"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