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Authors: Gayla Twist

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Young Adult, #Vampires

Call of the Vampire (7 page)

BOOK: Call of the Vampire
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“No, Grandma, it’s me—Aurora.”

“Lettie, dear,” she said, holding out both her hands toward me. “You’ve come back to us. You’ve come back at last.”

I hated when she was like that. I hated being mistaken for someone who was dead. But her face looked so happy, and she was reaching out to me, reaching into the past. I took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Lillian,” I said, rushing forward to give her a hug. “I missed you so much.”

We embraced, and Grandma Gibson held me close. She smelled like old person—scented soap and hairspray. She was crying, and I felt the damp of her tears on my cheek. “I missed you so much,” she whispered, then let out a tiny sob. “Why did you stay away for so long?”

“I’m sorry. I missed you, too,” I replied, hoping she wouldn’t ask me where I’d been.

“Sit down, and let me look at you,” she said, finally breaking our hug. I pulled up a chair and we sat, her holding my hand, her eyes dancing with delight. “You always were the beauty,” Grandma said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“I think I must have,” I told her, unconsciously putting my hand to my cheek. I hated lying to her about who I was, but she was happy, so that was at least something.

She reached up and took my other hand, giving it a warm squeeze. “No, you’re exactly the same. Your clothes are different, but I’d know you anywhere.”

An idea occurred to me. “Can we look at your picture album?” I asked. “You still keep it, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do,” she clucked. “But you’ll have to get it down for me. I’m afraid I’m a bit tired today.”

I hurried to where she kept her photo album in the closet, up on a shelf, realizing after I’d already grabbed it that she hadn’t told Lettie where it was, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Ah,” she said when I handed the album to her. “I love to look at photos. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” I told her. Most of my photos were on my phone, but that didn’t mean I didn’t like looking at them. “Let’s look at the photos from when you were a girl.” If I was serious about pretending to be her sister, I should have said,
when we were girls
, but it just didn’t feel right lying to her if I could avoid it.

Grandma opened the book to the very beginning. There were some old photos with scalloped edges that were held in place at the corners with black triangles. “There we are with Mother and Father,” she said, pointing to a photo with two very little girls in matching dresses and a parent holding each. “That’s Grandma Gibson’s house.” It was weird to think about someone so old having a grandmother, but I guess everybody did. “And there’s Papa’s first car.” She tapped at a black automobile that looked more like a couple of boxes on wheels than a vehicle.

“Do you have any photos of you as a teenager?” I prompted.

“Oh, let’s see.” Grandma turned over two pages. “Here we both are ready for a dance. I remember my date was Walter Bennett,” she said, touching the corner of a picture of two girls in organdy dresses. She looked up at me. “I can’t remember your date’s name for the life of me. I know he was a friend of Walter’s. What was his name again?”

“I can’t remember,” I said in a small voice. “How old are you here?” I asked.

“Let’s see, I must have been about seventeen.”

That meant Lettie was sixteen. A year before she ran away. I leaned closer to look at the girl in the photograph. Did she look like me? Did I look like her? It was so hard to tell with her old fashioned clothes and her hair being styled so different. It looked like she was trying to tame her mane with some type of hair gel or something. I stared at her face and tried to see my own reflection. Was it like when you hear a recording of your voice and don’t recognize it as being you?

Grandma Gibson flipped the page. “And here we are on our first day at the castle,” she said. “Papa was so proud.” She caressed the edge of a photo of two young women in black dresses and white aprons posing in front of the Vanderlind Castle gates, the building itself barely distinguishable in the background.

“Did you like working there?” I asked.

Grandma sighed. “At first I did. I liked it very much. It was exciting to be associated with a family that was so well to do and so refined.” She went on, “And I was happy we could bring in a little extra money for Mama and Papa. But then...”

I waited a moment for her to collect her thoughts. “Then what happened?” I coaxed, hoping to glean a few more details.

Grandma Gibson just sat there, staring at the page, transfixed with some memory that she couldn’t bring to her lips. I wanted to press her. I was desperate to know more about the castle and its occupants, but something was wrong. Grandma’s breath was coming in short little gasps. “But then...” she choked out, reliving an obviously painful memory.

“Let’s not look at these now,” I said, closing the book and gently taking it from her. I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I wanted to know about Jessie, I couldn’t grill a fragile old lady into being sad. “I’d rather talk about happier things. Like that dance with...” I scrambled for his name, “like that dance with Walter. Did he bring you a corsage?”

Grandma dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she’d had tucked up her sleeve. Then she smiled and said, “He wanted to bring me a lily, because of my name, but they were so very expensive. Instead, he gathered a bunch of wildflowers from along the road and made a bouquet out of that.”

“Did he court you?” I tried to use the vernacular she would appreciate.

“Yes, we were quite the item for a while. We even talked of getting married.”

“Really?” I was surprised. It was the first I’d heard of this flower-picking beau. “What happened?”

“He died in the war. He wanted to get married before he left, but I thought we should wait so we could have a real wedding,” she said, again looking quite sad. Oh, great. There didn’t seem to be a way I could keep from depressing my great grandmother. “The Bennetts lost both their boys at Normandy,” she went on. “They were so proud when their sons enlisted. And then to lose them both. They never got over it.” Grandma shook her head. “It’s a terrible thing to outlive your children.”

“How did you meet your husband?” I asked, not wanting her to dwell on the fact that her own daughter had been gone for quite a few years.

“I was working at Zucker’s, and he came in looking for a reed for his clarinet. We didn’t carry much stock at the time, so I had to order it. He picked it up but was back the next week claiming he needed another one. He purchased a good four or five reeds before he worked up the nerve to ask me out,” she said with a smile.

“What were some of your favorite songs back then?” I asked, feeling relieved I’d managed to turn the conversation to happier memories.

After another twenty minutes of reminiscing, I could tell Grandma Gibson was getting tired. As I got up to put her photo album away for her, I asked, “Would it be okay if I borrowed one of your photographs?” She didn’t look too enthused, so I quickly added, “I’ll bring it right back, I promise.”

Grandma Gibson narrowed her eyes at me. “When?”

I did some mental scanning of my schedule. “Saturday afternoon.”

“I guess it would be okay,” she said a bit reluctantly. “But please be very careful. I need my memories.”

“I will. Thank you, Grandma,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek before slipping the photo of her and her sister in front of the castle out of the album.

“You’re welcome, Aurora,” she smiled. Sometime during our conversation, I had turned back into myself.

 

Chapter 10

On the way home, I stopped by Tiburon Copies and had them laser scan the photo. “Is that the castle?” the clerk asked after he’d completed the scan and I’d paid for my copies.

“Yeah, my great grandmother used to work there,” I told him.

“Cool,” he nodded. When I’d entered the shop, he’d barely spared me a glance, but my interesting family history had earned me a second look. “Is this your grandmother?” he asked, tapping at Aunt Colette. “You look just like her.”

“Don’t do that,” I snapped, knocking his hand away and snatching up the picture. Was he an idiot? He looked offended, so I explained, “You always hold an old photo by the edges. The oil from your fingers can ruin it.” I used the hem of my cotton t-shirt to gently clean the photo.

“Relax. I didn’t hurt it any,” he said, blowing off my reprimand. A typical guy response when corrected for inconsiderate behavior.

“Would it kill you to be respectful of other people’s property?” I glared at him.

Heading out of the copy shop, I had to chuckle at myself. Maybe Blossom was right. Maybe, in a way, I was older than my seventeen years.

By the time I pulled into the driveway of our modest two-bedroom home, my eyelids were threatening to slam shut. I realized I really hadn’t slept the night before, and it was probably just adrenaline keeping me going.

I had meant to stay awake until at least nine o’clock to keep on some semblance of a schedule, but my body had other ideas. I grabbed a sandwich and sat down in front of the TV. I thought I was just resting my eyes for a second, but the next thing I knew my mom was gently shaking me and saying, “Sweetheart, you should just go upstairs to bed.”

It was a quarter to midnight as I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. The previous night, I had been locked in a bedroom at the castle, completely oblivious to the fact that vampires existed. The thought that they were real gave me the shivers. I’d been so focused on talking to Grandma Gibson and thinking about Jessie that I hadn’t really given any thought to the idea that there were other vampires in the world.

How many of the castle’s guests were vampires, and how many were dinner? Was the woman with the long red hair that I saw in the bedroom dead now or just feeling a little anemic? Where did all the other vampires live? Were they all from the same place or scattered across the country? I should have asked Jessie more questions when I had the chance. Even though I had every right to be exhausted, I couldn’t fall back asleep until well after three in the morning.

When I finally did drift into a dream, it was one of those times when you’re not sure when you actually started dreaming. Things made sense that wouldn’t actually make sense if I was awake. First, I noticed beams of color on the walls of my room and wondered if there was a prism hanging somewhere that was catching the light. I went to catch the beams, but they fluttered out of my hands like butterflies on a breezy day.

I was in a very good mood. Just plain happy. The sun was shining, and I felt its warmth on my face. Bees buzzed around my head, and birds raced through the air chirping to one another. I caught the splashes of color by their stems, gathering a bouquet. I breathed in the sweet fragrance of the flowers, humming to myself, the grasses and leaves tugging gently at the hem of my dress.

*****

High school can be boring at the best of times, but it becomes particularly tedious when you have much more enticing things to think about. Fear of vampires had filled my head while I was lying awake in bed for half the night, but visions of Jessie filled my daydreams. I tried to focus on what my teachers were saying, but it just seemed to be random words coming out of their mouths. None of it made any sense. I didn’t even recognize my own name when Mr. Schwartzman called on me in chemistry. He must have said my name three or four times before I made sense of his words and told him I didn’t know the answer. Rather than being angry at me for spacing out, he asked, “Are you feeling all right today, Aurora? You look very pale. Do you need to see the nurse?”

I told the nurse that I had bad cramps and just needed to lie down for a while. But being in the quiet, dimly lit exam room resting on a cot made things much worse. There was absolutely nothing to distract my brain from thoughts of Jessie. After about twenty minutes of torture, I told the nurse I was feeling much better and went to my next class. Distraction was the key. I had to keep my brain busy.

Doing my homework during study hall, actually making an effort to participate in gym class, taking on extra hours at the cafe where I worked making cappuccinos and heating up blueberry muffins—these were all devices I used to pass the time. The week slowly inched along. By day, I was a model student and employee, putting in the extra effort on everything I was assigned; by night I was an insomniac. When I did manage to fall asleep, my dreams alternated between terror and longing. I really wished I didn’t know vampires existed, but mostly, I wished I could see Jessie again.

Right when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, it was finally Thursday. The longest Thursday in the history of Thursdays, but still, it was the only day when the library stayed open late. And the library was the only place I had ever seen Jessie outside of Vanderlind Castle.

I couldn’t believe how nervous I was about seeing him. I spent at least an hour applying makeup, realizing it was too heavy, washing my face and trying again. My hair had decided to go on a rampage, and I practically needed a whip and a chair to tame it. I headed over to the library at six o’clock. The sun had not set at that point, but I couldn’t hold out any longer.

I love the library. I can usually get lost in the stacks for hours browsing from book to book. But on that day no book could hold my attention. I positioned myself in a chair that had a partial view of the library’s front door. Every time someone came in, I looked up eagerly. Every time, it wasn’t Jessie.

“We’re closing up now,” the librarian told me at five minutes to nine. “If you want any books, you should take them to checkout.”

I waited until the last possible second before slouching out to the parking lot and heading toward my car. He hadn’t shown. Jessie hadn’t shown. I’d been obsessing about him all week, convincing myself that he was also thinking about me. But no, he wasn’t. If he had wanted to see me, he would have gone to the library. I was just some foolish girl that reminded him of someone he used to love.

“Hey there, pretty lady.”

I looked up, startled out of my reverie. There was a guy leaning against my ancient VW Beetle. It was the only car left in the patrons’ parking lot, and he had chosen it as a place to roost. “Uh... excuse me,” I said, a little cautiously. What in the hell did he think he was doing?

BOOK: Call of the Vampire
7.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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