"Wait," I pleaded. My lips were still sticky with
blood. "Don't go. I can explain!"
"Don't come near me." Lucas's face was stark white.
"Lucas—please—"
"You're a
vampire
."
I couldn't say anything else. My new talent for lying couldn't help me now.
Lucas knew the truth, and I couldn't hide any longer.
He kept backing away, stumbling over the slate shingles, his arms jerky as he
tried to steady himself. Shock had made him clumsy—Lucas, who always moved with
purpose and strength. It was like he'd been blinded. I wanted to go after him
to keep him from losing his balance and falling, if for no other reason. More
than that, I was desperate to explain. But he wouldn't let me help him, not
anymore. If I followed, Lucas would panic and run away. Run away from
me
.
Shaking, I sat down on the rooftop and watched Lucas make his way across the
roof. He didn't dare turn his back on me until he was more than halfway to the
north tower and the guys' rooms. By then, my arms were wrapped around my knees
and tears trickled down my cheeks. I was more frightened and ashamed than I'd
ever been in my life, even more than when I'd bitten him.
Had he already realized what had really happened the night of the Autumn Ball
and that I had been the one to hurt him? If he hadn't, I knew he would soon.
What should I do? Tell my parents immediately? They'd be furious with me—and
they'd also have to take action against Lucas. I didn't know what the vampires
would do to a human who learned the secret of Evernight, but I suspected it
wouldn't be good. Report this to Mrs. Bethany? Out of the question. I could try
waking Patrice for advice, but she would probably shrug, readjust her satin eye
mask, and fall back to sleep.
Now that the secret was out, all of those people were in danger. Lucas probably
wouldn't tell anyone, for fear of being called insane; even if he did, nobody
was likely to believe him. But the risk—that one chance that we could all be
exposed—was terrible. And it was all my fault.
There had to be some way I could fix it. Something I could do.
I'll talk to Lucas. First thing in the morning—No, he has an exam first
thing.
It was so strange, even having to think about something as mundane
as an exam in the middle of this. I
can catch him after that. He won't want
to talk to me, but he won't start yelling about vampires in the hall. So that
gives me a chance, and if I can only figure out what to say—
Then what? I'd lied to Lucas. I'd hurt him. Maybe he was right to get as far
away from me as possible.
Still, I knew I had to try. If I was in danger of losing Lucas forever, there
was nothing I wouldn't do—plead, cry, or reveal every secret I'd ever had. I only
knew that I had to make Lucas understand.
* * *
After a long, sleepless night, I got up, put on my black
sweater and kilt, and went stiffly downstairs. I thought I'd timed it to the
end of Lucas's exam, but apparently the students were being allowed to leave as
they finished—and Lucas had finished early, according to some other guys in the
class. That meant he was already back in his room, probably. Screwing up my
courage, I sneaked into the guys' dorm area. Vic and Lucas had once pointed out
their window from the grounds, so I could find the room if I just didn't get
caught.
Would showing up in Lucas's room unannounced scare him to death? Maybe. I'd
have to risk it. I couldn't take it any longer. The suspense was gnawing at me,
turning me inside out. Even if Lucas told me never to come near him again, at
least then I'd know. Not knowing was worse than anything.
I knew I'd reached my destination when I found a door decorated with two
posters—one of Alfred Hitchcock's
Vertigo
and another from something
called
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Nobody answered my knock, so I hesitantly pushed the door open. No one was
inside. Lucas's room smelled like him—spicy and woodsy, almost like being back
in the forest. Half the room was covered in posters from action movies, guns
and babes spilling out in every direction; this was the half with the bed that
had a tie-dyed cover on it. In other words, Vic's half. Lucas's half of the
room was almost bare. No pictures or posters hung on the walls, and on the
small bulletin board that hung above everyone's bed, he had pinned up only his
class schedule and a movie ticket—
Suspicion
, from our first date. An
army surplus blanket covered his bed.
Apparently there was nothing for me to do but wait. Unsure what to do, I walked
toward the window, which showed a stretch of the school's gravel driveway. A
few cars were there, mostly parents picking up their kids on the last day of
exams, taking them back home for Christmas. The human kids, of course. I watched
people hugging, loading up luggage—and Lucas, striding out the front door with
his duffel bag slung over one shoulder.
"Oh, no," I whispered. I pressed my hands against the window so hard
that I thought it would shatter—or I would—but Lucas never hesitated. He went
straight toward a long black sedan with tinted windows. The sedan's door
opened, and I tried to get a look at who was inside, but I couldn't see anyone.
His stripped-down half of the room made sense to me now. I knew immediately
that Lucas had left Evernight for Christmas break without saying good-bye and
that he probably would never return.
"Whoa, the rooms are going coed? That's made of awesome." Vic came in
behind me. I gave him a wan smile before turning back to watch Lucas's car
driving away. The car was speeding off as if they were in a hurry. "Good
job sneaking in. You guys just said good-bye, huh?"
"Uh-huh." What else could I say?
"Don't get too depressed, all right?" Vic gave me a little punch on
the shoulder. "Some guys know what to say to girls when they're upset, but
man, I'm not one of them."
"I'm okay. Honestly." I studied Vic carefully. He was the only person
at school that Lucas might have shared his suspicions with. "Has Lucas
seemed…okay to you?"
"He turned down my invitation to Jamaica." Vic shrugged. "Something
about getting together with family friends, but it didn't sound like they were
doing anything special. Wouldn't you rather spend Christmas lying on the beach
instead of hanging out with some old farts who know your mom?"
That wasn't at all what I meant. Still, if that was the strangest behavior Vic
could mention, probably Lucas had kept his thoughts about vampires to himself.
Vic wasn't the kind of guy who could bluff his way through something like that.
With a sting, I realized that Vic was more honest than I was.
"Cheetos?" Vic offered me a half-empty, orange-powdery bag. I shook
my head and tried very hard to pretend that I didn't feel a whole lot like
being sick. "He's gonna regret it. Wait and see. Me and my family—we're
going to be having the time of our lives. And what's he going to be doing?
Minding his table manners somewhere." Through a mouthful of Cheetos, Vic
predicted, "It's gonna be a long month."
"Yeah," I muttered. "It really is."
* * *
I suppose most people would assume that vampires don't
really get into Christmas. Most people would be wrong.
The religious part was uncomfortable. Crosses didn't set us on fire or turn us
to smoke, like in horror movies, but being in a chapel or church felt all
wrong—sort of a strange creepy-crawly sensation as if someone unseen were
watching. So no midnight mass, no crèche, nothing like that. However, vampires
like getting presents as much as anybody. Add some time off from school, and
you've got a holiday even the undead can enjoy.
Most of the undead, anyway. I was more miserable that Christmas than I'd ever
been before in my life.
The stifling atmosphere eased up when the other kids left, so that only the
vampires remained behind. People stopped putting on so much attitude; nobody
remained for them to pick on or impress. A few departed, including Patrice, who
insisted that the skiing in Switzerland this time of year was not to be missed.
The rest of us, teachers and students alike, remained at Evernight because it
was our home, or as close to a home as some people had.
"We're the exception, Bianca." My mother hung holly garlands over our
doorway as I stood beneath her, steadying the ladder. She and Dad had picked up
on my black mood and were trying extra hard to get me into the holiday spirit.
"We're the only family at Evernight, do you realize that? None of the
others here now have had a family since—well, since they were alive, I guess."
"It's just weird to me that they don't have homes to go to." I handed
up a thumbtack for her to secure the garland in place. "We had a house.
How do people get by without houses?"
"We had a house for sixteen years," Dad corrected me from his place
on the couch, where he was busily going through his old records, trying to find
Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas.
"That's your whole life, but
to your mother and me, it seems like—"
"The blink of an eye." Mom sighed.
Dad smiled at her, and something about his smile reminded me that he was about
six hundred years older than her—that even the centuries they'd spent together
might be, to him, the blink of an eye. "There's no such thing as
permanence. People drift from place to place, getting lost in pleasure or
luxury or anything else with the power to divert you from the occasional
boredom of immortality. Life moves on, and those of us who aren't alive have
trouble catching up."
"Which is why there's an Evernight," I said, thinking of Modern
Technology and how confused people got when Mr. Yee introduced the concept of
e-mail. Many of them had heard of it, and several even knew how to use it—but I
was the only one who understood how it actually worked before Mr. Yee
explained. It was one thing to bluff your way through twenty-first-century
life, another to really comprehend what was going on. "What about the ones
who look too old to be in school?"
"Well, this isn't the only place we've got, you know." Mom reached
down for another garland. "There are spas and hotels, places like that
where people are expected to be somewhat isolated from the rest of the world,
and where you can control who gets in. Back in the day, we used to have a lot
of monasteries and convents, but it's difficult to establish new ones now. The
Protestant Reformation took out quite a few—Huguenot mobs, fires, stuff like
that. The residents couldn't exactly explain they weren't Catholics without
making things a whole lot worse. These days we mostly stick to schools and
clubs."
Dad added, "They're opening up a fake rehab center in Arizona next
year."
I imagined all of us, scattered throughout the world, brought together only
here and there, and only once every century or so. Was that the way I would
lead my entire existence?
It sounded unbearably lonely. What was the point of having unending life if
that life was without love? Mom and Dad had been lucky enough to find each
other and be together for hundreds of years. I'd found Lucas and lost him
within just a few months. I tried to tell myself that someday it would seem
like nothing—that the time I'd spent with Lucas would be "the blink of an
eye"—but I couldn't believe that.
So, for the first week of vacation, I mostly stayed in my room. A lot of the
time, I just stayed in bed. Once in a while, I'd check my e-mail in the
now-deserted computer lab, hoping against hope for a note from Lucas. Instead,
all I got were various joke photos of Vic on the beach, wearing sunglasses and
a Santa hat. I wondered if I should write Lucas instead of waiting for him to
write to me, but what could I possibly say?
My parents drew me out for holiday activities whenever they could, and I tried
to go along with them. Just my luck, to be born to the only vampires in the
history of the world who baked fruitcake. Every once in a while, I'd catch them
exchanging glances. Obviously they realized that I was miserable and were on the
verge of asking me what was wrong.
In some ways, I wanted to tell them. At times I wanted nothing more than to
blurt out the whole story and cry in their arms—and if that was immature of me,
I didn't care. What I did care about was the fact that, if I told my parents
the truth, they'd have to report it to Mrs. Bethany, and I didn't trust Mrs.
Bethany not to go after Lucas and make his life miserable.
For Lucas's sake, I had to keep my unhappiness to myself.
I might have carried on that way for the whole holiday break if it hadn't been
for the next snowfall, two days before Christmas. This was more generous than
the first, blanketing the grounds with silence, softness, and blue-white
glitter. I'd always loved snow, and the sight of it, shining and perfect across
the landscape, nudged me out of my depression. I tugged on jeans and boots and
my heaviest cable-knit green sweater. My brooch safely pinned to the lapel of
my gray coat, I trudged downstairs for a walk. I knew I'd get chilled to the
bone, but it would be worth it if mine were the first footprints on the grounds
and in the woods. When I reached the door, I saw that I wasn't the only one who
liked that idea.
Balthazar smiled at me sheepishly above his red muffler. "Hundreds of
years in New England, and I still get excited about snow."
"I know how you feel." Things between us were still awkward, but it
was only polite to say, "We should walk together."
"Yeah. Let's go."
We didn't say much at first. It wasn't strained, though. The snowfall and the
pinkish-gold early morning light asked for silence, and neither of us wanted to
hear anything louder than the muffled crunching of our boots in the snow. Our
path took us across the grounds and into the woods—like the walk we'd taken the
evening of the Autumn Ball. I breathed in and out, a soft gray puff of warmth
in the winter sky.
Balthazar's eyes crinkled at the corners, like he was amused, or at least
happy. I thought about all the centuries he must have known, and the fact that
he still didn't have someone to share them with. "Can I ask you a personal
question?"
He blinked, surprised but not offended. "Sure."
"When did you die?"
Instead of answering me immediately, Balthazar walked a few more steps. The way
he studied the horizon made me think that he was trying to picture how things
had been for him, before. "1691."
"In New England?" I asked, remembering what he'd said.
"Yeah. Not far from here, actually. The same town where I grew up. I only
left it a handful of times." Balthazar's gaze was distant. "One trip
to Boston."
"If this is making you sad—"
"No, it's all right. I haven't talked about home in a long time."
A hungry crow perched on a branch of a nearby holly bush, black and shining
amid its sharp-cornered leaves, plucking at berries. Balthazar watched the bird
at its task, probably so he wouldn't have to look me in the eyes. Whatever it
was he was preparing to say, I knew it was difficult for him. "My parents
settled here early. They didn't come over on the
Mayflower
, but they
weren't far behind. My sister Charity was born during the voyage. She was a
month old before she ever saw dry land. They said it made her unsteady—that she
wasn't rooted to the earth." He sighed.
"Charity. That was a Puritan name, wasn't it?" I thought I remembered
reading that in a book once, but I couldn't imagine Balthazar dressed up like a
Pilgrim in a Thanksgiving pageant.
"The elders wouldn't have said we were among the Godly. We were only
admitted to membership in the church because—" My face must've betrayed my
confusion, because he laughed. "Ancient history. By any modern standard,
my family was deeply religious. My parents named my sister for one of the
sacred virtues. They believed in those virtues as something real enough to
touch, just far away—the way we believe in the sun or the stars."
"If they were so religious, why did they name you something edgy like
Balthazar?"
He gave me a look. "Balthazar was one of the Three Wise Men who brought
gifts to the Christ Child."
"Oh."
"I didn't mean to make you feel bad." One broad hand rested on my
shoulder, for just a minute. "Very few people teach their children that
any longer. Back then, it was common knowledge. The world changes a lot; it's
hard to keep up."
"You must miss them all very much. Your family, I mean." It felt so
inadequate. What must it have been like for Balthazar, to have not seen his
parents or his sister for centuries? I couldn't begin to imagine how badly that
must hurt.
(What will it be like when you haven't seen Lucas for two hundred years?)
I couldn't bear to think about that question again. I concentrated on Balthazar
instead.
"Sometimes I think I've changed so much that my parents would hardly know
me. And my sister—" Balthazar paused, then shook his head. "I realize
that you're asking me how different things were then. How much things change.
But we don't change, Bianca. That's the scariest part. And it's one reason a
lot of people here act like teenagers, even when they're centuries old. They
don't understand themselves or the world they have to join. It's sort of like
perpetual adolescence. Not so much fun."
I hugged myself as I shivered from the cold and from the thought of all those
years and decades and centuries stretching out before me, shifting and
uncertain.
We walked on for a while after that, Balthazar lost in his thoughts, and me
lost in mine. Our feet kicked up small plumes of fresh snow as we left the only
footprints in a still sea of white. Finally I got up the courage to ask
Balthazar what was really on my mind. "If you could go back, would you
bring them with you? Your family?"
I thought he might say yes, that he would do anything to have them with him. I thought
he might say no, that he couldn't have brought himself to kill them, no matter
what. Either answer would tell me a lot about how long grief lasted, how long I
would have to endure the misery of having lost Lucas. I didn't expect Balthazar
to stop in his tracks and give me a hard stare.
"If I could go back," he said, "I'd die with my parents."
"What?" I was too stunned to come up with any other response.
Balthazar stepped closer and laid a leather-gloved hand on my cheek. His touch
wasn't loving, like Lucas's. He was trying to wake me up to something, to make
me see. "You're
alive
, Bianca. You still can't appreciate what it
means, to be alive. It's better than being a vampire—better than anything else
in the world. I remember a little of what being alive was like, and if I could
touch that again, even for a day, it would be worth anything in the world. Even
dying again, forever. All the centuries I've known and all the marvels I've
seen don't compare to being alive. Why do you think the vampires here are so
vicious to the human students?"
"Because—well, they're snobs, I guess—"
"That's not it. It's jealousy." We looked at each other in silence
for a long moment before he added, "Enjoy life while you have it. Because
it doesn't last—not for vampires, not for anyone."
Nobody had ever said anything like this to me. My parents didn't wish they were
still alive—did they? They'd never spoken a word about it. And Courtney, Erich,
Patrice, Ranulf: Were they all wishing to be human after all?
Perhaps recognizing my doubt, Balthazar said, "You don't believe me."
"It's not that. I know you're telling me the truth. You wouldn't lie to me
about anything important. That's not the kind of person you are."
Balthazar nodded, a slow half smile playing across his lips, and I felt like
I'd said more than I meant to say. The hopeful light in his eyes now was
something I hadn't seen since the night of the Autumn Ball, before I'd let him
down.
What bothered me more, though, was the fact that what I'd said was true.
Balthazar really wouldn't lie to me about anything important, even when that
truth was difficult for me to hear. He was a trustworthy person—a good person.
I wished I could've been as good a person, someone who would have put other
people's interests first, one who would have deserved Lucas's trust.
Then I thought,
Maybe it's not too late.
After we returned to the school, our footprints winding a track all around the
grounds, I waved good-bye to Balthazar and hurried upstairs to the computer
lab. Luckily, the door was unlocked. As I waited for my computer to boot up, I remembered
the print of Klimt's
Kiss
above my bed. Those two lovers held each other
for eternity, two parts of the same whole, fused together in a mosaic of pink
and gold.
If you loved someone, you couldn't let lies come between you. No matter what
happened—even if you'd already lost each other forever—you owed each other the
truth.
With trembling fingers, I typed in Lucas's e-mail address and put as the
subject line "and nothing but the truth." Then I started typing,
spilling out everything I'd held back from him all this time. As quickly and
simply as I could, I told him that what he'd seen that night was real.
That I was a vampire, born to two other vampires and destined to become like
them someday.
That Evernight was full of vampires, that the school existed for us to teach us
about the changing world and to protect us from people who were frightened of
us because they didn't understand.