Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Vampire Summer ❯ Pieces of the Puzzle ( Chapter 8 )

 

 

We followed Aunt Beth down the hallway to another room off the kitchen. This was her study, where she did her bills and apparently her genealogy too. Over every inch of wall space she had tacked up sheets of papers with family trees, row upon row of names and dates.

 

Johnny walked around the room, hands clasped behind his back as he read the names. I tried to watch him to see how he would react, but Aunt Beth pulled me to the middle of the room so she could show me the family tree which contained the Crews.

 

“See? Here's poor Jonny and his sister Emily. You see how that line stops? That means they died. Such a shame. If it weren't for Danny, the Crew line would have died out completely.

 

I peered closely at the chart. “Daniel Crew survived?” I asked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Johnny stiffen. Finally, a reaction. I traced the line with my fingertip and read out loud. “Daniel Crew, 1846 to 1865. Married Mary Smythe, 1861. One son, Jackson Crew, born 1862. Jackson Crew had three kids.” I looked up as I paraphrased the last few sentences. Johnny was right beside me, staring at the chart. “So they didn't all die,” I murmured.

 

Aunt Beth replied. “Oh, no, Daniel married his childhood sweetheart, who was also a distant cousin of his, Mary Smythe, right before he ran off to join the Union army. He died at the end of the Civil War without ever seeing his son. Mary had gone back to live with her family shortly after Daniel had left, which turned out to be what saved her.”

 

“Saved her?” Johnny asked sharply.

 

“Yes, the Crew family were never well after the incident which killed Jonny and Emily. Even Daniel was very ill for a while. Maybe that's why he married so soon after the tragedy, and then went off to war. He wanted to make his mark on the world before he died. His parents both died within a year of the tragedy. They were sick for a very long time. Mary's own mother, a distant relative of mine, insisted she come home to have her baby, and she did. See here?” Aunt Beth showed us how the chart reflected what she had told us. “So the Crew name continued on. Look here, in 1921, Elizabeth Crew married Charles Smythe, so the two branches of the family combined yet again. And one of their children was mother to Betty, whom you know!” She had moved from one chart to another as she explained the family history. “Now, if you trace back this way, you will see how Betty and I are related.”

 

We moved on around the room, but Johnny stayed rooted to the spot in front of Jonny, Emily and Daniel's names. He had been wrong. He hadn't wiped them all out. He wasn't infallible.

 

Crystal had lost interest already. She wandered around the room and finally curled up in a stuffed chair and fell asleep. “I really should get her home,” I said. Johnny still hadn't moved, and I was afraid Aunt Beth would notice he wasn't acting normally.

 

“Of course, of course,” she said. We had ended up near the `beginning' of her series of charts, and I spotted the name `Elizabeth Smythe.'

 

“Is this the Elizabeth Smythe?” I asked. “The first one?”

 

“Yes. I'm descended from her brother Robert, and Betty is descended from their younger brother Daniel.” She zipped around the room, light on her feet for an old lady, tracing her ancestry from chart to chart until she ended up on the opposite side of the doorway, in the present. She'd had to step around Johnny to do it, and he shivered, as if a cold wind had passed him by, and glanced at Crystal sleeping in the corner.

 

“She needs to go home,” he said. He walked over and picked her up gently. “May I come back again to see the charts?” he asked Aunt Beth.

 

“You're welcome any time, young man,” she replied. She shook out a crocheted blanket from the back of the chair and wrapped it around Crystal where she slept in Johnny's arms.

 

She flicked on the porch light for us as we went out, but it didn't illuminate more than a few feet into the inky darkness of the long driveway. I stumbled behind Johnny, hoping he was heading for my car and not into the woods. He opened the back door and the dim interior light of the car guided my last few steps.

 

“Are you coming?” I asked, as he settled Crystal on the back seat. I couldn't figure him out. Except for showing a slight interest in Daniel Crew, he hadn't seemed surprised or upset by anything we had seen in this house tonight.

 

Johnny shook his head. “Take her home,” he said, as he closed the car door. He faded into the darkness before I could turn on the headlights.

 

“Please don't hurt Aunt Beth,” I whispered, even though he was already gone. I began driving. Was he angry? He had seemed entirely too calm. Surely he must realize by now that I had been researching him. I knew he was Jonathan Price.

 

On impulse, I swung into the short gravel drive in front of the cemetery. My headlights shone through the rusted iron gates and illuminated half the cemetery.

 

I caught Johnny by surprise, I think. He flung his head up from where he crouched, one hand resting on Emily Crew's headstone, and he turned to face me. In the harsh light, his eyes were flat black.

 

I might have blinked. I must have blinked, because in the next second he was gone. I gasped, and quickly locked the car doors. Oh, he was angry all right. I put the car in reverse and fled.

 

It was so dark when I got back to the cottage that I had to leave the headlights on until I got inside. I had briefly considered sleeping in the locked car until morning, but I gave up on that idea. If Johnny wanted to get to me, a locked door would be no obstacle. He had proved that time and again by entering the cottage despite the deadbolts that barred both the front and back door.

 

I put Crystal to bed in my room, then I poured myself a glass of wine and sat on the couch to figure out my next move.

 

“Water would be better,” a voice spoke into my ear. I shivered. It was Johnny. “Although I suppose it doesn't really matter,” he continued. “I should just kill you.”

 

After a while, continuous death threats lose their scare power. I closed my eyes and took a last, long sip of my wine. “Tell me,” I said, pleased at how steady my voice sounded, “How is it you didn't know Daniel Crew had survived your attack?” If I was going to die anyway, I might as well ask my questions.

 

Even so, I was surprised when Johnny answered me, and a spear of real fear jolted down my back. If he was answering my questions about his personal history, that meant he really was planning to kill me afterward. I hadn't truly believed it.

 

“I was wild with grief in the months following Emily's death. Everybody thought Jonathan Price was dead, killed by animals in the woods, and that suited me perfectly. My Emily was gone, there was no one else—“ He paused. “There was no one else I cared about. I was angry. Danny lived, while Emily was gone.”

 

“Were you the wild animal in the woods?” I asked, guessing that he might have been. I remembered the dead raccoon in my backyard the day after he had lost his temper with me.

 

“I can take what I need from any living creature,” Johnny said. “I don't do it often, but I knew I was beyond being careful. I couldn't trust myself around human beings right after she died. When I came to my senses, I went after the Crews.

 

“I struck Danny first, took what I needed night after night. He never saw me. Then I went after the mother, then the father. When Danny disappeared, I assumed he had died.” Johnny slowly shook his head. “So he joined the war,” he said, as if the Civil War was the only war. He smiled. “And he fathered a child.”

 

Johnny didn't look angry. “I thought you wanted to kill them all,” I said.

 

“Not particularly. At the time, maybe. I was angry then.”

 

“So you won't target the remaining Crews?” I persisted. “Or Aunt Beth either? She's an innocent old lady.”

 

Johnny quirked an eyebrow at me. “Not particularly,” he repeated. “No promises.”

 

“Were you really friends with Jonny Crew?” I asked. It was like reading a good book—I couldn't leave it alone until I found out the ending. “Why did you care so much about Emily?”

 

Johnny frowned, but he answered my first question. “I liked Jonny,” he admitted. “He was like a brother to me, more so than Danny.” He sighed. “Every time I get close to one of them, something happens.”

 

One of them? Did he mean the Crews or the Smythes, or humans in general? I put that question away to ask him later. I didn't want to interrupt his train of thought. My fear receded to the back burner for the moment.

 

“Emily wasn't afraid of me,” he whispered. “Like Crystal. She knew me and wasn't afraid. I thought Emily would finally be the one, and I wouldn't have—“

 

He caught himself and stopped speaking. I couldn't help imagining what he might have said. `wouldn't have to be alone anymore?' I would not feel sorry for him, I would not!

 

“I would have waited for her,” he finished. “But she died.”

 

He lifted his gaze to me, his eyes once again a warm brown, almost human. I looked down quickly into my empty wine glass. I think I preferred the cold, heartless Johnny.

 

“So you picked Crystal because she reminded you of Emily?” I asked, still not meeting his gaze. “I don't get it. Why didn't you choose someone older, someone you wouldn't have to wait for?”

 

“Like you?”

 

I hated the derision in Johnny's voice. I flushed, going hot and cold. It was bad enough that Sam thought I was interested in this—kid. Now, to hear it from Johnny's own lips. . . “No! Of course not!” I said. “You're way too young for me!”

 

A little grin pulled at the corner of Johnny's lips. “You know better,” he said.

 

“You look too young,” I amended, still red. Of course he wouldn't choose me. I already looked old enough to be, old enough to be his older sister anyway. Not his mother. I wasn't that old. I mentally shook myself. Wait a minute. Did I want Johnny to like me in that way? No, no I didn't. But why didn't he consider me as anything more than food? That bothered me.

 

Johnny actually chuckled. He moved off the couch in that slouchy teenager way and went over to the kitchen sink, still chuckling. My face flamed. He was laughing at me!

 

He handed me the glass of water and waited until I understood its significance before he sank down beside me again. His eyes were still brown. “It's nothing personal,” he said, and he let me see a brief flash of his teeth before darkness descended on me. In the moment before oblivion, it occurred to me that he had never answered my question: Why Emily? Why Crystal? Why not someone older? Why not me?

 

It was still dark when I awoke, tucked in next to Crystal. Johnny stood at the foot of the bed again. Did he do that every night, I wondered. “You didn't kill me,” I mumbled. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

 

“I changed my mind.” Johnny spoke softly, but I could still hear the amusement in his voice. “Crystal still—“

 

“needs me, I know,” I finished for him. I rolled over and faced the wall. “Thanks for not killing me.”

 

“I'm still angry, you know,” he said. “We'll talk tonight.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Go crawl back into your grave,” I said into my pillow. Shouldn't I be more afraid? I don't know why I wasn't. I heard a sharp laugh, but when I sneaked a peek, he was gone.

 

When the sun was up, I realized I felt better than I usually did after one of Johnny's `visits.' He must not have taken as much blood this time. Did that signify something in our relationship? What was our relationship? If Johnny had his way, I'd eventually be his mother-in-law. But then he would keep his promise and kill me. Obviously he didn't feel threatened because I had found out some facts about his previous lives. I needed to find out more. He was a blood-sucking monster who murdered people indiscriminately. I'd be doing the world a favor if I could destroy him once and for all, not to mention I would be saving Crystal from a fate worse than death.

 

I reached for the glass of water and two pills on my nightstand. For a blood-sucking monster, he could be very considerate.