Songs of Love & Death

Still dark out. Skies clearing, revealing stars. I checked the gate at the end of the driveway. Couldn’t see much on the other side, except for a splash of something dark on the gravel. Blood, maybe. No body. Dragged away into the woods with Pete-Pete’s bones. I undid the lock, crossed over. Shotgun held carefully. Cats walked with me, but didn’t hiss or flatten their ears. Just watched the shadows beyond the road, in the trees. I didn’t hear anything except for birds.

“Hiding from the light,” said a quiet voice behind me. I didn’t flinch. One of the cats had glanced over its shoulder, which was warning enough.

Henry stepped close, still naked except for the quilt. I said, “You should be in the house.”

“I have time. Not safe here, all by yourself.”

“Got an army.” I held up my gun and glanced at the cats. “Steven?”

He said nothing. Just took a few jolting steps toward the woods. I grabbed him, afraid of what he would do. He didn’t fight me, but the tension was thick in his arm. I pretended not to see the sharp tips of his teeth as he pulled back his lips to scent the air.

“They’re in there,” he said, his voice husky. “I tasted their blood last night.”

I tightened my grip, both on his arm and the shotgun. Cats twined around our legs. “Did you like it?”

Henry looked at me. “Yes.”

“It’s not a sin,” I said, “to be yourself. You told me that.”

“Before I was turned into this.” He touched his mouth, pressing his thumb against a sharp tooth. “I was called a demon last night. Dad put the torch to me himself, and I didn’t stop him. I kept hoping he would stop first.”

I squeezed his arm. “Come on. Before the sun rises.”

“I have time,” he said again, but gently, holding my gaze. “Please, let’s walk.”

So we did. On the dangerous side of the fence, outside the border of the land; my cornfields, and the potatoes, and the long rows of spinach, green beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I didn’t have a rabbit problem. Cats strolled along the rails and through the tall grass, which soaked the bottoms of my jeans. Henry did not notice the wet, or chill. He watched the forest, and the sky, and my face.

“Stop,” I said, and knelt to examine a weather-beaten post. It was hard to see. I had no batteries for the flashlights stored in the cellar, but I had traded for some butane lighters some years back, and those still worked. I slipped one from my pocket, flipped the switch. A little flame appeared. I needed it for only a moment.

“It looks fine,” Henry murmured.

“You always say that,” I replied, and held out my finger to him. He hesitated—and then nipped it, ever so carefully, on the sharp point of his tooth. I felt nothing except a nick of pain, and maybe sadness, or comfort, or affection—love—but nothing as storybooks said I should feel; no shiver, no lust, no mind-meld. I had done my research in the library, which still stood in town, governed by three crones who lived there and guarded the books. I had read fiction, and myths, and looked at pictures on the backs of movies that couldn’t be played anymore. But in the end, none of it meant much. Problems just had to be lived through.

I smeared a spot of my blood on the fencepost and said a prayer. Nothing big. It was the feeling behind the words that mattered, and I prayed for safety and light, and protection. I prayed to keep the monsters out.

We moved on. A hundred feet later, stopped again. I repeated the ritual. Weak spots. No way to tell just from looking, but I knew, in my blood, in my heart.

“They got through last night,” Henry said, watching me carefully. “Past the fence to the front door. That’s what started it. I was in the barn, cleaning the stalls. I heard Mom scream.”

“I’m sorry.” I glanced at the sky—lighter now, dawn chasing stars. Sun would soon be rising. “I’ll swing around the farm today and see if I can’t shore up the line without your folks seeing me.”

“Take Steven with you.”

I shook my head, patting the tabby rubbing against my shins. “Won’t do that. If they try and hurt him—”

“Then we’ll know. It’s important, Amanda.”

I started walking. “Have him talk to me about it. His choice. No pressure from you.”

Henry stayed where he was, clutching the quilt in one hand. His broad shoulders were almost free of burned skin; and so were his arms, thick with muscle. He had been teethed on hard labor, and it showed.

But Henry was a good-looking man when he wasn’t burned alive; and it hurt to feel him staring at me. Staring at me like I wanted to be stared at—with hunger, and trust, and that old sadness that sometimes I couldn’t bear.

I looked away, just for a moment. One of the cats meowed.

When I turned back he was gone.

NO ONE KNEW, of course. About the blood on the fence. Prior to last night, no one had known about Henry’s affliction, either. Just Steven and me.