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As clichéd as it sounded, I’d had a dream about Mystic Falls, Virginia, before my mom and grandma and I had moved there. Personally I preferred larger cities with more cultural activities; but there was something charming about the slower pace of life in this small town, the close-knit community, the way history seemed so alive here. Perhaps a little too alive. My request to examine the Founders’ journals housed at the Mayor’s mansion—for an article in the school newspaper, which I’d quickly joined—was politely rebuffed, due to the documents’ fragility. Digitization efforts were underway, I was assured, but completion was TBD. This reticence served only to confirm the suspicions I’d formed from fragmentary remaining original documents—the town’s early history had been extremely colorful. As in, violent, chaotic, mysterious, and intriguing.
And then, one night, a vampire walked into the town archives.
I was studying the census records from 1860 versus 1870, determining how the town’s population had changed after the Civil War, when I spotted him examining the old land records. He could have passed for a 20ish adult but I gathered from his nondescript but modern clothes that he was aiming more for a teenager. And he was definitely easy on the eyes—classic, almost angelic features. You always had to watch out for the angelic-looking ones.
The hand that held the land records book bore a large, ornate ring with a purple-blue stone—lapis lazuli, I surmised. Which meant he could walk in daylight as well—a rare but powerful ability.
He caught me staring and met my gaze with a confidence that betrayed his true age. He smiled faintly and nodded in acknowledgement a bit dismissively, almost as if saying, ‘Thanks for the interest, but I’m not here to pick up chicks.’ Then he turned back to the shelves. It was an oddly normal reaction.
“Are you looking for the 1860 records?” I asked boldly. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything, but I was always too curious. He looked back at me, his expression indicating yes, and I tapped the book on the table next to me.
Now he smiled, a bit sheepishly, and headed towards me. He was charming, but in a genuine, natural way, I decided. Which didn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t try to murder me for food at the first opportunity. Vampire morality was never black and white.
“Are you using this right now?” he asked politely.
“No, go ahead,” I assured him. “Please, sit.”
Politeness forced him to take a seat at my table rather than taking the book with him. “Thank you,” he told me anyway. Not a recently-turned vampire, then—his manners were too good, ingrained in an earlier era.
He handled the old documents carefully, familiar with their arrangement, and started to turn to the back. “The index is partially missing,” I warned him, and he smoothly reversed course, turning the book back to the front.
“That’s okay, I’m just browsing,” he claimed.
Now I was going to be a little pushy. “Daisy Fortescue,” I introduced, holding out my hand across the table. It wasn’t a name he knew, and that relieved him—how interesting.
He shook my hand, his skin slightly cool as though he’d been in an air-conditioned room for a while. “Stefan Salvatore.”
I let him browse in silence for a few minutes, conjuring up the name from my research. Giuseppe Salvatore was fifty-six on the 1860 census, living in the unofficially-named Mystic Falls rural district with his two sons, Damon age eighteen and Stefan age thirteen. No other members of the household were listed, though the slave schedule showed Giuseppe owning a few at the time. All three Salvatores had disappeared from the area as of the 1870 census, but then again, so had a lot of people. A new family with the same surname were living in the area by the 1910 census, however.
“I’m doing a project for my history class on slave ownership in the area,” I volunteered. “Nothing militant, just something I thought would appeal to my teacher.”
Now he had to feign interest in me—well, not exactly feign, he didn’t seem unfriendly, but he was definitely preoccupied with something. “School hasn’t started yet,” he pointed out, with the certainty of one who was planning to attend it.
“I like to start out ahead in the game.”
He smiled a little at my diligence—in appreciation of it, I felt. “Is your family from here?” he probed, indicating the census records.
“Oh, no,” I assured him. “My mom and grandma and I just moved here from Tampa last year.” He seemed, again, oddly relieved to know I didn’t have roots in the community—most likely he did, and was worried I might have heard stories about his family. “Good thing, too, it’d be weird finding out that my classmate’s ancestors owned my ancestors.” He nodded in acknowledgement but his attention was caught by one page of the land records—the page that contained the holdings of Giuseppe Salvatore. There were other names on the page, of course, but this did not seem coincidental to me. “Well, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing,” I decided, concentrating on the records before me again. “I don’t need that one anymore.”
“Thank you—Daisy,” he told me, giving me a polite smile. Something told me he would’ve felt more comfortable calling me Miss Fortescue, but that would’ve been peculiar these days. “Perhaps I’ll see you Monday at school. I’ve just moved back to town.”
“Are you related to Zach Salvatore?” I asked him curiously. It was a distinctive name in a small town—hardly an unusual question. The part about him attending school, however, was very unusual.
“He’s my uncle,” Stefan told me. “I’m staying with him at the boarding house.”
I made a mental note to research the ownership of that building. Stefan stood, taking the 1860 records with him. “It was nice to meet you, Daisy,” he said, ever courteous. “Good luck on your project.”
“Yours, too,” I replied. The words seemed to startle him slightly, since he hadn’t indicated he was looking for particular information. That wasn’t what I meant, though. “It can be challenging to start a new school.” He nodded in understanding, perhaps remembering I’d said I was the new student last year. Then he disappeared around the corner.
Stefan Salvatore. Vampire, former resident, family in the area, impervious to daylight, attending high school. The last point was the most confusing to me—he could easily pass for someone who didn’t need to be in school, so why voluntarily attend? I could think of several reasons, but none that fit him particularly well. Polite, a poor liar who disliked deceit, sentimental about his family history—an unusual combination, to be sure.
Though now all those mentions of ‘vampires’ in the town’s history records suddenly made more sense.