Chapter Nineteen

When Esther returned to the house, AnnMarie was back from work. She was in the kitchen making dinner for herself, and Esther quietly greeted her as she sat her backpack by the door.

It took the girl a moment to respond to her.

"You've been gone a lot lately." She said. There was sadness in her voice, and she clearly didn't try to hide it. Or maybe she couldn't. Esther could only guess.

"Sorry. I've been feeding." Was Esther’s response.

"I told you you could feed off of me."

Esther wasn’t sure what to say.

"I can't do it too much. I have to give you time to recover." She said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I really don't mind."

If you hurt me. She didn’t say it outloud, but the implication was there. It gave Esther a sick and sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want AnnMarie to be so willing to let her hurt her just for the sake of her company. She wasn’t worth that kind of sacrifice, and she knew it.

But AnnMarie didn't seem to know it. She didn't seem to realize just how much better she deserved.

Esther turned away.

"I know."

She went to walk past her into the spare bedroom, but AnnMarie hovered in the doorway to stop her.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"To make a phone call."

"Oh, okay."

Esther continued on her way and shut herself in the spare bedroom, making sure to close the door softly behind herself.  From her pocket she pulled her cellphone and the shimmering business card the witch had given her back in Tennessee. She dialed the number, and waited silently as the garbled ringing echoed from the speaker of the phone into her ear. After a moment, there was an answer.

"Hello?" The witch answered.

"Yes, this is Esther LaGrange."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

"Who?"

"You gave me your card." Esther said.

"I give a lot of people my card."

Esther rolled her eyes even though she was alone.

"I'm the vampire."

"Oh, yes. That does narrow it down." She said, "Were you going to let me try and—"

"I want you to help me break a curse." Esther interrupted her.

Another pause, this one quite a bit longer than the first. For a moment, Esther was worried she had hung up. The sound of rustling and doors shutting told her the woman was still on the line.

"You must mean the one my brother told me about. The one that your little freckled friend came into our store asking us about."

Esther was slightly annoyed about way the witch chose her words, and the implications it seemed to hold.

"Yes."

"Well, what's in it for me? What do I get for helping you?"

After a moment, Esther replied.

"What do you want from me?"

A third pause.

"Let me think about it."

"Alright." Esther said, though she didn't like the sound of it.

Despite not having a concrete answer, the witch continued to talk.

"The person who placed the curse is dead, right?"

"Yeah, for a while now." Esther said.

"Could you bring me to their grave?"

"I mean, I could try. Their body is in pieces, and I don't know exactly where it is either."

"That does make things a bit more complicated." The woman said. "But I do like challenges. Do you think you could gather most of their body and bring it to me? Like, at least more than half.”

“I could certainly try.” Esther said. “Although I don’t know how successful I would be.”

“I’ll give you a spell that will help you find it.”

“I’m not great with magic, but I’ll see what I can do.”

"Cool. Give me about an hour and I’ll email you something."

"I don't have an email address." Esther said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know how to use a computer."

Again the woman asked, "Why not?"

"Why would I?" Esther countered. "I'm one hundred and eighty years old and I’m dead. I don’t need to use a computer to feed off the living."

"Yeah, but you've had just as much time to learn as everyone else." The witch said, “And I’m sure there’s some way the internet could help you feed off of the living and spread your wretched curse across the land.”

"I'll figure something out and text you." Esther said. “Let me know what it is you want from me.”

Before the witch could respond, she hung up the phone. She didn't want to make a deal with the witch. It was hard to tell what the woman's motives were, but Esther didn't think they were selfless to say the least.

Esther walked back to the kitchen, and stared at the back of AnnMarie's head.

"Do you have an email address?"

AnnMarie looked up from the pot of soup she was making. She seemed completely taken off guard by the question.

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

Esther decided to lie to her. She was worried that if she brought up the curse, it would only make the girl even more upset with her.

“I’m trying to get a message from a friend.” She said, “But if it’s too much to ask of you, I can figure something else out.”

“Oh no! It’s fine!” AnnMarie rushed to say, “I don’t mind. I’ll write it down for you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Esther said.

“It’s no problem.” AnnMarie said.

Esther watched carefully as she spooned soup into an old ceramic bowl and brought it over to the small kitchen table. Steam wafted off of the top of it, and it smelled good. Esther thought it was sad that even if she did eat some, it would taste almost like nothing to her.

Like how most things felt like almost nothing to her.

After AnnMarie started to eat, she walked over, and took a seat beside her. She wanted to do something to make the girl feel better.

“Do you want to do something this weekend?” Esther asked. "With me?"

AnnMarie looked over at her.

“Oh, Like what we did last weekend? Something about the curse?”

“No, I was thinking something… fun?” Esther said. “Like maybe going out to eat. Of course, I can’t eat, but I will... sit there with you? If that doesn’t sound… weird to you. I don’t know how interested you would be in going out to dinner with a corpse.”

AnnMarie blinked up at her, her pink lips slightly parted. For a moment Esther was worried that she had said the wrong thing. Maybe it would only make the girl even more upset with her. Maybe that bridge was already burned, and AnnMarie was just keeping her around because she was the girl’s only option for any company at all.

“Are you sure that would be fun for you?” AnnMarie said. “You don’t have to do something like that just for my sake.”

“I want to.” Esther said. “I can pretend to be a normal person, just for a couple of hours. Maybe it’ll be fun.”

Esther could hear her nervously tapping her foot against the linoleum floor, and her green eyes stayed on the ground.

“Is it, uhm- is it like a date or something?”

Esther tried her best to give the girl a genuine smile.

“Uh, yeah. Something like that.”