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.