Winter also discovered that one of those secrets has persisted through the centuries; endured the tides of history only to become her greatest peril.  His name is Laszlo, and he is a vampire with a taste for her bloodline.

    “Why do you think humans make legends and myths of things that are truths?” Helen asked Winter when she was young. The child only looked at her mother in confusion with her wide, hematite eyes. “You believe in them because you see them… humans have only their imagination and faith to let them believe what they hear.” Helen searched Winter’s face for understanding, but saw none.  She frowned in thought, and then lifted her hand, pointed to a large tree.  “Tell me what you see when you look at that old fir, sweetie.” Helen wasn’t wearing gloves, and her hands, rings and all, were caked in topsoil.
    Winter’s eyes, wide and full of wonder turned to the old tree.  It was one of advanced age, a trunk at least six or seven feet in diameter.  It towered over some younger trees, a couple of cedars, a blue spruce, and shaded the shop roof with its massive boughs. Winter knew the tree well. She loved it.  She’d named it Phillip, and liked the low hum it made.  It helped her sleep at night.  She observed it carefully, wondering what her mother expected her to see.  It stirred a bit, and then undulated as the essence within shifted, and seemed to stretch, settling back into a quiet state, all the while, there was a soft visible resonance; like water ripples coming from the tree.  It came from everything, really, but because of the tree’s size and age, the ripples were stronger.  “It’s waking up” she surmised with a shrug.  Her mother smiled, and stooped in front of her, taking her hands into her own.  Winter could smell the fresh soil.  Her mother smelled like the earth.
    “Now close your eyes.”  Winter complied, lulled by her mother’s low, velvety voice.  “In your head, I want you to think of an apple.  Can you picture it?”  The child nodded, her black curls falling one tube-curl on the next with the movement.  Her hair had a complete absence of colour---it seemed so black, it absorbed the light around her.  “Now take away everything around the apple.  Picture it floating in a white nothing, can you do that?” Again, Winter nodded, her shiny red apple bobbing in a field of pure light.  “Spin the apple” her mother added.  Winter made it spin, faster and faster, until it was a blur.  Her mother’s hands tightened on hers, and she said: “Keep the apple spinning, and keep it in your head.  And then slowly open your eyes.”
    It was harder than it sounded, with the flood of information pouring in through her eyes, but she kept the spinning apple clear in her head, and then allowed her brain to gradually move the image into the background functions, and to take in what she saw.  Her mother had moved aside, and Winter saw for but a couple of seconds, something that made her lose her apple and all sense for a moment.  She looked at her mother in shock; her mouth agape.
    “What happened?” she asked.  Her mother arched a brow questioningly.
    “What did you see?”
    “…Well…” she paused, her brow furrowing,  “I saw… nothing.” Winter was still too young to use words like static and lifeless. What she saw looked like a painting or a photograph—the movement, the life… simply silenced.  It was truly weird for her to see the world this way. Helen stooped again, and Winter looked around her, relieved to see the resonance she was used to seeing back again.
    “When I was little, my mother showed me that trick.  It gave me what I called ‘normal-eyes’” she grinned.  Winter’s brow was still crunched up into a little patch of plump wrinkles.  “You see how humans look… how they resonate—what their spirits sound like?” Winter nodded, that she understood.  Humans had a unique tone, and their vast numbers made her world hum like a motor.  She could distinguish a human from a shape shifter, a demon from vampire immediately.  They had different coloured auras, and their body-songs were very different—vampires almost had none at all—they were creatures that walked in silence in the eyes of the universe. 
    “That nothing… it’s how humans see things.”
    “The just see the nothing?”
    “Yes, my child.  They look around, and that’s all they ever see.”
    “Like a picture.”
   “Yes, exactly like a picture.”  Still cameras could not capture resonance or body-songs from living objects, spirits and such. Motion cameras could, but barely.  They caught auras, very weakly, and only the ripples from the largest life forms like whales and elephants. Witches and a few other types of creature were the sole witnesses of this layer of life.  Winter was suddenly overcome with a sense of loss on behalf of humanity, and her lower lip pouted out, her brow furrowing again, this time in an expression of sadness.  Helen’s chin wrinkled as she nodded in understanding.
    “Yes, it is sad, isn’t it… to just see a picture?”  Winter nodded, and her mother stood, reaching down her hand to her daughter.  “It’s the price they pay, perhaps, in exchange for their dominance of this world.” It was resignation in her mother’s voice. “Come on then.” Helen re-extended her hand, and Winter clasped it, her little head still full of lesson she’d just learned.