Claire felt a pure cold bolt of panic, followed by a triumphant crow from the prudent side of her brain: I knew that! “But—it’s daytime!’”
“So it is,’” the old woman said, and rocked gently back and forth on her swing. “So it is. Day don’t always protect round Morganville. You should know that, too. Now, go back the way you came like a good child, and don’t come here again.’”
“Yes, ma’am,’” Claire said, and started to back away.
“Gramma, what are you—oh, hello!’” The screen door to the house opened, and a younger version of the Stick Lady stepped out—young enough to be a granddaughter. She was tall and pretty, and her skin was more cocoa than wood brown. She wore her hair in braids, lots of them, and she smiled at Claire as she came to lay a hand on the old lady’s shoulder. “My gramma likes to sit out here and talk to people. I’m sorry if she bothered you.’”
“No, not at all,’” Claire said, and nervously fiddled with one of the loose adjustment straps of her backpack. “She, um, warned me about the alley.’”
The woman’s eyes moved rapidly, from Claire to the old lady and back again. “Did she?’” she said. She didn’t sound warm anymore. “Gramma, you know better than that. You need to quit scaring people with your stories.’”
“Don’t be a damn fool, Lisa. They ain’t just stories, and you know it.’”
“Gramma, there hasn’t been any—trouble around here for twenty years!’”
“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen,’” Gramma said stubbornly, and pointed a stick-thin shaking finger at Claire. “You don’t go down that alley, now. I meant what I said.’”
“Yes, ma’am,’” she said faintly, and nodded to both women. “Um, thanks.’”
Claire turned to go, and as she did, she noticed something mounted on the wall next to the old woman’s porch swing. A plaque, with a symbol.
The same symbol as was on the Glass House. The Founder’s symbol.
And now that she was looking at the house, really looking, it had some of the same lines to it, and it was about the same age.
Claire turned back, smiled apologetically, and said, “I’m sorry, but could I use your restroom? I’ve been chugging water out here—’”
She thought for a second that Lisa was going to say no, but then the younger woman frowned and said, “I suppose,’” and came down the steps to open the white picket gate for Claire to enter. “Go on inside. It’s the second door off the hall.’”
“Offer the child some lemonade, Lisa.’”
“She’s not staying, Gramma!’”
“How you know if you don’t ask?’”
Claire let them argue it out, and stepped inside. She didn’t feel anything—no tingle of a force field or anything—but then, she didn’t going in and out of the Glass House, either.
Still, she recognized it immediately…. There was something about this house. It had the same quality of stillness, of weight, that she always felt at home. Not the same at all inside from a decorating point of view—Gramma and Lisa seemed to like furniture, lots of it, all in fussy floral patterns and chintz, with rugs everywhere and a smothering amount of curtains and lace. Claire walked slowly down the hardwood hallway, trailing her fingers lightly over the paneling. The wood felt warm, but all wood did, right?
“Freaky,’” she muttered, and opened the bathroom door.
It wasn’t a bathroom.
It was a study, a large one, and it couldn’t have been more different from the overblown frilly living room…severe polished wood floors, a massive dark desk, a few glowering portraits on the walls. Dark red velvet curtains blocking out the sun. The walls were lined with books, old books mostly, and in the cabinet there was something that looked like a wine rack, only it held…scrolls?
Amelie was seated at the desk, signing sheets of paper with a gold pen. One of her assistants, also a vampire, was standing attentively next to her, taking each sheet out of the way as she wrote her name.
Neither of them looked up at Claire.
“Close the door,’” Amelie said in a gentle voice accented with an almost-French sort of pronunciation. “I dislike the draft.’”
Claire thought about running, but she wasn’t stupid enough to believe she could run far enough, or fast enough, and even though the idea of shrieking and slamming the door from the other side was pretty tempting, she swallowed her fear and stepped all the way in before she shut it with a quiet click.
“Is this your house?’” Claire asked. It was the only thing she could think of to ask, frankly; every other question had been shaken right out of her head because this couldn’t be happening.
Amelie glanced up, and her eyes were just as cool and intimidating as Claire remembered. It felt a little like being frostbitten. “My house?’” she echoed. “Yes, of course. They are all my house. Oh, I see what you ask. You ask if the particular house you entered is my home. No, little Claire, it is not where I hide myself from my enemies, although it would certainly be a useful choice. Very…’” Amelie smiled slowly. “Unexpected.’”
“Then…how…?’”
“You’ll find that when I need you, Claire, you will be called.’” Amelie signed the last paper, then handed it to her assistant—a tall, dark young man in a black suit and tie—and he bowed slightly and left the room through another door. Amelie sat back in her massive carved chair, looking more like a queen than ever, including the golden coronet of hair on top of her head. Her long fingers tapped lightly on the lion-head arms of the chair. “You are not in the house where you were, my dear. Do you understand that?’”
“Teleportation,’” Claire said. “But that’s not possible.’”
“Yet you are here.’”
“That’s science fiction!’”
Amelie waved her graceful hand. “I fail to understand your conventions of literature these days. One impossible thing such as vampires, this is acceptable, but two impossible things becomes science fiction? Ah well, no matter. I cannot explain the workings of it; that is a subject for philosophers and artisans, and I am neither. Not for many years.’” Her frost-colored eyes warmed just a fraction. “Put down your pack. I’ve seen tinkers carrying lighter loads.’”
What’s a tinker? Claire wondered. She started to ask, but didn’t want to sound stupid. “Thank you,’” she said, and carefully lowered her backpack to the wooden floor, then slid into one of the two chairs facing the desk. “Ma’am.’”
“So polite,’” Amelie said. “And in a time when manners are forgotten…you do understand what manners are, don’t you, Claire? Behaviors that allow humans to live closely together without killing each other. Most of the time.’”
“Yes, ma’am.’”
Silence. Somewhere behind Claire, a big clock ticked away minutes; she felt a drop of sweat glide down her neck and splash into the fabric of her black knit shirt. Amelie was staring at her without blinking or moving, and that was weird. Wrong. People just didn’t do that.
But then, Amelie wasn’t people. In fact, of all the vampires, in many ways she was the most not-people.
“Sam asked about you,’” Claire blurted, just because it popped into her head and she wanted Amelie to stop staring at her. It worked. Amelie blinked, shifted her weight, and leaned forward to rest her pointed chin on her folded hands, elbows still braced on the arms of the chair.
“Sam,’” she said slowly, and her gaze wandered up and to her right, fixed on nothing. Trying to remember, Claire thought; she’d noticed how people—even vampires, apparently—did that with their eyes when remembering things. “Ah yes. Samuel.’” Her gaze snapped back to Claire with unnerving speed. “And how did you come to chat with dear young Samuel?’”
Claire shrugged. “He wanted to talk to me.’”
“About?’”
“He asked about you. I—think he’s lonely.’”
Amelie smiled. She wasn’t trying to impress Claire with her vampiness—no need for that!—so her teeth looked white and even, perfectly normal. “Of course he’s lonely,’” she said. “Samuel is the youngest. No one older trusts him; no one younger exists. He has no ties to the vampire community, save me, and no ties left to the human world. He is more alone than anyone you will ever meet, Claire.’”