Page 35 of Nocturne
LENA
20 years later
G olden Gate Park vanishes into the fog, a patchwork dreamscape of visible and invisible. Pathways appear then disappear, the massive trees fading into ghostly silhouettes, their uppermost branches consumed by the rolling mist. It’s a perfect San Francisco summer day for vampires—fifty-five degrees and foggy in July.
“Higher, Mommy, higher!” Olivia demands, her chubby three-year-old legs pumping as I push her on the swing. Her laughter cuts through the fog, bright and clear as a bell.
I oblige, giving her another push that sends her soaring toward the mist-shrouded treetops. Her dark curls bounce with each arc of the swing, her tiny hands gripping the chains with determined strength. Even at three, there’s something of the predator in her movements, in her intense focus, in the way she watches the world around her with those knowing eyes.
“Not too high,” Victor cautions, though his smile belies any real concern. He stands nearby, hands in the pockets of his bell-bottom jeans, looking both perfectly of-the-moment and somehow timeless. His hair is longer now, curling just past his collar in the current fashion, though he’s eschewed the full hippie aesthetic embraced by so many of the young people flooding the Haight this summer.
“She’s fine,” I say, giving Olivia another push. “Vampire baby, remember?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Pre-vampire,” he corrects. “And still breakable.”
Twenty years together, and he still worries. Still protects. Some things never change, even as the world transforms around us.
And what transformations we’ve witnessed. The post-war prosperity giving way to Cold War paranoia, the buttoned-up fifties yielding to this new explosion of color and sound and freedom. San Francisco sits at the epicenter of it all—a crucible of change, of possibility, of the new world struggling to be born.
I look down at my own outfit—a flowing peasant blouse over a long, embroidered skirt, my newly bleached hair falling straight and parted in the middle, reaching nearly to my waist. Summer Breeze, they call me at the club where I’ve been singing this season. Another name, another persona, another way to hide in plain sight.
“Careful of your dress, sweetie,” I tell Olivia as she leaps from the swing at its highest point, landing with preternatural grace on the sand. Her floral sundress is already smudged with dirt and grass stains, evidence of a day spent exploring the park’s many wonders.
She grins up at me, fearless and wild. “I’m a butterfly, Mommy!”
“The prettiest butterfly in the whole park,” I agree, catching her as she launches herself into my arms. I breathe in her scent—sunshine and earth—and marvel again at the miracle of her existence. A vampire child, born against all odds, part of both of us yet entirely her own person.
“They’re here,” Victor says, his gaze focused on a group of figures emerging from the fog-shrouded path.
Abe leads the way, elegant as ever in a tweed blazer that seems deliberately anachronistic amid the tie-dye and denim flooding the city. Ezra walks beside him, having embraced the new era more enthusiastically with a paisley shirt and round, wire-rimmed glasses that catch what little sunlight filters through the mist.
Behind them come the others—Wolf, massive and golden-haired, his booming laugh audible before he fully materializes from the fog; and Absolon, ethereal and ancient, moving with the quiet certainty of one who has seen civilizations rise and fall, his blue eyes holding secrets from ages long past.
“Uncle Wolf!” Olivia squeals, wriggling from my arms to rush toward the towering Norse vampire, who scoops her up and tosses her into the air as if she weighs nothing.
“There’s my little wolf cub!” he exclaims, his accent thickening with delight as he catches her.
Olivia giggles, tugging at his long blonde hair. “Did you bring me a present?”
“Olivia,” I chide her.
“A present?” Wolf says with a grin. He pulls out a small paper bag of penny candy, her eyes going wide with delight. “Will this do?”
Great. Now she’s going to be hopped up on sugar. Well, Wolf will bear the brunt of that.
Absolon approaches more sedately, offering a formal nod to Victor before turning to me. “Summer,” he greets, using my current alias with the faintest hint of amusement. “I’m starting to think Northern California agrees with you.”
“Solon,” I return, trying to match his cool persona and failing. “How’s business at Dark Eyes?”
“Flourishing,” he replies. “The current cultural climate has proven unexpectedly advantageous. So many young seekers, so many looking to expand their consciousness through any means available .” A slight smile touches his handsome features. “They come for the experience, the thrill of surrender. They leave lighter, we leave satisfied. A perfect symbiosis.”
The feeding club he and Wolf established in the basement of the Westerfeld House has become something of an underground phenomenon—an exclusive sanctuary where select humans can experience the euphoria of vampire feeding in a controlled, consensual environment, a more expansive, hedonistic version of what Abe had in Los Angeles.
“Your new tenant is quite the character,” Victor comments as we make our way toward a more secluded area of the park, away from curious human eyes. Too many vampires around each other seems to make them nervous in ways they can’t explain.
Wolf snorts. “Kenneth? He’s harmless. Obsessed with the occult, but what artist isn’t these days? His films are quite striking, actually.” He shifts Olivia to his shoulders, where she perches like a tiny queen surveying her domain. “The company he keeps, however…”
“The house has become something of a pilgrimage site,” Absolon explains. “Artists, musicians, seekers of various sorts. The energy is…stimulating, if occasionally chaotic. I find myself staying at our other house down the street, just so I can escape the dreaded drum circles.”
Abe chuckles, falling into step beside me. “What they mean is that the Westerfeld House has become the epicenter of San Francisco’s counterculture. Quite the change from when I first visited in 1908.”
We find a spot beneath a massive eucalyptus tree, its uppermost branches lost in fog, and spread blankets across the damp grass. Ezra produces a basket containing thermoses—blood for the vampires, apple juice for Olivia.
As we settle, Victor sits beside me, his arm sliding around my waist.
“What say we move here, kitten?” he asks me.
“You’d be more than welcome,” Absolon adds.
“I’m still happy with Santa Barbara,” I answer, leaning into my husband’s embrace. “The university keeps Vic busy enough.” Victor’s position as a research historian at UC Santa Barbara provides the perfect cover—limited contact hours, access to archives, and colleagues who don’t question his occasional absences or his seemingly ageless appearance over the years. He won’t be there forever, but he’s enjoying it for now.
“But you love it here,” he observes quietly, knowing me too well.
I shrug, watching as Olivia instructs Ezra on the proper way to make a daisy chain. “It’s vibrant. Alive in a way few places are. And there’s something about the fog, the way it conceals and reveals.” I meet his eyes, still captivated by their intensity after all these years. “But home is wherever we are together.”
He smiles, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Ever the romantic.”
“I learned from the best.”
Our moment is interrupted by Olivia’s delighted squeal. “Butterfly!” she exclaims, pointing toward a monarch that has somehow navigated the fog to alight on a nearby flower. She scrambles to her feet, preparing to give chase.
“Gently,” Victor cautions. “Remember what we taught you about fragile things.”
She nods solemnly, approaching the butterfly with exaggerated care, hands cupped as if in prayer. The butterfly, seemingly unalarmed, remains on its perch, wings slowly opening and closing in the diffused light.
“Ah,” a new voice interjects, “the innocence of children. So pure, so untainted.”
We all turn to see a slight figure emerging from the fog—a man with intense dark eyes and a wild beard, dressed in faded jeans and a fringed leather vest. His presence brings an immediate tension to our gathering, though I can’t immediately place why.
“Charles,” Absolon acknowledges, his tone carefully neutral. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“The park belongs to everyone, brother.” The man—Charles—smiles, revealing uneven teeth. His gaze sweeps over our group, lingering uncomfortably on Olivia, who has abandoned the butterfly to press against Victor’s side. “Just spreading the word, sharing the love. Saw you all here communing and thought I’d say hello.”
There’s something unsettling about him—a feverish intensity in his eyes, a coiled energy beneath his pseudo-peaceful demeanor. I draw Olivia closer to me instinctively.
“Kenneth mentioned you might be filming something with him,” Wolf says, his usually jovial tone flattened. “At the house.”
Charles shrugs. “Maybe. The universe unfolds as it should. I go where the energy takes me.” His attention shifts to me, those dark eyes assessing, invasive. “You have a beautiful family. Special. I can tell. Your little girl has an old soul.”
“Thank you,” I reply stiffly, discomfort crawling along my spine.
“We’re headed back,” Absolon says, rising to his feet with fluid grace. “Perhaps we’ll see you at Kenneth’s gathering later.”
Charles nods, that unsettling smile still in place. “All paths intersect eventually.” He raises a hand in a peace sign. “Love is all, brothers and sisters. Love is all.”
He drifts back into the fog, his presence lingering like a bad smell even after he’s gone.
“Who was that ?” I ask when I’m certain he’s out of earshot.
“Charles Willis Manson,” Absolon replies, his ancient eyes troubled. “A self-proclaimed guru. He’s been circling the Haight for months now, gathering followers—mostly young women, mostly vulnerable.”
I shudder, pulling Olivia onto my lap. “He gave me the creeps. He’s not…like us, is he?”
“No,” Wolf says, his expression unusually somber. “Just human. But humans can be just as dangerous, in their way. Sometimes more so.”
Absolon nods in agreement. “There’s a darkness in him that has nothing to do with vampire nature. A hunger that cannot be satisfied.”
The encounter has cast a pall over our gathering. Olivia, sensitive to shifts in mood as all vampire children are, burrows closer to me, her small body unusually still.
“Perhaps we really should return to the house,” Abe suggests, always practical. “The fog is thickening, and we have that dinner arrangement later.”
As we pack up our impromptu picnic, the mood gradually lightens. Wolf regales Olivia with tales of his Viking relatives—heavily edited for young ears—while Ezra and Abe debate the merits of various local jazz clubs. Victor helps me fold blankets, his movements synchronized with mine after decades of shared life.
“You’re thinking about moving here,” he says quietly, a statement rather than a question.
I glance around at the fog-shrouded park, at the glimpses of flower children dancing in the distance, at this city perched on the edge of the continent, vibrating with possibility. “Maybe. For a while. Olivia would have Wolf and Solon nearby. The music scene is incredible. And you could teach anywhere.”
He studies me, blue eyes seeing far too much as always. “You feel it too, don’t you? Something’s coming. A change in the air.”
I nod, understanding what he means. Twenty years of vampire life has taught me to sense shifts in the collective consciousness, to feel the tremors before the earthquake.
“The world is transforming,” I say. “Maybe we should be here to witness it. To be part of it.”
Victor takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine. “Wherever you want to go, Lena, I’ll follow. That hasn’t changed since 1947, and it never will.”
Together, we gather up our daughter and our belongings, moving through the veiled landscape toward whatever future awaits. The summer of love unfolds around us, a brief, brilliant moment in the long span of our immortal lives. Ahead lies uncertainty, change, the ever-shifting patterns of human history that we will observe from our unique vantage point.
But here, now, in this pocket of fog and time, we are simply a family making our way home.