I escape to my bedroom to dress after William begins a fire and places Woody before it. Although my house is three stories high including the steeply peaked turret, my bedroom is in a broad basement built deep into the ground. Ivanhoe follows softly as I descend the narrow staircase. I'm dazed. I'm alone with William Hardcastle in my robe. What would my sisters say? A smile breaks over my face and I can't help giggling like a schoolgirl.
Always, I was the proper one, impeccable with propriety, the strictest lady and the loneliest. Our natures didn't appeal to men, nor our features. Desire burned within us all, yet the potency of our imagination, our greatest power, eclipsed us. Who can compete with Heathcliff or Rochester? It was far more thrilling to consummate our desire in dreams than to settle for an all too common man.
But, there is nothing common about William Hardcastle.
I enter my bedroom. In spite of the 19th century antiques, it's more simply furnished than above. An armoire stands against one wall, carved and dark in the Gothic style. The other wall holds a demure English dresser with a simple wooden box upon it. Near the fireplace a pale grey chenille chair sits beside a small table, upon which lies The Gospel of Mary. In the corner stands a dressmaker's mannequin. She is made to my exact measurements and pinned and draped in swathes of dark fabric.
The bare walls are painted a soft cream. And in the room's center looms the crowning jewel: my sanctum. A source of security more psychological than physical.
It is a tall, oak-paneled bed with great hand-carved doors and a paneled ceiling enclosing a deep mattress within. When the doors are shut and secured with heavy locks on the inside, I'm encased in a cocoon of perfect blackness. I have covered the mattress in the softest sheets and cashmere throws and draped an old silk comforter of faded burnt orange across it to remind me of the dying sun.
Emily would be intensely jealous. She dreamed of a bed like this and depicted one, albeit much simpler, in Wuthering Heights.
For now, the doors are open and Ivanhoe jumps onto the bed and stares out at me with glittering emerald eyes. It's almost as if he's mocking me.
"I know," I say, smiling, "there's a man in the house. And a dog." It occurs to me that Woody is perhaps a greater affront to Ivanhoe's sense of normalcy than William. I bite my lip. This isn't good. I should not be entering into conversation with a college professor. In no way should I be fostering understanding.
"This isn't about connection," I tell Ivanhoe. "This is about intelligence gathering. Knowledge is power. I must find out why Santos suspects me so that I can avoid this sort of situation in the future. And I must know what happened in Afghanistan."
I slip on a simple black dress, T-backed and trimmed in lace, and high, grey knit slippers that hug my calves like soft woolen boots. In my former life, I was fiercely modest, and have sewn my own restrained clothes since my mortal days. Lately, I am succumbing to vanity with more and more ease, cutting dresses out of the softest velvet or silk, trimming them with lace or satin ribbons embroidered with the finest metallic thread.
My self-righteous morality falters with each passing decade. After all I have seen, a velvet ribbon hardly seems like a crime. With each fallen life I catch and swallow, my compassion for human frailty grows. We are fallen angels, all of us. And the longer I live in darkness, the harder beauty grips me. It no longer seems like an evil, but a blessing, a balm against the carnage and ugliness of the world.
I glance in the mirror I've placed in a corner in order to check my handmade work. It's the only mirror in the house. Despite the legends, Night Walkers have reflections, but I rarely look at myself. Tonight I'm pale with hunger. My shoulders are bare and my skin looks pearl white against the narrow strip of lace that runs down my back. Again a sensation of nakedness arises, and I smile at myself with a tenderness I never found in my first 29 years. It's only a sleeveless dress I'm wearing, falling below the knee, trimmed in a slender band of lace. To a 21st century college professor, I'm sure it is nothing risqué.
Still, I gather a shawl about my shoulders and slip on a pair of tortoise shell glasses to conceal my eyes, glowing like blue amethysts. I feel like a young librarian on her way to rendezvous with a dashing hero from a Gothic romance.
Have I gone completely mad? A low voice whispers in the back of my mind. Dangerous. It is too dangerous. But I push my brother's voice away.
Silently, I ascend the stairs to find that William has built a large fire and set tea out before it. Ginger. It is one of the few items of consumption I have in the house. Does he find it odd my pantry is bare? Besides a tin of hot chocolate and a few canisters of loose fragrant teas, my cupboards hold only small cans of cat food stacked in tidy rows. And in the fridge there is nothing but a bottle of farm fresh organic cream—an occasional treat for Ivanhoe.
The scent of spicy ginger saturates the air. The sound of flaming pine crackling and popping fills the room. Ivanhoe jumps upon the piano to survey Woody from a safer vantage point. Woody has stretched out before the fire and William stands at the mantle with a serious expression, staring at one of my paintings. It is ocean bleeding into sky in shades of iron blue and smoked violet tinged in tender rose, the sun about to rise or set upon a vast expanse of loneliness. A girl stands before it, gazing out to sea, looking small as a snowflake amidst the empty grandeur.
Such a place of refuge for me, that sea. Now stolen by the sun.
William turns as I walk in and looks almost dazzled when he sees me before quickly composing himself. He's removed his coat to reveal faded jeans and a worn Oxford sweater with two daggers crossed over the heart lending him the air of a lean mountain poet. In his presence, I fall immediately shy.
"I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of making tea that I found in your cupboard. I thought it might help settle you. I feared Atticus had shaken you a bit. He honestly doesn't know how savage he can sometimes appear."
"Thank you for coming to my rescue," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. I have never drunk tea with a man beside my fireplace. This is new, but I will be gone soon so I'll allow myself to enjoy the moment. I'm certain it will never come again.
I pour steaming tea into a china cup and slide it to the edge of the table nearest him. Then I make myself a cup and savor the aroma and warmth wafting off it before I curl into the velvet chair before the fire.
When did I become such a sensualist?
A myriad of emotions sweeps across William's face. Worry. Curiosity. Desire? Finally, he clears his throat. "I must apologize for Atticus' behavior. I assure you he is a good man. He would lay down his life for you without a thought if you were ever in harm's way."
This I do not believe.
"He's been too long at war. A decade in combat. And I mean real combat. He actively sought out the most violent territories, and as a result has lost more friends than anyone should ever have to."
I stare into the fire. Against my will, my heart softens. Few people in the world today have lost more loves than me. Helplessly, I watched my mother, brother, and three sisters perish, and from immortality's wake, I witnessed my only remaining sister, on the cusp of love and motherhood, fall far too young. I saw my father crack with grief, his entire family dead before him. My heart has broken so hard and deep, it's a wonder it even beats at all.
Modernity shields people from such pain until war rips those layers of protection away.
"That doesn't explain why he hates me so."
"The war has left him suspicious. We saw such strange, inexplicable things."
"You were there too?"
"For a short time. My family has a long tradition of naval service and I, not without reservation, took a break from my studies to follow in their footsteps. I worked in military intelligence and found myself encamped with Sergeant Santos in a remote mountain range, searching for insurgents. It was my job to gather intel, upon which Atticus and his Rangers would hunt down our targets and bring them back to me for interrogation."
I must look shocked because he says, "I know. One would not think me skilled in such things. It does not come naturally, I assure you. I am simply adept at knowing what questions to ask and recognizing when someone fails to answer truthfully. In this particular way, Atticus and I are similar, though he takes it to another level."
"I detect a hint of Haworth."
"I have never been there."
I turn toward the fire. William, like Santos, must have known all along that I was lying.
"One night, Atticus brought in a wild and ferocious enemy. Jadallah. Atticus claimed he had come upon him drinking a fallen comrade's blood, from his throat no less, and that it took three high-caliber bullets and four men to bring him down. When Jadallah came to me, despite his wounds he was still surprisingly strong." William looks at me to see how I'm taking this. "If this upsets you, I'll stop."
"Go on."
"For three nights, we kept him locked in a windowless room. No food, little water, constant interrogation; yet no matter what we did—" He stops and stares into the fire. "No matter what Atticus did, Jadallah wouldn't break. On the fourth morning we dragged him outside to stage a mock execution, hoping to wear down his will. Jadallah fought like a demon and then to our surprise collapsed on the ground and died while lesions erupted over his body."
"What do you think happened?" I ask warily.
"I think his heart finally gave out. He wasn't as strong as we thought."
"And the lesions?"
"Clearly he had some latent illness or allergy of some sort. It was Afghanistan, for God's sake. Every sort of disease thrives there."
"Why doesn't Atticus see it that way?"
"He has never once strayed from the claim that he saw Jadallah drinking from a Ranger's throat like a rabid wolf."
"But you don't believe him."
William rubs his hand over his face and through his hair. "There is no telling what Atticus saw. There had been a battle long into the night. Rangers had been up for days hunting Jadallah through vicious mountains at high altitudes. They were dangerously low on food. In the heat of combat, one's mind can play strange tricks. And it's a well-known fact that prolonged sleep deprivation and fasting cause hallucinations. We all assumed Santos was traumatized from the battle. He had lost four men that night at Jadallah's hand. Good men he'd led for years. Brothers. He never seemed to fully recover, and after 12 years in the military, he didn't reenlist."
"What a sad story," I say. "In this job, I've seen strange happenings too." William looks at me close, and I glance away. "Nothing I'm sure as dramatic as that."
"It's a place to which I wish never to return. But others must. There is a darkness in the world that must be contained lest it devour the light of humanity forever."
Afraid, I look at him. Is he speaking of me?
"Atticus Santos sacrificed a part of his soul to protect that light. I ask you, Anne, to forgive him, if he sometimes sees darkness where there is none."
With a sigh, I give a small nod. I've seen it before—the imprint of carnage. War leaves the sound of madness ringing in ears long after its battles have ended. It is the itch in fingers for triggers that never entirely vanishes. A shame that never fully fades. The darkness burns within Atticus, reflecting out to the world. This is the price of killing, the knowing, whether you want it or not, that violence slumbers in your soul. If Santos is not vigilant, the knowing will devour him and extinguish his light. That is the battle he must fight and win now.
I don't say this. Why has William survived the war emotionally intact, while Santos chafes beneath its weight? Is it a matter of time spent at hell's door? Or is it because Santos has taken life and William has not? At least I hope he has not. I hope he doesn't have that burden choking his heart as I do.
"How does Atticus explain Jadallah's behavior?"
"He believes he was a demon."
"A demon?"
"Yes, a literal demon escaped from hell." William smiles. "Atticus doesn't have our education. Though raised in Miami, he hails from Cuba and superstition runs in his blood like lightning. Once, over far too much whiskey, he let slip his abuela and madre are Santeras, which I believe, is a sort of secret priestess, so the idea of dark spirits isn't foreign to him. It's some Santeria mix of Catholicism and African religion. I don't understand it. He doesn't talk about it much."
Anxiety slithers beneath my skin. I understand it all too well. Cuba and Haiti have fed me generously through revolution, hurricanes and earthquakes, and I have seen the power of Santeria and Voodoo up close. Their priests are especially adept at recognizing Night Walkers and can be shocking in their fearlessness. Possession. Zombies. Sacrifice. They dread none of it. We are a great prize to them, and they have been known to offer far more than goats and chickens to their enigmatic gods.
"And you?" I ask. "Do you conceive it could be a possibility?"
"I'm a historian and an atheist. I find truth in facts and guard against flights of fancy. As a wise person once said, 'Speculation is the surest form of tabloid journalism.'"
"But you're a scholar of literature and poetry. How do you reconcile that with facts?"
"I find immense enjoyment in expressions of the human imagination, but I don't take them literally. I don't believe Count Dracula walks the streets of London or Quasimodo swings from the bells of Notre Dame. Or that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, after a vicious death, rose fully restored in a cave before Mary Magdalene. I do, however, believe she was his lover and greatest disciple."
"Heretic!"
He gives a slight bow. "At your service."
"But what if all the stories are true?"
"Then we are living in a world of madness."
"I thought that was evident." I smile.
His voice goes soft. "You are the truest thing I have seen in quite a while." I feel my face flush and look back to the fire.
"I must say Miss B—" he corrects himself "—Anne, you have an exceptionally beautiful home."
"For a paramedic, you mean."
"For anyone."
A lie is on my tongue, how I am blessed to have received an inheritance from my aunt. It's what I have told others, but I cannot lie to William when I know he may see through it. And I don't want to lie to him. His nobility pulls at me, gathering me in. I want to be worthy of his protection.
What am I thinking? I will never be worthy.
"Your collection of books is astonishing. I understand now what the young man in Malaprop's was saying about your taste in reading. For one so young, you certainly have an eclectic and extensive library. And before my dreaming eyes, still the learned volumes lay. And I could not close their leaves, and I could not turn away."
My breath catches. He knows my words by heart!
He steps to my bookcase and gently caresses a book. "May I?"
"Of course."
"The Book of Universes. Are you a student of astronomy?"
I give a noncommittal shrug. "According to Barrow, the theory of relativity suggests our universe is one amongst millions. We live not in a universe, but a multiverse." My voice grows excited. "Imagine, millions of universes containing gazillions of galaxies swirling about out there. The possibility for life is limitless." I wonder again if I am a cross-species alien experiment, and shudder at the thought of a race so cruel.
William stares at me a long moment before slowly sliding the book back in place. "Have you ever considered applying to UNC Asheville? I'd be happy to write a glowing recommendation."
"You've only known me for one night."
"And yet it feels like I've known you for centuries, as if we've met before and the memory is poised on the edge of my consciousness, but I can't quite place where or when. It's maddening."
"I thought you were a man of reason," I say, teasing.
"Somehow in your presence, reason dissipates."
I cannot hold his gaze. My dress has risen above my knee and I run my hand over the lace again and again, smoothing it against my cool flesh while my heart thrashes in my chest like a wild bird. I draw my shawl close. I no longer feel safe.
This is a danger I am completely unaccustomed to. This is a mistake. Branwell's words come back to me over the cold, dark years: "Trust no man but me. I am the only one who will protect you." Dear brother, where are you now? I want you back with all your broken desires and fierce misguided loyalty.
Suddenly Ivanhoe leaps from the piano and stalks over to Woody, who is snoozing, oblivious, by the fire. Ivanhoe shifts his stance to that of a lion hunting prey.
"Ivanhoe," I demand, "behave yourself." As usual, he ignores me and crouches before Woody, ready to pounce. To my relief, he gives him a sniff, then curls up on a cushion placed for him by the fire.
"He's not accustomed to guests," I say. "His manners have grown a bit rusty."
"I will take that as a hint to leave."
"That's not what I meant at all."
"You've had a long night and I'm sure could use some much needed rest. I shall go home to write."
"What dead virgin are you chronicling now?" I ask with a sad smile. So many memories he swirls up. When he is near, the past feels close.
He looks away, embarrassed. Curious, I wait.
"I'm writing a novel." He blushes, appearing to brace himself for my laughter. I give him a look of infinite compassion and he continues. "It's my first foray into fiction, and I find it far more terrifying than the mountains of Afghanistan. It will be a catastrophic failure I'm sure, but I plan to put the finishing touches on it today. By the way," he says, abruptly changing the subject, "you may like to know that I've decided to take your advice and give Dana an extension on her paper. She has until Monday morning to turn in her rewrite."
"That's generous of you. I keep hoping a college education will refine her character."
He raises one eyebrow doubtfully then swoops Woody up in his arms, who growls at the indignity of being awakened. William gives me a slight bow. "Thank you, Anne, for listening to my story. I have no doubt you will guard it well."
"I will guard all your stories well, I promise."
His eyes darken and then he is gone.
The door shuts behind him and the crystals of my chandelier clatter and clash in his wake.