chapter 2

(Opal's Rebirth.)

Another clap of thunder had me scurrying beneath the blanket. I settled down and thought that, unlike Doug, I had not asked to be saved.

Again my mind took another path down memory lane. I felt the recollection as if it was just happening, the hairs on my body stood to attention. There was a man in my father's study, the door was locked and I peeked through a crack in the wood.

It was the loud arguing that had shaken me from the sweet, lullaby of sleep and I had tiptoed to the source of the disturbance. The walls of the study were lined with agricultural books and lately, my father had added some hardcover historical books to the shelves. Two half-filled glasses of brandy and an open bottle of liquor was on the wooden desk. There was the stench of fear in the atmosphere and my father was mopping at his face with a handkerchief. The light shone and cast shadows on the walls and the man took out a gun and aimed it at my father's chest. I felt faint but it all happened so quickly.

"Where is the money, Jimmy!"

The man dropped his voice to a clear, menacing growl.

"I don't have it now, but I will in a few days."

"You have cost us a lot of trouble, Jimmy."

The man stated. The gun went off, my father slumped back in his chair, a gapping, bloody wound in his chest and the blank stare of death in his eye. The blast was absorbed by a clap of thunder, we were experiencing rain all evening. I screamed. Surprised by the sound, the shooter turned and upon reflex, his gun went off. The wood splintered, knocking me off my feet, and I fell to the floor.

Everything after that was blurry. Even his figure that came through the door, then rushed over to me and scooped my head up from the floor.

"Shit!"

He yelled.

"A goddamn woman! Jimmy said he was alone in the house!"

His voice was foreign, a chipping off of the end of his words, the distinct sound of regret and danger.

I remembered thinking of my Mother. She had left to attend Aunt Celia's birthday party this morning. Aunt Celia would celebrate, be it rain or shine. Mother was scheduled to return any time soon. I didn't accompany her because I was coughing all morning and Mother didn't approve of me going in this weather, fearing she might make whatever ailment it was, get worst. I listened but could not hear the carriage wheels, nor the hooves of horses pulling up to the house. Mother would be safe, maybe she was held up by the storm.

The roof trembled, and the weight of the raindrops echoed like boulders falling on the zinc. He was by my side and he smelled of brandy and minty aftershave.

"Drink this and you will live."

I saw the blur of his hands going to his wrist. I felt the drop of something moist and warm to my lips, touching my tongue and sliding down my throat. Then everything went blank.

I woke up with blood, caked to my lips, and a hole in my nightgown. I somehow understood that I had drank his blood, I vomit my guts out. I touched my chest, my finger went right through the bloody hole and collided with the sealed protective flesh of my breast over my heart. Behind me was the bullet on the floor, where it had entered and exited my heart, a small piece of flesh still attached to it, blood still on the tiny metal. My body had healed itself.

Did he heal Father too?

I stumbled to the door of the study.

Father was still dead, he did not find father worthy of healing.

I was angry and afraid, I didn't want to be alive without my kind, loving Father. I searched the entire house, but the man was gone.

Mother had not arrived until the rain had ceased the next day.

All this happened centuries ago. Now I was back in this old mansion feeling fresh wounds of the past.

Wiping my tears, I halted my memories, shut the lid close on the boxes of stored pain in my heart.

Maybe by coming home, I could put the puzzle together and finally understand what had happened on the night my father died and the mystery of what I had become. I had travelled the world to unsuccessfully find not another like Doug and I. There were no other, I had concluded. Except for the one who had given me immortality. He was the one I need to find and something told me that I needed to begin, where it all began.

I lifted the sheet from over my head and bundled it across my chest, looking through the window over the black cushioned bedframe, I saw the corn fields overrun with weeds and overgrown grass, a few surviving corn stalks pushed up through the entanglement. The tree where I had sat under and taken that picture, which now hangs on the wall, was still mounted on a tilt of land, the leaves and trunks still as fresh as that first summer morning. Nothing much had changed with the land, I could still locate my childhood secret spots, and still see the same hedges and rose bushes. The house however was like a woman with many dresses and kept changing because she wasn't sure which one to wear. It had been remodelled over and over by each Bloomfield's hand it had passed into, and I was almost lost in the mansion upon arrival. The front porch was completely removed and replaced by two large columns, that held up a tiny triangular roof over a huge wooden door with a bronze knocker. The kitchen was extended and a granite countertop was added at some point, Father's study became a washroom and three rooms were added upstairs. The old stable was partitioned into a storehouse, where a lot of old carpets and furniture were stacked on each other and in front was a garage that housed two cars. Gone were the days of horses and carriages. The boarded walls were all replaced by walls of solid blocks. I liked it better when the house was boarded, it breathed with the ease of homeliness. Now it seemed to only house the stale aroma of a museum, with antique furniture and the significance of dead memories.

An hour later, with the showers of rain and the ambience of comfort, I closed my eyes and succumbed to the lullaby of sleep.

*****************************

It was Doug who woke me, arms wrapping around my middle and nibbling on my ears, I snuggled closer into his warm embrace.

"Good morning Miss Bloomfield."

"Good morning Doug."

He smelled fresh, without the addition of soap. It was the freshness of one who played around in the rain all night. Doug had strong legs, I felt them curl around mine and I let him capture me. Forgetting that I could throw him across the room with a flick of my finger without breaking a nail, I melted into him instead.

"Tell me, Doug,"

I kissed his lips gently and tasted a freshly picked plum on his tongue.

"Why do you insist on calling me Miss Bloomfield we have been together for too many years for such formality. How many times must I assure you that Opal is just fine?"

"Opal for your friends. I am still your protector Miss Bloomfield."

It was one of those serious jokes that no one laughed at.

"I have no friends Doug."

I traced my hands down his chest and felt my blood boil. He growled, the sound of a ravenous animal.

"Is that such a bad thing Miss Bloomfield?"

Wet traces of kisses went down my neck.

My fingers crept around his back and dug into his flesh.

"Not as long as I have you."

I whispered. His mouth took one tender breast and then the next.

"My God."

Were my final words, caught upon a ragged breath.

We lifted in the air, tumbling around, the sheets twisted around us in reels of laughter. Then I was pasted up above the bed and to the roof of the bedroom. I felt the coolness of the concrete on my back and the warmth of him between my legs. Looking down into his dark eyes, I fell in love with him all over again. As the sheets floated back down to the bed, we hovered in sexual pleasure.

It was a long time before Doug and I descended with the gentleness of fallen leaves back to the untidy bed. Cupping me from behind and stroking my spine, we lingered in the privacy of silence.

Doug was... well... Doug.

Before he became what I made him into, he was a Nature Photographer. In fact it was him trying to get a perfect picture of lightning striking the water, that got him killed on a stormy sea.

Gives a whole new meaning to, loving your work to death, doesn't it?

His current features were that of a healthy, forty-year-old man, frozen in ice without the possibility of ageing. He was very handsome and had dark skin, the type of skin that was mixed with no milk.

A robin sat on the window and pecked at the glass then flew away. The rain clouds had disappeared and the sky was blue, with white clouds shaped like the puffy ends of cauliflowers.

"What are your plans for today?"

His breath tickled the back of my neck.

"I think we should go to town and get some supplies for the house or we will die of hunger."

Doug turned and I almost protested as he left the bed.

"Ok, I will get the car ready."

There was the protector in him, back again. How quickly he could switch from lover to protector. He stood like a stern Butler and started to get dressed.

"Thank you Doug."

I watched him leave the room. It was our nature that we took everything seriously. We would not like to be caught with our guards down. We did not know what else was waiting out there for us.

Doug and I have never been attacked, but we stayed physically, emotionally and mentally prepared in case we should be. We have never encountered another like us, whatever we were. However if one could be brought back from the dead, then we would take no chances.