A Call of Vampires (A Shade of Vampire #51)(78)

“Hey,” I said, changing the subject, “why don’t we go visit the creek this afternoon? After lunch, we can gather the herbs quickly, and then have the rest of the day free.”

“Suits me,” she muttered. “We’ll see what Lauren thinks.”

I stood up to stretch out my arms and, yawning, caught sight of myself in the stained mirror near the window. My brown hair was hardly in better condition than Lauren’s or Angie’s, even though I’d braided it and then wrapped it in a tight bun, and the corners of my blue eyes were tinged reddish—they were feeling a little irritated, come to think of it. I wasn’t used to being so close to nature.

The shower stopped abruptly. Lauren emerged from the bathroom a moment later, clutching a towel around her bare body, her shoulder-length hair foaming with shampoo. “So, the water just stopped,” she announced, her toes curling on the wooden floor as water pooled around her feet.

“Ah.” Angie threw her an amused, yet apologetic look. “Maybe—”

Before we could hear her speculation, Mrs. Churnley’s voice boomed up from the bottom of the staircase. “You used too much water at one time, dear—whichever one of you was in the shower just now. I’ll have Mr. Churnley come up and show you how to manually work the pump—”

“Oh, don’t bother, ma’am,” Lauren replied quickly. “I’m sure Mr. Churnley has enough to do.”

She looked back at the two of us with tight lips, and I frowned, assessing our options. “Maybe we should just save our hair washing for the creek and use this bathroom only for quick showering—Angie and I were gonna suggest we go there this afternoon anyway.”

Lauren blinked, taking a moment to process my suggestion. “Hair washing in the creek,” she repeated, almost robotically. “Right. Okay. So, I’ll just… wrap up this sticky slop of hair and wait then. That’s fine. No problem.”

With that, she turned and marched stiffly back into the bathroom. Exchanging glances with Angie, I laughed. It seemed Lauren was getting past the stage of expecting things to work and surrendering to the experience. And that was good.

It was the first step toward us all having a lot of fun.





Chapter 2


“So where is the creek exactly?” Angie asked Mrs. Churnley. We stood on the porch after eating as quick a lunch as we could manage, with the couple for company, and finishing our duties in the greenhouse.

Mrs. Churnley prodded a chubby finger toward the tractor path that ran in front of the house. “Just take a right turn once you’re out of the gate and follow that track. It’ll lead you to the creek after about a thirty-minute walk. Do make sure you’re back before it’s dark, since there won’t be any lights to lead you.”

“Sounds simple enough!” I said brightly.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Lauren said, adjusting her towel-turban, beneath which the shampoo had mostly dried and turned her hair into a curious blend of stiff and sticky.

As we turned to leave, passing the lounging dogs and heading down the steps, Mrs. Churnley added, “Oh, and watch out for leeches in the creek! Neither Mr. Churnley nor I have been down there since last summer, but they’re usually around at this time of year.”

Lauren’s jaw tightened. “Thanks.”

“Leeches beat snakes though, right?” Angie snickered as we stepped through the gate and began our journey along the track. Breathing in through her nose and setting her gaze straight ahead, Lauren chose not to comment on that.

I was carrying a large bag stuffed with towels, two jumbo bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and enough drinking water (I’d made sure of it myself this time), and we all wore our bikinis beneath our clothes. Lauren, being Lauren, was also sporting green jelly shoes.

“This place really is in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?” I remarked, both admiring and feeling kind of intimidated by the endless sprawl of no-man’s land that surrounded us. Having been brought up in the city and not traveled much in my life, the largest stretches of nature I was used to seeing were city parks. This was something else. It made me feel small and insignificant, like a tiny piece of a far greater existence that really didn’t care about my life plans or problems.

“Ya know,” Angie said, her tone taking on a distant quality as she joined me in gazing out on our surroundings, “I wish we were here for longer than four weeks.”

A melancholic silence fell between us. Even Lauren didn’t remark. None of us had to ask why Angie wished for that. Despite our proclamations that our friendship would stay the same in spite of the distance, deep down I was sure we were all doubtful about how the next stage of our lives would really affect it. If I was honest with myself, I didn’t see how our dynamic wouldn’t change. It seemed inevitable that we would drift apart, no matter how much we loved one another. We would meet new friends, be exposed to different ideas, and the little quirks we’d come to know each other for would change along with our habits.

We would grow into different people; there was no escaping that. The friends Jean and Roger were closest to now, in their mid-forties, were not the same as those they’d had in high school.

The thought made me feel insecure, but also all the more fiercely grateful that we had come to this place, so stupidly cut off from everything that could distract us from us.