Page 30 of Road Trip with a Vampire
Our hands looked good together. To anyone seeing us, we probably looked like two people on an early-morning date.
It was that thought that had me retracting my hand.
“I…need to talk to Becky and Lindsay,” I said, flustered. “They’ll need to run the studio while I’m gone, so I have to get their okay before we set out. But once I have…”
The look of gratitude Peter gave me was so genuine, so full of warmth, the rest of my thoughts skittered away.
“Thank you,” he said. The hand I’d just held flexed once, twice, at his side.
Seven
From page 14 of theHerald Reporter, December 12, 1973 (Sports section)
Mysterious Wind Gust Disrupts Heliotrope Basketball
The Herald Reporter; staff reporter
Seventh-ranked U of I Blossomtown had a terrific showing yesterday in Assemblage Hall against twelfth-ranked South Carolina. Final score: U of I: 84, South Carolina: 71.
In a bizarre turn of events, play was disrupted in the fourth quarter when a woman with curly auburn hair who was, apparently, not a member of the cheer squad or a student at U of I Blossomtown, strode across the court, after which twenty-five-mile-per-hour winds inexplicably began blowing through Assemblage Hall. Coach Bobby Day threw a chair and yelled at a referee in frustration. The wind did not seem to care about Coach Day or his outburst, however, and continued unabated for another four minutes until the woman was escorted out ofthe building. Oddly, weather reports showed the day was crystal clear, with no wind or other weather disruptions of any kind.
Heliotrope fans, however, are just happy their boys got another great win at home.
My suitcase sat at thefoot of my bed as I packed for my road trip with a vampire.
We were leaving bright and early the following morning, but doubt consumed me.
In the four days since we’d agreed to travel together, Peter and I had met at Perky’s two more times, sketching out a rough itinerary. We wanted to visit as many locations in his journal as possible en route to Blossomtown to boost the odds of him regaining his memory before getting there. Unfortunately, only a few journal entries mentioned places we could find on a map. Even fewer were located between Redwoodsville and Indiana.
We’d planned to stop at a place in eastern Nevada, a bowling alley in Wyoming, and potentially a park near St. Louis if time allowed. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough. We didn’t have time for the detours we’d need to make to visit other locations in his journal. Given the subtly threatening tone of the note he’d received, Peter was anxious to get to Blossomtown quickly.
And two weeks—the length of time I expected it would take to visit this small number of locations in Peter’s journal we’d identified, experiment with my magic without anyone finding out about it, and drive back home again—was as much time as I felt I could be away from Yoga Magic without it being a burden to my friends.
As I’d suspected, Lindsay and Becky had been more thanokay with me leaving for a couple of weeks. Yet my conscience still pricked at me. I’d built a life and a business here. Like a child clutching her favorite toy, some part of me was frightened that if I let this place out of my sight, it would disappear.
The charred remains of what had once been my bedroom curtains, though, told the full story. Ihadto leave for a little while if I wanted to retain some semblance of the person I’d become.
As Peter and I had built our itinerary, I’d been putting together a secret magical experimentation itinerary of my own. I planned to start with a small elemental spell as soon as I managed to get some alone time. Something that required a bit more power than what I used to summon and light my nightly candles but not much more. A little wind spell possibly—like what I’d used to soundproof my room when Peter had spent the night, only bigger.
I would cast, then reflect on how I felt. If, the next morning, I still felt as jittery and uncomfortable as I did right now, I’d ramp up the spell incrementally the following day. Given that one day of missing my candle ritual had caused my curtains to catch fire, I’d probably need to ramp up more than once.
This was the most intentional I’d ever been with my magic. If my old friends could see me now.
As I prepared to zip up my suitcase, my senses drifted to the cache of secret supplies in my closet. The powders. The daggers. My fancy ring. I hadn’t touched any of it since moving to California—there’d been no need—but…
After only a moment’s indecision I walked to my closet and picked up the box that held them. It felt heavier than I’d remembered, which was probably a metaphor for something if I stopped to think about it.
I slid it into my suitcase beneath my sweaters. Peter seemedharmless enough, but I barely knew him. He barely knew himself. If he got his memory back‚there was no telling what we might find.
To say nothing of what we might find when we got to Indiana.
It seemed wise to bring every weapon at my disposal on this trip, just in case.
Becky and Lindsay were waitingfor me in the studio when I walked in at seven the following morning, my suitcase in hand.
My guilt about leaving them alone to run the studio in my absence reared its head again.
“Yousureyou’ll be okay while I’m gone?” I asked.
