Chapter 4
I rose the next day feeling pretty grim in general, but I brightened when I saw that Claude and Dermot had returned to the house the night before.
The evidence was clear. Claude’s shirt was tossed over the back of a kitchen chair, and Dermot’s shoes were at the foot of the stairs. Plus, after I’d
had my coffee and my shower, and emerged from my room in shorts and a green T-shirt, the two were waiting for me in the living room.
“Good morning, guys,” I said. Even to my own ears, I didn’t sound too perky. “Did you remember that today was the day the antiques dealers
come? They should be here in an hour or two.” I braced myself for the talk we had to have.
“Good, then this room will not look like a junk shop,” Claude said in his charming way.
I just nodded. Today, we had Obnoxious Claude, as opposed to the more rarely seen Tolerable Claude.
“We did promise you a talk,” Dermot said.
“And then you didn’t come home that night.” I sat back in an old rocker from the attic. I didn’t feel particularly ready for this conversation, but I was
also anxious for some answers.
“Things were happening at the club,” Claude said evasively.
“Uh-huh. Let me guess, one of the fairies is missing.”
That made them sit up and take notice. “What? How did you know?” Dermot recovered first.
“Victor has him. Or her,” I added. I told them the story about last night.
“It’s not enough that we have to handle our own race’s problems,” Claude said. “Now we’re sucked into the fucking vampire struggles, too.”
“No,” I said, feeling I was walking uphill in this conversation. “You as a group weren’t sucked into the vampire struggles. One of you was taken for
a specific purpose. Different scenario. Let me point out that at the very least, that fairy who was taken has been bled, because that was what the
vamps needed, the blood. I’m not saying your missing comrade couldn’t be alive, but you know how the vamps lose control when a fairy is around,
much less a bleeding fairy.”
“She’s right,” Dermot told Claude. “Cait must be dead. Are any of the fairies at the club her kin? We need to ask if they’ve had a death vision.”
“A female,” Claude said. His handsome face was set in stone. “One we couldn’t afford to lose. Yes, we have to find out.”
For a second I was confused, because Claude didn’t think that much about women in terms of his personal life. Then I remembered that there
were fewer and fewer female fairies. I didn’t know about the rest of the fae, but it seemed the fairies were on the wane. It wasn’t that I lacked
concern about the missing Cait (though I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell that she was alive), but I had other, selfish questions to
ask, and I was not going to be diverted. As soon as Dermot had called Hooligans and asked Bellenos to call the fae together to ask about Cait’s
kin, I got back on my own track.
“While Bellenos is busy, you have some free time, and since the appraisers are coming soon, I really need you to answer my questions,” I said.
Dermot and Claude looked at each other. Dermot seemed to lose the conversational coin toss, because he took a deep breath and began, “You
know when one of your Caucasians marries one of your Negroes, sometimes the babies turn out looking much more like one race than another,
seemingly at random. That likeness can vary even between children of the same couple.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard that.”
“When Jason was a baby, our great-grandfather Niall checked on him.”
I felt my mouth drop open. “Wait,” I said, and it came out in a hoarse croak. “Niall said he couldn’t visit because his half-human son Fintan
guarded us from him. That Fintan was actually our grandfather.”
“This is why Fintan guarded you from the fae. He didn’t want his father interfering in your lives the way he had interfered in his own. But Niall had
his ways, and nonetheless, he found that the essential spark had passed Jason by. He became . . . uninterested,” Claude said.
I waited.
He continued, “That’s why he took so many years to make your acquaintance. He could have evaded Fintan, but he assumed you would be the
same as Jason . . . attractive to humans and supernaturals, but other than that, essentially a normal human.”
“But then he heard you weren’t,” Dermot said.
“Heard? From who? Whom?” My grandmother would have been proud.
“From Eric. They had a few business dealings together, and Niall thought to ask Eric to alert him to events in your life. Eric would tell Niall from
time to time what you were up to. There came a time when Eric thought you needed the protection of your great-grandfather, and of course you
were withering.”
Huh?
“So Grandfather sent Claudine, and then when she grew worried she couldn’t take care of you, he decided to meet you himself. Eric arranged
that, too. I suppose he thought that he would get Niall’s goodwill as kind of a finder’s fee.” Dermot shrugged. “That seems to have worked for Eric.
Vampires are all venal and selfish.”
The words “pot” and “kettle” popped into my mind.
I said, “So Niall appeared in my life and made himself known to me, via Eric’s intervention. And that precipitated the fairy war, because the water
fairies didn’t want any more contact with humans, much less a minor royal who was only one-eighth fairy.” Thanks, guys. I loved hearing that a whole
war was my fault.
“Yes,” Claude said judiciously. “That’s a fair summary. And so the war came, and after many deaths Niall made the decision to seal off Faery.” He
sighed heavily. “I was left outside, and Dermot, too.”
“And by the way, I’m not withering,” I pointed out with some sharpness. “I mean, do I look withered to you?” I knew I was ignoring the big picture,
but I was getting angry. Or maybe, even angrier.
“You have only a little fae blood,” Dermot said gently, as if that would be a crushing reminder. “You are aging.”
I couldn’t deny that. “So why am I feeling more and more like one of you, if I have such a little dab of fairy in me?”
“Our sum is more than our parts,” Dermot said. “I’m half-human, but the longer I’m with Claude, the stronger my magic is. Claude, though a fullblooded
fairy, has been in the human world for so long he was getting weak. Now he’s stronger. You only have a dash of fae blood, but the longer
you’re with us, the more prominent an element it is in your nature.”
“Like priming a pump?” I said doubtfully. “I don’t get it.”
“Like—like—washing a new red garment with the whites,” said Dermot triumphantly, who had done that very thing the week before. Everyone in
our house had pink socks now.
“But wouldn’t that mean Claude was getting less red? I mean, less fae? If we’re absorbing some of his?”
“No,” Claude said, with some complacence. “I am redder than I was.”
Dermot nodded. “Me, too.”
“I haven’t really noticed any difference,” I said.
“Are you not stronger than you were?”
“Well . . . yeah. Some days.” It wasn’t like ingesting vampire blood, which would give you increased strength for an indeterminate period, if it
didn’t make you batshit crazy. It was more like I felt increased vigor. I felt, in fact . . . younger. And since I was only in my twenties, that was just
unnerving.
“Don’t you long to see Niall again?” Claude asked.
“Sometimes.” Every day.
“Are you not happy when we sleep in the bed with you?”
“Yeah. But just so you know, I think it’s kind of creepy, too.”
“Humans,” Claude said to Dermot, with a blend of exasperation and patronage in his voice. Dermot shrugged. After all, he was half-human.
“And yet you chose to stay here,” I said.
“I wonder every day if I made a mistake.”
“Why are you two still here, if you’re so nuts about Niall and your life in Faery? How did you get the letter from Niall that you gave me a month ago,
the one where he told me he’d used all his influence to make the FBI leave me alone?” I glared at them suspiciously. “Was that letter a forgery?”
“No, it was genuine,” Dermot said. “And we’re here because we both love and fear our prince.”
“Okay,” I said, ready to change subjects because I couldn’t get into a debate about their feelings. “What’s a portal, exactly?”
“It’s a thin place in the membrane,” Claude said. I looked at Claude blankly, and he elaborated. “There’s a sort of magical membrane between
our world—the supernatural world—and yours. At a thin place, that membrane is permeable. The fae world is accessible. As are the parts of your
world that are normally invisible to you.”
“Huh?”
Claude was on a roll. “Portals usually stay in the same vicinity, though they may shift a little. We use them to get from your world to ours. At the site
of the portal in your woods, Niall left an aperture. The slit isn’t big enough for one of us to pass through standing up, but objects can be transferred.”
Like a mail slot in a door. “See? Was that so hard?” I said. “Can you think of some more honest things to tell me?”
“Like what?”
“Like why all those fae are at Hooligans, acting as strippers and bouncers and whatnot. They’re not all fairies. I don’t even know what they are.
Why would they end up with you two?”
“Because they have nowhere else to go,” Dermot said simply. “They were all shut out. Some on purpose, like Claude, and some not . . . like me.”
“So Niall closed off access to Faery and left some of his people outside?”
“Yes. He was trying to keep all those fairies who still wanted to kill humans inside, and he was too hasty,” Claude said. I noticed that Dermot,
whom Niall had bespelled in a cruel way, looked dubious at this explanation.
“I understood that Niall had good reasons for closing the fae off,” I said slowly. “He said experience had taught him that there’s always trouble
when fairies and humans mix. He didn’t want the fairies to crossbreed with humans anymore because so many of the fae hate the consequence—
half-breeds.” I looked apologetically at Dermot, who shrugged. He was used to it. “Niall never intended to see me again. Are you two really so
anxious to go into the world of the fae and stay there?”
There was a pause that might be called “pregnant.” It was clear that Dermot and Claude weren’t going to respond. At least they weren’t going to
lie. “So explain why you’re living with me and what you want from me,” I said, hoping they’d answer that one.
“We’re living with you because it seemed like a good idea to be with the kin we could find,” Claude said. “We felt weak cut off from our homeland,
and we had no notion that there were so many fae left out here. We were surprised when the other stranded fae in North America began to arrive at
Hooligans, but we were happy. As we told you, we’re stronger when we’re together.”
“Are you telling me the whole truth?” I got up and began pacing back and forth. “You could have told me all this before, and you didn’t. Maybe
you’re lying.” I held out my arms to either side, palms up. Well?
“What?” Claude looked affronted. Well, it was about time I served him up what he’d been dishing out. “Fairies don’t lie. Everyone knows that.”
Right. Sure. Common knowledge on the street. “You may not lie, but you don’t always tell the whole truth,” I pointed out. “You certainly have that in
common with vampires. Maybe you have some other reason for being here? Maybe you want to be around to see who comes through the portal.”
Dermot shot to his feet.
Now we were all three angry, all three agitated. The room was full of accusation.
“I want to get back into Faery because I want to see Niall once more,” Claude said, picking his words. “He’s my grandfather. I’m tired of receiving
the occasional message. I want to visit our sacred places, where I can be close to my sisters’ spirits. I want to come and go between the worlds, as
is my right. This is the closest portal. You’re our closest relative. And there’s something about this house. We belong here, for now.”
Dermot went to look out the front window at the warm morning. There were butterflies outside and blooming things and lots of gorgeous sunshine.
I felt a wave of intense longing to be outside with things I understood rather than in here, engaged in this bizarre conversation with relatives I didn’t
understand or wholly trust. If reading his body language was a reliable gauge, Dermot seemed to share the same mixed and unhappy feelings.
“I’ll think about what you’ve said,” I told Claude. Dermot’s shoulders seemed to relax just a hair. “I have something else on my mind, too. I told you
about the firebombing at the bar.” Dermot turned around and leaned against the open window. Though his hair was longer than my brother’s and his
expression was more (sorry, Jason) intelligent, it was scary how much they looked alike. Not by any means identical, but they could certainly be
mistaken for one another, at least briefly. But there were darker tones in Dermot than I’d ever seen in Jason.
Both the fairies nodded when I mentioned the firebombing. They looked interested, but uninvolved—a look I was used to seeing from vampires.
They didn’t really care a whole hell of a bunch about what happened to humans they didn’t know. If they’d ever read John Donne, they would have
disagreed with his idea that no man is an island. Most humans were on one big island, to the fairies, and that island was adrift on a sea called I
Totally Don’t Care.
“People talk in bars, so I’m sure they talk in strip clubs. Please let me know if you hear anything about who did it. This is important to me. If you
could ask the staff at Hooligans to listen for talk about the bombing, I’d sure appreciate it.”
Dermot said, “Is business bad at Sam’s, Sookie?”
“Yes,” I said, not completely surprised at this turn of conversation. “And the new bar up off the highway is making inroads into our clientele. I don’t
know if it’s the novelty of Vic’s Redneck Roadhouse and Vampire’s Kiss pulling people away, or if folks are turned off because Sam’s a shifter, but
it’s not going so good at Merlotte’s.”
I was trying to decide how much I wanted to tell them about Victor and his evilness when Claude suddenly said, “You’d be out of a job,” and
closed his mouth, as if that had sparked a chain of thoughts.
Everyone was mighty interested in what I’d be doing if Merlotte’s closed. “Sam would be out of his living,” I pointed out, as I half turned to go to the
kitchen to get another cup of coffee. “Which is way more important than my job. I can find another place to work.”
“He could run a bar somewhere else,” Claude said, shrugging.
“He’d have to leave Bon Temps,” I said sharply.
“That wouldn’t suit you, would it?” Claude looked thoughtful in a way that made me distinctly uneasy.
“He’s my best friend,” I said. “You know that.” Maybe that was the first time I had said that aloud, but I guess I’d known it for quite a while. “Oh, by
the way, if you want to know what happened to Cait, you might try contacting a human guy with gray eyes who works at Vampire’s Kiss. The name
on his uniform was Colton.” I knew some places just handed out name tags every night, without any worries about who actually owned the name. But
at least it was a start. I started back to the kitchen.
“Wait,” Dermot said, so abruptly that I turned my head to look at him. “When are the antiques people coming to look at your junk?”
“Should be here in a couple hours.”
Dermot said, “The attic is more or less empty. Didn’t you plan to clean it?”
“That’s what I was thinking of doing this morning.”
“Do you want us to help?” Dermot asked.
Claude was clearly appalled. He glared at Dermot.
We were back on more familiar ground, and I, for one, was grateful. Until I’d had a chance to think all this new information through, I couldn’t even
guess at the right questions to ask. “Thanks,” I said. “It would be great if you could carry up one of the big garbage cans. Then after I sweep and
pick up all the bits and pieces, you could tote it down.” Having relatives who are superhumanly strong can be very handy.
I went to the back porch to gather up my cleaning supplies, and when I trudged upstairs with laden arms, I saw that Claude’s door was closed. My
previous tenant, Amelia, had turned one upstairs bedroom into a pretty little boudoir with a cheap (but cute) dressing table, chest of drawers, and
bed. Amelia had used another bedroom as her living room, complete with two comfortable chairs, a television, and a large desk, which now stood
empty. The day we’d cleaned out the attic, I’d noticed that Dermot had set up a cot in the former living room.
Before I’d had time to say “Jack Robinson,” Dermot appeared at the attic door carrying the garbage can. He set it down and looked around him.
“I think it looked better with the family things in it,” he said, and I had to agree. In the daylight streaming through the filthy windows, the attic looked
sad and shabby.
“It’ll be fine when it’s clean,” I said with determination, and I set to with the broom, sweeping down all the cobwebs, and then started in on the dust
and debris on the planks of the floor. To my surprise, Dermot picked up a few rags and the glass cleaner, and began to work on the windows.
It seemed wiser not to comment. After Dermot finished the windows, he held the dustpan while I swept the accumulated dirt into it. When we’d
completed that task and I’d brought up the vacuum to take care of the last of the dust, he said, “These walls need paint.”
That was like saying the desert needs water. Maybe there had once been paint, but it had long ago chipped or worn away, and the indeterminate
color remaining on the walls had been scuffed and stained by the many items leaning against them. “Well, yes. Sanding and painting. The floor
needs it, too.” I tapped with my foot. My forebears had gone crazy with whitewash when the second story had been added to the house.
“You’ll only need part of this space for storage,” Dermot said, out of the blue. “Assuming the antiques dealers buy the larger pieces and you don’t
move them back up here.”
“That’s true.” Dermot seemed to have a point, but it was lost on me. “What are you saying?” I asked bluntly.
“You could make a third bedroom up here if you only used that end as your storage,” Dermot said. “See, that part?”
He was pointing to a place where the slope of the roof formed a natural area, about seven feet deep and the width of the house. “It wouldn’t be
hard to partition that off, hang some doors,” my great-uncle said.
Dermot knew how to hang doors? I must have looked astonished because he told me, “I’ve been watching HGTV on Amelia’s television.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to think of a more intelligent remark. I still felt at sea. “Well, we could do that. But I don’t think I need another room. I mean, who’s
going to want to live here?”
“Aren’t more bedrooms always a good thing? On the television, the hosts say they are. And I could move into such a room. Claude and I could
share the television room as a sitting room. We would each have our own room.”
I felt humiliated that I hadn’t ever thought of asking if Dermot minded sharing a room with Claude. Obviously, he did. Sleeping on a cot in the little
sitting room . . . I’d been a bad hostess. I looked at Dermot with more attention than I’d given him before. He had sounded . . . hopeful. Maybe my
new tenant was underemployed. I realized that I didn’t know exactly what Dermot did at the club. I’d taken it for granted that he’d leave with Claude
when Claude went to Monroe, but I’d never been curious enough to ask what Dermot did when he got there. What if being part fairy was the only
thing he had in common with the self-centered Claude?
“If you think you have the time to do the work, I’d be glad to buy the materials,” I said, not quite sure where the words came from. “In fact, if you
could sand, prime, and paint the whole thing, and build the partition, I’d sure appreciate it. I’d be glad to pay you for the job. Why don’t we go to the
lumberyard in Clarice on my next day off? If you could figure out how much lumber and paint we need?”
Dermot lit up like a Christmas tree. “I can try, and I know how to rent a sander,” he said. “You trust me to do this?”
“I do,” I said, not sure I really meant that. But after all, what could make the attic look worse than it did now? I began to feel enthusiastic myself. “It
would be great to have this room redone. You need to tell me what you think would be a fair wage.”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “You have given me a home and the reassurance of your presence. This is the least I can do for you.”
I couldn’t argue with Dermot when he put it that way. There’s such a thing as being too determined not to accept a gift, and I assessed this as just
such a situation.
This had been a morning chock-full of information and surprises. As I was washing my hands and face to get rid of the attic dust, I heard a car
coming up the driveway. The Splendide logo, in Gothic lettering, filled the side of a big white van.
Brenda Hesterman and her partner climbed out. The partner was a small, compact man wearing khakis and a blue polo shirt and polished
loafers. His salt-and-pepper hair was clipped short.
I went out onto the front porch.
“Hello, Sookie,” Brenda called, as if we were old friends. “This is Donald Callaway, the co-owner of the shop.”
“Mr. Callaway,” I said, nodding. “You two come on in. Can I get you all a drink?”
They both declined on their way up the steps. Once inside, they looked around the crowded room with an appreciation my fairy guests hadn’t
shown.
“Love the wooden ceiling,” Brenda said. “And look at the plank walls!”
“It’s an old one,” Donald Callaway said. “Congratulations, Miss Stackhouse, on living in such a lovely historic home.”
I tried not to look as astonished as I felt. This was not the reaction I normally got. Most people tended to pity me for living in such an outdated
structure. The floors weren’t really true and the windows weren’t standard. “Thanks,” I said doubtfully. “Well, here’s the stuff that was in the attic. You
all see if there’s anything you want. Just give me a yell if you need something.”
There didn’t seem to be any point in hanging around, and it seemed kind of tacky to watch them at work. I went into my room to dust and
straighten, and I cleaned out a drawer or two while I was at it. Normally I would have listened to the radio, but I wanted to keep an ear out for the
partners in case they needed to ask questions. They talked to each other quietly from time to time, and I found myself curious about what they were
deciding. When I heard Claude coming down the stairs, I thought it was a good idea to go out to tell him and Dermot good-bye as they left.
Brenda gaped at the two beautiful men as the fairies passed through the living room. I made them slow down long enough to be introduced
because that was only polite. I wasn’t a bit surprised to notice that Donald was thinking of me in a different light after he’d met my “cousins.”
I was scrubbing on the hall bathroom floor when I heard Donald exclaim. I drifted into the living room, trying to look casually inquisitive.
He’d been examining my grandfather’s desk, a very heavy and ugly object that had been the cause of much cursing and sweating on the part of
the fairies when they carried it down to the living room.
The small man was crouched before it now, his head in the kneehole.
“You’ve got a secret compartment, Miss Stackhouse,” he said, and he inched backward on his haunches. “Come, let me show you.”
I squatted down beside him, feeling the excitement such a discovery naturally aroused. Secret compartment! Pirate treasure! Magic trick! They
all trigger the happy anticipation of childhood.
With the help of Donald’s flashlight I saw that at the back of the desk, in the area where your knees would fit, there was an extra panel. There were
tiny hinges so high up a knee would never brush them; so the door would swing upward when it was open.
How to open it was the mystery.
After I’d had a good look, Donald said, “I’ll try my pocketknife, Miss Stackhouse, if you have no objection.”
“None at all,” I said.
He retrieved the pocketknife, which was a businesslike size, from his pocket and opened the blade, sliding it gently into the seam. As I’d
expected, in the middle of the seam he encountered a clasp of some kind. He pushed gently with the knife blade, first from one side and then
another, but nothing happened.
Next, he began patting the woodwork all around the kneehole. There was a strip of wood at both points where the sides and top of the kneehole
met. Donald pressed and pushed, and just when I was about to throw up my hands, there was a rusty click and the panel opened.
“Why don’t you do the honors,” Donald said. “Your desk.”
That was both reasonable and true, and as he backed out, I took his place. I lifted the door and held it up while Donald held his flashlight steady,
but since my body blocked a lot of the light, I had quite a time extracting the contents.
I gently gripped and pulled when I felt the contours of the bundle, and then I had it. I wriggled backward on my haunches, trying not to imagine what
that must look like from Donald’s viewpoint. As soon as I was clear of the desk, I rose and went over to the window with my dusty bundle. I examined
what I held.
There was a small velvet bag with a drawstring top. The material had been wine red, I believed, once upon a time. There was a once-white
envelope, about 6 × 8, with pictures on it, and as I carefully flattened it, I realized it had held a dress pattern. Immediately a flood of memory came
undammed. I remembered the box that had held all the patterns, Vogue and Simplicity and Butterick. My grandmother had enjoyed sewing for many
years until a broken finger in her right hand hadn’t “set” well, and then it had become more and more painful for her to manage the tissue-thin
patterns and the materials. From the picture, this particular envelope had held a pattern that was full-skirted and nipped in at the waist, and the three
drawn models had fashionably hunched shoulders, thin faces, and short hair. One model was wearing the dress as midlength, one was wearing it
as a wedding dress, and one was wearing it as a square-dance costume. The versatile full-skirted dress!
I opened the flap and peered in, expecting to see the familiar brown flimsy pattern paper printed with mysterious black directions. But instead,
there was a letter inside, written on yellowed paper. I recognized the handwriting.
Suddenly I was as close to tears as I could be. I held my eyes wide so the liquid wouldn’t trickle, and I left the living room very quickly. It wasn’t
possible to open that envelope with other people in the house, so I stowed it in my bedside table along with the little bag, and I returned to the living
room after I’d blotted my eyes.
The two antiques dealers were too courteous to ask questions, and I brewed some coffee and brought it to them on a tray with some milk and
sugar and some slices of pound cake, because I was grateful. And polite. As my grandmother had taught me . . . my dead grandmother, whose
handwriting had been on the letter inside the pattern envelope.
Chapter 5
In the end, I didn’t get to open the envelope until the next day.
Brenda and Donald finished going over all the attic contents an hour after he’d opened the hidden drawer. Then we sat down to discuss what they
wanted from my miscellaneous clutter and how much they’d pay me for it. At first, I was minded to simply say, “Okay,” but in the name of my family I
felt obliged to try to get as much money as possible. To my impatience, the discussion went on for what seemed like forever.
What it boiled down to: They wanted four large pieces of furniture (including the desk), a couple of dress forms, a small chest, some spoons, and
two horn snuffboxes. Some of the underwear was in good shape, and Brenda said she knew a method of washing that would remove stains and
make the garments look almost new, though she wouldn’t give me much for them. A nursing chair (too low and small for modern women) was
added to the list, and Donald wanted a box of costume jewelry from the thirties and forties. My great-grandmother’s quilt, made in the wagon wheel
pattern, was obviously worth a lot to the dealers, and that had never been my favorite pattern so I was glad to let it go.
I was actually pleased that these items would be going to homes where they’d be enjoyed and cared for and cherished instead of being stowed
in an attic.
I could tell that Donald really wanted to go through the big box of pictures and papers still awaiting my attention, but there was no way that was
going to happen until I’d looked at all of them. I told him so in very polite terms, and we also shook on the agreement that if any more secret
compartments of any kind were found in the furniture I was selling them, I would have first right to buy the contents back if the contents had any
money value.
After they’d called their store to arrange pickup and written a check, the dealers departed with one or two of their smaller purchases. They
seemed as satisfied as I was with the day’s work.
Within an hour, a big Splendide truck came up the driveway with two husky young men in the cab. Forty-five minutes after that, the furniture was
padded and loaded into the back. After it was gone, it was time for me to get ready for work. I regretfully postponed examining the items in my night
table drawer.
Though I had to hustle, I took a moment to enjoy having my house to myself as I put on my makeup and my uniform. It was warm enough to break
out my shorts, I decided.
I’d gone to Wal-Mart and bought two new pair the week before. In honor of their debut, I’d made sure my legs were shaved extra smooth. My tan
was already well established. I looked in the mirror, pleased with the look.
I got to Merlotte’s about five. The first person I saw was the new waitress, India. India had smooth chocolate skin and cornrows and a stud in her
nose, and she was the most cheerful human being I’d encountered in a month of Sundays. Today she gave me a smile as if I were exactly the
person she’d been waiting to see . . . which was literally true. I was replacing India.
“You look out for trouble with that goober on five,” she said. “He’s tossing ’em back. He must’ve had a fight with his wife.”
I would know if he had or not after a moment’s “listening in.” “Thanks, India. Anything else?”
“That couple on eleven, they want their tea unsweet with lots of lemon on the side. Their food should be up soon, the fried pickles and a burger
each. Cheese on his.”
“Okeydokey. Have a good evening.”
“I’m planning on it. I got a date.”
“Who with?” I asked, out of sheer idle curiosity.
“Lola Rushton,” she said.
“I think I went to high school with Lola,” I said, with only a short beat to indicate that India’s dating women was any more than a daily occurrence.
“She remembers you,” India said, and laughed.
I was sure that was so, since I’d been the weirdest person in my little high school class. “Everyone remembers me as Crazy Sookie,” I said, trying
to keep the rue from my voice.
“She had a crush on you for a while,” India told me.
I felt oddly pleased. “I’m flattered to hear it,” I said, and hustled off to start working.
I made a quick round of my tables to be sure everyone was okay, served the fried pickles and burgers, and watched in relief as Mr. Grumpy and
Dumped downed his last drink and left the bar. He wasn’t drunk, but he was spoiling for a fight, and it was good to see the last of him. We didn’t
need more trouble.
He wasn’t the only grumpy guy in Merlotte’s. Sam was filling out insurance forms that night, and because he hates filling out forms but has to do it
all the time, his mood was not sunny. The paperwork was stacked on the bar, and in a lull between customers, I looked it over. If I read it carefully
and slowly, it wasn’t hard to figure out, no matter how convoluted the English got. I began checking boxes and filling in blanks, and I called the police
station and told them we needed a copy of the police report on the firebombing. I gave them Sam’s fax number, and Kevin promised he’d get it to
me.
I looked up to find my boss standing there with an expression of total surprise on his face.
“I’m sorry!” I said instantly. “You seemed to be so stressed out about it, and I didn’t mind taking a look. I’ll hand ’em back over.” I grabbed up the
papers and thrust them at Sam.
“No,” he said, backing away with his hands held up. “No, no. Sook, thanks. I never thought of asking for help.” He glanced down. “You called the
police station?”
“Yeah, I got Kevin Pryor. He’s gonna send over the report to attach.”
“Thanks, Sook.” Sam looked like Santa Claus had just appeared in the bar.
“I don’t mind forms,” I said, smiling. “They don’t talk back. You better look it over to make sure I did it right.”
Sam beamed at me without sparing a downward glance. “Good job, friend.”
“No problem.” It had been nice to have something to keep me busy, so I wouldn’t think about the unexamined items in my night table drawer. I
heard the front door open and looked around, relieved there was more business walking in the door. I had to work to hold the anticipation on my
face when I saw that Jannalynn Hopper had arrived.
Sam is what you might call adventuresome in his dating, and Jannalynn was not the first strong (not to say scary) female he’d consorted with.
Skinny and short, Jannalynn had an aggressive sense of fashion and a ferocious delight in her elevation to the job of pack enforcer for the Long
Tooth pack, which was based in Shreveport.
Tonight Jannalynn was wearing abbreviated denim shorts, those sandals that lace up the calves, and a single blue tank top with no bra
underneath. She was wearing the earrings Sam had bought her at Splendide, and about six silver chains of assorted lengths and pendants
gleamed around her neck. Her short hair was platinum now, spiky and bright. She was like a suncatcher, I thought, remembering the brightly colored
one Jason had given me to hang in the kitchen window.
“Hello, honey,” she said to Sam as she bypassed me without a sideways glance. She took Sam in a ferocious embrace and kissed him for all
she was worth.
He kissed her back, though I could tell from his brain signals that he was a little embarrassed. No such consideration bothered Jannalynn, of
course. I hastily turned away to check the levels of salt and pepper in the shakers on the tables, though I knew quite well everything was fine.
In truth, I’d always found Jannalynn disturbing, almost frightening. She was very aware that Sam and I were friends, especially since I’d met Sam’s
family at his brother’s wedding, and they were under the impression that I was Sam’s girlfriend. I really didn’t blame her for her suspicions; if I’d
been her, I’d have felt the same way.
Jannalynn was a suspicious young woman by both nature and profession. Part of her job was to assess threats and act on them before harm
could come to Alcide and the pack. She also managed Hair of the Dog, a little bar that catered especially to the Long Tooth pack and other twoeys
in the Shreveport area. It was a lot of responsibility for someone as young as Jannalynn, but she seemed born to meet the challenge.
By the time I’d exhausted all the busywork I could think of, Jannalynn and Sam were having a quiet conversation. She was perched on a barstool,
her muscular legs crossed elegantly, and he was in his usual position behind the bar. Her face was intent, and so was his; whatever their topic was,
it was a serious one. I kept my mind slammed shut.
The customers were doing their best not to gape at the young Were. The other waitress, Danielle, was glancing over at her from time to time
while whispering with her boyfriend, who’d come in to nurse a drink all evening so he could watch Danielle as she moved from table to table.
Whatever Jannalynn’s faults, you couldn’t deny that she had real presence. When she was in a room, she had to be acknowledged. (I thought that
was at least partially because she gave off such strong vibes that she was scary as hell.)
A couple came in and glanced around before heading to an empty table in my section. They looked a little familiar. After a moment, I recognized
them: Jack and Lily Leeds, private detectives from somewhere in Arkansas. The last time I’d seen them, they’d come to Bon Temps to investigate
Debbie Pelt’s disappearance, having been hired by her parents. I’d answered their questions in what I now knew was sort of fairy-style—I’d stuck to
the letter of the truth without its spirit. I myself had shot Debbie Pelt dead in self-defense, and I hadn’t wanted to go to jail for it.
That had been over a year ago. Lily Bard Leeds was still pale, silent, and intense, and her husband was still attractive and vital. Her eyes had
found me instantly, and it was impossible to pretend I hadn’t noticed. Reluctantly, I went over to their table, feeling my smile growing more brittle with
every step.
“Welcome back to Merlotte’s,” I said, grinning for all I was worth. “What can I get you two this evening? We put French-fried pickles on the menu,
and our burgers Lafayette are real good.”
Lily looked as if I’d suggested she eat breaded worms, though Jack looked a bit regretful. He wouldn’t have minded the pickles, I could tell.
“A hamburger Lafayette for me, I guess,” Lily said unenthusiastically. As she turned to her companion, her T-shirt shifted and I caught a glimpse of
a set of old scars that rivaled my own new ones.
Well, we had always had things in common.
“The hamburger for me, too,” Jack said. “And if you have a moment to spare, we’d like to talk to you.” He smiled at me, and the long, thin scar on
his face flexed as his eyebrows rose. Was this personal-mutilation evening? I wondered if his light jacket, unnecessary on so warm a day, covered
something even worse.
“We can have a talk. I figured you didn’t come back to Merlotte’s because of the great cuisine,” I said, and took their drink order before I went
over to the window to hand the slip to Antoine.
With their iced teas and a dish of lemon, I returned to the table. I looked around to make sure no one needed me before I sat down opposite Jack
with Lily to my left. She was pretty to look at, but so controlled and muscular I felt like I could bounce a dime off her. Even her mind was sort of tidy
and strict.
“What shall we talk about?” I asked, and opened up my mind to them. Jack was thinking about Lily, some concern about her health, no, her
mother’s health—a recurrence of breast cancer. Lily was thinking about me, puzzling over me, suspecting I was a killer.
That hurt.
But it was true.
“Sandra Pelt is out of jail,” Jack Leeds said, and though I heard the words in his brain before he spoke them, I didn’t have to fake a shocked face.
“She was in jail? So that’s why I haven’t seen her since her folks died.” The older Pelts had promised to keep Sandra in check. After I’d heard
about their deaths, I’d wondered when she’d show up. When I hadn’t seen her right away, I’d relaxed. “You’re telling me this because?” I managed
to say.
“Because she hates your guts,” Lily said calmly. “And you were never found guilty by any court of the disappearance of her sister. You weren’t
even arrested. I don’t think you ever will be. You might even be innocent, though I don’t think so. Sandra Pelt is simply crazy. And she’s obsessed
with you. I think you need to be careful. Real careful.”
“Why was she in jail?”
“Assault and battery on one of her cousins. This cousin had gotten a cut of the money in Sandra’s parents’ will, and apparently Sandra took issue
with that.”
I was very, very worried. Sandra Pelt was a vicious and amoral young woman. I was sure she hadn’t hit twenty yet, and she’d made a determined
attempt to kill me more than once. There was no one now to call her to heel, and her mental status was therefore even more suspect, according to
the private detectives.
“But why did you make a trip down here to tell me?” I said. “I mean, I do appreciate it, but you weren’t obliged . . . and you could have picked up
the phone. Private eyes work for money, last I heard. Is someone paying you to warn me?”
“The Pelt estate,” Lily said, after a pause. “Their lawyer, who lives in New Orleans, is the court-appointed guardian for Sandra until she reaches
twenty-one.”
“His name?”
She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. “It’s a sort of Baltic name,” she said. “And I may not pronounce it correctly.”
“Cataliades,” I said, putting the emphasis on the second syllable where it belonged.
“Yes,” said Jack, surprised. “That’s him. Big guy.”
I nodded. Mr. Cataliades and I were friendly. He was mostly a demon, but the Leedses didn’t seem to know that. In fact, they didn’t seem to know
much of anything about the other world, the one that lay beneath the human one. “So Mr. Cataliades sent you two down here to warn me? He’s the
executor?”
“Yeah. He was going to be away from his desk for some time, and he wanted to be sure you knew the girl was on the loose. He seemed to feel
some obligation to you.”
I pondered that. I only knew of one time I’d done the lawyer a good turn. I had helped him get out of the collapsing hotel in Rhodes. Nice to know
that at least one person was serious when he said, “I owe you.” It seemed pretty ironic that the Pelt estate was paying the Leedses to come warn
me against the last living Pelt; not ironic as in “ha!” but ironic as in bitter.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how come he contacted you two? I mean, I’m sure there are lots of private eyes in New Orleans, for example. You all
are still based in the Little Rock area, right?”
Lily shrugged. “He called us; he asked if we were free; he sent the check. His instructions were very specific. Both of us, to the bar, today. In fact .
. .” She glanced down at her watch. “To the minute.”
They looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain this oddity on the part of the lawyer.
I was thinking furiously. If Mr. Cataliades had sent two tough people to the bar, instructing them to arrive at a given time, it must be because he
knew they were going to be needed. For some reason, their presence was necessary and desirable. When would you need capable hardbodies?
When trouble was on its way.
Before I knew I was going to do it, I stood and turned toward the entrance. Naturally, the Leedses looked where I was looking, so we were all
watching the door when trouble opened it.
Four tough guys came in. My grandmother would have said they were loaded for bear. They might as well have stenciled “Badass and Proud of It”
on their foreheads. They were definitely high on something, full of themselves, brimming with aggression. And armed.
After a second’s peek in their heads, I knew they’d taken vampire blood. That was the most unpredictable drug on the market—also the most
expensive, because harvesting it was so dangerous. People who drank vampire blood were—for a length of time impossible to predict—incredibly
strong and incredibly reckless . . . and sometimes batshit crazy.
Though her back was to the newcomers, Jannalynn seemed to smell them. She swung around on her stool and focused, just like someone had
drawn a bow and aimed the arrow. I could feel the animal wafting off her. Something wild and savage filled the air, and I realized the smell was
coming from Sam, too. Jack and Lily Leeds were on their feet. Jack had his hand under his jacket, and I knew he had a gun. Lily’s hands were
poised in a strange way, as if she were about to gesture and had frozen in midmove.
“Hidee-ho, jerkoffs!” said the tallest one, addressing the bar in general. He had a heavy beard and thick dark hair, but underneath it I saw how
young he was. I thought he couldn’t be more than nineteen. “We come to have some fun with you lizards.”
“No lizards here,” Sam said, his voice even and calm. “You fellas are welcome to have a drink, but after that I think you better leave. This is a quiet
place, a local place, and we don’t need trouble.”
“Trouble’s already here!” boasted the shortest asshole. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair was only blond stubble, showing scars on his
scalp. He was built broad and chunky. The third kid was thin and dark, maybe Hispanic. His black hair was slicked back, and his lips had a
sensuous pout to them that he tried to counteract by sneering. The fourth guy had gotten off on the vampire blood even more seriously than the rest,
and he couldn’t speak because he was lost in his own world. His eyes jerked from side to side as if he were tracking things the rest of us couldn’t
see. He was big, too. I thought the first attack would come from him, and though I was the least of the combatants, I began to ease to my right,
planning to come at him from the side.
“We can have peace here,” Sam said. He was still trying, though I knew he understood that there was no way we were going to escape violence.
He was buying time for everyone in Merlotte’s to understand what was up.
That was a good idea. By the time a few more seconds had passed, even the slowest of the few patrons had moved as far from the action as
they could get, except for Danny Prideaux, who’d been playing darts with Andy Bellefleur, and Andy himself. Danny was actually holding a dart.
Andy was off duty, but he was armed. I watched Jack Leeds’s eyes and saw he’d realized, as I had, where the worst trouble would come from. The
dazed hoodlum was actually rocking back and forth on his heels.
Since Jack Leeds had a gun and I did not, I carefully inched backward so I wouldn’t interfere with his shot. Lily’s cold eyes followed my small
movement, and she nodded almost undetectably. I’d done a sensible thing.
“We don’t want peace,” snarled Bearded Leader. “We want the blonde.” And he pointed in my direction with his left hand, while his right hand
pulled a knife. It looked like it was two feet long, though maybe my fear was acting like a magnifying glass.
“We gonna take care of her,” Blond Bristles said.
“And then maybe the resta you,” Pouty Lips added.
Crazy Guy just smiled.
“I don’t think so,” Jack Leeds said. Jack pulled his gun in one smooth movement. Possibly he would have done it anyway out of sheer selfdefense,
but it didn’t hurt that his wife, standing right by me, was a blonde. He couldn’t be completely sure they meant me, the other white meat.
“I don’t think so, either,” said Andy Bellefleur. His arm was rock steady as he aimed his own Sig Sauer at the man with the knife. “You drop that
pigsticker, and we’ll work something out.”
They might be high as kites, but at least three of the thugs retained enough sense to realize that facing guns was a bad idea. There was a lot of
uncertain twitching and eye shifting as they flickered gazes at each other. The moment hung in the balance.
Unfortunately, Crazy Guy went over the edge and charged for Sam, so now we were all committed to stupidity. With Were swiftness, Pouty Lips
whipped out his own gun, aimed, and fired. I’m not sure who he intended to hit, but he winged Jack Leeds, whose return shot went wild as he fell.
Watching Lily Leeds was a lesson in motion. She took two quick steps, pivoted on her left foot, and her right foot floated through the air to kick
Pouty Lips in the head with the force of a mule. Almost before he hit the floor she was on him, pitching his gun toward the bar and breaking his arm
in a flow of motion that was nearly hypnotic. As he screamed, Bearded Asshole and Blond Bristles gaped at her.
That second of inattention was all it took. Jannalynn took a flying leap off her barstool, describing an amazing arc through the air. She landed on
Crazy Guy as Sam tackled him, and though CG howled and snapped and tried to throw her off, Jannalynn reared back to punch him in the jaw. I
distinctly heard the bone break, and then Jannalynn leaped to her feet and stomped on his femur. Another snap. Sam, still holding him down, yelled,
“Stop!”
In those seconds, Andy Bellefleur rushed Bearded Asshole, who’d whirled to present his back to Andy when Lily attacked Pouty Lips. When the
tall guy felt the gun in his back, he froze.
“Drop the knife,” Andy said. He was in deadly earnest.
Blond Bristles cocked his arm back to strike a blow. Danny Prideaux threw his dart. It got Blond Bristles square in the meat of his arm, and he
shrieked like a teakettle. Sam abandoned Crazy Guy to punch Blond Bristles right in his brisket. The guy went down like a sawn tree.
Bearded Asshole looked at his buddies, down and disabled, and then he dropped the knife. Sensible.
Finally.
In less than two minutes, it was all over.
I’d whipped my clean white apron off, and I bound Jack Leeds’s wound while Lily held his arm out for me, her face white as a vampire’s. She
wanted to kill Pouty Lips in the worst possible way, because she loved her husband with an overwhelming passion. The strength of her feelings
almost swamped me. Lily might be icy on the outside, but inside she was Vesuvius.
As soon as Jack’s bleeding slowed, she turned to Pouty Lips, her face still absolutely calm. “You even move, I’ll break your fucking neck,” she
said, her voice uninflected. The young thug probably didn’t even hear her through his own groaning and moaning, but her tone came through and he
tried to inch away from her.
Andy had already talked to the 911 dispatcher. In a moment I heard the siren, a disturbingly familiar sound. We might as well retain an ambulance
to stay in the parking lot at this rate.
Crazy Guy was screaming weakly at the pain in his leg and jaw. Sam had saved his life: Jannalynn was actually panting, she was so close to
changing after the excitement and stimulation of the violence. The bones had slid around underneath the skin of her face, which was looking long
and lumpy.
It wouldn’t be good if she became a wolf before law enforcement got here. I didn’t try to spell out why to myself. I said, “Hey, Jannalynn.” Her eyes
met mine. Hers were changing shape and color. Her little figure began to twist and turn restlessly.
“You have to stop,” I said. All around us there was yelling, and excitement, and the thick atmosphere of fear—not a good atmosphere for a young
werewolf. “You can’t change now.” I kept my eyes fixed on hers. I didn’t speak again but made sure she kept looking at me. “Breathe with me,” I
said, and she made the effort. Gradually her own breathing slowed, and even more gradually her face resumed its normal contours. Her body
ceased its restless movement, and her eyes returned to their regular brown.
“All right,” she said.
Sam put his hands on her thin shoulders. He gave her a tight hug. “Thanks, honey,” he said. “Thanks. You’re the greatest.” I felt the faintest thrum
of exasperation.
“Left your ass in the dust,” she said, and laughed raggedly. “Was that a good jump, or what? Wait’ll I tell Alcide.”
“You’re the quickest,” Sam said, his voice gentle. “You’re the best pack enforcer I ever met.” You would have thought he’d told her she was as
sexy as Heidi Klum, she was so proud.
And then the law enforcement people and the emergency people were there, and we had to go through the whole procedure again.
Lily and Jack Leeds took off to the hospital. She told the ambulance personnel she could take him herself in their car, and I understood from her
thoughts that their insurance wouldn’t cover the whole cost of the ambulance ride. Considering the emergency room was only a few blocks away
and Jack was walking and talking, I could see her reasoning. They never did get their food, and I didn’t get to thank them for the warning and for
their promptness in obeying Mr. Cataliades’s orders. I wondered more than ever how he’d managed to shunt them into the bar in such a timely
manner.
Andy was pardonably proud of his part in the incident, and he got some pats on the back from his fellow officers. They all regarded Jannalynn with
barely concealed mistrust and respect. All the bar patrons who’d tried to stay out of the way were falling all over themselves to describe Lily Leeds’s
great kick and Jannalynn’s show-stopping leap onto Crazy Guy.
Somehow, the picture the police got was that these four strangers had announced their intention to take Lily hostage and then to rob Merlotte’s.
I’m not sure how that impression gathered credibility, but I was glad it did. If the bar patrons assumed that the blonde in question had been Lily
Leeds, that was fine with me. She was certainly an outstanding-looking woman, and the strangers might have been following her, or they might have
decided to rob the bar and take Lily as a bonus.
Due to this welcome misconception, I escaped from any more questioning than the other patrons got.
In the grand scheme of things, I thought it was about time I got a break.
Chapter 6
Sunday morning I woke up worried.
I’d been too sleepy the night before, when I finally got home, to think much about what had happened at the bar. But evidently my subconscious
had been chewing it over while I slept. My eyes flew open, and though the room was quiet and sunny, I gasped.
I had that panicky feeling; it hadn’t taken me over yet, but it was just around the corner, physically and mentally. You know the feeling? When you
think any second your heart’s going to start pounding, that your breathing is picking up, that your palms will start sweating.
Sandra Pelt was after me, and I didn’t know where she was or what she was plotting.
Victor had it in for Eric and, by extension, me.
I was sure I was the blonde the four thugs had been after, and I didn’t know who’d sent them or what they would have done when they got me,
though I had a pretty bad feeling about that.
Eric and Pam were on the outs, and I was sure that somehow I was involved in their dispute.
And I had a list of questions. At the top of the list: How had Mr. Cataliades known that I would need help at that particular time in that particular
place? And how had he known to send the private investigators from Little Rock? Of course, if he had been the Pelts’ lawyer, he might have known
that they’d sent Lily and Jack Leeds to investigate their daughter Debbie’s disappearance. He wouldn’t have had to brief the Leeds as much, and
he would have known they could handle themselves in a fight.
Would the four thugs tell the police why they’d come to the bar, and who’d put them up to it? And where they’d gotten the vampire blood—that
would be helpful knowledge, also.
What would the things I’d gotten from the secret drawer tell me about my past?
“This is a fine kettle of fish,” I said out loud. I pulled the sheet over my head and searched the house mentally. No one was here but me. Maybe
Dermot and Claude were all talked out, after their big reveal. They seemed to have stayed in Monroe. Sighing, I sat up in bed, letting the sheet fall
away. There was no hiding from my problems. The best I could do was to try to prioritize my crises and figure out what information I could gather
about each one.
The most important problem was the one closest to my heart. And its solution was right to hand.
I gently extracted the pattern envelope and the worn velvet bag from the drawer of the bedside table. In addition to the practical contents (a
flashlight, a candle, and matches), the drawer held the strange mementoes of my strange life. But I wasn’t interested in anything today but the two
new precious items. I carried them into the kitchen and laid them carefully back on the counter well away from the sink as I made my coffee.
While the coffeepot dripped, I almost pushed back the flap of the pattern envelope. But I pulled back my hand. I was scared. Instead I tracked
down my address book. I’d charged my cell phone overnight, so I stowed the little cord away neatly—any delay would do—and at last, taking a
deep breath, I punched in Mr. Cataliades’s number. It rang three times.
“This is Desmond Cataliades,” his rich voice said. “I’m traveling and unavailable at the moment, but if you’d like to leave a message, I may call
you back. Or not.”
Well, hell. I made a face at the telephone, but at the sound of the tone I dutifully recorded a guarded message that I hoped would convey my urgent
need to talk to the lawyer. I crossed Mr. Cataliades—Desmond!—off my mental list and moved on to my second method of approach to the
problem of Sandra Pelt.
Sandra was going to keep after me until either I was dead or she was. I had a real, true, personal enemy. It was hard to believe that every
member of a family had turned out so rotten (especially since both Debbie and Sandra were adopted), but all the Pelts were selfish, strong willed,
and hateful. The girls were fruits of the poisonous tree, I guess. I needed to know where Sandra was, and I knew someone who might be able to
help me.
“Hello?” Amelia said briskly.
“How’s life in the Big Easy?” I asked.
“Sookie! Gosh, it’s good to hear your voice! Things are going great for me, actually.”
“Do tell?”
“Bob showed up on my doorstep last week,” she said.
After Amelia’s mentor, Octavia, had turned Bob back into his skinny Mormonish self, Bob had been so angry with Amelia that he’d taken off like
—well, like a scalded cat. As soon as he’d reoriented to being human, Bob had left Bon Temps to track down his family, who’d been in New
Orleans during Katrina. Evidently Bob had calmed down about the whole transformation-into-a-cat issue.
“Did he find his folks?”
“Well, he did! His aunt and his uncle, the ones who raised him. They had gotten an apartment in Natchez just big enough for the two of them, and
he could tell they didn’t have any way to add him to the household, so he traveled around a bit checking on other coven members, and then he
wandered back down here. He’s got a job cutting hair in a shop three blocks away from where I work! He came in the magic shop, asked after me.”
Members of Amelia’s coven ran the Genuine Magic Shop in the French Quarter. “I was surprised to see him. But real happy.” She was practically
purring on the last sentence, and I figured Bob had entered the room. “He says hey, Sookie.”
“Hey back at him. Listen, Amelia, I hate to interfere in love’s young dream, but I got a favor to ask.”
“Shoot.”
“I need to find out where someone is.”
“Telephone book?”
“Ha-ha. Not that simple. Sandra Pelt is out of jail and gunning for me, literally. The bar’s been firebombed, and yesterday four druggedup goons
came in to get me, and I think Sandra might be behind both things. I mean, how many enemies can I have?”
I heard Amelia take a long breath. “Don’t answer that,” I said hastily. “So, she’s failed twice, and I’m afraid that soon she’ll pick up the pace and
send someone here to the house. I’ll be alone, and it won’t end good for me.”
“Why didn’t she start there?”
“I finally figured out I should have asked myself that a few days ago. Do you think your wards are still active?”
“Oh . . . sure. They very well could be.” Amelia sounded just a shade pleased. She was very proud of her witchy abilities, as well she ought to be.
“Really? I mean, think about it. You haven’t been here in . . . gosh, almost three months.” Amelia had packed up her car the first week in March.
“True. But I reinforced them before I left.”
“They work even when you aren’t around.” I wanted to be sure. My life depended on it.
“They will for a while. After all, I was out of the house for hours each day and left it guarded. But I do have to renew them, or they’ll fade. You know,
I got three days in a row I don’t have to work. I think I’ll come up there and check out the situation.”
“That would be a huge relief, though I hate to put you out.”
“Nah, no problem. Maybe me and Bob’ll have a road trip. I’ll ask a couple of other coven members how they find people. We can take care of the
wards and give finding the bitch a shot.”
“You think Bob’ll be willing to come back here?” Bob had spent almost his whole sojourn in my house in feline form, so I was doubtful.
“I can only ask him. Unless you hear from me, I’m coming.”
“Thanks so much.” I hadn’t realized my muscles were so tense until they began to relax. Amelia said she was coming.
I wondered why I didn’t feel safer with my two fairy guys around. They were my kin, and though I felt happy and relaxed when they were in the
house, I trusted Amelia more.
On the practical side, I never knew when Claude and Dermot would actually be under my roof. They were spending more and more nights in
Monroe.
I’d have to put Amelia and Bob in the bedroom across the hall from mine, since the guys were occupying the upstairs. The bed in my old room
was narrow, but neither Bob nor Amelia were large people.
This was all just make-work for my head. I poured a mug of coffee and picked up the envelope and the bag. I sat down at the kitchen table with
the objects in front of me. I had a terrible impulse to open the garbage can and drop them both in it unopened, the knowledge in them unlearned.
But that was not something you did. You opened things that were meant to be opened.
I opened the flap and tipped the envelope. The flouncy-skirted bride in the picture stared at me blandly as a yellowed letter slid out. It felt dusty
somehow, as though its years in the attic had soaked into the microscopic crevices in the paper. I sighed and closed my eyes, bracing myself. Then
I unfolded the paper and looked down at my grandmother’s handwriting.
It was unexpectedly painful to see it: spiky and compressed, poorly spelled and punctuated, but it was hers, my gran’s. I had read God knows how
many things she’d written in our life together: grocery lists, instructions, recipes, even a few personal notes. There was a bundle of them in my
dressing table still.
Sookie, I’m so proud of you graduating from high school. I wish your mom and dad had been here to see you in your cap and gown.
Sookie, please pick up your room, I can’t vacuum if I can’t see the floor.
Sookie, Jason will pick you up after softball practice, I have to go to a meeting of the Garden Club.
I was sure this letter would be different. I was right. She began formally.
Dear Sookie,
I think you’ll find this, if anyone does. There’s nowhere else I can leave it, and when I think you’re ready I’ll tell you where I put it.
Tears welled up in my eyes. She’d been murdered before she thought I was ready. Maybe I never would have been ready.
You know I loved your grandfather more than anything.
I’d thought I’d known that. They’d had a rock-solid marriage . . . I’d assumed. The evidence suggested that might not have been the case.
But I did want chilren so bad, so bad. I felt if I had chilren my life would be perfect. I didn’t realize asking God for a perfect life was a stupid
thing to do. I got tempted beyond my ability to resist. God was punishing me for my greed, I guess.
He was so beautiful. But I knew when I saw him that he wasn’t a real person. He told me later he was part human, but I never saw much
humanity in him. Your grandfather had left for Baton Rouge, a long trip then. Later that morning we’d had a storm that knocked down a big
pine by the driveway so it was blocked. I was trying to saw up the pine so your grandfather would be able to bring the truck back up the
driveway. I took a break to go to the back yard to see if the clothes on the line were dry, and he walked out of the woods. When he helped
me move the tree—well, he moved it all by himself—I said Thank You, of course. I don’t know if you know this, but if you say Thank You to
one of them you’re obligated. I don’t know why, that’s just good manners.
Claudine had mentioned that in passing when I’d first met her, but I believed she’d told me it was simply a fairy etiquette thing. Mindful of my
manners, I’d tried to be sure to never explicitly thank Niall, even when we’d swapped gifts at Christmas. (It had taken every bit of self-control I’d had
not to say “Thank you.” I’d said, “Oh, you thought of me! I know I’ll enjoy it,” and clamped my lips together.) But Claude . . . I’d been around him so
often, I knew I’d thanked him for taking out the garbage or passing me the salt. Crap!
Anyway, I asked him if he wanted a drink and he was thirsty, and I was so lonely and I wanted a baby. Your grandpa and me had been
married five years by then and not a sign of a baby on the way. I figured something was wrong, though we didn’t find out what until later
when a doctor said the mumps had . . . well. Poor Mitchell. Was not his fault, it was the sickness. I just told him it was a miracle we’d had
the two, we didn’t need the five or six he’d hoped for. He never even looked at me funny about that. He was so sure I’d never been with
someone else. It was coals of fire on my head. Bad enough I did it once, but two years later Fintan came back and I did it again, and
those weren’t the only times. It was so strange. Sometimes I would think I smelled him! I would turn around and it was Mitchell.
But having your dad and Linda was worth the guilt. I loved them so much, and I hope it wasn’t my sin that made them both die so young.
At least Linda had Hadley, wherever she may be, and at least Corbett had you and Jason. Watching you grow up has been a blessing
and a privlege. I love you both more than I can say.
Well, I’ve been writing for a long time. I love you, honey. Now I have to tell you about your grandfather’s friend. He was a dark-headed
man, real big, talked real fancy. He said he was sort of like yall’s sponsor, like a sort of godfather, but I didn’t trust him any farther than I
could throw him. He didn’t look like a man of God. He dropped by after Corbett and Linda were born. After you two came along, I thought
maybe he might come around again. Sure enough, he showed up all of a sudden, once while I was keeping Jason, and once while I was
keeping you, when you were both in the cradle. He gave each of you a gift, he said, but if so it wasn’t one I could put in the bank account,
which would have been useful when you came to live with me.
Then he came by one more time, a few years ago. He gave me this green thing. He said fairys give it to each other when they’re in love,
and Fintan had given it to him to bring here to me if Fintan died before I did. It’s got a magical spell in it, he said. You won’t ever need to
use it, I hope, he said. But if you do he said to remember that it was a one time thing, not like a lamp, like in the story, with a lot of wishes.
He called this thing a cluviel dor, and showed me how to spell it.
So I guess Fintan is dead, though I was scared to ask the man any questions. I haven’t seen Fintan since after your dad and Linda were
born. He held them both and then he left. He said he couldn’t come again ever, that it was too dangerous for me and the kids, that his
enemys would follow him here if he kept visiting, even if he came in disguise. I think maybe he was saying he’d come in disguise before,
and that worries me. And why would he have enemys? I guess the fairys don’t always get along, just like people. To tell you the truth, I’d
been feeling worse and worse about your grandpa every single time I saw Fintan, so when he said he was going for good, it was more or
less a relief. I still feel plenty guilty, but when I remember raising your daddy and Linda I’m so glad I had them, and raising you and Jason
has been a joy to me.
Anyway, this letter is yours now since I’m leaving you the house and the cluviel dor. It may not seem fair that Jason didn’t get anything
magical, but your grandfather’s friend said Fintan had watched both of you, and you were the one it should go to. I guess I hope you won’t
ever need to know any of this. I always wondered if your problem came from you being a little bit fairy, but then, how come Jason wasn’t
the same? Or your dad and Linda, for that matter? Maybe you being able to “know things” just happened. I wish I could have cured it so
you could have had a normal life, but we have to take what God gives us, and you’ve been real strong handling it.
Please be careful. I hope you’re not mad at me, or think the worse of me. All God’s children are sinners. At least my sinning led to life
for you and Jason and Hadley.
Adele Hale Stackhouse (Grandmother)
There was so much to think about that I didn’t know where to start.
I was simultaneously stunned, startled, curious, and confused. Before I could stop myself, I picked up my other relic, the worn velvet bag. I
loosened the drawstring, which crumbled in my fingers. I opened the bag and let the hard thing inside—the cluviel dor, the gift from my fairy
grandfather—fall into my palm.
I loved it instantly.
It was a creamy light green, trimmed in gold. It was like one of the snuffboxes at the antiques store, but nothing in Splendide had been this
beautiful. I could see no catch, no hinge, nothing; it didn’t pop open when I gently pressed and twisted the lid—and there was definitely a lid,
trimmed in gold. Hmmm. The round box wasn’t ready to yield its secret.
Okeydokey. Maybe I had to do some research. I put the object to one side and sat with my hands folded on the table, staring into space. My head
was crowded with thoughts.
Gran had obviously been very emotional when she wrote the letter. If our “godfather” had given Gran more information about this gift, either she’d
neglected to mention it or she simply hadn’t remembered anything else. I wondered when she’d forced herself to set down this confession.
Obviously, it had been written after Aunt Linda died, which had happened when Gran was in her seventies. My birth grandfather’s friend—I was
pretty sure I recognized the description. Surely the “godfather” was Mr. Cataliades, demon lawyer. I knew it must have cost her plenty to say— on
paper—that she’d had sex with someone other than her husband. My grandmother had been a strong individual, and she’d also been a devout
Christian. Such an admission must have haunted her.
She might have judged herself, but now that I’d gotten over the shock of seeing my grandmother as a woman, I didn’t judge her. Who was I to
throw stones? The preacher had told me that all sins were equal in the eyes of God, but I couldn’t help but feel (for example) that a child molester
was worse than a person who cheated on his income tax or a lonely woman who’d had unsanctioned sex because she wanted a baby. I was
probably wrong, because we also weren’t supposed to pick and choose which rules we obeyed, but that was the way I felt.
I shoved my confused thoughts back into a corner of my head and picked up the cluviel dor again. Touching its smoothness was pure pleasure,
like the happiness I’d felt when I’d hugged my great-grandfather—but times about two hundred. The cluviel dor was about the size of two stacked
Oreo cookies. I rubbed it against my cheek and felt like purring.
Did you have to have a magic word to open it?
“Abracadabra,” I said. “Please and thank you.”
Nope, didn’t work, plus I felt like an idiot. “Open sesame,” I whispered. “Presto change-o.” Nope.
But thinking of magic gave me an idea. I e-mailed Amelia, and it was a difficult message to phrase. I know e-mail isn’t totally secure, but I also
had no reason to think anyone considered my few messages of any importance. I wrote, “I hate to ask, but besides doing that research on the blood
bond for me, can you find out something about a fae thing? Initials c.d.?” That was as subtle as I could get.
Then I returned to my admiration of the cluviel dor. Did you have to be pure fairy to open it? No, that couldn’t be the case. It had been a gift to my
grandmother, presumably to use in case of dire need, and she had been completely human.
I wished it hadn’t been far away in the attic when she’d been attacked. Whenever I remembered how she’d been discarded on the kitchen floor
like offal, soaking in her own blood, I felt both sick and furious. Maybe if she’d had time to fetch the cluviel dor, she could have saved herself.
And with that thought, I’d had enough. I returned the cluviel dor to its velvet bag, and I returned Gran’s letter to the pattern envelope. I’d had as
much upset as I could handle for a while.
It was necessary to hide these items. Unfortunately, their previous excellent hideaway had been removed to a store in Shreveport.
Maybe I should call Sam. He could put the letter and the cluviel dor in the safe at Merlotte’s. But considering the attacks on the bar, that wouldn’t
be the best place to stow something I valued. I could drive over to Shreveport and use my key to enter Eric’s house to find someplace there. In fact,
it was highly possible that Eric had a safe, too, and had never had occasion to show it to me. After I’d mulled it over, that didn’t seem like a good
idea, either.
I wondered if my desire to keep the items here was simply because I didn’t want to be parted from the cluviel dor. I shrugged. No matter how the
conviction had come into my head, I was sure the house was the safest place, at least for now. Perhaps I could put the smooth green box into the
sleeping hole for vampires in my guest bedroom closet . . . but that wasn’t much more than a bare box, and what if Eric needed to spend the day
there?
After racking my brain, I put the pattern envelope into the box of unexamined paper items from the attic. These would be uninteresting to anyone
but me. The cluviel dor was a little more difficult to stow away, at least partly because I kept having to resist an impulse to pull it out of the bag again.
That struggle made me feel very—Gollum-esque.
“My precioussss,” I muttered. Would Dermot and Claude be able to sense the nearness of such a remarkable item? No, of course not. It had
been in the attic all the time and they hadn’t found it.
What if they’d come to live here in hopes of finding it? What if they knew or suspected I had such a thing? Or (more likely) what if they were
staying here because they were made happy by its proximity? Though I was sure there were holes in that idea, I couldn’t shake it. It wasn’t my fairy
blood that drew them; it was the presence of the cluviel dor.
Now you’re just being paranoid, I told myself sternly, and I risked one more glimpse of the creamy green surface. The cluviel dor, I thought, looked
like a miniature powder compact. With that idea, the right hiding place came to me. I took the cluviel dor out of its velvet pouch and slid it into the
makeup drawer of my dressing table. I opened my box of loose powder and sprinkled just a little over the gleam of creamy green. I added a hair
from my brush. Ha! I was pleased with the result. As an afterthought, I stuffed the disintegrating velvet bag into my hose-and-belt drawer. My reason
told me the ratty object was just a decaying old bag, but my emotions told me it was something important because my grandmother and my
grandfather had touched it.
I had so many thoughts ricocheting in my brain that it shut down for the day. After I’d done a little bit of housework, I watched the college softball
world series on ESPN. I love softball, because I played in high school. I loved seeing the strong young women from all over America; I loved
watching them play a game as hard as they could, full tilt, nothing held in reserve. I realized while I was watching that I knew two other young women
like that: Sandra Pelt and Jannalynn Hopper. There was a lesson there, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
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