sliding into the chair. Then I bent down, guiding his feet to the footrests. I grabbed some blankets and wrapped them around him.
“You all right?” I asked.
He only grunted in response. I was about to ask him where he wanted to go when he began wheeling himself away from me, toward the exit of the room. Oh.
He reached out for the door’s handle and pulled it down, letting himself out. I followed swiftly after him.
“Um, Josh, where would you like to go, exactly?” I asked, not wanting to overstep my mark, but also kind of concerned.
He just continued wheeling himself down the long corridor, beginning to build up pace, even as I caught him wincing. He kept going until he reached the other end. When he turned around and began to wheel back, it dawned on me that he was doing this for the exercise. He felt the urge to work his muscles—whatever muscles he could work.
As he reached within about fifteen feet of his room, his hands slipped off the wheels and he rolled to a stop. I hurried to him, circling the chair and standing in front of him to see what was wrong. He was wincing more than ever, even as he rolled his shoulders gently. He appeared to have exhausted himself already. Worried about him straining himself further, I gripped the handles of the wheelchair and returned to his room.
I did not wheel him back to the bed, however. I moved to the long, wide window that afforded a gorgeous view over the sunflower meadow and the forest of redwood trees beyond it. It was a shame that it was dark outside. The flower fields were pretty even at night—it was the witches’ magic that allowed them to bloom—but they would look so much more stunning beneath the sunlight. I glanced down at Josh as he gazed through the glass. I could not miss the longing in his eyes.
Hmm…
I have an idea.
Grace
We remained looking out of the window a while longer before he looked away, back toward the bed. I took that as my cue to return him there. He got worn down easily—first the vomiting and now wheeling up and down, although I had to admit that the corridor was pretty long. It would’ve made a human moderately tired, not to speak of a sick patient, at the speed he had been rolling.
I fluffed up his pillow and then assisted him in easing himself back on the mattress before laying blankets over him again.
His eyes were already closed by the time I looked up to his face again.
“Warm enough?” I asked, laying a hand on his shoulder.
“Mm,” he murmured.
“ Okay,” I breathed. “Good.”
I sat by his bed until his breathing became deeper and heavier. Once I was sure that he was sleeping, I slipped out of the room and headed down to the apothecary. I found Shayla still there, bending over a bunch of tubes on one of the counters.
“Hi, Shayla,” I said, moving over to her.
“Hi, Grace, how’s it going?” she replied, not looking up.
“It’s going okay. I think. Look, I wanted to ask for your permission to do something.”
“What’s that?”
“I wanted to take Josh outside
for a stroll.”
“Josh?”
I smirked. “Yeah, I suggested that he choose a name.”
“Good idea.”
“What is a good idea?”
“Both. Calling him Josh, and taking him outside. Some fresh air will do him good… In fact, it’s a funny coincidence that you come here now.” Finally she tore herself away from the counter and faced me. “I’m not having any luck with this blood sample,” she said, sighing and clasping her forehead. “I’ve consulted with other witches on the island, but none of us can figure it out. We’ve definitely found traces of vampirism, which would confirm what we already worked out, that he is a half-blood. But other than heavy sedatives, we can’t for the life of us work out the rest of Josh’s mystery. There are certainly other traces of drugs, but we can’t guess what they are, let alone figure out an antidote. They are quite unlike anything we have encountered before. So we are still in the dark about what they gave him, or did to him, to cause his memory loss, and his paralysis—assuming that his paralysis was indeed caused by the hunters and he hadn’t already lost use of his legs.”
“I honestly don’t think he was paralyzed before,” I said. “He acts as though his brain, his subconscious, has not accepted that he can’t walk.” I told her about his exercise earlier. “And he loathes being helped. I guess it’s possible that memory was wiped from him too, but… I don’t know. It’s just a feeling, I guess. It seems instinctive to him to be independent.”
“You’re probably right,” Shayla replied. “In any case, I was going to say that I haven’t given up yet. Corrine, Mona and Ibrahim are people we could consult about this. They may see something that we don’t. But in the meantime, I was going to suggest that you take him to visit the jinn. They pretty easily cured your uncle of autism, so going to see them should be much faster. I’ve done all I can for now insofar as a diagnosis.”