CONTENT WARNING: A pretty squicky description of vomiting, worrying about death, discussion of homophobia
This chapter takes place about a week after the last chapter.
Oskar
Eli used to laugh at me for having a vanity. Even though I couldn't see my own reflection, I always liked how they looked. There's a peculiar aesthetic about a mirror, something otherwordly about them. As a child, I used to pretend they were portals to other worlds, worlds like ours but with minor differences. I used to daydream and write in my diary about what was different in the world beyond the mirror. Perhaps people spoke backwards, or cats walked on two feet and humans on four.
It isn't until I sit down this morning that I'm met by someone from the mirror world who I have not seen for many, many years. It takes me a good moment to even realise who he is. The silvery-white hair and the light grey eyes.
It can't be.
I don't know how this is possible. I don't want to question how this is possible. I blink once, twice, three times. Still the same. This isn't a dream, nor is my mind playing tricks on me.
I keep staring at him. He moves exactly as I do, as if he's mocking me. Inside, he's laughing in my face, taunting me with sickly, monochrome features, reminding me of what both vampirism and my illness had done to me. Frozen in time, hours, maybe minutes before my certain death. I hoped to never see my own face again, knowing I would be forever stuck as whatever I looked like just before I would have died. If it weren't for the steady supply of blood, I'd be a gaunt-faced corpse.
I've been quite happy never knowing how I looked, relying solely on the numerous kind-hearted compliments of others. There's a burning in my chest when I realise that even though I looked like I'd just crawled out of the grave, people still called me handsome, charming, beautiful. So did they mean it? Or were they saying it out of pity?
It took me a long time to come to terms with my turning, even though it was by my request. Thirty-six years old. Not young enough to retain any youthful vigor, and not old enough to be placated by the fact I'd lived my life. No time to die, but perhaps no time to be frozen in undeath either. I'd achieved a lot in my long life, but now it was starting to sink in that I'd missed out on so many milestones.
If there's one good thing to come out of this, it's realising that I fit quite nicely between masculine and feminine. People used to laugh at me for refusing to cut my hair, but I didn't regret it. I didn't even style it, either; I didn't see the point. I let it do what it wanted.
It didn't matter whether I took to the streets as man or woman or in-between; nobody was any the wiser. It was a kind of euphoria that was inexplicable to most people, and that most men and women took for granted whenever they looked at themselves. Does Dinah not look in the mirror every morning in awe at her femininity, or Reynold at his masculinity? Or anyone else, for that matter? I suppose Eli does, but there's certainly a vanity to him, and not the kind I'm currently sitting at. He's always admiring himself in some way or another.
I suppose that would be something that makes whatever situation this was slightly less alarming- the next time my feminine side came calling, I would be able to see my own face in the mirror. Still, the question burns in the back of my mind as to how this happened. It's impossible. Is it some sort of trick of the light- or, by some strange phenomenon...
Is my humanity returning to me?
* * *
I head into the kitchen to make some breakfast for Eli before we get to work, but there's a nausea swirling in my stomach that doesn't seem to subside. Usually, after a lengthy feed, it's gone once I've rested for a few hours, but the sickening feeling churning inside me is unbearable and has been since that night. I lean against the wall in the kitchen; my nausea gets the better of me, and I end up vomiting congealed blood all over the floor.
Eli rushes in at possibly the worst time, as I kneel on the floor emptying the contents of my stomach all over it. He doesn't say anything- just looks to the puddle of blood and back to me.
He helps me off the floor and throws his arm around my shoulders, leading me to the sofa. My legs are like jelly. I've never felt this weak- not in years.
I wipe the blood from my face onto my sleeve. For a moment, he doesn't say anything to me, and I say nothing to him.
"It isn't like you to be sick, Oskar," he says. "I thought vampires can't get sick."
They can't. But now I'm questioning if I'm still a vampire any longer...and if I am, for how long. None of this makes any sense. You don't just suddenly change back. Not once have I ever regurgitated a meal, no matter how many litres of blood I'd consumed.
"Your guess is as good as mine, Eli. Perhaps I just overdid it on the weekend. Nothing too severe."
"You once drank eight witchfinders dry in one night and you were fine. Is there something wrong?"
I don't reply.
"Oskar, I think it's worth getting this checked-"
"I'm not getting anything checked, Eli! I'm fine!"
Eli narrows his gaze. "Oskar, you're thinking the worst again. That was over one hundred years ago."
"I'm not going back to any physician, Eli- that's final!"
I realise a little too late that I've been completely out of turn, and offer a weak apology. I can't tell Eli anything; he's always so cheerful. If I tell him that I may no longer be a vampire, then all he's doing to do is worry.
Then it dawns on me- how exhausted I feel now, if I am to become human again, I won't be able to keep up with my usual workload. Then I notice how tired Eli looks. The way he begs me for time off, and the way he's always red-eyed yet forces himself to be energetic.
"I haven't been good to you, Eli."
"Well, not then, you weren't."
"No, not just that. I've been too hard on you. I can't expect you to keep up with a vampire when it comes to our workload, and I'm sorry. You're a young man now. You have friends you want to see, things you want to do with a...finite lifespan."
Finite.
If I am to become human again, there won't be any unlimited time. I might have twenty or thirty years left, if I'm lucky- a blink of an eye for the undead. Violeta gave me all the time in the world, and now it might not be anything close to that.
Eli looks like he wants to tell me about something, but he doesn't say anything. I hope Eli doesn't feel uncomfortable telling me things.
"If you have something to say, Eli, please say it. I'm your father, after all."
"No...nothing."
He looks straight into the fireplace, as if he's thinking about someone. I just hope he's not worried about me. I want Eli's young adulthood to be like mine- joyful, with a good support circle. but perhaps a little less busy than mine. Eli is a ray of sunshine in everyone's life, and I don't want anything to change that.
However, if what I think is happening, is happening...then I know someone who will worry about it- whose entire life may change because of it. As much it will hurt me to tell her, it will hurt her more, but I don't have much choice.
I need to tell Violeta. With any luck, perhaps she'll be able to turn me back into a vampire. There could be a silver lining to all of this.
Reynold
A few people have come in to light candles. Some have come in just to warm themselves next to them. Myself, I reflect upon the dead. Those lost to the witch-hunts, to Annorin's cruelty, to starvation, to sickness...My mother, my father, Mother Joyce.
I perk up when I hear a familiar visitor- well, moreso, I hear the low hooting of her familiar. She lights a candle.
"For Henry," she says, in a low voice. "The man who was framed and murdered when he tried to make up for what happened."
"It's kind of you to remember him, Katlego."
She doesn't respond right away.
"I had a terrible reading on my divination cards, Reynold...quite a few terrible readings, actually, all with different cards."
"I see. What did you interpret them as?"
"Honestly, I couldn't tell you. Sometimes it's difficult. Something to do with death, no doubt, and nothing natural. I don't know what it could mean. I'm trying to stay vigilant. Sometimes I wonder if Annorin may come back for me. In fact, I've been wondering this for the past five years."
I've never heard her voice so solemn before.
"Out of interest, Kat, do you ever feel vengeful towards Annorin?"
"Goodness, no," she spits. "I got the retribution I wanted in seeing him ridiculed and outed as exactly the man he is. And then he had to take it too far and- if Annorin comes back for me, I know it'll be because of Oskar-"
"Kat...I'm only asking because I had a similar premonition not too long ago."
"Oh? You read cards as well?"
"No, no, it's a part of my magic. it's hard to explain. I had a horrible sensation of vengeance, and a feeling as if I was dying. That's the best way I can describe it."
Kat gives me a confused look, and Nia tilts her head at me. She turns to Kat with a hoot of surprise.
"That's incredibly strange. One of my readings that neither Nia or I could interpret was a sun, a moon, and a sword."
A moon?
"And what does the moon symbolise?"
"The trouble with divination cards, what these symbols mean is going to be completely different to each and every reader," Kat replies. "To me, the moon is the hidden depths of a person. It's the side they don't want people to see, that they keep in the dark. So the Sun and the Moon, and the sword- a clash between morals, maybe? I can't shake off the feeling that it's something darker."
Everyone I knew well had a darker side to them; could have been anyone. Sometimes, I wonder just how honest Kat is about her pacifism. Surely she's never not once wanted to get violent revenge on somebody. I'm a priest, and I know I've felt that way once or twice.
"Reynold, promise me you'll be vigilant, won't you?"
"Only if you promise to do the same, Katlego."
"Good. You're the only sensible person left in Henford. You don't solve all of your problems by murdering people- well, at least not in human form."
"Very funny, Kat."
I don't get how she's so seemingly not bothered by everything. I'm not discrediting her wisdom, but as she says, the cards could mean anything at all. Most of it depended more on the reader than the cards themselves. Who knows if her premonition is correct? Who knows if mine is? Did ours have any correlation, or were they separate?
I want to think the moon symbolises what Kat says it symbolises, but I can't shake off the feeling that it symbolises something much closer to home.
* * *
Later on in the night, I get an unexpected visitor. He lights a candle next to Kat's.
"For my mother," he says to me, "if you were wondering."
He sits down next to me, hands clasped together, looking down at the floor.
"Did you need to talk about something, Eli?"
"Eh...I don't want to bother you."
"One, I'm your sister's partner. Two, I'm an abbot. You're allowed to 'bother' me as much as you like, Eli."
He takes a deep breath.
"I normally try not to think about it, but I've been thinking- how everything would have been different if Mother were still alive. She wasn't anything like your typical bloodline matriarch; she wanted to be adventurous. She was always taking Owen and I out to different places, that's what Owen told me, anyhow. I don't remember anything about her.
Samuel was sort of nicer back then, apparently. He was at least sharing his knowledge with others. Then Mother became ill, and he lost his mind trying to save her. He couldn't. I think he stopped sharing his knowledge because he alone wanted to save her life.
I keep thinking about how none of what happened would have happened if Mother were still alive. Samuel wouldn't have sank into obsession and greed, he wouldn't have bothered Kat and got her kicked out, Henry the herb salesman wouldn't be dead, but then it wasn't Mother's job to make sure Samuel was behaving. I think he seemed to think so."
"I understand," I say, in as gentle a voice as possible, "Your mother had her own life. Annorin should have realised that. His wife's passing doesn't excuse anything he's done. He may never come to realise this, but at least you have."
"I just wish I could stop thinking about what could have been."
Reynold nods slowly. "It's rough sometimes, but all we can do is do our best to face reality. You still have your knowledge of how much your mother loved you; that's what matters."
He nods to me, then gives me something of a pleading look I haven't seen since he was a teenager.
"This is going to sound weird, but I can't ask Oskar about it because he's never been in a relationship. But- my sister. When you fell in love with her, how did you know that you were in love- if that makes sense?"
Oh, no, no no no, Eli, don't ask me that.
"Well, I suppose it's just a kind of warmth you get around someone that you don't get around other people."
"I think I get what you mean," he replies. "Is it true what people say about Róisín and the Beltane festival?"
Why, Eli? Why? I can hear the Watcher laughing at me all over again...and now so is Eli, cackling like a fairytale witch.
"That's quite amusing. No, it's more than amusing. It's hilarious."
"Oh, stop, will you? We were all your age once, Eli!"
"Anyway, if you're asking me this for the reason I think you're asking- life's too short. If you like someone, tell them. You never know, Maybe they feel the same way about you."
Eli
I invite Dan out during the day. It's freezing cold still, and the snow is hardly letting up, but they reckon there'll be some sunshine soon enough. I don't know why he isn't wearing something warmer. He's too stubborn.
"You haven't been yourself, Dan. Is something wrong?"
"What? No, no, it's just this cold."
He's not normally like this. Was it something I said?
"Was I too, uhh...forward the other day?"
He's not looking at me at all; he's staring off into the distance.
"Eli, I reciprocated your playful flirtatiousness because I enjoyed it. I didn't think to ask about it in too much detail because I know what Annorin is like. I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me want to take it further. But if I do that, I could be endangering you."
It hurts to think about it. Is it worth it? Do I risk my father's ire for such a thing? More importantly, do I care if he stops considering he his son? It's not like I've ever been his son in any way other than blood.
"I'll be honest, Dan, I don't care if he finds out. Annorin isn't my father. Oskar is."
"Right, but how's Oskar going to react to you dating a witchf-"
"What?"
"How's he going to react to you dating the son of an ex-witchfinder?"
Either way, there's going to be some animosity between Gideon and Oskar. I can't leave Oskar in the dark about Gideon, but there's also the risk Oskar would straight-up kill Dan's father if he found out. He wouldn't care if Gideon gave it up years ago, I don't think...but like Reynold told me, life's too short. It isn't short for Oskar. It is for me and Dan.
I notice him shivering, and I gently hold him and bring him closer to my chest, wrapping my arms around him.
"I think we both need to worry about what's best for us, and not how other people are going to react. I mean, if worst comes to worst, we both sort of know our way around a sword." Dan chuckles at that one.
I don't realise how long we've been here until I notice that the snow has melted away, and there's a sudden warmth, and a fox tilting its head at us both.
"Dan...If there's something on your mind, you know you can tell me, right?"
"I don't have anything on my mind, Eli," he replies, his voice progressively getting softer and shakier. Other than-"
When Dan plants his lips on mine, completely unexpected, I don't expect it to be the fireworks of emotions that it is. I expected it to be warming and comforting. Initially, a kind of horror seeps into my chest. A lifetime of being told such a phenomenon was a betrayal to my bloodline by my father- and that's when the excitement seeps in. No other kiss has been this exciting, this pleasant. Knowing my father would hate me for it only made it even more pleasurable.
I didn't want to let go of him, but my father's words echoed in my mind. I'd have to spend so much time trying to fight off the voice in my head. Annorin wasn't my father any longer, he had no control over me...at least, I wish that was how it is. The sun is already melting the snow away, and Dan's laugh leaves a warmth in my chest.
"So, how are things going on the job front?"
"Oh, you know how it is. Still can't find anything. Then again, maybe if the weather keeps up, we can get back to fishing."
a few days later
Reynold
In the darkest point of the night, I didn't expect to get any visitors- that was, until the only person who'd still be awake strolled in. He doesn't acknowledge my presence straight away. My eyes don't move from him as I watch him light a candle, and another candle, and another candle...and he keeps going and going, seemingly ceaseless until he stubs out the match with his fingers.
"For the forty-six innocent people I killed in my vampiric infancy. A few for friends passed. And one for Ilse."
He sits down in the chair beside me. With the monastery now illuminated by the fifty-odd candles he'd lit, I noticed something different about him. His hair looked slightly darker, maybe even slightly pigmented as opposed to its usual monochrome. when he momentarily looks to the side, I notice his light irises seemed to have a ring of colour around his pupils. He doesn't look his usual smug self either.
"I have something I wish to ask of you, Father Morgan."
"You can just call me Reynold, Oskar. I don't stop being your friend because we're under the church roof."
He just grunts. "It must stay entirely confidential, however. Áine must not hear of it."
"Everything you tell me here is in complete confidence, Oskar. Ask away."
He leans over and stares into the floor. This isn't like him- at all. He looks very weak, barely able to hold his head up.
"Last week, I saw my own reflection in the mirror. I notice that I'm changing, slowly. I think I'm...regaining my humanity. I don't know how this happened, but it's been looming over my head- if I am to become human again, then I'll probably only have about twenty to thirty years left to live. That's nothing to a vampire- well, ex-vampire."
He stops talking for a second, and I can just about hear what sounds like hoarse breathing. He puts his hand to his chest in horror, then stops again.
"Are you okay, Oskar?"
I know Oskar's tendencies. He's gotten used to his life and his routine for over one hundred and sixty years. To have to change it all around to suit a human lifestyle- that's got to be rough for someone like him. Not only that, but how exactly does a vampire just stop being a vampire? It seems impossible, not without some kind of 'cure'.
There's only one man in Henford who'd seek to cure vampirism, who may have had the knowledge to do so. I don't know if that's a conclusion Oskar has come to, so I say nothing.
"We don't know what the future holds, Oskar. I know you like knowing everything in detail as much as you can, but life is always going to have plenty of surprises. Some people can live surprisingly long lives. The Jacoban High Shepherd is nearly eighty. Even if you are becoming human again, you might have plenty of time."
"The Jacoban High Shepherd can eat dog shit. The man is more than responsible for his share of the deaths of witches."
Well, that's that on that. I don't think Oskar will listen if I explain that he's turned himself around.
"The thing is, Reynold, what would you do if you found this out? I'm already dreading having to sleep every day, and learn to breathe again, and eat again, and- I don't want to think of it! Do you know how much time humans waste on the chamberpot, Reynold? Experts say you spend most of your life there! I don't want to go back to that!"
"One way to look at this, Oskar- if you are becoming human again, you can do all of the things you couldn't do as a vampire. You can taste food properly again for one, go out in the sunlight...What you lose from not being a vampire, you'll gain something from being human again."
I notice his eyes sparkle in the candlelight, as if about to cry.
"Not this again! It's been more than one hundred and sixty years since-"
"Just let it out, Oskar."
He tries to steady his voice.
"Moving back to Henford made me realise how much I missed the Sun. Violeta painted me a picture of a sunlit cliff face back at Nebelstadt. I never thought to bring it to Henford."
"And now you can see it in real-time. If not now, soon enough."
He leans his chin on his hand in deep thought.
"Would you ever want to see your father again, Reynold?"
"I don't see how this is relevant, Oskar. My father is dead."
"And how do you know this?"
Here he goes again, with his trick questions.
"I don't. But I know he would have gone looking for me and Clem if he weren't."
"Interesting," he replies. "You see, I don't believe that he died, nor do I believe that he wouldn't have gone looking for you. If my time is limited, then I was thinking I could go to Lunvik. See if he's gone back there. It makes sense he'd return to the one place safe for a werewolf."
"I get that immortality has warped your sense of time, Oskar, but twenty to forty rough years is plenty of time to a human. I'm thirty years old and it feels like it's dragged on. I know he's your friend, but you need to think realistically-one minute. It sounded like you wanted to tear him apart for what happened with Clem."
"Oh, I did," he replies, with the familiar mocking chirpiness back in his voice. "However, I can't ignore the Bloodmoon- a pact is a pact, and come to think of it...I don't believe Alistair to be a man beyond redemption, and I'm not just saying that because we were friends. But more importantly, I want your thoughts on the matter. If you were to ever see your father again..."
It'd been at the back of my mind since what happened to Clem. If I ever did see him again, what would I do? I don't answer him for a while.
"He's my father, Oskar. I owe him a second chance."
"So if I were to go to Lunvik, and I happened to bump into him- would you want me to tell him about you and your sister?"
"This is all very hypothetical, Oskar, but yes, if you told him I was here, I wouldn't object. However, maybe don't mention Clem's whereabouts."
"Well, that settles it, then," he says, heaving himself with some difficulty out of the chair and walking off. "I will rekindle my relationship with an old friend. That'll be my first step as a soon-to-be squishy weak little human being. Then I'm going to eat my favourite foods from humanhood. Then maybe I'll go to Windenburg. I've forgotten how beautiful the bluffs look in the sunset- Then again, I do hear it's a lot more industrial these days- Hope it hasn't been ruined-"
I notice he lights one last candle before leaving.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: haneul's forum comment on chapter 3.2 gave me the idea for the discussion between Oskar and Eli on workload.