"Toast. I can make toast."
"Its all about the coffee, Aunt Jenna." Elena smiled.
"Is there coffee?" Jeremy seemed to appear.
"Neither of you need coffee." Violet declared, leaning on the counter.
"Your first day of school and I'm totally unprepared. Lunch money?"
While Elena politely declines, Jeremy took the money from Jenna. No surprise, really.
"Jenna, your presentation?" Violet reminded the frazzled adult.
"I'm meeting with my thesis advisor at...now. Crap!"
"Don't worry, Jenna, I've got the kids." Violet raised her mug.
As she left, Elena looked at Jeremy. "You okay?"
"Don't start."
"What about you, Elena. You ready to go back?" Violet asked her little sister.
"Yeah, of course."
"You can put on a strong face for Jeremy but you can't fool me, Elena."
"You didn't have to take a semester off of school, you know."
"Of course I did. Besides, I'm not really off. I'm working here, you know. I'm with the Historical Society AND I'll be working a bit with Mayor Lockwood. Plus, I'm a member of the Founder's Counsel now. All work and no play, Elena."
"I highly doubt that." Elena rolled her eyes.
"Well, get off to school. And watch out for Jeremy, that kid's up to no good."
The rest of Violet's day started with reading the newspaper and sighing at the recent animal attacks, annotating notes along the way. Then she took a run for about an hour, her normal route, and beat her usual time by about two minutes. She was getting faster, that was good. She never was a great runner, horrid even. But, things change because they have to. After her run, she showered and changed into her trouser jeans and a sheer top and a cardigan. She slinged her leather laptop case, which lust contained her papers today, over her shoulder and grabbed the keys to her car.
This was Violet's third Founder's Counsel Meeting. She learned about the true meaning as well and her parents' involvement when she was seventeen; and that's when her training began. That's when the weekly, mysterious trips to the Gilbert lakehouse began. That's when relentless journal reading began. And after her parents died, that was when the counsel meetings began.
And now, at merely nineteen, Violet was practically the head of the Gilbert household. Of course, Aunt Jenna did all of the mundane parenting and caretaking, but Violet, after John's specific intructions, was in charge of protecting her family, and in extension the rest of Mystic Falls, from the creatures of the night. Speaking of John, he had gone AWOL, and now the young Gilbert was in charge of the house.
When Violet arrived at the Lockwood house, Carol opened the door. "Hello, Violet."
"Hello, Mrs. Lockwood."
"Violet, we're counsel members now. Call me Carol."
"Sorry, I'm still used to you-never mind. Is everyone here?"
"Yes! You were last to arrive, right on time."
The Counsel meeting, along with the usual Founders business like balls and history, had a deeper meaning. Vampires. And finding them.
"So, it is obvious what the first item of discussion is."
"Quite obvious." Violet replied, pulling a copy of the newspaper from her briefcase. "You know, the town is only going to believe animal attacks for so long. Maybe we should try a little harder at not making them so publicized."
"You can't stop the press, Violet." Logan fell sighed, exasperated. "I know. I'm a part of it. And it'll only make people question the conspiracy behind keeping animal attacks a secret. Could you see the hysteria over the town keeping secrets?"
"Fine then, Logan. What do you suggest?"
"The obvious answer: find the vampire and kill it."
"Wow, how have I never thought of that, Logan. You're leadership in our grand counsel is truly inspirational." Violet replied sarcastically. "Yes, we all understand we have to kill the vampire, but that isn't quite so easy, is it?"
"You are so like your aunt, Violet."
"Zach, what about the vervain?" Liz asked, changing the subject.
"I can get some more."
There was something off about Zach.
"What do we do with it, though?" Linda asked.
"We wear it and we keep it with us in case we find anything."
"That's all perfectly fine and good, but how do we find it? We have absolutely nothing to go on, all we can do is look for something suspicious while life goes on and more people in this town die."
"Violet," Carol started. "I get it, you're parents are gone and now you want to-"
"You mistunderstand, Mrs. Lockwood. All I'm doing is trying to protect the town and my family like the rest of us. Now, I suggest we keep a very sharp watch out for anything suspicious in town. We need eyes everywhere. In town. In the shops. In schools. We look for anything new and suspicious."
"That sounds reasonable." Mayor Lockwood declared. "Who've we got to watch in the school? The chances of there being a vampire there are incredibly slim, but we need somebody to watch out over there in case something happens. Liz can't be every where."
Carol looked over to me, and others soon followed.
"Do you really want me to-"
"Just work with the History department over there. I can set it up. I'll tell administration that you want to help get some experience and that you want to improve Mystic Falls History in the school on behalf of the historical society."
"Do you actually think that it'll work?"
"It's a better chance than any."
"Alright, then." Violet sighed. "It looks like I'm going back to school."
"I'm meeting Bonnie at the grille."
"Okay have fun. Wait. I got this. Don't stay out late, it's a school night."
"Very nice." Violet winked at Jenna.
As Elena opened the door, a teenage boy was there.
"Oh."
"Sorry, I was about to knock. I wanted to apologize for my disappearing act earlier. I know it was . . . strange."
"Who's this?" Jenna asked me.
"I don't have the slightest clue." Violet replied as she listened closely.
"No worries. I get it, blood makes you squeamish."
Blood?
"Um, something like that. How's your leg?"
Something like that, right.
Violet was distracted by the rest of the conversation by Jenna making conversation. "So how was the founder's meeting?"
"Uh, it was good. We mostly just talked about how much the high school is lacking in its Mystic Falls history department. Since that's what I'm majoring in an I'm, ya know, tight with the youth, as it were, they're sending me in there to kind of revamp their history department."
"So you get to hang out with Mr. Tanner."
"I love Mr. Tanner!" Violet shouted in response to Jenna's sarcastic remark.
"Only because you were good at history and his little teacher's pet."
"Well, Tanner's about to get Tannered. Wait until I rip him a new one from Carol Lockwood and the Mayor themselves."
Jenna smiled deviously.
"Did you tell Elena or Jeremy?"
"Nah, they'll figure it out when they see me. I know how much they love a good suprise."
"Keep an eye on-"
"Jeremy, I know." Violet finished for her. Jenna sighed. "You're doing a really good job, you know. As good as anyone in this situation would at least."
"I hope so."
"The Battle of Willow Creek. What was it?"
"It was the end of the war in Mystic Falls."
Mr. Tanner looked to the interruption as the petite brunette knocked on the door frame.
"Violet Gilbert, what are you doing here?"
"Did you get the email from Carol Lockwood?"
"Ah! That's right! I didn't expect you to be interrupting class though."
"Violet, what are you doing here?"
"Well, Elena, your sister must not have informed you. She's here to help me improve the history department. Local history, that is. The Historical Society appears to believe that our local history is not good enough, so they sent my favorite student to harass me. You all could learn from Violet. She actually cared and knew her history. Violet, you can sit down if you want. We're just going over the local history."
Violet slid into a desk at the back of the class and pulled out her monogramed stationary.
"Now, The Battle of Willow Creek took place right at the end of the war in our very own Mystic Falls. How many casualties resulted in this battle? Ms. Bennett?"
"Um . . . a lot? I'm not sure. Like a whole lot."
"Cute becomes dumb in an instant, Ms. Bennett. Mr. Donovan? Would you like to take this opportunity to overcome your embedded jock stereotype?"
"It's ok, Mr. Tanner, I'm cool with it."
"Hmm. Elena? Surely you can enlighten us about one of the town's most significantly historical events?"
Violet's head snapped up.
"I'm sorry, I-I don't know."
"I was willing to be lenient last year for obvious reasons, Elena. But the personal excuses ended with summer break."
Violet angrily scrawled down targets students instead of teaching, many don't remember basic facts, may speak mounds of teaching methods.
"There were 346 casualties. Unless you're counting local civilians." Again, Violet's head snapped up in wonder.
"That's correct. Mister. . .?"
"Salvatore."
"Salvatore. Any relation to the original settlers here at Mystic Falls?"
"Distant."
"Well, very good. Except, of course, there were no civilian casualties in this battle."
"Actually, there were 27, sir. Confederate soldiers, they fired on the church, believing it to be housing weapons. They were wrong. It was a night of great loss. The founder's archives are, uh, stored in civil hall if you'd like to brush up on your facts. Mr. Tanner."
Hardly anyone knew about the fire. But the files were stored.
"Violet."
"He's-uh. He's right. I'm suprised you didn't know that."
"Hmm."
After class dismissed, I held Tanner back to go through my notes.
"Firstly, stop targeting your students. Maybe give them something that makes them want to know. LIke instead of spewing facts use a bit more of an enrichment base. Also, get your facts straight and brush up on your local history. Go read the records Salvatore was talking about."