the next morning, I was jarred awake by the music of the Doors. The bright sun beaming in through the open windows made my head pound. I was exhausted from the bus ride to Hipsterville, searching for Alexander, and my nocturnal meeting with the inhabitants of the Coffin Club. As I looked outside, the mortal world seemed the same. Jeeps parallel parked. Hipstervillians pushed chic strollers. Birds hung on telephone wires.
But the morning sun shed new light on last night's events. Maybe my Coffin Club experience was just a dream and Jagger just a concoction of my nighttime imagination.
I rose from the futon with a gentle laugh, thinking about my overimaginative nocturnal dreams, when I spotted a charm on Aunt Libby's wooden footlocker, next to my bracelets.
Jagger's skeleton earring. It hadn't been a dream.
I held it in my hand. The bony charm stared up at me. If Jagger was a vampire, I wondered what frights it had observed, dangling from his ear. Was it witness to late-night bites on unsuspecting girls? Had the tiny pewter bones seen Alexander?
I reminded myself that I was doing to Jagger what Trevor had done to Alexander. Trevor had started rumors that the Sterlings were vampires, not because he knew their true identity, but because he wanted to make them a town scandal. Now I was making judgments and jumping to my own conclusions about Jagger without having any facts. I had to spend my energies searching for what I had come to Hipsterville for--a real vampire instead of a wannabe.
I remembered my conversation with the Village Dracula. I had to get to the Historical Society as soon as it opened.
I found Aunt Libby in the kitchen cooking eggs-
"Good morning, honey," she said. "Did you sleep well?" "Like a baby."
"I'm surprised you did," she said, cutting me off. "Something in the living room smells funny," she said, turning off the stove and placing the skillet on another burner.
"My mom packed me some goodies for the bus ride," I said, following her into the living room. "Maybe something spoiled."
"It seems like it's coming from over here," she said, pointing toward the window above the futon.
She quickly pulled back a broken window shade before I could stop her.
"I found it on the floor last night when I went to the bathroom," I improvised. "I thought it was a seashell."
I paused, waiting for her response.
She looked at me skeptically.
"Well, after watching your show last night, I just couldn't sleep," I added.
"But I thought you liked vampires."
"I do, but not at my window."
"You remind me of your father when he was growing up. Loved scary movies, but must have slept with the light on until college," she said.
"Then I guess it's in my genes," I said, retrieving the garlic from the windowsill and sticking it back in the Tupperware container.
"I can throw that away for you," she offered, extending her hand.
"I want to keep it," I said, as I put the container in my purse. "Until college." Aunt Libby laughed, and I followed her into the kitchen. "I have a list of things we can do," she said, as we sat down to breakfast. "We can start by going to the art museum. There's an exhibition on Edward Gorey I think you might enjoy. We can go to the Nifty Fifties diner for lunch; they make a great bacon cheeseburger. Of course, I've never had it, but that's what I hear. After that, we can go antiquing in the neighborhood.