"We were in love."
"Then why did you separate?"
"It wasn"t my choice, believe me. She left me a note... she said she had to leave because some people were after her. She would be back when it was safe."
"What people?"
"I don"t know."
"And that was five years ago. Were you in school?"
"No, I was working for the-" I stopped and we looked at each other. Her expression was kindly and concerned, but I was in sudden doubt about how much I should confide in her.
She saw it and leaned forward. One of her small bony hands closed over mine, light and cool. "Jack, I"m old enough now to understand these things, and I hope wise enough to accept them. You can tell me, you loved each other... Were you lovers?"The words got stuck in my throat so I nodded.
She smiled. "Then I"m glad that she found some happiness. Could you tell me why you stopped the ad? Had you given up or was there another reason?"
"It"s been so long. If there had been word, a single word from her, I"d have waited forever, but there was nothing. I had to get out of New York to try and start over, so I came here." I stopped, wanting to get up and pace. She patiently waited me out.
"Well, I met new people and have new friends. I thought it was time to let the past go. If Maureen"s alive, if she wants to find me, I left word at my old paper; they"d send her here."
"You don"t think she"s alive?"
"I don"t know."
"Jack, I must ask you just one more question: you were lovers... did she change you?"
That was one I didn"t want to answer, but my long silence was an answer regardless.
"If she did... well... it"s all right. She was my sister. When it happened to her I still loved her; she was different, but not in any way that really mattered."
"Your older sister," I prompted, wanting to shift the subject around.
"Yes, it"s hardly fair for me to ask all the questions. I should tell you some things as well. Go over to that table, bring me the picture on it."
I picked up an old-fashioned hinged frame for photos. It was ornate silver and just a little tarnished. I gave it to her and she opened it lovingly.
"You see?" She smiled and pointed at the soft, distant images on either side of the hinges. "I was just seventeen when we sat for these, and very nervous. I was afraid of shaking too much and ruining it. but it turned out very nice, after all. I"m on the left and this is Maureen on the right."
I knew her instantly. Her hair was different, piled high with a cl.u.s.ter of small curls over her forehead. She wore a high collar, and pinned to it was a gold-and-ivory cameo that I remembered her wearing. Her pose and expression were stiff, but it was Maureen, her face identical to the likeness in my memory. Escott leaned over for a look.
"Maureen was twenty-one. As you can see at the bottom, those were taken in the year 1881. Oh, but we were pretty girls back then, all the boys were after us."
"Did she marry?" Escott asked.
"No. Neither of us. We were destined to be spinsters. Sometimes it works out that way. You don"t plan on it, it just happens. Our dear parents pa.s.sed on and we were alone; we couldn"t bear the idea of becoming separated by a marriage. Life just went on and we were busy with charity work and the church and the literary club and the sewing circle. There seemed so much for us to do back then and the years slipped by so fast, but then it all changed.
"She met him at one of the literary club meetings. They"d got to talking about some terribly popular book that had just come out, though I couldn"t name it now if I tried. His name was Jonathan Barrett, and we had all teased him a little because of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, you know. He was very nice about it and so handsome and all the girls were silly about him, but it was Maureen that he talked to at each and every meeting. She was in her thirties then and he in his twenties, and I tried to tell her he was too young, but she didn"t care. He was so charming and proper I couldn"t dislike him or be jealous of her, and so he often stopped by our house in the evenings.
"You can probably see the rest, but at the time I did not. Our lives were changing and I didn"t see it at all. Maureen was so happy then and I was glad for her and I suppose these days no one would be too terribly shocked at what happened.
"Now back then, ladies were properly courted. They had chaperons and other difficulties, it"s a wonder anyone ever got married with all the manners, requirements, and formalities. Only "fast" girls would think of meeting a man alone, and of course if you went beyond that you were no longer considered fit for decent society. But she was in love with him. I suppose I was, too, a bit... sometimes a look would flash from his eyes and that made me quake all over. If it had been me instead of Maureen I would have done the same thing as she, and we would have been lovers as they were."
I was not surprised at this news, but it was remarkably painful to hear.
"They saw each other for several years. He often had to be away on business- investments or something, he said- and in all that time he never mentioned marriage. Our friends speculated about it and I did, too-at least to Maureen-but she told me not to push her into things and forbade me to speak of it to Jonathan.
Not to push her-this went on for eleven years, if you can believe it. Eleven years of courtship, or so I thought at the time.
"He only came at night. We"d visit, the three of us, then he would bid us good night and leave. Maureen and I would lock the doors, turn down the gas, and go up to our rooms. I suppose they waited until I was asleep, and then somehow he would come to her.
"I must have been completely blind at the time or it was my sheer innocence. Not once did I ever guess what went on, and it did go on for many years. It might still be going on."
"What do you mean?"
"If she were still alive... still breathing, that is. It was 1904-they say things were quieter back then, but it wasn"t so, things were just as noisy in the streets as they are today. Wagons made such a rattle and rumble, especially on the paving bricks.
People shouted, children played, perhaps if there had been a little less noise that day she would still be with me, who knows?
"We were just crossing the street, it was nearly Christmas, there were a lot of people around us, other shoppers. I remember a band playing on the corner to collect money for the poor. It was cold and we were wondering how the players could keep warm if they never marched around. We laughed and skipped along in step to the drum. What a sight we must have been; two spinsters in their forties acting so silly.
We heard only the music, nothing else. Then Maureen turned her head to look up the street and suddenly pushed me. She pushed very hard, my shoes slipped on some dirty ice, and I was almost flying away from her. There was a rumble that drowned out the band and a bell was ringing and I was thrown up against a ma.s.s of people on the sidewalk. I was stunned und couldn"t move; they said I struck my head when I fell. Some men carried me into a store, I fainted, and was then taken to a hospital.
"She saw it coming, but there wasn"t enough time for her to do anything but push me out of the way. They said she couldn"t have felt much, that it was very quick. I like to believe it did not hurt her. It was a firewagon and the horses were running at full speed.
"I woke up in the hospital ward. I thought I"d die when they told me she"d been killed. Jonathan came by that night and tried to comfort me, but I was so wrapped up in my own grief that I didn"t notice his, or his lack of it. The funeral was held the day I left the hospital, but he didn"t come, and I was very angry with him. He"d known her for eleven years and did not come to see her buried. I was alone, utterly shattered and alone.
"He came back again after a few days. It was a very difficult interview between us and he asked me some strange questions. He was talking about living after death, whether I would consider such a thing as a reality. He wanted to know it I wanted to see Maureen again. Then he looked at me- just looked-and it did not seem so absurd or horrible anymore. He told me I should be happy because Maureen was really all right. I was shaking my head and smiling; it was like dreaming, but he said he could prove it. He opened the door and Maureen walked in.
"She wore a new dress... it was blue, just like her eyes, and she was young, a girl again, and so pretty..." Gaylen"s head drooped, she looked very tired. She pulled a bit of lace and muslin from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. "I"m sorry to get like this, it just all came back to me again."
"Can I get you anything? Some water?"
"No, I"m fine, I want to finish. They talked to me most of the night and I learned a great deal about things I"d thought impossible. But they were right there in front of me-Maureen had been changed by Jonathan and had returned from the grave because of it.
"They were going to go away; she said she could not be with me anymore, it was hardly something our friends could understand, and of course she didn"t want any of them knowing about her. She had wanted to see me again, she couldn"t bear the thought of me grieving for her. It was so hard, almost cruel to have her back and then lose her again. She wrote me often, from many places, and she mentioned meeting you and how happy she was. I thought perhaps you knew more than I did about where she went. I"d hoped so hard..."
"I am sorry." The words were inadequate, but they were all I had to give her.
She took my hand again. "That"s all right, there"s nothing we can do about it. At least for her sake-if you don"t mind-perhaps we may be friends."
"Of course."
"What happened to Barrett?" asked Escott.
She looked at him, her face blank for a moment. He"d been keeping very still throughout the whole story and she must have forgotten his presence. "He was with Maureen at first, and then I suppose they drifted apart. I asked-but she said she didn"t want to talk about it-she acted unhappy and I didn"t want to pry."
"So you did see her occasionally?"
"Yes, but not very often."
"I see," he said neutrally.
She turned back to me. "Jack, would you be able to confide in me?"
I started to act puzzled, but she waved me down with a gentle gesture.
"It"s all right. I think you know I"ve already guessed. It was from the first... you have the same look about you as Jonathan; it"s some quality that I"ve never been able to define."
"I do?"
"Perhaps you are yet unaware of it. How long have you- "Just after I moved here," I said quickly. It was d.a.m.n hard for me to acknowledge the truth to myself, much less a near-stranger.
"You poor man, was it an accident?"
"No, I was-" But I couldn"t tell her. It was an ugly story and I couldn"t tell her the truth of how I"d died.
Escott broke in. "Jack doesn"t like to speak about it, it was rather unpleasant at the time. The doctors diagnosed it as food poisoning. He remembers being ill, pa.s.sing out, and then waking up in the hospital morgue. It was quite sudden."
I gave him a quick, grateful glance. He looked concerned, but with a touch of blandness. He was an excellent liar.
"It must have been horrible for you."
"Not really, just a surprise." It had indeed been a surprise, so I wasn"t exactly lying. "Maureen told me pretty much what to expect and what to do if it happened."
"And your family?"
"They know nothing about this. They think I"m still alive- in the conventional sense."
"Yes, that"s good. At least you"re not completely cut off as Maureen was; you can still visit them. It may be hard for you in the future when they begin to notice you don"t age."
"I"ll let the future take care of itself."
She turned her eye on Escott. "And you, Charles, how did you come to know about Jack?"
"I happened to notice that he did not reflect in polished surfaces and became curious to make his acquaintance."
"But you don"t care what he is?"
"Not really. I find the condition of vampirism to be a fascinating study, but not something to fear. Knowledge is an excellent cure for fear. On the other hand. Jack is the only vampire I know. If this genus of the human race is at all representative of the majority, then there might well be a few of whom we should be wary."
"You sound like a very exceptional individual."
He made a depreciative little shrug.
"Gaylen, I asked Charles along to meet you because he wants to help us find Maureen."
"After all this time?" She was very doubtful.
"I can make no promises, ma"am, but if you could provide me with enough solid facts about Maureen and perhaps the loan of this photograph- "But I don"t understand. How can you?"
"1 am a private agent, an investigator. I shall be leaving for New York tomorrow on business, and as long as I"m there I"m going to look into the matter of her disappearance."
"To New York? Tomorrow? You mean you"re all prepared?"
"Yes, I"ve planned on this for some lime. In fact, I was to leave today, but decided to stay to meet you. Your notice appearing when it did was very fortunate. Any information you give me about Maureen could be helpful."
"I don"t see how. After all this time do you really think there"s any hope?"
"We shan"t know until I try."
"When do you plan to return?"
"In two or three days, sooner if I should be lucky."
"That seems a very short time."
"Not when one is digging through official records and doc.u.ments."
"He knows his job," I added.
She took her eyes from Escott, visibly changing mental gears. "Of course I"ll help in any way I can."
"For a start, what do you know about a man named Braxton?" he asked.
"Who?"
"James Braxton." he repeated. "He owns a bookstore in Manhattan."
"I"ve never heard of him."
A stray thought occurred to me. "You said you had some crank calls; could you tell us about them?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Just tell us."
My insistence was not what she wanted to hear, and I felt frozen out for a moment. There was also a quality about her. a kind of authority that made me very much aware of our age difference. She swallowed it and decided to answer.
"The first call was a girl. She said she was Maureen and she didn"t like people talking about her, then she giggled and hung up. The second was from some man who wanted to know more about the notice. He called yesterday with a lot of questions that were not his business, and I finally told him as much. He never said who he was and I didn"t want someone like that bothering me."
"Maybe that was him," I said to Escott.
"It would seem likely," he agreed.
"Who? Are you talking about this Braxton?" she asked.
"Yes.""Who is he?"