Эллен Шрайбер - Kissing Coffins

She glared at me in disbelief. "This from a girl who has sleepovers at cemeteries?"

She had a point. But I couldn't tell her my most secretest of all secrets. "The show really spooked me," I said instead. "You gave such a realistic performance, I'm afraid I could be bitten at any moment."

"You thought I was that believable?" she asked, surprised.

I nodded eagerly.

"Well, I prefer candlelight," she said. She lit some votives and placed them throughout the living room. Her apartment began to smell of roses and flickered with shadows of Italian masks.

Had I really met a second teen vampire? Maybe Jagger had been afraid I'd spotted his unreflected image in my compact. He might have been spying on me in the alleyway, or watching me as he hung from a telephone wire. I took a deep breath, realizing I was no better than an overreacting gossipmonger like Trevor Mitchell. I should be spending my time planning my continuing search for Alexander instead of pointing fingers to a white-haired goth's mortal existence. Jagger could have dropped his earring on his way home from the Coffin Club. The lurking figure could have been a clubster, weaving back and forth by the Dumpster after having a few too many Executions.

I picked up Aunt Libby's Lava lamp phone and called my parents.

"Hello?" Billy Boy answered.

"It's me. Are Mom and Dad home?"

"They're next door, visiting the Jenkins's new baby," he replied.

"They left you alone?" I asked, ribbing him.

"Give it a rest."

"Well, don't touch my room! Or anything in it," I warned, wrapping the telephone cord around my fingers.

"I've already read one of your journals."

"You better be kidding!"

" 'Alexander kissed me!'" he said in a girlish voice. Then I heard him leaf through pages.

"You better—"

" Trevor was right,'" he continued. " 'Alexander really is a vampire.'"

I froze. How had Billy Boy gotten hold of one of my journals?

"Close it right now!" I cried. "It's not a journal. It's a story I'm writing for English class!"

"Well, you have a lot of spelling mistakes."

"Right now, Nerd Boy! Shut it or I'm coming home and melting all your computer games!"

"Calm down, spaz. I'm in my room, leafing through my NASA book," he confessed. "You think I want to go in your messy room? I could be missing for days!"

"I knew that," I said, with a sigh of relief. "Well, tell Mom I called." I was amazed how accurately Billy Boy had guessed the contents of my journal. Maybe he should perform crystal-ball readings at the Coffin Club.

"Oh, someone called for you," he remembered.

"Becky?"

"No. It was a guy."

I held my breath. "Alexander?"

"He didn't leave his name. When I said you weren't home, he hung up."

"Did you check the caller ID?"

I waited an eternity for his response.

"Out of area," he finally answered.

"If he calls again, ask who it is," I demanded. "And then call me immediately!"

Aunt Libby was munching on carrots dipped in hummus while sitting on the floor on a purple corduroy pillow. I was too distraught to eat.

"So tell me about your boyfriend," she asked, as if reading my thoughts.

"Well, he's a goth like me," I answered, beginning to tell her the part of Alexander's identity that wasn't secret. "And he's delicious!"

"What does he look like?"

"Luscious, long midnight hair. Deep, dreamy eyes. He's taller than me, about your height. Thin, not malnourished, but not beefy like he has to be in a gym twenty-four-seven. I just can't believe he left," I added, remembering the farewell note.

"He left you?"

"No, I mean he left for spring break." I scrambled, trying to cover my mistake. "To visit his family."

"I'm glad you found someone special you can identify with. It must be hard for you growing up in that town."

I appreciated that Libby understood what it was like to be different. Because she felt more comfortable in Hipsterville, maybe Alexander had found a place where he felt more comfortable, too.

"Aunt Libby, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Of course."

"Do you believe in vampires?"

She laughed. "I thought you were going to ask about sex."

But I was serious. "Do you?"

"I once dated a guy who kept a vial around his neck. He claimed it was blood, but it smelled like strawberry Kool-Aid."

"Did he creep you out?"

"Actually the ones who claimed they weren't vampires scared me more," she teased. "We should get some sleep. We've both had a long day," she said, blowing the votives out and putting the carrots away. "I'm so glad you're here," she said, giving me a squeeze.

"Me, too."

As soon as Aunt Libby went into her bedroom, I tiptoed through the apartment and turned the other lights back on, just to be safe. I climbed onto the futon, pulled the covers over me, and closed my eyes.

Suddenly I felt a shadow on me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I imagined Alexander standing over me with flowers, begging my forgiveness for leaving so abruptly. But then I realized it could be Jagger, about to plunge his fangs into my neck.

I opened my eyes slowly.

"Aunt Libby!" I shouted with relief.

"Still spooked?" she asked, standing over me. "You can leave the living room light on."

Libby turned all the other lights off and returned to her bedroom, unaware I was trying to protect her from a tattooed teen of darkness. I pulled the covers back over my head, but still felt as if someone were watching me. I tried to calm myself by thinking of Alexander. I recalled lying in the grass with him, in the backyard of the Mansion, staring at the stars, our fingers intertwined.

I heard a scratching sound coming from the kitchen. I was probably the only girl in the world who hears a scratching sound and hopes it's a mouse. I imagined myself back at the Mansion, the dark sky brightened by luminous clouds above us, the smell of Drakar cologne in the air, and Alexander kissing me. But when Alexander spoke into my ear, all I heard was that scratching sound.

I decided to confront it and walked toward the kitchen in my black socks. A white mouse running across my feet was the least of my issues.

I switched on the kitchen light. The sound seemed to be coming from outside.

I peeled back the curtain above the sink, expecting to see Jagger's ghost-white face staring back. But it was only a tree branch swaying against the window in the wind.

Just to be safe, I opened my Tupperware container and placed a clove of garlic on the windowsill above the futon.

7 The Historical Society

The next morning, I was jarred awake by the music of the Doors. The bright sun beaming in through the open windows made my head pound. I was exhausted from the bus ride to Hipsterville, searching for Alexander, and my nocturnal meeting with the inhabitants of the Coffin Club. As I looked outside, the mortal world seemed the same. Jeeps parallel parked. Hipstervillians pushed chic strollers. Birds hung on telephone wires.

But the morning sun shed new light on last night's events. Maybe my Coffin Club experience was just a dream and Jagger just a concoction of my nighttime imagination.

I rose from the futon with a gentle laugh, thinking about my overimaginative nocturnal dreams, when I spotted a charm on Aunt Libby's wooden footlocker, next to my bracelets.

Jagger's skeleton earring. It hadn't been a dream.

I held it in my hand. The bony charm stared up at me. If Jagger was a vampire, I wondered what frights it had observed, dangling from his ear. Was it witness to late-night bites on unsuspecting girls? Had the tiny pewter bones seen Alexander?

I reminded myself that I was doing to Jagger what Trevor had done to Alexander. Trevor had started rumors that the Sterlings were vampires, not because he knew their true identity, but because he wanted to make them a town scandal. Now I was making judgments and jumping to my own conclusions about Jagger without having any facts. I had to spend my energies searching for what I had come to Hipsterville for—a real vampire instead of a wannabe.