Unwelcome

by Michael Griffo

  Arms extended, unsure of what to do with them, Ronan could not believe his sister was embracing him, he couldn’t believe she was here. This was not good, not good at all. He looked at Michael, who was clearly entertained by his inability to return Saoirse’s exuberant display of affection, and Ronan wished he could make him understand just how serious the situation was, how potentially dangerous, even if it looked like nothing more than an awkward reunion between two long-separated siblings. No need to get into all of that now, Ronan reminded himself. Keep it light, act like the annoyed big brother and maybe she’ll leave as suddenly as she appeared. “What are you doing here?”

  “Merde!” Saoirse shouted, “Don’t repeat yourself; it’s très boring.” Perfect! The worst way to make them think you’re sophisticated is to try to sound sophisticated.

  Ronan didn’t even notice her attempt. His focus was on making sure his voice sounded commanding when he spoke and not as unsettled as he truly was. “Answer my question and I won’t have to repeat myself.”

  Still unable to control her nervous energy, Saoirse rolled her eyes and tilted her head from side to side, making herself look like a toddler who couldn’t stand still. “Your last letter was so sweet, it made me realize that I hadn’t seen you in, like, forever, so I hopped a Chunnel train and here I am.”

  Dammit! Ronan cursed himself. He should never have written that letter; he knew it was a mistake, he knew it was a stupid thing to do.

  “So you did reach out to her like I suggested,” Michael said, beaming with pride. He then looked at Saoirse, his smile growing even wider. “Can I get a hug too?”

  He wants what?! Facing Michael, Saoirse felt her normally ruddy cheeks grow warm and knew they were turning a deeper shade of red. She examined him with a more skeptical eye and couldn’t hide the fact that she liked what she saw, nor could she stop herself, yet again, from trying to impress him with her foreign language skills, “Bien sûr,” she said. “That’s French for ‘of course’.” Since talking was obviously a failure, Saoirse threw herself at Michael and wrapped her delicate arms around him, her light, her energy consuming him. Ooh, he smells good, she thought, like fresh water and something else, something sweet.

  Michael was surprised by the gesture, even if he did misinterpret her girlish excitement for a lack of self-consciousness. To him, not only did Ronan and his sister lack any physical resemblance, their personalities couldn’t be any less similar either. Responding to Michael’s quizzical stare, Saoirse replied, “As much as I hate to admit it, I really do resemble my mother.” She was right, Michael thought, she was just as petite as Edwige. “If it weren’t for her black hair, she’d probably try to pass us off as twins.” Michael didn’t need to see Ronan’s expression. He knew the girl’s comment meant that mother and daughter hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, nor did they confide in each other.

  “Actually Mother’s a bottle blonde now,” Ronan informed her. “And I’m sure she’d love the world to think you two were sisters.”

  Briefly, Saoirse’s wide, round eyes looked as if they were going to cry, as if Ronan’s comment conveyed more than just its words, but soon the room was filled with her high-pitched laughter. “Blimey! That’s Edwige for ya, always trying to be something she’s not!”

  Watching his sister fall onto his bed in a fit of giggles, Ronan wished he could laugh along with her, enjoy her homecoming, but he knew that she never did anything without a reason, so he knew that she did not suddenly show up because he wrote a heartfelt letter that made her feel lonely. She was up to something. “I’ll ask you one last time: What are you doing here?”

  Sighing, Saoirse grabbed a pillow from their bed and covered her face with it. “Stop badgering me, Roney!”

  Ripping the pillow out of Saoirse’s hands, Ronan flung it across the room. “If you call me Roney one more time, I swear to God!”

  “Or what?! You’re gonna bite me in the neck and suck out all my blood?!” Stunned, Michael couldn’t believe what he just heard. Sure, brothers and sisters fought, knew exactly how to rile each other, but this was so, so blatant. How could she know that Michael was also a vampire? He didn’t think that was something Ronan would have communicated in a letter. Impishly shrugging off her outburst, Saoirse turned to Michael and whispered, “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “What about your secret, Saoirse?” Ronan faced his sister, his tone of voice and his expression further evidence that he was not as thrilled to see Saoirse as she was to see him. Briefly the light around her faded, but she was not yet ready to give up.

  “I want to see Ciaran,” she pouted. “I want to see my other brother, he’s so much nicer to me than you are.” By now she was practically skipping in place and when she spoke, it was more like a song. “Probably ’cause we’re both human beings.”

  Furious, Ronan grabbed his sister’s shoulders, forcing her to stop moving. Instead of looking upset, she smiled at him as if she was happy for the attention. “Listen to me, we have to get to class, so we don’t have time to babysit,” Ronan started. “Tell me the truth right now. Why are you here and what did you do?”

  Michael watched Saoirse’s expression and once again couldn’t tell if she was about to burst into tears or shrieks of laughter. Girls were truly an alien species to him. With great interest he watched her take a deep breath, exhale dramatically, and reach up to clasp her hands around Ronan’s neck. “I was going to get expelled from Ecole de Roaches, so I decided to perform a preemptive strike and run away.”

  Ronan grabbed Saoirse’s hands fiercely, and Michael thought he might break them in half. “You were going to get expelled?! Why?!” Michael wasn’t interested in Saoirse’s response. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t screaming out in pain; Ronan’s hands were like two vises around her wrists, his veins protruding, the newly obtained blood pumping down the length of his forearm, and yet Saoirse didn’t respond. It was as if she couldn’t even feel Ronan’s grasp.

  “Because my daft guidance counselor thinks I’m going to commit suicide.”

  When Ronan let go of Saoirse’s wrists, Michael thought they looked red. He used his preternatural vision to get a closer look, but he was wrong, they were unscarred. Then her words finally penetrated his mind and he couldn’t believe the coincidence. They had just fed on a woman who craved suicide and now here—no, Saoirse was too young; she couldn’t have any reason to end her life.

  Ronan, however, wasn’t convinced she couldn’t be telling the truth.

  Frightened, he looked at his sister, searching her eyes for something, any kind of proof that she was lying, that this was some sort of cruel joke. “Why?” he whispered. “Why would your counselor think that?”

  Whipping out her cell phone, Saoirse began texting and talking at the same time. “Because he’s a smarmy git. You know the type, pasty, middle-aged, has nothing else to do but make my life miserable.”

  Yanking the cell phone from out of her hands, Ronan waved it in front of her face, “I’m not our mother! I’m not going to listen to your lies and accept them as fact! Tell me! Why the bloody hell were you going to get expelled?!”

  Once again Saoirse faced off against her brother. “Oh, because I cut myself a few times!” Rolling up her navy blue sweater, she revealed, with more pride than embarrassment, a thin forearm that was decorated with several tiny slashes. Ronan wanted to look away, but couldn’t. The marks, deep blue, almost purple, each a few inches long, were mesmerizing. To Michael, however, the image was too painful. The marks looked way too much like the ones on his mother’s wrists, he had to close his eyes, lean against the wall to steady himself.

  “Saoirse, my God! Why? Why would you do such a thing?” The way Ronan was looking at his sister, his eyes a mixture of fear, concern, and sadness, was almost too much even for the cavalier young girl. She pulled her arm away and roughly pulled down her sweater, covering up the truth. There, no more scars, no more need to talk about them. But Ronan couldn’t let it go; he had
to know. He refused to be like his mother and allow something so urgent, so vital, to be ignored. “Please, Saoirse, tell me?”

  He really is a good guy, Saoirse thought, he really cares about me, even if, you know, he lets our mother dictate how often he can see me. It would be nice to share everything with him, let him know exactly why I wanted to come back, but no, a girl has to keep some things to herself. “It’s no big deal,” she began. “I may not be Miss Immortal, but I am not suicidal.”

  “But why the cutting?” Ronan sat on the bed next to his sister, letting the cell phone drop to his side. “I’ve heard about kids doing this, girls mostly, and it’s serious.”

  “It’s only serious if you’re doing it for attention,” Saoirse replied. “Or to, you know, cut yourself really deep that you hurt yourself.” She sounded as calm and detached as if she were reading a textbook. Then an idea popped into her head, a lie that would sound like a plausible story. “A lot of kids were doing it,” she said matter-of-factly. “You know how stupid girls can be when we have a sleepover. Somebody did it first, wrote her boyfriend’s name in her arm and by the end of the night, we all had scars. Of course I was the unlucky prat who got caught.” With downcast eyes, she waited to see if Ronan would buy her lie. He was silent. Well, at least he was contemplating her tale; he wasn’t refuting it outright. “That’s why they were going to expel me. Zero tolerance for self-mutilation,” she explained. “But trust me, Roney, I wasn’t trying to off myself.”

  His breathing steadier, Michael decided this wasn’t the time to dwell on his past. This moment was about Ronan’s present. From behind, he rubbed Ronan’s arm softly in the hopes that he would understand that it meant he should respond gently no matter how angry or scared he might be. Ronan appreciated the gesture, loved Michael for it, but he didn’t love what he was thinking. “We have to tell Mother,” Ronan said, then lied, “She’ll be worried sick.”

  Yeah, right, Saoirse thought, wouldn’t that be nice if it were true? “Worried about her daughter?” she shrieked. “That’ll be a first.”

  Ronan bit down hard on his lip, he couldn’t argue with her there. When Edwige dropped Saoirse off at boarding school in Normandy several years ago, she didn’t expect to see her again until graduation. And Ronan didn’t expect to have to act like a parent. He had his own problems and didn’t need to sort out Saoirse’s as well. Anyway, she looked fine, excellent in fact, so maybe this cutting thing was just a phase. She got caught and learned her lesson and that was the end of it. Yes, that worked for him, but something still had to be done, he couldn’t just let her bunk here, she was a minor and a runaway. “Well, I hate to say it, but you can’t stay here.”

  Looking at Michael, she teased, “Yeah, like I hadn’t already figured that one out, boyo.”

  Michael hadn’t seen Ronan blush in quite a long time. It was cute and helped draw Michael out from his melancholy, from his memories. He was about to make a suggestion, but the room was again filled with sound, not laughter this time but bagpipes. As Saoirse picked up her cell phone, she explained, “It’s the Irish national anthem. It makes the French barmy to know I cling to my heritage.”

  “We need to find you a place to stay.”

  “It’s Ciaran!” Saoirse screamed. “Yay! Now I won’t be bored to death anymore!”

  Despite the fact that Saoirse had interrupted their morning, almost made them forget their magnificent feeding and their eventful trip to The Well, would probably get them into trouble for being late for class, and might have some serious personal issues, Michael really liked this girl. She was refreshing, different, and she was part of Ronan, so whether she turned out to be exasperating or just plain fun, he wanted to see more of her. Right now, however, the only person Saoirse wanted to see was Ciaran. “He has a free period and he’s spending it with St. Albert,” she announced, clicking her cell phone shut. “Take me to him.” When Ronan glared at her in response, she opened her eyes even wider than they already were and added, “Please.”

  So that was it, Ronan realized, Ciaran was the one she really wanted to see. Suicide, cutting, it was all a cruel joke. “I’ve got it!” Saoirse exclaimed. “I can stay with Ciaran for a while. I know he wouldn’t refuse me.”

  Definitely not. “He already has a roommate,” Ronan explained. “And Nakano isn’t the accommodating type.”

  That was an understatement, Michael thought, but he knew who was. “She can stay with Phaedra. She doesn’t have a roommate and she could use the company while she’s recuperating.”

  Scrunching up her face, Saoirse asked, “She’s not, like, all contagious, is she?”

  Michael got the impression that he could explain exactly what Phaedra was and how she had recently come to spend a night in the infirmary but thought, due to their early-morning time constraints, he would leave out any controversial details. “Nope, mere touch of the flu. Contagiousness is over; she’s just been a little weak.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she had one final question. “Do you like her?”

  “She’s the only girl I’ve ever felt comfortable with,” Michael replied honestly. “Until now.”

  I’m not sure if you can hear me, Ronan, but I like this one, Saoirse said silently. I really hope he stays part of the family. “Okay, then, say hello to Phaedra’s new roomie.”

  In the distance they could hear the school bell ring; the impromptu family reunion had to end. Before leaving, Michael said he would talk to Phaedra, but assured them both she would welcome a new roommate. Outside, Ronan looked around and, when he was convinced they were alone, lifted Saoirse in his arms and raced to St. Albert’s. When he placed her down on the floor of the lab, she screamed so loud at the sight of Ciaran that she didn’t even hear Ronan say he would see her later during lunch. Fine, go to him; he’s the one you really came to see anyway. Ronan tried to catch their eyes but was unsuccessful. They were too busy reconnecting with each other, and when he left the room he shook his head dejectedly. Once again the favorite son was the outsider.

  Saoirse was so excited to see Ciaran that she didn’t ask why he shoved the bloodstained handkerchief with the lilacs on them into his drawer, she had so much more important stuff to tell him. After about ten minutes of prattling on about her horrid French boarding school, the horrid French food they fed them every day, and the horrid French language she was forced to speak with her superiors, Saoirse finally paused and was intrigued to find that she was embarrassed to see Ciaran staring at her arm. She must have absentmindedly pulled up her sleeve. Maybe she did it deliberately, whatever, it didn’t matter, the deed was done. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I would do such a horrid thing?”

  Ciaran didn’t have to ask. He understood all too well why people did things that to others seemed inconceivable. “I’m sure when you’re ready you’ll tell me.”

  Saoirse touched Ciaran’s hand. It was so soft, so simple, it almost made Ciaran weep. “That’s why I like you best, Ciar,” his half sister said. “You may not look it, but you really are the coolest.”

  Maybe I really have spent too many hours locked alone in this lab, Ciaran thought. The tiniest act of kindness makes me feel like I could cry. Wait a second, was that even a kind thing to say? “Um, thank you . . . I think.”

  For the first time since she’d arrived, Saoirse looked serious. “This room isn’t bugged, is it?”

  Ciaran had forgotten how infuriating privileged teenage girls could be—one second funny, then sincere, then just a little bit insane. “No, of course not.”

  “Don’t say it like you think I’m crazy! You know these vampire folk cannot be trusted.”

  For a split second, Ciaran thought about David. But no, he wanted Ciaran to work with him, he wouldn’t be spying on him. “No, this room isn’t bugged.”

  Relieved, Saoirse continued. “Okay, here it is. I started cutting myself to do some experiments on my blood to figure out, you know, why I am the way I am. But I’m no good at science. That’s why I came here, so you can do so
me tests on me.”

  Take that, Ronan. Our sister didn’t come to Double A to see you, she came here to see me, because I’m the only one who can answer the riddle of who she is. Wildly excited, Ciaran kept his expression flat; he didn’t want to make Saoirse think he wasn’t cool, after all. “You don’t have to ask me twice,” he said. “Of course I’ll help you.”

  This time when Saoirse hugged Ciaran, he hugged her back even harder, crying was the furthest thing from his mind. First David, now her. Finally people were discovering that he had talent, that he was worth talking to, that he was worth hugging. “I only have one stipulation,” Saoirse said. “This is our secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not Ronan, and definitely not Edwige.”

  Amazing, just as soon as a feeling of pride and happiness fills you up, a wave of sadness comes to knock it out of your system. “Well, you know, she and I hardly ever speak, so that . . . that really won’t be a problem.”

  If Saoirse could tell that her words hurt her brother, she didn’t let on. She had a day of adventure ahead of her, a day filled with freedom to do whatever she wished. She didn’t want to waste any more time in a stuffy lab. “Thank you, Ciar!” she cried, hugging her brother again before racing for the door. “I’m going to tour the campus and check out my new home. Let me know when you want to get to work!”

  “Make sure nobody sees you,” Ciaran cried.

  Standing in the doorway, Saoirse turned around. “Don’t worry, I may be a scientific curiosity,” she replied, “but I ain’t stupid!”

  Ciaran waited several minutes after she left before moving. Her new home? Oh, how he’d love to see Edwige’s response once she heard that news. But since Edwige didn’t dwell on him, he wasn’t going to dwell on her, he was going to do what he did best—what helped him feel worthwhile and important—he was going to use his mind. Reaching under his desk, he pulled out his notebook, found a clean page, and started to write some words: Saoirse, experiment, bloodline.