“I miss you.” I leaned back against his shoulder, peering up at him. From this angle, I got this whole new view of him – I could see up his nostrils and the pointed line of his chin, the way his cheekbones cut back to reveal the dark, feathered lashes at the corners of his eyes. Evidence that any view of Quoth is a good view.
He sighed. “If you said the word, I’d quit the exhibition.”
“That’s not what I want at all.” I cupped his chin, pulling his face down to mine. “You deserve this. Youneedthis. But you can’t abandon the world just to paint. You can’t stay out all night when we need you. Dracula killed Jo’s girlfriend. We figured out most of the clues to get the final four boxes of dirt, but we needed your help. We still need your help.”
Quoth pressed his lips to my neck, just above my collarbone. His whole body shuddered. His hair fell over my face, a pleasing sensation as it brushed my skin. “I’m sorry I disappointed you. And I’m sorry Jo lost Fiona. Please, tell me what happened and how I can help.”
He listened with eyes drooping and fingers dancing fire on my skin while I told him everything that happened last night, and how we intended to search Dracula’s house for the remaining dirt. “It sounds like you didn’t need me after all. You figured out all this without me.”
I squeezed his hand. “That’s not true. When you didn’t come, I felt…alone. Youareneeded. Jo missed you, too. She said she could have used an Allan hug. You give the best hugs.”
He hugged me now, so tight and wistful and arresting. He was so light in my arms, I wondered, as I often did, how he didn’t just float away. How it was that I got to be with this wonderful, kind man who didn’t ask anything of me but loved me unconditionally, who loved with a love that was more than love, who loved as only the child of Edgar Allan Poe’s pen would know how to love.
“Once,” he said, his face nuzzled in my hair, “I flew away.”
His words sent a chill down my spine. I knew behind them was a pain he seldom spoke over. I waited for him to continue.
“Heathcliff and Morrie were downstairs, bickering. That kind of bickering they always do that is more about the things they could say to each other but don’t. And I realized how deeply they needed each other, that if one of them were to go missing, the other would batter down every door in the village, turn over every stone, just to find them again. But I never felt that same connection with them. They were kind, but they had their world and I had mine and we crossed paths at awkward moments on the way to the shower. I pretended that’s how I liked it, that I didn’t need friends who would burn the world for me, that I could fly over the earth without actually touching it, slip through every gap, and be apart from it all because I didn’t belong. But it wasn’t true.” His voice cracked. “I wanted more than anything to have a connection like that, to be wanted by someone the way I desperatelywanted– a wanting that filled my whole body right down to my toes. Bit by bit, the wanting ate away at me until I was an empty shell, until I was nothing but desolation.
“So I flew away. I thought only dark thoughts – they didn’t want me, no one wanted me, I was a broken soul, a cursed wretch that should not exist, they’d be better off without me, they would even notice I had slipped away. I flew deep into King’s Copse wood. I followed the stream, flying low enough to dip the tips of my wings in the water. I stopped in the crook of an ancient oak and I thought…” his shoulders shuddered. “This is a nice place to die.”
“No…” I whispered, squeezing him tight.
“I burrowed into the hollow of the gnarled old tree and I thought if I closed my eyes for long enough, I would fade away back into the pages of my poem, and there I at least would return to my true purpose – as the grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore. Even being a carrier of woe would be better than what I was in this world – a ghost, a hidden thing, a lonely, loveless wretch.”
“Quoth, what happened?”
“Morrie.” Quoth laughed. “It turns out he’d put a tracking chip into my wing one day when I was asleep, and they followed it into the forest until they found me. Just in time. I hadn’t eaten in so long, and it was so cold that night the tips of my wings had frozen.”
“Quoth…” I crushed him against me, gripping his arms in mine. I looked up into those deep brown eyes with the burnished edges, like a forest ablaze. His hair draped over his shoulders, collecting and reflecting the sunrise, painting the stands in fleeting shades of color – indigo, lavender, copper, gold.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn’t imagine the world without Quoth in it. I didn’t want him to ever feel that way again.
“Thank you for telling me this,” I whispered. “You should never feel alone.”
Quoth pressed his nose into my hair. “I can smell them on you, both of them. Now that Heathcliff and Morrie have found the missing pieces of themselves in each other, the three of you fit together like pieces of a puzzle. I don’t fit. I will never fit. But I’m okay with that as long as I have you.”
My tears splashed on the duvet. “Please don’t say that. You fit. I know you fit because just thinking about losing you makes my heart hollow.” I sniffed. “My turn to tell you a story. I remember when I first got my diagnosis. I hated myself. I felt like it was my fault somehow, that I’d done this to myself, ruined my own life. I thought my life was over, and at the time, it was. I felt as though when I walked into a room, people couldseethat I was different. I sensed them pulling away, like they didn’t want to catch my rotten luck. It was all in my head because I was afraid and lonely, but knowing that now doesn’t help for back then.” I shook my head. “There was a party for Marcus’ fall campaign where I ended up on the balcony overlooking the city, and I thought how easy it would be to just jump.”
Quoth squeezed me tight, pressing his cheek against mine so our tears mingled together. I kept going. “Those thoughts followed me every day, especially after Ashley did what she did. I thought, ‘how could anyone ever love me?’ I kept waiting for a silver lining, and then I lost my best friend and it felt like the universe punching me while I was down. It’s partly why I came home to Argleton – I needed to find out who I was without vision. But the point is that I don’t feel like that anymore. Marjorie says it’s the barriers, attitudes, and exclusion of society that make us disabled, not our eyes or our…feathers. The world isn’t set up for people like us, and that can be lonely sometimes. But we don’t have to be lonely anymore, either of us. Because we have each other, and Heathcliff, and Morrie, and our friends and our art and our lives. It’s like Heathcliff says, ‘What doesn’t kill you gives you unhealthy coping mechanisms and a wicked sense of humor.’”
Quoth laughed, the sound so soft and warm and musical. How alike we were – only we knew what the other needed. I nuzzled his cheek and he nuzzled mine. “I can’t wait for you to see my paintings.”
“Show me now. Maybe it will make you feel better.”
He shook his head. When he spoke again, his voice was all velvet and darkness. “I’m so tired. I haven’t slept all night. Do you need me right now for Dracula-slaying duties, or can I catch a few winks?”
I lay him back against the pillows. His eyelids fluttered shut, his impossibly-long lashes tangled together. I kissed his eyelids. “Sleep well, my prince. I’ll wake you when we need you for sneaking.”
Chapter Nine
The problem with planning a stealthy attack on a vampire’s lair during broad daylight was that we needed a free window of time where we could get in and out without anyone noticing. And one thing could foil even the best laid secret plan – customers.
Okay, also, fictional characters. Between Robin, Socrates, the Headless Horseman, and the newly-minted Shakespearean sprite Puck, we had no hope of keeping a low profile while we went about our shady business. But today of all days, the customers could foil us.
The grand opening of Mrs. Ellis’ Halloween festival kicked off later today with a performance of Halloween music by the village choir (not Satanic, as Dorothy Ingram feared, although their medley of Cure songs were quite diabolical) over at the Presbyterian church. Even though the show didn’t start until 1PM, by nine the village was teeming with people in all manner of crazy costumes. For some unknown reason, they all wanted to buy books.
Maybe it was the four-foot ghostly sign I made for the top of Butcher Street and the monster footprints I drew on the pavement leading to the store, but from the moment I flipped over the sign, a steady stream of people entered the shop looking for their next spooky read.
