by Gayla Twist
“Didn’t Dad get you flowers a lot?” I was pretty small when he’d left, but I did remember there was frequently a vase of flowers around the house.
She sighed a little and said, “I used to hate it when your dad got me flowers. That always meant he’d done something to be a jerk. I mean, how about not being a jerk in the first place? Or maybe getting me flowers just to be nice sometime instead of using them as a tool to buy forgiveness.”
“Nah.” I nudged her in the ribs. “What’s the fun in that?” We both rolled our eyes and had a small giggle.
“So who sent these?” Mom asked, bending over and sniffing one of the blossoms.
“Fred,” I told her.
“He’s trying to win you back?”
I shrugged. “I guess. I really wish he wouldn’t. It makes me feel guilty.”
Mom nodded. “That’s why they do it, sweetie.” Giving our conversation a quick review in her head, she said, “I’m sorry for bagging on your dad. That wasn’t very fair. I’ve just been feeling...” She searched for the right words. “I’ve just been feeling a bit down lately.”
“That’s okay.” I wrapped an arm around her and gave her a half-hug. “I don’t have too many illusions about Dad.”
“Have you heard back from him about Thanksgiving?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.
“Not yet,” I told her. I had meant to call him, but actually forgot.
“It’s Monday night,” she said with a disapproving frown. “He should let you know so you at least have time to pack.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow.” I added, “Good night, Mom,” and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before making a break for the stairs. I had impressed myself with how well I had kept it together.
“How was your not-a-date date?” she called after me.
“Not really a date,” I told her over my shoulder as I took the stairs two at a time.
I entered my bedroom with the intention of rushing over to the window and drawing the curtains, but I wasn’t fast enough. Jessie was already there. He was standing with his back to the window, head bowed a little, and hands clasped behind him. In one hand, he clutched my purple cardigan.
I’d already flipped the light on, so it was too late for me to slip away. Jessie turned to face me through the glass, his face mortified. “I’m so sorry,” he told me. “My mother told me what Daniel said.”
“You know he wants to kill me, don’t you? He said you should hand me over to the Bishops,” I choked out, cowering in the doorway rather than entering the room.
“He’s always been an unreasonable jerk. Please don’t hold that against me.”
“Well, what keeps you from doing it?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t you sacrifice me to save your own skin? Daniel said it would get you out of all this trouble and save the family name.”
Anguish filled Jessie’s eyes, and he slapped his palms against the window. “Because I’d rather die,” he said. “Do you understand me? I would rather be locked in a coffin for eternity than let anything happen to you.”
He looked so tormented that I found myself crossing to the window without having thought about the consequences. “Is that the truth?”
“Can’t you feel that it’s the truth?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.
I reached up and mirrored his hand with mine, my palm against the glass aligned with his. I knew it was foolish, but I did feel it. I felt it intensely. His brother might have been willing to sacrifice me to clear up the trouble with the Bishops, but Jessie never would. “I believe you,” I told him, then reached down to open the window.
If I’m being honest, a small, very small, part of my brain was yelling, Don’t do it! This is the same as suicide! He’s a vampire. Even if he doesn’t kill you, one of his family or friends will. Being with him means being sucked into his world. It will end your life!
But it was too late; my heart and my hands weren’t paying attention to my head. The window swung open, and I was in his arms, tears rolling down my face. “He just really frightened me,” I sobbed.
“I hate that he made you cry,” Jessie whispered in my hair. “If it wasn’t for my mother, I would throw Daniel out the window.”
I snuffled a little against his chest. “I don’t think that would do much.” I had to assume that Daniel could fly as easily as his brother.
“I shouldn’t have brought you to the castle,” he said. “I just thought it would be easier to get things done. That was my mistake.”
“I wanted to go,” I insisted as I righted myself, retracting my body back into the house, his arms still supporting me. “I can’t stop myself from wanting to find out more about your life. I know it’s stupid and dangerous, but I can’t help it.”
“Well, I’m not going to have Daniel upsetting you. This has got to be scary enough for you as it is without his stupid remarks,” Jessie growled.
“What else do we need to go over, then?” I asked. “I mean, I guess we can skip the dance lessons.” Saying this filled me with both relief and disappointment. “And I can probably look up on the Internet how to get a corpse through customs. What else do we need to cover?”
Jessie was now just holding my hand, but even that simple contact left me feeling tingly and warm inside. “Well,” he began, “we should practice being intimate with each other.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, feeling simultaneously alarmed and a little aroused.
Jessie ran his fingers through his hair a couple times. “Right now, we know each other, but we don’t really know each other,” he said. “Not like lovers. We’re more like strangers that feel a connection. What the Bishops are expecting is a bona fide couple who are committed to each other. We have to convince them of that.”
It was so hard to keep a clear head with his handsome gray eyes looking at me, his lips so close. “Okay.” I swallowed hard, my throat feeling suddenly dry. “I broke up with Fred, if that’s at all helpful.”
Jessie closed his eyes briefly. “Please don’t tell me the name of the human you were dating. I am a vampire, after all, and I can have a jealous side.”
“It’s your own fault,” I informed him, mildly alarmed for Fred’s welfare. “I was only dating him to try to distract myself from thinking of you. Being angry with him wouldn’t be fair. And you’re not allowed to be all vampirey about it.”
My words caused Jessie to chuckle. “You see, this is the kind of thing we need to be able to do in front of the Bishops. This is good.”
“Well, I’m glad you think it’s working because all we’ve got left to get to know each other is a couple of nights. And I have a tendency to get sleepy.”
“So you forgive me?” he asked. “For Daniel, I mean?”
“I guess I have to,” I replied. “I mean, he is kind of a creep, but lots of people have jerky brothers.”
“Good,” Jessie said, a smile breaking across his face, his eyes sparkling. “Would it be okay if I came to visit you tomorrow night?”
“It’s not that late right now,” I told him, glancing over my shoulder at my alarm clock.
“I know, but...” He cleared his throat. “There are some visitors to Tiburon that aren’t very welcome, and I need to make sure they’re aware of my feelings.”
“Oh.” I had assumed the shadows following me home were my imagination, but I suddenly wasn’t so sure. I involuntarily shivered.
“So, tomorrow then? I can come by?”
“Yes,” I told him. My world was spinning way too fast for me to feel that any of my decisions were rational, but agreeing to meet Jessie always felt like the right thing to do.
“I’ll get together all the information you’ll need. Instructions and contacts. That way you won’t have to look it up, and it won’t be in your search history. Plus, you’ll need a death certificate for me and some other papers to get my casket through customs.”
“A death certificate?” I gasped. I hated the idea of Jessie in a wooden box.
“Yes,” he
said. “I am, after all, dead.” I must have looked a little shaken because the next thing he said was, “I should probably let you get some sleep.” Taking a half step backward in preparation to leave, he handed me my cardigan then paused. “There is one more thing,” he added, almost shyly.
“What?” I asked. I was still thinking about the death certificate and dreaded the words that were about to come out of his mouth. Jessie did seem to like to make a dramatic exit.
“If we’re going to convince the Bishops that we intend to be conjoined, then I guess I’d better give you this.” He shoved a small velvet box into my hands and then disappeared into the night.
The box was square and fit neatly into my palm. It was the deep hue that I had come to think of as Vanderlind purple. With trembling hands, I flipped open the lid.
There sat the biggest diamond ring I could imagine. I’m no expert in jewelry, but it had to be at least three carats. It was round in shape and about the circumference of a dime. The light from my bedroom got caught up in the stone and made it dance with tiny rainbows. “Oh, my God,” I gasped.
The setting was white gold or possibly platinum, I couldn’t tell, and there was a channel of smaller diamonds surrounding the center stone. The band of the ring had fine roses and filigree work crafted into the metal. It was so pretty, I just stared at it for a few seconds with my mouth open.
“Are you kidding me with this?” I called out into the night and thought I heard a faint chuckle in response.
Chapter 15
“Hi, Dad, it’s Aurora,” I said, gripping the phone way too hard.
“Aurora?” my dad said, as if he’d never heard the name before.
“Yes, your daughter,” I replied pointedly.
“Oh, hi, honey.” He began to sound a little warmer, like a regular father might. Maybe he just had to repeat my name that way so Tammy wouldn’t immediately pounce on him and pry the phone out of his hands screaming, “Who is it?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if she sat in his office all day while he worked.
I was on lunch at school and had stepped outside to make my phone call. We are not allowed to use our phones inside the school. In fact, if a teacher even sees you with a phone in your hand, it’s reason for confiscation. I’d slipped mine into my bag from my locker and snuck out of the building like I was a shoplifter. Using your phone on school grounds wasn’t strictly prohibited, but not encouraged. I usually just held off until the end of the day, but I wanted to get my dad’s call out of the way.
“Just checking in with you about Thanksgiving,” I said when it became obvious he wasn’t going to take the conversation there voluntarily.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah... Um... You know I’d love to see you, honey, but Thanksgiving isn’t such a great time for you to visit. I mean, well... It’s short notice, and... We’re really busy right now, and... I’m sorry; it’s just not going to work for us.”
“I understand,” I told him. “Maybe next year.” If I was alive to see the next year.
“Oh. Okay. Maybe,” he hedged. “Well, we’ll talk about it later.”
“Okay. I’ve gotta get going. Bye, Dad,” I said and quickly hung up. I found it peculiar that I felt the impulse to say, “I love you,” at the end of our conversation. Did I love my dad or did I just feel compelled to say it because he was my dad and that’s what you’re supposed to say? I didn’t really have the room in my brain to figure it out. What I did feel was a level of relief that he actually didn’t say yes. That would have complicated things more than they already were. He’d done what I’d expected; he’d said no. Now all I had to do was lie to my mother, fly to Budapest, get a dead body through customs, and convince a tribunal of vampires that I was the reincarnated spirit of my great, great aunt. How hard could that be?
As I slipped my phone into my bag and headed back into the school, I saw Fred waiting for me. I knew it was cowardly, but I’d been avoiding him all morning. He was probably expecting me to be all thrilled and gush over how excited I was that he’d sent me roses, but that’s not how I felt. What I felt was slightly annoyed. There was a ton on my plate. I needed to focus on staying alive, not on sparing the feelings of the high school football star. But I also felt guilty. I knew it was such a chick way to feel, but I couldn’t help myself. My mom once told me, “If women stopped doing things because they felt guilty, the world would grind to a halt.” That was probably true, but it didn’t stop me from feeling that way.
“Hi, Fred,” I said as I walked inside.
“Hi.” He gave me a big expectant smile.
“Thanks for the flowers,” I told him as I kept walking.
“You’re welcome,” he said, keeping pace at my side. When I didn’t add anything to the conversation, he said, “I hope you like pink.”
“Sure, I guess,” I said, making my way toward the cafeteria. I needed to grab something to eat before facing the afternoon.
“Has your mystery guy ever sent you flowers?” he wanted to know.
I shook my head. “Not yet.” He had given me a beautiful necklace and a three carat diamond ring, but it wasn’t really fair to bring that up. Jessie had vampire money, and Fred was probably scrounging from his allowance.
Fred thought this over as we walked. When we reached the doors to the cafeteria, he said, “So I guess I have to keep working at it.”
“At what?” I was confused.
“Winning you back.”
Oh, God, Blossom had been so right. He did really still think it was all about him.
The whole thing made me tired. “Fred, I’m super stressed right now. All I want to do is grab some food and get to my next class.”
“Oh,” he said, looking deflated.
I felt another wave of guilt wash over me. Fred was nice and cute, and I really should have been dating him instead of being faux engaged to a dead guy. “Thanks again for the flowers,” I said, squeezing his arm before I dashed into the cafeteria.
I knew I was giving Fred false hope. The healthiest thing he could have done was get over me and move on with his life, but I just couldn’t tell him that. Not with him looking so down. Besides, deep under my attraction for Jessie and my fear of being killed by vampires and the possibility that I was the reincarnation of some dead relative, I did on some level like Fred. Despite his jock exterior. Or at least, I would have liked him if I’d been living a normal life for a teenager. No such luck with that, though.
I couldn’t concentrate. We had a test in history, usually one of my favorite subjects, but I was pretty sure I’d bombed it. I kept thinking of things I needed to pack. Was I really going to go through with it? Was I really going to sneak off to Budapest with a vampire to face a jury of vampires? Was I insane?
I just couldn’t think of a way out of it. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life leaving the house only during the day. Eventually, I would slip up, and a vampire would get me. The best chance I had was to try to convince the Bishops. It was terrifying to think about—a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from. I had to trust Jessie. It was my only option. I had to believe that he would protect me if the Bishops ruled against us. A life spent on the run from vengeful vampires while being protected by a vampire sounded stressful. And here I thought high school was bad.
As soon as I got out of class for the day, my phone was ringing. I noticed as I went to answer it that there were a few messages waiting, all from my mom. And it was her calling again. “Hello? Mom?” I answered, knowing immediately that something must have been very wrong. My mom wouldn’t have been peppering me with phone calls otherwise.
“Aurora, it’s Grandma Gibson,” Mom said, her voice carrying a small tremble. “The nursing home called because she’s having a hard time. They need a family member over there right away. I’d go but I’ve got two counseling sessions this evening, and these girls are both really struggling. I can’t cancel on them at the last minute.”
“You need me to go over there?” I asked as I headed toward my car. No, no, no I shouted
in my head. I don’t want to see my crazy great grandmother. I don’t want her freaking me out even more than I’m already freaked. Not today of all days!
“Would you, honey? Please?” Mom said. “I would really feel a lot better if someone could check on her.”
“Of course,” I told her, desperately not wanting to go but knowing it was the right thing to do. “I’ll go right now.” It was the least I could do, even if it meant Grandma Gibson messing with my head. There was a very good chance it would be the last favor I would do for my mom, ever.
“Great,” Mom said with a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Aurora.”
I really did not want to deal with this new, future-predicting great grandmother, but I didn’t see how I had a choice. My mom was counting on me. She really loved Grandma Gibson, and I did, too, when she wasn’t completely freaking me out. On the way out of town, I stopped by our house and grabbed Fred’s roses. They really were pretty and would probably cheer Grandma up a little bit.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” the woman at the front desk said as I went to check in. “Lily has been having a very hard day.” After looking at my signature on the sign-in sheet she said, “She keeps asking for Colette. Will she be dropping by, too?”
“Um, no,” I had to tell her. “Colette died about eighty years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the lady said, appearing genuinely concerned. “Well, I’m sure seeing you will cheer her up. Especially bringing such pretty flowers. Aren’t you a sweetheart.” I wondered how much of a sweetheart she would think I was if she knew I was just ditching flowers from my ex-boyfriend.
When I got to her room, Grandma Gibson looked fine. She was seated at her table, as usual, messing with her cards. “Hi, Grandma,” I said, forcing cheerfulness into my voice. “How are you?”
“I am fine, Aurora,” she said, looking up from her game of what I had always assumed was solitaire. “I guess the real question is, how are you?”
“Great,” I told her. “I brought you some flowers.” I lifted the bouquet of roses a little in the air to draw attention to them.