Without a Sound

When Mikey first opened his eyes, he was innocently confused. I smiled at him, but as soon as he realized where he was, he jumped to his feet.

“Oh, God, Charlotte!” he said apologetically. “I’m so sorry!” His expression was both concerned and befuddled.

I studied him carefully, trying to find the right thing to say. “Why?” I finally asked.

That has him stumped for almost a whole minute. “I just, I mean, I’m… sorry because I accidentally invaded your space while I was sleeping?” It came out as more of a question, and he wasn’t entirely convincing.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he pressed.

I laughed at the idea. “Why would I wake you up? You were actually sleeping.”

“Yeah, but –” he shut up abruptly. With his mouth open slightly, he seemed to be thinking something over.

After several minutes I broke the silence. “You were actually sleeping, Mikey,” I repeated. “You didn’t move a muscle. I couldn’t bear to wake you up.”

He looked at me, but he still couldn’t formulate complete sentences. “I can’t believe… How could I... Did I…”

“Spit it out,” I ordered impatiently. The confused look on his face irritated and scared me. Was it really that hard to believe that he hadn’t had nightmares? Did he think it was really that bad that he had woken up with his head in my lap?

He gave me the most incredulous look possible. “Charlotte,” he whispered, “I haven’t slept like that in seventeen years. I haven’t slept like that since I was human.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t believe he’d been plagues by nightmares for that long. “How bad were your nightmares?”

His eyes darkened. “Sometimes I just relived becoming a vampire and the days that followed over and over again. The other night I dreamed about you, Ivy, and the girl in the alley, all bleeding and writhing in pain.”

This surprised me. “I’m in your nightmares?”

Mikey shrugged, saying, “This was the first time.”

He looked at me and saw the question on my face. Why would he have a nightmare about me?

“It makes perfect sense, really,” he told me sourly. “I have nightmares about losing, killing, or watching anyone who is close to me dying or enduring horrible pain. I’m surprised I didn’t dream about you sooner.”

A strange look came to his face, and he looked like he was trying to shake a memory from the front of his mind. I didn’t ask him what it was because I was afraid he wouldn’t tell me. Instead, I asked, “Why didn’t you have nightmares this time?”

He didn’t say a word, but I saw the answer in his eyes: It was because of me. He didn’t know how, but he knew he’d slept peacefully because he was with me. And I liked that more than I should have, but I couldn’t tell what he thought of it.

We were both abnormally silent as we sat at the table eating our cereal for breakfast. I suspected he was thinking just like I was, even though I didn’t really know what I was thinking about. I was just trying thoughts around in my mind.

When we were both done eating, he finally said something. “What do you want to do today?” He seemed more cautious than usual. It was strange.

I though about his question. Surprisingly, I wasn’t thirsty, I didn’t really want to watch a movie, and it appeared to be raining outside. I thought of all the books waiting for me in the other room and grinned. “Can we look at your books?” I said excitedly.

He smiled back at me. “Of course.”

So we walked to his library, probably a little more quickly than usual. At first I didn’t know where to start. Mikey followed me like a shadow as I gently ran my finger across the spines of the books on one shelf, reading the titles. Occasionally I would pull a book out and read the summary. Many of them looked good, but for some reason I always put them back. I felt as if I was looking for something and didn’t even know what it was.

When I finally found something I wanted to read right at that second, it surprised me. It wasn’t a novel; it was a book full of poems by various authors. I took it off the shelf. Mikey took the next book. We each sat in one of the two comfortable chairs in the center of the room.

I opened the book carefully. I read the first poem thoroughly, and then the next. I started not to hear, smell, feel, or see anything but the words on the pages. When I got to the middle of one poem, I stopped dead. I read:

… I would have called, you would have come to me
And kissed me back.

You have never done that: I do not know
Why I stood staring at your bed
And heard you, though you spoke so low,
But could not reach your hands, your little head;
There was nothing we could not do, you said,
And you went, and I let you go!...

From In Nunhead Cemetery, by Charlotte Mew

The words fit so perfectly with how I felt that it was hard to breathe. I reread them, and each letter pierced my chest. By the fifth time I read them, I felt as if they were written in my heart.

I’d never read these words in this order before. Even so, I felt like they had always been a part of me. They must have been in this book for years. If I’d read them before that day they wouldn’t have stood out, but now they were like a peacock among ducks. So much more beautiful, so much more obvious.

I jumped when Mikey asked, “What is it, Charlotte?”

I dropped the book in surprise and looked up at him His head was tilted to the side, and he looked both confused and concerned. When the book hit the floor, we both flinched, but he quickly picked it up.

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “What were you asking me?”

“What was wrong? You weren’t breathing,” he informed me with deep confusion written on his face.

“Really? I wasn’t? That’s strange,” I replied, quickly adding, “Nothing was wrong. I just liked the poem a lot. I guess I forgot to breathe.” Wow, that sounded strange, but I suppose it shouldn’t have. I’d probably spent most of my existence too weak to breathe. I was used to it.

“Which one?” he inquired curiously.

I thought of the lines “… I would have called, you would have come to me / And kissed me back.” Blushing deeply, I lied, “I don’t remember.” How could I show him the poem? If I did, he would know how I felt… Well, maybe not, since I didn’t even know how I felt. But I didn’t think he would like the poem.

Suddenly I wanted to talk to someone and, for once, it couldn’t be Mikey. “Mikey?” I pleaded sweetly. “Can you teach me how to call Celia on the phone?”

He looked shocked by the change in conversation, but he nodded. “Sure. Why do you need to call her now?”

“I don’t need to right now,” I started slowly, “but she asked me to sometime. Why not now?”

He nodded once more and got up, setting the book of poems on his chair.