by Gayla Twist
Once outside, I realized the exit was mocked up to look like a storm drain about twenty yards from the public pier. I got to my feet, and Viggo immediately started feeding Blossom through the small door. I dragged her out from my end then pushed the bars closed, rattling them to make sure the latch had caught.
It was a beautiful day in Tiburon, Ohio. I could hear kids laughing and birds twittering as they flew from tree to tree. It was challenging to adjust my brain to the new reality after escaping a castle infested with vampires through a secret passage with the help of a Russian giant.
“My head hurts,” Blossom whined as we drove through town. “I need some coffee. And waffles. Let’s go to Denny’s.”
I probably should have been screaming at her after all she’d put me through, but I was so relieved that Blossom was back among the living that all I could say was, “I think we’d better go home first. I’m sure our moms are furious.”
“What happened?” Blossom made a little spitting noise and removed what appeared to be a dog hair from her tongue. “Were we out all night? I don’t remember anything. What happened to that hot guy? Viktor?” She said it speculatively, testing out the name to see if it felt right. “You know, the one that kept getting us the drinks.”
“You mean the potential rapist who drugged your drink and then carried you up to one of the bedrooms?” I asked.
Blossom’s sleep-encrusted eyes grew wide. “He did not?”
“He did.”
“Oh, my God!” Blossom did a quick underwear check and was somewhat relieved to see she was still wearing them. “He didn’t... I mean... You stopped him before...”
“You’re still a virgin,” I assured her in a droll tone. “But you’re lucky Jessie Vanderlind helped me get rid of him because handsome jerk-face was pretty determined to screw you.” I couldn’t tell her that the sicko psycho actually wanted to drain her of all her blood while he was at it, but I thought she should at least know that she’d been in danger.
“He wanted to have sex with me while I was unconscious?” She gulped. “You don’t think he’d do that, do you?”
“Blossom,” I practically shouted. “He’s the one that drugged you. Of course, I think he’d do that.”
We drove along in silence for a few minutes as Blossom absorbed what I had just said. “Thanks for taking care of me,” she whispered.
I glanced in her direction and saw that a few tears were sliding down her cheeks. “Of course.” I reached over to squeeze her hand. “Just don’t be such a ding dong next time. You’ve got to think about motives.”
She sniffed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve got to think about a guy’s motives. Some guy in his thirties encouraging teenage girls to get trashed probably isn’t up to any good.”
Blossom looked over at me, her eyes still a little runny. “I know this isn’t going to sound like a compliment, but I totally mean it like one...”
“What?”
“You seem so much older than me sometimes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks.”
Chapter 8
I was all worried about Blossom’s mom freaking out, but she wasn’t even home. There was just a note on the counter saying she’d be out for the day and she was sorry she’d missed Blossom the night before.
Blossom looked at the note, made a face, and said, “Translation? She’s sneaking around with her boyfriend so much she doesn’t even realize I never came home.” I couldn’t tell if Blossom was relieved or annoyed. Probably both, but I wasn’t going to ask because I needed to get my clothes and get the heck home before my mom went nuclear.
As we were getting changed in Blossom’s room, she began taking note of her bedraggled appearance. Her hair was tangled; her dress was a mass of wrinkles and covered in dirt; her sandals were scuffed to the point of no return. “What the hell.” She examined a tear in her mother’s gown. “I thought you said the perv took me to a bedroom. Why do I look like a homeless person going to prom?”
“Well...” I stalled, my brain scrambling for a good excuse.
“And why are you wearing a tuxedo jacket?” she asked, looking me over. I guess she’d been too out of it to focus on me when we were in the car.
“I borrowed the jacket because I was cold. And we were asked to leave the party, but you were still passed out, so I kind of had to drag you out of there. And we fell down a couple of times. And then I let you sleep it off under the pier for a couple of hours,” I said lamely.
“Oh.” Blossom frowned. “Why were we asked to leave the party? I thought that Jessie guy said we could stay.”
“Listen, can I just tell you about it later? I need to get home before my mom calls the police. Let’s just say it was a really rough night.” I pulled on my clothes quickly before she could come up with more questions. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” I said, grabbing Jessie’s jacket and heading for the door.
Blossom was too engrossed in examining a large snag in the gown I had been wearing. “I’m going to have to burn this stuff,” she said, mostly to herself. “If Mom finds it, she’s going to kill me.”
When I got home, I immediately bolted upstairs and hopped in the shower. I didn’t want my mom to catch me covered in dirt with twigs in my hair. I left Jessie’s jacket in the trunk of my car to be smuggled in later. Looking a mess was one thing, but a tuxedo jacket would lead to a lot more questions than I had answers.
I turned the water to as hot as I could stand and then eased myself under the downpour. Aches and pains that I didn’t even know I had made themselves known. I closed my eyes and just let the water massage the top of my head. My world had changed, and I wondered if it was for the better.
I was so grateful that Jessie had forgotten to retrieve his jacket. It was an excuse to see him again. I knew he said we shouldn’t, and I knew he was a vampire. All signs indicated that I should just forget he existed, but that would never happen. That metal string running through my body was vibrating, and there was no way to stop it. My entire being felt drawn to him in a way that didn’t make sense, even to me.
Scrubbed clean, I wrapped a towel around my hair, slipped into my big terrycloth bathrobe, and headed for the kitchen. This was something I did all the time, and I wanted to appear as normal as possible.
Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. “Hey,” I grunted at her then stuck my head in the fridge.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, not sounding too pleased, but not furious. “When did you come home last night?”
This is my mom’s weird way of trying to catch me in a lie. It wasn’t very effective because she always phrased things so oddly that I could tell when she suspected me of something. “I didn’t. Remember? I stayed at Blossom’s,” I said, pulling out some orange juice and the butter dish.
“Were you ever going to tell me that?”
I shot her an annoyed look and then reached for the bread. “I left you a message. If you didn’t want me to stay, you should have called me back.”
“Aurora, are you lying to me? I didn’t get a message from you saying anything.”
I reached into my bathrobe pocket and retrieved my phone, then pulled up my list of recent calls. Her cell number was right at the top. “See,” I said, letting her have the phone. The fact that I never got through when I called while I was in the clutches of a vampire was not something I felt I particularly needed to share.
Mom frowned at the phone. “I never got a message,” she said. “You should have called back and asked me directly. I was worried about you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, depressing the lever on our toaster and then circling round to give her a squeeze. “I was just hanging out with Blossom.”
“Are you sure that’s all you were doing?” Mom asked, scrutinizing my face.
“What else would we be doing?” I asked, trying not to lay my innocence on too thick. “Call Blossom’s mom if you need to check on me.” I was takin
g a risk saying that, but it was a calculated risk. Mom knew I would never suggest she call Mrs. Coster unless I was doing what I said I was doing. Also, there was a good chance Mrs. Coster wouldn’t answer her phone, and then my mom would probably just forget about it.
“Maybe I should,” Mom said, biting her lip and giving me a suspicious look.
I shrugged and went to retrieve my toast.
I knew she’d decided against checking on me when she said, “Just stay in better contact with me next time. There are a lot of weirdoes out there in the world, and I don’t like having to worry about you.”
“Okay,” I said, scraping some butter along the toast. “Sorry, Mom.”
I wondered what my mom would think if I told her there was a family of vampires living in the castle down by the river. I sincerely doubted she would have believed me.
“I was thinking about visiting Grandma Gibson this afternoon,” I said between bites of my breakfast.
Mom perked up. “That would be nice. I’m sure she’d love to see you.” We both knew the likelihood of my great grandmother even recognizing me was slim. “What inspired this?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. “Just thought maybe she was lonely. And it’s kind of cool listening to her when she’s actually... you know... with it,” I said, tapping my head.
“I should probably go with you,” Mom said, getting up and putting her cup in the sink. “She’s so old, and she’s not going to be around forever. What time were you thinking of going?”
I silently cursed, not having factored my mother into a little plan I had formulated in the shower. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe three-ish.”
“Oh.” Mom pursed her lips a little. “I just remembered I have to pop by the office to do a few things.” I opened my mouth to say it wasn’t a problem, but Mom assumed I was about to say something else. “I know, it’s Sunday, and I shouldn’t be working, but you know what I do is important, so if it means putting in a few hours on my day off then I shouldn’t complain.”
“I know,” I assured her, inwardly taking a sigh of relief. “And I’m sure all your clients appreciate it.”
My mom was such a good person that I felt like a jerk for not wanting her to come along. But I needed to talk to Grandma Gibson on my own for once and hope that it was one of her more clear-headed days. As penance for getting away with everything I’d just gotten away with, I decided to never go on another one of Blossom’s harebrained schemes ever again. And to do my best to stop her from starting out on any herself. Yes, I had made those kinds of promises to my mother before, but this time, I was making it to myself. Blossom and I had come terrifyingly close to getting into the kind of trouble you can never get out of.
Chapter 9
The Ashtabula Home for Elder Care is not the nicest place to spend your golden years, but it’s also not the worst. My grandmother on my mom’s side died when she was in her sixties, but her mother, Grandma Gibson, had turned the corner on ninety and just kept going. She lived with us for quite a while, but when her mind started going, Mom was afraid to leave her at home alone. It killed my mother to put her own grandmother in a home, but she felt like she had no choice.
Because my mom is my mom, she researched every old age home in a forty-mile radius from our house and thought that Ashtabula was the best. It didn’t stink as much as some of the other homes, and they didn’t just leave the old people hanging out in wheelchairs in the hallways like they did at some places.
“Aurora Keys to see Lillian Gibson,” I told the woman at the front desk. My great grandmother had switched back to her maiden name after her husband died. She never explained why beyond that she always felt like a Gibson.
The woman gave me a slow smile. “Well, aren’t you sweet. Coming to see your grandmother.”
“Great grandmother, actually,” I said, returning her smile. The people at Ashtabula Care seemed to be genuinely nice.
The lady scanned her schedule while I signed in. “She’s got bingo at four-thirty, but she’s free until then.”
I had never in my life seen my great grandmother participate in bingo, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t on the schedule. Ashtabula tried to encourage their residents to stay active. “Is she in her room now?” I asked.
“She should be. Or she’ll be in the common room.”
I thanked the lady and headed down the hall.
Old age homes made me feel bad. There were so many people just parked there with no one visiting them. It was a place to hide the elderly away and then forget about them. I made a mental note that I had to visit Grandma Gibson once a week, whether she remembered me or not.
The door to her room was open, so I stuck my head in. Grandma had a lot of her things there from her house, so it felt a lot more personal than the common areas of the home. She was sitting at a small card table that she’d covered with a fringed shawl to make it more attractive. There were playing cards on the table, all lined up for solitaire, but Grandma was just staring at them like she’d started a game and then simply forgotten about it.
“Knock, knock,” I said, instead of actually knocking. “Hello, Grandma Gibson, it’s your great granddaughter, Aurora.” She looked up at me, a little startled. I gave her a big smile and said, “May I come in?” and then entered the room, assuming the answer would be yes.
“Lettie?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.
“No, Grandma, it’s me—Aurora.”
“Lettie, dear,” she said, holding out both her hands toward me. “You’ve come back to us. You’ve come back at last.”
I hated when she was like that. I hated being mistaken for someone who was dead. But her face looked so happy, and she was reaching out to me, reaching into the past. I took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Lillian,” I said, rushing forward to give her a hug. “I missed you so much.”
We embraced, and Grandma Gibson held me close. She smelled like old person—scented soap and hairspray. She was crying, and I felt the damp of her tears on my cheek. “I missed you so much,” she whispered, then let out a tiny sob. “Why did you stay away for so long?”
“I’m sorry. I missed you, too,” I replied, hoping she wouldn’t ask me where I’d been.
“Sit down, and let me look at you,” she said, finally breaking our hug. I pulled up a chair and we sat, her holding my hand, her eyes dancing with delight. “You always were the beauty,” Grandma said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“I think I must have,” I told her, unconsciously putting my hand to my cheek. I hated lying to her about who I was, but she was happy, so that was at least something.
She reached up and took my other hand, giving it a warm squeeze. “No, you’re exactly the same. Your clothes are different, but I’d know you anywhere.”
An idea occurred to me. “Can we look at your picture album?” I asked. “You still keep it, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do,” she clucked. “But you’ll have to get it down for me. I’m afraid I’m a bit tired today.”
I hurried to where she kept her photo album in the closet, up on a shelf, realizing after I’d already grabbed it that she hadn’t told Lettie where it was, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Ah,” she said when I handed the album to her. “I love to look at photos. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I told her. Most of my photos were on my phone, but that didn’t mean I didn’t like looking at them. “Let’s look at the photos from when you were a girl.” If I was serious about pretending to be her sister, I should have said, when we were girls, but it just didn’t feel right lying to her if I could avoid it.
Grandma opened the book to the very beginning. There were some old photos with scalloped edges that were held in place at the corners with black triangles. “There we are with Mother and Father,” she said, pointing to a photo with two very little girls in matching dresses and a parent holding each. “That’s Grandma Gibson’s house.” It was weird to think about someone so old having a grandmother, but I guess everybody did. “And th
ere’s Papa’s first car.” She tapped at a black automobile that looked more like a couple of boxes on wheels than a vehicle.
“Do you have any photos of you as a teenager?” I prompted.
“Oh, let’s see.” Grandma turned over two pages. “Here we both are ready for a dance. I remember my date was Walter Bennett,” she said, touching the corner of a picture of two girls in organdy dresses. She looked up at me. “I can’t remember your date’s name for the life of me. I know he was a friend of Walter’s. What was his name again?”
“I can’t remember,” I said in a small voice. “How old are you here?” I asked.
“Let’s see, I must have been about seventeen.”
That meant Lettie was sixteen. A year before she ran away. I leaned closer to look at the girl in the photograph. Did she look like me? Did I look like her? It was so hard to tell with her old fashioned clothes and her hair being styled so different. It looked like she was trying to tame her mane with some type of hair gel or something. I stared at her face and tried to see my own reflection. Was it like when you hear a recording of your voice and don’t recognize it as being you?
Grandma Gibson flipped the page. “And here we are on our first day at the castle,” she said. “Papa was so proud.” She caressed the edge of a photo of two young women in black dresses and white aprons posing in front of the Vanderlind Castle gates, the building itself barely distinguishable in the background.
“Did you like working there?” I asked.
Grandma sighed. “At first I did. I liked it very much. It was exciting to be associated with a family that was so well to do and so refined.” She went on, “And I was happy we could bring in a little extra money for Mama and Papa. But then...”
I waited a moment for her to collect her thoughts. “Then what happened?” I coaxed, hoping to glean a few more details.
Grandma Gibson just sat there, staring at the page, transfixed with some memory that she couldn’t bring to her lips. I wanted to press her. I was desperate to know more about the castle and its occupants, but something was wrong. Grandma’s breath was coming in short little gasps. “But then...” she choked out, reliving an obviously painful memory.
