Sophomore Year

by Douglas Rees

  “Perhaps you’d like to tell Justin and Ileana about your art,” Mom said.

  “No,” Turk said. “There’s no point in talking about it.”

  “I would be very interested to hear,” Ileana said.

  “Sure would,” Justin agreed.

  “It’s personal,” Turk said. “But I’ll tell you what I would be interested in talking about. I’d be interested to hear about being a vampire.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I told you about that word.”

  “That’s what interests me,” Turk said. “One of the things. If it’s what you are, why not use it? It’s just a word.”

  “Just a word,” Justin said.

  “As a lawyer, I know something about words,” Dad said. “They’re weapons.”

  I could feel the tension building in the room. Most of it was mine. But there was enough to go around.

  “I will try to answer your question,” Ileana said in her softest, most polite voice. “It is, as you say, only a word. But it is the word by which your people burned, and slew, and persecuted mine for thousands of years. Not without reason. We were blood-drinkers, and we still are. And in the days before it was possible to store blood against the times when we would need it, we would do anything we could in order to get it. We paid in gold for a little blood from a willing gadje. And if no willing gadje could be found, we took what we needed anyway. And around this terrible need you wove a black wreath of stories of our greed, our ruthlessness, our magical powers, and used it to strengthen your hatred. Still, we managed to live among you. We were human beings, after all. We hid ourselves in plain sight, made alliances with some of you when we could. But always the need, and the fear of the need, our fear of it and yours, was there. And this was almost yesterday. Less than two hundred years ago were we able to feed ourselves without violence for the first time. Things are better now. We are trying to change. But the word vampire makes us remember in our bones all the dark years when to be one of us was to be cursed. Perhaps that is why we do not think it is friendly to use it.”

  “Stake through the heart, you know?” Justin said. “There are places in this town where that happened.”

  His hand went to the silver eagle on his lapel.

  “Fantastic,” Turk said. And if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn she sounded excited. Maybe even happy. “Do you guys want to see my art?”

  Justin, Ileana, and I all looked at each other. We couldn’t say no now without being as rude as she’d been.

  “Yes,” Ileana said.

  Turk stood up.

  “Let’s go up to my place,” she said.

  We all followed her up to the attic. What had been the attic. It was on the way to being something else now. A studio, a room, a private world, maybe. Anyway, you sure knew Turk was there.

  The windows had been covered with newspapers. A painting was propped in each one. The boxes had been shifted around and turned into a kind of sofa and a couple of chairs. Turk’s sleeping bag was unrolled on the sofa. In one corner, another box, turned on its side, held her clothes, neatly stacked up, with The Scream beside it. Her easel was in another corner. And running along the length of the ceiling was a long black tissue paper snake with two heads.

  “I like it,” Dad said, looking around. “Kind of light and airy. Feminine touch. Comfy.”

  “The Snake of Life,” Ileana said, looking up at the paper snake. “The jenti tell stories about this creature.”

  “Yeah,” Turk said. “But this is like the Aztec version. It turns up in their culture, too.”

  Ileana nodded.

  “Beginning and end. Not to be defeated or destroyed,” Ileana said. “That is what it means to us.”

  “Not to mention the extra fangs,” Turk said.

  “Is that tissue paper?” Mom said quickly.

  “Yeah. They call it papel picado,” Turk said. “I’ve been thinking about this thing since I came back from Mexico. This was the first chance I’ve had to do something about it.”

  She had done this, today. In what, an hour? Nobody could say my cousin wasn’t a fast worker. Rude, and about as much fun as glass on your tongue, but she was good at what she did.

  There was a painting on the easel. It was the head and shoulders of The Scream repeated over and over in different sizes.

  Ileana went over and studied it under the dim light.

  “They want to move,” she said.

  “Like they want to get away from that snake, maybe,” Justin said.

  “They can’t,” Turk said. “No feet.”

  Her other paintings were lined up along one side of the attic. Ileana went over to study them and we all followed.

  Basically, they were every kind of way you could think of to paint The Scream and two-headed snakes. Or they were blotches of turquoise and black smeared together to make—smears, I guess.

  “Do you exhibit?” Ileana asked after she’d walked up and down the line several times.

  “I’ve had some shows,” Turk said.

  “She’s won some prizes,” Mom said.

  “I am not surprised,” Ileana said. “You are a true artist.”

  “See what you mean about the fish, though,” Justin said. “Wouldn’t fit in in a place like this.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Turk said. “Angelfish are aggressive, aren’t they?”

  “Well, if you don’t feed ’em the tubifex worms, they can start chasing other fish around the tank,” Justin said. “They get hungry for protein.”

  “Perfect,” Turk said. “If the deal’s still on, I want two big black ones. I’ll put the tank over there and keep the light on at night.”

  “Uh, okay,” Justin said. “Two big black ones it is.”

  He looked like he was afraid he was turning over a couple of children to an unfit foster mother. Or maybe a wicked witch. But Justin would never go back on a promise.

  And then a weird thing happened. All of a sudden, Ileana and Turk started to have this long talk about art. It seemed long. (It didn’t really go on more than ten minutes.) A lot of words tumbled into the room, like chiaroscuro, and Fauvism, and Rothko. And for those minutes, the rest of us weren’t there.

  And when they were over, Turk went over to her easel and pulled off the painting and handed it to Ileana.

  “Here,” she said. “You get it.”

  “I would not have asked,” Ileana said. “But thank you. Will you sign it?”

  Turk did, with a little sort of twist beside her name that I guess was supposed to be the snake.

  Mom suggested coffee, and we all went back downstairs.

  I kept waiting for my cousin to do something else insulting, like ask Ileana and Justin to fly around the room, but she didn’t. In fact, I had the feeling that, somehow, up in that attic, she and Ileana had connected. Ileana loved anything that came from people’s imaginations. And Turk had plenty of that.

  So we finished the coffee and Ileana and Justin left, and Turk went back up to her belfry.

  Mom followed her up there to try to talk her into accepting some pillows and blankets, since she wouldn’t accept a normal room with furniture.

  “That could have been so much worse,” Dad said, and poured himself another glass of wine.

  “Lucky us,” I said.

  Dad was right. Compared to what Turk was capable of in the trouble department, it hadn’t gone badly. Now if I could just get through the next three years at Vlad Dracul.

  5

  There’s a thing the jenti do that’s called the Rustle. It’s nothing you can really hear. But if you hang around them long enough, you can tell when it’s happening. It’s a way they have of telling each other something is changing. Asking, “Have you noticed?” and “What do you think about it?” without ever moving their lips. Jenti may act as though they couldn’t care less what’s going on, but they always know when something is.

  And Turk was something to Rustle about. As soon as she pulled up in her little black Volksbug an
d parked in a slot that was big enough for a stretch limo, and the four of us got out, it started.

  New kid, coming in with Ileana (the Princess) Antonescu, and Cody (the Original Gadje) Elliot, and Justin (World’s First Swimming Jenti) Warrener, and who does she think she is, one of us? And if she doesn’t, what does she think she is?

  It was a fair question. Turk had decked herself out in black leather, even though the day was hot, and from her ears and around her neck dangled shards of mirror that flashed and glittered every time she moved. She wore the jewel Ileana had given her hanging on her forehead, and on her neck she’d drawn two black dots and the words OPEN HERE.

  Rustle, Rustle, Rustle.

  “What’s with all the cars?” Turk said. “Why don’t they just fly to school?”

  “There’s an old law against flying inside the town limits,” Justin said. “Goes back to before there were airplanes. Not really enforced anymore. Still, it’s not done very much.”

  “If it were me, I’d fly everywhere,” Turk said.

  “A lot of folks would think you were showing off,” Justin said.

  “Damn right,” Turk said. “I would be. Why not?”

  “We jenti say, ‘Gold hidden is gold kept,’” Ileana said.

  “Gold’s no good unless you spend it,” Turk said.

  Because Turk was brand-new, she had an appointment with Mr. Horvath, the principal, as soon as we hit the door.

  “Maybe I should wait for her,” I said to Ileana and Justin when she went in.

  “Good idea,” Justin said. “See you in English.”

  “And at dinner,” Ileana said. Lunch at Vlad Dracul was always called dinner, and was laid out like a banquet.

  The gong for first period sounded its low note through the halls, and the jenti disappeared into their classrooms. I was left alone with the dim light, the marble walls, and the scent of cedar from the doors.

  I had never thought it would feel like I belonged at Vlad, but I had to admit, that was exactly how it felt now. It would be too much to say that I was glad to be back. But it was familiar, and I knew I had a place here. A place I’d earned.

  The sound of quick, heavy steps coming down the stairs made me look up.

  Gregor Dimitru came down them like a tall, angry wolf, and brushed past me with a short nod.

  I had a sort of touchy relationship with Gregor. He’d touched me on my first day at Vlad, when he’d started to beat me up. Then Ileana had marked me with her protection. Another touch. Then she and I had fallen for each other, and Gregor had felt frozen out, even though Ileana had never wanted him for a boyfriend, or for anything else. So he and I had spent last semester, up to the last day, basically hating each other. Right at the end, things had improved a little between us. I had no idea what to expect now.

  “Hey, Gregor,” I said.

  He nodded and went past me into the office. I heard the door to Horvath’s inner office open and close. A minute later, an odd sound came from behind it. It might have been a sort of strangled yelp. And it did not sound like my cousin had made it.

  A second later, Turk and Gregor were standing beside me. Horvath was right behind them.

  He smiled when he saw me. It was not a friendly smile.

  “Master Cody,” Mr. Horvath said. “Welcome—back.” Horvath was not a member of the Cody Elliot Fan Club any more than Gregor was.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The door closed.

  “Come with me, please,” Gregor said to Turk.

  “No wolf, so I get this guy to show me around,” Turk said. “See you, Cuz.”

  I had my own classes to get to, but I couldn’t leave without knowing what had happened in Horvath’s office.

  “What did you say to Horvath?” I whispered.

  “Not much,” Turk said. “He asked me what I was interested in. I said, ‘Rage, despair, and vengeance.’ Then he asked how I saw myself fitting in at Vlad Dracul. I said I didn’t. He didn’t seem to like that, so I said, ‘It’s cool. If I have to go to school for a few more months, I’d rather do it with a bunch of vampires than anybody else.’”

  Gregor’s pale skin turned dark.

  “Listen, Turk. You have got to stop calling people vampires,” I said. “It’s rude.”

  “I don’t care,” Turk said.

  “You should,” I said.

  “Oh, should. That’s my favorite word,” Turk said. “Know what should really means, cousin? It means ‘I don’t like what’s happening now.’ That’s all.”

  “No it doesn’t.” I was practically speaking in a normal voice now. In the halls of Vlad, that’s like shouting. “It means—it means—Look, your English teacher is Shadwell. He writes poetry and textbooks. Ask him what should really means.”

  “Gee, do you think I should?” Turk said.

  “It is customary not to speak above a whisper in the halls,” Gregor said.

  We were at the top of the stairs, where most of the junior and senior classes were.

  “This is the class of English,” Gregor said. “You are to enter.”

  Gregor was from Europe, so sometimes his English got a little odd. Usually, this was not a good sign. It tended to go with his skin turning dark, and his beating people up.

  They went in, and I went back downstairs. Gregor and Turk. If Horvath had wanted to put the two wrongest people at Vlad together, he couldn’t have done better. It was like putting one of Justin’s angelfish in with something else, a clown loach, maybe, and waiting for the fight to start.

  I got through the first three periods without hearing that Turk had been expelled, or thrown out a window. I collected my first batch of impossible assignments in math, biology, and history. Ah, yes, history.

  Mr. Gibbon, the same teacher I’d had last year, told us our semester grade would be based on the book, treatise, or dissertation we would write on a subject from New Sodom history. That was in addition to the readings we would do from Hidden Heritage: The Jenti Presence in American History and the essays we would write on what we read, and the thousand pages of outside reading we would have to do.

  “The addition of New Sodom history to the curriculum of this class is an idea of mine,” he said in the faraway voice he always used. “The topic of local history is endlessly fascinating in itself, of course. Moreover, what was once dismissed as mere antiquarianism has become a legitimate field of historical inquiry. And in the case of our unique community, it is, perhaps, especially intriguing. It is an area in which one may make original contributions to the study of the past, and I look forward to receiving yours.”

  Sometimes I wondered if Mr. Gibbon was boring on purpose, or if it just came naturally to him, like his flaky skin and gaunt, bony face.

  Then came dinner, a subject in which I was as good as anybody at Vlad. When I got to the dining hall, it was just the same as it had been last year, with white-coated waiters and silver trays. The only difference was there were no water polo jocks shouting and throwing food.

  Ileana and Justin were already at a table. They had saved places for me and Turk.

  “How’s it going so far?” Justin asked me.

  “Same as last year. Impossible,” I said. “I have to write a book or something on New Sodom history. Sheesh. I don’t know anything about this place that you didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, there’s a lot to know,” Justin said. “Pretty interesting, some of it.”

  “Yeah, but a whole book,” I said. “What’s that, seventy thousand, a hundred thousand words?”

  “More or less,” Justin said. “Maybe you ought to do a play. Plays average twenty thousand.”

  “Maybe a musical,” I said. “Except that I hate musicals.”

  “I could sing in it,” Ileana said. “I will be taking a class in vocal music.”

  Justin’s mom, who had been teaching Ileana piano for years, had a new part-time job teaching a couple of classes in the music department.

  “Musical history,” I said. “I could tell Gibb
on it was a new form.”

  Turk came into the dining hall. I beckoned her over.

  “I thought this place was going to be hard,” she said as she sat down.

  “What did Shadwell say about should?” I asked her.

  “He said it was an interesting insight, and everybody should write an essay on it. Five thousand words.” She stretched and said, “If I can just keep awake, I’ll do okay here.”

  “So, you like it okay, then?” Justin asked.

  “Too posh,” Turk said. “Way too posh. But apart from that, what’s there not to like?”

  “Well, some people think the work is kind of hard,” Justin said.

  Turk shrugged.

  “Not so far,” she said.

  “It is good that you feel so confident,” Ileana said.

  “Where’s Gregor?” I asked.

  “I told him to get lost,” Turk said. “How hard is it to find your way down a hallway? Besides, he’s a jerk. That phony accent.”

  “It’s not phony,” I said. “He talks that way. He’s from Europe.”

  “Some kind of exchange student?” Turk said.

  “There are dormitories for students from overseas,” Ileana explained. “Jenti from all over the world come to Vlad.”

  Gregor came in at that point. He was with his friends Ilie, Constantin, and Vladimir. They sat down together and bent their heads toward him. Gregor was angry about something, and I had a pretty good idea, in a general way, what it was.

  One of the waiters hurried over to their table.

  “What’s up with that? That waiter acts like he’s afraid of him,” Turk said.

  “Not afraid,” Justin said. “Gregor’s pretty high jenti. Some folks don’t mind showing him they know it.”

  “Jerk,” Turk said.

  Then Gregor stood up and stalked over to our table.

  I tensed, figuring our on-again-off-again acquaintanceship was off again, but he wasn’t coming to see me.

  “You spoke something in world history third period,” he said to Turk.

  “Yep,” Turk said.

  “What did you mean when Mr. Von Ranke asked, ‘What is the essence of the jenti situation in the world?’ and you said, ‘Ingratitude’?”