I considered the inner yard that was protected on four sides by the Castle. There grew a tree in there. It couldn't get much sunlight and I was kind of curious on how the old marple survived. The upper branches reached my eye level on the fourth floor. It really wasn't a small tree.

I was standing in the corridor leaning to the closed door of my Room.

There was something funny about the whole building. The tree was really maybe the least enigmatic detail to the complex structure. Though it was hard to say what it was I was feeling.

Stump was whistling as he came down the corridor to where I was standing.

"Such a thoughtful face you are making, young friend!" he greeted me happily as he stopped between me and the huge windows.

"I am feeling thoughtful," I said to him, extracting my back from the door.

"And what might be troubling you tonight?"

"The Castle," I said.

I shifted my gaze from the distance to his old face. Today Stump was bearing his human years well. His back was straight and there was a twinkle to his gray blue eyes I didn't remember. Last I had seen Stump, his eyes had held an opaque quality to them. They had been clouded by pains and old age.

"You look good," I told him.

Stump gave me a delighted smile. Then he surprised me by inviting me into a tight hug.

"It's good to see you, young friend. So good to see you," he told me.

I put him to an arm's reach, searching his face. It really looked healthier and younger than I remembered.

"Are you turning?" I asked.

Stump shook his gray head.

"No, Timothy, I am not. Come brother, let's have a drink."

Something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was... missing.

I followed the older man to a kitchen on that floor. It was a nice open space with windows on two sides. We could still see the maple in the yard but also the opposing warehouse. It seemed to belong to a bookshop.

Stump brought two cups to the table with an elegant see-through pot of green tea. He placed the tray between us and with sure hands poured into the two small cups. I lifted one for him in salutation.

"For the Queen's health?" I suggested.

"For your change. The Queen isn't getting any healthier or sicker, no matter what we wish for her."

I couldn't help a small shocked smile.

"How is it going?" Stump continued. "The change?"

"It's good", I told him. "I can still see myself in the mirror, though the image is blurry. I hear things. Or sense them... I... I think Blizzard calls them spirits? Shifting shapes in the air." I shrugged.

"You don't seem too exhilarated though. Was this the second dose? Mm. Yes. So you have two left. And no side-effects?"

I shook my head. "Nothing I could name. Seeing spirits doesn't seem to count."

"It doesn't," he confirmed to me.

He leaned back in his chair.

"Do you know what kind of people can become vampires?" he asked.

"All can't?"

"No. Mo is very good at picking. I don't know anyone who would have died in the process she has supervised. But in other cities the survival rate of those who try is more or less twenty percent."

"Twe-twenty percent?"

It was a near thing I didn't sputter tea all over the table.

"Yes. Only every fifth whose blood is purified actually changes all the way to the end. The other eighty simply get lethal poisoning."

"I didn't know that." I turned my head to the dark window and the maple. It stood immoble as ever.

"There seem to be two factors to actually making it," he continued.

I realized I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what they were. I had a feeling the information wouldn't be of the flattering kind. Even so, I found myself listening as the old man told his tale.

"My friend died when I was very young. But I imagined I continued playing with his ghost. When I was lonely I would always have the ghost friend with me. My father was very sick. And died of cancer when I was twelve. I visited him all the time in the graveyard. Thinking of those final weeks he had. All the projects and work he had had when he had been well, which I hardly remembered...

"You see, in order to become a vampire, you must have accepted death as part of existence. Must have really thought of it. It must be driven deep, the understanding of life as a fragile thing of which death is a part. You cannot be afraid of it."

He stopped speaking. There hung a silence between us. A secret, neither was willing to share.

I knew Stump was looking at me. My head was turned to the dark windows.

"Every vampire has thought about it," Stump continued. "It isn't always deliberate. An accident works just as fine. And it is just the first side of the tale."

Slowly I turned my head. Stump was smiling that wicked smile of his that traced deep lines into the corners of his eyes.

"If you fall off a cliff, survive, and decide never to climb again, you won't become a vampire. If you consider suicide every now and then, you won't make it either. You need to climb again, feeling deep in your bones you might fall. But you have to love the wind more. You have to sigh the morbid thought off, decide there are too many interesting projects for you to stop now."

He was still smiling when he continued: "I was forty when my wife died. The same way my father had: with prolonged cancer. I had all prepared. The will was neat. I had cleaned all my unfinished projects at work. I had given a friend a spare key. I gave my cat to a caretaker for a vacation.

"I didn't come back after two weeks as I had promised.

"I was up, climbing the Rocky Peak in central Atlantis. It is one of the mountains with the most casualties on the island. I came on top. And suddenly I realized two things: That one day I would die, whether I had all prepared or not. And that the view was breathtaking. I cried there on the top, with tears freezing on my cheeks.

"I came down a few days later. Called the catsitter with a borrowed phone, because my prepaid had ended and I had left all my credit cards home. I apologized for being late.

"I resumed my life. Except I did ask for a raise at work. My boss was quite taken aback by my attitude as I recall it. I got fired."

He left his tale there with a warm smile on his face. I answered it tentatively.

"I..." I started, but Stump held a hand for me.

"You don't need to confess anything. Everyone knows. And how it came about is but a detail. The human world can be cruel. No one is blaming you. It is our little secret. You have a vampire's heart, Timothy. A heart which can consider death as an option and love life ever the more because of it."

He took a peek at his watch.

"Oh. I'll be late."

"At twelve thirty in the dead of night?" I asked him incredulously.

He shrugged. "Most of my friends are vampires. What can you do? I promised to help Carnation with moving houses. Chao!"

He left me alone in the kitchen. I wondered what the seventy odd Stump could do to help carry anything. I felt I was maybe missing something. A piece I didn't comprehend yet.

And my hackle was standing on end. There was something off in the building around me.