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undergraments on the third morning after Emily’s death. The bleeding didn’t stop. At firstI thought, Oh, I am dying! Charles, Charles, I am dying at last. Too cowardly for a stake through the heart, but now I will come to you anyway.
    Something was happening to me. Vampires do not break their nails. Their skin does not break out; they do not bleed. But all these things had happened to me when I was a real girl.
    Before I was just pretty dead.

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    I was worried about Jared Pierce. When I walked away from him on the beach that day, I wondered if I would ever see him again. He was in class the following afternoon, but I was still concerned.
    What is worry? A mild anguish in the chest. A gnawing sensation. Repeated thoughts whirling in the brain. I had worried about Charles constantly when we were little. I did have some kind of intuition about what would happen to him, but at the beginning I believed everyone turned fearful thoughts of loved ones over in their brains, polishing them in this way,making them smoother and more precise, until the incident occurred or was prevented. Would he fall and hurt himself? Would a bee sting him? What if he got lost on his way home? When I had these thoughts, I found out later that my fears had come to pass. Or had almost come to pass: the bee, for instance, hadn’t actually stung him, though it had circled close and frightened him the day I thought of it. But for some reason I never thought that Charles might catch a fever and die. Perhaps that fear was too much for my mortal soul to comprehend.
    When the bell rang, I followed Jared discreetly down the hall. I followed him home to the trailer park that day. Emily had told me that after Jared’s father left, his mother didn’t want to take her children out of the school district, and the trailer was all she could afford. I waited, parked on the street, while he went inside and then came out again. I got out of my Porsche and followed him to the beach. I hid behind a sandbank and watched him for a long time. He didnothing but sit on the sand and stare into the distance. After a while my eyes closed. Moments later I opened them to clear an image from my mind. It was of Jared standing, taking off his clothes, and walking naked into the ocean. But no, there he was, dressed and still sitting on the sand. I remembered the visions I’d had of Charles—it had been so long since I had seen images of what was to come. I wondered how it was possible for them to return. Was it that I had just never felt so connected to anyone else? Or was it something in me that had changed when I became what I am now? Was I somehow changing back?
    Jared and I sat like that until nightfall, and then I followed him to his trailer and left him reluctantly. I did not trust that he was going to be all right after Emily’s death, after what I had seen.
    Later that night, unable to sleep, I returned to the trailer. I prowled around its perimeter, peering into the windows. The space was cluttered and dimly lit. A heavyset blond woman reclined on the couch, asleepin front of the glaring television. In one room Jared’s younger sister slept in the arms of her boyfriend. The other siblings had moved out. Jared’s room was the smallest. I could see him sitting on his bed, holding a piece of white fabric; I recognized Emily’s bra, the one he’d had at the beach. Jared took out a bottle of what looked like perfume and sprayed it on the garment. Then he undressed and lay on his bed. I stood mesmerized. The look on his face was not of pleasure but of great sorrow. It sent a tremor through my body.
    The crate I was standing on slipped then, and I fell. The clattering sound made Jared jump. He got out of bed, naked, and ran to the window. I vanished into the night, satisfied at least that he was still alive, still able to feel sensations in his body. I thought of his body until dawn. Its golden shade. Its lean musculature. His trunk. His sapling arms. His stark,