Dark Valentine (Monster High; Book 1 of the DV Duology)

Chapter 28: Arms of the Ocean

Jackson

The days of summer that came before the trip to Transylvania seemed to fly by, despite their uneventfulness. Kieran and I spent a lot of time together as usual, making sure to hang out with Clair and Chad as well before we left.

Throughout the school year, I'd been preparing to go to college somewhere in New Salem (the college here offered the exact program I was looking into and I honestly had no desire to study away from home). That being said, I'd sent in my application back in January. I'd also applied for several scholarships, grants, etc. and although the essays for those applications were stressful, I got through them.

This was relevant because I planned on taking my laptop with me in case I got any important emails related to college or anything else. I'd also been looking for a part-time job, so I wanted to make sure I was reachable in case someone responded.

According to Miss Bloodgood, we were to get to Transylvania by boat. The drive to the port in Oregon would be a couple of hours long, and the boat ride itself was supposed to take at least 47 hours. The vehicle we were taking to get to the boat was a Greyhound bus, which had comfortable seats and even a small bathroom stall at the back behind the wheelchair lift.

My parents wouldn't be coming with us due to work and taking care of Blythe and Hailey, but Rose would be along with Miss Bloodgood and Mr. Rotter.

The morning of the trip, everyone had to wake up early to meet up at the school on time. It took some scrambling to make sure we were good to go, but in the end we managed to get everyone on the bus and seated.

"Alright, now that everyone has boarded the bus, I have a couple of announcements," Miss Bloodgood said, "The first is that everyone must behave themselves today, and that includes you boys." She looked straight at Manny, Heath and Hoodude when she said the last part. "The second is that we do have water bottles; if you would like one, please ask."

"I do!" called Hoodude, and so she began handing them out at once. "Okay, Heath, no stealing six waters today," she called to him.

"Well, they're free, so you can take as many as you want," pointed out Hoodude.

Miss Bloodgood chuckled a bit. "It's so that everyone gets a bottle, Hoodude, and he certainly doesn't need six of them."

"Okay, fine. But can we go to McDonald's?" asked Heath hopefully.

"Maybe, if we come across one. Just be quick; we have to make sure we get to the boat on time."

Not ten minutes later, we came across a McDonald's, to which Heath yelled as he pointed out the window, "There is a McDonald's! I'm going to Mickey D's!"

Ghoulia said something to Heath, which was probably a reminder not to be too long.

"I know, I know," he rolled his eyes.

Kieran, Deuce and I went in with him and while we waited in line, Deuce and Heath told a rather interesting story of Heath setting off the fire alarm once when he was at Deuce's house. He'd spent the night there and was making himself toast while Deuce happened to be out of the room and it burned.

"I'm surprised that was what set the alarm off and not his hair," I remarked. We made sure to get food for everyone else who wanted some (they'd given us their money before we went in so we could do so) as well before we headed back to the bus. Sometime around the one-hour mark I ended up passing out, my head resting on Kieran's shoulder. He didn't seem to mind, not waking me up until we had to get off the bus. Thankfully, we'd gotten to port on time despite the McDonald's run.

Draculaura was beyond ecstatic. "I'm so excited to be going back! I can't wait to see Elissabat again."

Kieran nodded. "It feels weird to be going back there now, if I'm honest. But I'm pretty excited about it too."

"I thought you moved to the U.S. only a couple of years ago?" Cleo was confused.

"No, I transferred to Monster High a couple of years ago," corrected Kieran, "I'd been living in the U.S. for a couple hundred years before then. I attended the Vampyr Academy before switching over."

"Ah. That actually makes a lot more sense, now that I think about it," replied Cleo, "considering how long the trip from here to Transylvania actually takes and all."

"Wait, didn't the Vampire Academy merge with Monster High, though?" asked Heath.

"No, that was Belfry Prep," said Bram.

"Oh," replied Heath somewhat sheepishly.

Before we could get on the boat we had to check in and go through security after dropping our luggage off. According to Rose, this process was much less stressful than boarding a plane despite the similarities. Everything went surprisingly smoothly, with no one setting off the metal detectors and checking in only took about half an hour (due to the number of people). Once everyone was settled into the cabins, all that was left was to wait until we reached Transylvania.

Over the next couple of days, we all found ways of keeping busy whether by ourselves or with each other, with me checking my email every so often (there was internet on the boat). Spectra took many, many photos and uploaded them to her blog along with a detailed description of how the trip was going. Something I'd noticed was that she was a lot more careful nowadays with what she posted, taking care not to make anything public that was too personal to anyone. The name of her blog had changed at some point over the last year or so, as well, going from the Ghostly Gossip to the Gory Gazette.

I personally found falling asleep each night to the sounds of the water quite soothing. It seemed Kieran did, too. I spent a lot of the daytime hours reading and spending time with Kieran, the latter of which Holt did as well when he was the one in control. Something else Holt did was work on his music, mainly original songs as he had a book filled with lyrics he had yet to put music to.

When we got to port in Transylvania, there was another Greyhound bus waiting for us, presumably to take us to Castle Dracool. It didn't take us long to get there at all, so I suspected it was more for convenience than anything else given all the luggage everyone had with them.

There were, unsurprisingly, a lot of vampires living in Transylvania and I had a strong feeling that the majority if not all of them would be attending Elissabat's wedding. She was their queen, after all.

"Have you been to Transylvania before?" Draculaura asked Bram as we were getting off the bus.

"A few times," replied Bram, "My sister Hazel moved here not too long ago, though, so I suspect I'll be visiting a lot more."

"Wait, your sister?" interjected Spectra.

"Yeah," said Bram, "Didn't you guys know? This is also her wedding we're attending."