Jule
The little boy squatted by the edge of the lake until the last rays of the sun faded.When it was too dark to see clearly, Kenny tugged on their joined hands.“Come on, Jule.Time to go.”
Jule stood up without protest, glancing back once as his grandfather led him away from the little beach.They had parked by the road.By now the sun had set completely and it was hard to see anything.Jule obediently climbed into the backseat of the car while Kenny started the engine.The flood of light from the headlights was almost too bright to bear.
“Let’s get some ice cream.”Kenny turned the car towards home.In the back seat, Jule stared straight ahead.
Later, as they sat at the kitchen table with their ice cream, Jule whispered, “Why don’t they come?”
“They can’t, Jule.You know that.”
Jule turned bleak eyes towards him.
Jule was always a quiet child, but he excelled at sports.He was quick, and used to rough tumbling from his uncles.There were only boys in the house now since his grandmother had passed away—his grandfather Kenny, his two uncles, Kevin and Ian, and Jule.
They were keepers, and they taught Jule how to be a keeper too, even though he was only six.He understood about his mother and father, and why he couldn’t see them.It was something he could never tell anyone else, especially now that he was in school.It would be winter soon, and he would have a birthday soon, and another year would go by without him seeing his real parents.
Everyone expected that Jule would follow his parents when he grew up, though it was always made clear that he would make his own choice when the time came.If he chose not to follow, then he wouldn’t have to—he could remain a keeper like Kevin and Ian.
When Jule was nine, his father came to take the boy away to the log house by the lake where he had been born.But not his mother—his mother never came.Johnny Price looked a little like his uncles, but his eyes could turn very dark when he let his true aspect show.
“It’s the equinox,” Johnny said in explanation as he knelt before his son.“I’ll come every equinox until you are ready to choose.”
Jule understood.He had been brought up in the old traditions.“Blood of my blood,” he whispered, looking up into his father’s dark, dark eyes.
Johnny had already completed the blood exchange with the Browns, and his cheeks were rosy with family blood.Kenny and his sons had since gone home, with the understanding that Johnny would bring Jule back by morning.“Now you,” Johnny said softly, tearing open the skin on the underside of his wrist.“Blood of my blood.”
Jule drank, and it was good.This was the first time, the only time, he had actually tasted blood.His startled eyes met his father’s.“Will I be able to see Mother now?” he asked.
Johnny reached over and pulled Jule tight against him.“Your mother loves you,” he murmured, stroking the boy’s soft blonde hair.“She would be here if she could.But I promise you will see her one day soon.”Even as he said it, Johnny winced, becausesoonfor his kind could mean a lifetime for his son, should he choose so.But Johnny did not want to influence Jule in any way.
So he stayed a little longer, coming for Jule every evening until winter threatened to freeze over the lake.They ran through the woods, sometimes just the two of them, sometimes with Kevin and Ian at their side.For a child, Jule was fast.He outpaced his uncles on the nights they ran together, eliciting knowing looks from the two.On the nights it was just Jule and his father, Johnny advised him not to show his differences, not even to his uncles if he could help it.
Occasionally they took down an animal, deer mostly, and Jule was allowed to taste.Gone were the days when Johnny needed to kill to live, so after they all had their token taste, the deer was released.It was another lesson, and one that Jule learned quickly.Like his uncles, he enjoyed the taste, but he felt no pressing need for the blood.As for human blood, that was still strictly off limits; not even the blood exchange would be offered until the next equinox.
Johnny’s advice proved very valuable to Jule in his thirteenth year when, one day during school, he had a loose tooth.It was followed by several more, and to Jule’s surprise, he lost his entire second set of teeth.The new ones which grew in were all slightly pointed, and the ones toward the back of his jaw were sharp indeed.The overall effect was not terribly noticeable, and Jule was careful to smile with closed lips from then on.He never told Kenny or his uncles, or even his father.It was another difference that set him apart from all of them, and he didn’t understand what it meant.
Jule was the son of two blood drinkers.In all the centuries since they had kept records, that had never happened before.It bore out Johnny’s claims that blood drinkers were also human, since Jule grew up and enjoyed sunlight and meals with his human family.That Jule could be changed to be like his parents was a given.Even Kevin or Ian could be changed.But since Jule had been born, neither of them would go beneath the water now.Jule was being groomed to guide his true parents into the future, though not until he was much older.He had heard the stories of what happened to his mother, who had gone under the water too soon.It was why she couldn’t leave it very often.The water was her refuge, and it healed her body and soothed her cravings as the years went by.It could be decades, or possibly even centuries, before she would be able to control her cravings when she left the water.To some extent, the same could be said for Jule’s father.Johnny had been born in another era, however, and although necessity had forced him to go beneath the water at a very young age, there had been strict controls and plenty of blood when he was called from his rest.
So it was no surprise when his grandfather Kenny started showing Jule brochures from various colleges and universities.In high school, Jule was a good student and active in several sports, which gave him an edge when it came to choosing a college.They narrowed down the list to colleges in the northeast so that Jule could still come home for the equinoxes.Jule and Kenny spent the next couple of years visiting several campuses.
In the end, Jule chose a private university in Vermont.Part of it had been Kenny’s influence, but Jule really liked the area.It was rural enough to give him the privacy he desired, but it had an excellent reputation for education as well as sports.
Johnny took Jule to the log house for a week’s vacation before he left for college.They hunted in the evenings and lazed around during the days.Johnny stayed with Jule until the wee hours of the mornings before slipping away to rest under the waters of their lake.They looked similar in age now, Jule noted with surprise.
“I’m taking you to try human blood tonight,” Johnny told Jule the night before their last day together.“Not family blood, but you don’t need that.I think you ought to see what it’s like before you go up to Vermont.In case.”Johnny shrugged.
In case he started to get cravings.Jule understood.He’d been told how the process worked in theory.He nodded.He’d always been curious about what actual human blood might taste like.
They ran through the night, bypassing several housing developments in favor of an older section of road on the outskirts of town.There were few houses here, and those were spaced far apart.The house they chose had an old man and an old woman inside.Johnny went in first, fiddling with the doorknob until it turned under his hand.They didn’t even see him as he stood behind the sofa while they watched television.He took them both out in a matter of seconds, and then beckoned Jule over.How many times had he done this over the years, Jule wondered.
Johnny had made the cut for Jule on the woman’s shoulder and waited for his son to drink before he bent his head towards his own victim.Jule could have made the cut himself, but his father didn’t know that, and Jule wasn’t sure if he could have done it as neatly.In the end, it didn’t matter because the cut on the woman’s shoulder healed over into a red rash almost immediately.Jule had gotten a taste, no more.The point of today’s lesson was that, if necessary, he could take the blood he needed from a human being.
“Your mother was good at this,” Johnny murmured, arranging the couple comfortably on the sofa, with their heads leaning on each other, as if they’d fallen asleep.He had probably chosen them because at their age this was, indeed, what happened every evening as they watched television.“Even before she came to my life, she enjoyed going out with me to do this kind of thing.Towards the end, when the cravings became intense, her cuts started healing over on their own.Yours will too.”
Jule didn’t say anything.He just nodded.He guessed at some point he ought to try it on his own, to make sure that was the case.But not yet.He didn’t feel anything in particular when he drank blood.It tasted good to him, which he supposed proved that he was really one of them, not that he ever doubted it, but he didn’t feel any pressing need to have blood, either.Yet.
On their last day, Johnny stayed awake and watched movies and played video games with Jule all day.He interspersed the time with stories about Jule’s mother.“You look like your mom,” Johnny said at one point.“She’s seen you before, you know.When you were a baby, when you were little, before Lisa died.You don’t remember her at all?”
“A little,” Jule admitted.He remembered a slender woman with long blonde hair and arresting blue eyes.A lot of his images of her got confused with later images of Grandma Lisa, until they all blended together and he wasn’t really sure who it was he was remembering.And once Grandma Lisa was gone, even those memories faded.“I remember her holding me, smiling.”
Johnny nodded, reminiscing.“Crystal always smiled. She made friends with everyone she met, even my father—your other grandfather,” he explained.“She met him and charmed him just like she charms everyone else.I’d like for you to meet him too, one day.”
Jule had learned about his other grandfather from Kenny and his uncles.That grandfather was the grandfather of them all, but in strict descent, he was Jule’s actual grandfather as well.He was the originator of their kind, both blood drinkers and family who carried his blood in their genes.He wasn’t strictly a blood drinker himself; in fact, no one could say exactly what he was.He was a dweller in lakes, that’s all anyone could say with any certainty, but Grandpa Kenny had postulated that he might be some sort of elemental lake or water spirit.Jule asked Johnny about it.
“Something like that,” he agreed.“Whatever he is, we’re part of that, too.It’s what lets us go under the water, why the water sustains us.”Johnny stood.“I should go.”He put his arms around Jule.“I know you’ll do great at school.Enjoy this time.I’ll see you at the next equinox.”
But Jule didn’t see his father at the next equinox.He met someone.
The Vermont campus was a mixture of traditional and modern, with the emphasis on traditional.Stately brick buildings dotted the spacious walkways, and unless you specifically focused on the steel and glass additions placed discreetly off the main paths, you would think you were in a typical New England small town.Jule had his own dorm room in one of the older brick buildings.He and his grandfather had figured it was better not to have a roommate, just in case.Jule smiled to himself.In case he suddenly developed cravings for blood—or maybe in case his father decided to come visit.Apparently Johnny had been known to travel in the past.Jule didn’t think either of those scenarios would happen, however, though he was glad for the privacy.
One of the first things Jule did when he got to campus was scout out the nearby woods.He was looking for a place to run without having to be careful of how fast he was going.He found what he was looking for a little farther out, on the other side of the town that bordered his school.There was a sizeable lake, but for some reason few homes had been built around it, and except for the access road, there were no roads around it either. He realized someone must own it privately, but for his purposes, it worked perfectly.
There was a huge lake not far away, which, truth be told, was part of the reason Jule and his grandfather had chosen this school.In case, again.In case his father ever came and needed a place to sleep.In case his mother came . . . .or in case he might need it one day.None of them had realized there was a smaller lake even closer.
Jule ran now, along the edge of the lake but still within the protection of the trees which grew almost to the water’s edge in most places.There was a small beach which Jule had discovered on his first circuit and now made a point to stop each time, right before dawn.He squatted down, not quite touching the water, and gazed across the lake.It was larger than the one in Lockwood, but not in comparison to the huge lake a few miles away.Jule sighed.“Mother,” he whispered, just a breath of air.Quickly, before he talked himself out of it, he slashed his palm across his teeth and held his dripping hand over the water.“Blood of my blood,” he whispered in the old tongue.She wasn’t there.He knew that, rationally.But it made him feel better to make the offering.
His hand had healed over before he even stood up and turned back to his run.The sun would be coming up in a matter of minutes and he still had a way to go before he reached his dorm.He took two steps and stopped dead.Someone was watching him.
“Hello?I’m sorry if I’m trespassing.”Jule peered into the murky woods but he couldn’t see much more than a human-shaped shadow.“I go to school up there.”He pointed vaguely in the general direction of his college.“I like to go for an early morning run.I hope I didn’t disturb you.”
The person moved away from the trees until Jule had a good look at her.She was a young woman with dark hair and eyes.She didn’t speak, but walked slowly towards him.The sun kept pace with her and illuminated her face as she approached.She was beautiful!Jule’s breath caught, and he was about to say something inane when she touched his arm and a shock ran through him.
“What are you?” she asked, and her dark eyes pinned him in place.
She had spotted him the moment he entered her woods running lightly as a deer.She knew him for a college kid immediately; over the years, more than one college kid had stumbled upon her lake to her amusement and the kids’ eventual regret.She thought this was another one.
But he was odd.He ran at night, and he ran fast, always around the lake, and he always stopped at this very beach right before dawn.She couldn’t figure out why, until tonight.Tonight, he offered blood—to her?She didn’t think so.He had no idea this was her lake, her woods.So—to whom?And how did he even know to make the offering?As soon as she touched him, she recognized his spirit, which mirrored hers.But he was not spirit; he was flesh.The words burst out of her, unintended.What are you?
At first Jule thought she might be a blood relation.They were scattered in pockets all over the northeast, thanks to enterprising immigrants, and although they did not know the significance of their blood, they could conceivably sense others with high concentrations of the blood.Usually these distant family members’ blood was weak, so Jule shouldn’t have been able to senseheras clearly as he had.Unless she was another throwback, like his mother.
“Who are you?” he countered, taking a step back.“How do you know me?”
For answer, the young woman moved closer once more and cupped his face in her hands.A familiar tingle swept over Jule and he shivered in the cool morning air.“You dripped your blood into the lake—my lake,” she murmured, her lips not quite touching his.“I accept your offering.”
“What--?”Jule managed to gasp before her lips fastened to his and she dragged him towards the water.He struggled when he realized what she intended, and twisted his head to the side so he could get a clearer look at who held him.His eyes refused to focus. Up close, it felt like he was encased in a thick, dark blanket.He revised his initial assessment.Whatwas she?“No!” he protested.“I can’t go under the water yet!”
That gave the woman pause.She halted with both of their legs knee deep in the lake and raised her eyebrows.Yet?“Nevertheless, you offered, and I’m taking.”She pulled him deeper into the water, amused at the panic in his eyes.They all panicked at the end.One way or the other, she would find out what he really was.
Jule had never gone swimming in his own lake because he knew his parents rested there.Somehow it had felt improper to do so until it was his turn to rest beneath the water along with them.Now, it looked like he was about to drown in another lake, before he ever got the chance to make up his mind.He couldn’t move in the woman’s embrace, and after a while he didn’t want to.He opened his mouth to let the last of the air escape.He took in the water, and surprisingly, it didn’t hurt.He let the lake water fill him.
The woman sighed inwardly when the boy stopped moving.It was a pity, really. Whatever she had sensed in him was gone along with his breath.He was just like all the others.She let him go and he drifted down slowly as she watched his blonde hair fan out around his face.
He settled gently on the bottom, stirring up silt and sand, momentarily obscuring his body from her view.She left him there, an unexpected offering that the boy had certainly not intended.
Hours later, the silt at the bottom of the lake stirred, and Jule blinked.He stretched, feeling better than he had since he’d left Lockwood, in this lake which felt blood warm against his skin.He felt no need to breathe.The water filled him inside and out; it was a part of him, which he was only just beginning to understand.He hadn’t died!He’d gone under the water and not a drop of blood had been shed.At the thought of blood, he remembered the woman who had tried to drown him.What was she indeed?
He moved, stirring up more silt, and peeled off his running shoes.With the shoes in hand, he struck out for the surface, wondering what would happen when he breached this watery world.But it seemed his body knew what to do on its own, and his lungs shed the excess water so that he could take in air once more.He swam towards the beach and waded ashore, shaking water from his head.His clothes were soaked but he was alive!The woman, or whatever she was who had done this to him, was not in sight.Jule fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and sighed when it refused to turn on.Taking a moment to put his wet shoes back on, Jule headed back towards the path that would take him back to school, hoping he hadn’t missed too many classes.His brain was spinning with everything that had happened to him.He really ought to call his grandfather, but he wanted to savor the knowledge that he had gone under the water without ever completing the process Johnny had described, a process whereby he would need to lose nearly all his blood before the water would restore him as a blood-drinker.
Jule got back to school in mid-afternoon and changed before anyone noticed he was soaking wet.He made his last two classes of the day, and sat with some of his teammates from cross-country in the dining hall.He was ravenous.Another myth exploded.He wanted real food, not blood.
That night, Jule decided he ought to test that hypothesis before he ruled it out.He dressed for stealth this time, all in black, with a black knit cap to cover his bright hair.He targeted a lone house several miles away from school.Yellow light flooded through the front windows, and a television blared upstairs, though those windows were all dark.Jule waited patiently until the downstairs lights went out, and the noise from upstairs abruptly clicked off.He waited a little longer, then tried his father’s trick with the front door.To his surprise, it opened immediately.Either these people never bothered to lock their doors, or Jule could do the trick too.It didn’t really matter, he supposed, as long as he could get in.He slipped up the stairs and chose a bedroom whose door was slightly ajar.No sense tempting fate twice.
The kid in the bed never woke up when Jule stood over him, realizing he’d have to make the cut himself.Jule bent down and bit at the join of shoulder and neck, making a perfectly round mark.The boy jerked suddenly, but Jule was already drawing blood into his mouth, and the boy settled back into an uneasy sleep.Jule wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring down as the sharp circle of red pinpricks faded into a jumbled rash.He grinned.The blood warmed his belly but at no point had he felt any urgent need to tear out the boy’s throat.Jule counted that as a win.
Now, on to the next order of business.Jule ran through the night back to the lake where he was supposed to have drowned.He had plenty of energy from his double dinner, and from the lake itself.It was time to find out what had happened to him.
He stalked over to the water, viciously slashed his hand with his teeth and squeezed his fist to let his blood drip into the lake.“Blood of my blood,” he muttered in the old language, then waited.When nothing happened, he shouted, “Come out! I want to talk to you!”
The lake’s surface bubbled as the young woman from the other night rose from the water stark naked.Jule hadn’t considered that.His eyes widened, but so did hers when she recognized him.Jule decided to ignore her nudity in favor of finding out the truth.He confronted her.“What did you do to me?” he demanded.
The woman kept on coming.Water beaded off her as she left the lake.Her eyes were as dark as his father’s ever were.“How are you here?” she murmured, touching his face with her fingertips.
“That’s what I want to know,” Jule answered, looking directly into her dark eyes to avoid looking elsewhere.“I was told—I thought I had to lose almost all my blood and be on the brink of death before—the change,” he managed to get out.“But you just took me under the lake and I—I changed!How?”
Before he could react, the woman tackled him and knocked him to the ground.“Let’s find out,” she breathed.
She meant to drag him into the lake again.Jule wasn’t wholly against the idea, but he wanted it on his terms—and he wanted answers.His night under the water, coupled with the blood he took earlier, gave him strength.He rolled over, pinning her body under his.For a brief moment, the woman appeared startled.Then her body began to shift, becoming more shadow than substance, and she wrapped those shadow limbs around Jule’s torso.“I don’t think so,” Jule muttered.He managed to free one arm, and he bit his palm, which had healed over already.He held his dripping fist over her lips.“Blood of my blood,” he said once more in the old language, offering—but on his terms.
She stilled, and her form solidified into that of a young woman again.She licked the blood from her lips.“Yes, it is,” she murmured in English.“But how?”She wriggled so Jule would let her up.She turned his palm over to see for herself there was no mark.“Youareone of mine.”
“Are you the spirit of this lake?Did you know this would happen?”
“I’m a water spirit, if that’s what you mean,” the young woman replied.“I’ll ask again—what areyou?”
Jule shrugged.“I don’t know for sure.Part water spirit, I guess, since I didn’t die.”
“You can call me Audrey.”She reached over and gently pried his lips open so she could touch his teeth.She grinned, showing her own matching set of teeth.“And you are?”
Jule answered, “Jule.Jule Price.My parents are blood-drinkers.They both rest under a lake.I was supposed to join them some day if I chose their lifestyle.There’s blood involved—lots of blood.I didn’t think it would be this easy.You didn’t even drain my blood.”
Audrey was surprised into silence.She had heard of blood-drinkers, surely.Long ago, one of her kind had infused a human with his blood when he was in physical form, and lay with her as humans do.Their offspring could only survive by going under the water or by drinking blood.She had heard they had mostly died out, that humans with their blood were weak and on the verge of extinction.Apparently that was incorrect.“You’re not a blood-drinker,” she said, just to clarify.
“No, not yet, maybe not ever,” Jule said, frowning.“Did you try to drown me last night?”
“But you like blood.”Audrey ignored his question.
Jule shrugged.“Yeah.”
“Well, Jule Price, I don’t know why you survived but I do know what you need to do to find out if you are more water spirit than blood-drinker.Come with me under the lake.”
Jule had figured it would come to this.He nodded, then took off his shoes and socks before he stood up, holding out a hand to Audrey.“Let’s do this.”
Audrey smiled.“Not like that,” she said, placing her hands on his chest.“Why ruin your clothes?”She tugged his shirt over his head.“No one will find them here,” she assured Jule.
There was precedent.On the equinoxes, his grandfather and uncles would wait at the little beach for Johnny with a new white bathrobe.They would have done it for him, too, if he had chosen his parents’ way of life.Jule chuckled.He supposed he had, after all.
Naked, hand in hand, they walked into the lake, and as they went under, Jule let out his breath so he could breathe in the water instead.This time, he remained awake and aware of the being beside him.They exchanged glances, and this time when Audrey wrapped her arms around him, they felt like arms, and Jule let her lead their slow descent to the bottom of the lake.His eyes drifted closed and he slept in Audrey’s arms, wondering if that’s how his parents slept beneath their lake in Lockwood.
When Jule awoke, Audrey was still with him.He basked in the feeling for a little while.The lake was blood warm to his senses, and he felt no need for breath.Audrey stirred, opening her eyes inches from his face.She grinned, and with a twist propelled them both to the surface.
“You’re still alive,” she said as they walked up the beach to where Jule had left his clothes.“That’s good.”
Jule got dressed quickly, aware that Audrey was watching him the whole time.She was still quite naked, which made sense if she was the spirit of this lake, but the first time Jule had seen her, Audrey had been wearing clothes.He asked her about it.
“I have a house.Close by.For when I want to entertain.”Audrey grinned at Jule’s astonishment.“I hardly ever take a life that isn’t freely offered.I’m kidding.” she added at the look of horror on Jule’s face.“I thought you came from a line of blood-drinkers.”
“I do—I haven’t—“ Jule stammered.“Will I need to—take lives?”
“Why would you?None of usneedto take life or blood.But we surely like it.”Audrey grinned again.
“Will I need to go under the lake now that I’ve—changed?”Jule asked.
“Did you?Did you change?I’m not so sure,” Audrey replied.“You’ll know in time if you must go under the water, but long before that, you’ll want to go under the water.It is where you belong.”
Jule pondered that for a while, uncomfortably aware of Audrey in the sunlight.“Look, I really do have to get to class.Can I see you later?Tonight, maybe?I’d like to talk to you about all this.”
“I will come to your campus,” Audrey agreed, smiling wryly.She hadn’t missed his sidelong glances.“At five.I’ll meet you in front of the library.Be ready.”
A little taken aback by her matter of fact response, and that she knew where the library was, Jule just nodded.He headed back to campus, hoping he wasn’t making a bad impression on his teachers so early in the term.
At five, Audrey roared up in a red convertible much to Jule’s surprise.He shouldn’t have been that surprised.His father drove, after all.Jule slid into the passenger street, ignoring envious stares from his fellow students.He had skipped dinner at the dining hall and now was ravenously hungry again.“Do you eat?” he asked, feeling foolish.
Audrey’s eyes twinkled.“What did you have in mind?”In the meantime, she drove down the road at breakneck speed towards the small town that supported Jule’s college as well as a few other nearby schools.
“Pizza?”
Audrey pulled up in front of a tiny restaurant.Jule could see red checkered tablecloths on the tables in the front window.They ordered pizza, salad and iced tea.“What else do you want to know?” Audrey asked softly, once their food was served.There were not very many other people in the restaurant since it was off season, but she kept her voice low all the same.
“Now that I’ve gone under the water, does that mean I will stop ageing?Am I going to stay this way forever?”If he had chosen his father’s life, that was what would have happened.
Audrey gestured at his body.“I certainly hope so,” she said appreciatively.“The part of you that is like me does not change.”
“I never met a water spirit before,” Jule said.“Not even my grandfather, who is one.”
“Your grandfather.”That explained a great deal.The water spirit who had given life to the first blood-drinkers and all that came afterward was grandfather to this one, whose parents both were blood-drinkers.Both would have been partly water spirits themselves, though human enough to need blood unless they were beneath the water.But their son, this remarkable boy, had apparently received the lion’s share of that aspect.Jule was a water spirit for all that he had a human body.Audrey wondered if he could shed that at will if he tried, too.
“I know of him,” she said.“We are all aware of each other.You felt it, too, when we met.”
“The tingling?All the people who share our blood feel it, even though most don’t realize what it is.”
“Ah, but I don’t share your blood, do I?I share the spark in you that is water.I must admit, I’m astonished you even exist.Intrigued.”She reached over and gently removed the last piece of pizza from Jule’s hands and took a bite.“So very human.But not.”
“Does that mean I won’t become a blood-drinker?” Jule asked.
Audrey shrugged.“I think you don’t need either-or, like your parents.You can choose both, or neither.I think.But I think you’ll choose the water.It is your heritage.”She signaled for the check.“You don’t have to do anything right away.”
Jule let out a frustrated sigh.“I don’t know what any of that means.”He pulled out his wallet, but Audrey waved it away.
“Go to school.Make friends.Drink blood.Eat good food.Have fun.Come to me in the between time.I like you, Jule.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond, but got in her car.Jule followed.She drove him back to his dorm, and waved as she drove away, leaving him speechless and a little overwhelmed.
Jule went back to the lake that weekend, and although he didn’t see Audrey, he sensed her presence and knew he was welcomed.He spent all weekend under the water.The next weekend, Audrey picked him up from campus again and they drove to the other lake, the big one that spanned two states.She got them a hotel room but they didn’t sleep in it.Audrey brought him under the lake, and while it was different, it was also the same.
Jule was so caught up in his discoveries with Audrey that he lost track of time and almost missed the equinox in late September.With everything that had happened, he didn’t feel that he could go home and complete the blood ritual.He no longer needed it, though he was at a loss about how to explain it to his relatives, especially his father.He called Grandpa Kenny a few days before the actual equinox.
He told him he had a big test and couldn’t possibly get away, but his grandfather read between the lines and asked him point blank if he had a girlfriend or something.
“I met someone,” Jule admitted.“But that’s not why—“
“Johnny isn’t going to like this,” Kenny warned.“Or have you made your decision already?Have you decided not to go through with the change?”
Jule almost choked at how accurate his grandfather’s question was.Stifling a reactive laugh, he replied, “Oh I want to go under the water now more than ever.”
Promising to smooth things over with his father, Kenny let Jule go with the admonishment that he should bring his new girlfriend home to meet the family next time.
But for the next few months, Jule did not come home, even over the semester break in December.Instead, he stayed with Audrey and spent time under several of the lakes in the area.Audrey had been right—the water made him feel whole in a way that nothing else ever had.Even when the lakes froze over, he felt no cold under the surface.
For a spirit, Audrey was easy to talk to, and Jule saw little evidence of her ethereal nature beyond sleeping under lakes.She kept her human body; she even kept her clothes on when they weren’t under the water.“I like people,” she explained.“I’ve stayed in this area quite a while because I like it here.And the occasional sacrifice doesn’t go to waste.”Her eyes twinkled when she said things like that, and Jule wasn’t sure whether she was being truthful or just teasing him.
“So before here you lived in other places?”
“I am water,” Audrey replied, as if that were an answer.Jule didn’t press her on it.
Audrey took him to her house, which was up on a cliff.It looked very expensive, but Jule knew better than to ask her how she paid for such things.Just like her lake and her woods far below, it seemed to escape the senses of most people unless Audrey wished otherwise.
She also took him hunting and marveled at his silence and speed, which matched her own.Jule was definitely not “part” anything but wholly himself.They stuck to the woods mostly, but Jule surprised her by taking her to the local shopping center and showing her some of his dad’s tricks for obtaining blood in plain sight.Neither of them particularly needed it, but it was fun!Audrey refrained from telling him that if they were discovered, they would have to kill their chosen victims.Possibly Jule knew this, but somehow she didn’t think so.
Jule kissed Audrey for the first time at the downtown Christmas celebration in December, startling her for an instant before she kissed him back.Things progressed rather quickly after that, and they ended up back at Audrey’s place.“I – I think I love you,” Jule blurted out, reddening when Audrey gave a tinkling laugh.
“Have you been with so many girls, Jule?” she asked him, knowing the answer.“I like you—all of you.”She smiled gently.“Let’s just leave it at that for now, okay?”
It wasn’t okay, but Jule didn’t say so.Audrey was wrong.He did love her, even though he hardly knew her.How could she think he would want anyone else?But he smiled back, rolling onto his side so he could see her better.She was exquisite, dark hair spilling over the pillow, human in all the right ways, yet something more.“I can do that,” he murmured, snuggling closer.
The next equinox was in March.Jule knew he should go home to face his father, but he didn’t want to leave Audrey.“Come with me,” he urged her.“You can meet them all—my relatives and my father.My—mother—she doesn’t leave the lake,” he explained.“But maybe, if you go under the water there, you can—I can—“Jule trailed off.He wanted to see his mother very badly, but it felt like he was asking Audrey to—what?
Audrey put her hand on Jule’s arm.“No, Jule.”She kissed him gently.“This is for you to do.”
“But—“
Audrey was adamant.She wouldn’t go with him to Lockwood.They weren’t dating.She wasn’t what his parents were, even though the blood drinkers had a spark of what she was within them.Jule was closer to what she was.
Jule reluctantly planned to leave without Audrey in a few weeks.In the meantime, he had a makeup test to complete and several classes he had to get to.He had been missing not only classes but also practices for a while now.He owed it to himself and to his family to figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his possibly very long life.
Two days before the equinox, Jule was walking out of the gym with a bunch of his cross-country teammates after a pick-up basketball game.He planned to shower and head over to the dining hall before it closed, then maybe go to the lake to see Audrey before he left for Lockwood in the morning.It felt like she was avoiding him, but maybe she just wanted to give him space.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted two figures standing at the end of the parking lot next to a car with out of state plates.They were both bundled up in hats and coats, though it was warm for March.Jule stopped.He recognized the car.He signaled to his friends to go on ahead, and he walked over to the car.Was that--?“Dad?”
Johnny stepped out of the shadow made by his car and the waning sunlight, his arm firmly around the second person’s waist.Jule’s heart hammered as he took in the long, silver blonde hair so like his own when the woman removed her wide-brimmed hat.He slammed to his knees, regardless of who might be watching, and held his crossed palms above his head.
“None of that,” Johnny admonished, suddenly there beside him.He raised Jule up by his elbow.“We’re family.Now, isn’t there somewhere more comfortable we can go?”
Glancing at his mother, who had remained standing by the car where Johnny had left her, Jule nodded.“My dorm room.This way.”He led the way across campus, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, although the sun was nearly set.His mind was spinning frantically.Why had they come?He had told Grandpa Kenny that he would be home tomorrow.Why hadshecome?How was it even possible?
“Mo-ther.”Jule’s voice cracked on the last syllable.He knelt on the floor in his cramped room and once more raised his hands.“Blood of my blood,” he spoke the offering even as Johnny came to stand protectively by Crystal.Without her heavy coat, she looked thin, too thin and too pale, but so very beautiful to Jule’s eyes.
Crystal’s gaze never left Jule’s face as she brushed one sharp tooth over his palm and sipped almost delicately until the cut healed over seconds later.“Mine,” she murmured.“Both of you.” She turned to smile at Johnny.“My boys.”
“She couldn’t wait,” Johnny explained.“We drove right here so we could catch you before you left.She—I’ll let her explain herself.Crystal?”
Crystal patted the bed next to her and Jule sat down as she took both his hands in hers.“I didn’t want you to go through with the blood exchange on the equinox, and I knew if you came all the way home, you would feel obligated to follow through.I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”She squeezed his hands.“I missed so much of your life.I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”
“That’s not it at all,” Jule protested.“Are you—all right?”
Johnny shook his head.“She will be,” he said.“She wanted this.”
“I wanted to see you,” Crystal explained.“You’re so grown-up already.”She stroked his silky blonde hair.“I remember it being curly when you were a baby.”
Jule smiled broadly.“I guess I outgrew the curls.I missed you too.”
Crystal stilled, her eyes going wide, and she tentatively reached up to touch his jaw.“Your teeth,” she murmured.“When--?”
“A long time ago,” Jule replied.“When I was still a kid.”Jule’s teeth were all slightly sharp, nothing noticeable except when he smiled.Johnny came over and Jule obligingly opened his mouth.“We think it’s because of the blood I got from both of you.”
“We?” Johnny asked sharply.
“Ah . . . Audrey and me.”Jule wondered if Kenny had ever mentioned that Jule had a girlfriend.
“She knows about us?”
“Well, yes, you see—“
Crystal put a hand on Johnny’s arm.His eyes had darkened dangerously.
“I was going to bring her to Lockwood but she didn’t want to go.I was going to tell you what happened.”
“Where is she?”Johnny’s voice came out as a low growl.
“Audrey?At the lake, I suppose.She lives there most of the time.”
“Then let’s go find her now.Andintroduceourselves.”
“You don’t understand,” Jule began.“Audrey’s—“
Johnny whirled around.“Your mother can’t last much longer.We need to gonow.”
“I’m fine,” Crystal murmured.“Jule made the offering.That should tide me over until we find something else.”
Something else—either blood, or a lake to rest beneath.“I’m sure Audrey won’t mind if you stay under her lake.”
Johnny gave him an incredulous look, and Jule gave up trying to explain.They would find out soon enough, in any case.He led them through the woods to Audrey’s secret lake.
“Mother, do you need blood?”She was pale and trembling at the edge of the lake.
Crystal shook her head.“The water will do,” she said.“But where is your—Audrey?I would like to meet her.I’m still in control, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
It was, but not for the reason she thought.His mother couldn’t hurt Audrey.He was hoping Audrey would see him and meet them on the beach like she had the first time he had met her, but she was not there.Jule sighed and slashed his palm so he could squeeze his blood into the water.He hoped she would come to him at all.
Johnny and Crystal stared at him.“What are you doing?” Johnny asked.
“Calling Audrey.But she might be mad at me and won’t come.”Jule shrugged.
“She’s one of us?”
The water bubbled as a dark shadow became a young woman.“No.I am not a blood-drinker.”Audrey stepped onto the beach.She bypassed both Johnny and Crystal, and put her arms around Jule.She whispered in his ear, “I’m about to do something you will not like.Trust me.Don’t move from this spot no matter what happens.”Softly she kissed his cheek.“We’ll talk later.”
“Audrey, wait.”Jule half reached for her but she was already gone, no longer a young woman but an amorphous darkness that flowed across the beach towards his parents.Heknewshe wasn’t mortal, but to see it happen was disconcerting.
“What have you done?” Audrey said ominously, appearing in front of them in human form once more.
Both his parents fell to their knees, shocking Jule.“Blood of my blood,” they said in the old language.Jule hadn’t thought they needed to do the offering, considering what they themselves were.But obviously he was wrong.
Audrey disregarded their raised hands.“I prefer to speak English,” she told them.“That language is not one I choose to use, and certainly not in the ritualized form perpetrated by your forbear.We are water, he and I, the same and yet not.I know what you are, what he did to create you.What I’m asking is what haveyou twodone to create—that?”She gestured towards Jule.“Do you even know what you have created?”
Crystal coolly replied, “We loved.Jule was born of love.That’s what we did.”Her shaking limbs betrayed her, and she leaned back against Johnny, who glared defiantly at Audrey.
Jule was horrified at what Audrey had implied, that he was some kind of freak, but he didn’t like her attacking his mother, whom he had just got back.He wanted to go to her, he wanted to yell at Audrey, but she had asked him to trust her, so he stayed where he was.
“Then you don’t know.You were both blood drinkers when you made him.He was born mortal from two souls who neither one is quite mortal.What do you think happened?He is not one of you.Nor can he choose a mortal lifespan, as you had imagined.He iswater.Do you understand?”
Jule felt as if his legs were frozen.He sank down on the wet sand, not sure he understood what Audrey was saying either.Both his parents turned to stare at him, identically still.Slowly Johnny shook his head.“He is human.He can still change his mind.”He glanced at Crystal, who had started shaking in earnest.“She needs blood—or rest.”
Suddenly Audrey swirled into her shadowy form, tiny dark droplets against the dark sky, and rather than rushing towards Johnny and Crystal she flowed into Jule, swallowing him whole.Crystal cried out, but it was too late—in seconds, the water spirit had surrounded Jule and dragged him, clothes and all, into the lake.
Johnny plunged into the lake after Jule, but it was as if his son had disappeared.He returned to Crystal, who huddled on the shore, too weak to do much more than sob brokenheartedly.It chilled him to realize he might lose them both this night.He led Crystal back towards the trees and settled her against a wide trunk.He ripped his wrist and gave her blood.“Rest,” he said softly.“I’ll get him back.”
He couldn’t risk taking Crystal under the water now.Who knew what the vindictive water spirit would do to her?He didn’t care about himself.Roughly he pulled off his outer clothing and stalked back into the water.Time.They had lost so much time with Jule, with each other, and with the human family who loved them all because of a need for blood.If only they had stayed under the lake for a century or two—but then they wouldn’t have had Jule and Crystal would have lost everyone she ever loved.It was too late already.Johnny knew that.Too much time had passed since the water spirit had taken Jule under the water.He couldn’t have survived.Johnny, who had lived alone longer than he cared to remember, had no desire to live alone again.Towards dawn, he trudged back up the beach.
Crystal sat cradled in the water spirit’s—Audrey’s—arms, still against the tree where Johnny had left her to rest.She had her face buried in Audrey’s neck.Audrey looked up at Johnny and smiled wryly.
In an instant, Johnny was beside them.He wanted to rip Crystal from Audrey’s arms, but Crystal looked—better.Audrey’s blood was healing her.He clenched his hands.“Why?” he growled.“Why did you do it?He was ourson!”
“You needed to understand.”Gently, Audrey lowered Crystal back against the tree trunk and stood to face Johnny.“Jule ismine.”Her eyes glanced behind Johnny at the lake.The water had begun to bubble and froth.Johnny turned just as Jule burst from the water, soaking wet, his blue eyes dark and narrowed.
“Audrey!” Jule bellowed.“That was a dirty trick!”
When Audrey pulled Jule deep into the center of the lake she had been in her spirit form, and she remained in that form as she carried him to the far side of the lake and pinned him there with a huge rock.It wouldn’t kill him since he couldn’t drown, but it would hold him until either he figured out how to remove it, or she released him.Jule felt her all through his body, little pinpricks of energy that he recognized as Audrey.In any other circumstance, he would have welcomed the sensation, but worry about his parents made him frantic, even more so when the pinpricks of energy left him there.He struggled to move the rock, but it wouldn’t budge.He must have struggled for hours.His mind drifted, and he hoped his parents were both okay.He really wanted to see his mother.It had been so long . . . .
Jule abruptly found himself on the other side of the rock with no recollection of how he had gotten there, but he wasn’t about to waste time wondering.He streaked across the lake faster than he had ever managed before until he got to the little beach where he had left his parents.He stalked up the sand and saw Audrey confronting his father, and lost his temper, bellowing across the beach at Audrey.
She grinned and ran to throw her arms around him, catching Jule off guard.“You did it!I knew you would!”She kissed him, and took his arm to lead him back to his parents.To Johnny, she said, “I told you—he’s mine.”
Crystal now stood beside Johnny as they both stared in shock at their son.“Jule, you are able to go under the lake now—without the blood sacrifice?”
“I tried to tell you.Yes, I’ve been going under the lake ever since I met Audrey.She tried to drown me the first night we met, but it didn’t work, so here we are.Mom, Dad, this is Audrey, my girlfriend.”
Audrey punched his arm, gently.“I’m not your girlfriend,” she said.
“She tried to drown you?”Johnny asked.
“Well, yeah.I—sort of—gave her the blood offering, but then she wanted the whole thing.”Jule gave Audrey a quick squeeze.“I guess she’s got me now.”
“I’m not your girlfriend,” Audrey repeated.“But I’ll keep you for now.”
Jule smiled indulgently.“Whatever you say.”
Johnny had some questions, which Audrey tried to answer as the sun came up.Yes, Jule could survive without blood, though they both liked it on occasion.Yes, he could still eat ordinary food.They weren’t sure if he would continue to age out of the water, but Audrey didn’t think so.She didn’t tell them that Jule had figured out how to transform his physical body into spirit form.She wanted to have that conversation with Jule first, but there was time.
As the sun’s rays stretched across the small beach, all four of them walked slowly into the water to sleep away the day.It was the day of the equinox, at last, and all things were even on the equinox:spirit, flesh, time.Especially time.
.
