Section 5
COUNTRY LIVING
“Thanks for agreeing to stay until after my birthday party.” Lucette hugged her mother. Her father had looked so wounded when she’d decided to live with her mother, but he had kept to his word to let her choose. She and her mother were leaving for the country the day after her sixteenth birthday. The day after tomorrow.
“Get a good night’s sleep.” Her mother planted a kiss on her forehead. “ Tomorrow’s a big day!”
Lucette tried not to shiver under her warm covers. Beginning tomorrow, wearing gloves would no longer be merely an annoying rule her father tried to enforce. Starting tomorrow, if she pricked her finger, the curse would fall, and it was her duty to ensure that didn’t happen.
Starting tomorrow, she’d follow every rule.
“Wake up!” Her mother’s voice pulled Lucette from a deep sleep, one during which she’d been dreaming Tristan had come to her birthday party to declare his undying love. Unfortunately, the vampire queen had arrived too, claiming to have a special gift for the birthday girl and baring her fangs. Just before Lucette woke, Tristan had been poised to drive a stake through the vampire queen’s heart, and she wished she’d stayed asleep long enough to see that, even if it was just a dream.
“What is it?” she asked her mother in the darkness. Lucette rubbed the sleep from her eyes and realized she’d pulled her gloves off in her sleep, yet again. She put them back on, looking up to the door to make sure her father hadn’t followed her mother into the room. He’d be so angry if he saw her hands unprotected.
“We’re leaving,” her mother whispered. “Now.”
“Leaving? Where to?” Excitement raced through her. Was this some kind of birthday surprise?
“To your grandfather’s.” Her mother backed away from the bed, turned on the lights, and started rummaging through Lucette’s wardrobe, even though most of her clothes were already packed in a trunk.
Lucette’s back stiffened.“ Leaving? Right now? But Mom, we haven’t even had my birthday party yet and it’s the middle of the night.” She wondered if her parents had gotten into another argument.
Her mother pulled a dress from the wardrobe and clutched it to her chest. “Lucette, I discovered something.” Her mother’s hands trembled as she helped her out of bed and handed her the dress. “Something horrible. Something for which I’ll never forgive your father.”
“Mom, calm down. We can’t leave in the middle of the night.” Plus, it was her birthday and no way would she leave without saying goodbye to her father. He’d be crushed.
Her mother tried to force the dress over Lucette’s head, but there was no way Lucette would let herself be dressed like a doll.
“Put on the dress, Lucette. Quickly. And if you promise to be very quiet, I’ll show you what I found. When you see what he’s done, you’ll understand.”
Lucette dressed and, a few minutes later, found herself on a winding stone staircase hidden behind a seamless door off the palace’s main entrance hall. Lucette had walked through that hallway countless times and had never imagined there was a door there. So many secrets in her own home.
Her mother held a candle, but given the narrow space, the light was mostly blocked by her body, so Lucette held on to her mother’s skirt as they wound their way up.
When they reached the top, her mother gestured widely with her arm. “See?”
“See what?” Lucette blinked. It didn’t look like much. A small, square room with a wall of glass down the middle.
Her mother pushed a button and gaslights came on to reveal a bedchamber on the far side of the glass. On the near side were a few chairs and some party decorations. Pink and white ribbons were strung in garlands around the room, and a big sign read “Happy Sixteenth, Lucette!”
“We’re having my birthday party up here?” It was kind of small, even if her parents hadn’t invited any guests.
Her mother slipped her hand into Lucette’s. “Your father plans to lock you in there.” She pointed toward the glass room.
Her head snapped toward her mother.“What? For my party?”
“No.” Her mother had never looked more fierce or angry.“Forever.” She pulled Lucette over to the glass and slammed her palm against it. “He means for you to live behind this glass from now on. Alone.”
Lucette felt as if her lungs had collapsed, and she struggled to refill them with air. “W-what?” She scanned the small space that contained only one small window high on the stone wall, covered with bars. It was a cell.
“This is his idea of keeping you safe,” her mother continued. “He showed it to me earlier this evening, thinking I’d change my mind about taking you with me.” She shook her head. “He actually thought I’d be pleased that he’d found a way to keep you from pricking your finger, and that I’d talk you into changing your mind about where you wanted to live.”
“But...” Lucette’s mind swam in what felt like thick soup.“Vampires can easily break glass. So can I. And what if the glass broke and I pricked my finger on a shard?” None of this made any sense.
“Remember when the fairies said they’d made a deal with your father and couldn’t help us anymore?”
She nodded.
“Well, this was the deal. The glass is enchanted. It won’t break. Ever.” Her mother’s lips squeezed together so tightly her jaw trembled. “Because of this glass, the fairies won’t help you after the curse falls. Your father chose preventing the curse over you getting help from the fairies once you’re all alone.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the night air filled the room, and Lucette hugged herself tightly. She knew her father had done what he thought was best. She knew he thought preventing the curse was more important than any other consideration, including her freedom. But she would not be trapped inside this cage.
“Let’s get out of here,” her mother said, and Lucette readily agreed.
Lucette slumped against the window of the carriage, angry tears streaming down her face in the moonlight. Her mother reached over to rub her back, but Lucette pulled away. Even though it wasn’t her mother’s fault, she was hurt and angry, and didn’t want to be comforted. Her entire body felt as if it had collapsed in on her. Spikes of pain pinched at her throat and eyes.
“Lucette, darling, I might not agree with him all the time, but your father means well. He loves you and only wants to keep you safe.”
Lucette spun so sharply that her mother snapped back in her seat. “Locking me in a cell of enchanted glass? That’s how he shows love?” Her heart was beating wildly, galloping to match the hooves of the horses pulling their carriage through the night, away from her father, maybe forever. Never again would she question whether she’d made the right choice to go live with her mother. Her chest lurched as she sucked in a few sharp, sobbing breaths.
Her mother stroked her hair. “You’ll be happy in the country, I promise.”
“Are there really no vampires there?” Lucette wiped away her tears. “I know the mountains are in between, but aren’t you just as close to the border there as we are at home?” The only section of the border between Sanguinia and Xandra that wasn’t mountainous and treacherous to cross was just ten miles from the palace.
The carriage bounced over a rut in the road and her mother gripped the seat.“I can’t say no vampires. My father and his farmhands sometimes found bite marks on our livestock.” She shuddered and her eyes narrowed.
“Vampires killed your animals?” That would contradict what that vampire boy Alex had told her.
Her mother pulled back a little. “I don’t think any of our animals ever died, now that you mention it, but some were certainly bitten.”
That was horrid, but it didn’t explain why her mother hated vampires so much. “Have you ever met a vampire, Mom?”
“Not until I married your father and met his so-called ally, the vampire king”—her face turned steely—“and his despicable queen who cursed you.”
No wonder her mother hated vampires so much. Her entire vampire experience was based on animal bites—it was so cruel to attack defenseless creatures—and on the villain who’d cursed her daughter.
Her mother stiffened and raised her chin. “Why are we even talking about this? Who wouldn’t hate vampires? They drink blood. They’re murderers. They kill.”
Lucette corrected her and said, “Only after three bites.”
Her mother shrugged. “Whether it takes one bite or three, murder is murder. Evil is evil.” Her mother clearly considered the words “evil” and “murderer” to be synonyms for “vampire.”
But Lucette wasn’t sure she agreed, and wanted to tell her mother that ever since she’d met that vampire boy in the woods, she’d believed her father was right about vampires—they weren’t all evil, perhaps most weren’t—but her mother wouldn’t be easily convinced. “How are you so sure they’re all bad, Mom? I mean, Dad’s the one who’s spent time with vampires on official court business.”
Fire rose on her mother’s cheeks. “Your father is so blinded by diplomacy and political correctness, he can’t see what’s right in front of his face. Ever since you were a baby, those creatures have been attacking Xandrans, yet he still believes their diplomats’ lies, and still believes he can stop the attacks by talking peacefully with their so-called government officials.”
Lucette’s eyes narrowed. Even at the slayer school, where the teachers agreed vampires were killers and taught the students to slay them, they’d also taught that the Sanguinian form of government was more advanced than their own, with less power lying in the hands of the monarch and more in their citizenry. But her mother was so anti-vampire, Lucette wished she’d never brought up the subject. It just reminded her of why her parents fought so much.
Her mother squeezed her hand. “I’m so glad I managed to at least get you some slayer training before you turned sixteen. From the day the curse was laid, I wanted you to be prepared to defend yourself—prepared to kill.”
They rode through the night, and after the cold, bouncy carriage ride, Lucette’s grandmother’s embrace was like a warm blanket. She inhaled the small woman’s scent: cinnamon and cut grass and a hint of something else Lucette couldn’t quite pinpoint. Perhaps it was home.
She broke away from her grandmother and her grandfather stepped forward, spreading his long arms wide. “Sixteen,” he said. “Happy birthday, Lucette. Come, give old Gramps a hug.”
She ran into his arms, which were so warm and strong. With his hands firmly on her shoulders, he pushed her back to arms’ length. “Let me look at you.”
Slightly embarrassed, she felt glad this examination gave her an opportunity to look at him, too.“Old Gramps” was a stretch. She didn’t know how old her grandparents were, but he really didn’t look that many years older than her father. She knew there was an age difference between her parents, but until this moment, she hadn’t realized it was such a big one.
Her grandfather’s shoulders were broad and strong, but he was thicker and more solid than her father, plus an entirely different kind of handsome—more rugged and less regal. Under his red hair, which could have used a trim, was a tanned face with a square jaw. A fine layer of lightly colored stubble sprang out from this chin so sharply that Lucette was afraid to touch it in case the hairs were sharp enough to prick her finger. She brushed away the silly thought—after all, she was wearing gloves.
Lucette’s mother clearly took after her own mother rather than her tall, red-haired father. And since Lucette took after her own father, she had trouble believing she fit into her mother’s family at all.
“I think the occasion calls for birthday cake,” he said, and then looked over her shoulder and winked at her grandmother.
“For breakfast?” her grandmother said. “They’ve been traveling all night. Perhaps Lucette and Catia would like to nap first, or clean up from the road.”
Her grandfather ran his strong arm along the back of Lucette’s shoulders. “Sleep? On your sixteenth birthday?” He nudged her with his hip.“I vote for cake. How about you?”
A huge grin spread on her face. “I slept a bit in the carriage. Cake sounds great!”
A few hours later, after three slices of birthday cake, a tour of the barn, and a drive over the vast, hilly property on the front bench of an open, horse-drawn cart, Lucette walked around the house, happiness flooding through her. Her grandparents had assured her mother that they’d sanded down every surface on the estate, and had even done their best to remove anything liable to prick Lucette in the barn. Wearing her gloves, Lucette felt safe and comfortable.
As badly as she wished her parents would reconsider their separation, she did think she was going to prefer living out here in the country to living at the palace. The air was so clean and fresh—well, maybe not so fresh in the barn—and in one day here, she’d enjoyed more freedom than she had in her whole life at the palace.
Lucette tested an overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace and her grandmother’s cinnamon scent filled the air. She inhaled deeply, then studied the painting above the mantle, trying to figure out why it seemed so strange. It was a portrait of her mother, perhaps at twelve or thirteen, but something seemed lopsided—the painted fabric, draped to the right of her mother’s image, hung in an unnatural manner. Perhaps the artist had been having a bad day.
Lucette looked at another portrait, which showed her mother on horseback with a taller horse beside her. Something was off about that painting, too. The coat of the riderless horse and the mountains behind it seemed unevenly painted. Lucette leaned closer, shrugged, and then turned back to the picture over the mantle.
She gasped and then examined the horse painting more closely again. Yes, she was certain. In both of these portraits, someone else had been erased—painted over as if he or she had never been there. Her father once mentioned an aunt who’d died, but he’d been so reluctant to discuss her that Lucette just assumed it had been his sister, not her mother’s. Was it possible her mother had once had a sister? And if she’d died, why would they have painted her out of all of the portraits?
She ran to the kitchen where her grandmother was stirring a big pot on the wood-burning stove. “Grandma, who’s painted out of those portraits? Did I once have an aunt?” As soon as she asked the question, she realized it might not have been very sensitive. If her daughter had died, her grandmother would be sad.
Her grandmother spun toward her, eyes wide, but then they slowly narrowed. Her expression darkened as if a cloud had passed directly overhead. “She’s gone. We do not talk about her—ever.”
Lucette was startled by her grandmother’s reaction. Perhaps she’d ask her mother. But she’d have to find the right time. Clearly this was a touchy subject.
Hours later, Lucette yawned and stretched. “Oh, excuse me.”
“Nothing to be excused.” Her grandmother reached across the kitchen table where they’d eaten dinner—imagine, eating right in the kitchen!—and squeezed her gloved hand. “You must be very tired, and the sun is setting. Out here in the country, bedtime’s never long past sundown.”
Lucette smiled, grateful that no one was offended by her dinner-table yawn, but she stiffened at the thought of sunset. She turned to her mother.“We left in such a hurry, I didn’t bring any stakes or a crossbow or anything.”
Her grandparents didn’t look shocked, so Lucette assumed her mother had told them about her slayer training. Her grandmother stood and started to clear the plates from the table. Much to Lucette’s surprise, her mother helped.
“You won’t be needing weapons up here, Lucette,” her grandfather said. “Those vicious creatures are smart enough to stay away from my property. I’ll keep all of you safe.”
Her grandmother pressed her lips together.
“All the same, Gramps,” Lucette said,“I would feel better if I had some weapons.” She turned to her mother. “Can we send back for them?”
“Nonsense,” her grandfather said. “In the country, a shortage of wood is one thing we don’t suffer. Tomorrow morning, I’ll make you some stakes.”
Lucette smiled, and her eyes soon drifted shut as she relaxed in her chair. The sun hadn’t even gone down, but with last night’s travel and the excitement of meeting her grandparents and touring their estate, exhaustion was winning.
“May I please be excused?” she asked her grandmother.
“Of course, darling,” her grandmother replied. “And no need to be so formal here. You’re sixteen, practically a grown-up. You’ve earned the right to excuse yourself from the table.”