Isidor

I returned up above ground a few days later. My mother had travelled deep into The Hollows to stay with a friend for a week or two, leaving me alone. Left to my own devices and feeling as free as the birds I'd seen in the woods above ground, I returned. This time, though, I didn't head straight into town, I headed for the lake.

Since my last visit, I hadn't been able to stop thinking about what I had seen. I thought of Melody Rose often, and remembering that she had said she spent time at the lake, I secretly hoped that I would find her there. It wasn't that I thought she was hot or anything like that, but she did seem easy to talk to, and I hoped I might find out more about above ground from her.

So with my mother gone, I made my way up through the roots of the tree, into the tunnel, and pushing the grate aside, I found myself back in the woods. It was cold and the ground and the air felt damp. I guessed it had rained recently and I was annoyed that I had missed that. I'd never felt rain against my skin before. Covering the grate with leaves, I made my way through the woods and down to the lake, and there just as I had hoped, sat Melody on the tiny stretch of sand. I couldn't be sure, but it was almost as if she had been waiting for me, because as she looked up, I saw a faint smile cross her lips. I walked along the shoreline and sat beside her. And that's how our friendship started. We became almost inseparable. We spent the next couple of months together, apart from Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings when Melody's mum took her to church and prayer meetings. I soon came to consider Melody as my best friend. During the first few days of our time spent together, Melody described her mum as being a 'religious nut-nut.'

"What do you mean?" I asked her as we wandered together through the woods.

"She thinks she's a nun!"

"What, she dresses up as one?" I laughed.

"Kind of, she's not like other mums. She never wears any makeup, her hair is grey and cut short, she only ever wears black, and she always has this large wooden cross hanging around her neck for everyone to see."

"Is that weird?" I asked, not knowing for sure.

"Yeah, that's weird," she said back, straightening the bonnet that she always wore on her head. "My dad left her soon after I was born. If she was anything then like she is now, I don't blame him."

"My father left soon after I was born, too," I told her, but my mother had never said more than that about him. I'd never even seen a picture. "But you sound as if you really hate your mum. I don't hate my mum because my father left us."

"I don't hate her. I just hate the way she is. When she isn't attending church or going to prayer meetings, she spends most of her time in her room."

"What's wrong with that?"

"She's praying. My mum has turned her room into a mini grotto, like the one in Lourdes. She's built this big cave-type thing out of papier-mache and put a statue of the Virgin Mary in it."

I wasn't sure what a grotto was or anything about a place called Lourdes, but not wanting to appear as if I knew very little about above ground, I cried in disbelief, "Get outter of here! You're kidding me!"

"I'll show you someday," she said, and I noticed a sadness in Melody's eyes that I hadn't seen before. I guessed that maybe she was telling the truth after all about this grotto thing, and a statue of a virgin.

"Is there anything you remember about your father?" Melody asked, bending down and picking up a stone from beneath a huge tree.

"I don't remember anything about him," I told her.

"Nothing at all?" she asked me, toying with the stone in her hands.

"My mother never talks about him," I told her. "I've asked loads of times, but she just changes the subject. I don't even know his name. It's almost as if he didn't really exist at all."

"That's sad," she said softly, and again I saw that look of sadness dance across her eyes. Melody was unique. I had never been able to talk so easily with any of my other friends. I supposed it was because Melody and I had similar backgrounds, but all the same, I thought she was a very sensitive person.

Then, changing the subject I said, "Have you ever seen magic pictures?"

"Magic pictures?" she asked, looking confused.

"A movie projector?" I added, wondering if I'd said the wrong thing.

"The multiplex, is that what you mean?"

"I think so," I said, wishing now that I hadn't said anything. "We call them movie projectors where I come from."

Then, stopping and smoothing the stone with the flat of her hand, she looked at me and said, "Where do you come from, Isidor? You've never said where home is."

"Erm," I stammered. "It's a long way from here."

"What, are you from another country?" Melody asked, sounding more than interested.

"I guess," I said, not knowing what to say next and glancing down at the ground, knowing that my home was some way beneath me.

Then, raising her hand as if to take mine, but changing her mind at the last moment, Melody said, "It doesn't matter to me where you're from, I'm just glad that you came to Lake Lure."

Just wanting to change the subject, I blurted out, "So shall we go to this multiplex and watch Marilyn Monroe?"

"Marilyn Monroe?" Melody said, stifling a giggle. "She doesn't make movies anymore. She's dead and has been for years, way before I was born. Besides, my mum says that movies are sinful, that they fill young people's heads with wicked thoughts."

I thought of what my mother had told me about the hundreds of male Vampyrus leaving The Hollows in search of their own human as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe and said, "Perhaps your mum is right."

We spent the following day mooching around the town. We passed by a shop that was having a new sign painted on it by a man who was high above us on a ladder. At street level, the painter had left a little toolbox rammed with brushes and tiny pots of paint. Before I had a chance to realise what was happening, Melody surprised me by reaching into the toolbox. She grabbed hold of something and then ran off into the maze of narrow alleyways between the shops and houses.

I chased after Melody, her grey dress and apron flowing out behind her. She didn't stop until I had caught up with her by the lake on the outskirts of town.

"What was that all about?" I asked, pretending to be out of breath.

Melody opened her hand, and smiling, she revealed a packet of Marlboro cigarettes.

"What do you want them for?" I asked.

"To smoke, of course! Haven't you ever smoked before?" she smiled at me.

Thinking of the pipe weed that was smoked by some of the elder Vampyrus beneath me, I shook my head and said, "No, why, have you?"

"Once or twice," she replied. "Come on." Melody headed towards a nearby clump of bushes and made her way inside. I looked about, and then followed. Once inside, Melody bent some of the branches back and made a clearing on the floor where we could both sit down. She took two of the cigarettes from the packet and handed one to me. Melody then took a box of matches from the large pocket in the front of her apron and lit one. She popped the cigarette between her lips. I could see the orange flame reflecting in her eyes, and for the first time since meeting her, they looked full of mischief.

Melody sucked on the cigarette and the tip of it glowed orange. I sat and watched her as blue smoke squirted from her nostrils. She seemed to be an expert and I guessed she had done this many times before. Melody lit one for me, and without thinking, I popped the cigarette into my mouth and inhaled. I was instantly struck by the hot smoke in the back of my throat and I coughed it back out, my eyes watering. Melody giggled and said, "You haven't tried this before, have you?"

I shook my head and waited for the woozy feeling that I now had to clear. I watched Melody as she thoughtfully puffed away and I let my cigarette burn almost to the butt before I tried another puff. Melody was an enigma to me. On one hand she was this really sensitive person who would talk honestly and openly about her feelings, but on the other, she was someone who lived in fear of breaking the rules that her mum made her live by. But as I sat and watched her, dressed in her bonnet, grey dress and apron, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, I realised she also had this darker, mischievous side. What I couldn't come to understand about my own feelings, was that I was drawn equally to both sides of her personality.