The Quill Pen Killer (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 1) Page 10

  "For imp's wig sense!" she exclaims.

  "What in creation is this doing... here?!" She holds her hand against her mouth.

  " Father's! He's gone mad!" Jessica begins to pace a few steps left and right.

  "O for all the dead Dravidians... think... what would Raven do, what would Raven say?... think..." She stops, looking at it, and becomes slightly mesmerized in its beauty. She kneels down and circles the red cloth at i's feet. She begins to touch its fingertips. Her voice changes slightly. Her tone becomes sweeter.

  "This doesn't seem the place for you. No, you deserve a sunny window," she tells it, "and a room of beauty and peacefulness. You were so beautiful in the chapel. I'll see what I can do," she says. She leaves the attic. On her way downstairs, Jessica decides that flowers will do the trick nicely. She heads out to the garden and begins picking roses and humming sad, yet hauntingly beautiful songs.

  Awhile later, Jessica walks into the kitchen with an armful of roses, humming. Mattressa is at the kitchen sink defrosting a chicken for dinner. She looks up at Jessica who is keeping her head down, humming and carrying the roses. Mattressa is just delighted at the sight of her chosen

  distraction.

  "Ah, yes, you've found something else to think about, I see. Very good!" Jessica nods-in-agreement, but doesn't look up at her. She continues humming and exits the room heading toward the attic. She arranges vases and bowls of roses around the statue. She cleans the attic around the statue. She is still humming eery, hm-hmmmm sounding songs when evening begins to fall around them, she doesn't even notice. She doesn't go down to the kitchen and whine to Mattressa that she's hungry and that her father eats to late at night, begging for a snack on the pretext that she shouldn't have to wait just because he is out so late at night. And, she doesn't even notice when Mattressa calls her name, standing at the bottom of the attic stair case, yelling.

  "Jessica! Dinner!" Mattressa waits, and listens, "Now!" she adds. She holds one hand against the small of her back. Then turns and walks back into the kitchen placing the baked beast onto a serving platter. Jessica does not descend the staircase. She does not traipse into the kitchen and pick at the meal about to be served complaining to Mattressa to please eat at the table with them or let Jessica eat in the kitchen so that she doesn't have to eat with her father's new girlfriend, again.

  But, Mattressa knows Jessica, "And she'll be getting hungry any minute now, no matter how busy she is," she thinks. So, when she begins to serve the evening meal, and Jessica has not arrived, yet, Mattressa just looks at Jessica's father and his date with an 'I-don't-know' sort of look and a smile.

  "I think she heard me. She'll be any minute now," she tells them as they wait with their napkins on their laps, one hand on the table, fingers near the handle of their forks.

  "I would have gone up those stairs, but I hurt this area," she exposes her back hip, drawing a circle with her finger around the area of tenderness, "and most don't hurt me, but those attic stairs, o they are a killer," she complains.

  A woman nicknamed already by Mattressa and Jessica as Date II, due to her remarkable likeness of Date but with a not-to-disappoint-their-prediction, less-likable personality, says, "I'll go up and get her."

  But suddenly, the word sinks in, and Jessica's father wails, "Attic!! Did you say attic stairs? What in Cupid's name is she doing up there?" Just then, the doorbell rings and her father follows Mattressa all the way to the door, listening to her explanation of why she said Jessica was in the attic.

  "She's been up there all afternoon, working on some ancestry photo album or something of the sort. Hello... come in." Ickabod and Jessica's School's Head Mistress stand in the doorway.

  "O this is such bad news!" her father complains, he excuses himself and runs up the stairs. Ickabod and the Head Mistress follow him.

  As they enter the attic, Jessica has just drained yet another intruder (she thinks), but this time its M. Ghoul’s friend. He is slumped near the bottom of the statue. Jessica's father comes face to face with the idea that there might be a problem with 'writing'. He finds her on the attic floor, dipping her quill pen in the bite mark, writing furiously in her notebook. And, as the statue she has hidden there begins to drip blood from its fingertips, string quartet music reaches crescendo; subsequently, this is just the moment that father, Ickabod, and the school headmaster burst into the room, both vampires screech out an empty sounding vampiric cry, blowing an attic window out and shattering glass to the floor and ground below. Jessica's father, midcry, glances at the Head Mistress of the school like who knew, huh?. For it is she, not Ickabod, who lets out a cry of the vampire ancients, along with her father, as they eyewitness the startling mistake their young Jessica has just made.

  "And on another ghoul? O, Jessica, the regret!" her father thinks.

  The next day the same group gathers in the living room of the DeAngeliuson mansion - most of them in same clothes because they have not slept much of the night.

  Workmen in work clothes and tool belts carry glass past the door way toward the attic. The head mistress, Jessica's father, Ickabod, Date - whom Ickabod called because she has been covering the story - and the monk from the cathedral sit or stand in various places in the room where Jessica sits in a chair to the side.

  The Headmistress begins, "What we've decided, after all this, is to give you another try. In fact, I was headed over here to tell you all that last night, before," she waves a hand around frantically, like she is erasing a chalk board and skips up to what she wants to say.

  "I'd heard from Ickabod and the monk, on your behalf, that this was really nothing to do with you... ancient spell, not your doing... and that you, yourself, as you are, are not about what this business is, or was, I should say. Am I making myself clear?" she asks.

  Ickabod helps out, "Now that I've sent the statue back to Nostramadeus Villa, I think your personality, and mine, will return to normal," he tells her.

  "And mine," the monk adds, "be blessed."

  "We'll keep one eye on you, at least," the head mistress continues, "but, I have a feeling, you'll be back to the Jessica I knew... before this business arose. Hmmmm?" Jessica nods-in-agreement looking at her shoes. She looks toward the door where there is a commotion. Men in jump suits move a large crate past the room and out the door.

  "Where will it be?" Jessica asks, "the statue?"

  "In a museum, Jess," her father tells her. "You're not to visit it, do you understand me?"

  Jessica concedes, "Yes."

  Ickabod tells the group in the room, "I'd decided to give the statue back to St. Bart's because the thirst it caused me was too much; I feel we'd all be better off without it... Anyway, it's out of our lives."

  Date fills in the missing facts, "See, Jessica, St. Bart's didn't want the statue, either. Too many bad vibes. Visitors didn't understand - it wasn't just you. The rumors, things like that." And then, the head mistress, as if she'd been the only one talking the whole time, continues with telling Jessica about her reinstatement at the school.

  "If your progress reports show that you're keeping up, like I think you will, then, I don't see why we can't reinstate you at full enrollment... after a 3-week stay, busy in classes, keeping up with homework, you'll be doing splendidly! What do you say?" she asks.

  "No. I don't want to go. I hate that place," Jessica says in her vampire voice.

  "She's still affected," her father says.

  "It'll take her a while, but by morning she'll see it's really what she wants, to return to school, as normal."

  "I know she does want to go. She was missing school the other day," says her driver, "when she wasn't around, you know, that thing."

  "Back into her books?" Date looks accusingly at Jessica's father.

  He sighs and smiles, "Didn't think I'd look forward to that, but yeah, back into her books. Thank Snits' foreboding logic!"

  Date checks him, "Just wondering if you got that... how lucky you are to have a teenager who stays out of the riot, you kn
ow... and I, I've got a great story! Thanks to Jessica, here."

  Ickabod grows a bit sentimental for a moment, "Well, I'm going to miss her." He wipes his brow with the back of his hand. "What about you, Jessica?"

  Jessica looks at her shoes. She starts to hum a haunting tune. This sound reminds the monk and while he drums his fingers against each other, he confesses, "I won't miss her." He looks at Jessica's father and tilts his head to the side.

  "Quiet, dear. Please," Jessica's father tells her. Then, to the monk he says, "I think you've helped enough. You can go." The monk tips his beanie and bows his head to her father and to Jessica.

  "It is better, this way, girl," he says and then quietly exits the room. Mattressa sees him to the door.

  Once back in the room with the others, she tells Jessica, "Miss Jessica, your shower is ready, warm towels, the water hot. Come, darling."

  She ushers her past Date, "Excuse me."

  Date smiles, "You've been brave, Jess! I'll update you on the story," she pauses as she sees Jessica's Father moving his fingers like a pair of scissors hoping that she will leave Jessica out of her persistence at initiating further interest in this story of Ickabod’s statue.

  "No... I'll just... well, you take care. I'll see ya around," she says taking her cues from Jessica's Father who shakes his head, ‘no’.

  "Or I'll just... go? Yeah, I'll just be going." She puts her forehead in her hands, embarrassed. Jessica trudges up the stairs with Mattressa. She begins humming a new and different song.

  "You've got to be exhausted," she tells her. She hands Jessica the warm towels. Jessica puts her cheek against them. She opens the bathroom door and steam drifts out into the open air. She kisses the top of Jessica's head then turns to head back downstairs.

  "See ya when you get out!" she says and Jessica walks into the steamy bathroom and shuts the door behind her.

  Jessica's father sees the Head Mistress out the front door. They shake hands.

  "You'll have her back in no time," she tells him.

  "I feel like I already do," he says.

  "Thanks for coming." Then, Jessica's father invites Ickabod into the study.

  "All I can say..." Ickabod recounts, "a thirst I'd never known before. Terrible, really. Couldn't get it off my chest, all night, but now, now that the statue is gone-"

  "Do you feel relief?" Jessica's father asks.

  "I feel a little tired," he says.

  "I'm sure I'll feel relieved soon. She's been quite a trooper about it, all, you know. It really has been quite an ordeal. Grabbed a hold of us both, you know."

  Her father admits to his dear friend, "I guess I didn't understand, really, I just kept trying. To say I'd done it all, I knew, and yet, I didn't. Not really. Well, I do now. And it's gone, thank hell's bell chimes. Good riddance!" Ickabod's voice quiets.

  He asks, "Do you think vampires have a saint?"

  Jessica's father looks around the room, then scolds Ickabod.

  "Watch your words, Ickabod! Utter such language, in my home?" Ickabod begins to cry real tears. He grabs a tissue and blots his eyes.

  His friend consoles him, "I'm sorry, Ickabod. I guess I really don't know." He pats Ickabod's back.

  "Must have been quite a horrendous ordeal... for you both. Well, now, shall we get a bite to eat?"

  Ickabod tells his friend, "I think I'll just sit here a bit, if that's okay with you. In the quiet. Join you in a while?"

  "Certainly," her father tells him.

  At the afternoon meal, Jessica, Ickabod, and her father eat while the maid serves food. !e table is quiet save the sounds of utensils clinking against plates. It is quiet, but it is a good quiet. The worst is over, the healing begins, and both Jessica and Ickabod are feeling better already. That same night, when Jessica is in her night gown, she goes to tell her father good night. She opens the office door and sees her father looking through old photographs on the desk.

  Jessica asks, "Can I come in?"

  Her father smiles, "Sure, Jess. What's up? You feeling better?

  Jessica tells him, "More like myself, already. What are you looking at?"

  "O, just some nostalgic memories! You'd had these out, remember? And I just started looking through them," her father says. “I hadn't seen some of them, in, o eons."

  "Father," Jessica asks, "What do you think will happen now?" Her father puts down the photo in his hand and sits back in his chair with a sigh.

  "I think that's up to you."

  "I want things to be the way they were before."

  "So do I, Jess," her father says.

  "Can you do that? I think you can. I have these same vampire bloodlines, you know, Jess... and I didn't have anything for, with, that statue business, you know?"

  "Maybe it was the artist..."

  "You think so?"

  Jessica pauses, then confesses her worry to him, "I thought you stole it." Her father laughs.

  "It was in the family, Jessica, why would I?"

  "I just saw it there, after the disappearance, and then, o never mind," she sighs. Her father holds out his arms.

  "Come give me a hug," he says.

  "Off to bed with you! All that nonsense is over with now. You can focus on getting back in good with your school, hmmm? and getting your homework done – things like that." Jessica sits on his knee.

  "Is that what you want me to do? You? The famous vampire family on the block's player of the day and enchanter of the night? You?" He laughs.

  "No," she teases, "I just want to get this down on record. You asked me to do my homework, schoolwork, and things like that, right?" Her father holds her tight and rests his head against her arm, smiling.

  "I didn't realize how much you keep us all grounded and together Jess."

  He looks up at her, "Now I realize just how much I prefer you... just the way you are." Jessica looks at her long, blood-red fingernails.

  "I did get these out of the ordeal, at least. Raven will be glad to know I'm back, you know... to the person he is accustomed to." She laughs.

  "He got so freaked out." She looks at her hands again.

  "I guess I can understand. Father? it won't... ever happen again, will it?" Her father looks down at a photo of Nostramadeus with his artist girlfriend near him. He squeezes Jessica's arms, held in his.

  "Not like that, Jess. Not for now. Don't go looking for it, though, you know, don't go looking for that statue, or any other trouble, if you can help it. No digging around, okay?" Jessica agrees easily to that.

  Trouble is the last thing she wants right now, so she says, "I won't. I'm actually looking forward to school tomorrow." She walks over to the door way.

  "Good night," she tells him.

  "Good night," her father tells her back. She leaves the doorway. He sighs, sits up, leans toward the desk and shuffles the photos in front of him.

  Old Nostramadeus's photo begins to speak.

  "It's not like it won't happen again," it says. Her father looks around the room.

  "Where are you? I've been wondering when you would show yourself. All this distress you've caused, not like you to 'stay out of the picture', pardon the pun, and not take the claim to fame. I wasn't much older than she is now, when you showed up and bothered me for the first time, was I?"

  Old Nostramadeus speaks from the corner behind him.

  In a thick accent he says, "I'm right here. Why didn't you call me sooner?"

  "I didn't call you, even now," her father says.

  "You know I wouldn't call you. It's you who've come to me, now, what is the real reason for this disturbance?"

  "The years have not encouraged your aristocratic manners, have they?" Old Nostramadeus chides in words so outdated her father almost rolls his eyes.

  "Your statue... my daughter.... you! What did you expect?"

  "I'll get to it, then," Old Nostramadeus says.

  "She's not going to be un-affected, now, with the thing across town."

  "What do you suggest?" her father asks, "A
move? Another city?"

  Old Nostramadeus grows impatient, "No, not you! The girl, the statue, I mean, move it to Spain, where I met the girl... that deliciously, sweet sculptress... such a taste for art I had... You have one too, I see."

  "Did you mean palate? or taste as in the gulp type?"

  "Is there a difference?" he asks.

  "Yes! And no, I don't have a 'thirst' for art, if that's what you mean," Jessica's father sneers, and then he asks,

  "Don't you have somewhere to be? Some castle's dark corners to haunt?"

  Old Nostramadeus sits down on the arm of the chaise, "If you don't want my advice, I'll go."

  "Good," her father says.

  "But a word of caution against false hopes," Old Nostramadeus adds, "I think the statue wants to be

  returned to the artist. She's in Spain."

  "Hovering over some gallery somewhere? Do you mind not wasting my time with this rubbish?" Jessica's father asks.

  Old Nostramadeus continues on, "She'll stop crying. Your daughter's dreams her own. What solace could a teenage parent want but the certitude that his young vampire will wait, enjoy the lives of mortals while they can... hhhuh?"

  Jessica's father looks at Old Nostramadeus, then he asks, "What do you know about it?"

  "Plenty. But with that, I will leave some very soul pickling comments - I've got to go, now, I'm busy too! O hail, the comments, at your discretion... She's NOT going to just go back to being your daughter, as you knew her. She's changed. She's different. And that statue's not her enemy, not her alter ego... but not her friend either... send it back to Spain. Au revoir." He walks to the corner he appeared in and fades slowly into the darkness."

  Her father, disrupted by his appearance and even more annoyed after his disappearance, says loudly to the empty corner, "Searching for some peace and quiet around here... Mattressa! Mattressa!!! Bring me some warm towels, I feel a like a swim."

  Downstairs, in the darkness of the pool room, a bat circles the pool. He lunges, dipping into the water, lifting up, circling, and dipping in again. He does this for nearly an hour, then all at once, the bat circles the swimming area and then flies out of one of the open doorways into the dark, night sky.