Then he leaned his forehead against Poppy's mattress. His tears were absolutely genuine. At that moment he was sure he'd lost her forever.
"Brace yourself," James said from behind him. "They're here."
CHAPTER 11
The next few hours were the worst of Phil's life.
First and foremost was his mother. As soon as she walked in, Phil's priorities changed from wanting her to comfort him to wanting to comfort her. And of course there wasn't any comfort. All he could do was hold on to her.
It's too cruel, he thought dimly. There ought to be a way to tell her. But she would never believe it, and if she did, she'd be in danger, too....
Eventually the paramedics did come, but only after Dr.
Franklin had arrived.
"I called him," James said to Phil during one of the interludes when Phil's mom was crying on Cliff.
"Why?"
"To keep things simple. In this state, doctors can issue a death certificate if they've seen you within the last twenty days and they know the cause of death. We don't want any hospitals or coroners."
Phil shook his head. "Why? What's your problem with hospitals?"
"My problem," James said in a clipped, distinct voice. "is that in hospitals they do autopsies."
Phil froze. He opened his mouth but no sound came out.
"And in funeral homes they do embalming. Which is why I need to be around when they come to pick up the body. I need to influence their minds not to embalm her, or sew her lips shut, or-"
Phil bolted for the bathroom and was sick. He hated James again.
But nobody took Poppy to the hospital; and Dr. Franklin didn't mention an autopsy. He just held Phil's mother's hand and spoke quietly about how these things could happen suddenly, and how at least Poppy had been spared any pain.
"But she was so much better today," Phil's mother whispered through tears. "Oh, my baby, my baby. She'd been getting worse, but today she was better. "
"It happens like that sometimes," Dr. Franklin said. "It's almost as if they rally for a last burst of life."
"But I wasn't there for her," Phil's mom said, and now there weren't any tears, just the terrible grating sound of guilt. "She was alone when she died."
Phil said, "She was asleep. She just went to sleep and never woke up. If you look at her, you can see how peaceful it was."
He kept saying things like that, and so did Cliff and so did the doctor, and eventually the paramedics went away. And sometime after that, while his mother was sitting on Poppy's bed and stroking her hair, the people from the mortuary came.
"Just give me a few minutes," Phil's mother said, dry-eyed and pale. "I need a few minutes alone with her."
The mortuary men sat awkwardly in the family room, and James stared at them. Phil knew what was going on. James was fixing in their minds the fact that there was to be no embalming.
"Religious reasons, is that it?" one of the men said to Cliff, breaking a long silence.
Cliff stared at him, eyebrows coming together. "What are you talking about?"
The man nodded. "I understand. It's no problem."
Phil understood, too. Whatever the man was hearing, it wasn't what Cliff was saying.
"The only thing is, you'll want to have the viewing right away,"
the other man said to Cliff. "Or else a closed casket."
"Yes, it was unexpected," Cliff said, his face straightening out.
"It's been a very short illness."
So now he wasn't hearing what the men were saying. Phil looked at James and saw sweat trickling down his face. Clearly it was a struggle to control three minds at once.
At last Cliff went in and got Phil's mother. He led her to the master bedroom to keep her from seeing what happened next.
What happened was that the two men went into - Poppy's room with a body bag and a gurney. When they came out, there was a small, delicate hump in the bag.
Phil felt himself losing rationality again. He wanted to knock things down. He wanted to run a marathon to get away.
Instead, his knees started to buckle and his vision grayed out.
Hard arms held him up, led him to a chair. "Hang on," James said. "Just a few more minutes. It's almost over."
Right then Phil could almost forgive him for being a bloodsucking monster.
It was very late that night when everyone finally went to bed.
To bed, not to sleep. Phil was one solid ache of misery from his throat down to his feet, and he lay awake with the light on until the sun came up.
The funeral home was like a Victorian mansion, and the room Poppy was in was filled with flowers and people. Poppy herself was in a white casket with gold fittings, and from far away she looked as if she were sleeping.
Phil didn't like to look at her. He looked instead at the visitors who kept coming in and filling the viewing room and the dozens of wooden pews. He'd never realized how many people loved Poppy.
"She was so full of life," her English teacher said.
"I can't believe she's gone," a guy from Phil's football team said.
"I'll never forget her," one of her friends said, crying.
Phil wore a dark suit and stood with his mother and Cliff. It was like a receiving line for a wedding. His mother kept saying, "Thank you for coming," and hugging people. The people went over and touched the casket gently and cried.
And in the process of greeting so many mourners, something strange happened. Phil got drawn in. The reality of Poppy's death was so real that all the vampire stuff began to seem like a dream. Bit by bit, he started to believe the story he was acting out.
After all, everybody else was so sure. Poppy had gotten cancer, and now she was dead. Vampires were just superstition.
James didn't come to the viewing. -
Poppy was dreaming.
She was walking by the ocean with James. It was warm and she could smell salt and her feet were wet and sandy. She was wearing a new bathing suit, the kind that changes color when it gets wet. She hoped James would notice the suit, but he didn't say anything about it.
Then she realized he was wearing a mask. That was strange, because he was going to get a very weird tan with most of his face covered up.
"Shouldn't you take that off?" she said, thinking he might need help.
"I wear it for my health," James said-only it wasn't James's voice.