Fledgling (4 page)

He put his hands on my shoulders. “You know that? You remember it?”

“I think so. It sounds right. It feels right.”

“So, then,” he said, “what are you?”

I looked up at him, saw that I had scared him, and took one of his huge hands between mine. “I don’t know what I am. I don’t know why I remembered just now about flesh and blood. But you helped me do it. You asked me questions and you made me look into the mirror. Maybe now, with you to help me, I’ll remember more and more.”

“If you’re right about what you’ve remembered so far, you’re not human,” he said.

“What if I’m not?” I asked. “What would that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He reached down and tugged at my jeans. “Take these off,” he said.

I undid the shirt that I had twisted and tied around me to keep the jeans up, then I took them off.

He first seemed frozen with surprise that I had done as he said. Then, slowly, he walked around me, looking. “Well, you’re a girl, all right,” he whispered. At last, he took me by the hand and led me back to the main room of the cabin.

He led me to the chest of drawers next to the bed. There, in the top drawer, he found a white T-shirt. “Put this on,” he said, handing it to me.

I put it on. It fell past my knees, and I looked up at him.

“You tired?” he asked. “You want to go to sleep?

“Not sleepy,” I said. “Can I wash?” I hadn’t minded being dirty until the clean shirt made me think about just how dirty I was.

“Sure,” he said. “Go take a shower. Then come keep me company while I eat.”

I went into the bathroom, recognized the shower head over the bathtub, and figured out how to turn the shower on. Then I took off the T-shirt and stepped in. It was a hot, controlled rain, wonderful for getting clean and feeling better. I stayed under the shower longer than necessary just because it felt so good. Then, finally, I dried myself on the big blue towel that was there and that smelled of Wright.

I put the T-shirt back on and went out to Wright who was sitting at his table, eating things that I recognized first by scent then by sight. He was eating scrambled eggs and chunks of ham together between thick slices of bread.

“Can you eat any of this?” Wright asked as he enjoyed the food and drank from a brown bottle of beer.

I smiled. “No, but I think I must have known people who ate things like that because I recognize them. Right now, I’ll get some water. That’s all I want.”

“Until you want to chew on me again, eh?”

I got up to get the water and touched his shoulder as I passed him. It was good to see him eat, to know that he was well. It made me feel relieved. I hadn’t hurt him. That was more important to me than I’d realized.

I sat down with a glass of water and sipped it.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked after a long silence. “Why’d you let me undress you like that?”

“You wanted to,” I said.

“You would let anyone who wanted to, do that?”

I frowned, then shook my head. “I bit you—twice.”

“So?”

“Taking my clothes off with you is all right.”

“Is it?”

I frowned, remembering how badly I had wanted to cover myself when I was naked in the woods. I must have been used to wearing clothes in my life before the cave. I had wanted to be dressed as soon as I knew I was naked. Yet when Wright had taken my shirts, I hadn’t minded. And I hadn’t minded taking off the jeans when he asked me to. It had felt like what I should do.

“I don’t think I’m as young as you believe,” I said. “I mean, I may be, but I don’t think so.”

“You don’t have any body hair at all,” he told me.

“Should I?” I asked.

“Most people over eleven or twelve do.”

I thought about that. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know enough about myself to say what my age might be or even whether I’m human. But I’m old enough to have sex with you if you want to.”

He choked on his sandwich and spent time coughing and taking swallows of beer.

“I think you’re supposed to,” I continued, then frowned. “No, that’s not right. I mean, I think you’re supposed to be free to, if you want to.”

“Because I let you bite me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“A reward for my suffering.”

I leaned back, looking at him. “Does it hurt?”

“You know damn well it doesn’t.”

He drank a couple of swallows more, then stood up, took my hand, and led me to his bed. I sat on the bed, and he started to pull the T-shirt over my head.

“No,” I said, and he stopped and stood looking at me, waiting. “Let me see you.” I pulled at his shirt and unbuttoned one of the buttons. “You’ve seen me.”

He nodded, finished unbuttoning his shirt, and pulled his undershirt over his head.

His broad chest was covered with a mat of brown hair so thick that it was almost like fur, and I stroked it and felt him shiver.

He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and underwear. There was a great deal more fur on him everywhere, and he was already erect and eager.

I had seen a man this way before. I could not remember who he had been, could not recall a specific face or body. But all this was familiar and good to me, and I felt my own eagerness and growing excitement. I pulled the T-shirt over my head and let him push me back onto the bed, let him touch me while I petted and played with his fur and explored his body until, gasping, he caught my hands and held them. He covered me with his huge, furry blanket of a body. He was so tall that he took care to hold himself up on his elbows so that my face was not crushed into his chest.

He was very careful at first, afraid of hurting me, still afraid that I might be too young for this, too small. Then, when it was clear that I was not being hurt at all, when I had wrapped my arms and legs around him, he forgot his fears, forgot everything.

I forgot myself, too. I bit him again just beneath his left nipple and took a little more blood. He shouted and squeezed the breath from me. Then he collapsed on me, empty, spent.

It bothered me later, as he lay sleeping beside me, that I had taken more blood. If I didn’t find another source of blood soon, I would weaken him too much.

I got up quietly, washed, and put on his T-shirt. I would not let myself be seen, but I had to go out and look around. I had to see who and what else might be nearby.

Four

W
right lived in an area where houses were widely scattered along a road. They sat well back from the road, and sometimes they were surrounded by trees. It was as though the people in each of these houses were pretending they lived alone in the woods. Most of the other houses were much larger than Wright’s cabin. His closest neighbor was one of these larger houses—a two-story house made of wood, painted white, and now full of light. This must be where Wright’s aunt and uncle lived. I could hear people talking downstairs and music coming from upstairs. Best to let these people alone, at least until they slept.

Three houses away there were no lights, and the people were already asleep. I could hear the soft, even breathing of two of them upstairs in a front bedroom.

I went around the house looking for a quiet way in. The house had plenty of windows, but the ones on the lower floor were closed and locked. On one side, though, where the trees screened the house from the road and the neighbors, I found a little platform next to a second-floor window, and the window was partly open. I stared up at the platform, recognizing it, remembering that it was called a “balcony,” but knowing nothing about it beyond that. Things kept coming to me in this frustrating, almost useless way.

I shook my head in annoyance and decided that I could leap the distance from the ground to the balcony. I’d made longer leaps on my two deer hunts, and the balcony, at least, wasn’t moving. But I was concerned that I might make too much noise.

Well, if I awoke more than one person, I would run. If I were quick enough, maybe no one would catch me.

That’s when I remembered that more might happen to me than just capture. I might be shot. I recalled being shot once before—perhaps more than once. This, like the balcony, proved to be another of my limited, nearly useless slivers of memory. I remembered the hammering impact of the bullet. I remembered that it hurt me more than anything had ever hurt me. But who had shot me? Why? Where had I been when it happened? Did it have something to do with my winding up in the cave?

Nothing.

No answers.

Just slivers of memory, tormenting me.

I stood slightly back from the balcony, seeing and understanding how far up it was, how I must grasp the somehow familiar wrought iron, hold it, and haul myself up. It was like watching a deer and figuring out where to leap so that I could seize it, or at least run it down with the least effort.

I stooped, looked up at the place on the balcony where I intended to land, jumped, landed there, caught the wrought-iron railing, pulled myself up and over it. Then I froze. Had anyone heard me?

I didn’t move for several seconds—not until I was sure no one was moving nearby. The breathing I could hear was the even, undisturbed breathing of sleeping people. The room I slipped into was occupied by one person—a woman, sleeping alone. I crept closer to her bed and took a deep breath.

This woman didn’t smell as enticing as Wright had. She was older, no longer able to have children, but not yet truly old. For her age, though, she was healthy and strong, and from what I could see of her body stretched out on the bed, she was almost as tall as Wright, but slender. I didn’t like her age, and I thought she was too thin, but her height and her good health beckoned to me. And her aloneness was good, somehow. There were other people in the house, but none of them had been in her room for a long time. She didn’t smell of other people. Perhaps it was only because she had bathed, but I got the impression that no one had touched her in a long while.

Most important, though, she could feed me without harm to herself. Wright was larger and could give more blood, but this woman had possibilities. I needed to know several more people like her.

I moved closer to the bed and the sleeping woman—and knew suddenly that there was a gun in the room. I smelled it. It was a terrifyingly familiar smell.

I almost turned and ran out. Being shot had apparently done me more harm than I realized. It had left me an irrational fear to deal with. The pain had been very bad, but I was not in danger of being shot now. No one was holding this gun. It was out of sight somewhere, perhaps in one of the drawers of the little table that sat next to the head of the woman’s bed.

I stood still until my fear quieted. I would not be shot tonight.

When I was calm, I lay down beside the woman and covered her mouth with my hand as she woke. I held on to her with my other arm and both my legs as she began to struggle. Once I was sure of my hold on her, I bit into her neck. She struggled wildly at first, tried to bite me, tried to scream. But after I had fed for a few seconds, she stopped struggling. I held her a little longer, to be sure she was subdued; then, when she gave no more trouble, I let her go. She lay still, eyes closed.

I fed slowly, licking rather than sucking. I wasn’t hungry. Perhaps tomorrow I would come back and take a full meal from her. Now I was only making certain of her, seeing to it that she would be here, available to me when I needed her. After a while, I whispered to her, “Is it good?”

She moaned—a satisfied little sound.

“Leave your balcony door unlocked from now on, and don’t tell anyone about me.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Shall I?”

“Come back tomorrow.”

“Maybe. Soon.”

She started to turn to face me.

“No,” I said. “No, stay as you are.”

She obeyed.

I licked at her neck for a while, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Theodora Harden.”

“I’ll see you again, Theodora.”

“Don’t go. Not yet.”

I left her, content that she would welcome me when I came back. I wandered up and down both sides of the road until I had found four more—two men and two women—who were young enough, healthy, and big enough. One by one, I collected them. I would stay with Wright but go to these others when I needed them. Were they enough? I didn’t know.

I went back to Wright’s cabin, still wide awake, and sat at his table. I wanted to think about what I had done. It bothered me somehow that it had all been so easy, that I had had no trouble taking blood from six people including Wright. Once I had tasted them, they enjoyed the way I made them feel. Instead of being afraid or angry, they were first confused, then trusting and welcoming, eager for more of the pleasure that I could give them. It happened that way each time. I didn’t understand it, but I had done it in a comfortable, knowing way. I had done it as though it was what I was supposed to do.

Was there something in my saliva that pacified people and pleasured them? What else could it be? It must also help them heal. Wright had been surprised with how quickly his hand was healing. That meant healing must normally take longer for him. And that meant I could at least help the people who helped me. That felt important.

On the other hand, it felt wrong to me that I was blundering around, knowing almost nothing, yet involving other people in my life. And yet it seemed I had to involve them. I hadn’t hurt anyone so far, but I could have. And I probably would unless I could remember something useful.

I thought back as far as I could remember, closed my eyes and thought myself back to the blindness and pain of the little cave. I had emerged from it almost like a child being born. Should I go back there? Could I even find the place now? Yes, I thought I could find it. But why go back? Could there be anything there that would help me remember how I’d gotten there?

I had gone from the cave down to the site of the burned houses. I had found nothing that looked familiar at the houses, but maybe it would help me to know when the houses burned and why and who had done it. Also, it might help to know who had lived at the houses. I had found no burned bodies, although there had been places that smelled of burned flesh. So maybe the people who lived there had been hurt but had gotten away, or maybe they had been killed and were taken away. If I had lived there, I had certainly gotten away. Maybe in the confusion of the fire, we’d gotten separated. But why hadn’t the others—whoever they were—looked for me, searched the forest and the hillside? Why had I been left to fend for myself after being so badly injured? Maybe they were all dead.