The following evening, when I headed out the front door to meet Alexander at the Mansion, I found a red envelope lying on the porch. In black letters it read: RAVEN.
Inside, a red note with black typed letters read:
MEET ME AT OAKLEY PARK, Love, Alexander.
How sweet, I thought. A spontaneous romantic interlude in the park. Alexander Sterling was king of planning the most mysterious, meaningful, marvelous dates--a picnic at the Dullsville cemetery; a goth rock dance at Dullsville's Country Club golf course; picking out my kitty, Nightmare, at an abandoned barn.
I imagined arriving at the park, votives surrounding the Oakley Park fountain, bubbles floating from the steaming water, Alexander and I wading in our bare feet, our lips tenderly touching.
Then I wondered, was this note truly from my vampire mate? Unfortunately, since I'd encountered Jagger at the Coffin Club, I had grown suspicious. After all, Jagger had met me in an alley in Hipsterville, appeared in my backyard, and hid in the Mansion's gazebo. Then again, if it was Jagger, he could just show up at my house.
I hopped on my bike in my lacy black knee-length dress and pedaled my heart out to Oakley Park. I raced over the bumpy grass toward the swings. When I reached the fountain, my dream guy wasn't there. I walked my bike over to the picnic benches.
"Alexander?" I called.
All I saw were the flashing lights of lightning bugs. Then I heard the music of the Wicked Wiccas being piped in from the outdoor amphitheater.
I walked my bike over to the domed stage where my parents dragged Billy Boy and me to see Dullsville's symphony orchestra play on Sunday nights during the summer. I had preferred sitting alone on the wet grass, listening to the screeching violins in a rainstorm while my parents sought shelter underneath a tree, to watching them canoodle and dance to "The Stars and Stripes Forever."
I coasted down the aisle of the theater. A lit candelabra and a picnic basket were sitting on a black lace blanket, spread out center stage.
I leaned my bike against a cement bench. I raced around the orchestra pit and climbed onstage.
"Alexander?"
I heard nothing.
I searched the wings. I found only chairs and music stands.
I went to center stage and sat on the blanket. I opened the picnic basket. Maybe there was another note telling me to go to a different romantic location. But the basket was empty.
Something felt strange. The crickets turned silent. I stood up and looked around. Still no Alexander.
Then, right in front of me, stood Luna, in a tight black dress with mesh sleeves and pink fingerless gloves, a pastel pink amulet hanging from her neck.
I gasped and stepped back.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her. "I'm supposed to meet Alexander." "He got a note, too," she said with a wicked grin. "'Meet me at the cemetery. Raven.'"
I glanced around, peering into the wings of the stage, squinting out at the empty seats. Jagger could have been anywhere.
"I'm here alone," she assured me as if she were reading my thoughts.
"I've got to go--," I said.
Luna stepped in front of me, her chunky black boot almost hitting my own. "I think Alexander can wait. After all, he's made me wait for him since I was born."
"I didn't have anything to do with that," I said, referring to the covenant ceremony in Romania where Alexander was supposed to turn her into a vampire. "And Alexander didn't either. He never made that promise."
"Don't defend him," she argued. "Besides, that's not why I'm here."
"Then why are you?"
"I want you to stop seeing Trevor," she said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't play dumb with me. I know you visit him at night. And I overheard you at the diner. You told him to beware of me, like I'm some freak!"
"He has the right to know who you really are."
"I was a freak before I turned. Now I am normal."
"But you don't even know the real Trevor. Believe me, he's the freak."
"I don't remember asking you for your opinion." "Jagger is not looking out for you. He's not concerned with finding you a soul mate. He's still looking to get back at Alexander."
"Don't talk about my brother like that. You don't know anything about him--or me. You don't even know me."
"I do know Trevor."
Luna's eyes widened. She stuck her hands in their pink fingerless gloves on her almost nonexistent hips.
"Trevor's right. You are jealous!" she accused. "He thinks you are in love with him. And I do, too."
"Then you are as loony as he is! You deserve each other."
"You won Alexander. I have a right to find my own fun."
"This isn't a contest. These are people, not prizes."
Her blue eyes turned red. She stepped so close to me, I could smell her Cotton Candy lip gloss.
"I want you to back off!" she said in my face.
"I want you to back off!" I said in her face.
If she was going to push, I was going to push back harder.
"I'm not afraid of you," Luna said.
"I'm not afraid of anyone," I replied.
I thought at any minute we were going to have a cat fight--or in our case, a bat fight.
"If you tell Trevor about me," she threatened, "then I'm going to tell him about you!"
"What about me?" "That you are a vampire. That we are vampires."
She stepped back and folded her arms, as if triumphant. I didn't know what to say.
"Then tell him," I said finally. "He'll never believe you."
Luna stepped back and gazed at the moon.
"You are probably right," she relented. "I thought I saw you reflected in the Hall of Mirrors. Jagger convinced me it was part of the illusion. I guess I didn't want to accept that Alexander had turned you. It's odd really, not being like everyone else, isn't it?"
I'd never met a girl, or anyone besides Alexander, who acknowledged feeling the same way I did, vampire or not.
"Yes," I agreed.
Luna's dark mood changed. Her stiff shoulders relaxed. Her angry blue eyes softened, looking almost lost, and lonely.
"It's funny," she continued, "how much we have in common. We're not all that different, you and me. I've always been surrounded by real vampires. Ones that were born to the Underworld. I'm the only one I know who was turned. Until I met you."
I could see in Luna's soulful eyes that she was hungering for a connection. She reminded me of someone who was alone, living on the outside of life instead of thriving on the inside. She reminded me of myself.
"It's not fun being an outcast," I said.
Luna smiled a pale pink smile, like a warm hug was melting her darkened spirit.
She grabbed my hand as she sat down by the basket. "Sit for a moment."
"I really should go--," I said, resisting her. "Just for a minute," she pleaded.
I reluctantly sat down on the blanket.
"Tell me, how did you feel when you turned?" She scooted closer and eagerly leaned in to me, like we were gossiping at a slumber party.
"How did I feel?" I asked, confused.
"When Alexander bit you."
I paused. If I answered wrong, I could blow my whole vampire cover. I was alone, onstage with a vampiress, without my garlic, a stake, or sunlight to hide behind, and Alexander was waiting for me miles away at the Dullsville cemetery.
"Please...tell me, how did it make you feel?" she repeated.
"Like magic," I whispered.
"Yes," she nodded eagerly.
"Like a life force I'd never known coursed through my veins and pulsed straight to my heart."
"Go on."
"I felt my heart stop, as if it had exploded with love, then beat again like it never had before," I said, getting caught up in my own imagination, almost believing it myself.
"Me too...But you were in love."
"Yes. I've loved Alexander since the first moment I saw him," I said truthfully.
"He is gorgeous." Then she whispered, as if she were sharing a secret, "I had a fling."
"Who was he?" "An acquaintance of Jagger's. I barely knew him. But he had a chiseled chin and a ripped chest. Deep blue eyes and spiky red hair like fire. He took me to a warehouse. We made out for a while, his lips were like velvet. And before I knew it, he had bitten me."
"Wow," I said, hanging on her every word.
"We were on unsacred ground, so we were not bonded for eternity. I never saw him again."
"That's so sad," I lamented, honestly feeling sorry for her.
"You were lucky; you found Alexander. So you see how important Trevor is to me. When Jagger introduced us and I stared into his heavenly green eyes, I immediately felt a connection. Not only is he handsome and athletic, but as I got to know him, I sensed that he had everything he could ever want but true love. This is what drew me to him. I'm looking for someone to quench my thirst--for all eternity." She fingered the pink amulet. "Jagger has different needs than I do. He hungers for the hunt, lusts for new prey. Finds ecstasy in the transformation of an innocent mortal into a bloodthirsty vampire. But for me, these bottles are growing quite tiresome. The hunt isn't sustaining me. It's flowing blood that I really crave. The sweet taste of red succulent liquid mixing with the salt of my beloved as it drips and dances on his flesh. To know that someone will ache for me as much as I hunger for him and eternally satiate each other. I want someone to satisfy my hunger forever."
"But Trevor's not good enough. You deserve better," I said earnestly.
She looked at me skeptically.
"You need someone who is intelligent. Sensitive. Mature. Courageous."
"He is those things. You don't know him the way I know him."
I knew I should go, that Alexander must be waiting at the cemetery wondering why I hadn't shown. At the same time, there was so much I wanted to know about Luna, about being turned, about becoming a modern-day vampiress. There was so much I wanted to know for myself. And I didn't know when I'd get another chance.
"Do you like being a vampire?" I asked, now the one riveted.
"I've waited for it all my life. Everyone in my immediate family is a vampire. When my younger brother, Valentine, was born, I dreamed that he would be mortal, like me. But when he wasn't, I cursed the day he was born. The last mortal in my family tree was my great-great grandmother, and I never even knew her. I spent my whole life living in the daylight while the rest of my family slept. I was never part of their world."
"How did you cope all alone?" I wondered.
"I tried to mask it by being a bubbly straight-A student, becoming popular with the kids at school. It put a strain on Jagger's and my relationship. I was jealous of Jagger and he was of me."
"Really? I can't imagine Jagger being jealous of anyone."
"I could see it in his face every time he awoke from his coffin. We had only a few hours together before I had to get to sleep. We'd sit in my bright pink room and I'd share every detail of my events that day at school."
"Who would want to go to school?" I asked.
"Jagger was especially interested in sports. In Europe, soccer is huge. He dreamed of being what he couldn't be--a soccer star. He would show up at night games, hungry to be a player instead of a spectator. But to the students he was odd--a kid who never went to school, was pale and skinny, and dressed like a freak. He was never included. Now he watches Trevor play soccer, wishing he had that life. I think that's why he wants Trevor for me."
For a moment Jagger and Luna weren't vampires but just teens like me who were tired of being outsiders. "How do you like being a vampire?" she asked.
"Uh...I love it," I fibbed.
"But now you're different from your entire family."
"If you'd ever seen my family, you'd know I always was," I said with a laugh.
Luna laughed, too. It was like we'd known each other for years instead of only a few minutes.
"My little brother is a total nerdo," I said, desperate to share my life with her.
"How old is he?"
"Eleven."
"So is Valentine! It's so refreshing to meet someone like you. You understand what it means to live in both worlds but beg for the darker one."
Luna pulled out a Pinky Paranoid clutch purse from behind the basket. "Want some candy?" she asked, handing me a Dynamite Mint.
I nodded and unwrapped the candy as she took out a hair brush. "Tell me about Alexander," she said, inching next to me. She began to brush my hair, as if we'd been soul sisters for years. I felt uncomfortable, as this girly behavior seemed straight out of a Gidget movie. Teens around Dullsville were never seen brushing one another's hair. Luna, however, was much more fairylike than any girl I'd ever met. I felt almost hypnotized and relaxed as she smoothed out my hair, opposite of the way I felt when I was a child and my mom ran a fine-toothed comb through my tangles.
"Alexander's so dreamy. His eyes are like milk chocolates. His attic room is filled with portraits he's painted of me and his family," I rattled on like a drippy girl, then changed my tone. "But it's hard sometimes," I confessed. "I want to share our reflections. I want to have a photo of us on my night stand."
"Yes, it does have its drawbacks. But it's a small price to pay for an eternity together."
Luna pulled my hair off my shoulder and began to braid it.
"Where is the wound from Alexander's bite?" she asked curiously...I quickly covered my neck with my hand.
She released my hair and raised her white, luxurious locks, exposing two round purple marks on her skinny pale neck.
"They say it takes a year to go away," she said. "I hope it stays there forever."
"Uh...it's not on my neck," I teased.
"You are wicked!" she said with a smile, but then turned serious. "I could have sworn Jagger said he saw Alexander bite you on your neck."
"I really have to go," I said, getting up. "Alexander will be worried."
I climbed offstage.
"Wanna hang out again tomorrow?" she asked, following me. "We can meet at sunset."
"I have plans with Alexander," I said, walking up the aisle.
"Then the next night?"
"I'll see," I said, grabbing my bike.
"Why do you need to ride here when you could fly?"
"I have to keep up appearances." "Good thinking," she said with a wink. "I'll see you later."
I hopped on my bike. "Later!"
I pedaled off. When I turned back to wave, the amphitheater was empty.