She turned those sharp black eyes on me. “Answers. Is that what you’re really here for?”
“Yes,” I repeated, impatience making my voice hard.
“For what purpose?” she asked in an equally hard tone. Her gaze raked over me, as if measuring my worth and finding it lacking. “This is your first visit to your mother’s people, yet you didn’t truly come to learn. You only came to take. As I said, you are much more your father’s child than your mother’s.”
Anger almost blinded me to it, but even as I bristled, I recognized the other flash of emotion in her eyes. Why would she look at me as if I’d somehow personally let her down . . . ?
The truth hit me. “What should I call you, Leotie? My ten-times great grandmother? Or my ten-times great-aunt?”
Gretchen gasped, but a small smile touched Leotie’s mouth. “How did you figure it out?”
“Easy,” I said with a short laugh. “Only family can be that disappointed in someone, let alone someone they’ve just met.”
She let out a gravelly chuckle. “I suppose that’s true.”
Despite her being centuries up the line in my family tree, I found myself searching Leotie’s face for traces of my mother’s features. No surprise, I didn’t find any. She didn’t look like my aunt Brenda, either. Still, she was family. I could feel the truth of that in my bones.
Gretchen didn’t settle for merely looking at Leotie. She got off the couch and went over to her, touching Leotie’s face as if trying to see her with her hands. Leotie stood immobile, letting Gretchen pet her. Only her dark eyes moved as she stared at me.
I stared back and found that another of Vlad’s traits had rubbed off on me: a near-paranoid suspicion of everyone. Leotie might say she was family and I might have an inner conviction that agreed with her, but none of those things was proof.
“You must have pictures,” I said, smiling as if driven by curiosity rather than suspicion. “I’d love to see them. We have so few of Mom and Aunt Brenda when they were little.”
Leotie snorted. “You’re a terrible liar. I hope it means that you don’t do it often. Yes, I have proof that we’re family. Here.”
She pulled out an old-looking box from beneath the room’s only display case and flipped back the lid. At once, my school picture from the eighth grade stared back at me.
Gretchen grabbed the box and began digging through the photos. Her school pictures were there, too. All of ours were, going all the way back to kindergarten. Then Gretchen pulled out more photos that couldn’t have been copied from yearbooks or school records. There were endless pictures of the two of us at birthdays, holidays, or family events, and ones of my mother beaming as she held her hands over her very pregnant belly.
Then there were photos of my mom’s wedding to my dad, of my aunt Brenda at various stages of her life, and even photos of my mom and Aunt Brenda as teenagers and also as little girls playing in front of a newer version of this house.
There were other photos, too, including a duplicate of the only picture I’d seen of my grandparents along with other photos of them that I hadn’t seen. Then there were older ones of people who might have been farther up in my family’s line, but I didn’t recognize them. The pictures continued, until looking at the backgrounds and clothing styles was like traveling back in time. Finally, at the very bottom of the box, Gretchen pulled out a faded daguerreotype photo of Leotie as she appeared now, standing with several Native American men and women. They were dressed in full tribal clothing, and their expressions were very grim.
Leotie glanced at it and a shadow crossed her face. “That was taken after most of my people were forced to go to the reservation out West. I was among those who stayed and hid. Many who stayed died, but so did many on the Trail.”
I shuddered. The infamous Trail of Tears was where thousands of my Cherokee ancestors had died from starvation, exposure, and disease when they were forcibly removed from their lands. The history behind that photograph staggered me. I was torn between wanting to cry for those long-dead people and wanting to ask Leotie a thousand questions about them. Yet now wasn’t the time. I had to stay focused. Those people were gone, but there were still other living people I could possibly save.
“All of our pictures stopped around the same time that Mom died,” I noted instead. “Why didn’t Aunt Brenda send more?”
“Because she didn’t know I was still alive. Your mother didn’t tell her what I was, or the truth about your real heritage.” Leotie cast a meaningful glance between me and Gretchen. “Your mother believed that the less Brenda knew, the more she could protect her.”
I looked away. Mom had been the oldest, too. Were my many omissions of truth with Gretchen just another case of history repeating itself?
“In any case, I’m the one who sent them away,” Leotie went on. “It was too dangerous for them to stay, but your mother promised to send any children she would have back to me to learn about their true heritage, once they came of age.”
My voice thickened from emotion. “She died before she had the chance to keep her promise.”
“Why was it too dangerous?” Gretchen asked.
Leotie gestured toward her walker. “With props, assuming new identities, and altering my appearance, I’ve managed to hide my vampire nature for the past eight centuries. Very few among our tribe know what I am. Still, every so often, I run into another vampire from the outside world.” She shrugged. “It usually amounts to nothing, but someone must have recognized me from the ancient days and talked. Thirty years ago, the female Law Guardian came to investigate these claims. I sent her away with lies, but afterward, I knew I had to get your mother and Brenda out of here. These lands are small, but the white world is so large, they could disappear into it. And they did. I didn’t even know how to find you after your mother died and your father moved you away.”