CHAPTER NINE
COX THE OBSERVER
Just look at the clouds clearing. Things are never as bad as they may seem.
BUD LEROY
Unless there’s an elemental witch in the next town over, getting all her clouds in a row ready for Armageddon. Just saying.
Vampire Falls. Season three, episode seventeen – “Signs of Life”.
Not even Damon Van Schwartz and Amber Anderson riffing on stage lifts me from the pungent swamp of despair-excrement I’m neck deep in.
Despexcrement. The crowd laughs at their Hollywood anecdotes and claps furiously when Damon Van Schwartz talks about how much he loves his dog (a Golden Retriever named Gandhi), but I’m impervious to the good cheer in Conference Hall A.
“Hi Amber, I know you’re a fan of the show,” says a man.
The audience turns to look at the man at the mic stand in the aisle, dressed as a punk version of Chester Burton, the archivist, from the multiverse episode.
“Sure am, honey,” replies Amber, smiling at him.
“Would you mind telling us what your favourite scene is that you didn’t appear in?”
“Gosh, you guys are knocking it out of the park with these questions today, I gotta say.” Punk Chester Burton looks pleased with himself. “I know this is a favourite for you Fallers too. It’s gotta be that scene in the asylum between Lila and possessed, or non-possessed, Orion.”
Music pipes out of the speakers, sending goosebumps racing down my arms. Amber looks off to the side of the stage and smiles.
“See? I didn’t even have to tell you guys the episode name. You nailed it.”
I could hear any one of the instrumental versions of this song and tell you exactly what scene, episode and season it’s from.
The version playing now is from “Just For Today”, and it triggers a pandemonium of emotions inside me.
The audience claps gently over the music and I look at Charlie Chamberlain, wondering if he remembers the song too.
Because that episode, that actual scene, is where this whole thing started.
Week by week, month by month, Charlie Chamberlain fell face first for Vampire Falls, and I started falling hard for him. Our time together spilt out of my living room and he gravitated towards us at school, until we became a tight little cluster.
Vampire Falls was always on the agenda, but we’d loop and swoop around each other in conversations about anything and everything.
Often it was just me and him doing the talking, and Roxy would observe as he teased me or when I made ridiculous observations that would have him in stitches.
I told him everything, from my secret fantasy about Damon Van Schwartz showing up in the common room to whisk me away, to my fear that Roxy would one day realise I’m too weird for her and leave me.
He’d laugh and shake his head, saying I was ridiculous, but I’d be thrilled that he had any kind of opinion of me.
I remember sharing a show theory with him, and as I explained why it’s feasible Lila was in a coma since the first episode, he pulled a tiny leaf from my hair.
I spent the rest of that day twirling that curl, my heart fluttering at the memory of his gentle fingers.
I loved those lunchtime moments where he’d clock me, and the tension would just melt from his face.
I’d ask to see photos of his pug, Chuck, knowing he’d lean in closer, pressing his shoulder against mine.
Roxy had teased him for being overgenerous with his deodorant, so he’d cut way back, revealing the vanilla and sweet orange aroma of an aftershave Sadie had given him for his sixteenth birthday.
In the mornings, his coconut shampoo joined the mix and tingled its way from my nose to my fluttery stomach; he smelt like dessert.
There was an energy hustling between us when we were close, and it took my breath away.
Every night, as I played our interactions over in my head, analysing the type of smile I got when we said goodbye,I wondered how it would feel if he kissed me. Wonder became hope, until one day we were alone at my house.
We were watching the season three episode “Just For Today”, which routinely appears in fan top five lists.
Orion is possessed by a demon that’s draining the life from him.
While the gang prepare a spell to turn Orion back into a ghost (the only way to expel the demon), Lila sneaks off to see him chained up, but he’s broken free and, under control of the demon, he grabs her.
Lila fights against him (that girl is scrappy) until he pushes her against the wall and we realise, from the way he looks at her, that in that moment he’s her Orion.
A single tear rolls down his cheek, his hands and eyes exploring her shoulders and her face, checking he hasn’t hurt her.
Strings start up, the instrumental theme twinkling gently between them, pulling the viewers into their pain as Orion tells her he can’t fight much longer, that he’s getting lost inside the demon’s darkness.
Lila looks up at him, shaking her head as her own tears fall.
Orion runs his fingers through her hair, then cups her face in his hands and leans in, pressing his lips against hers, squeezing their eyes closed as they take in the moment, take in each other before she loses him.
Maybe for good (spoiler: it’s not for good).
It was a moment Fallers had been waiting for since Lila and Orion danced together at the Vampire Ball in season one. I’d seen it dozens of times, so I looked at Charlie to see what he thought.
He was looking right at me.
He blinked slowly and the side of his mouth curved up in a smile, like he was preparing to be happy about something. I froze as he leant into me in slow motion and super speed all at once, then kissed me, his body pressed up against mine in the familiarity we’d built up over years of friendship.
I held my breath and put my hand on the back of his neck,a spot I’d become obsessed with, and melted into him.
Suddenly, a loud clang broke us apart, and he clutched his chest, laughing because he’d knocked the remote off the sofa into an empty snack bowl.
He straightened up and looked at me, like he was memorising every one of my freckles, then broke into a wide smile.
“I’ve been thinking if I didn’t kiss you soon, I’d explode,” he said, drawing a little circle on my knee with his finger. “Then there was a bang and I thought we’d both exploded.”
I laughed, he laughed. It was us and it was cute, and I’ll never forget that moment. I think about our kiss daily and it makes my heart race and break at the same time.
Goosebumps still prickle my skin and I narrow my eyes at Charlie Chamberlain who is fixated on Amber Anderson, not a ghost of that same memory twitching on his face.
“. . . and that’s the opening ceremony, guys. Although . . .” says Damon Van Schwartz, that crooked smile of his teasing the audience into a frenzy. “I heard a rumour there’s some kind of surprise, Felix. Is that right?”
“That is correct, sir,” says Felix, without missing a beat. “We know you’re all suckers for surprises.”
Roxy looks at me, her eyebrow raised. I sit up from my slumped position. Felix now has my attention.
“All right. First off, Damon Van Schwartz is giving us the ultimate treat by playing with his band tonight. I can’t think of a better start to the weekend, can you?”
Roxy and I whip round to each other and grab hands.
“brING ME THE GHOST ARE PLAYING!?”
We squeal in tandem, and Damon Van Schwartz’s band name ripples across the audience, punctuated by whoops and clapping. This news makes my heart beat as fast as the drum solo on the track “Master of Los Angeles” from their third album.
Felix looks out at the audience, a huge grin on his face. He’s been running Vampire Falls conventions for over five years now. He’s a Faller, just like the rest of us.
“But that’s not all, right, Damon?”
“Right, Felix.” Damon Van Schwartz turns to us, his faceserious. “You guys have the opportunity to take part in a competition at this very convention. And the prize is big, guys.”
Damon Van Schwartz pauses for the audience chatter; he knows who he’s dealing with.
Roxy looks at me, her eyebrows high. I shrug.
“I hate competitions,” I say. “I never win anything.”
“That’s the spirit, babe,” Roxy says, ruffling my hair.
“Are you guys ready to roll?” says Damon Van Schwartz, looking at the big screen behind them.
“They are,” says Felix, beaming at him.
“OK,” nods Damon Van Schwartz, clapping his hands together. “Do we have a treat for you Fallers! Hold on to your butts for this never-before-seen footage from Vampire Falls, filmed especially for you guys.”
Roxy and I whip round to look at each other; in our entire convention experience, from my mum chaperoning us, to us being the mature grown-up types we (OK, one of us) now are, this has never happened.
“He looks like Viggo when he’s about to reunite Juliana with her childhood hell-mongrel,” says Roxy, beaming at me.
“Totally,” I say, nodding in agreement, the look on his face exactly the same (yes, I know they’re the same person but he’s usually so Damon Van Schwartz).
Excited chatter flutters over the crowd, everyone wondering what we’re about to see until the Vampire Falls theme blasts from the speakers and the opening graphics flash up on the big screen.
Conference Hall A is silent, as every pair of eyes behind every latex mask stares at the screen.
Lila Murphy’s montage rolls to the music, followed by Orion Fenimore’s clips.
I know these clips better than I know the photos inside my mum’s family album.
But that’s it. There’s no Viggo Rassmussen waltzing with a skeleton, and no Juliana the Demon Huntress throwing a knife into the single eye of a Fraaxalon demon. The usual Vampire Falls title graphic emblazons the screen, but with three extra words underneath in the same font.
A Convention Special.
My little heart leaps and I squee at Roxy, who’s basically my mirror right now. We turn back to the screen at the sound of Orion’s voice.
“Lila, get back here. You shouldn’t go in there alone.”
I hold my breath. This is new dialogue. New dialogue especially for us!
“Walk through a wall or something then.”
Classic Lila.
“You know I can’t walk through walls. It makes me itch.”
Orion’s a ghost, for most of the series, anyway.
“You’re incorporeal. You can’t possibly itch.”
OK, I’ll shut up now.
“Well, you’ll find out whether ghosts itch if you go in there alone. Maksaka Skinners love blond chicks.”
“Good job there are no chicks here then.”
Laugher tinkles around Conference Hall A.
Lila’s in her signature scuffed Dr Martens, high-waist torn jeans and has a blue check (or flannel, as they say on the show) shirt tied at her tiny waist. She twirls her blond waves into a bun then secures it with the tiny hatpin Juliana gave her in the episode “Quiet Now”.
I love her hair in a bun; she has the most immaculate hairline in the world.
“There it is.”
Lila points at a chest tucked under a white metal bed frame. My heart is beating so hard I can hardly hear what they’re saying.
“No sign of the Maksakas.”
Lila pulls the chest from its hiding place. Orion sticks his hands out like he’s trying to stop traffic.
“Don’t open it!”
“Well, you can’t open it.” She looks at her watch. “It’s not sundown yet so no touchy-touchy for you.”
“You always rub that in my face.”
“Can’t rub anything in your face until sundown.”
“Ha ha.”
(Orion’s incorporeal but in season two a warlock owed him a favour and made him corporeal from sunset to sunrise. OK, I promise I’ll stop now.)
“Fine, just open it. But be careful.”
“I was planning on not being careful actually.”
More laughter from us. Classic Lila and Orion banter.
Lila pulls the splintered chest towards her, its open padlock dangling from a cast iron link on the top. Everyone around me is frozen as she reaches inside and pulls out a torn scroll, wrapped with a leather cord. She glances at Orion,who nods at her, and she unties it.
“What’s it say?”
Lila’s eyebrows pinch together as she scans the scroll. She looks up at Orion, her eyes wide with shock. Roxy looks round at me, but I can’t look away; there’s something important written on that scroll.
“Lila? Come on, you’re killing me here. I mean, if I wasn’t already dead.”
No laughter this time. The audience is invested as Lila swallows a lump then reads from the scroll.
“It says . . . it says . . . attendees at the Vampire Falls convention in London, England are invited to enter the first ever Fall Games. Three contestants will be chosen to battle it out for the ultimate Faller prize.”
Roxy and I are holding hands and nearly breaking each other’s fingers, but it’s fine; bones can be fixed.
“What prize, Lila?”
Lila suddenly breaks the fourth wall and looks out at us.I gasp, as her perma-frown melts from her face and she breaks into a wide smile.
“The prize is courtesy of my boy Damon’s production company, Karma Kaleidoscope. Love you, Damon.”
She blows a kiss out towards the camera and Damon Van Schwartz, on stage in London, reciprocates. Lila (or Megan? I’m so overexcited and giddy right now, I have no idea) does a heart sign with her hands then smiles at us again.
“The winner of the Fall Games, along with a friend, will be my personal guest at next year’s San Diego Comic Con.”