Page 16 of Newly Undead in Dark River

I started to tune her out, not because I wanted to be rude, but because my brain just couldn't process the amount of words pouring out of her mouth. Have you ever had one of those moments when you are looking at someone’s mouth, watching them speak, and still have absolutely no idea what they are saying? I had that problem a lot when I dated a biology major about a year ago.

Apparently, Cresta didn't require any answers to whatever she was saying, because she returned to my side of the partition with a travel mug. It had a picture of a sleeping kitten on the side. I took a sip and sighed. Apparently, drinking a dozen coffees a day didn't make you a great barista. She must have put a triple shot in it because I swear I could hear the blood hum in my ears.

Cresta stared at me intently, cocking her head from one side to the other.

“Okay. I've got it. You trust me, don't you Raine?”

I narrowed my eyes. Why do people even ask that? It always made me instantly suspicious that something terrible was going to happen.

Seeing my hesitancy, Cresta gave me her most winning smile. “I promise, I'm not going to shave your head ala, Britney. It takes us a decade to grow back an inch of hair, so I don't do many cuts. Ten years is a long time to have a bad haircut, you know? But I'm going to try something different, something that will compliment your hot new look. If you hate it, we can fix it straight away. I swear on my coffee machine.” She put her hand over her heart, and I laughed.

“Okay, okay. I trust your vision. Besides, you only live once, right?” That joke was never going to get old.

Cresta looked like a kid let loose with a can of paint and a blank wall. She buzzed around with single-minded intensity. She pulled a string, and a velvet curtain fell across the mirror.

“No peeking until the end,” she tutted before thrusting a magazine into my hands. She flitted off around the partition. There was a lot of rustles and clangs, and I swear I heard her cackle.

By the time she appeared, I was fully immersed in the scandal of a starlet going off the rails and cheating on her superstar boyfriend with the producer of her last film. I know it was trash, and I was perpetuating a culture of voyeurism and stupidity, etc. But it was either that or staring at the velvet curtain. Cresta was strangely silent when she was working. Like an artist working on their masterpiece, she was completely focused. And super fast. I could only catch blurred glances of her hands moving in my peripheral vision.

All too soon, she stuck me under a thing that kind of looked like my Mom's air fryer. It felt a little like that too. I had more foil in my hair than crazy Earl back home, who quite frequently wore tinfoil hats that made him look like a giant Hershey's kiss. Thinking of Earl made me homesick.

I closed my eyes and blanked my mind. I wasn't going to cry in the salon.

I must have dozed off under the dryer because when I woke up to the sound of an egg timer chiming, I smelled like singed carpet.

“Hey, Sleepyhead! I think you’re all done. Oh, I can hardly wait. You are going to look like a goddess. I love makeovers!”

She was grinning as she unwrapped the foil from my hair like it was Christmas. I liked Cresta. She sparkled like a diamond, and her enthusiasm was infectious. I'd never be as extroverted as Cresta's little finger. We were different people. While I wasn't exactly a wallflower, I was a more relaxed type of outgoing. I loved people but didn't need to be the center of attention. I couldn't see that changing, despite the makeover.

“How'd you end up in Dark River?”

Cresta made the perfect hair stylist. You just wanted to talk to her, even if you did get overwhelmed with words. Silence just didn't seem natural with her.

“Oh that's a long story, you don't want to hear that ancient history. And quite boring, actually. Not nearly as intriguing as your own turning.” She waved a hand, but I could hear the eagerness in her voice. She wanted to tell me but was being polite.

“I would love to hear it if you want to tell it.” I always found good manners was a bit of a dance. There were certain steps, little white lies if you will, that you had to tell in order to maintain your manners. I found out the hard way when I told my mother's best friend she looked like a poodle after a really bad perm. In five-year-old me's defense, it was a truly horrendous perm.

“Oh, well if you want to hear it, Chicky.”

Turns out, Cresta was a ladies maid in England when she was turned in the sixteen hundreds. A guest of the household was a vampire, although the master of the house had no idea. When the vampire drank too deep, he had a fit of remorse and turned her. Her sire was one of those who had the ability to wipe memories. Apparently, Cresta had inherited that ability too. I filed that little tidbit away.

So, Cresta had traveled with her 'family' for several centuries, until they got too big. Some of her brothers and sisters branched off and made their own families, and continued to travel around the globe, eating, drinking, and partying like they were going to live forever. But Cresta was sick of the constant need to be on the road, and when she'd heard about Dark River, she'd moved here. She opened a salon a couple of years later and had been here for the last century.

I remembered what Walker had said, about my maker being able to wipe memories, and stiffened. Could Cresta have been my maker? It would explain her generosity, and it would be a tale similar to her own making. It all fit, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see the woman buzzing around me, plucking me off the side of the road and draining me dry. She seemed happy here. I didn't think she would do anything to jeopardize it. I would still tell Walker my suspicions, even if my gut said no.

I found myself telling Cresta about my own life before I'd come to Canada. About my folks, and my brothers. I told her about my wild college freshman year, and how I'd tried to break out of my self-imposed good girl persona but failed miserably, always being the friend holding up my roommate’s hair as she threw up, instead of making out in darkened corners. I told her about doing everything I was expected to do; maintain good grades, join campus societies that would look good on my resume, date good looking pre-med students, volunteering to help with anything that was asked. I told her how it all seemed like such a waste now. My only true act of rebellion had been this trip to Canada instead of choosing a Major. And look how that ended.

Cresta made all the appropriate noises, moving from torturing my hair into submission with a curling wand to doing my makeup. She honestly sounded as if she couldn't hear enough about my old life. Asking me questions about past boyfriends, and what college was like, what the hell Twitter was. It was like she was soaking in my life, trying to live vicariously through me.

It was cathartic. Now someone else knew about my old life, I could let it go. That my memories wouldn't die if something happened to me. That there would be someone else out there, who would know all of Mika McKellen's hopes and fears.

“Alright, Chicky. I'm done. Now if you hate it, we can change it. No problems. But I have to say you look fantastic. The best makeover I've done in a century.” She beamed down at me, her face alight with pleasure. All I felt were nerves raking down my gut. I hoped I loved it. I didn't want to break Cresta's heart after she'd been so nice to me.

“I'm sure I'll love it. Let's see!”

Cresta pulled the cord to raise the curtain, an agonizing inch at a time. My jaw dropped, and I blinked.

I hardly recognized the person in the mirror. I know that sounds cliché, but she was so far removed from my old look, with my dirty blond hair and pale blue eyes. Staring back at me was a person that could be only described as a bombshell.

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