That night comes back to me in a heartbeat. The terror. The teeth. The very firm chest my face was pressed against as I woke up.
‘I do hate a jump-scare,’ I say, hoping like hell that the flush I feel running through me doesn’t reach my cheeks.
‘Yeah,’ Bram replies. ‘I remember.’ And then his lip curls in a smirk so slight that it looks like he’s trying to suppress it. ‘You’ve gotta watch those vampires.’
My thoughts stutter to a stop.
A second or two pass while I fully spiral, a panic surging through me that makes my stomach tighten. I didn’t tell him about the statue. How could he know?
Then I realise he probably just means Wladek, in character, and I’m overcome by embarrassment at how ridiculous I’m being. I could even have blurted out something about the statue at the time– a semi-conscious rambling I’ve long since forgotten. So why did my thoughts jump so quickly to something darker?
I look back at him, cool as ever in dark glasses and leather, his canines grazing the skin of his lips as his smile widens. My pulse quickens and I’m not entirely sure why.
‘I don’t know if I’m a believer,’ I say quickly, pulling my gaze away from Bram and back to the building behind him.
‘In Dracula?’ he asks after a beat, ‘Or in Wladek?’ I shrug in reply, and it makes him laugh. ‘I mean, you probably shouldn’t believe in Dracula. He’s a fictional character. Wlad definitely exists, though. You can go inside and see him for yourself if you like?’
‘No,’ I say, a little too loudly and a little too quickly, but when he turns back to me there’s a softness to his expression that eases the knot in my chest a little.
‘Come on,’ he says as he nods to the road ahead of us. ‘Let’s go find something that’s more up your alley.’
I didn’t think he meant a literal alley, but before I know it, we’re over the bridge and I’m being led through one, the air cooling suddenly out of the reach of the autumn sun. The street we emerge onto at the other end is the busiest place I’ve seen since I arrived here, a stream of elaborate costumes winding their way down the street. We stick to the edges, Bram expertly directing me around street performers and errant costume bustles before a pretty little jewellery shop catches my eye. I stop dead, tugging on Bram’s jacket before he gets swept away by the current of the crowd.
Excitement pulls me closer to the glass like a child outside a toy shop, kicking up my pulse until it’s a drumbeat in my ears. My grandpa was a jeweller once upon a time, and though my long-held memories of being in his shop as a small child are now little more than fragments, it’s enough to light a small flame of familiarity every time I pass a jeweller’s that looks like his. If I concentrate really hard, I can still remember the way it smelled, the acrid scent of solder cutting through the sweetness of the butter toffees he loved to eat.
And the colours. God, I loved the colours. I spent hours marvelling at the rainbow of precious stones in the ring display, or the way a shaft of sunlight catching a diamond in just the right way could cast a kaleidoscope of colour across the white walls.
But there’s something different about the shop in front of me. I look properly through the glass for the first time, and my brow creases in confusion. There’s no rainbow, no kaleidoscope of colour. No similarity to the fragments of memory nudging at me.
In this shop, every last stone in every last piece of jewellery is completely black.
‘Even your jewellery is goth,’ I mutter, more to myself than to Bram, but I hear that low rumble of a laugh next to me anyway, and he points out the hand-painted sign on the bay window.
Finest Whitby Jet Jewellery.
‘Actually,’ he says gently, turning to rest a hip against the whitewashed wall, ‘it’s our cliffs that are goth.’
I look out towards the coastline– or at least in the direction that I know the coastline is, as I can’t quite see it beyond this cluster of shops. ‘There’s jet in these cliffs?’
He nods. ‘Best in the world.’ And then there’s a flash of something like pride in his eyes before he turns to peer through the window. ‘You want to go in?’
I tell myself it’s curiosity that makes me say yes, or maybe nostalgia. Not the look in Bram’s eyes, or the contagious affection he has for this town, even if I am beginning to feel it too.
He swings the door open and holds it for me, shrugging when I thank him and duck past. There are a few people browsing, but it still feels like an oasis– a welcome calm from the busy streets outside.
‘I love jewellery shops,’ I say, brushing my fingers lightly over the pieces. The monotone isn’t what I was expecting, but there’s a beauty to it nonetheless, the stones surprisingly warm against my fingers. ‘My grandpa was a jeweller, and they always remind me of him.’
Bram doesn’t say anything, but he takes the smallest of steps towards me before I feel his upper arm nudge myshouldergently. I haven’t told him about losing my grandparents, but it’s like he knows, the tiny act of comfort speaking volumes without him having to speak at all.
By the time he actually does speak, the pang of grief has settled into the baseline hum that’s always there. My normal.
‘Which is your favourite?’ he asks, and then he points to a display of pocket watches. ‘I’m going to go with that one.’
I follow his finger to the most dramatic of the watches, polished silver with a three-dimensional coffin set into the top, its lid inlaid with jet. I reach for it and gently pop the lid open to find a tiny silver vampire asleep within. I can’t help but laugh.
‘It’s very you,’ I say, and when I glance up at him he’s looking back at me with a curious expression, one that I can’t quite read. I turn away from it, trying to ignore the small knot in my throat. I’m not sure what that means, either.
I scan the display, looking for a piece that speaks to me, but I’m a colour girl through and through, at a total loss in a shop like this.