Vampire High Sophomore Year - By Douglas Rees Page 0,8

of it was mine. But there was enough to go around.

“I will try to answer your question,” Ileana said in her softest, most polite voice. “It is, as you say, only a word. But it is the word by which your people burned, and slew, and persecuted mine for thousands of years. Not without reason. We were blood-drinkers, and we still are. And in the days before it was possible to store blood against the times when we would need it, we would do anything we could in order to get it. We paid in gold for a little blood from a willing gadje. And if no willing gadje could be found, we took what we needed anyway. And around this terrible need you wove a black wreath of stories of our greed, our ruthlessness, our magical powers, and used it to strengthen your hatred. Still, we managed to live among you. We were human beings, after all. We hid ourselves in plain sight, made alliances with some of you when we could. But always the need, and the fear of the need, our fear of it and yours, was there. And this was almost yesterday. Less than two hundred years ago were we able to feed ourselves without violence for the first time. Things are better now. We are trying to change. But the word vampire makes us remember in our bones all the dark years when to be one of us was to be cursed. Perhaps that is why we do not think it is friendly to use it.”

“Stake through the heart, you know?” Justin said. “There are places in this town where that happened.”

His hand went to the silver eagle on his lapel.

“Fantastic,” Turk said. And if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn she sounded excited. Maybe even happy. “Do you guys want to see my art?”

Justin, Ileana, and I all looked at each other. We couldn’t say no now without being as rude as she’d been.

“Yes,” Ileana said.

Turk stood up.

“Let’s go up to my place,” she said.

We all followed her up to the attic. What had been the attic. It was on the way to being something else now. A studio, a room, a private world, maybe. Anyway, you sure knew Turk was there.

The windows had been covered with newspapers. A painting was propped in each one. The boxes had been shifted around and turned into a kind of sofa and a couple of chairs. Turk’s sleeping bag was unrolled on the sofa. In one corner, another box, turned on its side, held her clothes, neatly stacked up, with The Scream beside it. Her easel was in another corner. And running along the length of the ceiling was a long black tissue paper snake with two heads.

“I like it,” Dad said, looking around. “Kind of light and airy. Feminine touch. Comfy.”

“The Snake of Life,” Ileana said, looking up at the paper snake. “The jenti tell stories about this creature.”

“Yeah,” Turk said. “But this is like the Aztec version. It turns up in their culture, too.”

Ileana nodded.

“Beginning and end. Not to be defeated or destroyed,” Ileana said. “That is what it means to us.”

“Not to mention the extra fangs,” Turk said.

“Is that tissue paper?” Mom said quickly.

“Yeah. They call it papel picado,” Turk said. “I’ve been thinking about this thing since I came back from Mexico. This was the first chance I’ve had to do something about it.”

She had done this, today. In what, an hour? Nobody could say my cousin wasn’t a fast worker. Rude, and about as much fun as glass on your tongue, but she was good at what she did.

There was a painting on the easel. It was the head and shoulders of The Scream repeated over and over in different sizes.

Ileana went over and studied it under the dim light.

“They want to move,” she said.

“Like they want to get away from that snake, maybe,” Justin said.

“They can’t,” Turk said. “No feet.”

Her other paintings were lined up along one side of the attic. Ileana went over to study them and we all followed.

Basically, they were every kind of way you could think of to paint The Scream and two-headed snakes. Or they were blotches of turquoise and black smeared together to make—smears, I guess.

“Do you exhibit?” Ileana asked after she’d walked up and down the line several times.

“I’ve had some shows,” Turk said.

“She’s won some prizes,” Mom said.

“I am not surprised,” Ileana said. “You are a true artist.”

“See what you mean