Ellen Datlow - Teeth - Vampire Tales

She untied another, and another, and another, until finally she felt herself lifting up, up, up.

Then — out of him.

She opened her eyes. Light hit her in the face, so much light she felt she might go blind like that street musician downtown. Is that what this did to him? A moment of blinding brilliance after his first taste of something wonderful? Then things began to readjust and her room was her room again, its peach walls surrounding her, and Trevor sat in front of her, sniffing, wiping the backs of his hands against his eyes like the greasy-haired kid had done at the assembly.

“That was hard,” he said.

“Then take some from me,” said Retta. “Take all of them. Just let me take some back when you’re finished.”

He stared at her for a long moment. The ridge of his fauxhawk looked like it was wilting. Finally he said, “Lo, this could be the start of something beautiful.”

She grinned, all teeth, and nodded.

In the morning, she rose with the first coos of the doves and thought about how symbolic all her actions were, how quickly everything she did now took on sudden significance. It was almost as if she could see everything, even herself, as if she were a benign witness to the actions of others and to the ones she herself was taking, as if she were someone else altogether different from the girl she had been. It was as if she floated above the town where she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life wondering how she’d gotten there, where she was, where she was going. Now she could see everything, as if it were no more than a map she’d hung on her wall, sticking bright red tacks into the places she wanted to visit.

Trevor was passed out on her bed. She’d drained him a few hours earlier, taken what he had and what she’d given, untied all but one of those bright little knots in his stomach, and left him empty. As she stepped carefully down the stairs with his keys in one hand and a bag of clothes in the other, she wondered what he would do when he woke, wondered what her parents would do when they, too, woke to find a vampire in their daughter’s bed instead of their daughter.

On the way out, she stopped in the kitchen to scrawl a message on the dry-erase board magnetized to the refrigerator. It’s been fun , she wrote in purple, her favorite color, and realized even as she wrote the message that purple was her favorite color. You are all lovely people. But I’m off to start my gap year. XO, Loretta!

When she was twenty hours away, drinking coffee as she drove down the interstate, eating up mile after beloved mile, her cell phone rang. It had been ringing for the past seventeen hours, but each time it had been one of her parents, and each time she didn’t answer, knowing that as soon as she pressed the talk button, nothing but hysterical screams and shouts would come out. This time, though, it was Lottie’s name on the screen that kept blinking. Retta answered, but before she could say anything, Lottie spoke in a sharp whisper.

“Retta,” she said. “I am sitting in a commencement assembly next to an empty seat with your name on it. Where are you? Your parents are freaking out and that vampire kid has filed a stolen vehicle report, so you’d better watch out. I guess I was wrong about you. You weren’t hot for him. You totally ditched him. But I still don’t understand. Tell me one thing, Retta,” said Lottie, and Retta imagined Lottie, arms folded over her chest, cell phone pressed to her ear, her plastic black gown and that square little hat, the golden tassel she would flip to the other side in half an hour, her legs crossed, the one on top bouncing furiously. “What happened? Why are you being such a bitch?”

“It’s Loretta !” screamed Loretta into the phone, like some rock star in the middle of a concert. “And it’s because I’m a vampire, Lottie! Because I’m a vampire! Because I’m a vampire!”

She flipped the phone shut and threw it out the window.

It was late morning. The sun was high and red all over. She snarled at herself in the rearview mirror, then laughed, pushed down on the gas, made the car go faster.

Lights dazzling her eyes. The platform underfoot, an island in a sea of emptiness. The bar of the trapeze, rigid and slightly tacky against her rosined palms. Far below, a wide sawdust ring surrounded by tiers of white balloons daubed with black dots, round eyes above gaping mouths.

She stretches her arms above her head, rises lightly to her toes, bends her knees, and leaps off as she has a thousand times before, the air a warm, popcorn-flavored breeze against her face. Belly, shoulder, and chest muscles tense as she cranks her legs up and over the bar. She swings by her knees, her ponytail tickling her neck and cheeks. The white balloons below bob and sway, and a tinkling music rises around her, punctuated with the uneven patter of applause.

Her father calls, “Hep,” and she flies to him, grasping his wrists, pendulums, releases, twists, returns to her trapeze, riding it to the platform. She lands, flourishes, bows. Applause swells, then the music falls away, all but the deep drum that gradually picks up its pace like a frightened heartbeat. She spreads her arms, lights flashing from silver spangles, bends her knees, and leaps into a shallow dive, skimming through the air like a swallow, swooping, somersaulting, free of the trapeze, of gravity, of fear. Until, at the very top of the tent, her arms and body turn to lead. The bobbing balloons and the sandy ring swell and mourn as, flailing helplessly, she falls.

And wakes.

Panting, Lenka sat up and fumbled at the bedside lamp. Damn, she hated that dream. At least this time she hadn’t fallen out of bed and woken her parents. That’s all she needed — Mama patting her down, asking briskly if she’d hurt herself, Papa watching over her mother’s shoulder with sleep-blurred, helpless eyes. They wouldn’t yell at her — they never yelled at her these days, even when she deserved it. They’d just tell her to rest and maybe suggest talking to the doctor. Well, she wouldn’t. She was finished with doctors and rest. She’d been in remission for nearly three months now. When her parents were out at work, she did calisthenics in her room, took runs through the neighborhood. Short runs — she was still pretty feeble. But she was getting stronger, she told herself, every day.

She’d be flying again, soon.

Lenka sat in the kitchen, glumly eating cereal, waiting for the slap of the morning paper on the doormat.