History of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Castle Series Book 4) (30 page)

If I believed that the Vanderlinds did not have a hemophiliac son, then that left a gaping question in need of an explanation. What did they do with the blood?

That evening my arm felt much better, yet I didn’t go downstairs for dinner. I didn’t feel like I could face my family. Mama accommodated me by bringing a tray to my room, even though I had very little appetite.

“What happened to you today?” Lilly whispered to me, once our bedroom light was off and we were both tucked in our beds.

“I slipped and fell,” I told her. “You know how hard the floors are in the castle.”

“Mama seems to think you fell off a ladder in the library,” she said. “But I know that’s not true.”

Falling off a ladder seemed like such an easy excuse when the chauffeur drove me home. I had forgotten that Lilly would immediately see it for a lie. “I just slipped when I went to take the flowers upstairs,” I told her.

Lilly was silent for a moment. “Was Jessie there when you fell?”

“No,” I assured her. “But Mrs. Denkler was.”

It took a long time for my sister to fall asleep. She knew I was lying about how I’d been injured, but she didn’t pester me for the truth. I was tempted to tell her anyway. I was confused and frightened. I wanted to talk  to someone. I wanted someone I trusted to tell me I was being foolish and that there was probably a reasonable explanation for everything. Plus Lilly and I had always shared our secrets, ever since we were little girls. It was a struggle not to tell her, but I knew if I did, then she would tell Mama and Papa. And then we would be forced to give up our positions at the castle. And I would probably never see Jessie again.

After more than an hour, my sister’s breathing took on the steady rhythm of the sleeper. But I stayed tucked in my bed, paralyzed with indecisiveness. I loved Jessie. There was no doubt in my mind that I loved him. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid.

Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer and I slipped out of bed. Castle gossip being what it was, Jessie had probably already heard about my accident. I wondered how much Mrs. Denkler had told the family about my Arthur discovery. Was Jessie outside the house waiting for me at that very moment?

I wouldn’t go outside. Mrs. Denkler had frightened me enough to make that an impossibility. But I had to know if he was out there. Stealing across the room, I pressed myself against the wall, right next to the window. I had to know if he was outside, but I didn’t want him to see me. Our room was dark and the moon was getting close to full. I doubted Jessie would be able to see me, but I still only pulled the curtain aside just enough to peep out.

It was difficult for me to see anything on the lawn in the middle of the night. I could make out the apple tree where Jessie and I spent so many wonderful nights arm-in-arm. The tree’s leaves were changing color and falling to the ground. I felt a pang in my chest. I wondered if there was any way I could give Jessie up. I would have to leave my position at the castle, but I had to leave that anyway, once the school was reopened.

Ending my secret love affair with Jessie Vanderlind would break my heart. But I knew deep down that it was also probably the smartest thing I could do. No good could come from me being sucked deeper and deeper into whatever dark secret the Vanderlinds were hiding.

And then Jessie stepped out of the shadows and looked up at the window where I stood. I thought the darkness would conceal me, but it was obvious that he could see me plain as day. His hair was ruffled and his dark coat billowed around his legs as the wind kicked up.

I couldn’t move. All thoughts of my own safety vanished from my mind. All I wanted to do was to run to Jessie, to be with Jessie. Pushing the curtain aside, I pressed one hand against the window’s glass. Jessie took another step forward in response.

“What are you doing?” Lilly called from her bed. “What are you looking at out there?”

“Nothing,” I told her, hastily stepping away from the window. “I just saw something. I thought there was a fox in the yard, but I think it’s probably just the neighbor’s dog.”

“Well, get back in bed,” she told me. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“No,” I told her, shaking my head. I hadn’t even noticed the cold.

I did not want to go to work the next day, so I claimed that my arm was still too painful to do any polishing or dusting. And it did still hurt quite a bit when I tried to move it. The truth was that I didn’t know what to make of my emotions and working in the castle all day wasn’t going to help me figure them out. Whenever I was anywhere close to Jessie, all I wanted to do was be with him. I needed to have my head clear so I could think things out. Of course I regretted my decision just as soon as Mama left to drive Lilly over in the car. At least when I was in the castle, there was always the hope of a chance-encounter with Jessie. I had no hope of seeing him while sulking around the house all day. But why did I want to see him so desperately?

Being away from Jessie felt almost physically painful. But I also felt like I was losing my mind. Was this how everyone my age felt when they fell in love? Was this how Lilly felt about Walter? I went out for a walk to try to clear my head.

“You’re so restless today. Do you have a fever?” Mama asked when we sat down for lunch. She pressed her lips to my forehead. “No, you feel just fine.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” I told her. “I think I’m just overtired.”

The day seemed to stretch on forever. I began to look forward to Lilly returning home from work in the hope that she had some news of Jessie. Maybe Emily had spoken to her or maybe Mrs. Denkler had a message for me. But when my sister got home there was nothing. It had apparently been just an ordinary day of dusting and polishing.

By the time the sun started to set, I’d worked myself up into a mental state of torment. I began to understand why Guinevere had locked herself away in a convent because she couldn’t deal with how she felt about Lancelot while still being married to the king.

As night drew in, I came to a conclusion. Being with Jessie was wrong. I could feel it in my gut that there was danger in the castle. But that didn’t keep me from loving him.

I spent hours tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep, but fearing to look out the window. And then, when I finally did manage to close my eyes, I had a tortuous dream where Jessie and I were in love, but I was prohibited from marrying him. Instead I was packed off in a horse drawn carriage and sent far away. The last I saw of Jessie was his figure fading in the distance as he watched the coach carry me off.

“How do you feel?” Mama asked when I came downstairs the next morning.

“Better,” I told her, but that was only part of the truth. Yes, my arm did feel quite a bit better. — It was only a little sore. — But I actually felt better because I had come to a decision. It was true that I had been frightened by what Mrs. Denkler partially revealed to me about the Vanderlind family. There was obviously a secret there much darker than I had ever imagined. My mind couldn’t even begin to fathom what it might be. But I also knew that nothing could stop me from loving Jessie. If, for some reason, I was never to see him again, I would still love him just as passionately until the day I died as I did at that very moment. I knew I was barely seventeen and these were crazy thoughts for someone my age, but I felt my love for him deep in my soul. It was like it had always been there. Meeting him for the first time had just awoken those feelings from hibernation.

I walked into town that afternoon with something on my mind. Would Jessie forgive me for the way I behaved? How could I let him know that I didn’t care about his family’s curse; I loved him for being him. As I strolled along, I stopped to look in the window of Houghton’s and then an idea came to me.

The jewelry store was closed on Sundays, but I knew Mr. Houghton lived in the rooms above the shop, so I took a chance and rang the bell. “Yes, young lady?” Mr. Houghton said, peering out of a window on the second floor. He was an older man who lived by himself and had no family. His white hair stuck out on either side of his balding head so that he reminded me of how I’d always imagined Kris Kringle.

“Sorry to bother you,” I called up to him. “But I need to buy a present and I have to have it for tonight.”

Mr. Houghton was kind enough to open his store just for me. I had been earning good money for the whole summer, but giving most of it to Mama and Papa, so I didn’t have much to spend. There was a gold plated pocket watch that I thought Jessie might like, even though pocket watches were quickly going out of fashion. I had enough money for the watch itself, but not enough for any engraving. Mr. Houghton looked at me from over the top of his bifocals and said, “I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’m running a Sunday special. Today only, engraving is free.”

It took me several minutes to think of just the right words. When I had decided, Mr. Houghton engraved them on the inside of the watch cover. He wrote:

Our love is timeless.

All of my heart,

Lettie

As I walked home, Jessie’s present concealed in the pocket of my coat, I wondered if Jessie would come see me that night. I didn’t know if he was angry with me or hurt by my behavior. All I knew was I had to speak to Jessie Vanderlind and earn his forgiveness.

Chapter 30

Colette

“Did you know you were in love with Walter the first time you met him?” I asked as Lilly and I got ready for bed.

My sister had been brushing her hair in front of the mirror and she paused as she thought about it. “I knew that I thought he was good looking,” she told me. “I knew right away that I found him attractive.”

“But how long until you knew you were in love with him?” I persisted as I wiggled into my nightgown.

“And who says I am in love with Walter?” she asked, giving me a coy look over her shoulder.

“Oh, come on, Lilly,” I told her. “How long until you knew you were in love?”

“Not that long,” she admitted. “I knew that I liked him a whole lot and then one day I just knew it was love. I think I really knew it at the dance when, instead of trying to defend Lev’s behavior, he was instantly trying to think of another way to get us home. That’s when I knew I wanted to marry him.”

I took a moment to digest the fact that my sister knew she wanted to marry Walter Bennett. “And you think you’d feel differently if he’d rushed to Lev’s defense and said some horrible excuse like, ‘boys will be boy,’ or something like that?”

Lilly frowned a little. “I don’t know. I’d like to think that I would. But I also know Walter, and he would never say anything so aweful. That’s a big part of the reason why I love him.”

I envied Lilly. Her love for Walter seemed so simple. They loved each other and one day they would get married. There was no disease. There was no difference in social position. There wasn’t some dark family curse keeping them apart.

“Are in love?” Lilly asked.

Her question caught me by surprise. I wanted to tell her yes. I wanted to share that I was madly in love with Jessie Vanderlind and that he was in love with me. It didn’t feel right to keep my feelings from her, even thought I’d been fighting for the last few days to keep them from myself. “I don’t know,” I told her, after giving it some thought. “Things are complicated.”

Lilly shook her head. “If the first word out of your mouth wasn’t yes, then you’re not in love. That’s not how love feels.”

I pulled down the blankets on my bed and climbed in. “I guess you would know.”

“Well, I’m glad if you’re not,” she said, reaching over to switch off the lamp that sat on a small table between our two beds. “I mean, I want you to be in love, but not with that Vanderlind boy. I know he’s beautiful, but there’s something not right with that family. I don’t know what it is, but there’s obviously something not quite right.”

I thought about Lilly’s words as I waited for her to fall asleep. My first impulse had been to admit to her that I was in love with Jessie Vanderlind. In fact, I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But I was still reluctant to tell her. Maybe it was because I knew Lilly would disapprove. Maybe it was because I wasn’t sure of Jessie’s feelings. We’d never said I love you, but I had no doubt about my feelings.

Once Lilly’s breathing became regular, I put on my robe and slipped outside. I didn’t know if Jessie was going to be there, but I was ready to wait all night. As I hurried across the lawn, Jessie stepped out of the shadows and caught me in his arms.

“Oh, Jessie,” I exclaimed in a loud whisper, my voice practically startled out of me.

“What happened?” he asked, a concerned frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Mrs. Denkler said she had to send you home on Friday. And then I saw you in the window Friday night, but you didn’t come out.”