The storm followed her from the city gates to the moors, lashing at her back and tossing pebbles between the spokes of her bike. The raincoat she’d just bought helped at first, but when rain is determined enough, it finds a way to soak. Halfway across the moors, in between one lightning flash and the next, she glimpsed the castle. More than a dozen spires rose from its shadowy walls, pockmarked over the centuries. The people in the city told her that nothing could penetrate the fortress. They stayed well away, remembering the stories of those who’d gotten too close, and never returned.
She pressed her feet against the bike’s pedals. Time to get too close.
Thunder shook the ground as she bumped over what remained of the road, laid down by the Celts and evidently not tended since. The castle grew and grew on the darkening horizon, a small mountain brooding over the moors. It could certainly hold its own, where brooding castles were concerned. She’d place it somewhere between Haunted Mansion and Dastardly Tower. A solid, second-place brood.
By the time she pedaled over broken paving into the huge courtyard, the storm had changed tactics. The wind had settled and now a steady downpour washed over her, drenching what dry parts remained hidden in the crooks of her clothing. With each breath, she felt like she was sipping the air, swallowing free samples of rain. She drew a damp gasp and looked up at the gritty castle facade.
Water blurred her vision, running off her chin and down her neck to re-soak the sweater her raincoat had failed to protect. Through the storm and the creeping dark she could just make out a line of windows. Though heavily curtained, light peeked between the folds. They’re home.
She dragged her bike up to the massive door and knocked.
“Did you hear something?”
Skin didn’t bother to glance up from his needles, his index finger encased in red yarn. “Hear what?”
Folk sat, listening to the rain. The dining room was one of the few places in the rambling house free of leaks. Well, big ones, at least. A silver bowl positioned on the table next to his wine glass caught a drop precisely every four and a half minutes. He checked his watch, confirming that it was definitely, inarguably, positively nighttime. Skin would call him neurotic (and did, frequently), but Folk was of the opinion that one could never be too careful about turning to dust.
His watch read 9:43pm. At any time in the year, that was definitely dark. Folk folded his book closed and tugged the heavy curtain aside, peering out over the moors. “I hope it wasn’t another shingle. That last repair took ages and cost a fortune.”
This time Skin looked up from his work. “What?”
“I heard something. Like a thud.”
“I’m not paying another roofing team. They never showed up when they were supposed to, never shut up when they did appear, and charged us up the ass for work a quarter the quality of the last group.”
Folk let the curtain fall back, glancing at his husband. “That last group. When was that?” He could vaguely remember stonemasons and wooden scaffolding. A few deaths after workers slipped from the castle’s steep slates.
Skin squinted, hair falling in his eyes. “1200? Maybe?”
“Really? I thought it was later. 1350 or something.”
Skin shrugged his broad shoulders and went back to his knitting.
She stepped back from the door. Someone had opened the curtain. For a moment, light had shone through the rain. Now it was gone, and she was back to standing in the dark, water steadily filling her boots. Gritting her teeth, she leaned her bike against the worn stone wall and pounded the door with her fist.
Something shifted high above. She gasped and threw herself against the door as a slate tile smashed onto the ground where she’d been standing.
So that’s why people don’t come back. She knocked furiously while thunder grumbled in the clouds overhead.
“Let. Me. In!”
Folk set his book down, warm creeping along his spine. Because his body’s base temperature was Cold As Death, a streak of warmth was always concerning. “There’s something outside.”
Skin shifted, chair creaking under his weight. He was easily three times Folk’s size, covered in hair except for about six inches, where his eyes and nose held their own between his beard and his scalp.
“Do you want me to go investigate?” Skin asked, though he did not set down his knitting. Folk knew this meant Skin really wanted him to go investigate.
It was a fair argument. Skin could be killed by a projectile, but an attacker needed to get close to Folk to stab a stake through his heart. Unless they mount it on a crossbow, he’d pointed out again and again to his husband, a recurring fear that had been only slightly assuaged with the advent of online shopping, which allowed him to order everything they needed without ever leaving the house.
Folk tugged the curtain to the side once more, staring out into the blackness. No torches; always a good sign. He searched for details, but rain and dark stole them away. He exhaled, dropping the curtain and getting up.
“I’ll go downstairs and look around. If I start screaming, that’s your cue to come to my rescue.”
“You can squish your own spiders,” Skin muttered, returning his attention to his knitting, red yarn slipping from his large fingers onto surprisingly delicate needles.
He was in the midst of making a new sweater for Folk. Folk expected that his collection of sweaters now surpassed any in the world when it came to variety, style, and sheer volume. Skin had learned knitting back when the Celts built the road across the moors. He’d been elaborating on his technique ever since.
Grumbling to himself loud enough for Skin to hear, Folk left the light of the dining room, grabbing a Maglite from the row in the hallway. While they’d been able to arrange drone delivery for almost everything, the castle’s placement on the edge of the moors meant that they only joined the grid about twenty years back. And storms were ever in the business of pushing them off again.
The basement was full of generators, but Folk didn’t mess with them. He left that to Skin, who understood finer mechanics. And was less afraid of spiders.
As he made his way down the stairs from the third floor to the first, Folk became aware of a low thudding, nearly drowned out by an undercurrent of thunder. His grip on the Maglite tightened. Someone was knocking on the front door.
He slid along the wall, fumbling open a cupboard and rummaging inside. “Where is it?” He shone the Maglite into the narrow space. There was supposed to be a hammer. A defense hammer. But all that rested on the shelf was a balding feather duster. “Skin, I swear to Cailleach…”
He grabbed the duster and faced the door. Whoever it was hadn’t stopped knocking. Folk thought they must be soaked by now. Rain still poured over the moors. Come to think of it, how did they get all the way out here in the dark? And why?
He edged his way to the door, Maglite in one hand, feather duster in the other. “Who’s there?”
The knocking continued. Folk raised his voice. “Who’s there??”
Silence. Then a muffled, “Let me in!”
“Who are you? Why are you here? What do you want?” He paused, considering. “You can leave the box on the steps, unless I have to sign for it. Do I have to sign?” Quarter to ten at night was an odd time for a delivery.
“What?” the voice called back from the other side of the door. “I’m not delivering anything! I’ve come to interview you!”
“What?”
“Just open the door. Please!”
Awkwardly —refusing to set down feather duster or Maglite— Folk turned the latch and opened the door. Dripping on the stoop was a young woman clutching an equally drenched messenger bag.
She didn’t look like the cryptid-killing type.
“Thank you.” She held out her hand. “I’m Polly. Are you Skin, or Folk?”
Folk stared at her. If she couldn’t tell by looking at him, she hadn’t done her research very well. And she certainly wasn’t from the city. “Who are you?”
She blinked water from her eyes, taking her ponytail and wringing it out onto the floor. “I’m Polly. Nice sweater, by the way.” She craned her neck, searching the darkness on the other side of the Maglite’s glare. “I’m doing my thesis on local immortals.” Her gaze slid back to him, sizing him up. “Are you the vampire?”
The vampire. Folk had spent centuries trying to escape being defined by his heritage. He cleared his throat stiffly. “My name’s Folk. What do you mean, thesis? Isn’t it late for you to be this far from the city?”
“I wanted to come at a time most convenient for you. I’ve got lots of questions.” She tugged her bag up, water dripping from the flaps onto the stoop. Folk watched them fall.
Splat.
Splat. Splat.
Splat.
Polly seemed to be more rain than human. Part of Folk thought that she might never dry off completely, doomed to drip for the rest of her short life. Interview? Skin wouldn’t like that. He barely talked to Folk in the evening, let alone strangers. Folk tried to think of an excuse to send the girl away.
Thunder crackled on the other side of the door. Folk found himself caught again in Polly’s damp, hopeful gaze. He drew a breath. “I guess you’d better come in.”
She hadn’t been expecting the sweater. She’d always imagined vampires in suits, maybe with a cane and a big ring. The only ring she saw on Folk’s hand was a slim gold wedding band. It looked very old.
He led her up the dark stairs, their footsteps accompanied by the distant sound of water dripping into overfilled buckets. That was another thing. The castle was very old, but filled with anachronisms. The Maglite, for example. Of course, they have to move with the times, don’t they? Still, a lime green sweater with a beaded neckline? And what was the feather duster for?
Before they started up the steps, Polly noticed that Folk was a few inches shorter than her. He couldn’t have been more than 100 pounds. She wondered if he’d always been that small, or if centuries of undead existence had siphoned bits of him away. It must be so hard, watching the world change around you. As they reached the top of the stairs, Folk’s watch set off a chirpy little tune. He pressed a button on the side.
“Ten o’clock,” was all he said, and kept walking.
At the third floor they turned into a hallway. Polly tensed. There, at the end of it, a doorway glowed with light.
Now she would finally see how two undeads lived. Would there be skeletons? Coffins? Folk must sleep in a coffin. She wondered what Skin did.
Knowing they would sleep during the day, she’d made sure to time her visit for ten o’clock, right around brunchtime for someone nocturnal. The rain she hadn’t planned on. Her shoes squelched with each step.
As they reached the doorway, Folk switched off the Maglite and set it on a shelf alongside several others. He then raised the feather duster, a look of surprise crossing his face, as if he hadn’t remembered he was carrying it. He set it on the shelf next to the flashlights.
“What does it do?” Polly couldn’t resist asking. Folk looked at her, tensing.
“What?”
“The feather duster. What does it do?”
“Dust?”
“Oh.”
Folk walked through the doorway. Polly followed. They entered what appeared to be a dining room, though parts had been adapted to serve a more casual lifestyle. A couch rested along one wall, and a winged armchair occupied a space by the window, the table next to it holding a book, a silver dish filled partway with clear liquid, and a glass. Polly fixed on the glass, recognizing what it contained. Blood.
So focused was she on this that missed the dining table, and the huge form hunched over a mass of red. He looked up as she entered.
“We don’t need any servants,” a deep voice growled.
Polly jumped, turning.
The werewolf was massive. Broad shoulders were barely contained by a faded Led Zeppelin t-shirt, thick body hair reaching all the way to his wrists. Polly looked past them at Skin’s hands, entangled in red yarn.
“She says she’s here to interview us,” Folk said, tugging a chair from the table and sitting down. Skin studied her. His eyes were dark brown. I thought they’d be yellow. Come to think of it, Folk’s eyes weren’t red, either. They were just as brown, and he wasn’t even pale. For a moment, she wondered if she’d come to the wrong brooding castle on the moors. But there was only one.
“Interview us? For what?”
“Her thesis,” Folk said.
Skin frowned at the vampire, then eyed Polly. “What’s your name?”
“Polly,” she said, forcing a smile. She’d spent hours in the library combing through historical texts, studying mythology and the reclusive nature of the undead. This interview was the final touch: unveiling the raw truth. Sure, they might look normal, even act human— but history didn’t lie. They must hide all the gory stuff in the attic, or the basement.
“Short for Pauline?” Skin asked, brow furrowed.
“Uh, no. Polyester.”
The werewolf gazed at her for several seconds. Finally, he shrugged and returned to his…his…
“Excuse me. Are you— knitting?”
“Have a problem with that?”
“No! Just…” Polly looked from the knitting werewolf to the diminutive vampire in his bright green sweater. Really deep in the basement. “Just not what I expected.”
Folk sighed and got up from the table. “Do you have questions for us, or are you just going to stand there dripping on the rug?”
Polly sniffed and pulled her messenger bag forward, rummaging inside for her notebook. She’d had the foresight, at least, to seal it in a Ziploc before the journey.
“I’d like to ask you about immortality,” she said, fumbling for her pen. Skin didn’t look up from his knitting. Folk gestured to a chair.
“Take a seat, I guess. We’ve got…time.”
Skin didn’t like guests. They smelled funny.
This girl smelled like rain and bicycle oil, mostly, with a hint of damp wool. Aside from her smell, she had an energy about her that rubbed him the wrong way. He wished Folk had never let her in. Maybe I should have gone to the door, after all. He would’ve told her to hoof it and been done with things.
But Folk wasn’t like that. Folk was interested in people, and what went on away from the house. Folk was the one who got them on the grid after Skin accidentally set fire to himself from the candles for the four hundredth time (Not an exaggeration. A precise total. When you’re covered with hair, you keep track of these things). Folk was also the one with an Instagram account featuring book recommendations and far too many pictures of moor flowers he had Skin go out and pick for him during the day. His account had two thousand followers, to Skin’s disgust.
The pen clicked. “When did you become immortal?”
“Become?” Folk asked. Polyester nodded, a nervous smile on her face.
“When did you become mortal?” Skin grumbled, pausing in the middle of casting a stitch. The girl looked at him.
“What? I was born mortal, obviously.”
“So were we,” he said, nodding to Folk. “Born immortal.”
“But…” She consulted her notebook, forehead wrinkling. “You got bitten, didn’t you? By a werewolf, and by a vampire?”
“What gave you that idea?” Skin assumed that myth had died out during the Middle Ages.
The girl seemed at a total loss. “Um…centuries of cultural belief?”
Folk picked up his wine glass and returned to his seat, swirling the liquid in one hand. “It doesn’t work that way. My parents were vampires. Skin’s parents were werewolves.”
“Who bit them?”
Skin closed his eyes. “No one. Aren’t you listening?”
“But…” She stared at them across the table. “What happens if you bite each other?”
Folk coughed, a blush darkening his tan cheeks. “That’s a little personal, I think.”
Polyester bit her lip, tapping her pen on her notebook. Skin noted that she’d yet to write anything down. Evidently their answers weren’t good enough. After a few moments, Folk took a sip from his glass. Polyester raised her pen, pointing at him.
“That’s blood, isn’t it? Whose is it? Do you keep animals for slaughter, or slaves?”
Folk swallowed, coughing again. “What?”
“In your glass. Where do you get the blood?”
“This is pinot noir.”
Folk set his glass down, nudging it across the table. “And I’m off it, thanks to you.”
Skin began a new row. From now on, I’m the only one who answers the door. To Polyester, he said, “Folk’s vegan.”
He heard her pen hit the notebook. “Vegan? A vegan vampire?”
She looked from Skin to Folk. “How is that possible? Don’t you need blood to live?”
Folk pulled a face. “Ew, no. I haven’t had blood since I was weaned.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Paper rustled as the girl flipped through her notebook. “You’re telling me that you don’t drink blood as an adult? You’re saying it’s like…breast milk?”
Folk swallowed, his expression still set in disgust. “Yes.”
Skin finished his row and swapped needles. Polyester turned to him, gripping the sides of her notebook. “Please tell me you change during a full moon.”
“Used to,” Skin said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her relax, picking up her pen again. “But I got terrible cramps. I’ve got an IUD now.”
Click. The pen hit the table. “You’ve got what?”
“Implanted Ululation Deterrence.”
Skin passed his needles into his right hand and tapped his chest. “It’s a plate between my lungs that stops me from changing each month. Got it a couple years back, and I’m never going without it again. It makes sleeping around the full moon so much easier.”
“Especially for me,” Folk said, glancing at him. Skin eyed his husband.
“You still steal all the blankets. Wish I could get you an implant for that.”
Polyester hadn’t moved. She stayed staring at Skin’s Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He wasn’t sure she was breathing. After a few moments, Folk picked up his wine, sniffing the glass.
“Blood,” he muttered, shivering and setting it down again.
The rest of the night went more or less nowhere. Polly refused to write down anything Folk told her, except when he mentioned the roofers who died back in 1200 or 1350 (he and Skin still couldn’t agree on the century). Even then, he suspected she thought he or his husband had something to do with the deaths.
At around 2 o’clock, Polly’s questioning slowed. She began muttering to herself, drooping over her mostly-blank notebook. Right before she fell asleep, she scribbled something in the margin that Folk couldn’t make out. The pen rolled away from her hand, pausing at the edge of the table. It was still rocking back and forth when a snore emanated from the human now crumpled on Folk’s Scandinavian dining room table.
Skin advised his husband to leave her there, her cheek pressed to the spiral binding of her notebook, drool collecting in one corner of her mouth.
Folk was exhausted. Entertaining was not something he did often these days. But still, he couldn’t go to bed while Polly sat slumped across her notebook. With Skin’s help, he moved her into the leaky living room and laid her on the couch.
The living room was cold, and after hours, the girl’s clothes were still wet through. Luckily, knitting was just one of Skin’s many textile skills. Folk unfolded a few quilts and laid them over Polly before following his husband up to bed. The sun was rising when they crawled under yet more quilts sewn by Skin over the decades.
“She has to leave tomorrow night,” Skin murmured into Folk’s hair, his arm draped over Folk’s waist and resting on the mattress in front of him.
“We could give her a lift,” Folk said, thinking about the Rolls Royce sitting in the garage. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d driven it. It probably needed gas. Cars still run on gas, right? Or are they all electric now? No, the generators took gas. So cars must too.
Skin snorted, air rushing past Folk’s ear. “Your license expired in 1987.”
“I meant to renew it.”
“I checked outside just before dawn. She brought a bike. She can ride that back.”
“The road’ll be ruined after the storm.”
“I don’t care. We didn’t invite her here. She disrupted our evening and wasn’t even invited.”
“Still.” Folk turned onto his back, looking at his husband. “It’s the nice thing to do. Don’t want people thinking we’re rude.”
“Clearly, that’s the least they think.”
Folk sighed, running his fingers along Skin’s arm. “Your mom emailed me yesterday.”
“Oh, great.”
“She wants to know when you’re coming to visit. It’s been 200 years.”
“Not long enough.”
“She remarried.”
Skin sat up. “What? When?”
Folk swallowed, finding Skin’s eyes in the dark. The curtains in their bedroom were reinforced with shutters and electrical tape. He wasn’t taking any chances. “1926.”
“Fucking hell.” Skin flopped back into bed, setting the mattress to shaking. The antique frame creaked dangerously. “It’s not some freak, is it?”
“A banshee named Dora,” Folk said, thinking about the email. Skin’s mother was one of Folk’s more active Instagram followers, always commenting hearts on his posts. “They’ve adopted a few kids over the years.”
“Knowing her, they’re probably all lawyers and doctors now,” Skin muttered. “I was always a disappointment.”
“You have 18 degrees.”
“Never went to law school though. Or med school.”
Folk turned to face him, resting his hand on his husband’s chest. “You’re her eldest. She misses you.”
Skin glared at the ceiling. After a while, he sighed. “Fine. I’ll visit her in a year or two. I’ll even send an email.”
Folk smiled. He nestled closer, tucking his head against Skin’s shoulder. “Good.”
When Polly woke up, the sun was already descending in the sky. Her clothes were damp and she was sweating under a mound of at least seven quilts. She shifted, groaning at an ache in her neck. As she became cognizant, she focused on the embroidery along the edge of the top quilt. A line of hearts decorated the fabric in red and gold. It was extraordinarily delicate work. She looked past the hearts at the quilt’s main design.
Moor flowers.
She struggled upright, quilts sliding to the floor. The living room was broad, filled with folding chairs and plastic buckets to catch leaks. A Led Zeppelin poster hung in a frame on the far wall.
Thin lines of sunshine snuck between drawn blinds. Polly clambered over the quilts and tugged the blinds up, staring outside.
She was still on the third floor of the castle. Where were Skin and Folk? Asleep— they must be. Though she knew werewolves could move around in daylight. Skin, at least, could be anywhere.
She hurried back to the couch and grabbed her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. After a couple of false tries, she found the way back to the dining room. She gathered her notebook and pen from the table, looking around for anything she might’ve missed. Her gaze landed on the wine glass.
They must’ve been faking. Lying to hide their secrets. Trying to put me off so I wouldn’t suspect anything. She picked up the glass. It was empty, but a smudge of residue colored the bottom. She dug through her bag and withdrew a pack of damp tissues. Reaching into the glass, she wiped the residue away and stowed it in the pack with the clean tissues. She’d test it when she got back to the city.
Orange light filled the horizon as Polyester mounted her bike and started pedaling, leaving the brooding castle behind.
As she crossed the moors, the air damp with remembered rain, she thought of a title for her thesis.
Blood and Knitting Needles: Unlocking the Secrets of the Undead.
She was sure to get an A. She just had to embellish a bit. Peel back the calm facade to reveal what was really happening.
She’d just barely escaped with her life. That was clear. It was the only obvious answer to any of the questions she’d asked.
The rest? Total fantasy. She could see past it a mile off.
“She’s gone.” Folk said, coming back into the dining room. Skin finished his row before looking up.
“Good. Saves us the trouble.”
“She uh…she left one of the blinds up.” Folk twisted his hands together. Skin sighed, setting his knitting down.
“The sun’s already set, you know.”
Folk glanced at his watch. “It’s not far enough down to be sure.”
Skin touched Folk’s shoulder as he passed, heading into the living room. “If there’s a spider on the window, I’m not killing it.”
He picked up the quilts and refolded them, stacking them on the edge of the couch where they would be safe from leaks. He then reached for the blinds, releasing the slats back over the darkened window. He could hear Folk moving around in the dining room, putting things back in order after their unexpected visitor.
“Hey babe,” he called, turning the wand until no light could enter between the slats.
“Yeah?”
“You making coffee?”
“Already brewed.”
Skin grinned, walking back into the dining room. Folk met him with a mug in his hand, the words World’s Best Dog printed on the side. Skin had almost smashed it when he opened it on his birthday last year, chasing Folk around the house while his husband laughed hysterically at his joke.
Tonight, Skin took the mug in his hands, warmth tingling against his palms. He inhaled the steam.
Folk picked up his own mug. “What should we do tonight?”
Skin scratched his beard. “I’m not entertaining any more guests. Or FaceTiming your dad again.”
Smiling, Folk sipped his coffee. “Just us?”
“Just us.”
