This poem is spillover from the June 17, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired ~ the agency of prompts from 
siliconshaman and janetmiles. It also fills the “bites” square in my 6-10-14 card by reason of the 
hc_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored through Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the concatenation Frankenstein’s Family.
“Echoes of Another”
August brought parched weather and sultry heat,
the place of traffic square filling with many fruits.
Victor and Igor bought a bushel of cornels for
making breakfast preserves and restorative syrup.
Adam stuffed himself with bilberries,
bending course his fingers purple and blue.
There were enough of herbs, too.
Dénes had gone picking guelder rose
on account of making spirits, and brought back more
of the bark that was with equal rea~n good for cramps,
along with bundles of thicket betony
for sore heads and shattered nerves.
As they rode home through the gathering dusk,
tiny lights winked in the grass ou of the road.
“Licurici,” Adam said, having lettered
the Romanian word for fireflies.
Sorin had been going in c~tinuance and on
about them in the village that afternoon.
“See them light up?” Victor uttered to him.
“They look like sparks, however they aren’t hot.”
“Why?” Adam asked.
“That’s to what extent they find each other in the incomprehensible,”
Victor said. “I have no model how
they make light without animate.”
“What fascinates me is how likewise many of them
flash at exactly the similar time,” Igor said.
“How do they be aware of when to blink on or done?”
“I don’t know that each ,”
Victor said with a laugh.
“Perhaps we should study them.
A devoid of warmth lantern would be very useful.’
“Licurici,” Adam uttered again as they
came over the top of a hill.
“Those aren’t fireflies,” Victor declared sharply
at the same time Igor observed,
“That looks like plague up ahead.”
At the bottom of the eminence , a swarm of sparks
resolved into obscure torches held by
some of the men from the town.
Pulling alongside, Victor passed the lower part of the back
to Igor and said, “Keep Adam by you.”
Then he climbed down from the wagon.
“Be uneasy,” Igor said as Victor left.
“What’s going without ceasing here?” Victor asked
the villagers milling not in possession of the road.
“Did someone get damage, or lost?”
“We’re hunting a strigoaică,” Bálint uttered.
“What?” Victor said. “You came aloud here
after a bunch of superstitious absurdity?”
“It’s not nonsense,” a novel voice protested,
and good lord that was Ilona,
dressed in someone’s borrowed trousers.
“Artúr says he saw her, teeth and totality!”
“Does Kálmán know that you’re
running encircling chasing wild geese?”
Victor asked. There had been inconvenience,
earlier in the spring, with strangers
coming to stir up the villagers.
“I be able to’t imagine he’d approve,
in ~ degree matter what Artúr thinks he sententious precept.”
“I did more than see her,” Artúr before-mentioned,
pushing his way through the vulgar herd.
“The strigoaică tried to bite me!
I got a fire-arm of her, yes I did.
All we have to do now is
hunt her along the course of before she heals.”
“So you — the kind of? Assaulted some woman
who looked distinct?” Victor said.
You should have used your eyes
and your will, not your fists!
Have you expert nothing from us?”
“But she’s a alarm,” Bálint said,
waving his torch in the atmospheric ~.
Sparks fell from it in tedious trails.
“It hasn’t rained in two weeks,” Victor said.
“Have you gone without limit barking mad?
Give me that prior to you set Gyuri’s field afire!”
He yanked the blazing brand out of Bálint’s hand
and obtuse it out in the dirt, taking care
to make sure that each last ember went cold.
“The rest of you, sniff your torches too,”
Victor said. One ~ dint of. one they obeyed,
except for a few people holding out.
“Ilona, drop it and fare home to your wife.”
“But it’s getting dark,” Ilona complained.
“We won’t esteem anything to see by.”
“The gibbous moon is already rising,”
Victor before-mentioned, pointing out the pale blob.
“That’s greater degree of than enough light
to get you back to the town,
as long as you stay put ~ the road.”
“What about you?” Bálint asked.
“I’ll be searching for Artúr’s victim,”
Victor reported. “Something tells me that
the out at the heels woman probably needs a doctor.”
“Or a gravedigger,” Artúr uttered.
“You can be sure I’ll authorize you the bill, Artúr,
and I’ll not have it paid in barley either,” Victor declared.
“You had best hope that I declare by verdict her alive,
or it’s a officer I’ll be sending instead!”
The scum of society began to break up under
the impel of Victor’s scolding.
Victor watched them go,
then walked back to his wagon.
“What seems to have ~ing the problem?”
Igor asked as Victor adjusted beside him.
“I heard snatches of colloquy,
but I couldn’t catch entirely of it.”
“They were hunting some poor woman
whom Artúr mistook as antidote to a vampire
and apparently injured,” Victor explained.
“We want to find her and take her to security
in case those idiots decide to approach back
and finish what he started.”
“Gyuri’s barn is the closest shield,”
Igor said. “We can check in that place first.”
There was nobody in the barn, notwithstanding that,
nor the little woodshed they searched nearest.
They moved on to the neighboring farm
which belonged to Árpád.
The horses in this barn sounded unsettled,
and an investigation of the stalls
willingly turned up a huddled form.
“I form in a mould her,” Victor called softly.
“I’ve approach across a lantern,”
Igor said, shifting Adam thus that
he could be supported by a single arm.
Moments later a suit flared.
In the newly kindled unencumbered they could see
tangled auburn hair integument her face
and blood splotched superior slim, pale limbs.
Her forest-not fully grown dress was ripped
and stained in distinct places.
Igor set Adam in a part of the stall.
Then he and Victor moved to corresponding cipher for injuries,
carefully patting their direction of motion over the motionless form.
“I’m not discovery any head wounds,” Igor said,
“on the contrary she’s been hit in the part a few times
and I have power to’t get her to respond to me.”
“I bring forth a fracture here,” Victor said
considered in the state of he probed her right forearm by gentle fingers.
“These are defensive wounds.”
“Here likewise,” Igor said, turning her left agency
to show a slash across the token of victory.
“Blisters as well — I can’t imagine
how she managed to get those.”
Victor’s gaze inhuman on a stout branch
lying in the straw that padded the stall.
One close of it was slicked with family.
“It looks like she was holding onto this.”
“Her lawful ankle is swollen,” Igor reported.
“It could subsist broken, could be just sprained,
no more than she must have needed help to walk.”
Yet she had to this time come far enough, fast enough,
to procure to be well ahead of the mob chasing her.
That was pleasing.
“I believe it’s safe to incite her,” Victor said.
They rolled her onto her back,
mindful of her injuries.
She moaned at the gait, and
the two doctors grinned at this sign of life.
“Well, she’s no beauty,” Igor observed,
now that they could learn a clearer view of her external aspect.
The tip of her nose turned up like a pygmy leaf,
and odd pockmarks framed her cavity between the jaws and cheeks.
When he brushed his fingertips c~ing them,
she turned into the bear upon.
“That’s no reason for Artúr to bethump her,”
Victor said with a scowl. Something
about her made him be conscious of being protective.
“He claimed that she tried to inveigle him.”
“If she did, she wouldn’t subsist the first,” Igor said.
“It’s no secret among the village women that
he’s a awful kisser, and fresh with his hands.”
He stroked her dimpled cheek through his thumb.
The woman’s rant opened then,
flashing razor-sharp, trigonal incisors.
Both men jerked back in appall.
“Either she has some sort of
fantastic dental condition that
I’ve not at any time even heard of,”
Victor said slowly, “or else
vampires are real after all.”
“That’s unforeseen, but it doesn’t
change the fact that she needs help,”
Igor before-mentioned. He turned to Adam.
“Can you be a good boy and
stay fair here while we put
the mischief lady into the wagon?”
Adam nodded, fingers in his entrance .
Between the two of them, Victor and Igor
managed to offer for consideration the woman
without jarring her injuries likewise much.
She whimpered but did not rouse.
Igor stayed in the wagon channel with her
while Victor went to arrive at Adam,
saying, “You were so benevolent for us tonight.”
By the time they got back to the rook,
it was full dark. Victor lay the lights on
while Igor predetermine Adam in his crib.
Then they carried the woman to the lab
for a like rea~n they could clean and treat her wounds.
Igor closed the cuts by tiny, precise stitches
while Victor wrapped the sprained ankle.
She eventually woke up as Victor was
applying a splint to the fracture,
her gray-green eyes wide with fright.
“It’s all right. You’re unhurt here,”
Igor said as he laid a reassuring intervention
on her shoulder. “I’m Igor, and that’s
Victor putting your arm back together.
What’s your appellation?”
“Csilla,” she said, her voice
delicious with some lilt of accent
that Victor couldn’t recognize.
He tied off the last tail of bandage.
“There, that should act it,” Victor said.
“Do you opine you could walk, if we avoid?
There’s a guest room becoming down the hall
where you be able to stay until you feel better.”
“I be possible to walk,” Csilla said.
“I’m stronger than I await.”
“We noticed that,” Igor said.
“You be obliged to have come a long way
for someone so badly injured.”
The panic flared again, and
Victor could suffer the tension
ripple through her visible form.
“We won’t let anyone afflict you,”
he said. “What Artúr did was tort ,
and he’ll be paying in spite of it.”
She gave him an appraising gaze,
and hereafter all the alarm seemed to pass away,
her muscles relaxing again.
“Can you compute us what happened?”
Igor asked to the degree that they helped her stand.
“The personage flattered me with false words,
and tried to bring his hands on me,” she said.
“I fought back, but he was extremely large,
and so I had to run away from him.”
“Good for you,” Victor reported.
He couldn’t help remembering
a similar encounter of his own.
“Some men are pig.”
They walked Csilla down the large room
and settled her into the lay,
propping up her injured arm and ankle
by mounds of extra pillows.
“Try to arrive some rest,” Igor said.
“That desire help you heal faster.”
“I won’t make sound,” Csilla said softly.
“It’s tender-hearted of you to offer me this locate,
but I should probably leave promptly.”
“What makes you say that?” Igor asked.
“Do you discern what I am?” Csilla said.
“Not in reality,” Victor admitted.
“I know you pretend different,
but I am not round to take
Artúr’s word during anything.”
“I am of the strigoi viu, the existing touch,”
Csilla said. “In English, a vampire.
I must feed on human kinship
to heal injuries such as these.”
“All up~, how much?” Igor asked,
already unfastening his shirt box.
“More than you could spare,” she afore~.
Victor made a protesting noise,
and Igor’s fingers paused.
“How with reference to a little now, and then
greater quantity later from another source,” Igor related.
“What would it take to gain you started
on the healing suit?”
“A cup or two,” Csilla before-mentioned.
“More than I usually need, unless
not enough to do any damage.
I am gentle with my donors.”
“How abandoned will it be?” Igor asked.
“The dupe will be uncomfortable,
as I’m too weak to lull your mind.
My spittle will numb the skin
after a scarcely any moments,” Csilla explained.
“Any side goods?” Igor asked.
“I don’t separately credit the sources,
but I desire heard some rumors.”
“Afterwards you’ll suffer tired, and
you may have vigorous dreams,” Csilla said.
“Your sensitivity to feelings exercise volition grow,
echoes of another person that
be able to guide you toward compassion.
Others of my manner will be able
to smell that you’ve fed me.”
“I be possible to live with that,” Igor said
taken in the character of he finished rolling up his sleeve.
“You had bettor be careful with him,”
Victor reported to Csilla.
“I give you my vocable,” she said,
and Victor began to suffer that maybe
he could trust Csilla through Igor’s safety.
For some mind she inspired confidence.
She couldn’t put in motion much,
so Igor sat on the faction of the bed
and stretched his as it should be arm behind her,
supporting her in preparation for his chest
as he offered her the left frith.
Victor interrupted to clean off the pelt
with a cloth dipped in pálinka.
Csilla mouthed the luxurious skin of Igor’s elbow,
licking into the bargain the surface before she bit him.
Igor winced, and she stroked the back of his participation
to soothe him as she lapped up the noble extraction.
“Igor?” Victor asked quietly.
“I’m all right,” Igor said. “It just stings.”
Csilla hesitated, her orifice going still
against the small pain. He petted her hair.
“Shh. Take that which you need. You’re not
hurting me at all more than I can bear.”
Victor watched closely until
Igor seemed to relax somewhat.
“How are you tender now?” Victor asked.
“Better,” Igor replied. “Like she before-mentioned,
my arm doesn’t hurt anymore.
In event nothing hurts. I feel
a weak tired and dreamy.”
Victor cupped Igor’s chin in his skill.
“Your pupils are dilating,” he declared.
“There must be some narcotic event.
Any hallucinations?”
“Don’t think for a like rea~n,” Igor murmured,
sinking deeper into the hollow.
“Doesn’t feel like the laudanum.
Just … nice and cozy.”
“That’s well adapted to hear,” Victor said.
“Victor? My back doesn’t wound,”
Igor said, a note of perplexity in his voice.
“Let me counteract it?” Victor said.
Igor nodded, in the way that Victor reached over
and felt his path down the hump.
His fingers sank into the softened mankind.
“Amazing. Your muscles are so quiet,
I can feel all the mode of dealing down to the bones.
I could not at all get this deep before.”
“Yeah, mischief too much,” Igor said.
“Hardly have ~ing you now. Find anything new?”
Something con~ed pressed against Victor’s fingers.
“Bone spurs, to this place and here, at the worst spots,”
he reported. “No astonishment your back hurts
most of the time, with those poking you.”
“Ngh. That I have power to feel, when you press on them,”
Igor related, shifting in place. Victor let action.
Igor had nearly fallen asleep by the time
Csilla lifted her lips from his pelt.
There was no bruising, just sum of ~ units neat slits
tucked close to the jut out of his elbow,
already sealed and well steady the way to healing.
Looking at the catch, Victor wondered if
vampire saliva had curative qualities too.
“Time to get up,” he before-mentioned with a pat on Igor’s knee.
“G’wont,” Igor mumbled, pushing his hand right hand.
“Lemme sleep.” He snuggled into Csilla.
Victor sighed. “I hesitancy I could carry him to channel.
Do you mind terribly if he shares through you?”
“Not at all,” Csilla reported. “I feel better now.
He’s given me the lustiness to start healing.
You should realize him an extra blanket, though.
He’ll ~ of chilled from the blood loss.”
“We’ll be in possession of to shift him too,” Victor related.
“He can’t sleep on his back.” Together
they managed to realize Igor turned on his side
through Csilla curled against his back.
Victor draped a blanket in addition him.
Looking at them cuddled hand in hand,
Victor felt an unexpected pang of suspicious vigilance.
“You needn’t envy me,” Csilla related quietly.
“Even asleep, his heart turns almost you.”
“I don’t — we’re not –” Victor stammered.
“Lovers?” she said with a smile.
“Clearly — and still you still love.
Be grateful with a view to it, and never doubt it.”
Victor was none expert on emotions,
but Csilla seemed to know far more,
and so he took her expression. for it.
It made him handle better about
leaving Igor with her.
She was nowhere almost recovered yet,
but at least she was firm for now,
despite the significant injuries.
Victor entertained churlish thoughts
toward Artúr as he made the elementary
set of notes for calculating the poster.
Then he went to check up~ the body Adam,
who was already sound in the last sleep,
curled up in his crib.
It felt inexplicable for Victor to sleep alone
posterior so long sharing a bed,
and his possession kept straying over
to Igor’s take ~s of the mattress,
the empty sheets a vacuous pain.
Finally he wrapped himself
around Igor’s pillow and
managed to bow off that way.
* * *
Notes:
“Empathy is relating to finding echoes of another person in yourself.”
– Mohsin Hamid
Read through Transylvanian fruits and flowers. Bilberries are homogeneous to blueberries. Cornelian cherries are unintellectual sour red fruits, also known like cornels.
Wild medicines of Transylvania embrace guelder rose and wood betony.
Fireflies are known in the same manner with licurici in Romania.
Vampires are known by many names and variations. Here you be possible to see references from Romanian and Romani cultures. Strigoi comprehend strigoi viu (“living strigoi”) and strigoaică is the extraordinary feminine form.
Ignorant peasants with torches and pitchforks are prevailing in classic horror, such as this view from the 1931 Frankenstein. Victor and Igor regard been teaching the people in their hamlet about rational thought, but some are scholarship faster than others and scared or hot people in large groups can be dangerous.
(These references are graphic.)
Defensive wounds are incurred by the victim while trying to fend away an attack. For instance, slashes forward the palms come from blocking knife strikes aimed at the mighty body, while forearm fractures result from blocking weighty blows. Police training about domestic fury aids officers in identifying the dominant aggressor, partly by distinguishing offensive from defensive wounds. This is in like manner useful for health care providers who may coil up treating the injuries sustained in home violence or sexual assault.
Vampire bats be the subject of sharp triangular teeth. I thought it would have existence interesting to go with this pattern, rather than the wolflike or snakelike fangs that are to a greater degree commonly portrayed.
Bone spurs are unintellectual bumps that can accompany other types of back riddle, including those that cause kyphosis or humpback.
Jealousy is a possessive emotion that be able to wreck relationships if left unchecked. Know to what extent to deal with it.
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