Ourselves Read online

  A breeze moved the branches enough to let a sliver of moonlight fall on Tomas’s face. His mouth was open, one arm flung over his head, the other lying behind Stell, who sat cross-legged above him. She watched him sleep, watched the forest come alive at night around them, opossum and raccoons and foxes padding past, curious and unafraid. Stell was afraid. She was afraid to touch this boy, afraid to awaken him. She was afraid of the hot, red scars she could see marring his smooth skin.

  Bloodlust. How many times had she heard the word hissed from the pulpit? How many endless hours had she been forced to pray for deliverance from the curse of her people? Uncle Rom stalked her mind, gnarled and angry, the words backslider and abomination rolling out of his mouth like a foul smoke. She had never understood what those words meant. Now, however, in the damp privacy of Calstow Mountain, when visions of Tomas turned to visions of blood, Stell understood.

  She had taken his blood.

  Not just a drop, not just the surface of a scrape. She had drunk deep. And he had drunk from her. They had dug at each other’s skin like crows on a kill. She had dug and clawed and bitten and torn and he had gone along, following her, unable to resist the power of the evil that had come over her. She saw his eyes as he’d fallen asleep. They were different, faraway. He would never want her again. Turning away from him, Stell spread her arms wide, gathering the forest debris. She pulled it over her head, burying herself in misery and fallen leaves.

  “I’m sorry, Tomas.”

  Tomas tried to focus on the pale face before him. His lips felt soft and swollen as he smiled. “For what?” He raised himself on his elbows, feeling dampness from the moss on his back. “Have you been sitting up all night? Can’t you sleep?”

  “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you. For what I am.”

  “What have you done?” He added with a laugh, “Besides blow my mind?”

  “I’ve given in. I’ve turned my back on my higher self.” Her Nahan accent thickened as she spoke words that sounded like Tradition, but no Tradition Tomas had ever heard. He sat up, hearing something serious in her voice. “ ‘And the fever of the blood will boil within you and your flesh will fall away. Touch and you will spread this pestilence among those of your kind and all will know you are forsaken.’ I have done this to us. I have done this to you.” She held her arms out before her, staring at the scratches and bruises. “Forgive me.”

  Tomas stared at her. None of this made sense. “Stell, these marks, they’re not a pestilence.” She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her body. “They’re not. This isn’t a fever or a curse.” He trailed his hand down her arm and felt her shiver. “This is natural.” The word sounded ridiculous under the circumstances. It felt like those awful heritage classes when the mentor would talk in excruciating detail about their bodies and everyone would laugh and pretend not to devour every word. He sounded just like Mentor Davenheim discussing saliva and blood clotting.

  “You’re afraid,” he said and she looked at him as if he had just noticed the sky was blue. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “You should be afraid of me.” She closed her eyes. “Look what I did to you.”

  “What you did to me?” He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Stell, we did this to each other. We wanted this.” She shook her head, her eyes still closed, but she didn’t pull away.

  “Do you love me?” he whispered. “Because I love you. Stell, this is what people in love do. This is Nahan.” He drew her into his arms. “This is life. We belong to each other.”

  They rolled over the moss, tangled in each other. Whatever doubts Stell might have had burned away in the heat between them. Tomas kissed the protests off her lips and shouted down her worries with murmured reassurances and whispered delights. They more than doubled their scars.

  “Are you going to get in trouble for staying out all night?”

  Stell shrugged and watched him tie his sneaker laces.

  “I don’t think my grandparents will care. Do you think your family will notice? Most of the scratches are healed. Maybe they won’t know about . . . this.”

  Tomas felt Stell drifting away from him. It was like she had a window into herself that she could open and close at will, letting him in or keeping him out. The window was sliding shut and he didn’t know what to do to stop it.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.”

  Tomas couldn’t catch her eye, so he rose to his feet and began dusting himself off. “Yeah, I should hang out with Louis for a while. He’s probably freaking, wondering what’s happened to me. I think I’m pushing his lying skills.”

  Stell looked up. “You’ve been lying to him?”

  “He’s been lying for me. About where I’ve been. I’m supposed to be, you know, hanging out with him and everyone else who’s in for the summer.”

  “Not with me.”

  He stepped in close to her. “They don’t know you. Yet. You should come down and meet my grandparents at least.” She turned from him and jumped over the log onto the trail, yanking her dress down from a branch. “Or not.” He spoke to her back. “You know, whatever. See you in a few days.” He watched her disappear into the forest. Even when she was moving, she looked like she was standing still.

  “Are you sure you don’t just want to start a crabgrass ranch, Grandma?” Tomas hacked at a thick clump of wiry grass. “It might turn out to be valuable or something.”

  “Well normally crabgrass isn’t such a problem in my tomato patch. Of course, I used to have a grandson that would stay on top of the weeding.”

  “Really? I wonder what ever happened to him.”

  “From what I gather, he’s staying on top of something altogether different these days.” Tatiana shot Tomas a look through the tomato plants and caught his blush.

  “Is that what you heard?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.” She strolled by Tomas, playfully swatting him with a bundle of clipped parsley. “So are you going to spill the beans, young man?”

  Tomas kept his head down, grinning as he pulled a long dandelion root from the earth. “Sounds to me like you’re pretty informed.”

  “Mm-hmm. No names, though. Tell me, is it one girl? Or have you found an easy patch of hay to roll in?”

  “Grandma!”

  “What?” Tatiana asked, her mock indignation bringing out traces of her Russian accent. “You don’t think I know what you’re doing? How do you think you got here? Your father? Your mother? Do you think we sprung up from the ground like those weeds?”

  “I know the birds and the bees, thanks. But a ‘patch of hay to roll in’? Really?”

  “There are many beautiful Nahan girls in town this summer. Including Aricelli, if I’m not mistaken.” Tomas nodded, turning back to the weeds. “Have you seen much of her this summer?”

  “A little. She and Louis ran by the other day when I was out fixing the gate with Grandpa. They want me to go to the movies with them tomorrow.”

  “And are you going?” Tomas shrugged. “Aricelli is very beautiful, no?” He nodded, still not looking up. “You don’t think she’s beautiful?”

  He pulled a patch of grass apart, nodding. “She’s really . . . tall.”

  “Tall is nice. You are tall.” She watched her grandson, trying to divine what was going on behind his eyes. “Of course, there are many girls out there.”

  Tomas sat back on his heels. “Her name is Stell, Grandma. She’s a local.”

  “Nahan, of course?” Tatiana asked.

  “Of course Nahan. I don’t want a common. I mean, I want them to, you know, but not, like, for a girlfriend.” Tatiana thought his blush made her grandson even more handsome and he rolled his eyes at her smile. “Don’t pair me off just yet. I mean, I like her. A lot. She’s really pretty. But not like Aricelli. She’s not glamorous, you know?”

  “She’s not tall?”

  Tomas knew she was teasing him. “No. She’s nice and short. About two feet high, big potbelly, bare butt. Yo
u’ll like her.” He pointed to the plaster garden troll nestled in the flower garden against the house.

  “Oh, I’m sure you two will be very happy.” Tatiana kissed the top of her grandson’s head. “Smart aleck. Do we get to meet this mysterious troll or does she only live under the mushrooms?”

  How long had she been sitting here on Calstow’s western slope? Stell couldn’t be sure. She knew there had been at least one long night, maybe two. Her body, fortified by the new sustenance it had received, felt stronger, strong enough to go another week without moving, without eating or drinking. The only difficult part had been overcoming the sense of bounding in her muscles, the feeling that she wanted to run and run. Whenever she had thought she had to move, she would open her eyes, see the fences and the tin roofs of the compound below her and, seeing nowhere to run, would settle back down silently.

  Stell watched a group of her schoolmates pulling a wagon of heavy stones across the pitted dirt road. They were laughing and pushing at each other, none of them in a hurry to complete their chores. Some were younger than Stell, some were nearly adults but they each had homes to go to, real houses within the fenced-in compound. Stell waited until the laughing group moved behind the community barn before she slipped down the hill, through the forsythia and into her bedroom.

  “I’m home, Mother.” Stell brushed her knees off after climbing through the hole behind her bed. The house was small, more of a lean-to shooting off the rear wall of the church than an actual house. Her room furnishings consisted of a sagging camp cot under a canted window; a wooden chair with several dog-eared books stacked upon it, and a wall cupboard covered by a flimsy curtain. It took no more than three steps to cross the length of the room and still it made up almost a third of their living space.

  Malbette stood in the doorway that led to their windowless living room and, when she saw her daughter’s face, sucked in a sharp breath. Stell couldn’t read her mother’s reaction, couldn’t gauge if there was disapproval, but as always erred on the side of caution. She remained silent, meeting her mother’s stare without flinching.

  Malbette broke the gaze first. “Well.” Her voice trailed off as she turned to step back into the dark room behind her. “Well.”

  Stell felt her natural reserve evaporate under the heat of this new force that pumped within her. She choked back her words as long as possible, then stomped to the door of her bedroom and challenged Malbette.

  “Well what?”

  “Who is he?” Malbette sat in the only chair in the room, her hands folded, as she had all those years before when Stell had asked about her father.

  “He’s not from here.”

  A snort of derision escaped Malbette. “I wouldn’t think he was.”

  Stell clenched her teeth. She wanted to say something cutting, something permanent to make Malbette rise from her chair shrieking and weeping. Before any words came, her mother leaned her head back against the chair and sighed.

  “There’s no one here fierce enough for you.”

  And just like that, Stell unfolded, her shoulders dropped, the roaring in her head subsided. Malbette opened her eyes again and smiled at her daughter. She held out her arms and in two strides Stell was on her knees, her head buried in her mother’s skirts.

  She couldn’t wait at their clearing. Holding her shoes in her hand, Stell ran down the path Tomas took over the mountain, jumping over rocks and fallen trees, giggling to herself as she saw him working his way up the path toward her. She didn’t want to sit down on any of the rocks around her but found standing in one place almost impossible. She bounced from bare foot to bare foot before she remembered she held shoes in her hand. Fumbling to get them on, she winced at the straps of the inexpensive white sandals against her roughened feet. Tomas hadn’t seen her yet and she wanted to look perfect. She was glad she’d let her mother brush out her hair and wash it in the old tub in the washroom. Her mother had surprised her with both the sandals and the new summer dress, a simple sundress made from lightweight flowered cotton.

  “I was saving this for a special day,” Malbette had said, pulling on the hem of the dress to straighten it. “I don’t suppose there is any day more special than meeting his family, is there?”

  “If I do get to meet them,” Stell had said, trying to catch her reflection in the small mirror on the wall. “He’s coming up the mountain tomorrow. I can feel it.”

  Tomas stopped short, realizing Stell was less than ten feet before him. “You came. You knew. You look . . . you look . . . you look so beautiful.”

  She grinned and spun around. “You said you wanted me to meet your grandparents. Today? Can we do it today?”

  Tomas laughed, three days’ worth of tension dropping out his feet. He had been sick thinking something had gone wrong. Stell hadn’t returned to the mountain. His grandparents and his friends had wanted his attention. For three days he had weeded and worked and even gone to the movies. Last night, however, he had sent up a cry, his body broadcasting farther than his mind could ever dream and now, here she was, looking like a country schoolgirl. He would have preferred no dress at all, but figured once they’d had lunch with his grandma and grandpa, they could take care of that. He took her hand and led her down the mountain to the farm below.

  “Grandma Tat?” Tomas called as they stepped onto the porch. “We’re here.” He could hear his grandma in the kitchen setting out plates, but Stell dug in her heels and refused to move past the screen door. “What are you doing?” he whispered as Tatiana stepped up to the screen door, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

  “Tomas! You’re back sooner than I thought.” She smiled at Stell. “Is this your friend?”

  Stell squeezed Tomas’s hand and cleared her throat. “ ‘u fealte, sed ‘im sete.”

  Tomas blushed. Who asked formal permission to enter a home anymore? He started to speak, when Tatiana answered, smiling. “Set fealte, ‘u di.” She opened the door to let them in. As they stepped past her, she smacked her grandson on the back of the head. “You could learn a thing or two about manners, young man.”

  Stell tried not to gawk at the rooms before her. Everything was so clean, so full of light and space. There were bookshelves full of large, hardcover books. Photographs peeked out on end tables and on walls. The pine floor shone underneath a sunny hooked rug. She clutched Tomas’s hand as he led her to the kitchen.

  “I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen, Stell. May I call you Stell?” Stell could only nod at the energetic woman before her, at the energy all around her. Plates were set; bowls, silverware, glasses clinking and catching the light. A tall, white-haired man entered, introduced himself as Charles, Tomas’s grandfather, kicking off a new flurry of activity as they settled around the table.

  And then the food started—enormous bowls of green salad, pasta salad, warm bread, soft butter. On and on it came. She had never seen so much food on one table in her life.

  “Is this all right?” Tatiana asked. “Do you like olives? I can make you a sandwich if you don’t like pasta salad.”

  Stell didn’t know where to look. “I like everything.”

  “Good,” Tomas said, “because the hamburgers are coming right up.”

  “Tomas!” Tatiana smacked his head again, then rolled her eyes at Stell. “So vulgar. Forgive my grandson. He has the manners of a goat. He and his very cool friends find it amusing to bring up nauseating topics like carrion at the table.”

  When she could think of nothing to say to that, Tomas kicked her softly under the table. “I’m kidding about the hamburgers. We don’t eat meat. We’re all Nahan. Nothing dead here.”

  “That’s right, Stell.” Charles said, taking a seat at the table. “The only dead thing at this table is Tomas’s chance of borrowing the truck this summer.” Tomas began to protest when Tatiana cut them off.

  “Could we please stop talking of dead things? Please? We’re eating.”

  Tatiana wondered if Stell was a farmer. Tomas had said she was local and
none of the Nahan children that came in from the city would be seen in such a simple dress. There were Nahan far out along the county roads, farmers and orchard keepers, but it was unlikely Tomas had strayed out that far from the farm. Her table manners were odd; she ate quickly, her head bowed, as if embarrassed and unaccustomed to being seen eating. Something about the simplicity of the dress kept pulling her attention until it came to her with a jolt.

  It was the light colored floral fabric that had distracted her, that had put out of her mind the dark and drab clothes of the dour religious compound on the other side of Calstow. En Na ‘u ‘an they called themselves. “The True Family.” It had to be. They were close enough to the farm that an ambitious hiker could reach them, and Tomas was certainly ambitious when it came to this young lady. The foreignness, the formality, it all made sense now. This could prove to be a long summer.

  “Knock-knock. Anybody home?”

  Stell looked up from the last bite of her strawberry shortcake to see the most beautiful Nahan girl she had ever imagined come strolling into the kitchen.

  “Do I smell strawberries?”

  “Aricelli!” Tatiana rose to embrace the young woman. “This is a surprise. Are you by yourself?”

  “No!” A male voice called from the living room. “I’m here too, but I’m stealing your chocolate kisses. You’re going to have to find a better hiding place, Grandma Tat.”

  “I’ve long given up hiding any sweets from you, Louis. Don’t be a dog. Come in and say hello to Tomas’s friend, Stell.”

  Stell felt glued to her chair. Aricelli was like a goddess of myth standing before her. Where Stell’s hair hung straight (thankfully clean and brushed), Aricelli’s fell in lustrous tumbling waves of black with copper glints. Her eyes, a more vivid blue than Stell’s naturally, shone all the brighter for the carefully applied eyeliner and her tall, athletic body held few secrets within the clinging pink camisole and brief plaid shorts. She even smelled lovely. Stell had never seen herself in a full-length mirror, but instinct told her she looked nothing like the young woman before her.