Infinite Days

  We talked and talked and, without knowing it, I fell asleep. The last thing I remember was his eyes looking into mine. I think he may have kissed my lips, but that also felt like a dream.

  When I awoke, the shades were drawn and the whole living area was shrouded in darkness. Across from me, red-lighted numbers illuminated the blackness. A digital clock said that the time was eight in the morning. I was on the couch and Rhode wasn’t in the red lounger across from me. I shot up. My muscles were stiff, so I stumbled and held on to the arm of the chair. “Rhode?” I called out.

  But I already knew.

  “No…,” I whispered. I spun in a circle. There were only four rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Off the living area was a porch. The curtains were closed, yet the way the wind drifted inward made them billow. The door was open behind them. I pushed them aside and stepped out onto the wooden patio. I put my hand over my eyes as a visor. My eyes adjusted immediately as I scanned the porch, hopeful for only a moment.

  Rhode was gone. From my life. From my existence.

  I saw the onyx ring lying in the center of the tile. When I approached it, I realized it was in the middle of a tiny pile of glittering dust. It looked as though sand was mixed with mica or tiny diamonds. My Rhode, my companion for close to six hundred years, weakened from the transformation and self-sacrifice, had evaporated in the sun. I dipped my thumb and index finger into Rhode’s remains. They were cool and gritty. I pulled out the ring and slid the smooth metal over my new, sensitive skin.

  I was alone.

  Chapter Three

  Grief is an emotion not completely foreign to vampires but it feels more like a shift or a change in the direction of the wind. It is a silent flutter, a parasitic reminder of the many layers of pain that define the vampire world.

  This was something entirely different.

  The morning of Rhode’s death, I scooped the glittering dust into an urn and placed it on top of the bureau. Rhode had brought my jewelry box from Hathersage, so it was easy to find an old blood vial and fill it with a handful of his remains. I hung it from a braided chain around my neck.

  I turned from the bureau and found a letter on the coffee table. I used a silver letter opener to slice the envelope and I started to read. It was nearly noon when I looked up from the pieces of paper. The letter held instructions on my new life, social expectations of the twenty-first century, and what I was to do with my days before school started. The beginning of the letter warned that I should start with simple food as my body wasn’t accustomed to eating and then digesting. I placed the letter down on my lap, then picked it back up again. The last paragraph of Rhode’s letter kept drawing me back to read it again and again:

  Was it all worth it? Did we not have moments of grace? No more are you bound to involuntary suffering. Find peace in my death. Shed tears. There is only freedom now. If Vicken and your coven return, you will know what to do. Never forget, Lenah.

  Evil be he who thinketh evil.

  Be brave,

  Rhode

  There was an aching in my gut. Deep down where I couldn’t fill it. I tried to distract myself by looking out at the Wickham Boarding School campus. From my patio railing I could see a stone building with the words student center on the front. To the right and just behind it was a building with a high, stone tower. The distraction wasn’t working. I looked back to the papers Rhode left me.

  One thing was certain: Rhode’s savings were more than anyone needed to survive in present-day society. The problem? I couldn’t touch it. My own money remained in the control of Vicken and the coven. I couldn’t access either funds because they would be able to track my exact location. I wasn’t sure of the workings of banks and “routing” as Rhode explained in his letter, but I was to deal exclusively in cash unless I had an emergency. He had left me a trunk’s worth.

  Rhode’s instructions were clear. I was to work and to avoid spending his savings. “You might need them one day,” were the exact words he used. His letter also said, “Immersion is key to survival.” The thought of what Vicken could or would do seeing me, his former lover, his former queen, in this vulnerable state sent shivers down my spine. Vicken, like all vampires, has a lust for tragedy, a desire for tears, blood, and murder. Most vampires want to reach out, inflict the pain that constantly haunts them and siphon it out onto others. Despite my hesitation, I could imagine the scenario. What Vicken could potentially do to me, as a human…I shook my head quickly to divert the thought.

  I was about to pick up a manual for a laptop computer when a knock on the door startled me from my thoughts. Hanging on the arm of the lounger was a simple, black sweater that once belonged to Rhode. I pulled it on over a tank top I was wearing and walked back into the apartment.

  “Reveal yourself,” I commanded to the closed door.

  “Um…,” a timid, male voice said in response.

  “Oh, I mean, who is it?” I said a bit more gently. After all, I didn’t command a ring of vampires anymore.

  “Car delivery for Lenah Beaudonte.”

  I ripped open the door. “A car?!”

  The boy behind the door was tall, lanky, and clad in a shirt that had writing scrawled across the front: grand car service. The hallway behind him was poorly lit, and the wallpaper had some sort of nautical theme with sailboats and anchors.

  “I’m just here to deliver it,” the lanky boy said with about as much enthusiasm as a person delivering news of a relative’s untimely death.

  After grabbing a set of very dark sunglasses from the coffee table (I can only assume Rhode left them for me) and a black floppy hat, I followed the boy out of my dorm apartment, down the stairs, and into the lobby. Once I was in the lobby, I hesitated in the doorway. Outside, birds chirped and the voices of students flew from all directions. The blazing sun blasted the cement walkway leading from the front of Seeker Hall, out onto a grassy lawn. Perhaps the sensitivity to sunlight was much like my vampire sight? Would I still be affected by it?

  Sunlight breaks down the magic that seals the vampire, though the danger of sunlight lessens as the vampire ages in years. As one moves forward in their vampire life, the magic to withstand sunlight strengthens. Though I have heard that death by sunlight is nearly unbearable to experience. It’s supposed to be the worst pain, like being ripped apart and scorched to ash while conscious for every moment of it. Regardless of my age, I never directly stepped out into the light without protection.

  I nudged a toe out of the doorway and let my foot and leg hit the sunlight. I whipped it back inside and paused. I twisted my leg so I could see the back of my calf muscle. I also checked my shin. No red mark. No burns.

  “You gonna go outside?” said a voice to my right. The security guard, a squat woman with thick-framed eyeglasses, watched me. The way she spoke was so strange. “You gonna…” The phrasing of her words was interesting. “Gonna”—what could this possibly mean? I waited for her to say something else, but she just looked at me. Through my sunglasses, I moved my gaze to the car deliveryman. He raised an eyebrow at me from the sunny entryway. I was in a pair of thin sandals, wearing Rhode’s oversized black sweater, and a pair of shorts. I was ready. I took a deep breath and walked outside.

  The summer heat was the first thing I felt. How glorious! Sunlight felt like a bath by a roaring fire, like sweat and happiness washing over me from head to toe. I exhaled happily.

  Wickham’s campus was enormous. Although it seemed pastoral at first glance, the buildings were brick with sleek metal-and-glass façades. There were meadows of green grass and serpentine pathways that linked throughout the campus. In the distance, through swaying, leafy branches, a Colonial-style chapel shined white under the morning sun.

  Seeker was the dormitory closest to the boarding school’s entrance gates. It also had the largest lawn. Directly outside the front door, a collection of girls were lying out on a blanket in the sun. They seemed to be wearing only their undergarments, but then after watching t
hem a moment I realized their ensembles were meant for this kind of activity. I watched the girls rub a white lotion into their skins, adjust their blankets, and lie back down.

  “So there it is,” the lanky boy said. He pointed at the parking lot, which abutted the lawn. In the row closest to the lawn was a baby blue car. My car. I couldn’t at the time tell you the name or the make, but just the idea that I had one was brilliant.

  “You’ve got nice parents,” the kid said.

  I started to walk toward the car when a group of students about my age (relatively speaking) ran by and pointed into the distance, past Seeker. To the left of my dormitory was a tree-lined pathway that led to the Wickham campus. Later I discovered that there were many pathways just like this that snaked all throughout the campus. One of the girls yelled to another pack of students trailing behind her.

  “It’s one fifty-four! Come on! They’re gonna start in six minutes.”

  “What’s the commotion?” I asked the car delivery kid.

  “Enos brothers. Kind of a daredevil group. They race their boats out in the harbor, right in front of Wickham’s private beach, every Labor Day weekend. Been doin’ it for two years. The youngest Enos had to turn fourteen before they could do it together.”

  I signed my name, took the car keys, and decided I would worry about driving later. I wanted to see the boat-racing Enos brothers.

  I let the students run ahead of me; I wasn’t exactly ready to mix with the group. Wickham’s paths were lined on either side by tall oak trees. Even with the wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, I tried to walk in the shade. On each side of the pathway were buildings that were designed in the same fashion as my dormitory, Seeker. Most were made from gray stone, with great glass windows and doors. Some of the buildings were marked with red signs on their lawns that declared their names and specific functions. It was all quite regal, actually. Most of the students on the walkway were heading toward the far end of the path, past a greenhouse (this piqued my interest), and down a series of stone steps that ended on a beach.

  There it was: the ocean during daylight. So many nights I had spent watching the moon run a milky line across the top of the water. So many times I had wished it were the sun. Eventually I was old enough to withstand the daylight, though the beach was never a place I ventured. It’s not that vampires stand in direct opposition to the natural elements of the world. But the ocean, sunlight, and all of the happiness that comes with the beach during the day was just another place I couldn’t be. Another source of torment.

  It smelled like salt, dirt, and crisp air. The way the sun dazzled on the water made me wish I could touch the light, wield it with my hands. It looked how I felt—happy. The beach at Wickham had various-shaped boulders that were scattered about the beige sand. The waves were no more than two feet and rolled lazily onto the shore. There must have been fifty people dotting the coastline. Like Rhode said, my vampire sight was as clear as ever, so I did a quick scan of the beach to find there were exactly seventy-three people standing about.

  Not only that, but the sand was made from thousands of colors—corals, yellows, browns, and hundreds of shades of gray. Dark blue umbrellas had been stacked and laid against the storm wall that separated the beach from the campus. I could see the fiberglass in the poles of the umbrellas and each thread of fabric in the tops. A wooden boat dock jutted out about twenty yards from the beach.

  An island sat in the middle of the bay, its landscape pretty sparse, just some tall oak trees and a sandy shoreline.

  I turned from the water and approached the stone wall. It wasn’t too high, about six feet. I stuck a foot in one of the holes between the stones and I climbed up with ease. I sat down on top of the wall with my legs crossed. I still had my sunglasses on and I felt a bit more protected as a branch from a large oak tree shaded my spot. I leaned back on my hands and stared out at the ocean.

  While I looked out at the island and watched the branches of the trees sway in the wind, I had a sudden feeling…I inherently knew that someone was watching me. My thoughts immediately went to Vicken, though this would have been nearly impossible. In this century, Vicken would have turned 160. At that age, most vampires cannot be in a shaded room during the day, but Vicken was different. He could be in the sunlight from a very early age. Also, he assumed I was hibernating. There would be no reason for him to search me out at Wickham. Although Vicken was my own creation, he was and always has been the most advanced vampire I have ever met.

  I admit, it was a relief when I looked to the right only to find a group of girls a few feet away from the water staring at me. They looked me up and down, which was curious. I had friends who were female vampires, but they never examined me as though there was something wrong with my appearance. One of the girls was quite pretty. She was shorter than me, and had long, light blond hair. She was the one who was staring the most intently.

  “Can I sit with you?”

  An Asian boy stood on the sand. His blue jeans were ripped in a vertical line completely showing his right thigh. He wore two different-colored sandals—one red, one yellow—and a blue button-down shirt. His facial features showed him to be Japanese. I started to speak to him in his native tongue, “Why would you want to sit with me?”

  He pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows screwed up. He ran a hand through his spiky black hair. “I don’t speak Japanese,” he said in English. “But my parents do.”

  “Strange,” I said. “A Japanese boy who only speaks English?” I took off my sunglasses so our eyes could meet.

  “How do you know Japanese?” He leaned his right hand on the stone wall and kept eye contact with me.

  “I know a lot of languages,” I said. I stared through the brown of his irises, forging a bond. Vampires use the gaze as a way to see your intentions. If the person stares back at you, you can trust them. Sometimes this failed me, and I was lied to regardless. Once I discovered this betrayal, I had no problem ripping out their throats with my teeth. But this boy, he had a white aura and an innocence to his soul.

  “How many languages can you speak?” he asked.

  “Twenty-five,” I said honestly.

  He laughed, seeming not to believe me. When I didn’t react but looked into his brown eyes quite earnestly, his jaw dropped.

  “You should work for the CIA.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Tony,” he said, and I shook his hand. I snuck a peek at his inner wrist. The veins stuck out just fine—he would have been an easy kill.

  “Lenah Beaudonte,” I said.

  “Beaudonte,” he said, drawing out the e so it sounded like ay. “Fancy. So can I?” He gestured to an open spot on the wall next to me.

  “Why?” I asked. I didn’t inquire in a mean or accusatory way. I was genuinely interested in why this seemingly normal boy would want to sit next to a person like me.

  “Because everyone out here pretty much sucks?” he proposed. He nodded in the direction of the pretty girls still looking my way. Now they were standing even closer together, occasionally peeking up at me. I smirked in response. I liked his honesty. I also liked the use of the word “suck” in a non-vampire situation.

  Communication in this century was fascinating. It was so casual and without the formality that I was accustomed to hearing in the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, as many times before, I would have to adapt. For hundreds of years I had listened to the parting of lips and undulations of tongues. I had stood on the fringe and studied, translated, sometimes in many dialects, in order to find the best way to adapt and fit in. Understanding the way people spoke to one another assured that I could interact and mingle in society without being noticed—it made it easier to kill.

  I broke from these thoughts when Tony hoisted himself up and let his legs dangle over the edge of the stone wall. He kicked his heels back so they bounced off the stone. We sat there for a moment, and I liked the silence; in fact, it gave me an opportunity to look him over. He was a bit taller than me, and burly, like a wrestler.
Sitting this close, I was able to see the wispy lines of veins running along his neck. But that’s not what kept my attention. He wore at least ten earrings in each ear! Some were so wide that they had stretched his earlobe out and I could see right through it.

  “So, why are you sitting over here by yourself?” he asked.

  I pulled back quickly and placed my sunglasses on. I thought it over a moment; the way I would speak, that is. I remembered the way the car delivery boy spoke, and the casual intonation behind Tony’s words; both were quite easy to understand. Words in this century were lazy, and the formulation behind them held very little social expectation. Everyone seemed to speak this way, with very little worry for formality. I could do this, I thought. I would have to internalize contemporary cultural references, but this won’t take long at all. I exhaled as a smile crossed my face. “Because most of the people here look like they pretty much suck,” I said.

  Tony smiled in return. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Sixteen, as of yesterday.” (Was I lying?)

  “Cool! Happy birthday.” Tony’s smile widened, and his eyes twinkled. “I am, too. So that makes you a junior, right?”

  I recalled some paperwork that I had seen that morning. I remembered an official letter that said I was a junior. I nodded in response. We sat for a bit and listened to the happenings around us. Some people chatted about the beginning of school, and I concentrated on the way people spoke in this age.

  I am so not going to even speak to him this year.

  Justin Enos is the hottest guy on campus, are you insane?

  Why the hell is that girl wearing sunglasses and a hat? Incognito much? Hello?!

  Then the chatter changed dramatically. Some people pointed out toward the harbor. I snuck one more glance back at the tall blonde staring me down. She looked away from me and started to jump up and down. I refocused on the water. After all, that was why I was there: to watch boat racing. Not to get the inquisition from a blond girl who would have been a small lunch in my usual circumstance.