However, it seems as soon as I close my eyes, the doorbell chimes. Even after I sit up to focus in on the room around me, the doorbell is still singing that irritating song. Aunt Jill is the only guest we’ve ever received, and usually Deanna or I open the door for her as soon as we see the cab pull up to the door. So whoever the visitor is, he or she must be a real stranger.
I glance at the time on the alarm clock and it’s a little after noon. It appears I’ve been asleep for some time. My head is woozy as I drag to the door.
“Who is it?” I shout past the frog in my throat.
“It’s me,” I hear.
“Who’s me?”
“Derek.”
“Derek?” I ask, but I feel like an idiot because I know who that is already.
“Derek Firth,” he says, accommodating my stupidity.
“Sure,” I mutter and open the door.
“Hey,” he says, grinning at me and glowing under the sooty white sky, which holds a thick layer of snow clouds.
“Hey.” And we’re staring at each other. I suspect he’s waiting for me to say more. “Played hooky,” is all I can come up with.
“I understand. I just wanted to stop by to see if you’re okay.”
“I am,” I answer quickly.
He’s studying the bruise on my cheek. “How’s that feeling?”
“Okay I guess. It doesn’t hurt. And stuff like this doesn’t stay with me long, so…It’ll probably be gone tomorrow.”
“Good,” he says, nodding.
Again, we’re staring at each other, which becomes an indication that it’s time to change the subject.
“Are you up?” he asks. His eyes fall over me, as I’m still in my bed clothes.
“Well, now I am, thanks to you,” I say with an over exaggerated straight face. He chuckles, which I take to mean that I don’t have to follow up by letting him know that was me joking.
“So do you want to hang out? You know, in town?”
If he would’ve asked me this before last night, my answer would’ve been no, but after last night, I say, “Sure.”
I throw on a pair of oversized overalls totally forgetting that earlier I wanted to appeal to him for some strange reason. Seeking comfort is something that’s automatic to me. Some people cram ice cream and cupcakes down their throat for comfort, I throw on something baggy and mundane to take me away from participating in this world.
My black boots squash the snow beneath my feet as we walk up the road. I’ve taken this walk so many times but always alone, never with a companion. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make small talk, so instead I notice the wiry winter branches belonging to the trees in the fields separating the properties to make it look like we all live on our personal New England island.
“Beautiful, huh?” Derek asks.
Now that I’m looking at him, I realize my eyes haven’t focused on him since we started the walk.
“Kind of, I guess.”
He grins at me. “You’re just not going to give in are you?”
“Give in to what?”
“To how great it is to live in a place like this.”
“Great for whom?”
“You, Zillael.”
I love the way he says my name. It’s not in the least bit difficult for him, it sounds like he’s been saying it his entire life. I’m simpering a bit. It’s embarrassing enough for me to change the subject.
“So what’s a Selell?” I ask. I figure now is a good time to get to the core of why we’re really sharing this time together.
“You touched one.”
“The guy on the ground? He had canine teeth too?”
“He did.”
“So a Selell is a guy with teeth like an animal?”
“You already know what they are, Zillael. You just don’t want to believe it.”
I look down to see my feet squash the snow. A driver of a red truck honks his horn. Derek waves at him.
“You know who that is too?” I ask, surprised. The guy looked to be older than sixty years old.
“Mr. Patterson. He’s your neighbor.”
“Oh,” I say and watch the tail end of the truck continue down the ice covered road.
“But getting back to the subject at hand, come on, what do you think those guys are? You can say it. I won’t laugh or call you crazy.”
I swallow hard. The problem is I feel ridiculous even knowing what I’m thinking. “Something like a vampire,” I say anyhow, but doubt colors my tone.
“Wasn’t hard, was it?” He’s grinning at me again.
“Yeah, it was.”
He laughs.
“So what does that make you?” I ask, staring into his very attractive face. I can’t wait to hear this answer.
“I’m a Wek.”
“A what?” I ask with a laugh. I was not expecting him to say that.
“Something like a guardian. I’m just not a guardian.”
“Okay…” I ponder that. “So what are you guarding?”
“You.”
That three-letter word hits me like an anvil upside the head. “Me? Why me?”
“Do you want to know what the Life Blood is?”
I don’t answer immediately. I kick up the snow as I think. It sounds like he’s actually doing me the courtesy of asking before revealing something disturbing and I’m still trying to process the existence of vampires and him being a Wek.
“So why Wek?” I ask un-expectantly.
“Why not?” he asks with a chuckle.
We’re at the edge of town, and there are the two glass buildings out of place but glistening anyhow. “You know what, never mind. If Mayor Taylor can justify that, then, by golly, you can be a Wek.”
He laughs out loud this time, and I watch him. I can’t believe I made someone laugh. I’ve never done that before.
He lowers his face closer to mine. “Sounds like we agree about something.”
I’m simpering again. I’m embarrassed again.
“Have you ever eaten Jake’s Candy Apples?”
I frown hard as we take a quick right onto the wooden plank that cuts between the two towers leading into the town square. “A candy apple?”
“Of course you haven’t. Follow me.” He flashes those pearly whites before shuffling past The Cool Cookies Shop and Our Lady Salon and enters the store with an array of candy apples displayed on encased shelves in the window.
The scent of apples dipped in a hard red candy coating is divine. I’m studying these sweet morsels with wide eyes, mesmerized by how tantalizing they look.
“You look like you’ve never seen one before,” he says to me.
“Not in real life,” I confess.
“Hey, Jake,” Derek calls out and an older white-haired guy wearing a blue jean apron steps out from the back.
“Is that you, Derek?” Jake shouts too loudly for Derek and I to be the only two patrons in the toasty shop. He’s also trying to focus in on both of us, past the extra thick bifocal lenses that cover his eyes.
“Is this your girlfriend?” He’s studying me hard.
“She doesn’t even want to be friends, Jake,” Derek says jokingly. “But I’m going to bribe her with one of your candy apples.”
Jake lets out one loud laugh. “Well I better make it the best one I have in the house because she sure is a pretty gal.” He focuses those magnified eyes harder on me. “You’re not from these parts. You’re one of those, what do they call them? Exotic, beautiful young ladies. Like a movie star.”
I don’t know why, but I find myself grinning at him. I’m not flattered because looks are looks, but I feel liked and that’s what’s making me happy now.
Derek buys two candy apples, one for me, one for him. We decide to sit outside in the nippy afternoon on one of the black iron benches next to the glass windows of Jake’s Candy Apples beneath the pergola. My fingers are freezing, so are my lips and the tip of my nose. The candy apple tastes like a bit of heaven on earth, and I don’t know what
’s taken me so long to try one.
“You can’t do this in New York,” Derek says, reminding me that the candy apple and I are not alone at the moment.
“I guess not,” I confess.
We smile at each other. I like Derek Firth, even if he is a Wek.
“The Life Blood, do you want to know about it?”
“Do you have it too, Life Blood? I mean, you took those two…” I pause, not yet ready to call them vampires, “guys out pretty easy. That’s something I could always do—fight I guess.” I whisper the last part of that.
“Yes, you’re strong.”
“So you know that about me already?”
“I know everything about you and no, you’re not a Wek. But I can’t tell you anything more about the Life Blood unless you really want to know. Look inside yourself; do you really want to know about the Life Blood?”
I study the half-eaten candy apple in my hand and run my tongue across the bottom of my back teeth to try to dislodge the sticky parts from between them. I’m trying to figure out how to put what I’m thinking into words. It’s not as if I ever feared being judged, but I’m seeking to be understood right now because finally someone’s listening to me.
“It’s just, I know it’s serious and everything’s about to change isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Zillael…”
“Okay, you can call me, Zill.” I grin feebly at him.
“I don’t know, Zill,” he’s revises, while grinning back at me. “Can’t we kind of assume that things have already changed?”
Clips from last night play back in my head. “I guess so.”
We’re sitting in silence. A bearded man wearing a plaid coat eyes me as he walks by. I think it’s because I’m staring at him. I bet his life is normal. He goes home, whips up some lunch and watches some television, maybe discusses his day with his wife at some point.
Then there’s this girl named Phoebe Adams, who’s always wearing black and heavy Goth makeup, plodding through the snow in the center town square like she has nowhere to go. She does beam in on us, but once she figures out who it is, she doesn’t put any more attention on us. I always liked Phoebe, how she’s present yet so far away. I bet there are no vampires in her universe. Her body can’t go on autopilot and defend itself against any and all aggression. So I ponder, deep down do I want to be Phoebe or with all that I know about myself and about my reality, remain Zillael?
“Tell me about the Life Blood,” I finally say. I want to be me.
Derek’s eyes flick over to a couple, who’s walking towards us. Foot traffic is picking up. “Let’s walk,” he says and rises to his feet.
I’m following him up Oak Street and through a residential area where weather-beaten houses dug in between an array of winter worn trees push into the landscape. This is where most of the kids at school live.
“Do you live over here?” I ask him, taking in our surroundings. We’ve lived in Moonridge for three years, but I’ve never journeyed to this area.
“No, I don’t.”
I squint at him. There’s something about the way he said that. “Do you live in Main Valley like me?”
“Yeah, I live by you.”
“Oh…” I’m sure there’s double meaning in his answer, but I choose to leave it at that. We have more pressing matters to discuss. “So, tell me, what’s this Life Blood stuff?”
“Have you ever heard of the Tree of Life?”
I rack my brain, trying to remember where I heard that referenced before.
“How about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?”
“Sounds familiar, but I’m coming up blank.”
“They’re referenced in a few scripts of the world. Some have been discovered by mankind, many haven’t.”
I take a side eyed glance at him. It’s just the way he’s speaking to me is weird. He doesn’t sound like a guy who’s very popular with the girls at school and captain of just about all the sports teams at school. As I’m thinking about this, it hits me.
“The Bible,” I exclaim.
“Yes.”
“The…” I’m snapping my fingers. “Garden of Eden.”
“Exactly.”
“That stuff isn’t true though. Is it?”
He clamps his lips together and looks forward without giving away his thoughts.
“Are you not going to answer that?” I ask.
“That’s for me to know and you to figure out. I can’t tell you what to believe, but your blood is life to everything that’s lost it.”
“When you say to everything that’s lost its life do you mean the dead?” I chuckle at the question I just asked because it makes no sense. “Because if someone is dead, then that means they’re buried in the ground. Unless you’re talking about their soul or something. You know that scary, strange stuff that happens on television and the movies only, which is all made up in some loser guy’s head who figures being a mere human isn’t superior enough?”
As a matter of fact, I would call Derek Firth a liar right here to his face and stomp off after telling him to never say another word to me again, if last night didn’t happen. I actually fought the three “Selells.” I have the bruise under my eye to prove it.
“Selells are humans who once possessed a soul, but now their dead,” he coolly says in reply to my rant. “And as you saw, they’re not buried in the ground. And they have teeth.”
“I guess not,” I’m forced to confess.
All of sudden, and for the first time since last night, I’m really afraid. Reality must’ve finally set in. I’m shivering and not from the cold. The dank white sky seems to be closing in on us and breathing is becoming an elusive exercise. I’m panting and Derek stops to take me by the shoulders.
“I’m not going to tell you that life gets easier from this point on, but I’m here, and so is Lux.”
That’s right. “Mr. Lux. What the heck is he?”
“He’s your protector.”
“But I thought you were my protector?”
He takes his hands off my shoulders. “No, I’m your Wek.”
“Something like a guardian. So I need a protector and a guardian,” I muse. Derek is still studying my face. He knows I’m thinking. I like how he takes care to never interrupt this process for me. Maybe that’s what a Wek does, makes you think more than normal. “So what next?”
“We have to wait and see.”
“I’m okay with that.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
We grin at each other and then head back to my house. Now I know why he can keep up with my quick pace.
School must’ve let out because we slow our speed without discussion as we sweep past the first group of curious students and then another and then the final group before heading up Main Street towards the less populated part of town.
“How old are you?” I ask him as we head up the road.
“I don’t have an age.”
“You were never a baby or a child or anything?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
I just look at him mystified. He has five fingers and a nose and a mouth to breathe out of. He ate the candy apple today too, so he has teeth and a tongue. Like me, he’s definitely a human being.
“That doesn’t make sense,” is all I can say after my assessment.
“I’m mirroring a human.”
“So you’re mirroring us?”
“I’m mirroring humans.”
I sniff, thinking maybe he’s joking with me again. “Are you saying I’m not a human?”
He shuts his mouth tightly, which I’ve already learned means he’s chosen not to elaborate any further. This conversation is not over for me. “Am I?” I insist he answers.
After a long moment of silence he says, “I can’t tell you.”
“You started it. You shouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t want to finish it. It’s not fair.” I’m whining now. I hate whining.
“I know,” he admits, and glan
ces at me. “I’m sure I’m doing this all wrong. But there’s something about you. I want to tell you everything, Zill, but believe me I can’t.”
We’re running out of time. I see my house ahead, a sprawling one-story dwelling that sits far from the road. For the first time ever I see how excessive it looks from here. It has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a great room, living room, den, office, dining room and a humongous kitchen that rarely gets used past making salads, sandwiches and bowls of cereals for breakfast by me. It’s a lot of living space for only two people, and one’s hardly ever home. The sight of it makes me feel something and finally I’m able to say with that something is.
“I’m afraid, Derek,” I confess and get the chills. “I don’t want to be alone.”
We stop in front of my house. “You never have been alone. Just call for me and I’ll be here.”
Something tells me that he means it.
Chapter 4
The Loner
It’s the next morning, and I’m awakened by the sound of the alarm buzzing. As usual my head is foggy, and I struggle against the urge to curl up under the blankets and go back to sleep. I mean, I have “Life Blood” and may not be human. These two facts should excuse me from having to ever show up for high school again. Instead of giving into what I want, I slide out of bed to prepare for the day.
I rifle through the closet taking my time to find something a little more than plain. It occurs to me that I’m split between two feelings, the hate for sitting in class all day, especially physics with Riley and Morgan, who I pushed the other night, and the excitement of seeing Derek Firth again.
After sleeping on the talk we had yesterday, it feels like everything I learned about myself was part of a dream and the fight behind the cafeteria a nightmare. None of it feels real any longer. The fear is gone. Life has reset itself, and I must admit, I think I like it.
I throw on a pair of jeans that are more fitted and my black turtleneck sweater that’s fitted too. Once I went shoe shopping on Fifth Avenue with Deanna and she talked me into buying a pair of patent leather ankle boots with a two inch heels. “Live a little,” she urged me. So I chose to make her happy, and let her buy them for me.
The Seventh Sister, A Paranormal Romance Page 4
