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14 Ghoul Talk
Valentine left, and after we dropped Billy off at home, Alexander drove me and Stormy back to the Mansion. When we got inside, Alexander talked privately to Stormy in her room while I waited in the library. When they were finished, he went to get a drink and I found her hanging out on her chaise longue, cuddling Phantom. She wasn’t smiling.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Alexander doesn’t want me to see your brother or Henry anymore.”
“Well, I’ll talk to him.”
“I keep letting Alexander down. I hate disappointing him.”
“Me too. I think he brings that out in people.”
“He’ll want to send me home if someone finds out about us. The garlic, the mirrors. Bringing blood to Hatsy’s Diner.”
“I don’t think he’ll want you to go home so soon. Are you homesick?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Just the opposite. I want to stay here forever.”
“I want you to stay, too,” I said sincerely.
“You’d like that?”
“Yes.”
“But I thought I was getting in the way of you and Alexander.”
“No, I like doing stuff with all of us.”
“You are just saying that.”
“I am not, silly.”
“But I know he’s really frustrated with me. We came so close to Billy and Henry finding out about Valentine and me. That’s why he wants me to stay away from them and only hang out with Valentine—because I can be myself with him.”
“That’s not right,” I said. “Besides, I don’t think my brother thinks you are a vampire,” I reassured her.
“It’s one of the reasons my parents keep me at home and only let me spend time with other vampires. Everyone’s afraid I’ll spill the family secrets.”
“Well, that’s no way to live.”
“But if people find out about us, they will fear us and persecute us. Like they did when my grandmother moved here to this Mansion. And she was just a mortal married to a mat="0em">
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was just born that way.”
“I guess I was, too.”
“It would be hard for me not to tell the world if I were a vampire,” I said.
“Really? That’s how I feel!”
“Yes, I’d want to shout it from the rooftops.”
“You would?” she asked. “I just want to be myself.”
“I know that must be very difficult.”
“I don’t like to hide away in our Mansion. I want to live and breathe. I want to explore the world and have friends.”
“But someone as cool as you must have a lot of friends.”
“I only have vampire friends. And not too many of those. Luna was one of my friends. Even though she was older and even when she was mortal. She understood because her family members are all vampires.”
“Then maybe you should see her here,” I said. “I guess Alexander and I wanted to be with you so much we didn’t give you enough time to spend with her.”
“Really?” she asked. “You wanted to hang out with me?”
“Of course! I’ve had a blast.”
She smiled sweetly.
“And I know my brother has had a great time, too,” I confirmed. “You should have friends your own age.”
“And Billy, he looks at me oddly sometimes. Like he’s trying to figure me out.”
“He’s probably looking at you because he thinks you are pretty.”
“He does? He said that?”
“Yes.”
She sat up, excited. “What did he say?”
“That someone as pretty as you shouldn’t be afraid of mirrors.”
Her soft brown eyes widened. “That’s the sweetest thing I ever heard!” She beamed. “I want to see Billy and Henry. I want to have friends that are mortals.” She looked at me desperately.
Really?ight="0em">
“You will,” I said. “I’ll make sure of that.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, I’ll talk with Alexander.”
She leaned in and wrapped her arms around my waist. She squeezed me so hard I could barely breathe. Then she laid her head on my lap. “I felt differently about you when I first met you. I didn’t think I’d like you. I was mad that you weren’t Luna. And I was mad that Alexander stayed here and didn’t return home to our family. I blamed you.”
“I know,” I said, stroking her hair.
“Are you angry at me for that?”
“You’d have to do a lot more for me to be angry with you. Besides, I’d be mad if someone kept me away from Alexander, too.”
“You really like him, don’t you?”
I nodded my head.
Even though there were a few more hours to sunrise, her eyelids were fighting to stay open. The pain of the evening wore on her.
“I want you to be a vampire, like me,” she said.
“I do, too,” I said to her, but she had already drifted off to sleep.
I found Alexander in the TV room watching Dark Shadows.
“We can’t keep Stormy away from Billy and Henry,” I said to him.
“I think it’s for the best. What else can I do? Send her home?”
“No, let her have fun. Let her spread her bat wings,” I said lightly. “She really is starved for friends as much as she is for blood. You said that yourself.”
“I know. But tonight, when I thought she’d eaten garlic… I’m still shaking.”
I gave him a hug. “I know it’s hard for you. You want to protect her from the mortal world. You want to protect me from the Underworld. And in the end, it will only make all of us unhappy.”
“But what can I do?” he asked. “I can’t watch her twenty-four seven. At least when she’s with Valentine or even Luna, they know all the secrets. I don’t have to worry about that.”
“But there are things she’s missing. She can’t live in your parents’ mansion in Romania forever. Someday, like you, she’ll gro, sidth="2ew up and move. She has to adapt and she has to learn how. You can help her do that.”
Alexander realized that he could be the one to be instrumental in his sister’s growth. This time he hugged me. “You are really a great friend to me, besides being my hot girlfriend.”
“I try,” I said, kissing him long.
“So what are we going to do now?” he asked.
“I can think of a few things,” I said with a coy grin, “but they don’t involve siblings.”
When Alexander drove me home, we saw Valentine skateboarding down the street away from my house.
When I got inside, I found Billy in the family room.
“What was Valentine doing here?” I asked.
“I’ve got to talk to you,” Billy said urgently.
“What’s going on?”
“Valentine told me I had to stop hanging out with Stormy.” I could hear the agitation in his voice.
“What? He came over to say that?”
“He asked if I knew about Stormy, and I asked what he meant. He asked if I knew anything unusual about her, and I said, ‘Yes, she’s afraid of mirrors.’”
“Then what did he say?”
“He seemed relieved at first. But then he got all threatening. He told me that Henry and I shouldn’t hang out with her anymore.”
“He’s not your father or Stormy’s.”
“I know, that’s what I told him.”
“And what did he say?”
“That I’m not like her and by hanging out with her I could put her in danger.” He laughed. “Me, dangerous?”
I laughed, too.
“Then he asked to read my blood.”
I stopped laughing. “Did you let him?”
“No. I was angry at him. That’s not right for him to come over here and boss me around. Besides, what business is it of his who she hangs out with?”
“Well, I’m glad you stood up for yourself.?
??
“I think I know why he’s acting like that.”
“You do?” I asked skeptically.
“Yes. I think he’s in love with Stormy, and he’s threatened by me and Henry spending time with her. They were close friends in Romania, but now she has learned there is more to life than guys with black fingernails and white hair.”
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “I think you are right,” I said, nudging my little brother in the arm. “Well, there’s one person you and Henry won’t be hanging out with anymore,” I said. “And he just skated down the street.”
15 Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Alexander and I had done our best to keep Billy and Stormy apart—but I felt responsible that they should be together again since their last time together ended abruptly. A few evenings later, Alexander texted to say that he’d pick me and Billy up to get ice cream at Shirley’s Bakery with him and Stormy. Billy came into my room while I was getting ready for our outing.
“Don’t you knock?” I asked.
“Did you know the picture of me and Stormy didn’t turn out?” he asked.
“No,” I lied. “That sucks. Are you just now looking at it?”
“I noticed it that night, but I was looking at it again this afternoon. You can’t even take a picture right!” Billy argued.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Alexander has—”
“But it’s weird,” he interjected. “She should have been in the photo.”
“I guess I moved.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then I guess she moved.”
I’d used this excuse before on Becky, but my brother wasn’t buying it.
“No, she didn’t,” Billy protested. “Henry and I enlarged it on the school computer. If you had moved, you wouldn’t have gotten me in, either, or you would have gotten more of her. If she moved, it would have been blurry.”
“Then I don’t know what happened,” I finally said.
“I think you do.”
“I have no idea what you mean. What are you saying?”
“She didn’t show up. The only explanation is that she’s invisible on film.”
I laughed. “Are you crazy?”
“No,” he said. “It’s scientific fact.”
“Well, I didn’t want to show you this. I wanted Alexander to give this to you himself. But now you’ve spoiled it!” I pulled the portrait of Billy and Stormy out of my closet. “Here—” I said, handing him the painting.
“This is so cool!” he exclaimed, gazing at the picture as if it were really her. “It looks like what the picture would have looked like.”
“Yes, isn’t that awesome?” I asked proudly.
“How did Alexander know that I’d want this?”
“I don’t know. He just made it.”
“He had to have known that the picture wouldn’t turn out.”
“He did not. Don’t go all crazy conspiracy theorist on me.”
“She’s allergic to garlic and is afraid of mirrors,” he said like a young Sherlock Holmes. “It’s no coincidence, is it?”
“No,” I said. “It’s on purpose. Her parents purposefully altered her genes and personality to make her that way.”
“That’s why she doesn’t have many friends,” he deduced. “That’s why she lives in isolation in Romania. That’s why Valentine said she was different. He knows about her.”
“Knows what?”
“That she’s a vamp—”
The doorbell suddenly rang. And just in the nick of time. I raced down the stairs, and Billy chased after me.
Alexander and Stormy were waiting outside.
“Billy is asking a lot of questions about Stormy,” I whispered to Alexander as I took his hand and hurried to the car.
“Like what?”
Billy caught up to me. “Hey, Alexander, Stormy.”
The Sterling siblings greeted my brother.
“Thanks for the portrait of me and Stormy,” Billy said to Alexander. “That was awesome!”
“What portrait?” Stormy asked.
“Alexander made a picture of you and me at the dance. The same one that Raven took of us. It didn’t turn out, so I was really lucky you made this.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’d like to take another picture of us,” Billy said. “And this time I’d like Alexander to take it. I bet he’ll do a better job than you.”
We all froze. None of us knew what to do. Take the picture and have it not turn out again?
“We’ll do that when we get home,” I said, pushing my brother out the door. “We need to get to Shirley’s before there’s a line.”
I tried to talk as much as I could on the way to Shirley’s Bakery. I didn’t want my brother bringing up to Stormy that she was missing from his photo.
“So are you and Valentine good friends?” Billy asked after we got to Shirley’s and ordered. We were walking along the downtown square and taking in the evening air.
“Yes, I’ve known him most of my life.”
“Do you hang out a lot?”
“I don’t have many friends at home. So I’d say yes, he’s one. But since I came to this town, I have even more friends,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
“Maybe we could get together tomorrow,” Billy said suddenly.
“Tomorrow?” she asked. “Maybe later… How about after sunset?”
“I was thinking before. We could hang outside. Henry has a tree house. It will be better to see it during the daylight hours.”
“I think I have something planned with Alexander.”
“Then how about the next afternoon?” he pressed.
“Don’t you have school?” she asked.
“We could meet right afterward.”
“I get tutored by Jameson.”
“I could come and watch,” he said.
“Don’tpanI you understand? I can’t see you then. I want to, but I can’t.”
“Why not?” he urged.
“I have something planned every day!” she shouted.
“What’s going on?” Alexander asked.
“Nothing.” Stormy took a bite of her ice cream.
“I was just seeing if Stormy could hang out with me and Henry during the day,” Billy said. “We always go out at night. I’d like us to hang out in the day sometime, instead.”
“That’s not possible,” she said.
“Why?”
“Stormy will be going back to Romania soon,” Alexander said flatly.
“I will?” Stormy said, surprised.
“She will?” Billy and I asked sadly, in unison.
“I’d like her to spend the days with me,” Alexander said. “You know, to catch up before she leaves.”
“I’m not ready to leave,” she said.
“You can’t stay here forever,” Alexander replied.
“I want to stay here,” she demanded, “with Billy and Henry and Valentine and Raven.”
I felt touched that she felt the need to be with me.
“We can talk about this later,” Alexander said softly.
“No, we can discuss this now. I’m not going home!” Stormy was getting mad, and I wasn’t sure what to say or do.
“Well, you have to sometime,” Alexander said. “We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
“I don’t have to leave now,” she said. “And you can’t make me.”
Stormy hurried off and sat on a bench outside the bakery.
“I’m sorry—” Billy said to Alexander. “I shouldn’t have brought all this up. We can hang out whenever it’s convenient,” he said. “Just as long as she can stay here.”
My brother joined her, and the two sat on a park bench outside a coffee shop. I noticed Billy fiddling with something in his back pocket.
He pulled out the mirror he’d taken from Henry’s telescope. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it, but I had a pretty good idea.
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered to him.
/> “Why not?” he asked, faking naïveté.
“Because I said so.” I sat down next to him.
Stormy was busy licking the dripping ice cream off her cone.
“What will I see?” he asked. “Or not see?”
“If you do this, I’ll break your fingers,” I threatened in his ear. “You’ll never play a video game again.”
“What’s going on?” Stormy asked.
“Just sibling talk,” I said.
“Oh, I know how that is.”
“Maybe you should go stand by Alexander,” I tried to prompt her.
“I like it here,” she said.
“I just wanted to see your reaction,” Billy said. “I wanted to see if you already knew. But I sensed that you did.”
“Knew what?” I asked.
“Look up there,” he said.
He motioned to a mirror hanging on the corner of the building. The kind of mirror that is used to help cars see the pedestrians before they came out of the alley. It was angled so that we could see the bench we were sitting on. I saw Billy and mysel
f, but the seat next to Billy, where Stormy was now sitting, was empty.
My mouth dropped almost to the cement sidewalk below us.
My brother didn’t say a word.
“I’m not leaving,” we heard Stormy say. “My friends are here.”
Billy gave me a knowing glance, then smiled sweetly at Stormy.
“I love this ice cream,” she said. She held her cone out to Billy. “Want a bite?”
“A bite?” he asked, staring at me. “No, I don’t think I do, but Raven? She might.”
16 Secrets and Sundaes
There was a lot of tension between Billy and me as Alexander drove us home. I didn’t know if he’d say anything to Alexander and Stormy about his discovery or what he’d say if he did.
Hey, Stormy—why don’t you show up in pictures or reflect in mirrors? I heard him say in my mind.
I kept the conversation moving, and I bantered on about mundane topics and recent movies I’d seen. Anything to keep my brother from talking about what he’d seen—or rather, hadn’t seen.
When we arrived home, we were saying our good-byes when Billy spoke up.