“What Ms. Beaudonte discussed today is in Chapter Five of the reading. Clearly she has had some experience with cat dissection.” Ms. Tate paused, and I felt Tony lean closer to me. He smelled like musk. A human musk—earthy.
“We are so going to get A’s,” Tony whispered. My eyes darted to the front of the room, where Justin Enos was looking back over his shoulder and smiling at me.
Chapter Ten
“You realize we’re partners, right? That you have to help me because you’re required,” Tony said. It was right after class and Tony jumped and skipped up the pathway back toward Seeker.
“And you’re still supposed to teach me how to drive,” I reminded him.
“Speaking of that,” he said, “I need you to sit for me. For your portrait.”
“This was supposed to be a trade.”
“Come on. An hour. You don’t have to work till four,” he pleaded.
“I have to go get my wallet. Come see famous Professor Bennett’s dorm apartment. Lunch, then portrait.”
“Nice!” Tony said. I took out my hat and sunglasses, and we started to walk. “I wonder if his ghost is in there.”
The early morning sun was just starting to beat down on Wick ham campus when Tony and I stepped into Seeker Hall. He showed his ID to the security guard, we headed for the stairs, and started climbing.
“You know they have elevators. They go up and down just by the push of a button. Kind of amazing,” Tony said between labored breaths as we climbed toward the fifth floor.
“Never been in an elevator.”
“What? You are one weird chick, Lenah.”
Was I acting as I should? Perhaps I did step over the line with the cat during anatomy class. Tony continued to follow me up the stairs.
“I still cannot believe you not only ripped a cat open no problem but you’re not freaked out to live in Bennett’s old place. Guy was a real nice teacher, don’t get me wrong. But, seriously, Len, that’s creepy.”
I stopped in front of my door and slid the key in the lock. “Doesn’t bother me,” I replied.
“A guy died in there,” he said as we stood outside the door. Before I pushed it open, Tony leaned forward and sniffed the rosemary I had nailed to the door. “I don’t know about you, but I believe in ghosts, spirits, all that. And everyone says Bennett was murdered.”
“The school administration probably wouldn’t let me live here if that were true. Besides, people die in lots of places,” I said. “What are the flowers for?”
“It’s rosemary,” I said, opening the door and stepping inside. I placed my sunglasses and hat on the black lacquered foyer table, which sat to the right of the front door. “It’s a flower you put on your door to protect you. To remind you to stay safe.”
“Safe from what?” Tony asked as I shut the door behind us. “Whoa! This is so cool! My roommate smells like crap and you live here.” Tony ran a hand on the soft couch and jumped in his step from painting to painting on the wall. Rhode’s longsword was of particular interest. Tony walked right up and stood in front of it.
“What does Ita fert corde voluntas mean?” Tony asked, sounding out the Latin words inscribed on Rhode’s sword.
He ran his fingers down the middle of the blade with his index finger.
“Be careful,” I said. “Don’t touch the edge or it will cut you.” Tony placed his hands back by his sides. “It means, ‘the heart wills it.’”
“So this is real? What era is it from? Who gave it to you?”
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I walked away and looked for my wallet in my bedroom.
“This looks so real,” I heard Tony say again. His eyes were inches from the blade. I walked into my bedroom and found the wallet resting on my night table. When I came back into the living room, Tony had left the sword and was standing over the Order of the Garter book, looking down at the engraving of Rhode. He was so close to the bureau. My photos. My eyes snapped back and forth from the photos on the bureau and Tony’s back. My mouth was suddenly dry—parched. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Tony was silent, his back remained to me.
“R-ready?” I croaked.
“Is there any subject you don’t like?” Tony asked, and turned to me. “You’re a history geek, too?”
I sighed with a smile. He hadn’t noticed the photographs.
“Let’s go,” I said. “I’m starving.”
“Okay, Lenah. Turn the car on,” Tony coaxed. That Saturday, Tony and I sat in the Seeker parking lot. My hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turned white and sweat formed under my palms.
The keys dangled from the ignition. I turned it, and the engine purred to life.
Tony explained the workings of the gas and brake pedal, turn signals, and the importance of reverse. It was very interesting and not unlike the commands my father had taught me in the fifteenth century when I watched him maneuver the cows and horses in the orchard. The 1400s in England were marred by the end of the plague. There was less man labor because of all the deaths and my father refused to let me out of his sight. My disappearance must have killed him. I never found out what happened to my family.
After an hour or so, I eased the car into a parking spot that faced Seeker and turned the car off. We rolled down the windows, and I stuck my feet out so they rested on the frame.
“Do all people sunbathe?” I asked, happy to be under the shade of a nearby tree. I looked at Tony through the shadow of my sunglasses.
“You don’t like the sun, do you?” Tony asked. He had reclined his seat all the way back.
“I don’t like things that make me uncomfortable,” I replied.
“Well, Justin Enos pretty much makes everyone uncomfortable. Kinda why I stay away from him and all the soccer freaks, lacrosse junkies, and football nuts. Kinda why I hate you for making me come.”
“I’ve met worse,” I said with a laugh. There was silence between us for a moment. I looked down at my clothes, hoping what I wore wasn’t another giveaway that I was anything less than “normal.” I wore black shorts over a black one-piece that Tony insisted I buy. He came with me to the store and it took ten minutes to shut him up about buying a thong bikini. Even though Tony was wearing his swim trunks, he was still…well, Tony. He wore silver rings with crossbones and dragons. His swim trunks were black with flames rising all over them.
“What is that?” Tony asked, sitting up and looking down at my chest. I followed his gaze. Before I had time to wonder if he was looking at my breasts, I realized he was looking at the vial necklace. In it, Rhode’s remains. They were ash and gold and sparkled in the light glinting through the windshield. I held the small pendant, which was crystal, shaped with a small silver stop. It looked like a clear dagger. I took a breath, rolling the vial between my thumb and index finger.
“If I tell you, promise not to tell anyone?”
“Yeah…,” Tony said, though his tone was a bit more excited than I would have liked.
“A friend of mine died. And these are some of his remains.”
Tony’s smiled faded as though I slapped it off him. He sat up and leaned toward me, like he was going to inspect the vial. He stopped. “Can I?” he asked. He had leaned his body closer, his eyes looking straight at my chest.
“Sure,” I said, almost in a whisper, and held the vial in my palm, though I left it around my neck.
Tony placed it so close to his eyes I could see the minute embers of light dance in the black pupils of his brown eyes. “Should it be sparkling like this?” he asked, taking a quick glance at me.
“Yes,” I whispered, and sat back in the seat so the vial fell onto my chest. I also wished I wasn’t wearing the onyx ring. I hoped h e wasn’t so observant.
Through the window I could hear happy voices and the sound of passing cars out on Main Street. When I looked up, I could see the lines in the leaves and the fibers of the bark of the trees. I could distract myself with driving lessons and friends; Rhode was still dead, and his be
autiful ashes were all I had to prove it.
“I had a brother who died,” Tony said unexpectedly. His sympathetic gaze surprised me. He sat back in his seat. “When?” I asked, suddenly hearing a thump of a bass from a car stereo. It was far away, but I could hear it nonetheless. “When I was a ten. One day he was alive, and the next—dead. Car accident.”
I nodded. Not exactly sure how I could respond to that.
“Kind of why I can’t always go along with everyone’s happy attitude all the time. Life sucks sometimes, and most people don’t get it. They think—well, all of the people at this school, anyway—they think everything is just handed to them. Real easy, ya know? Like, the day is never something you have to fight through.”
I placed my hand on top of Tony’s and let it rest there for a moment. What could I say? I was a death giver. Happy to do it. I had been so good at being dead.
“I used to think I could talk to my brother after he died. When I was a kid I lay in bed and whispered to him. Told him all my problems. Sometimes I dreamt about him right after, when I fell asleep. Do you think it’s possible he was talking back to me?”
The dewiness of Tony’s skin and the innocence behind his eyes made me want to lie. But I had seen death. Really seen it. And when someone died, they were gone—for the rest of time.
“Like you said the other day. Anything’s possible,” I replied.
Boom-Boom-Boom. A bass thumped from a car stereo somewhere on Main Street. I turned and looked behind us just as Justin’s SUV came through the Wickham gates and pulled into the spot next to mine. Justin rolled down the window. “You guys ready?” he asked.
I glanced at Tony, whose eyes said that we had reached a new understanding of each other. Were we ready?
I think we were.
Chapter Eleven
I wish I could tell you that I sat in bright sunlight on the bow of the boat with my feet dangling over the edge. I wish I could say that I watched the spray shoot up from beneath Justin’s luxury motorboat and that the cold drops tickled the bottoms of my feet. No. From the moment we backed out of the boat slip, I was hidden away in the cushy cabin.
This boat was not the same as Justin’s racing boat. This was Justin’s father’s boat, used only for lounge riding and, in our case, for snorkeling. A set of stairs led down from the boat deck into a hallway. I remembered small cabins and cottages from my human life, but this boat interior was amazing, it was meant to float. On either side of the hallway were two booths, a kitchen, and a bathroom. I walked toward an open door leading to a bedroom.
I sat on the bed and folded my clothes so they were neatly piled in my bag, along with my necklace of Rhode’s remains. I tucked that at the bottom, safe from prying eyes. I slid a white tube of sunblock out of my backpack. Black bold letters read: SPF 50. I looked down the long hallway again. The sun’s rays cast gleams of light onto the steps that led up to the main deck of the boat. I sighed, flipped open the cap, and squeezed the tube just a little too hard. The creamy substance spilled all over my hands, so it oozed between my fingers and dripped onto the carpeted floor.
The white liquid contrasted sharply with the royal blue stitching of the soft carpeting and I tried to rub the suntan lotion into the carpet with my big toe. To make matters worse, the motors slowed above and I knew we were coming close to the snorkeling spot. Soon people would come downstairs and see that I had rubbed a palm’s worth of lotion all over my pale thighs.
I stood up and furiously rubbed my calves, my ears, my arms. I was starting to sweat. If I missed a spot, would it be like before? Would I burn easily? Maybe the transformation needed a few more days. The lotion smeared everywhere. It wouldn’t rub in!
“Are you ever coming up from down there? You have to actually go into the water if you want to snorkel,” Tony called down to me.
Tony came down a few steps so he was standing in the boat stairwell. I rubbed the suntan lotion onto my feet. He laughed, his smile sweet.
“You have that stuff all over your face,” he said. He walked forward and rubbed the tip of my nose and the creases on each side of my nostrils with his index finger. He smelled like coconut, just like the lotion I was rubbing all over, and he smoothed it in so it melted into my skin. “This was your great idea,” he said, and sat down on the bed, crossing one ankle over the other. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so I couldn’t help but look over his physique. He wasn’t sculpted like Justin, but he was stocky and in shape.
I sat back down on the bed but kept my back upright. My fingers clasped the 50 SPF sunblock.
“Are you all right?” Tony asked, sitting up and looking at me.
I nodded but remained silent.
Tony pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and tried to meet my eyes, but they were hidden behind my sunglasses. “Have you ever been on a boat before?”
“Long—time—ago,” I barely whispered.
“Are you freaking out on me right now?”
I nodded again, once, and swallowed. My mouth was very, very dry. Hadn’t I brought some water with me? Where was it?
Tony turned me by my shoulder, so I faced him.
“Lenah. We’re going, like, three miles away from the beach. It’s totally fine. Nothing bad’s going to happen on the boat.”
I lifted the sunblock. “Will you put this on my back?” I asked. I didn’t mention to Tony that it wasn’t the boat or the ocean beneath us. It was the sun, the blaring sun, and what it could do to my rejuvenated body only a few days old. I heard the motor’s slowing once more, and the roaring zoom was now a quiet purr.
As I mentioned, the bathing suit I bought was black, very low cut in the front, and had very high cut-outs in the hip. The vampire life is not tainted by body issues and fat. We are what we eat, if you will. I was a purist and was relentless in my pursuit of perfect blood. The outside of my body was a true reflection of the purest blood I could possibly find.
Tony’s index finger was callused. I knew this was because of all his painting and sketching. His footsteps were different on the boat, too. Without the lumbering specificity of the different boots, he was just a clumsy teenager to me. He rubbed the lotion over my back with his rough palms, but I didn’t say anything. He was the first person to touch my skin. He continued to rub the lotion over my back in wide circles. My tattoo was exposed, and I noticed he spent a few more circular motions than usual on my left shoulder. I knew he was reading and rereading it, wondering when I would explain what it meant.
The motors stopped completely at the same time as Tony said, “So, what does ‘evil be he—’”
“Thanks,” I said, interrupting him and spinning around. I took the sunblock out of his hand and tossed it onto the top of my bag.
“Come on!” I heard Roy Enos call, and then a moment later a hefty splash of water.
I stepped up and out of the cabin. There were two double engines and a few seats on either side of the boat.
Tracy stood on top of the rim of the boat and jumped into the water. She was wearing a red two-piece, which was tied together over her hip bones by two tiny strings. I suddenly hated my bathing suit and wished I had bought a bikini instead. The other members of the Three-Piece, Claudia and Kate, were already in the ocean. Tony had climbed over a ladder and was doing the breast stroke out to the others.
After Justin had dropped an anchor into the water, he readied the snorkeling equipment. He turned around with a red plastic mask hanging from his right hand.
“Wow,” he said, and his eyebrows raised. His eyes traveled up and down my body, and I tried my hardest not to pose.
Justin turned away rather quickly. He fiddled with clear masks, blow tubes, flippers that looked like those in fish tanks I had seen in museums at the beginning of the century. Justin laid them out on top of a small cooler.
His feet were strong, they held his frame well, and they were tanned from the sun. Roy Enos, who had a smaller head and a slimmer face than Justin, was treading water. He called to his brother back o
n the boat.
“Throw me those flippers, Justin,” he said, and rolled onto his back so he was floating. I looked down over the boat and realized that there wasn’t much of an ocean below us at all. We were in a harbor, and when the trees swayed in the wind I could see some of the familiar redbrick buildings of Wickham. The harbor was like an alcove just parallel to Wickham beach. I could specify beads of sand and blades of grass. But I tried to forget about my vampire sight, so I focused back down on the water. Most of the girls were standing on their tiptoes. Tony was doing a handstand next to Tracy.
Claudia, the smallest of the Three-Piece, swam around the boat wearing a snorkel mask. She peered down into the five or six feet that was directly below.
Ah, yes! I thought. Snorkeling in action.
“You know you have to jump in that wet stuff, right?” Justin asked.
“I know,” I said casually, and came out from underneath the protection of the awning over the driver’s seat. The sun washed over my back and shoulders when I leaned forward to peer back at the water. Tracy arched her back and bent backward, dipping her hair into the water. Wasn’t I supposed to be the beautiful one here? I felt my stomach tighten. Instinctively, I placed my palms over my belly button. I was still surprised my body reacted this way. That the muscles would link to my emotions.
“Usually, this is fun. I didn’t know you were afraid of boats,” Justin said, and lifted his right foot in order to prepare to step up and stand on the edge of the boat.
“I’m not afraid of boats,” I said, and dropped my hands.
“Sure, you’re not,” he said, smiling in a devilish, challenging way.