sycamore tree. I stood with my spine pressed to the tree’s mottled bark, breathing hard and looking wildly around the clearing. No one had ever told me that there was a graveyard on Emma’s Hill, but the clearing was dotted with headstones, all of them tilted at crazy angles, as if the ground had shifted beneath them—or as if someone had been pushing up on them from below. My heart nearly burst from my chest when I saw that one of the graves had been ripped open.
“Lori!” Kit’s shout rang out as he burst into the clearing. He swung around, caught sight of me, and dashed over to peer down at me anxiously. “What happened? Why did you scream?”
My knees were so weak that if the sycamore hadn’t been holding me up, I would have fallen into Kit’s arms.
“The b-boys did see a v-vampire,” I sputtered. I grabbed his wrist and spun him around until he was facing the open grave. “He came from there. ”
Kit stood stock-still for a moment, then bowed his head and pressed a hand to his mouth. When he turned back to me, he looked as if he were trying hard not to laugh.
“If he came from one of these graves,” he said tremulously, “he must be a very dainty vampire.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
“Calm down,” he soothed, “and come with me.”
He pulled me away from the sycamore, put an arm around my shoulders, and walked me to the nearest headstone. As the adrenaline rush subsided, I began to notice a number of odd things about the grave. The marker was considerably smaller than the ones in the churchyard in Finch, and the mound, too, seemed abnormally tiny. Stranger still was the name that had been inscribed upon the headstone—it wasn’t one usually bestowed upon a child.
“Snuffy?” I read the inscription aloud, in some confusion.
“A noble parakeet,” Kit said somberly. He then guided me from one headstone to the next, narrating as he went. “And here we have
54 Nancy Atherton
Pom-Pom the Pomeranian, Leslie the Labrador, Alex the Angora cat, Buckles the basset hound, Little Jim the turtle—”
“Animals?” I broke in, blinking stupidly. “Is this a pet cemetery?”
“I’m afraid so.” He turned to gaze at the grave that had been dug up, then sighed heavily. “A badger must have unearthed poor Diane.”
“Dachshund?” I guessed.
“Iguana,” he replied.
“Oh, man, ” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “I am such an idiot.”
Kit was too kind to agree with me out loud. When I risked glancing up at him, I could tell by the twitching corners of his lips that he was royally amused, but he gallantly refrained from hooting like a hyena as he strolled to the easternmost edge of the cemetery and pulled a tangle of shriveled blackberry branches from a hithertohidden stone bench. It was the size and shape of a small love seat, with a weatherworn pattern of intertwined grapevines carved on the arms and the back.
“Sit down, Lori,” Kit called. “You’ve had a shock, and I have the perfect remedy.”
I shuffled sheepishly to the stone bench and sat huddled in silent humiliation while Kit placed his day pack on the ground and withdrew an insulated flask from its main compartment. He opened the fl ask and fi lled its cuplike cap with a steaming brew.
“Hot tea,” he said, handing the cup to me. “With lots of sugar.”
“You brought hot tea with you?” I said, astounded.
“Naturally.” He sat beside me and nodded toward his pack. “I brought everything we’d need for a daylong expedition—sandwiches, snacks, hot tea, and spare socks, as well as the usual supplies and equipment.” He eyed my day pack curiously. “What did you bring, Lori?”
“Some . . . things,” I muttered, refusing to look at him.
“What things?” Kit asked.
Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
55
I gave a forlorn little sigh, handed the cup of tea back to him, took off my day pack, opened it, and exposed its contents to his inquisitive gaze.
“I see that you brought spare socks, too,” he said. “Along with two strings of garlic, a mallet, a wooden stake, a silver crucifix, a rosary, and let’s see . . . one, two, three glass bottles filled with”—he glanced up at me for confirmation—“holy water? Does the vicar know that you raided his church?”
“The crucifix is mine,” I said quickly. “It was my mother’s. So was the rosary. The mallet’s mine, too, and I made the stake from an old broom handle.” I sighed dismally. “But the holy water is from St. George’s. I went there after Bill left this morning. I wanted to be prepared.”
“For what?” Kit asked. “You don’t believe in vampires.”
“I don’t,” I said, “but some people do, crazy people who dress up in capes and have their teeth sharpened and sleep in coffins.
Some of them do it because they think it’s cool, but some are true
believers.” I took my lower lip between my teeth and chewed it worriedly. “What if Will and Rob saw someone who thinks he’s a vampire? If a man acted like a vampire, wouldn’t the end results be just as . . . infernal?”
“Yes,” Kit said thoughtfully. “I suppose they would.”
“And if we run into someone like that,” I went on, gaining confidence, “we might have to play along with his delusion, right? We might need the crucifix, the holy water, and the garlic to . . . to subdue him.”