Feuilles Mortes

 

It was a dull autumn day when she ventured into the graveyard.

 

The rusted wrought iron gates swung loosely in the light breeze that stirred the huge fall of leaves that lay everywhere like a fiery blanket of snow. Where they’d heaped up against the tombs, the stonework mottled by lichens and crisscrossed with fingers of evergreen ivy prising the ancient monuments apart at the cracks, they formed dense drifts as high as her knees.

 

Warm, mottled grey, glossy green ivy and autumn leaves from the trees that now stood half bare, like elegant ladies in the process of disrobing. The only colours in the old autumn graveyard.

 

In the end, she found him in the deepest shadow behind one of the bigger crypts. The leaves had drifted over him in this place that never saw the sun.

 

His skin was as the papery petals of dried hydrangeas, as white as the snow that would cover him in but a month or so. The simple black shirt was torn open to a pierced navel, his arms outstretched to either side, palms up, his claw-like nails grown long and unkempt. The puckered wounds on his neck were dry and bloodless, but unhealed, like they marked a corpse. The thin chain of silver and star sapphire looped around his neck, slipping down to one side of his thin chest, was anchored only by the heavy silver crucifix resting in a hollow of his ribcage. The long black skirt was pushed up almost to his waist, baring his delicate legs, as pale as milk and as lovely as a woman’s. The way his bare feet, with their immaculate black nails like slivers of onyx, lay, it was as though he was a fallen Christ without a cross, a martyr spurned by heaven.

 

And then there was his face. His eyes, gently touched with kohl and long lashed like the tattered feathers of storm-tossed crows, were closed as though he slept. His lips, plump and succulent, bloodless and without emotion, were together as though he had nothing to say. And his hair, the copper that would never tarnish, fanned out over his pillow of autumn leaves like a halo, had grown long and tangled through twisted vines of ivy.

 

He was beautiful.

 

She picked her way around him, the fallen angel that had never flown, and turned over his left hand to look at the tiny tattoo of some feline’s paw print on the point of the fleshy triangle between his thumb and forefinger.

 

“So it is you.” She breathed, and to her surprise, he replied.

“I remember you…”

It was barely a whisper, a ghost of it’s former self, the milk and honey fled and only the dust of dead roses remaining.

“Yes. I’m Jessica. Remember?”

“Was it you took him from me?”

She paused, then glanced at the marks on his immaculate throat.

“He did this?”

“He did to me as I had done to him.” A pause, the voice that did not move those perfect lips having only a little strength. “I deserved it. I had hoped to die here.”

“Is that still what you want?”

“No.”

 

She shifted to kneel by his head, digging into an inside pocket, and produced a small glass bottle with something dark inside.

“It’s only pig’s blood. And it’s cold. But it’s the best I could do.”

“Can’t drink…”

She paused, then sighed, uncorking the bottle and taking a mouthful with a grimace. Bending over him, like a knight at the princess’s bed, she pressed their lips together, forcing his mouth open and the liquid inside. For a moment, she was sure she felt the throat under her hand move.

 

His hand closed on the back of her head and she couldn’t pull away. Even when he was nothing more that dust and dry bones, he was stronger than she. He whispered, with their lips touching,

Yours…

“No!”

“…only a little…”

“I don’t trust you!”

And then his hand dropped to the ground as though all energy had fled from it and she sat upright, but he had pulled himself on his side, could lift his head a little, had opened his eyes. Eyes that were acid green, darker round the edges like a halo of the ivy that grew all over him, flecked with pure gold. Eyes that watched her with sadness, despair, hunger… a flicker of hope?

 

Uneasily, she slipped off a glove and held out her hand. His own clawed paw weak and shaking, he took it, brought it to his mouth, bent over and kissed it like a gentleman. She felt the tiny pinprick of his teeth, and then he was lapping at her knuckles like a cat, slow and unsteady. Finally, he looked up at her, and spoke with his own voice for the first time.

“Th-Thank… you…”

 

Slipping her arms under his torso and legs, she lifted him. He weighed barely anything, just bones and skin and hair. The ivy that had twined it’s way around him snapped and tore, the leaves fell away, his hair that was now longer than he was tall hanging like a heavy curtain of fluid metal. He clung to her scarf like a tiny child.

“The… light…”

“Oh, of course…” Resting his body on her lap, she stuffed her hand into another pocked and produced a folded silk scarf with a heavy fringe, pure white and big enough to cover him whole. Lifting him again, she got to her feet and started the walk back to her car.

 

“Lynx… that’s your name, isn’t it? Copper Lynx.”

“…yes…”

“And I’m Jessica.”

“…I know… you’re th-the one he…”

“Shh. Don’t speak too much. I don’t know where he’s gone, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t even have known you were here if it wasn’t for that damn photograph…”

“…do you love me…?”

Shocked by the question, she was speechless, fumbling the car door open and pushing him onto the back seat, the shroud falling away. One of his clawed hands closed on her coat, stopping her from pulling back.

“…if you want me… anything you want… take it…”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re not in any state…” Pulling his hand free, she straitened up. “Not like I would if you were!”

“…but…”

“Look, I don’t know why I’m doing this!” Slamming the car door, she hurried round and got into the driver’s seat. “I don’t owe you anything! You tried to kill me!”

“…I said anything…”

She paused, halfway through buckling her seatbelt. “You… you’re offering to turn me?”

“…yes…”

“Well, forget it. I’m not interested! I’m only here because nobody deserves to live like that! Or not-live, or whatever it is you do!” Starting the car, she reversed out and drove off down the road. There was a long silence.

 

“… promise…”

“What?”

“…promise…”

“You want me to promise? Promise what?”

“…that…you’ll never leave me…”

 

She glanced up into the rear view mirror, her eyes wide and more that a little afraid, but he was still just lying there, watching her with emerald eyes full of sadness. The white silk she’d covered him with was the same colour as his skin, his copper coloured hair matted with ivy and dead leaves. It was almost painful that he’d been reduced to this.

“I can’t promise that, Lynx, because be both know one day I’m going to. I won’t let you turn me into a monster like you did to him.”

And, soft as the fall of a small bird, she felt something die inside him.

“But I will promise,” And here her voice shook. “I will promise that I’ll find you someone who will.”

 

There was a silence like the grave, and for a moment she feared she’d killed him altogether. Then…

 

“…you are so much better than I ever could have been…”

 

And the car drove on, down the empty highway, towards the city and the falling night.