Rose

Chapter 15. Setting out

I decided to tell Daryn one evening, he had eaten his dinner and we were curled up together on the couch describing to each other the plan for the new house he was building. We had designed it together, we had drawn it for each other, changed it and then changed it again. Eventually we had a house plan we could both agree with. I wasn’t bothered to begin with – or I thought I wasn’t but the more we discussed it the more I realised I wanted things for this house. It was to be our home. Not just the colour of the throw on the couch and the number of plates but the actual layout, the fabric being used to build it. I wanted an eco-house, something sustainable, and as a wolf and very grounded in nature, Dar agreed.  So I spent more and more time in my new office working on designing and researching the new house. Finding the best builders in the wolf world who could do it. Apparently, a pack in California and a pack in Nevada were both big into the eco designs but I pack in Sweden were the ones that most caught my interest. They had a way of taking a design, putting it through a software somehow on a computer and then building the house in bits, but then they would ship the bits to wherever the house was to be built and sort of slot the bits together. I was fascinated with this process. Afterall, computers weren’t really a thing when I was alive, I mean Babbage and Miss Lovelace were looking at difference engines, but this was far from being the thing that computers would grow into and then shrink down to become.

Now we had a design, a plan, and a company I wanted to work with, Dar agreed we could have them come and appointed a wolf from our pack as a project manager. The house was under construction and because it was a ‘kit house’ it took really very little time to go up. I was suddenly redundant again. I had spent weeks pouring my heart into this home. And I just wanted it to be finished now. I had also been trying to come to grips with the pack running but I was never going to be as good as the current Queen Luna. Well, just a Luna, apparently the leaders of each pack are an Alpha and a Luna and while they are like a king and queen to us solitary vampires they are really more like a head of the family to the pack of wolves. I don’t think anyone will ever see me as a head mother and I will never be a real mother so best I just learn what I can to support Daryn when he becomes Alpha.

Edward had been a good friend through the last few weeks, listening to me plan, helping to see the things I could do to support the pack. But I know he was itching to get back to our old way of life. Edward is a true vampire, solitary and happy to be alone for years. We had shared an apartment for the last few years and Edward had been the major supporter of my refusal to drink. It was he who found the doctor to give the blood transfusions for my ‘haemophilia’. And although Edward was not the one who had any hand in turning me it was he who took over the training of the newbie. He has been wondering around since the English Regency, so I suppose I started out as a diversion for him but then moved on to actually becoming friends. Edward is about 100 years older than me and compared to Tol and Rebekka he is young, but to me he is older, wiser, he has seen the world change even more than I have. He has seen wars, revolutions, and huge technological and social changes. He has seen countries rise and fall. Seen the boom and the bust. Travelled to the gold mines of America and the opal mines of Australia. Edward says little but always watches. He can sit still for hours, like a snake just curled up waiting and watching the world go by. I have seen him spend days without even appearing to blink, even his heartbeat slowed down to only a few beats per minute. I asked him once how he came to do this, and it was when he travelled to Tibet and met a monk out there who showed him the deep meditation techniques. These are used by the monks in that part of the world to self-mummify. They drink only pine needle tea and then sit down and meditate until the body stops and the soul is free. Then the other monks coat the body in gold, and it becomes a statue in the monastery. Well, there is a bit more to it than that and as Edward pointed out he can’t drink the special tea but he can sit for years and meditate.   

I found the meditation very helpful when I was starving, it helped stop the cravings taking over, I would sink down into the meditative state and allow my brain to rest, let the conscious chatter stop, and allow the silence to take its place. It was this coma state that the doctor would give the infusions, otherwise I worried I would be so hungry I would attack the doctor and thus break my vows not to drink blood.

I really owe Edward everything, and so when he suggested that while the house was under construction, and before the ceremony took place, we took a break and packed up the apartment. I agreed.

And so, it was an evening of describing the fire, the rugs, and the throw cushions. The colours of the walls and what plants were to line the front path that I said I wanted to go and pack up my old life.

And Daryn readily agreed. He wanted my belongings to be moved and ready to make the new house my home. After all we would live there forever and me beyond was his plan. And to him it was inconceivable that I would do it without all the trappings I needed in my life. The possessions with meaning, the favoured books, the mementos of travels and histories events. Its funny what souvenirs you pick up when you are watching history being made. The most recent bits include a chunk of concrete from Berlin daubed with coloured paint and packed up in the days after the wall fell. Edward and I have tried to be there when they change history. When you can live forever time blurs and things like this help break it down and pin it in your memory.

And so the next day we set off, Dar has lent us a car, while I owe Edward a new car I doubt he will be bringing me back to the pack with boxes filled with ephemera. So in a big SUV thing by Jeep we hit the road.