Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal ❯ Chapter 6

Crystal, Chapter 6:

 

 

There was a drawback to my continued friendship with Paul. Johnny didn't come around nearly as often to bring me to school or pick me up after my choir practices. Part of that, no doubt, was because the seasons were changing and the days were getting longer. But most of it was Paul.

 

“Can I drive?” I asked Paul when he came to pick me up one afternoon when Mom wasn't available. He shook his head. Mom had already told him I wasn't allowed to drive unless it was with her or Kenny. She knew Johnny let me drive, but of course she would never tell him he couldn't do something. I gritted my teeth. It still bothered me that Johnny thought I was attracted to Paul because we shared an affinity through our bloodlines. But I had a job to do.

 

I yawned. We had a big concert coming up and exams were right around the corner. Choir practice was every day this week after school. It made for some very long days.

 

Paul drove me home and came in with me. I couldn't avoid having him interact with my little brothers. Everyone, including Johnny, thought the danger was past. Our meeting with Grandpa Brown at Uncle Robert's house had cleared the air. The Brown brothers had been set straight about Kevin and Ian, and now that they were assured the vampire threat was no longer an issue, there was no reason for them to be concerned about my brothers' bloodline.

 

I still worried. My visions were rarely wrong, and I still had that sketch I'd drawn the morning after the Scottish brothers had first arrived in Lockwood. I had not shown the sketch to anyone, not even Johnny. If it was just a foreshadowing of what might come to pass, I didn't want to put the idea in Johnny's head. He would be all too happy to confront the Scottish boys.

 

In the meantime, I was supposed to play nice with Paul, and find out about the family in Scotland. Paul was attracted to me, and I would have been more flattered if Johnny hadn't made it clear that it was because of my blood. Paul was looking for a wife to carry on the line of hunters, although he never exactly said those words to me. It explained a lot, however. Paul was several years older than me. Why else would he be interested in me?

 

I quickly changed my clothes, half hoping that Johnny would be upstairs in my room waiting for me. He wasn't. Part of me was glad that he was resting—the other part of me missed him terribly.

 

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I asked Paul as I came back downstairs. He was playing on the floor with my little brothers, who giggled and climbed all over him just like they usually did with Johnny. I frowned at the image.

 

“I want to come!” Kevin jumped up and down, and Ian copied him.

 

“Me, too! Me, too!”

 

“Mom!” I wasn't sure if I was calling her to get her to rescue me, or asking permission to take my brothers on our walk. We were supposed to be keeping the boys away from the Scottish cousins.

 

“Take the stroller,” my mother said, coming to the doorway with a dish towel in her hand. “Ian's not going to want to walk after the first few minutes.”

 

I guess that answered that. The boys were coming with us.

 

“I can carry him if he gets tired,” Paul told my mother, and she nodded, walking back towards the kitchen.

 

We walked past the cemetery, down the main road towards the lake, with Ian riding on Paul's shoulders. As we passed the cemetery, I glanced over, but it was empty and full of shadows. When we finally turned off the paved road onto the dirt road which led around the lake, Paul put Ian down and let the boys run ahead.

 

I felt better in the cool shadows cast by the trees alongside the dirt road. This place had always relaxed me. “Paul, are there others like us in your town in Scotland? Family, I mean?”

 

He smiled down at me. “Not like here, no,” he replied. “My grandfather's line was one of the last. My mother would have married an outsider if she hadn't met my father. Her children would have had just a trace of our blood.”

 

“But what about other towns or villages? Weren't there other towns who also had people with family blood?” I remembered what Johnny had told me about his brothers and sisters who had once been scattered throughout the north of Scotland, each one attached to a lake and a village where there were some of the blood who remembered the old ways. Surely they hadn't all been killed.

 

“What do you know of our family's history?” Paul asked, and I couldn't help wonder if he'd caught a sense of my thoughts. “You know about the purge in the 17th century, don't you? Uncle George led us to believe that you and your mother were told the story of how your branch of the family came to be here in the States.”

 

I nodded. Grandpa Brown had told my mother before she married Kenny, believing that she should know what she was getting into.

 

“The only ones who survived were the ones who had purged the family blood—hunters, you call them.”

 

I gasped. I knew Paul and his brother Michael were hunters. Hearing him say it out loud made it real. They were a threat, to Johnny, to my brothers, to me! “But why?” I asked.

 

Up ahead, Ian fell down. Kevin stopped, and helped him up. He had scraped his knees.

 

“Mommy!” he wailed, but he took me as a fair substitute, holding up his chubby arms and looking miserable. I picked him up and brushed off the dirt on his little knees. There were two round red spots with hardly any blood, but it was enough to set my throat to pounding. I set him back down.

 

“You're fine,” I told him. “You're a big boy.”

 

Paul scooped Ian up and put him on his shoulders, where Ian promptly forgot all about his scraped knees. He laughed and bounced up and down on Paul's shoulders, and we all started forward again.

 

I shook my head to clear it. Ian was my brother. I didn't want his blood! What was wrong with me?

 

“There may have been others who carry our blood who managed to escape the purge,” Paul continued. “You have to remember, most of them didn't know anything about vampires. That was the duty of a select few—the hunters. When it was over, the hunters who were left had cleared their family of the taint of vampirism, and from that time on, they kept careful track of the remaining bloodlines, so that no others would be born with potent blood. They didn't know about you lot in the States.”

 

“So there are no strong bloodlines left anywhere in Scotland?” This was what Johnny had wanted me to find out, that, and if any of his brothers or sisters had possibly survived.

 

“My brother. Me. Thanks to this branch of the family in the States. Possibly a few others.”

 

“Did your mother marry Uncle Robert because she loved him or because she wanted to have children with a stronger bloodline?” I asked. “Why would she want children with a stronger bloodline? Isn't that what you've been telling me the hunters have been trying to prevent?”

 

“The hunters needed to remain strong. To protect. To hunt.”

 

“To hunt who?” I asked, frustrated. “To protect who? You said there's nobody left.”

 

We reached the big beach. Paul set Ian down and he ran to the edge of the water with Kevin.

 

“Don't get your feet wet!” I cautioned. Ian had forgotten all about his skinned knees.

 

Paul sat down on the sandy beach. I sank down next to him. He sighed. “It's complicated,” he said. “We have to remain strong. We don't know what the future will bring.”

 

I glanced sideways at him. “Vampires? You're worried about vampires?”

 

Paul shook his head. “How did we get on this subject?” he asked. “I'm not worried about vampires.” He grinned suddenly. “Let's go swimming!”

 

“What?” I had a hard time following the change in the conversation. “No! The water's too cold, for one, and my mother will kill me if I let these kids get their clothes wet! No!”

 

Paul didn't listen. He stripped off his shirt and shoes, leaving his pants on, and splashed into the water. “Come on in, the water's fine!” he yelled.

 

“You're crazy!”

 

He laughed, and dove under the water. The truth was, I envied him. If we hadn't had my little brothers with us, I just might have gone swimming with him. I started walking up the hill. Paul could just catch up with us when he was finished. I knew he had done it to avoid talking to me about vampires. That meant I was on the right track. I didn't know what the right track was, but I was on it.

 

“Donnie!” Ian shouted, and started running up ahead of me towards the dirt road. I could just make out a shadowy figure standing at the top of the hill leading down to the beach. A quick glance behind me showed Paul just getting out of the water and shaking himself off. I saw him bend down to retrieve his shirt and shoes.

 

My heart surged to see Johnny. The idiot. Paul was going to see him too! Ian and Kevin both reached the top at the same time and flung themselves at Johnny's knees. He picked them both up and murmured something into their ears before putting them down again. Below us, Paul struggled to put his shoes on his sandy feet, glancing up every few seconds to look at us. It wouldn't be long before he caught up to us.

 

“What are you doing here?” I whispered fiercely, wanting nothing more than to fling myself at Johnny like the boys had done.

 

Johnny grinned, and pulled me into a hug. He kissed the top of my head and whispered into my ear. “I'll come to you later. Don't let him kiss you. You're mine.”

 

He whispered the last part in our secret language, the ancient language which he had only started to remember five years ago, and which I just knew, the way I sometimes knew things. “You're mine,” I whispered back in the same language. “Now, go!”

 

Johnny went, and Paul came up the hill. “Who was that?” he asked, an edge to his voice. He had seen our embrace.

 

“Donnie!” Ian shouted happily.

 

“Donnie? Don?” Paul raised his eyebrows. “That was your boyfriend?”

 

I was proud of Kevin. He knew Johnny's name, but he never said a word. That's probably what they were whispering about before I got to the top of the hill.

 

“Yes,” I said, rather defiantly. “That's Don. You didn't believe me.”

 

“Why did he leave?” Paul asked. “I would have liked to meet him.”

 

“He didn't want to meet you,” I said. “He's jealous.”

 

Paul smiled. “And yet he left you here. With me.” He picked up Ian again and set him on his shoulders, and took my hand. I grabbed Kevin's hand with my free hand so we were all linked walking down the dirt road. We passed by the cut-off to the cottage, and I could swear I saw Johnny standing just at the bend in the road. I slipped my fingers free of Paul's and walked on ahead.

 

Later, when Paul had gone home and the boys had gone to bed, I sat in my bedroom with Johnny and told him about our conversation.

 

“He should be worried about vampires,” Johnny grumbled, nuzzling my neck. We had exchanged blood, and it lessened my craving but didn't altogether remove it. I wished Johnny would take me out hunting again.

 

“Johnny, why was I attracted to Ian's blood when he cut his knee?” I asked. That still bothered me. “I didn't feel out of control or anything like that, but I wanted to taste it,” I explained. “But he's family. I shouldn't feel like that, should I?”

 

“The blood is the blood,” Johnny said. “Family blood is forbidden because we like it best, but if it's offered freely, it is a gift. You didn't touch his blood. You did nothing wrong.” He stared searchingly into my face. “Do you feel the craving for blood more often now?”

 

I nodded. “Sometimes. I wish I could be with you every day. It's easier when you're here.”

 

“Soon,” Johnny promised, his eyes unreadable. He slashed his wrist again, even though we had already done our blood exchange, and offered it to me. I took it.