As I sat across from Paul, I could not help but feel a great sense of excitement.  The whirl of complex and terrible things I was feeling were completely swallowed in the tide of pleasure that finally I would get my answers. 

Finally, at long last I might be able to sort out the whole complicated and convoluted mess Michael had plunged me into.

Paul shifted uncomfortably.  "I've never spoken of this to anyone before in its entirety."

"I understand," I agreed, although a part of me was pretty sure I could not.

"I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning.  I don't know what Michael has told you thus far."

"Pretty much nothing," I said glumly.  Every time Paul said Michael's name I felt crushing angry pain.  My emotions were a tangled mess I could not easily untie.

"I glanced through my earliest journals while you waited.  My memories seem in order.  It's odd to have to read your own words to be certain your recollection of the past is true."

I nodded and waited for him to continue.  I was not disappointed, because he began.

"Michael and I were born not too far from where we sit today, although the town has long since disappeared, remembered by no one but we two who were alive to see it.  Our mothers were about the same age and grew up in the same town.  They both married around the same time and became pregnant.  Each gave birth to a son.  Michael is my elder by about half a year.

"My mother had a difficult labor and died almost immediately from complications after I was born.  Michael's mother became my nurse and she took care of me when I was very young. 

"My father was distant for as long as I could remember.  I believe he blamed me for my mother's death, although he never said in so many words. 

"It was Michael's mother who gave me the love I craved, even as I grew older.  She was the closest thing I had to a mother.  In those days, Michael and I were closer than brothers.

"Although Michael's family was intact, unlike my own, their lives were not all bliss.  She had a number of still births in the early years of my life.  I watched her sinking into her pain each time, even though I did not understand.

"It was not until Michael and I were five years old that his mother successfully carried another child to term.  It was a perfect baby girl and she was named Sarah.  After she learned to walk, she would follow us around constantly.  Michael teased her mercilessly.  He would call her 'little girl' and she would cry and run to their mother.  She would scold Michael and sometimes me as well.

"In those days, few people bothered with the written word, however my father was different.  He was a man of means and he hired a tutor to teach me.  He may have resented me, but he had a strong sense of duty.  He died when I was fourteen, leaving me in control of my inheritance.  I managed with some help.

"Time passed.  We all grew.  Michael and I were about twenty years old when a travelling scholar and poet came to town.  He called himself Vincent, but I do not know if that was his true name.  I did not think much about the man, until I realized Michael was becoming distant to me, spending his time with the learned stranger.  I was jealous.

"One night I saw Michael walking into the woods just before dark.  I thought it odd and I followed him.  He walked through the trees until he reached a clearing.  There sat a dark figure, that travelling scholar.  Michael went over to him and I watched in disgust as the man bit my brother on the neck.  He then bit himself and rubbed their blood together.  I was disgusted by what I saw.  It was wrong, it had the mark of obvious evil, to my eyes. 

"In my shock, I let out a small sound and the man looked up.  He knew I was there.  Perhaps he had known even before I made the sound.

"He leapt up with a startling speed and grabbed me.  It seemed he was planning to murder me.  Michael cried, 'No.'  The man said in a voice that chilled me to the bone; 'Something must be done with him.'  Michael asked, 'Then let him be brought over!  I will vouch for his trustworthiness!'  Before I could even begin to fathom the implications, he did the same thing to me as he had to Michael.  In my shock I did not even fight.

"Vincent left our town soon after, leaving me filled with self loathing. However, Michael stayed beside me and when I was ready, taught me to move beyond the disgust I felt.

"With my best friend, my brother, beside me, I learned to appreciate what we had become.  We would race through the woods on horseback or on foot.  We would go on trips to find willing victims far from home.  We were more inseparable than ever, with a wonderful secret to share between us.  The euphoria of a life of blood.

"Things changed when Michael's parents were brutally murdered.  I had spent much time at his home as a child and even more time after his parents died.

"I had never felt such grief and rage.  They were ever more the parents to me than my own had been.  Michael had desperately loved his family, too.  He spent a great deal of his time searching for the culprits. 

"While he did this, I spent my time comforting Sarah.  While Michael pursued vengeance she was left alone, but for me.  She was broken hearted.  We all were.  As my grief dimmed, I found she had grown up to be a remarkable young woman.  She was a true beauty inside and out. 

"I fell in love with her in a completely different way than I had loved her when we were children.  I could not bear to lie to her, so finally told her the truth about what we had become.  Michael was furious with me, but his anger dimmed when he realized her love for us did not diminish.

"When I discovered she returned my feelings, I knew happiness, sweeter than I had ever known, more precious than anything that I have experienced since. 

"Yet, the sweet pleasure of discovering my match dimmed into dread at the thought of Michael's reaction.  He was already furious with himself for failing to find the murderer.  When he discovered we were to be married, he became very still and then finally congratulated us. 

"After that he acted as if pleased for us, always the servant to Sarah's wishes and desires.  Inside I know he hated the idea.  I now believe he felt like he would be diminished in both of our affections.  He thought he would lose both his sister and best friend.  Yet in spite of the storms beneath the surface, the plans for our wedding progressed.

"It was around that time that the rumors of our unnatural behavior begin to surface.  It was just the odd remark here, the odd look there.

"Michael was not as concerned as I was.  The movements of lesser beings were becoming beneath him, even at that time.  I know Sarah worried for him and for me.  I could see the shadows growing in her eyes.  She overheard villagers speaking about how Michael and I had been possessed by demons and uneasy plans of  how he and I might be dealt with.  She rode out to find me.

"She was worried and distraught, even though she was a gifted rider.  She rode hard and she was not being careful.  The horse threw her.  She injured herself; I suspect now it was in her spine.  She could not move even though she still lived, trapped in her body, paralyzed. 

"Michael was with me when I discovered her laying there, her neck at an odd angle, still alive but beyond our help.  I knew she had little time left.  We carried her to a small shack deep in the forest and I changed her.  Michael ran to get her blood.

"We managed to keep her alive and by some chance she came back to us after a week of spoon feeding blood into her unresponsive mouth.  Her body healed and she could move.  Michael and I rejoiced, all enmity between us forgotten.  For a few short weeks, we lived together happily.

"It was late one night when our peace was shattered.  We woke up to the sound of Sarah's screams.  She wanted blood, but when we brought it to her she knocked it away.  She screamed at us, pleading with us to kill her.  She blamed us for her death.  She accused us of turning her into a monster.  She screamed about how much it hurt.  This continued until she fell asleep. 

"Sarah was fine the next morning, but after that the episodes became more frequent.  They were always different, sometimes screaming of her pain, other times not knowing who we were, sometimes terrible rage.  Other times she was calm, but removed from us. 

"But all the episodes were connected by her desire for blood and her desire for death, her own, or ours, or innocents.  It seemed to matter not which.

"We continued on caring for her, keeping her removed from other people.  It was clear that neither the blameless and uninvolved nor Sarah herself would be safe if she was allowed to roam free. 

"We isolated her for many months and it felt as if we could continue that stasis forever.  It was bittersweet, but at least we were all alive and together.

"Just being together seemed not much to ask, but it was not to be.  One night she was having a quiet but bloodthirsty fit and we attended her during it, as we always did.  We stayed by her side until she smiled and assured us she was fine and apologized for worrying us. 

"I remember assuring her we loved her no matter what was to come.  Michael and I went outside to rest; the fits were draining and worsening in frequency and length.  We both feared she would never come out of them one day.  It was only when we had the sweet woman who we both loved in our own ways that all our efforts were worthwhile.

"When we returned, she was not there.  To this day I do not know if she had another fit in immediate succession, or if she had been unusually crafty during the last and we had been fooled. 

"We desperately searched.  I found her, but it was too late.  She had attacked and killed a family, an entire family of eight people.  There was no one left alive.  When she saw me she ran over.  She was drenched in blood.  I had not understood how much blood was truly in a human until that moment.  She smelled of blood.

"She looked at me with those innocent blue eyes and asked me what she had done.  She looked at the blood on her own hands.  She asked me how many innocents she had killed.  I just shook my head.  She had tears streaming down her face. 

"I didn't really need to answer, she knew.  Her eyes filled with tears and she told me that death was preferable to what she had become.  For all she screamed for death during her insanity, she never before asked for the end when she was sane.

"Her beautiful eyes were filled with tears.  I did not hesitate.  I took my knife and I slit her throat.

"I stared into her eyes in the growing darkness of the home of the murdered family while her lifeblood slipped away.  Finally, I carried her outside and lay her gently on the ground.  I lit the house on fire and watched it burn, standing beside her still form.

"Michael found me then.  He could see what I had done.  He wordlessly picked up the remains of Sarah and carried her body into the darkness.

"I returned to the shack and waited for Michael.  He never returned.  Finally I gave up and left too."

I suddenly realized I had not drunk any of my coffee while he was speaking.  I hastily brought the cup up to my lips, spilling a bit of it upon myself.  Why were my hands shaking?  It was lukewarm so at least it did not hurt.  I ignored it.  I felt like I should say something, but could not think of anything that felt adequate.

"Even though I have forgotten so much, Sarah's face is still burned in my mind.  I will never forget what she looked like.

She looked almost exactly like you.

I dropped the cup and from some far off corner of my mind, I heard it smash into a million pieces on the floor. 

As I reached instinctively for the pieces the room swayed and I lost my balance and I fell out of the chair.  I felt pain on my head as I hit the ground and the world went dark.

I could hear the noise of someone breathing.  I opened my eyes slowly.  I found myself laying in the bed in the homey looking room and Paul was sitting beside me.  He seemed to be looking off into the distance to a time that had long since passed.

"You're awake," he commented.  "How do you feel?"

I took a careful inventory of my body.  "I feel fine."  Perhaps even better than fine, at least physically.  When had I felt this good?  What had happened?

"You hit your head.  You were unconscious for a full day," he told me.

"Really?  Why?" I asked and then everything Paul had told me came rushing back to me.  I could feel my heart start beating frantically.

Either Paul did not notice my condition, or he sought to distract me from it.  Either way, I grabbed on to the distraction with my whole attention.  "We could not wake you up.  I'm afraid I took the liberty of giving you a blood transfusion."

That caught my attention.  "Why?" I asked.

"You were growing anemic.  I apologize; I had forgotten you drink your blood."

"You don't?"

"It's much more efficient to simply have a blood transfusion every month or so.  When you drink blood, many of the proteins are destroyed in your digestive tract.  Of course, with transfusions, you have to worry about blood typing, but I feel the trade off is worthwhile."

"So you never drink blood then?" I asked, to make sure I understand.

"Not anymore.  Not in almost a hundred years."

"I feel really good," I commented as I took stock of my condition.  "Is that why?"

"Yes.  Are you sure that you are well?"  I understood he was no longer talking about my physical health.

"I'll be fine."  I hoped.  Besides everything that had happened with Michael, my mind whipped back to Paul's tale.  I wondered if the fact I slipped was due to the combination of lack of blood and shock.  I looked exactly like Michael's sister and Paul's love?  It was too unlikely to believe.

"Do I really look like Michael's sister?" I asked.

"Yes," he said with a sad half smile.  "You look exactly like her.  Your size, the shape of your face and features.  It's uncanny."

"Oh," I said, trying to sort out how I felt about that information.

"It's more than that, though.  Your voice is similar, the way you move is like a memory of Sarah.  I've never, and I'm willing to be that Michael has never met anyone who looked so much like her.  Even your hair is the same color.  The only obvious difference is—"

I cut him off.  "The color of my eyes."

He looked at me oddly, perhaps surprised I knew.  "Yes.  Her eyes were blue whereas yours are hazel."

I chuckled bitterly.  "So the only reason I was important enough to Michael that he returned to see if I was alive is because I look like his dead sister?" I suggested, feeling terribly flat.

He did not hesitate.  "Most likely.  I took care of all the others so I could not be certain."

It was a soft way of describing their murders, though it helped the victims not at all.

"And the only reason you did not simply take care of me that first night is because I just happen to look more like the woman you loved than any of Michael's other victims?" I asked, already sure of the answer.

He reluctantly replied.  "I'm afraid so.  Most don't survive the change and I hoped you would die naturally without my intervention."

"But I did not die."

"No, you survived with your sanity intact."

"Are you going to kill me now?" I asked him.

"No.  I could not harm you."

It was a cold comfort indeed.

The whole tale was a bitter pill to swallow.  At least the king's jester had their own purpose to fulfill.  "Can I take a rest now?" I asked, but what I really needed was to be alone.  I needed to think about everything.

Paul nodded.  "I will tell you the rest of my tale when you are ready.  You've got free use of this house and property and if you need anything, ask myself or Millicent."

"Thanks," I said.  I hoped he would leave.

My wish was granted and he carefully shut the door behind him.  I lay there in my solitude for a long time.  I slept.

Little had changed when I awoke.  I looked around the homey room.

There were hand sewn curtains hanging over the window and beyond them I could see the cloudy grey sky, morose and unchanging.

It was perfect for me, because nothing ever changed.  All my life I had been a replacement for that male offspring that had never been born.  If they had conceived a boy, I would have been pushed back into the shadows, neither what my father or my mother wanted.

This time was different, yet bitterly the same. 

It was fine I was female; in fact it was perfect.  I was allowed, even encouraged to be myself in this case, but only because I was so much like someone else. 

I was the duplicate of Sarah.  I was like a print of the priceless Mona Lisa.  I had value, oh yes, but not as much as she and only because of my lack of distinction.

I was not her.  I was me, Dylan.

Would I ever be important enough to be needed or wanted just because of who I was?  My experiences would suggested no.  I was ever the replacement, never quite right. 

I was the jester, but not because I was funny.  No, clearly it was my very existence that was the morose joke.

For one moment I wished Paul had killed me that first night.  I would never have had to feel this pain again and again.  I could feel tears threatening to make an entrance.

No.  I had promised myself I would never cry for Michael again and I was going to keep that promise. 

Even if I was first to no one else, I could be first to myself.  I would stand on my own two feet and I would let no one stop me.

There were still many things I did not know and I would learn.  I would not let them break me, they would make me stronger.  I would understand what I was and I was going to make use of it.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and left the room.  I went looking for Paul.