Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

Someone was still knocking on Stefan’s door.

“It’s a woodpecker,” Elena said when she could speak. “They knock, don’t they?”

“On doors inside houses?” Stefan said dazedly.

“Ignore it and it will go away.”

A moment later the knocking resumed.

Elena moaned, “I don’t believe this.”

Stefan whispered, “Do you want me to bring you its head? Unattached from its neck, I mean?”

Elena considered. As the knocking continued, she was getting more worried and less confused. “Better see if it is a bird, I guess,” she said.

Stefan rolled away from her, somehow got on his jeans, and went reeling to the door. In spite of herself, Elena pitied whoever was on the other side.

The knocking started again.

Stefan reached the door and nearly wrenched it off its hinges.

“What the—” He stopped, suddenly moderating his voice. “Mrs. Flowers?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Flowers said, deliberately not seeing Elena, who was wearing a sheet and directly in her line of vision.

“It’s poor dear Meredith,” Mrs. Flowers said. “She’s in such a state, and she says she has to see you now, Stefan.”

Elena’s mind switched tracks as suddenly and smoothly as a train. Meredith? In a state? Demanding to see Stefan, even if, as Elena was sure she must have, Mrs.

Flowers had delicately indicated just how…busy Stefan was at the moment?

Her mind was still solidly linked with Stefan’s. He said, “Thank you, Mrs. Flowers.

I’ll be down in just a moment.”

Elena, who was slipping into her clothes as fast as she could, while crouching on the far side of the bed, added a telepathic suggestion.

“Maybe you could make her a nice cup of tea — I mean, a cup of tea,” Stefan added.

“Yes, dear, what a good idea,” Mrs. Flowers said gently. “And if you should see Elena, perhaps you could say that dear Meredith is asking for her, too?”

“We will,” Stefan said automatically. Then he turned around and hastily shut the door.

Elena gave him time to put his shirt and shoes on, and then they both hurried down to the kitchen, where Meredith was not having a nice cup of tea, but pacing around like a caged leopard.

Stefan began, “What’s—”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Stefan Salvatore! No — you tell me! You were in my mind before, so you must know. You must have been able to see — to tell — about me.”

Elena was still mindlocked with Stefan. She felt his dismay. “To tell what about you?” he asked gently, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table so Meredith could sit.

The very simple act of sitting down, of pausing to respond to civility, seemed to calm Meredith slightly. But still Elena could feel her fear and pain like the taste of a steel sword on her tongue.

Meredith accepted a hug and became a little calmer yet. A little more herself and less like a caged animal. But the struggle was so visceral and so clear within her that Elena couldn’t bear to leave her, even when Mrs. Flowers deposited four mugs of tea around the table and took another chair Stefan offered.

Then Stefan sat down. He knew Elena would stand or sit or share a chair with Meredith, but whatever it was, she would be the one to decide.

Mrs. Flowers was gently stirring honey into her mug of tea and then passing the honey along to Stefan who gave it to Elena who put just the little bit that Meredith liked into Meredith’s mug and stirred it gently, too.

The ordinary, civilized sounds of two spoons quietly clinking seemed to relax Meredith still further. She took the mug Elena gave her and sipped, then drank thirstily.

Elena could feel Stefan’s mental sigh of relief as Meredith floated down another few levels. He politely sipped his own tea, which was hot but not burning hot and made from naturally sweet berries and herbs.

“It’s good,” Meredith said. She was almost a human now. “Thank you, Mrs.

Flowers.”

Elena felt lighter. She relaxed enough to pull over her own cup of tea and squeeze lots of honey in and stir it and take a gulp. Good! Calming down tea!

That’s chamomile and cucumber, Stefan told her.

“Chamomile and cucumber,” Elena said, nodding wisely, “for calming down.” And then she blushed, for Mrs. Flowers’s bright smile had knowledge in it.

Elena hastily drank more tea and watched Meredith have more tea and everything began to feel almost all right. Meredith was completely Meredith now, not some fierce animal. Elena squeezed her friend’s hand tightly.

There was just one problem. Humans were less frightening than beasts but they could cry. Now Meredith, who never wept, was shaking and tears were dripping into the tea.

“You know what morcillo is, right?” she asked Elena at last.

Elena nodded hesitantly. “We had it sometimes in stew at your house?” she said.

“And for tapas?” Elena had grown up with the blood sausage as a meal or a snack at her friend’s house, and she was used to the bite-sized pieces as a delicious food only Mrs. Sulez made.

Elena felt Stefan’s heart sinking. She looked back and forth from him to Meredith.

“It turns out my mother didn’t always make it,” Meredith said, looking at Stefan now. “And my parents had a very good reason for changing my birthday.”

“Just tell it all,” Stefan suggested softly. And then Elena felt something she hadn’t before. A surge, like a wave — a long gentle swell that spoke right into the center of Meredith’s brain. It said: Just tell it and be calm. No anger. No fear.

But it wasn’t telepathy. Meredith felt the thought in her blood and bones, but didn’t hear it with her ears.

It was Influence. Before Elena could brain her beloved Stefan with her mug for using Influence on one of her friends, Stefan said, just to her, Meredith’s hurting, feeling scared and angry. She has reason to, but she needs peace. I probably won’t be able to hold her anyway, but I’ll try.

Meredith wiped her eyes. “It turns out that nothing was like what I thought happened — that night when I was three.” She described what her parents had told her, about everything that Klaus had done. Telling the story, even quietly, was undoing all the calming influences that had helped Meredith maintain herself. She was beginning to shake again. Before Elena could grab her, she was up and striding around the room. “He laughed and said that I’d need blood every weekanimal blood — or I’d die. I didn’t need much. Just a tablespoon or two. And my poor mother didn’t want to lose another child. She did what he told her to. But what happens if I have more blood, Stefan? What happens if I drink yours?”

Stefan was thinking, desperately trying to see if in all his years of experience he’d come across anything like this. Meanwhile he answered the easy part.

“If you drank enough of my blood you’d become a vampire. But so would anyone.

With you — well, it might take less. So don’t let any vampire trick you into blood exchange. Once might be enough.”

“So I’m not a vampire? Now? Not any kind? Are there different kinds?”

Stefan answered seriously. “I’ve never heard of ‘different kinds’ of vampires in my life, except for Old Ones. I can tell you that you don’t have a vampire’s aura.

What about your teeth? Can you make your canines sharp? Usually it’s best to test over human flesh. Not your own.”

Elena promptly stuck out her arm, wrist vein-side up. Meredith, eyes closed in concentration, made a great effort, which Elena felt through Stefan. Then Meredith opened her eyes, mouth also open for a dental inspection. Elena stared at her canines. They looked a little bit sharp, but so did anybody’s, didn’t they?