Dead Seth by Tim O'Rourke

was to blame, but on her eighteenth birthday, Lorre left home and I didn’t know where she had gone, or if I would ever see her again.
    Although as a child I was never really close to Lorre, I felt a great sense of loss.
    Christmas arrived the same month Lorre left, and with it came another huge pile of presents – another warning I guessed – from our father.
    Mother had smugly told us only a few days before we wouldn’t be getting anything from him that Christmas, as she had been assured by Father Paul’s brother, who was hunting my father, that he was close to being captured. So when my mother opened the door to find another bunch of present for us and another basket of raw, bloody meat for her, she howled and raked her long claws along the wall in the hallway. Again, the kids at the church got a free pile of presents, and much to my mother’s despair, I think she finally realised my father wasn’t ready to be captured by the Vampyrus just yet.

Chapter Eighteen
    Jack
    Just after Christmas, just before my fourteenth birthday, my mother disappeared for several days. She didn’t say goodbye, or leave any note as to where she had gone. Curious to know if Father Paul knew her whereabouts, I trudged through the snow to his church, but he wasn’t around either. I wondered if they were together.
    Kara was very close to mother, and since Lorre had left home too, she was very upset during this time, and at night she would often sit at the end of my bed and cry.
    “I hope Mum is okay,” she sobbed.
    I put my arm around her and pulled her tight. Although Kara and I had been close as children, since leaving our father, we had sadly grown apart. To cuddle her like this conjured up wonderful memories of us making perfume together as children.
    “Mum will be ok, I’m sure of it,” I told her.
    “I know she’s mad, but I still don’t want anything bad to happen to her,” she cried.
    I was taken aback by what she had just said, so I probed further. “What do you mean ‘mad’?” I asked her.
    “Some of the things she says and does,”
    Kara sobbed.
    “Like what?” I knew very well what she meant, but I wanted her to say it.
    “She can be very cruel sometimes, but I don’t think she means it. It’s just her way,” Kara sniffed.
    I was so surprised at hearing Kara talk like this about our mother. I remembered how we had both shared that awful account our mother had relayed to us about our father killing that human baby. I was desperate to find out what Kara had thought about it. I wanted to know if she too shared the nightmares I had had since that day. I believed this was my chance to raise the subject with her.
    “You know that story Mum told us about Father murdering that baby? I keep having nightmares about it. Do you?” I pulled her tight and could smell the clean fragrance of her freshly washed hair.
    “Sometimes,” she said, her head buried against my shoulder.
    “Do you believe it’s true?” I dared to ask.
    “It must be, or why would she tell us?”
    Kara said, looking at me with her red-rimmed eyes.
    “I can’t understand why she told us, truth or not. What purpose did it serve, other than to upset us?” I asked her.
    “And that’s what I mean, Jack, when I say she’s mad.”
    Then to my surprise, just when I thought Kara and me could open up together and maybe rekindle some of that closeness we had once shared, she got up and left my room. Momentarily, I was in two minds whether I should follow her and attempt to pursue our conversation, but I guessed she wasn’t ready to talk anymore. Kara was sixteen at the time, nearly three years older than me, but on this occasion, as I had sat and comforted her, I felt as if I was the elder. Nik was just eight at the time, and the fact that my mother had seemingly vanished didn’t bother him at all.
    He sat on the rug in the living room playing with his toys.
    When Mother came home from wherever she had been, she was very upset. Father Paul was at