She stood there like a deer in headlights, mortified. She finally snapped out of her daze, realizing what she had done. She must have seemed like a crazy person.
Scattered laughter broke out from the stunned classroom.
“Caitlin?” Aiden asked, looking at her in astonishment.
He looked just as she’d remembered, with his short, gray hair and beard, and intelligent light blue eyes. He stared back at her with kindness, but also surprise, and maybe annoyance. Of course: she had interrupted his class.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Aiden stood there, perhaps waiting for her to explain, or waiting for her to leave.
But Caitlin couldn’t bring herself to leave. She couldn’t go anywhere, do anything, think about anything, until she had answers.
“Is there…something I can help you with?” he asked, unsure.
Caitlin looked down at the floor. She didn’t know what to say. She hated to interrupt him. But at the same time she didn’t feel like she could leave.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, looking up at him. “But I need to talk to you.” He stared back at her for several seconds, and his eyes narrowed. He slowly looked down at her hand and saw the book, and for the slightest moment, she saw something in his eyes, like recognition, then astonishment. It was a look she had never seen before: Aiden had never been astonished by anything. He seemed to know about everything in the universe.
Now Aiden was the one who seemed caught off guard. He turned to the class.
“I’m sorry, class,” he said. “But that will be all for today.” He suddenly turned towards Caitlin, gently took her shoulder and led her out the room, to the surprised whispers of the students.
“To my office,” he said.
She followed him down the hall, wordlessly, up the stairs, to the top floor, down another hall, and then finally, into his office. She walked in, and he closed the door behind her.
It was the office she remembered, the room that was a second home to her. It was the office she had spent so many years in analyzing and debating ideas with Aiden, as he advised her on her essays, on her thesis. It was a small office, but comfortable, every inch of it jam-packed with books, all the way up to the 14 foot ceilings. Books were stacked on the desk, on the windowsill, on the chairs.
And not just any books—all sorts of rare and unusual books, esoteric volumes on the most obscure academic subjects. It was the quintessential scholar’s office.
He hastily removed a pile of books from one of the seats across his desk, making room for her to sit. She sat, and then without hesitating, held out her journal.
Aiden slowly took it with both hands. Gently, he pulled back the cover. His eyes opened wide as he read the first page.
But to Caitlin’s surprise, he didn’t go through the book, inspect it, turn it every which way, as he always did with an unusual volume.
Instead, he gently closed it, then reached to give it back to her.
Caitlin could not believe it. He didn’t even try to read more. She was even more confused by his reaction.
He wouldn’t even look at her. Instead, he slowly got up, a grim look on his face, walked to his windowsill, and stood there, hands clasped, looking out. He was staring, looking down on the campus, on the hundreds of bodies scurrying below.
Caitlin could feel him thinking. She knew, she just knew, he was hiding something. Something he had never told her. That frightened her all the more. She had so desperately hoped he would just dismiss it all as nonsense. But he wasn’t.
After moments of thick silence, Caitlin couldn’t take it anymore. She had to know.
“Is it real?” she asked, cutting right to the chase.
After a long silence, Aiden finally turned.
And slowly, he nodded.
Caitlin couldn’t comprehend what was happening. He was confirming her reality. This book. It was real. Everything was real.
“But how is that possible?” Caitlin asked, her voice rising. “It talks about the most fantastical things. Vampires. Mythical swords. Shields. Antidotes. It’s thousands of years old—and it’s all in my handwriting. None of it makes any sense.”
Aiden sighed.
“I was afraid this day would come,” he said. “It just came sooner than I thought.” Caitlin stared back, trying to understand. She felt as if some great secret had been withheld from her, and it frustrated her to no end.
“What day would come?” she demanded. “What are you telling me? And why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Aiden shook his head.
“It wasn’t for me to tell you. It was for you to discover. When the time was right.”
“To discover what?”
He hesitated.
“That you are not who you think you are. That you are special.” Caitlin stared back, dumbfounded.
“I still don’t understand,” she said, frustrated.
He paced.
“As you know, history is part fact, part myth. It is our job to determine what is truth and what is fiction. Yet it is not as much of a science as we’d like to pretend. There are no absolute facts in history. History is written by the victors, by the biographers, by those with a cause and purpose and agenda to document it. History will always be biased. And it will always be selective.”
“Where does that leave me?” Caitlin asked, impatient. She was in no mood for one of Aiden’s lectures. Not now.
He cleared his throat.
“There is a fourth dimension to history. A dimension discounted by scholars, but one that is very real. The unexplained. The esoteric. Some might call it the occult, but that term has been grossly misused.”
“I still don’t understand,” Caitlin pleaded. “I thought you would be the one person who would explain it away. But it sounds as if you’re saying that it’s all true, that everything in this book is true.
Is that what you’re saying!?”
“I know what you came here wanting me to say. But I’m afraid I cannot.” He sighed. “What if some history has, in fact, been obscured? By design? What if there was, indeed, a time when a race known as ‘vampires’ existed? What if you were one of them? What if you had traveled back in time?
Had found an antidote, had wiped out vampirism for all time?” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “And what if there was one exception to the antidote?” he asked.