Eleventh Grade Burns(6)

Otis’s jaw tightened. “You know I can’t promise that.”

He met Vlad’s eyes, pleading aloud. “Please, Vladimir. Just a short chat between uncle and nephew. Let me have my say and you can go back to brooding.”

Vlad winced. Maybe he had been moping more than was sensible lately. “Okay But it can’t take long. Henry and I are going to the movies.”

Not that Henry had any inkling at all that they were hanging out. But Henry had proven to be enormously supportive ever since he’d come to the conclusion that being Vlad’s human slave was pretty cool. He had no idea that Vlad had another drudge in Snow, since Vlad had insisted that he’d released the goth girl. It was a lie, but one Vlad had needed to tell. He didn’t want anyone knowing about his continued feeding from a human’s veins.

The problem was ... sometimes he got the idea that Snow wanted to be much more than his drudge.

Vlad shook his head. The last thing he needed to be doing was thinking about Snow when Otis was lurking around in his head. He didn’t block Otis, but definitely changed gears in his thought process, instead mulling over Joss and the ever-looming first day of school.

The walk to his old house was long and quiet. Occasionally, Otis would give him a sidelong glance, but neither spoke. Once they turned down Lugosi Trail, Vlad smiled. His house had been given a fresh coat of paint, and brand-new windows had been installed. Even the shrubs alongside the porch looked brighter, happier now that someone was calling his house home. He’d never asked where Otis got the money to fix the house. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was being given new life.

It made looking at it easier to recall the memories he had of his life there, before the fire, before his parents’ deaths, before everything he knew had disappeared in a whiff of ash and soot.

Otis’s voice buzzed pleasantly in his brain. “It’s so good to see you smile. You haven’t in some time.”

Vlad slowed his steps some, thinking, then he spoke to Otis with his mind. “I haven’t had much of a reason to.”

Otis took on a hopeful tone. “And now?”

They crossed the street, and Vlad cleared his throat. “The house looks nice. Mom would like the color you chose.”

Otis raised his eyes to the house. The siding was a pale yellow—a warm tone compared to the gray that it had been. “Nelly picked it. She said that it was Mellina’s favorite color.”

An image flashed in Vlad’s mind, an unexpected memory from years ago. His mom in a flowered skirt, a pale yellow sweater tied about her shoulders. She was laughing, running across the yard away from Tomas, away from Vlad. Something about them being out to get her, but Vlad couldn’t recall it clearly enough. And just like that, it was gone.

He shook his head, smiling at the memory, and stepped forward onto the porch, following Otis’s lead. Otis turned the knob and opened the door, gesturing with a small nod for Vlad to head inside. With a strangely light feeling of excitement in his chest, Vlad stepped into the house.

On some level, he’d expected that acrid, horrible scent of smoke and ash to assault his nostrils, but it didn’t. Instead, it smelled like Otis had been baking cookies. A glimpse into the new living room revealed the source of the smell—scented candles had been placed on a new mahogany coffee table. The walls were in golden tones, warm, homey. And as Vlad moved from room to room, he marveled that this was his house—the same house he’d been born in, the same house he’d lived in for so long. It looked different. Way different. The furniture, the cabinets, the paint on the walls had all been changed. It looked like an entirely new place.

Vlad wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

On the one hand, he’d assured Otis that a change was definitely needed, that maybe a new look would ease the pain of visiting his once-happy home. On the other, he felt somewhat intruded upon, as though Otis had tried to erase the memories of his parents by redoing the house—a stupid thought, but there it was. He flicked his eyes to his uncle, who was watching him carefully. “Is ... is everything different?”

Otis continued to watch him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his reaction to the changes. Finally, seeming to accept that there was no way he could ease any concerns in Vlad’s mind, he took a breath and said, “Not everything. Come upstairs.”

Otis led the way through the kitchen to the back stairs, then up. Vlad followed, taking in every inch of his renewed former home. The wood floors had been sanded and stained, and the distinct lack of that smoky scent continued throughout the house. It was a missing link in the experience—a bad thing that had been there for years and was suddenly gone. Vlad didn’t miss it, but felt a wave of guilt at its absence, as if by not whiffing that scent, he were somehow trying to forget that awful day, the day he lost his parents forever.