Sunday, March 11, 2012

Covert Maneuvers

"It's alright to make mistakes, you're only human
Inside everybody's hiding something
Take time to catch your breath and choose your moment
Don't slide..." -Dido, "Slide"




Hey folks, this is Bree. As we mentioned in our last entry, we've been wondering why Gia (apparently) tried to mislead us by pretending she didn't know anything about vampires. Ordinarily, we would have pursued that immediately, but Gia has been having a bad couple of days. She got bitten by a werewolf, and now she's a werewolf too - which is hard on the body, but she seems to be taking it even harder still emotionally. We decided it was best to give her space for a few days.

A few days have come and gone, though... and it's not just idle curiosity. If Gia had contact with vampires in the past, there's a good chance that would eventually become our problem if she becomes part of our family. If bad vampires were going to come try to murder her, that would be a good thing for us to know, so we could do our best to prevent it.

I decided to go for the direct approach this morning while we were all getting our breakfasts. I was pouring my cornflakes. (Gosh, I love cornflakes! I normally don't get excited about food, because I struggle with disordered eating patterns, but cornflakes make me happy. But anyway...) Without looking up from my bowl, I asked, "So Gia, how do you know about vampires, and how come you acted like you didn't?"

Gia looked pale, wrapped up in her fluffy blue bathrobe, and started to reply automatically without thinking, "Because..."

Our eyes met over the cereal bowls. The secret was blown. She hadn't answered me directly, but she also hadn't stated more convincingly than before that I was wrong and she really hadn't known. It was clear that she did. We all knew that. Apparently Gia decided it was time to come clean.

"I... haven't been entirely honest with you..." Gia admitted haltingly.

"I knew it!" Molly yelled. "She is a vampire!"

There was a lot of eye-rolling, and Felicity hastily shushed her. For various reasons, we knew that Gia couldn't be a vampire. We've seen her go out in the day with no ill-effects. As an elementary school teacher, she has a job where you can't arrange to avoid attending work on sunny days, even in Northern Canada, because night shifts and irregular scheduling aren't an option. We've also seen her eat regular food; the night she came over and she and Maia made us pasta alla carbonara, Gia ate it too, and she even had second helpings. Our resident vampires have also confirmed Gia isn't a vampire, which alone is proof because they can recognize each other, and combined with all the other evidence just makes it impossible.

We're fairly sure Gia was a human before the werewolf bit her last week. She was just a human who apparently knew about vampires.

Gia shook her head. "No, I am... I was... just a regular mortal."

She looked down, like this was going to be a horrible thing to admit, and I wondered what could be that bad. When she spoke again, I realized just what could be.

"I was working for The Elders," Gia said. "They sent me here to keep an eye on you and report back."

"How did you end up working for evil vampires?" I asked. My brain preferred to focus on that than to try to sort out the other part. The part where we trusted her, and she turned out to be a spy.

Kaya frowned, like something didn't make sense, but for the moment she didn't say anything.

Gia replied, "My family - my parents and my brother - were killed by rogue vampires."

With what was probably unnecessary sarcasm, Kirsten said, "I'm sorry for your loss, but... yeah, going to work for killer vampires yourself makes total sense as a response!"

No one shushed her, because we were all feeling pretty stung at that point.

Gia shook her head. "I didn't know they were killer vampires at the time. I thought they were the good guys. They avenged my family for me. I thought they would protect us humans from other vampires. By the time I figured out what they were really about... I was scared, and I didn't know how to get out. When they gave me this 'assignment,' I admit I jumped at it, because I could put some distance between me and them without them watching me all the time, and I could try to sort out my thoughts and decide what to do next."

Maia looked like she'd been stabbed. This probably hurt worse than a knife, I thought.

"So you just pretended all this?" Maia asked shakily. "You pretended... that you loved me?"

Gia shook her head, desperately, looking like she was about to cry. "No! The Elders only told me to make friends with you. The rest of it... those feelings were true. That part was really me. I didn't expect that to happen, and it made me feel horrible to deceive you about why I met you - but what has happened since wasn't fake. I promise!"

There was silence for an awkward span of time. Then I said quietly, "Well... she is still here."

"Hm?" Maia asked absently.

"We fought The Elders weeks ago," I clarified. "Gia's 'assignment' pretty much definitively ended then. But she's still been hanging out with us, even though she didn't have to anymore."

Maia looked a little hopeful, and Kaya nodded, like all this finally made sense. "Gia is telling the truth now," Kaya said.

I'm not sure if our readers remember what Kaya's power is - it's empathy. She can feel echoes of other people's emotions when she concentrates on them. That's why she was confused when Gia admitted why she became part of our lives; that didn't fit with what Kaya perceived of Gia's feelings since.

Gia looked fearfully at Maia, tensing like she expected rejection, but she said softly, "Is this something we can work through?"

Maia thought for a moment, and then said, "Yeah, I think it might be."

I can't report on their conversation beyond that point, because that was when the rest of us decided to make a strategic retreat. We took our cereal downstairs to eat so the two of them could talk in private. I don't know what will happen with Maia and Gia's relationship.

In spite of all this, though, I can honestly say I hope it works out. I believe that Gia is a good person who lost her way for awhile. If she stays with us, I think she'll find it again. She wouldn't be the only one who has found a new path with this family.

Love,
Bree

12 comments:

  1. Hi Bree! I can't believe Gia's secret. It's nice that you are still kind to Gia. The loss of family must be hard on her. I hope everything works out!

    Love, Reese <3

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    1. Bree says:

      Hi, Reese. Yeah, we were pretty shocked. Now that we're getting used to it, though, it all kind of makes sense. I can understand how losing her family made her not think straight, and now that we're getting over feeling sorry for ourselves because she lied, we're a lot more sympathetic to her grief.

      I hope everything works out, too! Maia and Gia are still pretty tense around each other, but they're obviously both making a major effort, so we have hope.

      Love,
      Bree

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  2. Bree,
    Your life is far from boring! I wonder what things Gia reported to the Elders?
    Poor Gia, having to live a double life, all for the sake of avenging her family's death. Now she is a werewolf, to boot. I also feel bad for your family being deceived by her, but I'm glad you can tell she is being sincere now. She really needs you all in her life, especially now. Do you think the vampires in your family can handle having a werewolf as part of the family?
    I also wonder what got that other wolf to transform, since it wasn't the full moon. Could that mean that Gia can transform at other times as well? Keep us posted as in all my 100+ years, I've never encountered any werewolves or vampires for that matter except in books.
    Love,
    Samantha

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    1. Bree says:

      Hi, Samantha. You're definitely right - life is not boring here, especially the last few weeks! Sometimes we wish for a little boredom. ;-)

      We've also been wondering about what Gia reported, although at this point it probably doesn't matter all that much. The Elders are gone, so they can't act on it now.

      We feel bad for Gia, too. Once we got over the initial shock... well, it's getting easier to understand.

      I think that our vampires will get used to being around a werewolf. They're already doing a lot better with having her here. I think they were just startled because they've never been around werewolves before, and I think they care enough about Gia that they'll work on suppressing those instincts. Being a vampire who doesn't kill people seems to take a lot of self-control, so they have practice, and I think this is just one more step in their self-discipline.

      We also wondered about how the other werewolf was able to transform several days before the full moon. Gia transformed the day after, too, so it doesn't seem to be just that one day when the moon is fullest, but the night she got bitten was pretty far off.

      So far, we have a couple of theories. One, it may be that as werewolves get more experienced with their transformations, they may be able to gain control over it, and be able to do it whenever they want. Or, two, it may be that werewolves have to change when the moon is full, but they can also do it other times if they work at it.

      We'll probably learn which it is either from Gia's trial and error, from finding the other werewolf, or from finding some other source with information about them. So far we haven't found any reliable sources except what Gia experiences, and that's not great for predicting what will happen next.

      Very cool that you've seen over a hundred years! You've witnessed a lot of changes in the world...

      Love,
      Bree

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  3. Bree,

    I hope Gia and Maia can works things out, but it's good to know that Gia's feelings for Maia were real. That would have been really hard for Maia otherwise.

    Emily

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    1. Bree says:

      Yeah, definitely, Emily! I can't even imagine what Maia would be feeling right now if her whole relationship was a lie, because her own heart is really in it.

      The way things are... well, it's still not easy, but it's surmountable, you know? They both care about each other, so they have an incentive to fix it.

      I think if they can get through this together, their bond will be even stronger than before. I just hope they don't give up on it, because it really seems like this is good for them both.

      Love,
      Bree

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  4. It sounds like things are going to work out, and that's good. But, I think I'd be worried about the connection between Elders and Gia. I mean are the Elders going to just let her alone? And now she's a werewolf, too. Wow - that's a lot to figure out.

    ~ Hugs, Daisy

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    1. Bree says:

      Hi, Daisy. Thanks for the comment and the hugs. *hugs back*

      The good thing is, as far as we know The Elders are gone for good now. We had a big fight, and fortunately we won.

      If you're curious about the details of how it all went down, you can read it here:

      http://thegreengirlswrite.blogspot.com/2012/02/showdown.html

      So, whatever Gia told them, it's in the past, in theory. We just have to deal with the emotional stuff, but as far as we know, those awful Elder vampires are no more danger to us.

      If they were still around, they would not have let her leave their service and stay alive. No possible way. One more reason to be really glad we won the battle!

      Love,
      Bree

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  5. Bree...I am crazy about cornflakes too! (I like the plain ones, without sugar) I don't understand...Is Gia a boy or girl?
    ~Madeline :)

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    1. Bree says:

      Hi, Madeline. Aren't cornflakes just the best? I like them plain, too!

      Gia is a woman; she's one of the adults in our life.

      Love,
      Bree

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  6. Wow, so much has been going on, we are gone a couple days and you have so much happen. I am soooo glad that Maia and Gia are working things out, they seemed to both really be good together, they need each other. It must have been really hard on Gia when she started falling in love with Maia, confusing for her. It will be great if they can pull through this and be stronger for it.

    Take care of yourselves, it would be interesting to know if the werewolf can transform during the month, I have never heard of that but we do not know werewolves, we verily know our half vampire me. lol

    Hugs,
    Brya

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    1. Bree says:

      Yeah, it hasn't been boring here! I'm glad Maia and Gia are working things out, too. They're a great couple. Gia is still here, and I think that's a good sign.

      The more Gia tells us about what her time working for The Elders was like, the more sympathy I have for the choices she made. She didn't exactly have a whole lot of options. Her heart must have been so torn!

      We don't know much about werewolves either, yet. Hopefully we'll figure out some details soon!

      Love,
      Bree

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