#karintbt

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and it’s as good a fresh start as any.

Your life starts in Miami, at the house in Coral Gables. Maybe there was something before that, but you prefer to live as if there wasn't. Your life, such as it is, begins with moving boxes, and fresh paint, and the safety of whatever came before being almost 4 hours away. You know that very well. You counted the hours piled into the moving truck with your mother, feeling like such a big girl for riding with her rather than in the car with your father and four siblings. It’s only a little scary, waking up in the night not knowing where you are, but you’re comforted knowing you’re not the only one that piled into your parent’s bed that first night.

It’s only a first night, though, and while it remains sweet, it’s a rare feeling. Coral Gables became familiar in a matter of weeks, more a home than anywhere else. Your days are spent playing the dutiful oldest daughter, the angel of your house, always well-behaved and quiet even when your sisters whine for attention. Kris can be forgiven for it, since she’s so little. Kaja is a bit harder to defend. You do so anyway, trying hard to stop problems before they begin. Old for your age, the neighbors say, though you shy back from affectionate hands. Your youth is a held breath, watching, waiting for someone else to prove the world isn’t so insurmountable.

Some might laugh at the sentiment. Your mother the successful surgeon, your father the lawyer, every door is opened to you and your siblings. Wealth can get you anywhere in this country. Your parents ensure you know an education is the gateway to such privilege, and that with such privilege comes a set of responsibilities towards your fellow man. That’s why your schoolmates come to mock you for your father’s law practice, you come to realize with age. Your father puts justice above payment, running a defense firm that doesn’t concern itself with the corporate bigwigs and snowbirds that get into trouble so far south.

Even so, you’re proud of him. Your parents have always been the kind of people to do right in every aspect of their life. It’s a model you work to emulate – The Perfect Daughter. Good grades, well-groomed, taking part in all the right extracurricular activities and still having time to pick up and escort your little siblings homeward after school, you are a wonder to the adults in your life. Sure, it’s not winning you a lot of popularity contests, but you have just enough friends that not even high school can dim your shine.

Sixteen is a time of rebellion, people laugh. Even your parents nudge you towards a little deviance, a little more than being the pretty Lindholm girl who is always home before dark and faints at the first blush of wildness. You laugh it off, saying you have no interest in blacking out at some homecoming party or wandering too far from your own prom.

You never, ever speak the truth. You never want to meet what lurks in the dark, to stray to far from your mother that loves you and keeps the world past and present at bay.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and you must leave the nest eventually.

Everyone does it. Even you, that first autumn day after senior year. You trade away five hours of your life and the safety net of family for a full ride in Gainesville. The first night is always hardest, but you pull through on your own this time. The world becomes less of a question as you settle into campus life. In many ways, you come into your own.

You meant to follow your father into law. Really, you did, meaning to help the people of Florida in their times of need, fighting against a corrupt system. It’s just that words came hemorrhaging out of you, once you were lonely enough, and even new companionship couldn’t dam their flow. There was a poet in you, or at least the bones of a better than average author. Your major shifts towards English, with the ultimate goal of creative writing. Every new essay or exercise helps you feel like yourself again – for the first time in a very, very long time. New friends certainly encourage you, as you move from a player to the forever Storyteller of the bi-weekly The Interviewers Chronicles meet-ups.

That’s not all they encourage, either. Whether the words, the independence, or the support of friends, you begin to change. Confidence knits your self-doubt shut. You live for yourself a little bit more in this place. The night no longer seems so terrible. With the right drug cocktail, you feel the sun settle warm in your bones again. Van Gogh attested to yellow being a color of happiness. You cannot disagree.

That paradise comes to a close, as it must. A brief four year stint, but it’s enough for a lifetime, you hope. With the portfolio you’ve built in those years, you hope that your post-graduation situation will be as bright as your mood. Moving back home to Coral Gables, you’re content to pass one last summer in your parents home, waiting for the opportunities you are sure will come.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and for once, you are too optimistic.

Besides a published OpEd and the odd invitation to post on a wider blog, your opportunities dry up fast. So does your optimism, it turns out, despite the reassurances of most of your family. You need a change, but you’re not sure where to start.

You tell yourself that in the future, you’ll attest your success to the importance of location, location, location.

Miami isn’t that far from your first home. Distinctly, you remember running wild through the streets with your brothers from time to time, public nuisances from the richer side of the tracks. Here, however, that history seems to be forgotten by the people. In so many ways, the streets and city welcome you into its arts community. You find brief success in counterculture and queer circles, writing of your experiences loving women and your hunger for a better world. Hilarious as the appeals might be coming from your throne, the words are just skillful enough that a readership embraces you.

The next Molloy, your peers tease you. It’s a name you knew even in Coral Gables, largely through the complaining of elderly neighbors. Molloy was the man who founded the biggest boost to Florida’s economy in over a century, the Night Island that glimmered off of Miami’s coast. Every night, the lights went up, and the mecca of capitalism was opened to the exceptionally wealthy. To your people, however, the old man was better known as a champion of change in his own right. He was one of those old guard, a gay man that could speak and write like an old Roman orator. He got to the heart of struggles and threw his words – and money – into the struggle. Molloy was, others touted, the Miami Robin Hood, stealing the rich blind in his shops and developments and turning that revenue towards leveling out the playing field in the real world.

He is also, Kris and her friends contend, the man who wrote at least one of the books on which your beloved The Interviewers Chronicles was built. You have no reason to contest this. He’s a character in The Vampire Chronicles themselves, after all. The Storyteller is mean to be a pastiche of Molloy’s appearance in the first book, and the idea tickles you deeply every time your shared living space turns into an impromptu mass towards the man’s virtues and latest publication in the papers.

It’s a scene you might never see again, if you don’t stat putting your rent on the table. Miami is rough, and expensive, and your works only draw in so much revenue at a time. Most of it is hand to mouth. There’s always the possibility of taking money from your parents, but the idea comes across distasteful now. You’re an adult. You can make your own way.

You find the offer in the most unlikely place. Scanning through the local paper on your phone, you find an advertisement for an open position. Help Wanted. Secretarial and Sundry position sought upon the Night Island. Contact Mr. Molloy for details. It follows that a man of his age would not know how to use a job posting board, but you’re still frozen to the spot by the old fashioned classified. Hesitantly, you log the number.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and you have an interview.

Molloy is young. Problematically young, in fact, given the Island’s establishment and the length of his rule. He carries himself just right, however, for an older man. This idiosyncrasy can be easily chalked up to a good plastic surgeon, since no genes would stay so intact so late into one’s life. Besides, he puts you at ease almost from the word go, erasing that first confusion beautifully. This is a man it is dangerously easy to like, as he walks through your work history, your degree, your goals. You feel like you’re talking to an old, intimate friend, even as he cuts the occasional wry joke. He’s especially intrigued by your degree, and where you intend to go with it.

From hindsight, you’re sure that none of this won you your position. No, it’s when a young man walks in, only slightly older than your youngest sister. He’s lugging around a large canvas, babbling animatedly to ‘Daniel’ as he intrudes on this scene, pausing only once his dark eyes catch you. He sets the canvas down against the floor, leaning casually against it. Is this the new Gertrude, he asks. In an instant, you know the name of your predecessor. Maybe, Molloy answers with a boyish grin, if she wants to be. Your desires seem secondary to the auburn-haired boy, who unceremoniously dumps the canvas upon you. I need this scanned and put on the computer, he says, before gliding gracefully out of the room. He doesn’t even close the door behind him.

There’s apologies on Molloy’s tongue, embarrassment over whoever that was. Still, you look down at your newfound responsibility, and know immediately you want to stay. Did he paint this himself, you ask. Molloy gives a hesitant affirmation that the beautiful piece in your hand is an ‘Armand original.’ When you ask what file type he needs the scan to be, you realize you have lost the older man, but won the job in his office.

The Night Island is always busy. At the eponymous time of day, it’s practically a country in its own right. Calls must be made, messages relayed, order kept in at least this one office, and this is where you step in. Mr. Molloy – Daniel, he insists, though you never bite – is much too busy to hold down the place as he once did. His business partner – the Armand that you were so interestingly introduced to – is a host unto himself. Sometimes, the two make it easier on you. What a rare occurrence that is.

Regardless, you ferry red wine between the two offices, keep everything organized, greet guests. You are to send all calls from a Marius to the redhead’s office, and alert security to any golden-haired Frenchman that might make it into the building. Most vitally, you are the one who modernizes the business of Molloy and di Venezia. This floor had been perfectly preserved ever since your predecessor took the position in the 80s, and it falls to you to right that wrong. The first moment your boss asks you to fax something to Berlin, you stare at him, dumbstruck, and set about getting the personal information of his contact and sending a much more appropriate email. The work demands long hours, and is so much effort for one woman, but you have a good employer, despite his long absences and the strangeness of his partners demands. The pay, too, is fantastic. Really, you should be proud of where you’ve ended up. It’s not that you’re ungrateful...

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and something is wrong.

...It’s that your every night is given to this place. Days are for sleeping. You’re like a vampire, your mother sighs, and you try not to flinch. Even in such a crowded place, there’s a solitude to your station on the Island. More often than not, you’re alone in that glass-lined coffin, holding your breath for something to happen. Sometimes your employers are so strange. You ask yourself, why is it always wine, so red, warm in the glass? Why does the younger of the two seem so still, so pale? You swear sometimes you blink, and one of them has cleared the hall. Your mind is playing tricks on you again. You start to hurry towards the ferry faster and faster with each passing month.

You, alone, are alive among relics, ancient canvas and obsolete office tech. The nights are so long on the Island. It’s getting harder to ignore the odd stains on the wrists and lapels of the pair’s coats, when you take them on the coldest nights. The first thing you consciously register is how little your boss stirs the air, when he walks you to the docks on a winter evening. Your own breath turns to vapor in the chill, and yet you can’t say the same for him. Something is wrong here. His eyes are visible for too long as the boat pulls away, twin pinpricks of hazy light in the dark. You feel insane just admitting that.

But you’ve always been a little crazy. Sane people born of normal childhoods don’t take the pills you do. You’re ashamed to admit you’ve screamed once or twice, alone on that top floor, when the phone’s rung. You deny what you were doing, why it so upset you as you inched away from your desk, down the dark corridor. The other end was silent. You matched its volume. Then, a woman’s voice, perfect, whispering ‘Angel?’ Somehow, you don’t think that’s what either of those men are.

Therapists do their best, really they do. Your doctor never entertains your delusions, the fact you’re dancing around that your new job is dangerous and something is wrong with the people you share your evenings with. She only acknowledges the errant thoughts, and says she sees nothing wrong. This isn’t the support it once was, when she said she couldn’t see bruises on your shoulders, no gashes on your back. This isn’t your past. This is an ongoing nightmare, and you feel adrift, alone, in its current.

It hasn’t been like this since before you moved, a little girl shrieking at shadows and any hand that moved too close to you.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and you have made a mistake.

You no longer recognize your diary entries as your own. Something hot and sticky wells up in your chest. Pen to paper spins out a horror story every time. Your mother is only a half hour away, and your father, but this is so different from the last time they saved you. What do you intend to do, walk into your childhood home and declare Miami’s golden boy some kind of monster? You’re not even sure what kind, if you could speak this apparent fact into existence.

Take a break, your therapist urges. Something about the brain, and living nocturnal. It changes something in your brain. Molloy and the other one never seem changed by it. Do you ever go out with friends these days? How’s your first draft going? No, you aren’t, and it’s not your own book you’re worried about. You’re wondering if Molloy wasn’t just making up whatever he published before you were ever born.

He looks so young. His voice is sweet though, and sincere, whenever he thanks you for your work. It’s been what, a year, he asks in that sweet Californian patter. It’s started to warm up out there, yes, but there’s a coldness to this place that never dissipates. Perhaps it’s that you live in Armand’s shadow, the young man always appearing just when you need him, or anticipating the stray thoughts you have towards need or desire. He smiles like a saint after every such moment, as if it were coincidence. Those dark eyes are blazing in spite of it. He’s making sport, you realize that in some deep, primal part of yourself meant to anticipate the predator.

There is no more yellow in the world. Even the dawn that creeps along the floor of your room is a hazy, sickly peach. The world has gone so dark, and you are nothing more than another timid creature trying to avoid the eyes and talons of your betters. You think you’ve done so well, keeping away from the teeth and hands of your masters. That’s just it, though. You’re so focused on those terrible beasts you can see, you forget about the ones you can’t.

Another late night, another ferry ride, and that sneaking suspicion you are not alone. Nerves frayed, you’re so terrified to turn around and see a ghost that you power through the crowd, hailing a taxi so nothing can catch you, hurrying into your home. The door clicks shut behind you, and you slam the bolt into place. It’s alright now. You fight to convince yourself that you are safe now. Molloy, or whatever dead man has haunted you on your way home, is gone. You lock your bedroom door anyway, as you step back into the safety of a familiar shadow. Still, there’s a weight settling on the roof above.

Your third floor window creaks. Then, inch by inch, a marble hand slides into place beneath the lift. Glassy nails softly scream against the panes, the lock breaking with a metallic whisper. The moonlight comes spilling in, haloing a beast you do not know.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and you blink.

You blink, and the world comes back into focus. It’s just the sort of nice, featureless room that signals a liminal space. This is a hospital, that much holds true no matter the country. Sweden looks a lot like Florida from the right ward. The nurses are kind to you, the doctors full of good advice and compassion, even if the police are less than enthused with your place here. You’ve woken up, or so it seems, with dirt under your nails and a few months of mania running wild in your head. Only the drugs bring everything back into focus, without anything like coherence.

The last months are not completely erased. Your mind has only given you a thin layer of wallpaper between the now and the then. One tug and you’ll start reclaiming that time. Helpfully, others fill in a few of the blanks at first. You came to Europe by plane, into a Parisian airport. After that, you have dropped completely off the radar, moving across borders and certifiably alive only by the dubious state of your bank account. Just before the fever broke, you were found wrist-deep in a graveyard, pulling up dirt and unable to speak the local language.

That strikes you the most, once all is said and done. You’ve always spoken your father’s tongue.

It’s your father that comes to fetch you, after all. From behind thin walls, you hear those kindly doctors explain your case. A mental breakdown, they think, a total break from reality. You haven’t yet peeled back the paste and paper from your mind to say what really happened. Trying to remember on your own accord feels like a migraine. You wonder what your therapist will have to say about all of this, and will your insurance still cover a session?

In spite of it all, Sweden is safe. Whatever you were digging for, your hands only came up dirty. Now your father holds them, so clean and small in his grasp, and says everyone will be so happy to see you again. With a smile, you feign joy at the thought of returning home, getting onto the plane in a new dress and steady hands.

The home you return to will be thirty minutes away from whatever you were outrunning, after all. Whatever they are, you’re sure their knowing smiles and probing minds cannot reach you that far. You start ripping the wallpaper down piece by piece after your homecoming, a travel journal of paranoia and shifted reality. You remember the shadow at your window, and the knife, and something about the dawn. You walked away. You’re always walking away from this truth.

It has to be done on your mother’s card. You’re not sure that your employers are tracking your spending, but you like to be sure. Still, you’re going back to where it all began, and you have to be prepared, loading the bag into your passenger seat.

You’ve brought a hatchet into the elevator. Only the next few minutes will determine whether you mean to bury it to new beginnings, or into Molloy’s skull.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and someone understands.

He isn’t surprised to see you. Oh, your sudden appearance is a shock, but he knew you were coming somehow, someday. For all the Hell you’ve endured, for how it’s thinned your body and darkened your eyes, Daniel Molloy is the one thing in your life that has stayed the same. The same, you imagine, as he’s been since 1985.

You can’t believe he’s apologizing. Somehow, he compels you to sit, not by supernatural means, but a soft voice and knit brow. It’s always like this, he tells you. The truth always does something to the mortals that stumble upon it. But people like you, people like him, people who are already on the edge of the cliff, it takes more than you ever intended to give. He’s sorry.

Every wound the last two years have inflicted are reflected back at you, as the night drags on. He never meant to inflict them, he says. Your position is a necessity, given what he and his partner are. He got careless, and you paid for it. No matter what found you that night, he takes the blame onto his own shoulders. There’s no making it right, no happy ending that suddenly fixes all that twisted and snapped inside of you. All he can hope to do is give you some peace with it.

You don’t have to return. He’s willing to give you whatever you need to stay in comfort, to leave this place to pursue your dreams, to call in whatever favor you need to rise above this. It tempts you, admittedly. You have the beast by the throat, and he’s pleading for your peace. What a pity, then, that his kind have already stripped whatever peace you had out of you, bloody and screaming.

If you leave, you murmur, there’s still others out there. People that aren’t like him, that make his partner seem civilized. Molloy does not disagree. He can’t promise a world without night, or the things that stalk through it. He can only promise your days will be safe, rounded out by the wealth only a man of his station can provide. Every way he means to make this right turns to ash in your mouth.

If you stay, you say, and he seems to startle. You press on. If you stay, will he let you learn? You can’t go blind into the night again, and you feel safer among one of his kind that has made his guilt clear than in the wilds with those things you can only see in silhouette. Is that allowed? Can a mortal stumble into this world and find protection on her own? Is their history a thing that can be shared among outsiders? That, at least, gives Molloy pause.

No, he says. This doesn’t mean what you think it will. There’s an experience in what he says, snippets of an old novel dancing across your head. This truth ruined him, a lifetime ago. Yet you don’t flinch, and you don’t beg for another way. He has to understand it isn’t envy that makes you speak. I can serve you better if I know what I’m facing, you admit without shame. It’s what you’re saying beneath it all that shifts your boss’ expression. It’s not what he can do for you. It’s what you can become. Not fangs and pallid skin like him, but knowledge, strength, cunning enough that you will never be the victim again.

If you can survive the wolves, then there should be no threats left from humanity.

Your name is Karin Lindholm, and you have found your place.

You awaken mid-morning, in your suite on the Night Island. You feed your dog. You check your messages, for anything that might have been forwarded to you in the night. Out the door you go, stopping for some breakfast and coffee from one of the few eateries that stays open past dawn.

Then it’s into the office, adjusting the latest of Mr. di Venezia’s artistic collection on the wall on your way in. There are calls to make, emails to answer, and schedules to get in order. After that, it’s a matter of dealing with the right businesses, delegating the right work. By night, devils might rule, but by day, you are the final word in this place.