The Purity of Blood: Volume I

by Jennifer Geoghan

  The Purity of Blood

  Volume I

  By

  Jennifer Geoghan

  For Jim,

  For not telling me it stunk after reading the first draft … when clearly it did.

  And for Lauri,

  For taking me to Randall’s house.

  Copyright © 2014 Jennifer Geoghan

  Cover Art by Jennifer Geoghan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any format without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews

  Want to know when Jennifer Geoghan’s next books are being released?

  www.facebook.com/JenniferGeoghanNovels

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A Note From The Author

  About the Author

  Some myths are based on truths, and some things we hold as truths are based on myths.

  How does one distinguish one from the other?

  Do we live our whole lives behind a veil?

  Do we accept the truths we want to out of convenience and discard the rest to maintain our blissful ignorance?

  What would happen if one day the veil was torn and you saw truth for truth? Would you run away or stay?

  Courage defines one’s own personal answer to the question.

  Do you have the courage to accept the world as it truly is, or would you, out of fear, live happily in the embrace of the lie?

  Chapter One

  SARA

  “It’s never going to fit,” my mother said as I trudged into the garage still half asleep. A faint hint of sunrise was just coming in the windows reminding me how much I wished I was back in bed. It was too early in the morning for this.

  “I told you not to pack so much. You’re only going to college, not the moon.”

  I really loved my mother, but the woman could find a thousand ways to say I told you so, and at times like this, as much as I loved her, the moon almost didn’t sound far enough away. Even though I suspected I was going to miss home terribly, I was glad to be escaping these four walls … escaping a past that seemed to haunt me here like a shadow I couldn’t shake.

  Last night I’d left all the things I was planning on taking with me for my first year of college away from home neatly packed in boxes on the garage floor to arrange this morning. My mother, trying to be overly helpful had attempted to pack my car for me, but wasn’t having much success getting the last few boxes in. In all honesty, she’d made a real mess of it.

  “Yes, it will. You just have to pack it the right way.”

  I must have involuntarily rolled my eyes because she gave me one of her looks that said I’d better watch my step. Her blonde brow furrowed as her hands came up to rest on her slender hips. With a wary eye, she silently strode past me into the house, leaving me to empty the car and start all over again.

  An hour later I slammed the rear door of the old silver hatchback closed, all the boxes neatly packed inside. I loved this car. It had taken me forever to save up the cash to buy it. Even though my cousin had sold it to me at a good price, money was hard to come by when I’d have rather spent my time studying than holding down a job. My baby wasn’t much to look at, but I took good care of her and she’d never let me down.

  Hearing a noise, I turned to see my mother standing on the top landing of the stairs. She was upset, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. With her arms crossed in front of her, her blue eyes gave me something of a leer. It seemed like a mixture of frustration that I’d done what she hadn’t been able to, and perhaps sadness that her baby was leaving home for the first time. Shaking my head, I chalked it up to pre-empty nest syndrome and went back up the stairs into the kitchen for a quick breakfast before I hit the road. It really was too early in the morning for this.

  Mom followed behind me and as I opened the fridge, I noticed she’d made my favorite. On the table sat a plate of steaming cinnamon French toast with a bottle of the really good maple syrup I loved so much. After giving her a quick thank you smile, I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat down to eat.

  I knew it was tough for her. We were close and with my brother long moved out, I’m sure it was going to be pretty quiet around here after I left. She didn’t want me to go, but I also knew she was torn. She wanted me to be happy, and as much as I loved my parents, I knew it was time for me to go regardless of their thoughts on the matter.

  Taking a seat across the counter from me, she started to drink her coffee. In between sips she went on about being safe at school and remembering that although New Paltz seemed like a small town like Wading River, it was full of kids from the big cities. Apparently you could never be too careful who you made friends with. I half listened, appreciating her sentiment, but it was nothing she hadn’t already said twenty times before over the course of the summer. I loved my parents dearly, but they were slightly obsessive about my safety. Actually slightly didn’t really begin to cover it.

  “Just remember everything we’ve taught you and you’ll be fine,” she sighed. “Also remember that if at any point you change your mind and want to come home –”

  “I won’t, Mom, but thanks,” I said, cutting her off as I got up to put my dishes in the sink.

  When I turned to go, she opened the back door and yelled “She’s leaving, Carl” loud enough for all the neighbors to hear. A minute later my father appeared in the door just as I disappeared into the garage.

  I put my purse on the hood of my car, looking through it one last time to make sure I had my maps and enough toll money for the drive up to New Paltz. I’d never actually made the drive by myself before and was a little nervous about it. Not that I’d admit that to my parents. They were still debating if letting me go away to college by myself was a good idea at all. I didn’t want to give them even an inkling that as I stood on the cusp of my first real adventure, I was shaking on the inside. And I was shaking. I was pretty sure it was with excitement. Only minutes from departure, I didn’t even want to consider there could be any other possible explanations, like I was glad to get away from loving parents such as my own. They loved me, I knew they did, but their love was tempered with strange shades of anxiety about my safety. I needed to be free of them if only for the school year, I needed to breathe.

  Rifling through my purse, I felt horribly guilty about my feelings, but I couldn’t change them.

  As I finished recounting my toll money, Dad came up behind me and gave me a kiss on top of my head.

  “Time to go already?” he sighed.

  “Yep.”

  In his own quiet way I knew he really didn’t want me to go. Not so much because he would worry about my safety, which he would, but because he was just going to miss having me around. My old man. I was going to miss him too. How do you tell someone they’ve been your pillar of strength your whole life?

  “Well, be safe and don’t drive over the speed limit. I’m not paying for any tickets. So if you get any, plan on
getting a job up there to pay for them yourself.”

  I turned to face him. He was a big guy with burly shoulders and a hint of grey in his sandy brown hair, the kind of father that at first glance would scare the hell out of any prospective suitors. Fortunately, he’d never had to worry about that as I’d never brought a guy home before. If men were interested in me, I’d never noticed. It’s not that I was ugly or anything, but I guess my lack of social skills in the world of flirtation limited me, and I’d never met a guy who interested me enough to make any great effort in that department. By my own admission, the only thing I’d ever flirted with before was disaster.

  Looking up at him, I thought I saw a sparkle in his eye that might have been the formation of a tear, but if it was, it never materialized. I’d really miss him. Not that we talked much as neither of us were big talkers, but he was always a shoulder to lean on when you didn’t want to say anything. Sometimes his ability for comforting silence was my favorite quality about him.

  As I reached for the door handle, Mom pulled me back into a ferociously protective hug.

  “I’m going to miss you so much!” she said, her face buried in my hair. Unlike Dad, she was crying. “Try to stay safe and call me every night.”

  “Mom!”

  “She’s not going to call you every night, Vivy. For crying out loud, she’s old enough to stand on her own two feet now.” He shot me a side glance insinuating that he hoped I was, but wasn’t a hundred percent sure of it himself.

  “Okay, every other night,” she sniffled. “And remember to go to church.”

  After hugs, I got in the car and slowly backed out of the garage. Turning onto Overlook Drive, I gave them one last look in the rearview mirror and started towards this new unwritten chapter in my life. I was nervous, but also so excited I could hardly sit still in my seat. I was pretty sure the seat belt was the only thing holding me down. New Paltz was a place that seemed to hold … possibilities. I only hoped I would find whatever it was that I was looking for there … whatever I seemed to so desperately need.

  “We love you, Sara!” Mom called.

  My father put his arm around her just as she buried her head deep in his chest. Then I rounded the corner and they were gone.

  Mom tended to be the dramatic one. At least she seemed that way to me. Fiercely overprotective might be another word for it. I wasn’t sure how Dad talked her into letting me make the drive up to New Paltz University by myself, but I would be eternally grateful to him for it. From our house in Wading River it was about a three hour drive through New York City up to New Paltz. Mom wasn’t crazy about me driving the twenty minutes over to Port Jefferson for work, let alone leaving Long Island by myself. Dad didn’t deny her much, but I think he understood this was something I really wanted to do by myself. In many ways he was as overprotective as she was, but somehow he seemed to understand me more.

  As I drove out of our neighborhood, it was still early in the morning and the first of the early risers were just emerging from their houses. How strange it felt. I wouldn’t be here to see the lights go out in their windows tonight, or tomorrow night, or next week even. All of a sudden not in as much of a hurry to leave, I turned right on North Country Road to take the scenic route out of our sleepy hamlet. In the process I drove past a few landmarks of our small community; the white steeple of the old Congregational church, the duck ponds and the road down to the town beach. I would have loved to have taken one last early morning walk along the beach. It would be a long while until I was home again, but there wasn’t enough time. I needed to get on the road if I wanted to avoid the heavier traffic in the city.

  Somehow I felt like this time away from home was my chance, my first real chance to be normal. Could I? I wasn’t sure, but I prayed to God I could, prayed with all my might that it was even possible at all for someone like me.

  A little less than three hours later I pulled off the New York State Thruway into the college town of New Paltz. An hour or so north of New York City, New Paltz is a small, somewhat isolated community nestled in a mountainous area great for hiking. I’d chosen New Paltz University for many reasons, only one of which was how the campus tour guide had mentioned what great trails ran through the surrounding mountains. I’d been looking forward to my first chance to explore the woods and break in my new hiking boots. They were one of the few new items I’d splurged on to take away to school with me. Of course if you asked me in front of my parents, I’d have said I’d chosen NPU for purely academic reasons.

  I pulled into the parking lot behind my new dorm, Capen Hall and was lucky enough to find a parking spot close to the back entrance. I’d been here just a few weeks ago for orientation, and while here had purposefully spent some time familiarizing myself with the general lay of the land. Not having gotten lost yet, it looked like that was already starting to come in handy.

  While the afternoon sun rained down through the cloudless late summer sky, everywhere I looked the campus buzzed with activity. The sidewalks were filled with students carrying boxes and miscellaneous items into the dorms. Music and voices drifted out of open windows as I passed them, and the constant sound of laughter and music seemed everywhere. I had to wonder if this enthusiastic mood would continue after the first day of classes, or would campus eventually settle into a more somber, scholastic mood.

  The three story red brick building that was to be my new home wasn’t new. If I had to guess, I’d say it was probably built in the sixties. Inside its walls the not unpleasant smell of incense clung to the air as a constant reminder that we were only about a half an hour from Woodstock.

  As I entered the bustling dorm, I followed the signs for the registration desk in the first floor lobby where I was handed my room assignment and keys.

  Following the directions I’d received from the girl at the desk, I climbed the stairs up to the second floor. Filled with students quickly scurrying up and down the stairs yelling excited greetings back and forth, I felt out of place, like the only one who had no idea what she was doing here. Not that this was a new feeling for me; I guess I’d just hoped I would have left it behind in Wading River along with the more unpleasant memories of my childhood.

  When I reached the second floor landing I found a long corridor with girls’ rooms down the hallway to the right and boys’ off to the left. A common room at the top of the stairs separated the two of them. Judging by the number on my assignment paper, my room was only a few doors down the girls’ hall, so I gathered my wits about me and started in that direction. Stopping in front of the door, I fumbled around for a few seconds pulling the keys out of my pocket. It was only a dorm room and not my first house, but somehow, holding those keys, I felt a sense of freedom and exhilaration I’d never experienced before. Just as I was about to turn the key in the lock the door quickly swung open. When I looked up in surprise, the brightly smiling pixie face of a tall blonde with pink lipstick greeted me.

  “Well, hello roomy!” she said enthusiastically. “I’m Darcy,”

  “Hi, I’m –”

  “You’re Sara Donnelly.”

  I must have had a look of shock on my face. She laughed as she pointed to a name tag sticker on my chest with her exquisitely manicured finger. The registration lady must have slipped it on me when I wasn’t looking. I thought she looked a little sneaky.

  “Oh. Yes I am,” I said almost absentmindedly as I reached up to pull it off, still a little wary of her enthusiasm for my arrival.

  Dressed in a pair of jeans and an NPU school shirt, she was a slender waif of a thing with a head of wavy blonde hair that fell gracefully down her back. The picture was only marred by the big smile she wore. Something about that smile made me uncomfortable that I would be its cause.

  “I’m glad to meet you, roomy. I was hoping I’d get a good roommate this semester. I had Bernadette last year. She was nice enough, but a bit of a hypochondriac if you know what I mean. She was always pestering me to feel her forehead,” Darcy said as she winced. “Anywa
y, she dropped out last week and now I have you! Yeah!” After a beat she hesitantly asked “So how do you feel?”

  “Good, I guess.”

  “Wonderful!” she replied as she flitted over to her bed and plopped down on the mattress. “I’m a sophomore so if you have any questions at all, just ask. I know pretty much everything about this place.”

  I walked over and peered out the large pair of windows. Our room faced in on a large grassy quad with tall trees and picnic tables scattered about. Taking a deep breath, I felt the tension start to leave my shoulders.

  So far, so good.

  Darcy was indeed an overflowing font of all things New Paltz University, or NPU as everyone called it. Over the course of my afternoon of unloading and unpacking, I showed her my class schedule. Closely examining it, she more than willingly gave me the dish on all my professors and ways I could schedule better next semester. I’m sure I’d like her once I got used to her bubbly enthusiasm. She seemed nice enough, just a little over zealous in my opinion. I think maybe I liked her because, deep down, I knew I secretly wished I was more like her. I was too guarded as a person and I knew it. It was habit formed from years of unfortunate life experiences gained through no fault of my own. I couldn’t change who I was as a person, but I didn’t want that to discourage me from trying anyway.

  Perhaps that’s why I’d finally left the security of home. The more I thought about it, the more I began to consider that the real question was how capable was I of that kind of change. Maybe that’s what I was looking for here in New Paltz, an answer to that question.

  With classes starting first thing in the morning, it was my intention to finish unpacking and get to bed early so I would be ready to attack the day. However, when the dinner hour rolled around, Darcy, with a take no prisoners attitude, insisted I take a break and go to dinner with her and her friends so I could get to know everybody.