Three times a lady, p.12
Mere Mortals, page 12
Poe must have seen the wonder on my face as I took it all in, because he launched into his tour guide mode, detailing how the fortresslike walls came to be. He explained that when the new school was built, the state-of-the-art football field was surrounded by a common chain-link fence, but that wasn’t enough to keep the riffraff out.
“People kept using it to picnic and party and, well . . . you know.”
“Know what?” I asked.
“Let’s just say, don’t walk on that fifty-yard line with bare feet. It might be . . . sticky.”
“Ew.”
We made our way down the high-walled tunnel, and when the field was in full view, I could see the soaring walls surrounded the entire arena. I’d noticed the walls on the school welcome folder but hadn’t realized how tall they were. It was a far more imposing sight in person. Poe pointed across the length of the field, to a high brick arch and a giant iron gate, nearly as wide as a two-lane highway.
“That’s the only way in for the public, and this”—he lifted his hands to the brick walls around us—“this is the only way in from the school.”
A stray thought crossed my mind that Hope High would make an excellent lair for the Drakes or another vampire house. We were always looking for places with strong defenses.
I spotted the planning committee gathered in the stands and waved. Sydney popped up from her seat and jogged across a corner of the field to meet us at the tunnel entrance.
“Special delivery,” Poe said, with a flourish of his hands in my direction.
“Took long enough,” Sydney said.
“I was giving her a tour of the fortress.”
“It’s all a little prisonlike, if you ask me,” she said. “But hey, it keeps the neighbors off the grass, right?”
Poe checked his watch. “I have to get to rehearsal.”
“Tell my brother hello,” I said. “You see him more than I do.”
Above his glasses, Poe’s eyebrows wagged suggestively. “I’ll send your love.”
“Gross. Just stay off the fifty-yard line, okay?”
“I make no promises.”
Up in the bleachers, the freshman and sophomore committee members were giving an update on float building progress. As Sydney and I joined the group, one girl was nursing the pads of her fingers and complaining of permanent glue damage from the thousands of pomps needed to build the float.
“Pomps?” I asked.
“Tissue paper,” Sophia said, scooting over for me to sit.
“Tiny, tissuey, torture devices,” the girl spat.
Sophia made a check mark in a notebook perched on her knees. “Okay, in addition to the Hope High float, we’ve sold entries for most of the usual suspects: 4-H club, Village Veterinary Clinic, the dentist—”
“The dentist?” I asked.
“We just have the one,” Sydney confirmed.
Sophia continued, “American Legion, Future Farmers, the Nowhere Gazette—”
“What’s that?” someone asked. It was Mark, the boy who’d lobbied for a Purge-themed parade float.
“The newspaper.”
“What newspaper?” Sydney asked.
“We have a newspaper?” another girl added.
There was a pause as the group exchanged shrugs, then Sophia zipped through the rest of the names and moved on to the list of bands scheduled to play during the street party. A jazz group was nixed for being too tame, and Mark shot down a rock-and-roll group made up of freshmen who couldn’t actually play their instruments.
“And inside the gym, the AV club will play DJ for the after-party and also take care of the sound system for announcements both inside and outside,” Sophia said, making another check on her sheet.
“We’ve got you covered,” Mark said. “The audiovisual crew is renting some killer speakers. This party’s going to be the loudest thing in Iowa—maybe even the loudest thing you’ve ever heard.”
I had seen the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, circa 1964, along with a few thousand other screaming teenage girls, so I highly doubted that.
I tuned out as Sophia made her way methodically through her checklist, detailing duties from designing flyers to directing traffic. My eyes drifted out over the field, wondering why we couldn’t just have the party here, though I supposed it would be impossible to stage floats in the arena without trashing the turf. It was a shame, though, because the field was by far the nicest, newest thing I had seen in all of Nowhere.
“Can you do that, Charlie?”
The sound of my name brought me back to the conversation. “Sorry, what?”
“Can you ask Lina about the coffee cart?” Sophia said. She sounded impatient, so I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea what she was talking about.
Fortunately, Sydney came to my rescue. “We’re going through the list of food trucks and vendors for the street party. We’re wondering if Lina will run a coffee cart, but she always says no. Says Halloween is not her thing.”
“And you think she’ll listen to me?”
“We think you won’t take no for an answer,” Sydney said.
Well, that was true.
“Plus, you’re so mature,” Sophia added. “You’ve got that whole big-city vibe, so she might take the request more seriously coming from you.”
I pursed my lips to the side, eyeing the twins. “Are you trying to flatter me into this chore?”
“Is it working?” Sydney asked.
“Sure, fine,” I said, unable to suppress a smile. “I’ll ask her.”
I didn’t know why Sydney and Sophia thought I would have any more luck with Lina than they did. If the coffee shop owner said no to the girls she already knew and liked, why would she say yes to a stranger?
I recalled, with a shiver, the way Lina had watched me so intently during my first visit to All Hours. Maybe to someone that strange, everyone was a stranger.
Nineteen
Blood & Bone, Starlight & Shadow
Poe Dupont was barely five-four in heels, but he was a giant onstage. I sat in the back of the Hope High auditorium after school the next day, waiting for Reg and Poe to finish rehearsals so we could walk to All Hours together. I had planned to use the time to prepare for tomorrow’s French exam, but the study guide sat forgotten on the seat next to me as Poe pulled me in with a presence that filled the auditorium.
Most of the cast had quit for the day, and just Poe remained onstage, delivering A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s famous final monologue to an audience of three: Reg, the director, and me.
He had to get through it only once clean before we could leave, but he kept starting and stopping.
“It just doesn’t feel like the rest of the script,” he called from the stage. “It’s not coming out the same.”
The director—I was pretty sure he was the drama coach, choir teacher, and maybe even the bandleader—stood to reply. “It’s meant to feel different. Remember, in this moment, you are not Puck, the mischievous fairy, but Poe, the humble player.”
I could hear Poe’s smirk, even if I couldn’t see it from my seat in the back. “Well, therein lies the problem, sir. I’ve been accused of being both mischievous and a fairy, but never humble.”
The director laughed in response, then gestured at Reg, who hopped up to join Poe onstage.
“Perhaps a duet, just for rehearsal,” the director said.
There was a soft moment, where Poe and Reg turned to each other, lost to the audience, to all but each other, and I felt a painful twinge. I wanted Reg to be happy, and if I could have picked the thing to make him happy, I would have picked him a Poe . . . but at what cost?
Fortunately, we had just written our appeal to the Elder Seat that morning, otherwise I might’ve been worried about him changing his mind, wishing to stay a little longer, maybe even forever. Reg had tried to convince me to wait, that it was too soon for a direct appeal, but watching him now onstage, so comfortable in his human skin, I was glad I’d insisted. Our message was already on its way to the council. It had no clan sponsor to carry it, but I hoped we’d struck just the right tone of reverence and desperation. At the very least, they might give us an audience just for the fun of watching us squirm in person.
There was a quiet pause onstage, broken by the opening line of Poe’s monologue, and any tension I was feeling released, unwinding with the soft power of his voice.
“‘If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.’”
Reg took the next line, his own performance not holding the weight of Poe’s, but carrying that same softness, meant not for the audience, but the boy next to him.
“‘And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend.’”
“‘And, as I am an honest Puck—’” Poe broke away from my brother’s gaze, to wave the script at the director. “See, I’m still Puck, not a player. It feels like the delivery should be . . .”
I tuned out while Poe and the director debated, my coffee craving now top of mind. The human need for coffee was not unlike the vampire need for blood. Going too long without either made me weak, tired, and cranky. Strange that a thing that defined us as vampire was not so inhuman after all.
A short while later, I was curled up in my favorite chair at All Hours, a cup of hot coffee cradled between my hands and Dexter present to keep Reg and Poe from excessive PDA. Of course, I wouldn’t have minded a little public display of affection from Dexter to me, but after the Halloween-store incident, I was actively fighting the urge to flirt. It didn’t matter how green his eyes were, how defined his muscles, how natural his charm—if he wasn’t interested enough to ask me out, there was clearly something wrong with him.
I tossed my hair and humphed a little.
“Problem?” Poe asked, catching my pout.
All three boys looked up at me, and I felt my face flush. Avoiding eye contact with Dexter, I stammered, “It’s just too quiet in here today. Isn’t it? Quieter than usual. Super quiet. Yeah. Huh.”
Reg and Poe exchanged looks, and Reg said, “It was quiet, anyway.”
Dexter sipped his latte, his face unreadable.
“Well, you’re right that it’s quiet here without Syd and Soph,” Poe said.
The twins had missed school to attend the funeral of an aunt who’d passed away a few days before. They kept saying it had been coming for some time but was still sudden, and everyone else nodded as if this made sense. Reg and I had asked Sal about it, but he couldn’t manage to effectively explain how death could be simultaneously expected and unexpected.
I actually had zero interest in learning the nuance of death and every intention of reclaiming my immortality as soon as possible. Still, I didn’t want to seem like an insensitive monster to my new friends, so I had googled something appropriate to say to Sydney and Sophia, and it seemed to work, since they hugged me and cried on my shoulder.
My words may have come from the internet, but the hug I’d given them in return was all mine. I wished I could save them from the tragedy and suffering of mortality. During my quietest moments, in that waking dream space just before sleep, I imagined returning for them once I was vampire again, to offer them the gift that had been given to me so many years ago. But they were too young, of course. It was a total violation of the Treaty of Annis, and with my luck, I’d just get caught and shoved right back through Sal’s stupid, magical, human-making fence.
Something of my thoughts must have shown on my face, because Dexter asked if I was okay.
“I’m fine,” I snapped. How annoying of him to notice me now when I was probably making some sad-girl face. Sad girl was not a good look for me.
He didn’t flinch from my sharp reply. “I just meant your parents.”
Oh, right. Maybe sad girl was the appropriate look after all.
“Of course!” Poe said, gripping Reg’s hand.
I barely had time to be annoyed with this PDA, because he quickly leaned forward and wrapped his other hand around mine. His grip was tight and sincere, and it brought a prickle of tears to my eyes. Why Poe’s sympathy over the death of my imaginary parents would make my eyes want to leak was inexplicable. Tears remained an utter mystery to me.
Poe said, “This must be bringing up terrible memories for you both. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Talk about what?” Lina was looming over us, a serving tray tucked under her arm and her wild blond hair escaping from the haphazard bun on the back of her head.
“Charlie and Reginald lost their parents recently,” Poe said. “It’s unimaginable.”
“So much for not talking about it,” Dexter muttered, shooting me an apologetic look.
“Lost your parents, huh?” Lina asked. She didn’t sound remotely sympathetic. In fact, she could have been talking about the weather.
I knew she was eccentric, but that was just downright rude.
Poe managed to hold both pity and curiosity in his eyes, while Reg’s gaze communicated an intense warning to be careful how I responded.
I sniffed at Lina. “We don’t like to talk about it. It’s very painful, as you can imagine.”
Lina stared at me inscrutably, holding my gaze so that it felt impossible to look away.
“Terrible thing to lose a parent. Almost seems like it would be better to have the mind erased to forget the person, rather than feel the ache of losing them.”
I didn’t have to look at Reg to know his face was probably a startled mirror of my own.
“That would be awful,” Dexter said to Lina. “I would be so sad to forget someone I lost.”
“But you wouldn’t be sad,” Lina argued. “You wouldn’t remember.”
Poe shook his head. “I’m with Dex. ‘Better to have loved and lost,’ as Tennyson said, ‘than to have never loved at all.’”
“Depends how you see it. Could be a kindness.” She patted Poe on the shoulder and wandered back behind the coffee counter. Reg and I locked eyes behind her back and held one of our silent conversations.
You hear that stuff about memory?
I’m sitting right here.
It’s like she knows about vampires.
Or she’s just crazy.
Oh, she’s definitely crazy.
Maybe it took a crazy person to think it was a kindness to erase someone you’d loved and lost from your memory. And maybe my dream of turning Sydney and Sophia immortal was selfish, even cruel. To make them forget their family, their friends . . .
My breath caught as I wondered if I’d had friends like this before—friends I had forgotten, wiped from my mind like cobwebs to be simply swept away.
The idea that Sydney and Sophia and Poe and even Dexter could be so easily erased made me uncomfortable. But at least I would always have Reg. Though, as I watched my brother leaning into Poe, hands still linked, faces close, the doubt I’d felt in the theater crept back in. Would Reg be as willing to sever these mortal ties?
I asked him as much on the way home, and he brushed me off with a nonanswer.
“We have time enough to worry about that.”
“But that’s the whole point, Reg! Time is running out.”
We stepped to the side of the road to make way for a passing car, a small cloud of exhaust creating a hazy view of a “No More, No Less” bumper sticker on the car’s rear end.
“Every day, every minute we are mortal, we are losing time,” I said. “Time is the entire curse of mortality. Time killed Sydney and Sophia’s aunt.”
“We are far from death.”
“We’re closer than we were a month ago.”
We reached the cottage mid-argument, dropping our bags on the kitchen floor and slinging our jackets over chairs. Sal grunted a greeting and gestured for us to clean up our mess.
“I’ll concede that point,” Reg said, moving his coat and bag to their proper, tidy spot. “But worrying over something you can’t control will only hurry those human wrinkles.”
My hands went instinctively to my face, and he grinned, casually amused in that infuriating way only Reg could be. But just behind that grin I saw a small flicker of doubt, a crack in my brother’s cool facade. It was there and gone in an instant, and when he spoke, there was no trace of it, his tone as self-assured as ever.
“Whatever happens, at least we’ll face it together.”
“What if nothing happens? What if they turn us down? What if—”
“Be patient, Charlie. Everything’s going to work out.”
“Well, I guess you’ll know soon enough,” Sal said, tossing something on the kitchen table. “That came for you today.”
The envelope was abnormally long and slim, the paper a shimmery white that gave off flashes of light with every tiny movement. It was addressed, insultingly, not to Charlotte and Reginald Drake of the Bone Clan but to simply “the Smiths.”
The taunting address should have been the first clue to what was inside, but I tore it open with wasted hope in my heart anyway. The inner paper had none of the sparkle of the envelope, and it was emblazoned with the Elder Seat motto in stark black ink:
By Blood and Bone, By Starlight and Shadow
Below the motto, a simple message read:
Dearest Charlotte and Reginald Smith,
Your request has been carefully considered, but as you may know, custom—if not law—dictates that any appeal of judgment must be sponsored by a representative of a recognized vampire clan. As such, it is the council’s decision to decline to hear your appeal.
Best wishes to you both in your new life.
Most sincerely,
The Representatives of the Elder Seat
“Oh sure,” I sneered. “They considered it carefully. So carefully I bet they gave themselves a paper cut with how fast they threw our letter in the trash.”
