The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove (31 page)

“Your parents are of the opinion that animals have fangs, not humans. The

Council is debating this now, and until further notice, I’d really recommend that

you don’t use them.”

“My mom’s already ragged on about them,” he said.

“I’m so glad you understand!” Ms. Rector smiled at Lucky, who was

rolling a hypodermic in his long elegant fingers.

“What council?” I asked.

“The Council acts as our governmental body, since the Family can’t go to

the standard authorities for many matters,” she said. “Now we’ve got a brand

new instructional video to illustrate the techniques I discussed.”

I felt queasy watching the couple on-screen siphon red-purple blood with a

needle and use a scalpel to cut skin. Lucky had that glazed look in his blue eyes

that I now recognized as bloodlust. This was his porn.

He could barely pay attention to the rest of the session, which dealt with the

initiation ceremony. I would be presented and have to recite a few lines of the old

language. Hattie would help teach me the lines phonetically.

“It’s a very simple and touching old ceremony,” Ms. Rector said. “It will

be held in a few weeks and then you’ll officially be Lucian’s Companion.”

She gave each of us a bag with blood-letting supplies and told us that we

could call her if we needed more.

“Great, thanks!” Lucky said. “Can I keep the video, too?”

“Of course,” she said with a pleased smile. “Will your partnership – or

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does it already – include sexual activity? I can advise you about special

precautions.”

“No, that’s not necessary,” Lucky said quickly.

“In the old days, you know, it was customary and it’s still not uncommon.”

Mrs. Rector gave me a sympathetic look. “All of our discussions and dealings

will be completely confidential. Lucien’s parents will not be told, whatever your

decision.”

Lucky glanced at me and then said, “We’ll work it out. When can we

start?”

“The Council’s given their approval,” she said. “You can start now,

although your parents would probably prefer if you waited until after the

initiation. Let me put these things away and we can talk more at lunch.”

“Thanks for the info,” Lucky said. He grabbed my hand and said, “Come

on.”

I thought he was going to lead me to the family room, but he pulled me

toward the front door. Jack was walking into the hall from upstairs.

Lucky said, “Tell Mom we can’t make lunch.”

“Tell her yourself,” Jack said.

“I have
Family
things to do.”

“What? You’re going to suck the elfkin dry of her vital fluids? Big man.”

“Shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“I know more than you think.” Jack looked at me and said, “So you’re

going to drink the Kool-Aid? Why am I even asking?”

“What do you care what she does?” Lucky said and shoved Jack. Jack

raised a fist, about to swing, when Mr. Monroe came to the hallway. “Boys!”

Lucky smirked and said, “Hi, Dad, Jane and I are having lunch at her place.

See you later.”

I went with Lucky as far as the front porch before pulling my hand out of

his and stopping. “No.”

“What?”

“Lucky, you can’t drag me around like a dog on a leash. I already said I’d

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be at lunch and I want to talk to Ms. Rector. When I say I’ll do something, I do

it.”

“Are you lecturing me?”

“I’m stating facts.”

For a moment, I thought he was angry with me. Then he grinned and his

face was transformed. His eyes were dark blue here in the shade. He was so

handsome that it was too easy to want to please him.

“Okay, you’re right. That was totally rude. Jane, keep me grounded, okay?

Tell me when I’m a jerk.”

“Okay. You’re being a jerk.”

“I’m sorry. Now can we go and play with our new toys?”

“It’s not playing and they’re not toys. I do it because you need it.” I turned

and walked back to his house and after a moment Lucky followed.

Jack and his father were in the family room with Ms. Rector and Mrs.

Monroe, who looked relieved when she saw us return.

“Can I do anything?” I asked the headmistress.

“Why don’t you help Jack set the table?” she said.

Jack didn’t look at me as I copied his placement of forks, knives, and

glasses. As we passed by each other, he leaned so close that his breath tickled my

ear as he whispered, “The Halfling rebels against her master.”

I stomped on his foot and said, “Oh, sorry.”

Lucky was already over his confrontation with Jack and acting as if nothing

had happened. Which was the real Lucky, the smiling, joking, easy-going guy, or

the vulnerable, aggressive blood-drinker?

I only had a few minutes alone with Ms. Rector after lunch. “It would be

great to talk to you sometime about all this.”

She reached out and squeezed my hand. A red gem on her gold ring

glinted. “I’ll be coming for your initiation and staying a few days. How about

then?”

“That would be great.”

Lucky waited through the long lunch. Then he asked, “Jane, may I walk

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you home?”

“I’d like that.”

He tried to walk at a relaxed pace, but halfway down the trail he said,

“Come on,” and began jogging. We were barely inside the door when he said,

“Will you please let me?”

“All right.”

“Do you want to try the topical anesthetic?” he said.

“It’s okay, Lucky, but be careful.”

He opened my bag of supplies and picked out the lancet. It was like a

scalpel with a two-sided blade. He disinfected it and then said, “Lie face-down on

the bed.”

I did as he asked and he sat beside me and began to stroke my back under

my blouse, making me tremble. He hitched my blouse up and unhooked my bra.

He began rubbing my skin, all the way from my shoulders to my waist. His

fingers kneaded and found the tense places.

I closed my eyes, enjoying the pressure of his fingers on my skin. He

worked his thumb into a spot high up on my shoulder. Then he made a swift cut.

I bit into the pillow and Lucky groaned before putting his mouth to the cut

and feeding from me. He slid atop me and moved rhythmically as he alternately

sucked the wound and probed it with his tongue.

I tried to relax, to enjoy the contact of his body and his pleasure, but I kept

thinking of the lust in his eyes when he’d seen the video, lust that had nothing to

do with me.

When Lucky was done, he rolled to my side and dozed off.

I got up and went to the bathroom. I struggled to put ointment and a BandAid on my back before changing into a t-shirt and jeans. I looked into the

bedroom and saw Lucky sprawled asleep on the bed.

An hour later, I shook him awake. “Lucky, we have to go over your

chemistry and I have some studying to do for my classes.”

“Hmm? Oh, I’m okay with chem. We did that so you’d get to know me.”

“Oh.”

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“Well, okay, my folks
did
hope you’d push me to do better, but it’s not like

I’m going to major in the sciences. Do you want me to take care of your cut?”

“I already did that.”

“Okay. I gotta get going. See you.”

“When?”

“I’ll want a taste again in a few days,” he said. “We can try something new

with our to---I mean, medical equipment.”

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“The academic year is comprised of six periods that are about six-weeks

each. Each of our three terms is approximately eighteen weeks. Major

exams are given at the end of each term.”

Birch Grove
Student Handbook

IN THE NEXT
few weeks, I tried to balance my new role with the demands of

class work as mid-terms approached.

Lucky stopped by twice a week to get what he called his taste. Like a

junkie, I let him prick places that wouldn’t show marks. Afterward he’d help me

clean the wounds and stay for to talk about his friends.

He kept asking if he could use the venepuncture kit and I finally said yes.

His pupils dilated as he wound the rubber hose around my arm and tapped

at my vein as it grew full. He was transfixed as he filled the tube with dark red

blood. “I’ll save this for later,” he said and put it in the pocket of his Evergreen

Prep hoodie.

“You don’t have to go so soon,” I said, but I was thinking about two-pages

of Latin that I had to translate.

“You’ve got tests coming up. I don’t want my mom getting on your case

about grades.”

“Thanks for thinking of that.”

“Besides I’m going for burgers with Mack.”

“Who’s that?”

“My friend, Christopher MacElroy. I told you about him. We’re on a

paintball team.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You never remember any my friends.”

“I might if I met them.”

“Do you
want
to meet them?” he asked, annoyed.

His friends seemed to have too much money and no self-discipline. Just

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

like Lucky. “I’ve got too much to deal with already.”

My Latin study group met weekly, and I was even looking forward to the

annual Latin Class Skit Night.

Mary Violet had made a toga for me from a sheet, and I’d rehearsed my

part for two scenes from Roman plays by Terence. Although I’d also read the

English translation of the plays, I got lost with the complicated plots in which

everyone is manipulating everyone else.

Catalina was hosting the event at her house. My study group picked me up

and we drove to an imposing gray stone mansion. The interior was starkly

modern with a few abstract sculptures on bare stone floors and huge paintings on

vast walls.

Catalina’s younger sister led us downstairs to the ballroom. I didn’t even

know that private houses could have ballrooms. A maid took our coats and a man

in a uniform served lavish non-alcoholic cocktails. Catalina’s toga draped so

gracefully that it must have been made for her.

My teacher, Ms. Ingerson, wore a bright blue toga and looked happier than

I’d ever seen her. She got on the small stage and welcomed us in Latin. Then the

seniors did their skits, with the girls wildly exaggerating their parts as both male

and female characters. My group didn’t go for laughs, though, but our skits went

well.

Everything lately made me think of my situation with The Family,

including one of my lines: “
Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto
,” or “I am a

man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”

After the skits and dinner, Catalina came to me and said, “I thought you

might humiliate yourself, however, you performed competently if somewhat

dully.”

“I’m not stupid, Catalina.”

“No, but still naïve, I think, and odd. A frog out of water.”

“You mean a fish out of water.”

She winked an amber eye and said, “No, a frog, because a frog is a

graceless thing, yet it can breathe both in and out of water. A fish dies out of

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water, but a frog can survive.”

It almost seemed like a compliment. Before I could respond, Ms. Ingerson

called over Catalina to thank her for her hospitality.

Night Terrors
became even more interesting to me as I sought out clues

about my situation. We studied vampire poetry by Keats, Byron, and Southey.

We read
The Vampire Mistress
by Elizabeth Grey and
The Cold Embrace
by

Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

Once, while visiting the Monroes, the headmistress and I were alone in the

family room and I said, “Mrs. Monroe, what made you decide to teach
Night

Terrors
?”

“I started reading vampire mythology when I was about thirteen. I was

trying to understand why people hated us. The more I read, the more I realized

that fictional vampires are really reflections of zeitgeist, which means the cultural

climate of an age,” she said. “I became fascinated with the progression of

vampire literature in conjunction with social movements, and that’s how my

course developed.”

“What does current vampire fiction tell you about our zeitgeist?”

She smiled. “I’ll tell you when I prepare my class for next year.”

I WAS INVITED
up to the Monroes’ to meet a special guest, a member of the

Council, the mysterious group that governed the vampires.

It was twilight and there was a gleaming black Mercedes in their driveway.

I was wearing a dress that Hattie helped pick out, burgundy with black stitching

on the neckline and pockets.

Mrs. Monroe opened the front door and said softly, “Be yourself, Jane, and

you’ll be fine.”

She led me into the living room. Vases of fresh flowers were on the

polished tables, a fire burned in the fireplace, and there was a cart set up for

drinks.

I’d expected Lucky to be here, but there was only Mr. Monroe and another

man, a man who made Tobias Monroe looked worn and shabby.