What Happened at Vampire Manor

2. Someone at the Door

What Happened at Vampire Manor (posted on 'Vampires are Real' forum by angelwaste: December 17, 2018 19:28 GMT 

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Later, after Old Man Brown had left and the snow had begun to fall lightly outside, we sat together at the dinner table to have supper. My father looked between my brother and I, taking in the general silence of the air and thought it was best to fill it with the sound of him talking. 

"It's been nearly a week now and you haven't once been in town. There are people who've been asking about you guys."

Neither Xander nor I responded and he continued in a matter of fact way, "You should be more accommodating to my customers when they arrive. That sneaking off stunt did not go unnoticed by me. You can't close yourselves off from people like that."

I sensed that he was looking directly at me and this irritated me. 

"What do you care, honestly?" I muttered. 

Xander shifted uncomfortably beside me and I heard the deep breath my father took before he spoke, "I will not tolerate sass from you, young lady."

"And I won't tolerate your pretentiousness," I glared up at him, setting my fork down on the table. "You don't care about us, you only see us as circus tricks. I'm not obligated to entertain anyone! Our mother is dead, but you don't care about her do you?"

"I won't stand for this," he started to say but I cut him off. 

"Well you have to stand for something other than yourself at some point. A human being can't live like that."

"What insolence," he spat but I was getting up from the table and making my way through the door. 

I heard Xander following after me but I did not slow down. Outside, the chill hit me like a knife, but I turned down the path through the trees and began stumbling along, my anger fueling each step. 

"Lexi, wait."

Xander caught up to me and placed a coat around me that he'd grabbed from off the hanger by the door. "You'll freeze to death out here," he pointed out.

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing," I muttered darkly. 

I kept walking through the snow still angry, although I did wrap the coat more securely around me. Xander followed a half step behind. For a moment he didn't say anything, probably figuring that it was useless to convince me to go back. The tip of my nose had grown numb and as I tried to see into the darkness of the trees, I realised that the blur in my vision was partially misty. 

"It wasn't your fault."

My steps became halting but I did not stop. "It wasn't," he repeated. 

"Yes," I said, "yes, it was."

"Lexi," he said beseechingly but I could no longer hear him. My mind had drifted along with the current of the frigid air around us. My body felt completely numb. I was no longer angry. I was simply walking. 

I saw the image of my mother's smiling face before me in the darkness and kept my eyes on it. Her ghost had lingered with me. I saw her face in my deepest dreams and sometimes, whenever it fancied her, she would appear to me in phantom corners of my mind's eye. I missed her terribly and I felt so much guilt. Earlier, I had said that my mother died of cancer. I lied. She had indeed been diagnosed with lung cancer, one of the more aggressive types. She was given less than a year to live but died prematurely before that time could elapse. And the fault was mine, because of a stupid mistake I'd made. Deep down, I knew that Xander believed it too although he tried to make me feel better. But the guilt would not go away. It never would.