Bag of Blood - Vampire Mystery Romance (16 page)

May 31, 2014

Dear Elliot,

Oh my gosh! I can't believe I didn't know it was Belinda's birthday. I mean, I guess I
couldn't
know, since I'd never asked, but I had kind of planned on doing something nice for her birthday, considering without her I'd probably be dead and buried right now.

How about I write her a poem? (And no, you are under no circumstances allowed to laugh at my terrible poetry.)

Beloved Belinda

Beloved and Bright, Beautiful Belinda

Belinda who is one in a Billion

Brazen and Brash, Bold and Bodacious Belinda

Brilliant Belinda who was Brave enough to save the day.

Happy Birthday to Belinda the Best who is no longer a Baby.

… Ok, ok, so it's not
much
of a poem. What were you expecting from someone barely hanging onto a C+ in English? Still (I hope) it's the thought that counts. Right?
Right?

That's so cool that you're going to Germany—I've never been out of the United States before. Actually, until recently, I've barely ever even been out of Pennsylvania. Take like a million pictures and email them to me so that I can drool with jealousy, all right? And I'm sure your family will love Belinda; she's loveable.

Also, I am jealous that you are done with school. For me, summer school is about to start. I found an old bicycle at the back of our house (I assume it belongs to the place's actual owners), and went out to ride around the town a little. It took me nearly forty minutes to get to the school. (I blame it on the slightly-flat back tire and totally
not
on the fact that I kind of suck at maneuvering any kind of transportation device.) Still,
forty minutes.
I'm going to have to get up at the crack of dawn just to get to school in time.

Miss Bright is actually pretty cool—though I won't say she isn't slightly crazy. Hey, aren't all interesting people a little off their rocker, anyway? I've never had a friend who's retired before. She doesn't talk much, and she gets a little stern when I rip up her flowers on accident when I think they're weeds, but I feel comfortable when I'm working with her. I'm actually getting a little buff from hauling around so many bags of potting soil! We have a system now; she pays me $10 every other Friday, and the Friday's in between she'll give me a packet of seeds that she's already planted most of, so there's only a few seeds left in the packet. When I asked her why she did that, she told me it was for my own garden.

'
I have a garden?'
I wondered. She explained that the big dirt-filled wooden box in front of my house was supposed to be a garden. I had just assumed it was some kind of sand box gone wrong. It's 8 feet by 8 feet and apparently I'm supposed to section it off into 32 squares using string and a staple gun, and in each section I can grow a different plant. It's called "Square Box Gardening," and she says it's good for beginners. So I'm going to give it a try!

Oh, and as for the bite marks? One of Miss Bright's dogs had puppies. It was the most bizarre thing—I went behind the tool shed to put the extra potting soil away, and there her dog was, lying in a little hole,
giving birth.
So I run to Miss Bright and tell her, and all she says is "Oh, Roses? Yeah; I guess it is about time for her to deliver."
She was so casual about it why is she so weird?
She didn't even bother to go help, or watch, or anything!

Anyway, I couldn't just leave her alone like that. Miss Bright just laughed and said I could do "whatever floats my boat," so I was up with the dog for hours. I didn't really know what to do, so I didn't offer to help, but I wanted to be there in case something went wrong so I could go get help. I was working on your letter the whole time, and when I put it down, one of her other dogs (she has so many!) wandered by and decided to help himself to delicious paper.

Wow; this letter's gotten long; I'd better end it now before any extra postage is required.

Lena

P.S. Make sure to protect poor Wilbur!

…

June 13 2014

Dear Lena,

I've been in Germany for two weeks, and as requested I took a ton of pictures. Check your email; I think I sent you about 60 of them. We're leaving to go back home tonight, but I decided to send the letter before we left, because I thought you might think a German postmark would be cool.

Maybe you can come to Germany with me someday; I think you'd like my family. My grandparents are pretty cool. You don't hear that often around the US, people thinking their grandparents are fun to hang around. I don't know, maybe it's because I don't get to see mine very much, but I love it. And Aunt Emlin is nice, too. She's my mother's sister, and they look so alike it's kind of freaky. I was a little surprised when she wasn't bothered by Belinda's… Belinda-ness. Instead she just laughed like it was the most normal think in the world, and when I asked her about it, she explained that their great-great grandmother (would that be my great-great-great?) was also rumored to be able to know things about people she's met and touched. My mom was surprised at this, but seemed pretty relieved after a while. I guess the rumor never trickled down to her.

Belinda liked her birthday poem. :) I read it to her and she made me copy it down so that she could save it in her "special box" (where she keeps everything from candy wrappers and rocks to a rainbow sock without a match.)

Good luck with your garden; send me pictures! It sounds pretty interesting. I've never been able to grow anything; guess I have a brown thumb. Everything I try to raise, from pet fish to potted plants, always end up dying right away.

I love you,

Love, Elliot

P.S. I am no animal expert, but from what I do know about them… I'm pretty sure they actually like to be alone when they have babies.

…

June 28, 2014

Dear Elliot,

Guess what?
I have a puppy
! I've never had a dog before! It was so weird, I was just hanging around Roses (and I read a book on dogs after the birth, Mr. Animals-in-labor-like-to-be-alone, and it said as long as you try to keep your hands off, it's actually safer to be present at an animal's birth in case of emergencies. So ha!)

Anyway, I was just sitting there watching them. They're so cute! I think they're some kind of Labrador-mix. Most of them are kind of speckled or spotted, but one of them was completely brown, and they were all kind of stumbling around squeaking. Poor Roses looks exhausted, her fur looking all clumpy… apparently that's normal, too. But the brown puppy actually managed to walk all the way from Roses to me; I couldn't help but pick her up and hold her in my lap. (Don't worry; I put her back right afterwards.) I mentioned to Miss Bright that I liked her, and she just shrugged and said "then have her."

I swear! That woman takes everything so lightly. What, I like a puppy, so I can just
have
it? Doesn't she want to sell it for money or something? But I asked my parents if it was alright, and they talked it over for a while and said I could, if I took care of
everything
. They even wrote out a list of everything required for me to do: paying for food and feeding her, cleaning up after her, paying for vet appointments and medicine… I've really been missing my sister's cat, Yamaha, since we moved away. I get the feeling my parents still worry about me a lot, after what happened in December; maybe this is their way of spoiling me a little?

My garden's doing alright; I work on it every day when I'm not at summer school (which sucks, by the way) or watching "My" puppy (which still lives at Miss Bright's until she's big enough to come home with me.) Little tiny shoots are popping up from the "peas" section, which my dad helped me set up a trellis.

My parents seem to really like it here; my dad has a sort of "online" job; he's paid to design websites, so he's at home all the time. It's actually pretty great to get to see him so often. He helps me study. Mom works at the beauty salon in town. It's not as fancy or big as the one she used to work at, but I think she's happy.

What are the rest of your summer plans?

Lena

P.S. I
finally
learned what was up with the pumpkin seeds in the goo. Apparently Miss Bright grows award-winning pumpkins for the fair, and that's one of her "trade secrets" to help them reach massive proportions. This year her goal is for her pumpkin to beat her last year's record—1,067 pounds!

…

July 8, 2014

Dear Lena,

Cool, a dog! I guess it'd be hard to have a big dog like a lab here, but you have quite a lot of room around your house for one to run around, and not too much traffic nearby. What are you going to call her?

Megan and I just watch a lot of movies together; sometimes Gabriel or Leslie join in too. Wilbur doesn't look any worse for wear; no visible bite marks, anyway. And I think he might be warming up to Leslie, or he just has Stockholm syndrome, I can't tell which.

To be honest, after all the excitement in Germany, the rest of the summer seems pretty boring by comparison. I was wondering- and you can
totally
say no, by the way, it won't hurt my feelings or anything—if it'd be ok with you and your parents if I went and visited you for a few days?

I love you,

Elliot

…

July 12 2014

Lena stood by her mailbox, shifting from foot to foot nervously. At her feet sat a tiny bundle of brown fur, looking up at her with cloudy golden eyes. In her hands she held a letter, an addressed and stamped envelope, and a pencil. She chewed on her lip, even as the puppy took hold of one of her shoelaces in her mouth, slowly but surely tugging the lace from its bow.

"I don't know if I can do this," she thought nervously. The letter in her hands was full of plans, declaring that a visit from Elliot would be welcome. There was no signature at the bottom.

Finally, Lena made a determined face.
Life's too short to be afraid
, she told herself sternly.
Come on, you can do this.
Spreading the letter on the mailbox for a flat surface, she scrawled in her messy handwriting four words at the end of her letter, before signing her name:

'I love you, too.' Stuffing the letter in its envelope before she could have time to chicken out and throw it away, she stuffed it into the deep, blue mailbox. There was no getting it out now. Her nervousness slowly abated, the frantic butterflies in her stomach moving to her back, where they seemed to give her wings. She felt as if she were floating high above the ground.

"Come on, Daisy," Lena said dreamily. "Let's go home."

Slowly, the two made their way up the dusty road.

July 1, 2014

With her legs tucked underneath her body, the girl serenely adjusted the tubes that were attached to a small water pipe in the center of her wooden box garden. There were tiny holes punched along the rubber tubing spraying miniscule jets of water into various directions all over the green-sprouted area.

With the back of her hand, she pushed some sweaty strands of hair off her sticky face, smearing a small line of dirt across her cheek. Her skin was glowing a healthy golden color and her arms, visible in full from her turquoise tank top, were gently lined with newly developed muscle. A wide-brimmed hat over her head protected both her recently-freckled face and the large scar spread across her back. She wasn't hiding it; merely protecting it from sunburn.

By her side, a young, tiny puppy with very large paws and ears was crouched low to the ground, her head cocked quizzically as she watched a grasshopper with fascinated eyes. As it tried to hop away from her quivering black nose, she gave an excited bark and tried to chase after it, only to trip and stumble over the sheer disproportionate size of her feet. Shaking her head, she got back up and let out a rusty squeak of a growl in annoyance. Lena laughed.

From up the long dirt road, the youngest Thresh girl heard the rumbling purr of an approaching vehicle. Her back stiffening with excitement, she held out a hand and the puppy scrambled into her lap, leaning her head upward to lick Lena's chin, whimpering softly with her long tail whipping back and forth.

A beige car slowly pulled alongside her house, and after the motor was turned off, the door was opened and a pair of sandal-clad feet stepped onto the grass. Lena tilted her head up to watch as a familiar face approached.

"Hey, Lena," a low German-accented voice greeted. She didn't have to look to hear the smile in his tone.

"Hey, Elliot." She was a little embarrassed at how breathy her voice sounded. She held up the puppy. "This is Daisy," she introduced. The puppy gave Elliot a long sniff and a suspicious glare, shying away as he bent to pat her head. When he curled his fingers underneath her ears to give her a nice scratch, however, she let out a contented sigh, running her tongue up the boy's hand.
Alright, I guess you're ok,
she seemed to decide.

Lena stood from where she had been kneeling, rubbing the dirt from her hands off onto her shorts. "How was the drive?" she asked. He shrugged. "Not too bad. I only got lost twice." To show that he was joking, he cracked a smile. She felt a little relieved to see that his "fangs" could not exactly be considered fangs at the moment; more like rather pointy eyeteeth. He must have just eaten.

"So," she said. "Do you want to come inside and officially meet my family?"

Taking her hand, Elliot's teasing grin softened into a warm smile. "Of course, I’d do anything with you."

Side-by-side, the two walked into the home, Daisy followed. Outside, roots stretched underneath the nourishing dirt, growing stronger and stronger until they were able to breach the ground, tangling together over time. Inside, hearts were united in much a similar way.