The Seventh Sister, A Paranormal Romance

by Z. L. Arkadie

  We move together up the damp wooden plank with snow trapped in the creases, leading to the town square. When we get inside of Jake’s Candy Apples, Derek is his old cheery self again, grinning and genuinely happy to make Jake’s acquaintance. Jake flirts with me of course, and for the first time since he appeared by my side earlier today, Derek actually smiles at me as he hands me the candy apple.

  We sit on the bench like last time to eat our apples. Dear goodness, they taste so good.

  “You ever had Molly’s Apple Pie?” he finally asks me to break the silence between us.

  “No, never—no.” I try to draw my answer out just to make sure we keep talking.

  “It’s good too.”

  “Is it?”

  “It is.”

  I’m waiting for him to ask me to try it with him one day, but he doesn’t say that. I think I’m pouting right now because of that. I’m pretty sure I’m hurt.

  Then he says, “We should go there for lunch tomorrow.”

  Now I’m smiling so hard my face aches. “Okay,” I say as right now I’m hopeful that he still likes me the same.

  At this very moment, if I had to choose between the Wek and the vampire, I’d definitely choose the Wek. I can actually fall in love with the Wek, because although he isn’t a human being, he’s the perfect human being.

  That was it for conversation. We finished our candy apples. He asked if I’m ready. I said, “Yes, but I’ll walk.”

  He scowled at me. I couldn’t take the freeze out any longer so I simply turned my back on him and loped up the wooden plank and up Main Street, hoping that tomorrow he’d be in a better mood. I was running fast enough for every driver in each passing car to watch me curiously. It was a five mile all-out sprint. Normally, I’d care who sees me galloping like a world-class athlete but then, I didn’t.

  When I enter the house, I feel the need to look out the window. So I pull the thick curtains and search out towards the road. Just as I thought, the black truck creeps by and I crack a slight smile.

  “You’re home,” a familiar voice says.

  I think I’m dreaming as I whip around.

  “Mom,” I shout.

  “Hi, Z-cup!”

  I walk over really fast to her, restraining myself from running, and we hug each other tightly and then let go.

  “I thought you weren’t going to be here for a couple of weeks?”

  “Plans changed.”

  My mother is wearing a gray skirt suit with stockings and heels. I’m way taller than she is, and she’s way fairer than I am. She’s actually the direct opposite of me in every possible way. My hair is jet black, she’s blond. My eyes are yellow, hers are sea blue. She’s petite and thin. I’m curvy but slender.

  “I looked in the refrigerator, and all I saw was salad. Is that all you’re eating?” she asks.

  “Kind of. I had a candy apple today.”

  “Have you gone to the grocery store to shop?”

  “Not recently.”

  She rolls her eyes at me and walks off towards the kitchen. I follow.

  “I know. That’s why I had to go grocery shopping for you. I’m going to make dinner tonight.”

  “Like what?”

  She already knows how finicky I am.

  “Pea soup and olive-stuffed spinach rolls. No cheese.”

  “Okay,” I say, beaming. That actually sounds really good. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten a complex meal.

  “How was school today?” she asks, pulling the freshly bought items out of the refrigerator.

  I shrug. “Fine, I guess.”

  She narrows her eyes at me but doesn’t say anything further about school.

  “I heard you met a new friend?”

  Now it’s me narrowing my eyes at her suspiciously.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “We’ll talk about it during dinner. But why don’t you go get comfortable for now.” She sighs and looks down to inspect herself. “I’ll get comfortable too. I can’t cook in this.”

  The entire house always smells like home when Deanna returns. She always cooks, lights caramel-scented candles, and she has a thing about scrubbing bathrooms clean so a fresh pine scent lingers in the air. She’s never still, always replacing a light bulb or dusting a bookcase or something like that, and she moves through the house completing little tasks. Her presence fills every nook and cranny of what was an empty place earlier this morning and now I feel truly safe.

  I jump into my pajamas and tee-shirt and sit on the foot of my bed. I don’t have any homework since I skipped out on school today before any could be assigned.

  I take a deep sigh and lie down on the bed, wondering what happened between Vayle and his girlfriend. My mind is creating all sorts of endings to their story. Maybe she begged him to change her into a vampire and because he loves her so much he did it. Now they’ll spend eternity together, and he doesn’t need my warmth anymore. An even better thought is a belief that’s the reason why we came together. From the moment he scratched on the cafeteria door until he laid his eyes on his love during the day time, I was his destiny for that very ending.

  I’m sort of happy about that, as I slide up to the top of the bed and cuddle up with the pillow. I close my eyes. Now I think about Derek and find myself catching a breath.

  I’m naked and I see him sliding his hands up from my pelvic to my belly button until they take me around the waist. He’s lying right next to me on this bed in this moment.

  “Look at me,” he whispers.

  I open my eyes.

  Our lips are micro inches away from each other. I’m breathing heavily.

  “We should kiss, don’t you think?” he asks.

  Though I’m choked by desire, I manage to whisper, “Yes, I do.”

  I’m waiting to learn what kissing Derek would feel like when I hear, “Zillael!”

  My eyes pop open and I’m in my bedroom, fully dressed in pajamas. “Yes, Mom,” I shout.

  “Dinner!”

  I look at the time on the alarm clock on the nightstand. I’ve been lying here for about an hour and half. I didn’t even realize I fell asleep.

  I slide off the bed and walk into the kitchen where Deanna is already seated across the floor at the dining room table where there’s a place setting for me.

  “You look exhausted,” is the first thing she says to me as I drag in.

  “I am,” I say and flop into my chair.

  “Did you go on a long walk today?”

  Again, I eye her suspiciously. “This friend of mine that you asked about earlier. Do you know him? Derek the Wek?”

  “Yes, I do,” she answers.

  I nod my head during the silence between us. I thought so. Now that I remember, Derek mentioned that he knows her too.

  “How long have you known him?” I ask keeping my eyes on the perfectly stuffed spinach roll set in a thick white crème sauce.

  “Since the day you were birthed.”

  Now I look up at her face. I can feel myself frowning, perplexed. “Did you know his mother or something?”

  “Derek doesn’t have a mother. He told you he’s a Wek, right?”

  “Yeah,” I breathe leadingly, insinuating that she continues explaining.

  “He was created to watch you.”

  Now I’m frowning at her even more disturbed, rather than confused. “Why?” I ask.

  She stares deep into my face. I’ve seen that look before under different circumstances. Like when I was eight years old and begged her to take me on a business trip with her. It’s the, you already know the answer to that look.

  “Because I’m special somehow,” I say, sounding like that eight year old again, who answered, because mommy has to work and I have to go to school.

  “At some level you’ve accepted that, which is why you were able to take that long walk today? Did you take it alone?”

  I picture of Vayle flashes in my mind. “Yes, I was alone.”

  “Good for you.” She fain
tly smiles at me.

  I look away from her face because of the lie that so easily flowed out of my mouth. It’s horrible that I’m lying for a guy who I may never see again, who so happens to be a Selell, a vampire.

  “You are made of three beings and only one quarter of it is human,” she says.

  Now I think I just lost my appetite as I looked down to study my hands resting on the tabletop. I have five fingers. I have arms too. I touch my cheek—there’s a face.

  “I don’t understand,” I finally say after performing the examination of myself.

  “It will be confusing for a little while longer. But it’s not for me to tell you everything, but you’ll meet someone soon.”

  “Who?” I sound desperate for an answer.

  “Just someone.” She nods at my plate. “Eat. You still need to nourish the human side of you.”

  The only problem is my appetite hasn’t returned, but I rarely have an appetite anyway and still force myself to eat because I’m supposed to.

  She watches me dip my spoon into the pea soup and drink it.

  “Good,” she says now fully smiling.

  “You want to know if I’m really your mother don’t you?”

  I’m motionless as I swirl my spoon in the bowl of thick green liquid. The truth is I don’t know.

  I’ve heard about stories of kids who later find out their parents aren’t biologically theirs. I could always imagine how horrible that would feel. To know all about the birthing process, how the mother toils in pain, which creates a bond in itself, only to learn that’s not how you came to be in the life of the person who raised you as his or her own.

  The truth is, I can’t be too shattered because deep down, and I mean way deep down inside, I suspected I too had a story like that of my own.

  Deanna and I look too different from each other. She still hasn’t been able to produce one photo of my father. I figured she was one of those independent women, who decided to pick her child out of a test tube. I even once toyed with the idea of her being a CIA agent, and I’ve been genetically created to one day fight against the enemies of our country. Like that movie Salt, or something like that, and maybe that’s why I’m able to do what I can do.

  So I set my glossy eyes on her face and whisper, “You’ll always be my mother,” past my tightened throat.

  Her expression remains wide and sort of confused and while holding that face she says, “I love you as a person loves a daughter as well.”

  Right there my question has been answered. I am not biologically hers.

  The human side of me is hungry again, so I take a few more sips of soup.

  “Can I ask you something else?” I say.

  “You can ask me anything and if I can answer it, I will.”

  “Why did you come back early? You were supposed to return a few days ago because of the fog but that went away but why are you here now, today?”

  “Because it’s gotten infinitely more dangerous for you?”

  “How?”

  “They’re looking for you.”

  “They?”

  “Derek told you about the Life Blood, did he not?”

  “Yeah, but I thought he may came up with that story after sniffing some glue or something,” I say with a weak grin.

  “But knowing him now, do you believe him?”

  She’s being serious. Typically, she would detect my sarcasm, roll her eyes at how ridiculous I sound and then all would be normal in the Decker household. This time she didn’t play along.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “I guess so,” I say. “Although it makes no sense to me.”

  “It will.”

  “Okay, but when? Because you guys are saying a lot but aren’t telling me anything.” I’m a bit peeved and it sounds like it.

  “I know, Z-cup.” Her eyes caress me like they normally do when she aims to comfort me. “You’ll know more soon enough.”

  “Okay, but did Derek tell you about what happened that night? How I fought those guys off and they were like Selells, which are actual vampires?”

  “Yes, I know about them.”

  “Remember what I did to those girls?”

  We’re both looking at each other. It’s why I suspect she moved us here and forced me to attend the local high school while she went off globetrotting.

  The way she’s looking at me provides the answer.

  “Well I actually killed one before Derek showed up and killed the other two. I think I broke his neck.” I’m disturbed by that.

  “You being able to do this, does it bother you?” she asks.

  I think really hard. I mean, on one hand they were trying to suck the blood out of Vayle and then they wanted to kill me too. But, if I dig deep down, there’s only one true answer.

  “Yes, it bothers me that I killed them. But more than that, it bothers me that Derek killed the other two and that Mr. Lux used his sword to burn their bodies.” And then I wonder. “Do you know Mr. Lux too?”

  “Yes, I do know Lux—and,” she says the first part of that very quickly but holds on to the second word a little longer. “That was the right answer.”

  “You mean feeling bad about the vampires being killed?”

  “Yes. You’ve been created to preserve life not take it.”

  I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know it doesn’t. But those guys chose to die because they chose to fight. However, I know that for someone like you that’s still not a good reason, but it was either you or them, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I quietly say.

  “You’re going to be faced with that same decision in the future, and you can’t hesitate, never hesitate.” She leans into me. “Understand?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and just bob my head.

  “But…” She interrupts my heavy thinking. “Tonight, we’re going to enjoy dinner together,” she says with an air of lightness. She’s smiling broadly at me. “Come on, try it,” she urges me.

  Now I realize I’m frowning, but I force myself to smile.

  “Keep it going,” she says, still smiling hard herself.

  Finally we’re both laughing.

  This is why I love her so much. She always had a way of showing up and making the brief time we spend together worth the wait.

  “Can I ask you something else?” I say once we simmer down.

  “Go for it.”

  “Well…” I pause. Gosh I feel embarrassed. “Well…” I try again.

  “Well…” She’s leading me on.

  “Weks,” I come out with.

  “What about Weks?”

  “Can they like people, you know? Like me?”

  “Are you asking if Derek could like you?”

  I study my plate. If I could ever blush, which I can’t, my face would be blood red by now. “Yeah,” I mumble.

  I’m preparing myself to hear, no.

  “Maybe,” she says as she turns the sides of her mouth down. “Have you asked him?”

  I look at her. “No,” I answer too fast. “I mean, no,” I say this time with much more control.

  “You should.”

  “I should?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt.”

  “It wouldn’t?”

  She grins at me, detecting the double meaning in my question.

  “You’ve always been a clever one, but this is not me providing you with the answer you want to hear. You have to be willing to hear the worst and the best and move forward with that answer.”

  I understand her. She’s right and so I tell her. “I know,” she says with a wink.

  I chuckle. “You know, Mom, you’re like my own personal Yoda.”

  “Great! But what’s a Yoda?”

  And the look on her face is telling me she’s seriously asking me this.

  “Wow—you’ve never seen The Empire Strikes Back?”

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  Sometimes she makes me wonder—has she ever lived a norm
al life and experienced normal things? Even I saw The Empire Strikes Back, and that’s saying a whole lot.

  “Well, that’s your homework for tonight, mom, go learn who Yoda is because you never know, not knowing this piece of American film history can make you lose out on a big business deal. The next tycoon you run into may be a Star Wars geek.”

  She throws her head back and laughs. “But I thought you said The Empire Strikes Back?” she asks, still laughing.

  My face drops. “Forget it,” I say shaking my head, “you’ll just lose out on that deal.”

  And now we both laugh.

  I hit the pillow earlier than usual tonight. That walk must’ve taken a lot out of me. Earlier it sounded like Deanna connected the exercise with me looking exhausted. I forgot to ask her why. Also, I finally feel like I can rest because she’s home.

  I strip off my pajamas and hop into the shower. I let the steam the running water generates engulf me as I massage the shampoo through the mounds of hair on my head, which will dry in a matter of minutes after I step out of the shower. That’s another crazy fact about myself.

  I can’t sleep in my pajamas when Deanna is home because she cuts the heater up about five degrees higher than I keep it. Normally, I’ll end up pulling my clothes off during the night. This way at least, I’ll get a head start on that so I climb into bed wearing my bra and panties only.

  As I lay in bed with the lights out, I’m dreading tomorrow. Of course, having to go to school hasn’t changed and since I skipped out on almost all of my classes today, for sure Mrs. Lowenstein will be stalking me.

  “Great,” I mutter and turn on my side to dream the night away. Not even dread can keep me awake tonight.

  At some time during in the night, I kicked the covers off of me and flip over to lie on my other side. Now, out of nowhere I feel a body push up against my backside.

  I gasp but before I can jump out of bed, Vayle whispers, “It’s just me,” in my ear.

  I ease up off the bed and then tip toe across the floor to gently shut the door. I turn to face him.

  “You’re back,” I whisper.

  His mouth is wide open and he looks mesmerized by something. That’s when I look down at myself.

  “Oh my gosh,” I say a little too loud and then race across the floor on the tip of my toes trying to cover my exposed body with my arms.