Iðunn's Apples

Beaivi

† after six dark months, the sun returns to heal those gone mad in her absence †

Nearly half a year after my friends' death, I finally escaped England. I escaped the small corner of western London where I had lived, which was blessed with memories of my friends. I simply could not stand it, seeing the same street corners where we had played as kids, the same kebab stand where we had gone to spend time when we had a free period, and that bar where we had gotten drunk together on the day Cara turned eighteen as the last person in the group. Even my own room felt empty without them.

And a part of me wanted that place to remain like that; a painful reminder of what had been, unstained by new, happy memories. It felt dirty to stay and try to forget. I did not want to forget. Of course, it had nothing to do with Serena, and nothing to do with the Varkolaks in general. The fact that they offered her a place to live was just a coincidence that made things a lot easier for me.

I turned up in Berlin just after celebrating Christmas, with slushy, grey snow covering the streets with rain falling from the sky. The weather, however, was no hindrance to my mood, which was much better than it had been for a long while.

I walked from the Hauptbahnhof to a small cafe called Luzia, where I sat by the window and ordered a cappuccino. It had just arrived in a large, white cup when a woman entered. She was skinny and her dark brown, wavy hair was almost glossy. Her skin had the same color as my coffee.

She glanced around the room, gaze finally falling on me. "Are you Melissa?" she asked when she reached my table.

I stood up. "Yes. And you're Ashley?"

She smiled and nodded. "Pleasure to meet you."

We both sat down. After a moment, she spoke. "So, you're moving into the Varkolak HQ, eh?"

Her accent was only very slight, and I did not recognize it. "Yes - and you live there, yeah?"

"Yeah," she repeated. "Been there for a year now. It's a very welcoming community - and there are more humans than you'd think."

I thought she was speaking awfully loud compared to the amount of people near us, but then I realized that nobody knew what a Varkolak was, and that they probably all thought we were talking about some place in Russia.

"Where did you live before?" I asked.

"I'm from the Netherlands, grew up just outside of Rotterdam," she told me. "And you're from England, right?"

"It's that obvious?" I asked.

She chuckled. "A bit." When the waitress stopped by, she ordered a black coffee. "So, you're moving in tonight," she said, "which is perfect because I just happened to have a party planned for tomorrow. You'll have time to rest and get yourself ready, and then I can introduce you to some great people."

I smiled. "That sounds great."

We finished our coffee, filling the silence with smalltalk. I learned that she had two brothers, both older; that her mother was a dentist, her father a teacher; that she had never dated a Varkolak; and that she was in charge of planning parties for the Varkolak headquarters.

Afterwards, she took me with the U-Bahn, past Brandenburger Tor and Alexanderplatz, almost to the end of the U5 track. We got off when the almost incomprehensible women's voice said, "Tierpark".

I found myself in an area dominated by boring, dark apartment complexes with small convenience stores and döner kebabs on the ground floor.

She led me to the door of a small tobacco and wine store at the corner of an apartment complex, which seemed to be closed down. However, when she pulled at the doorknob, the door opened. She took me through the empty storefront into the back room. Here, I was surprised to find four shiny elevator doors lined up. There was only one button beside it, with a downwards pointing arrow etched onto it.