Dark Reunion

The institution was a terrible place. Bonnie tried as hard as she could to conceal her horror and disgust, but she knew Meredith could sense it. Meredith's shoulders were stiff with defensive pride as she walked down the halls in front of them. Bonnie, who had known her for so many years, could see the humiliation underneath that pride. Meredith's parents considered her grandfather's condition such a blot that they never allowed him to be mentioned to outsiders. It had been a shadow over the entire family.

And now Meredith was showing that secret to strangers for the first time. Bonnie felt a rush of love and admiration for her friend. It was so like Meredith to do it without fuss, with dignity, letting nobody see what it cost her. But the institution was still terrible.

It wasn't filthy or filled with raving maniacs or anything like that. The patients looked clean and well cared for. But there was something about the sterile hospital smells and the halls crowded with motionless wheelchairs and blank eyes that made Bonnie want to run.

It was like a building full of zombies. Bonnie saw one old woman, her pink scalp showing through thin white hair, slumped with her head on the table next to a naked plastic doll. When Bonnie reached out desperately, she found Matt's hand already reaching for hers. They followed Meredith that way, holding on so hard it hurt.

'This is his room.'

Inside was another zombie, this one with white hair that still showed an occasional fleck of black like Meredith's. His face was a mass of wrinkles and lines, the eyes rheumy and rimmed with scarlet. They stared vacantly.

'Granddad,' Meredith said, kneeling in front of his wheelchair, 'Granddad, it's me, Meredith. I've come to visit you. I've got something important to ask you.'

The old eyes never flickered.

'Sometimes he knows us,' Meredith said quietly, without emotion. 'But mostly these days he doesn't.'

The old man just went on staring.

Stefan dropped to his heels. 'Let me try,' he said. Looking into the wrinkled face he began to speak, softly, soothingly, as he had to Vickie.

But the filmy dark eyes didn't so much as blink. They just went on staring aimlessly. The only movement was a slight, continuous tremor in the knotted hands on the arms of the wheelchair.

And no matter what Meredith or Stefan did, that was all the response they could elicit.

Eventually Bonnie tried, using her psychic powers. She could sense something in the old man, some spark of life trapped in the imprisoning flesh. But she couldn't reach it.

'I'm sorry,' she said, sitting back and pushing hair out of her eyes. 'It's no use. I can't do anything.'

'Maybe we can come another time,' Matt said, but Bonnie knew it wasn't true. Stefan was leaving tomorrow; there would never be another time. And it had seemed like such a good idea… The glow that had warmed her earlier was ashes now, and her heart felt like a lump of lead. She turned away to see Stefan already starting out of the room.

Matt put a hand under her elbow to help her up and guide her out. And after standing for a minute with her head bent in discouragement, Bonnie let him. It was hard to summon up enough energy to put one foot in front of the other. She glanced back dully to see whether Meredith was following—

And screamed. Meredith was standing in the center of the room, facing the door, discouragement written on her face. But behind her, the figure in the wheelchair had stirred at last. In a silent explosion of movement, it had reared above her, the rheumy old eyes open wide and the mouth open wider. Meredith's grandfather looked as if he had been caught in the act of leaping—arms flung out, mouth forming a silent howl. Bonnie's screams rang from the rafters.

Everything happened at once then. Stefan came charging back in, Meredith spun around, Matt grabbed for her. But the old figure didn't leap. He stood towering above all of them, staring over their heads, seeming to see something none of them could. Sounds were coming from his mouth at last, sounds that formed one ululating word.

'Vampire! Vampiire!'

Attendants were in the room, crowding Bonnie and the others away, restraining the old man. Their shouts added to the pandemonium.

'Vampire! Vampire!' Meredith's grandfather caterwauled, as if warning the town. Bonnie felt panicked—was he looking at Stefan? Was it an accusation?

'Please, you'll have to leave now. I'm sorry, but you'll have to go,' a nurse was saying. They were being whisked out. Meredith fought as she was forced out into the hall.

'Granddaddy—!'

'Vampire!' that unearthly voice wailed on.

And then: 'White ash wood! Vampire! White ash wood—'

The door slammed shut.

Meredith gasped, fighting tears. Bonnie had her nails dug into Matt's arm. Stefan turned to them, green eyes wide with shock.

'I said, you'll have to leave now,' the harassed nurse was repeating impatiently. The four of them ignored her. They were all looking at each other, stunned confusion giving way to realization in their faces.

'Tyler said there was only one kind of wood that could hurt him—' Matt began.

'White ash wood,' said Stefan.

'We'll have to find out where he's hiding,' Stefan said on the way home. He was driving, since Meredith had dropped the keys at the car door. 'That's the first thing. If we rush this, we could warn him off.'

His green eyes were shining with a queer mixture of triumph and grim determination, and he spoke in a clipped and rapid voice. They were all on the ragged edge, Bonnie thought, as if they'd been gulping uppers all night. Their nerves were frayed so thin that anything could happen.

She had a sense, too, of impending cataclysm. As if everything were coming to a head, all the events since Meredith's birthday party gathering to a conclusion.

Tonight, she thought. Tonight it all happens. It seemed strangely appropriate that it should be the eve of the solstice.

'The eve of what?' Matt said.

She hadn't even realized she'd spoken aloud. 'The eve of the solstice,' she said. 'That's what today is. The day before the summer solstice.'

'Don't tell me. Druids, right?'

'They celebrated it,' Bonnie confirmed. 'It's a day for magic, for marking the change of the seasons. And…' she hesitated. 'Well, it's like all other feast days, like Halloween or the winter solstice. A day when the line between the visible world and the invisible world is thin. When you can see ghosts, they used to say. When things happen.'

'Things,' Stefan said, turning onto the main highway that headed back toward Fell's Church, 'are going to happen.'

None of them realized how soon.

Mrs. Flowers was in the back garden. They had driven straight to the boarding house to look for her. She was pruning rosebushes, and the smell of summer surrounded her.

She frowned and blinked when they all crowded around her and asked her in a rush where to find a white ash tree.

'Slow down, slow down now,' she said, peering at them from under the brim of her straw hat. 'What is it you want? White ash? There's one just down beyond those oak trees in back. Now, wait a minute—' she added as they all scrambled off again.

Stefan ringed a branch of the tree with a jack-knife Matt produced from his pocket. I wonder when he started carrying that? Bonnie thought. She also wondered what Mrs. Flowers thought of them as they came back, the two boys carrying the leafy six-foot bough between them on their shoulders.

But Mrs. Flowers just looked without saying anything. As they neared the house, though, she called after them, 'A package came for you, boy.'