by Douglas Rees
"If you want to know," Justin said quietly, "we mostly buy it. Pint at a time. It gets expensive, but we have to have it. It's like air to us."
"What happens if you don't get it?" I asked.
"We die."
"I always thought you guys were immortal," I said.
"Then where's my father?" Justin said bitterly. "We die, just like you do. We can live a lot longer; we're stronger and we can change shape, some of us, but if one of us gets hit by a truck or catches a disease, we'll die all right."
"Is that what happened to your father? If you want to tell me," I said.
Justin shrugged. "He was killed in a special forces operation overseas. He was part of a special night reconnaissance unit the army put together out of jenti volunteers. Very secret. So secret that he got shot down by his own side. They didn't know what he was. Of course, officially, it never happened."
"Oh, man, I'm sorry," I said, and I was.
"The army gives my mother survivor benefits," Justin said. "And we own our house. We've owned it for centuries. But that's about all we've got. There's not that much money in teaching piano lessons in New Sodom."
"I'd begun to think all you guys were rich," I said.
"Most of the jenti around here are," Justin said.
All of a sudden I realized something horrible.
"Justin, you've never had anybody over before, have you?"
After a minute, he said, "Nope. I mean, Ileana. We sort of grew up together. She used to live next door. Made mud pies and stuff. But you know how it is. We're not little kids anymore, and she's pretty busy after school these days."
Yeah, I knew how it was to have no friends. I thought of Justin going to school and scrounging for the grades I could have for nothing, coming home to a room full offish for companionship. For the first time in a long time, I was feeling sorry for somebody besides myself.
"You know what, Justin?" I said. "You're pretty cool."
"Thanks," he said.
Below us the music stopped.
"Come on," he said. "I'll introduce you to my mom."
As we went down the stairs, we met Mrs. Warrener coming out of the piano room with her student.
It was Ileana.
"Oh, hello," Ileana said when she saw us. "This is a surprise."
"Justin's showing me his fish," I said. I was feeling a kind of tingle just looking at her.
"They are beautiful, are they not?" she said.
"And fierce," I said.
"Mom, this is Cody Elliot," Justin put in.
Mrs. Warrener took my hand in a strong, warm grip. "Thank you, Cody," she said. "Ileana told me about what happened at school this week."
Mrs. Warrener was really beautiful and her eyes were glowing as she looked at me.
"Oh. Well. No big deal," I mumbled.
"It was a bigger deal than you may realize," she said. "Would you and Ileana care to stay to dinner?"
I hesitated. I liked Justin all right, but what did vampires eat when they were at home and no gadje were watching?
"I will call my parents for permission," Ileana said. "It has been a long time since Justin and I spent any time together outside school."
If she was staying, I didn't care what I had to eat.
"I'll call, too," I said.
Mom gave me permission in nothing flat.
"Of course, darling. Have a good time," she said. "Just call when you need a ride home."
Ileana spoke to her folks in something that sounded
sort of like a combination of fountains rippling and gears grinding. I heard the words "Justin" and "Cody Elliot/' and "okay ... okay ... okay."
She turned to us. "I can stay," she said.
Justin smiled.
ILLYRIA IN THE CELLAR
Want to know what vampires eat for dinner? Potato soup, salad, and apple pie. There wasn't a pint of blood in sight; not even a tubifex worm.
But the best part of dinner was the talking. Mrs. War-rener had this way of talking to us that made us talk to each other. She asked me a couple of questions about my old school, and that got Ileana and Justin interested, and they asked me things. They wanted to know about California, too. And Justin and Ileana had a lot of stories about Vlad Dracul. By the end of the pie, I felt like I was really beginning to know them.
After dinner Justin washed the dishes. I dried, and Ileana put them away. To keep up our strength, she said, Mrs. Warrener read to us from a book by a guy
named James Thurber. He had a lot of crazy relatives out in Ohio, and the book was about them. The stories had titles like "The Car We Had to Push" and "The Night the Ghost Got In." I laughed so hard at that one that I dropped the salad bowl, which, luckily, was made of wood.
After we had finished, Ileana asked Justin, "Have you shown Cody Illyria yet?"
"Oh. No," Justin said. "Didn't think he'd be interested."
"It is still down there, yes?" Ieana asked.
"Oh, sure, I guess," Justin said.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Just this game we used to play," Justin said.
"It is the best game in the world," Ileana said. "It is a world, in fact. Let us show it to Cody."
"Well, I don't know," Justin said. "I haven't been down there in a while."
"Come on," I said. "If it's that good, I want to play it."
"It sounds like a fine idea to me," Mrs. Warrener added. "Why don't the three of you go down there for an hour, and I'll make chocolate for you when you come back up?"
"Okay then," Justin said. He walked over to the cellar door and flicked on a light. "But we don't have to stay if nobody's interested."
We went down more old steps, but these were made of stone. The cellar walls were stone, too. It was a huge place, with lots of shelves along the walls and mountains of old things piled up. There were big timbers holding up
the floor above, and a stone arch halfway along. It looked like part of a castle.
But the floor was the best part. It was covered with bottles and boxes and all kinds of stuff that had been arranged to make toy cities. There were whole forests made of twigs set in lumps of clay, and mountains of plaster and chicken wire. There were rivers drawn with blue chalk and fields drawn with green chalk. And everywhere I looked I saw toy soldiers.
They weren't modern soldiers. They were hand-painted and made of metal. They rode horses and carried swords. Some of them were flat. Here and there were a few figures of princesses and ladies-in-waiting.
"Well, here it is," Justin said.
"Illyria," Ileana said happily.
She picked her way over to one of the towns at the far end of the cellar.
"This is my city," she said. "New Florence. City of poets, artists, and actors. No soldiers allowed."
I walked over and looked at it.
"This is the Rotunda," Ileana said, pointing to a big old cut-glass cake stand with a cover. "This is where the plays are performed and the poets recite."
"This is the cathedral," she went on, pointing to a carved wooden box with a blue bottle on top. "This is the hospital, this is the library, this is the coffeehouse, and that is the museum."
The buildings in Ileana's city were separated by parks and spaced around squares that flowed together. It was great, but something about it didn't make sense. The streets and squares were full of soldiers.
"I thought you said no soldiers allowed," I said.
"Look at them," Ileana replied. "Do they have weapons?"
They didn't. Every rifle, sword, and pistol had been broken off. Some of them were even missing arms or legs.
"No soldier is allowed into New Florence until he has lost his weapons," Ileana said.
"This is Anaxander," she said, handing me one of the armless ones, a cavalryman in a black uniform. "He is our greatest poet. Over there is his friend Vasco. He is the second-greatest poet but the greatest singer."
I noticed Vasco was short an arm, like Anaxander.
"All these men have given up war a
nd found their true callings," Ileana told me.
"All these men have gotten broken," Justin said. "The good ones are in the other towns."
"Which one's yours?" I asked.
"That one," Justin said. "I call it Three Hills."
Three Hills was the biggest city in Illyria. It was built on three of Justin's chicken-wire mountains and the space between them. The big difference between it and the other towns was that it had a wall running all around the hills, with guard towers and cannons.
"This is totally cool," I said.
"We used to come down here every day," Ileana said. "Until I moved. But you have not kept developing it, Justin."
"I tried a couple of times," Justin said. "Wasn't much fun without you."
"Why is it called Illyria?" I asked.
"Because it is a beautiful name," Ileana said.
"Sounds kind of like yours," I said. "Ileana, Illyria."
"No, no," Ileana said. "It is a real place. Or was. It was a province of the Roman Empire. Also, Napoleon re-created it for a time. And Shakespeare wrote of it."
"But Shakespeare was just using the word," Justin said. "He didn't know anything about the real Illyria."
"That is why it is so perfect," Ileana said. "Because it is real and not real."
"How do you play?" I asked.
"We just made things up," Justin said.
"We made everything up," Ileana said. "We wrote their laws, their literature, and acted in their plays. We made their history happen. Then we wrote it. And there were things that happened to people. Adventures."
Justin was blushing. "It was just kid stuff," he said.
I looked at Illyria and wished it was real and I was there with Justin and Ileana.
"This is great," I said.
"Justin, let's show Cody how we used to do it," Ileana said.
"Well. . . ," Justin said.
"Please?" I said.
"Okay," he said. "That city over there is yours. It's called Palmyra, but you can change it if you want to."
Palmyra was a small place with only three big buildings and about a dozen soldiers. But it had a good harbor, and there was lots of room around it for new buildings.
"Palmyra is cool," I said.
By the time we had to stop, I had found some pressed-glass olive dishes and turned them into cargo ships. They were bringing in salt, and I was storing it in two rows of
salt shakers that I was also using to line a long, straight road that I was building to connect Palmyra to New Florence.
I'd also started a park just beyond the new city hall, which was an old syrup can that looked like a log cabin.
Justin made a suburb for Three Hills. He took some walnut shells from the other towns and scattered them out a few feet from the wall.
"These are the houses for the people who don't want to live in Three Hills anymore because it has too many rules," he told us. "They're loyal but they want to relax more. They sell flowers and fruit to the city."
"There should be an inn or something," I said. "So people can come and visit their friends."
"Good idea," Justin said, and added an upside-down flowerpot.
"That's pretty big compared to the houses," I said.
"Well, maybe these people have a lot of friends," Justin said.
Ileana was having a debate in her council over whether or not to build a statue in front of the Rotunda. Her two poets were on opposite sides. They argued back and forth until she finally said to us, "My lords, we cannot decide this matter. What do you advise?"
So we got into it, with me on one side and Justin on the other, until Mrs. Warrener called us upstairs.
I didn't want to quit. It was the most fun I'd had since we came to Massachusetts.
Then I had a great idea.
"Did anyone ever write an epic about Illyria?" I asked.
"You mean a Shadwell-type epic?" Justin asked.
"Exactly."
"No," he said.
"Then would you mind if I did? I need to come up with something for English."
"No, you don't," Justin said. "Remember what I told you? You don't have to do anything."
"I remember," I said. "But I'm going to do it anyway. I turned in homework today and told all the teachers to give me real grades."
"No kidding?" Justin said.
"Do you think I can't do it?" I asked.
"It will be very difficult," Ileana said. "Gadje schools have not prepared you."
"Then I'll have to work harder," I said. "But I'm not going to fake it."
"Well," Justin said. "I guess I can help you if you want. I'm pretty good in school."
"Thanks," I said. "So it's okay if I write the epic?"
"You must write it," Ileana said. "I will tell you all the stories you want to hear."
Oh, boy. Shadwell was going to get the longest epic he'd ever seen.
While we were drinking our hot chocolate and talking about the epic, which I decided was going to be called The Epic of Illyria, Hamilton Antonescu came to pick up Ileana.
He was a neat-looking little man not much taller than she was. He had deep, friendly eyes and a gray mustache.
"How do you do?" he said, shaking my hand. Even
though he was a little guy, his grip was strong. All these vampires seemed to have muscles.
"I hope you're getting along at dear old Vlad all right," he said, smiling.
"I like it better than dear old Cotton Mather so far," I said. "Thanks for helping me to get in."
"Oh, you got yourself in," he said. "At most all I did was to speed up the process a little. May Ileana and I give you a ride home?"
"Sure, thanks," I said.
It was snowing again when we left, big feathery flakes that laid a frosting over the old snow and glistened in the branches of the trees. I decided it was beautiful. I also decided I was definitely in love with Ileana.
The funny thing about it was the way I felt. Scared and happy at the same time. I was glad she'd marked me. I had the feeling that somehow she'd made the night beautiful, as though she had made these huge snowflakes. Of course, she was a vampire. Maybe she had.
She sat beside me in the backseat, just taking in the snow and never saying a word. I wondered if she knew how I felt. I wondered if her father knew she had marked
me.
Mr. Antonescu kept talking to me all the way to my house. I kept up my end, chatting about school while thinking about Ileana,
When we got home, I said, "Would you like to come in?"
I was proud of myself for remembering to ask, but Mr. Antonescu said, "Thank you, but I think we will not
disturb your family so late. Good night, Cody. It was nice to meet you."
"Good night," Ileana said. "Remember to call if you need any stories from Illyria."
"I will. Promise," I said.
Mom and Dad were watching a DVD when I went in, one of those old movies that they liked, all black and white.
"Well, look who's here," Mom said, smiling. "Nice of you to take a little time off from your busy social life to join us."
"Have a good time?" Dad asked.
"The best," I said. "Mr. Antonescu brought me home."
"That was nice of Hamilton," Dad said.
"Did you ask him in?" Mom asked.
"Of course," I said. "I'm not a dumb kid."
"Certainly not," Mom agreed. "You're a verray parfit, gentil knyght."
"What?" I said.
Dad paused the DVD.
"I can see Mr. Bogart and Ms. Bacall will have to wait to pursue their relationship," he said. "All right, Beth, explain it to him."
"The verray parfit, gentil knyght was a character in The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer," Mom said. "It's a collection of stories told by some travelers who are going to Canterbury Cathedral together. Each of them is supposed to tell two stories going and two coming back."
"Is it like an epic?" I asked.
"Something like that," she said.
S
o I asked, "Do we have a copy?"
"Two," Dad said. "One in modern English and one in the original Middle English."
"We got the modern one so your father could understand it," Mom said. "But the music's all in the original.
"Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte ofMarche hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and theyonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale fowles maken melodye, That slepen al the night with open ye, (So priketh hem nature in hir corages): Than longenfolk to goon on pilgrimages ..."
Mom went on like that until she got to the knyght. I was reading along in the modern version:
When April with its showers sweet The drought of March has pierced to the root And bathed every vein in such liquor Of which virtue engendered is the flower, When Zephyr also with his sweet breath Has inspired in every hold and heath Tender crops, and the young sun Has in the ram his course half run,
And little birds make melody That sleep all night with open eye (So Nature pricks them in their hearts): Then folk long to go on pilgrimages . . .
It didn't make much more sense in the modern version.
"Where did you learn how to do that?" I said. "And why?"
"In college," Mom said, shrugging.
It's weird when your parents surprise you. And this was a thick book. More than three hundred pages.
"Can you do the whole thing?" I asked.
She laughed. "Just the Prologue," she said. "We all had to learn it."
This was amazing. Not only did my mom know some ancient poetry, but my dad had read the modern version of it. Plus, Geoffrey Chaucer had figured out a way to do what I wanted to do—write an epic made up of stories.
"I think I'll read these," I said.
Mom and Dad looked at each other.
"Three days at that school and he's reading Chaucer voluntarily," Dad said. "God bless Count Dracula."
"While his mother and father watch DVDs of old movies that were bad the first time," Mom said. "We're becoming unfit parents."
"Bogart and Bacall never made a bad movie," Dad said. "There may possibly be one with minor flaws."
"I'm going up to my room," I said. I took the two Canterbury books with me.
