Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,73
how many years or decades or millennia they might stay until the firebird’s song would wake them, remind them that they must leave. Bea had stopped counting now. No more clocks. No more calendars. Mama forbade them, and it was just as well. The hourglasses were all they had, all they really needed.
She wished they’d head back to Paris. It’d been at least a hundred years or so. The window boxes would be blooming with pink geraniums this time of year, and it wouldn’t be so hot. Maybe she could see Annabelle—the girl she used to bite and kiss when she was bored—see if she enjoyed eternal life, see if she might be Bea’s great eternal love. They’d left too soon for Bea to determine.
“Stop should be coming up,” Mama said. “End of the line.”
“Doesn’t look like anything,” her littlest sister, Baby Bird, said, her long twists hanging outside the streetcar window.
Mama snapped her fingers. “Be still, baby.”
Each time they went to a new town or a new city, Bea’s questions changed, a deck of cards reshuffled, the newest one plucked becoming her current obsession. This time she couldn’t stop thinking about love. This city was where her parents met. Where her mama bit her father long, long ago and they became eternal partners.
This was the place Mama fell in love.
She was determined to have that too. She would have a great love story here. Her wish drummed through her, determined to settle in her bones.
The streetcar stopped. The driver stood robotically and exited.
“The warden will come any minute now.” Mama turned to face Bea and all her sisters. Bea’s heart squeezed with anticipation. “This Ward is full of bad water and bad news. It’s a place that breaks your heart.” Her dark eyes landed on Bea, the heat of her warning caught in her searing brown gaze. The one lovesick Turner put on notice. “We’ll bide our time, then move on.”
This was a city Mama feared.
But Bea was determined to discover why.
A white man dressed in all black stepped into the streetcar.
“Who is that?” Bea’s second-oldest sister, Sora, asked.
“A warden,” Mama whispered. “Now hush. Not a word from any of you. Not until we pass on through.” She stood, greeted him, and smoothed the front of her dress.
“Papers or key?” he asked.
“Key,” Mama replied, handing him a curious bone-white skeleton key that Bea had never seen before. More questions bloomed inside her, but she put a hand over her mouth to keep them from tumbling out.
The warden inspected it. “The Turners. The Eternal Ward.”
She nodded.
“Welcome home.” He smiled and revealed the sharp points of his teeth.
He sat in the driver’s seat and turned a series of cranks and gears. The streetcar oscillated left and right, breaking free of its cables.
Mama took a deep breath.
“It’s going to be fine, Evangeline,” Bea heard her father whisper.
The streetcar moved forward. Clouds swept in, darkening the sky. The day went to night. Water rose beneath them, slapping and sloshing against the sides of the streetcar. Bea gripped the wooden bench and her eyes grew wide with wonder. Lights illuminated the way ahead like a scattering of lightning bugs putting on a welcome show or performing a warning dance. Bea couldn’t decide which. A jolt shot up her spine.
An iron gate rose from the water and flickered. Different versions of it appeared one after the other, turning from licorice black to velveteen violet to emerald green to a rich coppery gold, finally settling on a bloody crimson. Mama took a deep breath as the red gates opened and the streetcar sailed forward.
“There are so many gates,” Annie Ruth whispered. “You think we’ll get to go to the others?”
“Mama never told us about any of this,” replied Sora.
“I want to go to all of them,” Baby Bird exclaimed.
“Hush up, all of you,” Mama ordered.
The questions inside Bea’s head swirled as they entered the Eternal version of New Orleans. What were the other Wards like? Would she get to visit them? Why would her mama ever want to leave a place so deliciously wonderful? Why hadn’t she told them every detail of this place?
Pastel-colored houses sat on iron pillars, resembling pots of blush on stacked tiers. Long piers stretched into the waters, inviting decadent boats. Black columns held gas lamps, and glittering cables crisscrossed overhead, pulling streetcar-boats that dropped off well-dressed passengers at long stilted promenades. A stew of salt and fish and spice smothered the air, its undercurrent the tang of fat and fresh blood.