Hourglass (Evernight 3)

“Wow,” Lucas said as our eyes adjusted to the dim lighting.

“This place is huge.”

The cellar was the size of an entire floor of Vic’s enormous house. It seemed to be separated into rooms, suggesting that this had been a living space long ago, even before it was a wine cellar. I remembered that Vic said his dad didn’t collect the way his grandfather had, and wondered how much booze used to be down there. The floor was battered old oak, and obviously hadn’t been refinished in a couple of generations.

As we walked farther inside to the inner rooms, we saw that a small lamp was burning—a hula-girl lamp. It illuminated a small treasure trove: sheets, quilts, and blankets, a still-in-the-sack air mattress, a simple metal folding bed frame like you see in hotels, a little wooden table and chairs, a basketful of mismatched plates and cups in blue and white, a bundle of Christmas lights, a microwave, a minifridge (already plugged in and running), some books and DVDs, an old TV set with DVD player, and even a Persian carpet, which sat rolled up in the corner.

I picked up a small piece of paper on the table and read aloud: “‘Hey, guys. Ranulf and I hauled down some stuff from the attic for you to use. The TV doesn’t get any reception, but you can watch the DVDs. There’s sodas and some fruit in the fridge, and Ranulf left a couple pints for Bianca. Hope it helps. We’ll be back in the middle of August. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Love, Vic.’”

Lucas folded his arms. “What wouldn’t Vic do?”

“Be boring.” I grinned.

We settled in, making one empty corner of the wine cellar our “apartment.” The table and chairs would be the dining area, and we put the hula-girl lamp on the table. The Persian rug went on the floor, and Lucas climbed on the wine racks (making me nervous) to hang up the Christmas lights, which were all white but sometimes shone soft gold where we had threaded them through the wine bottles. The air mattress was self-inflating and easy to get on the bed frame; I took pleasure in covering the mattress with snowy sheets trimmed with lace and then piling it high with quilts to help with the slight chill in the air. The walls were painted a deep green, and by the time we were done, I thought there wasn’t an apartment in all Philadelphia as beautiful as ours. So what if there were bottles on the walls?

It seemed that finally everything was coming together for us. Our friends had helped us this far—but we had jobs, which meant we could pay them back eventually. We had escaped from Mrs. Bethany and from Black Cross. The only wraith anywhere around was either peaceable or wanted to steer clear of any obsidian. I couldn’t believe how good everything was, how right.

Twice, though, small clouds darkened my mood.

The first time was when Lucas and I ate dinner—pizza from a little neighborhood place a few blocks away. Lucas brought it home and we ate it on the “new” dishes. While wondering how to wash them in the bathroom sink, I thought about the delicious meals my mother used to make for me. Oh, I wonder what the recipe for that lemonade pie is? It didn’t have to be baked in the stove, and it would be so good on a hot day like this.

Then I remembered that I couldn’t ask her. I also wondered how she’d managed to cook so many things so well; vampires can’t really taste food, not the way humans do, so it must have been tough for Mom.

I’ll write soon, I promised myself. I’ll send Vic back to Evernight with a note, maybe, and he’ll claim I mailed it to him from somewhere else. That way they’ll know that I’m really okay.

The second time came later in the evening, while we were checking out the DVDs. The walls were bare, and I thought idly that it would be nice to hang something there—nothing big, because we couldn’t damage anything, but maybe a drawing we could tape up.

That made me think about Raquel’s collages, the crazy mishmashes of color and pictures she loved to put together. She used to show them to me with pride. Now she hated me so much that she had turned me over to people who’d tried to kill me.

I should’ve been furious with her. But it hurt too much to make me angry. It was a wound that I knew would never really heal.

“Hey.” Lucas frowned, worried. “You upset about something?”

“Raquel.”

“I swear to God, if I ever get my hands on her—”

“You won’t do anything,” I said. Then I bit my lip so I wouldn’t cry. Let Raquel think what she wanted about me; I loved her, and despite everything, that couldn’t change.

So, everything seemed pretty fabulous—until the next day. That was our first day at work. I’d never had any kind of job before, not even babysitting; Mom and Dad said children noticed things that older people missed, and vampires were better off spending as little time around them as possible.

This meant that I had no idea that work sucks.

“Table eight doesn’t have their sodas yet!” yelled Reggie, my so-called supervisor at Hamburger Rodeo, who was only about four years older than me. He had the same mean glint in his eyes that a lot of Evernight-type vampires did, but he didn’t have the power to back it up. Just a laminated name tag that said MANAGER. “What’s the problem, Bianca?”

“I’m getting them!” A root beer, a cola, and what? I pulled my notepad out of my apron; both the pad and the apron were already stained with French dressing. After an hour-long training session in the morning, which was apparently not nearly enough preparation time, I’d been thrown into the lunch crowd. Quickly I scooped ice into the plastic glasses and worked the fountain machine. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Table eight got their drinks, but they didn’t look too happy about it. They wanted to know where their Bacon Buckaroos were. I really hoped those were the bacon burgers. Everything on the menu had a stupid cowboy name, which went with the “theme,” like the posters of old Westerns on the wall and the gingham shirt and bolo tie I had to wear.

I ran back to the kitchen. “I need Bacon Buckaroos for Eight!” I cried.

“Sorry,” said another, older waiter, as he walked out with a tray of the burgers for his own table. “You snooze, you lose.”

“But—”

“Bianca!” Reggie yelled. “Table twelve doesn’t have silverware yet. Silverware! That goes out with the menus, remember?”

“Okay, okay.”