Darling Maris,
I’m sorry that I had to leave you this morning. Forgive me. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you up before I left. I have a long day at the hospital today. I won’t be done until midnight. Yourbreakfast is waiting for you in the oven. Eat everything before work. There’s a tonic in the fridge for you as well. I’ll be seeing you tonight. Call me if you need me. I’ll come for you.
Yours,
Julian
PS: I’m killing that thing on the second floor today. That’s non-negotiable.
I’m stuck between a smile and an exasperated sigh at Julian’s letter. No one has ever written me a letter. I turn the paper over. It’s thick and feels old, like the kind granny used when she wrote to her friends. It’s unlined, the linen kind of paper and the words are penned in flowing script. The letter looks like it should be in a history exhibit with how careful Julian’s writing is, yet it’s just a letter to me.
A letter telling me to eat and to forgive him for leaving without waking me. I press the letter to my chest and opt for a smile. We’ll work on getting him to come around to leaving the second floor alone. It’s just one of the peculiarities of Vesper House. Maybe it’s a ghost. Granny used to joke it was the spirits of Isla’s lovers haunting us in revenge for their broken hearts but I never took her seriously. When I was small, I tried finding the source convinced, like Julian, that I would find someone—something. Anything. There was never anything there. Eventually, I stopped looking and accepted that it was normal, or…I don’t know what I told myself it was but I’ve lived with footsteps overhead and below for so long that it’s just become normal.
But things aren’t normal anymore, are they?
In the normal world. vampires don't exist and neither do ghosts. If vampires are real then who’s to say ghosts aren’t either?
I tuck the letter into the drawer of my bedside table and start getting ready for work. It’s early enough that I’ll be able to eatthe breakfast Julian made me. I shower and dress on autopilot. I can’t think about anything other than what happened last night. Julian is a vampire and I’m his mate.
We had sex.
Really fucked up, bloody sex and then…and then he changed me.
I look in the mirror and the toothbrush in my hand shakes. I look like me, but better. Even better than yesterday. I don’t even need makeup. I lean close and stare at myself. The version of me that stares back is perfect. She doesn’t feel like me.
I brush my teeth and keep thinking.
“You will stay with me. Say it.”
I finish with my toothbrush and drop it in its cup on the sink.
“Forever.”
I’d said it. I’d meant it. I do mean it. I press a hand to my chest. Something is wrong though. I feel different, like I’m not right. The only thing I want is Julian. He’s what I crave. It’s like all the doubt and pain in me has been scooped out and it’s place there’s…there’s…
“Peace,” I whisper.
The rest of my morning passes quietly. I’m glad for it. I don’t think my nervous system could take another surprise. I followed Julian’s letter to a tee and ate my breakfast. It was baked oatmeal full of nuts and berries which tracks because I’m sure Julian is determined to see me take better care of myself, which doesn’t really seem that difficult anymore. I down a glass of water after my breakfast and remember that Julian also left a tonic for me. I eyeball the fridge.
“What the fuck is a tonic?” I murmur and open the fridge tentatively. Everything looks normal and at first I don’t see the tonic but then I do. It’s a small brown bottle, barely more than an inch tall and wide. I pick it up and give it a shake. It has a metal screw top cap. I can’t tell what color the liquid inside is because of the bottle color. I unscrew the bottle and sniff it, but I can’t pick anything up.
I shrug. “Bottom’s up.” I toss the contents back and drink it in one swallow. Whatever it is has an almost sweet taste, like almonds, but it’s so faint that I can barely even taste that. I carry the bottle to the sink to rinse it out. I turn on the tap and hold the bottle underneath the faucet, my thoughts already wandering to what I might find in town today and seeing Julian tonight. I’m so preoccupied by my thoughts that I almost miss the pink water that rushes out of the bottle.
“What?” I jerk the bottle back and empty it out but the water’s run clear. I’m still holding the screw top in my other hand and I turn it over to look at it and freeze when I see a trace of crimson on the underside of the cap.
What the fuck was in there?
I almost don’t want to think about it. Julian is a vampire. What if he…
“No, he wouldn’t,” I say to the empty kitchen. He wouldn’t have put his blood in it, right? There’s a thud upstairs and I drop the bottle in the sink in surprise, shattering in the porcelain sink. “Fuck.” I sigh and start to work on cleaning up the glass. I ignore the second thud. I don’t normally hear the house this early in the day. It’s normally at night that the house starts to shift and moan and the second floor comes alive.
“Maybe it’s a racoon,” I mutter. I scoop the glass out of the sink and toss it in the garbage on my way out of the kitchen. I grab my purse and coat. I didn’t bring my workbag and laptop home, so both are still in the office waiting for me since Ariastabbing Julian derailed me. I bet the town is losing its shit already and it’s barely seven in the morning.
Outside a drizzle falls and clouds hide the sun from view. When it’s like this, it feels peaceful, quiet, like there's no real world outside of Vesper Point’s city limits. I pause on the sidewalk and almost don’t take my car but in the end, I do. Vesper Point has become a hot spot for violent activity, and even with me acknowledging that I’m responsible for a lot of the violence both directly and indirectly, a car would be best.
Like any good fishing town, Vesper Point’s streets are awake at this hour. There’s folks downtown, some of them having coffee together outside of the shops while kids ride their bicycles to school as their parents drive to the docks to get their day started. As much as I feel trapped by this town, there’s a part of me that finds comfort in the familiar rhythms of Vesper Point.
Even if I left, I feel like I’d have to circle back. Like a fish on a forced migratory path, an eel that just takes the same route to reproduce or whatever the fuck it is that they do in the middle of the ocean before they spawn right back where the were before.
