Intervention with the Vampire

Hi, this is Bree. :-)

This has been a fun day for us. We went to Summer's horse show - she won four ribbons, and two of them were blue! We were so proud of her. Evelyn was in heaven (she loves horses) and I think she's going to be taking lessons now at the barn where Summer rides, too.

That's not what this post is really about, though. It's about our friendly local vampire.

Clare seems to be doing better since we rescued her at the park. She seems more relaxed, and she's living inside with us rather than out in the yard. She makes conversation, hangs out with us, and so on. There's one thing that worried us, though. She wouldn't commit to staying here. Whenever we brought it up, Clare would say she likes it here but she'll go if she feels she's putting us in danger. (Our guardian wants her to stay, too, but short of physical restraint there's not much she can do if Clare really gets desperate to go.) We don't want her to run again. We'd rather take the risk than leave her to face danger alone. The difficult part was convincing her.

The last couple of days, Clare has seemed more and more like she was resigning herself to leaving. She was careful to remind us she was temporary. I saw her looking up bus schedules online. We had to do something fast, or she was going to bolt. Sooner, rather than later.

After we got back from the horse show, told Clare I needed to talk to her privately. I was really nervous. Obviously I'm not scared of Clare, but sometimes I get really awkward and tongue-tied, and just stand there like a moron. I didn't want to screw this up.

Before I could lose my nerve, I blurted out, "So Clare, we can really do this the easy way or the hard way."

She looked confused. "Do what, Bree?"

"Look, we're not going to ditch you. Me and my sisters won't, and Blakeney won't. Even Inna and Maia are on your side. So this can really go one of two ways. You stay here, we defend ourselves as best we can, everything turns out fine and you lead a long, happy life. Alternatively, you flee into the wind, we follow you, we track you down, we defend ourselves and you although it's a lot more difficult since we're not on home turf, so we're in greater danger... then we bring you home, and on to the happy life. Those are the only options. You disappearing or us leaving you to your fate are not options. So really, the best thing you can do at this point is stay, and make it all less difficult."

Clare stared back at me. "What if I just run? You won't be able to find me."

I laughed. "Yeah right. They didn't let me disappear, and I wasn't easy to find. The distance of almost a whole continent didn't stop them. It won't this time, either. We're involved now. We're going to protect you, whether you like it or not. You just get to decide whether to make it easy or difficult."

"Why should I make it easy?"

I said the first thing that came to mind. "Because we have tickets to Cirque du Soleil tomorrow night. It's an early birthday celebration for Blakeney. If you leave, who's gonna sit in your seat?"

As soon as these words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. What the heck, Bree? There are a thousand reasons she should stay, and the best reason you can come up with is that you don't want to have to scalp her ticket? What is that? She's in mortal danger, and that's what springs to mind?

Sometimes I don't think on my feet very well. Weirdly, though? It seemed to work.

"You guys got me a ticket?" Clare asked in a small voice.

"Well, sure. You're practically family now, and the show is at night. We just kind of assumed. But if, you know... you don't want to..."

"I want to," Clare said quickly.

Getting her to stay at least one more day is a minor victory at best. One more step toward making her realize she's family, though? I think that may count for something.

Love,
Bree