by Gayla Twist
He came from the sky, descending as gently as a snowflake. Jessie simply floated down from nowhere, landing with no more sound than a cat made leaping on a bed. “Hello,” he said, giving me a shy smile.
“Hi,” I said. “How did you know where I lived?”
He countered with, “How did you know I was at the library?”
“I asked you first.”
He went to answer, but then paused. “Does this count as question number one?”
“No,” I told him.
I started to climb out onto the roof to join him when he stopped me with, “Don’t come out here,” sounding quite urgent.
“Why not?” I frowned. “I’m pretty sure it’s strong enough to hold both of us.”
“That’s not it,” he told me. “I asked to meet you here so you could stay inside your house. As long as you don’t come out, I can’t get to you.”
I decided to ignore the “I can’t get to you” comment and pushed ahead with, “So, it’s true about vampires? I have to invite you in?”
Jessie sighed, his broad chest sagging just a little as if he was somehow giving in to something he had been struggling against. “Daniel would stake me if he knew I was doing this,” he mumbled to himself. Then he walked over to the window and settled on the roof a few feet away from where I knelt. “Yes, it’s true, and I’m counting that as your first question.”
“That’s a rip-off,” I informed him. “You’re like a genie swindling me out of my three wishes.”
He flashed a boyish grin. His hair was ruffled, probably from flying around in the middle of the night, I assumed, and he looked more handsome than ever. Becoming quite serious, he said, “You know you can never tell anyone about all this, right?”
“I know,” I assured him. “Besides, who would I tell? No one would believe me.”
“Good, then what other questions do you have?”
“What happened to that creepy guy who was harassing me in the library parking lot?” I asked.
He tried to squirm out of it with, “What guy?” but I leveled him with a look and shook my head to let him know I wasn’t buying it. “Fine,” he capitulated. “I flew him out into the country, then took him very high over a cornfield and let him drop.”
“You didn’t.”
“I caught him before he hit the ground,” he assured me. “And then I made it very clear that if he valued his life, he was never to harass, threaten, or intimidate another female ever again.” Jessie folded his hands and hooked them over one knee. “Then I gave him a little money and told him to go start a new life somewhere far, far away, but that I’d be watching him no matter where he went.”
“He must have been terrified,” I gasped.
“He seemed to be,” Jessie said, with much satisfaction. “But I hate men like that, getting his jollies out of frightening women. It’s so ungentlemanly.”
I had to laugh. “That’s quite something, coming from a vampire.”
Jessie cocked his head to one side to get a better look at my face. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he asked.
“Who says I’m not?”
“I do,” he insisted. “You don’t seem to be afraid of me at all.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I assured him. “But I am less afraid of you than I probably should be. I mean, you did save me from drowning and from that pervy vampire who wanted to drink from Blossom and a couple more times. In general, you’ve saved my life more than you seem to threaten it.”
“Just don’t trust me, okay? I mean, not completely. Because I don’t.” It was dark in our backyard, and I couldn’t make out all of him clearly, but there was a little ambient lighting from the streetlight on the corner, and I could see the expression on his handsome face. He looked anxious, afraid, but I could tell it was not for himself.
I nodded my consent, and we sat there in silence for a few moments. “How did you become a vampire?” I finally asked.
“It wasn’t that hard. I come from a vampire family.”
“You...” I thought over his words. I wanted to say, What? but that was a question, so instead I said, “I don’t understand. I thought you had to be bitten to become a vampire. I didn’t know it ran in families.”
“Vampirism runs in families, but it isn’t hereditary,” he explained. “Usually, one member of a family becomes a vampire. And then, when he figures out that eventually everyone he’s ever loved will die and he will just keep on living, he sometimes turns the people he is closest to. And then there’s a chance those people will go and do the same thing. In some families, it happens generation after generation; in others, the people are less selfish, and the vampirism doesn’t spread beyond the first group infected or even the first person infected.”
I thought about what he’d said. If he was being truthful, and I had no reason to doubt him, keeping a vampire family going for more than a generation would take a lot of family planning. Careful not to form a question, I said, “Your family probably goes back a couple of generations.”
Jessie laughed. “I see what you’re doing,” he informed me, “and some of these have to count as questions.”
“Okay, fine. I don’t understand. How does it work? Can vampires even have children? I’m probably just getting this from legends and movies and stuff, but I did think you could. How did your family become a vampire family?” I mentally kicked myself for not being more concise. I’d asked three questions when I could have just asked one.
“No, we can’t have children once we’ve turned,” he said with a sigh. “As far as my family, my grandfather was made a vampire back in the eighteen-seventies. He was twenty-four at the time, but he already had two daughters and a son. Because he came from a wealthy family, he was able to secure blood without arousing too many suspicions.” I was about to say something, but Jessie cut me off with, “I’m not saying he didn’t kill people. I’m just saying his position in society allowed him to kill selectively. People who wouldn’t be missed. When my mom was still almost still a girl, he forced her into an arranged marriage with a wealthy businessman. She had two boys and a girl. Then, when she turned twenty-four, he turned her. He did the same with both her siblings. My uncle made it through, but my aunt died during transformation.”
“What about your dad?” I ventured to ask.
Jessie shook his head. “Once there were heirs and my mother was turned, there was no more use for him.”
“Oh,” I said, not really knowing what else to say.
“Grandfather was a cruel and selfish man. He bullied my mom into turning my brother when he was twenty-four, even though he and his wife never had any children.”
I made sure not to ask what happened to the wife. “What about you? You’re not twenty-four.” He looked as seventeen as any kid in my class, only better dressed.
“No, there was an outbreak of scarlet fever when I was seventeen, and I came down with a bad case of it. We were living in Hungary at the time. Hitler was starting to make trouble in Europe, and my grandfather saw the signs. He had just finished shipping the castle to America to be rebuilt and was eager to get away. We’d already booked passage on a steamship and everything. My mom offered to stay behind and nurse me through, but Grandfather didn’t trust her. He knew she would try to spare me the fate of the Vanderlinds if she could. So he turned me.”
“But you didn’t have any children,” I said.
“No, and neither did my brother. My sister was younger than me, so my grandfather intended to force her to have a large family.”
“What happened?”
“While we were crossing the Atlantic, my grandfather was discovered feasting on a cabin boy. The other passengers were horrified and threw him overboard in the middle of the ocean. We never saw him again.”
“Didn’t the passengers come after you, then? I mean, you were his family.”
“No, my mother had insisted that we all book passage under different names and then pretend not to know each other during the voyage. That wa
y, if one of us was caught, the others would be safe.”
“She sounds very smart.”
“She is very smart,” he smiled. “Smarter than my grandfather, at least that one time.” In response to my questioning look, he replied, “She’s the one that sent in the cabin boy.”
I was horrified. Not that she wanted to get rid of her own father, he sounded like a monster, but that she would sacrifice a child. Reading my face, Jessie quickly added, “The boy lived, in case you were wondering. And when we arrived in America, it was discovered that a distant relative he never knew existed had left him a bit of money, so he was able to leave his maritime ways and go to school. He became an engineer.”
“Where is your sister?” I asked. I had met his brother, Daniel, at the party.
“She died of old age many years ago. My mother never turned her.”
“Wow,” was all I could manage for several seconds. “And here I thought my family was screwed up, but we just have the basic Dad-leaves-Mom-for-a-younger-woman thing going on.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jessie said. He made a gesture like he was going to reach through the open window and squeeze my hand, but then withdrew. I didn’t know if that was because I was on the inside of the house or because he just thought better of it.
“It sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” I tried to play it off like it was no big deal, but my voice was a little quavery so he probably didn’t believe me. I hated thinking about my dad.
“The Bronte Family were vampires,” he said casually, but I knew it was to get my mind off my father.
This left me so stunned that I forgot to avoid asking questions. “You mean the writers? Wuthering Heights? Jane Eyre? Those Brontes?” Jessie nodded, but I still couldn’t take it in. “I thought they all died of consumption.”
“Actually, one of them was a vampire. I’m not sure which one; either Branwell or Charlotte would be my best guess. Anyway, someone in the family became a vampire and started turning the others. Most of the sisters were pretty devout. Once they discovered that they were the undead, they refused to eat and slowly starved to death.”
“Oh, my God. That can happen?” I was surprised, although I don’t know why.
“It used to happen quite frequently,” he assured me.
It was challenging to summon up the courage to ask my next question, but I knew I had to. “How do you eat?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“We have blood drives,” he replied in a matter-of-fact voice.
“You do not.”
“We do,” he insisted.
“How is that even possible?”
“Well, that’s where coming from old money really pays off.” Jessie shifted his position to hook his folded hands over his other knee. “A subsidiary of one of our corporations arranges blood drives all over the country. Most of the blood goes to hospitals that need it, but a portion goes to us vampires, who also need it.”
“But that’s dishonest,” I said, frowning. People thought they were doing good by donating blood. Not supplying food for the undead.
“I know,” Jessie agreed. “But we keep a lot of vampires from being hungry and, believe me, you do not want a world full of hungry vampires.”
I shivered, remembering the crazed look in Viktor’s eyes. “You’re probably right.”
There was a gentle knock at my bedroom door. “Aurora?” my mom said, before opening it. There was just us two females in the house, so we walked into each other’s room all the time.
“Uh, hi, Mom,” I said, getting to my feet.
“What are you up to?” she asked, stepping into the room.
“Nothing,” I told her. “Just looking out the window.”
“I thought I heard you talking to someone.” My mom glanced around the room like she expected to see someone’s shoes peeking out from under the drapes.
“Nope, just me,” I said. “I was practicing my Spanish vocabulary. Maybe that’s what you heard.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look convinced. After a moment, she added, “Anyway, I’m headed to bed. Goodnight, sweetie. I love you.”
“Goodnight, Mom. Love you, too.”
After she closed the door, I turned to look back out the window, but the roof was empty. Jessie was gone.
Chapter 13
The disappointment I felt that Jessie had left was staggering. It was as if someone was squeezing my heart. But why? I couldn’t explain it to myself. It wasn’t like I hadn’t had hot guys blow me off before. Or even not so hot guys. Freshman year, I had a date actually ditch me at a school dance. Now that was humiliating. But I had so much been enjoying my conversation with Jessie. Not only because it was fascinating, but because I felt good being near him.
It took three hours of thrashing around in my bed with the sheets twisting around my legs before I was able to fall asleep. Even then, I didn’t get any rest. I had a horrible nightmare, one I used to have all the time when I was a little girl but that fortunately went away for the most part when I hit puberty.
In my dream, it was dark—the pitch black of night. I was barefoot and running as fast as my legs could carry me through some type of wooded area. My lungs ached from the exertion, and there was a strong stitch in my side which I was pressing on with my hand in order to keep going. Something was after me. I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a beast. Maybe something that was a bit of both. Either way, it had long, sharp teeth that were eager to tear into my flesh.
At some point, I stumbled and fell. Too exhausted to go any further, I tried to hide behind a log and quiet my ragged breathing as much as possible. There was a moment of pure silence, when all the creatures of the night ceased to sing their lullabies. And then the creature was on me, grabbing me, forcing me down, pushing my head back. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. I tried to fight him, but my blows were sluggish like I was punching through water. I knew I was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. The creature was delighted by my terror, laughing and mocking my fright. Just as it was lowering its head to tear out my throat, I saw them, its eyes, the animal’s dead, gray eyes.
I woke with a shriek as my radio alarm clock started blasting me with information about the weather. It took a few seconds of thrashing around to realize I was alone in my room; it was morning, and it was going to be a beautiful day.
“What are you doing tonight?” Blossom asked over burgers and fries. Juniors and seniors are allowed to leave campus for lunch on Fridays, so we decided to indulge in a little fast food. Before I could swallow the bite I had just taken, she added, “And don’t tell me you're still grounded because I won’t believe you.”
“Nope, I’m on parole,” I told her. I actually was going to re-use the grounded excuse, but she anticipated me. “Why, is Jimmy’s cousin still in town?”
“No, he’s gone. And you totally missed out,” she informed me. “Completely hot.”
“My loss,” I said, dipping a fry in ketchup.
“But the three of us could hang out. Jimmy would be totally cool about it.”
I tried not to roll my eyes.
“So...?” she said, waiting expectantly. “Do you want to do something? Are we best friends or not?”
“Don’t give me that crap,” I told her. “You know we’re best friends. I’ve just been focused on other stuff lately. Besides, hanging around while Jimmy Stevens tries to jam his tongue down your throat isn’t exactly my idea of a good time.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “It won’t be like that.”
I leveled her with a look. “Blossom, I’ve been a third wheel on your dates enough times to know that’s exactly what it’ll be like.”
“Okay, fine,” she relented. “What if I ditch Jimmy?”
I’d known Blossom for way too long to think that was ever going to happen when she was in the throes of boyfriend madness. “Why don’t we do a bake-a-thon on Sunday? I could look up some new cookie recipes,” I suggested, instead.
“Fine,” she grumbl
ed. “But you’re being such a drip lately.”
I knew I could get Blossom off my back with the call of the chocolate chips. We both had a ridiculous sweet tooth; mine just revealed itself around my hips a bit more than Blossom’s. The truth was I wanted to be home in hopes that Jessie would return. I still had his watch, and I hadn’t asked him anything close to a hundred questions, so I figured there was a good chance.
At school, I started taking on a lot of extra credit work in all of my classes. My grades were improving by leaps and bounds, but I needed more work to keep me from obsessing over Jessie. And to forget my dream from the night before. I’d had that nightmare hundreds of time as a child, but there had never been the eyes. I hated that my brain had decided to add that alarming detail.
That evening, Mom and I watched The Breakfast Club like we’d planned. It’s one of the few teen movies I’d ever seen where I preferred the jock over the bad boy. Although, I did find it weird how, in most Hollywood movies, girls are encouraged to like boys who are obviously not good for them. Or at least, they wouldn’t be good for them in real life. I had no room to talk. I was obsessing over a vampire.
I couldn’t concentrate on the movie. I kept thinking I heard someone landing on the roof, so I kept running upstairs under the excuse of needing the bathroom. After my third trip, Mom said, “Are you feeling okay? You don’t have a bladder infection or anything, do you?”
“No, I’m fine,” I told her. “I just had a salty lunch and chugged a bunch of water earlier.”
“Then why aren’t you using the downstairs bathroom?”
Oops! She’d noticed. “I uh...” My brain went scrambling. “I read an article that said you should always use the upstairs bathroom so that you have to climb the stairs every time. Get a little more exercise.”
“Oh.” She thought about it. “I guess that’s kind of a good idea. I might do that.”
We’d started the movie early, so it was over by eight-thirty. “Do you want to watch Pretty in Pink?” Mom asked as she deleted the first film from our DVR.
“Maybe tomorrow,” I told her, getting up. “I’ve got a book I want to read.”