2
I awoke early the next day. The sun was just rising. I didn’t see Caleb, so I looked for him in every room, but I couldn’t find him. I thought that maybe I had dreamt him, but I didn’t dream him, the door opened and Caleb walked in.
“You’re up,” Caleb said as he pulled two cups and a bottle from his bag.
Caleb poured what appeared to be red juice into the cups.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“Fresh blood,” he said as he handed me a one of the cups.
I smelt the blood in the cup…it smelt so good. I took a sip of the blood; I then proceeded to gulp the cup of blood down in one shot. Caleb watched in surprise as I gulped the blood.
“We need to get going,” he said as he packed his bag.
I was nervous about leaving the house in daylight. I know that Caleb gave me the golden four-leaf clover that would protect me from the sun light, but I was still nervous. I stepped out of the house and onto the porch slowly. The porch roof was protecting me as I proceeded to the steps; I walked down the steps of the house and into the sunlight. The warmth of the sun felt good as it shined upon my body. I stood there with my eyes closed and the sun shining upon my face.
Caleb interrupted me as I had this moment with the sun. “Come on let’s go, get in,” he said.
I opened my eyes. Caleb was sitting inside of the taxi that he had called. Since we couldn’t fly during the day, we had to travel like humans. Caleb told the driver where we needed to go. We traveled down Grand Avenue, turned right onto Birch Street, made a left onto Washington Street and drove straight without turning. We drove for what seemed like hours. Passing stores, houses and railway tracks. We had finally arrived at our destination. We got out of the taxi, Caleb paid the driver and then we proceeded towards the forest.
“So, this friend of yours is a vampire?” I asked him as we walked rather quickly.
“No,” he said as we moved swiftly.
We began moving faster as if we were running. I looked down at my feet and we actually were running, but everything around us was in slow motion. We ran deep into the forest and then we came to an abrupt stop. We stood in front of a small wooden cottage.
The cottage looked old. It had two small windows, a small wooden fence with a wooden gate that wrapped around the front yard. Flowers of many colors planted in buckets and pots surrounded the front yard. The walkway leading from the gate to the house was made of pebbles. Caleb opened the front gate. We walked along the pebbled walkway that led to the front door of the cottage. When we walked up to the door, I noticed a pretty cat wind chime hanging on the right side. Caleb knocked on the door. I heard the sound of footsteps coming from inside the cottage. I was scared, I didn’t know what to expect. Caleb didn’t tell me anything about his friend. My heart raced as the door opened.
The door opened and a short, older woman appeared in front of us. The woman looked to be about ninety years old. She was thin and she had thin, white hair. Her eyes were a dark colored brown; and she had wrinkled skin. Her feet shuffled as she walked.
“Caleb, come on in,” the old woman said.
Caleb gave her a hug and introduced me to her.
“This is Ariana,” said Caleb. Ariana this is Delta.”
I shook Delta’s hand. She shut the door behind us. In the cottage, there were stuffed cats, skulls, bones and jars on shelves that had animal parts in them. It was a one-room cottage; she had a sheet that was hanging from a rope in the corner of the room. I thought that maybe that was where she slept. She had pentagrams and writings on the wall. I knew what she was right away.
“Delta here is a witch, a good witch,” Caleb said as he sat down in the chair at the small round table.
I sat down in the chair beside Caleb. Delta sat in the chair on the other side of the table facing us. It looked as if we were there to get our fortune told.
“I know why the two of you are here,” she said as she laid down a white cloth on the table. “You need to find a vampire king or queen.”
“Yes, I need to get a cure. I want to be human again,” I said anxiously. “Can you help us?”
“Yes I can help you find a king or queen,” she said. “What will you be paying me?”
Caleb reached into his bag and pulled out a plastic zip lock bag that had a dead bat in it. He handed it to Delta and said, "I hope you can make use of this.”
Delta took the plastic zip lock bag; she put it on the counter and then sat down at the table. She spilled contents from a jar onto the table. The contents were small bones.
“Ask the bones a question,” she said as she mixed them around.”
“Where can I find a vampire king or queen?” I asked.
Delta stared at the bones; she picked up two bones and said, “There are two vampires that live close to the city.”
“One vampire lives in Ballston Spa and the other lives in Saratoga Springs,” Delta said.
“How can I cure my vampirism?” I asked the bones.
She picked up two bones. “The bones do not know. Only a vampire king or queen knows,” she said.
I was upset because she couldn’t tell me the cure. I didn’t want to search for a vampire king or queen, but I had no choice.
After the reading of the bones, I stepped outside to look for something to feed on while Caleb stayed in the cottage speaking with Delta.
The quietness of the forest was peaceful. I looked up at the tall trees surrounding me. The sunlight was glaring through the trees. It was so captivating. I twirled around in slow motion circles. I was mesmerized by the beauty of the forest.
As I stood there in the forest captivated by the tranquility, my hunger began to set in. I spotted a squirrel climbing a tree, so I chased it up the tree. I didn’t know that I could climb trees the way I did. It was as if I had become the squirrel, I was climbing up the tree the way it had climbed up the tree. The squirrel stopped on a tree branch he began to eat something. I moved slowly towards the squirrel, leaping at it, I caught the squirrel. The squirrel was alive in my hands. A part of me wanted to let it go, but the hunger was stronger. I sunk my teeth into the squirrel and began to drink its blood. Once I was done drinking the blood from the squirrel, I jumped out of the tree, landing on my feet; I walked back to the cottage. Caleb was just leaving the cottage when I returned.
“Tomorrow we will go to Ballston Spa,” he said as we walked back to where the cab driver dropped us off.
“Is the vampire in Ballston Spa a king or queen?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. Delta gave us two locations, so any one of them could be a king or queen,” he said as we started running.
“What exactly do vampire kings and queens do?” I asked him.
“Well, they can enter dreams. They have telekinesis and they can control people,” he said unsurely.
“How did they become king or queen?” I asked him.
“Only a vampire king or queen can kill another vampire. The vampire that we need to meet has killed at least one vampire,” he said.
As we waited for the taxi to arrive, Caleb went on to tell me that a vampire king or queen isn’t chosen, but that it’s part of their destiny. He told me that a vampire doesn’t know he is a king or queen until they kill a fellow vampire. It’s part of a vampire’s power, only vampire kings or queens can kill other vampires.
Later that night at the abandon house, Caleb and I talked about our past. Caleb told me before he became a vampire, he thought about killing himself. He told me he took drugs and drank alcohol.
“I was practically dead inside. My family never cared about me.” he said with somber.
Caleb told me that being a vampire is the best thing that had ever happened to him. He said that the vampire asked him if he wanted it.
“I never got the chance to choose if I wanted to become a vampire,” I said as I stared at the floor.
“Do you think one of these vampires that we will be meeting turned me?” I asked him
“It’s possible that one of them did,” he said as he poured blood into a cup.
“I don’t understand why though,” I said as he handed me a cup of blood.
I swished the blood around in the cup as if it were wine, smelt it and then drank it. It was a long day and we had another long one the next day. Caleb and I went to bed. He slept on the sofa and I slept on the beat up mattress.
“I hope that I find out some answers tomorrow,” I whispered to myself.