by Grace Draven
“You worried they’ll trash the place? I know how much it means to you.”
I didn’t care for his overly familiar tone so I didn’t refill his tea, not even when he clinked the ice cubes back and forth in the glass longingly. In the afternoon glare, Mrs. Singh’s house looked much like it always had, with its neat blue and white trim and porch columns peeling a little with age. All the windows were covered—not with the light muslin curtains my friend had favored, but ugly blackout shades pulled down tight. Not a single soul had stirred forth all day.
“Houses are just things,” I said with a shrug. “It’s the people inside that matter.”
Taking advantage of my distraction, young Max had filched another cookie from the platter. “And you don’t like the new people, huh.”
For all his jug ears and awkward elbows, no grass grew under his feet. Sometimes people have a fey, animal cunning about them that only shone out once in awhile, like the glimmer of water at the bottom of a deep well. Mr. Ferdline had it now, though he still chewed with his mouth half open, unmindful of the crumbs scattered down his shirt front.
I peered down upon him, no small feat when your target is a head and a half taller. “I’m sure I couldn’t say. You know I’m not one to leap to judgment before time.”
Max had the good sense to nod in agreement, and as a reward, I topped up his iced tea and kept an eagle eye on him as he gulped it down.
I saw my first vampire in Chicago, when I was ten years old.
That November, my grandparents loaded up our blue Ford Fairlane and drove several hundred miles to spend Thanksgiving with my Great Aunt Ilena and my Great Uncle Mattei. I don’t rightly recall the details of the journey itself, but I imagine it’d look much the same today: narrow highways, fields of dry cornstalk stubble silvered with frost. Small towns flash by quick in this part of the world, some of them no more than a four way stop and a lonely service station. Blink and you’ll miss them, but you won’t have missed much, my grandmother used to say.
You couldn’t miss Chicago if you tried. My grandfather made a point of detouring so we could see the skyscrapers that lined the lakefront. They were a forest of concrete and steel and I didn’t quite like how they towered over us, casting their long shadows over the water. I was glad to reach the little house in Albany Park with its gable windows and smoke curling from the chimney.
My great aunt was a tall, reserved woman who was never without a clean apron and her dark hair fastened back in a braided bun. She and my grandmother spent hours in the kitchen chatting and making big pots of ciorbă de perișoare, a sour meatball soup that I loved. When he wasn’t peeling potatoes and carrots for her, my great uncle was down in the cellar tending a battered brass still while my grandfather fed the fire beneath it. Bundled up against the damp chill, they drank big cups of coffee, sometimes accompanied by a small shot glass of plum brandy.
Great Uncle Mattei had stooped shoulders and a wheezing laugh. He walked with a slight limp–from a wound he’d taken in the war, he told me. To aid his balance, he had an elegant cane with an ivory handle shaped like a wolf’s head. I coveted it immediately but was warned it wasn’t a toy for little girls. Great Aunt Ilena consoled me with a doughnut still warm from the fryer and dusted with sugar. It wasn’t until after Thanksgiving dinner that my great uncle relented. While my grandmother and great aunt napped in their rooms, he beckoned me closer and held up the cane for my inspection.
“Look, pisicuţă, there is a secret, but only if you look very carefully.” A deft twist and the handle slid free, revealing a blade nearly as long as his arm with a deadly point. Great Uncle Mattei winked and slid the blade back in its rosewood sheath. “Good, eh? But it is my secret, you tell no one.”
Standing at the sink up to his elbows in soapsuds, my grandfather snorted. “We will tell no one. Plenty of time for all that when she’s older. Now pass me that roasting pan and pitch in, or none of us will live to see Christmas.”
It took the three of us an hour to wash and dry all the good china, and by then Great Aunt Ilena and my grandmother were awake and making coffee and setting out a plate of speculaas, the thin, crisp spice cookies that were my grandmother’s specialty. I was allowed to taste a thimbleful of plum brandy and Great Uncle Mattei promised to take me to see My Fair Lady the next day. It was easy to forget the sword cane and our queer little conversation in the kitchen.
Back in its day, the Portage Theater was a grand old movie house with velvet seats and a pipe organ to accompany silent films. In my eyes it was still a grand place and going to the pictures was a rare treat. My great uncle was friends with the manager, Mr. Maleski, who handed us the largest bags of popcorn at the snack bar and tore our tickets himself. When the film ended, he and my great uncle spent half an hour talking, though he waved off an invitation to join us for dinner.
“And what would this place do without me? Fall apart, that’s what. But you should be careful, Mattei,” he said in a low voice so the ushers couldn’t hear. “We’ve gotten too used to the peace and quiet. It’s not like it was, when we were young. The nights are getting longer.”
Great Uncle Mattei clapped him on the back. “Of course, Piotr, of course. You know I am careful always.”
Mr. Maleski grumbled into his mustache but waved us goodbye, tucking an extra bar of Bonomo's Turkish Taffy in my pocket for later. A few blocks from the theater was a diner, one that made the best milkshakes in Chicago, according to my great uncle.
“A short walk to stretch our legs. Unless you are too tired?”
I wasn’t. The sun had set and it was snowing again, fat, wet flakes that clung to my eyelashes and collected on my coat sleeve, but Great Uncle Mattei and I didn’t mind. He settled his ushanka with its wide, fur-lined flaps more firmly upon his head and we set off down the street. I waited a minute or two before asking him the question that had been on my mind since we left the theater.
“What did Mr. Maleski mean by ‘the nights are getting longer’?”
My great uncle squeezed my hand. “As the nights get colder, the hours of daylight dwindle, pisicuţă, but it is the way of the seasons. Only old men like us have to worry. The cold sinks into your bones at our age.” He chuckled and smoothed the striped scarf Aunt Ilena had knitted him and insisted he wear.
I loved my great uncle dearly, but I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth. It was a lie for grown-ups, the kind where the truth was like a sliver of cake on your plate with the rest kept back. The streets grew quieter the farther we got from the theater. After a block there were no more brightly lit stores and people coming and going with their holiday shopping, only shuttered offices and warehouses. Great Uncle Mattei did not seem to mind. He dug the tip of his cane down into the ice and slush on the sidewalk with every step, telling me about the Field Museum and how we should all visit.
“It’s where your Aunt Ilena and I first met, you know. In the Hall of Mammals, over a magnificent specimen of Desmodus rotundus…”
As we passed the entrance to an alley, I stopped to re-tie my shoe. Great Uncle Mattei made a soft tch sound but stepped to one side and waited patiently as I struggled to knot the wet laces. The alley was narrow and lined with garbage cans that smelled of mildewed cardboard and rotting food. Something moved in the darkness with a skittering noise like claws on wet pavement. A rat, I thought to myself. No, something bigger. My great uncle peered into the alley.
“Who’s there? Show yourself.”
She came out of nowhere, scrawny limbs emerging from a pile of boxes like a funnel web spider emerging from its hole. It was a girl, not much younger than I was. A fringe of white blond hair hid her eyes and she wore a man’s suit jacket with a satin lining that was torn and stained. Her feet were bare, but she didn’t seem to feel the cold even standing ankle deep in slush.
“Spare change?” she asked hoarsely.
Her outstretched palm was dirty and her sharp little nails brown with grime. I dug a few quarters out of my purse and she took a shuffling
half step toward me. The girl’s nostrils flared and the tip of her tongue flicked out as if she were tasting the cold night air. She twitched her head abruptly to the left and I caught a glimpse of her eyes. They were bottle green and sly, and the streetlight gave them a feral shine. Without meaning to, I dropped the coins in the snow. She bared her teeth, long and yellow like a dog’s.
“Such a pretty miss, and so warm. Give me your hand and I’ll tell you a secret…”
Cold fingertips brushed my wrist. A smell like wet earth clung to her hair and skin, and beneath it was an odor like rancid meat. Fear rose in a sour wash at the back of my throat and I gagged on it but couldn’t make a sound. I only shivered. She giggled then, a laugh that sounded too deep for a little girl. Great Uncle Mattei jerked me away by the back of my coat. His hand clamped down over mine, crushing my fingers so hard I cried out in protest.
“Do you see the diner, little one? There, at the end of the street.”
I did. It was less than a hundred yards away, brightly lit with a blue and white awning at the entrance.
“Go, quick as you can,” He pressed a few dollars into my hand. “Wait for me there.”
“But…” I looked past the solid shelter of his arm, where the girl was waiting.
My great uncle was the sternest I’d ever seen him, all the laughter gone from his eyes. He propelled me forward with a firm push. “Quick now, pisicuţă. No arguments.”
Above our heads, the streetlight flickered and went out with a metallic pop. I bolted. I only looked back once, long enough to see my great uncle take the girl by the hand and follow her into the alley, two silhouettes joining the darkness. I don’t remember running all the way to the diner or slipping on the slick sidewalk, though I must have done. By the time I pushed through the doors and stumbled into a red vinyl booth, the knees of my stockings were shredded and dirty and my lungs ached like I’d run a race.
The waitress clucked and fussed and brought me a grilled cheese sandwich and hot chocolate with whipped cream. I had no appetite, but I wrapped my hands around the white ceramic mug for warmth. On the inside of my wrist I could still feel the girl’s touch; it had stayed with me, cold as frost on a window pane.
Give me your hand, and I will never leave you.
She hadn’t spoken the words out loud but I’d heard them in my head clear as a bell. They sang with promise: no more dull days spent in the endless cycle of schoolwork and chores, no more lonely nights hoping to hear my mother and father’s voices in the kitchen. No more moving from town to town with everything I owned crammed in one small suitcase. The girl promised me all of that and more. How I wanted it!
But I didn’t like how she read me, winkling out the selfish secrets I’d taken such pains to keep hidden. I didn’t like the feeling of another person being able to reach out and put thoughts into your head like a child throwing pennies into a fountain. There was a wrongness to it, like gooseflesh on a hot summer day, the kind where old folks said someone was walking over your grave.
The door to the diner swung open, letting in a wintry draft and blowing paper napkins all over the table. I jumped in my seat, spilling the hot chocolate. The scalding liquid on my hand made me feel a little better, the pain cutting through the fog in my mind. The girl’s words didn’t mean anything, I reminded myself, they had no power to hurt or to heal. I’d heard my mother make the same promise. That, too, was another grown-up lie.
Great Uncle Mattei sat down heavily in the seat across from me, tucking his ivory-handled cane beside him in the booth. I said nothing as he joked with the waitress, ordering a slice of apple pie with ice cream and a cup of coffee to follow. When she brought the pie, he cut into the flaky crust with the side of his fork, but pushed it round and round the plate instead of eating it. He looked tired and sad, hair rumpled and damp from beneath his hat.
“Dear one, you trust me, yes? There are some things your grandparents didn’t want you to know… not yet. One day, yes, but God’s grace, not so soon! Now there is no choice. Așteaptā, murgule, să paşti iarbă verde. Fate has a way of forcing one’s hand and we must tell you, for you need to know.”
My courage was returning bit by bit and I opened my mouth to bombard him with questions, but my great uncle shook his head.
“Let me speak now, quickly. Then we will go home and what questions you have, we will all of us answer–myself and your Aunt Ilena as well as your grandmother and grandfather. Do you agree to this?”
I nodded reluctantly, and he pushed away his plate and sighed. “You may think your old uncle crazy, pisicuţă, but I promise you that what I say is the truth and not a story. Monsters walk this world. They look like us, maybe sound like us, but you must never forget what they are. That one, in the alley…” My great uncle crossed himself quickly, something he rarely did. “Many monsters I have seen, but never a child. I hope never to see one such again.”
“What did she want from us?” From me, I meant. And I thought I already knew, but I wanted to hear what Great Uncle Mattei would say.
“I won’t speak of it here,” he said with a fierce scowl. He leaned over the table, folding his callused hands around mine. “All I will say is that creatures such as that would do worse than eat you alive. They would crack you open like a nut and devour your heart, leaving you nothing but an empty shell. That I could never allow… but may God forgive me for what I have done. No more questions now. I am sorry, pisicuţă, but I cannot bear it.”
Great Uncle Mattei’s face was pale with sorrow, and his hand felt clammy. He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead, and then I saw it–a splash of blood on his shirt cuff, red as a poppy. He heaved himself up from the booth and took up his cane, and I saw that his hands shook so badly he could barely hold it. I reached out and tugged his coat sleeve until it hid the soiled cuff, then gave him his hat.
He patted my shoulder with a sad smile. “We should go home. The nights are growing longer.”
At the house in Albany Park, my grandmother brewed a strong pot of coffee and none of us slept till dawn. I learned a great deal that night, but nothing I’ve ever told another living soul. The next morning, my grandfather packed all our things into the car and we made our somber goodbyes. We wouldn’t return to Chicago that Christmas or for any other holiday after that.
A few years later, Great Aunt Ilena wrote my grandmother to say that she and Great Uncle Mattei were returning to the old country, to his mother’s village in the Bucegi Mountains. A regretful necessity for his health, she said. The letter accompanied a long, skinny package like a florist’s box, wrapped in many layers of brown paper and tied with twine. I didn’t have to open it to know what it was, and that it was for me.
I never saw my aunt and uncle again.
On the edge of the garden is an old spring house built of stone and cedar. Time was you’d store your butter there, where the running water kept things cool year round. Now it’s abandoned with nothing but a couple of loblolly pines standing guard, and the steady seep of water feeds a clump of hogweed and hemlock and a waist-high patch of stinging nettles. My grandmother swore by nettle tea as a spring tonic, but I never could stand the stuff, nor the way the leaves raise pink welts on your skin. She used to say that all gardens need a bit of wilderness left in them to remind us we can’t tame everything. Truth be told, I didn’t mind the wilderness. Jimson weed has big trumpet-shaped blooms that perfume the warm summer evenings and even nightshade’s tiny purple flowers are pretty in their own way. I tended my vegetables and let them be.
Anything worth doing in the garden needs an early start, before the sun climbs too high. By ten o’clock, I had a bowl of snap peas for supper and a few Brandywines as big as a man’s fist. My kitchen was dark and cool as a cave, quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the slow tick of the clock. I sliced a tomato into wedges and arranged it on one of my good china plates with a big spoonful of cottage cheese and a few crackers on the side. Heat dulls the appetite, but I ate every bite. I
had a plan.
Before she moved to California, Mrs. Singh left me a few things. I planted a couple dozen of her lily bulbs out by the back step, because I liked to see the splash of scarlet against the flagstones. In my recipe box were a few scraps of paper with the recipe for her mango pickle and a list of all the spices that went into her masala chai. But the last was a spare key to her front door. We’d traded them just in case, and I hadn’t thought to give it back to the nice real estate lady who’d sold the Singhs’ house.
Some might call that Providence.
Mulberry Street was deserted in the middle of the day, as I knew it would be. August is a month where if the heat doesn’t flatten you like the hand of God, the humidity will do the rest. Cicadas droned in the trees but the sidewalks were empty, nothing but the smell of hot asphalt and the hiss of lawn sprinklers down the block. Young Mr. Ferdline wouldn’t be around with the mail for hours yet, so there was no one to spy on me and my goings on.
It felt strange to walk up to the Singhs’ house the way I’d done so many times before. Some things were the same. The worn wooden steps had the same old sag in the middle, and the brass house numbers still hung slightly askew. Nobody had oiled the chains of the porch swing, which creaked in the breeze. But this time there was no Mr. Singh napping in his chair, cotton handkerchief laid neatly over his face. No Mrs. Singh boiling water for tea in the kitchen as she watched The Price is Right. My friend’s house was like a jack o’lantern without a candle, and I felt as hollow as it looked. But I told myself it didn’t matter. I had a job to do.
There’s a kind of insect that lives in the tall grass–bush crickets, we used to call them when I was a girl. They’ve got long spindly legs like a grasshopper’s but their wings are pale green and veined like a leaf. If they stay very still, you can hardly tell they're there at all. I’ve seen garter snakes slide right on by, missing out on a good meal. Those National Geographic documentaries say there’s a name for it: protective coloration, when an animal’s markings disguise them as something else. That’s what I needed.
