Bloodline

“You’re welcome, Lilith.”

I had been pulling the shirt around me when he said that, and the name, Lilith, made something tickle deep within the core of my brain. It brought my head up, made my eyes narrow and strain, as if I were trying to look through his skin and bones to see into his soul.

“What did you call me?”

He seemed to wish he could bite the word back as soon as he said it. I could tell by the way he quickly averted his eyes, leaned the pitchfork against the wall and began to fidget with a harness that hung from a peg. “I have to call you something,” he muttered. “It seemed as good a name as any.”

I pulled the shirt the rest of the way on and buttoned it. Then I scooped my hair out of the collar. His shirt came to my upper thighs. It was only slightly longer than my hair.

“You said you were drawn to my house from the distance. Do you remember anything prior to that?”

I nodded, allowing him to believe he had distracted me from the matter of that name. A name that felt…familiar. “I remember…a little. And I have no reason not to tell you all of it. But I’m tired, and I’m incredibly hungry.”

“All right.” He nodded twice, and said it again. “All right. Come on to the house. I’ll get you something to drink.” As he spoke, he turned and started walking, taking my arm lightly as he did.

“I need a meal, not a drink,” I told him. My stomach was growling. “I need meat. A nice rare burger or a steak or—”

He stopped walking and stared at me. “You said you don’t know who you are. Do you know…what you are?”

I frowned at him, having no idea what he meant. “I’m…a woman. An amnesiac. A…” I couldn’t think of anything else, and I could tell by the look in those brown velvet eyes that I hadn’t said what he’d wanted me to say. “What?” I asked softly. “What am I?”

Even then, though, I think there was some inkling. I could outrun a deer. I could see for miles. I could hear things no ordinary person could hear, smell things only a bloodhound should be able to smell. I began to shake, and I lowered my head, looked at the mark on my wrist, felt tears welling up in my eyes. My knees seemed to weaken as I whispered the question again. “What am I?”

My legs turned to water, and his arms came around me, fast and sure, to keep me from falling.

“I feel so weak.”

“I’m sorry. I should have seen it sooner. Come on, Lilith, I’ve got you now.”

He scooped me up as if I were a child, and I gave in to the weakness that was overwhelming me and let my head rest on his sturdy shoulder. I closed my eyes. Softly, I said, “I don’t even know your name.”

“Ethan,” he told me. And that, too, caused a powerful ripple in the still waters of my mind.

“Ethan,” I repeated. “Thank you, Ethan.”

“You may not be thanking me later,” he said.

I frowned and searched his face, but he kept his eyes forward as he carried me out of the barn into the darkness of the night, and then along a winding path toward his house. Soon enough, we were inside. I felt the comfort of warmth enveloping me as he closed the door behind us. I smelled a wood fire and looked around for the source, but we were only in the entry hall. He kicked off his shoes without putting me down, then continued into a modest living room that welcomed me like a hug. The furniture needed only button eyes to resemble a family of teddy bears—plush and soft and brown. Green and gold and russet throw pillows littered each piece like the fallen autumn leaves outside. The fieldstone fireplace held a dancing blaze that painted my face in heat and light, and above its gleaming oaken mantel, there was a painting.

I stared at it, unblinking, my tired eyes suddenly finding the strength to stay open.

It was a woman, a nude woman, with coppery curls like ribbons draping down her body. Twined around her was a giant snake, and she looked as if she adored the thing. She had more curves than I had, and I had no idea whether her face bore any resemblance to mine. The title, “Lilith,” was written unobtrusively across the bottom, and beneath that the name of the artist, John Waterhouse.

“Is it the hair?” I asked.

“Is what the hair?” Ethan lowered me onto the teddy-bear sofa, which was every bit as soft as it looked. Then he opened the antique trunk that served as a coffee table and pulled out a blanket.

“In the painting,” I said, and I pointed. “Is it because our hair is alike that you called me by her name?”

“Partly that.” He draped the blanket over me, then turned to gaze at the picture. “But there’s a lot more to Lilith’s story than her hair. Legend has it that she was the first woman, created by God alongside Adam. His equal. She refused to submit to him, was too independent to be tamed, much less owned or commanded. And so she left him, and God was forced to make another companion for him. That time he made the woman from Adam’s rib, so she would know her place.”

“And that was Eve?”

“So the story goes. And even then, poor submissive Eve got blamed when things went to hell. Didn’t do her much good to behave, did it?” He faced me again.

I frowned, unsure what he was getting at. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I sense you’re a lot more like Lilith than Eve. Your spirit is like hers, indomitable.”

“I don’t feel very indomitable just now.”

“You are. Trust me.”

“How do you know?” I tried to see whatever was hiding behind his eyes, because I was sure something was. “Do you know me, Ethan?”

He lowered his head quickly. “How could I?” As he said it, he crossed the room, and then he left entirely.

I rested my head on a russet pillow, listening as he rummaged around in the next room. When he returned, only moments later, he brought with him a huge ceramic stein. He pressed it into my hands. It was warm.

I smiled, thinking of hot cocoa, and immediately brought it to my mouth for a long drink. And yet the moment it hit my tongue, I knew it wasn’t cocoa. But it was exactly what my body needed. What I craved. It was rich, thick, tasting slightly of sulphur and salt, and yet I found it irresistible.

He stood watching me as I tipped the stein upward, drinking and drinking and drinking, until I’d drained it all. I lowered the stein and wiped the back of my hand over my lips.

It came away red.

Blinking down at my hand and then up at him, I asked, “What was that?”

“Just a favorite of mine. Call it a—protein shake.”

“What did I just drink, Ethan?”

“Close your eyes and relax, Lilith. There are things I have to tell you, and you’re going to need that inner strength you don’t know you have—you’re going to need all of it.”

I didn’t close my eyes, and I didn’t relax. Instead, I sat up straighter on the sofa, planted my feet on the floor and held the blanket around me like a cloak, watching Ethan as he paced away from me.

“You said you’d tell me,” he said. “Everything you remember.”

“I hope you don’t expect that to fill the evening.” My attempt at levity fell flat, and I drew a breath, wished to hell he would stop pacing and lifted my head.

To my surprise, he did stop pacing—just when I thought it. He met my eyes and moved to the overstuffed chair beside the sofa. As he sat, I organized my thoughts, going back as far as I could remember.

“I woke up on a hillside underneath a bridge. It was raining. I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing there. I still don’t. A car came along, and I ignored my instinct to run and instead stood there waiting, hoping they would stop and help me. They did stop. And then the window went down a little, and someone poked a gun out of it and ordered me to get in.”

His expression grew tighter, more troubled, with every word I uttered.

“A man’s voice? Or a woman’s?” he asked.

“Man’s.”