not … I … I love her.
I do. No matter the consequences.
Is this what following your heart is? I wish there was a map or a compass to help me find my way. But she has my heart, and that above all else is my North Star … and that will have to be enough.
After I slipped away from the carriage house back to my own chambers, I somehow managed to sleep for a few hours. When I awoke, I wondered if everything was all a dream. But then I shifted my head on the pillow and saw a neat puddle of dried, crimson blood and touched my fingers to my throat. I felt a wound there, and though it didn’t hurt, it brought back the very real incidents of the previous evening.
I felt exhausted and confused and exalted all at once. My limbs were enervated, my brain abuzz. It was as if I had a fever, but inside I felt a sort of calm I’d never felt before.
I dressed for the day, taking extra care to wash the wound with a damp cloth and bandage it, then buttoned my linen shirt as high as it would go. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I tried to see if there was anything different, if there was some glint in my eye that acknowledged my newfound worldliness. But my face looked just as it had yesterday.
I crept down the back stairs toward the study.
Father’s schedule was like clockwork, and he always spent the mornings surveying and visiting the fields with Robert.
Once I closed myself in the cool, dark room, I ran my fingers along the leather-bound spines on each shelf, feeling comforted by their smoothness.
I just hoped that somewhere, in the stacks and shelves of books on every subject, there would be a volume that would answer some of my questions. I remembered Katherine reading The Mysteries of Mystic Falls and noticed the volume was no longer in the study, or at least not in plain view.
I walked aimlessly from shelf to shelf, for the first time feeling overwhelmed by the number of books in Father’s study. Where could I possibly find information on vampires? Father had volumes of plays, fiction, atlases, and two full shelves of Bibles, some in English, some in Italian, and some in Latin. I traced my hands against the giltlettered, leather spines of each book, hoping that somehow I’d find something.
Finally, my fingertips landed on a thin, tattered volume with Demonios written in flaking silver on the spine. Demonio … demon … This was what I was looking for. I opened the book, but it was written in an ancient Italian dialect that I couldn’t make heads nor tails of, despite my extensive tutoring in Latin and Italian.
Still, I carried the book with me to the club chair and settled in. Trying to decipher the book was an action I could understand, something easier than trying to eat breakfast while pretending everything was normal. I ran my fingers along the words, reading out loud as if I were a schoolboy, making sure I didn’t miss a mention of the word vampiro. Finally, I found it, but the sentences surrounding it were nothing but gibberish to me. I sighed in frustration.
Just then, the door to the study creaked open.
“Who’s there?” I called loudly.
“Stefan!” My father’s ruddy face registered surprise. “I was looking for you.”
“Oh?” I asked, my hand flying to my neck, as if Father could see the bandage beneath the fabric.
But all I felt was the smooth linen of my shirt. My secret was safe.
Father looked at me strangely. He walked toward me, taking the book off my lap. “You and I think alike,” he said, a strange smile curving onto his face.
“We do?” My heart fluttered in my chest like a hummingbird’s wings, and I was sure Father could hear my breath catching in short, shallow gasps in my throat. I felt sure he could read my thoughts, sure he knew about Katherine and me. And if he knew about Katherine, he’d kill her and …
I couldn’t bear to think of the rest.
Father smiled again. “We do. I know you took our conversation about vampires to heart, and I appreciate you taking this scourge seriously. Of course, I know you have your own motivations in avenging the death of your young Rosalyn,” Father said, making the sign of the cross over his chest.
I stared at a thin spot on the Oriental rug, where the fabric was so faded, I could see the stained wooden floor below. I couldn’t look up at Father and let my face betray my secret, betray Katherine’s secret.
“Be assured, son, that Rosalyn did not die in vain. She died for Mystic Falls, and she will be remembered as we rid our town of this curse. And you, of course, will be an integral part of the plan.”
Father gestured toward the book I still held.
“Unlike your good-for-nothing brother. What good is all his new military knowledge if he can’t put it to use to defend his family, his land?” Father asked rhetorically. “Just today he went off on a ride with some of his soldier friends. Even after I told him I expected him here this morning to accompany us to our meeting at Jonathan’s house.”
But I wasn’t paying attention anymore. All I cared about was that he didn’t know about Katherine. My breathing slowed. “There wasn’t very much information that I could understand in this book. I don’t think it’s very useful,” I said, as if all I’d been doing this morning was indulging in a scholarly interest in vampires.
“That’s just as well,” Father said dismissively, as he carelessly placed the book back on the shelf. “I feel that together we have a good store of knowledge.”
“Together?” I parroted.
Father waved his hand impatiently. “You and I and the Founders. We’ve set up a council to deal with this. We’re heading to a meeting right now.
You’re coming.”
“I am?” I asked.
Father glanced at me in annoyance. I knew I sounded like a simpleton, but there was simply too much information swimming in my mind to even begin to understand it all.
“Yes. And I’m taking Cordelia as well. She has a good knowledge of herbs and demons. The meeting is at Jonathan Gilbert’s house.” Father nodded, as if the subject was closed.
I nodded as well, even though I was surprised.
Jonathan Gilbert was a university teacher and sometimes inventor who Father not so privately called a crackpot. But now Father said his name with reverence. For the thousandth time that day, I realized this truly was a different world.
“Alfred is hitching up the carriage, but I will drive it. Do not tell anyone where we’re going. I’ve already sworn Cordelia to secrecy,” Father said as he strode out of the room. After a second, I followed him, but not before I slipped Demonios into my back pocket.
I sat next to Father in the front seat of the carriage, while Cordelia sat in the back, hidden from sight lest she arouse suspicion. It was strange to be out in the morning, especially without a footman to drive us, and I caught the curious stares of Mr. Vickery as we passed by the Blue Ridge Estate next door. I waved, until I felt Father’s hand on my arm, a subtle warning not to attract attention to ourselves.
Father began talking once we entered the barren stretch of dirt road that separated the plantation road from town. “I don’t understand your brother. Do you? What man doesn’t respect his father? If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was consorting with one of them,” Father said, spitting on the dirt road.
“Why would you think that?” I asked uncomfortably, a trickle of sweat running down my spine. I ran my finger beneath my collar, recoiling when I felt the gauze bandage of my neck. It was damp, but from sweat or blood I could not tell.
My thoughts were a tangle. Was I betraying Katherine by attending this meeting? Was I betraying Father by keeping Katherine’s secret?
Who was evil or good? Nothing seemed clear.
“I think that because they have that kind of power,” Father said, using the whip on Blaze as if to prove the point. Blaze whinnied before shifting into a fast trot.
I looked back at Cordelia, but she was impassively staring straight ahead.
“They can take over a mind before a man realizes anything is amiss. They compel them to submit fully to their charms and whims. Just a glance can make a man do whatever a vampire desires. And by the time a man does know he’s being controlled, it’s too late.”
