Reeba threw the towel on her roommate’s bed, then sat down on it. Mina herself was sitting on Reeba’s bed and the two girls were facing each other now, neither of them willing to start first, even though both were burning up with curiosity.
“So, are you gonna tell me what you were doing in the forest in the middle of the night?” Reeba started first.
“You were there first,” Mina snapped back, feeling attacked.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know, just ask.”
“Really?” Mina was surprised to hear that. She expected that she’d have to beat the answer out of her, as she usually had to do, as a slayer.
“Of course. We’re friends, right?”
The look on Reeba’s face was one of childish naiveté and faith. She trusted Mina. She didn’t believe that by telling her what she wanted to know, anything bad could happen. Mina almost envied her this state of mind. She never managed to obtain it herself.
“Sure,” that was all Mina managed to say. “I couldn’t sleep, so I looked out the window and saw the fire.”
“I told the girls it wasn’t a good place. We should have gone further into the woods,” Reeba shook her head.
“I doubt anyone but me saw you.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Reeba told her. “You can’t be sure of anything around here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they say we’re safe and all here, but this place mostly looks out for real vampires.”
“Real vampires?”
“You know, like both of your parents are vampires. Mine aren’t.”
“What are your parents then?”
“My dad is a vampire. My mom is a witch.”
“That is so cool,” Mina let this one slip.
“Thanks,” Reeba appreciated it, “but, you’re alone in that sentiment. Somehow, I’m less than everyone else but I don’t care. I found a few witches here, too, and we try to keep up with our customs, like our moms taught us.”
“Was that what you were doing in the woods? Doing one of those Witches Sabbaths?”
“No, we’ll do that one in a month or so, on Halloween. This one was an emergency meeting.”
“Why? What happened?”
“One of my friends heard that the book was stolen.”
“The book?” Mina had a strange feeling that she knew exactly which book Reeba was referring to.
“Malleus Maleficarum?” Reeba a
sked, and Mina just nodded. “We never knew where it was but we did know that it was in safe hands. It was given to a witch, for safe keeping and she was supposed to hand it down to someone she trusted most in the world, to keep it safe. It’s too important to us, too powerful if the wrong person gets it.”
Mina started to feel dizzy. Was Reeba talking about her mother? Was her mother a witch? This was all too much. She felt like she was going to faint.
“Are you okay?” Reeba asked.
“Yeah, just tired,” Mina lied. “Please, continue.”
“Well, I don’t really know much. None of us does. We just caught word that whoever had it, doesn’t have it anymore. It was stolen and no one knows where it is now, or who has it, which is even worse.”