“Sorry,” she muttered.
Her grandmother looked at the spot of bean slowly sliding down her clean wall and looked back at Amaliya sadly.
“So you are dead,” she said with strange satisfaction.
“Grandmama,” Sergio said in surprise. “I told you not to watch the news.”
“Oh, like that is going to stop me,” Grandmama responded.
Amaliya was so shocked she couldn't move. She pressed her hand against her throat as she stared aghast at her grandmother.
“On TV they said she was dead. Your Uncle Samuel told me the same thing last night. And now she sits here, pale as a ghost, not able to eat, and as cold as the grave.”
“If she's dead, you are taking this really well,” Sergio joked, and shoved half a tortilla in his mouth.
“Unfinished business,” his grandmother assured him. “I watch TV. Touched by an Angel, Medium and the Ghost Whisperer. She has unfinished business.”
Slowly, Amaliya put down her fork. Her mind overwhelmed by her grandmother's words, she didn't know what to say.
Sergio rolled his eyes. “C'mon, Grandmama. She's sitting right across from us.”
“Did the bad Satanist kill you?” her grandmother asked in a soft voice. “Do you want us to tell the police who they are so you can go into the light.”
Amaliya opened her mouth to answer, then shut it, still not sure what to say.
“She's not dead,” Sergio said again.
“Yes, she is,” his grandmother answered, and looked very sad. “All my girls die young.”
“Mae is still alive,” Sergio pointed out. “And Kelly Ann.”
“Mae is too mean to die and Kelly Ann is too stupid,” their grandmother decided, and crossed her arms over her ample chest.
“You do realize that is your daughter and granddaughter you're talking about,” Sergio said with a smirk.
“Stop being a smarty,” Grandmama said and smacked his arm. Leaning toward the completely stunned Amaliya, she said once more, “Do you want us to tell the police who killed you?”
“Uh. No.”
Looking disappointed, her grandmother sat back. “Why not?”
“Uh.” Amaliya sat with her mouth hanging open, then shut it firmly. “I am not dead.”
“Exactly. She has a pulse.” Sergio leaned over and gripped Amaliya's wrist firmly. “See, Grandmama, she has a...” He hesitated, then looked at Amaliya with shock. “Where is your pulse?”
Amaliya stood up sharply and put her hands on her hips. She opened her mouth to talk, then closed it again.
“You need to go to the light,” her grandmother finally said.
“I can't,” Amaliya answered automatically.
“You're really dead,” Sergio said softly. “No way. We talked on the phone. I picked you up off the bus.”
“Maybe she thinks she's alive, so she acts alive,” Grandmama considered.
“I'm not....dead. Like that kinda dead.”
“But you're dead?” Sergio finally stopped eating. “No way.”
“Oh, shit, this wasn't the way I planned this to go down.”
“Don't swear,” her grandmother said automatically, pointing an accusing finger at her.
Pacing back and forth in the kitchen, Amaliya ran a hand over her hair. The holy relics were starting to make her want to run away. They weren't right next to her, but she could feel their power pushing on her. “This was supposed to be our tearful and emotional loving farewell.”
“Well, you still need to go to the light,” her grandmother said firmly.
“There is no light!”
Sergio looked terrified. “You mean the Pope was wrong?”
That got him a firm slap on the cheek. “Don't blaspheme.”
“I'm not!”
“Look! There was no light! Professor Sumner killed me and buried me in the forest! I woke up three days later and...and...”
“Your professor killed you?” Sergio looked ready to fall over. “What do you mean he killed you?”
“This is the part where she tells us what happened, then disappears,” their grandmother said confidently.
“He killed me! He....” she made slicing motions across her throat. “-killed me! And buried me! But I woke up in the grave, crawled out and...and...it all went to hell-sorry, Grandmama-it went to hell from there.”
Sergio took a long swig from his coke. “I don't believe it.”
Amaliya hesitated, then darted across the room, and grabbed his coke from his hand before he could set it down. The world had strangely stood still as she had willed herself to move faster than her family could see. By their sudden look of terror, she had moved to fast for them to track. Both Sergio and her grandmother jumped to their feet.
Setting down the coke, Amaliya tucked her hair back from her face and looked at them sorrowfully.
They stared at her for a moment, and then they both ran out of the kitchen down the long hall to the living room.
“Oh, crap.”
Amaliya tentatively crept down the hallway to the living room, past photos of her two aunts and her mother as children, of all the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren. As she stepped into the living room, she found her grandmother and cousin standing in the middle of the room, Sergio clutching an enormous crucifix from off the mantel over the fireplace.
Wincing, as she felt smacked by invisible white fire, she stepped back into the shadows of the hall. Her voice quivered when she said, “I'm not going to hurt you.”
“Well, you kinda scared us shitless,” Sergio answered, and that was followed by the sound of their grandmother smacking him.
“I was just trying to show you that I'm not what I was,” Amaliya snapped. “You think I'm dead. Well, I am. I'm not a ghost. I'm something else and it’s not any fun! I hate it!” She burst into tears and her sobs filled the narrow hallway. The pictures of her family, the living and the dead, bore her no comfort. “I hate it! Okay! I hate it! And I...I...”
“Put the cross away,” her grandmother's voice said softly. “She's family.”
“What if...we can't trust her,” Sergio said in a stricken voice from the living room.
“Just put it away,” Grandmama repeated. “If she wanted to hurt us, she would have killed you when she had you alone and already offed me when she got here.”
Sliding down the wall, Amaliya covered her face with her hands and felt her body quivering. Her heart was sluggish and she would have to leave soon. The great need would come and she would have to feed.
“I don't want to kill anyone! All I wanted to do was say goodbye,” she wailed softly. “To say I'm sorry for not being a better granddaughter.”
Tender, gnarled hands patted her hair gently. “You've been a good girl, Amal. You have. I'm so sorry you are...what you are.”
“What is she?” Sergio whispered, and got smacked again.
Amaliya slowly raised her head to look up at them. Her pale face was streaked with blood tears. “I think I'm a vampire.”
Sergio and Grandmama both took a step back, gripping each others hands. The fear in their eyes made Amaliya miserable and she sighed.
“I won't hurt you. I promise. I was a little fucked up, sorry, Grandmama, the last two nights, but tonight I'm much better,” she said, trying to calm them.
Sergio raised one finger. “Define a little fucked up.” He oofed as he got nailed in the stomach with an elbow.
“Remember Pete?”
“Yeah? What about hi-Oh,” Sergio said, his eyes widening. He thought this over, then said slowly, “Well, at least you didn't kill him.”
Amaliya stood up and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I just wanted to come and tell you that I love you and I don't understand what is going on.”
“Professor Sumner made you?” Her grandmother was clutching what looked like a rosary tight to her chest. It made Amaliya's head hurt.
“Yeah. He did. And then he just left. Told me to figure it out. So, I plan to go to Austin and try to find someone like me. And if that doesn't work, New Orleans, and maybe New York. I have to find out how to deal with this. I'm not even sure of what all I can or can't do.”
“How are you going to get there?” Sergio asked.
“I guess the bus,” Amaliya said, and looked down at her hands stained red from her tears. “I better go. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here.”
“No, no! You should come here!” Her grandmother grabbed her arm tightly and pulled her into the kitchen. “We are your family and we love you even if you are-is Dracula real?”
Amaliya laughed, then shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know anything!” She flung up her hands, then collapsed onto a kitchen chair. “That is the problem! I don't know anything! It's all been by instinct.”
“So, maybe you can get fixed!” Her grandmother rushed over to the kitchen counter and began to fuss with the flour jar. “You can go talk to another vampiro and ask them how to get back to normal.”