Camdeboo Nights (11 page)

What in heaven’s name...

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog that threatened to swamp his reasoning.

Arwen spoke again, with Helen turning to reply but he could not grasp the words. The Essence in the area dissipated, and Trystan’s vision returned to normal. Now only fiery motes flickered in and out of existence around Helen’s head.

He vaulted over the wall. No reason to remain hidden, not when they knew he was there, although the nagging worry of the Wareing girl and her family would be a risk he had to take.

She was just a girl. They were both just girls, he told himself, trying to see them as the frail human creatures he knew them to be.

“What were you trying to do?” His anger flooded away any uncertainty. Stupid, stupid girls. They had no idea, did they? “Do you have any idea what sort of trouble you are stirring up?”

Arwen shouldered a sling-bag. Her fear was a sharp tang in the air. Helen, however, radiated only the calm green of curiosity.

“No, you tell us,” Arwen said.

For a split second, static crackled as reality shifted.

Footsteps, doors slamming. Voices, roughly two hundred meters down the road.

Someone was coming. Someone knew.

“You’re messing with things you don’t understand,” Trystan hissed.

Arwen squirmed behind Helen, as if she tried to make herself less of a target.

Oh, the witch girl knew they’d been messing with stuff they shouldn’t, all right, and unfortunately Helen’s ignorance of her situation would only endanger her.

“What do you know about any of this?” Helen gestured about her.

“Enough!” Trystan snapped. Footsteps approached, beyond mortals’ hearing. They were coming–people who know, most likely of the Wareing clan. They would not be happy finding him here with their daughter.

Perhaps if he could persuade Arwen, she might keep this secret. That might also prove impossible among those who traded in secrets, though.

“Come with me.” Trystan took hold of Helen’s wrist. “We need to talk, but not here. You as well, Arwen.”

Helen resisted for an instant, before complying.

“Helen! He’s a–” Arwen started.

“Don’t!” Trystan commanded. “I won’t hurt either of you. We just need to get away from here.”

Arwen didn’t look convinced but the two girls followed him back over the low wall. He kept away from the road, keeping in line with the cemetery, farther toward the hills, and cut diagonally across the show grounds.

“Where are you taking us?” Helen asked.

“Shhh! I’ll explain once we get away from here.”

Trystan had them walking until they reached the poplars bordering the river. They dropped into the shale-crusted bed and followed a dry furrow. In the pale starlight he caught sight of numerous fossils embedded in the stone. On any other occasion, he’d stop to trace the chalky outlines of the remains, and attempt to tap into the memories of millions of years ago. Some vampires could read the past. He hoped to evoke the same abilities himself.

Not tonight. The girls stumbled, not able to see as well as he did in the dark. They followed the watercourse, sometimes crossing through the water–there had not been much rain this year–then crossing back.

Soon, they reached the bridge that would take them back into the village proper.

“What was that in aid of?” Arwen asked. She seemed to have worked through her initial fear.

Helen sat on a rock and fiddled with her flip flop. “I got something stuck in my sole that’s hurting my foot.”

Trystan
reached
in the direction from which they had come, sensing only Arwen’s father’s presence among the stones in the graveyard. Good. Then the white witch had not ventured out. The last thing he wanted was for their kind to start meddling. Things always got messy when that happened.

Now, what to do about Arwen.

She scowled at him from beneath her fringe, her gaze darting from him then back to Helen, who hummed under her breath while she picked at her shoe.

“All right. An explanation,” Trystan said but what was he going to say? How much would he say? “There’s more to your little ritual than you’d think, Arwen.”

“No shit, mister,” Arwen answered. “So, why’d you come muck it all up?”

“You were succeeding far too admirably in your venture. You were about to...” If they hadn’t, already alerted the wrong people.

“What?”

A human whose Essence was awakened was far more dangerous, and unstable, than a pack of vampires.

“You were endangering Helen’s, and your own, life.” That wasn’t a lie.

“I fail to see how,” Arwen said.

Helen spoke. “We were just summoning the spirit of the place.”

Arwen nudged her hard and gave her a filthy look but Helen’s gaze was leveled directly at him.

That was what he was afraid of, although not exactly for those reasons.

Trystan shuddered as some of the implications of this near disaster filtered through.

Arwen narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest.

“You were about to summon a whole lot more than that,” he said. Like half the
jagters
in this godforsaken country. This disturbance had probably
reached
as far as Cairo, if they were unlucky.

“Like what?”

“Bad things. Things...”

“You’re wasting our time. How would you know these things?”

“I-I just do, all right?” he said. “I think you know what I’m talking about, so don’t act dumb with me.”

“And you expect us to swallow this bullshit?”

“Ask your father later. Actually, rather don’t. It’s better for you that he doesn’t know you’re behind tonight’s events, although he probably already suspects. Do you want to endanger your family? You’re doing a pretty damn good job of it already.”

Arwen shook her head. “No.”

“Well, there are those who would hurt your family if they knew about them. Your people are the real thing and, as long as they exist, they, and people like Helen, pose a threat to their existence.”

That wasn’t a lie.

Chapter 13

Is this Love?

Saturday morning passed in a daze. Helen moved about the house like a sleepwalker. She was unable to concentrate on simple tasks, like packing away dishes. She stood by the kitchen window, turning a china teacup in her hands, her fingers tracing the ridges forming a floral pattern on the side.

“Were you and the Wareing girl smoking
zol
last night?” Anabel asked.

“No,” Helen replied even as she almost dropped the cup in fright at her grandmother’s intrusion.

“Hmmph. Well, then, why are you staring at nothing like a lovelorn flower-child? The dishes won’t pack themselves away. I’d also like you to buy some groceries. Szandor will be driving through to Graaff-Reinet in twenty minutes. I’d like you to get some things for us. I could get used to having a young woman in the house again.”

Anabel gave Helen one of her rare smiles, which transformed her severe features with a semblance of warmth.

Dare she tell her grandmother about the boy? Trystan had pleaded with them not to discuss him with anyone. He had a hunted look about him and had kept peering over his shoulder. The air around him hummed with tension.

Why had Arwen always made sure to keep Helen between her and Trystan while walking back? She resolved to ask her later.

She couldn’t get the boy out of her mind, however. So thin, so pale, and his eyes spoke of an unnamable sorrow.

She always went for the lame ducks.

Back in Cape Town, she’d fallen for Michael, a music student, who’d turned out to be gay. Then it was a brief, unrequited infatuation with Simon, a guy in grade twelve, who’d ended up hanging himself before his final exams.

She really knew how to pick them, didn’t she?

* * * *

Armed with her grandmother’s shopping list and a few hundred rand in notes, Helen ran out to the familiar silver Volvo, looking forward to speaking with Arwen, only to discover Szandor and another woman with a teased-out mop of white-blond hair waited in the car.

The woman turned icy gray eyes on Helen, giving her the impression that she could read each of Helen’s secrets.

She was pale, which wasn’t helped by the funerary aspect of her clothing–a buttoned-up sleeveless shirt with a cameo at her throat. When she moved, an audible swish of many layers of satin and chiffon filled the vehicle.

This must be the aunt. She couldn’t be the mother. The resemblance to Szandor was almost uncanny.

Szandor smiled, but the pleasure did not reach his eyes. “This is Sonja, my sister. Sonja, this is Arwen’s new friend, Helen.”

Sonja gave the briefest of frowns before facing the window.

“Uh, hi,” Helen said, wishing that she could be anywhere else but in this car with these peculiar people. The journey to Graaff-Reinet would be just over half an hour but it would feel like an eternity.

Szandor made a sound that was almost a snigger before turning the key. If only Damon were here, but her brother had gone to visit the Prof the instant his chores were done.

They drove in silence, with only the hiss of the air-conditioner as accompaniment, until they left the valley.

Then Szandor said, “Did you enjoy the films last night, Helen?”

She thought her heart would explode. Should she lie? Should she allow the story to filter through without some of the pertinent details?

“I... Uh. Yes.” She had watched films after Trystan had walked them home. Granted, she hadn’t been able to concentrate on any of the onscreen action.

“Oh,” Szandor said.

She caught a glimpse of his amused expression in the rearview mirror.

Bloody hell, of course he didn’t believe her. What did she expect?

“You haven’t seen or heard anything that you would consider out of the ordinary, have you?” Szandor asked.

“Um, no.”

“You’ll tell us if you do, won’t you?” Szandor asked. It was more a command than a question.

“I guess so.” Helen clutched the seat with white-knuckled hands.

Her grandmother’s amused tones echoed in her memory.
The whole lot of them, they’re all witches. The father, too.

How far would Szandor push his craft? What could he do? Was she in any danger? If there was the superstitious fear of witchcraft that was prevalent among the indigenous Africans...

She’d read a little about the subject a few years previously while researching for a painting for her art classes. Witchcraft was a fascinating topic but she had never expected to ever deal with the real thing. Now her present situation seemed very real and very menacing.

“Where’s Arwen?” Helen hoped to steer their conversation to safer territory. She may as well have said “Nice weather, we’re having.”

“Arwen has been grounded,” Szandor said, his pale gaze reading the road ahead.

Oh fuck. He knew.

“Oh.” Perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all then she wouldn’t dig herself a deeper hole.

The rest of the ride passed in uncomfortable silence. Helen pressed her face against the glass and hoped nothing more would be said.

She hated deception of any kind. Whenever she lied, she always ended up being caught out. Instead, she watched the passing landscape, where gray-blue spiked agave lined the road in clumps. Every so often jeep tracks led from the road they followed and she wondered where they went.

Szandor let her be on her own while they did their own shopping, and agreed on a meeting place in an hour’s time. It was just before noon, the sun baked down on the busy main streets and the throng of people crowding the pavements and shops nearly overwhelmed her.

The unfamiliarity of the town kept her from taking any liberties to explore beyond the task she had been assigned. Helen entered the white-glared interior of the Spar, wrestled for a trolley, and bought the items her grandmother had requested.