I’m not sure how long Todd slept. When he woke up, I tried to lead him to the cave’s entrance, but it was dark and the rocks were slippery. I hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight, and the matches Will had given me flickered and went out as soon as I lit them. The surf boomed, reminding me how easily we could drown.
Suddenly Todd grabbed my arm. “Look, Cynda, a light. Someone’s coming.”
My first thought was Vincent—he’d returned like a creature in a horror movie, springing upon us just when we thought we were safe. Todd must have feared the same thing for he flung his arms around me and began to sob.
The light came closer, closer. Its beam lit the rocks and shone in our eyes, blinding us. Will ran toward us, calling our names. For a few seconds we couldn’t speak. We all clung to one another, laughing and crying.
“I was so scared,” Will said at last. “The police kept me for hours. I thought I was too late, I was afraid you and Todd . . .”
I gasped. “The door—you weren’t here to lock it, Will. What if Vincent escaped?”
We stared at each other. Had we failed after all? I’d been so sure Vincent was dead. I’d felt him burn, shared his agony, known when it ended. So had Todd.
“Let’s get out of here.” Will handed me the flashlight and lifted Todd to his shoulders. The three of us made our way slowly and cautiously over the rocks. The sea slapped at us, waves rumbled and surged, driven into the cave by the wind. Todd whimpered in fear, but we found our way safely to the trail and climbed to the top of the cliffs.
Nothing was left of the shack but ashes and charred wood licked by tiny flames. Silently we watched the fire dancing in the wind, flaring up here, dying there, glowing like Christmas lights in the falling snow. Despite the crackle and pop of the fire, despite the wind and the surf, the night seemed incredibly still.
Suddenly Will put Todd down and ran to the shack. For a moment, his body was a black shape against the firelight. He bent, picked something up from the snow, and brought it to me.
“It’s the padlock,” he whispered, “and the hasp. Someone locked the door, Cynda. Someone made sure Vincent couldn’t escape.”
While Will examined the lock, I stared into the darkness, listening for voices in the wind. Snowflakes as shy and cold as airborne kisses touched my cheek. I glimpsed pale faces, blowing veils of hair, hands lifted in farewell. Then Eleanor and the others were gone, drifting away like fog. The wind dropped. The night was still and peaceful.
“Goodbye,” I whispered. “Goodbye.”
Will looked at me, puzzled. “Who are you talking to?”
“Didn’t you see them?”
He shook his head and picked up Todd again. He’d seen no one. Neither had Todd. Turning our backs on the fire, we trudged toward the inn.
“What will we tell your father?” Will asked. “How will we explain Vincent’s death?”
“Say he was a bad man,” Todd said fiercely. “Say he told lies, say he hurt Cynda and me, say we burned him up in a fire. Say he deserved it.”
I squeezed my brother’s hand. He yawned and rested his cheek on Will’s cap. By the time we reached the inn, Todd was asleep. He looked like himself again, rosy and healthy, an ordinary little boy.
Before I went inside, I looked up at Vincent’s window. His room was dark, the curtains hung motionless, but it was hard to believe he wasn’t standing behind them, watching us come home. I expected him to fling the curtains aside and say, “Surely you didn’t think you’d get rid of me so easily.”
With the memory of his laughter ringing in my ears, I ran past the mound of snow burying the Porsche and raced up the steps ahead of Will and Todd. When I opened the kitchen door, I heard Dad shouting into the phone. “I tell you they’re missing, both of them. I don’t care how bad the roads are, get out here and help me find them! By morning it may be too late. For God’s sake, it may already be too late!”
“Daddy, Daddy,” Todd cried. Will set him on the floor and he ran into the inn with us close behind.
Dad’s face lit up with joy. He dropped the phone and gathered us close. Susan leaped up from the table and threw herself into the hugs and kisses. It was a long time before anyone remembered the phone, still swinging on the end of its cord, beeping with alarm.
“Where have you been?” Susan cried.
“Where’s Vincent?” Dad asked at the same moment.
I clung to Dad and wept. “He took us to Will’s shack, he tried to hurt us. There was a fire, Daddy. It was horrible, terrible . . .”
“Vincent was a bad, bad man,” Todd sobbed. “I told you and told you. Why didn’t you listen, Daddy?”
Dad held Todd tighter and turned to Will, his face agonized. “My God,” he whispered, “I believed Vince, I thought you—how could I have been such a fool?”
“Oh, Will,” Susan wept, “we’re so sorry. I don’t know what was wrong with us. It’s as if, as if . . .”
Will let Susan hug him. He looked close to tears himself.
By the time the police arrived, Susan had made a pot of peppermint tea and we were gathered around the kitchen table, afraid to let one another out of our sight. We’d stopped crying, but we were far from calm.
Sergeant Jackson had many questions, but her voice was soft and pleasant and she seemed genuinely sympathetic. She listened to the same story we’d told Dad and Susan. Her assistant wrote down every word carefully, stopping every now and then to verify things. He seemed puzzled by how little any of us knew about Vincent.
When she’d gotten all the information she wanted from us, we took her upstairs to Vincent’s room, while the assistant phoned the station to check out the car’s license plate number. All Sergeant Jackson found were two neatly folded black sweaters, spare socks and underwear, a tweed jacket, two shirts, and a pair of slacks. On Vincent’s writing table were stacks of second-hand books and sheets of paper covered with illegible scribbling. If he’d had money or credit cards, a driver’s license or a Social Security card, he’d carried them in the pockets of the clothes he wore to the shack.
The policewoman led the way downstairs. Even though I knew Vincent was gone, I feared the darkness at my back. Suppose I looked over my shoulder and saw his pale face watching us from the shadows?
To no one’s surprise, the Porsche had been stolen several weeks ago in New York. “That explains why Mr. Morthanos never left the inn,” Sergeant Jackson said.
At the bottom of the steps, I moved closer to Dad. He was trying to answer one last question from Sergeant Jackson. She still didn’t understand how Vincent had managed to kidnap Todd and me.
“It’s hard to explain,” Dad admitted. “It seems Susan and I dozed off. We couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few minutes but when we opened our eyes the living room was empty. Todd and Vincent were gone.”
Dad’s voice broke and Susan went on for him. “We’d put Cynda to bed earlier, she’d been upset. When we went to her room, our children were gone and the window was wide open.”
“We saw tracks in the snow,” Dad added, “signs of a struggle.”
“It was as if a spell had lifted,” Susan said. “We looked at each other and we knew, we knew Vincent had taken our son and daughter.”
“Our children . . . our son and daughter.” Susan’s and Dad’s words rang in my ears. Not our stepdaughter, but our daughter, our children. I leaned against Dad’s shoulder and he put his arm around me reassuringly.
Although she still seemed puzzled, Sergeant Jackson thanked us for our cooperation. Before she and her assistant left, she said, “We have two officers at the fire. Perhaps they’ll discover something useful when the ashes cool.”
Todd edged closer and took my hand. I felt him tremble. “You won’t find anything,” he whispered.
It was the first time he’d spoken since the police arrived, so he had everyone’s attention. “Vincent’s just ashes now, nothing’s left of him,” he said. “That’s what happens when vampires die.”
Will and I looked at each other uneasily, but Dad pulled Todd onto his knee. “Vincent was a wicked man, Todd. He hurt you and Cynda, but he wasn’t a vampire, son. Vampires are imaginary. They aren’t real.”
Sergeant Jackson nodded. “In a case like this,” she said softly, “counseling is a good idea. I’d be happy to recommend someone.”
Susan began to cry again and Dad held Todd tighter. Sergeant Jackson wrote down a name and left it by the phone. She and her assistant said their goodbyes and left. Will followed them into the snowy night, pausing in the doorway to promise he’d see us soon.
After Susan took Todd to bed, Dad clasped my hands. “I don’t know why I didn’t see, didn’t guess. You and Todd are so precious to me, I love you so much, yet I let Vincent—”
He released my hand and struck the table with his fist. “How could I have trusted that man?”
I was tempted to tell my father the truth, but perhaps it was better to let him go on believing Vincent was depraved, a pervert of some land, a child abuser. If Dad believed he’d invited a creature from myth and legend to cross his threshold, he’d have to rethink his entire concept of reality. I wasn’t sure he was ready for that.
Putting my arms around him, I whispered, “I believed Vincent too, Daddy. He was very clever. He knew just what we wanted to hear.”
One afternoon several weeks later, I sat on the couch, reading a letter from Mom. Dad had told her about Vincent and she wanted to be sure I was all right. “Please come to Italy,” she begged. “Steve and I would love to have you—even if it’s just for a visit.”
I refolded the letter and slid it back into the envelope. I missed Mom, but I was just beginning to feel comfortable with Dad. If I left now, I might not have another chance to get to know him. Soon I’d be in college. After that I’d be on my own. Things wouldn’t be the same then.
Maybe next winter when it was cold and gray in Maine I’d go to Italy, but for now I wanted to stay here. With Vincent gone, Underhill was quiet and peaceful. A fire crackled on the hearth. Ebony dozed beside me, purring contentedly. Susan’s sewing machine whirred. Dad’s printer rat-tat-tatted in his den. Mrs. Bigelow’s vacuum cleaner rumbled back and forth across the floor overhead.
At my feet, Todd played with his castle, calling out knightly challenges in a fierce voice. Catching my eye, he scrambled onto the sofa. “Will you read me a story, Cynda?”
I took a book from a pile of old favorites, and Todd leaned against me, sighing contentedly. After a few minutes, he startled me by reaching up to touch the small scar on my neck. For a second, it tingled the way it used to. Against my will, I remembered dark, mocking eyes, strong hands, sharp teeth sinking into my throat.
“Are you sure it’s over?” Todd whispered. “Are you absolutely positive Vincent won’t come back?”
Something in my brother’s voice worried me. I stared into his eyes, as blue as ever but not quite as innocent. Deep in their depths, a shadow lurked, a memory. A memory I shared.
“He promised we’d live forever,” Todd said dreamily. “We’d do what we pleased. No rules. He’d always love us best.”
“We’d never be lonely. We’d never be sad,” I added softly. “We’d be his children, he’d never leave us.”
We stared at each other, scared to realize we were still tempted by the things Vincent had promised. Across the room, his empty chair faced us silently. I told myself he’d never sit there again. Someday we’d forget which chair had been his, we’d forget which room had been his. I’d stop expecting to hear his footsteps overhead. I’d forget his eyes, his kisses, his promises. He was gone forever. I had to believe that.
“Everything Vincent promised was a lie,” I reminded Todd, my brother, myself. “He was bad, evil.”
Todd nodded, his face solemn. “He wanted us to be like him. But we aren’t.”
Fighting my own uncertainty, I said fiercely, “That’s right, Toddy. We aren’t like Vincent and we never will be.”
He seemed satisfied. Picking another book, he said, “Read this one now. Make sure the wolf falls down the chimney and lands in the boiling water. Make sure the pig eats him up. Every single bit. I don’t want anything left—not even one hair.”
I opened the book and began. “Once upon a time there were three little pigs.”
Just as I read, “Little Pig, Little Pig, let me come in,” I heard a knock on the back door. A shiver raced across my skin, and Todd clutched my arm, his eyes wide. We both held our breath till Susan welcomed Will inside.
Todd looked at me and laughed. “Keep reading, Cynda. Will likes this story, too.”
I guess my brother was right because Will sat down beside me and snuggled as close as Todd to hear what happened next.