She was a lot more certain than I was.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I have to get going.”
Camille hesitated. “I do hope you two haven’t had a falling-out.”
“We kind of did,” I said, getting up from my chair. “But it’s okay. I don’t see us as having much of a future.”
Camille looked at my face for a moment, as if she wanted to say something.
“Perhaps you’re mistaken about that?”
I shrugged. “Can I ask you one thing? Do you know where Rebecca Jones is?”
“You needn’t worry about her,” Camille told me crisply. “Rebecca Jones is dead. She killed herself.”
“What?” Rebecca Jones dead? Then she couldn’t be a kidnapper. She couldn’t be anything.
“But—”
“That’s all I can say,” Camille said, making it plain that our conversation was over.
I left the kitchen and stumbled into the hall with my head spinning. I didn’t notice Kit on the stairs, not until he spoke.
“Mel?” he asked.
I felt too shaken up to even pretend I didn’t care about being blown off. I did care, and I didn’t know how to stop.
“Don’t worry,” I snapped. “I’m not here to see you.”
I slammed the front door, ran down the steps, threw myself onto my bike, and took off pedaling as fast as I could down the middle of the street. Any vampire that had a yen to try my blood was going to have to run for it.
I hadn’t realized how much I wanted everything to be as it seemed: Principal Saunders was understandably upset about her husband living in Rebecca Jones’s vampire love nest. Which made perfect sense and did not send the world spinning off its axis. Even the wild story I’d come up with wasn’t true.
Rebecca Jones couldn’t be threatening Principal Saunders. So what did Principal Saunders have to hide?
And if Rebecca was dead, where was Anna’s dad? I was pretty sure he didn’t have amnesia.
I could think of only one reason for Principal Saunders to lie: if she was covering up something she had done.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Friends Don’t Let Friends Become Undead
Rebecca Jones could not be holding Dr. Saunders hostage. Dr. Saunders could not be living in her vampire love nest.
Rebecca Jones was dead.
I tried to digest this world-exploding information as I pedaled. I needed to talk to someone. I couldn’t talk to Kit, on account of the blowing off. I couldn’t exactly call Anna, either.
Ordinarily when I needed someone to talk to, I turned to Cathy, but, well, I wasn’t sure I could do that now. She was so caught up with Francis and the whole wanting-to-become-a-vampire thing. We hadn’t had a real conversation since the disastrous double date.
Yet somehow I found myself pedaling all the way to Cathy’s house.
I dismounted and looked up at her room. The light was on. Feeling almost as nervous as I had when I’d knocked on the door to speak to Camille, I hauled my bike up the steps, hid it on the porch (vampires might suck your blood, but at least they wouldn’t steal your bike), and rang the bell.
Then waited and waited and thought maybe she wasn’t home after all? Maybe I should call Kristin instead?
The door opened.
“Hi, Mel,” Cathy said, looking genuinely pleased to see me.
“Hi. I was in the neighborhood.”
“You live in the neighborhood.” She smiled and beckoned me in.
“True,” I said, following her up the stairs. “Your mom’s not home?”
“No. She’s working late.”
Cathy ushered me into her room, which was not as tidy as usual. By Cathy standards, I mean. There were piles of books on the floor and bed and desk and every other flat surface, most of them festooned with forests of Post-its. A glance at a couple of the titles—Cell Transition in Vampirism, Encyclopedia of the Undead—told me more than I wanted to know.
“Hard at work, huh?” I said.
She nodded and cleared off a chair so I could sit down. She sat on an uncluttered corner of her bed. “Are you okay?” she asked as I sat.
“Fine,” I said. “No, not fine. It’s Anna.”
“Yes?”
“She, well, really it’s her dad. If he did run away with Rebecca Jones, he’s not with her now.”
“Rebecca Jones?”
“The vampire he supposedly ran off with. She’s dead. Killed herself. But he hasn’t come home. So where is he?”
Cathy was pale and horrified. I could barely look at her: I didn’t want to see how serious this was.
“How do you know all this?”
“Camille told me,” I said, apparently unable to stop talking now I’d started. “Anna said her mom was acting strangely. More than just being hurt and mourning because her husband left her. So I’ve been looking into it. I think I know why, and it’s not good.”
Cathy waited for me to continue.
“Really not good.”
She nodded to encourage me to finish. She looked totally understanding, like nothing I could say would shock her.
“Anna’s mom? Principal Saunders?” I said, lowering my voice although no one could possibly hear me. “I think she might have—done something to her husband.”
I said “something” because I couldn’t say “hurt.”
I didn’t know how to even think the word killed. I’d known Principal Saunders all my life.
But Dr. Saunders had vanished, and his wife was lying about where he was.
“No!” Cathy gasped. “She didn’t. You’re not serious.”
It was my turn to nod. “Yeah, I am. Completely serious.” I filled Cathy in on everything I’d learned, skipping bits that involved me being rude to Francis or too cozy with Kit. “I don’t know how to tell Anna.”
“You’re not going to.” Cathy took my hands in hers and squeezed them. “You don’t know what happened. All you know for sure is that if Dr. Saunders did run away with Rebecca Jones, he’s not with her now.”
“But—” I began.
“What about the texts?” Cathy asked. “Anna showed me some of the texts her dad sent her after he left them.”
“If you have the person’s phone,” I pointed out, “anyone can send a text. Same with email.”
“If Principal Saunders killed her husband, why isn’t she in custody?”
Cathy said it so coolly that for a moment all I could do was stare. She stared back, as if she didn’t realize I was freaked out she’d said the unsayable. “She is being investigated.”
“Did Francis or Camille tell you that?”
“Not explicitly.”
“Of course not. Camille can’t let you in on the true nature of her investigation. And Francis is working for her, so he has to operate under those same rules. He’s so honorable,” she added.
I tried to not feel queasy at Cathy’s obvious pride in Francis.
“You need to separate out what you do know from what you suspect. You can’t go to Anna with any of this until what you have to tell her is fact, not conjecture. Have you thought of simply asking Principal Saunders?”
“Cathy, something is up. She’s acting weird. She’s scared of Francis. She’s hiding something. She obviously isn’t in a mood to confess, or the police wouldn’t have to investigate her.”
“You don’t know that they are investigating her.”
“Francis is at the school because Camille asked him to keep an eye on her.”
“Francis isn’t a police officer. So whatever he’s doing for Camille must be informal, right?”
I hadn’t thought of that.
“Has Anna mentioned the police?” Cathy asked. “She asked for your help. Surely she would have mentioned if she’d been interrogated. Surely we would have heard if there was a police investigation. You know how fast gossip spreads.”
“Good point.”
“Maybe Dr. Saunders ran away with the vampire, then changed his mind and wanted to return to his
family. Maybe that’s why she killed herself.”
That did sound more reasonable than what I had been imagining. I began to feel foolish.
I bit my lip. “Then why hasn’t he come home?”
“Maybe he’s afraid to. Maybe he’s gearing himself up to beg their forgiveness. Maybe he’s still shocked at his lover’s suicide. There are lots of explanations for the few facts you have.”
“Maybe he has amnesia?”
“Mel,” Cathy said, “stick to the facts. Why not simply ask Principal Saunders?”
“I can’t ask her without letting her know what I know, and if she did do something to Dr. Saunders—even though I agree there’s no proof of that—how’s she going to respond to me asking about it? Even if she didn’t do anything and she just got dumped, she’s not going to take it well.”
It felt good to be talking to her about this. Almost like we were back to being best friends.
“I’m still me,” Cathy said.
“What?” I asked when I meant, “How did you know what I was thinking?”
“I know you think I’m all about Francis all the time now. But I’m still me. We’re still friends.”
“Of course,” I said.
She did seem like the old Cathy. I could almost forget about Francis and her insane desire to become a vampire. All I had to do was ignore the fact that she was completely surrounded by books about becoming a vampire.
“You don’t have to do it, you know,” I said quietly.
“Do what?” Cathy said, though I knew she knew.
“Change. You can still be with Francis as a human. Why do you have to change?”
“It’s something I really want,” Cathy said. “I wish I could make you understand. I think I’ve always wanted this.”
“To be dead?”
Cathy started to say something and then stopped. She took a deep breath. “Being a vampire is not being dead. You know that. You’ve talked to Francis and to Camille. You’ve talked to Kit. He’s spent his whole life with vampires. It’s a different way of living. Francis says—”
“Francis says!” I shouted, losing my temper. “When did you become so brainwashed? Ever since you met him, it’s been ‘Francis says this! Francis says that! Francis says I should die now!’ When did you stop thinking for yourself?” I stood up. “I can’t believe you’re going to give up on humanity. And I’m sorry, but that’s what you’re doing. That’s what becoming a vampire means. At least it does if your transition actually works. If you don’t wind up dead or zombified and then dead. Plus there’s the little matter of whether or not you’ll adjust to being a vampire. Do you have any idea how high the vampire suicide rate is? Or how hard most of them find being a vampire? And you’re going to go through all of that BECAUSE FRANCIS TOLD YOU TO!”
Cathy stood up too. She looked even paler than usual, her lips were thin, and her eyes narrowed. I’d seen that face before. That’s how she’d looked when Tommy Lewis had lied about kissing her behind the girls’ room in the third grade. How she’d looked when her fifth-grade teacher, Ms. Hildergardt, had accused her of plagiarizing her first-prize-winning, end-of-year, best-of-Maine competition essay. She had never turned that face on me before.
“How long have you known me?” she asked.
“Since we were born, I guess.”
“Have I ever made any major decisions in my life simply because someone told me to? Have I ever shown myself to be a sheep? Have I ever made any major decision without weighing every pro and every con? Do you think I have been researching every single aspect of what I’ll be undertaking because Francis told me to?”
“But you—”
“If anyone here rushes into things, it’s you, Mellifluous Li Duan. You’re always rushing into situations thinking you know best, when you haven’t got the faintest idea. Like deciding Anna’s mom has murdered her husband!”
“What!” I shouted at her. “I’m the one who always knows what to do!”
I thought Cathy understood me. She’d known me for years. She was the only person besides my family who knew my real name. If Cathy didn’t know who I was, who did?
Cathy kept talking in that cool, precise voice. “For other people, perhaps. For yourself? You went out with Ryan after you had known him for precisely three seconds. Dozens of his previous girlfriends could have told you what a jerk he is. You didn’t even have to ask his girlfriends—casual acquaintances could have told you the same thing! You started fencing because you had a crush on Raj Singh. You didn’t know a single thing about fencing except that some cute guy did it. You don’t even choose your own classes! Every year you pick the same classes as me. What are you going to do when we’re at different colleges? How dare you tell me I can’t think for myself!”
I had the strangest feeling in my chest. I was going to yell back at her, tell her she was wrong, scream at her about her being Francis’s puppet, but I found myself on the brink of tears, a knot in my chest. Sometimes, yes, I did stuff because Cathy or Anna or Ty or Kristin or whoever was doing them. I mean the classes thing was because I didn’t care that much about school. It was easier to do what Cathy did. I wasn’t a sheep. It was just that I didn’t have as many passions as Cathy. I wasn’t like her. I’d never known what I wanted to be when I grew up.
It wasn’t the way she was making it sound. I could make decisions.
I couldn’t let her make me cry.
“I think you should go now,” Cathy said.
“Right,” I said, moving toward the door.
“One last thing,” she said. “You’re the first to know: Mom gave me permission. I can apply for a license whenever I want.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Craziness of Humans
I stumbled out of Cathy’s house, trying to pretend my eyes weren’t swimming with tears—trying to pretend so hard that I tripped on the porch steps and hit the ground on my hands and knees.
Beauty and grace in distress, that was me.
The knees of my jeans were dirty. I tried to brush them off, but the stain seemed to be sticking, and I didn’t care. My palms stung, and so did my eyes. I blinked fiercely, then realized I had to climb back up the porch steps to retrieve my bike.
Obviously, I thought as I pedaled furiously, heading for home, obviously Cathy figured she didn’t want or need friends as long as she had Francis for all eternity. She’d decided to make it clear that she didn’t want me tagging around after her anymore, taking classes because she took them, studying hard because she did.
Not that I tagged around after her! She was being like Francis, contemptuous of all humans. She might talk about caring for Anna, but I was the one Anna had come to for help. I was the one who had found out everything we knew so far, and I was the one who would get to the bottom of it.
Cathy could study her vampire books and dream of endless bliss with Francis—oh, it rhymed, I should tell Francis so he could put it in another ballad!—I was going to help Anna.
The blood was pounding in my ears so hard, I thought that it was the thudding I heard. Everything was a blur of refusing to cry and wanting to show Cathy. Then someone tapped me between the shoulder blades.
I swerved on the sidewalk, wheeling my bike savagely to a stop that nearly sent me careening into the road, and found myself staring at Kit.
He was looking sweaty and disheveled, curls springing every which way.
“I have been … running after you … yelling your name… for three blocks!” he panted.
Now that I thought about it, the thudding had been a bit like running footsteps.
“I was thinking,” I said, summoning up all the dignity I had left. “Thinking deep thoughts.”
“I went to your house and you weren’t there,” Kit went on, regaining his breath. “Where were you? Why were you cycling as if the hounds of hell were coming after you in a Mack truck?”
“Never mind that,” I snapped. “Why were you chasing after me?”
Kit looked at me as if I was d
imwitted in some way. “You came to my house and talked to my mom instead of talking to me. In fact, when I saw you, you said you weren’t there to see me, and you ran out of the house and banged the door.”
“Well, I’m terribly sorry if I’m not as courteous as all your undead acquaintances.”
“Courteous?” Kit asked. “What?”
He ran a hand through his hair. I could’ve told him that was a bad idea. It already looked like there was some sort of localized tornado going on directly above his head.
“I’ve obviously upset you in some way,” he said carefully. “Tell me how.”
“All human girls are upset when they’re broken up with!” I yelled at him.
Did vampires take it easily? I guess they had a lot of experience. Centuries of experience getting rejected. After a while you wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow in response to the latest dumping.
Oh yes, Cathy was so right, vampirism was a dream come true.
Kit stared at me. “Broken up with? I didn’t break up with you!”
Technically, that was true. Because technically we hadn’t been going out. But I didn’t think it was very gentlemanly of him to point that out. Had Francis taught him nothing?
“You said you’d call!”
“Yes,” Kit said. “Because I was going to call you. Did I not call soon enough? I was about to call you when you showed up at my shade.”
It was my turn to stare at him. “You were about to call me? But you said ‘I’ll call you.’”
“Yes,” Kit said. “You haven’t gone deaf, have you? Or stopped understanding English? Because you’re not making any sense.”
“When a guy says ‘I’ll call you,’ it means they’re not going to call you. It means they’re dumping you.”
“What?” Kit said. “I said I was going to call because I was going to call. Why would anyone say that if they weren’t going to? That’s completely insane! How do humans even function as a society? That’s like me going to the cheese store and saying ‘Oh, hello, I’d like to buy some cheese with this money of mine,’ and getting arrested for shoplifting brie! Actually, I don’t think my cheese metaphor makes sense, though compared to ‘I’ll call you’ meaning ‘get out of my life,’ it’s crystal clear. But that’s because humans don’t make any sense! None!”
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