The Ghost's Curse

Chapter Twenty-One

Samara sat in her room, getting ready for school. She had dressed in a red dress Drusilla had bought for her a short while ago, and had packed her bag already. She felt nervous. It had been such a long time since she'd been to school, especially if she counted all that time she'd been dead. She couldn't tell how things would turn out. What if everyone hated her? What if she lost control of her powers and killed someone? It wasn't like that had never happened. And she didn't want to do that anymore. She wanted a second chance. She sighed, grabbing her bag, and walked downstairs.

Drusilla was already there, thankfully without Spike. Samara guessed he was still asleep. She was glad—she still wasn't too fond of him. She tolerated him, because Drusilla liked him, but she couldn't bring herself to actually like him. He just... annoyed her. She couldn't quite say why. Maybe it was just the bad memories she had of Richard Morgan, who had locked her in a barn to protect himself. Maybe she feared Spike would end up being the same. And he didn't seem to like her much, although he hadn't tried to lock her in a barn attic, so he wasn't that bad.

Drusilla was making breakfast. There were two saucepans full of porridge on the stove. One of them, Samara noticed, was a dark shade of red - Drusilla appeared to have used blood instead of milk. Gross. As she stirred the porridge, Drusilla sang something that sounded like a lullaby. Samara listened, entranced. Drusilla's singing wasn't especially good, but there was still something mesmerising about her voice. Perhaps it was just her powers.

Drusilla finished making the porridge and put it into three bowls. She set Samara's down in front of her, and walked upstairs. Samara ate her porridge slowly, feeling too nervous to be really hungry. Why was she scared of going to school? She wasn't afraid of Spike and Drusilla, and they were actually vampires. They were really dangerous. What was the worst that could happen to her at school? Trying to think about that brought all sorts of worst-case scenarios to her mind, so she stopped thinking, and kept eating the porridge. It wasn't very good. Drusilla had left it on too long, and it didn't have any sugar or honey, so it tasted bland.

A few minutes later, Drusilla came back downstairs, Spike following behind her. He wasn't wearing his coat. He wore that leather coat almost all the time and Samara hadn't seen him without it that often before, but he had worn it less since they'd been here. He looked really tired. When he saw the three bowls on the table he stopped.

"Um, Dru? You cooked breakfast?" he asked, a doubtful look on his face. "Are you sure that's a good idea? The last time I saw you use a stove, you put petrol in the saucepan and set the whole house on fire."

"Yes," Drusilla said, sitting down to her bowl. "I made it all by myself. I don't know why you're so surprised, my mind has been much clearer recently."

"You cooked something? Without burning the house down? Dru, that's wonderful!" Spike said, grinning. Drusilla smiled back. Samara gave them a strange look. He was pleased that Drusilla had simply not burnt the house down? Samara knew that Drusilla could be a bit detached from reality, but didn't realise she'd ever been that bad. Samara had tried to cook porridge once before and even she hadn't burnt the house down. She'd burnt the porridge, and the saucepan, but not the house.

Once the three of them had finished breakfast, Spike got up and walked for the door.

"You ready to go?" he asked Samara over his shoulder.

Samara shrugged. "I guess," she said.

The three of them walked outside. It was daylight already, but the front of the house was almost always shaded, so the two vampires had a clear path to the car. They got in, Spike in the driver's seat, Drusilla and Samara in the backseat. Samara stared out of the window, listening to Spike complain at driving too slowly. Drusilla wouldn't let him drive at 110mph on dirt roads with Samara in the car, and it annoyed him. As they first left their house, they saw only a few houses by the sides of the roads, but as they got nearer the school, the area became more built up.

They arrived at the elementary school after half an hour. It was only a small place, with about a hundred students. Samara was glad there weren't too many people here. Too many people would be bad. She wasn't too fond of people in the first place. All through her life, people had only caused her pain. But they didn't always. Anna hadn't hurt her, until Samara had completely lost control of her powers. Drusilla was still taking care of her. Maybe things wouldn't go so badly this time.

"Goodbye, sweet girl," Drusilla said. "We'll be here to take you home in a few hours, all right?" Drusilla hugged her.

"Goodbye Mommy," Samara said. Once Drusilla had let go of her, she got out of the car. She was slightly nervous here alone, but Spike and Drusilla couldn't come with her in the sun.

"See ya kid," Spike called as she walked. She waved without looking back. She kept her gaze on the ground as she walked, not looking at any of the other people. When she reached the open double doors of the school, she took a deep breath, and walked inside.

Annie was sitting down, a mug of pig's blood in her hand. She eyed it suspiciously, like it contained ground up cockroaches. She was used to human blood, only freshly dead and straight from the vein. She'd only taken a sip of this and already hated it. Angel and that Slayer were sitting opposite her. Annie couldn't remember her name, and didn't really care. Of course, she wasn't the Slayer, since they were hundreds of them now, but she was a Slayer. Annie didn't like being near her. She wanted to run away, but she had nowhere else to run to.

"So let me get this straight," the Slayer said. "Damien turned you to be his minion, but you hated him, so you're coming to us for help?" She looked incredulous, even though everything Annie had said was true.

"That's pretty much it, yeah," Annie said.

"What makes you think well help you? We usually kill vamps, you know."

Well, duh, you're a Vampire Slayer, you'd be kinda useless if you didn't kill vampires, Annie thought. Somehow she didn't think the Slayer would take her saying that particularly well. "Yeah, I know," she said. "But I'm not really a danger. I've never actually killed anyone myself. Okay, so it's not like it was because I didn't want to, but I still don't exactly know what I'm missing out on. It's not like I got used to slaughtering every human I see. Seriously, just consider it. That's all I'm asking right now."

"Consider what?" Angel asked. "You haven't really told us what you want from us yet."

"Just, you know... somewhere safe to stay. I could help you, you know I could. Okay, so I'm not exactly going to be helping you out of the goodness of my heart, but I can help. If I'm helping you, does it really matter why I'm helping? Please, just think about it. I've got nowhere else to go."

"Why not back to your sire?" the Slayer asked.

Annie narrowed her eyes. She felt very much like diving straight at the Slayer and burying her fangs in her neck, but one of them would stake her before she even left her seat, so she stayed still. "Are you kidding? Anywhere but with him. I hate him. I wish he'd burn. I never wanted to be a vampire, but he didn't care. He turned me anyway. So now I'm stuck like this. No, I can't go back to him", she said.

"So you want us to give you shelter?" Angel asked her.

"Yes, that's all I want," Annie said.

"And you're willing to help us on cases return for your room and board?" Angel asked.

"Sure, whatever you want." Annie didn't care what they wanted her to do. If she had to kill her own kind, so be it. She just wanted somewhere to hide.

"And you know that if you do anything wrong, threaten me or my friends or clients in anyway, you'll be staked?"

Annie glared. "Fine. As long as you don't make me go back to Damien."

"Okay then," Angel said. Annie raised her eyebrows. He'd actually agreed, just like that? She'd thought that would be more difficult. Actually, she'd thought he'd stake her. But accepting her so easily took her her off guard. That had never happened, even when she was human. Anyone who had helped her had always wanted something. She didn't trust Angel at all. And it was clear she wasn't the only one who thought it was strange. His slayer friend was staring at him like he'd gone insane.

"Wait, you're actually going along with this? Angel, she's a vampire." the Slayer said.

"So am I."

"Yeah, but you have a soul. This chick doesn't. How'd you know she won't murder us in our sleep?" the Slayer demanded.

Angel looked straight at Annie when he said the next words, even though he was talking to the Slayer. "Because she knows what will happen if she tries," he said.

Samara was in her first class of the day, which was history. She had been given a brand new exercise book, and was allowed to write in pen. They were learning about the Victorians. They weren't learning anything in much detail, but it was still quite interesting. Samara thought it was funny because her parents were Victorians. She had told the teacher that. In response, she had laughed and said she was sure they weren't that old. Samara hadn't bothered to go on. If she said something like that once, people might think she was joking, but if she kept on, they might think there was something wrong with her. Samara didn't want them to think there was something wrong with her, not this time. She wanted to blend in with them, seem like a normal kid.

So she tried to pay attention, and wrote down the things she needed to, but she never put her hand up, and she never spoke to any other children. She was technically older than all of them were anyway. She may have been alive only eight years, but but she'd been dead a bit longer. Not that she'd really grown up that much as a ghost. Ghosts didn't grow up.

When break time came, she stayed alone in the playground. She sat singing to herself, trying to make daisy chains like Drusilla had taught her to. She heard a few kids whispering about her and silenced them with a look. She hoped they just shut up because her expression scared them. She really didn't want to deal with losing control of her powers again.

At the end of the day, Samara walked out of the school, looking around for Spike and Dru. She couldn't see them yet. Maybe they were running late. They wouldn't have forgotten about her, of course they wouldn't. How could they? The worry was getting to her. But she saw the car appear a while later, and felt relieved. They found a parking spot in the shade, and Drusilla got out to greet Samara.

She ran over to the car, barreling straight into Drusilla. If she hadn't been a vampire, she might have stumbled, but she didn't even lose balance. Drusilla stroked Samara's hair.

"Hello again, little darling. Did you have a good day?"

"It wasn't bad," Samara said. "Can we just go home now?"