Vampire High Sophomore Year

4



Mom turned dinner into a big deal. Ileana and Justin were invited. Which gave her the rest of the day to cook, which she loved to do, and gave me the rest of the day to worry.

As for Turk, once she had swilled a few cups of coffee, she went back to her attic, pulled the steps up after her, and made more noise. It was hard to tell what she might be doing up there, but the sounds moved all over the second floor ceiling.

“You know, I really feel like a total New Englander now,” Dad said as the gray light dimmed and dinnertime heaved into view. “We’ve got a two-hundred-year-old house in a nearly four-hundred-year-old town, a wood-burning stove in the kitchen, birch trees in the yard, and now—a crazy relative in the attic. Perhaps we ought to chain her up.”

I shook my head. “Good luck trying,” I said.

Exactly at six, a limousine purred up to the curb behind the little black Volkswagen, and Ileana and Justin got out.

Just seeing Ileana made me glow inside. We’d been together for four months now, and things kept on getting better and better between us. Sometimes, I could hardly believe that this beautiful little girl really liked me better than the jenti boys she could have had. She just came up to my shoulders—sometimes jenti are small—and she was perfect. Shining black hair, an ivory-pale face with glowing brown eyes, and lips like the bow on a present waiting to be unwrapped.

As for Justin and me—best friends. Enough said.

They came up the walk together, Ileana in a little black dress and Justin in a dark suit. I kind of wished they hadn’t gone to so much trouble for Turk. But that’s the jenti way. All out, whatever they’re doing. There’s no such thing as a casual jenti.

Ileana danced into the house, looking cool even on this muggy evening. She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Look at Justin,” she said. “He has become a Mercian.”

“A what?” I said.

I looked more closely at Justin’s coat and saw he was wearing a two-headed silver eagle on it. There was a crown balancing on both the eagle’s heads, and under its feet was the word MERCIA.

“Neat,” I said. “What’s a Mercian?”

“Just a kind of old jenti thing,” Justin said quietly. “I was invited to join.”

“He was invited to join because of you,” Ileana said. “Because you and he saved the school.”

Justin shrugged.

“So what do you do?” I asked.

“Oh, just talk about stuff here in town,” he said.

“It is more than that,” Ileana said. “Only certain families may belong. Even my father could not join, because he is not out of the Mercian line. And to be invited to join so young never happens.”

“Well, congratulations,” I said.

Sitting around with some old guys talking about New Sodom did not sound like much of an honor to me, even if it was secret and ancient and all that other jenti stuff, but if Justin was happy, I was happy.

Ileana handed me a small box wrapped in white paper and silver ribbon.

“For your cousin,” she said. “Please give it to her tonight.”

She flashed a smile that showed her cute little fangs.

“Oops,” she said, and covered her mouth. “They are out, are they not? Excuse me. I must be a little excited.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “My cousin—”

“Of course I am excited,” Ileana said. “This is the first of your relatives I have ever met, apart from your parents.”

Jenti are big on family. But then, when your reunions are attended by people who’ve been alive since the fifteenth century, relatives probably seem a lot more important.

“Thanks for having us over so soon,” Justin said, and handed me a small package wrapped in brown paper and blue ribbon. “This is for your cousin, too.”

“Why don’t you give her these?” I asked.

“Because you are the connection between us,” Ileana said. “If I give something directly to your relative on our first meeting, it is a great insult to you.”

“Like cutting you out,” Justin said.

Jenti manners are only slightly less complicated than their special language, which even most of them don’t speak well anymore.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “Let’s go into the dining room.”

Mom and Dad were already there. I noticed Dad had his wineglass in hand. Lucky Dad. All I had was the certainty that Turk was going to do something to show us how little we all meant to her.

Then Turk made her entrance.

She was barefoot, and wearing paint-smeared black jeans and one of her T-shirts. There was a lot of paint on her, too, most of it black. I wondered how much time she’d spent decorating herself.

“Oh. Hi,” she said. “Sorry. Didn’t know it was so late.”

Like Mom hadn’t told her twenty times to start getting ready.

Ileana and Justin both smiled. This time, without fangs.

“Welcome, kinswoman to Cody,” Ileana said. Then she added something in jenti that means “Rest beneath the shadow of my wings,” which is a huge compliment to a gadje, especially one you’ve just met.

“Hello,” Justin said.

“So you guys are vampires, right?” Turk said.

Polite. I was going to be polite. I could always kill my cousin later.

“These are for you from Ileana and Justin,” I said, handing Turk the boxes.

“What? Do I open them now?” Turk said.

“It might make it easier to say thank you if you knew what was in them,” I said.

“Sure. Whatever,” Turk said.

She opened the one from Ileana first.

Inside was a turquoise pendant set in silver and hanging from a chain.

It was fun to watch cousin Turk just then. She wanted to look so unimpressed. And she couldn’t.

“It’s Hopi,” Turk said. “Classic Hopi.”

“From Cochiti Pueblo,” Ileana said.

Turk turned the jewel in her hands.

“Nobody’s doing this kind of work anymore,” she said.

“My grandfather brought it home from one of his trips,” Ileana said. “His friend Kit Carson gave it to him. That is the story in the family.”

Turk put the jewel back in the box. Carefully.

“Well. Thanks,” she said.

Then she opened Justin’s box.

Inside was a folded-up piece of paper.

“This is kind of a certificate,” Turk read. “It’s good for any two of my angelfish, any kind you might like. I can help you set them up. I have plenty of spare aquarium stuff, and can give you plenty of tubifex worms. They really go for tubifex worms as a supplement. Welcome to New Sodom, Justin Warrener.”

Turk gave him a thin little smile.

“Thanks, man,” she said. “But I kill fish. Goldfish see me coming and they turn belly-up. Neon tetras commit mass suicide. Guppies eat themselves. I don’t want to ice a couple of your pets.”

“Bet I could help you keep ’em alive,” Justin said.

“Justin knows everthing about angelfish,” I said. “He’s got a room full of them. He sells them all over the country.”

“If you like angelfish,” Justin added.

“They don’t fit with my lifestyle,” Turk said. “Thanks anyway.”

“Oh. Okay,” Justin said.

I cringed inside.

Dad rolled his eyes.

“Let’s have dinner,” Mom said.

Mom had gotten out the best china. There was a French soup that would have been good enough for the dining room at Vlad, and quiche and salad. Dad had spent all day caramelizing his patented flan for dessert.

Ileana and I sat across from Turk and Justin, with Mom and Dad at the ends of the table. There were flowers and candles.

In the flickering light, I couldn’t help noticing how much more my cousin looked like a typical jenti than Justin did. He was short and brown-haired like most of the old New England jenti. Dark and rangy Turk in her black-on-black-on-black ensemble could have slouched down the hall at Vlad Dracul without getting a second look, except for her paint and tattoo.

We got through the soup and salad all right. Mom and Dad and I talked with Justin and Ileana mostly. We tried to include Turk, but most of her answers were shrugs. That suited me. I hoped she wouldn’t say more than three complete sentences, one of which would be “Good night.” But it was not to be.

“So, you’ll be going to school with us?” Justin said when we were starting on the flan.

“Yeah, I guess,” Turk said. “If I like it. If not—” She shrugged.

“What will happen if you do not?” Ileana wanted to know.

“Drop out, grab my stuff, head for Europe,” Turk said. “Or back to Mexico. Doesn’t matter. I won’t be staying long anyplace from now on. But, yeah. I’ll go to school until then. The only reason I agreed to come here was to try out Vlad.”

“We are so glad you did,” Ileana said. “Cody has found it quite interesting.”

“Interesting and hard,” I said.

“Hard,” Turk said. “Well, let’s face it, Cuz. I’m the one with the brains in our little duo.”

I could tell this was going to be a dinner party I’d remember for years to come.

“Cody’s smart enough,” Justin said, which may not have sounded like a ringing endorsement of my intelligence but meant a lot in Justin-speak.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell Justin and Ileana about your art,” Mom said.

“No,” Turk said. “There’s no point in talking about it.”

“I would be very interested to hear,” Ileana said.

“Sure would,” Justin agreed.

“It’s personal,” Turk said. “But I’ll tell you what I would be interested in talking about. I’d be interested to hear about being a vampire.”

“Hey,” I said. “I told you about that word.”

“That’s what interests me,” Turk said. “One of the things. If it’s what you are, why not use it? It’s just a word.”

“Just a word,” Justin said.

“As a lawyer, I know something about words,” Dad said. “They’re weapons.”

I could feel the tension building in the room. Most of it was mine. But there was enough to go around.

“I will try to answer your question,” Ileana said in her softest, most polite voice. “It is, as you say, only a word. But it is the word by which your people burned, and slew, and persecuted mine for thousands of years. Not without reason. We were blood-drinkers, and we still are. And in the days before it was possible to store blood against the times when we would need it, we would do anything we could in order to get it. We paid in gold for a little blood from a willing gadje. And if no willing gadje could be found, we took what we needed anyway. And around this terrible need you wove a black wreath of stories of our greed, our ruthlessness, our magical powers, and used it to strengthen your hatred. Still, we managed to live among you. We were human beings, after all. We hid ourselves in plain sight, made alliances with some of you when we could. But always the need, and the fear of the need, our fear of it and yours, was there. And this was almost yesterday. Less than two hundred years ago were we able to feed ourselves without violence for the first time. Things are better now. We are trying to change. But the word vampire makes us remember in our bones all the dark years when to be one of us was to be cursed. Perhaps that is why we do not think it is friendly to use it.”

“Stake through the heart, you know?” Justin said. “There are places in this town where that happened.”

His hand went to the silver eagle on his lapel.

“Fantastic,” Turk said. And if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn she sounded excited. Maybe even happy. “Do you guys want to see my art?”

Justin, Ileana, and I all looked at each other. We couldn’t say no now without being as rude as she’d been.

“Yes,” Ileana said.

Turk stood up.

“Let’s go up to my place,” she said.

We all followed her up to the attic. What had been the attic. It was on the way to being something else now. A studio, a room, a private world, maybe. Anyway, you sure knew Turk was there.

The windows had been covered with newspapers. A painting was propped in each one. The boxes had been shifted around and turned into a kind of sofa and a couple of chairs. Turk’s sleeping bag was unrolled on the sofa. In one corner, another box, turned on its side, held her clothes, neatly stacked up, with The Scream beside it. Her easel was in another corner. And running along the length of the ceiling was a long black tissue paper snake with two heads.

“I like it,” Dad said, looking around. “Kind of light and airy. Feminine touch. Comfy.”

“The Snake of Life,” Ileana said, looking up at the paper snake. “The jenti tell stories about this creature.”

“Yeah,” Turk said. “But this is like the Aztec version. It turns up in their culture, too.”

Ileana nodded.

“Beginning and end. Not to be defeated or destroyed,” Ileana said. “That is what it means to us.”

“Not to mention the extra fangs,” Turk said.

“Is that tissue paper?” Mom said quickly.

“Yeah. They call it papel picado,” Turk said. “I’ve been thinking about this thing since I came back from Mexico. This was the first chance I’ve had to do something about it.”

She had done this, today. In what, an hour? Nobody could say my cousin wasn’t a fast worker. Rude, and about as much fun as glass on your tongue, but she was good at what she did.

There was a painting on the easel. It was the head and shoulders of The Scream repeated over and over in different sizes.

Ileana went over and studied it under the dim light.

“They want to move,” she said.

“Like they want to get away from that snake, maybe,” Justin said.

“They can’t,” Turk said. “No feet.”

Her other paintings were lined up along one side of the attic. Ileana went over to study them and we all followed.

Basically, they were every kind of way you could think of to paint The Scream and two-headed snakes. Or they were blotches of turquoise and black smeared together to make—smears, I guess.

“Do you exhibit?” Ileana asked after she’d walked up and down the line several times.

“I’ve had some shows,” Turk said.

“She’s won some prizes,” Mom said.

“I am not surprised,” Ileana said. “You are a true artist.”

“See what you mean about the fish, though,” Justin said. “Wouldn’t fit in in a place like this.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Turk said. “Angelfish are aggressive, aren’t they?”

“Well, if you don’t feed ’em the tubifex worms, they can start chasing other fish around the tank,” Justin said. “They get hungry for protein.”

“Perfect,” Turk said. “If the deal’s still on, I want two big black ones. I’ll put the tank over there and keep the light on at night.”

“Uh, okay,” Justin said. “Two big black ones it is.”

He looked like he was afraid he was turning over a couple of children to an unfit foster mother. Or maybe a wicked witch. But Justin would never go back on a promise.

And then a weird thing happened. All of a sudden, Ileana and Turk started to have this long talk about art. It seemed long. (It didn’t really go on more than ten minutes.) A lot of words tumbled into the room, like chiaroscuro, and Fauvism, and Rothko. And for those minutes, the rest of us weren’t there.

And when they were over, Turk went over to her easel and pulled off the painting and handed it to Ileana.

“Here,” she said. “You get it.”

“I would not have asked,” Ileana said. “But thank you. Will you sign it?”

Turk did, with a little sort of twist beside her name that I guess was supposed to be the snake.

Mom suggested coffee, and we all went back downstairs.

I kept waiting for my cousin to do something else insulting, like ask Ileana and Justin to fly around the room, but she didn’t. In fact, I had the feeling that, somehow, up in that attic, she and Ileana had connected. Ileana loved anything that came from people’s imaginations. And Turk had plenty of that.

So we finished the coffee and Ileana and Justin left, and Turk went back up to her belfry.

Mom followed her up there to try to talk her into accepting some pillows and blankets, since she wouldn’t accept a normal room with furniture.

“That could have been so much worse,” Dad said, and poured himself another glass of wine.

“Lucky us,” I said.

Dad was right. Compared to what Turk was capable of in the trouble department, it hadn’t gone badly. Now if I could just get through the next three years at Vlad Dracul.