A vampire named Citlali receives an email from an old lover who broke her heart centuries ago. The message says the immortal is dead and she left a key for Citlali in a bank in New York. But the same message had been sent to two other persons whose...
Kai placed the base of the sculpture on the wall and as soon as the two glyphs touched, strings of light appeared progressively, drawing a rectangular shape. When the light vanished, the wallpaper blurred for an instant, and in his place was now a shelf dug inside the wall.
The magical safe contained a short pile of notebooks, a binder, and a wooden box.
Kai put down the sculpture and grabbed the first notebook, followed quickly by Dovi who took a step forward and reached for the binder. The tension was such that we didn't say a word. The air was strangely full of hope, though, whereas we knew the end of the story we were about to dig up. I just felt I needed to know. Whatever it was.
I opened the box carefully to find several keys, each of them with an address on a label, corresponding, without a doubt, to other houses or apartments belonging to Ameyal. I closed the box and pressed it against my heart.
Then I looked at Dovi and Kai to see what they had found.
"This is the papers for all her properties, her bank accounts, you name it," Dovi said in a low and careful voice. "Everything we need, should we want to access any of it."
Kai lifted her head to nod and went back to browsing through the notebooks. "It's the most recent ones," she said. "The ones we couldn't find. This is her current notebook." She winced and lowered her head. "I mean, her last one."
She held it out, and we froze, unable to decide on what to do. Her hand stayed in the air and we exchanged glances.
"Do you want to read it on your own?" I asked both of them to break the silence. I thought that maybe the two persons I loved wanted some space to process what was written in there and the pain they would inevitably feel. But I also knew I didn't want to be alone to deal with it. I needed them both. Or more precisely, I wanted them both to be there, and I wanted to be there for them.
Kai shook her head immediately. "No, not really," she said.
"Me neither," Dovi added. "I can read it aloud if you wish."
Both Kai and I nodded at the suggestion, not hiding our relief at the idea of not having to do it ourselves.
Dovi smiled. "Maybe I can read the last month's entries to see if it helps us understand what happened. And if it doesn't, we will go back in time from there."
I took their hand and kissed their knuckles, and Kai stroked their back while leaning against them.
When we were ready, we took the notebooks to the sitting room, and I kept the small box tightly against me almost as a token of Ameyal's presence with me at that moment.
We sat down on the couch, Dovi in the middle, and Kai and I turned towards her on each side.
The sunlight coming from the window wrapped us in some warmth even if we could hear the sound of the wind outside.
And Dovi started to read.
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