Sad Prayers For Guilty Bodies

His driving was just fine, i had to admit— he kept the speed reasonable. Like so many things, it seemed to be effortless for him. He barely looked at the road, yet the truck was always perfectly centered in his lane. He drove one-handed, because I was holding his other hand between us. Sometimes he gazed into the setting sun, which glittered off his skin in ruby-tinged shimmers. Sometimes he glanced at me—stared into my eyes or looked down at our hands twined together.
He had tuned the radio to an oldies station, and he sang along with a song I’d never heard. His voice was as perfect as everything else about him. He knew every line.
“You like fifties music?” I asked.
“Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!” He shuddered delicately. “The eighties were bearable.”
“Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?”
I wondered if my question would upset his buoyant mood, but he just smiled.
“Does it matter very much?”
“No, but I want to know everything about you.”
“I wonder if it will upset you,” he said to himself. He stared straight into the sun; a minute passed.
“Try me,” I finally said.
He looked into my eyes, seeming to forget the road completely for a while. Whatever he saw must have encouraged him. He turned to face the last bloodred rays of the dying sun and sighed.
“I was born in Chicago in 1901.” He paused and glanced at me from the corner of his eye. My face was carefully arranged, unsurprised, patient for the rest. He smiled a tiny smile and continued. “Orion found me in a hospital in the summer of 1918. I was seventeen, and I was dying of the Spanish influenza.”
He heard my gasp and looked up into my eyes again.
“I don’t remember it very well. It was a long time ago, and human memories fade.” He seemed lost in thought for a minute, but before I could prompt him, he went on. “I do remember how it felt when Orion saved me. It’s not an easy thing, not something you could forget.”
“Your parents?”
“They had already died from the disease. I was alone. That’s why he chose me. In all the chaos of the epidemic, no one would ever realize I was gone.”
“How did he… save you?”
A few seconds passed, and when he spoke again he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully.
“It was difficult. Not many of us have the restraint necessary to accomplish it. But Orion has always been the most humane, the most compassionate of all of us.… I don’t think you could find his equal anywhere in history.” he paused. “For me, it was merely very, very painful.”
He set his jaw, and I could tell he wasn’t going to say anything more about it. I filed it away for later. My curiosity on the subject was hardly idle. There were lots of angles I needed to think through on this particular issue, angles that were only beginning to occur to me.
His soft voice interrupted my thoughts. “He acted from loneliness. That’s usually the reason behind the choice. I was the first in Orion’s family, though he found Walburga soon after. She jumped from a cliff. They took her straight to the hospital morgue, though, somehow, her heart was still beating.”
“So you have to be dying, then.…”
“No, that’s just Orion. He would never do that to someone who had another choice, any other choice.” The respect in his voice was profound whenever he spoke of his adoptive father.
“It is easier, he says, though, if the heart is weak.” He stared at the now-dark road, and I could feel the subject closing again.
“And Narcissa and Bellatrix?”
“Orion brought Narcissa into our family next. I didn’t realize till much later that he was hoping she would be to me what Walburga was to him—he was careful with his thoughts around me.” He rolled his eyes. “But she was never more than a sister. Cissy found Bellatrix two years later. She was hunting—we were in Appalachia at the time—and found a bear about to finish her off. She carried her back to Orion, more than a hundred miles, afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it herself. I’m only beginning to guess how difficult that journey was for her.” He threw a pointed glance in my direction and raised our hands, still folded together, to brush his cheek against my hand.
“But she made it.”
“Yes. She said it felt like the right thing to do."
“Andreda and Regulus?”
“Andromeda and Regulus are two very rare creatures. They both developed a conscience, as we refer to it, with no outside guidance. Regulus belonged to another… family, a very different kind of family. He became depressed, and he wandered on his own. Andy found him. Like me, she has certain gifts.”
“Really?” I interrupted, fascinated. “But you said you were the only one who could hear people’s thoughts.”
“That’s true. She knows other things. She sees things—things that might happen, things that are coming. But it’s very subjective. The future isn’t set in stone. Things change.”
His jaw set when he said that, and his eyes darted to my face and away so quickly that I wasn’t sure if I’d only imagined it.
“What kinds of things does she see?”
“She saw how lost Reggie was. She saw Orion, and our family, and they came together to find us. She’s most sensitive to non-humans. She always knows, for example, when another group of our kind is coming near. And any threat they may pose.”
“Are there a lot of… your kind?” I was surprised. How many of them could walk around with us all totally oblivious?
My mind got caught on one word he’d said. Threat. It was the first time he’d ever said anything to hint that his world wasn’t just dangerous for humans. It made me anxious, and I was about to ask a new question, but he was already answering my first.
“No, not many. But most won’t settle in any one place. Only those like us, who’ve given up hunting you people”—a sly glance in my direction —“can live together with humans for any length of time. We’ve only found one other family like ours, in a small village in Alaska. We lived together for a time, but there were so many of us that we became too noticeable. Those of us who live… differently, tend to band together.”
“And the others?”
“Nomads, for the most part. We’ve all lived that way at times. It gets tedious, like anything else. But we run across the others now and then, because most of us prefer the North.”
“Why is that?”
We were parked in front of my house now, and he turned off the truck. The silence that followed its roar felt intense. It was very dark; there was no moon. The porch light was off, so I knew my dad wasn’t home yet.
“Did you have your eyes open this afternoon?” he teased. “Do you think I could walk down the street in the sunlight without causing traffic accidents?”
I thought to myself that he could stop traffic even without all the pyrotechnics.
“There’s a reason why we chose the Olympic Peninsula, one of the most sunless places in the world. It’s nice to be able to go outside in the day. You wouldn’t believe how tired you can get of nighttime in eightyodd years.”
“So that’s where the legends came from?”
“Probably.”
“And Andromeda came from another family, like Regulus?”
“No, and that is a mystery. Andy doesn’t remember her human life at
all. And she doesn’t know who created her. She awoke alone. Whoever made her walked away, and none of us understand why, or how, he could. If Andy hadn’t had that other sense, if she hadn’t seen Orion and known that she would someday become one of us, she probably would have turned into a total savage.”
There was so much to think through, so much I still wanted to ask. But just then my stomach growled. I’d been so interested, I hadn’t even noticed I was hungry. I realized now that I was starving.
“I’m sorry, I’m keeping you from dinner.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“I don’t spend a lot of time around people who eat food. I forget.”
“I want to stay with you.” It was easier to say in the darkness, knowing how my voice would betray me, my hopeless addiction to him.
“Can’t I come in?” he asked.
“Would you like to?” I couldn’t picture it, a god sitting in my dad’s shabby kitchen chair.
“Yes, if you don’t mind.”
I smiled. “I do not.”
I climbed out of the truck and he was already there; then he flitted ahead and disappeared. The lights turned on inside.
He met me at the door. It was so surreal to see him inside my house, framed by the boring physical details of my humdrum life. I remembered a game my mother used to play with me when I was maybe four or five.
One of these things is not like the others.
“Did I leave that unlocked?” I wondered.
“No, I used the key from under the eave.”
I hadn’t thought I’d used that key in front of him. I remembered how he’d found my truck key, and shrugged.
“You’re hungry, right?” And he led the way to the kitchen, as if he’d been here a million times before. He turned on the kitchen light and then sat in the same chair I’d just tried to picture him in. The kitchen didn’t look so dingy anymore. But maybe that was because I couldn’t really look at anything but him. I stood there for a moment, trying to wrap my mind around his presence here in the middle of mundania.
“Eat something, Remus.”
I nodded and turned to scavenge. There was lasagna left over from last night. I put a square on a plate, changed my mind, and added the rest that was in the pan, then set the plate in the microwave. I washed the pan while the microwave revolved, filling the kitchen with the smell of tomatoes and oregano. My stomach growled again.
“Hmm,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to have to do a better job in the future.”
I laughed. “What could you possibly do better than you already do?”
“Remember that you’re human. I should have, I don’t know, packed a picnic or something today.”
The microwave dinged and I pulled the plate out, then set it down quickly when it burned my hand.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I found a fork and started eating. I was really hungry. The first bite scalded my mouth, but I kept chewing.
“Does that taste good?” he asked.
I swallowed. “I’m not sure. I think I just burned my taste buds off. It tasted good yesterday.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“Do you ever miss food? Ice cream? Peanut butter?”
He shook his head. “I hardly remember food. I couldn’t even tell you what my favorites were. It doesn’t smell… edible now.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
“It’s not such a huge sacrifice.” He said it sadly, like there were other things on his mind, sacrifices that were huge.
I used the dish towel as a hot pad and carried the plate to the table so I could sit by him.
“Do you miss other parts about being human?”
He thought about that for a second. “I don’t actually miss anything, because I’d have to remember it to be able to miss it, and like I said, my human life is hard to remember. But there are things I think I’d like. I suppose you could say things I was jealous of.”
“Like what?”
“Sleep is one. Never-ending consciousness gets tedious. I think I’d enjoy temporary oblivion. It looks interesting.”
I ate a few bites, thinking about that. “Sounds hard. What do you do all night?”
He hesitated, then pursed his lips. “Do you mean in general?”
I wondered why he sounded like he didn’t want to answer. Was it too broad a question?
“No, you don’t have to be general. Like, what are you going to do tonight after you leave?”
It was the wrong question. I could feel my high start to slip. He was going to have to leave. It didn’t matter how short the separation was—I dreaded it.
He didn’t seem to like the question, either, at first I thought for the same reason. But then his eyes flashed to my face and away, like he was uncomfortable.
“What?”
He made a face. “Do you want a pleasant lie or a possibly disturbing truth?”
“The truth,” I said quickly, though I wasn’t entirely sure.
He sighed. “I’ll come back here after you and your father are asleep.
It’s sort of my routine lately.” I blinked. Then I blinked again.
“You come here?”
“Almost every night.”
“Why?”
“You’re interesting when you sleep,” he said casually. “You talk.”
My mouth popped open. Heat flashed up my neck and into my face. I knew I talked in my sleep, of course; my mother teased me about it. I hadn’t thought it was something I needed to worry about here.
He watched my reaction, staring up at me apprehensively from under his lashes.
“Are you very angry with me?”
Was I? I didn’t know. The potential for humiliation was strong. And I didn’t understand—he’d been listening to me babble in my sleep from where? The window? I couldn’t understand.
“How do you… Where do you… What did I…?” I couldn’t finish any of my thoughts.
He put his hand on my cheek. The blood under his fingers felt burning hot next to his cold hand. “Don’t be upset. I didn’t mean any harm. I promise, I was very much in control of myself. If I’d thought there was any danger, I would have left immediately. I just… wanted to be where you were.”
“I… That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“What are you worried about?”
“What did I say?”
He smiled. “You miss your mother. When it rains, the sound makes you restless. You used to talk about home a lot, but it’s less often now. Once you said, ‘It’s too green.’” He laughed softly, hoping not to offend me again.
“Anything else?” I demanded.
He knew what I was getting at. “You did say my name,” he admitted.
I sighed in defeat. “A lot?”
“Define ‘a lot.’”
“Oh no,” I groaned.
Like it was easy, natural, he put his arms around my shoulders and leaned his head against my chest. Automatically, my arms came up to wrap around him. To hold him there.
“Don’t be self-conscious,” he whispered. “You already told me that you dream about me, remember?”
“That’s different. I knew what I was saying.”
“If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not ashamed of it.”
I stroked his hair. I guessed I really didn’t mind, when it came down to it. It wasn’t like I expected him to follow normal human rules anyway. The rules he’d made for himself seemed like enough.
“I’m not ashamed,” I whispered.
He hummed, almost like a purr, his cheek pressed over my heart.
Then we both heard the sound of tires on the brick driveway, saw the headlights flash through the front windows, down the hall to us. I jumped, and dropped my arms as he pulled away.
“Do you want your father to know that I’m here?” he asked.
I tried to think it through quickly. “Um…”
“Another time, then…”
And I was alone.
“Sirius?” I whispered.
I heard a quiet laugh, and then nothing else.
My father’s key turned in the door.
“Remus?” he called. I remembered finding that funny before; who else would it be? Suddenly he didn’t seem so far off base.
“In here.”
Was my voice too agitated? I took another bite of my lasagna so I could be chewing when he came in. His footsteps sounded extra noisy after I’d spent the day with Sirius.
“Did you take all the lasagna?” he asked, looking at my plate.
“Oh, sorry. Here, have some.”
“No worries, Remus. I’ll make myself a sandwich.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled again.
Lyall banged around the kitchen getting what he needed. I worked on eating my giant plate of food as fast as was humanly possible while not choking to death. I was thinking about what Sirius had just said—"Do you want your father to know that I’m here?" Which was not the same as "Do you want your father to know that I was here?" in the past tense. So did that mean he hadn’t actually left? I hoped so.
Sandwich in hand, Lyall sat in the chair across from me. It was hard to imagine Sirius sitting in the same place just minutes ago. Lyall fit. The memory of him was like a dream that couldn’t possibly have been real. “How was your day? Did you get everything done that you wanted to?”
“Um, not really. It was… too nice out to stay indoors. Were the fish biting?”
“Yep. They like the good weather, too.”
I scraped the last of the lasagna into one huge mouthful and started chewing.
“Got plans for tonight?” he asked suddenly.
I shook my head, maybe a little too emphatically. “You look kinda keyed up,” he noted.
Of course he would have to pay attention tonight. I swallowed. “Really?”
“It’s Saturday,” he mused.
I didn’t respond.
“I guess you’re missing that dance tonight.…”
“As intended,” I said.
He nodded. “Sure, dancing, I get it. But maybe next week—you could take someone out for dinner? There’re lots of other fish in the sea.”
“Not at the rate you’re going.”
He laughed. “I do my best.… So you’re not going out tonight?” he asked again.
“Nowhere to go,” I told him. “Besides, I’m tired. I’m just going to go to bed early again.”
I got up and took my plate to the sink.
“Uh-huh,” he said, chewing thoughtfully. “None of the kids in town are your type, eh?”
I shrugged as I scrubbed the plate.
I could feel him staring at me, and I tried really hard to keep the blood out of my neck. I wasn’t sure I was succeeding.
“Don’t be too hard on a small town,” he said. “I know we don’t have the variety of a big city—”
“There’s plenty of variety, Dad. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, okay. None of my business anyway.” He sounded kind of dejected.
I sighed. “Well, I’m done. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“’Night, Remus.”
I tried to make my footsteps drag as I walked up the stairs, like I was super tired. I wondered if he bought my bad acting. I hadn’t actually lied to him or anything. I definitely wasn’t planning on going out tonight.
I shut my bedroom door loud enough for him to hear downstairs, then sprinted as quietly as I could to the window. I shoved it open and leaned out into the dark. I couldn’t see anything, just the shadow of the treetops.
“Sirius?” I whispered, feeling completely idiotic.
The quiet, laughing response came from behind me. “Yes?”
I spun around so fast I knocked a book off my desk. It fell with a thud to the floor.
He was lying across my bed, hands behind his head, ankles crossed, a huge dimpled smile on his face. He looked the color of frost in the darkness.
“Oh!” I breathed, reaching out to grab the desk for support.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Just give me a second to restart my heart.”
He sat up—moving slowly like he did when he was either trying to act human or trying not to startle me—and dangled his legs over the edge of the bed. He patted the space next to him.
I walked unsteadily to the bed and sat down beside him. He put his hand on mine.
“How’s your heart?”
“You tell me—I’m sure you hear it better than I do.” He laughed quietly.
We sat there for a moment in silence, both listening to my heartbeat slow. I thought about Sirius in my room… and my father’s suspicious questions… and my lasagna breath.
“Can I have a minute to be human?”
“Certainly.”
I stood, and then looked at him, sitting there all perfect on the edge of my bed, and I thought that maybe I was just hallucinating everything. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?”
“I won’t move a muscle,” he promised.
And then he became totally motionless, a statue again, perched on the edge of my bed.
I grabbed my pajamas out of their drawer and hurried to the bathroom, banging the door so Lyall would know it was occupied.
I brushed my teeth twice. Then I washed my face and traded clothes. I always just wore a pair of holey sweatpants and an old t-shirt to bed—it was from a barbecue place that my mom liked. I wished I had something less… me. But I really hadn’t been expecting guests, and then it was probably dumb to worry anyway. If he hung out here at night, he already knew what I wore to sleep.
I brushed my teeth one more time.
When I opened the door, I had another small heart attack. Lyall was at the top of the stairs; I almost walked into him.
“Huh!” I coughed out.
“Oh, sorry, Remus. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m good.”
He looked at my pajamas, and then made a little harrumph sound in the back of his throat like he was surprised.
“You heading to bed, too?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess. I’ve got an early one again tomorrow.”
“Okay. ’Night.”
“Yeah.”
I walked into my room, glad that the bed wasn’t visible from where Lyall was standing, then shut the door firmly behind me.
Sirius hadn’t moved even a fraction of an inch. I smiled and his lips twitched; he relaxed, and he was suddenly human again. Or close enough. I went back to sit next to him. He twisted to face me, pulling his legs up and crossing them.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that shirt,” he said. His voice was so quiet that I didn’t have any worries that Lyall would hear us.
“I can change.”
He rolled his eyes. “Not you wearing it—its entire existence.” He reached out and brushed his fingers across the smiling pig on it. My pulse spiked, but he politely ignored that. “Should he be so happy to be food?”
I had to grin. “Well, we don’t know his side of the story, do we? He might have a reason to smile.”
He looked at me like he was doubting my sanity.
I reached out to hold his hand. It felt really natural, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe I was so lucky. What had I ever done to deserve this?
“Your dad thinks you might be sneaking out,” he told me.
“I know. Apparently I look keyed up.”
“Are you?”
“A little more than that, I think. Thank you. For staying.”
“It’s what I wanted, too.”
My heart started beating… not faster exactly, but stronger somehow. For some reason I would never understand, he wanted to be with me.
Moving at human speed, he unfolded his legs and draped them across mine. Then he curled up against my chest again the way he seemed to prefer, with his ear against my heart, which was reacting probably more than was necessary. I folded my arms around him and pressed my lips to his hair.
“Mmm,” he hummed.
“This…,” I murmured into his hair, “… is much easier than I thought it would be.”
“Does it seem easy to you?” It sounded like he was smiling. He angled his face up, and I felt his nose trace a cold line up the side of my neck.
“Well,” I said breathlessly. His lips were brushing the edge of my jaw.
“It seems to be easier than it was this morning, at least.”
“Hmm,” he said. His arms slid over my shoulders and then wrapped around my neck. He pulled himself up until his lips were brushing my ear. “Why is that”—my voice shook embarrassingly—“do you think?” “Mind over matter,” he breathed right into my ear.
A tremor ran down my body. He froze, then leaned carefully back. One hand brushed across the skin just under the sleeve of my t-shirt.
“You’re cold,” he said. I could feel the goose bumps rise under his fingertips.
“I’m fine.”
He frowned and climbed back to his original position. My arms weren’t willing to let him go. As he slid out of them, my hands stayed on his hips.
“Your whole body is shivering.”
“I don’t think that’s from being cold,” I told him.
We looked at each other for a second in the dark.
“I’m not sure what I’m allowed to do,” I admitted. “How careful do I need to be?”
He hesitated. “It’s not easier,” he said finally, answering my earlier question. His hand brushed across my forearm, and I felt goose bumps again. “But this afternoon… I was still undecided. I’m sorry, it was unforgivable for me to behave as I did.”
“I forgive you,” I murmured.
“Thank you.” He smiled and then was serious as he looked down at the bumps on my arm. “You see… I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough.…” He lifted my hand and pressed it to his cheek, still looking down. “And while there was still that possibility that I might be… overcome”—he breathed in the scent at my wrist—“I was… susceptible. Until I made up my mind that I was strong enough, that there was no possibility at all that I would… that I ever could…”
I’d never seen him struggle so hard for words. It was so human.
“So there’s no possibility now?”
He looked up at me finally and smiled. “Mind over matter.”
“Sounds easy,” I said, grinning so that he knew I was teasing.
“Rather than easy I would say… herculean, but possible. And so… in answer to your other question…” “Sorry,” I said.
He laughed quietly. “Why do you apologize?” It was a rhetorical question, and he went on quickly, putting a finger to my lips just in case I felt like I needed to explain. “It is not easy, and so, if it is acceptable to you, I would prefer if you would… follow my lead?” He let his finger drop. “Is that fair?”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “Whatever you want.” As usual, I meant that literally.
“If it gets to be… too much, I’m sure I will be able to make myself leave.”
I frowned. “I will make sure it’s not too much.”
“It will be harder tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve had the scent of you in my head all day, and I’ve grown amazingly desensitized. If I’m away from you for any length of time, I’ll have to start over again. Not quite from scratch, though, I think.”
“Never go away,” I suggested.
His face relaxed into a smile. “That suits me. Bring on the shackles—I am your prisoner.” While he spoke, he laced his cold fingers around my wrist like a manacle. “And now, if you don’t mind, may I borrow a blanket?”
It took me a second. “Oh, um, sure. Here.”
I reached behind him with my free hand and snagged the old quilt that was folded over the foot of my bed, then offered it to him. He dropped my wrist, took the blanket and shook it out, then handed it back to me.
“I’d be happier if I knew you were comfortable.”
“I’m very comfortable.”
“Please?”
Quickly, I threw the quilt over my shoulders like a cape.
He chuckled quietly. “Not exactly what I was thinking.” He was already on his feet, rearranging the blanket over my legs and pulling it all the way up to my shoulders. Before I could understand what he was doing, he had climbed onto my lap again and nestled against my chest.
The quilt made a barrier between any place that our skin might touch.
“Better?” he asked.
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Good enough?”
“Better than that.”
He laughed. I stroked his hair. That seemed careful.
“It’s so strange,” he said. “You read about something… you hear about it in other people’s minds, you watch it happen to them… and it doesn’t prepare you even in the slightest for experiencing it yourself. The glory of first love. It’s more than I was expecting.”
“Much more,” I agreed fervently.
“And other emotions, too—jealousy, for example. I thought I understood that one clearly. I’ve read about it a hundred thousand times, seen actors portray it in a thousand plays and movies, listened to it in the minds around me daily—even felt it myself in a shallow way, wishing I had what I didn’t.… But I was shocked.” He scowled. “Do you remember the day that McKayla asked you to the dance?”
I nodded, though that day was most memorable to me for a different reason. “The day you started talking to me again.”
“I was stunned by the flare of resentment, almost fury, that I felt—I didn’t recognize what it was at first. I didn’t know jealousy could be so powerful… so painful. And then you refused her, and I didn’t know why. It was more aggravating than usual that I couldn’t just hear what you were thinking. Was there someone else? Was it simply for Peter’s sake? I knew I had no right to care either way. I tried not to care. And then the line started forming.” I groaned, and he laughed.
“I waited,” he went on, “more anxious than I should be to hear what you would say to them, to try to decipher your expressions. I couldn’t deny the relief I felt, watching the annoyance on your face. But I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know what your answer would have been, if I’d asked.…”
He looked up at me. “That was the first night I came here. I wrestled all night, watching you sleep, with the chasm between what I knew was right, moral, ethical, honorable, and what I wanted. I knew that if I continued to ignore you as I should, or if I left for a few years, till you were gone, that someday you would find someone you wanted, someone human like McKayla. It made me sad.
And then”—his voice dropped to an even quieter whisper—“as you were sleeping, you said my name. You spoke so clearly, at first I thought you’d woken. But you rolled over restlessly and mumbled my name once more, and sighed. The emotion that coursed through me then was unnerving… staggering. And I knew I couldn’t ignore you any longer.”
He was quiet for a moment, probably listening to the uneven pounding of my heart.
“But jealousy… it’s so irrational. Just now, when Lyall asked you about other people...”
“That made you jealous. Really?”
“I’m new at this. You’re resurrecting the human in me, and everything feels stronger because it’s fresh.”
“Honestly, though, for that to bother you, after I have to hear that Narcissa —female model of the year, Narcissa, Miss Perfect, Narcissa—was meant for you. How can I compete with that?”
Hia teeth gleamed and hia arms wove around my neck again. “There’s no competition.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Tentatively, I folded my arms around him. “Is this okay?” I checked.
“Very.” He sighed happily. “Of course Narcissa is beautiful in her way, but even if she wasn’t like a sister to me, she could never have one tenth, no, one hundredth of the attraction you hold for me.” He was serious now, thoughtful. “For almost ninety years I’ve walked among my kind, and yours… all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren’t alive yet.”
“It doesn’t seem fair,” I whispered into his hair. “I haven’t had to wait at all. Why do I get off so easily?”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I should make this harder for you, definitely.” His hand stroked my cheek. “You only have to risk your life every second you spend with me, surely that’s not much. You only have to turn your back on nature, on humanity… what is that worth?”
“I’m not feeling deprived.”
He turned his face into my chest and whispered, “Not yet.”
“What—” I started, but then his body was suddenly motionless. I froze, but he was gone, my arms wrapped around the empty air.
“Lie down,” he hissed, but I couldn’t tell where he was in the darkness.
I threw myself back on the bed, shaking the quilt out and then rolling on my side, the way I usually slept. I heard the door crack open. Lyall was checking up on me. I breathed evenly, exaggerating the movement.
A long minute passed. I listened for the door to close. Suddenly Sirius was next to me. He lifted my arm and placed it over his shoulders as he burrowed himself closer to me.
“You’re a terrible actor—I’d say that career path is out for you.”
“There goes my ten-year plan,” I muttered. My heart was being obnoxious. He could probably feel it as well as hear it, careening around inside my ribs like it might bust one of them.
He hummed a melody I didn’t recognize. It reminded me of a lullaby.
Then he paused. “Should I sing you to sleep?”
“Right,” I laughed. “Like I could sleep with you here.”
“You do it all the time,” he reminded me.
“Not with you here,” I disagreed, tightening my arm around him.
“You have a point. So if you don’t want to sleep, what do you want to do, then?”
“Honestly? A lot of things. None of them careful.”
He didn’t say anything; it didn’t sound like he was breathing. I went on quickly.
“But since I promised to be careful, what I’d like is… to know more about you.”
“Ask me anything.” I could hear that he was smiling now.
I sifted through my questions for the most important. “Why do you do it?” I asked. “I still don’t understand why you work so hard to resist what you… are. Don’t misunderstand, of course I’m glad that you do—I’ve never been happier to be alive. I just don’t see why you would bother in the first place.”
He answered slowly. “That’s a good question, and you are not the first one to ask it. The others—the vast majority of our kind who are quite content with our lot—they, too, wonder at how we live. But you see, just because we’ve been… dealt a certain hand… it doesn’t mean that we can’t choose to rise above—to conquer the boundaries of a destiny that none of us wanted. To try to retain whatever essential humanity we can.”
I lay still, feeling kind of awed. He was a better person than I would ever be.
“Did you fall asleep?” he murmured almost silently after a few minutes.
“No.”
“Is that all you were curious about?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not quite.”
“What else do you want to know?”
“Why can you read minds—why only you? And Andromeda, seeing the future and everything… why does that happen?”
I felt him shrug under my arm. “We don’t really know. Orion has a theory… he believes that we all bring something of our strongest human traits with us into the next life, where they are intensified—like our minds, and our senses. He thinks that I must have already been very sensitive to the thoughts of those around me. And that Andy had some precognition, wherever she was.”
“What did he bring into the next life, and the others?”
“Orion brought his compassion. Walburga brought her ability to love passionately. Bellatrix brought her strength, Narcissa her… tenacity." he chuckled. “Regulus is very interesting. He was quite charismatic in his first life, able to influence those around him to see things his way. Now he is able to manipulate the emotions of those near him—calm down a room of angry people, for example, or excite a lethargic crowd, conversely. It’s a very subtle gift.”
I considered the impossibilities he described, trying to take it in. He waited patiently while I thought.
“So where did it all start? I mean, Orion changed you, and then someone must have changed him, and so on.…”
“Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn’t we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don’t believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?”
“Let me get this straight—I’m the baby seal, right?”
“Correct.” He laughed, and his fingers brushed across my lips. “Aren’t you tired? It’s been a rather long day.”
“I just have a few million more questions.”
“We have tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.…”
A feeling of euphoria, of pure bliss, filled up my chest until I thought I might explode. I couldn’t imagine there was a drug addict in the world who wouldn’t trade his favorite fix for this feeling.
It was a minute before I could talk again. “Are you sure you won’t vanish in the morning? You are mythical, after all.”
“I won’t leave you,” he promised solemnly, and that same feeling, even stronger than before, washed through me.
When I could speak, I said, “One more, then, tonight.…” And then the blood rushed up my neck. The darkness was no help. I was sure he could feel the heat.
“What is it?”
“Um, nope, forget it. I changed my mind.”
“Remus, you can ask me anything.” I didn’t speak, and he groaned.
“I keep thinking it will get less frustrating, not hearing your thoughts. But it just gets worse and worse.”
“It’s bad enough that you eavesdrop on my sleep-talking,” I muttered.
“Please tell me?” he murmured, his velvet voice taking on that mesmerizing intensity that I never could resist.
I tried. I shook my head.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll just assume it’s something much worse than it is,” he threatened.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said, then locked my teeth.
“Please?” Again in that hypnotic voice.
I sighed. “You won’t get… offended?”
“Of course not.”
I took a deep breath. “Well… so, obviously, I don’t know a lot that’s true about vampires”—the word slipped out accidentally, I was just thinking so hard about how to ask my question, and then I realized what I’d said and I froze.
“Yes?”
He sounded normal, like the word didn’t mean anything.
I exhaled in relief.
“Okay, I mean, I just know the things you’ve told me, and it seems like we’re pretty… different. Physically. You look human—only better—but you don’t eat or sleep, you know. You don’t need the same things.”
“Debatable on some levels, but there are definitely truths in what you’re saying. What’s your question?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Ask me.”
I blurted it all out in a rush. “So I’m just an ordinary human guy, and you’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen, and I am just... overwhelmed by you, and a part of that, naturally, is that I’m insanely attracted to you, which I’m sure you can’t have helped but notice, what with your being, like, super aware of my circulatory system, but what I don’t know is, if it’s like that for you. Or is it like sleeping and eating, which you don’t need and I do—though I don’t want them nearly as much as I want you? And this question is totally offside, completely not first date appropriate, and I’m sorry and you don’t have to answer.”
I sucked in a huge breath.
“Hmm… I would have said this was our second date.”
“You’re right.”
He laughed. “Are you asking me about sex, Remus?”
My face got hot again. “Yes. I shouldn’t have.”
He laughed again. “I did climb into your bed, Remus. I believe that makes this line of inquiry quite understandable.”
“You still don’t have to answer.”
“I told you that you could ask me anything.” He paused, and then his voice was different. Kind of formal, like a teacher lecturing. “So… in the general sense—Sex and Vampires One-Oh-One. We all started out human, Remus, and most of those human desires are still there—just obscured behind more powerful desires. But we’re not thirsty all the time, and we tend to form… very strong bonds. Physical as well as emotional. And now in the specific sense… Sex and Vampires One-Oh-Two, Remus and Sirius.” He sighed again, more slowly this time. “I don’t think… that would be possible for us.”
“Because I would have to get too… close?” I guessed.
“That would be a problem, but that’s not the main problem. Remus, you don’t know how… well, fragile you are. I don’t mean that as an insult to your manliness, anyone human is fragile to me. I have to mind my actions every moment that we’re together so that I don’t hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, simply by accident.”
I thought about the first few times that he’d touched me, how cautiously he’d moved, how much it had seemed to frighten him. How he would ask me to move my hand, rather than just pulling his out from under it…
Now he put his palm against my cheek.
“If I were too hasty… if I were at all distracted, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake. You don’t realize how incredibly breakable you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I’m with you.”
If his life were in my hands that way, would I have already killed him? I cringed at the thought.
“I think I could be very distracted by you,” he murmured.
“I am never not distracted by you.”
“Can I ask you something now—something potentially offensive?”
“It’s your turn.”
“Do you have any experience with sex and humans?”
I was a little surprised that my face didn’t go hot again. It felt natural to tell him everything. “Not even a little bit. This is all firsts for me. I told you, I’ve never felt like this about anyone before, not even close.”
“I know. It’s just that I hear what other people think. I know that love and lust don’t always keep the same company.”
“They do for me.”
“That’s nice. We have that one thing in common, at least.”
“Oh.” When he’d been talking before, about how we tend to form very strong bonds, physical as well as emotional, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was speaking from experience. I found that I was surprisingly relieved to know that wasn’t the case.
“So, you do find me distracting?”
“Indeed.” He was smiling again. “Would you like me to tell you the things that distract me?”
“You don’t have to.”
“It was your eyes first. You have lovely eyes, Remus."
“Er, thanks?”
He giggled. “I’m not alone. Six of your ten admirers started with your eyes, too.”
“Ten?”
“They’re not all so forward as Taylor and McKayla. Do you want a list? You have options.”
“I think you’re making fun of me. And either way, there is no other option.” And never would be again.
“Next it was your arms—I’m very fond of your arms, Remus—this includes your shoulders and hands.” He ran his hand down my arm, then back up to my shoulder, and back down to my hand again. “Or maybe it was your chin that was second…” His fingers touched my face, like he thought I might not know what he meant. “I’m not entirely sure. It all took me quite by surprise when I realized that not only did I find you delicious, but also beautiful.”
My face and neck were burning. I knew it couldn’t be true, but in the moment, he was pretty convincing.
“Oh, and I didn’t even mention your hair.” His fingernails combed against my scalp.
“Okay, now I know you’re making fun.”
“I’m truly not. Did you know your hair is just precisely the same shade as a teak inlaid ceiling in a monastery I once stayed at in… I think it would be Cambodia now?”
“Um, no, I did not.” I yawned involuntarily.
He laughed. “Did I answer your question to your satisfaction?”
“Er, yes.”
“Then you should sleep.”
“I’m not sure if I can.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No!” I said a little too loudly.
He laughed, then began to hum that same unfamiliar lullaby—his voice was like an angel’s, soft in my ear.
More tired than I realized, exhausted from a day of mental and emotional stress like I’d never felt before, I drifted to sleep with his cold body in my arms.