In 1960, I sat on my knees, my hands pressed against the hardwood floor in front of me. I pushed my hands out, prostrating myself. "Of my own accord," I whispered, my first words to the master, quiet so as not to be overheard in a house full of sensitive ears.
"The master says that he will tell you when it is the proper time to rise," Nataniellus whispered back to me. "For now, he wants to look at you."
On the way to the floor, as so many times before, there had only been a glimpse of indigo, of a shadowed figure kneeling forward in his chair, his chin balanced on his fist. I heard the sound of his chair now, creaking beneath him as he settled. The only light came from two candles, both by the master's chair, to put me in darkness on the floor. My heart turned in my chest like a sleeping child.
"Centurion," Leechtin said, with the familiar sibilant vibration, and my body vibrated in response, shivering.
Two slow thumps, as Nataniellus took off his clogs. I smiled, because I know that he takes his shoes off like a young boy, raising his knees instead of bending to his foot.
"Centurion, will I tell you a story?" this serpentine voice asked me, tickling my ears. "Will you listen?"
"Yes," I said, as quietly as I could.
"Yes," he said.
Between his breaths there was nothing to hear in the room. The house complained, as the hot evening deepened into cool night. In the night, the wind whipped coolness from the black lake, from which the master had emerged, wet and dripping to see to me. The flicker of the candles' flames were like the clicking of a beetle's wings, as it cleans itself, too heavy with dirt to rise from the floor. From Nataniellus, silence, no breath, no movement, the sound of his heart beating, the same as my own heart in my ears.
"I want you to imagine, that when you are a child, and you are sleeping, a wasp stings you," Leechtin said, slowly. The sound of pulling his shawl tighter, wool against wool. "What do you do to this wasp? Stinging you. For that sting, the price is only pain. What to do? One time, when I was twelve, a man comes to me and he says, 'Come and I will teach you many things. I will make you rich,' and if I go with him, and there is a price for his teaching, do I say no to this?"
A dog barking, in the distance. Below, a child crying. Secret tears, muffled by a pillow.
"He makes me a false seer, that man. He takes from me all a boy has to give," he said, in no hurry. "And when I was twenty, and my name is known, a man comes to me and he says, 'Marry my daughter, for you are a shaman of many good signs. I will make you powerful,' and what do I say to him? Though it is cutting out my heart, and shaming my body that wants none of hers. And when there is a child, of my body and her body, whom I love, and murdered, and I hear my quiet spirit say 'Vengeance' though it means my very nature must die for it, what to my spirit? What to my son? And do you let it sting you, and do you sting yourself? And what then? And of the many other prices I have paid since?"
The shifting of clothing, the sharp crack of a skin striking skin. A hand of comfort withdrawn.
"This now here there is another wasp," Leechtin whispered, with unmistakable bile, "who has stung me in the past. And what does it cost me to swat him, who I do not yet trust? He hovers near me, guilty, and yet a wasp knows only to sting. It is only his nature, and so he imagines it is his warrant. And yet, he stings me. He creeps into my lover's arms. And he does this for two thousand years. I may wait and I may shake him out of my tent, and yet in opening the flap I let out my cool air, which soothes me. I may let him live to fly away, unknowing of my pain, and yet by then will it be morning? And a sleepless night robbed me of my peace? A thief of my comforts. So what shall I do? When there the wasp lies, beneath my shadow, unknowing of my anger, and of my pain? I know what it may cost me to be rid of him. All that I yet have. What do I give for him to stay? What do I give you in return, Vespa? What will you cut from me as I wait for you to sting?" he asked me. "How will I curse myself in the future, if I allow you to live? What will I curse?"
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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...
