The Cure for Dreaming(37)

He grabbed the back of my neck and squished his mouth against mine. His lips were sloppy and wet, and the beer taste was so obnoxious, I gagged on the fumes.

“All is well!” I pushed him off, and his head clunked the buggy a second time.

His visage changed—oh, God, how it changed. His eyes sank into the blackened recesses of a gaunt and anemic face. His canines lengthened into the grotesque tusks of a wild boar.

“Why do you keep saying that all is well?” he asked, and his mouth seeped my blood.

“Oh, God!” I snatched his scarf from his shoulders and jumped off the buggy.

“Hey! Where are you going? And why’d you take my scarf?”

“I’m saving both our hides, you idiot.” I wrapped the yarn around my bare neck and fled down the street. “My father will see your tooth marks if I don’t wear your rotten scarf.”

I heard the snap of reins behind me and the galloping rhythm of Mandolin taking off after me with the rattling buggy. I cut through side yards, even though the shortcut meant soaking my shoes and skirts with mud. My pulse hammered in my ears. My breathing turned ragged, but I pushed onward across the rain-soaked grass and dirt.

Percy was already parking the buggy by the time I sprinted up my own brick path. Our house’s tall front windows stared me down—gawking eyes observing my frenzied arrival in the dark. I turned the doorknob but found it locked.

“No, no, no. You can’t be locked. You can’t be locked!”

I twisted the knob and banged on the door. My struggle to get inside allowed Percy to hustle up beside me mere seconds before my father swung open the door.

Father widened his eyes at my sweaty hair and muddied shoes. “What happened?”

“She fell out of the buggy,” said my escort, who looked like Percy again.

“She fell out?”

I gasped. “All is—”

“She leaned over too far, trying to look at something”— Percy took my arm as if I were an invalid—“and tumbled into the grass. She muddied her dress, but I don’t think she’s hurt, sir. Naturally, I’ll let you, a physician of sorts, make the final diagnosis.”

I moved to enter the house, but Father blocked my entrance with his arms.

He nodded toward my neck. “The scarf, Olivia.”

A wave of nausea rolled through me. “I—I—I beg your pardon?”

“Isn’t that young Mr. Acklen’s scarf you’re wearing?” he asked.

“Y-y-yes.”

“Shouldn’t you be returning it to him before he leaves?”

I glanced back at Percy, who had gone pale again, although in a frightened way—an I’m about to get dissected by dental tools sort of way—with quivering lips and watery eyes.

“Um . . .” He stammered, “Well . . . th-th-there’s no need for her to return it to me right now. She got cold out here and should keep warming up. I don’t want her catching her death of pneumonia.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Father dropped his arms from the doorway. “How very thoughtful.”

I leapt inside the house. “Good night.”

Father shut the door, but before he could ask details about Sadie’s party, I launched myself up the staircase, closed myself in my room, and unwound Percy’s scarf until the crimson wool lay in a coiled heap upon the floor. With my head tipped to the right, I approached my oval mirror.

My reflection showed me two sore and bleeding puncture wounds on the left side of my neck—as vicious and angry-red as Lucy’s wounds in Dracula.

Not real.

Two blinks later, the marks retreated and left a purpling bruise in their stead, which was almost worse.

“But unlike Lucy and Mina,” I said to my solid face in the mirror, and I braced my hands around the curved wooden frame, “you will not be returning to your vampire for a second bite, Olivia Mead. You will not.” I swallowed and nudged Percy’s scarf away with my toes.





he following morning, my plaid wool winter blouse, buttoned clear up to the top of my throat, hid Percy’s bite mark from view. On my way downstairs to breakfast, I tested the durability of the top button by twisting it about until I felt confident the little pearl fastening would remain in place. A thin edging of lace tickled like a gnat beneath my chin, but the discomfort was minor—well worth the trouble of avoiding the topic of my virtue with my father.

Father sat at the breakfast table, his face a concealed mystery behind the newspaper, as usual.

“Good morning.” I took my seat and unfolded my napkin.

“Good morning, Olivia.” The newspaper didn’t budge.

“Are you playing billiards today?”

“It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

“Yes”—I fluffed the napkin across my lap—“it is.”

“Then I’ll be playing. What are your plans?”

“I’ll probably go to Fran—”

A headline caught my eye and paralyzed my tongue:

OLD MOTHER ACKLEN FOR PRESIDENT?


My heart stopped. Nervous sweat broke out beneath that strangling straitjacket of a collar. I pulled at the lace to breathe.

“What’s the matter?” Father lowered the paper. “Why did you stop talking mid-sentence?”