Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
LUCY
Whoa.
It wasn’t that I didn’t expect that Bram could sing – he did tell me he used to be in a band after all. I just didn’t expect that he could sing like this.
I was already impressed by Filip’s viola arrangement of ‘Bat Out of Hell’, but then Bram joined in and my jaw literally dropped.
I mean, if I’d have thought about it in any kind of depth, I’d probably have expected Bram’s voice to sound exactly like it does, but actually hearing it is another thing entirely.
It’s a thing of wonder: throaty and deep with a quality to it that I can’t put my finger on.
It’s something darkly beautiful, something real and raw, like he’s tearing open his own chest and showing me a glimpse of what lies beneath. I can’t look away.
He catches me staring during the build-up to the first chorus, and just before he opens his mouth to sing again, it twists into a smile. My cheeks flush as I try like hell to gauge the look that had been on my face at that exact moment.
But I’m only embarrassed for a moment or two before guilt rushes to replace it, my long-held loyalty to Jon pushing to the forefront as I school my features into a more neutral expression.
And that’s how I stay for the rest of the song, even as an enthusiastic crowd gradually surrounds me, nodding along to the rhythm.
They break into a raucous round of applause when the song finishes, and I let Bram bask a moment in the handshakes and half-hugs before I look back over at him.
He’s still wearing those sunglasses, but somehow I just know that he’s looking right at me.
It’s like I can feel his eyes on me, though I’m not sure how.
As I meet his gaze, a wide grin brightens his face into something altogether different than I’ve seen on him before.
It’s giddy and boyish – free in a way I can’t explain.
I try to ignore the thump of my heart in my chest as he says his goodbyes to Filip and the assembled crowds and strides back over to me.
‘That was…’ I fumble for words, which isn’t like me. Eventually I settle on, ‘brilliant.’
It doesn’t feel like a big enough word to describe what just happened, but Bram’s smile turns shy anyway.
‘I was in a band,’ he says, so simply that it makes me laugh.
‘I remember. I just didn’t expect you to be…’
Those damn elusive words again.
‘Good?’
I wrinkle my nose at him. ‘That good.’
He barks a laugh. ‘I’ll take it.’ And then he guides me through the whalebone arch and back down the steps to the harbour, a question on the tip of my tongue the whole time.
We’re not even back at the harbour front when it finally slips out.
‘Why did you leave?’ I ask. ‘The band, I mean. That was—’
But I don’t finish my sentence, because it makes him stop dead, his eyebrows pulling together behind those dark glasses. Our sudden stop makes a couple wearing his-and-hers Grim Reaper outfits bump into the back of us, but they just shrug and smile when I turn to apologise.
When I look back at Bram, that frown has gone, replaced by an unruffled almost-smile.
‘Change of circumstances,’ he says with a shrug, and then, before I can pry any deeper, he starts to walk again, nudging me lightly with his shoulder to urge me on.
There’s something he’s not saying, that much is obvious, but I drop it.
It’s clear that whatever it is, he doesn’t want to talk about it.
The next time he stops, it’s in front of a parade of shops.
A very vampiric-looking crowd has gathered in front, but I can just about see the building beyond them, the black and red of it striking against the whites and blues of the surrounding shops.
I notice the strange gargoyle heads protruding from it and have a flashback to that stupid stone vampire at the cottage.
‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula Experience?’ I read off a high window, and it makes Bram huff out a little breath. I can’t tell whether it’s from amusement or pride.
‘An iconic establishment,’ he says, and it’s clear that his huff was caused by both of those things. ‘No tour of Whitby is complete without it.’ A tight little knot of anxiety forms in my chest before he adds, ‘But we’re not going in. I’ll let W?adek give you the overview at some point.’
I almost deflate with relief, sagging at my edges a little like a punctured dinghy. ‘He works here?’
Bram chuckles, a low rumble I barely hear. ‘You think he dresses like that for fun?’
Actually, I did think that, but it feels a bit silly now.
‘Just thought he was a super-fan,’ I say as casually as I can manage, and Bram laughs again, louder this time.
‘I mean, that too, but he’s also the Dracula Experience’s resident Dracula.
’ He gestures to a laminated sign taped inside one of the windows, sun-bleached photos of a familiar face peering out from behind his cape.
‘Though as far as I can gather, his role doesn’t involve much more than jumping out on customers to try and scare them.
Which is the reason we’re not going in. I can’t have you passing out on me again. ’
That night comes back to me in a heartbeat. The terror. The teeth. The very firm chest my face was pressed against as I woke up.
‘I do hate a jump-scare,’ I say, hoping like hell that the flush I feel running through me doesn’t reach my cheeks.
‘Yeah,’ Bram replies. ‘I remember.’ And then his lip curls in a smirk so slight that it looks like he’s trying to suppress it. ‘You’ve gotta watch those vampires.’
My thoughts stutter to a stop.
A second or two pass while I fully spiral, a panic surging through me that makes my stomach tighten. I didn’t tell him about the statue. How could he know?
Then I realise he probably just means W?adek, in character, and I’m overcome by embarrassment at how ridiculous I’m being.
I could even have blurted out something about the statue at the time – a semi-conscious rambling I’ve long since forgotten.
So why did my thoughts jump so quickly to something darker?
I look back at him, cool as ever in dark glasses and leather, his canines grazing the skin of his lips as his smile widens. My pulse quickens and I’m not entirely sure why.
‘I don’t know if I’m a believer,’ I say quickly, pulling my gaze away from Bram and back to the building behind him.
‘In Dracula?’ he asks after a beat, ‘Or in W?adek?’ I shrug in reply, and it makes him laugh. ‘I mean, you probably shouldn’t believe in Dracula. He’s a fictional character. W?ad definitely exists, though. You can go inside and see him for yourself if you like?’
‘No,’ I say, a little too loudly and a little too quickly, but when he turns back to me there’s a softness to his expression that eases the knot in my chest a little.
‘Come on,’ he says as he nods to the road ahead of us. ‘Let’s go find something that’s more up your alley.’
I didn’t think he meant a literal alley, but before I know it, we’re over the bridge and I’m being led through one, the air cooling suddenly out of the reach of the autumn sun.
The street we emerge onto at the other end is the busiest place I’ve seen since I arrived here, a stream of elaborate costumes winding their way down the street.
We stick to the edges, Bram expertly directing me around street performers and errant costume bustles before a pretty little jewellery shop catches my eye.
I stop dead, tugging on Bram’s jacket before he gets swept away by the current of the crowd.
Excitement pulls me closer to the glass like a child outside a toy shop, kicking up my pulse until it’s a drumbeat in my ears.
My grandpa was a jeweller once upon a time, and though my long-held memories of being in his shop as a small child are now little more than fragments, it’s enough to light a small flame of familiarity every time I pass a jeweller’s that looks like his.
If I concentrate really hard, I can still remember the way it smelled, the acrid scent of solder cutting through the sweetness of the butter toffees he loved to eat.
And the colours. God, I loved the colours. I spent hours marvelling at the rainbow of precious stones in the ring display, or the way a shaft of sunlight catching a diamond in just the right way could cast a kaleidoscope of colour across the white walls.
But there’s something different about the shop in front of me. I look properly through the glass for the first time, and my brow creases in confusion. There’s no rainbow, no kaleidoscope of colour. No similarity to the fragments of memory nudging at me.
In this shop, every last stone in every last piece of jewellery is completely black.
‘Even your jewellery is goth,’ I mutter, more to myself than to Bram, but I hear that low rumble of a laugh next to me anyway, and he points out the hand-painted sign on the bay window.
Finest Whitby Jet Jewellery.
‘Actually,’ he says gently, turning to rest a hip against the whitewashed wall, ‘it’s our cliffs that are goth.’
I look out towards the coastline – or at least in the direction that I know the coastline is, as I can’t quite see it beyond this cluster of shops. ‘There’s jet in these cliffs?’
He nods. ‘Best in the world.’ And then there’s a flash of something like pride in his eyes before he turns to peer through the window. ‘You want to go in?’
I tell myself it’s curiosity that makes me say yes, or maybe nostalgia. Not the look in Bram’s eyes, or the contagious affection he has for this town, even if I am beginning to feel it too.
He swings the door open and holds it for me, shrugging when I thank him and duck past. There are a few people browsing, but it still feels like an oasis – a welcome calm from the busy streets outside.
‘I love jewellery shops,’ I say, brushing my fingers lightly over the pieces. The monotone isn’t what I was expecting, but there’s a beauty to it nonetheless, the stones surprisingly warm against my fingers. ‘My grandpa was a jeweller, and they always remind me of him.’
Bram doesn’t say anything, but he takes the smallest of steps towards me before I feel his upper arm nudge my shoulder gently. I haven’t told him about losing my grandparents, but it’s like he knows, the tiny act of comfort speaking volumes without him having to speak at all.
By the time he actually does speak, the pang of grief has settled into the baseline hum that’s always there. My normal.
‘Which is your favourite?’ he asks, and then he points to a display of pocket watches. ‘I’m going to go with that one.’
I follow his finger to the most dramatic of the watches, polished silver with a three-dimensional coffin set into the top, its lid inlaid with jet. I reach for it and gently pop the lid open to find a tiny silver vampire asleep within. I can’t help but laugh.
‘It’s very you,’ I say, and when I glance up at him he’s looking back at me with a curious expression, one that I can’t quite read. I turn away from it, trying to ignore the small knot in my throat. I’m not sure what that means, either.
I scan the display, looking for a piece that speaks to me, but I’m a colour girl through and through, at a total loss in a shop like this.
‘I’m not sure on mine,’ I mutter as I search. ‘It’s all just so … black.’
He chuckles. ‘Jet black, some might say.’
And that’s when I see it.
A tiny thing, the smallest of the brooches on display, a simple jet shape surrounded in silver. It’s perfect.
‘That one,’ I say, pointing it out on the display, and the sound that comes out of Bram is somewhere between amusement and despair.
‘A bat?’
I chuckle. ‘His name is Lestat.’
Another sigh, world weary, and then he draws himself up taller and calls over to the older man behind the counter.
‘We’ll take this one, Mal.’
I try to protest, but before I know it, Bram has bought the bat brooch and is pinning it to my jacket, right next to the badge from the market. It is adorable, I can’t deny it.
‘To remind you of this weekend,’ he mutters quietly as he thanks Mal and guides me out of the shop.
‘As if I’d ever forget it.’ I don’t think I mean to say it out loud, but I do. And when I do, Bram’s face lights up with a smile so bright that I’m not fully sure I’m going to forget that either.