The Purity of Blood: Volume I (13 page)

I’d really
packed as if Daniel wasn’t going to show.
 
It all seemed too unreal.
 
He was
drop dead gorgeous and well … I certainly wasn’t.
 
He couldn’t seriously have any romantic
designs on me, not with all those beautiful girls continually circling him like
hawks.
  
Surely his recent attentions
towards me were out of some misguided sense of gratitude.
 
But even that baffled me.
  

Face it, he’s probably not going to
show.
 
So why get worked up about it.

I looked at
myself in the mirror as I brushed my hair.
 
I wasn’t completely unattractive, but I certainly didn’t have a face
that would launch a thousand ships.
 
Besides, my hair was too red and there was way too much of it.
  
I reached into the closet and pulled out a
baseball hat and put it on.
 
Much better
I said to myself and headed for
the door.
 

Walking out the
back exit of Capen Hall, I immediately spotted Daniel leaning against his
car.
 
Alright, I’ll admit it.
 
I was surprised.
 
Pleasantly so?
 
Honestly, I wasn’t sure yet.
 
After taking a second to gather myself from
my surprise, I took a deep breath and started his way.
 

From what I’d
seen of Daniel, he always seemed to dress like he only shopped in really high
end stores.
 
I remembered the feel of his
shirt when I was laying on top of him in the bushes.
 
I’m sure it probably cost an obscene amount
of money.
 
Today he looked as casual as
I’d probably ever seen him, in hiking boots, a navy blue sweater and a pair of
jeans that fit him extremely well.
 
But
even in his casual attire, he looked well put together, polished.
 
I sighed realizing I probably looked pretty
frumpy in my old jeans and baseball cap.

Walking up to
the car, I muttered “Morning.”

I still wasn’t
sure if I should be happy he’d showed up or not.
 
Guess we’d just have to wait and see on that
one.
 
Taking note of the reservations in
my voice, he leaned down and opened up the passenger door for me.

“
Humm
…” he said and paused.
 
“Good morning to you too.”

Maybe a little
hesitantly, I got in and watched as he gently closed the door behind me.
 
After he slid into the driver’s seat beside
me, he opened the window and pulled onto the road.
 
He seemed in a pleasant enough mood, which in
and of itself seemed suspicious to me but he also seemed tense.
 
Maybe the hike would provide me with an
opportunity to understand him better.
 

Did I want to understand him better?

“So I took the
liberty of planning out a nice hike for us.
 
There are several beautiful waterfalls and trails that not many people
round here know about.
 
I think you’ll
enjoy it.”

“Sounds nice,” I
mumbled in response as I stared straight ahead, arms crossed in front of
me.
 

“I see I have my
work cut out for me,” he smiled, also staring straight ahead.
 
For some reason, I didn’t want to look at
him.
 
But unable to resist any longer, I
stole a glance his way out of the corner of my eye.

“What’s that
supposed to mean?”

“Well, my goal
was to make sure that you had a safe and enjoyable day.
  
Safe shouldn’t be a problem, but … if you’ll
pardon my saying so, you don’t seem much like you’re in the mood for the
enjoyable part.”

A sarcastic
Whatever
was the first response that
came to mind, but I thought better of it.
 
Like it or not, at this point we were spending the day together.
 
I might as well try to be pleasant. For
whatever strange motivation he had, he seemed to be trying.
 
As I rolled my eyes, he looked away trying
not to laugh.
 
It was true, I was a
little resentful that he didn’t seem to think I could handle a simple walk in
the woods by myself.
 
Maybe I was
subconsciously trying to make it difficult for him.
 
I’d have to give that idea a bit more
thought.

“So, fun
hike.
 
Sounds great.”
 
I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice,
but hadn’t succeeded one hundred percent.
 

“Your friends
were all busy today?” he asked trying to make conversation as we raced up the
mountain.
 

This was a
different road than Ryan had taken.
 
I’d
never been up here before, but it did look beautiful.
 
The leaves were really changing colors now,
and the picturesque narrow road that wound its way up the mountain was lined
with large rocks and boulders.

“Yes,” I
answered. “I guess I’m the one with the worst social life.”

“What about your
friend – I think you called him Ben.
 
Is
he your boyfriend?”

As we raced
around another hair pin curve, I clutched the door handle tightly.

“No, he’s not my
boyfriend.
 
We’re just friends,” I
answered though I wasn’t sure why.
 
It
really wasn’t any of his business and I should have told him so.

“
Humm
…” I heard him say once again as he mulled over my
answer.

“You do that a
lot, you know.”

“What?”
 
He looked over at me surprised.

“
Humm
…” I said, impersonating him.

“I was just
thinking about something.”

“I guessed as
much.
 
Care to share?
 
I tend to think it concerns me.”

“No.
 
And yes it does,”
were his only answers.
 

We pulled off the main road onto
an unmarked gravel drive and followed it as it twisted around for about a half
a mile or so and then branched off to a dirt road that didn’t look like it got
much use.

“Is your car
really meant for all this off-roading?”

“Well, maybe not
but she’s never let me down yet,” he said as he smiled and patted the dashboard
affectionately.

A few minutes
later, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, the car came to a stop.
 
Before I had a chance to finish gathering up
my back pack, he’d already gotten out and opened up my door for me.
 
I looked up at him with a somewhat puzzled
expression on my face and stepped out.
 
Closing the door behind me, he indicated a direction for me to go.

“I get the
impression you’re not used to being treated like a lady,” he said nonchalantly.

I turned with a
look that wondered why he’d say such a thing.

“Yes, I knew I
was right.
 
Well, you’re just going to
have to get used to that around me.
 
I
was raised right, not like these kids today.”

What?
Kids today?
 

He was like five
or six years older than me tops.
 
I
didn’t say anything but kept walking until I got to the edge of the road and
stopped.

“We’re heading in that direction,” he said as he pointed up
the hill.
 
“Don’t worry, it’s not that
bad a climb.
 
You can make it,” he
reassured me as he took the lead up the embankment.
 

As I followed along behind him,
we walked for a long while in silence.
 
Up and down hills with not much to see except the beautiful autumn
leaves.
 
The air smelled of wet moss and
damp earth.
 
The only steady sound was
the rhythm of the leaves crunching beneath our feet.
 
It was peaceful, but something seemed
off.
 
I guess I was missing the sound of
the playful banter of my friends.

I decided to
break the silence.

“So, are there
any animals in these woods? We didn’t see any last weekend.
 
I was a little disappointed.”

He stopped dead
in his tracks for a moment then continued at the same pace.

“No, not many.”

“Oh, too
bad.
 
I was hoping to see some deer or
something like that.”

We walked on
again for a while in the same somewhat uncomfortable silence.

Finally he said
“So Ben’s not your boyfriend.”
 
He paused
for a second then continued.
 
“There must
be somebody, you’re a pretty girl.
 
I’m
sure the boys are interested in you.”

We were going to talk about my love life?
Really?

“Nope,” was all
I said.

“
Humm
…” he said again, puzzling over my one word answer.

I hid my chuckle
in a cough, but I don’t think it worked very well.

When he reached
a summit, he stopped, waiting for me to catch up.
 
As I did, he pointed and following his finger
I glanced out on the sweeping vista of the valley below.
 
Filled with reds, oranges and yellows, the
valley looked like it was on fire.
 
The
effect was made even more radiant by the warm mid-morning sunlight that rained
down on it.

“Wow,” I
murmured softly.

I reached behind and pulled my camera from the side pocket of
my backpack and took a few pictures.
 
Glancing around into the woods, Daniel patiently waited until I
finished, then we continued on.
 
Looking
around, it didn’t seem that we were following any discernable trail that I
could distinguish, and I was praying he really did know these woods as well as
he’d claimed.
 
I knew there was little
chance I’d find my way back on my own if he didn’t.
 
Internally I scolded myself for not paying
closer attention to the path we’d taken so far.

“So … no boyfriend.
 
I find that hard to believe,” he idly
commented after a few minutes of silent walking.

“Nope.”

“Why do you
suppose that is?” he asked curiously, but more like an objective scientist than
an interested suitor.

I was following
behind him so I couldn’t see his face, and at that moment I found myself
wishing I could see the expression it now wore.
 
There were too many ways to interpret that question.

“I don’t know. –
I don’t seem to be interesting enough I guess,” I replied as I shrugged my
shoulders.
 
It was an honest answer.

“I find that
hard to believe.”

“Well, you don’t
know me very well.
 
I think I tend to be
a little off putting at a certain point and, well … they seem to lose
interest.”

“How so?”

“What do you
mean?”

“Well, give me a
for instance.”

I thought for a
moment as we steadily hiked along.

“I think men
find me odd because – well, because my hobby is genealogy.”

“I don’t follow
you.”

“Well, when they
find out you like to hang out in cemeteries on your vacations, they tend to get
the wrong idea and by the time they figure it out, they’ve already moved on to
someone else,” I said matter-of-factly.

“They probably
weren’t worth your time to begin with if that’s the way they behave,” he
replied kindly.
 
“You like to hang out in
cemeteries?”

Here we go again
.

“Cemeteries are
one of the best places to find genealogical information.
 
Not only the information on a person’s
headstone, but who they’re buried next to, that kind of thing.
 
What kind of stone they have can tell you a
lot about their social standing, if they were poor or had money to buy a fancy
stone.
 
Plus, I love the artistry of the
older stones.
 
They don’t carve them like
they used to anymore.”
 

At this point, I
felt I was probably starting to ramble.
 
Since I couldn’t see his face, I was unable to tell if he was really
listening or not.
 
Not really caring what
he thought of me I continued.
 
As I followed
him through the woods, the sound of my own ramblings was better than
uncomfortable silence

“People today
don’t look at death the way people did a hundred years ago.
 
Most people today don’t want to talk about it
at all.
  
I think back then death was
seen as a natural part of life.
 
They had
faith that it was just a doorway to another way of living.
 
Heaven, Hell.
 
From what I’ve seen, most folks today don’t want to contemplate what
happens after they die, so they feel uncomfortable about subjects that have
anything to do with it.”

“And you don’t
feel that way?” he asked without turning around.

“No, I’m not
worried about death.”

“Now that is unusual,”
he said as he stopped and looked over his shoulder at me.
 
“But I can’t disagree.”

From up ahead I
began to hear the sounds of rushing water.
 
As we walked along it got louder until we rounded a thick stand of birch
trees and came upon a river cutting its way through the forest.
 
The water moved fast here as it ran down an
incline into the valley.