How Do I Love Thee (2 page)

“Beyond the woods. How about you?”

“Mom's renting a cabin.” He motioned behind him, feeling awkward. Shayla wasn't forthcoming with information, and Brett didn't have much experience with girls. He was usually shy around them, perplexed and mystified by their capricious natures.

Shayla held die chiffon scarf across her eyes and peered up at the moon. “Pretty, isn't it?”

“Yes,” he said, meaning both the moon and her. Now that he was closer, he saw that she really was pretty. Her hair fell straight and sleek almost to her waist. Her eyes were almond shaped and in the pale light looked like clear glass. He wondered what color they might be. “Did you sneak out to meet someone?”

“Did you?”

“Do you ever answer a question straight out?”

She laughed, and he thought that made her even prettier. “So tell me, Brett Noland, what did you think when you saw me dancing in the moonlight? Did you think I was crazy?”

“Are you?” Two could play her game of double questions.

“No.” She threw the scarf into the air, and they both watched it flutter downward. “To both questions,” she said. “I'm not crazy and I'm not meeting anyone.”

“You just like to run around in the moonlight?”

“Yes.”

He wanted to put her on the defensive. “I know—you're Titania.”

“The fairy queen from
Midsummer Night's Dream?
Is that who you think I am?”

He was shocked that she had instantly known the character from Shakespeare's play. He read constantly, especially the classics, but knew few his age who did the same. “A druid then,” he said.

“I don't worship trees,” Shayla said with a toss of her head.

“You're a sprite.”

“I'm too tall for a pixie.”

“A ghost?”

“Some think so.”

A shiver shot up his spine. This experience was turning surreal.

“Are you out of guesses?” she asked, making him feel undereducated, as if he'd forgotten some major category.

“I'm thinking,” he said, racking his brain for another class of mythical beings who showed up only at night. He snapped his fingers. “Werewolves! No, wait—-you don't have enough body hair to be a werewolf.”

Again she laughed. “I think only men can be werewolves.”

“You're right.” He searched his memory, warming to the game they were playing. “Ah … I know, vampires come out at night. Are you a vampire?”

She looked straight at him and he felt his heart race crazily. The moon glowed along her hair, lit her face. Her skin was die color of sand, her eyes luminous, hypnotic pools. “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

he hair on Brett's neck prickled. He waited for Shayla to laugh, or say “Just kidding,” but she did not. His logic kicked in—perhaps she'd said what she did for shock value, using it as just another way to mystify him. He said, “All right, so you're a vampire. Does that mean I'm in trouble? Are you going to bite my neck and turn me into a vampire too?”

“Being a vampire isn't always about blood,” Shayla said. “Vampires have other traits as well.”

Brett was getting irritated. Why were girls so oblique? Why couldn't they say what they
meant? “And those traits would be—?” He waited for her to fill in the blank.

“Since you seem to know so much about mythology and fairy tales, you tell me.”

He told himself he should walk away, that Shayla was a nutcase. But he knew he wouldn't. In truth, this was the first interesting thing that had happened to him since his mother had dragged him to Massachusetts. He did say, “This is getting old, Shayla.”

“So you don't know?” she asked, egging him on.

“Vampires are repelled by garlic,” he said in a rush, rising to her challenge. “And by the Christian cross. They have a crypt that they return to every morning. Is that it? You sleep in a coffin?”

She clapped her hands gleefully, charming him all over again. “All that's true. Except that I wear this.” She lifted a silver chain from beneath the neckline of her clothing, and moonlight glimmered off the surface of an ornate cross. “And I love garlic,” she added, then looked up at him expectantly.

“So it's the crypt thing then, huh? You sleep in a crypt by day and only come out at night.
So, how is that… sleeping in such a small space, I mean?”

“That's a misconception. Crypts can be very large. They aren't always die size of a coffin. Sometimes they're the size of a mansion.”

“What's
that
supposed to mean?”

She shook her head, as if she were dealing with a dolt. “Brett, Brett… I thought you were going to be smart. You still haven't figured it out, have you?”

He gritted his teeth. “It's two in the morning. I'm sharper in the daytime.”

“Daylight, yes. Now you have it.”

He felt oddly rewarded, as if she'd patted him on the head.

She turned to walk away.

He tagged after her. “Wait. I—urn—I'm still thinking.” He caught up with her in the middle of the field, where the moon had turned die world chalky white and a breeze made the tall grass whisper. “If a vampire is caught out in the sunlight, he burns. Worse, he can burst into flame and incinerate.” Brett snapped his fingers. “Spontaneous combustion!” He grinned, feeling pleased with himself. “Is that the reason you're a vampire? You burn up in the sun?”

Her face was expressionless, her eyes clear as water. She trailed the scarf across his forearm, making his skin shiver, then leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Goodbye, Brett Noland.”

Before he could move, she had turned and sprinted into a stand of trees. “Wait!” he yelled. Night birds fluttered in the tree branches with the unexpected sound. A rabbit darted from the edge of the field. Clumsily, Brett tried to follow, but by the time he ‘d made it to the trees, there was no sign of her. All that remained was die sweet, lingering scent of her fragrance in the shadows where the moonlight didn't reach.

Brett returned to the clearing in die woods every night for a week, but Shayla did not reappear. He “waked for up to an hour each night, even felt asleep propped against a tree one night, only to wake shivering because the temperature had dropped.

He sat at the kitchen table on Saturday, hunched over has third bowl of cereal, yawning and struggling to keep his eyes open. Suddenly,
his mother slapped the tabletop, startling him awake.

“What's wrong with you, Brett? You're like a zombie these days. Are you feeling okay, because if you're not—-”

If you only knew, Mom
, he thought. “I feel fine.” He leaned back over the bowl.

“You're really making me angry, Brett.”

“What did
I
do?”

“Nothing, Brett. Which is precisely the problem. You're doing
nothing!”

“Ah, geez, Mom, get off my case.” He pushed his chair back so that it balanced on the back legs.

“Don't use that tone of voice with me. And sit down properly.” She started clearing the table, “How long are you going to keep punishing me for moving up here?” She didn't wait for his answer. “I want a shot at a better life, Brett, and this move was for both our sakes. You want to go to college next year. Just how did you think I was going to afford that, making the kind of money I was making in Key West?”

“I didn't ask you to send me to college.
Maybe I don't even want to go to college. I'm not out of high school yet.”

“You have to plan for the things you want, Brett. It's been you and me for a long time, and so far we ‘ve gotten on pretty well.”

Brett rolled his eyes. “Thirteen years, yeah, Mom, I can count. And you've told me enough.”

“Then get with the program! You still have to go to the high school and register, and we have to check in at Boston Children's Hospital. I'll handle the hospital appointment because I'll have to take off work. Can you call and make the appointment to register with the school? You can schedule it for my lunch hour.” He didn't respond. “Don't you want to see where you'll be going to school in September?”

“I can hardly contain myself.”

She spun him around, hovered over him. He saw fire in her eyes. “Listen to me, Brett. I love you, but you're going to have to meet me halfway. I can't give my full concentration to my job if I'm worried about you all the time.”

“What do you want me to do, Mom?” He felt guilty because, looking into her face, he
saw that she was tired and stressed. “I have nothing to do all day. No friends, no nothing.”

She straightened. “Get a job. Believe me, that will really pass the time.”

“No car.”

“You can drop me at work Monday morning and keep the car all day.”

Her offer surprised him. She usually wasn't so generous with their only car because she thought he drove around aimlessly and used too much gas—”… and gas isn't cheap.”

“You'd let me do that?”

“If you'll promise to be responsible. And if you'll promise to go by the school and take care of registering before it completely shuts down for the summer.”

After leaving his mother at work on Monday, Brett drove slowly along the coastal highway. A thick gray fog hung over the road, and he wanted to be careful. He didn't want an accident to foul up his driving privileges, or his mother's trust in him. Wheels meant freedom.

He turned on the radio, found a station that didn't play corny oldies, his mother's favorites, and considered how to best spend the day. He
didn't have to pickup his mother until five. He glanced out the side window and saw a road that had been cut through solid granite. It led to a house perched at the top of a jutting cliff. The house, built of dark brown clapboard, had a turret and a walkway with a banister across die roof. The great house hovered far above the fog, but despite the gloom, he saw no lights in the windows. The place looked abandoned.

“Who'd want to live in a house like that?” he asked aloud. No … not a house—a mansion. Brett sat straighter. What had Shayla said to him?
A crypt the size of a mansion!
“Yes,” he yelped. He was going to find the mysterious Shayla whether she wanted him to or not.

eciding he'd better take care of business first, Brett found his way to the high school, an old brick building covered on two sides with ivy. He parked and went inside. The halls were painted a pale, institutional shade of green and smelled of chalk dust and floor wax. The old wooden floor creaked, and banks of battered lockers ran the length of the walls. He wasn't impressed, especially since his high school in the Keys had been newly built and outfitted with the latest equipment. He found the main office, talked to a secretary about transferring his records up from Florida, filled out paperwork, and was told he'd receive
room assignments in late August. He was given a packet and was leaving the office when a guy about his age said, “Hey, man. You're new, huh?”