A Field Guide to Vampires (11 page)

“There’s the weirdest thing outside,” she said, crossing to the window and climbing out onto the roof. “Come and see.”

Oh my God. Lucas’s broken body really was on the sidewalk.

I dashed past her and slammed into the railing in my haste to look out. My brain kicked in belatedly. If Lucas was down there lying in his own blood, not only would there be ambulances, but I was pretty sure Mom wouldn’t want me to see that kind of thing.

“Look,” she said softly, pointing to the telephone wire across the street. Bright red cardinals perched on the line, watching us. Another landed on the corner of the building next door. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

We watched them for a long time, their feathers red as raspberries.

“Have you heard from Aunt Antonia lately?” I asked, in what I hoped was a casual, normal tone.

She shook her head. “You know how she is.” Her gaze slid away from mine.

“She’s not in trouble, is she?”

“Why do you ask that?”

I shrugged. “Just wondering. Her cell phone’s off again.”

“She’s probably out of range. Or she’s avoiding collection agencies.”

It was a logical explanation.

But it didn’t ring true for some reason.

Especially when Mom hurried inside to fill a water bottle for the empty birdbath on the roof. She refused to meet my eyes, rushing so that she sloshed water on the floor. She didn’t even stop to wipe it up. She
always
wiped up spills and messes, even the dust visible only to Mom-eyes.

And she was dismissive of Antonia, even though I knew they were close. Whenever Antonia came home for Christmas, they whispered late into the night, as if they were at a slumber party. But neither of them answered direct questions. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? I felt strange, as if I were waking up from a convoluted dream I could only half remember.

There was definitely something going on.

Especially when she went straight to her room after a quick good night. She shut the door firmly behind her.

I focused on the few details I had. Lucas. The pendant. Antonia. Antonia was the only mystery I could work on right now. Though I did check the phone book for Lucas Richelieu. Not a single person with that last name in Rowan. I’d have to go to Jo’s and use her Internet to google him. In the meantime, I gathered up the family photo albums, even the small one Mom thought I didn’t know about. It was the only one with photos of my father.

I went into my room and sat on the bed, flipping through the albums. Mom and Antonia as babies, my grandparents. Granddad looked kind in his faded pin-striped suit. Grandma just looked kind of scary. The prom night pictures of Mom and Antonia were my favorite. The teased and crimped hair alone offered hours of entertainment. Mom at her first art show, sporting a very pink mohawk; Mom selling brownies at the school bake sale last year. We’d had so much fun that day. At the PTA meeting, the principal had suggested that parents dress appropriately, and everyone knew he meant Mom. So she did her hair in rollers and we wore fifties-style dresses and pearls. She looked like Bettie Page or a particularly evil version of Marilyn Monroe. The other moms had sniffed. But Mom was a better baker than they were, so our table sold out before noon.

There weren’t a lot of pictures of Antonia after she turned sixteen, and the few I could find were from Christmas. Our purple tree glittered in the background, tilting slightly under the weight of handmade ornaments. They were mostly paintings of Elvis Presley and fifties pinup girls that Mom did on the back of coasters she took from the bar.

In one of the photographs, Antonia and Mom toasted the camera with glasses of red wine. Antonia was laughing so hard she was falling over. The flash glinted off a pendant slipping out of her peasant blouse.

An iron stag with a leaf in its antlers.

I heard the murmur of Mom’s voice through the thin
walls as I tried to figure out what it meant, if it even meant anything at all. I crept to my open window, knowing hers would be open as well since the building didn’t have air-conditioning. I leaned out, listening carefully. Who could she be calling at one o’clock in the morning? I stretched farther out and caught the last few words.

“Antonia, call me. I think it’s starting.”

Alyxandra Harvey is the author of
Haunting Violet
,
Stolen Away,
and the
Drake Chronicles
. She studied creative writing and literature at York University and has had her poetry published in several magazines. When not writing, she is a belly dancer and jewelry maker. She lives in an old farmhouse with her husband and two dogs.

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Copyright © 2012 by Alexandra Harvey

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in April 2012
by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., a division of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
www.bloomsburyteens.com

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ISBN 978-0-8027-3427-3 (e-book)