“Good thinking, Lindsey—turning the hose on the roof like that before things got out of control.” Mary Lou winked.
Sam marveled for a minute at the Commander, who was in full form. He was confident that she would handle the situation. In the distance, he could hear the frantic whirring of sirens. The fire department would arrive soon, but Sam had other things on his mind. Slipping back into the house, he ran to the backyard. Water lapped in the pool, which was now half empty.
Sam began a careful inspection of every tree, leaf by leaf, that lined the fence next to the Gradys’ yard. When he got to the oak in the southeast corner of the lot, he stopped.
There they were: the red rubber bottoms of Fern’s slip-on Vans. He could make out Fern’s school uniform among the leaves. Fern had climbed high up before, but never this high. Sam estimated her height at around thirty feet. He caught sight of Byron’s shaggy white tail right beside his sister. Fern had managed to coax the dog up with her once again.
“Fern, I know you’re up there,” he yelled.
He received no response.
“I knew it had to be you—that you must be in a tree—or how else would you have been able to see both the fire and the water?”
“Why don’t you just leave me alone?” Fern said, her voice drifting down to Sam.
“Fern, please come down! I want to talk to you,” Sam said, pleading with his twin sister.
“Go away!” Fern yelled.
“I know you’re the one that saved Mr. Summers’s house. You moved the water, just like you did with Dana Carvelle. Only it was a lot more water this time,” Sam said, turning around toward the half-empty pool, amazed at just how much water his sister had used. He turned back around and squinted at the tree. The breeze rustled the leaves.
“Fern?” He could no longer make out his sister. “Fern, where’d you go?” Byron whimpered, having been left all alone, thirty feet up in an oak tree. Fern McAllister had disappeared for the second time that day.
When Fern had teleported from the offices of Kimble & Kimble to the oak tree in the backyard, she had developed a slight headache. When she reappeared this time, her head ached so much she thought it might split right down the middle. Part of her figured this would be a fitting end to what was turning out to be a pretty miserable week.
She was in the fetal position, practically eating dirt. The last thing she remembered thinking to herself as she hid in the oak tree was I want to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but here, it turned out, was in a far-flung corner of Anderson’s Grove. She needed to get her ability to teleport under control, and she needed to do it quickly.
In the distance, she could hear the faint cry of Lindsey Lin calling her name. Coughing as she rose to her feet, Fern sensed someone standing behind her.
“I have been waiting,” said a voice so low it sounded like the deep rumbling of an earthquake.
Fern almost jumped out of her skin. She stumbled into the trunk of a nearby tree. A few oranges dropped to the ground around her from the impact she’d had on the trunk. She looked down, only to be greeted by several dead birds gathered under the tree.
“No!” she shrieked, unable to contain her terror, backing away from the oranges and birds.
She turned around and caught sight of a man, over seven feet tall, towering above her. A dark goatee, neatly trimmed, framed his thin red lips. Shiny locks of black hair fell to his shoulders. His eyes were the color of wet clay and his fingernails were long and clear. He wore a black bow tie and dress shirt, red suspenders, and a coat with black coattails. A gold pin in the shape of a star shone from his lapel. Fern rubbed her eyes to make sure her rough landing hadn’t caused her to hallucinate. The lanky man extended his left hand. On his wrist he wore a golden watch, polished and shiny. Fern recognized the watch immediately, though she made no motion to shake the man’s hand.
“I am Vlad. Pleased to meet you,” he said. His eyes looked like dark gray clouds with no delineation between pupil and iris. The deep chill in his voice made Fern’s knees buckle.
“Do not be afraid, Fern. I am not going to hurt you.” The man smiled, revealing gleaming white teeth flanked by a pair of magnificent fangs. He was very formal in tone and his speech had a thickness to it. Fern couldn’t place what kind of accent he had; it was unlike any she had heard before.
“That watch,” Fern muttered, thinking aloud.
“You recognize it?” Vlad peered at Fern. Fern’s first instinct was to run and get as far away from this man as possible. However, he was twice her size, and she was sure if he wanted to hurt her, there was little she could do to stop it.
“I’ve seen it before,” Fern said, unsure how much to reveal. The man felt oddly familiar to her, though. “You’re a vampire?”
“Yes,” Vlad replied, almost gently. This was the first vampire Fern had met with actual fangs.
“Why are you here?” Fern asked. The dark man’s head was nearly at the level of the top of the blossoming trees.
“I have been searching for you for a long time, Fern.” Vlad’s voice was low like a voice that narrated a movie. “When you arrived at Pirate’s Cove, I knew you were the girl I had been looking for all these years,” he said.
“So that was you?” Fern said.
“Me borrowing someone else’s body, yes. I was making my annual visit to the cove. Of course, I tend to raise a lot of suspicion looking the way I do, so I had to change while I was exploring the cove.”
“You sound so different now,” Fern said.
“Unfortunately, if I borrow a body, I also inherit the voice. So I was forced to talk to you in that ridiculous manner.” Vlad gave Fern a good-natured smile.
“You can morph into other people?” Fern felt nervous energy course through her at the thought that the beach bum was actually Vlad—that she had talked to him without knowing it.
“For a short time, yes. I suppose you could describe it that way.”
“But you’re wearing the same watch now,” Fern said. “You changed into all his other clothes.”
“You are very observant for one so young.” Vlad smiled at Fern the way a proud father would. “Well, I always make sure I take my watch off and put it back on after I’ve morphed. It was a gift from my father. It has great sentimental value.”
Fern couldn’t avert her eyes from Vlad, or the real Vlad. Although there was something about him that inspired mistrust, his fangs, although sharp, didn’t seem threatening. He looked like he belonged in a Charlotte Brontë novel.
Fern’s hands were trembling. She didn’t know if Vlad intended to harm her or not. He hadn’t harmed her the first time they met, Fern reasoned. He might have some answers for her.
“Why does everyone think you’re looking for me? Are you looking for me?”
“I knew your mother,” Vlad said intensely.
“My mother?”
“Your true mother. Phoebe Merriam.”
Fern was speechless.
“Fern,” Vlad said, “there are certain things you must know.”
“Who are you?”
“That is unimportant—it is who you are that I am concerned with.”
“Well, who am I, then?”
“This,” Vlad said, opening up his coat and taking something from his breast pocket, “is the best clue I have to who you are.”
He held a piece of paper out in front of Fern. It was a simple drawing of a rock within a cave. The rock was black, like obsidian, and appeared to be about the size of an ostrich egg. The cave was shaded with brown pencil. It was an exact replica of the drawing she had seen in the disappearing chamber at Pirate’s Cove.
“What you are looking at is the Omphalos Oracle,” Vlad said, pointing to the center of the sketch, right at the rock. “Also known as Rhea’s Rock.” Vlad placed the paper in Fern’s hand. She took it. “The true extent of its powers have never been tested, but it is believed to be the most powerful oracle in all the world.” His words and tone were dramatic.
“W
hat’s that got to do with me?”
“The stone tells the future, Fern. What it has predicted has always come to pass.” Vlad paused. “The last known prophecy predicted by the stone, according to most estimations, is about someone much like you,” he said, his eyes flickering.
“Me?”
“You are unlike any other vampire that has come before you.”
“It says all that on this?” Fern questioned, holding the drawing up to Vlad.
“It takes some interpreting.”
“I don’t understand,” Fern said, confused and scared.
“Thousands of years ago, Rhea’s Rock predicted a day in the future when the heavens would meet the earth. On that day, according to the prophecy, any vampire born was to have a special significance—a significance that could not possibly be measured.”
“When the heavens meet the earth?” Fern said, lost.
“A little over twelve years ago, there were dozens of severe electrical storms, all occurring at the exact same time, spanning every part of the globe. The heavens met the earth on that day, you see?” Vlad said, patiently. “Vampire births are extraordinarily rare. But eleven vampires were born during the storms and they all seemed to have characteristics predicted by the Rock. All were easy births, and all the infants were born with a caul. People began to believe that the prophecy had been fulfilled. These children were thought of as somehow special, though no one was sure how. They were called the Unusual Eleven. Of course, there are still many people who feel that this was not a true fulfillment of the prophecy—that the so-called Unusual Eleven are no more unusual than any vampire. Some refer to it as the Unusual Hoax.”
“And you think I’m one of these children? I’m an Unusual?”
“You have been disappearing, have you not?”
“Well, yes.”
“Every one of the Unusual Eleven, it is said, will have the ability to ‘move without moving.’ Teleporting, you see? No vampire that has come before you can do such a thing. No human being, for that matter. The Unusual Eleven will to have the ability to lead thousands, and to calm any beast, including the hecatonchires.”
“The heca-what?”
“Hecatonchires. It is a rather fearsome creature. Very rare. I hope you never have the misfortune of running into one.”
There was silence between them.
“Do you not realize, young Fern?” Vlad almost seemed anxious.
“Realize what?”
“You will grow to be one of the most powerful vampires the world has ever seen! Everyone will seek to influence you.”
Fern blinked hard. The weight of Vlad’s words was almost more than she could bear. She stumbled backward and sat on the dirt beneath her.
“Why . . . why are you telling me all this?”
“Because your life is changing, and you cannot continue to live with these Normals. You do not belong among these people anymore, Fern.”
“This is my home,” Fern said, almost as if she were asking a question.
“Those Rollens—Alistair Kimble, Kenneth Quagmire, Joseph Bing. They are not trying to protect you. They only want to promote stability—to preserve the pathetic little lives they have carved out for themselves. They file off their fangs as soon as they go through transmutation. They hide who they are, desperate to appear more like Normals. Mark my words, they will betray you to protect themselves and preserve their precious assimilation!” Vlad’s voice hardened as he lowered his head and narrowed his eyes.
“And the McAllisters? Do you honestly think they are going to love you and care for you now that they know the truth about you? Normals have never understood our kind. They are incapable of seeing us as anything more than beasts. It will not be long before even your own mother looks at you as she would a monster!” Vlad sneered once more, flashing his white fangs. “You cannot love something that terrifies you!”
“That isn’t true!” Fern exclaimed.
“I have not come to upset you,” Vlad said, much calmer now. “But there is a reason you teleported here, Fern, in front of me. Deep within you, you know where you belong. You must be tired of having no one you can trust to tell you the truth. I know this will not be painless, but you are a Blout just as your mother was a Blout.”
“A Blout?” Fern got up, her heart pounding. “My mother?” According to everything Fern had heard, Blouts were terrible creatures. Was that why Lindsey had assumed she was one? Blouts were also very dangerous. How dangerous was Vlad? Why hadn’t he tried to hurt her yet? She was poised to start running.
“There is nothing to be done now, Fern,” Vlad said. “I will give you time—time to think and choose. At some point you will realize that you are nothing but a burden to your family, even if they decide not to throw you out into the cold after they realize the full extent of your differences.”
Vlad made it seem as if Fern had been clinging to her past life by the brittle tips of her fingernails. “I don’t believe you about any of this!” His bleak portrait of her future pushed her beyond reason. She was near tears now. “I don’t want to choose anything.”
“I am afraid you must, dear child,” Vlad said. He placed his large hand on Fern’s head. Fern’s head tingled. “Sometimes we have no choice but to make a choice. This has been your fate since birth. You can neither deny nor escape it!” Vlad’s eyes misted over and turned into shimmering opaque pools.
The terrors that haunt regular children—boogie monsters, kidnappers, bullies—they were far in the distance now. Here, in Anderson’s Grove, a monster with sharp fangs was real and so much more terrifying than the worst thing Fern’s imagination could invent. Worse still, a part of her wondered if this man was the only one giving her the truth.
Lindsey Lin’s voice was growing nearer. Fern sensed that she was in the grove.
“I will be back in one month’s time,” Vlad said. With a flash of light, Vlad was gone. A large California condor stood in his place, squawking loudly and expanding its large black wings before flying away. It was the same bird that had appeared at the window the previous week. Fern shuddered. Vlad had been watching her. She folded the drawing of Rhea’s Rock and stuck it in the waistband of her pleated skirt.
Vlad soared high above San Juan Capistrano, hundreds of feet above its red tile roofs and chestnut hills. He glided through the air, pleased, knowing he had planted the seed of doubt in Fern’s McAllister’s mind and hoping he’d not pushed her too hard too soon. Now he knew the only thing to do was to wait.
Chapter 13
the disappearance directory
Fern wasn’t entirely forthcoming about her activities after she’d disappeared from the offices of Kimble & Kimble. Over takeout enchiladas, she described Vlad, and her family obsessed over every detail. When she explained that he’d left by turning into a great big bird and flying away, Sam gasped and shouted, “The bird at the window!”
Eddie, having not been present at the Kimble & Kimble roundtable, had to be filled in on all things vampire related. He took all the news in stride, telling Fern that she was “even cooler” than he thought she was and vowing to “beat up” Vlad or “shoot him out of the sky” should he ever approach Fern again. Anyone who knew Eddie could tell that he meant every word. Mrs. McAllister made Eddie vow he would not tell a soul—including Kinsey. Eddie, of course, promised. Though he told Kinsey most everything, this was a pledge he intended to honor.
What Fern did not describe at the dinner table, however, were certain details of her conversation with Vlad. She told them about Vlad’s proclamation that Fern would grow into a powerful vampire and mentioned the prophecy in vague terms. Though she also spoke of the fact that Vlad thought she was part of the Unusual Eleven, she didn’t tell them he was the same person as the vagabond on the beach. She also left out his predictions of her alienation from everything she loved and his assertion that she, like her mother, was a Blout. Why she left these facts out was no great mystery: Her family would of course deny such accusations, but that wouldn’
t put her mind at ease. They’d only overcompensate and make her feel worse. How they acted over the next few days would tell her more. One pitying or disgusted look from her mother or Sam or Eddie might confirm Vlad’s prediction. After learning the secret of her adoption, Fern felt a distance from her family like never before. She wondered if it would ever be fully bridged. But why did she feel the need to keep some things from her family? Was she seriously considering Vlad’s proposition? Was it possible she felt closer to the monsterlike Vlad because he understood who she was? She banished all these thoughts from her mind.
As the meal was winding down, there was a knock on the door. Mrs. McAllister rose to answer. The door opened and then shut. Mrs. McAllister had gone out to the front porch to speak with the unseen visitor. The McAllister siblings looked at one another. Without saying a word, Fern, Sam, and Eddie got up from the table and snuck toward the door. They leaned against it and listened in.
“I don’t understand why I can’t thank the kids in person,” Mr. Summers said. “I hear they’re responsible for saving my house.”
“They’re not home, Wallace.”
“I saw them in there,” he insisted.
“How did you see them, Wallace? Have you been in my shrubs looking through windows?” Mrs. McAllister’s voice grew angry.
“You haven’t been returning any of my phone calls, Mary Lou. I thought that things were going along great. All of a sudden, your tone changed after you had me over for dinner.”
“It’s been very busy around here.”
“I don’t understand why you won’t be honest with me.”
“You want me to be honest with you?”
“Of course,” Mr. Summers said earnestly.
“I’m very glad your house wasn’t more severely damaged. But I would like you to leave immediately,” the Commander said. “I can’t handle this right now. I need to focus on my children. Please understand. I’ll call if things calm down.”
“If?”
“Good night, Wallace.”
The conversation ended as abruptly as if the Commander had bellowed “Dismissed.”
The Otherworldlies Page 16