Reckless: Shades of a Vampire(55)

“Full?” her mother says. “You haven’t eaten for hours.”

“It’s fine, mother. Save me a plate for later. I’m just completely stuffed at the moment,” Emma says. “I’m going to turn in early and get some rest.”



Emma stretches out across the covers on her bed with her clothes on. She counts the minutes as they pass through her own calculations, marking the time by the evening’s momentous events – her father coming home, her parents eating, her parents cleaning the dishes, her parents getting ready for bed, her parents turning in.

After that, she peers from her window, waiting for the moon to reach the one a.m. position. When it finally arrives, Emma doesn’t hesitate.

She finds in her closet the black material she used as a snake bag. Emma ties that around her neck to cover her arms, otherwise exposed by her short-sleeved black dress. She puts on a light pair of field shoes that are heavily worn and creeps from the house as she’s done before – without waking her parents.

Emma scampers to the Denton farm to the well where she left the keys. Once there, she takes the cape from her neck and uses it as a mitten to pickup the keys to keep her prints off them. She hurries to the deputy’s car. Emma opens the door, with the cloth, takes a seat, puts the key covered with the cloth into the ignition, puts her foot on the brake, and starts the engine.

Vrooom!

She stretches the cloth over the steering wheel, and clutches it in the ten and two positions. The engine’s sound reminds her of Josh’s truck.

She hopes the deputy hasn’t gone missing yet. He said he was single. He said he stopped by the farm on a whim. He shouldn’t be missed by the morning, she hopes.

Emma isn’t sure where she is going; she’s just sure it is as far away as she can get and get back. She notes the odometer – 59,069.5 – and she starts driving the marked car, clumsily, but effectively enough to move down along the darkened highway toward Henegar. For 15 minutes Emma drives along the mountain road without passing a single car. She is almost to Henegar when she notes that the odometer says she has traveled 7.6 miles.

That’s far enough, Emma figures.

She pulls the car to a stop on the highway’s median. Turns off the engine with the cloth. Leaves the keys in the car, gets out, shuts the door, ties the cloth around her neck, and begins the journey back home.

For two hours, Emma fast-walks through the night without a car passing her. She arrives back home at a quarter before 4 a.m. The sun won’t be up for another two hours.

Emma takes off her shoes, rubs her weary feet, and sits down on her bed. She’s ravenous, and remembers the plate of meatloaf and sides her mother was leaving for her. Emma walks to the kitchen, quietly, pulls the plate from the refrigerator, and gobbles it down without warming it.

She exhales when the plate is emptied.

Emma tiptoes to her bedroom, stretches out on her bed, and smiles.





18.



Michael Returns


The seeds we sow bear fruit more often than not. Patience is most always required, however. Emma’s patience has been tested waiting for the first tomatoes to ripen in the early summer from plants she set months before. The tomato is her favorite vegetable to grow and eat, and she awaits the first ripened gems annually. This year has required more patience than past, however, since Emma has marked what she hopes will be Michael’s return to Sand Mountain from college by the progress of her beloved tomato plants in the garden.

She began this year’s plants indoors as seedlings, transferring them to the outside soil in mid-April, in hopes they would bear mid-June fruit. She got lucky Sand Mountain had no late season frost, so early blossoms remained intact, turning to tomatoes she watched ripen in the latter part of May to fruit almost ready to be picked now.

She’s been hopeful, based on progress, that one or two will be ready in the coming days. Emma could have picked them already, probably, but they wouldn’t have been ready – not perfectly so, anyway.



It’s the morning of June 8, a Saturday, and Emma is walking to the garden after breakfast as she has every day since Memorial Day passed, hoping this will be the day. She sees the plants in the distance glistening in the sun as dewdrops on the leaves shine like crystal. She looks across the road, however, when she hears a sound – a humming, like a tractor’s engine.

Emma stops walking, and swallows her last breath. She covers her mouth with her hands, as if she anticipates needing to muffle a sound.

The noise is coming closer.

From around the bend on the dirt road on the farm Emma sees the old green tractor huffing and puffing its way along, with a strapping lad at the wheel she thinks looks like Michael.