Then the candles down the hall go out, plunging me into darkness.
It works like a shotgun blast.
I turn on my heel and run to my room and quickly shut the door, locking it behind me for good measure, then flick on the lights.
Everything is as it should be, and outside my window I hear a car puttering down Scott Street, the sound of the outside, normal world immediately comforting.
I crawl back into bed, get under the covers, but I leave the lights on.
“Want to take a walk with me?” my mom asks, squinting down at me. “You look like you could use some fresh air.”
I finish the last sip of my coffee and slowly nod. She’s right. I could use the fresh air and the exercise. Sometimes it’s good to get out of this damn house, especially after last night.
“Sure. If we can walk to Starbucks,” I tell her, getting out of my chair and bringing the empty mug to the sink.
“More coffee?” she asks, taking off her apron. “You really do need the fresh air. A little hungover, are we?”
“No, actually. I barely drank anything. I just had an awful dream last night. Least I think it was a dream.” Fucking hope it was a dream.
“Ah,” she says looking me over, her brows coming together. “Well, grab your coat. It’s November 1st and the weather is already turning for the worst. You can tell me all about your dream as we walk.”
I get my coat from the closet in the hallway. The house is quiet, but that’s not unusual for this time of day. Usually my mother and I are the first ones up. She puts on a pot of coffee and I get out my agenda and look over the plans for the week. The vampires usually get up later, before noon, sometimes after. Contrary to the myth, they do sleep, they just tend to be night owls. Lenore is usually the first to wake out of all of them, taking Solon’s dog Odin for a walk, but she’s probably tired from last night. Even though she’s half vampire, the other half of her is human and she tends to feel things a vampire wouldn’t. Like too much wine.
I glance down the stairs that lead to Dark Eyes, but my mom opens the front door to Fulton Street, damp air rushing inside. She gestures with her head. “I cleaned up some of the party this morning. We can do more later. No rush. Come on.”
I follow her outside, a chilled breeze blowing back my hair. It had been a rainy October, but it was still pretty warm. With the page of the calendar month flipped over, the temperatures seem to have fallen overnight. The wind this morning is cold, the mist strong, as it often is on the hillcrests of San Francisco, flowing up between the buildings and whipping the leaves of the towering eucalyptus trees. My face is wet with the fog by the time we’ve hit Laguna, but at least it’s a bit warmer down here.
“Where are we going?” I ask my mom, knowing the Starbucks I want to go to is in the opposite direction.
“Where I’ve been walking every morning before dawn,” she says, giving me a secretive smile, dewdrops in her graying hair.
“Since when?”
“Two weeks or so,” she says, brushing a strand off her face. “I haven’t been sleeping well either lately. Been waking up early and…my brain is racing, my heart is fluttering. Sometimes I get scared when the sun hasn’t come up yet. So, I started going for walks. I found myself going to Japantown and, I don’t know. There’s a sense of peace here that puts things in perspective.”
I frown, automatically feeling worried, my dream coming back to me. “What do you get scared of?”
She shrugs. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Mom.”
“It’s nothing, really. Sometimes…it’s just not a lot of fun getting old. You think about your mortality a lot, I suppose more so than the average person when you live in a house of immortals.”
“For one, they aren’t that immortal,” I remind her. “They’re just really hard to kill. And for two, you’re not old mom. You’re fifty-three. That’s young! You’re like J-Lo’s age.”
She laughs. “Well, heavens, I certainly don’t look like J-Lo. And I know I’m not that old. Look, sweetie, you asked me to explain, and I have. It’s nothing for you to be worried about and I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s scaring me.”
“Is it the house?” I ask while we’re stopped at a corner, waiting for the walk signal. “Like ghosts and stuff?”
She shakes her head. “I know there are ghosts but they don’t bother me.”
Even ghosts in hospital gowns or ones that sit on your chest and sing you creepy lullabies? I want to ask.