Chapter Goosevar #2
The obvious impossibility of it. I didn’t know why these words should stab at me as they did, because of course it was impossible—for so many reasons.
“I can’t imagine,” I said softly, “but it seems like something we might need to figure out.”
He raised a hand to rub his forehead, and I could feel his frustration and fear. My own thoughts were a dizzy, confused mess. But I thought if I could at least anchor him, with his decades of stored-up knowledge, we might have a chance.
“What do you do in your laboratory when you have a problem to solve?” I asked. “How do you start?”
I felt foolish talking about his work when I understood it so little, but I could see he was grateful as he replied, “I write down the question or questions that I wish to answer.”
“Why don’t we try it?”
Nodding, he got up and walked to the dining table. I followed, noticing blank sheets of paper and a quill and inkpot already there. My letter.
He sat in the chair with the broken back and took up the quill.
I pulled out the chair across from him, saying, “Will it be all right for me to sit with you?” It wasn’t much closer than we’d sat by the fire, but the attack had occurred here and was likely still very fresh in his mind—as it was in my own.
He smiled thinly. “I confess the temptation has been somewhat dampened by your resourcefulness the last time you were here.”
I didn’t grasp his meaning at first, but then his fingers brushed his burn.
I couldn’t help a huff of nervous laughter. “I’m sorry!” Feeling for the cross beneath my shawl, I said, “Does it still hurt?”
“Yes, and let us be grateful for that.” He took a sheet of paper from the stack and said, “Now, what is Goosevar? What is his connection to my family?” He scribbled down his questions.
“Also, did your vision really come from him?”
“And are the vision and your tea reading carrying the same message?”
“And what is the message?”
His eyes touched mine briefly, raising a flutter in my chest.
I took off my shawl and draped it over my chairback while he continued scribbling. Even with the casement partly open, the room had warmed nicely.
When his writing paused, I asked, “How many of your kind have there been through history?”
He touched the black feather to his chin, and the motion drew my notice to the fullness of his dark lips. I couldn’t see the deadly teeth, and it seemed to me they came and went—like the way food could make your mouth water.
“To protect the family,” he replied, “no written record was kept. But my father said I am the fourth. I’ll start another page for known facts.” He wrote this down, adding, “Only one child, male, has been born each generation.”
“And when each son comes of age, the thirst comes on?”
“Yes.”
“You also told me that it’s worse at the beginning.”
He nodded. “And after many years it begins to diminish, ceasing altogether when the next heir undergoes the change.”
“The wives . . .” I hesitated, not wishing to cause him pain.
He looked up.
“All of them have died in childbirth?”
“Yes.”
When he’d caught up with his writing, I said, “You’ve had a vision that seems to mean Goosevar expects you to marry.”
“To marry you,” he corrected, causing my heart to skip. “That was my interpretation, but it is a hypothesis rather than a fact. I’ll start another page.”
As I watched the black ink bleed onto the pale sheets, an answer to one of our questions came together in my mind. It was obvious, really, with everything laid out this way.
“What if there is a real connection between your family and Goosevar?”
He raised his eyes to mine, empty of understanding. It would be harder for him to see it, I supposed, being so close to it.
“If each father goes on to live a more normal life after his son is afflicted . . . That isn’t really like a disease, is it?”
“You’re right, of course. I imagine we’ve used the term ‘affliction’ for lack of a better one. It’s more like a ‘condition.’ Though as my father’s thirst lessened, he did grow frailer. When I was a boy, he was youthful, tall, and straight. As my change neared, he grew thin and papery.”
I frowned. “I know nothing of science—of any kind—but to me it sounds like maybe Goosevar is connected to one man in each generation. And when a new connection forms to the son, the father is no longer needed, and he loses his thirst. Grows frail and dies.”
Harker sat up, quill dropping onto the table. “A parasite, Mina. Moving from one host to the next.”
I raised my brows, waiting for him to explain.
“A parasite is a creature that lives off of another creature in some way. A flea on a dog. It bites the dog and drinks its blood, which makes the dog itch. If the flea moves on to another host, no more itch.” His fingers tapped the table while he continued thinking.
“Maybe the connection—though not so evident as a flea’s to a dog—means Goosevar doesn’t have to hunt.
He doesn’t need to drink blood, because we do. ”
Then something else struck me. “But you don’t! You don’t drink blood.” Usually.
“I can survive on vital essence, but maybe he can’t.”
“Or maybe he doesn’t want to.”
He gave a short nod. “Yes, either way, it’s driving him to attack people.”
I folded my arms and sat back, glancing out the window at the rain. “It mostly makes sense. But I wonder why Goosevar would use your family to do something he can do for himself?”
Harker slouched and rested his chin in his hand, glancing down at his paper. His loose, windblown hair brushed the edges of his face. It was a charming, boyish posture.
“Without understanding the creature better,” he replied, “it’s hard to say. Maybe it’s simply easier. Or it could be the risk that’s involved. Maybe he fears discovery, and men are better at hiding their crimes. Mr. Roscoe’s body next to the road being a case in point.”
“So it may give him protection. Or it once did.”
He nodded, brow furrowing as he continued to gaze down at his notes. Then all the light in his face suddenly went out.
“What is it?” I asked.
One hand moved to his forehead, shielding his eyes from me. “A new host,” he muttered.
I waited for more. A turf brick settled in the fireplace, sparks crackling up the chimney.
I tried to fill in for myself the words he couldn’t seem to say. When understanding finally came, how it shook me.