Chapter 13

“It’s exactly the same. They’re going to keep it like this, forever?”

Reuben passes him, walks up to the window and closes the curtains, not leaving any gap between them.

“I always have to do this,” he mumbles. “It's the only thing she ever touches.”

Fred ignores him. He enters the room slowly and closes the door behind him carefully.

“It’s like Thomas is still here. As if he’s going to throw himself on the bed and start nagging about his stiff father, like he always does... did. It’s like I see him there.”

He steps up to the meticulously made bed, and touches the blanket with a light hand.

“You think it’s still warm from his body? It can't be, of course. But he had a high fever, you know.”

“His mother changed the sheets,” Reuben says. “She spent an hour making the bed.”

“It shows.” Fred lets his fingertips slide along the flat surface. “Who can sleep on it, not leaving any trace?”

“I’ll be fine under it,” Reuben replies.

“Whatever. I guess I have to sleep on the floor, too. There's no way I can make the bed like that.”

Fred sits down on the floor, absent-minded. Reuben keeps an eye on him, while starting to slide under the bed. Fred is silent until Reuben has completely disappeared from sight.

“So, what did you mean by that you said, before? Why can’t you bite me?”

“I can’t feed on you,” Reuben replies from under the bed, his voice muffled by it. “It would mean my death.”

“Sure. I’d kill you if you did, if that’s what you mean.”

Reuben's head appears on the side where Fred still sits crouching.

“You must know what I mean. I have been here for nine months.”

“You keep saying that,” Fred mutters and turns his back to Reuben. “Why don’t I just go home, and sleep in my own bed? What’s the point in this? Aren’t you out all night, anyway?”

“Usually.”

Reuben slips back under the bed and Fred slowly stretches out on the floor beside it, at a good distance from where Reuben lies.

“If it weren’t for Caroline, I’d be off in an instant. But I can’t leave her alone with a nutcase like you.”

“I’d never harm her!” Reuben states with a sudden hardness to his voice.

“So you say.”

Reuben pauses before replying:

“Would you?”