Christmas Healing (5 page)

Christmas music was piping in through the malls sound system, and she put on a
brave face, taking his hand.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s explore.”

He glanced at her a moment, broad and tall over her tiny frame, and glanced at their hands, intertwined, but said nothing, letting her lead the way.

The first placed they
stopped was a men’s suit store with mannequins displaying several different styles in the windows. Arthur turned to her, speaking finally.

“
Gregory?”

“Hmm?” she asked, confused.

“Gregory purchases his garments here?”

“Oh!” she understood, thinking of the vampire king who was forever well tailored, the only one of the four brothers who constantly wore a suit. “Uh
… I don’t know if he gets them here exactly, but somewhere similar, for sure.”

“There are other dress makers?”

She smirked.

“Spin around,
Arthur, every second store in here is a clothing shop. There are hundreds, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because fashion is stupid,” she replied, thinking of the hours she used to spend in thrift stores, painstakingly trying to find clothing with designer labels so that she would be in fashion in school, and no one would know she had spent her lunch money on a sweater she could only wear if she hid a stain with her hand all day.

He seemed to accept this answer, and they moved on, slowly, their hands still intertwined. They passed shoe stores and clothing stores, and paused outside a used book store.

“Did you like to read?” she asked, and he nodded, looking at her. This time, she read the look in his eyes.

“Sure, let’s go in. These books are used, so someone else bought them and then traded them in here.”

He snorted at that. “The concept of new is modern.”

“Yes,” she
said, slowly piecing that thought together. “Everyone wants something new. I guess it didn’t used to be like that.”

“No,” he said, as they walked through the aisles.
Annalise stopped at the classics section, pulling out a thick book from the shelves and handing it to Arthur.

“Do you
recognize that?”

“No
.” The characters on the front were unfamiliar to him, and she opened it up, paging through to the second half of it.

“Look now.”

His eyes scanned the printed text and then he nodded.

“The
Odyssey,” he said, after a moment. It was an English and Latin translation, beat up and probably abridged, but he recognized it. “We had this story, then. It’s good.”

“Except now it’s 3000 years old instead of just 2000,” she replied, taking it from his hand and flipping over to check the price tag. It was selling for a mere twenty
dollars and she pulled one of the hundred dollar bills out that Gregory had given her, handing it to Arthur. She supposed she could have taught him that everything that was for sale was available for free online, but that was a lesson that was subject to morals. “That’s one hundred dollars your brother gave me to spend for you. The book is $20. Would you like it?”

“One hundred,”
he said with a question in his voice. Numbers were still hard for him to remember in English and she barely remembered how to count to ten in Latin, but she tried to spell it out ... 1-0-0 to 2-0. He nodded, looking through the book again. “Should Gregory conserve his money?”

“I get the feeling
Gregory’s money is infinite,” she replied, her body language nonchalant. Arthur nodded, book gripped in his hand.

“How do I
…?”

“Here,” as proud as a mother hen, she led him to the cashier, who took his money and bagged his purchase without batting an eyelash. She handed him over his change, after tax, a handful of coins and bills, and
Arthur handed them to Annalise. The concept of barter and money wasn’t entirely foreign to him, although she double checked the change to make sure it was correct before they moved on.

Her stomach was rumbling now, half way to turning over, which sometimes happened with the drugs she was on
with an empty stomach.

“Food?” she asked, and he looked up from the book, his brow furrowing for the first time, searching her face.

“Are you ill?”

“No, hungry,” she replied, although she wasn’t entirely sure that was the truth.

The food court wasn’t hard to find, but they didn’t have the giant pretzels that she was craving. Settling on a container of fries which she shared with Arthur, she opened up her purse, pulling out her pillbox and downing three pills with a sip of water. Arthur watched all of this, having not seen her do it before. He knew she was ill, that much was plain, and he knew that it was chronic. His face was full of questions, but he asked none, focusing on tasting the fry with ketchup.

Annalise
took another sip of water, trying not to gag on the pills. She really hadn’t wanted to swallow them with her stomach churning, but she knew it was better for her, in the long run. She had just finished an intensive round of IV chemotherapy a few months ago, and now was on
methotrexate and 6-mercaptopurine, oral pills for maintenance chemo. After having the poison dripped into her veins and spending months in and out of hospital, she generally preferred the pills, and they were well tolerated. Sometimes, however, she simply didn’t feel well, and this was one of those days.

She didn’t finish the fries, although
Arthur seemed half interested in picking at them for the next fifteen minutes, and she let him, glancing at her phone. It was almost noon and she figured they should make their way back to the entrance, where Gregory would pick them up.

“Ready to go?” she finally asked, and
Arthur nodded, standing and holding a hand out to her to rise. She smiled, gathering up her stuff.

“What else is here?” he asked, looking around and seeming to be in a better mood than before.

“A lot. We’ll have to explore it all one day. But it’s a lot to take in, so let’s save it.”

“How long?” he asked as they began to walk.
“All day?”

“Teenage girls spend all day here, but that’s because they have nothing else to do,”
Annalise replied, taking another swallow of water and closing her eyes for a moment as they walked. The food had really not agreed with her and her head was beginning the throb.

“
Annalise,” Arthur said, and she turned her head to see what he wanted. The sudden movement caused a wave of dizziness to overtake her and she stumbled.

Lightening quick, with vampire speed that wasn’t supposed to be shown in public, he had his arms wrapped around her, catching her before she hit the ground. The
bile rose in throat and she began to heave, trying to keep it away from him and keep it concentrated on a spot on the floor. Her stomach felt like it was turning inside out, and pains began to shoot through her gut.

“
Annalise!” Arthur was clearly alarmed, and it was a small comfort that his arms were wrapped around her, holding her steady.

The bile turned to bright red
blood and this alarmed her, conserving all of her strength to whip her head around to him. But his eyes didn’t even flicker, concern flooding them. Even out in the open, her blood was too infected to be tempting.

“
Annalise!”

All of a sudden,
Gregory was beside her, skidding to the ground.

“I’m ok,” the feeling of
nausea finally began to subside, and her muscles stopped quivering. “I’m ok,” she managed, shakily. “It’s the pills … and the blood is just a sore in the stomach. It’s happened before. I’m ok, really. Please.”

“
Annalise,” Arthur’s voice had a slight quiver in it, and she turned to look at him, meeting his eyes.

“I’m alright. It happens a lot.”

“Why?” his brow furrowed and she looked to Gregory, who sighed.             

“
Annalise is very sick, Arthur. You know that. This is a symptom.”

“We’re ok here
,” someone familiar said. Annalise looked up to see Rosa explaining to a mall security guard who didn’t look impressed with a pile of vomit on the floor. “She has leukemia.” Rosa in her skinny jeans, and heels, her red hair in waves, could have said anything to the guard and he would have listened, batting her eye lashes. “We’ll get her home.”

“Yes,”
Gregory agreed, reaching to help her up. Arthur, however, tightened his grip around her, heaving her up without so much as a noise. She protested that she was feeling better by the moment, but he wouldn’t put her down. “Let’s head to the car, shall we? Annalise?”

“I’ll just stay here then,” she
said, trying to smile as Rosa picked up her stuff, and they strided towards the mall exit, passerby’s staring at the girl in the tall man’s arms. Annalise settled her head against his broad chest, taking comfort in the moment to rest. To her surprise, she thought she heard the faint thud of a heart beat.

“
Rosa?” she questioned, intrigued. “Are you doing that?”

Gregory
smiled proudly as Rosa nodded. “She gets more powerful by the day. Touch is no longer required, just proximity.”

“Your heart is beating,”
Annalise said, looking up at Arthur. “You’re alive!”

Arthur
continued to stare straight ahead, and then his lips shaped words only she could hear.

“For the moment,” he muttered and she sighed,
laying her head against his chest again as they exited the mall. Gregory pulled the car keys out of his pocket and unlocked the doors. Rosa slid into the front seat, leaving Arthur and Annalise to awkwardly climb into the back seat.

“Me too,”
Annalise replied, as she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the soft headrest. “For the moment, me too.”

The car started and
Gregory powered out of the lot. Arthur didn’t seem as frightened as he was before, his attention focused on the damsel in distress beside him. Annalise tried to give him a reassuring smile that all was well, but it must have been so alarming for him. She wasn’t sure she was entirely convincing to him and she couldn’t muster up the strength to care. What worried her most was not being able to perform her duties if she was this sick. Would Gregory understand her mortal limits, or would her failure to thrive also mean a failure to survive in their house?

Chapter 4

Annalise
sipped her mug of tea and stretched, careful not to move too far in case the IV lines came out. It had been two weeks since her fall in the shopping center, and Dr. Hever had suggested she head to a local hospital for observation. When her test results came back, she barely was able to say a word of protest before they admitted her, her potassium levels dangerously low, and that was only the start. But now, she had been in the hospital for a week, a site that was sadly starting to become familiar, and she wanted nothing more than to go home.

Dr.
Hever was sent her results daily from the hospital, and promised her she’d be out soon. Tony was rallying off the walls to get her brought home, but the vampire doctor was bound by law to tell Gregory the truth, and the result of that was that Annalise was not quite at the point where she couldn’t function.

A knock at the door came, and she looked up from her phone in surprise.

“Arthur!” she said, a smile lighting up her face. She hadn’t seen him since she was admitted. She had been sending lesson plans home with Gregory, who came every day to stick his head in, check on her progress and then give her a stiff nod and leave. He assured her that Arthur was reading them thoroughly. It took her all day to write them up, her energy levels dropping, but then, what else did she have to do. Even the radio was just playing endless Christmas music on a loop now, and she was starting to be bored out of her skull.

“Hello,” he paused at the door,
hesitant, and unsure, his eyes wide as he took in the sight of her. And she must look a fright, she knew, with an IV in either hand, a pulse oximeter on her finger and the screens showing her dangerously low stats, never mind the fact that she hadn’t so much as brushed her hair. But in Arthur’s eyes, she also saw concern.

“You can come in, it’s alright. I was wondering if you’d come by.”

He took a few hesitant steps forward, and then stood by the edge of the bed, ignoring the chair for visitors.  She patted a spot on the bed, and reluctantly, he sat.

“
How are you?”

She smiled, tightly.
“I’m getting there. How are you?”

“Fine,” he said, and she almost praised him on picking up the social norm of lying in answer to that question. “
Annalise … please, the truth?”

“Hmm?”

“Was it … something I did, that day, at the market? To cause this?”

She gasped, leaning forward and grabbed his
gesturing hand, looking straight into his eyes.