Sweetblood (9781439108741) (16 page)

“How come you're so mad?”

“Now you think I'm crazy?”

“I didn't mean—”

“My diabetes doesn't make me a freak.”

“I don't think you're a freak.” He is looking right at me with those blue eyes.

“Good,” I say.

“So, you want to go to a costume party?”

“The bizarro costume party at Wayne's?”

“You heard about it?” He is surprised.

“Weevil invited me.”

“Weevil?” He is
very
surprised.

“But I'm not going. I have to be on my best behavior or the parentals might stick me in an institution for angst-ridden teens.”

“Really?”

“I'm not talking to you.”

Angst
is my word of the day. Yesterday I overheard my father use the term “teenage angst,” presumably referring to me, so I looked it up.
Angst
describes a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, anger, foreboding, depression. There is probably a tarot card for
angst
. I can even use it in a sentence: I am feeling very
angstish
in the face of Dr. Rick's professional cheeriness.

He seems to have turned up the wattage on his manufactured smile. I must not have been clear with him last time. Cheerfulness does not play well here in Lucyland, where we take our
angst
seriously.

“I hear you've returned to school, Lucy.”

“In a manner of speaking. I attended all of my classes today. But please don't ask me what I learned.”

“All right, you've got a deal.”

“My father has promised to return my computer to me if I do okay in school the next few weeks. And stay away from scary chat rooms. And visit you.”

“Will you be able to do that?”

“What choice do I have?”

Dr. Rick makes a note. I suspect that he isn't actually
writing anything in that green notebook. He's just trying to look busy. I have used a similar technique in school.

“What are you writing?” I ask.

“Just making a notation.”

“What does it say?”

“It's a note to myself.”

“Can I see it?”

Dr. Rick closes his notebook and goes stern. “Lucy, why are you here?”

“Because I wrote an essay that my teacher didn't like.”

He smiles. “The one about the vampire? I thought it was quite good,” he says.

Now I'm
really
surprised. It's the first thing Dr. Rick has said to make me think he's not completely brain-dead.

“Well,” I say, “you're in the minority.”

“You're a very intelligent young woman. No one doubts that. Your theory about the origin of the vampire legend is quite provocative. And disturbing.”

“That's me. Provocative and disturbing.”

“Some people have a lot of trouble with that.”

“They should get a life.”

“
They
aren't going to change, Lucy.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Dress up like Cathy Cheerleader and write a stupid essay about how I want to be an airline stewardess?”

“Do you want to be an airline stewardess?”

“Not particularly.”

“Do you ever wonder why you're so angry?”

That sets me back. Not because it's a brilliant, insightful question, but because it is just so completely lame and manipulative. In the first place, I'm not angry. If he wants
angry
he should go talk to suicide bombers and road ragers and losing basketball coaches and irate vice-principals. In
the second place, what's not to be angry about? I can't think of one good thing that's happened to me lately. But I'm not really angry. Pissed off, maybe, but not
angry
. If I ever get
angry,
you better watch out.

“No,” I say. “I never think about it.”

“Are you angry about your diabetes?”

“I'd rather not have it, if that's what you mean.”

He writes again in his notebook. What a jerk.

After Dr. Rick, I'm completely exhausted and more pissed off than ever. I only had about five hours of sleep last night, but it feels like I had none. I should take my crankiness home and put it to bed, but my feet decide to head over to Antoinette's. They want me to change? I'll show them change. I have in mind something black and red and spiky and depraved. A tattoo of a heart being shredded by a buzz saw, or maybe a pair of permanent fang marks on my throat.

By the time I get there the temperature has dropped and I'm cold. I spend a few minutes looking at the window display. I am considering a design based on an old Revolutionary War flag, a coiled snake with the words
Don't Tread on Me,
when the door opens and Antoinette steps out and fires up a cigar.

“Hey girl,” she says in her ragged voice. She looks up at the gray sky. “Looks like winter's coming on Halloween this year.”

“I guess.”

“Still shopping for your first tat?”

“It's a big decision. They still don't wash off.”

“That's what's so good about 'em.”

I look at her arms, at the dozens of tiny black crosses, the flaming skull, the red heart, and the other symbols, images, and messages.

“Don't you ever wish you could erase any of them?”

“Every day, girl.”

“Oh.” I wait a couple seconds to see if she'll tell me which ones she regrets, but Antoinette just stands smoking and looking up at the sky.

“I have a question,” I say. “What's the difference between pissed off and angry?”

“Pissed off doesn't last as long. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

She gives me an Antoinette laser look. “Something going on with you, kid?”

“Well… you know a lot of different kinds of people, right?”

She laughs. Antoinette's laugh sounds like a motorcycle starting up. “You could say that. Why?”

“You know a guy named Wayne?”

“I know lots of Waynes.”

“This one raises butterflies.”

“Oh
that
Wayne. I shoulda known. You been hanging out with him?”

“I wouldn't exactly call it ‘hanging out.'”

“Whatever, girl. You know, I've got a special tattoo for girls who party with Butterfly Wayne. You want to see it?”

I shrug, curious. Antoinette pulls a pad of paper from the breast pocket of her vest. She writes something on it, then turns the pad to show me. The page contains one word:

The chrysalis is collapsed and wrinkled and black, hanging off my shelf like a dead cigar ash. I stare at it and feel an empty dark space forming in my gut. Did I do something wrong? Is my room too hot? Too cold? Did I kill it by carrying it in my pocket for two days?

I hear Wayne's voice in my head. He is saying,
You are more powerful than you know. The world that surrounds you is what you make it
.

Did I make the butterfly die?

I sit on the edge of my bed. My face is hot and my belly aches. I'm bone-tired but my head is full of thoughts. Am I having an insulin reaction? I am fumbling for my meter when something warm spills down my cheek and I realize I am crying. How stupid. Crying for a butterfly. I drag my sleeve across my eyes. Crying for a bug. I flop back on the mattress and feel something crumple beneath me. I sit up and look back and see an envelope on my bed.

It's a normal-size white envelope with my name and address neatly printed in block letters. No return address. I tear it open. A smaller black envelope falls out. I pick it up and turn it over. Across the front of the black envelope, in red script letters, is printed the name
Sweetblood.

But nobody in the real world knows I'm Sweetblood. Nobody except Mark, that is, and he's not a black-envelope type of guy.

I open the black envelope. Inside is a piece of black stationery. I unfold it and read the red-lettered words:

A shudder runs up my spine. I imagine a dark figure materializing beside my bed, placing the envelope there for me to find. I look around, but I am alone. I look up.

Rubber Bat hovers a few feet above my head. On his left wing sits another creature exercising its bright orange and black wings.

“Hello, Mr. Monarch,” I say. I stand on the bed and reach out, offering it my finger as a perch. The butterfly launches itself, avoiding my finger. It circles Bat, then heads for the window, landing lightly on the sill.

Outside it is raining and cold. Not good butterfly weather.

“What am I going to do with you?” I ask.

Mr. Monarch refuses to speak.

“I suppose you'll be getting hungry.”

Wings flap slowly.

Trick or Treat

“I thought you weren't talking to me.”

“I'm not. But I need a ride to Wayne's.” I am on the phone in my father's den, far from motherly ears.

“What am I, your ride boy?”

“It's an emergency.”

“Yeah, right. Since when is going to a costume party an emergency?”

“It's life or death.” Life or death for Mr. Monarch, that is. Wayne's greenhouse is his only hope to make it through the winter.

“Yeah, right. Are you gonna be mean to me all night?”

“Maybe. What are you wearing?”

“White Hush Puppies and stone-washed blue jeans.”

“That's intense.”

“Wait till you see my shirt.”

“What time are you going? I'm still kind of grounded. I'll have to sneak out.”

“I still haven't said you could come.”

“Oh. Can I?
S'il vous plaît?”

Dylan makes me wait about two seconds before he says,
“Oui.”

“Mom? Remember that sweater you got me last Christmas? The one with the heart? You know where that is?”

She looks up from her potato peeling, startled. “I put it in the box of clothes for the Goodwill. I thought you didn't like it.” My mother should know better than to buy me clothes.

“Where's that?”

“In the basement, Honey.”

I start for the basement stairs.

“Honey? Did you see the letter I left on your bed?”

I stop. “You put that there?”

“Well, yes. How else would it have gotten there?”

“I don't know.”

“What was it? There was no return address.”

“It was
personal
.”

“Oh.” Her face pinches together and she turns back to her potatoes. I head down the stairs.

I find the sweater beneath a pile of my father's old suits. Back in my room, I assemble my outfit. I check out my reflection. The sweater is black, which shows that she was trying to buy me something in my color, but it has an enormous appliqué on the chest: a huge red heart with a white lace border. Gee, thanks Mom. It goes nauseatingly well with my tan corduroy slacks and two-tone cowboy boots. Actually, the chocolate-and-cream boots are pretty
cool. They were one of the last things I bought before I became seduced by the dark side. I should go to school like this. No makeup, hair in pigtails, dorky outfit—they'd love me. I'd probably get automatic straight As. I go downstairs to put my costume to the ultimate test. My mother is poking a fork at something in a fry pan.

“Hi Mom,” I say.

She looks at me and almost drops her fork. “Lucy! You look… nice!”

Perfect. “Thanks!” I peer at the two sizzling things in the pan. “What's cooking?”

“Braised pork chops.” Pig muscle, my father's favorite. “You don't want one, do you? I have more in the freezer….”

“No thanks. I've had my pig quota for this lifetime.” The thought of eating flesh makes my stomach do a flip-flop.

“I'm making scalloped potatoes and lima beans, too.” Going the extra mile for her scary diabetic daughter. If I wasn't there they'd probably eat nothing but pig.

“That'll be great, Mom.” I look at the clock: 6:13. Five hours and two minutes till the Great Escape.