Bonus Scene #2
“A note?”
“Yes. In the back of the watch. There is a latch on the side.”
I find what she’s talking about, a small raised piece on the watch’s side. I press it, and the back plate lifts. Something falls out, but I catch it just before it reaches the snowy ground.
“May I?” I ask, already unfolding it.
She nods. “It is written in French. Can you read French?”
“Of course.” I snort, but then remember that she knows nothing about me.
“I can’t. No one in the manor could read it to me, either. Mr. Douay, will you tell me what it says?”
I open the piece of paper fully. The fold lines are thick, as if the note has been unfolded and refolded many times. I look over the scratched handwriting, and see that she is right. It’s written in perfect French.
“My dearest daughter Emma—” I read carefully in English.
“My heart is heavy as I write this. By the time you are old enough to read my words, you will have been away from me for many, many years. Too long. Never for a moment think I do not love you. It is my love that gave me the strength to let you go. I am just a governess. A lonely, common, and destitute woman that can give you nothing when you deserve everything.” My voice wavers, but I keep on.
“Be strong, little one. Be strong and be brave. One day we will be with each other again. Always and forever, your mother…”
“Lisette,” Emma finishes with sadness weighing heavy in her tone, “and then it just says ‘Governess. Tours, France.’ That is the only part I understood.”
“Yes, that’s right,” My mind whirls with everything I’ve just discovered about the young maid.
It seems Emma’s mother, Lisette, truly believed letting her daughter live at Greystone Manor was a better choice.
Perhaps E. W. Harris is the man Emma’s mother worked under.
Maybe she left the watch with Emma to know where to return.
I hand her back the pocket watch and letter. Despite Lisette’s honest intentions, Emma had been abandoned so young. My heart aches for her.
Emma sniffs back more tears. Slowly, and with trembling hands, she refolds the note into a little square, slips it into its place inside the watch, and closes the hidden latch. She puts it back into her satchel.
Something about her face then makes me pause—the pink hue of her round cheeks, the downturn pout of her rosebud mouth, the way escaped gold strands of hair lay across her forehead and curl in front of her ears. There’s a twinge of recognition, like I had seen it all before, centuries ago.
“I will bring you back to your mother.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can catch them.
Her eyes shine with hope. “You will?”
Go back to France where I’d sworn I’d never return? Where my past lies waiting for me? And all for a girl I barely know?
I suck in a lungful of air. I have nothing else—no place to stay, no family. I’ve been a wanderer for so long, a ghost of a man floating through the years.
“I will bring you back. You have my word.” And I never go back on my word.
She shrieks with joy, jumps to her feet, and wraps her arms around my middle in a fierce hug. I almost fall over, not expecting it.
“But she is all the way in France, Mr. Douay!” she cries out, rubbing her face against my shirt.
“Tours is not far from where I was born,” I reply. Thinking of home stirs a new set of memories, ones just as haunting and heartbreaking. “We will return together.”
“Thank you, Mr. Douay! Thank you!”
Charise’s laughter resounds behind my eardrums again. Growing rigid, I glance down at Emma. She meets my gaze, her dimpled chin poking into my stomach.
“Mr. Douay, are you all right?” she asks me, her voice full of concern.
Another giggle, but Emma’s lips never move. My vision blurs, and I’m forced to close my eyes. Those terrible memories want to take over my mind again.
No… Please, not now.
Before the familiar ghostly faces can reappear, I clench my jaw so hard, a shock of pain shoots from the back of my mouth to my temples and explosions of red and green burst behind my lids.
The pain is real, I remind myself. The voices in my head aren’t.
When I relax and the pain turns into a dull throb, I open my eyes again. Emma stands some steps away, looking frightened.
“It’s over,” I assure her. “I am fine now.”
I can’t explain to her that it’s my thoughts that trouble me. Or that the memories of my past have been replaying themselves in my head since I’d been turned by Malcolm the Divine in the year 1603.
France is far ahead of us, and I have to worry about surviving the blistering cold. I can last in this weather, but Emma is human. And I have nothing but the clothes on my back and the sword on my hip. What good will those be?
Then I remember the blanket from her satchel. It still lies on the ground by Emma’s feet.
“You have to keep warm,” I tell her, and start to unbutton my shirt. As I hand it over to her, the early morning chill tickles my bare chest. “Put this on.”
She does without hesitation, slipping her arms through. It swallows up most of her miniature frame, the long sleeves dangling off her hands, but it’ll do.
I help her button up the front, but before I can get to the last one at her neck, she gasps, “What’s that?” her gaze is fixed on my forearm, the one covered in Malcolm’s marks, and I recoil instantly.
I’d forgotten about the scars—the ones that mark me of my sin.
Cautiously, Emma reaches out and touches the scars. I don’t know why I let her touch the permanently scarred ivy pattern, but when she gives me a tender smile, my body relaxes. She lifts her hand away to reveal the raised and pink twisted ivy pattern permanently engraved in my skin.
“Does it hurt?”
What an innocent question. Her concern for me is soothing and unnerving at the same time.
“No,” I reply. “Not anymore.”
Not physically, I want to confess. It still hurts in other ways.
“Who would do such a terrible thing?”
I sigh. “My creator. The man who turned me into what I am, a vampire. He did it to me. Malcolm the Divine.”
Her face pinches as she looks over the scars again. “He must have been a horrid man.”
I was the horrid man.
I move away from her and pick up the faded blanket. Shaking off the snow, I open it to find a fist-size hole in the bottom corner. At least the material is thick, but it’s only big enough to cover one person.
I drape it over her head and shoulders, and she clutches it close.
Walking over to the base of the largest tree in the clearing, I squat down and begin to dig through the snow.
Before Emma can ask what I’m doing, I explain, “You need a place to rest. It has been a long night for both of us. The less snow underneath you, the dryer you will be. This tree—” I pat the frozen bark— “will protect you from any wind. At nightfall, we will start moving again, hopefully reach West Bromwich, and take a train to our next destination.”
My body is heavy. I don’t need to look up again to know the sky is lightening by the second; my skin prickles with the pending sunrise.
“It is almost dawn,” I say, as Emma steps into the hole and lays down on the dead grass. “The sun may take away some of the coolness in the air and keep you warmer.”
“Mr. Douay, isn’t the sun harmful to you? You won’t leave me, will you?”
The sun is deadly to me. It’s one of the few things that could destroy me. But I don’t want to worry her more, so I kneel next to her. “Do not worry about me. Rest your eyes. I will be right here beside you the entire time.”
Trusting me, she lifts the blanket up to her chin before closing her eyes.
If Emma wants me near her, then that’s just where I will be.
I lay back and stretch out my long legs.
Even though I have no intention of sleeping, my body welcomes the idea.
My eyelids become heavy, but I need to be awake and ready if any danger comes our way.
I stare at the shadowy canopy above us and wonder if it’ll be enough to keep me from burning.
I lost a friend today, but so much has been taken from me in my extended life that grief never lasts long.
With my head filled with the night’s events—of Emma, the note, what I assumed to be Avrum’s death, and the promise of France—my eyes drift closed.
Darkness envelopes me, greeting me like an old friend.
Unable to resist it any longer, I surrender to the pull of sleep, but just before I can reach that moment of absolute bliss, a child’s shrill laughter shatters the stillness.