Note: allusion to suicide.
With Leyla’s loose supervision, Broof and Lilith were allowed to take a stroll around the swamp docks. Together. Not holding hands or anything, but Broof had brushed his knuckles against Lilith’s arm once, accidentally on purpose, and she hadn’t snarled at him. He saw that as progress.
They had reached a small, rickety bench that overlooked the waters and had taken a seat, listening to the buzz of swarms of filthy bugs and watching the sun peeking through the twists of the tree canopy.
A moment of somewhat uncomfortable silence passed between the pair, before Broof cleared his throat. Glancing around to ensure that Leyla was out of earshot, he whispered, “I’ve been thinking.”
“If this is about what happened back at the petrol station, then I’ve told you—”
“It isn’t,” Broof insisted, trying not to cringe. “I was wondering why Bruno might need the death flower; what possible cure they have for lycanthropy that needs a death offering. Werewolves aren’t dead or even part dead, are they? And I wonder how Bruno became a werewolf in the first place.”
“You become a werewolf through an infected bite,” Lilith said plainly. “As for the potion – isn’t that your remit?”
“You know potions aren’t my strong suit.”
“What is?” Lilith huffed. “How should I know anything about potions?”
“I guess you shouldn’t.”
Drawing Lilith into conversation was hard work, harder than drawing blood from a stone, surely. The silence returned, but so did Broof’s insistence. He wasn’t sure what he was insisting on, but she hadn’t socked him yet, so he reckoned he was okay to keep talking to her.
“I’ve never met a werewolf, have you?”
“Oh, I have – there are three at my local bar.”
“Really?!”
Lilith looked away, looked to be counting and turned back. “No, of course not, you bloody muppet.”
“So how are you so sure he is one?”
“I’ve read about them pretty extensively in some of Ma’s old tomes. I’d guess that the death flower is more to prevent anything going wrong than to reverse something that’s already gone wrong.”
“Of course,” Broof mumbled, thinking that this was one of the longest times he’d held Lilith’s attention and desperate for more of it. The way she looked at him; it made him shiver. “I don’t know much about potions—“
“You’ve said.”
“But I wonder if your cure is even possible. There are too many variables. Too many things that can go wrong.”
“There are.” Lilith turned her full attention to him sending a chill to his core. “But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s doable. Bo and Ma had clearly given it a lot of thought.”
“They had,” Broof said slowly. “I wonder who they were trying to cure?”
Lilith rolled her tongue, but didn’t reply. “And now I know for sure that the plasma fruit exists, it might just be possible to make a cure.”
“You think so?”
“I have to believe so,” Lilith shook her head. “It’s either cure or… well, I don’t want to be this way forever. There will be a cure and it will work. If I trace back far enough, I might find a family. My mother was a prostitute, that much I know, she had at least two babies, maybe more. Maybe she had siblings, cousins. I guess we’ll test how distant family can be before the blood doesn’t work.” She sat back and folded her arms. “And don’t forget that I’m not the only one looking for a cure. Even if it takes a while – or proves impossible – to find my family, April has living family—”
“You’d let her take your cure?” Broof asked, amazed at this glimpse of warmth from the icy vampire.
“Of course. And we know exactly where she turned. She can be our test subject.”
Broof didn’t know how he felt about April being a guinea pig for what was potentially a very risky cure. But he did have to agree that of all the vampires, April was the one most likely to be cured first, with Faith being absent and Melinda being an adoptee.
“So all we need to do is find the burial site of a slain witch and hope there’s a plasma fruit tree growing out of it. That’ll be the tricky part,” Lilith said quietly.
Broof shuddered. He knew of burial sites of slain witches, of course, but he’d never seen a plasma tree. At least, he didn’t think he had. He hoped that Lilith wouldn’t resort to murder to find her cure, but for some reason he wouldn’t put it past her.
“What will you do about the possibly endless wait for a death flower to grow?”
“Wait. Us vampires are immortal.”
“Us witches aren’t, and you’ll need us to make the potion. Besides, we’ll have to keep Melinda and April hidden until we can cure them – it could be decades. And then if we do cure them, they’ll still look like teenagers so probably won’t be able to pick up where they left off, with their peers in middle-age, or later—“
“It won’t be decades.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Lilith turned away from him, a wicked glint in her eye. “Leave it with me.”
“Leave what with you? What are you going to do?”
“Leave it with me,” she repeated and looked back out over the swampy water.
Broof opened his mouth to say something, but though better of it. He had a feeling that whatever Lilith was planning to do, that she wouldn’t tell him no matter how much he pushed.
Instead he also looked out over the water, wondering if this conversation had been progress, or not.
The GliTS had arrived at the old vampire house not long after sunrise, having had little to no sleep and all still pretty disturbed by the nights’ events. They were faced with the task of removing the very heavy stone lid off an old crypt that was probably full of horrifically murdered people and no one was really looking forward to it.
As Jessica was deemed ‘too pregnant’ to move a slab of stone, she had been relegated to coffee duty while her fellow GliTS strategised how best to access the moss-encrusted tomb. She left them scratching their heads and ventured into the vampire kitchen, which had a surprisingly good selection of coffee as well as lots of bottles of absinthe, for reasons that Jessica didn’t quite understand.
The small voice at her shoulder almost didn’t register, so used was Jessica to hearing random voices.
Rose’s voice was hushed, not at all like the snarky, confident teenager that Jessica had come to know. The girl was even paler than usual, if that was possible, and fidgeting with her dress as she hummed and muttered. Something was wrong.
“Is something the matter?” she asked, even though the skittish behaviour was speaking volumes.
“I’m in there!” Rose hissed, gesturing outside.
Jessica looked where Rose was pointing, which was actually at some curtains, but she understood. “So, you don’t want us to open it?”
“Ugh!” Rose stamped her foot. “I do but what if, like, I’m just dust and a skull? I’ve been dead for years, what will I look like?”
Jessica’s head was spinning. “After 20 years? Probably dust and a skull, yes.”
“Ick!” Rose wailed. “I used to be so cool.” The girl looked to the window again, then turned away with a shudder. “I can feel them, you know? Near me. Is that weird?”
Weird? Jessica scratched her tinfoil-covered head as she conversed with a ghost in a vampire’s kitchen while she waited for a crypt to be opened. “Should we stop?”
“No,” Rose said adamantly, “You definitely shouldn’t. Find me and…” she faded out, looking away, and then she began to sob.
Jessica didn’t know how to respond. Teenagers were exhausting, especially dead ones, it seemed. ”Rose, if there somewhere you’d like us to take your remai— you?”
Rose wiped her eyes. “I don’t know,” she sniffed.
“Family, or—”
“I don’t have any family,” she hiccupped. “I was a foundling.”
Jessica had many questions, but they all felt insensitive. Instead she waited for the ghost girl to continue, which she did with a laboured sigh. “Fine! I’ll tell you! I was found near a graveyard.”
“A graveyard?”
“A graveyard. And I was ten. At least, they think I was ten.”
Jessica shook her head. Foundlings were usually babies. She didn’t understand. “Do you remember anything before you were found?”
“Nothing,” Rose confirmed, fiddling with her pocket. “I remember waking up and feeling like someone had left me and then.. then…”
Jessica tilted her head softly, offering Rose the space she needed. The girl wiped her eyes on her arm and sniffled. “Then that loser found me.”
“Which loser?” Jessica asked, not following.
“Will Wangshaft,” Rose choked around a sob.
“Will Wangshaft?” Jessica repeated. “The late Wangshaft heir?”
“He’s dead?” Rose asked. “Good riddance! I hope it was slow and painful.”
Jessica thought she’d refrain from the details of how exactly Will had died, even though Rose would probably enjoy them. “Yeah, him,” Rose continued. “He took me home and his wanker of a dad put me in The Tower and left me to rot. Although Will would still come and visit me, sometimes. We would… well, you know…” she smirked.
Jessica didn’t have to see this vision to know how to put two and two together. She nodded calmly although, knowing the age gap between the pair, this news made her feel very queasy.
“We were like Romeo and Juliet. Forbidden love. He said he wanted to run away with me, but when he found out I was pregnant he denied doing anything. He accused me of screwing around.”
“He knew she was his. Like I was gonna screw anyone else in that place – they were all nuts!” she huffed. “Anyway, I never saw him again.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Rose pouted. “What for? You’re not the one who ditched me. Everyone ditches everyone, eventually.” She glanced at Jessica’s bump and then turned away.
Jessica idly stroked her swollen belly, unable to imagine ever leaving her unborn little one. What kind of parent did that? An awful one? An ill one? She looked at the girl before her. A desperate one.
“Rose, about what Marjorie said—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s okay.”
“Ugh, you’re so insistent! Jennifer,” Rose huffed. “My daughter’s name was Jennifer. I called her Jenny. And I tried. I tried so hard, I really did. But I had no idea what I was doing. All she did was poo and cry and throw up and poo more and she was bored and naughty. I was so stressed out.”
Jessica could sympathise with this. Her baby wasn’t even born yet and she was already knackered and stressed. She nodded slowly. “It’s a big thing, motherhood, it’s scary.”
Rose nodded sadly. “It is. I was so not ready. I should have had a… never mind. She didn’t have a life, Jess. She was born in The Tower. Do you know what it’s like in there?”
“I do,” Jessica confirmed. “I’ve been in there. In fact, I was in there when I found out I was pregnant.”
“You were?” Rose’s eyes went wide. “What were you in for?”
Jessica still wasn’t really sure, but it didn’t matter, Rose had made her own conclusions. “Because you can see us, right? They thought you were seeing things, hearing voices?” she smiled, seemingly quite pleased at making this connection. “They let you out, though?”
Jessica nodded. “I’m still not entirely sure what went on there,” she admitted.
“At least you got out. They had no plans to let me out. I was the Wangshaft’s dirty little secret,” Rose fussed with the pocket on her dress. If it hadn’t been made from… whatever ghosts were made from, it surely would’ve frayed by now. She kicked her heel into the ground and looked up shyly. “She was allowed to stay there with me, Jenny. I had nothing but a little cot for her, and a small bear that one of the other inpatients made for me out of gauze and buttons. It was for the best that I—”
Jessica’s heart sank. Did history repeat itself? Did Rose abandon her baby too? Or worse?
“I put her up for adoption.”
“That must have been really hard for you.”
“It sucked. But her new parents were so nice, Jess. They were so kind; they didn’t judge me or anything. The mum was a teacher and the dad some kind of space scientist. His face lit up when he held little Jenny for the first time and it was just, like, he knew what to do with her. Like she belonged to him.”
“She didn’t cry, she curled up in his arms and went to sleep. And I just knew. I knew she’d be safe and happy with them. I knew I’d made the right choice. But damn it, it also really, really hurt.”
“I can’t imagine,” Jessica said gently. She reached for Rose’s hand but her fingers slipped right through the cold fog. Rose didn’t seem to notice.
“They said I could still see her, if I wanted to, and I did want to see her but… but I didn’t want her to see me. I was a nobody, and now I had nobody. I didn’t want that for her. I wanted her to be a teacher or a space scientist or or… the prime minister,” she nodded firmly. “She deserved that. So I told them I wanted a clean break, to rename her, that I didn’t want her to know who I was. But… I also knew it would never be a clean break. I knew that she’d look for me, one day, she’d want to know where she’d come from, like I did. I didn’t want her to ever find me and me still be in The Tower, and she be ashamed of me, or she get muddled up in the Wangshaft mess…”
“It’s okay, take a breath,” Jessica said gently, realising too late that that was probably a pointless thing to say to a ghost, but it seemed to do the trick. Rose ‘took a breath’ and continued.
“…So I ran away, Jess. I just… ran. I ended up here, in these woods. I’d heard that people vanish here and, well, I guess that’s true, huh.” She laughed a little. “There were rumours back then of what went on here; of a serial killer, or rabid wolves, or alien abductions. I didn’t care which it was that got me. But I wandered here for hours and nothing happened. I didn’t see anyone. And then there was a ravine and I just thought ‘that’ll do’. And then the forest creep ‘saved me’,” she scoffed.
Jessica tilted her head. “Forest creep?” she asked. “Was he pretty scruffy? A hat and long hair—”
“No,” Rose shook her head as if this was a stupid question. “There are three vampires; the one you’re talking about, and two younger ones, a girl – the doctor, and a guy. I ran into the older one when I was trying to get away from the younger guy.”
I don’t really remember what happened, I just felt all dopey all of a sudden and I remember being carried somewhere and someone apologising and then… I wake up and I’m stuck like this.” She gestured to herself. “I shouldn’t have run away. The Tower was totally better than being stuck like this forever.”
Jessica’s thought that there were three murderous vampires on the loose was horrifying, but somehow the thought of Rose being stuck in limbo forever was far worse. “I want to help,” she said quietly. “I want to help figure out why you’re stuck here, see if we can help you move on.”
“I know why I’m stuck here,” Rose snorted. “I have unfinished business. I never did find out who my parents were and now I never will.”
Jessica looked out the window, where the GliTS were inching the lid off the crypt. “There might just be a way to find out.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “How? No one ever came forward. There aren’t any records—”
“We might not need records,” Jessica said. “Your remains. We can analyse them; we might be able to trace your family.” Rose eyed her suspiciously and it occurred to Jessica that Rose might not actually know much about forensics. “Each of us has an internal code, a unique genetic fingerprint, and we can test that to see who we’re related to. Rose, with your permission, we can analyse you, we might be able to find who you’re related to.”
“You can do that?”
“We can try.”
There was a loud thud and a triumphant chorus from outside. Rose shuddered.
“They’ve done it,” she whispered. “It’s open.”
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Almost Eternal 