The music surrounded and suffused Miles, his heart thumping to the songs’ beat and every note becoming a cell in his body. His muse pirouetted through Miles’s head in a cascade of colors and shapes. This should have made him dizzy, but instead it vanquished his troublesome headache.
And then a new wonder: the clothing and hairstyles of the relatives and friends around him began to flicker. One moment a cousin would be standing in an REI parka and Slytherin scarf, and the next she’d be dressed like Grandma in a warm knitted hat and a wool cloak with thick fur trim. Then she’d be back to her nylon and polyester. Her husband momentarily wore a colorful woven poncho and felt hat. Some people flashed between several outfits, none of them modern. And a few people—Kitteeshaans, Miles thought—briefly became nothing more than pillars of glowing light.
He wasn’t frightened by this, and he didn’t doubt his sanity. It was simply beautiful, like the music and the fire and the star-speckled firmament. Miles laughed as he sang.
Intuiting a movement overhead, he looked up. He thought a shadow sailed across the sky. Too big for a bird, too close and silent for an airplane. Long and narrow—like a canoe. He momentarily heard rhythmic chanting in French.
Still too hot, he skimmed out of his jeans and abandoned them, now wearing nothing but a pair of cheap boxer briefs that had barely withstood the repeated onslaughts of the laundromat.
Maybe he would have removed those as well, but another movement caught his attention, this one more earthbound. Someone as scantily clad as Miles was standing next to him, joining him note for note. Remy.
In the flicker of flame and shadow, he looked otherworldly, ethereal. Every one of his hundred-plus years showed on him like rings on a tree, making him appear stronger and statelier than any of the people around them. Tiny green leaves, sharp-tipped, peeked through his raven’s-wing hair, along with a few crimson berries. He stared at Miles in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to see him there. Or as though he saw something new.
The song ended. Instead of a new one beginning, Grandma’s voice carried over the lawn, urging everyone to feast. The crowd reacted with cheers and a surge toward the tables, where Miles knew everyone would eat more than they would have believed possible. After that, some people would start to trickle away—mostly the elderly and parents with young children. But the rest would stay to drink and sing some more, continuing until well past midnight, when the bonfire’s coals would be doused and people would head to their beds, often in pairs, sated and happy and smelling of smoke.
Remy didn’t join the migration toward the food since he couldn’t eat any of it. And although Miles could eat—and really should—he remained with him. They stared at each other and, as if something had been decided, moved slightly away from the crowd and closer to the woods.
Miles hadn’t planned to ask anything, so he was surprised by the words that tumbled from his mouth. “What was it like to wake up a vampire?”
Narrowing his eyes as if expecting a trick, Remy gave a small shrug. “Terrifying. I didn’t know what I had become. I’d never heard of vampires. Bram Stoker didn’t write Dracula until ten years later, and besides, I couldn’t read. I don’t know if Bela Lugosi was even born yet. There were no films at all—certainly not Nosferatu.”
Miles let out a long breath. “What did you do?”
“I hunted, there in the forest.” Remy lifted his chin to point. “I learned very quickly that sunlight burned, so during the day I hid under piles of earth and branches. Eventually I came to the Castle and cowered in the basement. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You were afraid—”
“Of the monster I’d become.”
That fear echoed inside Miles. While he’d never been transformed into a vampire, he’d had to face the person he’d become after years of drinking and drugs, and he’d been shocked and horrified by what he’d seen.
Remy straightened his shoulders. “Mr. Thorsen found me, hiding among the cobwebs and the previous summer’s jars of fruit. He wasn’t… he wasn’t disgusted. He didn’t hate me. He listened to my tale and brought me bedding so I’d be comfortable. Without judgment, he brought me blood from a slaughtered steer, which was the only food I desired. Kept me safe while he spent months researching, trying to find out what I was. And after he told me I’d become a vampire and what that meant, he urged me to stay in his home. Mrs. Thorsen taught me to read and write, and they both helped me find ways to earn my keep.”
Miles found himself nodding. This family had always been like that: assuming the best of everyone. Judging people by their actions rather than by labels. Finding loving ways to give support and help people find their own strengths.
The Thorsens were undoubtedly a bit odd… well, more than a bit. But there was no fault in that.
There were so many things Miles wanted—needed—right now, but the words for those longings, the true shape of them, escaped him. It was like trying to capture a cloud.
He knew, however, that he wanted Remy. Always had, in some way or another, since the very first time he’d raised his head from his adolescent angst and noticed Remy standing there, beautiful and bittersweet. He remembered the kind of inner peace he’d experienced only when walking with Remy through the woods and the sense of watchful care that bathed him when they sat together in the tower. He remembered how much he’d enjoyed simply sharing Remy’s company while they watched TV or sat among the Thorsens in the parlor. And God, he remembered the feel of that taut cool body against his, the feral taste of Remy’s mouth, the thrill of pricking his tongue on a fang, the way Remy’s hair would hang over him like a black silk curtain.
He also remembered, with an almost unbearable pang, that Remy had turned him away.
Miles spun on one foot to leave, but Remy caught his arm. “Did you get a new tattoo today?”
“What? Of course not.”
“Look.”
Following Remy’s gaze, Miles glanced down at his own belly.
A tree trunk, sketchily but skillfully outlined in brown, rose up from beneath the waistband of his underwear and continued up the center of his torso. At his sternum, it formed branches: one running down each arm and others reaching toward his collarbone and neck. He couldn’t see what happened to them past that point.
“On your back too,” Remy said quietly.
Miles shook his head, feeling dizzy, and then shook it again when he saw that the few stray leaves that had sprouted earlier from Remy’s head were now a lush encircling crown of holly.
“What’s happening?” But he knew the answer to that, knew deep inside, with as much certainty as he’d ever had about anything. They were… becoming. Solstice was a pivot point in the year, a time of change.
The branches on Mile’s body grew and twined, twisting around his existing tattoos. No longer mere outlines, the tree bark was now a warm brown. Then leaves began to sprout: tiny buds at first, they quickly became lush and green. Oak leaves. Miles felt all of this, but it didn’t hurt. If anything, the sensation was pleasant, like when a stiff joint pops loose.
Miles’s skin glowed, warm and yellow, so that everything near him seemed bathed in daylight. And his damnably itchy head made a disturbing cracking noise as two large antlers sprang forth.