“This is awesome! I’ve had more visitors through my window since I met you than I have my whole life,” she teased quietly.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I could hear you,” she explained, lest I forget how heightened her sense of hearing had become. She stepped back from the window, presumably so I could climb through.
“I’l stay out here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Come on in.”
“No, seriously, it’l be safer for you if I stay outside. Trust me.”
With that, Savannah approached the window again, her porcelain brow puckering in worry.
“Why would you say that? What’s wrong?”
“Savannah, I’ve got to tel you something and I know it’s going to sound crazy, but it’s very important that you keep an open mind and try to give me the benefit of the doubt.”
“Are you an alien? Because I’m not one of those people that think Superman was a freak. I’m down with al the—”
I chuckled, interrupting her before she real y got going.
“Savannah, I’m not an alien.”
“Are you sure because I—”
“I’m positive. But there is something that I have to tel you and it is about me. And Devon. And your mother.”
Savannah’s frown deepened as she leaned on the window sil .
“What about Devon and my mother?”
I had to wonder briefly if she was already suspicious that something was amiss. Something about the way she asked, the way she half-turned her face away, as if she wasn’t quite sure she wanted the truth. Of course, it could’ve been my imagination, too; it was a wel -known fact that it worked overtime on flights of fancy.
“The night we were attacked, did you think it was a little strange that Lars was so strong? And Trinity?”
“I don’t—”
“I know you’ve started to remember bits and pieces of that night, Savannah. And there are other things that don’t add up either. Like you being able to see Devon and al of a sudden your dead mother starts appearing to you.”
“But what does that have to do—”
“We’re vampires, Savannah. Al of us. Bo, too. Trinity was, but she’s gone now,” I said, my throat closing up over the last words.
“Vampires.” Savannah said it matter-of-factly, as if she didn’t believe a word I said, but her eyes shone with a twinge of fear as she looked blankly past me. “Is that the best you can do?”
“I’m serious, Savannah.”
“So am I. You came al the way over here to visit me and feed me this line of unimaginative crap?”
“It’s not a line of crap. It’s the truth.”
“And you expect me to believe you?”
“I was hoping you’d at least give it some thought.”
“Of course I won’t give it any thought. It’s ridiculous.”
“Wel , you’re making a huge mistake, because it’s not ridiculous. It’s true.”
At Savannah’s pause, I realized her disbelief was not ironclad.
“There’s nothing to support what you’re saying,” she argued.
“What about al this stuff with the Slayer? Haven’t you ever wondered what it’s real y been about? How he was never caught, just sort of disappeared? And al the people we know that are now missing?”
She didn’t need to answer. Her expression said she had puzzled over it, too.
“Alright then, say you’re tel ing the truth. You said we. If you are al the same, why can’t I see you? Why can’t I see any of the others?”
“Because I have recently,” I tripped over the gruesome term, “fed.”
“So you’re saying that when a vampire hasn’t had blood, I can see them for some reason?”
“That’s what I think, yes.”
“So you’re trying to tel me that you think Devon is a vampire.”
“Yes.”
“Then what about my mother? She drowned, remember?
She’s dead,” Savannah stated, the hurt stil evident in her voice.
“I happen to know that she’s not. Dead, that is.”
Savannah’s eyes widened and I could see her struggling to quel the hope that rushed to the surface.
“That’s insane. I mean, how…”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, but trust me, your mother’s alive.”
“Trust you? Have you- have you seen her or something?”
Here comes the hard part.
“Yes.”
Savannah leaned out through the window.
“You’ve seen my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Ridley, you have to take me to her.”
“I can’t do that. I don’t know where she is.”
“Then take me to where you saw her.”
“She won’t be going back there. Trust me.”
“How can you even be sure it was my mother that you saw? I mean, it’s not like you ever got to meet her.”
Savannah leaned back inside the window, her mind already working hard to come up with alternatives other than the fact that her mother purposely stayed away and let her loved ones think she was dead.
“I saw her picture in your room. It was Heather, Savannah. Trust me.”
She said nothing for several long, tense seconds and then I watched as her eyes fil ed with glistening tears. Savannah put hands to her mouth, like praying hands.
“Ridley, are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“My mother is alive?”
“She is.”
Savannah laughed, closing her eyes to drink in an emotion I couldn’t fathom. When they popped back open, however, they were fil ed with skeptical confusion.
“So she real y has been staying away from me? From us? Why didn’t she come sooner?”
“I told you, she’s a vampire.”
“Ha ha, Ridley. Be serious.”
“I am being serious.”
“Ridley, it’s not funny anymore.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“Maybe I can help,” Bo said as he came out from around the corner to approach the window as wel .
Savannah’s mouth dropped open.
“Bo?”
Bo smiled. “In the flesh.”
“Omigod, come here,” she said leaning out the window with her arms spread, ready for a hug.
Bo obliged her by stepping in to her arms for a friendly embrace.
After they parted, Savannah withdrew once more inside her window.