YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE 13

Chapter 13

Music from: Celestial

A record number of students had enrolled for Ivy's needlework class at the library. It was more difficult to tutor both crocheting and knitting at the same time, but with the coming holidays, home arts had gotten more popular. Some, like Deidre and Crystal, were taking both. It had taken Ivy a while to learn baby-booties enough to teach them, but it had been a challenge more in emotion than skill.

Slippers, scarves, and Christmas stockings were the favorites.

And, so far, Ivy's earnings were on track for the 3D SewMaster Studio to be offered online the next May. She had applied over the summer, and once her dress was finished for Halloween, she could enter its photo for the fifteen percent discount off the course. And passing that, she thought, would put her into competition to make the next school play's costumes.

At least, she hoped so.

She waved to Lornie and turned down the hall to her next classroom. At the end of it stood Vohn, standing up from tying his shoe. He glanced her way, then turned back and walked away.

An unusual fury welled up within her. Evandis' raw grief as he held his sculpture's head in his arms flooded her mind. Before she knew it, she was walking down the hall, her steps clicking loudly in the emptiness.

"What do you want, Ivy?" he asked without looking at her when she neared.

"I, I think that was just awful," she said, following as he rounded the corner into the electives wing of the building.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know. Vohn," she added.

"Well, is this a proper acquaintance now?" He stopped and faced her, eyes narrowing. "After a full summer of you and your little friends stalking me, now you introduce yourself? Somehow I always thought it was that brunette girl leading the covert operation."

Her mouth dropped open as she stared up at him. "It was . . . That was Camille's idea. Not mine. Anyway," she said, brushing back a strand of hair that fell from her ponytail, "how could you be so callous to that Evandis guy?"

"Oh. Evandis." He shook his head. "He's a little too sensitive, if you haven't noticed. He'll get over it."

"But he was heartbroken."

"He's easily heartbroken. If you looked at him wrong, he'd shatter. Besides, I apologized. But you weren't there for that, were you?" Some of the glare left his eyes. "I said I was sorry, Ivy. Nothing more I can do." He shrugged, sizing her up slowly. "He's making another. He's talented and quick. There'll be another statue up in no time."

She felt the ire drain from her, leaving only a strange calm. "But he was so devastated."

"He's also easily devastated." He shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing down the hall as the bell rang for classes to begin. "You're late."

She clutched her books tighter. "I didn't realize . . ."

"Maybe if you hurry, you won't be late."

"The bell already went off." She took a deep breath. "It's too late."

"Not if you hurry."

She frowned at him, then turned and began back down the hallway. "Okay, thanks for . . ."

"Apologizing to Evandis?" He laughed.

Her ears burned red as she hurried away. "Yeah. I guess."

"If you're so worried, come by the house and check out Evandis' new work, Ivy," he called.

She paused at the corner of the next hall, looking back at him.

"If you're brave enough to come back," he added, holding her stare.

She stood straighter, unsure what was in his expression. "Why not?"

He shrugged. "Dred can be a little much sometimes. I wouldn't be alone with him for too long, were I you."

Before she could speak, he disappeared around the next hallway.

Ivy frowned, then ducked into her next class three doors down.

To her surprise, Mr. Tucker didn't notice her slip into her seat in the second to the last row.

His back was to the class as he wrote on the whiteboard.

Ivy glanced at the wall clock, startled to find that the minute hand was just clicking to the five. The pass break sounded, signaling the start of class. She blinked at it, confused.

Camille leaned to her from the next row of seats. "That was close. You were almost late, Ivy. That new kid, Dred, he keep you out?"

Ivy shook her head as Camille giggled. "I, I thought I was late."

Ivy thought about dropping by Brylinden Hall after school, but she headed to the library instead. Fortunately for her, their small town library didn't have much draw to it after summer reading programs, so the study rooms could double as extra-curricular meet points, giving her a place to hold her needlework classes. Usually she got access to the small room used for the historical society or genealogical club.

This time, she headed to the local history section, with the librarian leading the way. There was a bit of musty smell in the dark confines of shelves labeled "Rasperville Archives", and the tome Mrs. Galewaters pulled from the little-used shelves looked to be a century old.

"This should be it," Mrs. Galewaters said in answer to Ivy's request. She lugged the book to the nearest study table and gently let it down. She flipped a few pages, ones near the beginning of the photo gallery section, and turned it for Ivy to see. She sat down, wheezing slightly, her heavyset frame slumping on her elbows as she let herself rest. "It's been there ever since I can remember, Ivy, and I go back a ways. Near seventy years."

"Thanks," Ivy told her, turning a page. "Wow, one of the oldest buildings in town."

"Yes, predating even the town." She adjusted her trifocal glasses and slowly pushed herself up from the table as front door opened. "Let me know if you need anything else, Ivybelle."

"Thanks." Ivy thumbed through the photos, finding Brylinden Hall easily. It was one of the first listed—and listed as "existing before town founding".

She frowned. "How odd. A big hall like that. Just out here, for no reason."

Over the next hour she learned more than she thought possible about the Hall she'd recently met in person. She lost herself in tax records—paid up every six years, in arrears—birth and death certificates, old photos in black-and-white and sienna tint, and sales receipts and newspaper clippings loosely connected to the Hall. The name Maelfaqs was the official owner-family of Brylinden Hall, but that name was on none of the tax receipts. Those were paid by names like Greitz and Goddard. She couldn't make out the first names, but they did not appear to be Mandrake.

A clatter of metal rods rattling across the table grabbed Ivy's attention and made her flinch. She looked up as eleven-year-old Deidre Tucker plopped down across the table in the chair.

She brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and smiled widely. "Hi, Ivy!" she whispered loudly. "Are you doing homework?"

Ivy caught the chrome crochet hooks that rolled toward her. "Kind of. Are you here with your mom?" She looked around, not finding the girl's mother or older brother anywhere. "You know we don't have a class today, right?"

Deidre rolled the two knitting needles she still had across the table below her palm. "Yup. Just hanging. I have a half an hour to kill before we have dance practice." Her eyes lit up. "Are you dancing in the Romeo and Juliet play at your school?"

"Sorry to disappoint, Deidre. I'm not in the play, at all." Ivy handed the hooks back to her. "My friend Lornie is, though."

"Oh," the girl breathed, smiling. "I wish I was. I want to do drama when I get to high school."

"The junior high has a play this year, don't they?" Ivy watched her use the hooks as chopsticks, chasing a snippet of notebook paper scrap across the table.

"Yeah, but they're doing scenes from The Hobbit. I don't want to be a hobbit," she said, scrunching up her nose.

Before Ivy could speak again, Deidre spoke again.

"Is that your boyfriend?" she asked, leaning across the table to her.

Ivy followed the crochet hook the girl pointed to a cubby near the Mystery Fiction section.

Dred sat in a chair, slouched, a magazine in his hands. At Ivy and Deidre's united glance, he raised the magazine up, hiding too late.

"He's been sitting there for a long time," Deidre said, nodding as she leaned back.

"No," Ivy said. "Not my boyfriend."

Dred rolled the magazine and scooted it to the cubby table, then crossed the library to them. He grinned, nodding at Deidre. "Hi, Ivy. Ivy's little friend." He sat down between them at the short side of the table's chair.

"Doing research?" Ivy asked him, covering some of her own paperwork.

"No. Just . . . Hey, what're you looking up?" His eyes sifted over what he could see of the newspaper clippings. "Our house?"

"Yes." She quickly debated the matter. "It's an interesting house, and my dad said it's a menagerie of styles, so I thought I'd look it up."

He nodded, then looked to where Deidre was tapping the nickel-colored crochet hooks on the table. "Slaying vampires? Are those real silver?"

Deidre giggled and sat back in her chair, grinning goofily. "No."

"She's a dancer," Ivy said.

The girl smiled shyly as Dred grinned at her.

"Really?"

Deidre nodded. She pivoted in her chair and looked out the wide side window that showed part of the sidewalk at the front of the building. "How long are you staying, Ivy?"

"I'm about done." Ivy gathered the material she had tentatively categorized by importance, as sketchy as that was. She placed it in the manila envelope Mrs. Galewaters had provided.

"Can you walk with me to the dance studio?" Deidre's voice was meek now, her laugh gone.

Ivy stopped putting the papers away. "Is something wrong, Deidre?"

The girl shrugged. "No, but there was a big bird in the tree earlier. Huge, like a, a bird of prey."

Ivy stood, craning her neck to see the large oak tree at the front of the library window. "Are you sure?"

"Like the hawks out at the cornfield, at the corn maze last year." Deidre stood up and pulled her book bag into her arms, hugging it close. "It was big enough to pick me up, I bet."

Ivy was still trying to see out the window, her hands deftly collecting the papers on the table, when Dred stepped before them, blocking their views.

"I'll check it out," he said somberly. "Stay here."

"I'm sure it's just a . . ."

But he was already walking across the library, making a beeline for the double-doors.

Deidre looked up at Ivy, who shrugged.

Dred stood at the front of the small library, hands on his hips as he searched the two windows on either side of the doors. After a long moment, he turned and waved them over.

"Guess the coast is clear," Ivy told Deidre.

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