WitchLove (7 page)

‘All night,’ she added with a smile.

I smiled back.

‘You look great Eva. What are you going to do, now you don’t have to babysit me?’

‘I’m going to do that fashion course. It starts in September,’ she said.

‘You’ll be great. Will you stay with Daniel?’ I asked.

‘No, but I’ll keep an eye on him. Don’t worry,’ she said.

‘I’m not,’ I said, inspecting my toes. ‘I need to go; we have to leave.’

‘I know. Can we be friends?’ she said.

‘Maybe,’ I whispered, as I was suddenly pulled into a speedy and somewhat crushing embrace.

‘Eva?’ I called, to her fast retreating figure.

‘Yes?’ she said, turning to face me at the front door.

‘Thanks,’ and with a quick nod she was gone. Vampires don’t like long goodbyes.

Chapter Six

On our arrival at Boston Logan airport the three of us had been met by a tall, fatherly=looking man in a chauffeur’s uniform. He’d led us to a black sedan with leather interior and loaded our bags in the trunk as Sarah climbed elegantly into the front passenger seat, her eyes twinkling with amusement, whilst Brittany and I slid along the shiny back seat, grinning like little kids.

I’d noticed that we’d driven straight past the turning for Malden and kept on the 93, skirting the edge of town, before exiting onto a road which hugged the shore of a small lake to one side and a residential area to the other. After some minutes the houses had petered out and we disappeared into a dense forest of fir trees, before a sharp turn had us bouncing down a long, winding driveway clearly marked as
Private Land
. The trees eventually cleared to make way for a large double-fronted house, painted a pale shade of grey with white window frames and a beautiful glazed wooden door with the words
Hemlock House 1880
engraved above it.

We had arrived and the journey had been unbelievably simple. Whilst Brittany and I had been packing up my room at Daniel’s house, the Council had been arranging a few things themselves. I had a shiny new passport and somehow they’d managed to track Brittany’s father down, ascertained that he was indeed the intolerant man she’d described, altered his memory and claimed her documents, which along with mine were now in my aunt’s care, until we both had our supernatural licenses.

‘Thank you Louis, I’m sure the girls can manage their own bags. Is Saffy home?’ My aunt asked the driver, when we had pulled up outside the house and climbed out of the car.

‘She had not arrived earlier ma’am,’ he answered.

‘Saffy is Susannah’s younger sister; your cousin,’ my aunt said to me. ‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon. Come, let’s go in.’

Considering the imposing nature of the grand old house, the interior was cosy and welcoming, and we stood a moment in the hallway taking in our new surroundings. The floors were a beautiful polished hardwood, the walls a mixture of colonial panelling and modern plain paintwork. The hallway was wide and rather grand and we could see all the way down to the open plan kitchen at the back of the house and out through the large glass doors into the forest beyond.

‘Girls, I have made up the room for you at the top of the house. If you go up both flights of stairs you can unpack your things. I’ll send up some drinks for you… oh dear! I guess this is going to take some getting used to. Brittany do you drink coffee, or would you prefer tea?’ My aunt asked, her face barely betraying her discomfort.

‘Coffee is fine thank you,’ Brittany answered. I only wished I could be as simple.

‘Jess, I ordered a separate fridge to be installed for you in our back utility room, which will be kept stocked for your needs. You can help yourself. I’m afraid I’m a little squeamish with it all, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. I’ll show you later, unless you’re hungry now?’ she asked quietly.

‘No, I’m fine, thank you. We’ll go and find our room now,’ I said, guessing it would be best to give her a chance to accept things gradually.

Several minutes later I dropped my bags on the old, stained floorboards. Sinking onto the white wooden bed with a sigh, I grinned across at Brittany, who had perched herself on a similar bed opposite. Our new bedroom was in the eaves and ran the entire length of the old wooden house. We had cute little attic windows which looked out across the forest at the rear of the house, and the driveway and more forest to the front.

‘So, what do think?’ Brittany asked, lying back.

‘It’s gorgeous. It would be my dream home if it wasn’t in the middle of a spooky forest,’ I said.

‘It does seem really quiet, reminds me of school… That was right in the middle of the Yorkshire moors.’

‘We’re not going to be able to walk into town though, are we?’ I said.

‘Maybe we can both get driving licenses,’ Brittany said with a smile.

‘You’re not even sixteen yet so I doubt it, and what would we drive anyway?’ I said.

Below us a door slammed and some minutes later we heard the wooden stairs creaking. We stopped chatting, jumped off our beds and pulled our cases onto our beds.

‘You don’t need to pretend you’re unpacking for me,’ a girl who looked a similar age to me said, pushing the door open with her foot. ‘Here, Mom said to bring you these drinks, though personally I think it’s going a little far, making me warm up human blood,’ the girl said, putting the mugs down on the chest of drawers with distaste.

‘Errm, I’m sorry. I thought I was going to get them myself,’ I said.

‘Unfortunately for me, Mom wants you to feel like
a part of the family
, though this whole family act doesn’t wash with me. We all know what a freak you are… and how dangerous you could be to all of us, so I don’t see the point,’ she said.

‘So I guess you must be Saffy then,’ I said, looking at the girl and trying to work out if she was younger or older than me.

‘Yup that’s me. Although I may
have been
your cousin, before you
died,
I really don’t see myself related to you any longer. You don’t even look like me,’ Saffy said, her eyes appraising me with that snobby look that simultaneously emotes bored and pissed off.

‘Actually you do kind of look alike,’ Brittany said, her eyes flashing.

‘I don’t think so,’ Saffy said.

‘You have the same shaped nose, the same freckles…’

‘Pah! I don’t think vampires have freckles, and
I
certainly don’t have freckles,’ Saffy said pouting.

‘You do, you’ve just covered them up with make-up, and Jess has them too. They’ve faded, but they’re still there,’ Brittany said, enjoying winding the girl up.

‘I always liked my freckles, I was actually a little upset when they faded,’ I said, twirling my dyed hair round my fingers and wondering whether I should dye it back to its natural honey tones, now I was away from Manchester.

‘Anyway, whatever! I’m starting at Harvard Law next month and so you’d better not mess things up for me. I have plans and whatever Mom may think or tell you two, I’m not about to get all pally with you two freaks. You stay out of my hair, and I’ll stay out of yours.’

I looked at Brittany who opened her mouth as if she desperately wanted to squash her with a suitable retort, but before either of us came up with one the girl had left, closing the door behind her.

‘Hmm nice girl… I think I preferred Susannah, even if she did try to kidnap me,’ I said.

‘She probably left to escape the evil sister,’ Brittany said with a giggle, then, ‘W
hatever! You stay out of my hair and I’ll stay out of yours…
’ she mimicked with a phoney American accent and a dangerous smirk.

‘At least if she’s going to uni she won’t be hanging around here too much,’ I said, picking up my mug and taking a sip.

‘Does it taste different?’ Brittany asked.

‘What? Why? Do you think she’s put something in it?’ I asked, frowning.

‘No idiot, I mean because you’ve been drinking blood which Sebastian presumably gets from British blood banks and well, I just wondered if American tasted any different,’ Brittany said grinning.

‘Actually it does a bit. Not much, but yeah, I guess it does taste a little bit different.’

‘I guess it’s a bit like drinking London water, when you’re used to northern. I hated the water when I first got to London, it’s rank,’ she said with a nod before taking a last swig of coffee. ‘Right, I’m off for a shower, and then I supposed we’d better unpack and show our faces downstairs.’

I found my aunt back in the kitchen, which as with the rest of the house was a beautiful mixture of old and new. The floor was polished hardwood, the walls a modern earthy colour. There were vast, modern glass doors looking out into the forest, but the room was furnished with a solid oak kitchen table, dresser and a cosy range cooker.

‘Can I ask you a question, Jessica?’ she said.

‘Of course,’ I replied, taking the seat she offered me at the table.

‘I was just wondering if your hair was always that colour, or if you had dyed it like my Susannah did? It’s just that I can of course see the family resemblance in your features, but we all have blonde hair and your mother had blonde hair, so I wondered if your father had been dark?’

‘I dyed it,’ I said with a smile. ‘Eva told me it was necessary if I wanted to stay in Manchester, in case someone recognised me.’

‘Of course, that makes sense.’

‘I was actually thinking of dying it back, now I’m here but I think it might be tricky getting the black out,’ I said.

‘Not at all. Here let me help you,’ she said as she rose from her seat and came to stand behind me. She pulled the hairband out slowly and ran her fingers through it, chanting softly as she did.

‘Wash away all that is new; take me back to that which was lost. The hair I was born with, find me anew, shine out and remove all that is new.’

I sighed and closed my eyes, enjoying the motherly touch on my hair. When she finished I surreptitiously wiped away a tear and smiled.

‘There, you look just like your mother now,’ she said softly. ‘Look.’

I followed her gaze to a portrait hanging on the far wall and walked over to it. It was an enlarged photo of a girl who looked not much older than me, considering my aging process had been frozen just before my eighteenth birthday. She had the same golden hair and sea green eyes that my aunt and Saffy had, the same nose we all shared. I recognised her at once; my mother!

‘My hair is darker than all of yours though. I think I had my father’s hair, as his was mousier,’ I said.

‘Not anymore. Go take a look; there’s a mirror in the hallway.’

I walked back into the hallway and stared into the gilded mirror. She was right. Whatever the spell had done, it had taken my hair back to the pale wispy blonde of my baby days. It hung like a sheet of silk down my back. I couldn’t help smiling. My aunt joined me and studied my reflection.

‘You see Jessica, even though you are undoubtedly different in ways we cannot ever hope to change, you are still one of us, one of the family. No one could ever dispute that.’

‘You have got to be kidding me!’ Saffy said, leaning her slender figure against the doorframe and staring at us. ‘Well, people may just dispute it, based on the fact she has lethal fangs and we don’t.’

‘Saffy, I will not have this attitude in my house. Jessica and Brittany are our guests here. Jessica is family whether you like it or not, and you will respect my wishes,’ my aunt said.

‘You’re just trying to replace Susannah and you think that by finding our vampire cousin and bleaching her hair, dressing her in fancy clothes you can forget the fact that she drinks blood. Well I won’t!’

‘Susannah left our family for reasons known only to her and…’ But her words trailed off as Saffy strode from the house and slammed the front door behind her. My aunt and I stood in silence as we heard her footsteps fading on the gravel…

‘Jessica, I’m so sorry. She’ll come round. Things are a little fraught at the moment.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said, looking at my aunts eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

‘Why don’t you find Brittany and go and explore the gardens?’ she said, to which I nodded and gratefully hurried upstairs.

‘You know, we might have packed jeans and jumpers in here, but I’m not sure we’ve got suitable footwear for trekking through the forest in,’ Brittany said sometime later, once we’d finished sorting our room out.

‘Brit, it might be the end of August, but it
is
still August. It’s warmer here than Manchester, drier too,’ I said, looking out of the window at the setting sun.

‘Okay, but Jess, I’m shattered. We hardly slept last night and then we left the house in Scotland to get to London at four. You didn’t even sleep on the plane and now it might only be seven o’ clock, but to me it’s midnight again!’

‘Okay fine, I’ll go and explore a bit. I fancy some fresh air. You have a nap. Do you want me to ask Sarah if you can have some dinner sent up. It smells like it’s nearly ready,’ I said, wrinkling my nose at the smell wafting up the stairs.

‘Nah, just, so, tired…’ she whispered, climbing into her bed.

‘Well put these on, lazy bones,’ I said chucking her pyjamas across the room.

At the back of the house was a small, neat lawn with some decking and garden furniture, but I soon crossed that and after opening the wooden gate in the back fence, I passed through and found myself on a woodland trail. The tall evergreens encroached right up to the garden perimeter and the narrow, well-trodden path led deep into the midst of the trees before disappearing. It felt like I was stepping into another world, a world ruled by faerie queens and green men. The house had been quiet, as it stood alone, but once I passed through the gate even the occasional noise from the house soon vanished.

I followed the track weaving through the trees for quite a while and then, just when I was considering turning back I came to a dead end, or so it would look to any passing human. I could see the fifty metres or so ahead of me where the track was blocked by a couple of tall fir trees, their branches interlocking with the nearby evergreens and oaks. Nearer to me another pathway crossed mine, leading away from the trees and looping back into the forest. Obviously this was the way to go, but something drew me to investigate further. I ignored the new path and followed mine to its conclusion. Once I reached the obstruction I could see better and realised that part of the blockage was not quite what it seemed, but was in fact an illusion. The tree on the left was in fact growing farther forward than the others, so whereas further back it looked like a complete wall of foliage, it actually was not, and I found I could slip behind it quite easily.