Hellebore

"Catnip," I addressed the young woman.

I heard a click and felt warm humid air on my face. She was unloading the washing machine.

"When you have a moment, could you heat up a piece of mushroom pie and bring it to my table?"

"Sure, boss. Taking a break?" Her tone made it a question. I rarely ate on a table.

"A friend is coming. I value their time."

"Ah. It's Alfonso."

I smiled to myself. In the air around me I felt her curiosity like a small current. Marquise came to push her head against my side. I patted her on the soft silky neck.

"I am not sure," I told her honestly.

Catnip snorted. "Right. I'll get the pie. Do you want something?"

I shook my head.

My hand found the smooth handle of a glass pot. I poured two cups. Behind my back, I heard Catnip placing plates, cups and cutlery onto the counter. She had long since lost her fascination with a blind man pouring tea. On a whim, I snatched a small plate from my right and a glass of clean water.

I took the tray into the public side of the shop. There had been few customers throughout the day. I personally blamed the approaching exams. Students were skipping lectures in favor of finishing essays before the term ended. They didn't navigate to the campus, and consequently didn't feel like meeting up for idle chit chat. Exams were bad for business.

No, no they weren't actually. Because once they were over, students suddenly remembered all the friends they hadn't seen and all the shops they hadn't visited and came to celebrate the term's end. But today was still silent.

I had just set a tray to a table, when I heard the little chime above the entrance.

For a moment I stood, one hand over the armchair I had intended to claim.

Then I heard a sound that made my heart skip a beat: A little timid tock. Another.

Tock, tock, tock-tock.

Silence.

A shifting chair. They had seated themselves and were waiting.

I wished I had telepathic powers and could have summoned Catnip from the kitchen. But, as things stood, I had to go myself.

I felt their aura. It was slightly agitated. Curious. I lifted the tea tray again, loading onto it the plate and the water glass. I didn't know what was on the plate. Which was rarely a problem. But now, as I approached the table where I knew they had just sat, I felt naked.

I experienced a sudden urge to straighten my vest. Ridiculous as it was.

I lay the tray on the table.

"Enjoy," I invited them.

I was more than ready for a quick retreat, when I heard the female high pitched voice, hoarse of age. It belonged to a lady of middle-age. Somewhere between forty and sixty. I didn't smell traces of tobacco on her, so I bet past fifty.

"Are you the owner? They say he's a young man."

"Yes," I admitted unwillingly. It was a principle for me not to lie. Iris help me, it was a silly line to draw, considering everything I had done in my long life. But I wasn't going to lie. Especially not for those that deserved the truth as it was. I felt I owed it to her.

"People call me Hellebore," I offered.

"They say the owner is blind," she continued.

I opened my mouth to say yes, but instead gritted my teeth and confessed:

"I don't see shapes."

"Mmm. And what do you see then?"

"Hearts," I answered. "I feel auras, presences people have."

"Mmm. A tea room must be a challenging environment to work in. With everything moving all the time. Chairs don't have hearts, do they?"

"No, they do not."

A silence. Disapproval threatened to overflow.

She drew in a breath.

I found the audacity in me to reach out. My searching, blind finger lay softly and precicely against her lips. I felt the air current leave her nose in a surprised gust.

"Do you know," I asked silently, "how many people I have offended in my life? I know I don't meet your standard for blindness. But you have no idea how much I regret that I didn't go to see the blue open night sky one more time just before my lab exploded. I am not sure I can be counted human, after everything I have felt and done. But I do feel. And you are offending me quite as much, my lady, by questioning the labels I wear."

I withdrew the finger when the chime drew my attention. I couldn't meet her gaze, but I felt I held her attention.

"Please, enjoy. May it bring sweetness to this bitter slice of life."

I bowed to her. An offering to the gods and Iris. I let go my shame and anger and turned back to the unclaimed armchair. Waiting for a friend.

I was quickly disappointed.

The person approaching didn't have her aura in the order I had hoped for.

I tried to arrange a smile on my lips, but felt hollowed out by the previous conversation as I addressed her:

"Please, Lavender, take a seat. There is tea in the cups."

Aconite

Rosemary was in a bad mood. And as I wasn't feeling brilliant myself, I hadn't been the most charming version of myself over the late lunch we had shared. I cared for the professor of French Philology. And not just as Plume's sister.

I almost would have liked to try and repeat our conversation. But I was still upset over my nephew. The Clover I knew was simply gone.

I descended down a flight of stairs, hardly seeing the students ascending, parting around me, like a stream meeting a rock.

No. No she wasn't.

I reached into my pocket, searching for the keys for the office door.

I shook my head in thought. Of course she wasn't gone! What a dramatic wording of the matter. No matter what Fern claimed. I knew Clover. The one her grandmother had never seen. I knew the brilliant, clever young woman who...

"Professor Shatter Hat!"

I lifted my head to the surprised voice, my hand on the door handle of my office.

My eyes registered immediately the young man who had just risen from his seat on the battered couch. The man that had been a vampire.

I panicked.

"... This student of mine. He seemed to know my brother, even as I have not seen him for decades! Am I boring you, Aconite?"

I lifted my head from the tomato sauce on my plate to Rosemary's dark eyes.

"I am sorry. Truly sorry," I said. "I just remembered an appointment I absolutely have to attend. Right this instant. Can you forgive me?"

She looked stricken.

"Thankyou."

I flew out the canteen with my tray, dumped the contents into a trash can on my way, and dashed toward my office. I slowed on the steps down. The difference in timing wasn't much. I was maybe half an hour early. Would he be already waiting?

I peered around the corner carefully. A young man bent over the pale light of a phone seated on the couch.

But opposite him was someone too.

"Have a lot of exams..."

I recognized Clover's voice and ducked out of sight. There was no one else in the corridor witnessing the curious behaviour of a teacher, hiding behind a corner, eavesdropping. In half an hour the lectures would end and the corridor would flood with students. But I was half an hour early.

"In that case... No it doesn't really matter. Good luck with the exams, Clover." There was something odd in his voice. Regret of some kind? Bitterness?

Hurriedly, I retreated all the way back up the stairs and into the entrance hall of the old building. I hid behind a statue when Clover emerged soon after into the hall. She was massaging a temple.

"Are you... lost?"

I looked to my right. A student had just come from a door leading to one of the lecture halls. Apparently some of teachers ended early.

"I am fine," I told him. "I know exactly where I am. Thank you. I just need to think a moment."

I climbed a few stories up, and seated myself on an unstable chair in a corner where no one ever came. A hand of a white statue hung over the table. I lay an elbow onto the wooden tabletop. The statue looked down at me. it was a plaster copy of one of those famous Greek marble wonders.

Why was he here!?

I had thought the boy would have been dead and buried by now! Hellebore had implied the lad was likely to perish soon after the... after the...

In my mind's eyes flashed the swamp.

He was made of mud! How was he here! And brought by Clover, no less.

I drew in a few deeper breaths.

Did he know who he had come to meet? Or were his interests more academic and this encounter a twist of faith?

I considered my options. I could go into my office before he came, miss my lunch with Rosemary altogether and stay barricaded inside. Or open the door for him, ready for the visit? Or I could simply leave. But I needed some papers from the inside. And my own phone that now rested on my worktable. And just in case Fern decided to go through my office, I needed the tray removed. But I couldn't do that before late evening...

I sat in thought under the statue for more than fifteen minutes.

Then I walked slowly down to meet my creation.

This time, as I approached the man, I took measured steps with my head held high. So I was as prepared to meet his eyes as a man could. They were the eyes I had made.

Gray, he had said, the words falling from perfect vampiric lips.

They were colorless. Most gray eyes held some green or blue, or even yellow, as I had noticed later. But his were pale silver, and slightly rounded by the surprise.

No, he hadn't been prepared to meet me.

I could see the change overcoming his features as this young man in front of me dropped. The roundness around his eyes softened. His gaze grew alert and sharp.

"My name is Aconite Shatter Hat," I introduced myself. "I suppose you have come to see me for some question troubling your mind. Something academic and well within my field of expertise, I hope."

He came to his feet effortlessly, as if he had been a vampire still. He came at least ten centimeters shorter. Yet even so, I felt small and troubled as the owner of those gray eyes offered a hand for me.

"Timothy White Torch. Pleased to meet you, mister Shatter Hat. I have indeed a question troubling my mind."

"Shall we," I gestured to my office.

My hand shook only slightly as I let him in with me to an office that suddenly felt crowded.

"Do you take tea?" I asked.

He looked at the thermos I had on the table. Little magical markings spiraled around the metallic tube.

"I think I pass. Thank you."

"You sound like a vampire," I said, without thinking. "So wary of witchcraft."

A silence, into which the sound of a chair scraping against the stone floor sounded menacing.

Then he sighed. In a human way. He even smiled a bit.

I seated myself opposite him. His face, on close inspection, seemed both more vampiric and less. It was lacking all imperfections, little moles, scars. Absolutely symmetrical. I felt the effects of a fenomena called uncanny valley, looking into those eyes. But I saw a sheen of sweat on his brow and redness around the eyes and nose. The cold weather obviously affected him.

"So, tell me, mister White Torch, what brings you to me?"

And why did you come with my nephew?

"I was wondering," he started seemingly uncertainly "If you couldn't tell me of the elves?"

"Of the elves?"

He tilted his brown head slightly to a side. "You sound exactly like Clover. Is it really such an odd question?"

I poured some of the tea into a paper mug.

"No, no it really isn't. I am simply extremely surprised. Can you blame me for it?"

He seemed to consider this.

Then he shook his head. "No. No I cannot. I wasn't prepared for meeting you like this either. It must seem weird that I now suddenly appear asking of elves." He leaned back in his chair. "I tried asking Clover first. But she... I am not sure what is wrong with her, to be honest. Do you know?"

"Ah," I said. I didn't need to fake the regret of my tone as I continued, "I am afraid it was inevitable. Her memory has stopped working. Her marrow was always exceptionally weak. That it stopped producing the magic altogether isn't surprising, though sad."

"Her marrow?" the man repeated.

"Yes. The bone marrow. Where both blood cells and magic are produced. Magic is in the blood, as a vampire you should have known this."

I watched him think this through. Obviously the information was new to him.

I didn't mind the change of subject and led the conversation safely away from Clover's condition:

"I am surprised this information is news to you. Having gone through what you have. You do remember that we cut off one of your toes?"

"You did a lot to me that night..." He muttered. "I can't say I paid that much attention to a missing toe. But do explain why that was important?"

"It is hard to cut pieces off a vampire's body. I would have said impossible. As the skeleton is where all magic resides. Even the vampire's curse. But Hellebore has his ways. And I have more practice than most witches. So. For you to keep your memory and stay sane, we needed a piece of the original skeleton in the new body. So the marrow could keep the Memory alive. And a toe was the easiest we could transplant."

"I have a vampire 's toe?" White Torch asked, he seemed both surprised and amused.

I nodded, not quite as amused over the fact. I still remembered vividly the process of sticking that toe to his foot. "You have a piece of a vampire in you. And I am surprised, to say the least, that it hasn't eaten up the rest of your body. Even as I tried my best to isolate it from the rest."

I tried to taste the hot liquid in my paper cup. It was too hot. I had trashed the beautiful tea set from last night. Just in case. There were witches that could find out who had last touched an object and when.

"But you didn't come here to talk about the many functions of the bone marrow. You mentioned elves. Why are you interested in them? Fancy becoming one of those next?"

"Can I?"

At my raised eyebrow he hastily continued:

"I am afraid I might be given to their care soon. Mo is planning to sacrifice me."

"To the elves... Mmm... well. Why not?" I leaned back in my chair, thinking about the odd logic of it. "In a sense I suppose you could be seen as someone who cannot adapt to the vampire Court anymore, and so has lived his vampire's life to an end, without truly dying. So it makes sense."

The tea was now bearable, so I enjoyed a careful sip.

"I expect you know nothing of elves?" I asked, to be polite.

"I know there aren't any in the city." He shrugged.

I nodded. "Yes. Well. There are and there aren't. Elves and vampires are both fae, by definition: Magical beings, whose presence on this Earth remains a mystery. You are right. There are no elves in Breasinghae. Quite as there aren't any owls here. But there are vampires here. And pigeons."

"Pigeons..." he muttered, but let me go on, clearly enjoying the small joke.

"There are pigeons in the city, owls in the mountains and seagulls by the coast. Quite as there are vampires in big cities, elves in the mountains and forested areas, and then there are merfolk in the archipelago. All of these hunt unlucky humans, even when all enjoy other types of food as well. And all are made by poisoning a living being with a  curse that eats away the living organisms. Even when the elves and merfolk don't always take a human."

"It is clear," I continued, "that the City isn't your place to go on existing, at least as far as the Queen is concerned. So she is sending you to the Forest, which is nearer than the Sea."

"So..." the boy asked. "The place I am taken to is just a forest. Like the city is just a city."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. I was finding my unexpected visitor quite amusing now that I had more or less overcome the initial shock.

"Of course," I barked. "But you'll probably end up in a rather magical part of it and it might take a decade or two before you can orient yourself. But yes. Sure. It is just a forest. Like the city is just a city."

I shook my head to his confused look. I couldn't help it. Just a forest, indeed. Just a city! These entities that were magical in themselves. Full of spirits, full of fae and witches and memories. Full of jobs and homework, little romances, desperate calls for help, invisible sacrifices, buildings that were made to reach the heavens and then torn apart, new beings born, old dying...

What all that life and change would look like in the Forest? Especially in the part of the Forest where elves would take the boy? I didn't have a clue. But I knew he would be lost and confused in an absolutely foreign environment.

"It can't be that funny..."

I shook my head, trying to sober up. I fixed my full attention to his eyes. My heart skipped a beat.

Red. Vivid shimmering bloodred.

The tea dropped to my lap. I cried out.

But the liquid was cooling rapidly. And I had a more pressing matter on my mind.

I looked into his eyes again. I saw myself reflected on the colorless irises.

I shook out a napkin and started drying myself and the table. The fabric took in itself all the liquid better than any sponge could have. I put the wet cloth inside the paper cup and onto the table out of the way.

"There is no scenario in which you would consider becoming a vampire again? Instead of going away from the city, you haven't thought of asking Mo to consider taking you back as a real member of the Court? Wouldn't that be easier for all?"

Maybe what I had seen had been a simple vision of the near future?

An odd silence fell. Timothy's gaze traveled the room as he thought. I watched it slide over a closed closet. It glided past. Then it returned uncannily to the cabinet doors. He frowned.

"Or have you considered this option?" I asked. Drawing his attention away from the closet that harbored secrets that bore the touch of daylight worse than any vampire I had ever met.

"I... Mmm... I think my body wouldn't survive this change," he said.

"And why do you think that? I can assure you you have been made of first class mud."

He grimaced. Then grew thoughtful.

"Actually, I read it from a book."

"You read in a book that a body made of swamp waters can't be made into a vampire?" I didn't try to hide the skepticism in my voice. "I know your brain is basically clay, but you don't seem like a simpleton. Try again. What is the real reason?"

He turned his face from side to side in an openly confused denial.

"I told you the truth. I read in a book that a body twice resurrected can't be made a vampire a second time. I found the tome accidentally in the Witch Town when I was getting a delivery for Hellebore. I owe him a lot."

He paused.

"I... It was a funny book. I think... I am not sure what I think. It had all kinds of dark rituals and magic in it. But on the last written page the book seemed to address me in person. And it said that if a person could become a human again after being a vampire there would be no way the heart could take the curse again. It didn't have a title. Just a wooden cover. There was an engraving..."

"Of a tree," I whispered. "Of Iris. The goddess that has roots everywhere and hears all the secrets."

He looked at me a bit shocked. I didn't blame him. I was shocked too.

"You know the book?"

"Oh I do," I said. "And boy do I wish I had never seen it."

I leaned back in my chair. "Witches sometimes call it the Book of Futile Desires. And it is said the writer is the Goddess herself. The book has never failed the reader. But very few have ever found it. A few dozens, at most. It addresses the reader, revealing and solving a desire. An impossible desire. While there are rituals in the book, there are also... faiths, one could say. And no ritual, no recepie and no path written in it, has ever failed."

The gray eyes had suddenly leaned close. He didn't hide the desperation in his voice when he pleaded:

"Please, tell me more. Anything."

Hellebore

"You know something."

It wasn't quite an accusation. But it wasn't missing the mark widely either. Lavender took a seat.

"I know many things. Sometimes I wish I knew a lot less." I sighed the air out of my lungs.

"But you know something of my memory gaps. Am I right? I have been with you when I don't remember where I have been."

I nodded. "Sometimes. But not always."

I was trying to gather my thoughts. I was just then extremely aware of the other table where the blind woman was seated. It was easier to hear everything when you didn't have the sight distracting your attention, or so I was told. Or had it been my own thought, decades or centuries since?

"So, why don't I remember those meetings? Did you drug me?"

"Drugged you? No," I answered. "I didn't drug you. You have an emerging side persona I have known for some time. He comes to say hi, every now and then."

A silence fell.

"A side persona... like in some kind of a personality disorder?"

I had had this conversation maybe one too many times in my long long life. And I didn't want to go over it with Lavender, because I knew her. Not well maybe, but she had an aura I knew as hers and associated with her name. But there was no way around it. She was here now, like she had been here before.

"Kind of. But I am not talking of split personality as a psychologist would. There is however a side of you that you can't remember. But as things stand, they can't remember you either. Not yet."

I felt her confusion and rising panic. I longed to reach over the table and find her fingers, to squeeze tightly and transmit in that one simple human gesture all the reassurance I could never dress in words.

But I couldn't. Not in this day and age. If Lavender felt I was approaching her romantically, there were all the ingredients for even more hurt feelings. So I chose my words so much more carefully:

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" I asked.

"What!?"

I repeated the question, calmly.

"I... I am not sure... I have never really thought of it. I don't think I am a very religious person."

"That is as it is then. I wish then that you play along for a moment."

I took my teacup in my hands for the comforting warmth if for no other reason.

"I know the person you were in your previous lives," I said. "And they know me. We are as close friends as two immortals can be, which isn't that close, by the way. You must have heard of Alfonso Moura?"

"Are you... are you implying I would somehow be the reincarnation of a legendary wizard from the fifteenth century?"

"I am," I shot at her. "How does that make you feel?"

I heard her open her mouth. But no sound came out.

In the other table I heard the woman take her walking aid and push the chair out her way. Just then I felt Catnip emerging from the kitchens. I gestured to the leaving woman.

The door's chime was soon followed by another as Catnip departed after the blind woman. Just in case. We were close. Very close. But Lavender couldn't defend herself yet. I didn't think the woman had any connections to Great Star, but one could never be absolutely sure.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't know why I don't feel angry, or sad, or somehow deceived. As a rational person I feel I shouldn't entertain this idea. But... It is appealing, I suppose. So instead of going mad... I am what exactly? Shouldn't I be remembering someth..."

I waited. I couldn't see the frown. But it must have been there.

"Who is the dark haired asian girl?"

"Her name is Mo," I said. "She is very fond of you."

"But then... She... She..."

"She is a vampire," I gently finished the sentence for her.

"That..." there was incredulous laughter in her voice. "That just..." She couldn't finish. I could hear her shaking her head.

"No," Lavender said then, decisive. "No. I think I'll go home."

I rose with her. And reached out to her direction. My searching fingers found the sleeve of a soft sweater.

"Home where?" I asked as she stopped and turned to me. "Home to a small overheated apartment? What have you even told Dew?"

I felt her freeze.

"Please," I heard the honest plea in my own voice, "just finish the tea with me, Lavender. I want to be honest with you. If you really think me crazy, so be it. But in your heart, you know me. And I miss you. I miss my friend. Someone to share this twist of faith."

I heard Marquise bark audibly.

"Someone who talks back," I amended. "There really aren't that many truly immortals that I have met."

"You talk of vampires, won't they do for immortals?"

"Mostly yes," I said. "But our relationship is special."

"Because you made the first one." This time the accusation in her voice rang clear. "By what I gather", she finished.

The chair moved again as she sat in it.

Relieved, I took my own chair.

"I'll just drink the tea."

I nodded.

"I am sorry if I scared you, it wasn't my intention."

A sigh.

"No... I am at my wits' end, to be honest. It kind of feels almost good to buy into this fantasy of a past life taking over my mind. As said, I really wouldn't mind wizardhood at this point."

I smiled.

"Let's just drink the tea, then. And buy into it for a quarter of an hour. I am sure you will excel at pretending to be the reincarnation of an old immortal soul. I myself have always found the role of the equally immortal alchemist to suit me perfectly."

Marquise let us know she was present as well.

"So what's her deal then?"

"Well", I said as she came to put her immense head into my lap, "She is the gold of my philosopher's stone. I aimed the gold and immortality for the king. But got to keep both myself." 

Rosemary

I closed the office door after myself. It had been a long day. A long week.

The corridor echoed around my high heels as I found my way through abandoned passageways down to the downstairs hall.

I wondered what had made Aconite dash from our lunch. What meeting had he forgotten?

In my thoughts I reached the almost empty parking lot before I realized I was missing the car keys.

I left my pile of exams onto the car's roof and retraced my steps back up. I felt suddenly fortunate that I didn't have the car keys in the same loop with my other keys. I wouldn't have wanted to break into my own office.

The car key wasn't in the drawer I had thought I had put it in.

I sat behind my desk to take a deep breath and think. Plume's twenty old self smiled for me from the table.

I laid the photo face down onto the desk. He wasn't helping. The case with my birthday and the boy, White Torch, bringing the flowers, wasn't helping me think.

I had come to the university in the morning. Taken a coffee from the downstairs canteen. And overseen an exam in one of the big halls of the Main Building.

Bingo. Suddenly, I remembered laying the car keys on the lecturer's desk.

I sighed, picked Plume up, and started the trek to the other end of the campus. My own office was located in the so-called Forest Hall. The building used to belong to the chemists and biologists, before they were removed from the capital's campus altogether and the building was made the center of Language studies. The name had stuck however, so the building was still called The Forest Hall. Even as better names had been suggested. I personally had liked the appellation of The Lexico Lab. It was a shame it had only stayed around for a term and then died out of use.

I entered the great downstairs hall of the Main Building. There were stairs on both sides, leading up and down. I was lucky the Building was only three stories high, as the hall I was looking for was situated on the top floor.

To my great delight, there lay a small black block of soft plastic on the lecturer's table. I went to retrieve it. On my way back through the corridor, the oil paintings of the previous headmasters looked down at my passing.

I came to the upstairs railing and looked down at the hall through witch I had entered just a few moments before. The knee of my left leg had started giving me pains this year. It was especially upset after climbing down stairs, so I stayed to brace myself by the railing, looking down at the abandoned hall. There was a beautiful checker pattern covering the visible floor area.

For a moment I was alone with only some white plaster statues scattered by the railing with me. Then I heard voices. After a moment I saw the tall fair figure of Aconite coming to my view. He was holding something with both hands. The object was covered with a white cloth.

He wasn't alone.

I stayed to watch, my curiosity rising, as Timothy White Torch turned to my coworker and spoke:

"Thank you, mister Shatter Hat. I am indebted to you."

Aconite laughed. He seemed amused. "You use that word too lightly."

White Torch's face reddened. "My bad. I'll take that back. You still have my deepest gratitude."

He sketched the same elegant bow for Aconite that I had seen him perform in my office on my birthday.

"I'll read this. I promise." He lifted a book. I recognised it as an anthology Aconite had collected of stories about the great goddess Iris.

Aconite nodded. "I don't doubt that. I hope it helps. It never did me any good, but we never know. I am sorry, I cannot help you more, though I did enjoy our conversation. You haven't considered changing your Major? I would love to invite you to some of my morning lectures about the history of Atlantean witchcraft."

The door to the hall opened. A short young man entered. There was something graceful about the way he slid closer to the other two men.

"And I find you at the university?" He said to White Torch. "I really cannot understand what draws you here, uncle. Good evening, Aconite. You asked for me?" He had a musical voice, oddly familiar, yet foreign.

My heart stopped as he turned to Aconite and with the same movement revealed his face to the lamp light as he had to lift his chin up to look the taller man in the eye.

He looked exactly like my brother.

"Ah, Plume. Thank you. Here." Aconite lifted his load onto the waiting arms of this man that couldn't be my brother. "I need it extremely well hidden, kept in a dry, dark place. And fed."

The young man nodded. "I see. I think I can find suitable sustenance for it."

There was an odd shimmer to his eyes, a reddish tint.

Aconite coughed. "I am afraid it only takes the blue variety."

The young man nodded seriously. "I'll visit Hellebore then."

He shifted the weight to one hand and draped his free arm over White Torch's shoulder.

"Shall we head home, uncle? It is getting late."

I watched them go. The man that couldn't be my Plume had oddly familiar high heels. 

Just before going through the doors, he suddenly turned his head. He pushed White Torch gently through the door. He turned. Looked up. For a moment I looked into his red eyes. They truly were red, I thought. He bowed to me, one leg behind the other, holding my gaze and outstretching a hand in what seemed like an invitation. 

Then he was out the door as well.