Little Hidden Darknesses
Thirty One:

“What do you think?” Lilith breathed into my right ear, her hands latched around both my shoulders. The pads of her fingers burned through my shirt and onto my skin, but I welcomed it on account of the icy breeze that swept inside through the open windows.

“I like it.” I really did, despite my initial reservations.

The painting on the farthest wall of the drawing room had finally lost its cloak. A family portrait, done almost as perfectly as a photograph. It caught everyone’s liking, even mine. My blonde hair. Blue eyes. That pearly smile that my mum used to say I got from her.

“You look so much like her,” Lilith went on, “I doubt we’d have to touch it up at all.” She considered it again. “Maybe just have Branka change your jaw. Sharpen the tip of your nose a bit.” Then, she let go of me and paced down the length of the drawing room where she took up a glass of whiskey – at seven in the morning, nonetheless. But after having lived a thousand years, time probably meant nothing anymore

Lilith took a sip, then licked across her teeth. “It’s settled, then. It’s no longer your mother in the painting, but you.” The casual way in which she said that scared me, but I forced a smile, my only means of defence these days. Give them what they want and be left alone.

Ha! If only it was that easy.

“I guess so.” I scanned the portrait once over, pausing a moment on the tall, bearded likes of Leonardo. My grandfather. Could you imagine that. “Can I ask you a question?”

“That depends. What type of question?”

“Well, something personal.”

“I’d be more comfortable if you didn’t, but since you’re a part of the family now, go right ahead.”

I broke away from the painting and glanced at Lilith in the window’s reflection. It was easier this way, not having to look at her. The trees beyond the glass had lost all their leaves, and the grass had taken on a greyish hue. Even the fountain’s stone seemed less white, less glittery in the morning sun. “Why didn’t you yourself make a bond with Leonardo?”

Lilith took another swig of whisky. “Ah, I thought you might ask that. Perhaps not now, but –”

“I need to know, please.”

“Alright.” Lilith finished off the glass and placed on a table next to her. “You might not believe this, but there was a time when I dreamt of getting out of here. Of seeing the world.”

She was right, I couldn’t believe it.

Lilith paused long enough to pace to the fireplace. She tossed another piece of wood on the fire, then watched the flames devour it as she spoke on, “And when your mother was born, I wasn’t in a particularly good place. I intended to run away, shortly after her birth. Of course I couldn’t leave my children without knowing their father was safe from the fog – in case he set after me, you know – so I created the Tengsl between them.”

“Why did you change your mind about leaving?”

Only now did Lilith shy away, unable to meet my eyes. “I did leave. But only for a short while. The children don’t even know. Not even mother. It wasn’t safe out there for our kind. I thought maybe enough time had passed ... but I was wrong. We’re all safer within the fog.”

I frowned. “Safe from what?”

“Oh – uh – I’m afraid that’s a tale for another day.” Lilith forced a smile as she pressed away from the mantle and crossed the room. She briefly caressed my cheek, then strolled into the corridor to the foyer, where I heard Branka and Aillard bickering about something.

“It’s mine!”

“As if! It’s cut for a girl, you idiot.”

I entered the foyer to the sight of Aillard and Branka tugging on a blazer, only to have Lilith snatch it from them. She held it up, showcasing the Evermist High student body president badge, then grinned again and held it out to me. “I don’t think this belongs to either of you.”

Both of them properly seared as I strutted past and collected the blazer, only to slip it on in right front of them. It fit like a tailored glove, cutting off just below the hem of my plaid skirt.

“Ready to go?” Lilith asked us.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” muttered Branka, the first to trudge out the front door and down the driveway to the open gates. Aillard quickly caught up to her, and they upped their pace into a sprint down the street. They already bickered again. About what, I had no idea.

Lilith muttered something about childishness, then ushered me outside and slammed the front door in my face. I blinked rapidly, taking a moment to collect my thoughts.

To ground myself in the present.

I was off to school. Evermist High. And this after a school break that had lasted several decades.

What a development indeed.

I swung the strap of my book bag over my shoulder, then skipped down the steps of the front entrance. The bricks – still wet from the previous evening’s rain – crunched and crumbled under my feet. I sloshed through a puddle in the driveway, then glanced up at the sky.

The cloud-engulfed sun, sneakily peeking out at me. It warmed my face against the early winter cold.

Perhaps this might not be so bad.

“Ready for your first day back?” asked Alejandro when I met up with him in front of the motel. He looked properly dorky in his school uniform, everything hanging loose around his limbs. This, however, didn’t keep me from snuggling in under his arm and tilting my head so he could press his lips against mine. Warm. Soft. Buzzing with electricity.

Alejandro had the biggest smile around his mouth when we peeled apart, his eyes ever as sparkly.

I reached around and brushed his hair out of his face, revealing every inch of his perfect patch. “Don’t ever hide your face,” I whispered. “I want everyone to see the beauty of it.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“But it’s the truth. Someday you might get old and lose your hair” – I resented myself for even attempting such a joke – “and you’d have no way to hide your patches at all.”

“Alright, alright. I won’t hide my patches.”

“Good.”

We shared another peck, then I peeled away from him and started to sprint down the road. I knew the potholes of his super, secret road like the back of my hand by now, and dodged them even while glancing back at him. And boy, did I love it when he stared after me.

“What the heck are you doing?” Alejandro called, then sped up himself. He caught up to me and I grabbed his hand, allowing him to pull me right into him and hold me in his arms.

With my head nuzzled in the nook of his neck, and my cheeks protected his thick, woolly scarf, I said, “I just don’t want to be late on our first day. The first day of the rest of our lives.”

Alejandro tightened his arms around me. “No need to rush, Piper. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

A pause.

“You’ve got no idea.”