Vampire High Sophomore Year - By Douglas Rees Page 0,51

in three hundred years. And we do not know why. We must find out before there is blood and fire.”

Then she looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. Her hand reached itself out, but she snatched it back.

“Come,” she said, and left, with Justin behind her.

“Cody, can you, for God’s sake, explain any of this?” Dad said.

I realized then how little my dad really knew about my life in New Sodom. About his own life here, really. I’d have to teach him fast.

“Let’s start with marking,” I said.

22

I came home from the hospital two days later. Mom set me up on the couch in the living room, where she could keep an eye on me and bring me stuff.

I didn’t do much except lie around and wish I were dead. Inside and out, I’d been so thoroughly beaten up that there was no place left that didn’t hurt.

But things can always get worse, and the day after I came home from the hospital, they did.

It was on the front page of the New Sodom Intelligencer, the local paper:

TOWN COUNCIL TAKES NEW SODOM OUT OF 17TH CENTURY

In a place as old as New Sodom, some funny old laws can turn up. One that has recently come to light involves Crossfield.

Crossfield? Yes, that Crossfield.

It seems that, back in the day, some long-gone town council thought it would be a good idea to let anyone who wanted it claim abandoned land there. In the words of the act, “When it shall hap that a farm or steading of any sort shall be left untenanted for the time of three yeares, and no owner be writ down in the towne records, whoso shall tenant it and build thereon a cabin or a wigwam, and plante corne, and dwell for seven yeares upon it, shall have possession of said farm or steading so long as it shall please him. To keep or to sell, to leave unto descendants, and to do all things that may be done with a farm or steading.”

Now, before you rush over to Crossfield and start throwing up your wigwam, there are two things you need to know: (1) some kids actually tried it, staking out the old Simmons Mill just as though it were still 1676; (2) when the town council found out about it, they repealed the act.

“It was just one of those crazy things that happen,” said town council member Watson Waters. “That and some half-bright kids who thought they could get away with something.”

But why would kids want to take over an abandoned mill anyway?

“We heard that they wanted to start some kind of a half-baked arts center over there, even though no arts group in New Sodom wanted anything to do with it,” Waters said. “We’re not sure what they were really up to.”

In any case, with the kids gone, the act repealed, and police tape around the outside of the Simmons Mill, it’s pretty clear that whatever it was won’t be happening anytime soon.

“Can they do that, Dad?” I said. “Can they just take it away from us?”

We were sitting around the living room that morning, me, Mom, Dad, and Turk. I was doing a lot better and was dressed to go out, even though I wasn’t going back to Vlad yet.

“It depends,” Dad said. “Certainly there’s an argument to be made that whatever changes they made to the act don’t apply to the Simmons Mill. But ultimately, the town can claim eminent domain, and probably make it stick. On the other hand, there’s such a thing as just compensation. If they take something away from you, they have to pay you the fair market value. On the other hand, you’ve staked your claim but you haven’t completed the seven-year term that would make it yours. So they could probably claim they didn’t owe you anything. It’s a very interesting question.”

“Interesting enough to take to court?” Turk asked.

“No,” Dad said.

“Ah, yes,” Turk said. “Leach, Swindol and Twist. Complications with the town. Wouldn’t want those.”

“Turk, do you really think it would be a good idea to go ahead with this?” Dad asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, that’s a point of view,” Dad said. “Personally, I don’t give a damn whether New Sodom has an arts center or not. My only concern is that you two not get hurt in some damn fool jenti war. If those overeducated idiots want to fight about who did what to whom back in the Middle Ages, let ’em. But they’d