Page 55 of Hunting My Vampire

“Hey!” Pearl called out to me. “Kaya, come meet Bobby and Rick from the center!” She pulled me into their group and told me how they were all going to work on a ranch in Texassomewhere. I wondered how long Pearl would be able to stay put in Hawston.

“What about you?” I asked. “Do you have any plans?”

She glanced at Tina. “My mom says they need waitresses over at the diner. I thought I’d go over later and ask about that.”

I wondered how long that would keep Pearl happy, serving eggs and coffee to the townspeople but I didn’t want to spoil the mood. I told her I was happy she was back and prepared to go home.

I was almost at the door when Tina called me back.

“I want to show you something,” she said, calling me over. I followed her into her bedroom. Her gait was slow and cumbersome, I could tell her back was hurting her even more today. She had picked up even more weight recently and I knew this made her arthritis worse.

“All that talk about your mother and Stephanie set me to thinking,” she told me, out of breath from the exertion of walking to her room. “When you came here, all those years ago? You had a bag of things with you. There are some things from your family in there, remember?”

I vaguely recalled taking a few things with me when the Sheriff took me away. He’d asked me if I wanted to take some things and I realized I might not be coming back. There was a book of my father’s and a toy of my brother’s. I’d gone to my parents’ room and taken things from there too, which I had put into a drawstring bag. That bag had gone with me everywhere I went the first few years but then I had left it at Tina’s and, at some point, I’d forgotten about it.

She held out the drawstring bag to me now.

“I think there is something in there that you may want,” Tina’s voice sounded strange. I didn’t know what she meant. I opened the bag and looked through its contents, feeling my hearttighten at the sight of some of these objects that held so much sentimental value for me.

I was about to close the bag and give it back to Tina, when I saw something among my parents’ things. I took it out.

It was a black stone.

Occillite.

I couldn’t believe it; my mother must have taken it with her when she left her tribe. I looked at Tina, “Did you know about this?”

She nodded. “I was looking for some shoes a while back. The bag fell out of the bottom of the cupboard. I’d forgotten what it was, so I looked inside. I realized it must be your things and put it aside to give to you.”

She looked carefully at me. “I figured you’d want that stone.”

I gave her a hug. “Thank you!”

I rushed out to the supermarket and found Tamara packing shelves.

“I want to show you something,” I said.“Tell me if it is what I think it is.”

I took the black stone out of the bag and looked over my shoulder, making sure we were alone.

I showed it to her. There was a sharp intake of breath as she covered my hand over it.

“Put it away,” she hissed, looking around to make sure no-one saw us. “People would kill for it,” she warned me.

“Even like this, unprocessed?”

“You can’t find it anywhere anymore, I asked around for you, nobody has it or knows of it. I don’t know how many are still in existence,” she hissed.

“But it’s raw,” I whispered to her. “It’s not cut or anything… does it still have power?"

She nodded quickly. “You will have to charge it but you can do that by wearing it against your skin. You charge it with your own energy. You will have to find a way to wear it.”

She told me how to wrap some wire around it and then showed me the sharp edge on one side.

“This will cut like a knife and for vampires, it will be fatal.”

I bought the thinnest wire I could find and went home to fashion a kind of necklace with the stone, hanging it around my neck. It felt heavy and uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to wearing jewelry in the first place. I tried to do some cleaning and laundry, ignoring the strange weight against my chest. After a while, I felt it becoming hot against my skin and realized it was me charging it. I found myself often touching it, folding my hand protectively around it. I couldn’t recall ever seeing my mother touch it but she must have. I felt closer to her somehow, wearing it.

Lying in bed, I was unable to sleep that night.

---