Magic at Midnight

by Lyssa Chiavari

  In the middle of the night, I heard the scratch, scrape, scratch at the door leading down to the rest of the house.

  “Zelda,” a woman whispered. “Zelda, come out here.”

  I froze, jolted awake at the fact that I felt lighter, at the sensation of fewer blankets than usual, at the sight of the space heater still oozing its warmth from across the room.

  The radio echoed with laughter as a whistle dipped high and low.

  “Zel-da”—she spoke in a singsong tune—“this mansion is killer diller. Everyone’s dancing—Dean is knockin’ it out. Come on, Zelda.”

  Her voice was hoarse, quiet. But I could tell it was Mary Ellen, her thirst for my blood punctuating every word.

  “Come on, Zelda… Let’s cut a rug. Zelda…”

  She kept on scratching for hours before I finally drifted back to sleep, too frightened to move to switch off the dial or turn off the heater.

  ♛

  The knock that startled me awake came from another direction entirely.

  I jumped up, surprised to find myself more twisted in my hair than in my blankets. There was blood all over the front of my nightgown. I never did get to the bathroom to wash or change.

  The knock echoed again, and I realized it was something hitting glass. Like a window.

  The radio was echoing static now and I switched it off as I crossed the room, my bare feet flushing as they passed the heater, the heater that hadn’t burnt me and everything in this house down to ashes.

  I froze, considering…

  The knock again. I headed to the window and peered through the largest slit in the plywood I could find. I pulled back almost immediately when I saw Dean out there, in the recessed windowsill that I knew was at the very top of the mansion.

  “Jeepers,” I said quietly.

  “Zelda,” he whispered in hushed tones. “Pull down the plywood.”

  I didn’t know if that would even be possible at first, but I slid my fingers through two gaps in the wood and I tugged. I could feel it jostling, so I tugged harder.

  It gave and I stumbled back, the dim moonlight spilling freely into the attic now. Dean pointed to the latch at the side of the window. I had no idea what he was doing, but I complied, unlatching the lock.

  “Thanks,” he said, nodding. He shimmied around to rest his foot against another piece of plywood. “Stand back.”

  I did and he kicked at the board until it went flying. Just when it was about to land, he did his vampire trick and appeared beside it, taking the plywood in his hands so it wouldn’t clatter to the ground and putting a finger to his lips.

  I shook my head. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m going fishing,” he said, leaning the plywood against the wall and stuffing both hands into his pockets. The grin on his face let me know he meant “fish” of the girl variety.

  “I’m not… That is, I… I’m not an active crop.” That was what they’d called the girls like Mary Ellen around the old neighborhood—she had been up for anything, from what I knew of her. The way she’d smiled at Dean, at Herbert, at Ernesto—even at my Leopold. Though, to be fair, getting to know someone while trapped in an attic waiting for vampires to suck on your essence might not have been the best venue for getting to know their true character.

  “Easy, sweetheart, I’m not that doll dizzy.” He shrugged. “It was a joke.”

  Pinching my lips, I stared at him, waiting for him to explain. I shivered and Dean appeared at my side with one of the afghans off my bed. “Why are you here?” I said again. “Why did you come in through the window?”

  All he would have had to do was knock. With Minnie gone, he was the only one I trusted not to succumb to blood lust around me. He had been with Minnie from the start.

  She sometimes called him a prince. She might have actually meant it.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes and for just a moment, I wondered if I’d been wrong to place that kind of trust in him.

  “I’m busting you out,” he said, strolling back toward the window. He didn’t flinch in the moonlight, though he was careful not to let his bright blue eyes rove too closely to any single beam of light. His sun cheaters were hanging out of his front pocket beside the decorative handkerchief I’d never known him to need.

  “Why can’t we go downstairs…?”

  “You know why. Can’t so much as have you near the door before those chuckleheads are sniffing you out.” Dean ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I—do you want out or not? I don’t mean anything by it, I just… You don’t seem fully committed to this.”

  It was Leopold who’d first succumbed to Minnie’s advances. There was her beauty to be sure, her poise—the warmth and food and shelter she’d offered us. But it had been more than that.

  After dinner that first night, she’d taken both our hands at once. “Now that you’ve had your fill,” she’d said, “let me introduce you to some friends. You’re going to love it here.”

  She’d brought us up to join the others in their attic stronghold: Mary Ellen, Herbert, Ernesto, Ruby—all waiting for their turns to become immortals.

  I hadn’t believed it at first. Even after the others had come back, one by one, dreamy looks on their faces and dark, red marks on their necks. Not until my turn. Not until I’d been bound and gagged and held down while Minnie and Dean and other shadowy figures had taken turns sucking at my neck.

  Dean had been the first besides Minnie to bite down on my flesh.

  “Well?” asked Dean, still waiting for my answer.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want those things downstairs—the elegance, the parties. But there was the thought of growing my own set of fangs, of sinking them into some poor person’s neck.

  And there was the fire, the thought of Robbie fading away in my arms. The bright red coils of the space heater drew my attention.

  If he’d died—if they’d all died—if people halfway across the world were giving their lives to do the honorable thing, I had no business living forever.

  “Okay,” I said. “Get me out of here.”

  Leopold wouldn’t miss me. Except as a drink.

  I shuffled across the room to grab my shoes and swap my nightgown for my dress, all while tugging my mess of a mane into a loose and frizzy braid. I stopped at the sewing kit and grabbed a ribbon to tie around both ends of it. I caught Dean looking and he quickly turned, casually switching off the space heater, probably not knowing I’d have been tempted to “bump into it” as I made my escape. But I couldn’t have. Vampires or not, I—

  “Zel… da… I’m… sor…” Robbie spoke my name before coughing once more and going limp in my arms. He’d tried to rush headlong back inside, but I’d pulled him away, pulled him back. And then his eyes had closed, his rattling breaths growing weaker.

  We rushed to the window and Dean went out first, turning around to help me out. His hands around my bare arms were cold, colder than the iciest morning in that attic I was leaving behind.

  I flinched and Dean drew me closer, but even through his suit, his body chilled me to the core. It was the vampire’s venom that was full of fire—their bodies were cold, meant for the grave.

  Shivering, I broke away and Dean let me, his smile falling. He took a few careful steps forward toward a tree.

  “How did you get up here?” I whispered, my teeth chattering in the night wind.

  He pointed to the tree several yards away.

  I laughed. “You’re joshing me.”

  His lips thinned. “No, but I guess I… I didn’t figure how I’d get you back over there. I just… leaped.”

  I sighed, turning back to stare at the open window. It was somewhere at least. Somewhere I didn’t have to leave. Somewhere I might never leave.

  “Don’t go into a decline,” said Dean. “We’ll think of something.”

  I ran my fingers nervously through my loose braid, thinking. Thinking of how cumbersome the hair had been when I’d been running with Robbie, thinking about ho
w I’d tripped and told him to go on without me and how he’d come back, how he’d exposed himself to more of the smoke—

  I reached into my front pocket, surprised to find the sewing scissors still there.

  “Maybe if I jump,” he started. “And you jump—and if you don’t make it, I can halt the moment and snatch you before you—what are doing?”

  I was halfway through cutting above the ribbon atop my braid. The scissors kept catching in the thick fibers, but I kept cutting anyway. When at last I finished, I held the braid aloft, my head suddenly so much lighter and freer, the weight all in my hand. “Use this as a rope,” I said, tossing it to him.

  He caught it, his bright blue eyes wide. “You’ve got moxie, doll.”

  He tied one thick end of my braid around an ornamental sphere positioned at the corner of the roof. Then he jumped, the other end of the braid in his hand. After the blink of an eye, he appeared back beside me, the braid taut like a thick high wire from the roof to the nearest bough of the tree. He bent slightly and gestured forward. “After you.” He must have noticed me hesitate. “I promise I’ll catch you if you slip.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though I didn’t really feel confident. Taking a deep breath, I walked to the edge of the roof and then put my foot down. The hair sagged beneath my weight.

  “Just do it fast. You know I can halt time the instant you slip. Stay on the beam, doll. Stay on course.”

  Easier said than done. Still, I steeled myself and took another step, then another—and faster and faster until I was halfway there. I could feel myself teetering, like I somehow couldn’t balance myself without the weight of all that hair tugging over my shoulders, but I had to keep moving. I kept moving, into the cold wind, into the unknown future, into death—eventual death. Maybe imminent death. But death I deserved.

  The sun was starting to rise over the distant horizon, and I thought quickly to the sunglasses Dean had tucked into his pocket—he’d planned to be out, so he must have had a place for us to go.

  My hand reached for the top of the tree just as a car pulled into the driveway.

  I stilled.

  “Keep going,” whispered Dean. Then he was beside me, his arm around my waist and then in a blink we were at the other end of the bough, flush against the trunk of the tree, hidden behind the dying, brightly-colored leaves. He put a finger to his lips and I peered through the lattice to see below.

  The car—a sleek, beautiful blue Plymouth Roadking—jerked to a stop and the headlights turned off. The car’s engine cut and then the door opened, revealing Minnie in her most gorgeous silhouette dress yet. Its blood-red color was evident even in the dying moonlight and the amber glow of the morning sun. She squinted and pulled a pair of large sunglasses out of her purse, sliding the temples under her headscarf. She carried her small handbag in front of her with gloved hands like a movie starlet.

  Just as she was about to disappear under the portico, she paused, almost as if listening. As a response to her unasked question, a gust of wind picked up, brushing at the hem of her pencil-thin skirt and making her grab for the top of her headscarf. She ran inside and my shoulders relaxed, a tension I hadn’t even noticed now released.

  I went to shift my foot onto a sturdier part of the branch, but Dean pulled me tighter, shaking his head.

  I almost dared not breathe.

  After a moment—a long moment in which the sun began to rise threateningly overhead—Dean’s muscles relaxed and he let go of me to grab for his sun cheaters, slipping them over his eyes. Flinging my arms around the trunk, I tried to regain my balance, my head swimming, my stomach growling, my scalp too light.

  “Easy,” whispered Dean.

  The bark bit into my cheek as I pushed my head tighter against it.

  “There are enough branches to act as footholds,” said Dean. “But we have to move soon. She’s home early. It’s only a matter of time before they notice.”

  Swallowing down my nervousness, I nodded, extending one leg outward until I felt the branch beneath with my toes. One branch at a time, bit by bit, one leg at a time, with Dean right behind me encouraging me and promising my safety all the while. When I ran out of branches, he told me to squeeze tightly to the trunk. He jumped down to the ground, his arms out to catch me. “I’ve got you,” he said in a hushed voice.

  And he did, seeming to stumble slightly at first and then in an instant, he corrected himself, positioning his arms under my knees and around my upper torso.

  “Hey. What’s buzzin’, cousin?” The grin on his face could have lit up a dark room—if he could have actually stood to be in a bright room.

  He bent to let my feet touch the spongy grass, righting me on my own two feet. Though his hands had been cold, I felt the absence of his touch. I knew there was a special talent responsible for his speed and grace, but in that moment, I felt a rush of envy, a reminder of what I was about to leave behind.

  He grabbed for my hand. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice hushed.

  He eyed the car, and I wondered if his vampire talents also included the ability to start up a vehicle without the key. Otherwise, I’d have to get my hitchhiking thumb ready.

  I wondered how far he planned to go with me, and how Minnie would react once she discovered he’d helped me go.

  I never got the chance to find out.

  “Dean, Zelda—where on Earth are you going?”

  Minnie’s voice was soft and sweet, not at all looking to bust our chops.

  She appeared before us at the end of the driveway, the small piece of red hair that peeked out from underneath her head scarf shifting slightly, signifying that she, too, had walked across time while the rest of us had been standing still.

  Dean yanked me against his chest and then… Silence.

  A bird excited to see the breaking dawn ceased its song mid-note. The idling of an engine down the block cut out. The in and out of my breaths were the only thing that broke through the quiet.

  Dean wasn’t breathing. I didn’t know why that surprised me.

  “Come on,” he said, his voice echoing out into the still silence.

  My hand gripped in his, he tugged and we were off, moving through the stillness—at a normal, if hurried, pace. Dean’s quick movements and impossible speeds reduced to a normal jog when the surroundings were stuck, unblinking.

  “How am I seeing this?” I asked as we approached the still form of Minnie.

  Dean responded by tugging me closer. “Stay close,” he said. “I pulled you in with me.” For the first time that I’d noticed, there seemed to be something approaching perspiration on his brow—his screwed-up facial muscles all but screaming tension.

  “But I thought only vampires could—”

  “Only skilled vampires can do this at all. And only… a handful of vampires… can pull someone in with them.” If he could have breathed, he’d have been doing so heavily.

  He flinched as we approached Minnie. Like everything else, she hadn’t so much as twitched.

  “How long does this last?” I asked.

  But Dean either didn’t hear me or he chose not to answer. In either case, the point was moot because I got my answer: not very long.

  Minnie’s hand shot out and seized Dean around the throat the moment we passed her.

  She had finished the move before I even heard the return of the bird’s cry.

  “This is a fine way to repay me for all I’ve done for you, child.” Minnie’s voice had taken on a harsher tone than usual, an echoing vibrato resonating behind it that reminded me of what she truly was: an ancient being—I didn’t know how old, but not like the others here.

  Not turned this decade.

  Dean didn’t so much as tremble under the vise-like grip of her fingers as she lifted him a half a foot off the ground. His grip on my own hand only grew stronger.

  “Wilhel…mina…”

  She wasn’t stopping him from breathing—he had no need for that, I’d been so recently reminded—but she was interf
ering with his ability to speak. With her free hand, she knocked his sun cheaters to the ground.

  Minnie’s face pivoted slightly, those sunglass-covered eyes seemingly trained on me. “And you… Zelda, darling…” The tension in her facial muscles relaxed somewhat, her arm lowering Dean’s feet back to the driveway. She didn’t let go of his throat, though, as her lips puckered. “What did you do to your hair?” She shook her head. “Never mind. It looks adorable. More importantly, if you aren’t happy here, why didn’t you tell me? Why reduce yourselves to this—to sneaking behind my back?”

  My eyes darted away from hers as I saw the crowd gathering on the front porch from the inside of the house. Leopold at the front of them, all wearing sun cheaters, though the sun was just barely making its way over the horizon.

  “Are you unhappy?” Minnie asked.

  Dean’s hand tensed in mine and I turned to look over my shoulder at the rising sun. There before it was the road that led out of the neighborhood—out of the city, out of the state, out of the country… To where?

  The world was at war from one end to the next. There was only death and darkness awaiting me.

  I remembered a different sunrise, one shrouded in ash and smoke and flames, Robbie in my arms, the firefighters approaching.

  I’d lost my way then, but there was one place I’d found it.

  “Let’s get married,” said Leopold, taking me in his arms. I was certain I still smelled of smoke—I’d never get the soot off my hands.

  Those soot-covered hands trembled against his back. They’d held Robbie so recently. The firemen had had to pry my brother’s limp body from those hands. “What are you…? Why would you ask that? We’re not even old enough yet.”

  “Then we’ll get married the moment we can.”

  “I can’t.” I sniffled, my throat dry and cracked from smoke and crying alike. “I have… I have nothing.” Before the firemen could see to me, I’d stood and run. I’d run and gasped and run down the blocks until I’d arrived at Leopold’s house and I’d slammed my fist against his front door, shrieking his name. It was a wonder he’d come to the door instead of his mother or father, but in that moment, I hadn’t cared. “Your father doesn’t want you to—”