A Call of Vampires (A Shade of Vampire #51)(81)

“Good idea, cupcake,” Mrs. Churnley said. “Maybe he’ll have a better idea. In the meantime, girls, maybe stay away from the creek?”

Lauren let out a dry laugh. “I do think so, ma’am.”

We eyed the wing a few tense moments longer, before Angie made for the staircase. “Not sure about you, Lauren and Riley, but I’m pretty exhausted after all the fresh air and surprises we’ve had today.”

Lauren and I nodded, saying goodnight to the old couple before following Angie to the staircase. Once in our bedroom, we collapsed in our beds. I was exhausted after the day’s events, and all the physical activity I wasn’t used to, but at the same time, the last thing my mind felt like doing was shutting down. It was still downstairs, stuck in that kitchen, mulling over what the heck the strange wing belonged to.

“I wish we had internet right now,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead. I lay on my back, facing the shabby ceiling.

“Yeah. Could’ve Googled… “giant bats of Texas”, or something…” Lauren mumbled, trailing off. I could hear the fatigue in her voice. Unlike me, she did sound ready to drop off. I guessed that cool water had really gone to her head.

Angie, taking the hint, switched off the light, and we lapsed into silence, listening to the distant murmuring of the Churnleys’ conversation downstairs, then the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. They were probably moving the wing to one corner of the room, where it would wait for us till morning… Then came the creaking of stairs, the Churnleys retiring to bed.

Lauren’s first snore of the night filled my ears, followed shortly by Angie’s, and I turned over on my mattress to face the open window, to which I was closest. The moon’s rays filtered through the thin curtains, casting pale light upon my face, and a gentle breeze caressed my skin.

I closed my eyes, hoping to begin coaxing myself to sleep, and slowly, my thoughts pulled away from the externals—from the weird wing, the creaky old farmhouse, and this crazy vacation I found myself on with my two best friends—and withdraw deeper into my subconscious, and the thoughts that I had locked away there, waiting for me just beneath the surface.

It wasn’t a surprise that my parents were the first among those thoughts. Their faces, drained, and looking… so much older than the day I’d left home. It was a memory of the last time I’d seen them face to face—a little over a month ago, before my eighteenth birthday, when they’d appeared illegally outside my school, claiming that they just wanted to see me. That they’d brought me a gift. Jean had already arrived to pick me up, so I hadn’t stood there behind those school gates, facing them, for long. But it was long enough to receive their little brown parcel in my two shaking hands, and the sight of them remained burned in my brain as if it were yesterday.

You should see them, a small part of me whispered, as it often did when the lights were out and the night was still. They’re your parents, and they won’t be around forever, especially given their lifestyle. If you deny them even a simple meeting after all these years, and something happens… you’ll live with that for the rest of your life.

My parents had conceived me late in life, and I was a shock to them as much as I was to the doctors, when my mother checked into the hospital with a stomach complaint. My parents would both be sixty-one next year and were already riddled with various medical issues.

It was nights like this when I felt like a terrible person. I hadn’t even opened the gift they’d come all the way to my school specially to give me. It still sat under my bed at home, where I’d shoved it to try to forget about it… because I feared what it would hold.

Because I knew what it would hold.

Its contents were the same as the last little brown parcel they’d sent me, six months prior. I’d rattled it to check; it sounded like photographs. Opening the previous set had left me a trembling mess. There had been almost twenty of them, snapshots of a little blue-eyed girl, ranging from two to five years old, a toothy grin always plastered across her face—often eating ice cream or some other treat—and enveloped in the protective arms of her parents.

It was as if they thought sending me these photographs could rewrite history. Erase the childhood they had given me—everything that had happened in between the moments when a smile crossed my face for the camera—and replace it with the one they were presenting… and make me feel guilt. Make me seem like the monster.

The worst part was that it had worked. I hadn’t been able to sleep that night, and barely functioned the next day at school. I’d suddenly found myself battling with doubt. I hadn’t even remembered them taking photos of me as a kid, and I’d been nine when I left home. So very young. Could I have been exaggerating things, in my immature little mind? Could there have been another side to things that I just couldn’t see? They were my parents, after all. Surely they loved me? Why would they have bothered to take pictures of me if they didn’t care?

Thankfully, Jean had been there for me when I returned home from school that day. It had been a difficult conversation for her to have with me for sure, because on the one hand she didn’t want to demonize my parents, but on the other, she cared deeply for me, and she didn’t want me suffering further because of a toxic relationship. In the end, she had simply stated facts: the police had found them guilty of physical, alcohol-fueled abuse and consistent neglect of a minor. They had gone to jail for it.