by Gayla Twist
I heard Jessie exhale a long, quite audible sigh. “No, I understand,” he said. “It’s important to you.” After another long pause, he added, “As long as it’s outside, my cousin and I would be happy to attend.”
“Seriously?” I whispered. I’d already given in. Didn’t he realize he had won?
“Yes, I am being very serious,” Jessie said. “Is it still your intention to attend my mother’s Christmas Eve party once we’ve made an appearance at Blossom’s celebration?” he asked, his voice crisp with irritation.
“I …” I stammered. What was I about to agree to? Was I that much of an idiot? Was I the kind of girl who puts her friends at risk just to serve her own ego? A little voice in my head said, Yes. That’s exactly who you are. You’re selfish and insecure. Admit it. Say yes. “No,” I finally managed to say with a sputter.
“No, you do not intend to spend Christmas Eve at the castle?” he asked, his voice sounding a little hurt.
“No, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.” I felt like my tongue was intentionally saying words I didn’t want it to say. I started over. “I would be happy to spend Christmas Eve with you and your family,” I told him. “But we don’t have to go to Blossom’s. I’ll make up an excuse.” I knew I’d have to deal with Sheila’s snarkiness, but that was no excuse for risking Blossom and the rest of my friends.
“I can’t believe you are denying your pet this one small pleasure after all the suffering you’ve caused her,” I heard Dorian say. “And me, too, for that matter. Did it ever occur to you that I might like to attend the party? It’s all I really want for Christmas.” I could tell the vampire was feigning hurt.
“Would you cut it out, already?” Jessie said. I assumed he was addressing his cousin.
“We really don’t have to go,” I repeated. “To Blossom’s, I mean.”
Dorian countered, “Oh, but listen to her. She wants to go so desperately. We really should.”
“The two of you need to stop it right now,” Jessie snarled. “Aurora, we’ll be over to pick you up at half past seven to attend both parties.”
“But …” I tried to protest.
“I will see you tomorrow,” Jessie said, no longer listening to me. “Good night.” I heard him hang up the phone. It felt rather abrupt.
That did not go at all the way I’d expected. I’d had a complete change of heart and definitely did not want vampires at Blossom’s party. No matter who the vampires happened to be. What if Dorian tried to use his vampire influence over one of the other guests? Vampires had some control over most mortals when they wanted. Their eyes got all intense and fiery, and it felt like the most ridiculous amount of peer pressure imaginable. I had experienced it first hand on more than one occasion, and it was definitely hard to fight off. All you wanted to do was please the vampire, no matter the request. I was going to have to keep a close eye on Dorian for the entire party. Why had I been so foolish as to include him in the invitation? As it was, I felt stupid and selfish for bringing it up in the first place.
Lying in bed that evening, I couldn’t fall asleep. I missed Jessie. I was addicted to having him come by every night. I could feel my body craving to be with him. And sleeping with him had only made my cravings worse. It didn’t matter that we’d only cuddled. The mere touch of his hand or brush of his lips was more thrilling than the intimate kiss of any other boy.
At some point, I abandoned the thought of actually falling asleep and got out of bed to sit by my window with the curtains open, staring out into the dark. I thought of the many nights Jessie had spent sitting on the opposite side of the sill, telling me about his life and me sharing what little there had been of my life to tell. It was so wonderful just to be able to look at him, to reach across the small barrier and touch his arm, to feel him watching me … I suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was actually watching me.
I tried not to freeze or frantically whip my head around, not wanting to react and give myself away. Casually, I let my eyes drift from tree to tree. Was someone out there? Was I being observed by a member of the undead? It had happened before, and I definitely had that same creepy feeling.
I strained my ears, listening for any snatch of conversation or the sound of a twig snapping. I was grasping for any indication of where my potential voyeur was perched. I guess I wasn’t acting as natural as I hoped and the vampire knew I was on to him because in the blink of an eye, a member of the undead stepped out of the air and onto the porch roof.
I was so startled, I almost fell over backward and had to grip the window sill to keep from shrieking. It was the old man. The one that had been spying on us in the graveyard. He strode directly up to my window and stood there, looking at me. He didn’t move like an old man. In fact, he stood tall and moved fluidly. His face was wrinkled yet firm, not sagging like the skin of the elderly. He had a scar that slashed through his left brow and down his cheek. I realized it must have been something he received before being turned. His eyes were dark and shaded by heavy brows, but I could see the intensity underneath, burning like embers at the end of a bonfire. He’s trying to get me under his influence, I thought and tried to hurriedly turn away, but it was too late. I found that I couldn’t move. I could only stare at the young old man.
“You are the companion of Jessie Vanderlind?” the vampire asked, his eyes boring a hole into me.
“No,” I told him. I actually didn’t want to tell him anything but felt compelled to speak.
“I have seen you together,” the vampire insisted. “More than once.” His dark eyes became almost red; he was staring at me so intensely. “Are you his companion?”
“No,” I said again. I was being truthful, but it took every bit of my strength not to tell him the details of my relationship with Jessie.
The vampire scowled at me. He fidgeted slightly from foot to foot, which somewhere in the back of my brain I knew was uncharacteristic for the undead. “What are you to Jessie Vanderlind if you are not his companion?” he asked.
“I’m his girlfriend,” I said. I didn’t want to say it, but he obviously wanted to know so badly that the words came sliding out.
“His girlfriend?” the vampire asked, his upper lip curling in disgust. “But you are a mortal. How is that possible?”
“We’re in love,” I told him. It was a simple truth.
The vampire adamantly shook his head. “No!” he said, thumping the window glass and making it vibrate. “I don’t believe you. A Vanderlind would never be with a mortal. Tell me the truth. Tell me how you know Jessie Vanderlind and why you think you’re in love with him.”
I didn’t want to tell him, but I found I couldn’t stop myself. My brain was urging me to just close the curtain and hide in my bed, but my body refused to obey. “Jessie was in love with my great great aunt Colette Gibson, and they were going to be conjoined. But she was killed by another vampire. We met a few months ago and both felt a very strong connection. I frequently have dreams that are probably actually Colette’s memories.” Then I found myself saying something that I had never said out loud before. In fact, it was something I hadn’t even been willing to admit to myself. “I don’t understand how reincarnation works, but there’s a strong chance that I was Colette in a past life.”
The vampire made a grunt of disgust in the back of his throat before saying “You’re a very stupid girl.”
I said nothing. He hadn’t asked a question, but if he had, I was sure that I would have agreed with him.
“This complicates things,” he said, but mostly to himself. “I never would have believed Jessie would have degraded himself in this manner.” Then, turning his attention back to me, he added, “Stupid mortal. This is your fault. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” was my reply.
The vampire looked off into the darkness as if wishing to be away from the sight of me. “We never had this conversation,” he told me. “This is all just a dream. You won’t remember any of this by the time you wake u
p in the morning.”
I nodded. I didn’t feel like I could do anything but agree with him. But deep down inside, I was terrified. Not for me, necessarily, but for the vampire I loved. “What about Jessie?” I managed to ask, although it was extremely hard to part my jaws and get the words out.
The vampire gave me a surprised, angry look. I could tell he wasn’t used to being the one that was questioned, especially by a mortal. “Go back to bed,” he snarled. “I will deal with Jessie Vanderlind.”
I woke with a start. I was alone in bed. My head felt weird, and for a few seconds, the room was spinning. I had the thought that I might be sick.
I could remember the vampire. I could remember his horrible eyes very clearly but also in a way that was fuzzy. Was it a dream? I wasn’t sure. I reached for my dream journal and started writing as madly as I could for fear that the details would slip away like dreams often do. I couldn’t see the page as clearly as I wanted, so I reached for my bedside lamp. It was then that I froze in mid-stretch for the switch.
The curtains to my bedroom window were open. I leapt out of bed, dashed over, and yanked them shut. I stood there, trembling in the cold, trying to remember if I’d shut them before going to bed. I usually did. I was pretty sure I’d done it before crawling under the covers. I peeked out through a crack in the drapes. Was he out there?
Chapter 21
I covered an early shift at the cafe. Joe had called me first thing. Everyone who was scheduled either had the flu or a sprained ankle or had thrown a shoe or whatever excuse they had, legitimate or false, for not showing up to work on Christmas Eve. In a way it was a good thing because my bank account had definitely taken a hit in my effort to drag Jessie into the world of modern communication. He had a computer. It wasn’t like he was unwilling to embrace technology. And sure, the castle had zero cell reception, but he did leave the castle from time to time, so I really didn’t know what his deal was. Once, when I asked him about not having a cell, he said, “I don't have that many people in my life that I need to call.” But that was before he started dating someone as spazzy as me. I needed access. I needed to text once in a while. Oh God, I said to myself while on break, I really am giving him the female equivalent of lingerie.
As the morning wore on, the dream of the scary, scar-faced vampire faded until it was more of a memory that I’d had a bad dream rather than a memory of the actual dream. The one thing I could distinctly remember was his eyes. When Blossom and I were nine or ten, we’d found an old copy of The Amityville Horror and read it by flashlight in a blanket fort we’d built in her room. It scared the poop out of us. I couldn’t remember much of the story, but I did remember that there was a demonic pig with glowing red eyes. The thought of a pair of red eyes glowing in the darkness spooked me for months. My crazy dream of the glowing-eyed vampire reawakened this childhood fear.
Blossom called while I was hopping out of the shower that afternoon after my shift. “Hello?” I said, answering the phone with one hand while toweling off my hair with the other.
“Are you co-hostessing this party or not?” she demanded without even bothering to say hello.
“Co-hostessing?” I repeated, slightly confused.
“Yes. Or are you too busy wrapping your legs around Dreamboat?” she said. I could tell she was miffed.
I felt I was on the verge of tumbling into a trap. I had never been called a co-hostess for one of my best friend’s parties before, but Blossom must have been feeling a bit ignored. She had temporarily sworn off boys, and I suddenly had a hot and heavy boyfriend. It was a complete role reversal from how things usually went. The fact that she had blown me off numerous times in the past whenever she was first smitten with whatever random dude she’d started dating obviously did not enter into Blossom’s memory.
“I’m just drying my hair now,” I told her. “I was going to get ready and then head over.”
“Do your hair and then get over here,” she said. “We can primp once everything’s set up.” She knew better than to have me fix my hair at her place. Blossom was blessed with wavy blonde hair that obeyed her every whim and command. She and her mother didn’t have enough hair products between them to put a dent in my wild mane.
“Okay,” I said automatically, then thought of Jessie. He and his cousin were supposed to pick me up at my house before the party. I opened my mouth to say something but then shut it again. I would just call Jessie’s house like normal girlfriends do and leave a message for him to meet me at the party. It wasn’t that big of a deal.
Actually, it ended up being kind of a big deal. Viggo did not answer the phone and whoever did sounded very put out that I was calling and actually wished to leave a message. I wondered why the family didn’t just buy an answering machine and briefly thought to get Jessie one for Valentine’s Day. But then I remembered that in just a few more days he would have a cell phone, and all this calling and leaving a message with an anonymous staff member who may or may not deliver it would stop.
When I arrived at Blossom’s, Sheila was already there. I wanted to ask my best friend about the need for me to “co-hostess” when she already had help but decided to just bite my tongue. “Is that what you’re wearing?” was the first thing out of Sheila’s mouth when she saw me.
I looked down at my sweater and jeans. I did have a nice outfit to wear over to the Vanderlinds’ but hadn’t thought to dress up for an outdoor party in the middle of winter. “Yes,” I told her. “This is what I’m wearing. Can’t you see it or are you having some eye problems?”
Sheila gave me a flat look. “I just thought with having such a fabulously hot and wealthy boyfriend, you might try to put some effort into your appearance. Guess I was wrong.”
“Merry Christmas!” Blossom said, interrupting our little spat. “Who wants a little sample of my special holiday punch to get the party started?”
“Yes, please,” Sheila said without hesitation.
I knew by “special punch” Blossom meant she’d doctored it with whatever alcohol she could scrounge. I also knew that if I declined, it would elicit some kind of disdainful reaction from Sheila, and I just wasn’t in the mood for more of that so I said, “Sure. Count me in.”
Blossom doled out the punch into punch glasses from an actual punch bowl with fruit in a frozen ice ring and everything. Her mother was a caterer, after all. The three of us said “cheers” and clinked glasses before all taking large swigs. If I was being honest, the punch was on the verge of being disgusting. It tasted like Seven-Up mixed with cough syrup, complete with a burning sensation on the back end.
“Mmmm. It’s good,” Sheila said, taking another sip. She actually sounded convincing.
I coughed a little as the punch stripped some cells off the back of my throat but managed a “Mm-hmmm” in agreement.
We got back to work and when neither of them was looking, I tossed my glassful down the sink and then continued arranging the veggie platter. “God,” Sheila said a few minutes later when she saw my empty glass. “Drink much?”
I made a mental note that the next time I decided to ditch a drink I would do it in smaller increments. “I was thirsty,” I said lamely. Even if I actually was thirsty, the punch was one of the last things on the planet I would drink.
“Lush,” she said, rolling her eyes before jerking open the refrigerator and rooting around.
We eventually got the party pulled together, which also involved shoveling snow off the back patio plus dragging out heat lamps and folding tables from Mrs. Coster’s very crowded garage. To be honest, I was expecting Sheila to stand around, not doing much but feeling at liberty to make snide comments as she deemed was necessary, but she actually pitched in and did her fair share.
It seemed like a lot of work for a bunch of teenagers who would have been just as happy with a few bowls full of chips and a place to pee. Typical Tiburon High parties were mostly about drinking, a bit of smoking, and lots of talk about hooking up. I seriously had to wonder why it had been s
o important to me that Jessie attend in the first place. I was becoming convinced he would think less of me after seeing me in a crowd composed of drunk high school football players and giggling girls.
Guests started arriving around seven. Groups of girls first and then groups of boys about a half hour after that. It was early for a high school party, but it was also a Christmas Eve party, so I guess kids were willing to make an exception.
“So, where’s this boyfriend of yours?” Sheila asked at about a quarter to eight. I could tell from a slight sway in her stance that the punch was already hitting her hard.
“I don’t know,” I told her as I grabbed a half empty bottle that was just about to tumble off the edge of one of the folding tables we’d set up for food. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” It wasn’t like Jessie to be late. I wondered if he’d received my message about not picking me up.
“Yeah, right,” she said with a superior smile, and I suddenly remembered why it had been so important to me that Jessie make an appearance. She continued. “I’m sure you’ll get a phone call at any moment and he’ll have come down with a horrible case of … Holy crap!” Sheila gasped. She was staring past me toward the gate that led around the side of the house to the front yard. “Is there a male model convention in town or something? Who the hell are they?”
Chapter 22
I turned to see who Sheila was staring at with her mouth practically hanging open. It was my Jessie, looking gorgeous in a cable knit blue-gray sweater, dark jeans, black boots, and his long, dark coat. His black hair was ruffled, of course, and I knew he had just flown over. Next to him stood another ridiculously good-looking boy, but not much like Jessie at all. He was roughly Jessie’s height, and they looked around the same age, but the newcomer had blond hair that hung down below his chin. He wore a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and black motorcycle boots. He wasn’t even close to clean shaven. The thing that threw the whole handsome biker look off was his shirt. It was a white button down but without a collar. It looked like an old-fashioned shirt from the time when men used tabs to attach starched collars, but he’d just forgotten to put his collar on. It was an odd contrast to the leather. I assumed the new guest was Dorian.