"I have something to boast about. You're hyper. What the h.e.l.l is your problem?"

"I do not have a problem," I say. "My problem is the fact that you're doing this male b.o.o.b-boast maneuver."

Tom keeps pace with me. He is smirking. The wind waps his hair. "They're sort of like Nintendo," he presses. "You get bored pretty quick if you own a set, but it's fun to go over and play with a friend's. Bet you ten bucks that guy in black's a CIA agent."

"Screw this," I say harshly. "You're talking like a . . ." Whatever I am going to say is stupid and prissy, so I do not say it.

"You're so G.o.dd.a.m.n jealous!" he says. "What's your problem?"

"Stop it, you two," says Jerk.

But Tom insists, "Lately you are always having a problem. You are being a complete p.e.c.k.e.rhead."

"I am not a p.e.c.k.e.rhead," I protest.

"Medical evidence suggests -"

"Would you shut up? I just want to - I don't know." I am not going to say a thing about girls. That will feed his ego.

"For about three weeks," says Tom, now slightly hot, "you've been acting like this."

"Like what?"

"Like a jerk. Pardon the expression. For about three weeks you've been acting like an a.s.shole. You've been jumping down our throats. You've been saying weird things. I don't know what's up with you. You have more G.o.dd.a.m.n baggage than Grand Central Station."

I say bitterly, "Here we go."

Tom is saying, "Look, Chris. I don't want to take your s.h.i.t just because you want to feel up Rebecca G.o.dd.a.m.n Schwartz."

I stare at him. I can feel the blood shoot up to my face. Birds are wheeling in the trees. "How did you know?" I ask.

"What do you mean? It's not some state secret. What's your problem? You never talk to her, you stutter when you try, it's just a crush."

"You haven't told her, have you?" I say. I hope to sound rough, but I sound squeaky.

"Who needs telling?" he asks. "You're being pathetic. Just ask her out. It's not like she's some hot s.e.x G.o.ddess with the biggest t.i.ts in history."

"And I apologize for thinking of her in exactly that way," I say.

"I'm serious, man," says Tom. Jerk is standing a bit apart, staring at us warily. "You should just ask her out. What's stopping you? The worst thing that can happen is she laughs at you for months and it becomes this big urban legend."

So I ask, "You think I should?"

Tom looks at me and starts to smile. "You're fishing for compliments," he says. "Aren't you?" He is looking slightly malicious. "What do you want me to say?"

I answer, "Nothing," and turn away. The man in black is quite close to us now. His suit coat ruffles in the wind.

"What do you want me to say?" prods Tom. "If you want me to say that you're good looking, you have another G.o.dd.a.m.n thing coming."

"I didn't say that."

"I'm not going to lie."

The man in black steps along, slim and tall, a knowing smile on his lips. His black leather shoes are wet from the gra.s.s.

"I appreciate your honesty," I say bitingly.

"Chris, you're nothing to write home about, buddy," says Tom mildly. "But remember, you have your gargantuan intellect and biting wit. Look at that guy's suit. Got to be a CIA agent. You gentlemen owe me ten dollars."

"It wasn't a bet," says Jerk glumly. "We didn't shake on it."

"I wasn't fishing for compliments," I say. "I know I'm not great looking."

"h.e.l.lo, boys," the man says. He pa.s.ses us.

Tom shrugs. "Look, Chris. Seriously. You're not a monster," he says. "You're better looking than a lot of people." He pauses, and blurts, "Like burn victims." He laughs out loud. "Sorry," he says.

"Thanks for your support," I say.

Tom demands, "What?"

"You really can be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d," I say.

He looks at me. "Why?" he sneers. "Because I could peg Rebecca Schwartz to the floor in my sleep?"

That is it.

I feel a violent urge. I do not know where it comes from. I am grappling with him, and he has fallen back on the gra.s.s. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" I am saying. I am saying it again and again. I feel strangely strong. I want something terrible to happen to him. My mouth is watering.

For a moment, we perch there. My knee pins his stomach. The waves are lapping on the sh.o.r.e. I look at the water. The man in black has heard us shout. He turns back toward us. Slowly, he points his finger.

My eyes swoop down and hit the lake. There, beside Tom's shoulder, they rest on the water.

It is then that I see that I have no reflection.

I see the clouds behind my head. I see Tom's shoulder hanging out over the water. I look down and see our legs, lying in the mud. His are reflected; mine are not.

"You are so full of s.h.i.t," he says, seeing how I've frozen.

When he pushes me off, I lie there, staring sideways at the water. I will not say anything to him about it. I desperately want to blurt, "I'm not in the water!" But I won't. I won't tell him. It is probably just some trick of the light. I need to stop and stare and see what trick of the light it is. All I need to do is bend my head a different way.

I watch Tom swear and wring out the cuff of his jeans.

Jerk is fussing around us. "Are you okay? Are you, like, okay? Hey, what -?"

"Come on," says Tom.

I watch their legs walk away over the gra.s.s. Tom's dry foot and wet foot going plod, squoosh, plod, squoosh.

I wait for a minute. The plod, squoosh fades to nothing. Then I roll over so that my head is projecting out over the water.

I watch and breathe shallowly. Nothing at first. Then, slowly, slowly, I watch my face reappear in the reservoir.

For a while I lie like that, my leg in the mud, my face hanging a few inches above the ripples that, just a few moments before, would not hold my image.

A figure is bending over me. The man in black is at my side. He reaches down one of his fine hands and pulls me to my feet.

His face is hard and young and almost elfin. Though he is wearing a sharp sixties suit, it looks as if he could play the panpipe and worship things among the toadstools. He has a compa.s.sionate smile, though. "I saw what happened," he says.

I look at him. I am sort of wary, because I am not quite sure what happened.

"How they ganged up on you," he says.

I shrug, and I say, "I started it."

He nods, and his hair moves in the wind. He puts his hands in his pockets. "Did you? Did you start it? Who can say? You are going through a difficult age," he says, "I'm sure. So many contrary emotions. Some of them very new and violent. You won't be a boy for long. There are a lot of changes you're going through right now. Hormonal and so on."

"Yes," I say. I want to escape. One of my feet steps toward Tom and Jerk, who are getting farther and farther away. I can tell Tom is mimicking me, and Jerk is nodding sadly.

The man in black squints down the sh.o.r.e at them. Then, with a wide smile, he adds suddenly, "You must feel very disoriented sometimes."

"Yes," I mumble. I want to run and rejoin Tom and Jerk, because if I don't rejoin them soon, Tom will not forgive me. Instead of forgiving me, he will employ his Five-Alarm Sarcasm, which has been known to strip the finish off Colonial furniture.

The clouds can be seen moving on the surface of the water.

"I saw you the other night at the lynching," says the young man, rocking on his heels. "You seemed surprised. Startled? Uneasy?"

I nod.

"I saw her die," he says, looking above my left shoulder out at the lake, biting his upper lip for a moment in regret. "The stake didn't go in correctly. It was too large to fit through her ribs. As the executioner pounded it in, you could hear the ribs popping and cracking." He looks at me. "Watching a vampire die, the worst part is the heart. It's acquired a life of its own by that time. When the stake reaches the heart, the heart starts squealing in terror. Like a piglet."

"That's . . . of . . . okay. Thanks," I mutter. "I guess I better catch up with my friends." I start to walk away.

Tom and Jerk are now far away, walking shoulder to shoulder. I would stay and talk to this man, who I can see has an unusual and stimulating viewpoint, except that he is obviously a psychopath and I'm not yet interested in dying. (LOCAL B BOY F FOUND D DECAPITATED IN D DITCH: "MISSING H HEAD N NOT M MUCH OF A L LOSS," SAYS E EX-FRIEND T TOM.) I am walking away down the path of yellow gra.s.s.

"I saw the whole fight just now," the man in black is repeating behind me.

I keep walking.

"I saw what you saw," he says.

I keep walking.

"I saw that you had no reflection in the lake."

I stop. Chills go up and down my spine.

I turn back to him.

"No reflection." He has stepped back and is sitting down casually on the embankment. "Don't worry. I've been sent to help you."

"What?" I say. "Help?"

"I am an avatar of the Forces of Light."

"What?" I say stupidly.

"I'm a celestial being. I've been sent to ask your help. Must I shout, Christopher?" I walk back warily to his side.

"How do I know that you're a celestial being?" I ask. "You don't look anything like a celestial being to me."

He rolls his eyes and smiles a disappointed little smile. Then he wavers and flickers like a flame on the wind. He disappears and reappears.

When he is fully substantial again, I say to him, "I guess you are a celestial being."

"You see?"

"Um, you have two left hands now."

He swears and switches his hand back. "That should be ample proof, in any case," he says. Out of his pocket he takes a pair of designer sungla.s.ses with thin horn rims. He puts them on. "We in the Forces of Light are worried about you, Christopher."

I stare at him. "What?" I say.

"We're worried because you're going to become a vampire."

"What? No."

"Yes. You know it. You are -"

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"No. That was just a trick of the light, and -"

"Yes, Christopher. Yes." He nods, slowly and finally. He has held up both his hands for silence, like he's about to cue an invisible ghost orchestra playing cow-skull fiddles. He repeats gently, pleadingly, "Yes, Christopher."

"But I'm not dead." I am backing away from him, feeling a little sick and panicked. I realize I keep touching my cheek with my finger. "I can't be a vampire. I'm not dead."

"Vampirism is a lonely highway, and there are many routes that lead there," he says. "Stop moving backward. Some vampires were cursed after they died; some were born with the curse, pa.s.sed on from their parents; some were cursed while still alive. You have the curse in you. I don't know why. But p.u.b.erty has set it off within you. Hormones. In a few months - four, I'd say, at the outside - you're going to be fully vampiric. You're going to need blood to survive. I said stop moving backward. You're about to trip over a hummock."

"Where did I get the curse?"

"I said I don't know. I'm sorry." He folds his hands in front of him. "That is not the question. The question is what you're going to do now. You have to think of your health. Vampires heal almost instantaneously. They're very hard to kill for this reason. You will stop aging in a few years, and you will be immune to disease. But it remains a sad little irony - this is an irony you will find very sad, Christopher - the sad irony is that most vampires die very quickly. You can be killed with a stake through the heart if you are caught. Or you can starve to death if you don't drink human blood. That's a tall order, drinking human blood. You will have to kill to live."

"I've got to go," I babble. "I have to catch up with my friends." I gesture wildly toward Jerk and Tom.

The celestial being's gaze shifts and he focuses on them. Far down the sh.o.r.e, Jerk is chasing pigeons. He makes roaring noises and waves his arms at them. He is so far away it sounds like he is mewling like a kitten.