The Warp and The Weft

Chapter Eleven and a Half: A Voice in Shadows - Charlie

They were knockin' boots, good God I just walked into that, Charlie scrambled back up towards his room, cringing so hard he felt like his stomach was gonna punch his brain.

Moving faster than any human, he shot past the landing and had to reach out and grip the edge of the wall to stop himself. The force of which caused chips of stone to flake as cracks clicked and snapped, spidering across the wall.

"Darn it," He whispered, looking closely at the cracks he had made.

Like all Vampires, his eyes saw far more than a Warmblood. He could see the flakey layers of each individual crystal within the stone, for it was not one solid layer but billions of individual shards. He followed the cracks along the edges of these shards, the force of the impact caused the weak contacts between the little gems to split, following a path of least resistance.

As detailed as his vision was, they were still very noticeable. He tried to buff them out with this finger to no avail. As he prepared to walk away and hope no one noticed, he saw a faint shimmer from the crack. He focuses back to see the fractures slowly begin to knit itself together, a faint feeling of heat and energy radiating from the wall.

"What the?" He murmured as the wall repaired itself before his eyes.

He rested his hand on the wall feeling a slight vibration so faint that it was barely noticeable, even to his Vampire senses. He watched as the last of the chips seemed to expand like bread rising in the oven, filling out the voids left by fallen chunks.

Suddenly, he heard giggling and footsteps approaching from behind him. He didn't want to experience this a second time so he bolted silently off the landing and down into his room. He closed the door as quietly as possible, all while remaining silent. His maker, before she disappeared, had taught him to move silently and have his actions make no more than background levels of sound.

He looked around the room, a few books had fallen from the shelf. He picked them and the chair he had been sitting in back up, setting himself back into the seat by the window. He fished the book he was reading from behind a tipped table that he had flipped in his haste to escape his shaking room. He flipped through the pages and found the page he was on.

"The sweetness of Joy's silver smile may depart, And sadness may darken, where warmly it play'd,

                                                                      

But its sunshine again will steal over the heart,
When the ray of remembrance hath sever'd the shade. From the fountain of years that are fled, my lov'd friend,

                   

May the pure cup of Happiness sparkle for thee; And in future ones oft o'er this page may'st thou bend,

                   

With feelings, and thoughts, rich in kindness for me!"

He read the passages in a whisper, his eyes rolling over the words trying not to get caught in the texture of the page's fibres or the spread of old ink over cracks and crevices no Warmblood could ever perceive.

Charlie sat by the window for hours, his eyes moving from one passage to another, surprised at his draw to the melodic words. The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time he looked up from the pages. Only the barest of light rays were visible to him now, with the majority of the outside world appearing in a dazzling number of dark shades.

As a Vampire he saw the night for what it truly was, a tapestry of darkness rather than the solid wall of void visible to Warmbloods. The turning trees red and brown leaves appeared in shades of deep maroon while the mirrored surface of the moat that surrounded the castle sparkled with hints of black and blue and white with stars that shone like diamonds reflected into a thousand, thousand colours.