7

Rosen felt arms lift her, carry her. The crunch of leaves underfoot echoed in her ears.

“Master, how could you do this?” someone berated. “Do you not realize how fragile humans are? If she doesn’t survive this…”

“Enough! I’ll handle it,” said a deeper voice.

Rosen’s back rested against something soft as she was laid down. Her eyes opened a fraction, the dim light of candles and a fireplace letting her see the room.

Hands slid under her back to undo the zipper of her dress.

With a cry of alarm, she sat up and struck foreheads with someone. Between the new headache, and the fire pain in her side, she started to cry.

“Ow.” The someone was Varick, and he rubbed at his forehead grumpily. “Don’t sit up; you’ll make it worse,” he ordered.

“You evil monster!” she yelled.

His brow creased and lips thinned. “Humans. Always judging what they don’t understand… If anything is evil around here, it’s your kind.”

He noticed the tears running down her cheeks, and his temper softened. He glanced away, suddenly flustered. “Just stay still and let me Heal you, all right? Your ribs are fractured.”

He reached to unzip her dress and she jerked away on the plush settee. “How can I Heal your ribs if I can’t touch them?” he said with a scowl.

Rosen tried to speak, but only tears and a sob came out.

Varick rose from the chair he’d pulled over and threw up his hands. “What am I supposed to do?”

Licht entered the room, the flames on his wrists, ears and joints dancing. “Perhaps the chef can help?” he suggested, and stepped off to the side as a figure approached: It was an old woman, with skin like bark and clothes made of leaves and moss. Layers of moss formed a chef’s apron. She came up to the settee and patted Rosen’s arm.

“Hello, Rosenrot. I am Mrs. Moos. Come, let me help you out of that dress.” Moos turned to the lord. “Master, I suggest you reflect upon your behavior and how poorly you’ve treated this young woman. My, look at the distressing state you’ve put her in!”

She shooed the men with her bark hands. “Go out, scoot. I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

Varick’s shoulders lifted to his ears sulkily; Licht tugged on his hand and led him outside.

Mrs. Moos turned back to Rosen. “Now then, let’s get things situated. Do dry your eyes, dearie. This whole day must have been quite a shock for you.”

Rosen dabbed her eyes with a napkin. Shock felt like an understatement. She couldn’t move much from the pain, but the moss woman was dexterous and soon had Rosen in a loose shirt and pants, the muddy dress taken away to be cleaned. Mrs. Moos called Varick back inside, “You can Heal the miss, now.”

Varick strode into the room, for the first time wearing a simple white dress shirt and no cape. Rosen wanted to run, but even trying to sit up lanced pain through her side.

“Don’t you worry, dearie. You’ll be good as new in no time!” Mrs. Moos shuffled off with Licht. Rosen opened her mouth to beg the moss woman to stay, but she didn’t want to sound desperate, and Moos vanished before she could think any further.

Varick took his seat in the chair before the settee, and Rosen eyed him with apprehension. The ruby rose around his neck reflected firelight, yet also seemed to glow from the inside. He leaned forward and placed his hand to her injured side under the shirt, his touch surprisingly gentle. His eyes closed, and a cold sensation like ice cubes spread along her ribs beneath his hand. His brow furrowed in concentration. “It’s only a fracture, thankfully, or this would be much more difficult,” he murmured; she wasn’t sure if it was to her or himself.

Rosen didn’t know what she expected the healing to be, except salves and strange medicines. But instead the Nachzehrer was beside her, touching her skin and somehow healing her ribs. A vampire was touching her.

Her lower lip trembled and her hand shook, but she didn’t dare move yet—who knew what the humanoid might do.

“I…apologize for frightening you.” Varick hung his head, not meeting her gaze, like a guilty child. Rosen watched him.

He glanced up at her face briefly. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I’m not used to fragile creatures such as humans.” He lifted his hand—her ribs knit solidly back together, the skin unbruised. “Are you…well?” he asked.

Rosen blinked. Was this the same person who had been throwing tantrums?

She nodded to his question. He licked his thumb and brushed it across a cut on her arm. The cut healed as she watched. He touched several other cuts on her wrist and palm. Her hand was still shaking and he must have felt it.

“Do they really call me Beast of the Night?” he asked, focused on her hand.

Rosen swallowed. If she said yes, would it throw him into another angry fit?

“They don’t even know me, yet they judge me,” he mumbled.

“Can you blame them? You live alone in this creepy castle, and at night you howl to the sky.” She knew she shouldn’t have said it, but her mouth had a habit of speaking before she could think.

He met her gaze then, eyes liquid silver. “I do not howl to the sky,” he said firmly. “That was years ago, and I was…”

She waited, but he wouldn’t finish. “Crying?” she said for him.

He glared at her.

“It’s okay to cry,” she hurried on to say. “Everybody cries. I cry too, obviously.” She looked down at her lap sheepishly.

Varick lifted his hand, setting it against her right temple, fingers brushing through her hair as his thumb drew above her right eyebrow. “Another cut,” he said when he noticed her wide-eyed stare, and he quickly withdrew his hand.

Rosen’s heart thumped in her chest. “Why were you crying, that night long ago?”

His mouth opened, and then his face turned away. “Dinner is waiting for you.” He rose to leave.

“Lord Varick,” she said suddenly, and he paused at the door. “I’m sorry for judging you so quickly. I hope you won’t judge me, likewise, for being human?”

After a moment, he smirked. “I suppose I can try.”

***

Varick lounged in the chair before the fireplace of his living quarters, swirling a glass of apfelschorle and staring into the fire glumly.

“Master, you’re soon going to dowse the fire with that broody expression of yours,” said Schatten, while he put away the lord’s clean clothes. “Why so down? Is it something to do with Miss Rosenrot?”

Varick grumbled and crossed his legs.

“You know, Master, there’d be no harm in being friends with her. I know you fear love, what with the curse and all, but simple friendship should be a safe thing for you. And I think you’d rather enjoy the company of someone closer to your age and form.” Schatten hid a sly grin.

Varick tapped his temple, thinking over the nymiad’s words.

Friendship. Maybe it could work. It would be nice to have a friend, like the kind he read of in novels. Every main character had a friend at their side. Someone to share secrets with, go off on adventures with.

Adventures…he had never stepped foot beyond the mountains and had an adventure before.

He wondered what the outside world was like.

***

Rosen woke to the early dawn in a plush bed, surrounded by silk and downy-feather blankets. She blinked at the canopy above the bed, ruffles of lavender silk.

She rose and padded over to one of the windows in her designated bedroom. Beyond, clouds of fog pooled between the mountainsides and foothills, making the tops of land resemble floating islands of trees in a sea of white.

“Licht! Schatten!!”

Varick’s voice blared through the castle walls.

Rosen creaked her door open a fraction.

“What’s wrong, Master?” came Licht.

Varick stormed out of what Rosen guessed was the shower room, wearing nothing but a towel. “The shower stopped working again! How am I supposed to rinse my hair?”

“Oh my, the pipes must have begun leaking again. If only we could hire a proper plumber,” said Licht.

“I tried,” said Schatten. “None are brave enough to come to the forbidden castle—and those were the few who didn’t run screaming when they saw a nymiad, in the first place.”

“Oh, my beautiful hair,” Varick moaned. “It’s going to get oily and gross. I don’t want to live anymore.”

Rosen snorted.

Schatten threw up his hands and muttered to himself, something about being spoiled.

“Master, one day without a wash isn’t going to hurt you. Go get dressed, and we’ll have the pipes working again by tonight,” Licht encouraged.

Rosen peeled herself away from the sight of Varick’s sleek, bare torso, half of her amused and the other half blushing.

She searched through the wardrobe in her room, finally pulling out a blue dress that wasn’t as frilly as the rest. Breakfast was a spread of fresh bread, sausages, and soft-boiled eggs perched in porcelain egg cups.

“I need you to dust my drawing room,” said Varick. He self-consciously had his hair back in a low ponytail.

Rosen chewed her lip not to laugh. Being poor, showers had never been a daily luxury for her, and she often had to use whatever river or pond she could find. She doubted Lord Varick could stomach doing such a thing.

“Don’t touch the cobwebs, though. Some are decorative,” he added.

She gave him a look. He was worried about bathing, yet fine with cobwebs? “So, you just want me to clean off the dust?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. That makes no sense,” she mumbled to herself when she stood, finished eating.

She brought several dustrags into the orange-upholstered drawing room, and surveyed the work needing done. Dust made cake layers on the shelves, and there were a lot of shelves. How could he breathe in this room? Or did he need to breathe?

She got to work dusting with feathers first, then cloths. The numerous terrariums growing mushrooms were in the way, and with only one hand, she couldn’t lift them easily.

Varick peeked his head in the doorway. “Is it going well?”

He sounded nervous. She looked back at him. Of course, this was his favorite room and his treasured collection of mushrooms.

“I haven’t destroyed anything, if that’s what you mean,” she shot back. “But I could use help dusting under these terrariums. Lift them for me, will you?”

Varick acrossed the floor, his footsteps barely making a sound. He lifted a wide, rectangular terrarium growing a tree branch covered in various green mosses and clusters of purple mushrooms in soggy soil.

“Purple, those are pretty,” she said.

“Laccaria amethystina, it loves the forest and dampness,” he said, marveling at their color as he held the glass case. At first she shied from how close he stood, but then he stepped to the side.

She still wasn’t sure what to think of him being a vampire—or whatever he was. He didn’t quite fit the mold of what she’d expected. Pale as he was, he seemed full of life, and the sunlight didn’t burn him.

The next specimen was a round glass sphere containing wide, shiny green mushrooms with pale stems and white speckles, growing in wood-chip mulch. “Stropharia aeruginosa; it’s very much enjoying the autumn season. I should water it some more, though.”

He inspected several other terrariums while Rosen cleaned, and he pressed a finger to his temple. “Some of these need replacing… I’ll have to go out hunting today.”

Rosen’s dustrag paused. “Hunting mushrooms?”

He glanced her way. “You can come along, if you wish. I could use an extra set of hands—erm, hand.” He looked away. “If you don’t find mushrooms boring, that is.”

Rosen finished the last shelf. “I find them interesting. They’re like nature’s little hidden gems,” she said.

Varick’s lips almost rose to smile. “Good, then I’ll fetch you a basket.”

***

Fog lingered in the forest as Rosen followed Varick up the mountain slope near the castle. Spruces filled the air with their earthy spice scent. The hem of her cloak brushed along the leaf-mulch ground behind her.

She carried a basket matching Varick’s, and where the slope leveled out a bit, they spread out, beginning their hunt. “Collect one of every different color you find,” he instructed her.

A rust-colored mushroom forced its cap through the fallen leaves at the base of an oak. “I found one!” she shouted.

Varick hurried over. “Excellent. Take the trowel and dig deep, all around and underneath the mushroom, without disturbing it much.” He showed her, carving out the patch of dirt before lifting the trowel up under the mushroom. “The spores are what we really want. Mushrooms are simply the flowers that the spores bloom. So, to grow more mushrooms, you need to collect the spores.”

She edged away from his closeness slightly. “I can’t see them.”

“No, spores are too small to see.” He placed the chunk of soil with its gem into one of the cloths in his basket, and tied it closed. “And that’s how you do it!” he finished, pleased. “For any mushrooms that are attached to trees, just peel the bark free, or better yet, cut the section of wood off.”

Rosen went to work, scanning the forest floor, feeling like a wolf on the prowl. The air moistened her skin, and the overcast light made the colors of nature stand out deeper, richer. Acorns crunched underneath her boots.

A row of white mushrooms grew out of the side of a dead tree, shaped like oysters, without stems. She pried around the bark and lifted chunks off, setting them in a cloth with care.

“Lord Varick,” she said, once their search brought them near enough to hear each other, “Were you born a vampire, or were you…made one?”

Silence followed for a moment. “Vempar,” he corrected. “I am not of the undead. I’m simply another race of the Altered.”

“Oh…” Rosen moved over to a patch of moss-covered ground.

“I suppose the Nachzehrer legend came from humans’ fear of us. Why do you hate vampire creatures so much?” he continued.

“Hate? I don’t—”

He gave her a look. The silver of his eyes both beautiful and unsettling.

“Fine. It makes me uncomfortable. My mother died, and the thought of her becoming a living corpse horrifies me. I know it could never happen, but the fact that people would believe such a thing possible is upsetting.” She turned her head away, pretending to analyze moss.

“I am sorry the myths have caused you pain. Losing someone close to you is serious.” Something in Varick’s tone made her turn back—not just the tone of sympathy but understanding. As if he’d lost someone, too. She thought back to the painting of the Disteldorn family, and the once smiling boy.

She wanted to ask what had happened to his parents, the elegant couple, but instead she asked, “Do vempars drink blood?”

Varick made a face of disgust. “No, gross. We absorb the life-energy of others, instead. Much more clean.”

“Ah…that sounds worse.”

“Does it? It’s quite harmless in small amounts, or so I’m told. I have vials of life-energy transported to me, so I’ve never actually had to…you know, get it for myself.” Varick pressed his cheek against the trunk of a beech tree on a patch of fluffy moss. When she looked at him funny, he flushed pink. “What? Moss is soft. I like the way it feels.”

Rosen shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t say anything.” Her mouth tweaked, trying not to grin. He frowned at her.

Rosen weaved her way past two other beech trees, when her feet suddenly plummeted beneath her and she fell with a whoosh of leaves. She cried out, landing inside a hidden pit of mud.

Varick rushed over to the edge. When he saw her, his mouth opened and he burst out laughing. Rosen sat where she’d landed, blinking up at the pit’s rim.

So, he was capable of laughter at her expense, was he? She jumped to her feet and with her one hand grabbed the hem of Varick’s cape, yanking hard so that he lost his balance and fell in.

With a yelp, he splashed into the mud. And when he lifted his head, half his face was caked in brown.

Rosen snorted and laughed, clutching her stomach.

Varick pouted and threw a handful of mud at her. She ducked to the side, scooped up mud and threw it at his chest, covering his cravat. She giggled at the expression of utter shock on his face.

His mouth lifted as he tried yet failed to hide a grin. He flung another scoop of mud at her, caking her hair.

He finally did laugh as she pelted him with volley after volley, fast for a single-handed person.

Finally they tired out, and Rosen let her seat sink as she sat panting. Varick brushed his mud-thick hair back with a hand, then bent to pick her up in his arms.

“What—?” she started.

“Trust me,” he said. She didn’t completely, but let him carry her. He bent his legs, and in one jump he vaulted out of the pit and onto firm forest floor. He let Rosen down, her face wide-eyed. He retrieved their baskets of mushrooms. “I suppose we found enough for today,” he said.

They came back to the castle, a muddy mess, and nearly scared Butler Sterbetod to death. The butler wheezed worse than usual and hurried with an old man’s speed from the castle door. “Licht, Schatten! A little…help!”

The nymiads arrived, and their expressions couldn’t be put into words.

“Master,” Licht said once he recovered, “Did you forget that the showers aren’t working?”

Varick’s small grin melted and became something like horror.

“I’m kidding, we fixed it already.” Licht waved his palms.

Varick’s horror became a tight-lipped glare.

Fee-ee-ee! laughed the red thistle pixit, watching them from behind a stone column.

As Varick and Rosen made their way towards the nearest washing station, Schatten hovered about in a panic. “Don’t touch that! And keep away from the rugs—those are priceless! Oh my gracious, you’re spreading mud everywhere!”

Mrs. Moos wrapped them each in towels and led them to separate shower rooms.