Arc 2: In Memoriam (Part 2)

‘Let her go!’ Canus commands, voice quiet but harsh, and the grip on my hair immediately disappears.

I hear the squelch of Scintilla’s knees hitting the ground, and I follow suit out of instinct.

‘Sire?’ she ventures.

The only thing that stops me from saying the same is the flash of pure panic that I catch on Canus’s face, which is surprising enough that I remember I’m not necessarily supposed to recognise him. Canus must have thought I tried to attack Scintilla, and that she had to subdue me by force. I’ve never seen him so upset when breaking up fights between our younger sisters, but, then again, Scintilla and I never really fought much in our first life. And I mustn’t forget, this version of Canus is new to having progeny to take charge of. He must be extra jumpy about things like this happening, especially when it’s my first night of immortality.

‘What’s going on?’ Canus tries again, voice calmer this time.

I feel Scintilla relax at the change in tone. ‘We were washing her off,’ she says.

‘Are you done?’ At Scintilla’s nod, Canus continues, ‘Thank you, then, for taking care of this. I’ll send for you when we go hunting later.’

It’s a clear dismissal, and Scintilla gives me a glance of befuddlement before she shakes the mud off of her knees and scurries away.

I stay kneeling in the rain, unsure how I’m supposed to proceed. Canus had been the one to greet me on my way out of my grave that first time. The first thing he’d said to me had been, you’ll be Favilla from now on.

He hasn’t even named me yet.

‘I didn’t expect you until later,’ he says.

Some part of me expected him to say the same thing that he did last time, and now that he’s gone off-script, I no longer know how to respond. I say nothing, staring at the wet grass beneath my bare knees.

The sound of Canus’s careful footsteps approach. ‘I’m sorry. I should have been by your side when you came out,’ he says.

The apology is startling, but what startles me even more is that he bends down to pull me up. His hands are firm on my elbows, slightly warmer than the cold drizzle still falling all around us.

Before I figure out how to respond, he praises, ‘It’s very impressive that you’ve managed to come out so quickly. It’s only three hours past sunset.’

If I remember correctly (which I know I do) it should be April right now, which means it’s about eleven o’clock at night. Sunrise won’t be another seven hours.

Less clear in my memory is how long I’d taken the first time around. I think the sky had been slightly lighter then, barely beginning to dawn as I emerged, so probably about two hours before sunrise. That means I was a whole five hours faster this time.

‘How long did it take Scintilla?’ I ask.

As Canus guides me towards the trellis walkway, he says, ‘She came out just before midnight.’

I settle slightly, still uneasy. There’s daylight savings right now, so if Canus says midnight, he actually means one o’clock, which means that Scintilla was two hours slower than me. Is my speed extremely noteworthy, then? Surely two hours doesn’t make that great a difference.

We walk silently through the house. The halls are bare of extraneous decoration, and the floors are pristine. Everywhere is dimly lit by the blue glow of night lights. As we navigate the familiar halls, I make sure to wait for Canus’s prompting to make the turns that eventually lead us to my rooms.

He holds open the door for me, but I don’t step over the threshold. Instead, hating the thick silence that has settled between us, I ask, ‘Are you my Sire?’

Canus meets my gaze. His eyes are both the same as how I remembered it and also completely different. I don’t know if it’s his relative youth or my relative age, but he seems warmer this time around than he did before. (It doesn’t make sense, of course; Canus is centuries old, and I’ve only gone back three decades. Surely things couldn’t have changed that much.)

‘Did Scintilla tell you that?’

I shake my head.

Canus’s gaze flickers. ‘You remembered?’

I nod.

He looks away. ‘What else do you remember?’

Damn. I shouldn’t have said anything. Now I have to answer truthfully somehow, and I have a feeling that I remember everything from now until thirty years in the future isn’t an answer that will go over very well.

‘Erm…’ I hedge. ‘I know what a vampire is… I know that I am one now… I remembered how to get out of my grave…’

‘Do you remember your human life?’ Canus asks when I don’t continue.

‘I remember a hospital,’ I say immediately, as this is a question that I can answer fully and truthfully. ‘My mother… she’s dead, isn’t she?’

Canus nods, his expression unreadable.

I look away from his face and finally step into my rooms.

Canus doesn’t let up. ‘Do you remember your name?’

It takes all my effort not to reply with Favilla. ‘My human name?’ I ask instead.

‘Yes.’

I hesitate. ‘I’m not sure. Something that starts with an A?’

My human name was Aurélie, which I think might have been a family name. I don’t think I liked it much. It sounds old fashioned, stuffy and pretentious. I think I mostly went by Aura, but I’m not sure I like that name all that much more. It sort of wraps back around to sounding too new-age and hippy. The uncertainty between which of the two counts as my human name and my willingness to reject them both are the only things that allow me to speak something so close to being an untruth to Canus’s face.

‘What about Favilla?’ Canus asks.

I wasn’t aware that I ever had any choice in my name as a vampire. It’d always seemed so set in stone—Scintilla and Favilla; spark and ember, like a pair of modern art pieces to be displayed side by side with matching nameplates. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve been answering to Favilla for the past three decades, and I’m not about to change, especially not now that the one who’d given it to me is apparently—

No. I can’t think about that right now.

‘Favilla sounds nice,’ I say. ‘Will that be my name?’

I hear a nearly silent squish of wet muscles, and I’m confused for a moment before I realise that Canus just gulped. Before I can dwell on why he’d react that way, he says something that momentarily stuns me:

‘You’ll be Favilla from now on.’

The sentence sounds identical to how he’d said it in my memory of my first reawakening, from the wording to his tone to his cadence. His voice is low and soft and smooth, and it sends a strange shiver down my spine.

I want to continue the script. If I continue the script, part of me hopes, everything else will get back on track. It’s wishful thinking though, and sticking to the script wouldn’t make sense here.

‘Thank you,’ I say instead. I look back at him, realising that he still hasn’t stepped inside yet.

‘This is yours,’ he says. ‘Everything inside belongs to you. If there’s anything else you need or want, just tell me.’

‘Thank you,’ I say again.

Canus gestures to the door behind him. ‘Scintilla is across the hall from you. When you’re ready, get her to show you to my chamber. We’ll all go out together for a hunt later.’

He leaves without waiting for a response, and I stand in his wake, half a step inside the doorway of a suite of rooms that are both mine and not.