It started when Ethan was twenty-one. Well, it started long before that, but Ethan had only become aware of it when he turned twenty-one. One day, months after his mother’s death, Ethan had been clearing out her room when he found a box under her bed. He’d opened it, expecting to see some old birthday cards and some family photos. What he’d found, however, was a stack of letters all addressed to him. He’d settled in downstairs with a glass of his mum’s good wine and spent the entire night reading them all. At first he’d thought they were from his biological parents, given that he was adopted, but the tone of the letters were almost romantic, which was seriously odd considering the first one had been sent to him on his first birthday. There were twenty-one letters, all sent to him on his birthday. “I will miss you every second of every day while we are apart,” he read aloud from the first letter. “This year has been agony, and I cannot begin to know how I can possibly endure another twenty-four.” Ethan had put down the letter, his hands shaking. There had been a feeling of sadness growing inside him, of longing and loneliness that he couldn’t understand. He stayed up all night reading the long letters, getting to know the person writing them and feeling his pain as acutely as if it were his own. The man writing them, and Ethan was somehow certain it was a man, spoke of a home they had shared and a life they had lived. Ethan could practically see it in his mind, as real and as vivid as the house he was in now.
* * * *
Over the next few years Ethan had found himself in times of sadness pulling out the box of letters and reading them again, taking comfort in the unknown and unseen presence of the man who had written them. Ethan had always been old before his time, wise in a way most people his age weren’t. He tried dating men his own age but found them juvenile. He tried dating older men and found them condescending. After his disastrous dates Ethan would go home and read his letters. They continued to arrive on every birthday, even after he sold his mother’s house and moved to the city to be closer to his place of work. On the day of his twenty-fifth birthday, after insisting to his colleagues that he didn’t want to go out for birthday drinks, Ethan went home feeling dejected and abandoned. When he had woken up that morning, there had been no letter. With a half eaten cake from work, Ethan sat down on his sofa and started eating it straight from the box with a fork. It was almost an hour and a quarter of a cake later that he noticed something pinned to the back of his front door. It was a photograph. Ethan practically ran to grab it, both elated and frightened that someone had been inside his flat. He stared at the photo, his hands trembling. There was a house, the house the man had described in the letters. Standing in front of it was a tall and dark haired man whose eyes were such a pale blue they were almost silver. Beside him, smiling and leaning into him, was Ethan. He dropped the photo and took several breaths before he picked it up again. It couldn’t be him, and yet, there he was. He looked the same as he did now, though with slightly longer hair. The crazy thing was that the photo looked old, like it had been taken in the forties. Ethan quickly turned it over, hoping for some kind of message. There was an address, not far from London, along with a short note. See you soon xxx
* * * *
The taxi stopped in front of the large house and the driver turned to Ethan. “Are you sure there’s anybody home?” the man asked. “It’s all in darkness.” The stately home looked old and the driveway back to the road was long. He couldn’t deny he felt a little afraid but he had to know what was going on. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.” Ethan paid the driver and walked up to the front door, only tensing a little when he heard the taxi drive away. “What am I doing?” he asked himself. This was madness. He had wondered, over the years, whether or not he really was going mad. Still, if he was, then he was so far down the rabbit hole that he didn’t want to come back from it. He went to knock on the door but he found himself simply opening it and walking inside, as if some deep hidden muscle memory was used to doing it. “Hello?” he called out as he walked through the large hallway and stopped in front of the staircase. He glanced around, noting the paintings hanging on the walls. Some of them felt familiar and comforting to him. At the same time he both knew he had been there before and knew that he hadn’t. Maybe he truly was losing his mind. “Ethan.” Ethan turned, looking away from the paintings to the top of the stairs. It was the man from the photograph, looking every bit as young and handsome now as he did then. “Who are you? What’s happening?” Ethan asked. He felt himself breathing harder. He backed away as the stranger descended the stairs. “You need to calm down,” the man said, his voice deep and smooth. It had an instant effect on Ethan. “Your heart is racing.” Ethan stumbled backward, his legs feeling like jelly. “You can hear my heart?” The man smiled. It was warm, a complete contrast to his pale cold looking skin. “Even when we were miles apart I could always hear your heartbeat.” Ethan wanted to ask what the man was, because he didn’t move like a human and he hadn’t aged at all since the photograph was taken, but deep down he already knew. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” The man moved slowly, carefully, as though trying not to frighten Ethan anymore than he already was. Ethan appreciated that. “My name is Allard Thorne,” he said. “And I’m sure we have a lot to talk about. Won’t you come into the sitting room and let me get you something to drink.” He held out his hand, again it was like a person trying to lure out a frightened animal, with patience and kindness. Ethan took the hand, the slightly below normal chill familiar and comforting to him in a way that didn’t make sense. Allard led him through to the sitting room and over to an arm chair by the fire. The room was decorated with a mix of both old and new that blended well. “Here, drink this,” Allard said as he handed Ethan a glass of amber liquid. Ethan wasn’t much of a drinker but he gulped it right down, surprised by how smooth it was. “To answer your first question,” Allard said, taking a seat opposite Ethan. “Yes, I am a vampire. To answer the question you have not yet asked, no, you’re not going mad.” Ethan put down the glass. “How do you know me? How can I be in a photo taken in the forties, when I wasn’t even born then?” Allard winced and looked over at a painting above the fireplace. Ethan followed his gaze and saw a large dead tree in front of a river. He didn’t know why but it was deeply upsetting. “You are human,” Allard told him, as if Ethan didn’t already know that. “But long ago you were cursed.” “Cursed? How?” “I am a selfish man,” Allard told him. “I couldn’t bear to lose you. Becoming a vampire isn’t easy. Most who are turned do not survive it, so doing it to you was out of the question. There was a witch who promised us she could make you live forever, only, she conveniently left out the part where you would grow old and die, only to be reborn nine months later.” Ethan gaped at the familiar stranger, finding it hard to stomach what he was saying. At first he was horrified for himself but then he realised how awful it must be for Allard. “You’re saying that you have to watch me grow old and die, over and over again?” Allard hung his head and looked into the fireplace. “It’s never easy, but I know that when we part it won’t be for long.” They sat in silence for a time, Allard patiently letting Ethan come to terms with what he had just learnt. “But I don’t remember you, not really,” Ethan told him. “You will, eventually,” Allard said. “It comes back to you slowly.” Ethan shook his head. “How long have I been like this? How many times have we had this exact conversation?” “You were first born in fifteen-eighty-six,” Allard said, pausing to let that sink in. Ethan leaned back in his chair. He felt that if he wasn’t careful he could actually go insane. It was like whenever he thought about the fact that the universe was expanding. If he thought on it too much it threatened to break his brain. “Do we always find each other?” Ethan asked. “Yes,” Allard told him. “From the moment you’re born I hear your heartbeat, however far away.” Ethan shook his head. “Why did you wait until now? What’s so special about me turning twenty-five?” “It’s the age you were when the witch cursed you,” Allard said. “I’ve done this many times and in many ways, but this seems the most effective.” The vampire smiled then. “What?” “I was thinking about the time you tried to stab me,” Allard said. “I approached you out of the blue as you were coming out of a pub. Another time you set the police on me.” Ethan cringed. “Sorry about that.” Allard chuckled. “So, yes, doing it this way usually works. At least, you’re open to the possibility that I’m telling the truth, and not trying to trick you. The invention of the camera has greatly helped.” There were so many questions Ethan wanted to ask. “How did we meet…the first time, I mean.” Allard’s smile was small and intimate and although it was for a version of Ethan that had lived long ago, he felt an irrational sense of jealousy. “You were the son of a Lord,” Allard told him. “And I worked for your family.” That certainly surprised Ethan. If anything, he had assumed it would be the other way around. “Doing what?” “Tending to the horses,” Allard said. “Then we were at war and every able bodied male had to fight. Suddenly we were no longer master and servant but brothers in arms. We became close, much to your father’s shame. Thankfully, he never knew how close we became.” “And then you became a vampire,” Ethan said. As he said it he could see it in his mind. His memories were starting to come back. “We were separated on the battlefield, I thought I’d lost you.” Allard nodded. “I was wounded, badly. Left among the dead. A vampire found me, lured by the scent of warm blood.” Ethan knew he’d heard this story before. He could see himself running at Allard when he showed up back at the family estate months later, changed but still the same. He had been ashamed of what he was. Without giving it any thought, Ethan stood from the chair and went to the man he loved, the man he had always loved, and sat on Allard’s lap. “I’m here now,” he told him as he put his arms around the vampire and rested his head on his shoulder. “I’m here.” He felt the sigh of contentment go through Allard’s body. “Every time we are parted feels longer than the time before.” He sounded desperate as he pushed his face into Ethan’s hair. Of the two of them, Ethan couldn’t help but think he had gotten the better end of the deal, but then the memories of all his deaths hadn’t come back to him yet. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to. “We just have to make the most of the time we have together,” Ethan said, causing his vampire to chuckle. “You say that every time,” Allard told him. “But you’re right. You usually are.” Ethan lifted his head and gave him a smile. This was still so weird and yet it felt so right. He felt as if everything in his life suddenly made sense. He felt like he was home. As he pressed his lips to Allard’s several lifetime’s worth of memories came flooding back to him. Allard kissed him back with the promise of more lifetimes to come.