"Edepol," by Pollux, shit, "his nose is bleeding again. Iovita, get me a rag," Cassius demanded, signaling me sharply with his finger.
Nonus hunched over reflexively, covering his nose with both hands over his empty lunch bowl. Aulus swatted him and helped him sit back, tipping his brother's chin up.
Nataniellus, who had sat down to have lunch with us in the kitchen, shrugged from his shoulders the grey mantle he wore to keep the sun off of his face. He passed it quickly around the table to Cassius, who held it to Nonus's gushing nose. Nonus held his bloody hands out in front of himself, frozen.
"This is because he isn't eating enough. I have seen this before," Nataniellus said, his hands folded tightly.
"Shut your mouth. You are diseased," Cassius hissed, a remark that came out uncalled for or not, the cloth beneath his hand beginning to soak through. "Take care of yourself."
"I was born the way that I am," Nataniellus said, speaking of the little seizures we had sometimes witnessed. "It is nothing that I have done."
"Eugape!" Good for you, Cassius snapped.
"'Stop fighting," I whispered, striking the edge of the table softly with my palm. "Aulus, take Nonus to lie down. How is Nonus?"
"Good," Nonus said, nasally. The two of them went without fuss, sliding around the circular bench in the awkward silence.
The three of us remaining continued eating, awkwardness be damned. In the aftermath of the earthquake, there was an awful lot to get done before sunset. Already that morning we had been all around checking and mending fences, clearing fallen tree limbs. If it had been myself and Nataniellus alone, I would have said, "Eat more, Red. You're looking awfully pale today." The truth is that he looked terrible, and had been looking terrible for days. He had grown not only paler but also thinner over the winter. All of us had gone without to an extent, but he had been spending a lot of time by himself, and I wonder if I had been paying more attention if I would have seen him neglecting himself. No one ever asked him to go without for us. He had his own money. What was he doing with it? I looked for all kinds of explanations, when really I could have and should have just asked him. I put it out of my mind, concerned myself with other things, and never did.
It was true that he was ill. I've heard some explanations for what afflicted him, but he didn't name it and I didn't ask. We weren't ignorant then. We could recognize certain patterns, but it would have been unusual for him to have ever seen a doctor, and it would have been part of his job to look after himself. At least, I assume so. I mean, he barely ever spoke to me about his life at the heart of town. I think it entirely likely, though he does not like charity, that as he got older, whatever it was, diabetes, anemia, epilepsy, the effect of repeated concussions, or some combination of them, it was getting worse and the remedies he knew were letting him down. I think it likely that he saw himself getting worse, and unable to fix it, tried to ignore it. He doesn't need my speculation, but there you have it. I don't want to assume that he was feeling any sort of way that would have made him want to feel ill. He was strong enough that day after the earth shook, in broad daylight, to help us clear brush in case of spreading fire, and help the little ones collect clay roof tiles that had shaken off and fallen. He didn't complain a whit or draw any attention to himself except that he looked ghastly by that point and seemed to want to be near the rest of us in a way he hadn't quite before.
All night after the earthquake, we had lain awake, the aftershocks communicated to us through the trembling legs of the bed. We had held onto each other's hands as if we were a trembling collection of telegraph wire, sending messages of silent terror through the tensing and untensing of our muscles. Nataniellus slept among us, not for the first time, barely able to fit. Though he had his own room, the two little ones had taken to him, and they slept curved against him. Only at first light were we able to fall asleep, and then only briefly, as Escha came running in saying, "All of you who will hear," gasping, "all of you, the master is gone. The master is flown."
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The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )
VampireHe looked over at me in the dimness, fingers loose in my grip. "You are hurting me," he said, without interest. He had caked powder on his already pale skin, all of one shade except for points made by a hot pencil. Though it was no longer the mode a...
