Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Mr. Minegold’s house was the largest on a road that led up toward the pine-covered hills that gave the town its name.
“Has he been here that long?” Sophie blinked, doing some guesswork. Mr. Minegold might be over a hundred if this was the house he bought as a young man.
“Oh...?”
“As in, he should have been killed. But he wasn’t. He survived... horrible things. He knows humans can be the real monsters.”
“What? Oh God, Jesse. What... where was he?”
“Poland. He got out. He took out as many as he could, saved as many as he could, but even vampires have time constraints. Daylight. Fire. You can be physically weakened if you’re denied something to eat.
” Jesse’s eyes shone briefly. “He’s saved a lot more people than just Robbie and me.
If he seems odd sometimes, or maybe a little bitter, you’ll get why.
He lost his wife. Some stuff he’s said makes me think he had children, too, children who survived but that he couldn’t very well go back and get, not years later, not after everyone believed he was dead. ”
“I promise not to be rude. And not to ask too many questions.”
“Just... I love him like a dad. Like a friend, too. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to get to know him. I don’t want to put any pressure on you—”
“Failing spectacularly,” Sophie interjected.
“But I hope you’ll get to love him as much as I do. In time. Because I hope you’re around for a long time. Geez, it’s hot in here.”
“We’re standing outside. It’s also snowing.” She was forced to laugh as Jesse tugged the collar of his jacket and swallowed several times. “He saved you. I already like him.”
Sophie followed Jesse up to the doorway. The house’s white pillars were wrapped in twinkling lights. She noticed a Christtmas tree was visible through one window while the other held a menorah. “Does he live alone?”
“Yes, but he spends a lot of time in town.” Jesse adjusted the elaborate bundt cake in his arms
“Do we call him by his first name?” Sophie hissed as Jesse rang the bell. A carillon inside the house began to play Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze. Mr. Minegold went up a dozen points in her mind.
Jesse shook his head. “I don’t. He’s always been Mr. Minegold to me. His first name is Jakob, but he’s never, ever told me to call him that. I think there’s something in him that likes to keep the old world formality. Hey, if it makes him happy, I’m down.”
“Ah, Jesse! Sophie!” Mr. Minegold swung open the door, beaming.
He instantly embraced Jesse, then grabbed Sophie in the other arm after a moment’s hesitation.
“Oh, look at you, your mother has been baking. She is a treasure to look after my sweet tooth.” He took the bundt cake like it was an established ritual.
“Mrs. Smith has been ‘thanking’ me for looking after Jesse since the day after he— erm—recovered. Every chance she gets, she brings me something for the table.”
“She’s super sweet,” Sophie agreed quickly. “I think she likes me.”
“You make Jesse happy. She loves you.” His smile was much warmer than yesterday. “Come and eat.”
Jesse followed the older man to the dining room easily, the practice of many years. Sophie followed them, her eyes wandering, trying to get a sense of the house’s owner.
Well-read. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were crammed full.
Loves art and music. Real art, the kind that costs money.
The kind her parents would never have hung on the walls.
A few well-loved pieces, Sophie guessed, chiding herself for thinking about prices.
Nothing was too ostentatious, only a few pieces arranged tastefully.
She passed an old-fashioned record player and radio beside a wardrobe-sized record cabinet.
Traveler? Globes and maps were cheek-by-jowl with sextants and compasses, as well as other equipment she couldn’t recognize.
Good cook. There was enough food on the table to feed a small army.
“Mr. Minegold!” Jesse was apparently surprised by the amount of food as well. “I promise, they feed us at college.”
“Ah, I know! Tessa and Leo will come over later. That boy can eat.”
“Werewolf,” Jesse whispered as they took a seat.
Mr. Minegold chuckled, reminding Sophie that there was no point in trying to whisper— not around any one of the three members of this luncheon. It would probably be rude to blurt out her questions before they even sat down, but her tongue felt positively itchy.
Jesse pulled out the high-backed chair with its embroidered cushion. “M’lady,” he teased.
She giggled and sat. “This home is gorgeous. Everything looks delicious!”
“Nothing is too good for Jesse and his lady,” Mr. Minegold rolled his wrist with a flourish.
Jesse rolled it back and both men laughed, at ease.
“Lord, it is a sight for my heart, to see you finally happy like this. Happy to your bones, it radiates from you.” Their host busied himself at the head of the long table, pouring something thick and red out of a silver pitcher into two fancy goblets.
“I got out the good dishes and everything,” Mr. Minegold admitted with a self-conscious smile.
Jesse’s eyes darted to Sophie’s. She smiled reassuringly. It wasn’t like she didn’t know he needed to drink blood. She’d seen him do it, discreetly, hastily, in the corner of his dorm room.
“Do you partake?” Mr. Minegold paused before putting the pitcher down.
“Oh. No. No, I don’t.” Sophie fussed with the linen napkin at her place.
“She’s not a vamp like us.”
“I know. But... she is something like us. Aren’t you, my dear?”
For a moment, Sophie bristled. The Philly hardness was part of her as much as her skin, but she heard the gentle welcome in Minegold’s voice. He wasn’t accusing, he was questioning out of curiosity and wanting to understand her. That made sense; she was curious as well.
“I guess I am. I don’t know what I am, aside from human. Just not a normal human.” Sophie replied with a small shrug.
“Actually, I told Soph maybe you could help her.” Jesse took the proffered goblet, looking earnestly into his mentor’s eyes. “We have a lot in common, but vampires don’t make living children, so—”
“Well, not two vampires, anyway.” Minegold sat.
Sophie started. The words from her dream echoed in her head, unsettling her.
“I’m sorry, dear. I did not mean to offend,” Mr. Minegold solicitously. “But you know, not all vampires are bad. Most of us... but not all. It’s very easy to give in to temptation. You must have something that motivates you highly to keep your soul stronger than what else inhabits you.’
“Wh-what motivates you?” Sophie asked.
Minegold cut into a highly decorated pie with a golden brown crust. Putting a thick wedge on each plate, he finally answered, “To protect. To find justice. To help. If a person is willing to help, they will always be busy. That is good for a man with a long life. He will need something to fill the hours.”
“Don’t forget about family.” Jesse moved around the table as if it was his own, placing salad dressed in vinaigrette on his plate and passing the bowl to Sophie. “You’re like a dad to half the kids in town. Kids like us.”
“Jesse, you’re not a child, you’re a man.”
“Yeah, but I’ll always be a kid compared to you,” Jesse teased.
Sophie relaxed a little. “I’m not offended, I’m just a little confused. Vampires don’t reproduce. They don’t... they’re not alive.”
“Ah, yes. But just like there are different wildcats, there are differences among the vampires of this world. Some, in Albania, so I hear, will be able to impregnate the woman they loved in life and produce in turn a dhampir. He will have some of the father’s traits, very pale, no shadow.
... But these are things I hear of. I do not know any personally and I have not seen with my own eyes. I hear they are rare.”
“Do— do their fingertips glow when they’re really upset?”
Minegold’s fork hovered between his lips and his plate. The fork returned to the plate with a gentle chink. “Sad? Any emotional upset, dear?”
Sophie couldn’t help but feel her heart melt a little at the courtly manners he used.
She could feel Jesse swelling happily across from her, despite the seriousness of his expression.
“Not any emotional upset. When I feel... when I feel so angry, sometimes it’s almost like heat in my chest and it spreads to my hands. ”
“Mm.”
Everyone took several bites before Mr. Minegold put down his fork again. “I have many books on such matters. They are at your disposal.”
“As long as we don’t bend the pages or eat while we look,” Jesse added in a stage whisper.
“I wouldn’t know where to look,” Sophie stammered.
“Perhaps you can tell me anything you know of your parents or your... abilities?”
“I’m pale, I’m fast, I have annoyingly good hearing. I’ve always been more afraid and nervous than angry, at least since I can remember. The bullies...”
Chants from the bus filled her head, unsettling the excellent chicken pot pie she’d been consuming.
Pale girl, white girl, ghost girl, mummy.
White-out, zombie, vampire, dummy!
A gentle hand, cooler than her own, lightly brushed her arm. “We live on, in spite of all the cruelty, all the horrors. We are survivors, yes?”
“Yes.” Sophie nodded firmly, trying to replace the unkind words by dwelling on Jesse’s loving ones. To her “Snow King” she was beautiful, gorgeous, loved no matter who or what, just right in his eyes.
Eyes.
“Sometimes it looks like my eyes are red?” Sophie turned her head slightly towards Jesse.
“Not exactly red. It almost looks like— like a little flame, flickering. It’s not like what happens with Minegold and me.”
“Fire? Flame?” Mr. Minegold suddenly became very alert.
“Not like actual flames! I’m not some mutant in the comic books,” Sophie answered, hackles slightly raised.