Page 27 of Road Trip with a Vampire
A cool breeze blew in from the open window, a sign that the heat wave that had held Redwoodsville in its grip these past few weeks had just snapped.
Lots of things, it seemed, were about to change.
After a quick check downstairsto make sure none of the smoke had made it into the studio—thankfully, none had—I made a beeline for Perky’s. A doctor would likely say caffeine was the worst thing I could put into my body given how on edge I already was. But I’d stopped seeing a doctor after I’d outlived my last one a hundred and fifty years ago.
Caffeine helped me think. And I had a lot of thinking to do.
If I was reintroducing magic into my life—and it looked like I was about to whether I wanted to or not—I had to be careful and engage in structured experimentation. I didn’t quite know how to do this, but I couldn’t do it here. There’d be no way to keep the existence of witches under wraps for long in this tiny, close-knit community if I was causing magical explosions in my bedroom every night. To say nothing of what Lindsay and Becky might think.
More to the point—people could get hurt if something went awry as I experimented. This was not something I would risk. I’dnever forgive myself if I got lost in my magic again and hurt my new friends.
Maybe some time away from Redwoodsville was in order. I paused, my hand on the door to Perky’s, as I considered this. I’d barely traveled since moving here, partly due to falling in love with this little community after a lifetime of wandering, but mostly due to the demands of running a small business. The two lengthy trips I’d taken since moving here had been visits to a yoga retreat just outside Mendocino, which was only a couple of hours away. As they had both been work trips, Becky frequently reminded me that neither of them counted as vacations.
Reggie used to joke that the old phrasea rolling stone gathers no mosswas inspired by my wanderlust. Perhaps leaving town for a little while could be a way to both shake the dust off my boots and conduct my experiments far from the people I cared about. No one in, say, Nowheresville State would think twice about it if a strange woman engaged in a bit of pyrotechnics in her motel in the middle of the night.
And if they did, it didn’t matter. The following morning would inevitably roll around, and I’d be gone.
I’d have to check with Lindsay and Becky to make sure they’d be okay running Yoga Magic without me for a while. Somehow, though, I already knew they’d say yes.
It was with this thought in mind that I pulled open the door to Perky’s and stepped inside. To my surprise, Peter was there, sitting at a table in the back that was far from the windows. He gripped a single sheet of paper in his hands, his jaw clenched so tightly I worried he might break a fang.
The last thing I needed was to insert myself into whatever had Peter looking so stressed. I had enough problems of my own.
I headed for his table anyway.
“Zelda,” he said, flustered, when I reached him. He hastily stuffed the wrinkled, obviously much-handled paper he’d been staring at into an envelope. Then his eyes widened as he took me in. “What happened?”
“Do I look that bad?” I’d rushed out of my apartment after getting dressed and hadn’t looked at a mirror first.
He looked me over again, considering. “Yes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Such a charmer.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I wasn’t trying to be charming. Only honest.” He motioned for me to sit, and I did, pulling out the chair across from his and flopping down into it. “Your face is streaked with soot, and you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What happened?”
I hesitated. How much of this did I want to get into with him?
“There was a fire in my apartment,” I said. I could tell him that much at least. “I’m okay. Everything is okay. Well, except for my curtains. Those aren’t okay. I need new ones.”
Worry creased his forehead. “Yousureyou’re okay?”
“Yes,” I lied.
Fortunately he didn’t push it. His eyes slid away from mine, landing on the envelope he’d been holding when I’d arrived.
I was smart enough to recognize an opportunity to change the subject when I saw one. “What is that?”
“What is what?”
I wasn’t the only person in the mood for avoidance, apparently. “The paper you were staring at when I showed up. The one you stuffed into an envelope and don’t want me to ask about.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you asking me about it?”
“I’m too nosy for my own good.” And then, in a softer voice, I added, “And because you seem like you might benefit from talking about it, whatever it is.”
He hesitated for a moment, considering. Then he pushed the envelope across the table towards me. It was addressed to him, at what was presumably his new apartment, in elegant script. No name or return address was included.
Every line in his body radiated anxiety. “Open it,” he said.
