"The longest," Jade broke in again. "We're Redferns; we go back to prehistoric times."
Mary-Lynnette blinked. "But you three don't go back that far, do you?" she said nervously.
Rowan stifled a laugh. "I'm nineteen; Kestrel's seventeen; Jade is sixteen. We haven't stopped aging yet."
Kestrel was looking at Mary-Lynnette. "How olddid our aunt look to you?""Um, around seventy, seventy-five, I guess."
"When we last saw her she looked maybe forty," Kestrel said. "That was ten years ago, when she left our island."
"But she'd actually been alive for seventy-four years at that point," Rowan said. "That's what happens to us-if we stop holding off the aging process, it all catches up at once."
"Which if you've been alive for five or six hundredyears can be quite interesting," Kestrel said dryly.
Mary-Lynnette said, "So this island where youcome from-is that the Night World?"
Rowan looked startled. "Oh, no, it's just a safe town. You know, a place where our people all live without any humans. Hunter Redfern founded itback in the sixteenth century so we'd have some where safe to live."
"The only problem," Kestrel said, golden eyesglinting, "is that people there are still doing thingsthe way they did in the sixteenth century. Andthey made a rule that nobody couldleave-exceptfor some of the men and boys that they trusted completely."
Like Ash, I guess, Mary-Lynnette thought. Shewas about to say this, but Rowan was speakingagain.
"So that's why we ran away. We didn't want tohave to get married when our father told us to.
Wewanted to see the human world. We wanted-"
"To eat junk food," Jade caroled. "And read magazines and wear pants and watch TV."
"When Aunt Opal left the island, she didn't tell anybody where she was going-except me,"
Rowan said. "She told me she was going to this little town called Briar Creek where her husband's family had built a house a hundred and fifty years ago.,,, Mary-Lynnette ran her fingers through the silky tassels of a forest-green pillow. "Okay, but-whereis the Night World, then?"
"Oh... it's not a place...." Rowan looked uncertain. "This is-it's kind of hard to tell you, actually,"
she said. "You're not even supposed to know it exists. The two very first laws of the Night World are that you never let a human find out about it ...and that you never fall in love with a human."
"And Jade's breaking both this minute," Kestrel murmured.
Jade just looked pleased.
"And the penalty for both is death-for everybody involved," Rowan said. "But . . . you're family.
Here goes." She took a steadying breath. "The Night World is a sort of secret society. Not just of vampires. Of witches and werewolves and shape shifters, too. All the different kinds of Night People.
We're everywhere."
Everywhere?Mary-Lynnette thought. It was an unnerving idea-but an interesting one. So therewas a whole world out there she'd never knownabout-a place to explore, as alien as the Androm eda galaxy.
Mark didn't seem too disturbed by the thought of vampires everywhere. He was grinning at Jade, leaning with one elbow on the arm of the dark green couch. "So, can you read minds? Can you read my mind right now?"
cats who have heard something theirhumanscan't. An instant later, though. Mary-Lynnette heard it, too.
The sound of feet on the front porch--tap, tap,tap-asquick as that. And then a thud.
"Hey, somebody'sout there," Jade said, and before Mark could stop her, she was up and heading for the door.
"Soulmates can read each other's minds without even trying," Jade told Mark firmly.
Soulmates ... Mary-Lynnette wanted to get on toa different subject. She felt uncomfortable, tingly.
"I wish you'd stop saying that. What you have ismuch better than being soulmates," Rowan was tell ing Jade. "With love you get to find out about aperson first. Being soulmates is involuntary-youdon't even have tolikethe person when you meetthem. They may be completely wrong for you inevery way-wrong species, wrong temperament, wrong age. But you know you'll never be completely happy again without them."
More and more tingly. Mary-Lynnette had to say something. "And what if thathappenedto you-if you found somebody and you were soulmates with them and you didn't want to be?" she asked Rowan. She realized that her voice was strange--thick. "Isn'tthere any way you could-get rid of it?"
There was a pause. Mary-Lynnette saw everyoneturn to look at her.
"I've never heard of one," Rowan said slowly. Her brown eyes were searching Mary-Lynnette's.
"But I guess you could ask a witch ... if you had that problem."
Mary-Lynnette swallowed. Rowan's eyes weregentle and friendly-and Mary-Lynnette felt a very strong need to talk to someone, someone who would understand.
"Rowan She didn't get any further. Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade all looked suddenly toward the front door-like.
Chapter 11
Jade-wait a minutel" Mark said.
Jade, of course, didn't wait even a second. But shelost time undoing the bolts on the front door, and Mary-Lynnette could hear the quick tap, tap, tap of somebody running away.
Jade threw the door open, darted out onto theporch-and screamed. Mary-Lynnette crowded forward and saw that Jade had put her foot into oneof the holes where the porch was missing a board. Everybody who didn't know the place did that. Butthat wasn't what had made her scream.
It was the goat.
"Oh, God," Mark said. "Oh, God-who would dothat?"
Mary-Lynnette took one look and felt a burning inher chest and arms-a painful, bad feeling. Her lungs seemed to contract and her breath was forced out.