William by Claire Cray Page A

nervous this evening as I was. There
were fissures, however slight, in his composure. And having
realized it, I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at him, for I
couldn’t un-see the vague look of concentration on his face, as
though I’d called upon him to answer a series of riddles, and he
was trying to puzzle them out.
    It was profoundly endearing. The more I
thought about it, the more touched I was. For, as Theo had told me
back in New York, this was a change for Merrick, too. For nearly
three hundred years on this earth he had resisted the prospect of
taking on a companion like me. Even during the natural phase in
which his instincts compelled him to do so, he had resisted it.
Even when he’d chosen me—or his thirst had chosen me, to use the
terms he’d laid out earlier—and the impulse became irresistible, he
had resisted. God only knew when I’d understand why, but he had
resisted. So much for his efforts.
    “Were you always so solitary, Merrick?” I
asked suddenly.
    “More or less.”
    “What about Theo? You were friends at some
point, weren’t you?” When he failed to answer, I looked at him and
found his expression had darkened as profoundly as it always did
whenever I raised the issue of the French vampire, as I had
consequently learned not to do.
    “Let’s not speak of Theo,” Merrick said at
length. “Not this evening.”
    I raised my eyebrows. For whatever reason, I
had expected Merrick’s grudge against Theo to fade once the
business was done. “All right.”
    “As for your question, I’ve lived differently
at times. But I’ve never been like you. Before I was turned, I
lived in a monastery.”
    “Of course you did!” I exclaimed, snapping my
fingers.
    “I was a layman,” Merrick laughed, shaking
his head. “Not a monk.”
    “Good God!” My excitement turned to dismay.
“I have so much to learn about you—I feel like I’ll never get to
the bottom of it.”
    "Well, you might give us more than..."
Merrick glanced up at the night sky. "...two hours, before you lose
heart."
    Of course. I looked down sheepishly. Of
course I could not demand all the answers at once. If a mountain of
mystery remained, it would not be scaled in mere moments. "You're
right. We do have ample time."
    Merrick reached over to tuck my hair behind
my ear. He had always been a master of those brief, intimate
gestures, which caught me unaware and drew me toward him like a
fish on a line. "Come," he said, putting a brotherly hand to my
shoulder. "Let's walk along the Common."
    We went in silence for several minutes,
turning down the impressive tree-lined path along the edge of the
Common, and I was surprised by a memory that captured my attention
as I gazed into the dark shadows of the public green. It was one of
my earliest memories, from just after my father died. I was
corralled behind the bar at one of the inns where my mother worked,
listening to a group of men on the other side. They were debating
when the gallows went up in the Boston Common. One was sure he
knew, because he'd seen his father and his friend executed there in
the same year, one on the Great Elm and one on the new gallows. And
then the conversation became gruesome, and something scared
me—something one man said about hanging. I could not recall what it
was, but it sent my imagination running off into the dark. When my
mother took me home and we settled down to sleep, I started to cry
inconsolably over the horrible things that had come into my
head.
    Funny enough, that was the only time I ever
recall being too soft for the rough talk of those grimy taverns.
After that, I was forever ducking out of my mother's sight as soon
as she was busy, searching out the best storytellers among the
drunks. No tale, no matter how nasty, ever scared me off again.
    What a strange thing to remember. But how far
were we now from the gallows, from the Great Elm? I looked into the
darkness again, wondering.
    Noticing my gaze, Merrick nodded toward the
deeper part