Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer Page A

spiders, and a photograph of a boy with black hair. D’Ablo clutched the picture in his hand and frowned. “Well, well. Vladimir Tod. And no sign of your father’s beloved journal.”
    He slid the photo into his pocket and moved to the board-covered window. It would soon be getting light. It was time to leave.
    D’Ablo let himself quietly out of the house. His stomach rumbled with hunger, but he ignored it. There was no time to eat, and sleepiness was beginning to overtake him.
    When the sun fell once again, he would feed.

    Vlad’s old house was at the opposite end of town—in a place neither Vlad nor Henry had been in the three years since the accident. Nelly had put the property up for sale twice in that time, but both times Vlad had talked her out of selling it to add to his college fund. Someday, he’d told her, someday he’d have the strength to let the house go. But not yet.
    Kind as she was, Nelly had continued to pay the property taxes, kept Bathory’s town council pacified, and allowed Vlad time to heal.
    He hadn’t yet done so.
    Vlad paused on the corner and looked down Lugosi Trail. His house was still standing, remaining structurally unharmed, despite the fire. No one could tell Vlad how the fire had started or even how it had been extinguished. Only one room had burned—his parents’ bedroom. The fire marshal had brought in several inspectors, but the only conclusion they’d reached was that there had been a brief flash in that room, burning everything and everyone who’d been in it to a crisp, while it had merely smoked and singed the rest of the home’s interior.
    Vlad could feel Henry’s eyes on him, as if waiting for Vlad to burst into tears. Vlad wouldn’t. He’d resolved to stop crying in front of people, dealing with his grief on his own in the shadows of his secret space in the belfry of Bathory High. Vlad kept his eyes on the house as they approached. It looked exactly as it had the last time he’d seen it.
    The house was an odd, irregular shape—two stories with a three-story tower attached. His bedroom had been at the bottom of the tower. On top of it was his parents’ room and on top of that was his dad’s study. The exterior of the house was painted gray except for the black gingerbread, which matched the roof’s peaks. Atop his father’s study was a wrought-iron widow’s walk.
    Vlad used to play in the backyard at night, only to glance up and spy his parents swaying slowly together to music he couldn’t hear from the ground. There might not have been music to dance to at all, but his parents danced anyway. He rubbed the threat of a tear away and reached for the key ring in his pocket.
    The door opened easily, and as it swung to the side, Vlad half expected to see his mother behind it, greeting him with a kiss on the forehead and questions about his day. She wasn’t there, of course, but her favorite jacket was hanging on the coat tree next to the door. Like everything else in the house, it had been darkened by smoke, but the color showed through the gray.
    Henry squeezed his shoulder from behind. “You okay?”
    Vlad shook him away and stepped into the house. An acrid smell invaded his nostrils. “We should start in my dad’s study.”
    â€œAny idea what we’re looking for?” Henry stood beside the couch and looked around, a pained expression in his eyes.
    â€œI don’t know for sure. In my dad’s note, he wrote that the answers were there.” Vlad moved through the house, not allowing his eyes to linger on anything for more than a second. Every piece of furniture, every book, every rug, was exactly as it had been the last time he’d seen them. In three years, nothing had been moved. With a heavy heart, Vlad stepped into the passageway that led to the tower and ascended the spiral staircase all the way to the third floor.
    Henry followed behind,