Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend (6 page)

She stopped and looked down at her tea as she shook the spoon and set it on the table.

“If what?” I asked around a mouthful of French toast.

Her light gray eyes lifted to meet mine. “If someone is using their special powers to steal the money.”

I swallowed. “Like who?”

“I don't know. Absinthe doesn't know. Peter doesn't know. No one knows.”

I made a half shrug, unwilling to admit that I would be perfectly happy if the Faire went under and we had to go home. “The police will probably find whoever it is.”

“This is beyond the police, Fran. There's only one person who can possibly determine who the thief is.”

I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it at all, which should prove once and for all that I don't have a single, solitary psychic cell in my body. At least not of the precognitive kind. I stuffed another chunk of French toast into my mouth. “Who's that?”

“You.”

I choked, tears streaming from my eyes as I wheezed, trying to get air into my lungs around the big lump of French toast that was stuck in my throat.

“You're the only one who can find the thief, Fran.”

“I'm not going to be able to do anything if I choke to death,” I gasped.

She frowned. “I'm serious.”

“So'm I!”

She handed me my mug of tea. “Franny, you have to do this. I know you don't like touching anyone—”

I wiped my streaming eyes with the back of my hand. “No.”

“—but this is an emergency.”

I shook my head, coughed, took a sip of tea, coughed again, and snarfed back the runny nose that always came with a near choking. “No!”

“I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't very important.”

“It's not our problem! Absinthe and Peter can figure it out for themselves, or the police can.”

“They can't, baby. If they could, they already would have. You have to help them.”

“I don't have to do anything,” I muttered to my half-eaten French toast.

“Please, Franny. Our whole future is at stake—”

“This isn't our future!” I shouted, slamming my hand down on the table so the mugs rattled. I was suddenly so mad I couldn't see straight. “Home is our future, not this freak show! I won't let you turn me into a monster like them! I just want to be normal like everyone else. You do understand normal, don't you? It's what you're not!”

Her eyes widened and I realized she was about to go into the “you're not a freak; you've been blessed, gifted with a skill that others would cherish” lecture. I knew it well; I heard it on the average of once a month, and at least once every couple of days after we arrived at the Faire, but I couldn't take it again. Not now. Not when I was so confused about Ben and everything.

“Where are you going?” she yelled as I jumped up from the table and grabbed my bag.

“Out.”

“Francesca Marie—”

I slammed the door to the trailer on her words, jumping off the metal steps, holding my bag tight across my chest as I ran through the maze of trailers situated at the far end of the big meadow that held the Faire. Several of the Faire people said good morning to me, but I ignored all of them and settled down into a steady lope that I knew could last me a couple of miles. I ran through the trees ringing the meadow, down a small grassy slope, then onto the road that led to the town of Kapuvár.

Cars passed by on their way in and out of town, kicking up dust that swept over me, leaving my mouth and hair gritty. I slowed my lope to a trot, then a walk, trudging past field after field of cows, horses, goats, and some sheep. I rehashed the argument with my mother, changing it so I had all the good lines, my arguments so convincing she had to bow before my superior reasoning and admit that we belonged back home, not in the middle of Hungary. I muttered to myself as I passed a big white truck with wooden slatted sides, the kind they use to haul livestock. An old man who held a lead on a dirty gray horse was arguing with a tall, thin guy in expensive shoes. The tall guy kept looking around him as if he smelled something bad. A girl a few years younger than me was standing next to the fence, obviously trying not to cry.

I stopped because I like horses, and the old gray horse had lovely lines, a thickly curved neck, rounded haunch, deep chest, and big, big, soulful brown eyes.

“What's going on?” I asked the girl, forgetting for a moment that I wasn't back home where everyone spoke English. She turned and sniffed.

“It's Tesla, my
ópapi's
—grandfather's—horse. Milos is taking him away. You are American?”

“Yeah. Who's Milos?”

She pointed to the old man, who was now holding out his hand. The tall, thin guy was arguing with him as he doled out Hungarian forints (their dollars). “I study English in school. We are very good, yes? Milos, he is a . . .” She said something in Hungarian then.

“A what?” I asked.

She sniffled again. “He takes old horses, you know? And they make them into dog meat.”

I stared in horror at the old man. “My God, that's horrible. Isn't that illegal or something? Why is that other guy letting him do it?”

“He is my uncle Tarvic. He says he can't afford to feed Tesla anymore, now that
ópapi
is dead, but it makes me so sad. Tesla is old, but he is special. My
ópapi
loved him more than all the other horses.”

“Hey!” I yelled, scrabbling through my bag with one hand as I hurried through the gate toward the two men and the horse. The old horse nickered at me, nodding his head up and down as if he understood what I was going to do. I hoped he did, 'cause I sure didn't. “Hey, mister, I'll give you . . . uh . . . I have two hundred and forty dollars. U.S. cash. I'll give it to you for the horse.”

The girl stood behind me, jabbering in Hungarian. I assumed she was translating for me, because the tall man turned and scowled at me. I dug out my wallet and waved the year's allowance that Dad had given me as a going-away present (or bribe, however you wanted to look at it). I held out the money. “Tell your uncle that I'll give him the money if he sells the horse to me, instead. That way he won't have to pay the knacker.”

“Knacker?”

“Milos.”

She turned and said something to her uncle. He eyed my cash with an avid gleam in his eye, but the old man started yelling at me, shoving me backward. I held the money out to Uncle Tarvic by the very tips of the ends. “Tell your uncle that I'm with the Faire just down the road, and that the horse will be fine; he'll be treated really well.”

The girl hesitated. “He won't care; he doesn't like horses.”

I made an exasperated noise. “Look, you can tell him whatever you want; just get him to take my money and give me the horse.”

Milos the knacker was back to trying to shove me from the field, waving his hands around wildly. Tesla laid his ears back and snorted a warning at the gestures.

“You will treat him well? You will care for him?”

“Would I be willing to give up my whole year's allowance if I was going to be mean to him?” I asked. “Yes, I'll treat him really well. I've always wanted a horse, and since Peter has a horse trailer for the horse he uses in his magic act, hauling Tesla around won't be a problem. Please.”

The girl nodded and turned back to her uncle, pleading with him. Evidently the sight of my money was too much, because Uncle Tarvic snatched his money back from Milos, and handed me the lead to the horse at the same time he grabbed the money from my hand. One finger of his brushed mine, but I jerked my hand back before I could pick up anything about him.

“Köszönöm,”
I said (Hungarian for “thank you”).
“Köszönöm.”

I gave the lead a slight tug and the old horse started forward. I tried to remember on which side Soren walked when he led his dad's horse, Bruno, but Tesla evidently knew the ropes. He marched by my right side, heading for the road like he knew where he was going. Milos yelled and screamed a lot, but I only smiled as I led Tesla to the road, turning toward the way I had just come.

“What is your name?” the girl asked. Tesla stopped and looked back at her.

“Fran. What's yours?”

“Panna.” She stepped up to Tesla, cupping her hands around his whiskery nose. He snorted on her hands. Her eyes were all weepy again, like she was going to cry. “He will be a very good horse, yes?”

“Yes, he will be a very good horse. If you like, you can come visit him while we're in town. We're going to be here three more days; then we go to Budapest.”

She gave me a watery smile. “I will like that. Thank you, Fran. You are my friend.”

“Sure thing. Well, come on, Tesla; we'd better get you back so I can start working on Mom.”

“Working on Mom?” Panna asked.

“Nothing. I'll see you later?”

“As soon as I am able.”

“'Kay. See you.”

I tugged on the lead and Tesla started walking amiably enough. I looked back once. Panna was getting in the car with her uncle. Milos was grinding the gears on his truck, driving in the opposite direction. I looked at Tesla. His long white eyelashes hid his eyes as he walked along next to me, periodically stopping to graze a particularly succulent-looking patch of grass.

I had a horse. An old horse. In the middle of Europe, where I had no home but a trailer, I bought a horse. I tried to think of a reason Mom shouldn't throw the hissy fit to end all hissy fits when she saw Tesla, but knew it was a lost cause. I had only one thing I could use as bargaining power. I sighed. Tesla, drowsing as we strolled along in the morning heat, bobbed his head and rolled an eye over to look at me. “You're going to cost me a whole lot more than money, horse. A whole lot more.”

We walked the rest of the way to the Faire in silence, Tesla thinking horsey-type thoughts and paying no attention to the cars as they zoomed by us, me dreading the deal I was going to have to cut. I'd have to do what Mom wanted me to do.

I'd have to find out who the thief was.

“
H
ey,” Soren said, and set a bucket of water down beside me before plopping to the ground.

“Hey,” I said back. “Thanks for the water. I'm sure Tesla will appreciate it when he's done stuffing his face.”

We were sitting on a bank at the far edge of the meadow, beyond the area the cars used to park. Tesla was grazing happily away in the long shadows cast by the sun as it started to dip below the trees. I had spent most of the day just sitting there, watching him. He moved stiffly and slowly, but l didn't see any signs that he was deathly ill or ready to keel over any second, both of which Mom had suggested once she got over the shock of my arriving back at the trailer with a horse in tow.

“How did your mother take it?'

I shrugged and plucked a piece of rail grass from the bank. “She threw a hissy.”

Soren's freckled nose scrunched up. “A hissy?”

“A hissy fit. She had kittens. A cow. You know—she ranted.”

“Oh, ranted, yes, I'm familiar with ranted. My father rants always.”

“Yeah, well, when your father rants, I bet flowers don't wilt and milk doesn't turn sour.” That wasn't the worst of it. Once, when she got really mad at me because I went out to a club after she said I couldn't, every mirror in the house shattered. I was grounded for a month after that. Talk about your seven years' bad luck.

“No,” Soren said thoughtfully. “Although once the doves all died.”

Peter was one of the three magicians who practiced magic. He was the only one of the three who could do real magic, the kind you almost never see. His grand finale was turning a box of doves into Bruno, their horse, only that was an illusion, not real magic. The real magic . . . well, it gave you goose bumps to watch it.

“I suppose sour milk is better than dead birds.”

Soren selected a big piece of grass, splitting it down the middle to make a reed out of it. He blew. It sounded wet and slobbery. I folded my blade of grass carefully, put it to my lips, and sent a stream of air through the narrow gap. A high, sharp squeal silenced the nearby bird chatter for a moment. Tesla lifted his head and looked at me. I tapped the water bucket with my toes. He wandered over and plunged his gray-black muzzle into it, drinking and snorting to himself.

“Miranda said you could keep him?”

I thought back to the hour-long argument we'd had once I returned. “Well . . . she said I'd have to get a job in the Faire to pay for his food and vet bills. And she said your dad had to okay him traveling with Bruno when we're on the road, and that a vet would have to look at him to make sure he didn't have a horrible horse disease. And I have to find him a home when it's time for us to go back to Oregon. But yes, she said I could keep him.”