Bride of the Vampire Prince

CHAPTER: 5

As Vienna stepped inside the school, she had a lighter step, than she'd had in months.

"You look... cute." Kate frowned at Vienna's wet hair. "And it looks as if you have just rushed here from the shower."

"That is actually right." Vienna smiled at her. "How was your morning?"

"Fine. My sister stole my new shirt, so I repaid it by taking all of her gum and packing the last cookie for myself." Kate then shrugged. "Ready for the Physics class?"

Vienna wrinkled her nose as they headed into the Science lab, which smelled vaguely of formaldehyde. "As ready as I will ever be."

The jars on the shelves held various previously living objects, from a toad to an alligator's eye, which their teacher had claimed she had found on the side of a canal. Their teacher, Ms. Smith, cleared her throat as they took their seats. "Open your textbooks to page two hundred and sixty-five. We start our new chapter on Kinetic energy."

Several of the students groaned and moaned, but Ms. Smith beamed at the class. "Kinetics is a fascinating field of study. It involves measuring the effects of forces that produce or change the motion of masses."

"Really?" Kate blinked at Vienna. "I should have stopped for a mochaccino with an extra shot."

"You can say that again." Vienna dutifully opened her book to page two hundred and sixty-five, hoping that what she would find there could explain, in English, whatever it was Ms. Smith was babbling about. Instead, she found a note written in a subtle, looping script in the margins of the book.

Dear Reader,

I have left something for you at the back of this book.

Sincerely,

Yours Truly 

Who must have written that? Vienna wondered. It was a new textbook, and she had never seen any notes in it before. When she turned to the back of the book, she found a white envelope addressed to no one. She stole a glance at Kate but found that she was staring, with a furrowed brow, at her textbook.

She flipped back to the page they were on and slid the envelope in between the pages. Why was her heart thudding so loud? Vienna prayed that she was not about to have another panic attack, but this felt different. Excitement zipped through her. Again, as with the dream from the previous night, she was thrilled to feel something other than grief or anxiety. 

The letter inside was written in ink, in the same looping script, on a white paper.

Dear Reader,

I could have left this inside the pages, but I do enjoy leaving a trail for you.

I have a request. A favor, actually, if you will.

On your walk back home, after school today, do turn your attention toward the pond. You will see a gate in the water. Go to the gate at midnight tonight, when the moon is high in the sky, and have a closer look. I am sure you must be mocking at this but do search your heart, you know you will be safe.

By the way, what do you have to lose?

Sincerely,

Yours Truly

Vienna slid the letter into her bag and stared blankly at the words in her book.

And then she started counting the minutes until she could leave school.

She dodged out of the seventh period just as the bell rang, eager to avoid Kate because she had not shared about the letter with her. Vienna knew that Kate would pester her, just like a worried best friend should. But Vienna had already thought about all the bad things that could happen if she followed the letter's instructions. She could be kidnapped, attacked, or dragged into the pond at midnight by some crazy stalker, but she was not as worried as she should have been. 

What do you have to lose? That question asked so casually in the letter, played over and over in Vienna's mind. What did she have to lose, indeed? 

Once Vienna got to the pond, she slowed down. Even in early spring, ice clung to the sides of the bank. She had walked that same way hundreds of times since her high school had started, but she had never really looked at her surroundings. Instead, she had taken them for granted, like so many other things. But now she paid attention to the barren trees and bushes growing on the banks. There was also a woeful collection of litter--candy-bar wrappers, empty beer cans, and cigarette butts-- that had been strewn across the banks. And farther down was the gate. A gate in the water. Vienna shivered.

'How did I never notice it before?' Vienna thought. A small section of a white picket fence was partly in the water and partly out, blocking the sticks and debris that flowed to the pond from nearby drainage ditches. The streams emptied into a small basin at the base of the gate. The water seemed deep enough to reach waist-high, but perhaps it might be even deeper.

She was supposed to come there at midnight? When it was pitch-black? Yeah, those were the instructions, mentioned in the letter. Shivering, she wrapped her jacket tightly around her, then she hurried to Mrs. Davies' residence.

That night, Vienna went to bed early and just lay there, staring out of the window, and wondering what her dream had been about and who had sent the strange letter. She felt certain that the boy and letter were interconnected. Two strange events in less than twelve hours made it seem like a no-brainer, but the problem was that one didn't even really need a brain to understand that none of it actually, made sense. 

The boy was a dream, and the letter was some sort of scam. Vienna could think of no good reason for her to go to the pond in the middle of the night. It was not logical. Still, she couldn't avoid not going. Every cell of her body compelled her to find out what was going on. Who had written the letter, and was the letter specifically meant for her? In the end, she was not sure she even cared. She was simply glad to be thinking about something other than her mom and her sister Tina.      

A/N: To be continued...