I woke alone, and gasped. Beneath me was a strange bed, and on my face I felt a breeze, but I could not see. When I touched my face, I found that my head had been wrapped in cotton, and this cotton smelled strongly of blood. Ripping at it, I found that it was stuck to my head, from the clotting, and let some noise out, choking, angry sounds. Then there were fingers touching it, and when I touched those fingers, they belonged to a child, small.

"Ta toi," he whispered. Shut up.

"I can't see," I said.

"That is because it is wrapped around your eyes as well, fool. I will unwrap it." His voice was not sweet, rather, rough, nasal. His fingers worked at the back of my head, pulling and digging at the fabric. "They have wrapped you tightly and put you to bed, yes. Live or die, no care. You are violent like me. They think themselves quite righteous. Nasty creature, let go let God. What God? So you have lived. Have faith! What are they that they are so foolish?"

"I don't understand."

"Think hard. You will remember. You have been struck very hard, that's all." He pulled, whipping my head back, and began to unwind the cotton, and let light in on me.

I shut my eyes. "It's bright."

"I hate to think that I was this stupid." His fingers were at the back of my head, poking me and looking through my hair. "It looks good back here. I saw your brain before. Open your eyes. It's evening."

"It hurts."

"It hurts? Oh, perhaps we are not alike. Perhaps you are very sensitive," coming around to sit beside me.

"I don't understand what you're talking about. I," I started, and screamed, as the child took my arm roughly, and sunk long teeth into my skin, struggled. My eyes flew open, and when I looked down on him, he let go and laughed, large brown eyes narrowed with mirth.

"There are his violet eyes that one hears much about. They are not so beautiful bloodshot. I like his blood far better, red and wet against my lips."

"Please," I said. "Please."

He kissed the blood which ran from the bite, and sucked it. "I will bite you again. Does it come back to you? I will have you until you remember. Your heart beats. Do my lips thrill you a little? How funny he is. Now it doesn't hurt, does it? The pain is over until the bite comes again. It will tell us what happened to it, or it will suffer."

"He came from the darkness, I don't know which direction," I stuttered, shutting my eyes again against the soft stroking of his tongue against my arm.

"Open your eyes or you will be punished."

"I had seen him before, many times, around town, especially in the evening. He was notable. Different. There are many different sorts of people here. This is a market town, a hub, we see them, people from other places. But he stayed over some seasons, and I noticed him, talked about him with my friends, his dark hair, his paleness. And then he came for me, and he cut my throat." I wanted to touch my throat but the child held me fast, his other hand going to my free wrist.

"More."

"Then he was gone, and I was bleeding. There was a quarter moon, and I tried to focus my eyes on it, thinking maybe that someone would come by and find me. There were horses whickering in someone's field far away. I was going to visit my friend Matteo, who isn't from here. His family comes from the south every fall. They like it here. Since I was young. We are wool-traders. We trade spun wool."

I drew a long gasp as his teeth sunk into me again, far more gently this time, near the crook of my elbow. I pressed my free hand to his hair, thick brown waves which curled readily around my fingers.

"Then, there were voices near me, shouting. They were shouting about forgiveness. I don't know. And then a beautiful face, above me, with blond curls tied back, black silk, skin so pale against it, like the moon in the cloudy sky, his face at my slit throat. I felt his temple against my jaw, and I thought it so queer, and when he looked into my eyes, the entire left side of his face was spread with my blood, as if deliberately applied, and I heard shouting. He said 'Then go home,' to someone else, not to me, and other hard things. I pulled him down by the hair so that I could whisper into his ear."

"What did you say?"

"I said that if he wouldn't take me home I would kill him. That I might live if he would do the noble thing, and not drink my blood any longer."

"What did he say?" kissing the deep punctures, the blood which bubbled up, my shaking arm.

"Nothing. He was emotional. He seemed overwhelmed. I took his face in my hands, the left slipping from the blood a little, and kissed his tears away, which streaked red, and he said that I was lovely like a girl. Soft skin."

"You are quite soft-seeming."

"From there I don't remember."

He had his hand around the new wound at my inner elbow, fingers clutching it hard so that it wouldn't bleed any longer. His eyes searched my face. "There is not more memory? Is that the truth?"

"It is the truth. I swear."

"It knows it will pay if it lies?" he asked, tightening his grip further, and blood welled between his fingers.

"I know it. Please, I know that things are different now. Something beyond me knows it. I know that God does not hear me fearing you. I am afraid."

"I think you do not know what God knows," relaxing his hand. He held his hand up to my lips and made a gentle biting motion. I bit him gently. "Harder, young man. Draw blood." He pushed his finger between my surprised lips, and I bit down on him.

I tasted him briefly before the finger withdrew again, leaving my mouth empty and shocked. He pressed against my wound and kissed it.

"There it closes better. I will tell you what you did then, so that when the others come you will have better ground to stand upon. Perhaps we are not so alike, but if I help you mayhap you will be my friend, and I would have one."

"What did I do?" I asked, resisted closing my eyes, tasting his lingering taste.

He kissed my closing wound lightly, over and over while I watched him. "Your blond one, that's Laurent, who is our lord. He sought to help you live, because you are a pretty thing, no other reason. He likes that soft, gentle look, especially now that we sharper, lovelier ones have proven so lusty. He came in last week in my brother's arms, near gone from the world, swooned away. For me, I thought, it was a wolf who'd had him, torn his throat out, scratched his face and chest, twisted his head. But he was saying, 'That boy, that young boy,' that he was mad for you, and he thought, if it has gone so far already, have a prize for suffering, and my brother went out at his behest, and retrieved you, who my brother had beaten off our master with half a stove-length of wood," he clicked his tongue and investigated the wound closely, not looking at me. "Your head was open. My brother mended you sloppily, and put you down. I said, give him to me to play with, and they said no, if you live you are for Laurent, and I don't like that. So now I come. Come wolf, I thought, be Nicky's friend."

"Are you their adversary?" I asked, hushed.

"I would not hurt them. I would go away from here, but I wouldn't go alone. I am small as you can see. They say that I am mad and see hurt where there is none. I think them blind. For many months, as you observed, my brother has been obsessed with you. My master, now the same. Come away, wolf. Leave them who beat you for your nature. I will do for you better."

He let me go and I drew my arms to myself, touching my elbows together and covering my face with my hands. He touched my hand and I drew up my knees, and turned my body.

"They will come and corrupt you."

And then a voice, hushed speaking. I covered my ears. A hand touched me, a different hand, and when I looked up it was the blond one, Laurent, whose face I had seen bicolored with my blood and the moon, and we were alone. He stood with his back very straight, as if he had been long-trained to stand tall and still, inclining his neck only barely to look down on me. "Come, young man, let us walk together in the evening."

"Yes."

"Do not let him frighten you. You are nothing what he speaks of." He was wearing only a roughspun pullover, hem at the knee, wide sleeves to his elbows, fastened at the waist with a finer belt of wool cord. His hair was still pulled back as it had been, though clean. He smelled of nothing at all. I took his proffered arm and he helped me out of bed, gripping me at the place where I had been bitten, which made me wince.

I could see that his neck was unmarked and luminous, and touched it curiously, close to him. There was no trace of any abuse. I dipped my nose down and saw then some faint pinkness, in the shape of teeth, just above the dip in his fine collarbones. "My name is Miriam," I said, softly.

"Meryam?" he asked, accent heavy with the east, perhaps of Lorraine. He shivered all over slightly. From the touch of my breath? I wondered.

And then I was holding onto him, arms around him low. He stood still a minute, stiffly.

"Meryam," he said. "Do not be too sweet. I will not like you then," accent so thick with German it was hard for me to understand him. "Come out of this room."

"I am not meant to be here," I said. "I have to go home."

He studied my face then, took me by the chin with a delicate hand. He made a sad clucking sound with his tongue.

"Fall comes. They will need me in the orchard. My father."

He tucked my hair back behind my ear, untangling it gently as his hand drew downward against my jaw.

"Beautiful one," I said to him, softly.

"Laurent."

"Laurent," I whispered.

"It is unfortunate that we must leave this place. It recalls so many quiet memories. I have so liked it here," he said.

He took me from the room, and out through the front door, passing another one curled up asleep by the hearth, in such shadow. And I walked with him arm and arm, in darkness no longer dark.