FULL NOVELXO Chapter CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
ANNIE AND ALASTAIR CAME OUT OF MADAME TUSSAUDS WAX MUSEUM and were most impressed. Annie especially liked Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Princess Diana. She thought Leonardo was so handsome that she wished she could take him home and stand him in the corner. Alastair was most fascinated by Madonna and Elvis.
Their relationship was progressing faster than Annie expected.
Annie carried her rose with her almost everywhere, and until the butterfly showed up, she couldn’t relax. Thankfully, the butterfly usually appeared in the morning, but one day it didn’t come until seven in the evening, and she was sure she had missed it until there it was. Annie had always been fascinated with butterflies; that’s why Alastair had hit the jackpot with that gift. She danced in the field with them when she was eight. They represented the beauty of nature, and seeing one on her rose every day was a gift born out of anticipation; she never knew what type of butterfly would show up.
This time the butterfly showed up in the wax museum. The rare glass-winged butterfly (Greta oto) was primarily found in Mexico and Panama; it lit on her rose and started to draw a crowd until it flew off and out of sight. The border of its wings was orange with a splash of yellow. Annie was fascinated by it as a large part of its wings were like glass and see-through. She had never seen one before, and it made her laugh.
Outside the museum, Annie glanced at the Justin Bieber sign with the two exclamation points. “I enjoyed that more than I thought I would. That was a good idea to come here, Alastair.”
Alastair was glad to hear it. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given you that magical rose as you seem obsessed with it. You can’t think of anything else until you see the butterfly. Some mornings I can’t talk to you until it shows up.”
“Oh, you exaggerate. I suppose it is a bit silly, but I’m beside myself until I see that butterfly. I know it’s coming, but I can’t relax until I see it.” They kissed as they started to walk, and they were both satisfied with life for the moment.
“Annie, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but on occasion, I think he said twice a year, you will see two instead of one.”
Her face lit up at seeing two butterflies on the same day. “No, really? And what does it mean if I see two?”
They walked by the MacDonald’s restaurant as she stared at the rose. She took in the flower’s scent, which appeared to have changed slightly. She waved at a young businesswoman who passed her as if to say, ” Look what I have.
“Two means one more than one.”
Annie showed him a smirk. “Why won’t you tell me how much you paid for it?”
“Annie, why do you continue to ask that same question? I will only say that I spent more than I should have. The date on that line of questioning has now officially expired. They have places to wean people off drugs; perhaps we can find one to wean you off that flower. What would happen if one morning you awoke to find that I’d hidden your rose?”
She didn’t like the sound of that. The fact that he had mentioned it was perhaps proof that he had entertained the thought. “Well, I would imagine that that beautiful mansion of yours would become a mountain of wood and rubble as if a tornado had gone through it searching for a rose.”
“A tornado named Annie.”
She touched his face with the rose and then made him bend down to her level so she could kiss him. “Alastair, tell me something about yourself that I might not want to hear. You know something sordid about your past.”
He immediately stopped. “You want me to tell you something that might chase you away? I don’t believe I want to play this game. I was a different vampire in the past.”
The area was a busy place with lots of people walking. Eight police cars lined one side of the street, with eight on the other. A young blond boy followed the couple; he had a spell on him to remain undetected. Being turned so young had advantages because not many would suspect such a sweet-looking boy dressed in new clothes to be up to something.
“Honesty will always bring you closer to a woman.” Her smile was like a beautiful sunset over the ocean to the old vampire. She could get things out of him that no one else could.
“Annie, honesty with some women will bring you a hit in the head or a knife in the heart. But I used to be a bit of a bad guy long ago. I killed a few people that shouldn’t have been killed. Innocents.”
She looked at Alistair in a different light. Now she worried about whether he had changed or was he just pretending? Men were great pretenders, with most having enough talent in that area to be nominated for an academy award, she was sure. But the fact that he told her was enlightening and spoke of a changed character. She knew that people did change if they sincerely wanted to change. “How long ago?”
“Over three hundred years. See, now you look at me with different eyes. Suddenly, I am a different vampire, a monster. Are we now finished? Are you going to run off? I should have known better than to tell the truth.”
Annie could see that he was genuinely distraught. “Vampire, you need to relax, if you are a bad guy, it’ll come out in time, and I will kill you and eat you, bones and all. I’ve always been a pretty good judge of character.” She kissed his hand and felt him relax. That kiss was the best medicine.
The boy, a vampire thief by the name of Maxwell, blurred by and grabbed Annie’s rose, and took off. What made the boy vampire such a good thief was his exceptional speed. He was over a hundred years old, so he was not a boy. They took off in pursuit but couldn’t keep up with him. The lad was gone, and so was that magnificent rose.
“Not my rose! Alastair, can you get me another one? Please.”
“That’s just it, Annie. That rose was one of three, made hundreds of years ago by some powerful wizard. That’s why I paid so much for it. The other two were sold long ago. Maybe we can track down that boy.”
Annie thought the chances of that were probably nil. “Now I’m depressed.”