Helens-of-Troy (49 page)

Ellie began to stir. She let out a
steady stream of garbled expletives and random thoughts under her
breath before she started to make any sense to Gaspar. “Hate me,
why?” she eventually uttered, still somewhat delirious.

“I don’t hate you, Ellie,” he said,
kissing the top of her head lightly. She didn’t seem to notice. He
gave her a light squeeze, almost a hug, and tried to get her to sit
upright on her own. That failing, he propped her up in the corner
of the wall and sat beside her, his arms around her protectively.
“I think I feel exactly the opposite.”

“Then why,” she asked groggily, her
head flopping softly onto his shoulder, “are you doing this to
me?”

“Your grandmother,” Gaspar said icily,
“killed my mother.”

“My Nan is not a killer,” Ellie
insisted, becoming more alert. “You can’t just go around accusing
people of being murderers. You’re one to talk.”

“How much do you really know about your
grandmother, Ellie?” he asked, gently stroking her hair.

This time, she was aware of Gaspar
showing affection. It startled her, but at the same time if felt
somewhat reassuring. At least he wasn’t trying to kill
her.

“Not a lot, you’ve got me there,” she
admitted, thinking back to the few times she had spent with her
Nan. She couldn’t for the life of her remember any moments of
Helena being anything but kind. Except for that night in Troy, when
Helena had gone after the dog. The dog that turned out to be
Gaspar. And maybe that time when she had thrown a plate at Helen
when their argument got heated at breakfast. The memories made
reconsider her opinion of Helena. “Okay, just suppose my Nan has
some anger issues. Wouldn’t they have locked her up if she killed
your mother? Especially in front of witnesses?” Ellie asked,
finally regaining the strength to sit up on her own. “I mean, she
sleeps with the Chief of Police for crying out loud. You’d think he
would have dumped her if that happened.”

“
Your grandmother invited my
mother to a party where Momsey ultimately met her untimely death,”
Gaspar told her.

“That doesn’t make Nan a killer. A bad
hostess maybe, but not a killer.”

“One degree of separation,” Gaspar
shrugged. “There was another man there. A rather well put together
man, who reminded me of that Victor guy on the ‘Young and the
Restless’. What accent does that actor have, anyway? Sometimes I
think it’s Southern, sometimes I think it’s British. Beats me.
Helena says he’s really of German descent. Anyway, this man, he did
something very evil and I had to stand there and watch helplessly
as his actions made my mother explode into a million pieces. Can
you imagine that, Ellie? Someone you love not only dying before
you, but being physically burst apart like a cheap dollar-store
firework? It wasn’t pretty.”

“You watch the Y&R?” Ellie
questioned.

“Is that all you have to say?” Gaspar
asked, clearly hurt. “I just poured my heart out to
you.”

“What do you want me to say? Of course
I’m very sorry for your loss, Gaspar. Whoever this man was at Nan’s
house, and whatever he did, I’m sure it was an
accident.”

“An accident?”

“Well, I’m thinking he wasn’t arrested
either. You’re not showing a whole lot of closure here.”

“I’ve seen this man before, Ellie. In
photo albums that my mother had tucked away under her bed. He was
my father. The father I never knew.”

“So, your father killed your mother.
I’m sorry to seem so cold-blooded, Gaspar but I’ve kind of had a
lot to deal with lately. What does this have to do with my Nan? Why
are you so mad at her?”

“Your grandmother didn’t care. Just
like you don’t care. There was no panic from HER when it happened.
There were no tears. SHE just began picking up the pieces of my
mother as if Marita was confetti thrown at a wedding. SHE used a
shovel, as I recall. SHE scooped the remnants of my mother up with
a hardware store winter sale item. My mother deserved
better.”

Ellie thought back to that first
morning in Troy. She remembered asking her mother how Helena had
wrecked her shovel over—Mrs. Harbinger. A look of horror came over
Ellie’s face. Could it be true? Was Gaspar telling the truth about
her Nan?

Flashing back to the trip to Troy in
Tony’s van, Ellie remembered even her own mother having
reservations about Helena. She remembered clearly that her mother
referred to Helena as ‘people’ and that Helen was reluctant to call
Helena ‘nice’. Maybe it was because of the whole slutty
schoolgirl/popstar persona her mother associated with Helena, or
maybe it was really something else, something so sinister even
Helen didn’t want to talk about it.

“Believe it, Ellie,” he cautioned.
“It’s not just your grandmother. Your mother doesn’t care when
people lose their life either. She just pretends to.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Am I? Was she terribly broken up about
that old guy dying on your porch? Did she lose any sleep over
little Brooke? Did she weep with despair when the fat kid was
discovered dead as a doornail in the utility fridge?”

“No,” Ellie whispered, adding her
personal recall of the canoeing incident into the mix.

“What makes you think you’re any
different? You can’t fool me. You’re one of them. A LaRose by any
other name…”

“I’m not like them,” Ellie insisted. “I
can’t even kill a spider.”

Gaspar put his finger to her lips.
“Shush, Ellie. Don’t speak. Just let me look at you.”

“What’s wrong?” Ellie asked, turning
her head every so slightly away from him.

“Nothing,” Gaspar whispered, taking her
chin in his fingertips and turning her face towards his. “You’re
beautiful.” He leaned in closer and kissed her lightly on the
lips.

Her heart began to race. To her
surprise, she wasn’t finding the caress the least bit repulsive. A
bit of a shocker, but exciting at the same time. “What did you do
that for?” she asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It just
felt like the right thing to do. Isn’t that what sixteen year old
boys do to fifteen year old girls? Are you mad at me?”

“Not about that,” Ellie found herself
admitting. The kiss had unleashed a flood of new feelings. Oddly,
every evil atrocity she knew he had done in the past was suddenly
of less significance. Beneath the long dark hair and brooding
demeanor lurked a sadly misunderstood guy trying his best to live
in a world in which he didn’t belong. A world that chose him, not
the other way around. If she were in his position, she probably
would have had to become a feeder herself. What other choice did he
really have? It all was so clear to her now.

“It’s okay, Gaspar,” she said, softly
licking her lips with her tongue not knowing whether he was going
to try to kiss her again. She waited, feeling the hot flashes of
teenage angst passing between them through stolen
glances.

“It wasn’t my choice, Ellie,” he said,
as if reading her mind.

“How can you be so bad, and so
beautiful at the same time?” she asked him, touching his face
softly. She closed her eyes and explored blindly the soft, cool
texture of his skin. It was baby-like, with no sign of stubble
forming around his jaw line. Perhaps he too, was waiting for his
body to grow into his chronological age. Then again, maybe not. She
opened her eyes and inhaled deeply as the face that had earlier
represented such evil took on a new guise. Gaspar was cute. Maybe
even cuter than Tom, in a Goth-Dude kind of way. She leaned in
closer and offered her lips to him.

He took her head in his hands and
kissed her again, longer and harder this time, and she didn’t pull
back from him. It was the first time in a long time that he had
felt any kind of physical love, and he found himself thinking that
perhaps killing her was not the best thing he could do. Not today,
anyway.

“
So, you don’t think I’m
twelve anymore?”

“
No,” he answered, “I can
see that you’re not. I’m sorry I was such an asshole about that.
It’s not easy being different, is it Ellie?” he asked
sincerely.

Ellie nodded in agreement. “All we want
is to be accepted, to be treated like adults. I don’t get why that
is so hard. I can’t help the way I look.”

“You’re gorgeous,” Gaspar responded. “I
see through it now, the innocence that your naked face portrays.
You’re much more mature than you let on.”

Ellie took his hand in hers. “How
strange,” she commented. “A few hours ago, I absolutely hated you,
and now…”

“And now?” Gaspar asked
breathlessly.

“And now I find you—intoxicating,” she
smiled. “I didn’t think I’d ever use that word in my life, but
really, it’s the only word that fits.”

“It might be the effect of my saliva,
from when I tasted your blood. The potion-like attribute in it
makes it slightly easier for …” he paused, not wanting to say
‘easier for those about to die’.

“I don’t think that’s it,” Ellie said
softly, stroking his fingers. His hands were larger than hers, yet
somehow delicate. It was almost impossible to believe they had
carried out the atrocities that they had.

“My hunger,” he tried to explain,
“isn’t about the feeding, no matter what you think. My hunger is my
loneliness. Do you think I like being like this? A freak? I just
want to be accepted like everyone else. I hunger for love. Does
that really make me any different than you?”

“What’s it like?”

“It sucks. Sorry.”

“No, I mean, what does it feel like.
Physically.”

“It’s kind of hard to explain. Remember
the night by the bridge?”

“My dream?”

“If you want to call it that. Wasn’t it
the wildest dream you ever had? Didn’t you feel and smell things so
vividly, even though you were in a trance?”

Ellie nodded in agreement.

“That’s what it’s like. Only for me,
it’s no dream. I’m awake and everything is totally pumped up. I
don’t dream anymore. I rest, but I don’t dream.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Becoming a vampire?

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

He stood up and walked over to the
fountain sprinkler, cupped his hands, stepped on the water release,
and gave his face a rinse. This conversation was draining on him,
and the water made him feel slightly refreshed.

“SHE made me the man I am
today.”

“How?” Ellie said, her green eyes
showing empathy for him for perhaps the first time. “I thought you
had to be a vampire, to change someone into one.”

“You do,” Gaspar nodded, turning back
towards Ellie. “Trust HER to have the local vampire on speed
dial.”

“Just like that?” Ellie
asked.

Gaspar sat back down on the floor
beside her. “I’m sorry about the cold floor, Ellie. I just don’t
notice these things anymore.”

“Well, the blanket helps,” Ellie said,
offering him a portion of it.

He smiled weakly and spread part of it
across his legs. His left foot was twitched nervously as he began
to talk. “You have to understand how upset I was that night, Ellie.
I wanted to die. I had no one to turn to. My mother was dead. I
couldn’t trust my father. The Chief was busy with my mother’s bits
and pieces. The old guy from down the street just kept on strumming
his guitar like nothing happened. Betty Lachey was hysterical, and
SHE, as I said before, was calm. Dead calm.”

“It must have been horrible. What did
you do?”

“I went back home into our kitchen and
took out a carving knife from the butcher block. At first I just
tried to carve my mother’s initials into my arm, a self-inflicted
DIY tattoo.” He pulled up his sleeve to show Ellie where he had
done exactly that. “Do you like it? I’m surprised I can still make
out the letters. Every other trace of what I did that night has
vanished.”

Ellie grimaced. The knife had carved
the initials jaggedly into his upper arm. “And then?” she asked
apprehensively.

“I downed a half a bottle of my
mother’s pain killers, and took the knife to my wrist,” he said
calmly. “Actually sliced might be a better word. It almost did the
trick.”

“You tried to kill yourself?” Ellie
whispered in non-belief.

“I did better than try. I felt my heart
stop beating.”

“Oh my God!” Ellie gasped. “Did Nan
find you and get you to a hospital?”

“No! That Naturo Nan of yours put me
into stasis. I must have been like that for a while, because when I
woke up the painkillers had worn off and I was dealing with the
worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I remember looking at HER,
and begging HER to kill me, just to make the pain stop. But SHE
just smiled. And then SHE was gone.”

“I can’t believe my Nan would leave you
alone like that.”

“SHE didn’t. Not for long. My concept
of time is a bit shaky because I was drifting in and out of
consciousness, but in a little while there was a man hovering over
my body. At first I thought it might be that Tom guy, but I
realized that this man’s hair was longer and more strawberry
colored than gel-boy’s. When he talked to me, he sounded messed up.
He spoke Latin with an Irish accent. He was leaning over me like he
wanted to kiss me, and I remember thinking, ‘how am I supposed to
stop this’? But instead, he sank his teeth into my shoulder, and he
began to feed off me. Just like you read in novels. The blood began
to leave my body and enter his. I kept thinking, ‘this can’t be
real.’”