“Unsurprisingly, it was Paul’s idea. I just… put it in. But it does come in handy.”
Syrsee is about to step past me and enter the cabin, but then she pauses, looking at me. “Have these people around here ever met Paul?”
I think back for a moment. Trying to remember a time when Paul might’ve been here when the humans were hanging about. “Yeah, they have. The boys who helped me, at least. But they didn’t realize what he was.”
“I don’t understand.” Syrsee makes a face. “They would not be able to tell that he’s evil? They wouldn’tfeelit, Ryet? Because even if I was blind, I would be able to feel his wrongness in a crowded room.”
“Well, you’re a Black witch, Syrsee. You can probably do a lot of things regular humans have no clue about. They couldn’t really see him.”
“Was he a ghost or something? An apparition? Only half there?”
“No. He wasn’t a ghost. Mirage is maybe a better word. They could see him, but they didn’t pay any attention to him. I think he was going through something—a phase, or some kind of vampire maturation point, maybe. Because he would spend years at a time in the earth back then.”
Syrsee and I both look at the side of the house that leads to the root cellar and come to the same conclusion in pretty much the same instant. She’s the one who says it out loud. “That’s why he needed the root cellar?”
“Maybe. Anyway.” I let out a breath, wanting to change the subject. I’m hungry. I don’t care about Paul and his mysteries. I just want tofeed. I invite her in with a wave of my hand. “Welcome home, Syrsee.”
She hesitates for a moment, perhaps wondering if a vampire inviting you into his home might come with conditions. Kind of like that myth humans have been perpetuating for the last hundred years about inviting a vampire into a human home.
But if these conditions do exist, I’m not aware of them. And she, being a Black witch—albeit a baby one—can probably feel my honesty the same way she can feel Paul’s evil. So she steps past me and goes inside. I follow and close the door behind us.
