A Dark-Adapted Eye Read online

  “Don't tell Ivory,” Cris begged. “Please, Asha.”

  “He won’t find out,” I said. “He won’t even be home when we get there.”

  Criseyde sighed in relief when we spotted the empty driveway. Ivory and Les were out working. They wouldn't see or question us.

  They would never know we had been to a vampire club.

  ~

  Early in the morning, minutes before sunrise, I woke to the familiar rumble of a motorcycle outside my window. I heard the door to the pickup slam. Seconds later the front door opened and shut. Ivory and Les had come home to shower off the blood and sweat and sleep like the dead.

  Criseyde breathed softly beside me. Fully awake, I decided to get a glass of water. Maybe I'd even run into Les in the hall and he'd say something to me, something nice. Maybe he'd even profess his love at last.

  Yeah, right. But I could dream.

  I opened the door to my room, the dark narrow hall stretching in front of me. In an instant I became slightly dizzy and had to steady myself on the doorframe. A cold feeling invaded my body and I pressed a hand to my mouth in horror.

  I remembered where I had seen the man who’d rescued us that night.

  He was a vampire, and he had bitten me.

  The memory came at me from some dusty corner of my mind, where it had lain forgotten all these years. I remembered walking into the living room, where a twelve-year-old Ivory watched TV, some colorful show with superheroes. I remembered how at every commercial break he would bound to the door and look out the peephole.

  “Ivory. Will you play dolls with me?” I asked. I was nine, a lonely girl, tall and skinny with tanned knobby knees. My childhood best friend had moved away the previous year and my brother was the only one I had.

  “No.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Because those are girl dolls.”

  “You’ve played with me before.”

  “Well, I’m not going to anymore.”

  I stuck out my tongue at him just as our mom breezed into the room, reeking of perfume and hairspray. She wore jeans and her red uniform shirt. “I’m about to leave,” she announced, rummaging through her purse. “Do you two need anything before I go?”

  “Did you make dinner?” Ivory asked.

  Her face fell. “Oh, honey, I forgot. But you can heat something up in the microwave, or just have some cereal.”

  Ivory glared at her and would have protested if the doorbell hadn’t rung. He jumped off the couch and dashed to answer it. A tall, gangly boy with floppy, light brown hair and a sullen expression stood outside. I stared at him from behind the recliner, though he didn’t even realize I was there. He was the cutest boy I’d ever seen.

  “Hey, Les,” Ivory greeted. “Let’s go out front and play ball.” He slammed the door behind him.

  “Your brother needs to knock off that attitude,” my mom murmured, more to herself than to me.

  At those words, I fixed her with my own glare, though her back was to me. “I hate cereal,” I declared, then stormed down the hall to my room.

  It wasn’t unusual for our parents to leave us home alone. Ivory had been babysitting me since he was seven. I was used to watching my mom leave, but I still wished she could stay home with us at night. I missed how she used to read me a book before bed when she worked days. As for our dad, he was never around much anyway. He spent more time at the nearest bar than he did at home.

  “Be good, Asha,” she called, looping her purse over one shoulder. She threw a smile down the hall at me before walking out the door but I didn’t acknowledge her. I was always good.

  “It’ll be dark soon!” she shouted to Ivory outside, her voice muffled through the glass of my bedroom window.

  “I don’t care!” he yelled back.

  She started the truck without bothering to reply and backed down the driveway. A moment later all I could hear were the playful shouts of Ivory and his new friend Les. They were kicking a ball around out front beneath the streetlights even though Ivory knew he wasn’t supposed to stay outside after dark.

  I sat on the floor just inside the door of my room, playing with my dolls. Ivory would have played with me, swearing me to secrecy, if he hadn’t invited Les over. I was bitter about that since I didn’t have any of my own friends to play with. I thought about joining them, but I wasn’t good at sports.

  I continued playing by myself, though halfheartedly. Just as I was considering putting the dolls away, something made me look up. A peculiar quietness to the house, perhaps, or a sudden chill in the air. I saw him standing at the end of the hall, tall and dark, watching me without expression. I was afraid, but I didn’t move. I didn’t even scream or run as he approached me, footsteps silent on the carpet. Maybe I knew he wasn’t going to kill me. Maybe his pale violet eyes held me in thrall.

  It was more likely I just knew there was nothing I could do to save myself.

  He knelt in front of me. “Hello, Asha,” he said softly.

  What do you want? How do you know my name?

  The questions never made it to my lips. I sat paralyzed with curiosity and dread. This man was not going to kill me, but he would do something. I didn't know what.

  “Don't be frightened,” he said. “I just want to borrow a little bit of your life.”

  The details were fuzzy after that. I remembered his mouth on my throat. I remembered feeling faint. And then, for a while, there was nothing.

  Gradually I became aware of voices. I opened my eyes to find Ivory and Les crouching over me, concern written on their faces.

  “She’s so pale,” Les said.

  “Asha?” Ivory asked shakily.

  “I . . .” It was too much effort to form a sentence.

  “Help me get her in bed.”

  The boys lifted me and tucked me under my covers. I lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering what had happened to me, while they tried to make me better. They pressed hot rags to my forehead, then cold ones. They made me chicken noodle soup and took my temperature. I barely responded to their efforts. Eventually I drifted off to sleep. In the morning I was fine.

  Ivory and Les never spoke of the incident to me and I had no memory of it until now.

  And I had to know more.

  three

  singularity: a point in space-time at which the density of matter and the gravitational field are infinite

  In the morning, after Criseyde left, I showered, collecting my thoughts. Planning what I would say to the boys, imagining their replies, preparing further arguments if they chose to deny anything. They were rarely up early though, always getting eight to ten hours of heavy sleep during the day because they wore themselves out so thoroughly each night.

  I moved restlessly around the house while I waited for them to wake. I read a little of an old issue of Zenith I’d left lying around. I tried to finish the themed crossword in the back, but it was too hard to concentrate on the answers to “local arm” or “one of Jupiter’s moons,” even though I knew them.

  Finally I heard the sound of dresser drawers opening and closing, the gush of the bathroom sink, the flush of a toilet. It was after one. I sat in my bedroom, waiting for the right moment. I stared absently at my angular face in the closet mirror, at my jutted-out jaw and crooked determined mouth, at my not-quite-pointed and slightly upturned nose, and at my eyes, which always looked rather large and sad.

  After a few minutes, I took a deep breath and walked into the living room. Ivory and Les were devouring giant bowls of cereal while watching whatever afternoon news they could find. Ivory sat on the zigzag couch, Les in the pea green recliner. Neither of them seemed to notice me and I decided it was best to get their attention dramatically. So I stood in front of the TV, blocking a story about the renovation of a local park. They looked at me, still chewing mouthfuls of cereal. Ivory's hazel eyes were concerned and slightly apprehensive. Les's translucent, pale green ones, shadowed by his low dark brows, were merely curious.

  “I've rem
embered something,” I announced, “and I want to know if it's true.”

  They shared a quick glance with each other and I felt my stomach plummet. They knew. They had already anticipated what I was about to say. A vampire had bitten me and they had been keeping it a secret from me for ten years.

  “Why didn't you tell me?” My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to, more wounded.

  “Asha, I don't know what you're—” Ivory started.

  “Just tell her,” Les interrupted, averting his eyes from me.

  “So it's true,” I said eagerly, sinking onto the couch beside Ivory. “It did happen.” I felt giddy and excited without knowing why. I hadn't wanted to find out I was once bitten by a vampire, but now that I had I needed information. Every detail they could offer.

  My brother sighed and set his bowl on the scarred coffee table. “Yes, Asha, it happened. The three of us were here alone. Les and I came inside and saw you on the floor. You were unconscious and had blood on your neck. Little bite marks. We didn't know what had happened, really, since vampires were still just a myth then. We decided it was a vampire bite anyway because we were kids and believed in that kind of thing, but it wasn’t until a few years later that we realized we’d been right.”

  Hearing it from my brother in such a no-nonsense manner had the power to chill me, to wipe away any trace of misplaced enthusiasm. Blood on my neck. Unconscious on the floor. What if I'd died?

  “Will I become a vampire now?” I asked. I didn't know whether this was a logical question, but I had to ask it.

  “No,” Ivory assured me. “You just . . . have a sort of connection with the vampire who did it. I hear that’s what happens, anyway.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “No. But we're always trying to find out. That’s why we started hunting vampires in the first place. That, and because of what happened to Mom.”

  “What made you remember?” Les asked.

  “Asha?” Ivory prompted gently.

  My cheeks heated under their scrutiny. I hadn't expected to be questioned in return and tried to answer without revealing where I'd really been last night. “Um . . . I saw . . . someone . . .”

  “Someone?” Ivory demanded, leaning forward and gazing intently at me. “Did you see the vampire who bit you? What's his name? What does he look like? Or is it a woman?”

  I looked at the carpet, matted and unfortunately brown, and tried not to feel irritated at Ivory’s persistence. “Er, no. I don’t know. I saw a guy who looked familiar, I guess. His face must have triggered the memory.”

  “Was this last night with Criseyde? Where were you?”

  “A club,” I said defensively. “Just like I told you.”

  “What club? I know it wasn’t Stars.”

  “Um . . . Shiver.”

  Les's eyebrows shot up and Ivory vaulted from the couch. “Shiver!” he yelled. “That's a vampire club. This is exactly why we don't like you going out at night. I should have known Criseyde would pull some shit like this. How could she be so stupid—”

  I came to my feet and faced Ivory, fists clenched at my sides. “She didn't know it was a vampire club,” I said angrily, “and neither did I.” At least not until the vampires had surrounded us and started salivating at the thought of drinking our blood. My brother was already so livid I didn't think he needed to know about that, though.

  “Well you both should have known. There are certain clubs everyone knows to stay away from. Except you and that idiot friend of yours, apparently.”

  “Criseyde is not—”

  “Hey, calm down, you two,” Les ordered, backing Ivory away from me with a hand on his chest. I glared at them both, arms crossed in front of me. “She shouldn't have gone, and yes, she should have known better, but she's alive, isn't she?”

  Thanks to the vampire who'd bitten me ten years ago. That seemed a little strange.

  “She could easily have been—”

  “She's alive,” Les insisted. “And she won't do anything like that again. Will you?” he added, looking right at me. I shook my head, anger abating. Ivory stared into the middle distance, breathing deeply to calm himself.

  Les took his cereal bowl to the kitchen and after a moment Ivory looked up. “I'm sorry, Ash. I shouldn't have reacted like that.”

  “I'm sorry, too,” I said grudgingly.

  “Listen. I know we work a lot and keep odd hours, but we're doing everything we can for us as a family. But maybe we should alter our priorities just a little. We missed your birthday, so I think we should do something for you. We could have dinner here, maybe some drinks. Just a night with no worries and no vampires. Tomorrow night, maybe. What do you think?”

  “Can we watch movies?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I'm inviting Criseyde.”

  Ivory shrugged. “I'd be worried if you didn't.”

  “Thanks, Ivory.” I leaned over for a brief hug.

  He hesitated for a moment when I pulled back. “If something ever happens to me . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just, you know, an accident. In my, er, line of work—”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I said stubbornly.

  I left the room before he could say anything else I didn’t want to hear and put his words firmly out of my mind. On my way down the hall I glanced at Les, who leaned against the counter in the kitchen. He was looking at his cell phone, that stray lock of hair falling over his forehead as always. Once I passed out of sight, I bit my lip in longing. He'd stood up for me, but now he'd probably go back to acting like we barely knew each other. How could he be so indifferent to me? How could he never touch me or rarely look at me?

  I flopped onto my bed with a sigh. Criseyde would advise me just to tell him how I felt and move on if his feelings didn't mirror mine. I fantasized about doing just that all the time, yet I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it if he rejected me. The fear of him not loving me outweighed the hope that maybe one day he'd be mine.

  ~

  Ivory didn’t like when I sat on the roof. To him it was only a matter of time before some vampire realized I was up there and came to get me. It was always about vampires with him. They were his life. I was his life. But I needed one of my own, and the roof was somewhere I could go when the house and everywhere else felt too suffocating.

  I was about twelve when I started climbing out my bedroom window. My dad would come home, stinking and slurring and picking a fight with anyone he saw, and there was always a chance he’d come in and start yelling at me for no reason. I’d used a broken patio chair to get on top of the cinder block wall and from there it was easy to swing up on the sandpaper-rough shingles of the low roof.

  My brother didn’t understand my love of the stars. He didn’t understand why I had photocopied star charts from books at the library and spent weeks familiarizing myself with the sky. Or the awe I felt tracing the star-glutted Milky Way with a pair of binoculars. Or the satisfaction of feeling like the center of the universe as well as the smallest, most insignificant thing in it.

  Tonight, instead of looking up, I stared west toward the city that had almost claimed me. It used to be full of white lights, pretty and sparkling, burning all night. Now it looked less energetic, less promising. More depressing. It wasn’t any place I would dream of going, but it was all we had now.

  In a way I was lucky the city was rundown and half dark these days. Less light pollution meant the sky was wealthy with constellations and the gauze of our galaxy was clearly visible to a dark-adapted eye.

  If my dad hadn’t been a mean drunk, I might never have thought to look up at all. If vampires hadn’t come to Las Secas, I might never have taken the opportunity to learn about the wonders orbiting above me. I might not have thought about the universe for more than five minutes or wondered what, if anything, lay beyond it. I felt baffled by the possibility of nothing. I pictured the stars thinning out beyond distant galaxies, becoming g
radually scarcer until there was just blackness, just dark matter, just an endless stretch of emptiness that defied imagination.

  ~

  Our house was close to the east edge of town, near a sprawling wetlands nature reserve called Witcher Park. Cris and I were sitting in the café at the visitor center the next afternoon, as we often did, killing time before we went back to the house for dinner. As it was so late in the day, the place was mostly empty except for an old couple and a young mother and son. The boy who worked there most afternoons was sitting by the register reading a comic book. He was usually there whenever I came in, slouched with boredom.

  “What movie should we watch tonight?” I asked, stirring the dregs of tea gone tepid.

  “Maybe Ivory wants to watch a vampire movie,” Cris suggested.

  “Doubtful. He has the worst sense of humor.”

  “You're right. And he already hates me enough as it is. Why encourage him?”

  “He doesn't hate you,” I protested, though I wasn't entirely sure if that was true.

  “He thinks I'm a bad influence,” Cris said, resting her chin on her hand. “He's actually told me that, you know.”

  I frowned. “He said that?”

  She flipped her hair over one shoulder and straightened the container of sugars. “Well, no. But he did tell me not to get you in trouble or make you do anything you didn't want to do. As if I ever would! God, doesn't he realize you have your own mind?”

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  “Hey, can we swing by my work on the way back? I need to get my check.”

  “Sure. Do you think they'll sell you anything to drink?” I asked. “Do they care you're not twenty-one?”

  Criseyde snorted. “I can get anything I want from there. The manager is like, in love with me.”

  “Isn't he in his forties?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ew.”

  “I wouldn't actually do anything with him. For one, he's married, and two, I prefer guys my own age. Also they should probably be tall and muscular.” She paused. “Like that guy over there.”