I stood on tiptoe and reached up for the root. I gripped it, but the knotted lump of tree was slippery and I lost my hold and footing and landed on my arse. With the wind knocked from me, I tried again until I finally managed to work my way up it. Looking back below to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I placed one cold hand over the other and disappeared in amongst the roots of the tree.
Spiderpeeds and slugworms dropped from the roots as I cut a path through them. They wriggled in my hair, and I shook the insects free by shaking my head wildly from side to side. Then when I thought I couldn’t climb any further, I found a hole. Taking a deep breath, I made myself as small as possible and wriggled into it. It was dark, but the roots gave way, and I found myself crawling on my hands and knees down a tunnel made of brick. The walls and ground felt slimy, and several times I had to stop dead-still as rats scurried past me. I hate rats. I didn’t know how long or how far I had crawled through the tunnel, but I got the feeling that the tunnel was climbing upwards. Then, ever so gradually, I could see my hands in front of me along with the green and yellow moss that covered the walls of the tunnel. I looked up to see light shining through a metal grate. It was the first time that I had seen sunlight. It shone through the holes in the grate in thin, white slices. In that light, I spied a ladder fixed to the wall. Looking back one last time in the direction that I had come, I mustered all my courage and climbed the ladder towards the light. I had always had a heightened sense of smell, but now my nose tingled with the new wave of scents that wafted down the tunnel. Although the scent was sweet – almost fresh – I could also detect a metallic smell in the air.
I poked my fingers through the holes in the grate and felt the wind sweep over my fingers. It felt cold, just like the air in The Hollows. Gritting my teeth together, I lifted up the grate and slid it to one side. The sunlight showered my face. I closed my eyes and let it shine upon me. I stayed like that for several minutes, my head sticking up out of the hole, while the sun and wind touched my face. It felt incredible. With my heart racing, I opened my eyes and hoisted myself out of the hole. I pushed the grate back into place, then looked about me. I found myself standing in a large wooded area. The trees were similar to those in The Hollows, and they stretched up into the sky. The sky! Oh my God – the sky. I had only ever seen it in pictures and now I was actually standing beneath it. I stared upwards through the canopy of fine green leaves and drew a breath. To get a better look, I made my way through the trees until I found myself out in the open and standing on a narrow road. The sky was a pale blue and wispy clouds covered it like big white scratches. I heard from my friends that if you stared at the clouds long enough, you would see pictures in them, like faces, monsters, and all sorts of other weird stuff.
So with my head tilted back, I stood in the road and gazed up at the sky. But before any of those faces and monsters had had a chance to appear for me, there was a bellowing sound. I span around to see a car bearing down on me. I had seen cars in picture books, but nothing could have prepared me for the speed with which they travelled. Stumbling backwards, the car raced past in a streak of silver. I could smell that metallic scent again and it came from a pipe which jutted out from the back of the car. As it passed me by, the driver jabbed his middle finger into the air and screamed, “Get out of the fucking road, arsehole!”
I wasn’t too familiar with how humans greeted one another, but I got the feeling that the guy driving the car wasn’t too pleased to see me. The car disappeared into the distance, and taking more care, I headed down the road in the direction that the car had gone. I’d walked for some time, stopping every now and then when something caught my eye. There seemed to be so much to take in that my mind started to race, and I couldn’t wait to get back to The Hollows and tell my friends my own stories. But the thing that caught my imagination the most was the birds. We had flying creatures in The Hollows, I was one of them.
I knew from the stories I had been told, that unlike us, humans couldn’t fly. They wanted to – they dreamt about it all the time. So they had invented machines called aeroplanes which they sat in and travelled through the air with. Listening to these stories, I had learnt from a very young age that any Vampyrus venturing above ground should never reveal their wings to the humans.
“Remember, humans don’t like anything that is different,” my mother had often warned me, her green eyes growing wide as if she were telling me a scary bedtime story. “If they were to ever find out that winged creatures were living just beneath them, they would come in search of us.”
“But why?” I would ask her.
“Because, they don’t like
different
, Isidor. They like everyone to be the same,” she would whisper while stoking the fire. Then, looking back over her shoulder at me with the flames dancing in her eyes, she would add, “They would capture us, put us in cages, and open us up to see how we worked.”
I would often lie awake at night, my fingertips tracing the angry-looking scars that ran down the inside of my arms. Behind them hid my wings. When my wings were out, the scars disappeared, but my mother would warn me not to get them out too often as they would get stuck like that one day. And she was right, because one day, they did.
So pulling my coat about me, paranoid that some human might see my scars, I continued to follow the road. After a couple of miles or so, I came to a wooden sign that had been fixed to the trunk of a large tree.
Welcome to Lake Lure – Please drive carefully
had been stencilled across it in thick, black letters. Staring at the sign, I guessed the last part had been added for the guy who had called me an arsehole.
I pulled the collar of my coat up around my neck, thrust my hands into my pockets, and headed towards the town of Lake Lure. I wondered what stories I might find there.
Chapter Ten
Isidor
I remember seeing Melody Rose as I made my way through the town of Lake Lure. The town was a crisscross of narrow streets, and each one was lined with tired-looking shops and houses. People passed along the streets and between the narrow alleyways that separated the buildings. At first I feared that everyone would stare at me, that they would know I was different to them somehow. I was paranoid that they would stop and point at me because of those scars that ran down the length of my arms. But no one paid any attention to me at all. All of them seemed too busy and preoccupied with their own lives and daily business to even look at me.
As I crossed the main street, which seemed to cut the town in two, I heard someone shout, “Leave me alone!”
The voice was female and she sounded more frustrated than scared. I stopped on the pavement and waited to see if the girl’s voice came again. It did.
“Don’t touch me!” and this time, the owner of the voice sounded upset.
I followed the sound into a narrow alley that ran between a restaurant and clothes shop. Down one side of the alley stood several large rubbish bins. Each of them was spilling over with rotten food, which I guessed had come from the restaurant. The stench made me want to puke, so I covered my nose with my hands. It was then, as I passed the bins, that I saw Melody for the first time. There were others gathered around her, but it was Melody I saw first.
Her hair was mousey coloured and pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. On her head she wore a dark bonnet which was secured beneath her chin with a length of black cord. Her skin was pale and there was no colour to her cheeks. She wore a plain grey dress with long sleeves, and the hem hung just above a pair of uncomfortable-looking boots. Over her dress she looked to be wearing some kind of off-white coloured apron, which had a big pocket across the front, like a kangaroo pouch. From where I hid behind the rubbish bins, the girl looked to be about fourteen, the same as me.
I could see three other teenagers with her. Two of them were boys, and the other a girl. Unlike Melody, the others wore denim jeans, trainers, and T-shirts. One of the boys seemed to be keeping lookout, as he was glancing up and down the alleyway. His front teeth jutted over his bottom lip and a stream of drool swung from his chin. His hair was short and black, and had been combed into spikes on top of his head.
I watched as this boy turned to the others and said, “Hurry up!” He sounded excited and nervous all at the same time as he glanced back down the alley towards the main road.
“You don’t say much,” the other boy said to Melody as he stuck his hands into the pocket that covered Melody’s apron.
“Leave me alone,” Melody said softly, trying to pull the boy’s hand from her dress.
From my hiding place crouched behind the bins, I watched as the girl, who had blonde hair, step forward and hold Melody’s hands against the alley wall as the boy riffled through her pocket.
“I said, you don’t say much,” he said again. “Dumb, are ya?”
Melody just stared at him with a pair of pale blue eyes.
“Got nuffin’ to say for yourself?” the girl smirked, and I could see she was taking pleasure at tormenting Melody.
“‘Hurry up!” the boy keeping watch said again, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that they were still alone.
Then, as if finding the winning lottery ticket, the boy pulled something from the huge pocket on Melody’s apron and yelped, “What do we ‘ave here then?”
I peered through a gap in the bins and saw what looked like some kind of chain hanging from the boy’s fist. He taunted Melody with it by swinging it back and forth in front of her face. It was long and black and seemed to be made of beads. Attached to it was a cross.
“What’s this then?” the boy sneered, and for the first time, I could see that his forehead and cheeks were covered in sore-looking pimples.
“Oh, isn’t it pretty!” the girl mocked, releasing Melody’s hands so she could take a better look.
“It’s a necklace,” the kid with the buckteeth sniggered, spraying a stream of spit from his lips.
Holding it in front of Melody’s face, the kid with the zits snapped, “Is it worth anything?”
Melody remained silent, never taking her eyes off her tormentors. Her face was paper white and however much she tried to hide it, I could see she was scared and I could smell her fear. I’d put up with my own fair amount of shit from bullies in the past because they thought I was thick, but I had learnt not be scared of them.
“It’s one of those religious thingies!” the girl chirped up. “I think it’s some sorta good luck charm or something.”
“Oooh!” the boy with the spots smirked. “Magic, is it?” and he swung the rosary beads like a pendulum in front of Melody’s face.
Melody just stared back at him.
“Do you want it back?” he asked.
Melody nodded.
“Go on, take them,” he taunted.
I watched Melody look at the chain as it was waved before her.
“Go on, take it!” the girl urged with excitement.
Melody slowly raised her hand and reached for the chain, but spotty snatched them away. This sent the girl and the kid with the teeth rolling about in a fit of hysterics.
“You weren’t quick enough, holy-girl,” spotty teased. Then, bringing the chain within Melody’s reach again, he said, “Go on, take it.”
At first Melody didn’t react and stood staring at the boy. Without warning, Melody suddenly clawed for her chain again. But, the boy was too quick and had snatched them out of her reach. Again the girl and the idiot-looking kid fell about laughing. It was then I realised that not only did he look like a donkey with his buckteeth, but he also sounded like one as he sprayed laughter down the alley.
“You’ve got to be quicker than that!” spotty sneered, his eyes looking wild and excited.
I wanted to spring from my hiding place and tell them to leave the girl alone, but I’d only been above ground an hour or so. What did I really know about these humans? I didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention to myself.
Melody grabbed for the chain and again spotty pulled them out of her reach.
“Give it ‘ere,” donkey-boy said, reaching for the chain. “Let me put it on!”
“Get the fuck outta here!” spotty snapped. “What’s wrong with you, Barry? Are you some sorta fag?”
So donkey-boy’s name was Barry, huh?
But it was too late, Barry had taken hold of the rosary just as the other boy pulled away. The alleyway came alive with the sound of
clinking
as the chain broke and the tiny beads scattered all over the ground.
“Oh, I’m
so
sorry,” spotty smiled, looking back at Melody, who stood and watched the beads bounce and roll away down the alleyway. Her face looked ashen. Melody made a gulping sound in the back of her throat and I wasn’t sure if this was an attempt to hold back tears or to try and mask her anger.
“Look what’s happened to the pretty necklace,” the girl scoffed and again Barry began to bellow like a donkey.
Gripping hold of Melody’s hand, spotty stuffed what was left of the broken necklace into it. “You’ll forgive me, won’t you, holy-girl?” he laughed, and then slapped Melody’s cheek hard with the back of his right hand. Looking at his friends, he said, “C’mon, you two.”
I watched the three of them skulk away down the alley, making whooping noises and slapping one another across the back. All the while, Melody just stared ahead, her back flat against the wall, her hands knotted by her sides.
When they had gone, Melody bent down onto the knees of her dress and started to gather up the beads. I watched her for a moment or two, not knowing whether I should leave my hiding place or not. Would it bother her if she thought I had seen everything that had happened? Would she be embarrassed? But watching Melody silently crawl along the ground in search of the beads made me feel weird. I felt sad for her. Why? I didn’t even know her. She meant nothing to me.
Just watching the plain-looking girl in the plain-looking dress crawling around on all fours wasn’t right, and what they had done to her wasn’t right, either. So, creeping from behind the rubbish bins, I bent down on all fours and started to gather the beads. They were black in colour and about the same size as peas. Each of them was shiny and had a hole through the middle where they had been attached to the chain. I picked up all that I could find and took them to Melody, who was still on her hands and knees some way down the alleyway.