Origins (5 page)

T
he mist rose up around my feet as I walked toward the willow tree. The sun was quickly setting, but I could still make out a shadowy figure nestled between the roots.

I glanced again. It was Rosalyn, her party dress shimmering in the weak light. Bile rose in my throat. How could she be here? She was buried, her body six feet underground at the Mystic Falls cemetery.

As I walked closer, steeling my courage and grasping the knife in my pocket, I noticed her lifeless eyes reflecting the verdant leaves above. Her dark curls stuck to her clammy forehead. And her neck wasn’t torn out at all. Instead, her neck displayed only two neat little holes, the size of shodding nails. As if guided by an unseen hand, I fell to my knees next to her body.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, staring at the cracked earth below. Then I raised my eyes and froze in horror. Because it wasn’t Rosalyn’s body at all.

It was Katherine’s.

A small smile curved her rosebud lips, as if she were simply dreaming.

I fought the urge to scream. I would not let Katherine die! But as I reached toward her wounds, she sat straight up. Her visage morphed, her dark curls faded to blond, and her eyes glowed red.

I started backward.

“It’s your fault!” The words cut through the still night, the tone hollow and otherworldly. The voice belonged neither to Katherine nor Rosalyn—but to a demon.

I screamed, gripping my penknife and slicing it into the night air. The demon lunged forward and clutched my neck. It lowered its sharpened canines to my skin, and everything faded to black….

I woke up in a cold sweat, sitting upright. A crow cawed outside; in the distance, I could hear children playing. Sunbeams were dappled along my white bedspread, and a dinner tray was sitting on my desk. It was daylight. I was in my own bed.

A dream.
I remembered the funeral, the ride from the church, my exhaustion as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. It had just been a dream, a product of too much
emotion and stimulation today.
A dream,
I reminded myself again, willing my heart to stop pounding. I took a long gulp of water straight from the pitcher on the nightstand. My brain slowly stilled, but my heart continued to race and my hands still felt clammy. Because it
wasn’t
a dream, or at least not like any dream I’d ever had before. It was as if demons were invading my mind, and I was no longer sure what was real or what thoughts to trust.

I stood up, trying to shake off the nightmare, and wandered downstairs. I took the back steps so as not to cross paths with Cordelia in the kitchen. She’d been taking good care of me, just as when I had been a child in mourning for my mother, but something about her watchful gaze made me nervous. I knew she’d heard me call out for Katherine, and I fervently hoped she wasn’t telling tales to the servants.

I walked into Father’s study and glanced at his shelves, finding myself drawn yet again to the Shakespeare section. Saturday seemed like a lifetime ago. Still, the candle in the silver candlestick holder was exactly where Katherine and I had left it, and
The Mysteries of Mystic Falls
was still on the chair. If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell lemon.

I shook that thought away and hastily picked out a volume of
Macbeth,
a play about jealousy and love and betrayal and death, which suited my mood perfectly.

I forced myself to sit on the leather club chair and glance
at the words, forced myself to turn the pages. Maybe that’s what I needed in order to proceed with the rest of my life. If I just kept forcing myself to take action, maybe I’d finally get over the guilt and sadness and fear I’d been carrying with me since Rosalyn’s death.

Just then, I heard a knock on the door.

“Father’s not here,” I called, hoping whoever it was would go away.

“Sir Stefan?” Alfred’s voice called. “It’s a visitor.”

“No, thank you,” I replied. It was probably Sheriff Forbes again. He’d already come by four or five times, speaking to Damon and Father. So far I’d managed to beg off the visits. I couldn’t stand the thought of telling him—telling anyone—where I’d been at the time of the attack.

“The visitor is quite insistent,” Alfred called.

“So are you,” I muttered under my breath as I strode to the door and opened it.

“She’s in the sitting room,” Alfred said, turning on his heel.

“Wait!” I said.
She.
Could it be … Katherine? My heart quickened despite itself.

“Sir?” Alfred asked, mid-step.

“I’ll be there.”

Frantically, I splashed water from the basin in the corner on my face and used my hands to smooth my hair back from my forehead. My eyes still looked hooded, and tiny
vessels had broken, reddening the whites, but there was nothing more I could do to make me look, let alone feel, more like myself.

I strode purposefully into the parlor. For an instant, my heart fell with disappointment. Instead of Katherine, sitting on the red velvet wingback chair in the corner was her maid, Emily. She had a basket of flowers on her lap and held a daisy to her nose, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Hello,” I said formally, already trying to come up with a way to politely excuse myself.

“Mr. Salvatore.” Emily stood up and half-curtseyed. She wore a simple white eyelet dress and bonnet, and her dark skin was smooth and unlined. “My mistress and I join you in your sorrows. She asked that I give you this,” she said, proffering the basket toward me.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the basket. I absentmindedly put a sprig of lilac to my nose and inhaled.

“I’d use these in your healing, rather than Cordelia’s concoctions,” Emily said.

“How did you know about that?” I wondered.

“Servants talk. But I fear that whatever Cordelia’s feeding you may be doing you more harm than good.” She plucked a few blossoms from the basket, twining them into a bouquet. “Daisies, magnolias, and bleeding heart will help you heal.”

“And pansies for thoughts?” I asked, remembering a quote from Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
. As soon as I said it, I realized it was a foolish statement. How would an uneducated servant girl possibly know what I was speaking of?

But Emily simply smiled. “No pansies, although my mistress did mention your love of Shakespeare.” She reached into the basket and broke off a sprig of lilac, which she then pushed gently into my buttonhole.

I held the basket up and inhaled. It smelled like flowers, but there was something else: the intoxicating aroma that I’d only experienced when I was near Katherine. I inhaled again, feeling the confusion and darkness of the past few days slowly fade.

“I know everything’s very strange right now,” Emily said, breaking my reverie. “But my mistress only wishes the best for you.” She nodded toward the couch, as if inviting me to sit down. Obediently, I sat and stared at her. She was remarkably beautiful and carried herself with a type of grace I’d never seen before. Her movements and manners were so deliberate that watching her was like watching a painting come to life.

“She would like to see you,” Emily said after a moment.

The second the words left her lips, I realized that could never be. As I sat there, in the daylight of the parlor, with another person rather than being lost in my own thoughts, everything clicked into focus. I was a widower, and my
duty now was to mourn Rosalyn, not to mourn my schoolboy fantasy of love with Katherine. Besides, Katherine was a beautiful orphan with no friends or relations. It would never work—could never work.

“I did see her. At Rosalyn’s … at the funeral,” I said stiffly.

“That’s hardly a social call,” Emily pointed out. “She’d like to see you. Somewhere private. When you’re ready,” she added quickly.

I knew what I had to say, what the only proper thing
to
say was, but the words were hard to form. “I will see, but in my current condition, I’m afraid I’m probably not in the best mood to go walking. Please send your mistress my regrets, although she will not want for company. I know my brother will go wherever she wishes,” I said, the words heavy on my tongue.

“Yes. She is quite fond of Damon.” Emily gathered her skirts and stood up. I stood up as well and felt, even though I towered a head taller, that she was somehow more powerful than me. It was an odd yet not altogether unpleasant feeling. “But you can’t argue with true love.”

With that she swept out the door and across the grounds, the daisy in her hair scattering its petals into the wind.

I
’m not sure if it was the fresh air or the flowers Emily had brought me, but I slept soundly that night. The next morning I woke up to bright sunlight in my chambers and, for the first time since Rosalyn’s death, didn’t bother to drink the concoction Cordelia had left on my nightstand. The smell of cinnamon and eggs floated up from the kitchen, and I heard the snort of the horses as Alfred hitched them outside. For a second, I felt a thrill of possibility and the nascent bud of happiness.

“Stefan!” my father boomed on the other side of the door, rapping three times with his walking stick or riding crop. Just like that, I remembered all that had transpired in the past week, and my malaise returned.

I remained silent, hoping he’d simply go away. But instead he swung the door open. He was wearing his riding
breeches and carried his black riding crop, a smile on his face and a sprig of a violet flower in his lapel. It was neither pretty nor fragrant; in fact, it looked like one of the herbs Cordelia grew down by the servants’ quarters.

“We’re going riding,” Father announced as he swung open the shutters. I shaded my eyes against the glare. Was the world always so bright? “This chamber needs to be cleaned and you, my boy, need sun.”

“But I should really attend to my studies,” I said, gesturing limply to the volume of
Macbeth
open on my desk.

Father took the book and closed it with a definitive clap. “I need to speak to you and Damon, away from any prying ears.” He glanced suspiciously around the chambers. I followed his gaze but saw nothing except for a collection of dirty dishes that Cordelia hadn’t yet cleared.

As if on cue, Damon strode into the room, wearing a pair of mustard-colored breeches and his gray Confederate coat. “Father!” Damon rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re on about that demon nonsense again.”

“It’s not nonsense!” Father roared. “Stefan, I’ll see you and your brother at the stable,” he said, turning on his heel and striding out. Damon shook his head, then followed him, leaving me to change.

I put on my full riding costume—a gray waistcoat and brown breeches—and sighed, not sure I had enough strength to ride or to endure another marathon bickering
session between my father and brother. When I opened the door, I found Damon standing at the bottom of the curved staircase, waiting.

“Feeling better, brother?” Damon asked as we walked out the door and across the lawn together.

I nodded, even as I noticed the spot under the willow tree where I’d found Rosalyn. The grass was long and bright green, and squirrels were darting around the tree’s gnarled trunk. Sparrows chirped, and the drooping branches of the weeping willow looked lush and full of promise. There was no sign that anything had been amiss.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the stable, inhaling the familiar, loved scent of well-oiled leather and sawdust. “Hi, girl,” I whispered into Mezzanotte’s velvety ear. She whinnied in appreciation. Her coat seemed silky-smooth, even more so than the last time I’d brushed it. “Sorry I haven’t come to visit you, but it looks like my brother’s taken good care of you.”

“Actually, Katherine’s taken a shine to her. Which is too bad for her own horses.” Damon smiled fondly as he jerked his chin to two coal-black mares in the corner. Indeed, they were stamping their feet and staring at the ground dejectedly, as if to express just how ignored and lonely they were.

“You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Katherine,” I said finally. It was a statement, not a question.
Of course he had been. Damon always had an ease around women. I knew he
knew
women, especially after his year in the Confederate army. He’d told me stories about some of the women he’d met in cities like Atlanta and Lexington that had made me blush. Did he
know
Katherine?

“I have been,” Damon said, swinging his leg over the back of his horse, Jake. He didn’t elaborate.

“Ready, boys?” Father called, his horse impatiently stamping its feet. I nodded and fell into stride behind Damon and Father as we headed to the Wickery Bridge, all the way on the other end of the property.

We crossed the bridge and continued on into the forest. I blinked in relief. The sunlight had been too bright. I much preferred the dark shadows of the trees. The woods were cool, with wet leaves covering the forest floor, even though there hadn’t been a rainstorm recently. The leaves were so thick, you could see only slight patches of blue sky, and occasionally I’d hear the rustle of a raccoon or badger in the underbrush. I tried not to think of the animal noises as coming from the beast that had attacked Rosalyn.

We continued riding into the forest until we reached the clearing. Father abruptly stopped and hitched his horse to a birch tree. I obediently hitched Mezzanotte to a tree and glanced around. The clearing was marked by a collection of rocks set up in a rough circle, above which the trees parted to provide a natural window to the sky. I hadn’t been
there in ages, not since before Damon went away. When we were boys, we used to play illicit card games here with the other fellows in town. Everyone knew the clearing was the place boys came to gamble, girls came to gossip, and everyone came to spill their secrets. If Father really meant to keep our conversation quiet, he’d have been better off taking us to the tavern to talk.

“We’re in trouble,” Father said without preamble, glancing up at the sky. I followed his gaze, expecting to see a fast-moving summer storm. Instead, the sky was spotless and blue. I found no solace in this beautiful day. I was still haunted by Rosalyn’s lifeless eyes.

“We’re
not,
Father,” Damon said thickly. “You know who’s in trouble? All of the soldiers fighting this godforsaken war for this cause you’ve made me try to believe in. The problem is the war and your incessant need to find conflict everywhere you turn.” Damon angrily stomped his feet, reminding me so much of Mezzanotte that I stifled the urge to laugh.

“I will
not
have you talk back to me!” Father said, shaking his fist at Damon. I glanced back and forth at the two of them, as though I were watching a tennis match. Damon towered over Father’s sloping shoulders, and for the first time I realized that Father was getting old.

Damon put his hands on his hips. “Then talk. Let’s hear what you have to say.”

I expected Father to shout, but instead he crossed to one of the rocks, his knees creaking as he bent to sit. “You want to know why I left Italy? I left it for you. For my future children. I knew I wanted my sons to grow and marry and have children on land I owned and land I loved. And I
do
love this land, and I will not watch it be destroyed by demons,” Father said, flinging his hands wildly. I stepped back, and Mezzanotte whinnied a long, plaintive note. “Demons,” he repeated, as if to prove his point.

“Demons?” Damon snorted. “More like big dogs. Don’t you see it’s talk like this that will make you lose everything? You say you want a good life for us, but you’re always deciding how we’ll live that life. You made me go to war and made Stefan get engaged, and now you’re making us believe your fairy tales,” Damon yelled in frustration.

I glanced at Father guiltily. I didn’t want him to know I hadn’t loved Rosalyn. But Father didn’t look at me. He was too busy glowering at Damon.

“All I wanted was for my boys to have the best. I know what we’re facing, and I do not have time for your schoolboy arguments. I am not telling tales right now.” Father glanced back at me, and I forced myself to look into his dark eyes. “Please understand. There are demons who walk among us. They existed in the old country, too. They walked the same earth, talked like humans. But they wouldn’t drink like humans.”

“Well, if they don’t drink wine, that would be a blessing, wouldn’t it?” Damon asked sarcastically. I stiffened. I remembered all the times after Mother had died that Father would drink too much wine or whiskey, lock himself in the study, then mumble late into the night about ghosts or demons.

“Damon!” Father said, his voice even sharper than my brother’s. “I will ignore your impudence. But I will
not
have you ignore me. Listen to me, Stefan.” Father turned toward me. “What you saw happen to your young Rosalyn wasn’t natural. It wasn’t one of Damon’s
coyotes,
” Father said, practically spitting out the word. “It was
un vampiro
. They were in the old country, and now they’re here,” Father said, screwing up his florid face. “And they are doing harm. They’re feeding on us. And we need to stop it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked nervously, any trace of exhaustion or dizziness gone. All I felt was fear. I thought back to Rosalyn, but this time, instead of remembering her eyes, I remembered the blood on her throat, having flowed from the two precise circles on the side of her neck. I touched my own neck, feeling the pulse of blood beneath my skin. The rush below my fingers sped up as I felt my heart skip a beat. Could Father be … right?

“Father means that he’s been spending too much time listening to the church ladies tell their tales. Father, this is a story that would be told to scare a child. And not a very
clever one. Everything you’re saying is nonsense.” Damon shook his head and angrily stood from his perch on the tree stump. “I will not sit around and be told ghost stories.” With that, he turned on his gold-buttoned boot and swung his foot up over Jake’s back, gazing down at Father, as if daring him to say one more thing.

“Mark my words,” Father said, taking a step closer to me. “Vampires are among us. They look like us and can live among us, but they are not who we are. They drink blood. It is their elixir of life. They do not have souls, and they never die. They are forever immortal.”

The word
immortal
made me suck in my breath. The wind changed, and the leaves began rustling. I shivered. “Vampires,” I repeated slowly. I’d heard the word once before, when Damon and I were schoolchildren and used to gather on the Wickery Bridge, trying to scare our friends. One boy had told us of seeing a figure kneeling down in the woods, feasting on the neck of a deer. The boy told us he had screamed and the figure had turned to him with hellred eyes, blood dripping from long, sharp teeth.
A vampire,
he said with conviction, glancing around the circle to see if he’d impressed any of us. But because he’d been pale and scrawny and not any good at shooting, we’d laughed and mocked him mercilessly. He and his family had moved to Richmond the next year.

“Well, I’d take vampires over an insane father,” Damon
said, kicking Jake’s flanks and riding off into the sunset. I turned toward Father, expecting an angry tirade. But Father simply shook his head.

“Do you believe me, son?” he asked.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure what I believed. All I knew was that somehow, in the past week, the whole world had changed, and I wasn’t sure where I fit in anymore.

“Good.” Father nodded as we rode out of the forest and onto the bridge. “We must be careful. It seems the war has awakened the vampires. It’s as if they can smell blood.”

The word
blood
echoed in my mind as we directed our horses to walk away from the cemetery and toward the shortcut through the fields that would lead to the pond. In the distance, I could see the sun reflecting on the pond’s surface. No one would ever imagine this verdant, rolling land as being a place where demons walked. Demons, if they existed at all, belonged in the old country, amid the decrepit churches and castles Father had grown up with. All the words Father said were familiar, but they sounded so strange in the place where he was saying them.

Father glanced around as if to make sure no one was hiding in the bushes near the bridge. The horses were walking alongside the graveyard now, the headstones bright and imposing in the warm summer light. “Blood is what they feed on. It gives them power.”

“But then …,” I said, as the information whirled in my
brain. “If they are immortal, then how are we to …”

“Kill them?” Father asked, finishing my thought. He pulled the reins on his horse. “There are methods. I’ve been learning. I’ve heard there’s a priest in Richmond who can try to exorcise them, but then people in town know … some things,” he finished. “Jonathan Gilbert and Sheriff Forbes and I have discussed some preliminary measures.” “If there’s anything I can do …,” I offered finally, unsure what to say.

“Of course,” Father said brusquely. “I expect you to be part of our committee. For starters, I’ve been talking to Cordelia. She knows her herbs, and she says there’s a plant called vervain.” Father’s hand fluttered to the flower on his lapel. “We will come up with a plan. And we will prevail. Because while they may have immortality, we have God on our side. It is kill or be killed. Do you understand me, boy? This is the war you’re being drafted to fight.”

I nodded, feeling the full weight of the responsibility on my shoulders. Maybe
this
was what I was meant to be doing: not getting married or going off to war, but fighting an unnatural evil. I met Father’s gaze.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” I said. “Anything.” The last thing I saw before I galloped back to the stable was the huge grin on Father’s face. “I knew you would, son. You are a true Salvatore.”