So You Think Your Sister's a Vampire? (The Chronicles of Cassidy Book 1)

by ID Johnson

  “You bet, Cass.” He continued to smile at me. “And… can you help me with algebra again, later on this week?”

  “Uh, yeah. Of course,” I stuttered, wondering if his help had anything to do with needing mine. “Just let me know what day.” I had piano lessons on Thursday, but he already knew that. Since football season was over, I didn’t have anything else on my schedule, and I didn’t mind helping him out. It was nice just to be in his presence, though I got the impression he knew that.

  The rest of the day was similar to first period. Even in the hallways, kids I didn’t really even know came up to me and asked if I knew anything else, anything different than what they’d heard. One girl reported that Sidney, one of my sister’s friends, had passed out at the funeral. I didn’t think that was true. Someone else said that Jack had screamed at the coffin as they were lowering it into the ground and then punched a tree. I was pretty sure that my sister would’ve mentioned that, although there was a lot that was going unreported, at least to me, lately.

  “Why can’t anyone think of another topic to discuss?” Emma asked before taking a bite of her sandwich. She had the same thing for lunch every single day. Ham and cheese sandwich, Cheetos Puffs, apple, bottle of water, Little Debbie Zebra Cake.

  Lucy and I always bought our lunch, and we were both glad that it was pizza day. There was an option where you could pick from a variety of fast food options at the “salad bar” but when there was pizza on the tray, you got a lot more food for a lot less cash. The brownie squares we had for dessert even looked a little bit like the ones my mom made, though I bet they didn’t taste the same.

  I’d already filled them both in on what little I’d gleaned the night before. Also, that morning, Cadence had told me she might not be there when I got back from school. She said she was going shopping with Eliza and might go straight to her new job, depending upon how things went. I had hugged her goodbye, but it wasn’t easy for me to think about what all of this really meant, and I doubted I’d have too many more opportunities to gather clues if my sister wasn’t home when I got there.

  “Are you nervous about your discussion with Dr. Sanderson?” Lucy asked, picking the pepperonis off of her pizza. She preferred cheese, but they didn’t have any left by the time our lunch period, the last of the day, got our trays.

  “I am,” I admitted. “I’m afraid he’ll be able to brainwash me again.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Lucy assured me. “As soon as you get done talking to him, you’ll call me, and I’ll unfreeze you.”

  Emma laughed. “Just like freeze tag. Remember when we used to play at recess?”

  I giggled. Recess seemed like a million years ago. Sometimes I couldn’t even believe we were in high school. I heard parents talk all the time about how their kids were growing up too fast, and now that all of his had happened with Drew, I was beginning to realize they were right. “I hope you can thaw me out,” I replied. “And that I can get some more information from him.”

  Lucy had revealed she’d found “tons” of information about “real” vampires online, though she wasn’t sure how reliable the information was. She was making notes that she would share with us later on, she’d explained, but for now, it didn’t seem like Cadence’s situation was quite as uncommon as I’d initially suspected. In fact, Lucy said, the more she read, the more plausible it seemed to her that my sister might actually be a vampire.

  That hadn’t sat well with me, but I was at the point now where I was beginning to think that at least having an answer would be better than continuing to wonder what was going on with her. Even Emma seemed to think there was a slim chance that Lucy could be right, which had blown my mind. Apparently, she’d done as thorough a search as possible online for a street drug that might have the qualities this one would need to have, and she wasn’t able to find anything. She’d also said she’d found something else but hadn’t told us what in the hallway.

  Lucy must’ve remembered at the same time I did. “Em, what were you going to tell us earlier? What did you find?”

  “Oh, right.” Emma dusted her orange fingers off on the napkin her mother tucked into her lunchbox every morning. Emma’s mom still did a lot for her. “You won’t believe it. I don’t believe it, and I’m the one that found it.”

  “Try us,” I said, thinking there wasn’t much I wouldn’t believe at this point.

  “Okay.” Emma pulled out her phone. “I was looking for information about Dr. Joplin. There wasn’t much. I had to really dig. I didn’t know how old he might be, though I think he looks like he’s not old enough to be a doctor at all.” I agreed with her there. She had been flipping through her phone. “I kept going back until I found this.” She turned her phone around to face us, and Lucy and I huddled together to see the screen.

  It was an old picture of a group of men in suits. I couldn’t tell exactly what I was looking at, though I assumed the picture had to be about a hundred years old. “What is it, Emma?” Lucy asked, her forehead as crinkled as mine.

  Emma let out a deep breath and turned her phone to swipe. She turned it back around.

  This time, the picture was zoomed in on just one man. It was much grainier, but he looked vaguely familiar. His hair was different. Rather than being tall and spiky, it was brushed to the side, more in line with the fashion of a century ago. I felt my mouth go dry. Though the picture was blurry, I was pretty sure this was the same guy I’d seen on Eliza’s social media friend’s list.

  “Uh, so you think that’s the same Dr. Joplin that Eliza knows?” Lucy asked tentatively, glancing up at her friend, the same one who’d been convinced the day before there was no such thing as vampires.

  Without a word, Emma withdrew her phone again and swiped. She turned it back to us.

  There was no picture this time, just text. “Dr. James Joplin, Boston Massachusetts, graduate of Harvard Medical School, 1883, aged 15.”

  I had to read it several times, trying to let it sink in with each pass, but the information seemed stuck somehow between my eyes and my brain.

  “Wow,” Lucy finally uttered, and Emma withdrew her phone. “So… according to this… if that’s the same guy—and it looks like the same person, though his hair is different, and he looks slightly older—Jamie is, like….”

  “A hundred and forty-six years old,” Emma concluded for us.

  I took her word for it. Her math was never wrong. “How....?” That was all I could say.

  “Maybe it’s his great-great-whatever-grandfather,” Lucy offered. I was suddenly confused. It was as if Emma agreed with me that this could be a case of vampires, and Lucy was the skeptic. But then I realized she was playing devil’s advocate.

  “I could do a facial recognition test,” Emma offered. “I could scan both pictures and see if it’s the same guy.”

  “Can you do that?” I asked. I knew Emma had access to computer programs most people did not, but I didn’t realize she had that sort of capability.

  “Sure,” she shrugged. “I thought about doing it last night, but I wanted your opinions first.”

  “Do it,” Lucy agreed. “And let us know.”

  “Okay.” Emma put her phone in her pocket and checked the time before opening her Zebra Cake.

  I tried to turn my attention back to my pizza but my stomach felt unsettled. I saw Liam across the cafeteria and wished he’d look in my direction. Maybe that perfect smile could calm my nerves.

  “Stop staring,” Lucy mumbled, and I took a deep breath. I hoped my afternoon classes would go by quickly, all of them except for algebra, and that I could survive my discussion with Dr. Sanderson. I took a sip of water and tried not to dwell on the fact that my sister might be friends with a guy who was alive during both world wars. Everything just seemed to keep unraveling.

  Chapter 16

  My dad always dropped me off at school on his way to work, and my mom picked me up. It was nice that she worked at home, or whatever the proper phrasing was these days, so that I didn’t
have to walk or ride the bus. I felt like it was the next best thing to having my own driver’s license, which I wouldn’t get until after all of my friends were driving, thanks to my late birthday. Still, that would be next year. For now, I was content to be sitting in my mother’s minivan so long as she didn’t play any embarrassing music too loudly.

  I didn’t say much of anything on the way home, only answered my mom’s usual questions like, “Did you have a nice day?” and, “What did you eat for lunch?” I did not mention Dr. Joplin, nor did I ask about Dr. Sanderson.

  Turns out I didn’t need to. As we approached the house, I saw a rider-less motorcycle parked out front. It seems my mother had no problem letting this strange man hang out in our house while we were gone. A sickening feeling landed in the pit of my stomach. What if he’d seen my notebook?

  “Are you okay, Cassidy?” my mother asked as she pulled into the garage next to Cadence’s car. I hoped that meant my sister was still here but realized it meant nothing; Eliza could’ve picked her up.

  “I’m fine,” I managed. I forced a smile. “Just a little nervous. That’s Dr. Sanderson’s bike, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” my mom nodded, returning my smile. “Elliott is a very nice young man, though, Cassidy. You have nothing to worry about.”

  I swallowed and shoved the van door open, hoping she was right. If he really was a vampire, and he found my notebook, would he do something to make sure I didn’t tell anyone else?

  My mom came around the van, and I let her open the door to the house. I suddenly felt incapable of speech. She pushed the door open and I followed. As she stepped out of the way, I saw him standing in our living room in front of the sofa, his hands shoved deep down in his faded blue jeans. He was wearing a green T-shirt beneath his black jacket that made his eyes stand out, and his hair looked slightly more ruly than last time. The smile on his face did a little to ease my nerves, but I still hesitated to step forward.

  “Hey, there, Cassidy,” Dr. Sanderson called as my mom gestured for me to give her my backpack so she could hang it up for me. I did, taking very small steps toward the living room. “How was school?”

  I shrugged. It took some effort, but I pressed out a squeaky, “Fine.”

  “I’ll go get you a bottle of water, dear,” my mother said, clearly aware of my cottonmouth.

  I was almost to the living room now. There was no turning back. He didn’t seem to know about my notebook; either that or he was waiting for my mother to leave to destroy me. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at the couch.

  Looking at it as if I’d never sat on one before, I sidled up to the piece of furniture before slowly lowering myself down, leaving a good foot or two between us. He raised a dark eyebrow but then pulled up his jeans at the thigh and sank back down himself, slightly amused.

  My mom returned with two bottles of water. We both accepted them, and I began to drink mine while Elliott sat his on a coaster on the coffee table. I wondered if he wasn’t able to drink liquids that weren’t red and sticky.

  “Your parents said you wanted to talk to me again,” he explained, turning slightly to face me.

  Readjusting so that I was now basically in the corner of the couch, I nodded. “I had some questions about what happened to Drew, and I thought you were the best one to answer them for me.”

  He looked surprised. Perhaps he was of the opinion that his brainwashing should’ve lasted longer. Maybe I should’ve continued to believe everything he said without question, but I really thought he was my best hope for getting any sort of answers at all. Now, sitting across from the hulk of a man, I thought better of it. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him here at all, especially now that we had evidence that one of his associates was about a hundred and fifty years old.

  “You have questions?” He asked it as if no one had ever had any further inquiries after he’d originally spoken to them. “It’s fine that you do, but I already assured you that you don’t need to worry about what happened with Drew.” He looked deeply into my eyes, and I noticed that his seemed to be sparking just a bit, like there was movement within his irises. It was slightly unsettling. “Drew died, Cassidy. It’s a shame, but these things happen. We just need to let it go and move on.”

  I stared at him for a long time, and then realized I was nodding along with what he had said. “Right. It’s just one of those things.” I felt my mind starting to slip away from me. It was as if I didn’t know what I’d been thinking all along. Of course, it was fine that Drew had died. It wasn’t a big deal. I needed to let it go and move on.

  He continued. “Your sister has to go away for her job for a little while, but everything will be fine with that, too. Just go on with your life. You don’t need to worry about Cadence.”

  My head continued to bob up and down. “I don’t need to worry about Cadence. She’s fine. She’s just working.”

  He inhaled deeply and held my gaze for a moment, as if surveying his work before he gave a sharp nod. “I think that should answer your questions.”

  Feeling relieved, I let a wide smile break across my face. “I feel so much better,” I said. “Thank you so much for coming over.”

  “Anytime,” he replied. Elliott also looked reassured. He looked around the room for a moment, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself now that his work was done.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. With a sigh I pulled it out and glanced at it. It was a text from Lucy. I almost put my phone back in my pocket without even reading it, but something about the fact that the message was in all caps caught my attention. I slid to read the entire text as Dr. Sanderson pulled himself up off of the sofa.

  “CASSIDY FINDLEY! DO NOT LET HIM CONVINCE YOU EVERYTHING IS FINE! IT IS NOT!!!”

  Lucy’s words brought the wall I’d built around my mind crashing down. How had I just sat there and let Dr. Elliott Sanderson convince me that everything was just hunky dory when Drew was dead, Cadence was weird, creatures were crawling in and out of her window, leaping form the second story at all times of night, and something was up with Jack. I slipped my phone into my pocket and shook my head violently to clear it. “NO!” I shouted.

  Dr. Sanderson was standing next to the coffee table. He turned and looked at me as if I was the one who had suddenly turned into a monster. “Beg your pardon?” he asked, his eyes wide.

  I grabbed my head between my hands. Before I could say anything else, my mom came rushing in from the kitchen. “Cassidy, are you all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Elliott assured her. “I think she just got a text message about something at school that upset her.”

  I glanced up at him, wondering at first if that’s what he really thought, but I could see a flicker in his eyes that let me know to go along with it.

  My mother said, “Oh, Cassidy is fine. She just got a text message about something at school that upset her,” and spun on her heels and walked out of the room.

  Alarmed, I stood, turning to look at her, and then back at the doctor. “So… that works on my mom, too?”

  “Why didn’t it work on you?” he asked, and I could see that he was concerned, like he thought I’d broken his secret superpower or something.

  I had no idea whether or not I could trust this man. I’d just met him less than a week ago. He had already lied to me more times than I could count, and I’d just seen him brainwash my mom. “Will you please be honest with me?” I asked, avoiding eye contact.

  Elliott cleared his throat. He sat back down, this time in my mom’s recliner, a few feet away from the couch. He seemed to mull a few things over before he said, “I’ll be as honest as I can, Cassidy, but there are some things I’m not at liberty to divulge.”

  Whether or not that would be good enough remained to be seen. I moved to the far end of the sofa, closer to him, and sank down. “What is going on?” I asked, my voice just above a whisper. “Where is my sister—what is my sister—and what happened to Drew?”

  He licked his lips and then bit
down on the bottom one, like he was thinking, trying to weigh his answer. His eyes darted back and forth for a few seconds, and I almost thought he was having an internal conversation, debating what he could tell me, with himself. “Cassidy, I really can’t answer any of those questions,” he finally said. I let out a loud sigh of frustration. “But I can tell you everything is going to be fine. That’s not bull this time. It’s a fact. Your sister will probably only be working with us for a few weeks, and then, hopefully, she’ll go back to school, and life will be back to normal for you and your family.”

  I really wanted to believe him, but it was hard when I couldn’t trust a word he said. “Can I record this conversation so I can reference it later?”

  He laughed at me. “Uh, no. Why would you need to do that?”

  “Because you keep lying to me!” I proclaimed, frustrated. I shouldn’t have asked. I should’ve come into the room with my phone set to record.

  “Cass, I’m not lying to you, I promise. I have been saying a few things to reassure you that everything’s going to turn out okay. But, for the most part, it’s not been lies.”

  “So, Drew really fell rock climbing and cut her throat?” I folded my arms and tipped my head in such a way to get my point across.

  “Some of what I’ve told you may be… embellished a bit.”

  I pursed my lips at him. “And you can’t tell me what really happened to her.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He let out a deep breath and ran his hands through that unruly hair, leaving several curls standing up on end. He didn’t seem to mind. “Because my boss won’t let me.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Aaron?”

  He nodded. “And your parents. They don’t want you to worry about any of this either.”

  “Why don’t you just convince them that they do?”