Lorraine threw a bottle top at her. “You said that last night.” But she looked warily at Zoë, sensing more to come.
“But I’m still a jerk if you can’t talk to me. I’m not going to shatter and break if you talk about your mother. I’m sorry if I’ve been a self-centered pig, and made you feel that way.” She felt her face glowing with embarrassment.
Lorraine turned away.
God, I’ve pissed her off, Zoë thought, confused. Lorraine’s shoulder’s were shaking. No, worse. She’d made her cry. Zoë slid from her bed and crawled across to her friend, unsure of what to do next. I have to be tactful, she thought, just as her hand came down firmly in the bacon-and-chive dip.
“Ugh!”
Lorraine looked around, tears in her eyes, saw Zoë’s hand, and howled—with glee. It was impossible not to join in.
“You’ll either have to wash it or lick it,” Lorraine gasped between giggles. “Here, have some chips.”
“Shut up, you’ll choke.”
Gales of laughter again.
On her way to the bathroom Zoë said, “I guess we can talk now, huh?”
Lorraine took a deep breath. “I guess.”
But there was one thing Zoë couldn’t talk about.
What could I say? she thought at one point. There’s this cute boy, and he likes to drink blood? She’ll think I’ve gone round the bend.
Often her fingers strayed to her neck and stroked the fading marks. It had been three nights; the wounds had healed fast. They were just pale yellow bruises now. She’d said she’d help him, but how could she do that? What had possessed her to say it? It was his kisses. What if it were all a mistake? What if someone innocent got dreadfully hurt?
She tossed and turned, unable to sleep even after Lorraine had been snoring for what seemed like hours.
But now it was morning, and the first shaft of sunlight lit Lorraine’s hair, bringing out hidden gold in the rioting tendrils. It could have been Lorraine down that alley, if Simon was right. Wasn’t that reason enough to help him? She tried to hold on to the moment and push that thought aside. It will always be like this, Zoë thought, hard as a wish. It will never change. This is every morning Lorraine has lain asleep on my floor, and I’ll be within those mornings, never ceasing, from now on. There is no sad vampire boy, with sharp kisses, waiting out there in the cold somewhere.
Then Lorraine uncurled, and her eyelids fluttered. She stretched to grasp the day, and time moved on.
It was the last time they would toss for the shower, the last time they would decide together what to wear, the last time Lorraine would snitch a spray of Zoë’s favorite cologne, and the last time they would try to outmaneuver each other for the best view in the mirror. Well, it wasn’t really. They would visit each other, of course, but somehow that wasn’t the same. Although, Zoë couldn’t help but think, if Christopher had his way, they wouldn’t even have that. She shuddered.
Lorraine made scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. She sang as she cooked, as if the unburdening of her worries had released the music in her.
“You’re going to make someone an obnoxious wife someday,” Zoë said.
Harry Sutcliff walked into the kitchen, sniffing the air, and sat down at the table. “I’m surprised you found anything here to cook.”
Lorraine laughed. “I didn’t. I brought this with me. Someone had to clean out the fridge.”
“Well, you’re a great cook,” he said, pulling a plate of toast toward him.
Lorraine passed him the butter. “It’s survival. You know Diane can’t cook squat. Anyhow, the way to a man’s heart, you know. I’m practicing my skills on you.” She winked at him.
Zoë was amazed to see her father blush. He smiled shyly down at his plate and looked years younger. Such a small thing, Lorraine’s flirting, yet it lightened his heart for a moment. Perhaps it was a glimpse of the boy Mom had fallen in love with that she saw. If I could learn to make him smile, she thought, it would be easier for us.
He left right after he ate, because he wanted to get some work in before he went to the hospital. The girls lingered over the cleanup. “He works so hard,” Lorraine said.
“Yeah. Bills, bills, bills.” Zoë’s voice was gentle. She felt more compassion for the man she had seen a glimmer of this morning, different from the rigid stranger who had been around for weeks.
Lorraine washed while Zoë wiped dry. Their last minutes ticked away, and Zoë still held a secret from her closest friend.
This is my last chance, she thought. But what do I say? Lorraine, there’s this vampire, and I said I’d help him kill his brother, who happens to be a vampire too? It’s that little boy you talked to. He almost murdered you. Oh, no, I don’t know how we’re going to do it. I’ve left that up to him. If I tell her that, she’ll freak.
What could Lorraine do, anyway? She was leaving today. She couldn’t tell Diane not to go—not for that reason. Diane would have them both locked up. Lorraine would worry herself sick all the way to Oregon. Zoë couldn’t do that to her.
But what am I going to do when he comes back? she thought. Can I tell him I’ve changed my mind?
“Daydreaming, Zo?”
Zoë started. “I guess so.”
“About a boy? Oh, don’t look so surprised. I can tell a hickey when I see one.”
Before she could help it, Zoë’s hand went once more to her neck. She blushed. “I—”
“I know,” Lorraine interrupted. “You met some cute boy, and before you knew it, you let him go and nibble your neck, even though you hardly knew him, and then you didn’t tell me because you thought you were being slutty. I was biting my tongue all last night so I wouldn’t ask. Honestly, Zoë, you’d think it was a crime. You only live once. Is he cute?”
Zoë nodded, afraid to speak.
“Are you seeing him again?”
“Yeah.”
“Good grief, shut up. I can’t bear to hear you run on at the mouth so much. Never mind. I’m just pissed you didn’t tell me. But I know you. As soon as you’ve mulled it over long enough, you’ll tell me—’cept you’ll have to write this time.” Lorraine suddenly looked solemn. “Promise you’ll write, Zoë.”
“Of course, silly.” Zoë shook her friend’s shoulder gently, relieved to change the topic. “Huge long, intricate letters about absolutely everything.”
Lorraine sighed. “I can see I’ll have to buy a dictionary.”
“It’s only Oregon,” Zoë said, amused at her private joke. “I can visit.”
They put away the last dishes, Lorraine collected her belongings, and they walked to Lorraine’s house to meet Diane. They went slowly, hand in hand as they had done when they were eight years old.
When they got to the house, everything seemed to speed up. The car was almost fully packed, which Diane was glad to point out to Lorraine, Zoë noticed uncomfortably, but they helped to squeeze in the last few bags. Diane made a fuss about positioning her guitar safely, while Lorraine looked increasingly annoyed.
“The good thing is,” she whispered to Zoë on the other side of the Toyota, “she can’t play it while she’s driving.”
They scoured the echoing house for anything left behind and found nothing. Finally, they couldn’t put it off any longer. Diane sat in the car, impatiently jangling her keys, and Lorraine had to get in beside her.
“We’ve got a long drive,” Diane said. “Good-bye, Zoë. It’s been nice knowing you.”
Lorraine glared at her stepmother and grabbed Zoë’s hand through the window. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”
Then the car was backing out of the driveway, turning onto the quiet suburban road, and heading for the highway. Zoë watched it disappear around the next corner. “GZN two five six,” she intoned, as if witnessing a car escape from an accident.
She trailed home, turning her back on what would now always be “Lorraine’s old house,” and which she would never enter again. Alone, she thought. No, not quite. She had a date coming up. She
smile dryly as she opened the front door and stepped into the silent house.
When her father returned home that night, he came to her room, where she was sitting in bed reading. Zoë smiled tentatively and patted her comforter. He accepted her invitation and sat, then he took a deep breath as if preparing himself for something that scared him. She tensed.
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he said, rubbing his chin nervously. “Your mother and I have been talking about it a lot. You’re right. I haven’t been giving you enough credit. After all, you’ve had to look after yourself so much lately, and you’ve done it and not complained. If that’s not mature, I don’t know what is. We just wanted to protect you, Zoë. But I’ve already said that.”
Zoë was embarrassed that he was apologizing, yet she was glad. She wasn’t quite sure what to do, however. She wanted a hug, but she felt too shy.
“I had a talk with this guy at the hospital. Your mom talked me into it. This therapist guy. Apparently they have these counseling sessions for families of—of … patients.”
Zoë knew what he meant—terminally ill. But he still couldn’t make himself say it.
“He made some sense; I was surprised, really. Don’t know why. Thought I was the only one who ever went through it, I guess. But he really hit the nail on the head a few times, about how I was feeling, that is.” He stared past her at the wall, as if it were easier to speak that way. “Anyhow”—his gaze shifted down to the carpet, still avoiding her eyes—“I thought you might like to come along next time. Next week, maybe. It might help us through this. I don’t know. God knows, we need something. They’ve got groups. That sort of thing.”
He rubbed at his corduroys nervously. She reached over to the fidgeting hand. Whoever this man at the hospital was, he seemed to have gotten through to her father. Maybe there was hope in this. “I’d like to give it a try.”
He looked up and gave her a relieved smile. “That’s settled, then.” He brought his hand down on his knee like a judge’s gavel. Then his smile faded slightly.
“She’s not going to feel too good tomorrow. Another treatment. But we want you to come the next day, Zoë, and have a proper talk—about everything, everything you can think of. I think we all need it. You can stay as long as you like.”
“I’d like that,” she said, daring to feel relief.
He took her hand. “We don’t want you to feel shut out. We never did.”
Zoë squeezed his hand back. “I know, but—well—I’ve felt so rotten.” She couldn’t hold the tears back. Damn, she thought, I don’t want to make him feel bad again. I don’t want to scare him off.
But her father took her in his arms and held her, and stroked her back. He’s really trying, she thought, and that made her cry harder. He was her daddy again. He would look after her and make things all right.
She was finally all cried out, and he pulled away. “Why don’t you get some sleep.” He kissed her forehead and left, closing the door.
Zoë turned out the bedside lamp and settled down to sleep. It should have been easier now, because she felt a weight was lifting from her. But she remembered Simon, and the weight came crashing down again. When is he coming back? she thought. What have I got myself into?
But her father was talking now, more open, so perhaps he would understand. Maybe he could get her out of it somehow. No. If she didn’t think Lorraine would believe her, why would her father? He has to believe, she thought. I don’t lie. He’d at least believe she’d met a dangerous young man and do something about it. Call the police, maybe, and not leave her alone.
She talked herself out of bed, and to her father’s door. She knocked lightly. No answer. She knocked again, a little louder. Still no answer. She opened the door and looked inside. He lay on the rumpled bedspread fully clothed and fast asleep. His briefcase lay beside him on the bed, unopened. He frowned in his sleep and snored slightly, an airy whistle like a child’s. He was exhausted. She realized how unfair it would be to tell him, how absurd to expect him to believe. I can’t wake him, she thought, and returned to her room. It’s up to me now.
She slept late the next day, and her father was gone when she woke; whether to the office to get a quiet Sunday’s worth of work in or to the hospital, she didn’t know. He’d forgotten to leave a note.
She spent some time reading, curled into an armchair in the den with a fat science-fiction book, part of a series. But often she found she had read the same paragraph over twice and still not understood it. Her thoughts kept on returning to the evening. Would he come tonight? Finally she gave up on reading and went down to the basement to throw some laundry in the washer, then she dragged out the vacuum cleaner.
Toward evening she sat at the kitchen table with her notebook and a pen, molding an idea into a poem.
At the heart of night
watch for the lone boy
waiting in the pale moon’s light
eyes forever changing ice to cloud
Stars
upon faded jeans
upon silver hair
black leather shines
Half wild
still slightly mad
bewildered by time
chained to the night
As he stalks
he might hear a sound
shift into a moonbeam
and be gone.
There was a scratching at the back door. She blinked, put down her pen, and turned to face the door. The small windows reflected back, yet she could see a shadow outside. The key inside turned impossibly, the lock popped, and the door opened silently, all by itself. Simon stepped from the night into her home.
“I only have to be invited once.”
“You don’t have to be quite so melodramatic,” she snapped in relief.
Looking abashed, he sat at the table and took the notebook from her. He read while she watched. I keep forgetting how beautiful he is, she thought with surprise.
“What if my father was here?” she asked.
“I knew you were alone.” He smiled at her written words and touched her cheek with icicle fingers. “I’ve waited centuries for you.”
For a moment she flirted with a picture of them fleeing hand in hand, away from the problems of the world. Take the night, a tiny voice whispered, but she shrugged it off.
“Have you got an idea of what to do?” She was dismayed to hear the tremble in her voice. She was hoping he hadn’t.
Simon laid the notebook on the table. “I’ve got a plan.”
She caught sight of his other hand, the hand he hadn’t touched her with. He held it under the table. She reached for it, and he tried to withhold it from her, but gave in reluctantly. It was burned. A nasty red welt lay across it.
“I stayed out too long,” he said simply.
“The sun?” she asked.
“I was in a hurry to get safe inside; a sleep was coming on. I didn’t secure the boards over the window well enough, and the sun must have come through a crack. The pain woke me.”
She made a sympathetic noise.
He grinned. “Yes, it hurts like hell, but it’ll heal fast.”
“But how does Christopher get away with pretending to be a real child if he can’t go out in daylight either?”
“We can stand a few weak morning rays, or a brief moment on a cloudy day. They think he’s an albino. They bundle him up and keep him out of strong light, to protect his ‘delicate’ skin. He wouldn’t like to try full sunlight, though.” Simon smirked, as if enjoying that thought.
Albino. Zoë thought of the boy at the alley mouth again and shuddered. It was him. She grew angry. She couldn’t let him threaten the life of another girl like Lorraine.
Simon took his hand from her and picked up her pen. “Can I use your book?”
She nodded. She felt firmer now that she’d decided.
He turned to a clean page and drew an octagon. “This is that little structure in the park.”
“The gazebo,” she muttered, and he nodded.
He drew an oblong on one side. “This is a pit on the opposite side from your bench. I dug it last night.”
“But surely someone would notice it today?”
“I disguised it.”
“Simon, what if someone fell in?”
“No one walks around that way. Hardly anyone would be playing there in this weather.”
He seemed oblivious to the danger to innocents. It frightened her, because it made him less human. “Why a pit?”
“There are stakes at the bottom. I want you to lure him over them. They’re very sharp. I think they’ll do the job.”
Her stomach roiled. “I always wondered why they worked. In the movies, I mean. When you’re supposed to be invulnerable.”
“We have to be pierced right through,” he said, looking uncomfortable himself. “Not just injured, impaled. It holds the unnatural body long enough for the soul to escape. The soul that’s been trapped and kept in torment. Then there can be true death.”
She wondered at the selfishness of a body that could imprison its own soul. What would it do to someone who threatened it? “What if he catches me?”
“I’ll be there, Zoë. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be watching. He won’t suspect you, so you can lead him. If it were me, he wouldn’t follow so blindly. If he catches on, I’ll be out there like a flash to distract him. Get him to cross that patch of ground.”
“But how will I get him to follow me?”
“We’ll pass by his house. I know the time he leaves. He has to wait for the family to sleep. He’ll follow you—beautiful and alone—I know it.”
“When do we go?”
“Not for a few hours yet.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I have some things to tell you, about the earth he needs, about his bear. Things that might help you. Anyway”—his voice became soft and eager—“I thought you might let me kiss you again.”
She glanced away nervously, her hand flying to her throat.
“No,” he whispered. “Just a kiss. A real kiss.”
* * *
While Zoë retrieved her coat from the banister, Simon stood at the front door, kicking at the frame. “Stop that,” she said. “I’m nervous, too, you know.”