From Dead to Worse

anymore,” Calvin said.
    “You don’t tell me what I’m going to do, Calvin Norris!” Tanya shot back. “I won’t go shopping because I don’t want to go, not because you tell me not to.”
    Calvin looked relieved.
    Amelia and Octavia looked relieved.
    We all nodded simultaneously. This was Tanya, all right. And she seemed to be minus the destructive guidance of Sandra Pelt. I didn’t know if Sandra had whipped up some witchcraft of her own, or if she’d just offered Tanya a lot of money and talked her into thinking Debbie’s death was my fault, but the witches appeared to have been successful in excising the tainted Sandra portion of Tanya’s character.
    I felt oddly deflated at this easy—easy to me, that is— removal of a real thorn in my side. I found myself wishing we could abduct Sandra Pelt and reprogram her, too. I didn’t think she’d be as easy to convert. There had been some big pathology going on in the Pelt family.
    The witches were happy. Calvin was pleased. I was relieved. Calvin told Tanya he was going to take her back to Hotshot. The somewhat-puzzled Tanya made her departure with a lot more dignity than her entrance. She didn’t understand why she’d been in my house and she didn’t seem to remember what the witches had done. But she also didn’t seem upset about that confusion in her memory.
    The best of all possible worlds.
    Maybe Jason and Crystal could work things out now that Tanya’s pernicious influence was gone. After all, Crystal had really wanted to marry Jason, and she had seemed genuinely pleased that she was pregnant again. Why she was so discontented now . . . I simply didn’t get it.
    I could add her to the long list of people I didn’t understand.
    While the witches cleaned up the living room with the windows open—though it was a chilly night, I wanted to get rid of the lingering smell of the herbs—I sprawled on my bed with a book. I found I wasn’t focused enough to read. Finally, I decided to go outside, and I threw on a hoody and called to Amelia to let her know. I sat in one of the wooden chairs Amelia and I had bought at Wal-Mart at end-of-summer clearance-sale prices, and I admired the matching table with its umbrella all over again. I reminded myself to take the umbrella down and cover the furniture for the winter. Then I leaned back and let go of my thoughts.
    For a while it was nice to simply be outside, smelling the trees and the ground, hearing a whip-poor-will give its enigmatic call from the surrounding woods. The security light made me feel safe, though I knew that was an illusion. If there’s light, you can just see what’s coming for you a little more clearly.
    Bill stepped out of the woods and strolled silently over to the yard set. He sat in one of the other chairs.
    We didn’t speak for several moments. I didn’t feel the surge of anguish I’d felt over the past few months when he was around. He barely disturbed the fall night with his presence, he was so much a part of it.
    “Selah has moved to Little Rock,” he said.
    “How come?”
    “She got a position with a large firm,” he said. “It was what she told me she wanted. They specialize in vampire properties.”
    “She hooked on vamps?”
    “I believe so. Not my doing.”
    “Weren’t you her first?” Maybe I sounded a little bitter. He’d been my first, in every way.
    “Don’t,” he said, and turned his face toward me. It was radiantly pale. “No,” he said finally. “I was not her first. And I always knew it was the vampire in me that attracted her, not the person who was a vampire.”
    I understood what he was saying. When I’d learned he’d been ordered to ingratiate himself with me, I’d felt it was the telepath in me that had gotten his attention, not the woman who was the telepath. “What goes around, comes around,” I said.
    “I never cared about her,” he said. “Or very little.” He shrugged. “There’ve been so many like her.”
    “I’m not sure how you think this is going to make me feel.”
    “I’m only telling you the truth. There has been only one you.” And then he got up and walked back into the woods, human slow, letting me watch him leave.
    Apparently Bill was conducting a kind of stealth campaign to win back my regard. I wondered if he dreamed I could love him again. I still felt pain when I thought of the night I’d learned the truth. I figured my regard would be the outer limits of what he could hope to earn. Trust, love? I