The gate opened, and I drove through.
I took the ramp onto the highway, and now it was nothing but the road and the fences on either side for an hour and twenty minutes, as long as it took me to get home.
As I drove, I tried to convince myself that I should become a vampire.
But it would be wrong to ask Desta to do that. She’d be breaking the vampire’s rules, and we might both get in trouble.
And besides, I didn’t want to be a vampire. There were advantages to it, like the ability to live a very long time, perhaps forever, but I was going to become a werewolf, and that meant that I would live a long life anyway. Wolves aged slowly from what I understood. I would not be immortal, but I didn’t think I wanted to live forever anyway. Life ceased to mean anything if it never ended.
No, I wasn’t going to be a vampire.
I was sure of it as I got off at the exit for my hometown. I was admitted at the gate easily enough, and then I drove straight to my parents’ house and parked in the driveway.
It was odd, I mused. I’d only been gone for six months, and yet this was my parents’ house now, not mine, not home. Of course, the apartment I’d left behind wasn’t home either. The only home I had was beyond the fences.
My mother met me at the door with a big hug. “Oh, Camber, you’re home!”
I hugged her back, and I thought to myself that I should probably tell her about the call. She deserved to know. She was a good mom. I’d never felt as close to her as I might have, but that wasn’t her fault, I didn’t think. It was the fault of whatever it was that was in me, my wolfness. I had never really belonged with these people, and I had always known it.
She pulled back, holding me at arms’ length. “Guess what? Desta has invited us to the city for dinner tonight.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Tonight?”
“Yes, you’d better go and get changed. We’ve got to leave in about an hour.”
“Oh,” I said again. “You didn’t tell me this.”
My mother ushered me inside, shutting the door behind me. “Well, I know. I kept forgetting. I always mean to call you or text you, sweetie, but it slips my mind.”
“It’s okay, Mom.” I set down my suitcase, looking around. The house looked the same.
“You just get on up to your room,” said my mother. “I can’t wait to see Desta. It’s been since May of last year.”
“It has been a long time,” I said. Desta was always my parents’ favorite. I never minded. I still don’t. I love Desta too. I climbed up the steps to my bedroom, but it was no longer my bedroom. There was a bed in there, but the rest of the room had been converted into an exercise room with a stationary bike and a treadmill facing a TV fastened to the wall.
Huh.
I went across the hallway to look at Desta’s room.
Yeah, they still hadn’t touched it. My mother cleaned in there, but she left it exactly the way Desta had otherwise. It was like a shrine or something. I sighed. What did it mean? I knew that my parents loved me, but maybe they had always felt it too, the way that I didn’t belong.
Of course, that didn’t make sense.
If it was the call, only the call, why did Desta fit in so well and not me? She’d felt the call too, after all.
I didn’t know. There was something off about me, anyway. There was something about me that set me apart from others. But perhaps it was better not to dwell on it.
I changed my clothes and put on some makeup. Whenever we went to visit Desta, my mother insisted that we get a little dressed up, because the city always seemed so glamorous. But no matter what we did, we didn’t fit in there, not among the vampires, who were beautiful and unearthly.
It only took me about a half hour to get ready, and then I went downstairs.
My father was in the living room. “Oh, Camber, you look lovely.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
“I’m so excited to see your sister, aren’t you?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, and I was.
“Oh, how was your trip back from school?”
“Fine,” I said. But I couldn’t help but note that this was the last thing he seemed concerned about. Like my mother, he favored Desta as well.
* * *
We arrived at the city after a two-hour drive. I had spent most of my day in a car, and my limbs felt cramped, my bottom sore from sitting for so long.
The city always seemed like some kind of glittering fairy land to me when I was younger. Before Desta turned, we never went there, but we would sometimes drive past when we were on the highway going on vacation or to visit my grandparents, who had since passed on. It was all tall buildings that glittered in the sun and lights that glittered in the night.
After Desta became a vampire, we were admitted inside for the first time.
Desta lived in a penthouse apartment in one of the tallest buildings in the city. It was luxurious and beautiful, decorated all in muted blues. Being inside there was like living in the heavens, and all of her furniture was so soft it could have passed for fluffy clouds. Even so, I never quite felt comfortable in the place, and I often got the impression that Desta didn’t either.
As a new vampire, and one who shouldn’t have been made to boot, she should not have had such an expensive apartment, but it had been a gift from the vampire king himself. I gathered that the king considered Desta a special favorite and did nice things for her because of that. But what that meant for Desta, I was not sure. Did she like the king as well, or did she feel pressured to pretend to like him?
I wasn’t sure what happened to new vampires. Perhaps if she had not found favor with the king, she might have been killed. Perhaps it was all very dire for her.
It was another reason why I couldn’t ask her to turn me.
I expected Landon Bowie, my sister’s boyfriend, to greet us at the door, but it was another man who I didn’t recognize.
“Hello,” he said, grinning at us widely. “Can I take your coats?”
I had often noted that my sister’s boyfriend tended to act like he was a servant, and that was because he sort of was. I didn’t understand it exactly, but when a vampire took blood from a human on a regular basis, a bond formed between them, a romantic bond. But many of the vampires had numerous humans that they kept for such purposes and they also had these humans doing menial labor for them, which the humans seemed to do without complaint, so rapturously were they in love with their masters.
As a young vampire, my sister wasn’t allowed to have numerous humans living with her, at least I didn’t think so. Perhaps this man was an addition. Perhaps Landon was in here somewhere as well.
“I’m Jack,” said the man. “You must be Desta’s family.”
Desta swept into the entryway, holding out both of her arms. “You’re here! You’re here!”
Then there were hugs and greetings, and she introduced Jack as her boyfriend.
“What happened to Landon?” I said.
Desta looked away. “It didn’t work out.”
What the fang did that mean? Had she killed Landon? I’d always liked Landon. He used to tell very funny jokes at the dinner table. Plus, I was sure that my sister adored him. Maybe she had been thrust into the relationship with him because he was a human, and because she needed his blood, but she really cared about him.
Still, I knew that sometimes vampires lost control and killed humans.
It was purportedly why we all had to donate blood to the blood banks, so that vampires would have a steady stream of blood to take the edge off and keep them in control. But of course, they wouldn’t only drink blood from the blood banks. Desta said it didn’t taste as good.
Jack put a hand on Desta’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
Desta put her hand over Jack’s hand. “It’s all right.”
“But you’ve said that no one can mention Landon’s name,” said Jack.
“My sister is allowed,” said Desta, smiling at me.
&n
bsp; “Is he… all right?” I said. I wanted to say alive.
“Of course,” said Desta. She huffed. “I didn’t kill him. For heaven’s sake, Camber, what do you take me for?”
Both my parents turned to look at me in shock and horror.
“Sorry,” I muttered, looking down at my feet.
“Well, come on,” said Desta. “I’ve got dinner ready in the dining room.”
Vampires could eat human food, but they didn’t have to. Desta usually joined us in a meal when we came to visit, but she never ate much. I had once asked a lot of questions about it. What happened to food that vampires ate? Was it digested? For that matter, what happened to the blood they drank? How did that sustain them?
Desta didn’t know the answers to any of my questions. She eventually threw up her hands and said, “It’s magic, Camber, all right?”
And from then on, I had known I should be quiet and not ask any other questions, because I was being annoying. Some people noticed when they were annoying other people, but I never seemed to. I was oblivious to so much.
I wondered if Desta would somehow smell it on me, that I was a werewolf, but then I realized that I was mixing up vampires and werewolves. It was wolves who had a keen sense of smell. Vampires did not.
Over dinner, we talked all about Desta, and what she was doing with her time. She didn’t have a job or anything—vampires never did—but she had been working on decorating some rooms for King Viggo, because he had asked her to, and she talked a lot about the things she had deliberated over, from the color scheme to the kinds of fabrics on the upholstery to the carpet. It was very important that she get it right, because she couldn’t disappoint the king.
My parents were riveted by the conversation, nodding and asking questions all the while, really drawing out the explanation of what she had done.
I was bored, and I knew that I could never stand being a vampire if room design was all that one did.
Even so, I was happy to see my sister.
When we left later that evening, I clung to her as we said goodbye. This would be the last time I would ever see her.
“What’s gotten into you?” she said, looking into my eyes.
“Just that I miss you,” I whispered.
“Oh, I miss you too, Camber.” She cocked her head. “You know you can pick up the phone any time.”
I nodded. Would I be able to do that when I was in the woods, when I was a wolf? I wanted to. How could I find a way to keep my cell phone? No, it was hopeless. There was no way I could do that. I hugged her again, even tighter, and she embraced me too.
When she pulled back, there was concern in her eyes. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She was putting it all together. She knew that I had felt the call.
I let go of her, stepping backwards, not meeting her gaze.
“Camber,” she said in a quiet voice. “If you wanted something from me—”
“No,” I said. “Nothing. I think I have to accept…” I couldn’t continue.
She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but then she stopped. She nodded once. “All right. Take care of yourself, then.”
CHAPTER THREE
“What was that about?” my father asked in the car on the drive back.
I was in the back seat, staring out the window at the moon. It was almost full. It would be full soon. “What was what about?”
“You and Desta at the end there, when you were saying goodbye,” he said. “It seemed very important to both of you, but I could swear you were speaking in code.” He chuckled.
“Nothing, Dad,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I thought she seemed well,” said my mother. “I worry about her all the time, but she seems to have landed on her feet. She’s designing rooms for the king, after all. How many people can say that?”
“Absolutely,” said my father. “Desta’s done very well for herself.”
“When I thought she was going to be a wolf, it broke my heart,” said my mother. “But she found a way, and I’ve always been so grateful.”
“Yes.” My father reached across the car to pat her thigh.
“But I still worry. Of course I worry. She’s a vampire. If she needed help, there would be nothing I could do for her.”
“She’s fine, Margery,” said my father. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Maybe not,” conceded my mother. “But I think I always will. It’s what mothers do.” She laughed a little. “Thank goodness we have nothing to worry about with you, Camber.”
A lump rose in my throat.
“Yes, you’ve never given us a moment of trouble,” said my father. “Even as a baby, you were such an agreeable child.”
“Mmm,” said my mother.
There are four albums of baby pictures of Desta and only half of one of me. People say that there are always more baby pictures of the first child, of course, but I sometimes wonder if I was too agreeable of a baby. They forgot I was there, and I didn’t bother to remind them.
I cleared my throat. “What would you two think if I, um, were to travel?”
“Travel?” said my mother. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if I dropped out of school and went off on my own for a while,” I said.
“Well, who do you think is going to pay for that?” said my father.
“I’m not asking for money,” I said. “I’m only saying that if… if you didn’t see me for quite a long time, and I wasn’t reachable at all, would you…would that bother you?”
“Of course it would bother us,” said my mother, twisting around from the front seat of the car. “Why are you saying this? You can’t drop out of school. You’ve barely started school.”
“Your grades seemed fine at midterms,” said my father. “Has everything gone badly since then? What’s happened?”
“No, my grades are fine,” I said. “At least, I think they are.” I had kept up with my schoolwork even as I began to feel the call, perhaps in spite of it, as though if I worked hard enough, I’d be rewarded by being allowed to keep my life, such as it was. “I’ve kept up with my studies. Don’t worry about that. That’s not important anyway.”
“Your schooling is very important,” said my mother. “Honestly, Camber, what’s gotten into you?”
“You’d miss me,” I said. “You’d miss me, but you’d be all right, wouldn’t you? You have Desta. And you already turned my room into a gym.”
“Oh, dear,” said my mother, turning to my father. “I told you she wouldn’t like it.”
“If you wanted us to leave your room alone, you might have come home on the weekends,” said my father, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror. “You were never home. It was wasted space.”
“I don’t care about my room.” I sighed. “I only… I don’t want you to be too badly hurt.”
“What are you talking about?” said my mother.
I almost told her. But I knew how she would react. They would turn the car around and take me to Desta and force me to drink her blood and go through the change into a vampire, and I wouldn’t do that.
I was terrified of anything that would disconnect me from the woods and the moon, which felt real to me in a way that nothing had ever felt real, not in my entire life.
But I was frightened of the woods and the moon and of being a wolf, and I had no idea what would become of me.
“Nothing,” I said. “I guess going traveling is a stupid idea.”
“Now, it’s not stupid,” said my father. “You’re not stupid. But it’s a better idea for the summer in between semesters. And you should get a job and save up for it. You can’t decide something like that on a whim.”
“Oh, exactly,” said my mother. “That’s what I’d say.”
“You’re both right,” I said. “I’ll wait until the summer.”
* * *
I could hardly sleep that night.
For the first time ever, the call seemed to have a voice. It d
idn’t speak in words, but there was something about it that rumbled like a male whisper. It sank into my bones. It made me feel hot and cold and loose and tight and I tossed and turned in bed and barely slept.
When the sun came up, I finally fell into a deeper sleep, and I slept late, until nearly noon. I only woke because my mother came in and scolded me for sleeping the day away.
I got up, but I couldn’t eat much of anything. I felt itchy, as if my skin wanted to be torn off.
I wanted to preserve something, to spend my last day in some meaningful engagement with my family, but they wanted to go shopping for a new couch, and we spent the whole day in the furniture store. In the end, there was nothing they really liked. My mother was too tired to cook dinner after that, so we ordered pizza, and we ate it in front of the television. We watched some game show that my parents liked.
Before I knew it, it was dark again, and the moon was rising above the distant trees. It was fat and round and bone white, and I could feel it.
It took everything in me to wait until my parents had gone to sleep. While I waited, I composed a letter to them, telling them all about the call, and about how I had never felt as though I belonged, and how I knew I was meant for the woods and the night.
I left it for them on the dining room table.
Then I left the house, running off into the night. I didn’t bring my clothes, knowing it was pointless. But I did bring my cell phone. I had tied my phone case around my neck, almost like a necklace. I didn’t know if I’d keep it through the change, and I thought I would lose my charger, which was in my pocket, but I had to try. Without my phone, I wouldn’t be able to connect to my family at all after this, and the thought of that hurt.
Before I reached the fence, a horrid convulsion went through me. It felt as if every bone in my body was stretching and trying to break.
I screamed in pain and fell to the ground, writhing.
When the convulsion passed, I quickly sprang to my feet, terrified. Someone would have heard that. Someone would be coming. Maybe the police. Maybe they would shoot me on the spot. On full moons, everyone was always extra vigilant.
A Symphony of Howls Page 2