6. Barnaby

Chapter six

Barnaby

Tourist season is in full swing now, so there are two people in the store browsing when the bells jingle and a familiar scent wafts in.

Damn. It’s Maisie again, clutching something in her hand. What does she want this time? I thought I’d gotten rid of her.

“All right,” I call out to the older couple browsing the non-fiction. “Closing time.”

They grumble but choose something anyway—two matching sudoku books. As they check out, Maisie stands patiently in line behind them, her eyes focused on me. I wonder what she wants now.

Finally, they exit the store with a jangle of bells, and she steps up to the counter. I lean forward on it, propping my head up on one hand to pretend I’m disinterested. The smell of her is even more acute every time I see her, and now my own blood starts to heat the closer she gets to me.

I need her to leave.

Maisie begins with an uncertain tone. “So, I found something in... one of the desk drawers.”

She glances away from me and then back again, and I wonder what she’s discovered that would make her so uneasy. I suppose I haven’t looked through my furniture in decades, and it’s certainly possible I left something behind. The desk used to be mine, once upon a time, but I didn’t think I’d left anything of significance in it.

“What is it?” I ask in a bored tone. Shifting from one foot to the other, Maisie slides a piece of parchment paper across the counter.

I blink down at what is certainly my sister’s handwriting. I snatch the letter up, quickly scanning the words, dreading what Maisie might have learned from reading it.

I shouldn’t care. Her opinion of me doesn’t matter. We don’t know each other. She’s a tourist passing through, like all the others. But when I reach the end, the last words I ever heard from Beatrice, my heart constricts.

How I had wanted to write back. How I wanted to find her at the address she’d written on the envelope. My only sister, who shared my mother’s womb with me, who came into the world mere minutes after I did.

We never saw each other again after that cold, winter night, and I will forever ache in a place that cannot be soothed, even by the passage of time .

I whip the letter off the counter and tuck it under the cash register.

“Thank you,” is all I say, because my head is swimming with thoughts. This is the story of how I changed, how I became what I am, and all the things I left behind afterwards.

And Maisie has now read it.

She cocks her head. “Your sister? Did you ever write back to her?”

I scoff. “Is that any of your business?”

Maisie falters, her hands falling back to her sides. “I guess not.” She turns her head away. “I just thought it might be important to you. That’s all.”

I hate how she appears as if I’ve sucked all the air out of her. She may be just a tourist, but we will have to tolerate each other for many more weeks as landlord and tenant, so perhaps I should be kinder to her.

“It is a sore spot,” I finally admit. “This is from the very beginning of my second life.”

“Second life?”

I don’t answer as I rise from my stool, then walk to the front door to flip my OPEN sign to CLOSED. I shut the door, lock it, and turn off the front light before padding back to my seat. Maisie watches me the whole time like a hawk.

Why has she taken such an interest in my history?

I beckon for her to follow, and hastily she does, walking with light footsteps as I head toward my reading room at the back of the store .

“My second life as a vampire,” I begin, opening the door and leading her inside. Among the priceless texts tucked away on the shelves, we sit down in the two matching armchairs. “There was no way I could write back to her, after that. I was different. Changed.”

Maisie leans forward, rapt. “So you didn’t see her again? Not ever?”

As much as it pained me at the time to ignore Beatrice’s letter, I couldn’t be in her life from then on. I would only bring her heartache, and at such a young stage in my vampirehood, I had very little control over my need for blood. The worst thing that could happen would be to attack my own beloved twin sister and feed on her. No, there was another, even worse option: if I turned her, too, and sentenced her to the same endless life of hunger that I lived.

Though I have mastered my cravings over time, still it lingers, still it aches—especially now, in Maisie’s presence, with her scent filling up the reading room.

It was a bad idea to bring her back here.

I shake my head. “The best thing I could do for Beatrice was to cut off all ties with her. To let her believe I was dead. That was the kinder act, really.”

But Maisie looks devastated. “I can’t believe it. Your own sister.” Before she drops her eyes to her lap, I see red veins forming in the whites, and they are growing shiny. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”

Sorry? I squint at her. She is a stranger to me, and yet she’s shedding tears over something that does not concern her at all ?

“I have had more than a century to get past it,” I say, hoping to assuage her remorse. There’s certainly no need to cry about it. “I am not bothered anymore.”

This isn’t entirely true. I have simply learned how to lock Beatrice away into a box in the back of my mind and leave it there.

“I have a brother, too,” she says abruptly. She wipes her face with one wrist, scattering the tears. “He’s younger than I am by a few years. If I thought he had died, if I never heard from him again... I think that would be one of the most painful things possible.” She tilts her head. “You couldn’t have at least written her back? Assured her that you were alive?”

I huff at her interrogation. “It would have been giving her a false hope. I did die that day, Maisie.” I use her name to drive it home. “The man who was Barnaby Hallow died, and I am what took his place.”

“Wow.” Her voice is hushed. “But you are still him. You loved your sister and you still do, don’t you?”

Of course I do. She was the most important person in the world to me while I was still alive. Women in my life came and went, and our parents eventually passed away. At the end of it all, Beatrice was there, always by my side.

“I don’t see how this conversation benefits anyone,” I say harshly. “She died. It’s over. It cannot be changed now. How I feel about her to this day is of no relevance.”

Maisie furrows her brow. “Sure it is. That’s a lot of grief that you haven’t really worked through, it seems like.”

“Is this that ‘therapy’ I am always hearing about?” I snap. “Do you have a license? ”

She looks surprised at my outburst. “No? But grief is normal, Barnaby. We all experience it. And sometimes we ignore it, rather than truly feeling it. And then it grows bigger and bigger inside you until it’s suffocating you.”

I bark a laugh. “I am not being suffocated. The opposite. I am free because I have divorced myself from my mortal life. You know nothing about my past, my history, my—”

“I’d like to,” she says, so quietly I almost can’t hear her, and I stop abruptly.

Disbelief colors my voice as I ask, “Why?”

She tilts her head and smiles sadly. “You’re interesting to me. Now that I’ve seen this, I want to know all about you. You’ve lived so long and seen so much...” She glances up at the ancient leather-bound books lining the shelves. “You’re like one of these books, but flesh and blood.”

“So I am a curiosity to you? A character in one of your little fantasy novels?” The words are biting, though I’m not sure why I am attacking her this way. I understand the need to know more, to learn more about a history I was not present for. The quest for knowledge is the most honorable one there is, but the subject of Maisie’s fascination is painful for me.

She shrugs. “Is that so bad? I know I don’t have much to offer as a mere mortal ,” she says the words with a dripping sarcasm that surprises me, “but I would like to know more about you. Maybe we could be friends?”

I balk. Friends? I have two acquaintances that could be, potentially, called “friends”—Rick, who only moved here recently but also despises triteness, and Harley, the owner and bartender at Killy’s Bar. I do not befriend tourists, who will come and go and never return. It’s a pointless effort.

“No, we cannot be friends,” I say. Maisie’s brows jump in surprise. “You are my tenant, nothing more.”

“Why?” she asks right away. “What’s so wrong with me?”

“You will leave, too!” I don’t realize I’ve raised my voice to such a boom until Maisie flinches. “What is the point? Why should I grow attached to someone who will only leave?” I rise from my chair. “I think it’s time for you to go now.”

I expect this to have hurt her, but instead she’s studying me intently.

“Just because something doesn’t last doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile,” Maisie says, also getting to her feet, but she doesn’t move to leave. “There’s so much you can learn, even from a passing moment.”

I shake my head, even while a deeper part of me latches onto her words. Could there still be value in knowing a mortal for just a few weeks? Is there something to be gained from being friends for such a short window of time?

“I’d like to talk again soon,” Maisie says while I stand there, silent as a fool. “Would that be okay? I really am curious to learn more about your life. If you’re not offended by it.”

I can’t fathom her fascination with me. Just seeing Beatrice’s letter tonight has already reopened so many old wounds.

And yet... it is complimentary, too. Someone is interested in the many years I’ve passed on earth, most of which feel meaningless to me now. Would it really be so bad to pull back the veil on time?

But there is so much I can’t tell her. The coven must remain hidden, for I cannot bear to face what an innocent like Maisie would think of its existence—or of the things I did as a member. But perhaps I can fill her head with other oddities, other experiences.

I sniff the air, and her smell has grown more intense. That is the other important question: can I really bear to spend more time this near to her? It’s stirring something fearsome inside me, breathing in her aroma, and yet I’m luxuriating in it. I would very much like to repeat this, even as it pains me not to simply leap on her and bury my fangs in her throat.

“Fine.” I grind out the words despite myself. “We can meet again, if you want it so much.”

Maisie’s face brightens. “I mean, I have nothing to do here, and I don’t know anybody. I think this is the perfect thing while I wait for some corporate asshole to decide my fate.”

I don’t know what she means by this, but it stirs my curiosity.

When the woman leaves, I lock the door behind her. Hopefully my centuries of self-control will keep me firm and steadfast. That I will not reveal my true self.

I do not drink from humans. I never will, not ever again.