Dead Reckoning

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