The Knight Of The Rose by A. M. Hudson Page B

began to submit to grief, but then he froze as
    the deathly figure beneath him groaned. “Aunty!” He sat up and held his breath. “Aunty!”
    “Da-v-id—” She moved her hand to reach for him, her soft gaze suddenly slipping past him
    to a white look of terror, t hen, like a tidal wave preparing itself for slaughter, the silence drew in
    around them, then cracked apart like a shattering vile of terror when the woman clutched her hands
    to her belly and rolled upward, screeching for all the pain Hell could summon.
    “Aunty? What can I do?” The boy’s red face streaked with tears, and his voice trembled with
    helplessness. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
    “Save him! Save my baby!” She r olled away, covering her stomach i n a tight, protecti ve
    embrace.
    The memory faded out to white dots around the edges of the film, and the birds in the tree
    above us sang a melody I had no mind for a moment ago, but was completely aware of.
    I lifted my eyelids, blinking against the grey day, and turned my head to look at David—the
    grown up David. “You found her?”
    “I delivered her baby.”
    I drew a quick breath and covered my mouth. “But you were just a child. How did you…?”
    “I—” he swallowed a hard lump, “I was simply there to hold the child as she was born. I did
    little else, and there was nothing I could do to help my aunt.” His fists clenched. “No one came to the
    sound of her screaming. No one called for a doctor. She was a woman scorned for her si ns, and they
    let her die like a dog.” Hi s lip stiffened and anger flooded hi s voice, a kind of anger I ’d never, ever
    seen in him. “I wrapped the child in my jacket and cradled her against me, where I laid in the arms of
    my cold aunt as the night descended around us.
    “When I heard footsteps on the porch outside, I was numb— completely numb. I simply stood,
    held the baby out to my uncle as he burst through the door, and told him “I lost her.”
    “Arthur took the child from my arms and, though I was only a boy a nd knew nothing of the
    world, I saw a piece of his soul die when he closed the lids on his stillborn child and covered her face
    delicately with my jacket.

    “What my uncl e lost that night I will never truly understand, and at the time, I thought
    nothing of the fact that he fell to the floor beside Arietta, with his child crushed against his chest, and
    laid there until the dawn.
    “Only now do I see it for the madness it stirred within him.”
    “Did he ever recover?”
    “ Can someone recover from that?” David asked rhetorically. “He went on wi th normal life,
    like any wise vampire on the World council woul
    d, but he never spoke of her. Even now, t
    he
    mention of children sends his eyes soulless.” David reached over and wiped a warm tear from my
    cheek, then smiled softly. “The police came; they took Victor and charged him with aggr avated
    assault. He was jailed for a mo
    nth, then released with a warn ing, since the evidence was
    inconclusive.”
    “That’s it? He killed her and he got a month?” I almost rocketed forward in protest.
    David nodded and clapped his hands together, le tting his elbows fall loosely over his knees.
    “And life went on. Uncle Ar thur left town for a while, pr omising to return when he had made
    arrangements for Jason and I.” He brushed his pa lm across the headstone behind him and nodded
    toward it. “We buri ed her on a warm spring day, with her baby in her arms, where she will lay
    evermore.”
    “David, that’s so sad,” I whispered, feeling the rise of little bumps over my cold skin.
    “Hers has been a loss I have never moved past.” He inclined his head to his position on her
    grave. “And this is where I’ll sit one day, feeling the grief for another I once loved—with no hope of
    ever holding her again. Only…the na me will read a different story; it will be one of true love, of
    tragic loss and eternal sadness.” He looked down at the