“Thanks,” Ivy responded, slightly embarrassed.
Olivia patted her on the back and said, “Want to work on round-off combinations for a new cheer?”
“Okay,” said Ivy. They moved closer to the house and turned to face a distant line of thorn bushes. Olivia counted down, and together they took a few running steps and leaped into the air.
One, two, three round-offs. Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy saw Olivia stick her last move.
Deciding to go one better, Ivy put her hand to the ground, ready to push off into a double handspring. But her palm slipped on the rain-slick grass, her arm went out from under her, and suddenly she was flying wildly through the air.
The thorn bushes came spinning toward her like a kaleidoscope. “Owww!” Ivy cried as she slammed into them.
Olivia came running. “Ivy!”
“I’m okay,” Ivy called, feeling like an utter loser. She stood up from the bushes and brushed herself off. “That’s what I get for trying to show off.”
“You’re hurt!” Olivia exclaimed.
Ivy looked down and saw that her left arm was covered in blood; two deep crimson cuts ran its length. She had been careless. Usually, she would have checked to make sure there weren’t any obvious injuries before emerging from the thorn bushes, but it was too late now. Instinctively, she put her other hand over the scratches so her sister wouldn’t see.
But before she knew it, Olivia was at her side, trying to move her hand away.
“Let me look,” Olivia said reassuringly. “I took first aid for my babysitting course last summer.”
Olivia pried Ivy’s fingers away and gingerly dabbed at the area with a little towel she had pulled from her waistband.
The blood came away on Olivia’s towel, but— just as Ivy knew they would be—the scratches were gone!
“You were bleeding,” Olivia said, twisting Ivy’s arm around in her hands, looking for a cut. “You were bleeding,” she said again in confusion.
Ivy stared at the ground, frantically wondering what she could say.
Olivia shook her head, frowning. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No, it’s fine. I, er . . .” Ivy stammered. How was she going to explain this?
“You’re not cut somewhere else, are you?” Olivia asked, bending to inspect Ivy’s legs. “This is so weird,” she muttered, clutching the bloody towel in her hands.
Ivy could feel her sister trying to catch her eye now.
“Ivy?” Olivia said, her voice brimming with confusion. “What just happened? Did you . . . did you heal ?”
I should tell Olivia the truth, Ivy thought. I don’t want to lie to her. She’s my twin sister.
“Ivy, say something!” Olivia demanded in exasperation.
I have to tell her, Ivy decided. “Olivia,” Ivy said slowly, meeting her sister’s gaze, “I have to tell you a secret.”
“Okay,” Olivia answered cautiously.
“It’s serious,” Ivy told her, taking her hand. “I need you to promise you won’t tell anyone.”
Olivia’s eyes searched Ivy’s face. “What is it?”
“It’s the most important secret you’ll ever know,” Ivy said simply.
Olivia took a deep breath. “I swear on our sisterhood,” she said at last.
Ivy pulled Olivia into the shade of the thorn bushes. Then she slowly lifted her hands up to her face and carefully popped out her contact lenses, one after the other.
Olivia put her hand to her mouth. “Your eyes are purple!”
“They’re violet,” corrected Ivy. She tried to smile. “Olivia,” she said, “I’m a vampire.” Olivia put her hands on her hips. “You are not.” Ivy nodded solemnly in response.
“You’re a vampire?” Olivia asked, bewildered. “For real?”
“And Sophia’s a vampire,” Ivy went on. “And the other people in my . . . community: they’re vampires, too. We have to wear contact lenses to protect our eyes from the sun.”
“Yeah, right,” Olivia said. “Like I’m going to believe that vampires have purple eyes!”
“Most don’t,” Ivy admitted matter-of-factly, putting her contacts back in. “My eyes are special. Bright yellow, luminous green—those are more normal.”
“Normal?” Olivia said dumbly.
“Uh-huh,” Ivy confirmed.
“That’s not in the Count Vira books,” Olivia said with a doubtful shake of her ponytail.
“Count Vira is fiction,” Ivy replied. “I’m a fact. We all have to wear special sunscreen, too,” she went on. “Vampire skin is very pale and sensitive. It’s completely different from yours.”
“Is that why your arm stopped bleeding?” Olivia asked.
“We heal super quickly,” Ivy explained.
Olivia suddenly took a step back. “You’re not going to suck my blood, are you?”
Ivy rolled her eyes. “Olivia, I’m your twin sister,” she said. “Do you think I’d be practicing cheerleading with you if I wanted to suck your blood?”
Olivia came back and examined Ivy’s arm closely. “But isn’t that what vampires do? Suck blood and kill people?”
“We don’t kill people at all. Ever,” Ivy said seriously. “It’s evil! And, besides, the risk of exposing our kind is too great. We haven’t sucked blood since the seventeenth century, when they burned half of us at the stake.”
“So how do you satisfy your insatiable thirst for hemoglobin?” Olivia pressed.
“My insatiable thirst for hemoglobin!?” Ivy repeated incredulously. “You have to start reading better books, Olivia. I go to BloodMart like everyone else. There’s one in the basement of FoodMart.”
Olivia nodded thoughtfully. Then her eyes lit up. “You have a reflection. You can’t be a vampire!” she declared triumphantly.
Ivy raised her eyebrows. “That’s a myth.”
“Oh,” said Olivia, deflated. “Do you sleep in a coffin?”
“Yes.” Ivy almost blushed. “That myth happens to be true.”
“But I saw your bed,” Olivia said.
“The quilts and pillows and stuff make it more comfortable when I’m doing homework. There’s a coffin underneath,” Ivy explained. “When I was little I was utterly jealous of Sophia and her sister’s bunk bed coffins,” she added wistfully.