Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

her own feelings while growing up with Brianna still in the house.
    “I learned a lot just watching her, despite my young age. That’s what I mean by instinct,” she said, but she went on to describe her own days of doubt and difficulty, especially when it came to Mrs. Fennel, whom she now admitted she obeyed more out of fear than respect.
    “I mean, I respect her because Daddy has such high regard for her, but I won’t miss her when I leave.”
    “When will you leave, Ava?”
    “When Daddy says it’s time,” she said. She turned to me. “And that depends on you.”
    I didn’t say anything, but I nodded.
    “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine,” she said. She reached for my hand and smiled. For a while, it was as if we were no different from any other two young women, young sisters opening up their intimate thoughts and feelings.
    We continued to spend time together. We went to movies, flirted a bit with boys in the malls, and enjoyed our shopping sprees, sometimes just buying silly hats or purses. Marla was upset that she wasn’t included, but Ava got around that by telling her that I would do exactly with her what she was now doing with me. Once again, she heard that familiar expression, the one I had grown up with: “Your time will come. Be patient.”
    Daddy stayed home more, too, and soon he was doing more things with us, things that included Marla anyway. When spring break came, he took the three of us to San Francisco. We had a wonderful time doing what he called the “Tourist Polka,” and we had some fun food for a change, without Mrs. Fennel looking over our shoulders. We spent a day in Carmel and then drove down the coast and saw Big Sur. Daddy also decided we would go to the Hearst Castle on the way home. He had been in many, many castles and made comparisons for us, sometimes with very descriptive details about the art, the interiors, and the grounds, including the plants and trees.
    “How can you remember so much?” I asked him.
    “I don’t know, Lorelei. I just do. There are many things I don’t understand about myself,” he revealed.
    Ava overheard his answer. I saw her eyebrows lift. I understood why. Daddy never admitted to anyweaknesses or flaws. This sounded a bit as if he was doing just that, and for us that was extraordinary.
    The vacation flew by too quickly. I had never felt more like part of a family and hated to see it end. Although Daddy was sweet to all three of us, he once again singled me out to take me for a walk on our last night of the vacation. We had driven down to Santa Barbara, and after dinner, he had come to Marla’s and my room in the hotel. Ava had her own room. Marla was already in her pajamas in bed watching television.
    “Step out with me for a while,” he told me, and I did. We were staying at a hotel right across from the beach, so it took us just a few minutes to be there.
    He reached for my hand, and for a while, we just walked quietly, the two of us. I imagined that people seeing us might think we were lovers instead of father and daughter. Maybe that was wishful thinking. The moon painted a silvery sliver of light over the ocean. I remarked about it, and Daddy said it reminded him of an old Japanese haiku, a three-line poem about a butterfly that died on the water but thought it had died on the moon.
    “You understand?” he asked.
    “Yes. It died on the reflected light. Fish out there probably think they’re swimming on the moon tonight,” I added, and he laughed.
    “You are brighter than any other daughter I’ve had, Lorelei,” he said. I blushed with pride.
    To the right and left of the moon, the stars blinked, and the lights of a commercial jet flickered as it crossed the sky to head east. Toward the horizon, we could seean oil tanker moving so slowly that it seemed painted on the ocean.
    “When you were little, you told me the night sky was a dark blanket with tiny holes in it. You said that behind it was this second sky of bright light.”
    “I did?”
    “It made sense to me,” he said.
    We never spoke about heaven and earth, God and the devil, or anything religious that other families discussed or believed. It was part of Daddy’s philosophy that everything just is, and it’s futile for us to try to explain it.
    “We don’t need to go to a house of worship or read a Bible to learn what is important to us. There is only one place to get your morality,” he said. “The family. All comes from that. What you do for the family