“It’s antique,” he tells her, “a ring from a time our families met each other. Ancestors ago, apparently. This part is made of a special metal - from a part of the earth where a vortex of energy occurs. It’s extremely rare. Supposedly ghosts can wear it, or something like that. I don’t remember, but I was asked to tell you all about it.”
“A metal that won’t disturb immortal souls. Some metals block solstice. And some, well, stake metals can’t even be worn,” she rattles off the information she knows well.
“How’d you learn so much about this?” he asks.
“O just curious, I guess. Go on. I love this!”
“And three diamonds, for the three v’s: vitality, valor, and something else - sorry, don‘t remember.”
To which Jessica whispers, “vampire.”
Drew laughs, “O of course! And vampire. And these two rubies, stand for love. Our love to each other and our love to ourselves, or if we ever have -.”
“An offspring?” she asks.
“A baby,” he says.
“I didn’t think of that,” Jessica looks worried.
“No,” he says, “too soon.” He hugs her.
“I love you, Jessica,” he says.
“I l-ov-e you, too,” she responds with only the slightest shake in her voice.
Jessica, once again, sits at a desk furiously filling in little circles with number two pencil lead, thumbing through a booklet of test questions but this time at Final Exams not Entrance Exams. Out front, the Thaddeus gargoyles stand timeless and still while inside time ticks relentlessly by at examination speed. Jessica hurries to fill in all the blanks.
The teacher yells, “Time!” and all pencils pull up. Jessica meets Theopolis where they once met for the very first time - in front of the same, motionless gargoyles. A banner is stretched out on the building behind them which reads: ‘Last-Ditch Thaddeus Preference’s Last-Day Hurrah.
“You going?” Jessica asks.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Theopolis says, “free food, you know.”
“Yes,” she says, “I see that. I’m getting married,” she tells him.
“Did you hear me? I’m getting married,” she repeats slowly.
“I heard you,” he says.
She holds out her hand with the engagement ring on it. He pulls the ring finger up close to take a look.
“Where’d you get that?!” he asks Jessica.
“Drew gave it to me - it’s our wedding ring. I told you we’re getting married.”
“Yes, but Drew? He’s not,”
“Yes he is!”
“One of us,” Theopolis explains.
“O, no, he isn’t - that’s what I like about him among other things.”
“I’m not judging him, if you stop being so insecure about your choice to marry him for one minute I could tell you.”
“Okay, what.”
“I’ve seen this exact ring - in the Underworld Castle. While we were stuck there, you know that weird collector’s room - and we were both looking around at things -”
“Yeah?”
“A jewelry box kind of thing with a cursive letter D on it - from like, a long time ago - had this exact ring in it.”
“Two of them?” She looks at it, “hmm.”
“Where did he get it? Did he say?” Theopolis asks.
“Passed down in his family, he said, an antique.T” Theopolis laughs. There’s more to this little thing between the two of you -”
“There is not!” Jessica insists.
“I know there is,” he says, “you’ve go to go get that ring.”
“Matching antique rings - with some of each of our history! This would be the best wedding gift to give Drew, and there must be a story if they are a set. A good one, I hope,” she sighs.
“Can’t go with you, this time. Do you think you could go alone?”
“Well, I know right where it is,” she thinks out loud, “and I wouldn’t be long,” she says.
“You can do it,” he tells her, “here, give me a pen,” he says. “The top of the box, looks like this,” he begins to draw a lot of loops until Jessica cries out, “That’s my Father’s D! His inscription, his wax seal,” she says.
“You know that necklace, you wore the first time we jumped? That was in there, too,” he tells her and then gasps, “Uh! It’s an ancestors jewelry box! Your ancestors,” he says.
“Why didn’t you tell me you saw such a thing?” she asks.
“There were so many, many other - and creepy! - things in that room to discuss, I guess, and you were telling me about some of the worst; plus, we were trapped, I was just too uneasy out to talk about much, right then, you know? And hang the witchy britches - I didn’t know you’d be wearing the very same ring! He couldn’t be one of our own kind, could he?…” he looks at Jessica; his eyes narrow with suspicion.
“He’s not vampire?”
“No! No, I’d know,“ she says and then adds, firmly, “He’s not.”
“How did he get the ring, then? And what if it is the very same ring?” he asks her.
“Hmm. Don’t know. I wonder if my Father has anything to do with this?” she speculates.
“Well,” he says, “let me know if you go, again. Jump, that is.”
“Don’t you mean ‘when‘ I go?” she asks admitting her determination.”
“Huh, yeah,” he smiles, “Thought so.”
“I’ll have you as back-up?” she asks him.
“Um-yeah,” he says, “I mean, you won’t need -”
“I won’t need you,” she interrupts.
“Nervous?” he asks her.
“Kind of,” she says, and then she adds, “Na! I’ll be fine.”
They share a hug and then go their separate ways.
On the way home, Jessica thinks about calling Drew, but then decides to look into the mysterious ring‘s appearance, herself, first, so as not to spoil the surprise.
“If the ring really is gone, from the underworld,“ she worries, “then either my Father is up to something, or Drew is…“ she hesitates, “no,“ she determines, “there are two rings!” Then, she muses about surprising Drew with his own version of the very antique wedding ring - and the story behind it.
“Whatever that may be,“ Jessica thinks. So, she goes straight home, instead, and plans for a jump into the underworld. Alone.
Chapter Nine
Under a full, May moon, Jessica hangs in the mist of Stygian Downs with the ring on her mind - the force of her motivation - although she‘d left it with Drew, earlier, for safe keeping. The familiar fog hovers beneath the ancient cantilever. Above, the bright moon shines in a clear and starry sky. The thought of the haunting, the warning from Domina, NOT to jump into the underworld, again, finally surfaces in her thoughts after all the between world travel preparations and with her toes nearly hanging off the edge - a mere shoulder‘s lean into the force of gravity from the Underworld Castle. Don’t try this without batwings!
Now, dear readers, the very mention of the word - haunting - is reason enough to stay home; pop popcorn, watch the telly. However, we must remember that Jessica is, herself, a daughter of the night - a being which haunts in dreams of Halloween nights and children’s stories - a creature from the mysterious and often ominous worlds below and unimagined. She is a vampire immortal, and Domina is a ghost - a ghost of the sort whose days were numbered, in other words, not eternal. And, just as Jessica has approached this same point in her own reasoning that I have just explained to you, she decides to go ahead on her very brave - and very bad - plan. She jumps. (My popcorn’s finished popping - I‘ll stay home.) Jessica leaps into her ‘last’ (O, isn’t it always?!) disregard for the warning that came with the instructions: Do Not Return.
As always - with Jessica - her arrival is timely with an absence of In Between mayhem. She arrives at the Underworld Castle as though she’s flown first class and only those from coach are bothered by trolls and that nonsense in the dusty gulch that lies between the
world above and the darkness of the Underworld Castle. She disregards that first class ticket analogy, but gets right to work hunting down her ancestor’s jewelry box with the ornate, and finely penned D at the top of the box. She runs down the staircase, lunges at the immense guard, stone gargoyle until it ‘tiptoes’ to the right a bit, exposing the open door of the room Theopolis calls ‘the weird collector’s room’ and hurries in to find the box.
A strange - and lonely - feeling comes across her as she enters the room, like a chill from head to toe which almost makes her shoulders shudder and goosebumps arise upon her arms. She looks around her, as most do when such a sensation occurs in such a room; but, no one is in here with her, causing Jessica the slightest bit of worry like maybe she should hurry and get out as soon as she can. But, at the mere sight of the family’s D - just exactly as she’s seen her Father carefully curl all its curves and loops from his ancient quill, just as she’d practiced herself late night at his desk while he was gone - she stops, takes a deep breath of pride and takes her time. She marvels at the box - the top, the sides, the ornate decoration. She notes the hinge, the open lock; and finally, with two hands, she carefully lifts its heavy lid. O sweet revenge! The contents of its three-tiered interior is positively bewitching in its sparkle, its luster, and its most sought after treasure - the ring! At the very top tier, all alone - just as Jessica is, at this very moment? She picks up the enchanting object while the wall behind Jessica slides quietly open and Jessica becomes all at once affected with a sudden, intense thirst.
As all beings who’ve just happened upon an open box of treasure, she sifts through its contents in awe of all its history and allure. She picks up the necklace worn upon her first arrival at the Castle, just as Theopolis had remembered.
“Perfect to wear for the wedding!” she thinks and holds it up to her neck to check its length as to be helpful information when searching for a wedding dress. A cold draft seeps in from behind her and though the unknowing-ness about the open door behind her does bring with it a frightful chill, it holds an even eery-er message: a bewildering call of her name in the wind’s whisperings - which really only the immortal hear.
“Jes-sic-a,” it whispers, and she turns to see the dark night sky where a wall once stood.
“Who’s there?” she asks.
“Theopolis?” she guesses. No response. Irritated slightly at this interruption, she slips the ring on to her finger and ‘listens’. At the sound of the second wind’s whisper, Jessica decides to go to the In Between’s tree - in case it has something to ’tell’ her - which is an inkling full of more ancient knowledge than she realizes. Before Jessica leaves the ‘Blood-Letting’ Room - or is it the Collectors Room? - she undergoes a transformation to ‘match’ the thirst she’s now drawn. Her eyes grow dark and glowy with the hollow under-area of any hunting, seeker of the night, and without warning, her fangs show, gleaming in a dark, red-lipped mouth. The ring, the full moon, and the wind’s whisper have ‘caught’ Jessica off-guard. She has slipped into a feasting vampire without so much as a ‘lapse in attempted willpower’, without enough time to have counted to 10 as they teach in places like the Ancestral Academy of Obsequious Kinship, in other words, restraining from the vampire carousing of the haunt. ‘Haunt, hunt, feast!’ they say; the door is open, afterall, and apparently the jewelry of the ancients demands it. Into the dark, underworld Jessica flies. All eyes from the room’s paintings follow Jessica out.
Too late and too daunting to suspect the warning from sweet Domina not to jump from Stygian Downs bridge or enter the underworld a third time has one bit to do with Jessica‘s current look, a proverbial ‘snapshot‘ of textbook vampire, no. She‘s one third into ‘haunt‘, anticipating ‘hunt‘ and its just not a smart move to try to talk a vampire home from a feast. Her victim‘s walking home, right now, under a moonlit sky from the ancient café where a woman with a squash once stood looking down a woman-shaped hole; and he’s all alone. The wind picks up and the daunting vampira’s cape flutters a flapping sound against it. Her chosen looks up to see her shadow step away from the shadow of the trees behind her. Her ‘hunt’ includes enticement and the poor fellow’s led to believe, for two minutes, he’s met someone wonderful - a new friend, perhaps? No. O mighty powers of the true blood seeking race! Misled and mis-happed the sorry victim folds beneath the ‘letting’ of his vital fluids, nourishing the vampira’s immortal, ancient soul. Drained red through, right down to blue, he is left. The mere shadow of a ghost, he is, left under the lamplight at a park to recover. Wild Jessica flies, as a bat, easily and on her own this time, in the thrilling currents of mid-night, full moon, underworld vapor. Swift drifts, fluttering, dipping and soaring she chatters and flies - alive! Fully alive in the chill of night air. This is truly what immortals seek; they don’t want to be unkind, they feed to feel alive. For all Bub’s sakes they should be dead by now! Years, decades, centuries even - they’re only alive because they feed. Never been tested, but that’s how they feel, and so this moment - for Jessica, for all vampires - is a big one. Drop! That other shoe, darlings, if it were feast for immortality or death as the mortals do, well, you can’t be too sure which one you’d choose. Can you? Ofcourse you can. But Jessica was born a vampire and on this night she does not apologize for that. At least not yet. She does not regret, but it’s not true that a vampire’s ‘borrowed’ life is not full of remorse. They do spend quite a bit of time regretting what they’ve done to mortals once they’ve fed, and some do quell those feasting ‘spells’ forever. No doubt Jessica will transfer from this euphoric bat flight swearing that last feed her very definite, very last. She flies to the In Between and transforms into Jessica at the tree, to do ‘that spin thing’ and get herself back to her Drew and the world above.
“Won’t work.”
“Huh?” Jessica says, and looks around.
“Can’t go,” the tree whispers, “you’re stuck.”
“No!” Jessica complains, “I’ve got to.”
No answer. And then the pleading starts.
“You don’t understand. I live, up there,” she points, “I’ve got to get out. I’m getting married! My fiancee, isn’t immortal. He lives,” she points again, “up there!”
No answer, so Jessica wails, “Uaah!” She tries the poem. She turns once East, once West, and all of that.
“Won’t work,” she hears again and Jessica glares at the tree.
“You said that, I remember,” she tells it, “now please tell me how to get out of here. Different poem? Two spins? Whatever it is, just tell me. I’ll do it.”
“I can’t,” the tree says, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know how you can get to the Above World now that you’ve used, well over-used really, the spell to get out from the In Between.”
“Do you know the words ’utter panic’?” she asks the tree, “because that’s what I’ll do if you don’t tell me how to get out of here, right now!” she says (and rather loudly).
“It won’t matter if you panic. It won’t help. I don’t know,” the tree says calmly. This calmness begins to irk Jessica even more than the refusal of the words.
“I’m getting married,” she cries, “my fiancee -” she sniffles.
“Honestly, dear, I would help if I could. I just don’t know.”
“Well who does?!!” Jessica yells.
“O, once I could have told you, but that’s been so many, many years, now. I wouldn’t know anyone - I wouldn’t know anywhere to direct you,” the tree begins and during this explanation, Jessica figures out that this tree really isn’t a tree at all, but was once a woman caught in the In Between - just as Jessica is now.
This realization at first touches Jessica’s soul that she is not alone, she has found a kindred, setting off a second reaction - sheer panic (worse than utter) - and she almost screams, “Does this mean I’ll become a tree?!! Stuck here? Forever?!” And then she tells the tree, “O ditches,
tree, we’ve got to get you OUT! I‘m going back to the Castle and I‘m going to figure out how to change you back into a woman,” Jessica says.
“Domina,” the tree tells her, “and you’re wearing my ring.” Jessica looks down at her hand.
“This is my wedding ring,” she says.
“I wore it once,” Domina says, “it was given to me by a most elegant man who lived in the Castle.”
“What happened to him?” Jessica asks.
“Well, he locked me in the tower-” she starts but Jessica interrupts.
“You’re the woman in the Legend!” Jessica exclaims, “you threw the ring out the window!” she says.
“I did, didn’t I,” Domina says, and finally she sums it up to, “He was cruel.” Drip. The first proverbial drop of remorse. A flash in Jessica’s memory of the park’s lamp light. She focuses on Domina’s troubles with determined vigor.
“He did this to you,” she tries to remember the Legend.
“No, the Witch,” she concludes.
“Yes, that’s right,” Domina says.
“Well, then there is a way to undo this to you, isn’t there?” She asks with more than just a hint of hope an compassion to her voice.
“I’m going to find a way to undo this Witch’s spell,” she says, “AND, I’m going to find our way out of here!” She scurries off to do so like the confusing epitomy of ‘good girl‘ vampire that she is (not to mention oxymoron - a word her father was so sensitive about during her upbringing, since, in his opinion the words ‘good‘ and ‘vampire‘ just don‘t mix).
After much searching, Jessica finds out by searching the Castle’s library that the ring once belonged to Old Nostramadeaus - as her Father had always called the respectfully feared vampire L’onormichaelis Nostramadeus, who‘d probably given his ring to Domina. Still searching, Jessica finds a letter he has written and her Father’s name finely penned.
“Ah!“ she gasps, and remembers the unsigned letter she’d received, addressed to her.
Legend of Stygian Downs (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 2) Page 12