upon faded jeans
upon silver hair
black leather shines
Half wild
still slightly mad
bewildered by time
chained to the night
As he stalks
he might hear a sound
shift into a moonbeam
and be gone.
There was a scratching at the back door. She blinked, put down her pen, and turned to face the door. The small windows reflected back, yet she could see a shadow outside. The key inside turned impossibly, the lock popped, and the door opened silently, all by itself. Simon stepped from the night into her home.
“I only have to be invited once.”
“You don’t have to be quite so melodramatic,” she snapped in relief.
Looking abashed, he sat at the table and took the notebook from her. He read while she watched. I keep forgetting how beautiful he is, she thought with surprise.
“What if my father was here?” she asked.
“I knew you were alone.” He smiled at her written words and touched her cheek with icicle fingers. “I’ve waited centuries for you.”
For a moment she flirted with a picture of them fleeing hand in hand, away from the problems of the world. Take the night, a tiny voice whispered, but she shrugged it off.
“Have you got an idea of what to do?” She was dismayed to hear the tremble in her voice. She was hoping he hadn’t.
Simon laid the notebook on the table. “I’ve got a plan.”
She caught sight of his other hand, the hand he hadn’t touched her with. He held it under the table. She reached for it, and he tried to withhold it from her, but gave in reluctantly. It was burned. A nasty red welt lay across it.
“I stayed out too long,” he said simply.
“The sun?” she asked.
“I was in a hurry to get safe inside; a sleep was coming on. I didn’t secure the boards over the window well enough, and the sun must have come through a crack. The pain woke me.”
She made a sympathetic noise.
He grinned. “Yes, it hurts like hell, but it’ll heal fast.”
“But how does Christopher get away with pretending to be a real child if he can’t go out in daylight either?”
“We can stand a few weak morning rays, or a brief moment on a cloudy day. They think he’s an albino. They bundle him up and keep him out of strong light, to protect his ‘delicate’ skin. He wouldn’t like to try full sunlight, though.” Simon smirked, as if enjoying that thought.
Albino. Zoë thought of the boy at the alley mouth again and shuddered. It was him. She grew angry. She couldn’t let him threaten the life of another girl like Lorraine.
Simon took his hand from her and picked up her pen. “Can I use your book?”