The girl walked slowly through the cemetery, stopping occasionally to take pictures looking for orbs. Her older sister had dropped her off earlier in the night before she had to go to a party. Aimee wasn't scared. She had stakes for vampires, holy water, crucifixes, candles, rock salt and crystals. She was prepared for anything that could come at her. She had been at the cemetery for several hours and was beginning to get bored. She wished that a vampire would show up. At least then, she could use her stakes.
The boy could see the cemetery from his bedroom. Several times he had noticed a figure that looked like a girl wandering around the cemetery. He knew that whatever it was, it wasn't human. No human being wanders around a cemetery at night alone. He grabbed his holy water and his rock salt. His parents were gone, and his nanny was asleep for the night. He was going to hunt down and exorcise this evil spirit once and for all.
Aimee started randomly reading headstones, clearing them off and wondering what the person buried under them was like in life. She got tired and sat down on the rocky ground. Then she heard a noise. Standing, she pulled out a stake, ready to kill a vampire. She saw a boy walking toward her between the headstones. He walked up toward her slowly. She yelled out to him. "Stay back, vampire! If you come any closer you will have this stake in your heart in two seconds flat." He stopped a little over an arms length away from her. This boy was one of the most gorgeous boys she had ever seen. Yes, he was most definitely a vampire.
He sprayed her with holy water. "You, demon, will wish you had never walked the face of this planet!" He was surprised that she didn't seem to react to the holy water. She was a stronger demon than he had first imagined her to be. He had expected a demon that looked like a ten year old to be less resilient. He was going to have to break out the rock salt for this one.
Aimee held up a cross to him. This was his anathema, why wasn't he going down. Confused she pulled out some holy water and sprayed the vampire in the face. It should have burned his skin. This was not going as well as she had planned. The only thing that would kill this vampire is a stake through the heart or direct sunlight.
"Guess I'm just gonna have to stake you! Say your prayers, Vampire!" She yelled while expertly, or as expertly as her ten year old self could, twirled a stake in her hands.
"What are you talking about, demon? I'm not a vampire!" The angry boy yelled at her.
"Yes you are! Why else would you be at a graveyard at midnight?" She countered.
"Why would you be in a graveyard at midnight?" He answered.
"Well," she said, "I asked you first."
"I live right over there. See that mansion through those woods?" He asked. She nodded. "And I keep seeing a demon, that being you, walking around the cemetery at night, so I came to exorcise you. Duh!" He wished he would have thought to bring his book of Latin incantations. He was running low on holy water.
She looked at him skeptically, "Well, I still don't believe you. The only way I can be sure you aren't a vampire is to stake you or to wait for the sun to come up. Which do you like best?" She flipped her stake around expertly, or at least as expertly as her ten year old hands would allow her to.
He laughed at her, "Well, I'm not going to let you stake me, demon!"
"Fine, then I guess we wait until morning then. Do you care if I sit down?" She sat down on the rocky ground without waiting for an answer. He stepped back and forth frustratedly. Finally, he followed her. Sitting on the ground in front of her, almost knee to knee. She gave him a look and said, "You know, I have fast reflexes, I can still shove this stake through your heart if you try anything weird."
They eyed each other warily. Finally, the boy pulled out a small satchel of rock salt and started pouring it in a line behind and around him. If he was going to have to spend the night in a cemetery with a crazed demon he should at least protect himself from other malevolent spirits. The girl held her hand out toward him. "What do you think you're doing!"
She sighed dramatically. "The rock salt. I was gonna finish the circle." He looked at her suspiciously, but handed her the satchel of rock salt.
"How do you know what it is?"
She groaned. "Hi, I'm Aimee and I spend all day every day researching the paranormal." She glared at him. "And what's your name?"
"If I give you my name and you are a witch, you could use it in a spell against me!" He accused her.
She just shrugged, "I can either be a demon or a witch, I can't be both. Also, I wouldn't do that. Magic is delicate, you have to be careful what you put out into the world because everything comes back on you three fold. If I were to use a spell to hurt someone else or make them do something they wouldn't normally do, then bad things would happen to me." She waited for him to roll his eyes or tell her that magic was stupid, but he just shrugged and said, "Makes sense."
"So, your name?" She asked again. He didn't want to tell her his real name. He thought she was telling the truth but, just in case, he gave her his middle name. "It's Dwight." He said, "How do you spend all day researching the paranormal? What about school?"
"I'm home schooled. I do all the school work in an hour and then I spend the rest of the day studying the supernatural stuff. I got expelled from school when I was seven." She looked at him, debating whether to tell him the whole story. "My mom died when I was seven and I was really upset. I have always been weird, but I guess I got too weird for the school to handle me. So, my dad had me home schooled. But I have to go back to real school when I'm in high school."
"Oh. I'm sorry, Aimee, about your mom." Dwight looked sad for a minute. It surprised Aimee that someone could be sad about someone that they had never met. She smiled at him. "It's okay. It was three years ago. She was sick ever since I was born." She reached in her bag and got out some candles and lit them setting them on either side of her and Dwight. She pulled out a sack of sour gummy worms and ate one and held the bag out to Dwight. "Do you want some gummy worms?"
Dwight smiled. "Those are my favorite!" He grabbed a handful and started eating them.
Aimee laughed. "I prefer Red Vines, but I saw these at the store today and something told me to get them." they sat in the quiet for a while both eating gummy worms. "So," she finally started, "When is your birthday?"
"November 17th," he answered. "And yours?"
She groaned, "Scorpio. Mine's July 7th."
He nodded then, "My favorite color is black, or maybe gray. What's yours?" She shrugged, "It changes. But most of the time I like green or purple, but not together. I don't like Barney." She thought for a minute, "What is your favorite constellation? Mine is Cassiopeia."
He took two seconds to think of his answer. "Orion, the hunter."
The conversation went back and forth. Each taking turns asking questions of the other. After a while, they forgot that they were each suspicious of the other, and they ended up laying down side by side on the ground, whispering to each other. "What is your least favorite number?" Aimee asked. Dwight answered three. Aimee told him that 3 was her favorite number. She looked upset for a second, then said. "My least favorite number is seven. My mom is the seventh daughter in her family. And I am her seventh daughter." Dwight asked if she had six sisters incredulously. "No, I only have 3 living sisters. My mom had my two oldest sisters. Then she had a stillborn daughter. Then, my other sister was born. Then my mom had two more still born girls before me. Since I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, I have more connections with the spirit world. I have more powers of sorcery and can feel magic. It makes me a freak. After she had me, my mom was really sick. She got sicker and sicker until I was seven. Then, seven days and seven months after my birthday, my mom died. So, the number seven made me a freak and it took away my mom. The number seems to be haunting me. Every time something has the number seven in it, I'm afraid something will go wrong." She looked upset and Dwight wanted to comfort her but he didn't know how so he reached to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder.
"So, let's talk about something else. What is your biggest dream?" He looked at her waiting for an answer.
"I know this is weird, right. So don't make fun of me, okay? I want to see a unicorn." She said. "Unicorns have all these mystical powers. They can heal people with their horns. I want to see a unicorn. And someday, I think that I will." He looked at her and nodded. The children were getting sleepy so they were silent for long periods of time. Every few minutes one of them would break the silence with a question. Eventually, they fell asleep.
They woke up to the sun peeking over the horizon. Aimee looked at the boy lying in front of her their faces so close they could almost touch. "Well, I guess you aren't a vampire, after all." She admitted.
He agreed. "And you aren't a demon, either." They sat up and gathered their things. Aimee looked at her watch. "My sister should be here in a couple of minutes. She always comes to get me before its time for dad to come home from work."
"Hey," Dwight started, "If you aren't doing anything tomorrow night, you should come to my house for dinner. You could even stay overnight, if you want. We have plenty of guest bedrooms."
She smiled and nodded. "Sounds good." she took out a piece of paper and a pen from her bag and wrote her phone number on it. "I have found an abandoned house near my house that has a lot of supernatural activity around it, you could come check it out with me if you want." He grinned and nodded excitedly.
"I have to tell you something." He looked at her earnestly. "My name isn't really Dwight. Well, it is but Dwight is just my middle name. My real name is Thomas Houston." She laughed, leaned in, and whispered conspiratorially, "Well just stick with Dwight, it will confuse evil spirits."
Aimee's sister drove up to the cemetery and honked twice. "Oh, I gotta go." Aimee started gathering up stuff and rushed toward the car. She stopped and turned around. She ran right up to Dwight and kissed him on the cheek. "Bye, Dwight! Nice meeting you!" Then she ran to her sister's car. Dwight stood alone in the cemetery, dazed. He looked down at the piece of paper with her name and phone number on it and was amused that she dotted her I with a heart. When her sisters car was out of sight, he turned and ran to his house as fast as he could.
