"Here," he says and holds it out. "Put this on and come out to the deck. You have to see something."
I comply, pulling the shirt on, buttoning it up hastily, following him out the doors and onto the deck. We're high up on the side of a cliff. A new weather system is moving into the region, storm clouds approaching off the ocean. I'll get some respite from the vivid sunlight.
He stands on the deck and looks out at the ocean. I go to the railing in front of him and take in the view. "It's beautiful."
He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me.
"Watch," he says and points to the ocean with the other hand.
I glance in the direction of his hand and see a bank of clouds along the coast, moving towards us.
"When I bought this place," he says, his lips near my cheek, "the broker told me that sometimes, when the weather is just right, the clouds actually touch the house."
I sigh and lean back against him, my head fitting beneath his chin. I watch as the trees beside us are enveloped in thick white mist. As the cloud bank approaches the house, I hold out my arms. When it surrounds us, I close my eyes.
"I always wanted to feel the clouds," I say, a feeling of such happiness filling me, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes. He buries his face in my neck, kissing the skin beneath my ear.
"How does it feel?"
I sigh and breathe in as the mist falls on my upturned face.
"Perfect."
Epilogue
That night, while Michel sleeps, I sit at his computer and check my webmail, looking for one from the university that I'm expecting about my postponing returning to school until after Christmas due to my injuries. It's then I get an email from one of my other webmail addresses. It's one I don’t even remember creating. I click on it and read the message.
Hello, Me,
If you're reading this, it means you haven’t made an entry in your journal for two months. This is an automated reminder to keep up your journal. Remember how important you thought it would be to keep a record of everything that’s happened since you met Michel.
You set this up just in case something happens and you forget your password or worse. You figure mom and dad will have access to your Boston U account and will find this just in case some vampire kills you.
You can find all the entries on what's happened since mom's files were released by clicking on the link below. It’s all in a web journal and kept secure in the cloud.
Love, Me.
I click on the link and start reading.
MY MOTHER NEVER LIED TO ME about the existence of monsters. When I'd awaken with nightmares, and dreams of shadows that moved in the darkness, she'd stay with me until my terror passed.
"I'm here," she'd say, stroking my hair. "I'm faster than them and I'll protect you. One day, I'll kill the monsters forever."
My great tragedy was that she couldn’t protect herself.
Today, I take up the work that ended her life. The floor in my tiny one-bedroom flat is littered with her files finally released a decade after her death and after a long battle with the university archivist. As I sit sifting through the box containing her research, one file in particular draws my attention – an illuminated manuscript written eight hundred years earlier in archaic French, the script ornate, the ink faded.
Inside the file is my mother’s typewritten note describing the document:
By the hand of Julien de Cernay, former Knight, identical twin brother to Michel, former Bishop of Clarmont, bastard sons of Guillaume, Vicomte de Clarmont. Written 1224 - 1229 A.D. Interviewed on 22 December 2004 at Boston University.
I turn back to the manuscript, but although I've studied French, I can barely read it due to the ancient dialect and difficult script. My mother began to translate but only got so far.
"A full moon rises"her hand-written translation starts,"stained red from fires in the village square where five heretics burn at the stake. The Crusades broke my family, estranged me from my brother and now have killed me. I died, not on the battlefield as befitting a knight protecting my father's estate, but in a bed in an abandoned castle at the hands of an ancient vampire who bewitched me... "
She stopped there and I realize that I need a translator for her notes were made barely a week before her death. Maybe this manuscript is important and will lead me to the vampire who killed her.
A search online turns up several websites that offer translation services, but I want one in the Boston area. I post a message on a Boston U message board for students of linguistics at my own university as a first start.