Chosen

definitely not Christmas) wrapping paper. The other was book-sized and covered in cream-colored tissue paper like you'd get from a chic boutique. 'Open this one first.' Grandma pushed the tented present to me and I eagerly unwrapped it to find the magic of my childhood underneath.

'Oh, Grandma! Thank you so much!' I pressed my face into the brightly blooming lavender plant she'd potted in a purple clay pot and inhaled. The aroma of the wonderful herb brought visions of lazy summer days and picnics with Grandma. 'It's perfect,' I said.

'I had to rush grow it in the hothouse so that it would be blooming for you. Oh, and you'll need this.' Grandma handed me a paper bag. 'There's a grow light inside there and a mounting for it so that you can be sure it gets enough light without having to open your bedroom curtains and hurt your eyes.'

I grinned at her. 'You think of everything.' I glanced at my mom, and saw that she had the blank look on her face that I knew meant she wished she was someplace else. I wanted to ask her why she had bothered to come at all, but pain closed my throat, which surprised me. I had thought that I had grown up beyond her ability to hurt me. Seems the actual truth of being seventeen wasn't as old as I'd imagined.

'Here, Zoeybird, I got you one other thing,' Grandma said, handing me the tissue-paper-wrapped present. I could tell that she'd noticed Mom's stony silence and, as usual, she was trying to make up for her daughter's crappy parenting.

I swallowed down the clog in my throat and unwrapped the present to reveal a leather-bound book that was obviously old as dirt. Then I noticed the title and I gasped. 'Dracula! You got me an old copy of Dracula!'

'Look at the copyright page, honey,' Grandma said, eyes shining with delight.

I turned to the publisher's page and could not believe what I saw. 'Ohmygod! It's a first edition!'

Grandma was laughing happily. 'Turn a couple of pages.'

I did, and found Stoker's signature scrawled across the bottom of the title page and dated January, 1899.

'It's a signed first edition! It must have cost a zillion dollars!' I threw my arms around Grandma and hugged her.

'Actually, I found it in a very junky used book store that was going out of business. It was a steal. After all, it's only a first edition of Stoker's American release.'

'It's cool beyond belief, Grandma! Thank you so much.'

'Well, I know how much you love that spooky old story, and in light of recent events I thought it would be ironically funny for you to have a signed edition,' Grandma said.

'Did you know Bram Stoker was Imprinted by a vampyre, and that's why he wrote the book?' I gushed as I oh-so-carefully turned the thick pages, checking out the old illustrations, which were, indeed, spooky.

'I had no idea Stoker had a relationship with a vampyre,' Grandma said.

'I wouldn't call being bitten by a vampyre and then put under his spell a relationship,' my mother said.

Grandma and I looked at her. I sighed. 'Mom, it's way possible for a human and a vampyre to have a relationship. That's what Imprinting is about.' Well, it was also about bloodlust and some serious desire, along with a psychic link that could be pretty disconcerting, all of which I knew from my experience with Heath. But I wasn't going to mention that to Mom.

My mother shivered like something nasty had just run its finger up her spine. 'It sounds disgusting to me.'

'Mother. Do you not get that there are two very specific choices for my future? One would be that I become the thing that you're saying is disgusting. The other would be that sometime in the next four years I die.' I hadn't wanted to get into it with her, but her attitude was seriously pissing me off. 'So would you rather see me dead or see me an adult vampyre?'

'Neither, of course,' she said.

'Linda,' Grandma put her hand on my leg under the table and squeezed. 'What Zoey is saying is that you need to accept her and her new future, and that your attitude is hurting her feelings.'

'My attitude!' I thought Mom was going to launch into one of her tirades about 'why are you always picking on me,' but instead she surprised me by taking a deep breath and then looking me straight in the eyes. 'I don't mean to hurt your feelings, Zoey.'

For a moment she looked like her old self, like the mom she'd been before she'd married John Heffer and turned into the Perfect Stepford Church Wife, and I felt my heart squeeze. 'You do hurt my feelings, though, Mom.' I heard myself say.

'I'm sorry,' she said. Then she held her hand out to me. 'How about we try this birthday thing again?'

I put my hand in hers, feeling cautiously hopeful. Maybe there was part of my old mom left inside her. I mean, she'd come alone, without the step-loser, which was pretty darn close to a miracle. I squeezed her hand and smiled. 'Sounds good to me.'

'Well, then, you should open your present and then we can eat cake,' Mom said, sliding over the box that sat next to the as yet untouched cake.

'Okay!' I tried to keep the enthusiasm in my voice, even though the present was wrapped in paper covered with a grim nativity scene. My smile held until I recognized the white leather cover and gold-tipped pages. With my heart sinking down into my stomach, I turned the book over to read: The Holy Word, People of Faith Edition printed in expensive gold leaf cursive across the cover. Another glittering of excess gold caught my eye. Across the bottom of the cover it read, The Heffer Family. There was a red velvet bookmark with a gold tassel stuck inside the front pages of the book and, trying to buy time so I could think of something to say other than 'this is a truly awful present,' I let the pages fall open there. Then I blinked, hoping what I was reading was just a trick of my eyes. No. It was really there. The book had opened to the family-tree page. In the weird back-slanted left-handed writing that I easily recognized as belonging to the step-loser, my mom's name linda heffer had been penned in. A line had been drawn attaching it to john heffer, with the date of their marriage off to the side. Underneath their names, written in as if we had been born to them, were the names of my brother, my sister, and me.

Okay, my bio dad, Paul Montgomery, had left us when I was just a kid and had promptly disappeared from the face of the earth. Once in a while a pathetically small child-support check would arrive from him with no return address, but other than those rare instances, he hadn't been part of our lives in upward of ten years. Yes, he was a crappy dad. But he was my dad, and John Heffer, who seriously hated my guts, was not.

I looked up from the bogus family tree and into my mom's eyes. My voice sounded surprisingly steady, calm even, but inside I was a big mess of emotions. 'What were you thinking when you decided on this for my birthday present?'

Mom seemed annoyed at my question. 'We were thinking that you'd like to know that you're still part of this family.'

'But I'm not. I haven't been for a long time before I was Marked. You know that and I know that and John knows that.'

'Your father most certainly does not—'

I held up my hand to cut her off. 'No! John Heffer is not my father. He's your husband, and that's all he is. Your choice—not mine. That's all he's ever been.' The wound that had been bleeding inside me from the time my mother had walked up broke open and hemorrhaged anger throughout my body. 'Here's the deal, Mom. When you bought my present you were supposed to be picking something you thought I might actually like, not something your husband wanted crammed down my throat.'

'You don't know what you're talking about, young lady,' my mother said. Then she glared at Grandma. 'She gets this attitude from you.'

My grandma raised one silver brow at her daughter and said, 'Thank you, Linda, that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me.'

'Where is he?' I asked my mom.

'Who?'

'John. Where is he? You didn't come here for me. You came here because he wanted you to make me feel bad, and that's not something he'd miss. So where is he?'

'I don't know what you mean.' Her eyes flicked around guiltily, and I knew I'd guessed right.