Authors: A. C. James
“Grace?”
“Holly, I want you to know that if I had known about you I would have done something,” Grace said, her voice turning soft. “By the time I found out and tried to contact the state they wouldn’t tell me anything. You’re my niece, and I’m so glad you came. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”
I tried to smile. “Grace, you don’t have to apologize. You didn’t know. There’s nothing to apologize for. I didn’t mean to come here when you didn’t expect any of this. Rue tried to call before we came, but the number—”
“Was disconnected. It was one of the first bills I took over.”
“You’ve had to deal with so much. It’s okay. I’m just glad that we’re here now, and I know there’s nothing you could have done. Nothing anyone could have done. And I promise you won’t have to do this alone. Not anymore.”
Grace nodded.
And I really meant that. I wanted to help her with my grandmother but I’m sure Grace just thought I felt guilty. Guilt was a far better measure of honesty. Maybe we both felt that way, but for different reasons. Me for not being here to help her, and Grace for not being there when I was a kid. It was almost laughable, because there was nothing either of us could have done but it didn’t change that we wished it could have been different.
“I don’t want you to be disappointed,” she said.
I nodded and followed her when she turned and continued to walk down the hall, even though I had no idea what she meant by that. It didn’t matter. I wanted the chance to meet Charlotte anyway. Grace stopped in front of a bedroom door and tapped gently before nudging it open.
“Charlotte, there’s someone here to see you.”
She sat on the edge of a white four-post bed, looking down at her hands and twisting a tissue in her lap. My throat clenched when she looked up. Recognition lit up her face as soon as she saw me. Charlotte pushed herself off the bed, walked across the room, and before I could move her arms were around me, hugging me like she didn’t want to let me go.
“Sara, you’re home early. I thought you were going to Rue’s house after school.”
“Um—”
I turned and Grace stood in the doorway.
“Just go with it…” she whispered.
She nodded at me encouragingly and I wrapped my arms around Charlotte’s slight frame. I took a jagged breath before answering her. Not only did she not know me but she couldn’t tell that I was twenty-two and she thought that I was my dead mother. My chestnut hair and heart-shaped face resembled the photo of my mother in my locket. So I tried to think of an excuse.
“Rue had to stay after for detention. So I took the bus home.”
Charlotte frowned. “You never ride the bus. Danny drives you. And why did Rue get detention?”
I went blank. I hadn’t thought the lie that far ahead.
“Um, I think she mouthed off to her teacher.” I shrugged.
“That’s not like her at all.”
Charlotte took two steps back and sunk into the flowered bedspread. I sat next to her. She looked perplexed but she wasn’t agitated. Grace gave me a nod as she left the door open a crack and exited the room. Now that I was sitting here with her I had no idea what I should say.
“I’m so glad to…be home.” My voice cracked.
I was going to say how wonderful it was to finally meet her, but I thought it was best to just play along since she thought I was Sara. I didn’t want to make her upset by telling her the truth and reminding her that her daughter was dead. I didn’t know if she’d even remember if I told her I was her granddaughter.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“Is Danny coming over later?”
I paused. “I don’t know. I have to call him. I guess so.”
Charlotte sighed. “What are you going to do next year when he goes off to college and leaves you behind?”
Her eyebrows knitted together and I didn’t know how I should respond. Instead I figured it would be better if I just said something to agree with her, something I thought she’d want to hear.
“I was thinking we should break up.”
She stared at me like I’d said something flip, like I was trying to be a smartass. And I swallowed when she looked at me like she might throw the half-eaten bowl of cereal sitting on the nightstand straight at my head.
“That’s not what you said before. You said you loved him and he loved you and there’s nothing
I
can do about it.” She shook her head and grabbed my wrist, her eyes filled with confusion and anger.
When she grabbed my wrist her voice faded to the background and the Sight took over.
Not now.
But there was nothing I could do to stop it. The force of the vision hit me. My mother was laying on top the flowered bedspread with her hands behind her head. Her sweater was bunched around her ribcage and a boy sat beside her, rubbing her flat stomach.
“Hello, in there?” The boy grinned. “Do you think he can hear me?”
She laughed at him. “Oh? And what if it’s a girl?”
“I’ll teach her how to play football too.”
“No, seriously—you want a boy, don’t you?”
Suddenly, his expression turned serious. “If it’s a girl she’ll be smart and beautiful…” He bent down and kissed Sara. “…just like her mom,” he murmured against her mouth.
Sara smiled. “And what do you think we should call her?”
“I kind of like Beth.”
“I like Holly. And if we have a boy?”
Holly Beth.
My father must have named me before giving me up for adoption, but I’d ended up in the foster care system instead so it never changed.
“We’ll name him Daniel.”
“You know I’m going to get very fat?” Sara asked him in a teasing voice.
“How fat?” My father teased back.
“Very, very, fat. Will you still think I’m beautiful then?”
He leaned down and planted kisses on her stomach. “I think you’ll be even more beautiful.”
Sara was smiling, her hands in his hair. The bedroom door swung open and Charlotte yelled something about studying instead of hanging out with that boy again. Sara pulled her sweater down as she jumped off the bed. Then the vision faded and Charlotte looked at me almost as if she realized I’d had a vision. Rue told me that my grandmother was a witch. So I imagined that she’d know what it looked like when someone was having one. Her eyes were clear, focused on my face.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
An eerie stillness filled the room.
“What?” I asked.
“I’ve been waiting for you to find me before the disease takes me.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “Who do think I am?”
“I’d know you anywhere. You look just like my daughter. You’re my granddaughter. The one they made me give up.”
My mouth dropped open. “Yes, I’m Holly.”
“I like that name. I don’t know how long I’ll be like this but I need to tell you two things.”
“What do you need to tell me?”
“You’re a vampire.” She nodded. “That’s good, because the strength will help you, and so will he.”
“Who?”
“The man in the leather jacket. He needs you more than you know, and you’re going to need him. You’ll feel betrayed but you’re going to have to trust him. Something bad is going to happen. Bright city lights. It will be bad and you’re going to need him.”
The door creaked behind me, and that moment of clarity dissolved into a look of confusion. Its fog descended on her, and stole my grandmother.
“I thought you were going to Rue’s after school,” she said.
I shook my head. My breath was jagged and it took all my strength not to cry and my throat was so tight that my voice croaked out. “I can’t. I have a test to study for. I should go do my homework.”
She gave my hand a pat and smiled. I swallowed and hurried out of the room before I started crying. Then I’d have to dazzle away her memory of my bloody tears. Grace was waiting just outside the door.
“Can I use your bathroom?” I asked before she could say anything.
“Straight down the hall.”
“Thanks.”
I bolted for the bathroom. As soon as I locked the door I slid down its surface and hugged my knees. I’d been holding back but I couldn’t anymore. Tears streaked down my face, dripping on my arm. She’d never know me, and I’d known that before Grace even opened the bedroom door, but I never thought that I’d have to sit there and pretend to be my mother. She was lucid for a moment, but my grandmother would never really know me, and that hurt like hell.
*****
There was a knock on the door. I swiped at my eyes and my fingers came away a bloody smear.
God, I hope it’s not Grace.
I rose from the tile and stepped in front of the sink. I looked like a wreck. Red-rimmed eyes, red-streaked cheeks. I couldn’t go out there looking like this or Grace would freak.
“Just a minute,” I said, as I leaned over the sink. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”
“It’s just me. Are you okay in there?” Rue asked.
After a deep breath I opened the door to let Rue in and then she closed and locked it behind her. She took one look at me and her face fell.
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine? There were never two words in human history that meant something else more entirely, and you’re dripping blood all over the place.”
I half-laughed, half-sobbed. I knew she was trying hard not to cry too, and at the same time she was trying to cheer me up.
“Come on, you don’t want Grace calling the cops on us. Besides, she already has a problem with witches,” Rue said with a smirk.
“Oh, God, Rue, I just didn’t think…I had to pretend I was my mother. She called me Sara.”
Rue pursed her lips. “I’m so sorry.”
“It killed me, but I didn’t want to upset her.”
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her back and for a minute we just stood in the bathroom hugging one another.
“We should go,” I said as I pulled away. “I just need to fix my face.”
“Yeah, Grace sent me up to check on you.”
I turned on the facet and rinsed my face with water. I used some wadded-up toilet paper to dab at the blood and flushed the evidence. Grace would get suspicious if there was a bloody towel in her bathroom.
“Well, let’s tell Grace good-bye. We’ve got a long drive a head of us,” I said.
“I’m starving. We should stop somewhere for a bite to eat.”
I nodded and Rue followed me back downstairs to where Grace was waiting in the living room. She looked as drained as I felt.
“Thanks for letting me meet my grandmother. And if there’s anything you need, I meant what I said about helping. I’d like to visit again sometime, if that’s all right.”
Grace rose from her chair.
“Anytime. I’d love to have you. Let me give you my number.”
Grace walked over to a hutch in the entryway and opened a drawer. She pulled out a pad of paper and a pen, jotting down her name and number before handing it to me.
“Thanks for having me,” I said.
Grace smiled. “I’m going to hug you now. Would that be okay?”
I laughed and leaned forward to hug the petite brunette—my aunt. Grace hugged me back and then pulled away.
“Let me walk you out,” Grace said. “It was nice to finally meet you, Rue. Charlotte talks about you all the time.”
Rue smiled. “I practically lived here as a child. Sara was my closest friend. She was like a sister to me.”
Grace showed us out to the porch. “Drive safe.”
“We will. Thanks again.”
She pulled the door closed once we’d climbed into my BMW. It was a long drive back to Chicago. Rue and I stopped off for something to eat but I barely touched the greasy diner food. I pushed the food around my plate with a fork. I felt emotionally spent, and a little weak, but food wasn’t going to cut it.
I needed to feed soon and decided I’d order a CD donor to be sent over to the loft as soon as we got back. I dropped Rue off at her apartment above her store. All I wanted was to curl up with Arie. I didn’t want to deal with anything else today. The last thing I expected was for Harry to stop me in the lobby to relay a message.
Chapter 13
Harry spotted me as soon as I entered the polished oasis of the lobby and quickly hung up the phone call he was on, waving me over to the front desk. He struck me as a kind man, in his forties if I had to guess, and I knew he was married. Other than that I didn’t really know much about him. I’d talked to him only in passing. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted, and when he’d finally told me, it shocked the shit out of me and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Miss Ellis, may I have a word with you?”
“Sure, Harry.”
“There was a man who stopped in here looking for you today.”
I bit my lower lip. I had a very bad feeling about this. “What did he want?”