Old Flames, Burned Hands Read online

  “Rule number one, their most sacred law, is to never be seen. Never expose the coven. That means you can’t ever see your loved ones again. You can’t go back to your folks or your kids or siblings. Your spouse. You can’t even go peek in the window to see if they’re okay. Because the coven will know if you do and then they’ll destroy you. And then they’ll kill your loved ones just to be safe.”

  “Stop,” Tilda said. There was no oxygen left in the room. “Please.”

  “I wanted to come back to you so bad, Til. Even just a glimpse through a window but I couldn’t risk it.”

  She clapped her palms over her ears. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

  “Do you know what it’s like, living like this? Existing like a cockroach. Hiding down in the filth, scurrying from the light. What you once were keeps slipping away. You start doubting your own memories, unsure if they were ever real. It’s like a dream you barely remember or a story someone once told you.”

  “Shut up!” Her hands became fists. “What am I supposed to do with that? Am I to blame? If I am then I’m sorry but, Jesus— just stop. Please.”

  “Tilda, I’m not blaming you. I brought this on myself but you need to know what happened.”

  “No. I don’t care. Even if it is the truth.” She rose, pacing back and forth. “I have to go.”

  He snatched her elbow. “You can’t go. Not now.”

  “Don’t touch me!” She jerked her arm free and stumbled on, knocking into a bank of filing cabinets. Unable to see a damn thing. “Where’s my guitar?”

  She felt her feet leave the floor and her back slam into the wall, pinned there like a butterfly to a corkboard. His face a hair from hers. “You can’t just leave,” he spat. “You’re the only thing that kept me sane. The only part of me that didn’t fade away. You can’t go.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t make me your saviour. Because I’m not.” She pushed him away and he backed off. “You died and left me alone. I went to hell because of it but it was a lifetime ago. I have a husband and a child and… and a life without you. You can’t just pop back from the past and lay this at my feet.”

  “I know this is hard. But you brought me back when you played that song. I’ve been good all this time, shutting you out.” His fists bunched his hair and he stomped into the shadows. “But you played that song and I couldn’t stay away. You can’t leave now.”

  She still couldn’t see anything in this light. Neither him nor the way out. “Where’s the door?”

  Silence. All she could make out in the wan light were the aquariums, bouncing back the neon splash from the window. She couldn’t see or hear him anywhere.

  “Gil?”

  A rusty squeal tore the silence and a wedge of light broke against the black as the door swung open. The guitar case lay bare in the dilating band from the hall. She ran for it, crossing over the threshold and descending the steps two at a time. A glance over her shoulder. He didn’t follow her, didn’t fly down the stairs to stop her. Winding round and round to the ground floor, then she looked up through the banister railing. “I’m sorry.”

  The same metal-on-metal squeal was the only reply, punctuated by a low thud of his door slamming home.

  The alleyway was another labyrinth, cutting left and now right. The only breadcrumb trail was the noise of the street that she followed back to safety. Passing between gateposts of garbage mounds, she popped onto the red-tinged lights of Spadina Avenue. She marched south and then swung west onto Baldwin where she’d left the Nissan. She stopped when she saw the commotion up ahead.

  Red and blue lights blinked against the shop windows, alternating from a police cruiser and an ambulance. A crowd lined the walk further down, fanning across the street before the Porthole club. Three uniformed officers held the gawkers back as paramedics wheeled a gurney into the back of the twinkling ambulance.

  Two stragglers ambled away from the chaos, thumbing their phones as they passed Tilda on the sidewalk. Coiffed with pomade and mustaches waxed to fine points, they resembled some hipster version of a barbershop quartet. Tilda stopped the nearest one. “What happened?”

  “Dude got stomped,” the young man said.

  “Is he okay?”

  The other one resembled an effete lumberjack. He sneered under his waxed moustache. “Game over. That guy was dead before five-oh even got here.”

  The pair moved on, dropping their faces to their little handheld screens. Tilda darted for the parking garage, scampered up one level and tossed the guitar into the back of her vehicle. She roared down the ramp, fumbled her card into the automated teller. The liftgate took forever but when it finally went up, she raced south down Kensington and west onto Dundas. One eye on the rearview mirror but when no police unit appeared after her, she gunned the engine for home.

  SHE COULDN’T GO HOME. Too wired up and too close to tears, Tilda drove without destination or purpose. Sifting through the story he had told, she tried to make sense of it but there was no sense to be had and as the odometer clicked over another digit, she simply went numb. Letting her mind go blank, she drifted north then east then back west again.

  The Pathfinder found its own way back to Spadina, past the El Mocambo where she had played countless times and into a parking spot on Oxford. Killing the engine, she listened to the vehicle tick as it cooled and mulled over her own capacity for delusion. Did she really think she was going home after all this? The moment she stormed out of his place, hadn’t she known all along that she would come back?

  Exhausted by the endless questions she let her gut lead her, retracing her steps back through the alley and up the creaking stairwell. The door to his space was unlocked and the candles fluttered as she pushed inside. No response when she called his name and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, the space appeared deserted.

  Drawing back another of the heavy drapes to let in more streetlight she was surprised to see an easel emerge from the darkness. It stood alone in a cleared stretch of floor. A table nearby was cluttered with paints and brushes, jars of solvent. The smell of the turpentine and linseed oil lit old memories.

  Gil still painted.

  The easel stood empty in the center of the clearing but she found stacks of paintings pushed into the corner. There were dozens of them, faced to the wall so all she saw were the backs of each stretched canvas. She hesitated, thinking it would be rude to look without asking but curiosity won out and she lifted out the nearest one.

  Her windpipe constricted. It was a painting of herself. Not an exact portrait (that wasn’t Gil’s style), the brush strokes heavy and almost haphazard but it was clearly her. It wasn’t the hair or the eyes that startled her but the tilt of the head, the slant of her shoulders. Her body language was what rang true. He had captured the way she held herself and that, more than the eerie expression of the face, prickled the tiny hair on her arm.

  Setting it aside, she pulled up the next painting in the stack and then the one after that. They were all of her. Different poses, different settings or no settings at all. Some full length, some portraits, a few nudes. All different moods but the subject remained the same in every one.

  A frame at the end of a stack caught her attention and she stood it on the easel to study it. Like all the others, a painting of her yet different from the rest. Where the other paintings showed a younger version of herself (what Gil would have remembered from the past) this rendering was of how she looked now. The glaring streak of white hair fell from her left temple. She touched the frame and found the oil still wet, the pigment staining her fingertip.

  “That one’s not very good.”

  His voice rumbled up behind her somewhere but she didn’t startle or turn around. Had she known he was there all along? “I can’t believe you painted all of these.”

  “Kind of stalker-ish, huh? You’re still my favourite subject.”

  She flipped through more of the frames, stacked ten or twelve deep against the wall. “How many paintings have you done?”

/>   “Dunno. Never counted them,” he said. Then, “I’m surprised you came back.”

  She still hadn’t turned around. “No you’re not.”

  She felt his breath on her ear, his arms locking around her. Pulling her hard up against him, he swept her hair aside to kiss the back of her neck.

  “Gil.” The word no more than breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yes you do.”

  Of course she knew. She just needed to vent the thought, a stray sense of propriety that needed to be aired. He was hard up against her and she pushed back into him. She felt his hand cup her breast. “Does it still hurt?”

  “A little.” She turned about and kissed his mouth, then pulled back. “You can’t bite me anymore. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  Folding her hand in his, he led her past the stacks to a clearing near the back. A bed hidden away, crowded with piles of books. He knocked the books away and threw back the bedcover. Turning back to her, he smiled and took two steps backwards. “Take off your clothes. I want to see you.”

  “Bring a candle,” she said. “I can’t see anything back here.”

  He came back with two, setting them on a high shelf. Reclaiming the space he’d vacated, he kept a good three paces between them. His eyes were hungry as they took her in.

  Tilda hesitated, frozen by a sudden shudder of self-consciousness. “I’m not twenty-four anymore, Gil. You might want to lower your expectations.”

  “Take them off.”

  She couldn’t help the smirk on her lips as she pulled the shirt over her head. Hooking her thumbs into the waistband of the skirt, she shimmied her hips and let it all drop to the floor and stood naked before him.

  What she heard was a low growl as his gaze scrolled down to her toes and slowly back up to her eyes. Yanking his shirt over his head, he undressed quickly. He looked the same as ever, wiry muscles stretched over his lanky frame. Another twinge of doubt nagged her looking at that unchanged body but it dissipated the moment she felt his chest flatten against her, his skin cool on her warm flesh.

  They fell onto the bed and Gil stayed true to his promise not to bite but Tilda found she couldn’t do the same. She bit into him between kisses, sinking her teeth into his bottom lip and curve of his shoulder, his ribs. She wanted to eat him as much as fuck him. She tore into him and he pushed her down, pinning her arms above her head and tasted every inch of her. She did things she hadn’t done in a long time. She let him have her in ways she’d thought were long over with and their skin smacked together in the sweat.

  The candle glowed on the shelf, its taper blurring in her eyes afterwards. Nestled up against him, their skin slicked together felt right. A puzzle piece that had been missing for so long. He pincered the lobe of her ear in his eyeteeth and whispered that he loved her.

  Was there any other response to that? She pulled his arm tighter around her and tilted her head up to touch his lips. Her words barely a whisper. “I love you too.”

  He felt Tilda nestle against him even closer and Gil smiled until he felt her tears fall hot onto his arm tucked under her neck.

  MOLLY LOOKED DOWN AT THE PLATTER of pancakes her mother set onto the table. “What’s this?”

  “Pancakes,” Tilda said.

  “I can see that,” Molly groaned. “What’s the occasion? Did you think it was Sunday?”

  Tilda slid bowls of sliced bananas and fresh blueberries next to the platter. “I just thought a big breakfast would be a nice break from the usual.”

  “Looks good to me.” Shane said as he took his chair, interceding between mother and daughter as he so often did. “Let’s eat.”

  Tilda slugged down another belt of coffee and turned back to the last two flapjacks in the frypan. Her hands were shaking from being so tired and she tried to hide it from the two at the table. Mornings were tough under the best of circumstances, mornings with only a few hours sleep were punishing. Tilda had spilled and splattered the kitchen in her clumsy stupor as if drunk. She didn’t know what possessed her to make an elaborate breakfast this morning.

  That was a lie.

  “Pancakes always come with bad news,” Molly said drolly. “What is it this time?”

  “If you don’t want it, then don’t eat it. I guess I shouldn’t have bothered.” Tilda winced at how quickly the retort came. She sounded so much like her own mother in that moment. Molly, who delighted in popping the balloon out of any pretence in the room, had simply called her out. The nauseating guilt that was churning in her belly had spurred Tilda to make pancakes for her family. Like that would excuse what she had done and make everything okay. It was pathetic.

  Shane nodded to her chair. “Sit down. Eat.”

  “Soon as these last ones are finished.”

  “Let me get it. You look exhausted” Shane guided her to a chair, setting her mug before her. He darted to the stove and flipped the last two flapjacks in the pan. “I didn’t even hear you come home last night. Did you get in late?”

  “Yeah. After midnight.”

  Molly looked up from her plate. “It was way later than that.”

  Tilda stiffened as Shane came back to the table and flipped the last cakes onto the platter. He looked at Molly. “What do you mean, honey?”

  “It was after three in the morning when I turned out the light. You weren’t home yet.”

  Tilda’s knuckles clenched white over her fork. “Why were you up so late?”

  Shane’s gaze ping-ponged from Molly to Tilda. “You were out till three? Geez.”

  “I don’t remember what time it was. I just went straight to bed.”

  “Glory days,” Molly sneered.

  “No wonder you’re zonked,” Shane said. “You should have slept in this morning. I coulda made breakfast.”

  Tilda’s stomach soured, killing her appetite. Why was he being so nice? It was unbearable. She took her plate to the counter. “I’m okay. You two eat up before you’re late.”

  Molly poked at her breakfast. “This one’s burned.”

  “Maybe it’s time you started helping with breakfast.” He pointed his fork in his daughter’s direction. “You and I could take turns on the morning shift. Give your mom a break.”

  Molly laughed out loud. “Yeah right.”

  Tilda turned her back to them, afraid she was going to scream. Why was he torturing her like this? Did he suspect anything? She blocked out their banter and rushed to finish up. She set their packed lunches onto the counter, refilled her mug and hurried to the stairs. “I need to hop in the shower. Leave the dishes.”

  Reeling up the steps, she heard Shane cajoling their daughter into clearing the table. Then the clatter and bustle of getting them out the door. A workday Laurel & Hardy routine. Standing under the spray of hot water, she didn’t relax until she heard the front door bang shut behind them.

  SHE looked like she’d been beaten. Purpled bruises on her arms and red scrapes along her ribs. Tilda stood before the foggy mirror, scrutinizing her naked reflection. She was still raw from last night and it showed on her flesh. Turning to one side revealed more marks on her back and buttocks. Worst of all was the angry looking wound on her breast where Gil had bitten her. A dark scab over her nipple, the surrounding breast mottled purple. How was she to explain this? Could she keep covered long enough to heal? How long would that take?

  Her stomach knotted up thinking back to last night, a seasick push-and-pull between exhilaration and shame. The giddy rush she had felt being with him churned up alongside the sickening regret over what she had done. All of it punctuated harder by Shane being so kind to her this morning. Did he know? Did he possibly suspect anything?

  No. Shane wasn’t one to hide his mood or mask any bitter feelings. He didn’t store away his hurts to use as ammunition later. He gave immediate vent to whatever he was feeling no matter what the circumstances. If he suspected anything, he simply would have said so.

  So what? Tilda challenged the naked woman in the mirror.
Does that make it okay? Does that mean you got away with it?

  It can’t happen again, she vowed. Simple as that. Yes, the circumstances were weird as weird can get but that was no excuse. She’d had her fun and scratched that itch but it could not continue any further. Not like this. She and Gil would have to set some hard and fast boundaries because the lines were too easily blurred. They could still be close. Still see one another but they could not be lovers. She simply couldn’t do that to Shane. Or Molly.

  Gil would not be happy about it but he’d simply have to deal with it. It was this or it was nothing. Take your pick.

  She laughed at the stern crinkle in her eyes. It was so easy to talk tough when she was alone, so determined while scripting the imagined confrontation. The real test would be saying this to his face and she could already feel herself bending.

  “What am I gonna do?”

  The woman in the mirror had no answer. With her bruised and scraped flesh, she looked like a battered woman.

  She touched the tender flesh of her breast, brushing the puncture marks that had scabbed over with black blood. The tale Gil had told her resurfaced along with the memory of his teeth biting into her.

  What if it was infected?

  What would it do to her?

  She fled the mirror and hurried to get dressed. She was already late for work.

  SHE shouldn’t have bothered. Typing the term ‘vampire’ into a search engine produced an onslaught of results that were overwhelming in number yet completely and utterly useless. The volume and variety of information dedicated solely to the subject of the undead proved Gil’s claim to be contradictory. He said that they stay hidden from the world. According to Google, they were absolutely everywhere. A spook from a child’s tale had become a cultural joke.

  The idea, once uttered aloud, was hard to shake, lodging in her brain like a dirty thought that wouldn’t go away. It was ridiculous, preposterous and delusional. Maybe that’s why it stuck so fast and refused to be scrubbed away by the reassuring warmth of daylight. Its very absurdity made it real. And then there was Gil himself. Aside from being a little gaunt, he hadn’t aged at all since the day he died. How to explain that?