An empty teacup in one hand and a folder of papers tucked under her other arm, Sylvia shut the library doors and strode briskly down the hall to the grand oak staircase of Elm Creek Manor, mulling over the many tasks she had yet to complete in the solitary hour before her guests were due to arrive.
She had descended only a few steps when she was drawn from her reverie by the uncanny sensation of eyes upon her.
She paused on the landing, her grasp firm upon the carved banister worn smooth from generations of Bergstroms who had inhabited the manor before her and the many friends and guests who had resided within its gray stone walls in the decades since. She glanced warily over her shoulder, but when she saw no one—not a soul on the second-floor balcony or on the stairs climbing to the third story high above—she continued her descent, the certainty that she was being watched increasing with every step. As she crossed the foyer and headed toward the older west wing of the manor, she sensed rather than heard soft footfalls on the black marble floor behind her. Turning quickly, she glimpsed a swirl of black fabric and upraised arms and sharp white fangs an instant before her stalker shouted, “Boo!”
“Oh, my heavens!” exclaimed Sylvia, clutching the folder to her chest. “What a frightening creature!” Four-and-a-half-year-old James frowned around a mouthful of plastic vampire fangs, his arms falling to his sides. “You weren’t scared.”
“Indeed I was,” Sylvia assured him. “Absolutely terrified.”
“No, you weren’t,” James insisted glumly, his words muffled by the plastic teeth. “You didn’t even drop your cup. It would have smashed into a hundred pieces.”
Sylvia frowned briefly at the cup that had betrayed her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear,” she told the youngster. But she wasn’t very sorry, considering that the teacup was one of the few precious pieces of her grandmother’s wedding china that had not been broken or sold off long ago. She supposed she could have shrieked, thrown the folder into the air, and pretended not to enjoy James’s triumphant grin as the pages fluttered to the black marble floor like blanched autumn leaves, but her knees and back were not up to the task of crawling around to gather up the scattered pages. There were limits to the amount of terror she was willing to feign for the boy’s amusement. “You truly do make a most terrifying vampire.”
“She would’ve been more scared if you hadn’t yelled ‘Boo,’” said James’s twin sister, Caroline, stepping out from behind the draperies adorning one of the tall windows flanking the front entrance. “Vampires don’t yell ‘Boo.’”