Family Secrets

First edition of

My Father is a Vampire

Written by: The Teller of Stories

Forward: As I grew up, I had many adventures, I followed the path that was less traveled. It was traveled so little, that the only people that had traveled on it, were people I knew very well. The problem was that the path changed the destination and the course depending on the person traveling on it. So it didn’t matter how long we had been traveling together, we all ended up in different places.

Chapter 1 – Terra’s point of view

The sun was setting; Uncle Sammy would be here soon. My Uncle Sammy was my life saver, he always brought strawberry smoothies when he came, and they always tasted the best, didn’t matter where I went Uncle Sammy’s was always dubbed better than the ones I got anywhere else. Those smoothies were one of the few things I looked forward to. My entire life I looked forward to only a few things; school, visiting my uncle’s family, and those smoothies, as of recently I managed to gain something else to look forward to, my new boyfriend Michael.

I bounced along with the music that was quietly spilling into my ears from my headphones as I did my math homework. I was seventeen and a junior in high school. I was taking three college classes, -getting credit for them- and I was also in the top five percentage overall in the school. Uncle Sammy always said that I had my mother’s brains, he was the only person who would talk to me –really talk to me- about my mom. Everybody else would just make small talk, say how much she was a good friend and stuff, Uncle Sammy and I would have conversations on what her favorite color was and why that sort of thing.

I didn’t have a dad, I lived with my grandparents. They raised me by themselves; of course I sort of raised myself. My grandmother hated me, it was no secret, and she hated me as far back as I could remember. Grandpa was so depressed that he would never speak, and he would stare at the wall most of the time, if he came out of his room at all.

The song changed to the up beat tunes of RENT the musical. I really liked the song that was playing, I wished I could sing along but I knew better, Grandmother would hear, she always had ears like a hawk. She didn’t exactly know that Uncle Sammy had given me a 40g iPod for my birthday last year or the emergency cell-phone the year before, or took me to get my driver’s license this year, Grandmother hardly knew about anything Uncle Sammy got me for my birthdays or Christmas.

I loved him, and his family, though I guess they weren’t really a family, more of like a big group of friends living together as a family. There were two major families in that house, on was the Nicholas family which consisted of Auntie Melissa, Uncle John and their twin boys James and

Derek. Then the Wethers family which was Uncle Sammy, and his little sister –my best friend- Aunt Maggan, we were about the same age yet she acted so much older than me. Another part of the family that didn’t live there was another section of the Wethers family, Uncle Sammy’s sister Aunty Keda and Lilly, though nobody really knew where Lilly fit in, she was just there, I think that Keda adopted Lilly but that was just me. Whenever Uncle Sammy took me to see his family Aunty Keda and Lilly would come to visit too so I got to see them a lot too.

I heard Uncle Sammy’s car pull up, I could always hear the smallest little things even with my headphones on, and Uncle Sammy’s little car purring down the street was no problem for me at all. I turned off my iPod and stashed it under my pillow then ran across the room to the door, slowing down and getting ready to peek out, if Grandmother caught me she might make me clean out the garage again.

I peeked out the door, dubbed it safe then stepped out. “Where do you think your going?” I jumped at Grandmother’s harsh voice. Most grandmothers spoiled their grandkids rotten, not my grandmother, I wouldn’t trust her with my life, she would kill me the instant I did.

“Uncle Sammy is here.” I whispered just before the doorbell rang. Grandmother glared at me. “Can I go answer the door?” She continued to glare as the doorbell rang again.

“Go, don’t listen to his nonsense about your mother.” She warned, I nodded, as usual, she always told me that when Uncle Sammy came, he always told me the better side of my mother’s life, but he would never say what happened to her. Nobody would tell me –accept for Grandmother- She always told me that my mother was a whore who got accidently pregnant, she came home, had me, then took off, and didn’t take me with her. I always thought she was wrong but until recently, I was starting to think that maybe she was right; nobody was telling me anything else.

I glided down the stairs and towards the front door. Grandpa had already let Uncle Sammy in; he was standing in the kitchen doorway with his back to me. I paused taking a quick look around, not seeing Grandmother anywhere I took a running leap at him. I latched onto his back, wrapping my legs around his waist. “Oh! Hey there beautiful! Get down! I’m getting old remember!”

I got down off his back and smiled. “No your not!”

He turned and smiled back. “Oh yes I am, I’m almost forty!” He laughed, the man looked really good for his age, really young, if he shaved his light mustache and small beard he would look like a kid my age.

I giggled at him. “I thought you were supposed to have grey hairs when you turned forty!” I teased him, he gave me a friendly, playful glare and handed me one of the smoothies he had in his hands.

“Here,” He teased pretending to be mad at me as he played with my short curly blond hair

“Hey where do you get this stuff, I try to find a place that sells it this good and I can’t find it anywhere.” I said as I took a sip of the cold smoothie. They were so good! And they sort of made me feel refreshed in a way at least until his next visit when he had more.

“I make them myself.” He answered me. He drank his slowly, looking around at the room that hadn’t changed in at least seventeen years, putting it down every few seconds. He looked me in the face.

“What?” I asked, he had been staring at me more often now that I had turned seventeen.

He looked sad; his once brown eyes looked a faded grey all of the sudden, like pools of ice. “You look so much like your mother.” He gave me a small smile as he sat down at the small kitchen table.

“Uncle Sammy, What was my mother like?” I asked as I sat across from him, pulling the blinds closed so that when the cloud moved we wouldn’t be bothered, I didn’t like the sun, it was too bright, I was very sensitive to it, and Uncle Sammy didn’t like it at all.

Uncle Sammy got a far off look in his eyes, like he was remembering. He always did when I asked about my mother. “Your mother, Ana Kindle, she-“ He was interrupted by my evil grandmother.

“That’s enough of that Samuel, shouldn’t you be leaving?” She asked harshly, she always did that, as soon as my mother came up she always walked in and ruined it.

“But he just got here!” I stated angrily, Uncle Sammy laid his hand on top of mine, making me pause because of the chill that seemed to follow his skin everywhere, he shook his head at me, warning me that it wasn’t worth the fight.

“I have one last stop before I go home, take good care Terra,” he kissed my forehead as usual. “Hand in there for me okay?” he asked me gently, I nodded like I always do when he asks me that question. He turned and left, leaving his smoothie on the table, I took it and took a large sip; he always left his smoothie full and waiting for me to gulp it down.

“Go clean out the attic.” Grandmother ordered, there was no point in fighting her, if I did she might decide that I don’t need to eat tonight. I trudged up the stairs, heading for the middle of the hallway where the trap door to the attic was located. Grandpa must have either heard it coming or just knew because he had pulled down the ladder for me; a flash light was sitting on the first step.

I grabbed up the flashlight and took the first few steps, only peeking my head into the attic at first. I shinned the light around the room, it was dark, and musty, the cobwebs glistened in the light, looking as if they might be covered in dew or something. There was dust and boxes everywhere.

I took the last few steps up, dubbing that the room was safe. I shined my flashlight around again as I took the final step onto the attic floor, and then took a few steps away from the ladder. The room looked almost welcoming when the light from downstairs was pouring in from below. That is until the light started to fade away, I turned around just as the door was closing, I was being locked in. I jumped and

crashed into the door as the lock clicked. “Wait!” I yelled, but it was no use, I could hear Grandmother laughing as she walked away.

I felt a sudden sting from my shin. I looked down to find that there was blood running down my leg and on several rigs of the ladder. I held my shin, carefully adding pressure to stop the bleeding. I wished that Uncle Sammy was here, he would get me out of the attic and take me away to his house for the night, if not two. If he could he would. I shined my flashlight around the room again looking around for a clean rag or something to tie up my cut up leg with, but instead found the window, at least there I could see. I got up, groaning as I went and made my way towards it, as I was getting ready to plop down and see what I could do about my leg I noticed that there was a small box in the middle of the light. I could see shadows of curvy letters under a thick layer of dust.

I swiped my hand over the box, removing the dust off the box and paused. There was only one, three letter word on it. “Ana” my mother’s box? According to Grandmother she took everything of hers but me when she left, so why would there be a box of her things?”

I sat down and opened the box. There wasn’t much in it; an old necklace with a beautiful diamond ring on it, a few blank notebooks, school supplies, and an old rain jacket, but the jacket seemed out of place. It was a man’s, all weather, rain jacket, all balled up and stuffed in a box. I pulled it out to look at it to see who’s it might belong to, I moved my arm from under I, and four heavy, bound bundles of paper fell out. They looked like books that had never been published; manuscripts if anything, it looked like it was typed on a typewriter even.

I picked up one of the larger books, and read the cover page. In dark black letters it read. “For Her” and right below it, in smaller letters was: “The first edition of the “I’m in Love with a Vampire” series’ I opened past the cover page to look for an author name, so my mother liked vampire stories, cool, I could look up the author and get some more of their books. I found what I had been looking for and dropped the book. In the moonlight on the second sheet of paper was the author’s name, or more like names It read: “ written by the combined efforts of Samuel Wethers, Isabella Wethers, Keda Wethers, Jeremy Tillerman, Oprin Resnodow, Melissa Andrews, and John Nicholas Original text written by: Ana kindle.”