Chapter 9 – Mystic Falls
The next two weeks went by in happy yet fast way.
The school paper with Angela and Ben at the lead was running stories about the band and the competition daily.
During Art class various banners and posters were created an had been hanged all around the school and the town alerting everyone to the importance of the first weekend of October.
The guys from the computer classes with Eric on the lead had created videos to serve as background for our songs.
With my truck broken for good Charlie had decided he'd become my personal chauffer and would drop me off at school everyday, where the classes would pass by like a blur.
I couldn't help but basking in the love of the gesture. Dad knew how much I hate being carted around in a vehicle with red and blue lights on the hood and yet he insisted.
Thankfully since his day starts about thirty minutes before mine, I was dropped off at a time where only the janitors were at the school.
I would spend lunch period with Angela and mike mostly quietly as Angela loved using those fifty minutes to work a bit on the newspaper, Mike would make charts about basketball and I would lose myself in various thoughts.
After school I had practice with the band for about three hours reaching a point where the three boys now felt more like favorite cousins than band mates. Jim loved music, inheriting the 'bug' from his musician parents and had aspirations of either being a music idol someday or opening the most successful record company. Hugh was in it for the chicks he believed he'd get and Gregg was in the band simply because it got him out of gym. He was slightly overweight with hormonal issues and high blood sugar. Luckily coach Clapp had agreed to give Gregg a base grade as long as Gregg 'owned ass' in the band.
After band practice I'd test my vamp limits by running to work to replace mike who had covered for me happily as long as it meant he'd be too busy to accept any date proposals by Jessica who had decided they spent too much time broken up and wanted him back.
When work was over Mike insisted on driving me home. I would head to Lexi's where we both ignored the pink elephant in the room in favor of friendship and we'd spend hours together with her reminding me that even though I'm a vampire now I can still be Bella. In return of her guidance I showed her the tattoo parlor and she had an earth tattooed on her shoulder.
Next time it was sunny she was protected like me.
When Freida went to investigate she found out that the 'rock like' paint was actually the same stone that protected vampires from sunlight. Somehow Jim's sister had gotten a hold of spelled lapis stones and she used it on her blue tattoos making them unique.
On Thursday morning miss Mathews announced that the town where the competition would be held was rafted. Predictably it was Freida's hometown and I do not mean Scandinavia...
Freida went to panic attack mode.
Have you ever tried to calm down a freaked out Original? Even though it had been only a month since she left Mystic Falls she was in no hurry to go back even if there was a limit to how much time off she could take.
Lexi, who had spent the past two years with a stake in her gut hidden in the morgue missed the town (or Stefan as I loved to tease her) and was sick of it, threatened to leave her behind. Freida, hopeful yet fearful about a sudden reappearance of her family, snapped her neck. By the time Friday morning came they were BFF's once again.
I will never understand the mind of women!
On Friday morning I woke up to the sounds of 'We are the champions' and a grinning Charlie sitting on my bed holding a large train with a breakfast that could feed a varsity team.
"Trying to give you courage"
He declared to my raised eyebrow.
"You're insane"
I replied and wolfed down in a very unladylike manner my breakfast. Then I showered and packed up for the trip. The band had decided on the color black as a team color and if anyone checked my roller duffle would think I was heading to a funeral!
Driving out of town I saw that a big screen had been set up in the school gymnasium so that the whole town could watch us perform on the competition.
"What is that?"
I asked Charlie
"its been a while since the town had excitement like that bells. People were getting restless"
Thankfully the flight to the dot on the map was fast and the plane showed 'Underworld' keeping our collective minds away from the competition.
I wouldn't get the meaning of the movie till Saturday night when I would also begin to wonder the species of the pilot however. Meanwhile I was content to talk with Greg, Hugh and Jim about our songs while miss Mathews slept and then ooze down the streets of mystic falls, in the school's rental silver SUV, making fun of how everything included the word mystic. Mystic Library, Mystic Grill, I wondered if it had Mystic public bathrooms too.
We had gotten rooms at the Mystic Inn and the competition would be hosted at the Mystic Grill, where a mystic stage had been set up and the mystic tables were surrounding it. The local school band was also called... Mystic! How did you figure it out?
"If I hear the word 'mystic' again I'll turn it into a drinking game"
Hugh whispered to us. I snorted as the normally sweet Gregg replied
"You're going to create the fastest working drinking game, then?"
All schools had the option of rehearsing on Friday but miss Mathews declined. She had become paranoid on the five hour flight and made us promise we wouldn't even mention the songs we'd perform. Instead we returned to the Inn and set up shop of calling home to relay the news of arriving safely and then we began getting ready. We made sure all clothes were matching, nothing was dirty, and that all organs worked perfectly. When everyone fell asleep and the room reminded of a snore quartet (because our principal had been cheap enough to get the band only one room) I snuck out.
I felt hungry but Freida had forbidden me of grabbing something for dinner in town and I wasn't in the mood of tasting one of my band mates. Instead I headed to her penthouse apartment where she had a fully stocked freezer. I threw one blood bag in the microwave and yawned as I waited for the sticky goodness to come to a human temperature.
Is it strange that my favorite type is O positive? The same as mine was Before Vampirism? The beeping of the microwave brought me back to the real world and I began sipping the warm beverage as I took n my surroundings.
First of all let me say that Mystic Falls isn't much bigger than Forks. There is a town square where about four roads begin. One has the community buildings, the police station, the city hall etc. one has an avenue of houses that are probably the cheapest around judging from their looks, one goes straight into the woods and the Falls and the last leads out of the town. On the town square itself are the shops and a couple apartment buildings. Freida's was one of them.
From the living room she had an amazing view of the square and the Mystic Daily news, the local newspaper, was on the second floor of the same building. the living room was painted in greens and browns and the walls were adorned with artwork. on the wall behind the loveseat was a large painting identical to the one in the small parchment she showed me once.
Her family.
Following a deep instinct I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped a couple photos of the painting before cleaning up after myself and leaving her apartment making sure to lock up. It was almost midnight and the next day was going to be a long one.