“They’re faster than bats,” Rob explained.
Bill stroked Stanley’s sleek black fur for a moment, then asked, “What did Rendor look like, boys? Can you draw a picture of him?”
Will obligingly pulled a clean sheet of drawing paper from the pile on the coffee table and picked up a black crayon. Five minutes and several crayons later, he presented us with a portrait that had, I suspected, been strongly influenced by the illustrations he’d seen in Clive Pickle’s comic book.
The bone-thin figure had bloodred lips and canines like stalactites. Its face was deathly pale, and it wore a voluminous black cloak with a crimson lining. A cloud of tiny bats hovered around its grotesque head, and a lightning bolt split the sky above it. Although the drawing was primitive, it was powerful enough to give me nightmares.
A moment of silence ensued while the grown-ups in the room pondered their next move.
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Finally Bill dislodged Stanley from his lap and motioned for the boys to come to him. After they’d climbed into his lap, he put his arms around them and explained gently but firmly that Rendor wasn’t real, that he was a make-believe character in a very silly book, and that Uncle Kit had been right to tell them that they’d mistaken a shadow for a vampire because vampires did not exist. Bill repeated the last point several times, to emphasize its importance.
He concluded his fatherly lecture by asking, “Do you both understand what I’ve told you?”
“Yes,” said Will, nodding.
“Vampires are make-believe,” Rob confi rmed.
“But we saw one,” added Will.
Bill sighed but responded patiently, “You saw something that looked like a vampire, boys. If you see something else that looks like a vampire, I want you to tell Mummy and Annelise and me about it.
I don’t want you to tell the kids at school.”
Will frowned slightly. “But, Daddy, we—”
Bill cut him off. “Listen to me, sons. Some of your new friends are afraid of make-believe monsters. It’s not nice to frighten people. You don’t want to scare your friends, do you?”
“No, Daddy,” the boys chorused.
“I want you to promise me you won’t tell anyone at school that you saw a vampire,” Bill said gravely. “Not even Clive Pickle.”
The twins hesitated, as though the thought of letting Clive Pickle have the last word on vampires weighed heavily on them, but finally gave in.
“Okay, Daddy,” said Rob. “We promise.”
“And you’ll tell one of us”—Bill touched his chest, then gestured to me and Annelise—“the next time you see someone that looks like Rendor?”
“Okay, Daddy,” said Will.
“Good boys.” Bill pulled Will and Rob into hugs, then set them on their feet. “Time for bed, cowpokes. I can’t come up with you
26 Nancy Atherton
because I have a few telephone calls to make, but I’ll see you in the morning.”
“G’night, Daddy,” the twins said, and trotted toward the stairs.
While Annelise folded the afghan and tidied away the drawing materials on the coffee table, Bill headed for the study and I went up to tuck the boys in bed. Much to my relief, they expressed no interest whatsoever in discussing vampires, preferring instead to hear a chapter from Brighty of the Grand Canyon as a bedtime story.
I’d have read the whole book to them if they’d asked. To my mind, Brighty, the brave and kindly mule, was the perfect antidote to Rendor, the Destroyer of Souls.
On my way downstairs, I ran into Annelise, who was on her way up to her room.
“What did you do with the drawing Will made?” I asked her quietly. “The drawing of Rendor.”
“I was going to toss it on the fire,” she said, “but I thought you might want another look at it, so I put it in the drawer in the kitchen.”
I nodded, bade her good night, and continued down the stairs.
There were many drawers in the kitchen, but only one was universally referred to as “the” drawer. I went straight to it and extricated Will’s drawing from a miscellany of chopsticks, birthdaycandle holders, tea strainers, mushroom brushes, bottle openers, toy cars, toothpicks, and small plastic dinosaurs. The homeliness of the drawer’s contents made the portrait of Rendor seem even more unsettling than it had when I’d fi rst seen it.
After a brief struggle with an unruly chopstick, I closed the drawer, laid the drawing on the kitchen counter, and studied it intently. I was still gazing down at it when Bill emerged from the study, caught sight of me from the hallway, and joined me in the kitchen.
“Mr. Barlow says it’ll take a week to ten days to get the parts he needs to fix the furnace,” he announced. He glanced down at the Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
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drawing, then leaned back against the counter and folded his arms.
“I can’t work from home, Lori, not for more than one or two days.