There was a long silence. I braced myself.
"Sookie," she said, "I love you. You know that. And I loved living with you. It was a godsend to have somewhere to go after that thing with Bob. But right now I'm stuck in New Orleans for a while. I'm just ... in the middle of a lot of stuff."
I'd expected this, but it was still a tough moment. I hadn't really expected her to come back. I'd hoped she'd heal faster in New Orleans - and it was true she hadn't mentioned Tray. It sounded like more than grieving was going on. "You're okay?"
"I am," she said. "And I've been training with Octavia some more." Octavia, her mentor in witchcraft, had returned to New Orleans with her long-lost love. "Also, I finally got ... judged. I've got to pay a penalty for - you know - the thing with Bob."
"The thing with Bob" was Amelia's way of referring to accidentally turning her lover into a cat. Octavia had returned Bob to his human form, but naturally Bob hadn't been happy with Amelia, and neither had Octavia. Though Amelia had been training in her craft, clearly transformational magic had been beyond her skills.
"So, they're not going to whip you or anything, right?" I asked, trying to sound as if I were joking. "After all, it's not like he died." Just lost a big chunk of his life and missed Katrina entirely, including being able to inform his family that he'd survived.
"Some of them would whip me if they could. But that's not how we witches roll." Amelia tried to laugh, but it wasn't convincing. "As a penalty, I've got to do, like, community service."
"Like picking up litter or tutoring kids?"
"Well ... mixing potions and making up bags of common ingredients so they're ready to hand. Working extra hours in the magic store, and killing chickens for rituals every now and then. Doing a lot of legwork. Without pay."
"That sucks," I said, because money is almost always a touchy subject with me. Amelia had grown up rich, but I had not. If someone deprives me of income, I get pissed off. I had a fleeting moment of wondering how much Claudine's bank account might have had in it, and I blessed her for thinking of me.
"Yeah, well, Katrina wiped the New Orleans covens out. We lost some members who'll never come back, so we don't get their contributions anymore, and I never use my dad's money for the coven."
"So, the bottom line?" I said.
"I've gotta stay down here. I don't know if I'll ever make it back to Bon Temps. And I'm really sorry about that, because I really liked living with you."
"Same here." I took a deep breath, determined not to sound forlorn. "What about your stuff? Not that there's that much here, but still."
"I'll leave it there for now. I've got everything here I need, and the rest is yours to use as you see fit till I can make arrangements to get it."
We talked a bit more, but we'd said everything important. I forgot to ask her if Octavia had found a way to dissolve Eric's blood bond with me. Possibly I wasn't very interested in an answer. I hung up, feeling both sad and glad: glad that Amelia was working off her debt to her coven and that she was happier than she'd been in Bon Temps after Tray's death, and sad because I understood she didn't expect to return. After a moment of silent farewell to her, I went to the kitchen to tell Claude that the upstairs was all his.
After I'd absorbed his gratified smile, I moved on to another issue. I didn't know how to approach my question, so finally I simply asked him. "Have you been out in my woods back of the house?"
His face went absolutely blank.
"Why would I do that?" he said.
"I didn't ask for your motivation. I asked if you had been there." I know evasion when I hear it.
"No," he said.
"That's bad news."
"Why?"
"Because the Weres tell me a fairy's been back there very recently." I kept my eyes fixed on his. "And if it's not you, who could it be?"
"There aren't many fairies left," Claude said.
Again, evasion. "If there are other fairies that didn't make it in before the portal was shut, you could hang around with them," I said. "You wouldn't need to stay with me, with my little dash of fairy blood. Yet here you are. And somewhere in my woods is yet another fairy." I eyed his expression. "I don't see you excited about tracking down whoever it is. What's the deal? Why don't you dash out there, find the fairy, do some bonding, and be happy?"
Claude looked down. "The last portal to close was in your woods," he said. "Possibly it's not completely shut. And I know Dermot, your great-uncle, was on the outside. If Dermot is the fairy the Weres sensed, he wouldn't be glad to see me."
I thought he would have more to say, but he stopped right there.
That was plenty of bad news, and another whopping dollop of dodging the issue. I was still dubious about his goals, but Claude was family, and I had precious little family left. "All right," I said, opening a kitchen drawer where I stowed odds and ends. "Here's a key. We'll see how this pans out. I have to go to work this afternoon, by the way. And we have to have a talk. You know that I've got a boyfriend, right?" I was already feeling kind of embarrassed.
"Who are you seeing?" Claude asked, with a sort of professional interest.
"Ah, well ... Eric Northman."
Claude whistled. He looked both admiring and cautious. "Does Eric spend the night? I need to know if he's going to jump me." Claude looked as though that wouldn't be totally unwelcome. But the pertinent issue was that fairies are really intoxicating to vampires, like catnip to cats. Eric would have a hard time restraining himself from biting if Claude was close to him.
"That would probably end badly for you," I said. "But I think, with a little care, we can get around it." Eric seldom spent the night at my house because he liked to be back in Shreveport before dawn. He had so much work to get through every night that he'd found it was better for him to wake up in Shreveport. I do have a hidden place where a vampire can stay in relative safety, but it's not exactly deluxe, not like Eric's house.
I was a little more concerned about the possibility of Claude bringing strange men back to my house. I didn't want to encounter someone I didn't know when I was on my way to the kitchen in my nightie. Amelia had had a couple of overnight guests, but they'd been people I knew. I took a deep breath, hoping what I was about to say wouldn't come out homophobic. "Claude, it's not that I don't want you to have a good time," I said, wishing this conversation were over and done with. I admired Claude's unblushing acceptance of the fact that I had a sex life, and I only wished I could match that nonchalance.