From Dead to Worse

bothering to hide my relief.
    “She’s a sly one,” he said, and I was sorry to hear an element of admiration in his voice.
    “She’s a spy,” Amelia said. Amelia could cut right to the chase.
    “Who for?” Calvin tilted his head to one side, unsurprised and curious.
    I told him an edited version of the story, a story I was extremely sick of repeating. Calvin needed to know that the Pelts had a big beef with me, that Sandra would hound me to my grave, that Tanya had been planted as a gadfly.
    Calvin stretched out his legs while he listened, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing brand-new jeans and a plaid shirt. He smelled like fresh-cut trees.
    “You want to put a spell on her?” he asked Amelia when I’d finished.
    “We do,” she said. “But we need you to get her here.”
    “What would the effect be? Would it hurt her?”
    “She’d lose interest in doing harm to Sookie and all her family. She wouldn’t want to obey Sandra Pelt anymore. It wouldn’t hurt her physically at all.”
    “Would this change her mentally?”
    “No,” Octavia said. “But it’s not as sure a spell as the one that would make her not want to be here anymore. If we cast that one, she’d leave here, and she wouldn’t want to come back.”
    Calvin mulled this over. “I kind of like that ole girl,” he said. “She’s a live one. I’ve been pretty concerned over the trouble she’s causing Crystal and Jason, though, and I’ve been wondering what steps to take about Crystal’s crazy spending. I guess this kind of brings the issue front and center.”
    “You like her?” I said. I wanted all cards on the table.
    “I said that.”
    “No, I mean, you like her.”
    “Well, her and me, we’ve had some good times now and then.”
    “You don’t want her to go away,” I said. “You want to try the other thing.”
    “That’s about the size of it. You’re right: she can’t stay and keep on going like she is. She either changes her ways, or she leaves.” He looked unhappy about that. “You working today, Sookie?”
    I looked at the wall calendar. “No, it’s my day off.” I’d have two days in a row off.
    “I’ll get aholt of her and bring her by tonight. That give you ladies enough time?”
    The two witches looked at each other and consulted silently.
    “Yes, that will be fine,” Octavia said.
    “I’ll get her here by seven,” Calvin said.
    This was moving with unexpected smoothness.
    “Thanks, Calvin,” I said. “This is really helpful.”
    “This’ll kill a lot of birds with one stone, if it works,” Calvin said. “Of course, if it don’t work, you two ladies won’t be my favorite people.” His voice was completely matter-of-fact.
    The two witches didn’t look happy.
    Calvin eyed Bob, who happened to stroll into the room. “Hello, brother,” Calvin said to the cat. He gave Amelia a narrowed-eye look. “Seems to me like your magic don’t work all the time.”
    Amelia looked guilty and offended simultaneously. “We’ll get this to work,” she said, tight-lipped. “You just see.”
    “I aim to.”
    I spent the rest of the day doing my laundry, redoing my nails, changing my sheets—all those tasks you save up for your day off. I went by the library to swap books and absolutely nothing happened. One of Barbara Beck’s part-time assistants was on duty, which was good. I didn’t want to experience the horror of the attack all over again, as I surely would in every encounter with Barbara for a long time to come. I noticed the stain was gone from the library floor.
    After that, I went to the grocery store. No Weres attacked, no vampires rose. No one tried to kill me or anyone I knew. No secret relatives revealed themselves, and not a soul tried to involve me in his or her problems, marital or otherwise.
    I was practically reeking with normality by the time I got home.
    Tonight was my cooking night, and I’d decided to fix pork chops. I have a favorite homemade breading mix that I make in a huge batch, so I soaked the chops in milk and then dredged them with the mix so they were ready for the oven. I fixed baked apples stuffed with raisins and cinnamon and butter and popped them in to bake and I flavored some canned green beans and some canned corn and put them on low heat. After a while, I opened the oven to put in the meat. I thought about making biscuits, but there seemed to be more than enough calories on board.
    While I cooked, the witches were doing stuff in the living