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//
Later that night.
//
After she realizes that she tore Cal’s life apart on top of her own, Juliette goes to the only person she knows she can trust.
//
Oliver looks different than he did when he first reached out to her. He looks like the man Elinor warned them he was. He seemed confident in a dangerous way. He smiled at her like a predator would a helpless animal. All teeth and gleaming eyes.
Juliette pushed down that feeling as she wiped away her tears and explained that she had messed up. That she couldn’t go through with being human when she had taken that away from someone else.
“I need you to use the spell for Theo Burns instead.” She tells him.
Oliver looks angry and annoyed, but he quickly covers that up with a smile. Fangs out. “I’m not sure if this will work… let me ask Carmen… she’s the expert in these matters.”
Her brother leaves the room and Juliette is still shell shocked. Everything she knew has blown up in her face and she turned into the one thing she was trying to avoid. A killer. Even with Theo still alive, he was essentially dead. Hunters would turn their attention on him.
If his family didn’t kill him first.
She fucked up but she knows that she has to do the right thing. She has to give up her once chance to be normal to save Theo. She owes him the normal life he used to have. She did this to him and she has to take responsibility for what she did.
//
Oliver stomped into his study. His plans were falling apart just as he was about to seize power. If his little sister stayed alive, it didn’t matter that both his mother and twin were unable to be the be the Keeper and the Keeper in waiting once his grandmother tires of power. The duty of protecting the emerald Malkia would fall upon his worthless little sister.
He knew that she was not deserving of this honor. It should be him. He was robbed of it by being born into the wrong kind of family. One that does not understand how much more powerful he is than Elinor just because they think that only female vampires hold some kind of sacred connection to the emerald Malkia.
They are wrong and Oliver was here to show them what true power looks like.
But first, he has to figure out a way to get rid of Juliette. As a human, she would be easy to remove. As a vampire, it is impossible to go against tradition.
//
He is still brooding when Carmen comes to look for him.
She asks him what the matter is and he tells her everything. “I came back from exile to reclaim my birthright. I have planned for nothing but vengeance upon my family for listening to the wrong twin. For trusting her over me… for wanting to be a worthless matriarchy when really, I am the rightful heir. I should be the guardian of the emerald Malkia. I will be the one to save Savannah from the scourge that has befallen upon it. I will kill and enslave all monsters to show the other families that we deserve to be back in their good graces as we are the only ones that can save them.”
Carmen smiles at him. Proud.
“But… my little sister is a perpetual thorn on my side. First, she refuses to kill… then she refuses to turn back into a worthless little human.”
“If she doesn’t want to be a killer or a human, what does she want?” Carmen asks. Wanting to understand how they could further use her desires against her. She had been so trusting. So willing to believe her big brother, that this would surely be just as easy as the first time around.
“She wants Theo to be human instead.” He tells her. Annoyed.
“Oh.” Carmen says. Disappointed. As soon as Theo and Talia walked into their home, Oliver had made plans for them. They could be used to eliminate all the hunters that would come after them before his plan was in place.
“And I can’t say no because then she might no longer trust me, and I still need her. If my family manages to get out of this little bit of trouble, she would be useful.”
Carmen pulls out a book of spells from the shelf and opens it, handing it over to Oliver. “We could use the Seven Swans Spell… it guarantees failure when combined with the Urtica chamaedryoides. Your sister would disappear, and you would still get your hunter turned vampire.”
Oliver smiled. Delighted at how easy it was to solve problems when you had love at your side.
//
Oliver is so exhilarated at the opportunity to have everything he wants again, that he doesn’t see Talia. He doesn’t sense her listening in on what the spell truly entails.
The spell is the most powerful spell there is. It does transform a vampire human again but at an impossible cost. If the turned vampire was made of love, if they can see their own reflection, then it is guaranteed to work. If the vampire was not made of love, then they both would perish.
All Juliette needs to do is not make a sound for seven years as she sews seven articles of clothing for Theo to wear for seven days and seven nights, made entirely of nettles that are hand spun. Carmen suggested ones that were easy to find because it would make the task look simple. However, the heartleaf nettle has stinging hairs that cause an insect-venom like sting when touched. Making it easy for Juliette to be in so much pain that she would surely make a sound and turn into ash.
The spell would ensure that regardless of what happens to Juliette, they are guaranteed that she is out of their lives for good. Seven years is a long time to disappear and even though she is not the sister Oliver would want to exile, it is easier to remove her now that they knew what her heart truly desired.
It did not want love.
It wanted absolution.
//
Oliver and Carmen went back to a waiting Juliette. She looked so small. So, trusting. It was easy to sell her on the idea of the spell. All her brother had to do was pretend to care about her. To gently touch her face with his hands and reassure her that this would work. That she could have things go back to the way they were before she broke them.
“Remember that this comes at a cost. You will no longer be a legacy vampire if you utter a sound. That means that you could make Theo vulnerable to danger… but… there is good news. The nettles grow here. So, you can start right away.”
Juliette hugs him and cries against him. He feels dread but not strong enough to stop the plan he just put into motion.
“Go, I will stay here and take care of mom and dad.” He tells her.
Juliette smiles, with tears in her eyes, and thanks him. She tells him that even though he hasn’t been in her life for a couple of years, he never stopped being her big brother, never stopped loving her and she is grateful that he came back long enough to help her get one shot at redemption.
“I hope that when I come back, you’re proud of me.” She tells him so earnestly that he almost laughs. He can’t believe they share the same bloodline. She is so malleable.
“I already am.” He tells her. Trying to sound as sincere as he can. This only works if she believes in him.
//
Talia’s head is still reeling from what she heard. Apparently, the only thing that can kill a legacy vampire is love. The only thing that can make them weak and vulnerable enough to risk their very existence for someone that might not want them in their lives after seven years.
She is still thinking about how to make sure that Juliette goes through with the spell when the young vampire spots her. Juliette runs to her and starts crying. She tells her everything. Apologizing for turning Theo into a monster. She didn’t want Apollo to live with the guilt of having killed his brother… by having him bleed out in front of him. To be in pain. That she helped him because she thought it was the right thing to do and instead, she made things worse and broke the family apart.
“I know you should hate me, but I can make things right. I have a spell that can help… I do.”
Talia knows that this is when she should tell her about the true cost of failure. How her brother lied, and she could die if she fails. But how could she? When the spell could also work, and she could have her baby boy turn human again.
“I am beyond mad, but you did save him… come on. Let’s go get Theo and we can figure this all out.” She reassures Juliette. The girl smiles, full of hope and determination. Her eyes shining at the thought of making things right. Of being forgiven and she wonders if this is what her little girl saw in this monster. If this is what made her doubt everything she believed in.
//
One year later.
//
Her family doesn’t talk about that night.
They stopped talking about a lot of things long ago.
The day her mother chose a monster over them is the day they stopped being a family.
Apollo had gone from being cocky and overconfident, to being full of doubts. He would train and go over plans again and again. Hesitating when it came time to go in for the kill. As if he was stuck in a day he couldn’t remember.
He still doesn’t know why he can’t recall what happened. How he went from drinking in a bar to holding his dying brother, blood all over the bathroom floor.
Her dad doesn’t joke anymore. The warmth he had about him was sucked out of his soul the day their mother left. He tolerates no errors. He is harsher than he ever was to the both of them. Reminding them that any mistakes could mean losing what little family they had left.
Cal… well she’s different too. She was left picking up the pieces of her broken family while balancing her hunter duties and her studies.
Sometimes she daydreams about what her mom is doing. What Theo would say when she makes a particularly difficult kill. She even imagines them near her sometimes. As if wishing they were still here could conjure them where she needs them.
She shakes her head and punches the bag again. She needs to be faster. Stronger. She needs to find a way to kill legacy vampires so that they can stop tearing families like hers apart. So, they can stop tearing her heart apart.
//
Two years later.
//
Calliope doesn’t want to be in college, she wants to continue relentlessly going after they types of monsters that wear human faces. The dangerous kind that could make her put her guard down… just like she had once before…
But she also knows that if her mother were still with them, she would want her to stay in school. It was the only reason why, even through all the moves, she was still a student as her cover. It allowed her to blend in better with those her age and it made her mom smile warmly at her.
She doesn’t let others get too close to her. People know her or they see her, but they don’t know what makes her smile.
//
Three years later.
//
Her father is proud of her when he calls her ruthless as they get her third row of tattoos started. She tries to look happy, but she feels empty. The more she learns about the organization her family had devoted generations to, the emptier it feels. The secrets and weapons she learns about, it feels hollow. Like there should be something substantial with every revelation, instead she sees the cracks in the organization.
Cal stays quiet. It’s the only thing she has ever known. The only thing she can hold onto and believe in.
The last time she believed in something outside of the hunters, she fell in love with a monster. She loved someone so twisted that she broke her family apart and Cal is not about to make herself vulnerable again.
//
Five years later.
//
After graduating she decided to move back to Savannah. Knowing that Juliette would not be able to stay away from the city. Oliver had been exposed as a manipulative monster. The same way that Elinor was. Except he had made his little sister disappear and tried to get his family thrown in jail.
Margot was the new matriarch and unfortunately for Oliver, both her husband and her daughter were not as forgiving this time around. Juliette’s kindness had been weaponized against them.
Now she was gone.
Mr. Fairmont was horrified to know that it was his son and his girlfriend who had killed Juliette’s classmate and torn her liver out. That his daughter had promised him more restraint because she wanted to make them all proud. That she had been starving herself. Putting off the inevitable because she did not want to be a killer.
Not knowing that this would put into motion a series of event that would take hundreds of years to repair.
The first step was to decide Oliver’s fate.
Without anyone speaking in his defense. Without their kindhearted Juliette, the keeper in waiting decided his fate with relish. The other legacy vampires could only watch as he was locked into a silver coffin and thrown to the bottom of the ocean, along with the head of his beloved witch that had helped him put his plans into motion.
//
If Juliette was alive, she would return.
She had to.
//
Juliette Fairmont was dead.
There was no other explanation.
//
Elinor had the power her brother had tried to take from her, but it didn’t feel as fun as she thought it would.
Instead, it was full of politics and backstabbing and so much human bullshit that she wondered why she had wanted this in the first place.
She missed her sweet little. She knows she was manipulative and a bit of a bitch, but she had been trying to look out for her sister the only way she knew how. She had gotten rid of her brother because she saw how much of a monster he was when they were small. He was just like her, but a little bit darker. A little bit more able to do things like kill those that were similar to them. Those that were defenseless. Not just when he needed to feed. Not just when he went too far sometimes. It made her afraid for Juliette.
To know that her sister had been so easily manipulated made her mad. But it also showed her that it was her fault. That they had all pushed and pushed at her to be just like them so hard that she had cracked under the pressure and chose to trust the wrong person. All because he promised her impossible things.
//
Six years later.
//
As exciting as her life would seem, it’s routine. Although they are still a family, they no longer hunt together. They talk every couple of weeks if their schedules align.
Cal doesn’t even know if she likes being a hunter anymore. She is efficient. She is a good hunter. Always getting the kills she needs, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The monster population in Savannah seems to have started to disappear as soon as the Fairmonts were back in power.
It was odd.
Now hunters were asked to stay away from Savannah. Traveling all other the world to keep people safe.
Even if there were still monsters in the last place they were a family, they are no longer a priority.
//
Cal doesn’t know what this means, why the hunters are interested in all of the stragglers but ask that everyone stay away from vampires. Who is she to question orders?
Cal goes to the cemetery, and she runs into the most unlikely person.
She is so shocked to see her oldest brother that she can’t move.
Theo doesn’t see her. He looks behind his back, shoots and then keeps running. A werewolf by his side.
She wants to chase after him. But she sees that a hunter she knows is dead. She goes to him and turn him over. It’s weird. There is no blood. No bullet. Just a dart in his neck. She checks his pulse and it’s slow and steady. As if he was sleeping. She looks up and follows them. Determined to get some answers.
Cal is disgusted that her brother, the vampire, would help some werewolf. The last time she had helped a vampire, it had blown up in their faces. Now here he was helping some monster.
Her thoughts are dark when she gasps and covers her mouth as soon as the third figure jumps out of the car and turns around.
She is older but no less beautiful than the last time she saw her. “Come on baby.” She tells Theo as she closes the van door behind the injured werewolf and runs to the other side of the car. She looks around one more time and begins driving away.
//
Calliope was lost.
She knew they were in Savannah, but it was all swamps and gators out here.
After many turns and loops that ensured they were not being followed. A technique her mother taught her well, they finally arrived at a house in the middle of the swamp. It was dark and the frogs were calling out to each other.
Cal turned off her car and walked the rest of the way there.
By the time she got to it, she knew her mom and her brother would be inside. She walked the perimeter and saw nothing that would tell them who was outside. No cameras. No security of any kind. Unless you counted the restless gators that seemed to be looking at her from a distance.
Although she is mad that her family stayed so close to where it all fell apart, she is happy to see that her mother was able to keep them together. That they had made it unscathed from the bloodbath that followed all the monsters in the city.
She shook her head and smiled. Her mother was smarter than they gave her credit for. She had run away and stayed hidden in the one place they would never look for her. The same city her family had made their home base until recently.
Cal peeks in and is surprised to see Juliette. She looks just as she remembers her. Not from when they first met, but when she promised her she would find a way to kill a legacy vampire. She has no answers yet but she is a more experienced hunter. She lost count after 62 kills. She stopped getting the tattoos after her twentieth. She thinks they’re empty trophies. The only thing that matters is the knowledge that she put them down.
Unlike Apollo, she doesn’t crave trophies or a well-executed plan. She wanted her family back and when she failed to make that happen, no matter how good she was at killing monsters. At following rules and no longer asking questions. She stopped wanting things.
But now, seeing how Juliette had carved a place into the family she had broken, it made her blood boil and thirst for revenge again.
//
Calliope leaves and promises to return.
//
She dreams of Juliette that night.
Unlike her other dreams, where they laughed and talked and were so open and in love with each other, this one feels different. Juliette smiles at her but it’s so sad. It makes Calliope pause. She wonders if vengeance is even worth it. After so many years, there is not even pieces of her family to put back together. They drifted apart and it happened regardless of how hard she worked at being perfect.
She wonders if having Theo and her mom there would have made a difference.
She wants to know if she’s wrong. She wants to confess. To tell Juliette everything but the other girl won’t make a sound. She just holds her hand and sits with her as the peaceful dream turns into a nightmare.
She wakes up drenched in sweat. Shaking, she calls her dad but all Cal gets is his voicemail. A robotic call reciting his cellphone number. She tells him she loves him and calls Apollo.
He hangs up on her right away and texts her that he’s busy. Out on patrol.
Calliope can’t shake the weird feeling she has.
Ever since she learned that her family was alive. So close to her and yet not with her, she didn’t know how to feel.
//
She kept driving back to the swamp.
Drawn to Juliette in dreams in the glimpses she caught of her.
She was tending to the werewolf her brother had helped. Now a man who was going on three days of high fevers and throwing up black bile as Juliette fed him a tea made of herbs lying around the guest room. It looked like a mixture of a pantry and hospital room.
//
The fourth night, the fever seems to get so much worse. Juliette stays in that room and when the moon shines through the window, full and heavy with power, his eyes open, yellow, and reflecting murderous intent. Juliette tries to calm him down with some tea but he knocks it away. His teeth are bared and one of his hands goes for her throat. Crushing it. The other goes for her midsection and Cal is already breaking through the door as she sees the claws come out of her back. Black tips shinning red against her baby blue shirt. Cal kills him. And she wonders how hard he crushed Juliette’s throat if the other woman can’t speak.
She looks at the dead werewolf, sadness and confusion written all over her features. Still so easy to read, even years after they became strangers.
Then she looks up and the emotions that fly through her face are too raw for Cal. She’s elated, scared, terrified, and then, she’s resigned. She looks back towards the door and then to the body in her house. She closes her eyes and nods. As if she expected to find Cal at the end of a gun that was always pointed towards her heart.
There is no gun. No stake. Nothing. But she was still on borrowed time.
Tears run down her face and the door opens. Interrupting them.
“Hey Jules, I convinced mom to get us taco bell. So, we’re going to see if vampires can die twice. I think farting up a—ow!” He complains as he rubs the back of his head.
“It’s not even your house.” He whispers under his breath. A petulant child when punished by his mother. Even as a grown man.
“I’m still your mother.” She scolds him.
It takes them a minute to place why the house feels different. When the look up, the daughter and sister they lost is standing over a bloody body and they both run towards Juliette.
It stings.
To be second to a girl that years before had been nothing but a monster they had wanted her to stay away from.
“Juliette, what happened baby?” Her mother asks in that soft tone that takes her back to her childhood.
Juliette’s hands start flying and her brother comes back from the fridge with a bag of blood. Juliette bites into it and they both look at Cal.
“Thank you.” They both say. It feels weird to be acknowledged as a hunter first. Like they forgot how to be a family to her.
They stand there for a moment until Juliette hands Cal something. She signs to her mom and goes into the kitchen.
Theo looks between them and nods. “She’s right, we at least owe her the truth. It’s almost time anyway.”
Her mom’s face is unreadable, and she wonders if she learned to be strong from her. Even when she was gone all she dreamt about was having her mom back. And now she was here and they were connected but so far away from who they used to be.
“I never wanted to leave you and Apollo behind… I came back for you… but your father said that I had made my choice. That next time he saw me, he would kill Theo and me.” She tells her. There’s a growing puddle of blood, seeping into the wooden floor. Theo and Juliette are cleaning up the murder of a werewolf they had tried so hard to save and her mom is telling her that she had come back for her and failed.
Cal started laughing at how absurd this all was. How normal and bonkers it all felt at once.
“I kept this for you.” Her mom tells her, softly. Handing her a photo album before she goes to help them carry the body into the swamp.
Calliope sits there for a moment. She hears Theo’s kind voice and her mom’s strict tone. Juliette is silent through all this and she wonders how hard the werewolf had crushed her throat to render her speechless.
//
The album is filled with moments of her life when she felt her mother’s presence. When she wished her family was whole again to see her through life.
Her high school graduation has her mom and Theo smiling at the camera as she is on stage. Same for college, except her face is up on the monitors along with her name.
They are smiling. Framing her with their bodies. Cal is far away but she is there and so are they. There are some pictures of the three of them, taken with Theo’s long arms as a selfie stick. At the haunted house that was truly haunted, her first solo mission. The cemetery overrun by ghouls that took her months to clean up. Right next to a funny tombstone. Calliope shooting a crossbow in the background. Too intent on her kills to notice three extra bodies.
The album makes her so mad that she tosses it at the bed and storms off.
How could they have been so close and never tell her?
//
She comes back after a week.
//
It had been hard to stay away from the pull of Juliette Fairmont. Especially now that she knew she had been close enough to touch, along with her family. She was here and she had stayed and yet she never contacted her own family.
//
The house in the swamp was empty.
Juliette’s things were intact. They had not left. Except, there was no one here.
Calliope sighed. Annoyed at the other woman.
She started rummaging through the house. Profiling her through the things she kept at hand.
After an hour she had learned that Juliette had graduated from college after two years, all those AP classes made her start as a junior. She went to med school and was currently in her residency at Memorial Health. Which would explain the blood bag in the fridge and the guest room.
Other than that, there wasn’t much to learn about her. It was as if she was also living off the grid while building roots in the same community that had ousted her family.
//
The front door opened. Theo was laughing and carrying on a one-sided conversation. Her mom wasn’t there.
Juliette was smiling and signing.
“Weird.” Cal thought. “She should have recovered from the attack by now.”
Theo noticed her first, signed to Juliette and smiled at her. The years melted away and she wanted to cry. He looked just like the brother she lost. She wondered how he could stay a monster and yet be here, looking like nothing had been stolen from them.
“I’ll call mom and we can go over some stuff.” He tells her. Hands reaching out and then awkwardly finding their way to his back pockets.
Like he was afraid to hug her.
She was an accomplished hunter and he still treated her as if she needed to be protected.
//
Juliette made tea while they waited. She signed to her brother, and he pinched her cheek. Free with his affection. The way he had not allowed himself to be with Cal earlier and it stung.
“Jules says that you’re a special guest so you get your pick of cookies.” He says in a teasing voice that makes the other woman blush. He reaches up, over the fridge as Juliette gets on her knees and grabs a small box from the bottom cabinet.
They move so naturally that it feels as if she were intruding on a stolen moment between a family that was meant to include her, but now it doesn’t.
//
They’re on their second cup when her mom gets there. Keys in hand and empty aggravation written on her face. “Now I know you are not going to make me carry groceries into this house when I spent an hour shopping for you animals.”
Juliette stands up and Theo slouches down into his chair.
Calliope follows her. It has been years, but that tone of voice leaves no room for argument.
They go back into the kitchen and Juliette starts putting groceries away as Cal hands them to her. They’re all her favorites and that makes her nod to herself. It answers why her mom would go shopping for two vampires when they probably would be fine with the blood bags at the bottom drawers of Juliette’s fridge.
//
Her mom tells her everything.
Why they stayed. How Juliette had wanted to run back home but couldn’t. She would be pressured to be someone she was not. She wanted to heal the broken pieces of the city she had grown up in. The one her family had worked so hard to rip apart.
She wanted to be a doctor for humans, hunters, vampires, and all others like them. The kind that would avoid hospitals and die out in dirty bar bathrooms because it was hard to explain why you were impaled by a stake.
Her hands were angry and red from the nettles she handled constantly. The spinning wheel in her bedroom surrounded by baskets of nettles she collected in this derelict place. It was perfect to grow her healing herbs and collect nettles without being disturbed.
“One more year and one more article of clothing and we can go back.” Theo says, proudly.
Her mom pats his hand. The sadness in her eyes is reflected by Juliette’s. They know that they can never go back.
//
Seven years later.
//
The days get shorter the closer they are to the seven-year mark of when she started spinning and knitting.
//
Calliope feels like a traitor. Her father and Apollo don’t know that she is slowly healing all the parts of her that were broken by a stupid and impulsive teenager that didn’t understand anything about herself or how her world worked.
Theo and her mom tiptoed around her. Not knowing how to invite her back to the lives they had built on the periphery of the woman she was becoming.
Juliette was more welcoming but no less awkward. Before she had been a teenager with a crush that was so desperate to impress her. Now she was a woman unused to sharing much of herself and her life with someone she didn’t have to hide from.
Everything felt stilted and weird and perfect.
Calliope was not sure if she was ready to have her heart be as open as it was when she was younger.
She had also grown so much.
She was a hunter the way her mother had been. Except now she was full of doubt where before there had been nothing but the empty feeling of just wanting to get through the job.
Every kill she questioned. Some she drove to Juliette’s house. The injured orphans that were scared kids. That reminded her of the girls they used to be. So unsure and full of promise but in over their heads.
//
She was still bad at sign language, but Juliette would text or write on a chalkboard. One of the many scattered around her house.
//
It was weird. Fitting into this new life as she realized her own was too tight to fit her correctly. She wonders if she was always supposed to be something else besides the person her parents had trusted her to be. The one she was so eager to become. And now she was desperate to run away from.
//
Sometimes she picks Juliette up from a shift. When she’s too tired to drive. The silence is comfortable around them.
//
Other times she wants the ringing in her ears to stop. To be filled with Juliette’s laughter. She is afraid that Juliette will finish her brother’s sweater and disappear from their lives.
//
Cal stands outside the house. She stares at it from a distance, and she wonders why her life couldn’t have been the way it used to be. She wants to travel back to before she even met Juliette and was cursed to be a part of her life. To always fall into her gravity. To fall in love with this impossibly endearing girl that was full of shy smiles and red tinged cheeks. Ready to burst into laughter but having to swallow it all down for fear of disappointing Theo. Of disappointing Talia Burns. The fear of turning into ashes and forever dying secondary to hurting those she loved. Those she promised to protect.
//
Her dad easily lets her go because he never held onto anything but her mother’s ghost too tight for him to miss their absence. Apollo is a fractured man that is both capable and full of doubt. Never forgiving himself for killing his brother.
//
//
Today is the day her brother wears his seven garments. It is both the biggest deal in the world and a huge let down.
They have to wait for seven days, and it seems as if they are all holding their breaths. Hoping it will work.
//
The second day is just as exciting and uneventful. They are still waiting. Theo complains about how itchy the material is and Juliette looks contrite. Her hands are still puffy and red. Not having fully healed. Even with her supernatural birth right.
Cal reaches out and touches her hand.
//
Day three, night three. They go by faster than the previous days and yet, it feels like forever for the clock to strike 12. Midnight and another day over. Another night over.
She turns over and stares at Juliette’s peaceful face.
The anticipation is killing them. They refuse to leave the house by the swamp.
It is crowded and they get on each other’s nerves, but they know that it’s not personal.
//
The fourth day Theo climbs up on the roof, saying he is going to fix some shingles and his mother shouts that he better not die from being an idiot or else she will slap him so hard it will bring him back to life long enough to strangle him.
//
The fifth day brings in some light teasing. As Theo and Cal are back to a dynamic where they love unconditionally but need to test each other’s limits.
“So, did you ever think your vampire girlfriend would turn into a bog witch when she grew up?” Theo asks in that serious voice that annoys her because he says stupid things but makes them sound like they could be meaningful.
Cal pushes his shoulder. The scratchy material chafing against her palms. “Shut up. She’s not a bog witch.”
Theo smiles. “So, you don’t deny that she’s your vampire girlfriend?”
Cal stands up and smacks the back of his head before running away.
//
On the sixth day, they are tense and nervous. The house is quiet. They are all afraid to voice their doubts. Not wanting to jinx the one thing they had been working towards for seven years.
//
The seventh night, her mom, the strongest woman in the world, is crying.
Juliette leaves the room and Cal pretends to be asleep.
She goes into kitchen, leaves the light off and holds the crying woman against her.
They stay like that for a while and Calliope strains to hear her mother’s side of the conversation.
“If this doesn’t work… we have to give up… we looked for alternatives for seven years while you stayed here and were robbed of your voice… I know all about atonement and sins greater than your soul can carry. But you can’t spend your whole life trying to make a wrong right when even if he becomes human again, it won’t bring me back my family.” Her mom says.
Juliette smiles down, wipes Alicia’s eyes and tells her that she’s wrong. It did bring her back her family. It brought her back her heart. She has Calliope now… even if she can’t reconcile with the man that was willing to kill their son, she can still claw back those pieces of her family that are still within her reach. Apollo is still her son. They have his album to show him… her son and daughter are still there, and Juliette is here, and atonement doesn’t mean forgiveness… sometimes it just means making the most of what you have.
“If this fails, you have to come back to us too. You have to talk and you have to tell your family where you have been… we can’t fix what is broken, you’re right, but we can use those pieces to build something new and I can’t imagine the pain your mother must feel in the not knowing.”
Calliope feels the tears run down her face as she goes back into the room.
She wonders when her mother became that type of person that spoke openly about things like that.
It’s funny, they were so different now. Her brother was lighter. Her mother was more open and Juliette was shy and withdrawn but so much stronger than Cal thought she would be capable of being.
She went from a woman that was expected to kill to one that wanted to heal.
She found a balance between being a vampire, breaking a curse, and making sure that her brother was safe enough to stop killing others like him without starving.
Cal wonders why she stayed on the same path she always dreamed of herself.
Everyone else was changing and she was still the same.
//
The eighth day, her brother woke up hungry and when he bit down into a bag of blood his teeth hurt and he cried out.
“What the fuck?” He complained as he held his face.
“What did I say about that tone?” Her mom said as she smacked the bag of blood away from his face.
He looked up, scared. Unused to feeling pain that was so menial and human.
“Mom.” He said and they both hugged and started crying.
Juliette stared at the three of them from the doorframe of her room.
She smiled and went back to bed.
Calliope thought it was weird. She went inside and Juliette was silently crying into her pillow.
She sat down and rubbed Juliette’s back. She didn’t understand how it felt to have seven years of your life culminating to a big reveal and then having nothing but an empty house to show for it.
“uhh, mom?” Cal shouted. Unused to being soft when she had been tasked to be strong for so long that she wonders how she ever allowed herself to fall in love so hard with a girl this vulnerable.
Her mom came in and got into bed. Hugging Juliette. “Come on baby.” She says aloud. Nobody moves and she rolls her eyes.
“Big spoon or little spoon?” She asks, sounding annoyed but not mad.
“Big spoon?” Calliope asks. Her brother wanders in and he sandwiches Juliette between his body and his mom’s.
“Come on, big spoon.” Her mom orders. Juliette holds her mom and they don’t hear Juliette cry but they feel her shake with sadness.
She cries until she falls asleep and Cal wonders what dimension she fell into where her mom would do this for another person.
//
A month after Theo is human again, Juliette is still unable to talk.
The doctors in her hospital say it’s a combination of trauma and disuse.
She has to retrain her muscles to work again.
Her family is happy to see that she’s alive but it is harder to learn how to fit back into a role she was never comfortable with than learning how to talk.
They want her to move back into her childhood room, but Juliette likes her quiet little house by the swamp. She spent almost a decade building a life around silence and healing. She can’t go back to killing and the role of a keeper of the emerald Malkia just because her family knew she was alive.
Calliope resented her for having an intact family and still seeing the cracks.
She resented her for being the one to break and heal her family too.
Talia and Theo reached out to Apollo. Cal was their go between and it was awkward. Apollo had gone from being a cocky man to one that reminded them of who Theo used to be. Back before he tried to bear the weight of silence on his shoulders by trying to constantly make everyone feel comfortable. To diffuse the tension.
Years apart and their roles had reversed.
//
Eight years later.
//
Calliope didn’t know how it happened, or even when, but they were in love.
Not just the hard and fast love that tore their families apart.
The kind that was sickly because it was so sweet.
She tries to pinpoint when she let Juliette back into her heart. When the fears and the ghosts were not stronger than when she felt her heart beating faster at the thought of making the drive to that secluded house surrounded by the sounds of frogs and insects.
When she became addicted to the sound of Juliette’s laughter. Something she had lost without knowing it had been missing from her life.
//
Juliette’s fears of losing her new family were unfounded. Even though they were no longer linked due to a curse, Theo and Talia still came by. Not just when they needed to be patched up.
Cal was already there. Waiting for them to join them for Sunday night dinners.
Her mom didn’t look surprised or angry at seeing them so comfortable next to each other. Not like she had when they were in high school. Now she looked relieved. Like them finding their way back to each other was the inevitable truth of who they were.
//
Even though she knew what she felt for Juliette, Cal was still unsure of how to approach this. They were no longer those teenage girls they used to be. Yet, opening her heart again made her feel like they were dancing around each other just the same way they used to.
//
Juliette smiled at her as they drove back from the movies. It had seemed so simple, in retrospect. But not in the moment. It was normal. Until it wasn’t. The way they walked into the house and amongst the laughter of taking off their shoes at the door and trying to stop an overzealous frog from coming inside the house, they kissed.
It felt like the start of something new. Something entirely their own. And yet it felt like it had always been there. A part of a promise they had made as teens.
She had been crushed by Juliette. Robbed of a life that she ended up having anyway and yet it had been so empty. With Juliette by her side. Not fixing what she had broken, but trying to keep it whole for seven years, even while knowing that it could never be the same, it felt like she could finally breathe.