The Vampire's Warden (2 page)

It was the north meadow and had been my favorite place when I was a child. Situated about a half mile from the main guesthouse of the inn, it totaled about seven acres. It had been a wonderful place for me as a child. I had climbed that tree. I had waded in that stream and struggled mightily to the top of each of those strange rocks. I had puzzled over the meaning of the symbols engraved on them. I had curled up under that tree to read my favorite books and play with my doll.

When the vision finally released me, I found myself on the floor in the den. A pair of startling green eyes was staring down into my face, and a set of manly fingers was cupping my chin. The warmth of that contact was disconcerting, sending waves of pulsing heat through my face, neck, and arms. I flushed and forced my eyes away from him.

“
Are you alright?” He asked, completely unaware of the effect he was having on me.

“
I’m…” Sitting up made me dizzy and unable to finish my sentence, but I had to move. I struggled to get back my equilibrium and groaned when Nelly came rushing in, fussing about me being on the floor and the young man being up at all.

“
What in the world happened? Get yourself back onto that sofa, young man! What are you thinking?”

I rose unsteadily and held onto the edge of the square oak coffee table that sat before the sofa. The stranger had retreated, climbing slowly back onto the sofa with a hand pressed to his head wound.

“
You sure you’re okay?” He asked, “I’m Alex, by the way.”

“
Alex, it’s nice to meet you.” My head had started to clear a little and I tried to busy myself with straightening the blankets covering him, “I’m Sarah.”

Nelly shook her head and checked Alex’s head to see if it had started bleeding again. Satisfied, she tucked the covers up around his shoulders and crossed her arms, “Young man, if you get up off that sofa again before Dr. Fleming gets here, I’ll take a switch to you. Head injuries can be very serious.”

I stifled a little giggle. Nelly wouldn’t know a switch from a pool cue. Her sole source of disciplinary action had been to smack our hands, and that was only done when the offense was an extreme one.

“
You understand me? Is your hearing alright?” Nelly demanded.

“
Yes, ma’am.”

She shook her head again and motioned me out of the room before her with a waving hand, “Come on now, missy. To bed with you, too. It’s late.”

“
But Dr. Fleming will be here soon.” I protested, feeling like a little whining kid.

“
And he certainly won’t want you wearing yourself out. So go to bed and you can talk to our guest in the morning.” She said, guiding me up the stairs and then down the hall to my room, “I’ll make sure that the Pursers get settled in for the night and lock everything up.”

She hesitated at my bedroom door and gave me a curious look, “What happened in there?”

“
I’m not sure.”

She followed me into my room and sat down at my dressing table while I rummaged around for a pair of pajamas in my antique oak dresser. I did not want to remember the vision. It wasn’t just scary. It was terrifying. Were those ghosts? Why did I see such an awful thing? I could not keep their cries from coming back to me, echoing through my head, and making my heart race.

I looked at myself in the polished mirror over the dresser. There was some indefinable difference there somewhere. My eyes were usually a pale blue shade, but as I looked at myself then, they were bright with fear and confusion. I wondered what Alex had thought of me, this strange young woman collapsing in front of him. I probably looked like an idiot. Looking in the mirror, I felt a little better that I had been lucky enough to be blessed with long dark eyelashes and somewhat decent eyebrows that matched my light brown hair. My hair fell to the middle of my back when I left it down, which wasn’t often because the weight of it was always ridiculously hot on my neck when I was cleaning or doing laundry.

“
You going to be okay?” Nelly asked, her kind eyes watching me with concern.

I felt my hands tremble slightly as I said, “When Dr. Fleming was here earlier, and he told me something surprising.”

“
What was that?” I noticed the tiny flinch of surprise in her reflection in the mirror as she spoke. My breath caught painfully in my throat as I realized that she might have known about my mother all this time. All those long years, she knew that my mother was alive. She too had said nothing.

It was too much. Above nearly everyone else in my life, I had trusted Nelly. Desperate to maintain control of the emotional riptide pouring through me, I shrugged and pulled out a pair of soft cotton pajamas with little moons and stars printed on them, “He left me a journal. I haven’t read any of it yet.”

After a few quiet moments, she came and pressed a gentle kiss on my cheek. I barely noticed the fact that her fingers were trembling as she went to the door with a frown on her face, “You get some rest. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

“
Okay. Goodnight.” She closed the door behind her and I turned back to the mirror.

My mind raced back to my conversation with Dr. Fleming and the pressure in the center of me grew heavier. My throat ached as I remembered my mother. I did not understand how a person could leave her own children on purpose. A Mom was supposed to stick by her kids no matter what happened. For so long, I had believed that she had been parted from me by death. Now I knew it was something far worse. She had chosen to leave Dad and us girls. She made the choice to abandon us and had not tried to contact us in fourteen years.

Something broke apart inside me. It felt like a huge chasm had opened up and I was drowning in darkness. My father had passed away only a few months after he announced to Katie and I that he had cancer. I remembered every inflection in his rapid speech and every nervous hand gesture as if it had happened only a few moments ago. The fear that had been etched on his face on that bleak gray morning in late August was not the fear of a man facing death. It was a combination of humiliation and terror that was directly connected to how my sister and I would handle the news.

It was a completely natural instinct that drove Katie to overlook our father’s rather late notice of his coming death and provide a wealth of comfort and kind words to try to counter the guilt that seemed to seep out of him.

As for myself, I had taken the news as a kind of betrayal. With Katie’s education already well on its way to bringing her the career of her dreams, I had remained at the Inn without a choice for a different vocation. He had always expected me to follow behind him, to continue to run things. He never ventured to ask if there might be something else I would like to do with my life.

When the three of us met with his oncologist to get a more complete view of his prognosis, I did not shed a tear. I asked all the right questions and wrote down the answers meticulously in a little black notebook I had bought for just that occasion. While Dad and Katie held hands and cried bitter, useless tears, I grilled the doctor about chemotherapy and radiation treatments and any tiny detail that would keep me focused.

My sister had commented later that I seemed strangely aloof about the whole situation, to which I replied scornfully, “I don’t wear my emotions on my sleeve for the world to see. So sue me.”

Two months later, he died in a hospice facility on the north side of Indianapolis.

Standing in my room three short months after his death, I finally let go. Tears slid down my cheeks as I recalled his last breath. The sobs did not fully erupt until after I had settled down into my bed with my head on my pillow. I tried to keep them muffled so Nelly would not hear and come to check on me. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. I felt like I had been broken into a dozen pieces. And I did not know how to put them back together.

Chapter Two

Sleep did not come easily that night. The aching pressure in my chest lightened only slightly after all the crying. I kept thinking about my father and wondered if things might have been different had he opted for the chemo that the doctors had recommended. I also thought about Nelly and wondered how she could have deceived me for all those years. They had both known my mother was alive and never told me. I tossed around for an hour or so. Once, I thought I heard Dr. Fleming’s familiar voice in the hall, but I did not want to leave my room and have everyone see the condition I was in.

When my alarm went off at six, the sun was still two hours from coming up and I had probably only logged about two hours of sleep. However, I had to check on Alex, get the coffee started, and head up to the large guest cabin to get it ready for a family group coming in the afternoon. I wanted to avoid Nelly if possible. Knowing the truth, I did not see how I could face her.

I checked my cell phone and found a text message from my sister.

Dr. Fleming was here yesterday. What the hell is going on? Call me ASAP.

How much had he told her? Did she know about Mom being alive? I dialed her number.

“
You must have got my text.” She answered groggily, obviously not through her first cup of coffee yet.

“
Yeah. How’re your classes going?” I tried to sound nonchalant but knew it was not going to work. Katie knew me better than anybody did. Even though she had been taking classes at Purdue University for two years, we still kept in daily contact by text, phone, e-mail or all three. She had started coming home more often on the weekends after Dad’s death. In addition, as a sister should, she always knew when something was wrong with me.

“
Screw my classes! What the hell is going on? Dr. Fleming came all the way out here yesterday and said that Dad left you a journal.” Her impatience was volatile and I could hear the frustration in her every word.

“
Yes. Did he say anything else?”

“
Only that there were things that you and I needed to talk about and it had to do with our mother.”

This was not a conversation I wanted to have over the phone with her. I did not want to say anything until I’d looked through the journal but opening it scared the hell out of me. It was sitting on my nightstand as I talked to Katie and I was not about to get into it with her on the phone.

“
Listen, I have one early class I can’t miss on Friday. I’m driving down there right after that, okay?” She said.

“
That would probably be a good idea, but I don’t want to mess up any plans you might have.”

She hesitated for a minute then continued in a softer voice, “This is serious, isn’t it? Are you okay, Sarah?”

I felt a sob trying to make its way through my voice. I tried like hell to get it under control.

“
We’ll talk when you get here. I love you.”

“
Love you, too.”

After a quick shower, I braided my hair, pulled on a pair of faded Levi’s and a hoodie, and went down the hall to check on Alex. When I knocked lightly, there was no answer at first. Then the door opened and I saw that Alex was not just up, but dressed as well. There was a small bandage at his temple, covering the cut that Nelly and I had tended to last night, but other than that, he looked fine. Better than fine, actually.

He had put on an old pair of my Dad’s jeans and a dark gray sweater that my Aunt Lillian had knitted for my Dad years ago that he’d never actually worn. His blond hair was still damp from his shower and it fell over his brow in golden waves. He grinned at me sheepishly, showing an adorable dimple in one cheek.

“
Thanks for your help last night.”

“
You’re welcome.” I went to the bed and began taking the sheets off it, trying not to feel his eyes on me. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him about himself but I could not seem to find the nerve to get that personal with him. It did not seem like a good idea at all.

“
Do I make you nervous or something?” His question sounded sincere instead of teasing.

“
A little, I guess.” I folded up the blanket and duvet and put them on the padded bench at the end of the bed, “How did you end up out here? We’re not exactly close to town or anything.”

His green eyes grew serious suddenly and I felt my heartbeat speed up.

“
I’m here because of you, Sarah.”

I suddenly went very still. Inside, my mind began buzzing with a million little frightening thoughts. He was crazy. He was a stalker. He was going to kill me. I covered my face with my hands, trying to slow down the insistent warnings screaming at me.