I am a revelation to Seymour. He laughs. "She does. But since I am a nerd, shouldn't I 
look the part?"
  "You think you're a nerd because you think you're so smart. I'm a lot smarter than you 
and I look great." I gesture to our bows and arrows. "Where should we shoot these things?"
  "I think it would be best if we shot them at the targets," he says wisely.
  So that's what we do. A few minutes later we are at one end of the football field 
sending our arrows flying toward the targets that have been arranged in a neat row on the 
fifty-yard line. I impress Seymour when I hit the bull's-eye three times in a row. He is 
further impressed when we go to remove the arrows from the target and they are stuck in 
so deep he has to use all his strength to pull them out. He does not know that I could 
have split the shaft of my first arrow with the next two if I had wished. I am showing 
off, I know, and it is probably not the wisest thing to do, but I don't care. My mood 
this day is frivolous. My first day of high school. First happy thoughts about Ray and 
Pat and now I have taken an immediate liking to Seymour. I help him pull the arrows from 
the target.
  "You have shot before," he says.
  "Yes. I was trained by a master marksman."
  He pulls out the last arrow and almost falls to the ground as it comes loose. "You 
should be in the Olympics."
  I shrug as we walk back toward the goal posts. "I have no interest," I say.
  Seymour nods. "I feel the same way about mathematics. I'm great at it, but it bores me 
to death."
  "What does interest you?"
  "Writing."
  "What do you like to write?"
  "I don't know yet. The strange and unusual fascinates me." He pauses. "I read a lot of 
horror books. Do you like horror?"
  "Yes." I start to make a joke of his question, something about how close it is to my 
heart, but a feeling of deja vu sweeps over me. The feeling startles me, for I haven't 
had it in centuries. The sensation is intense; I put a hand to my head to steady myself, 
while searching for the source of it. Seymour reaches out to help, and once more I feel 
the sickness flowing beneath his skin. I am not sure of the nature of his disease, but I 
have a good idea what it is.
  "Are you all right?" he asks me.
  "Yes." A cool film of sweat has gathered on my forehead, and I wipe it away. My sweat 
is clear, not tinted pink, as it becomes when I drink large quantities of human blood. 
The sun burns bright in the sky arid I lower my head. Seymour continues to watch me. 
Suddenly I feel as if he has come so close to me his body is actually overlapping mine. 
Like the deja vu, I do not like the sensation. I wonder if I have developed a greater 
sensitivity to the sun. I have not been out like this, at midday, in many years.
  "I feel as if I've met you before," he says softly, puzzled.
  "I feel the same way," I say honestly, the truth of the matter finally striking me. 
Already I have said how I can sense emotions, and that is true. The ability came to me 
slowly as the centuries of my life passed. At first I assumed it was because of my 
intense observatory faculties, and I still feel that is part of it. Yet I can sense a 
person's feelings even without studying them closely, and the ability baffles me to this 
day because it suggests a sense that is nonphysical, which I am not yet ready to accept.
  I am not alone with this ability. Over time I have met the occasional human who was as 
sensitive as I.
  Indeed, I have killed several of them because they alone could sense what I was, or 
rather, what I was not. Not human. Something else, they would tell their friends, 
something dangerous. I killed them, but I did not want to because they alone could 
understand me. I sense now that Seymour is one of these humans. The feeling is further 
confirmed when once more I pick up my bow and arrow and aim at the target. For my vision 
is distracted. Mr. Castro stands in the distance behind the school gymnasium, talking to 
a perky blond. Talking and touching-obviously making a move on the young thing. The 
teacher is perhaps three hundred yards distant, but for me, with a bow in my strong arms, 
he is within range. As I toy with my next arrow, I think that I can shoot him in the 
chest and no one will know-or believe-that it was really me who killed him. I can make it 
so that even Seymour doesn't see where the arrow flies. Killing Mr. Riley two nights 
earlier has awakened in me the desire to kill again. Truly, violence does beget violence, 
at least for a vampire-nothing quite satisfies as does the sight of blood, except for the 
taste of it.
  I slip the arrow into the bow.
  My eyes narrow.
  Castro strokes the girl's hair..
  Yet out of the comer of my eye I notice Seymour watching me.
  Seeing what? Sensing what? The blood fever in me?
  Perhaps. His next word is revealing.
  "Don't," he says.
  My aim wavers. I am amazed. Seymour knows I am thinking about killing Castro! Who is 
this Seymour, I ask myself? I lower my bow and look over at him. I have to ask.
  "Don't what?" I say.
  His eyes, magnified behind their glasses, stare at me. "You don't want to shoot 
anybody."
  I laugh out loud, although his remark chills me. "What makes you think I want to shoot 
somebody?"
  He smiles and relaxes a notch. My innocent tone has done its work on him. Perhaps. I 
wonder if Seymour is one of those rare mortals who can fool even me.
  "I just had the feeling you were going to," he says. "I'm sorry."
  "Do I look so dangerous?"
  He shakes his head. "You are different from anyone I nave ever met."
  First Ray notices that I have an accent, and now Seymour reads my mind. An interesting 
day, to say the least. I decide I should keep a lower profile, for the time being.
  Yet I do not really believe he has read my mind. If I did, like him or not, I would 
kill him before the sun set.
  "You're just so dazzled by my beauty," I say.
  He laughs and nods. "It isn't often a beauty such as you is caught talking to a nerd 
like me."
  I lightly poke him in the belly with the tip of my arrow. "Tell me more about the kind 
of stories you like." I nock the arrow onto my bowstring. Mr. Castro will live another 
day, I think, but maybe not many more. I add, "Especially your favorite horror stories."
  So for the rest of the period Seymour tells me about an assortment of authors and books 
he has read. I am delighted to learn that Dracula is his all-time favorite story. I miss 
the bull's-eye a few times on purpose, but I don't know if I fool Seymour. He never takes 
his eyes off me.
  The next period I am off to biology. Ray sits in the back at a lab table. I waste no 
time. I walk straight back and sit beside him. He raises an eyebrow as if to say that 
someone else has that seat, but then seems to change his mind.
  "How did you enjoy archery?" he asks.