Bloodline. Maggie Shayne

clothes were nothing special. The pants were olive green with numerous pockets. The shirt was a tan button-down. He wore a wristwatch with a wide silver band. I caught a glimpse of something beneath it—something blue on his skin, and my eyes focused there, as I tried to see more.

      He turned his hand, just slightly. Just enough so that I couldn’t see the mark. But even as he did, I turned my own hand palm up at the mark on my inner wrist. Blue ink, in a series of short lines, some thicker, some thinner. A bar code. Could his wrist bear a similar mark?

      “Tell me what you’re doing here, in my stable,” he said.

      His voice touched my nerve endings, rubbing roughly over them until they quivered and stood erect and expectant. The sound of it, and the feelings it elicited, drew my eyes back to his. “I’m hungry,” I said. My voice sounded plaintive and weak, like that of a small orphan child, begging for crumbs. I felt irritated by that, so I spoke again, my tone deeper and stronger, deliberately so. “I need shelter and a place to rest, and…”

      “And?”

      “I don’t know. Something…drew me here.” I wasn’t sure whether telling him the truth was a good idea or a bad one, but the words spilled out of me without my permission all the same. “When I saw this place from the distance, I felt compelled to come here. I knew it would be…safe.” Blinking twice, I lowered my eyes, unable to hold his as I whispered, “Is it?”

      “I’m no threat to you, unless you’re one to me.”

      I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath, until his answer let me release it. “How could I be a threat to anyone? I told you, I don’t even know who I am.”

      “How can that be?”

      A sob rose in my throat. Stupid, that his one obvious question would be enough to send me beyond the edge of control, but it did. Suddenly I just couldn’t take any more. I wrapped my arms around myself and lowered my head, ashamed of my tears. Of showing him such weakness. I sensed that it wasn’t something I did easily, and it angered me, but not enough to give me the power to stop it. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

      Sighing deeply, he stared at me for a long moment, and then, as if making a decision at last, he quickly took off his shirt and held it out by the collar, offering it to me.

      My hand trembled as I took it, never looking up very far. “Thank you.”

      “You’re welcome, Lilith.”

      I had been pulling the shirt around me when he said that, and the name, Lilith, made something tickle deep within the core of my brain. It brought my head up, made my eyes narrow and strain, as if I were trying to look through his skin and bones to see into his soul.

      “What did you call me?”

      He seemed to wish he could bite the word back as soon as he said it. I could tell by the way he quickly averted his eyes, leaned the pitchfork against the wall and began to fidget with a harness that hung from a peg. “I have to call you something,” he muttered. “It seemed as good a name as any.”

      I pulled the shirt the rest of the way on and buttoned it. Then I scooped my hair out of the collar. His shirt came to my upper thighs. It was only slightly longer than my hair.

      “You said you were drawn to my house from the distance. Do you remember anything prior to that?”

      I nodded, allowing him to believe he had distracted me from the matter of that name. A name that felt…familiar. “I remember…a little. And I have no reason not to tell you all of it. But I’m tired, and I’m incredibly hungry.”

      “All right.” He nodded twice, and said it again. “All right. Come on to the house. I’ll get you something to drink.” As he spoke, he turned and started walking, taking my arm lightly as he did.

      “I need a meal, not a drink,” I told him. My stomach was growling. “I need meat. A nice rare burger or a steak or—”

      He stopped walking and stared at me. “You said you don’t know who you are. Do you know…what you are?”

      I frowned at him, having no idea what he meant. “I’m…a woman. An amnesiac. A…” I couldn’t think of anything else, and I could tell by the look in those brown velvet eyes that I hadn’t said what he’d wanted me to say. “What?” I asked softly. “What am I?”

      Even then, though, I think there was some inkling. I could outrun a deer. I could see for miles. I could hear things no ordinary person could hear, smell things only a bloodhound should be able to smell. I began to shake, and I lowered my head, looked at the mark on my wrist, felt tears welling up in my eyes. My knees seemed to weaken as I whispered the question again. “What am I?”

      My legs turned to water, and his arms came around me, fast and sure, to keep me from falling.

      “I feel so weak.”

      “I’m sorry. I should have seen it sooner. Come on, Lilith, I’ve got you now.”

      He scooped me up as if I were a child, and I gave in to the weakness that was overwhelming me and let my head rest on his sturdy shoulder. I closed my eyes. Softly, I said, “I don’t even know your name.”

      “Ethan,” he told me. And that, too, caused a powerful ripple in the still waters of my mind.

      “Ethan,” I repeated. “Thank you, Ethan.”

      “You may not be thanking me later,” he said.

      I frowned and searched his face, but he kept his eyes forward as he carried me out of the barn into the darkness of the night, and then along a winding path toward his house. Soon enough, we were inside. I felt the comfort of warmth enveloping me as he closed the door behind us. I smelled a wood fire and looked around for the source, but we were only in the entry hall. He kicked off his shoes without putting me down, then continued into a modest living room that welcomed me like a hug. The furniture needed only button eyes to resemble a family of teddy bears—plush and soft and brown. Green and gold and russet throw pillows littered each piece like the fallen autumn leaves outside. The fieldstone fireplace held a dancing blaze that painted my face in heat and light, and above its gleaming oaken mantel, there was a painting.

      I stared at it, unblinking, my tired eyes suddenly finding the strength to stay open.

      It was a woman, a nude woman, with coppery curls like ribbons draping down her body. Twined around her was a giant snake, and she looked as if she adored the thing. She had more curves than I had, and I had no idea whether her face bore any resemblance to mine. The title, “Lilith,” was written unobtrusively across the bottom, and beneath that the name of the artist, John Waterhouse.

      “Is it the hair?” I asked.

      “Is what the hair?” Ethan lowered me onto the teddy-bear sofa, which was every bit as soft as it looked. Then he opened the antique trunk that served as a coffee table and pulled out a blanket.

      “In the painting,” I said, and I pointed. “Is it because our hair is alike that you called me by her name?”

      “Partly that.” He draped the blanket over me, then turned to gaze at the picture. “But there’s a lot more to Lilith’s story than her hair. Legend has it that she was the first woman, created by God alongside Adam. His equal. She refused to submit to him, was too independent to be tamed, much less owned or commanded. And so she left him, and God was forced to make another companion for him. That time he made the woman from Adam’s rib, so she would know her place.”

      “And that was Eve?”

      “So the story goes. And even then, poor submissive Eve got blamed when things went to hell. Didn’t do her much good to behave, did it?” He faced me again.

      I frowned, unsure what he was getting at. “Why are you telling me this?”

      “Because I sense you’re a lot more like Lilith than Eve. Your spirit is like hers, indomitable.”

      “I