Vampire High Sophomore Year - By Douglas Rees Page 0,23

there for everything people wanted to do. Whatever Mercy Warrener would have wanted. Whatever Ileana might like. I smiled.

“You know, Turk was talking about those old factories across the river,” I said. “Some towns have turned those kinds of places into art galleries.”

“Yes. I am aware of that,” Ileana said.

“I was thinking that a big building like that might be good for all sorts of things. You know, plays and stuff. Poetry readings, maybe.”

Ileana didn’t say anything for a minute. Her beautiful face was like the sky on a day when the clouds are flying by, and the sun comes and goes behind them, and the light and shadows are changing every second.

Finally, she said, “That would be very, very difficult here.”

“Sure would be great, though,” I said. “It could be a place for the jenti to sort of—you know—show what they can do.”

“Not just jenti, Cuz,” Turk said. “I have to get my stuff up, too.”

“Kind of like Illyria for real,” I said.

I figured this would be my best point. Last year, Ileana and Justin and I had spent time in Justin’s basement building a private world we shared. We called it Illyria. We all had our own kingdoms. Ileana’s had been all about the arts. Her two favorite characters were a couple of guys named Vasco and Anaxander, who were poets. If Ileana thought there was a chance to have something like that in the real world, she’d probably be on my side.

But Ileana shook her head.

“The jenti would never accept such a thing. Especially not in that place,” she said.

“Why not?” Turk said. “It’s perfect.”

“And there’s this,” I said. “If you back it, a lot of people will come. I mean, let’s face it. You’re the princess around here.”

“Let us go somewhere else,” Ileana said. “I have something to tell you.”

The chauffeur looked surprised when Ileana told him to take us to Crossfield.

“You must see something,” Ileana told me and Turk. “It will help you to understand.”

So we headed away from downtown and across the river. The limo bumped and thudded over the worn pavement of the bridge, and there were a couple of glints of light on the river below. But everything was dark in Crossfield.

“Stop here,” Ileana told the chauffeur, and opened the door.

The chauffeur got out with us. He kept a few steps back, but there was no way he was going to let Ileana wander around by herself in Crossfield at night.

She led us to an open area between two of the old mills.

“One of these buildings would be right for your plan, I think,” Ileana said.

“Yeah,” Turk said. “I had that one on the left picked out.”

“Now look down,” Ileana said. “See where your feet are standing.”

Her voice was funny. I didn’t know if she was going to scream or cry.

We were standing on a bit of one of the narrow cobbled roads.

“Count the crossroads you can see from here,” Ileana said.

“Twenty-three,” I told her when I had done it.

“Twenty-five,” Turk said.

“There is a jenti under every one of them. In some cases, more than one,” Ileana said.

Turk and I looked at each other.

“The factories were built on top of these little roads,” Ileana said. “It is as if the gadje of New Sodom tried to wipe us out twice.”

“Did they know?” I said.

“Of course they knew,” Ileana said. “In New Sodom nothing is ever forgotten.”

“It was a long time ago,” Turk said quietly.

“Not for the jenti,” Ileana said. “Remember, we live a long time, when we are allowed to do so. Those who lie here might have been grandparents to our oldest. If they had not been killed, and buried here at these little crossroads with stakes through their hearts.”

The way she said it made me want to cry.

“So now you know, dear Cody, why your beautiful idea is impossible,” Ileana said. “The town of New Sodom wants to let Crossfield return to the dust. For the gadje it is a place of shame. For the jenti it is one of grief.”

Turk nodded. Then she did something I never would have thought she’d ever do. She went over to Ileana and put her arms around her.

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

And Ileana put her head on Turk’s shoulder and sobbed.

I went over and put my arm across Ileana’s shoulders. But it wasn’t the same as holding her would have been.

When Ileana stopped crying, she hugged Turk. Then she hugged me so hard I couldn’t breathe for a second. Jenti strength. Ileana