The wall was filled with cases just like the ones in the crate.
“Would you mind showing me how the machine works?” I asked, referring to the monstrous, black tower to the right of the cases. On a desk in front of it were three computers.
“Which CD do you want to listen to?” she asked.
I picked up the CD that said handel opera in swirling white cursive across the front of the case. But the last opera I had seen was in the 1740s, in Paris. I shook my head—I remembered that night too well. And that was not a night I wanted to recall while I stood in a room with a stranger.
She pressed a button, and a small tray slid forward all on its own. I felt my eyes widen. Everything that involved machinery in this age was so easy—one simple push, and magic happened.
She opened the case and took out a silver disc.
“You place the CD in the slot, press the button on the stereo, and there you go. You can turn it up to volume ten; no one can hear. This room is soundproof. The musicians listen to their CDs at an unreasonable volume.”
She turned the knob up to the ten setting and closed the door behind her, leaving me in the silence…for a moment.
I stuck my hand into the box of CDs, waiting to line them up accordingly when music came out of the speakers. I stood up and backed away from the stereo.
The aria was Handel’s “Se pietà” and it moved throughout the room, wafting over the foam walls and carpeted floor. Finally, it settled into me. The feeling of the drawn-out strings, the vibrations of the cellos, flowed through my body like blood. Violins—many of them—how many, I could not decipher. I could almost feel the bow moving across the strings. My lips parted, and my breath escaped in a slow exhale. The cellos came next—the low melancholy strings made goose bumps roll over my arms. I reached forward and touched the tiny holes of the place where the music came out. I could feel the machine vibrating from the sound.
How on earth was this possible? Had so much time passed that humans were able to contain any music they wanted? Keep it somewhere so they could listen to it over and over again?
I brought my hand to my chest when a woman began to sing an aria. Her voice cascaded through the notes, soared with the violins and matched the cellos’ harmonies. I couldn’t help it—I slowly knelt down to the floor and closed my eyes. It was a kind of beauty I could not have fathomed before that moment—music that I could finally feel with my body and my soul.
In 1740, opera was popular, but you had to travel to attend performances. Now it was in the listening room at Wickham Boarding School. I closed my eyes even tighter and let the sound pass through me. Like a whisper on bare skin, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I felt a pair of hands rest on my shoulders. I kept my eyes closed.
Have you learned Italian yet? a voice whispered in my ear. Except the voice was in my head and I was remembering the last time I’d heard that song—in 1740, in Paris, with Rhode.
“You’re not really here,” I whispered.
Didn’t I tell you? Anywhere you go, I will go, the voice whispered.
But I knew I was alone in that listening room, in a century I knew nothing about…the ghost of Rhode my only company.
“What are you doing?” said a voice that was clearly not Rhode’s.
My eyes flew open. I looked right. Justin Enos held the door open and the Three-Piece passed behind him, looking in at me through the glass. I had the sudden realization that I was on my knees, and I stood up from the floor immediately. “Listening,” I said, though it was more like a yell.
Justin gestured to the stereo. “Can I?”
I nodded, unsure what he was doing there. I fiddled aimlessly with the CDs. He turned down the volume so the song was no louder than a whisper.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I wanted to know what you were listening to because the look on your face was like you were in pain or something. But it was just classical music.”
“It’s not just classical.”
His eyebrows furrowed, and I looked away toward the CDs again.
But I had to look back.
Justin’s shirt was unbuttoned just one button too far—just enough so I could see the cleft in between his chest muscles. A deep ravine of bronzed skin. I wanted to run my finger over it. It was just a simple, small button, but it looked as though it was a forgotten button, as if getting dressed in a hurry was something he did often.
He followed my eyes, looked down to his shirt, and immediately reached his long fingers up to close the button. I grabbed a CD from the crate—disappointed.
“You look like you’d never heard music before,” he said.
“I haven’t,” I said. “Not like that.” I focused on the last name on a CD in the crate. Madonna, a composer I’d never heard of. I placed the CD with the others whose last name began with M.
“You’ve never heard music on a stereo?”
“Not exactly.”
“And you chose opera?”
I looked up. Justin’s expression was a mix of amazement and sheer confusion. Perhaps he thought I was strange, but in that moment, I could feel it—he was enthralled. My eyes traveled over his shoulder to one of Justin’s brothers peeking into the listening room, the older one, the one with earrings in his ear. Behind him, members of the Three-Piece giggled to one another, hiding their mouths by turning their heads when I caught their eyes.
“I have to go,” I said, shoving the last CDs carelessly at the end of the row. I pushed past so my shoulder grazed Justin’s arm. It was warm, as though he’d been sitting in the sun. As I walked away, past them, I didn’t look back. Even as they laughed at my expense, I could feel the vibrations of the woman’s soprano in the middle of my chest—somewhere very close to my heart.
Chapter Six
First day of classes. What to wear?
Wickham didn’t have uniforms, so it was a bit of a gamble. The weather was still so warm despite it being early September. Jeans and a simple black tank top—that seemed like a safe bet. No odd colors that were out of fashion. Just simple. Tony said he would meet me outside Seeker so we could walk to assembly together. Strength in numbers, I thought after my debacle in the listening room with Justin.
The morning of the first day of school, I had a few minutes before I had to meet Tony. I went into my kitchen. It was a small alcove, with modest wooden cabinets and a small counter space. Rhode had stocked it with pans, silverware, and other kitchen tools. Yet, the most important items were on the counter to the right of the sink.
Spices and dried flowers were stacked neatly in black, circular tins against the wall. The smallest black canister read dandelion. Of course, I thought. Dried dandelion. The dried flower head is no larger than a dime and is meant to be carried for luck. If I was to assimilate into human life as Rhode had requested, I needed all the luck I could get. That, and a clock seemed to reside in my mind. During moments of silence when the distractions of this new age subsided, I could hear the seconds click past. Each tick-tock brought me closer and closer to the final night of Nuit Rouge. I shook my head as though to rid myself of these thoughts, stuck a dandelion head in my pocket, and grabbed a bundle of rosemary that was tied together.
I stuck a tack in the door and hung the rosemary from it. I did this so that every time I came back to my dorm apartment, the safe place that I would call home, I would never forget where I came from. And how much farther I still had to go.
With my backpack on, I locked the door behind me. I stepped out of Seeker and found Tony on the lawn, lying on his back with his hands behind his head, basking in the morning sun. I pulled the wide-brimmed, floppy hat over my head. Tony was wearing the ripped jeans again and a belt decorated by metal spikes.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting burned?” I asked, and placed my sunglasses over my eyes.
Tony hopped up. He pointed at me so that his backpack dangled off his right elbow.
“Okay, the security guard told me that you live in Professor
Bennett’s old place?”
“If that’s the top-floor apartment, then yes,” I said.
“‘The top-floor apartment,’” Tony mocked me and exaggerated my British accent. He blinked twice and his jaw dropped. “Professor Bennett died in July,” Tony clarified. His eyes were wide and his thin lips parted. He was waiting for me to react. When I didn’t, he continued. “They still don’t know how he died except he had two holes in his throat. Made all the psychics and nut jobs in town claim vampires.”
I rolled my eyes…Rhode.
“So?” I asked. “What does that have to do with me moving in?”
“It’s September. The guy died two months ago. That doesn’t freak you out at all?”
I shrugged. “Not really. Death has never really bothered me.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me, Lenah?” Tony asked, and threw his arm over my shoulder. “I guess you don’t care about vampires, either.”
“Do you believe they exist?” I asked him.
“Anything’s possible.”
No, Tony, I thought. Not anything. Some things, dangerous things. Other vampires could have lived in Lovers Bay, Massachusetts, though I had never heard of any in that part of the world. Vampires generally know about one another—geographically, that is—and either way, what could I have done if they were there?
“Do you?” he asked. “Believe?”
“Why not?” I replied.
Tony hugged me close to him so my left shoulder pressed against his rib cage and I could feel his body heat. The sudden closeness made my mouth water. In the vampire state a kind of salivation takes place. The fangs come down and then the vampire feels the instinct to bite. I pulled away and pretended to reach into my backpack.
The pumping in my heart echoed within me, and I pressed my hand over my chest—as if it would quiet it down. I pulled out an official document from the bottom of the bag and pretended to look at it. Was I salivating because of Tony’s body heat? Did I want his blood? I concentrated on some sharp blades of grass. I swallowed to make sure the saliva had died away.
I looked up at Tony. He had walked up the path a few feet ahead of me. I couldn’t help but notice the way he walked: a long step with a small hop. His feet were a little big for his body, too. He was wearing a pair of black boots that day, though one was different from the other. I’m not sure if anyone with regular sight would have noticed, but the stitching around the right boot was different from the one on the left.
“You coming?” Tony called. “Assembly will start without us.”
No, I decided. I most definitely did not want his blood.
I stood and jogged to catch up. When I reached Tony’s side, he smiled at me and we continued up the path. Tony’s breezy attitude made it easy for me to hide my vampire instincts. He didn’t seem to mind when I acted strangely. I ran my tongue over my front teeth before speaking. I had to make sure…
“Are you from Lovers Bay originally?” I asked, trying to distract myself from what just happened.
“Yep.” Tony sighed. “My parents live right on the border of Lovers Bay, in the really, um, interesting part of town.”
“Interesting?” I asked.
“Let me put it to you this way: You’d be scared just looking down the street.”
I smirked. Right…
“So how’d you score a professor’s dorm residence?” Tony asked. “Everyone else has to live in regular dorm rooms.”
“My dad rented it for the two years I’ll be going to school here,” I explained.
“Wow,” Tony said, raising his eyebrows. He navigated through the pathways toward Hopper building. As we walked the twists and turns of the walkways, I glanced at Tony’s face. He held his jaw loosely but smiled in a happy, relaxed way. Tony’s disposition was gentle, and I could feel his energy. Vampires can feel human energy and pick up on the emotional intentions of those around them. Tony had never in his life hurt someone as I had, nor had he felt unrelenting fear. I wanted to protect him in any way that I could and before I knew what was happening, my hand was reaching for his. I dropped it back at my side and pretended like nothing happened. Luckily, he didn’t notice.
Outside dorms, in walkways, and on the lawns, more students flung themselves at one another, crying in happiness and taking pictures of one another on cell phones.
Tony held out his arm toward me. He used his index finger to pretend he was snapping a photo.
“Oh, my God!” he cried, and grasped his hand to his heart. “I have to take your picture because, like, I haven’t seen you in five minutes. Pose!”
I placed my right hand on my hip and smiled genuinely. Tony dropped his arms by his side, and his face fell. “You can pose better than that!”
“How should I pose?” I asked, not sure which kind of pose was acceptable in this century.
“Forget it, Lenah,” he said, laughing.
Tony grabbed my hand and led me back toward the path. I let him pull me, and I smiled at his fingers grasped around mine. But his fingers had no age. Black smudges of paint dotted his hands and fingers. They were soft, without wear, and I realized that Rhode was the last person to hold me that way. I let go of Tony’s hand.
“I was in Switzerland for two months!” a younger girl shrieked next to us while grasping her friend in a tight hug. “And your hair is so blond!”
Tony looked at me from the corner of his eye and then stifled a laugh.
My extrasensory perception was a bit like a radio signal; it kept picking up the emotional reads from the people around me. There were so many: excitement, longing, shame, anxiety—I could list a whole host of emotions.
The walkway we were on snaked in front of Quartz dorm. I couldn’t help but peek at Justin’s window. It was dark, though the window was open and a coffee mug sat on the windowsill.
As I kept stride with Tony, I obsessed over the students interacting with one another. If I was supposed to be one of them, I had to act as one of them. They wore bejeweled rings, expensive silver or gold watches, and accessories of every kind. A lot of the girls held their hair back with elaborate tortoiseshell clips. Perhaps I could find some for me in the clothing stores. I almost forgot Tony’s promise to teach me how to drive. With the introduction of my new job and my fascination with how-to manuals, I hadn’t taken Tony up on his promise.
“I got a job,” I said while we waited in the line of the students congregating to get into Hopper.
“That explains Saturday. I came by Seeker to see you,” Tony said. “You must have been working. Where at?”
“Library.”
“Rough deal. I work for the yearbook. Kind of a work-study thing,” Tony explained.
“Yearbook? What’s that?” I asked. We stepped underneath the shaded awning of Hopper, and I pulled my hair off my shoulders and fastened it with a black clip.
“You don’t know what a yearbook is?” Tony gave me a look that said, How could you NOT know what that is? But it faded fast. “It’s this book that comes out at the end of every school year. We take pictures all year, record what happens, and put it together. To, like, remember. What happened.”
“So you take the photographs?”
Tony nodded.
“I should take some pictures of first assembly. Everyone always wears their best clothes. It’s really annoying.”
“Is that your best spiked belt?” I asked, smirking.
He slid a camera out of his pocket so fast, I didn’t even know what was happening. Then a light flashed in my eyes. I yelped so that the back of my throat burned. The scream was quick and short but enough to have all of the students standing in line turn to look at me.
Tony laughed and laughed. “Wow,” he said. “I should scare you more often.”
“Are you crazy? You can’t just flash a bright light at someone. It could hurt them.”
Tony placed a hand on my shoulder. “Lenah, it’s just a camera. Maybe you like my fake one better, but this one won’t hurt, promise.”
&nb
sp; Right, I thought. Must learn to control that.
The line of students started to move.
“Thanks for walking with me today,” I said.
“You don’t have to thank me. I like it. All the guys on campus think you’re hot, so this works out for me. I’ll follow you to class, your dorm, Main Street,” he said with a smile as we moved into the doorway of Hopper.
There was a tug on my heart. I looked to the ground as the image below my feet went from the grass to the tile of the Hopper foyer.
Anywhere you go, I will go… echoed in my head.
I walked with Tony in a sea of students, though I wasn’t part of it—I didn’t feel like I was, anyway. I couldn’t jump, hug, or tell anyone anything that wouldn’t scare them out of my life forever. And there, in the slow-moving line into the auditorium, the memory of the opera came back to me.
PARIS, FRANCE—OPERA, INTERMISSION
1740
I extinguished the candle flames with the tips of my fingers and then I waited in the darkness. There, in the shadow of the velvet seats and gilded gold railing, a couple stepped into the balcony. I killed them both before an utter of a scream left their mouths. I’d never murdered anyone in a public crowd before. They were a well-refined royal couple, and their blood tasted sweet and surprisingly satisfying. I used their bodies as footrests for the first and second act of the opera, Giulio Cesare, my favorite.
A line of blood dripped down the front of my silk gown, spotting my tangerine-colored shoes, but I waited for something else—the relief from the sheer agony that lived in my mind; that is what happened after murdering a victim. There was an instantaneous but brief relief from the emotional pain. I sat down on the plush seat and rested my feet on the chest of the young man I had murdered. Surely it would come now, any moment….
Another crimson droplet fell, clinging to the white pearl beading that circled the hem of my gown. The dress itself was a deep red color, the finest silk in Paris. I waited, uninterested in the chatter of the crowd awaiting the final act of the opera. I only realized that a long drop of blood fell off my chin when it splattered onto my cleavage.