Blood Vivicanti (9780989878586) Read Online Free PDF Page A

imagination.
     
     
     
     
    I stayed outside Joe’s
house all night. I watched him spend time with his family. They
played a board game for an hour. For an hour each took turns
reading from a book, Pride and
Prejudice . Joe’s wife loved it. So did Joe.
So did their daughters.
    They were not a family of
wealth. They weren’t fighting or bickering.
    I never knew a wife could
be so happy with her husband – or a husband with his wife – or a
mother and father with their children – or children with their
parents.
    I’d never seen a family so
large and so united and so satisfied. I’d never seen a family so
well organized about being together. It was as if they wanted to be
with one another. It was as if they loved each other.
    It didn’t seem
real.
     
     
     
     
    I grew hungrier as the
stars spun around in the nighttime sky. The night grew colder and I
grew colder with it.
    I became resolved: I would
drink blood.
    I assumed that my appetite
was craving it. I hadn’t yet learned that my assumptions always end
in disappointment.
    Soon it was bedtime for Joe
and his family.
    Soon after that it was
suppertime for me.
     
     
     
     
    Joe’s family didn’t have an
alarm in their house. Few families did in Idyllville. Villagers
trusted one another. Real crime was in good fiction.
    I stole into the house, as
silent as a mote of dust.
    Swiftly I crept into Joe’s
bedroom. I stood as still as a statue at the foot of his bed. I
watched him and his wife sleep.
    His wife’s name was Mary, a
simple woman, thin and freckly with cinnamon hair.
    She and Joe faced one
another, sleeping open mouthed.
    Before then I’d wanted
Joe’s blood and memories. But at that moment his wife seemed more
appealing.
    I knelt beside
her.
    My Probiscus extended from
the tip of my tongue, sending waves of pleasure down my throat and
into my stomach.
    Mary never felt my stinger
on her neck. I didn’t have to go too deep with her.
    My delicious venom was in
her faster than I’d realized. I must have been very
hungry.
    Her blood rushed into my
mouth. It was so good. I grew lightheaded.
    We both began panting,
although that didn’t last long. I only took a pint of her blood –
like Wyn wanted.
    Joe never woke.
    Mary would thank me in the
morning. So would Joe.
     
     
     
     
    I stumbled from their
house, drunk on Blood Memories.
    Mary astounded
me.
    Of course she remembered
important events – her wedding – her children’s first words – their
first steps – birthdays. And her strongest memories were of the
small things that surprised her – the dirty faces of her children
after a day outside – their scrapes and scabs – their hilariously
astute observations about life and love and
caterpillars.
    Mary’s memories of Joe were
not of their wedding day, or of him by her side as she gave birth.
Her strongest memories were of the little things he did – taking
out the trash on Tuesdays – painting the bedroom – changing for her
the way he squeezed their tube of toothpaste – gathering roadside
flowers for no reason, just to give as a gift.
    To many people, Mary seemed
so ordinary. She had graduated from high school, but she never went
to college. She married her high school sweetheart. They tried for
years to have children. They were tempted to believe God was
punishing them. But they remained steadfast in the faith that they
would one day have a brood of their own. Their first daughter came
a year before the second.
    “ God gives in
superabundance,” Mary said.
     
     
     
     
    Mary enjoyed cleaning her
house and preparing meals for her family. But she did not enjoy
that work half as much as she enjoyed teaching her children the
goodness of cooperation under one roof.
    Joe helped her.
    Together they did not trick
their children into doing chores. They did not bribe their children
into doing schoolwork. They knew no tricks. They had no money to
offer.
    They afforded their
children the treasure trove of routine.
    The minds of their