Twenty-One

On the way back to the house from the barn I asked Trick if I was going to be grounded forever.

“That would make it pretty hard to move next week,” he said. He inspected my face. “I think you can be paroled for good behavior.”

“Does my parole include going to the Halloween school dance tomorrow night?” I batted my eyelashes at him. “I’ve already got a date.”

He stopped me. “With who?”

“Aaron Boone.” The way he was scowling made me chuckle. “Come on, Trick. I’m fifteen, and it’s just a school dance. Gray’s going, and we’ll be chaperoned to death. Please?”

“I suppose so.”

“Great. Ouch.” I winced and rubbed my throbbing temple. “I can’t seem to get rid of this headache.”

“You’re overheated.” He rubbed my back. “Go upstairs, take a couple of aspirin and get some rest. I’ll wake you for dinner.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Have I ever told you that you’re a prince?”

I went into the bathroom upstairs to get my bottle of aspirin, but found it empty. “Who’s been stealing my drugs?” I grumbled as I tossed it into the trash can.

I trudged back downstairs to get some from the bottle in the kitchen, but stopped just outside as I heard Trick’s angry voice.

“We can’t keep doing this,” he was saying. “I said it had to stop when we moved here. Those headaches she had in Chicago were too severe. We could be causing permanent damage.”

“I told you what she said.” Gray sounded sulky. “You’d rather have her know?”

“You’re the finder. Why aren’t you watching her?”

“I told you to change our schedules, but you said nothing would happen,” Gray snapped. “That guy’s father talked to her. He told her about them.”

“When?” Trick asked. “You were here last night. Did Raven come to the house? Did he call?”

As Gray answered no, I remembered that I’d made a call last night. I’d called someone from the phone in the kitchen, but why would I talk to a bird?

“Trick, we can’t just take away a couple of things. We have to make her forget it all this time,” Gray said. “Moving here, school, that boy, everything. It’s the only way it’ll work.”

I almost laughed out loud. Make me forget my life? Was he kidding?

“It’s not just the trunk or the letters,” Gray said. “She thinks she’s in love with this guy. The Ravens know who we are. How long do you think those monsters will wait before they come after her?”

I took a step back. In love? I wasn’t in love. I’d never been in love. And why was he talking about birds knowing me and being monsters?

“So far they’ve done nothing,” Trick said. “They’re not like the others. They seem to be able to control themselves. If we stay here, that will change.”

“Is that right? Then why did Tiffany say Jesse was all over her at the zoo?” Gray demanded.

From the moment my brother said the name ‘Jesse’ my heart began to pound faster. I moved away from the kitchen door, groping my way along the furniture as I dragged myself to the stairs. I couldn’t let them see me like this. I couldn’t let them know I’d been listening.

I don’t know any Jesse. There is no Jesse.

I crawled up the stairs, panting as tears of pain streamed down my face. The headache swelled until it pressed against the inside of my skull, so hard I expected to hear it crack. At the top of the stairs I nearly fell as the hammering agony became the world, and one low, beautiful voice began whispering in my mind.

Go back where you came from, girl.

It’s dangerous to ride in the dark.

I won’t let you fall.

When I’m with you, I can be just like anyone else.

“Jesse.” I staggered inside my room and fell on my bed, holding my pounding head between my hands. “Help me remember. Help me.”

His voice became my guide: Every hello and good-bye, every complaint, every compliment, every single word he’d ever said to me. They brought with them images: Jesse riding Prince, the moonlight gilding them silvery white; Jesse holding my hand and walking with me through the cool silence of the woods; Jesse standing with me next to the tiny jewel of a lake we’d found hidden on his land. Jesse frowning and smiling and laughing. With each memory I dragged from the dull gray void in my head the pain began to fade, until my headache itself was only a memory.

Catlyn, whatever happens … I’ll always be with you.

Once I remembered Jesse, the rest of what I’d forgotten unfolded around his memory like a moonflower blooming in the night. I had found out about the Van Helsings from Ego and from Paul Raven. I’d confronted Gray in the barn, and had been saddling Sali when Trick came into the stall. Then there was another void, a space of time I couldn’t recall. After that, Trick and I were walking back to the house.

Something had happened to me in the barn. Something that had made me forget the most important person in my life: Jesse, the boy I loved.

I sat up slowly, holding my head in anticipation of more pain. Nothing hurt, but I felt sluggish and a little disoriented, as if I’d woken up after sleeping too long.

A knock sounded on the door, and Trick looked inside. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. I think the aspirin is starting to work.” I wanted to throw my lamp at his head, but I managed to keep my cool. “I’m not really hungry. Would it be okay if I skip dinner tonight?”

“I could make you some soup,” he offered, as if he really cared.

“That’s okay.” I made a show of stretching. “I think I’ll just take a shower and sleep off the rest of this.”

He nodded. “See you in the morning.”

I kept my smile pinned in place until the door closed, and then I got up. Trick knew what had happened to me in the barn, and he was hiding it from me. Had I fallen and hit my head? That would explain the headache and the gap in my memory. Or had Trick given me a drug? How much of my life had been stolen from me to protect our family’s secrets?

Worse, how much more would I lose?

I couldn’t live like this, but I had nowhere else to go. I could run away, but I didn’t have any money or transportation, so I wouldn’t get far. I could call the sheriff, but he wanted us to leave town, so he wouldn’t help. Neither would Jesse’s parents. I was so desperate I even thought of contacting my grandparents, but they were Van Helsings. If they helped me get away from my brothers, it would only be so they could use me for their own purposes. They wouldn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for a granddaughter who had fallen in love with a vampire.

Jesse was my only hope.

Several hours later, when the house was quiet, I climbed out of my window and dropped to the ground. I still had no idea how I would get to Jesse, or if he even wanted to be with me anymore. I was sure his father had told him about the Van Helsings, and my mother attacking Sarah. Maybe he hated me now.

If he hated me, I had nothing left.

I was tempted to take Sali for one last midnight ride, but instead I walked over to the Ravens’ land, and followed the trail to the manor. Along the way Soul Patch, Princess, Terrible and a couple other strays joined me. They followed me up to the steps, and when I sat down they piled around me, purring and rubbing their heads against my jeans.

More cats crept out of the woods and padded over to us, joining the pile-up. I was so preoccupied that I didn’t notice the newcomers getting bigger and wilder until a brown spotted bobcat trying to nestle at my feet swatted at a lynx cuddling in the same spot.

That shook me out of my thoughts. So did seeing a large, cream-colored panther approaching the steps, trailed by her two energetic, fluffy cubs.

I held my breath as the other cats began to slink away on either side of me, making way for the panther as she climbed the steps and sat down beside me. She nudged me under my chin with her blunt head, baring her sharp teeth as I carefully scratched around her ears. The cubs tumbled onto my lap and curled up together.

“She’s beautiful.”

I looked up to see my dark boy walk out of the woods, and when the panther reared her head I stroked her back until she calmed. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

He smiled. “I am happy to disappoint you.”

Maybe Paul hadn’t said anything to him yet. “Did your father tell you that I’m a Van Helsing, and I was born to hunt vampires?”

“He did, in great detail.” He picked up Soul Patch and sat down with him on the bottom step. Some of the other strays began swarming around him. “My father sees everything in black and white. He doesn’t know you.”

“Something happened to me today that made me forget you.” I ran my fingers through the cub’s soft, downy fur. “It didn’t stick, though.”

Jesse let Princess climb up on his shoulders and drape herself around his neck. “We are both stubborn.”

“But we’re not enemies.” Gently I lifted the cubs from my lap to set them by their mother before I stood. “Why don’t they understand that?”

“They’re afraid because they love us,” he said softly.

“Some love.” I walked down and took Princess from his shoulders, setting her on the ground as he stood up and took my hand. “I’m going to the Halloween dance tomorrow night with a boy I don’t like just so I can protect my brother from his evil fake girlfriend. Now that’s love.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t you ask me to be your date?”

“Hmmmm.” I pretended to think. “It might have something to do with the fact that your parents hate me and won’t let me talk to you and have armed men guarding the island where you live. Also, girls never ask boys to go out with them. It’s the law.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” He kissed my forehead before his expression turned serious. “We can be together, Catlyn. I have my own money, and friends who will help us. We can go away together and make a life somewhere else. Somewhere they can’t find us. We can go tonight.”

For a moment I was tempted. My mother had run away with her love, and they had been happy. But she had never escaped her past, or what she was, and she had left behind that burden on me and my brothers.

Jesse and I might escape our families, but we would live the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders, expecting my brothers or his parents to appear and try to tear us apart again. I was human; I would age and someday die. Jesse would always be eighteen, and after I was gone, alone forever.

He deserved better than that. So did I.

“We’re not running away,” I told him. “We’re going to face this, and our families, and make them understand.”

He cradled my cheek with his hand. “How can we do that?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe the first step is to show them that we’re not afraid.”

He pulled me close. “I think I know how to do that.”

Jesse promised we’d see each other again soon, and after making sure I got back in my room safely vanished into the shadows. I went to bed, tired but happy. When I was with him no problem seemed impossible, even one as complicated as ours.

The next day I had to keep up the smiling oblivious Catlyn act in order to fool my brothers into believing I had forgotten all about Jesse. All I wanted to do was knock their heads together, so it was a strain to smile and chat and laugh with them as if nothing were wrong. But I was discovering that I was a pretty good actress when I needed to be, and managed to keep up the pretense without a hitch.

After dinner I went up to change into the one Halloween costume I owned, a garnet-red velvet gown trimmed in black lace and golden braid that I wore every year. I had bought a matching red velvet hat with a golden veil from a RenFaire we’d gone to in Chicago, and once I shook out the hoop skirt and adjusted the angled sleeves I made a passable medieval princess.

I came downstairs a minute before seven o’clock, just in time to meet Boone at the door. I tried not to wince as I surveyed his classic vampire costume, and wondered if I should call the whole thing off. Then Trick came out, and I made myself introduce them.

“Nice to meet you.” My brother shook his hand. “Be careful driving, have a good time, and remember the curfew.”

“I will, sir.” Boone looked over as Gray walked out of the hall.

My brother wore his only Halloween costume, a blue velvet version of a doublet and hose with a broad-brimmed feathered hat. He’d left his hair loose and looked exactly like a prince from a fairytale.

For a minute Boone stared at him with visible dislike before he offered me his arm. “Let’s go, Princess.”

The narrow seats in Boone’s sports car didn’t like my hoop skirt, and I spent most of the drive over to school trying to keep it from getting hooked on his gear shift.

“You look really nice, Cat,” Boone said, glancing at me. “You should wear red often.”

“Thanks.” I’d been prepared for him to behave like the jerk he usually was, so I didn’t quite know how to handle this new, polite Boone. “Why did you decide to dress up as a vampire?”

“They didn’t have a decent werewolf outfit at the costume shop.” He grinned at me. “Besides, girls love vampires.”

I hid my own smile. “Do they.”

The Halloween dance was being held in the gymnasium, which was already overcrowded by the time we arrived. I saw a lot of homemade costumes, and a couple of boys dressed in flannel shirts and jeans who were probably telling everyone they were lumberjacks. Most of the girls had dressed to look more beautiful than scary, and there were so many princesses that I didn’t feel out of place. A few brave souls were dancing between the basketball hoops to the music blaring out of the loudspeakers, but most of the kids were either milling around the room or sitting on the bleachers with their friends. At one end of the gym the chaperons had set up long tables with bowls of punch, platters of doughnuts, fruit and cookies, and several decorated sheet cakes.

“Would you like some punch?” Boone almost had to shout for me to hear him over the music.

I nodded and followed him over to the refreshment tables, where he handed me a cup of black cherry soda with a chunk of frozen pineapple floating in it. I took a sip and discovered it tasted much better than it looked, but shook my head when Boone pointed to the snacks.

No one came up to talk to Boone, and everyone was still avoiding me, so we ended up sitting one of the bleachers and watching the other kids dance. Boone seemed to forget about me as he watched the doors, which was why I knew the moment my brother arrived with Tiffany Beck, who was dressed as Sleeping Beauty.

Boone never took his eyes off her, I noticed.

The music dropped a few thousand decibels as someone put on a slow ballad, and I saw Gray lead Tiffany out onto the dance floor.

“Want to dance?” I asked Boone.

He gave me a startled look, as if he’d forgotten I was sitting next to him. “Yeah, sure. Come on.”

We walked to the edge of the court, and then Boone took my hand and put his arm around my waist. With several respectable inches between us, he maneuvered me toward the center of the dancing couples. He looked past me and over my head and to one side and the other, but I might as well have been a teacher for all the notice he gave me.

“If you really want to make her jealous,” I said, “you should pay attention to me, not her and Gray.”

Boone looked down at me. “I don’t want to make anyone jealous.”

I smiled. “And you’re doing an excellent job of that.”

He ducked his head, clearly embarrassed. “If you want to go home, we can leave.”

“It’s okay. I have my reasons for being here, too.” I glanced over at my brother, who had Tiffany in a virtual bear hug. “If you still have feelings for her, why did you break up?”

“She was acting weird. Always talking about you and how she was going to get even.” He sounded uncomfortable. “I know how girls are when you fight, but she started blaming you for stuff I know you didn’t do, like trashing her locker and putting roaches in her desk. She got totally obsessed.”

I thought of my own trashed locker. “That day in the media center, did you really see her spill that soda?”

“Cat, that’s why she had me buy it.” He sighed. “No, I didn’t actually see her spill it, but another girl did, and she told me while the teacher was yelling at you.”

“What other girl?”

He thought for a moment. “I can’t remember her name, but her mom works for my dad. She’s that chubby girl with the braces. You know her; you used to hang out with her.”

“You mean Barbara Riley?”

His expression cleared. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“Excuse me,” a familiar voice said. “Would you mind if I cut in?”

Boone gave the boy dressed as a highway robber a startled look. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jesse Raven,” my dark boy said, “and you’re dancing with my lady.”