Her Dear and Loving Husband (28 page)

He saw how uncomfortable she looked standing there shivering with the blanket around her shoulders. He put his arms around her and pulled her onto his lap. She put her arms around his neck and her head on his shoulder. 

“What is it, honey?” he asked. 

Sarah sat up and looked into his eyes. “Why do you live here?” she asked.

“Is there somewhere else?”

“Maybe. Somewhere you could live as you're meant to.”

“I can’t live anywhere else. Or any other way. Not now.”

He thought for a moment, pulling the words together, trying to make sense of a time when sense didn’t matter. “I lived as a hunter for a number of years, but then I decided it wasn’t for me. I’m not even sure how many years I lived like that since my life wasn’t ordered by calendars or timepieces then. After I was turned I didn’t know what I was, and I hated that I was forced to live this limbo life of immortality, not that I knew I was immortal then. But I knew I needed blood.”

“What did you do?”

“In those early days I stayed mainly in the Massachusetts forests, dodging the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes. Some natives noticed me, but they seemed unafraid of the nighttime blood-drinking man-spirit frequenting their woodlands. They called me Maske, their word for bear, and left me alone to wander as I would. As a white European settler I had been taught to fear the natives, and when I was alive I saw their beaded buckskin clothing, their seashell and bear grease decorations, their animal skin robes in winter, and I was afraid. After I was turned I was still more nervous about them than they were about me.

“Even in those first years, when I was all blood and fire, I knew I loved my wife.” He kissed Sarah’s cheek. “I knew I loved my father, and I guessed he was distraught with grief over my disappearance. I wanted to know he was well, and some nights I wandered as close to Salem Town as I dared, hoping to overhear some word of him. One night I heard a woman calling my name. As she came closer I remembered her name, Prudence Stapleton.”

Sarah tapped her temple with her finger. “My cousin,” she said.

“That’s right. ‘Oh, James,’ Prudence said. ‘Richard said he saw you here the other night and I didn’t believe ‘twas so, but he brought me here and now I can see with my own eyes. ‘Tis you.’

“I nodded, afraid to speak or do anything that might reveal that I wasn’t as I was.  

“‘Your father is coming,’ she said. ‘When we saw for certain ‘twas you Richard ran to fetch him. Oh, James, where were you? We were afeared you’d gone mad after Lizzie died.’

“Suddenly I heard my father’s panting breaths and running footsteps, and I saw him sprinting toward me. Prudence and her husband backed away, leaving us our reunion to ourselves.

“‘Oh James,’ my father said. ‘I was afeared you’d run off to another colony, or gone back to England, or…’ He couldn’t finish the thought. ‘Why didn’t you come to me? You know I would do all I could for you.’ 

“‘I’m sorry, Father,’ I said. 

“My father didn’t understand my meaning. He thought I was apologizing for disappearing, but really I was apologizing for my weakness, for the fault in me that allowed me to become this unnatural thing.   

“‘You needn’t apologize,’ my father said. ‘My Prodigal Son is home.’ He recited the passage from the Bible: ‘Son thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. ‘Twas meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost and is found. You are found, James, and I shall rejoice.’ 

“He clasped my hand and tried to lead me forward. ‘You’re cold, Son,’ he said. ‘Come home. I shall warm you with tea by the fire.’

“‘I cannot come home,’ I said. ‘I cannot be warm. And I am dead and alive again, Father, I am.’

“My father stroked my hand, trying to warm me, trying to soothe me the way he did when I was a child. It was nearly a starless night, so he leaned close to my face. Even in the darkness he could tell my eyes were wrong. Though I found comfort in his presence, I knew I couldn’t stay with him. I felt diseased, like lepers from Biblical days yelling ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ to warn passers-by from drawing too near lest the passers-by become contaminated themselves. I didn’t want to contaminate my father with my uncleanliness. Even newly turned I loved him too much to hurt him. 

“‘I cannot come home,’ I said again. ‘I am not myself, Father, and I cannot stand for you to know me as I am.’

“My father looked afraid, not of what I was, but of losing me again. ‘You shall come home, Son,’ he said. ‘I insist upon it.’

“I tried to scare him into letting me go. I spoke with my most growl-filled voice. ‘I am a demon now. Do you hear me? I am one of the evil specters the people in Salem have been searching for. I have been a demon since the time Elizabeth died. This is why I wanted you to believe I died, because I am dead, Father. I didn’t ask to be this way, but I am, and now I am a danger to you in more ways than one.’

“‘You shall stop speaking nonsense, James, and you shall come home with me.’

“‘I can tell by your look you know what I say is true.’

“‘Even so, you shall come home with me.’

“‘Are you certain? Even as I am?’ 

“‘You are my son.’

“‘Yet what if I truly be a demon?’ 

“My father looked me steadily in the eyes as he had always done. ‘Then my son is a demon,’ he said. ‘And yet I love you still.’ He pressed my cold hand in his. ‘Come home, Son, and we’ll see this through. Please, I beg you, come home.’  

“I followed him to the house where I had lived with him, worked with him, shared my love for you with him. The house looked different to my far-seeing eyes where details are etched like sharp pencil drawings into my corneas. Things looked darker, sadder than I remembered, though it might have been my preternatural vision projecting gloominess where before I had seen only contentment and light. I hoped he had changed his mind and he would lock me out and never see me again, but he opened the door and stepped aside. I hesitated, but I went in. My father lit a fire, poured water into a pot, and placed the pot on the hook inside the hearth. 

“‘The tea shall soon be ready,’ he said.

“‘I do not drink tea,’ I said.

“‘You love tea.’  

“‘No longer. I have a thirst for something stronger.’

“‘You want ale? I may have other spirits here as well.’

“‘I have a thirst for something stronger than ale.’

“My father stared at me, waiting for an explanation. The water boiled, he poured himself some tea, and then he sat in a chair by the hearth. Though I wouldn’t look at him, I sensed him studying me, seeing how changed I was in this paranormal body I didn’t understand.   

“We sat in silence for some time. Finally, my father asked, ‘So what has become of you?’

“‘I know not what I am,’ I answered. ‘Truly I don’t.’

“‘How have you come to be this way?’ he asked.

“I explained about that night outside the jail, how the long-faced man with the smirking grin lured me and bit me, how when I woke up I was changed into something unnatural and left to fend for myself.

“‘I’ve done things, Father, terrible things. If I am not already in hell then I shall be there soon from the demonic things I’ve done. I would hardly believe it of myself except ‘tis scratched into my memory. I wish I were dead, truly dead, Father, because I want to be human again and I know I cannot be. I cannot live like this.’”

“Demonic things?” Sarah asked.

“I didn’t always get blood from the hospital, Sarah.”

After a pause, she asked, “How did your father react?”

“At first he didn’t seem to believe me. ‘Don’t say that, Son,’ he said. He leapt from his chair and kneeled before me, taking my hands, trying to soothe me, but there was nothing he could say to take the burden of this preternatural life from me. I pulled away and flashed to the other side of the room. My father’s head jerked as he watched me. 

“‘All shall be well,’ he said.

“‘Nothing is well! Nothing shall be well again!’

“‘‘Tis not you, James. None of this is you.’

“‘‘Tis me. ‘Tis what I am now. I’m dead, Father. I walk but I’m dead.’

“To prove my point I took my father’s hand and pressed it to my chest. He gasped aloud and tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let go.  

“‘Look at me!’ I yelled. ‘I am a demon! My eyes are black and my skin is cold and I do not breathe and my heart does not beat! I drink blood, Father. That is why I do not want your tea or ale—they do nothing for me. I need blood! And you do not want to know what I do to get it. Look at me and know me for what I am, man! How can you see me this way?’

“My father closed my face between his hands. ‘You are my son, James, and you are still in there. Though your body be changed I look into your lightless eyes and I see your truth still fighting to live. And no matter what has become of you, I shall help you. I am your father.’ 

“‘I am the son of Satan,’ I said.

“‘No. You are my son.
My
son!’

“I began to cry from the frustration of having to control my rage. The sight of the blood streaming from my eyes upset my father more than anything else he saw that night. 

“‘Are you hurt? Are you ill?’ he asked.

“‘No,’ I said, wiping my face with my hand, streaking my cheeks demon-fire red. I began pacing the floor, my arms flailing around me. “‘‘Tis blood now, blood yesterday, blood tomorrow. Blood to drink, blood to weep. ‘Tis always about blood.’ I held my bloodied hands to his face. ‘Blood is all I have.’

“My father finally saw me for what I was. He turned away and dropped his head into his hands. There was nothing left for him to say. 

“‘I must be on my leave,’ I said. The sight of my father grieving for a son standing before him was too much. ‘I cannot be here. Imagine the difficulties you’ll face if others discover your son the demon in your home.’

“‘The witch hunts are past,’ he said. 

“‘The hunts shall never truly end. Humans shall always search for a way to lord their power over others. They shall always lie about others to protect themselves.’

“‘But I shan’t allow you to run because you are afeared of what others might do. You shall stay with me and I shall help you however I can. You cannot leave me. I have lost so much already—your mother, Elizabeth…’

“‘Me.’

“‘I haven’t lost you. You’re here.’

“‘Am I? Sometimes I’m not even certain. Sometimes I think I’m dreaming in my death’s imagination of a demon life I recall from a nightmare. ‘Tis all just a nightmare, is it not? An unending nightmare? Tell me ‘tis all a nightmare that shall end and then I can sleep peacefully at last knowing I have died human.’

“My father couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t stand to see him so miserable. I looked out the window and saw the light of the new day peeking through the low-sitting clouds. 

“‘I must be on my leave,’ I said again. ‘‘Tis nearly daylight.’

“‘Don’t mind the daylight,’ my father said. ‘No one shall come round this day. You’re safe here.’

“‘I cannot be in the sunlight,’ I said. ‘It pains me.’

“My father looked at the sun breaking through to day. He grabbed some quilts and used them to block the light coming in through the window. ‘Do you stay indoors while the sun is high?’ he asked.

“‘I sleep,’ I said. ‘While the sun is high I sleep like the dead, and when the sky is dark I am awakened with life again.’

“He gathered more quilts and bundled them on the floor along the wall farthest from the window. It was an amazing act of love, this devoted man making a special bed away from the sunlight, his only wish to keep his demon boy safe from harm. He didn’t seem at all afraid that this bloodsucker he let into his home would attack him and drain him dry. He gestured toward the makeshift bed. ‘Sleep, James,’ he said. ‘Sleep now and we’ll talk more this night. Just know that I shall do all I can for you. All shall be well.’

“‘Nothing shall ever be well again,’ I said. ‘I miss my Lizzie.’

“‘I know, Son. I know.’

“I was weary, it was my time to rest, so I did as my father said and I lay on the quilts and fell asleep.”

James stopped when he heard Sarah sobbing. He pressed her head to his chest and stroked her hair. He kissed her tears away.

“Poor John,” she said. “How he must have suffered seeing you so changed. He always had such a loving heart.”

“My father was the epitome of unconditional love, and there was a lesson for me that night that was a long time coming. Even after that time with my father I was still intent on acknowledging only what was wrong with all humans, not what was good about some.” He kissed the top of Sarah’s head and pulled her closer. “I don’t think I fully grasped the magnitude of that lesson until I met you.”

“What lesson?”

“There are good things, sweet things, beautiful things in the world if you open yourself enough to see them. Even I, turned as I am, can see them.”

“Yes,” Sarah said, “I can see them too.”

He kissed her lips, softly at first, then passionately. She slid her arms around his neck, tousled his hair with her fingers, pushed her lips into his. He couldn’t get enough of her warm softness. Her body temperature was soothing to him, such a contrast to his cold-blooded skin. In his entire life, all the many years of it, he had never held another woman in his arms. No one else would do. Now just being near Sarah made all that lonely time worthwhile. Basking in the scent of strawberries and cream, feeling her responsive heat, made him feel alive. As they sat there intertwined he realized that it might be one of their last nights together, one of the last times he could touch her, but he pressed that thought away. 

Sarah pulled away first. “Tell me more,” she said.

James had to shake the memories back into place. He was too distracted by her lips. 

“After I left my father’s house I lived alone in isolated rural areas where I could hide easily and hunt unnoticed. After a time I realized I could no longer live like the mindless hunter I had become, driven only by instinct and not by reason.”

“How did you decide which people to hunt?”

“I hunted people who were alone.”

“Oh.”

“I haven’t hunted for a very long time.” He looked at Sarah and wondered how much she really wanted to know. But Sarah, like his father, was the epitome of unconditional love, so he didn’t edit his words. He didn’t worry about saying too much. He knew she loved him, all of him, the good and the bad of him, and he decided to tell her things he had never told anyone. The honesty was thrilling to him.