Chapter 9
9
Ashley
L ake Champlain was quiet at this time of night, too late for the usual crowd to venture off the walking path to the shoreline. The full moon carved a jagged path across the water, stirred by the gentle fall breeze. Ashley pulled her jacket tight out of habit. She didn’t need it anymore. It was all an act now. Pretending to be human. Walking along the pebbled shore with Esther like this was just any other conversation they were about to have.
They were silent as they walked, listening to the push and tug of water slipping between time-smoothed rocks and the breeze rustling fall leaves until they came to a log just out of reach of the light from the nearby pier. Ashley took a seat, making sure to leave room for Esther.
Ashley waited until she couldn’t take the silence any longer. Until the chirp of crickets and the lapping water were deafening. “All right, then. What do you know?”
Esther pulled at a loose string on her hoodie’s sleeve. “I’ve been trying to think of some way to explain you since that time at my uncle’s.”
Ashley nodded encouragingly. This was it. Esther could say it, and it would be out there. Esther and her observant gaze, seeing through all the shields Ashley put up. She could be one person Ashley didn’t have to hide from. But she was also terrified of Esther’s reaction when—no, if —she confirmed her suspicion. She dug her nails into the log to keep her hands from shaking, hoping Esther didn’t notice this detail as well.
“And do you have any guesses?”
“One.” Esther lifted a shoulder, letting her hair shield part of her face. “But it’s ridiculous, and you’d probably laugh.”
Something about this moment felt déjà vu. The lake, the trees, the conversation. When it clicked, and the quiet piano from the movie came to mind, Ashley had to use all her weak willpower to keep from laughing. Should she say the line? No, it was too cheesy. But this might be the only chance anyone in the history of time had to use the quote properly.
“Say it,” Ashley said, trying her best to keep a serious face. “Out loud.” She covered her mouth to hide her snickering.
Esther looked away, clearly embarrassed by what she was going to say and missing Ashley’s hidden laughter. “A genetically modified human from a government experiment.”
“What?” Ashley jumped from the log, shaking it enough that Esther had to hold on while Ashley stared down at her. “You think I’m Spider-Man?”
“I think Captain America is a more accurate comparison.” Esther looked past her to the lake, but pink crept across Esther’s cheeks. “But I haven’t crossed out injection of radioactive venom yet either.”
“Wow, you’re messing up the movie reference so much right now.”
“What movie?” Esther looked up at her. “I haven’t watched all of the Avengers franchise. There’s so many of them. It’s hard to keep up.”
“Not Avengers, Twilight .”
Crap. She hadn’t meant to just blurt it out.
“ Twilight ? I remember that being a big deal, but never actually saw it.” She raised a curious brow and looked Ashley up and down. “It was a little before our time, don’t you think? I mean, I guess some…okay, maybe a lot of my classmates were reading it, but what are you? Nineteen? You’re a lot younger still.”
“I’m twenty, sort of, but I also read Twilight when it first came out and saw the movie.”
“When it came out? That book was early two thousands. You would have been like four.”
“Okay. I really need you to figure out what I am already.” This conversation was more frustrating than sexy. Why were they out here? Esther didn’t know what she was, and she wasn’t going to guess it. Ashley had all but told her the answer, and she was still none the wiser. “Are you out of guesses?”
“That was vampires and werewolves fighting over a girl, right? So, like, gang stuff?” Esther shrugged. “I don’t really understand how a gang would make you run that fast. Is it a drug?”
All right. Maybe it was time to call it a night. Esther knew something, but she didn’t know the specifics, and as far as Ashley was concerned, that meant they were still in the clear. No one knew her secret. Well, no one except the witch, but he didn’t count. Oh god. The only mortal who knew her secret was a witch.
“You’re looking too sci-fi when you need to go paranormal.” Shut up, Ashley .
“Paranormal?” Esther’s head tilted skeptically. “Like ghosts? Are you a ghost?” She took Ashley’s hand, and damn it, Ashley was so excited until she realized Esther was checking Ashley’s solidity. She held it anyway, letting the warmth of Esther’s hand seep into her own.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it . “Have you considered vampire?”
“Like you’re anemic? Or wait…” Esther flipped over Ashley’s hand, touching her fingertips, but the cross-shaped burn from earlier had healed. She snatched Ashley’s other hand and checked it as well. “Well, the speed and the healing and…and the crosses, okay.” A slight tremble made its way from Esther’s hand to Ashley’s. “But the teeth? Yes! The teeth. You smile all the time. It’s a lovely smile and not very umm… teethy.”
“Thanks.” Ashley flashed her signature grin, and for half a reckless second, let her fangs slip as well.
“What the fuck?” Esther tumbled over the log, tossing Ashley’s hand in her haste to get away.
“No, no, Esther, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…” This might have been the greediest thing Ashley had ever done.
Esther crawled across the ground to the woods, and it was all Ashley’s fault.
It was just that, for one selfish second, Ashley thought maybe she could have it all.
Esther opened her mouth to scream, and Ashley snapped back into action, covering her mouth and setting her back on the log before she made a sound.
“Look, Esther. I realize I could have eased you into this a little better, probably. On the one hand, you told me you wanted this conversation, but on the other hand, it has become very clear you had no idea where this conversation was going. So, I want to apologize now for how…jarring this was.”
She waited with her hand still over Esther’s mouth, but Esther remained frozen in place.
“Can I take my hand away,” Ashley said, “and you won’t scream, and we can have a normal conversation like two normal people?”
Esther remained frozen.
Ashley tentatively moved her hand away from Esther’s face.
Two beats passed.
Esther screamed, and Ashley covered her mouth again.
Ashley was the worst no-longer-human on the planet. She needed to fix this. “Esther, I’m so sorry. Telling you was really selfish of me. Just because you think cannibalism is sexy doesn’t mean?—”
Esther mumbled something from under Ashley’s hand that didn’t sound like screaming. Tentatively, Ashley moved her hand away again.
“Never in my life have I ever said cannibalism is sexy .” Esther was yelling. She looked pissed even. But she wasn’t screaming or running for her life.
Ashley took this as an improvement. “I mean, it was a couple of weeks ago. But that one lecture on cultural relativism? You said you thought eating a loved one was romantic or something.”
“And you took that as me wanting to be eaten?”
“No, of course not.” Ashley almost took her hand to assure her before thinking better of touching her right now. “I’m not going to—I would never! I just…I mean, I guess I hoped maybe you’d understand that I’m…me. And I wanted one person that knew that. That’s it.”
Esther’s eyes were wide, her brows near the middle of her forehead. She huffed out a breath and turned to the lake. So, Ashley followed suite, giving Esther time to process everything.
It was a beautiful night. The moon nearly full. For a moment, Ashley pretended it was the sun and Esther wasn’t angry-scared about Ashley’s undead status and instead they sat on the beach together, sunning. They could walk along the bike path and listen to the water and people out on their boats and cars passing. On the weekend, they would go to brunch, but she’d have to call in a reservation because the trendy, new place she wanted to try was so busy on Saturday mornings. They could go to the museum or a card shop or the yarn store with the cute seasonal displays in its window that always closed promptly at five. She’d entered a world of sunsets and dark, empty streets. A few more decades and even sunsets would be too bright as her vampire skin grew more sensitive with age.
The wind blew Esther’s hair, drawing Ashley’s attention back to the moment and the girl sitting next to her staring out into the lake like she had a world of thoughts going through her head as well.
It wasn’t right of Ashley to take her into the darkness with her. Not when she couldn’t promise any sort of future.
The truth was, Ashley changed into a vampire because she read about a love that would last forever and she wanted that. Now might not be the right time to start a new relationship, not when her connection to the Family was still on shaky ground, but she’d already sacrificed her human life for love. What was poor timing when she had all the time in the world?
She shifted closer so the tips of their fingers touched.
When Esther didn’t move away, Ashley decided it was all right to talk again. “I read some of your book. It was really messed up. Just when I thought you were a marshmallow, you give me a book full of psychotic and bloody stories.”
Esther’s gaze stayed out on the lake, but the corner of her mouth ticked up. “Which one did you read?”
Good, she was talking again.
“‘The Black Cat.’ I thought, surely, a story about a cat can’t get too dark. I was wrong. And it wasn’t even the cat’s fault. It was that dick owner of his.”
Esther chuckled and Ashley cheered internally. Maybe this night was salvageable.
“I tried some poems too,” Ashley went on. “There was this one where half the words were ‘bell,’ and I don’t know if it had any point, and like three about dreams being inside each other that probably had some meaning I missed. I’m not sure I’m into his poetry. Maybe he just can’t top ‘The Raven.’”
“No, you missed it.” Esther turned to Ashley, a spark from the moon catching in her eye. “‘The Bells’ is an evolution of the different uses of bells in our everyday lives paralleled to show the passing of time from birth to death. And ‘A Dream Within a Dream.’ That’s also about time and how intangible and fleeting it is. Trying to hold on to life is like holding on to a dream. ‘Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?’”
Ashley had missed those themes, but if Esther wanted to explain her favorite poems to her, she’d sit by this lake and listen until the sun came up. She’d never seen Esther this fired up. Hungry for more, Ashley moved her hand closer, draping her fingers across Esther’s resting hand.
“I thought you promised me some fated love poems.” Ashley’s thumb glided across the ridges of Esther’s knuckles, exploring her hills and valleys—down and back once, twice.
Esther turned her hand, gripping Ashley’s fingers. For a moment, the world flashed white, and on it, Ashley filled it like text from a typewriter with reasons why this was happening, all while keeping absolutely still so as not to draw attention to it.
“You were supposed to read ‘Annabel Lee,’” Esther said. “I thought you’d like that one. It’s tragic but beautiful.”
“And tragic beauty reminds you of me?” Ashley loved how that sounded.
“Yes.” Esther’s voice was soft but certain.
“Do you know any of it?” Ashley didn’t have the patience to wait until she got home to read the poem that reminded Esther of her. She shifted closer, testing the limits Esther allowed until their knees pressed together.
“It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea.” Esther smiled, her gaze on the lake. “That a maiden there lived whom you may know, by the name of Annabel Lee. And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.”
The words were familiar. Ashley couldn’t place why she knew them, but she continued where Esther had left off. “I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea.”
Esther turned to Ashley, her look mirroring Ashley’s surprise. Tendrils of her long, dark hair floated around her in the light breeze, and Ashley caught a lock with her free hand and tucked it behind Esther’s ear, this time watching for the dangling cross. Instead of dropping her hand back to her side as she should, Ashley let her fingertips follow along Esther’s jawline, tilting her face to meet Ashley’s.
“But we loved with a love, that was more than love. I and my Annabel Lee.”
In one slow and steady motion, and without thinking much further on the idea, Ashley leaned in. No cross, no nosy friends, no AC/DC playing from the other room. Their lips met in a sweet embrace. Gentle, but with a satisfying and full pressure behind it. Esther’s lips were just as soft as Ashley imagined. She caressed Esther’s cheekbone with her thumb as she pulled away.
Esther remained frozen, her eyes still closed, her body leaning slightly forward before she opened her eyes. The brown of them shone like liquid in the moonlight then grew wider in shock.
“Wait,” said Esther. “Wait wait.”
Ashley was doing nothing but waiting, but she attempted to wait more.
“But I’m straight.”
Okay. For some reason, that wasn’t what she’d expected. Ashley had decided Esther was queer on some scale of the spectrum. She might not be interested in Ashley, especially considering the whole vampire thing, but she hadn’t expected her to claim to be straight.
“Like, all the way?” Ashley said.
Esther’s eyes shifted back and forth, solving an equation only she saw. “I-I thought so. I guess I never really thought about it before?”
“Okay. Cool cool cool.” Ashley retreated, moving her hands back into her personal space. This was a lot. Maybe it was time for her to leave.