Writings

London, England
June, 1667

“Father!”

The door slammed open with such force it rattled the walls of the house, and the scream which accompanied it was feral, as though the young man who’d just entered the vicarage was more wild animal than man.

Young William’s shoulders heaved as he caught his breath in huge gasps. He appeared to have run flat-out from wherever it was he’d come: sweat dripped from his brow and the ends of his hair. His eyes were wild, darting from floor to walls until they landed on William.

His heavy boots thunked ominously as he stalked across the room.

The screams continued in that strange, anguished pitch. “How dare you! How could you! You bastard! You imbecile!”

The boy swept his hand across the table, sending William’s Bible, pens, and paper crashing to the floor. The bottle of ink flew into the stone and smashed. At once, a dark river of black began to run under William’s feet.

Now that he was closer, William could see his son’s face more clearly. One eye was half-closed, his cheek and lip were gashed, his nose had swelled to nearly twice its normal size. His doublet was covered in blood.

William leapt to his feet. “My child, what happened?” He began to reach out but found his arms were slapped away.

“You,” came the scream. “You happened!”

“I—”

“How did you find her, Father?” he growled. “Tell me! How did you find her? Where did you take her?”

Take who?

Confused, William backed up a few steps, putting his arms before him to act as a buffer. His son was the larger man, in both weight and height, and if he swung…well, William would end up looking not so different from his son, he imagined.

“William, please,” he murmured. “I do not understand…”

“Carlisle!” the boy shrieked. “Call me by my name, you sniveling coward!” He leaned in. William backed up again. His hand fumbled behind his back, in case he needed—he could hit him over the head with the chair, perhaps, or a broomstick…

“Who?” he managed asked as he groped for something to use as a weapon.

He was answered by only a snarl.

“She was to be my wife!”

His wife?

And at once everything snapped into place. Why Daniel had known that Young William courted a woman. Why his son had seemed so unusually happy. Why the woman on Ratcliffe Street had regarded him so especially warily.

His heart jerked, and at once, his right hand began to tremble with such force that it slapped against this leg.

“The girl…” he muttered helplessly.

“Elizabeth!” roared his son in answer. “Her name is Elizabeth!”

“My son—”

His tankard clanged against the wall behind him before William even managed to get the rest of his sentence out. At once, he flattened himself to the cold wood of the table, just narrowly missing being hit by the ladle from the pottage, which clattered to the floor next to his chair. It was shortly followed by the pot itself, slopping stew onto the table as it went. Young William’s fury was mad enough that he was a rather poor shot, however, and few of the items made contact with William, instead crashing loudly against the wall and floor around him.

“How could you,” the boy cried over and over as he flung item after item. “How could you!”

“Son—”

Another crash. This time it was one of the table stools; one the boy had crafted himself. He flung it at William’s head; it missed by inches and exploded against the wall.

“Enough!” William roared. “Stop this at once!” He was panting as though he’d gotten into a fistfight, even though all he’d managed to do was duck projectiles.

For a brief moment, his son stopped. His chest, too, was heaving. Odd streaks had appeared in the tracks of blood smeared across his face.

He was crying.

The boy gulped. “Where did you take her, Father?”

William backed up again. His leg trembled beneath him so violently he thought he might lose his balance and fall to the floor.

“Where?” This time it was the same, high-pitched shriek. “Tell me where, you bastard!”

Flattening his back to the wall, William threw his arms in front of him for protection. “William, she confessed! She confessed to what she did, and the woman in her coven, also.” Never mind that his mind was still trying to process his son’s earlier words. She was to be my wife.

What did that mean for his son?

“If…anything…I’ve saved thee,” he panted.

William didn’t think it was possible for his son to become any more enraged, but he was. The eyes which had been wild were now completely on fire.

“Saved?” He took a step toward William. “Saved? You believe yourself to have saved me?”

This time it was William’s voice which was strangled and oddly high-pitched. “William, thou art a Christian! We believe in the devil! We oust him where we find him! She is not worthy to be thy wife!”

“Christian?” came the answering snarl. “You claim authority to murder my wife in the name of Christ?”

And before William could so much as lift his voice, his son reached out for the cross which hung on the wall next to the fireplace. It easily weighed several stone; hurling it was no small effort. But it presented no problem for William’s enraged son.

He swung it in a huge arc as though it were an axe, and brought it down on the floor with a crash so loud it caused the table and stools to shake. The crossbar broke from the upright; the upright splintered into two.

William could only stand and stare in shock.

“You are the one whose soul is blackened by the devil, Father. You. Not her.”

William found his whole body trembled. Was it the ague? He had not been to the barber-surgeon in a fortnight. His son’s eyes still held the crazed, fiery expression. Both their breathing echoed in the small kitchen—wet, ragged.

“William…” His own voice sounded feeble. Nothing like the authoritative tone he wished to take; the commanding voice that would make it clear to his son that it was he who was in charge of this situation. Instead, he sounded like a weak, old man.

Which was exactly what he was.

Perhaps that would help cool his child.

“I am ill, William,” he managed. “Son, I am ill.”

The words sliced through him like a freshly forged knife, hot and painful. At once, William dropped his gaze to the floor. There was no way he could look into his child’s eyes. Not those eyes; the clear blue, as wide as the sky, as deep as the ocean.

He couldn’t look into Sarah’s eyes.

Because if he failed Young William, wasn’t that who he was failing? The woman he loved; the woman with whom he was supposed to raise his family and grow old.

His son was silent.

“I am ill,” he repeated.

“You are dying.” There was an odd edge to the voice.

Was it anger, or remorse?

Dying. Exactly what William had been trying to avoid saying, or even thinking. That he grew nearer and nearer to losing his life with every bloodletting, every tremor, every passing day. That he would not live to see his son take the helm of his own church. That he would not live to see his child become a father.

And he wouldn’t become a father now anyway…

William nodded.

“How long?”

William shrugged. “There is no way to know how long. That is in the hands of the Almighty.”

His son shook his head, the blond hair whipping back and forth furiously. “Not how long shall you live, Father. How long have you known? How long have you been ill?”

He began to search his mind. The tremors had been with him this Ascension Day, and the Easter before that, at the Christmas, at St. John the Baptist.

“A year,” he muttered.

“A year,” his son repeated. “A year you have been ill, and you did not see fit to tell me?”

Because I wished to spare you the pain, William wanted desperately to say. Because what father wished to tell his only son that he would soon live the rest of his life alone?

Yet, he’d spared his child no pain, it seemed.

“I only wish to care for thee,” he said.

Young William’s lip curled into a snarl. “Care for me? Not telling me that you are dying, sending the woman I love to the gallows—this is what you consider caring for me?” He nudged the broken pieces of the cross with the toe of his boot. They made a scratching sound as they slid, making William wince.

It was destroyed.

The cross. His son’s betrothed. The future minister. The family that was to be. The banns were not yet read, the children were not yet conceived.

Even William himself.

All destroyed.

And in the name of what?

“I do this, to see…” He choked. Now, his purpose seemed feeble. But he swallowed and prayed briefly for strength, and when he continued, his voice was stronger.

“To see thee accepted into Heaven,” he said. “I do this to make the world safe for thee, and for thy family.” Even if it were to be a different one than expected.

A long silence.

“Oh, I will be accepted into Heaven, Father,” he said darkly. “It is your soul I fear will burn in Hell.”

He made it partway through the doorway before he turned.

“And, Father?”

William raised his eyebrows.

“You do not make the world safe for my family. It is my family you intend to hang.”

And then he was gone, like a summer storm; blown in strong and washed away by rain.

~||x||~

The long blades of grass stung Carlisle’s ankles as he moved swiftly up the hill. It was dark, the locusts having already given up their twilight chirpings.

As a boy, Carlisle had found the small grove behind the church a welcome retreat; he could disappear among the branches and leaves and revel in their shelter. Forget that he came from the little house down the hill. In the wood, he would pretend; he would tell the trees about his mother, who doted on him, and his father who taught him and loved him. He would come here to refresh himself, and to allow himself space to think. And when he grew old enough to understand that such things required seclusion, this was the place he came when he needed to cry.

When Christopher accosted him in the coffee house, it was all he could do to protect himself and try to understand what the other man was telling him. He’d lost consciousness for a good minute, and even upon awakening, had still been clumsy enough that he needed Thomas to partially drag him from the room.

By the time he’d regained his wits, Christopher’s friends had restrained him, and Thomas, doubting Carlisle’s stagger, had done the same. He’d landed a few choice blows to the other man, of which he was proud. And all told, he was far too wound-up to notice much of his own pain, though he suspected his nose might forever be out of joint.

So it was the accusations more than the blows which caused the pain. For as they stood there, struggling against their friends, they shouted at each other until they were both blue in the face.

“She was selling from our garden,” Christopher screamed at him. “Vegetables, Cullen! She needed the money!”

At once Carlisle’s mind raced back through the times he and Elizabeth had gone to market. The way she reached into her purse and came up short of coins. The way she seemed to worry about how they spent. He’d paid so little mind to it; it felt so good to provide for the woman he wanted to be his wife, but now he saw it for the pattern it was.

“If she needed the money it is only because you are profligate with it. You are to care for your mother and your sister. Instead I do it!”

Christopher attempted to spit on him again, but the two of them were held too far apart and it landed on the floor between them instead.

“This is your fault, Cullen. Your father wouldn’t know her if it weren’t for you! And because he’s the vicar…” His lip curled into a snarl. “Our own mother won’t believe her, you dog.”

He didn’t know her, Carlisle wanted to say, but his mind was racing too quickly to keep up. Witch. Money. Gardening.

His father…

At that moment, Thomas managed to drag him out into the cool night air.

“I beg you to think, Sexton,” he said quietly. “We could go to my home if you wish.”

Carlisle actually growled at his friend. “My father deserves the fruits of my thinking,” he snarled. “And possibly also the fruits of my fist.”

And so it had been that a scant half-hour later he stormed into the vicarage and destroyed everything in sight.

Even the cross…

He’d never seen his father look so afraid. If he thought of himself, he still pictured the skinny boy, so easily held down and whipped for his disobedience in attending a hanging day. He still thought of his father as the strong one; the one to fear.

It was inaccurate, he realized. He was the strong one. He stood a head and shoulders above his father, now. He winced as he remembered the sickening sound the cross had made as it shattered against the wood floor.

He’d told his father that he would burn in Hell.

And it would be soon…

Pressing his back to one of the solid, ancient trees, Carlisle inched his way down until he was sitting on the forest floor. The summer rains soaked this part of London almost every night it seemed, and the ground was wet and pliable beneath him.

His mind raced in several directions at once. Death. That was all that this day was. Elizabeth’s. His father’s.

He could ask his father to bargain for Elizabeth, to pardon her. The clergy could do that. But if William Cullen had been the one to bring the accusation, then for him to pardon would mean he would have to recant—which was unlikely.

He could attempt to break Elizabeth out of the prison, and they could run. Maybe he could bribe a guard. They would go together, perhaps to France, or even to the New World. It seemed almost daily now that new handbills were posted, calling for healthy young couples to go to the colonies, to work the land and populate the new England half a world away.

But if he were caught at that, he would end up on the gallows himself.

Which, now that he thought on it, didn’t sound so terrible.

A strangled yell echoed off the trees.

His muscles felt twitchy, as though to keep them still would be to do them harm. The same feeling which had driven him to begin hurling things at his father. His hands clenched, remembering the feel of the items in his hands, the easy way the things in that room shattered. The noise. The furor. The way his father cowered in the corner.

The Reverend William Cullen was no match for Carlisle any longer, and that realization felt strangely good.

As he sat, he absently yanked up small tufts of grass from around where he sat, until only a ring of churned mud remained. This wasn’t enough. It took less than a minute for him to begin ripping branches from the smaller trees, uprooting the small bushes. His low, keening wail echoed off the trees.

When he was out of leaves and branches, he turned on the huge oak at his back. It was ancient, nearly as big around as Carlisle was tall. At first his fingernails scrabbled at its bark, trying to rip it to pieces. But they were utterly ineffectual. Little flecks of dark brown lodged their way under his fingernails, a splinter jabbed him in his nail bed, causing him to cry out. Yet this was a tree he could not take down.

So he kicked it.

Even through his boot, the pain reverberated through his toes and up his shin. But it was a good pain; the pain of doing something, anything in a situation where his father had rendered him completely impotent. He kicked it again and hollered.

The next thing he knew, he was kicking and punching the tree, his efforts making no visible change to anything but himself. His toes ached—he was certain he’d broken more than one of them—and his knuckles became shredded and bloodied by the tree bark so that his repeated assaults left wet red stripes on the trunk.

“Father!” he screamed as he punched.

“I hate you!”

Punch.

“I hate you!”

Punch.

“You will not control me!”

Punch. Kick.

“You will not kill her!”

This blow caused one of his knuckles to seem to shift.

“You will not rule me!”

Because that was the true point. He had been willing, for a short time, for Elizabeth, to do what his father wished. To go to seminary. To be a parson. To raise a family of his own.

His mind swam back to the dream, the dream he’d had so shortly after meeting Elizabeth for the first time at that hanging day. Holding her hand, laughing. The little towheaded boy darting between them.

His son.

And his father dared say he did this because he cared for Carlisle’s family?

Another scream rent the air, but this time, it fueled nothing. All at once it crashed back to him. A stinging pain rose in his knuckles and in his toes, his nose and lips throbbed from the beating he’d taken only hours before. The world swam; he fell to his knees and was sick in the grass. He crawled a yard and became sick again. Collapsing next to it, he panted in exhaustion, the disgusting smell permeating his nostrils as he thought.

If only he’d noticed the pattern. The missing money. Christopher’s profligate ways.

If he’d told his father the truth.

But Carlisle had favored secrecy, his and Elizabeth’s, preferring to revel in love than face anything which might stand in their way.

He deserved it, he thought, to lie here alone, in the woods, in pain. To have his insides tear themselves in two.

It was his fault, and he deserved this.

The earth was soft and wet, and his hands pressed into it, the cool mud soothing his bloodied palms. He’d been fighting for hours; first Christopher, then his father, then even a tree. More and more fruitless with each iteration.

His intended would die. And his father would die.

He would be alone.

Carlisle almost couldn’t remember the last time he’d prayed, at least, for any reason other than show. Of course every Sunday, he recited the prayers, bowed his head when he was supposed to, spoke the words he’d memorized years ago. But how long had it been, he wondered, since he had said words of his own, had made a plea from his heart?

And would God even bother to listen, given the subject? Elizabeth was no witch; he was sure of this. But he was mortal. Wasn’t it every bit as arrogant of him to proclaim to understand Elizabeth’s heart as it was for his father to do so?

So when the words came, they were half-incoherent. Not a rational plea; not the demands or the rage that had accompanied his tempest in the parsonage. They were the words of a tearful, desperate man.

“Lord, please,” he moaned. “Please, spare her. Please save her. Please.”

And finally, he let his body go slack and began to sob.

Chapter Notes
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Originally, I’d envisioned Stregoni as 27 3,000-word chapters–a perfect split. Three stories, three acts, three chapters per act. It will come amazingly close. The finished work looks to be shaping up to be 28 chapters plus an epilogue.

But I’ve deviated from the 3,000-word chapters a bit. Yet this one is one, and it feels strangely short to me, even though it is but a few hundred words shorter than last week’s. I keep looking for places to collapse this story a bit, and yet I keep finding each piece necessary, and too long to justify appending to the next. Carlisle and William need their time to have it out, but perhaps this is short for no other reason than that Carlisle, even as a human, is never capable of sustaining anger for long.

One of the most fun parts of writing Stregoni is getting a chance to explore Carlisle at twenty-three, when he had less wisdom and more fire…

…and could be a bit more of a tempest.

Since the chapter is short, I’ll leave my note short as well. As always, thanks to Openhome for her astute direction.

Happy reading.

I distinctly remember where I was when I decided how to structure Stregoni Benefici. It was the summer of 2010, I was living in a tiny studio apartment across the city from where I live now, and as I do now, was working retail for the summer. We closed the store at 11, which meant that I regularly was walking home from the bus at midnight or later. And I don’t remember why I was thinking about Stregoni, or what else was going through my mind, but I remember distinctly being about three blocks from home, in front of the apartment building where one of my friends lived, when I realized that in order to make the story work, I needed to give Carlisle a foil in each of the three timelines, and that to do that would mean I would have to write Aro.

Aro is the hardest of these six POVs to write (because I consider Carlisle in each of these periods to be a different POV–twenty-three-year-old human Carlisle resembles the two-hundred-seventy-four year old vampire in many ways, but in some ways they are different). Some have said that he seems almost split-personality, and it’s taken me two years of writing him, and some careful conversations with close friends, to figure out why.

As I see things, power is Aro’s primary motivation, and anything he does which seems benevolent (sparing the Cullens at the end of Breaking Dawn, for instance), is about the preservation of power and his ability to mete out punishment. Carlisle, who desires nothing but peace and companionship, throws a complete wrench into Aro’s understanding of how the world works. As B, a friend and reader pointed out in a review, Carlisle “seems like he came from outer space” to the brothers, with his different views.

Yet I think his purity of heart is infectious, and draws Aro in, both out of Aro’s curiosity, and out of Carlisle’s generosity of spirit. But for someone who doesn’t feel very often, being jerked around by suddenly not wanting to kill someone doesn’t sit well with Aro. And so you get a guy who ping-pongs back and forth from anger to what is almost a fond affection back to anger.

And while in my opinion, this personality whiplash is perfect for his character, none of that is particularly easy to write.

I wrote this chapter in June, revised it before sending it to Openhome, asked her to shred it, which she did because she’s wonderful, and then I shredded it again, rewriting the Aro POV from the ground up. So I apologize for the brief delay, but hope you find it worth the wait.

Volterra
Late June 1789

Aro’s hand slid free of Alrigo’s as the other man backed away. His shoulders slumped, and he refused to meet Aro’s eyes as he walked backward from the thrones into the main chambers.

“My apologies, Master,” the other vampire muttered. “The Englishman’s timing was perfect.”

Aro nodded, but his jaw locked. Alrigo was the last of the guard to return. The Volterran vampires had fanned out over the whole of the area, from the Kingdom of France all the way to Rome. But the clouds which kept Carlisle from being noticed by humans also hid him as he ran; a torrential downpour washed his scent so thoroughly that even Aro’s best trackers had difficulty.

And so one by one, they returned in failure.

Aro clenched his hand, remembering the other’s memories. A bit of Carlisle’s scent, perhaps going northward, but then washed away. No evidence in the road of a vampire; though this didn’t surprise anyone. Carlisle was equally as likely to travel as a human as he was to seem like one of their kind.

“Nothing, Brother?” Caius’s voice piped up from the other throne.

“Nothing.”

A soft crack ushered from the area of Aro’s right arm; it took him a part of a second to realize that he’d broken off the clawed edge of the arm of his seat.

This didn’t escape the other two.

“Peace,” Marcus said quietly, getting to his feet. “Nothing is more important to Carlisle than companionship. I don’t doubt our friend will return.”

“Friend,” huffed Caius. “Subject.”

“Friend,” Marcus repeated more firmly. “He deserves our courtesy. And Aro, you failed to tell him he was not free to leave.”

Aro’s fist slammed to the chair arm again. “That should have been obvious.”

Marcus grinned. “Yes, of course. Because as you’re aware, all of us are intimately familiar with every thought which you have…”

Caius snorted.

Aro scowled. “He should know better, regardless.”

Anyone would have known better. Aro scanned the handful of guard members who milled about in the chamber. Every few months, it seemed, one of them tore another to shreds. For superiority. For power. Those who wore the robes of light gray fought for the darker colors, to be recognized as being so useful to the Brothers that they were given higher station.

No one would turn down an invitation to the highest post. To join the brotherhood? To be not only more than a servant, but to be made an equal?

“He is an abomination,” Aro muttered in the language he shared with his brothers.

“Carlisle?” Marcus smiled. “Brother, I know as well as you do that it is precisely the fact that he never does what you expect which fascinates you so.”

Before Aro could rejoinder, Caius cut him off. “Aro is right. The Englishman is heady with youth, and a fool. He is a threat to us. We should order him destroyed.”

Shifting in his seat, Aro stared out at the small knot of guards.

“I do not make it a habit of destroying my subjects without cause,” he said finally.

“He is not your subject, Brother,” Caius answered. “He is your pet. And at times, a sickly pet must be taken to slaughter.”

Aro made a strangled noise.

“What of the other?” Marcus piped up, causing the other two to stare.

“The other?” Aro asked.

“The other of our kind. The one Alrigo found the last time the Englishman disappeared.”

Aro sat back in his chair. He hadn’t connected the two—he’d had other things on his mind—but now it made all too much sense. Carlisle’s most recent disappearance had been right after that other vampire had made his appearance in Volterra. And now…

“Do we know where the other ran?”

Caius shook his head. “You called Alrigo off him, remember? Asked him to follow the Young One instead.” His face made clear his opinion on this decision.

“As I recall, the idea to trail Carlisle instead of the intruder was yours, Brother.”

This stopped Caius short. His lip curled.

“This was a consequence which I did not foresee,” he answered darkly.

“We are all alike in that,” Aro said.

Marcus moved back to his own seat, and the ancient wooden throne creaked as he settled. It took him a long time to speak.

“The intruder went north, correct?” he said at last.

Aro nodded.

“The Kingdom of France is at war with itself,” Marcus answered coolly. “The fighting spills into the southern countryside. It is an ideal place for one of our kind. The other can hide amidst the war and go unseen. So send part of our guard into the French country and keep part of it here. Whatever Carlisle is doing, he’s not running away. He doesn’t run away. He runs toward.”

“And?”

Marcus shrugged. “Cut off his access to what he runs toward,” he said simply. “Send our guard into the French country, and let them wait out the Englishman. He’ll show himself eventually. And then you can—”

“Order him destroyed,” Caius interjected.

“—deal with him as you see fit,” Marcus finished, frowning.

Caius rose and began to pace, the heels of his shoes clicking against the stone floor. “This never should have happened, Aro. This was your idea and Marcus agreed, and so you outvoted me.”

Aro sat back in his chair. Several of the guard stared at the three; although no one but they and their mates understood their language, it was no doubt obvious that the brothers were quarreling.

He rose. “Leave us.”

For a moment, no one moved at the sudden request. But then a few of the higher guard began ushering others toward the door. Confused whispers rose, as though the Brothers could not hear every word. The room emptied slowly, until Alrigo who left last, let the door slam behind him with a quiet thud.

Marcus sat back in his chair, his eyebrows raised. “Was there something you wished to share privately, Brother?”

Aro gestured to Caius. “I wished to give our Brother a chance to express himself freely.”

Caius grunted. “I’ve said all I need to. You are the one who made the mistake.” He gestured wildly to the closed door. “Any of them… any of them would be beside themselves to be given the honor of joining our ranks. And instead you offer to someone who is little more than a disobedient dog. It is an affront to us all.”

That much was true. Was that not what he himself had thought, just moments ago? Carlisle should have known better than to run.

He should have known better than to turn them down.

“Perhaps you are right,” Aro muttered, gesturing to Caius and then the door. “Go to the guard. Send at least four into the French country.”

“Do you expect to find him this time?”

Aro’s eyes narrowed. To cut off what Carlisle ran toward…

“Tell them to kill with little discrimination. That ought to draw out our doctor friend rather quickly. ”

A grin spread across Caius’s face. “Certainly, Brother.” He vanished at once, leaving the other two sitting still in the chamber.

Marcus only stared.

“Brother?”

For a long moment, his brother-in-law did not answer. “Is this wise?” he asked at last.

“It will dispense with both Carlisle and the intruder,” Aro answered. “And perhaps we will find reason to apprehend the other, also.”

The other seat creaked a bit as Marcus got to his feet. He, however, said nothing.

“Do you disagree?” Aro asked.

It appeared momentarily that Marcus was going to say something, but then he only sighed and started toward the door.

“Marcus.”

He turned.

“What is your quarrel?”

“None, Brother. It’s simply…” He trailed off.

“Simply what?”

Turning to face Aro, Marcus crossed his arms over his chest. “I ought to know better, Aro,” he answered. “After all, you and I are closer to true brothers than either of us to Caius.”

Aro frowned. “What do you mean, ‘Know better?'”

“Even after two thousand years, you remain this insulted by the idea that someone might not want to share your post. After all, it is not as though Carlisle is the first not to want this life. To desire peace instead of power is not a killable offense, Brother.”

Then he placed his hand on the doorknob and vanished, leaving the chamber empty and silent.

Marcus might as well have slapped him, Aro thought, so stung his words. But at once, Aro’s mind reeled through memories—his and Marcus’s. His sister, with her infectious laughter and warm smile, the way Marcus slid his arm into hers. The vivid thoughts in both their minds of their happiness together, apart from the castle and away from him.

And the feel of her hair, slick and yet rough under his fingers as he twisted her neck…

“Not a killable offense,” he muttered to the empty room as he stood.

“We will see about that.”

~||x||~

Versailles, Kingdom of France
Late June, 1789

Versailles burst at the seams with people. Commoners, supporting the National Assembly, handing out bills and talking of liberty. The crowds pressed in on Carlisle in the square, making him glad for his practiced self-control as he wove through them.

France was on the verge of chaos, as near as Carlisle could tell from the conversations he’d been able to have on his journey. Their three-part assembly had split; the commoners demanding rights akin to those demanded by the Americans in the new world. The people were as exuberant as they were frantic; the royalty and the clergy were grasping at any means of control they still had.

And Versailles was the seat of it all.

Garrett’s scent was faint in the square, trampled into the dirt. But Carlisle managed to follow it to a door on a side wall of the palace. Where was his friend, he wondered? If he could even call Garrett that.

He sank onto an upturned bucket outside the door. Propping his elbows on his knees, he dropped his face into his hands.

Aro would want to know why he’d run, and Carlisle didn’t have a good answer for that. The moment he saw that black robe in the other man’s hands, such conflicting emotions arose that Carlisle didn’t know what to do. First was pride; that these others whom he’d once considered the height of refinement wanted him to be part of their inner circle. The fourth brother. That even though he did not share their ancient roots, or their long tenure in Tuscany, he might be accepted for his knowledge and curiosity.

But pride had been usurped by fear faster than Carlisle could think his own name. He would lose his freedom; there was no doubt about that. Aro, Caius, and Marcus rarely left the compound, and when they did, it was with an entourage of guards. No longer would he be able to slip into the square at the slightest hint of rain, walking among the humans and interacting with them. They would expect him to feed as they did—this wouldn’t be possible, of course. He would never take a human life if he could help it; and he’d helped it for over a century and a half.

Though…

At first, he’d associated feeding on humans with the savage nature of the beasts he’d met first in London, then in France. The half-crazed looks in their eyes; the way every moment was calculated around keeping the secret and fending off humans who might discover the grisly, bloodthirsty murders. Then he’d met the Brothers, and although the feedings were every bit as grisly, the brothers lived with a distinct refinement. A library. Musical instruments. Languages. Travel. Civility. And most importantly, company.

And Garrett also killed, and he, too, was nothing close to a savage…

Carlisle sighed.

“Are you all right, mister?”

It was a young boy, probably just over breeching age. He had a sweet, innocent look about him; his blue eyes were wide as he stared at Carlisle.

Carlisle nodded. “I’m just fine, Child. I’m awaiting my friend.” The French felt strange after so long; in Tuscany, he used either English or Florentine, or occasionally Greek if he was studying with Marcus. But he’d spoken French growing up, and to slip back into it felt strangely comforting.

It felt like the tiniest return to being human.

Which was, of course, impossible.

The child pointed to the door. “Your friend is in the palace?”

“I believe so, yes.” Carlisle turned and scrutinized the door at his back. It was a plain, wooden door, and the bucket on which he sat smelled of animal manure.

The child also examined the door. “He is a servant?”

Carlisle shrugged. “I believe so.” Garrett hadn’t told him anything of why he was in France; just that he knew Carlisle was running. Did it mean Garrett was, also? And if he was a servant, then why was he so bemused by Carlisle passing so easily among the humans?

The boy plopped himself down next to Carlisle in the dirt.

“You’ll dirty your breeches,” Carlisle said and stood, gesturing to the bucket. “Sit here. Where is your mother?”

The boy sat. “My mother is dead,” he said matter-of-factly. “And my nurse is busy minding my sister.”

“And you ran away?”

“I grew bored. The palace is more interesting than the square. Sometimes, I can see the nobles or the priests. Or the commoners, but they aren’t as interesting.”

“They come from the side doors?”

“At times. Especially now. The noblemen do not wish to be seen.”

That was true enough. In a crowd of people who were willing to call for the head of the King, a nobleman took a large risk.

Carlisle crouched next to the boy. “What do you see, when you see them? What do they talk about?”

The boy shrugged. “Laws. And commoners. And the king. Whether or not the King will agree to the demands of the people. ”

“And what do they think?”

“They fear us, I think.” The boy grinned.

“What do you mean, they fear us?’

They believe that we will ultimately take over, perhaps. That would be exciting. I have heard that people took cannons in Paris. And guns.”

Cannons and guns would of course be exciting to one so young. Carlisle smiled.

“You are not a nobleman?” The boy looked at him wide-eyed, clearly concerned at having suddenly made this guess.

Carlisle chuckled. “No. I am not even French. I am an Englishman.”

The eyes grew even wider. “English! You sound French.”

“I was taught French when I was very young, like you.” He smiled at the boy. “And that was a very long time ago.”

An understatement, to be certain.

At that moment, a harried-looking woman found her way around the corner.

“Bernard!” she called. “Bernard! I’ve searched everywhere for you. You will make me die of worry!”

The little boy blushed.

“You should go,” Carlisle said gently.

“It was nice to talk to you, Mister.”

He nodded. “You also.”

When the boy left, Carlisle resumed his seat. He was interrupted after a short moment, however, when the servant door opened. Expecting a human to exit, Carlisle did not rise.

“Something told me that you would take my invitation,” a deep voice said.

The other man stood over Carlisle, his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk playing on his lips.

“Garrett.” Carlisle smiled.

“Hello, Friend.” A wide grin broke out on Garrett’s face. “Your scent pervades the palace. At first I feared it to be another, but then realized it was you. How did you find me?”

“If mine pervades the palace,” Carlisle said carefully, “then yours pervades the entire countryside. It was not exactly a difficult matter.”

Garrett guffawed.

“But I thought you were in Paris?”

At this, Garrett’s face alighted. “You should see what goes on here, Englishman! You who have never experienced revolution. The commoners here are outvoted by the nobility two to one. They take up arms in Paris even as we speak. It is the most glorious kind of uprising. Liberty and brotherhood, they say.”

“And you are in the palace proper?”

Another grin. “The ship on which I stowed my way here was the American minister’s. A great man, and also a Virginian. He is here having an audience with the King. Discussing the ideas of the great Declaration he helped write, when America freed herself from England’s tyranny.”

Carlisle must have frowned, because Garrett quickly added, “Of course, this was long after your turning, Friend. And one might consider you Tuscan by this time in any event.”

“Perhaps not,” Carlisle muttered, staring into the crowd.

“Oh?” A smirk appeared on Garrett’s face. “Tell me.”

And so Carlisle did. The entire story began spilling out of him—his work with the herbs, his desire to become a physician, the way all of his learning in Volterra was slowly agitating the Brothers, especially Caius. And then, the presentation of the robe; the invitation to join the inner circle.

“So you ran.”

Garrett made this sound as though it were the most logical thing in the world.

Carlisle nodded.

Much to his surprise, Garrett began to laugh.

“This is humorous to you?”

Garrett clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t you see? You wish for the same things as do le peuple français. Freedom. Self-governance. Choice.” Grabbing Carlisle by the elbow, he jerked him to his feet. “Come. Let us go to away from this place, and I will tell you of all that has happened here.”

He began to walk down the lane away from the palace and the crowds. The dirt was well-worn, trampled with human shoe prints and hoof prints alike. Garrett led him through a gate and up a small hill, where they came upon a run-down farmhouse. It had once been carefully built of stone, but now angry black scars marred the windowsills and half the roof was caved in.

Garrett shrugged as he gestured to the door. “My residence, at least for now,” he said, and as Carlisle ducked through the small door, added, “I’m sure it’s nothing like as lavish as what you are accustomed to.”

The building still reeked of cinder and dirt, but Garrett’s scent was unmistakable.

“How long have you been here?” Carlisle asked.

“A fortnight.” He gestured to the table beside him, next to which stood two chairs. Carlisle sat at once, and Garrett dropped into the other.

“I’ve followed the American minister through his travels,” he said. “He is a great man. When I am recently fed, I go in with his other footmen; he believes me to be a shy ensign with whom he is simply not as familiar.”

Carlisle’s eyes widened. Was that even possible, for another to be as close to humans? The Brothers refused to go near them; as far as they were concerned, there was no value to humanity whatsoever. Humans amounted to little more than cattle.

“You look shocked, Friend.”

Carlisle shook his head. “Not shocked; simply surprised that another moves as easily among humans.”

It had taken him a century to perfect his own control.

The toothy grin appeared again. “That was why I said, ‘When I am recently fed.’ Today, for instance. I was out hunting just last night, and it seems and doubly to my benefit, as it seems that drew you here.”

Carlisle winced at the thought of the other vampire and his prey, but he had a point. The trail had been easy to follow; even for such an inexperienced tracker as he.

“And I hold my breath and speak little.” He grinned and added, “This is probably why I am well-liked.”

Carlisle smirked. “If only they knew you.”

Garrett let out a booming laugh and clapped Carlisle on the shoulder. “Indeed, Friend. If only they knew! It is worth it, however. I learn so much from the humans about this situation, and even more from the minister’s counsel.”

“And this minister? Who is he?”

Garrett’s eyes alighted at once. “A great man. A true intellectual, first, but one of the men on our continental congress who first wrote our Declaration to King George. His name is Jefferson. He speaks of such things as protecting the people’s rights, and of educating the common man. I believe it is his wish to found a great University to educate America’s common students. He is a man with great vision.”

“You admire him.”

“There is much to admire.” Garrett leaned back in his chair so that the front two feet lifted themselves from the ground. “And you, Carlisle. He would like you a great deal. He would admire your passion, if only he could truly know it.” He grinned. “A vampire physician.”

“A vampire who wishes to become a physician,” Carlisle corrected.

Garrett shrugged. “It seems to me that you have your own patients in Volterra. I would think you’ve earned the title by now.” He smiled, and leaned in across the table, his chair giving a soft thunk as it landed again on the singed floorboards.

“So. Do you plan to stay in France?”

That was the question. Would he stay in France? Had he run from Volterra in order to think, or was this a more permanent solution? And if it were the latter, would he even be allowed to?

“Aro…doesn’t appreciate defection,” he said carefully, and Garrett guffawed again.

“An understatement, to be sure.” He grinned. “Nevertheless; you are free of them now. I also suspect he likes the illusion of free will, does he not? He strikes me as one who would.”

“The illusion, yes.” Carlisle thought back to the order to watch the others feed; that had been scarcely two months ago. It seemed like so much longer. He stared into the room. It was dark, due to the partial roof and the utter lack of lamplight. Vampires didn’t need it, and so of course Garrett had not bothered, but lamps fascinated Carlisle and so he had several in his chambers in Volterra.

Was this to be his life if he ran? Hiding in burned shells of houses, without lamps, without books, without company?

His stomach gave an odd jerk.

“Carlisle? What are you thinking about?”

“This place,” he answered. “If this will be my life should I leave Volterra. Hiding. Running.”

Garrett looked around the room, his gaze alighting on the sparse furniture, the bare floor, the collapsed fireplace and the huge black char in the northeastern corner.

“As I said,” he murmured, “It is not what you are accustomed to.”

He rubbed his chin a moment, seeming to think.

“How long have you been in Volterra?” he asked at last.

“With this year as 1789? Forty-two years.”

The word sounded larger than the stay had seemed.

Garrett nodded. “And before you lived in Volterra, you lived like this, yes?”

Or worse. The beasts in London whom he’d known inhabited London’s alleyways and the ruins of the Roman sewers. He had done the same for years, fearing contact with humans would break his resolve.

He nodded.

“I’ve seen you with the humans. You don’t frighten them at all. At first, I thought that meant you were a weakling, but now I understand it as the source of your strength. And your eyes—they make it so much easier for you to walk among them.” He gestured toward the door—toward the hill and toward Versailles. “You, my friend, could live among the people now. Who would suspect the true nature of the handsome bachelor who lives in the house next door? The one who so easily intermingles with them, who even treats them as their physician? It would be easy for you, Carlisle.”

Would it be?

He stared.

It was something he hadn’t truly allowed himself to consider. He assumed that if he left Volterra, he would leave again for the nomadic life he’d lived before; ducking into lectures and concerts when he could, but living in abandoned homes, always transitory, never able to have a home as he did now. But as he thought back to even that afternoon, with the little boy taking a seat so easily at his side, Carlisle realized Garrett was right. His tolerance let him slide through human bodies which pressed in on him from all sides in the palace square; it let him stand resolute in the Great Hall in Volterra even as the Brothers and their guard slaughtered humans by the dozens.

He could live among them. He could vanish—not literally, not because he had to move from place to place, but because they would not know him for what he was. They would know him as Carlisle Cullen. Not the vampire, but the man.

“See?” Garrett’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “You are smiling, friend. It could work. It is only up to you.”

“It could work,” Carlisle repeated quietly, and Garrett grinned. He took one of Carlisle’s hands in his own on the table and squeezed it.

“Perhaps this revolution is meant not for France, but for you. Will you accompany me back to Paris? There is no doubt in my mind that what happens here will reverberate there. The people are hungry for change.”

Hungry for change. It was an interesting way to describe it, and yet, it made sense.

Carlisle was hungry, too.

He nodded.

“We’ll go.”

Chapter Notes

Forward
Back

Chicago, Illinois
October, 1918

The streets below Carlisle’s flat were eerily quiet, reminding him of the days when the city would wake up to a blanket of snowfall; no cars, no carriages, no men and women off to the factories, no children off to school. Just an eerie calm, a street utterly undisturbed.

Were it not the cause of the silence, he would almost call it peaceful.

Above his bed sat an old clock; its maker dating back to just after Carlisle had arrived in the new world. It had been one of his first purchases at the time, and now it had seen him through thousands of miles of travel, dozens of small flats and houses, through hospital after hospital and disease after disease. Cholera, scarlet fever, tuberculosis…

Now, once again, it ticked out the hours until Carlisle could return to his work.

Once, he’d gone to the armory to while away these hours. But now he was too scattered, his mind constantly flitting back to Cook County Hospital, to the red-haired woman and her recalcitrant son.

“Fool woman,” the orderly had called Elizabeth, as he helped Carlisle put her on a stretcher the night she fell ill. “No sense. How many of us told her to go home?”

Carlisle only shook his head.

“He’s her child,” he answered.

Her only child at that.

Elizabeth Masen’s body rolled easily onto the stretcher. She was lighter than she looked; in hindsight, probably evidence that she’d suffered influenza symptoms for days without acknowledging them or speaking about them. To keep her son from worrying even more, Carlisle suspected.

Sometimes, there was a very thin line between bravery and foolishness.

“Where do we take her? The women’s ward?”

At first, Carlisle had nodded, but then he remembered the room on the second floor. A room usually used for quarantine, but which in the face of this widespread contagion, had remained empty. Just scarcely enough room for two beds and a lamp while still leaving room for a doctor or nurse to enter. And so he moved the boy and his mother in together, where he could look in on them both at once.

At least if Elizabeth Masen or her child were to die, they wouldn’t die alone.

And so now instead of working, Carlisle came home only to hide, to count down the hours until he could return.

Leaning against the cool wall, Carlisle closed his eyes and took himself back almost two months. To that night, at the very outset of this horrible disease, when that little girl was shot. Here, right below his window, in the street that now sat still. When he sat alone in his office, singeing his skin in candle flame. When he stood in the storage room, hoping to snuff himself with ether.

And then came the flu, and with it, the woman. With first her husband, and then her child, the scrawny seventeen-year-old with the fiery temper and a sense of obligation that easily matched Carlisle’s own.

Yes, he’d promised her. And yes, all things considered, it had been a foolish thing to promise.

But who was he, if he was only average? Only able to do the same things every other doctor was able to do?

Useless.

The mattress was in two before he even recognized he’d attacked, the bed frame mangled almost beyond recognition, the bedclothes flung into a pile on the dilapidated floorboards.

At once, he froze, flattening himself against the wall. He had learned, over the years, to incorporate the habits of humans, the way they would fidget, run their hands through their hair, shift their weight, cross and uncross their legs. His kind had no need of such things; he could sit for all eternity in the same position with no consequences. But these things had become habit for him, so much so that he often did them even when no human would see them. To become so still felt odd.

Had he cried out? Had anyone heard the noise?

The clock ticked.

No one came.

Alone.

Because who would notice him? Who would care, if the blond doctor with the strange eyes disappeared? They would chalk it up to the influenza, assume him buried in one of the mass graves surrounding the city.

He could run. Except…

Elizabeth Masen would care. She would see that he did not return. She would inquire after him.

Elizabeth Masen and her son noticed him.

Perhaps that was why he felt so much like running.

Just seven years ago in Columbus, Ohio, there had been a girl nearly the age of Mrs. Masen’s son. She, too, had been stubbornly brave, just like the Masens—ignoring the fractured bone which had ripped through her leg in favor of conversation with him. What he did, how her body would heal itself, what the effects of the laudanum would be. She spoke to him, not in the deferent way that so many patients did, but as though Carlisle were already her friend.

She asked his first name, and when he gave it, proclaimed it to be odd.

“I believe it was a surname,” Carlisle answered, laughing. “Perhaps my mother’s.”

“Perhaps?” the girl replied. “Do you not know?”

He looked away then, pretending to be very interested in the plaster which he used to set the bone. “She died giving birth to me,” he replied. “I did not know her, and my father never spoke of her.”

“Oh.”

“Esme is not exactly a common name either,” he commented a moment later, still not looking up from her leg. “One wonders why you are not a Mary, or a Margaret.”

The girl giggled. “I don’t like common names.”

“So then you like mine.”

“I like yours. I’ve never met a Carlisle before.”

“Nor I an Esme.”

She beamed. They both did.

Her whole appointment had taken, what, maybe a three-quarters of an hour? But it had been more than enough to frighten him. Unseen had always been his method. He would arrive in a town, and be known only as the doctor. And if people became too familiar with him, he would leave. Familiarly was risk; risk meant the Brothers in Italy; and the Brothers meant death…

The following afternoon, he bought a train ticket out of Ohio.

That was what would happen to Elizabeth and her son, also. They would die…on the one hand, a good thing, for it meant they wouldn’t tell of the strange doctor who had met them twice and cared for them. Yet on the other, it meant he would lose them.

The girl in Ohio. The boy with red hair. The mother, with her striking eyes and insistent pleas.

He would lose them. Again.

Carlisle delivered another solid kick to the bed frame; it groaned and split into even smaller pieces.

The clock ticked another hour before Carlisle grew tired of the mess. It was an overcast day, so he hoisted the mangled bed frame and the ruined mattress over his shoulder and hauled them two miles to the dump casting them atop furniture and destroyed clothing. The debris onto which he flung his own was singed and blackened, an attempt to rid items of the influenza. The burned items were lighter than those which were not, and the wind lifted pieces of them up and sent them fluttering around, turning them into a murder of sinister crows. He stood and watched them rise on the updraft, only to come fluttering back down again on the pile of trash.

This was what humans were to him, he thought. A glimmer of hope, a fleeting moment of flight. Rising on an updraft, then falling, slowly, back to earth.

Humans all died. That was their very nature.

The walk back to his building took him through streets full of homes. Most were darkened; perhaps the families which inhabited them were all lost to the influenza. Or maybe they simply had drawn the curtains against the world, insulating themselves from the terror of the outside.

But he saw a flickering light from one, and as he drew nearer, he could see the light came from a fireplace in the drawing room, flickering merrily and warming the home against the cruel October winds. Inside a family sat by its light, crowded around a low table, on which sat a game of some sort, checkers, it appeared. A young girl, a boy, a mother, a father.

They were laughing.

In the midst of all this silence and darkness and death, a family sat, firelight dancing on their faces, and they were laughing.

Outside in the cold wind, alone on the street, Carlisle stared in longingly and began to cry.

~||x||~

The dirt wall was nearly four feet over Elizabeth’s head. The trench smelled sweet, an odd mixture of wet earth and men’s sweat. She heard boots shuffling back and forth, hushed whispers. Were the German troops advancing? They were across the field, wherever across the field was.

In the darkness, she couldn’t see. Her heart sped as she scanned the rows of men. Dozens, down here—how large was this unit, exactly? Their uniforms blended with the earth so that she could scarcely make out one young man from another.

And young men they were. Eighteen. Twenty. One was small, skinny. If she’d had money to bet, she would have guessed him to be no older than sixteen.

A year younger than her Edward.

The clacking of shuffling rifles, the click-click-click of preparing for rapid fire filled her ears as she moved strangely unnoticed between the men.

“The Germans advance!” a young man hollered, galloping unsteadily through the small crowd. “We see their shell fire!”

As though merely saying it made it so, a fountain of dirt launched into the air six feet away, the deep boom of the hand grenade causing the ground to vibrate. Some of the boys screamed. Others clutched at their ears.

The air came alive with the sounds of fire—individual shots from rifles, the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun, the deep, tympanic blast of a second grenade.

A deep voice shouted, “Go, men, go!”

All around her, boys began scrambling up the side of the trench, and the air became a flurry of boots and falling dirt. And as they surfaced into the field, at once came the sounds of more screaming, war-whoops, return fire. More fountains of dirt as grenades flew in both direction.

The boys throwing themselves out of the trench gave Elizabeth more room to run. She could feel her heart beating in her throat as she made her way through them—this one, no, too short; that one, no, blond hair. Each boy, one after the next, scrambling out of the trenches and into sunlight and shell fire.

“Edward!” she cried out. “Teddy! Edward!”

But no answer came.

At last, the right amount of sunlight shifted its way into the trench, and she saw it; the glimmer of red hair, the little bit of herself in her child’s coloring. His hand was outstretched, reaching for his comrade’s, ready to hoist himself out into open battle.

A grenade whizzed through the air and exploded behind them.

He turned.

“Edward!”

“Mother!” His voice came out high-pitched, strangled. “Mother get out of here!”

“No!” The tears dripped down her chin—when had she begun to cry? “No, baby, please! Please come with me! Stay with me! Stay with me, I’ll save you!”

He turned toward her, and for a moment she saw him, standing there upright, his gun over his shoulder, one foot already lifted onto the makeshift wooden ladder embedded in the dirt.

But he’d paused, and that was enough for her to close the distance, to reach out with her hand and grab his. Sweat, dirt, tears…

And then the trench exploded around them, blasting her backwards and tossing her child into the air like a rag doll.

“Teddy!” she screamed. “Edward, no! Edward! Edward!”

“Mama…” came the feeble reply. It sounded weak, injured…and very close…

“Please, Mrs. Masen, it is quite all right,” said another. “Wake up, Mrs. Masen. Edward is right here.”

The shell fire faded; the trench disappeared. The smell of sweat and dirt left her nostrils, replaced with the sharpness of antiseptic, the coppery scent of blood…

The hospital.

She was not in Europe. Edward was not either. There were no Germans, no rifles, no machine guns, no grenades.

But Edward was dying just as surely.

A cool cloth was placed on her forehead, and water dripped from it down her temples and her nose, making a puddle on the pillow beneath her head.

“It’s all right,” a voice told her. “It’s all right. Only a dream, ma’am. The fever does that, but it’s only a dream.”

She fought her way out from the cloth, and pulled herself into a sitting position. The room swam. But she could steady herself just enough to see, curled up next to her on the matching cot, her son’s lanky body. It was Edward who had replied “Mama,” but whether he’d even truly heard her, she couldn’t tell—his eyelids fluttered as though he was asleep, but his body still convulsed with the shivers of fever.

Did he see the same horrors in his delirium?

She struggled to swing her legs over the edge of the bed.

“Now, that’s not a good idea, ma’am,” said the nurse, but Elizabeth shushed her, reaching out for Edward’s shoulder. She ran her hand over it, feeling the bones through his thin shirt. He’d lost so much weight.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered.

“You didn’t lose him,” said the nurse, patting Elizabeth’s hand. “He’s right here, just as always.”

Elizabeth ran her hand over Edward’s back, feeling each of the little knobs of his spine. She had done this so often when he had been a baby; running her hands over the little back. It amazed her, then, that this fully formed little human body had come from her; that the squalling red-faced creature was her creation. His perfection had floored her.

It still did.

“Did he…was that him who replied?” she asked the nurse, and the nurse nodded.

“Heard you crying out for him, I believe. He doesn’t want to upset you any more than you do him. But please, Mrs. Masen. The doctor worked hard to make it so that you and your Edward could be here together. Please take care of yourself, too, and don’t hurt yourself taking care of him.”

A hand gently pressed her body back toward the cot and the bed sheets, and at once she began to cough again, feeling the sick, wet feeling of blood and phlegm drawing their way upward. The nurse gave her a rag to cough into; it turned pink.

“There you are,” the nurse answered sweetly. “Go on and lie back, and I’ll see to it that your boy gets his care.” Hands reached out and arranged a blanket over her body—when had that appeared, Elizabeth wondered. She’d given her blanket to Edward last night.

It wasn’t until she was fully back in her own bed, her eyes no longer examining her child, that she recognized the nurse. The robust woman with the kind smile, who’d sat with Edward that night when Elizabeth herself had fallen ill.

“Nurse Dorothy,” she said, but her voice came out as a mumble instead of the clear address she’d intended. The woman seemed to have made it a point to check on the Masens; in their two days in this room, Elizabeth couldn’t remember having seen any other nurses enter.

Of course, she had also just been at war in a trench.

Elizabeth gestured toward Edward. “How…is he?” she managed.

Nodding, the woman laid a hand on Edward’s forehead and neck, opening his eyelids to gaze at his eyes. Her expression remained somber.

“He’s still here, Mother,” she said. “He’s warm, but he’s still here.” She tugged something toward Elizabeth’s bed—Edward’s arm, Elizabeth realized. She felt her own fingers being opened, and her son’s palm slid against hers.

“There. You stay in bed, but hold his hand, so that he’ll know his mother is here.”

The room went blurry as Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears.

“Thank you,” she managed.

“Take care of your boy,” the nurse said. “And I will, also.” She placed a cool rag on Elizabeth’s forehead, and another on Edward’s.

“The doctor?”

“I can go get a doctor if you wish,” Dorothy answered.

No, not any doctor, Elizabeth thought. The doctor. The one with the soulful eyes. Their doctor.

“No…Doctor Cullen.”

The nurse smiled. “He’ll be on shift in an hour or two, Mother.” She patted Elizabeth’s hand. “I’ll tell him to come right here. But he’ll do that anyway, I imagine. He’s taken to you both.”

She moved from Edward’s bed to Elizabeth’s and straightening the covers.

“It’s good for him,” she added quietly after a moment. “Has trouble growing to care about people, I think. He’s a strong man; wise, like he’s lived a lifetime already.” She chuckled. “Scares some folk, I think. He knows too much. But he’s afraid of people. He won’t get close to them. He’s careful.”

She pulled the blanket up to Elizabeth’s shoulders, patting them.

“But he’s not careful with you,” she muttered. “You should’ve seen the fit he pitched about getting you and your boy this room. Surprised folks. Doctor Cullen doesn’t lose his temper. But there he was hollering to beat the band…”

Dorothy paused, and smiled down at Edward. “You mean something special to him,” she answered. “And that’s a good thing for you and him.”

After re-arranging the blankets once more, she exited the room, leaving Elizabeth alone with Edward once more.

Her son hadn’t spoken in at least a day; each ingress of air seemed to crackle in his throat. Yet the rhythm was steady, a peaceful reminder that, yes, her son still breathed. Her child still lived. There was no mortar fire, no trench. No screaming commander, no battalion mates scrambling over the edge. No grenades.

But Edward was dying, just as surely…

She stared up at the ceiling. Wooden, painted white, with sections flaking, and still others showed signs of where the relentless Chicago rain had made its way through the shingle. Odd brown-tinged shapes, a circle, a spider, a sea monster…

The last time she had spent any significant amount of time here herself, she had been in recovery from losing Margaret. Margaret, who had nearly gone to her grave as simply BABY GIRL MASEN, until Elizabeth fought hard for her daughter to have a name, and some acknowledgment of the life she would have lived.

Margaret Masen, who is survived by her mother, father, and brother, Edward Masen II.

Had been survived by them, at any rate. But only for fourteen more years.

“I’ll see your sister,” Elizabeth said aloud, and her coughs kept themselves at bay just enough for her to get that much out.

Edward wheezed—in answer, she wasn’t certain.

“You won’t,” she added, rubbing her thumb across Edward’s hand. It felt slightly warm to her, but not much more than her own. “I won’t—let you go. You’ll—stay here.”

A groan of protest.

Even near death and almost delirious, Edward still just as stubborn as his father.

“You will,” she whispered, and the force of this caused her to erupt in coughs. “You will live, Edward.”

She just wasn’t sure how.

So instead she listened to Edward breathe.

In…out…one.

In…out…two.

When at last her child’s breathing lulled her to sleep, Elizabeth slept without dreams.

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