The Darkening Dream (10 page)

“I was over here. I didn’t see it,” Anne said.

“Why didn’t you tell us before, Alex?” Sarah said.

“Should I have said, ‘Hello, my name’s Alex, I believe in vampires’?”

“The man has a point,” Sam said.

“I knew it was Charles,” Emily said.

“How’d this happen?” Sarah asked. “I mean, he was a normal boy, then he was dead, and now he is… whatever he is. How?”

“Created by another vampire,” Alex whispered.

“You’ve all gone insane.” Anne was holding herself so rigid Sarah was surprised she could speak. “How can anyone be created?”

“Good Lord,” Sarah said. “There’re two of those monsters?”

“And the one we saw is just the baby,” Alex said.

“One at a time, then,” Sam said. “Alex, you said you knew where Charles would go? If he’s undead, how do we make him all the way dead?”

“He’ll return to his grave before dawn. They have to. But
we
will do nothing. You can all go home and my manservant Dmitri will deal with it.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard yet,” Anne said.

The image of the gaping maw and the teeth flashed through Sarah’s head. Conflicting emotions roiled in her gut.

“No. We’ll see it finished.”

She’d failed Charles in life — failed to pass on the warning God had sent her. She would not fail him in death, too.

“This is no task for women,” Alex said. “I’m sorry if I offend you, but it’s dangerous and bloody.”

Anger washed the fear and questions right out of her head.

“Is that so?” she said. “I think we women know a bit more about blood than you do. We’re coming.”

“Sarah, please,” Anne said. “Let’s take Emily home.”

Sarah kicked her friend’s foot.

Anne glared back.

“I don’t want to go home,” Emily said. “Sam, tell them I don’t have to go.”

Ten:

Dead Again

Salem, Massachusetts, Thursday night, October 23, 1913

“
A
NNE,
I
REALLY, REALLY,
really
want to come,” Emily said. The sisters hopped off the downtown trolley behind Sarah. The boys had gone ahead to Alex’s. “And I’m not a little kid. I’m practically a grown-up.”

“If I could stay behind, I would,” Anne said. Sarah knew it was true. The difference between siblings was about more than just a couple years.

“I’ll never get to sleep,” Emily said. “I’ll just lie there suffering in my bed till you get back. Why don’t
you
want to go?”

Sam had labeled this tactic
tacking
.

“Because it’s scary and dangerous,” Anne said. “If you had any sense, you’d see that and I’d treat you more like a grown-up.”

Sarah’s own sibling arguments were more than seven years laid to rest, but she knew not to get caught in the crossfire.

“Anyway, you owe me for backing your fib,” Anne said. “Where were you yesterday after the funeral? I saw the pastor leave — without you.”

Emily stopped walking. “You lied for me?”

“When have I ever been a snitch? Seriously, Em, where were you?”

“I don’t remember, honest. I heard you badgering Sam about Sarah, and the next thing I remember is walking home.” She frowned. “I was probably daydreaming.”

Anne seemed to give up — at least, she stopped asking questions. But Sarah had one for her.

“What were you saying to Sam about me?”

“I don’t remember, either.” Anne looked down. “Emily got me all flustered when she disappeared.”

Not that flustered. Once they got rid of Emily, Sarah would get the story out of her.

When they reached the junction point between their two houses, Anne finally looked at Sarah.

“You still have blood in your hair. You might as well go home to wash and change.”

“We need more practical clothes anyway,” Sarah said. “I’ll sneak out after my parents think I’m in bed. How are you going to keep Emily from following us?”

“Hey, I’m standing right here!” Emily said.

“I’ll get Emma to help,” Anne said. “She owes me. I don’t tell Mother about her
juju
.”

Sarah had seen Emma’s dolls and charms. The island woman fed her little deities rum when she thought no one was looking.

“Okay,” Sarah said. “I’ll meet you on Essex Street in exactly an hour.”

Sarah had taken a few moments at the Willows powder room to wash her face, and her dress was a dark color, so she hoped for the best. When she popped her head into Papa’s study to say goodnight he barely acknowledged her. She grabbed her riding boots and headed upstairs.

Papa’s renovations hadn’t yet brought plumbing to the second floor, so the washroom water was cold. She stripped down anyway and scrubbed herself head to toe. The water in the basin turned reddish-brown —
ugh
. She tossed it out the window.

Back in her room, prowler outfits were in short supply, but she made the best of what her wardrobe had to offer. When she glanced out the coast was clear, so she stuffed stockings into her riding boots and threw them down into the yard.

Then paused. She’d almost forgotten her nighttime prayers. Tonight, she could use all the help God was willing to offer.

Afterward, she swung one leg to straddle the sill. The wooden shingles prickled her bare sole. Her room was in the front of the house, far from Papa’s study, above the steep pediment of the porch. She gripped the window frame.

And looked down.

Anne and the boys would be waiting.

With a final silent prayer, she sprang across the small gap to the porch roof.

She made the leap easily but slapped the surface with a jarring full-body impact that knocked half the wind out of her. She slid down, scrabbling to grip the rough shingles, then rolled off the edge and fell six or seven feet onto the grass below.

She lay for a moment in the yard, her scraped hands and feet throbbing, then picked herself up and limped over to her boots.

Anne wasn’t waiting on Essex. Sarah gave her a few minutes, then made her way slowly to her friend’s house. All the lights were off, and a few pebbles tossed at her window got no response.

She sighed and began the thirty-minute trek to the Palaogoses’ old Victorian mansion. A splinter stabbed her in the foot, and she imagined blood filling her boot until it overflowed. She kept an eye out for a place to take her shoe off but the road was pitch dark.

By the time she pushed open Alex’s creaky iron gate and staggered to the barn she was in agony. Sam and Alex had set up portable oil lamps. Two canvas packs sat beside some shovels and a medieval-looking pike of sharpened wood.

“Where’s Anne?” Sam said. “We’re almost ready.”

“Not coming,” Sarah said. “She didn’t have the guts.”

“Anne turned yellow on us?” Sam said.

Sarah’s last sentence echoed in her head. She stepped back into the shadows as if hiding would take it back.

And bumped into something hard and metallic. A shiny black automobile half hidden behind a haphazard wall of hay-bales.

She pointed. “Can we take that?”

“We just bought it,” Alex said. “Dmitri’s teaching me how to drive
next
Sunday.”

Sarah sat on a hay-bale, tugged off her boot, and rolled down her stocking. She winced.

“If I don’t get this splinter out,” she said, “I don’t think I can walk anywhere. Alex, I hate to impose, but do you have a clean rag and some water?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Find out the time,” Sam called after him. He lowered his voice. “I can’t believe it. Anne always comes, even if just to complain.”

Sarah managed to get her fingernail underneath the shard impaled in the ball of her foot.

“It
is
a lot to swallow,” she said. “Maybe she just needs time to adjust.”

He stepped closer. “Anything I can do to help?”

As long as they’d been friends, Sarah couldn’t remember being alone with him.

“No thanks. I got the splinter out.”

Alex returned with a wet cloth and a jar.

“Three hours past midnight,” he said, then sat next to Sarah. “I brought salve. May I?”

She offered him her injured leg. The scrapes on her foot stung while he cleaned them, but his touch was gentle. The whole thing was awkward and improper, and Sam was staring, but she was too exhausted to do anything about it.

Then Alex opened the jar. The most repulsive odor assailed her nose, likely a blend of rare herbs, goat feces, and hundred-year-old frog guts.

“Jesus Christ on the cross!” Sam cried. “What’s in that stuff?”

“Dmitri never said, but it works.”

Alex carefully took a dab of the yellow goo on the tip of a forefinger and gently applied it to Sarah’s wounds. Despite the stench, the ointment was cool and soothing, and within seconds her discomfort receded. The sudden absence of pain, the touch of Alex’s hands… She closed her eyes and drifted.

“Sarah, are you all right?” Sam asked.

She felt her cheeks flush. She retrieved her leg and yanked her stocking back on.

“My foot’s much better now.” But her hands also stung. “Maybe I’ll take some of that salve on these cuts, too.”

Alex set to work, Sam watching him intently. Then he looked at Sarah.

“Our vampire expert says the undead will have returned to its grave by dawn,” he said. “Which leads us to the plan—”

“Sunlight will burn it,” Alex said, “but to make certain it’s dead — for good — we need to put an ash stake through its heart, chop off its head, and boil it in wine or vinegar.”

“Poor Charles,” Sarah said. Anne would’ve said something funnier.

Alex put away the ointment, and Sarah took stock of herself. Her injuries no longer hurt, but—

“You don’t have to come,” Sam said.

Alex tried to catch Sarah’s eye. She focused on the barn floor.

“I’m coming.” She was supposed to be a part of this. “Will the creature fight back?”

“Hopefully, not very well,” Alex said. “The devilish spirit that animates him is much weaker during the day.”

“Splendid,” Sarah said. “Breakfast with the damned.” Finally, a line worthy of Anne.

The new Congregationalist graveyard was in the old section of town, walled off from the nearby streets by ancient trees. This morning, mist pooled in the low spots, shrouding the grassy spaces between the headstones. In the first light of dawn Sarah could make out Charles’ grave, simply a rectangular patch of naked earth.