Page 90 of Souls We Rip

“What do you mean? Couldn’t you drink? Eat? Dance?” he asked, his eyes widening.

“No, Eugen, it was not that.” I shook my head, sitting next to him.

While I collected the words in my head, I looked at Ana’s old house. Smoke came from their horns; her family was already heating the house. How much she and I have changed in the past months.

Recollecting myself, I scratched my chin. “I was jealous of their heart.”

“You don’t have a heart?” His voice sounded mesmerised.

I shook my head slowly, thinking of all I had left behind that day. Images of the children I left orphaned that night played behind my eyes.

“No, in a way, it is traded for immortality.”

He nodded, understanding what my power meant. “But Ana, she still feels and acts as if she had one,” he countered, placing his hands over his chest.

My beautiful Ana. Still kind, still loving every breath she took, still believing in God.

“Her soul, besides what I made her do, is still hers. Just as it was before joining me.”

His eyes drank in the dark sky, the rain avoiding our little shield, creating puddles before us.

“Can you continue the story, Mr Go…Tiberius?” he asked, in a sweet voice.

I complied, my gaze shifting from him towards the centre of the village. “While everyone enjoyed themselves, I watched as the orchestra continued to play, the feet of people stomping the grass to the music’s rhythm. The green-eyed monster grew slowly, my eyes circling on the soul I should have taken that night. But a boy, no younger than you, came behind me and asked me who I was. I did not know my real name. Everything was a blur except my siblings’ bloodied faces. That image and the jealousy I felt cursed me to take more than one soul.”

“How many?” the boy asked, his head tilted, a frown on his forehead.

“Too many. Enough to turn half of my eyes blue,” I whispered, regretting that I left children to fend for themselves. A sin nobody could absolve me of.

Silence stretched between us as his hands finally calmed down. A sign he was thinking about my words.

“And now?” he whispered.

“What do you mean by that?”

He cleared his throat, his eyes almost bulging from their sockets. “Do you still feel jealousy towards people?”

I sighed, not sure about the answer.

It didn’t occupy my mind as often as it did. Not since Ana stepped foot into my lair, swirling around Andrei and me and gaining us with her wit, questions and purity. Though the wish to be like them still existed, just for an undeniable reason.

“Yes, but only for one thing,” I answered truthfully. “To have a heart, to feel love. The other things like money, houses and lands pale in front of love.”

“That means you care about Ana?” the boy asked, a sheepish smile appearing on his lips.

It was much more than simple care. It felt as if I could lay the sun and the moon at her feet and protect her from every evil in this world.

Including me.

“So yes,” the boy concluded, seeing my undecided eyes.

I stood up, brushing dirt from my pants.

“You’re a smart boy, so keep your mouth shut until I know for sure,” I said, my tone harsher.

He squinted his eyes at me. “If you hold these feelings inside you, you might burst. And if it doesn’t get your way…”

The wisdom of this child surprised me.