DANIEL HERON: BECOMING

15 - The sun is not our friend

The dawn was still several hours away. The forest was enveloped in silence. Only here and there a nightingale's song was declaring: This part of the woods is mine!

The moon, following its usual path, sailed away to where the eyes could no longer see it. The only light in the darkness were shimmering stars, and one thin strip of light coming from beneath the door. On any other night, that line of light would be a cause for concern, but Teresa and Anastasia weren't worried when they returned to the cabin.

Teresa quietly unlocked the door, pressed the handle and opened it.

As soon as they stepped over the threshold, their gaze fell on Daniel. He was standing in the kitchen, next to the open refrigerator, with an expression on his face one might see on the face of a child caught stealing candy.

"I didn't..." he started to speak, but Teresa cut him off.

"Oh, but you did," she said in a cold voice, barely moving her lips.

Slowly, she began approaching him, making him feel as if the temperature inn the room was dropping by a couple of degrees with each of her steps. And maybe the cause for the chilling was the wide-open fridge. Hurriedly, he closed its door, shielding its content from the view.

In the meanwhile, Teresa walked up to him. "So, what did you conclude?" she asked, while her gray eyes bore into him.

Daniel forced himself to swallow despite the lump in his throat. "Conclude?" he repeated barely audibly.

Teresa's glance shifted to the refrigerator that was open just a minute ago.

Daniel's eyes followed. "That..." he stuttered, "...that is..."

"Say it!" Teresa commanded. She returned her stare to him, but with the grayness, an amber glow snuck up to her eyes.

"Blood," he said. Vocalizing that word, stopped the liquid that was flowing in his veins. He went pale, and for a second, he felt as if his legs were preparing to give out.

It was in that moment that Ana walked up to him. Taking him by the arm, she said, "Come, sit." She led him to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair, and all of his weight sank into it. She sat next to him.

"Why do you have a fridge full of blood?" he asked, looking at Ana.

The answer came from Teresa. "A person gets hungry sometimes."

She's joking, he thought. She must be joking.

Yes, a person does get hungry, but to fill a fridge with doses of blood? Who'd reach for the blood in case of hunger?

Teresa gave him another one of her looks that seemed to be able to guess exactly what he was thinking. Instead of speaking, she curled her upper lip upwards. The tip of her tongue slowly caressed the right canine. When the tongue mowed away, Daniel noticed something highly unusual. The tip of the tooth was sharp and pointy. The canine on the other side was the same. In length, they weren't much longer than the other teeth, but still, he couldn't help but notice that they were longer.

For a moment he thought of a movie he once saw. He didn't particularly like it because it was black and white movie that desperately lacked well trained action scenes he liked so much, but in that movie, one of the characters had pointy teeth and fed on blood.

Don't be ridiculous, he scolded himself. That was just a movie.

Whatever the reason there might be a fridge full of blood in this house and Teresa's teeth being pointy, it certainly wasn't because she was a vampire.