From: "Sue O'Reilly" To: FKarchiver@fkfanfic.com Subject: New Moon 1/1 Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 21:58:43 PST yut... >>> New Moon by Sue O'Reilly a Forever Knight story "maybe that's all that we need is to meet in the middle of impossibility" -indigo girls --------------- I was only a child when LaCroix brought me across. I know that many vampires use those words metaphorically. Even brought across as adults, which most were, they tend to speak of the mortal existence as a childhood in itself. In my case, however, it was quite literal. I was a child, I was fourteen years old, and I was dying. A car accident, though I can't remember the event itself. Shock trauma, I suppose. I woke some time later to find my stepmother dead and my own blood soaking the fabric of the seat around me. I could barely smell the blood. My stepmother had been drinking and her last bottle lay in pieces at my elbow. That is my strongest physical memory of being mortal: breathing the harsh fumes of the gin that filled the air. The strangest time was before he found me. I have met with reactions of almost unanimous disbelief whenever I say that. Mortal or vampire, most people cannot understand how the thoughts of a dying child can be stranger than the new experiences of a vampire life. I don't entirely understand it myself, but it is true. While I was mortal I was often told that I was a strange child, but I was a child nonetheless. Children are accustomed to new experiences, accustomed to being cared for. Both of these things held true for my vampire life and gave it a semblance of normality. But dying... Dying was an experience all its own. I remember the calmness I felt. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a huge stain of my own blood on the dashboard, but I did not panic. I looked at the blood; I saw the slivers of glass in my chest, felt the broken disarray of my torso and limbs, and I was calm. The pain was somehow removed. I knew within seconds that I was going to die. There was too much blood for anything else. It was cold where it had soaked into my clothes, warm where it leaked freely from my chest. I bent my head to watch the flow for several long minutes. If I had any thoughts about it, I do not recall them. I remember the sheer silence. We had gone off the road due to Gail s drunken condition, so there were no other victims to sob or scream. I remember thinking the silence was so perfect and all encompassing that I had no right to disturb it with noise of my own. Calling for help would have been futile in any case. My stepmother ended our last drive on a very desolate road. I was not then familiar with the look of death, but I recognized it instantly when I turned my eyes on Gail. The steering wheel had been crushed into her chest like a huge stamp, grotesquely distorting and twisting her body. She did not look surprised or terrified or agonized or anything that would have been expected on the face of a mortal who met such an abrupt end. Except for a small rill of blood at the corner of her mouth, her expression was peaceful. Later, I would realize that she had, in all probability, passed out before the car careened off the road. I hope it was that peaceful look that caused my reaction. I would like to believe that, anyway. I don't like the idea that, at fourteen, I was callous enough to feel nothing. I had loved my father, but he was more than six years dead on that night, and my memories had already faded. Gail and I had not had a good relationship, for she was a woman with no affinity for children, but I had not actively hated her. I had feared her occasionally, yes. When she drank very heavily, she would sometimes hit me, but she did it with indifference. In truth, her occasional attempts at kindness were so awkward that I almost preferred being hit. Most of the year we had lived apart while I attended a boarding school. I treated Gail's death with the same apathy that she had treated my life; I forgot about her as soon as I looked away. I remember looking at the stars through where my window had been. It was a cloudless, moonless night, so there was nothing to interfere with their light. It was then that I felt the only pang of regret: I wished I had time to learn the names of those stars. I don't know how long I lay there. It began to snow, huge flakes that drifted inside to melt on my face. I thought that my body would soon grow too cold to melt the snow, but it was not a morbid thought. It made me smile. I liked the idea of becoming a snow sculpture. I remember watching the snow fall, and I was floating in and out of consciousness, and a trick of the light turned snowflakes into falling stars. I laughed soundlessly and opened my mouth to let the starlight dissolve on my tongue. I have never seen anything so beautiful, before or since. I remember how he looked when he descended from the sky. Clad in black from head to toe, impossibly tall and impossibly pale--but "impossible" has little meaning to a child, and I did not think it. I merely watched as he landed beside the car. His heels made the softest thudding noise on the frozen ground. He approached me in four quick steps--silent, his eyes piercing the dimness with a cool yellow glow. "Are you an angel?" I asked LaCroix. Those words saved my life--or rather, transformed it into something different--though I did not learn this for a long time. His eyes went from yellow to blue, interest softening the lines of his face. I saw the fangs withdraw when he laughed softly and answered something--I don't remember what. He asked me some questions which I must have answered. I believe I told him my name, told him about the falling stars, but I was floating again and my memory is uncertain. I do remember drinking from his wrist after he sliced it open with a sliver of glass. I know now that he scented my blood from high above and came to investigate. He was hungry. He intended to feed and depart. He did not intend to bring me across or even speak to me, but I had changed that with my innocence, with my lack of fear and my first question. Was I given a choice? The question means nothing to me. I was already dying. The authorities presumed that my body had been dragged off by a coyote pack that roamed the fields; they said the blood loss was too great for any hope of survival. LaCroix did not take my mortal life. I remember telling him that I wanted more time to learn the names of the stars. He gave it to me. I looked down as he carried me into the air. It takes time for new vampires to heal and I was still weak. The car lay like a crumpled sock halfway down a ravine. My nose twitched; already fifty feet high and climbing, I could still smell the blood of mortals. It had become a much stronger odor than the reek of spilled gin. I remember feeling the wind increase and turning my face up to the sky. I remember thinking that I was going on a journey. It has been many nights and weeks and years since that flight, but I can still feel that anticipation. I think it is the purest form of joy. And I also remember, more clearly that anything else in that long night, the ring of my own laughter as my master carried me into the stars. END feedback to: soreilly@hotmail.com please...