A/N: Hi folks. I know it's been a while since I started this story, but I promise it hasn't escaped my attention. I've been writing ahead and reading a lot, which, I admit, has taken me along a lot of meandering paths, including a little side trip through the thick of PA Amish countryside. Thanks to Mr. MNM for driving and getting us "lost" so I could lean my head out the window like a very happy dog, enjoying the fresh air, peace & quiet, and beauty of rolling farmlands.

At any rate, here's the next chapter. Since the links on FFN have been disabled, I've moved all of the background info to livejournal, but I will continue to post the story here (and try to ramble only there). Hope you enjoy...

Disclaimer: The SVM/Sookie Stackhouse series belongs to Charlaine Harris. I'm not profiting from this endeavor, except by having fun with her hard & talented work.

Ongoing thanks to peppermintyrose for her advice and help with this story and for her insightful livejournal posts, which have given me plenty of ideas about the SVM universe. Thanks also to my chatty & friendly connection with the Amish universe. ;)

Oh, and one other thing...the town Honey Creek that I refer to in this chapter does not exist in Lancaster County. And, of course, this is a work of fiction.


Over the Edge

"Ach!" Gran exclaimed, setting in front of me a "proper" breakfast: two dippy ecks with a side of scrapple and toast. Then, clutching a fist in the middle of her chest, she said, "I've got it something wonderful." I wondered whether she'd been eating too many of her own proper breakfasts.

My bleary eyes met hers, cloudy and milky opaque with age, but sharp as ever. "Did they get?" she asked, stopping her motions, devoting her full attention to my answer.

"Yes, thank you. Perfect, as always, Gran." The corner of my toast pierced the yolk, spilling onto my plate for sopping up. "Have you eaten?"

"Oh, I'm fine." She sat at her spot, at the head of the large farm table, closest to the stove, just as I'd imagined she'd done forever. Formal meals still happened like clockwork around here. It would have been easy for us to slide into an open-up-a-can-of-soup-and-make-a-sandwich mentality, but Gran kept feeding us as though we were our own best company. She still rolled out her own pot pie noodles, thick and meaty and neat and square. "Now it's us girls," she'd say occasionally, once our plates were set before us, and that would be her nice way of prompting me to converse, to fill the silence with spoken words.

There was no doubt a lot of room to fill at that big farmer's table. Plenty of people had come and gone. Grandpa Mitchell. My parents. Aunt Linda. My cousin Hadley was missing. Jason had moved out. She'd talked once about buying a smaller table, but had quickly decided against it. "Where would I work?"

"Right," I'd agreed. "It's your main counter space." And even though we constantly pushed chairs aside to work freely at the table, we always returned them to their positions, ready to welcome a guest.

Once or twice a week, Jason would join us. Jason wasn't a big guy in stature, but he took up more than his share at the table, his legs and arms sprawled out, claiming. It seemed like cheating to me, an illusion of limbs and angles, making himself look bigger than he actually was. I wished he'd contain himself better. I wished that trick would work for me too.

"Sookie?"

"Hmm?" I reached for Gran's homemade apple butter.

"I asked whether you slept okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." I worked fastidiously on covering every bit of my scrapple with the spread. "How was your night?"

"I slept fine until about midnight or so, myself. And then on and off for a few hours."

"Was your heartburn bothering you?"

"No." It was a simple answer, one word, said without reproach.

And then that was all.

Outside, a car passed. My fork clinked on the diner plate, substantial and sturdy. Gran's coffee mug thudded quietly on the tabletop. All of these ordinary sounds were scant distraction from the weighted silence between us. Right there, sitting immediately before Gran, I felt that first degree of separation from her. Lying would be even harder than I'd imagined.

I would have told her about him if he hadn't asked for my silence. She would have been excited. She would have giggled with me about the adventures I'd had last night, whispering in the dark with a vampire. Here in my own home! He'd come for me specifically. For my help.

"I can't be seen," he'd said. "No one can discover I've been here." He'd had those moments of apparent deep concentration, impressing upon me the urgency of his request. I'd nearly giggled at the intensity.

And then he'd relaxed, once he'd seen I wasn't running anywhere.

"You really aren't afraid?"

"No. Not now that you've let me go."

"Most people would have run."

"I'm not most people." It was probably the first time I needed to prove that particular point. "Besides, I know you." I'd worked in the fields next to him. Chatted and laughed with his family and neighbors. Shared food with them. Spilled tears over his death.

He grimaced slightly. "You know the man I once was."

I didn't think it would do any good to venture down the what's-the-same-and-what's-different path, like one of Gran's puzzles where you circle the differences between two pictures. Fangs here. No fangs there.

I sidestepped him. "I reckon if you were planning to do anything bad to me, you would have done it already." At least that's what I hoped.

He seemed to be considering. "And you're willing to help me?"

"It depends on what you want me to do."

I surprised him, I gathered by his pause. Though his expression changed little, the tilt of his head made his brow appear to arch higher. Bill's face had settled in a way that might have been arranged that way forever. As an Amish man, he'd looked old-fashioned. As a vampire, he was ancient. With his beard gone and his hair brushed back, the classic features of his face stood out prominently, from the hard, straight line of his nose, to his sculpted lips, to his high cheekbones.

And then finally he laughed, rumbly and so deep and low that it was easier to feel than hear. I wondered what inside joke I'd missed.

"Sarah never married. At least not while I was…here."

"I remember her." His sister had been part of the family, helping with children and tending to the fields and all of the other endless chores.

He nodded. "My wife re-married sometime during the second year after I left. And then at some point afterward, Sarah left. She married a widower over in Honey Creek with nine children."

I noticed that he mentioned his wife in a cursory manner, on the way to telling me about his sister. It seemed to me that he was primarily concerned about his sister, though his reasons weren't clear. Having nine children was a lot, but certainly not unusual for an Amish family. Seven was about average.

He continued. "Sarah works part-time at the fabric store in Paradise and sets up her own craft table at the farmer's market once a week. She'll be there tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? I work during the day." I had a feeling he was working up to asking me to see her.

"Yes. She'll be there until late. The indoor section doesn't close until 9."

"You want me to find her?"

"I'd like you to commission a quilt from her. I will pay for it, of course, but she mustn't know the money is coming from me."

"All right…," I said, not in agreement, but by way of consideration. Was this about money? The folks out in the Honey Creek community struggled more. They lived isolated from other districts in the settlement, and I'd heard they'd had a lot of trouble with an unusual inherited disorder that tended to run in Amish communities.

"It's imperative she not know the money is coming from me. You understand?"

I'd gathered he didn't want to be outed to his family. Maybe I should have shown more patience, but his condescending tone plucked a nerve attuned to such jangling. "I don't know what you've heard about me, but I'm not stupid, and I don't take orders."

Especially when I wasn't working.

"You're different." He squinted a bit, looking me in the eyes, as though he could force me to come in more clearly to him. Others were often trying to figure me out, usually missing the correct answer because it was too far outside of their world. Their antenna wouldn't ever pick up my wavelength.

"Boo!" I wanted to say. I'd freaked out enough people in my lifetime, but I doubted I could scare a vampire. Still, I wanted to make one thing clear to him, which might scare him well enough. "I'm not obedient like an Amish woman." I meant it not as an evaluation or judgment, but as a simple fact.

If Bill was bothered, he didn't show it. "What do you ask in return?" he asked simply, in business mode.

His question stumped me and left me flustered. "Oh, no. That's not what I meant. I'm not helping you because you're telling me what to do or to ask anything in return. I'm just…willing to help. You were my neighbor…" I didn't think I'd need to explain. Wasn't that what Amish folks did? Help their neighbors in need?

By his conspicuous silence, I gathered he was stumped too. "It's all right. I expect to do a favor in return," he finally responded, stumping me right back. We seemed to be passing it back and forth. Would I insult him by refusing?

"We'll settle up later," I finally offered, vaguely. "I can see your sister tomorrow after work." I'd have to make sure my tables were in good order before my shift ended so I wasn't late leaving, but if I quit on time, I'd be able to do it.

He seemed satisfied with that plan and didn't offer any other details. I guessed it wasn't my business why he wanted to help her and that he would have told me if it were something I needed to know. I wasn't about to press him for anything personal that might dredge up unhappy feelings.

"Sookie?" Gran looked up from her paper.

"Hmm?"

"Do you know this girl Maudette Pickens?"

"Sure. She was in my class. Sometimes I see her at the PennSupreme. Why?"

"There's a mention in here that she's missing."

"Really? For how long?"

"It's unclear because she worked the midnight shift four nights ago and then didn't turn up missing until two nights later, when she was due to work again. No one really knows whether she ever made it home in between shifts."

I considered bland Maudette and my impression of her as someone who simply went along with the flow. She might have been gone for as long as 48 hours before anyone noticed she was missing, a sobering thought.

Gran shuffled her paper again. "Looks like Greg Aubert is chairing the 100th Jack Frost parade."

"Oh?" Jack Frost was a huge annual event, bringing in over ten thousand people along its two-mile course.

"Mm-hmm. And this year for the anniversary there are special events. Hay rides. Pumpkin catapulting. A celebrity look-alike contest. Baking contests. Whoopie pie eating contest…" She trailed off before folding the paper closed. "And Jason knew her?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Maudette. Jason knew her?"

"Yes." It was my one-word answer. Gran wouldn't ask anything more.

I stood up with my plate and pointed to her coffee mug. "Are you done?"

She didn't seem ready, but reluctantly slid it over to me.

"I shouldn't have had even one cup." She pressed again at her chest.

"Do you have any more of that natural remedy you were using?"

"Slippery elm." She shook her head. "It's all."

"I'll pick up some more for you today. I'll just swing by the farmer's market after work."

And so it was settled. As I set to doing the dishes, I realized with some disquiet I'd come up with a valid reason for a trip to the farmer's market with no trouble at all.

\/ \/

Work went quickly, buoyed by the spring in my step that gained in strength, thanks to my little secret. Someone had counted on me to do something important for him. Somehow, I felt a part of the club even if I wasn't a member.

By the time I left Merlotte's and drove to the farmers' market in Intercourse, the sky had deepened to a navy blue. Outdoors, under the cover of a pavilion, sturdy wooden tables had been derailed from their neat and orderly line, now wobbly, crooked, and sadly unadorned. Only hours ago, these tables had been full of colorful seasonal wares. Apples. Apple butter. Lettuces and swiss chard. Squash. Pumpkins. Fall gardening plants. Dried cornstalks. Bittersweet. Tonight, the glow of the sparse bulbs dangling from the rafters drew attention to the dingy emptiness and well-trampled trash underfoot. Surprisingly, the lingering scent of manure eased the gloom.

I wandered into the main indoor building, a squat cinderblock structure with a cement floor that had acquired, over the years, a number of wings and annexes. During the day, during its busiest time, this place could look rather confusing, with the crowds and mishmash of vendors, but there really was an order to it, apparent now with only a few lingering customers. Down the center, a butcher shop held the main position, with a long bank of glass counters displaying refrigerated items such as freshly-butchered meats, lunchmeats, ring bologna, red beet eggs, souse, and pepper cabbage, as well as hot items such as potato filling, chicken pot pie, and chicken corn noodle soup. Two other smaller vendors, a Pennsylvania-German bakery and a penny candy business, extended down the center beyond the butcher. (If I had time, I'd stop by for some sticky buns later.) Two aisles flanked both sides of the center business, along which a wide variety of businesses sold goods ranging from leather belts and watches to handmade birdhouses.

Country Herbals occupied a space immediately opposite the main entrance, large enough to be entered as a separate contained store, with a set of center shelves loaded with plastic clamshell packs full of all kinds of herbs and powders. Additional shelves lined the far wall, and at both ends, pegboard displays with hooks displayed bagged items.

Somewhere in all of these mystery herbs was a package of slippery elm. I didn't need to wonder too long before a man wearing a blue Country Herbals vest approached me. "May I help you find something?" Grinning ebulliently, he looked young and fresh, with smooth-shaven cheeks betraying no hint of a beard, even at this late hour of the day. That feature combined with his neatly-cut, short chestnut brown hair gave him a boy-next-door appearance.

And he was a broadcaster.

A loud one.

I'm Amos! He was practically shouting in his head, completing his introduction. I took an instant to fortify myself, and as I did, he spoke. "I'm Amos." The effect was bizarre, reverberating like we were standing in the middle of a stadium headlining a pro-wrestling act. As I concentrated, my crazy grin yanked into place, which made Amos smile some more.

"Hi, I'm Sookie. Yes, I'm looking for something." Soon I would catch my new equilibrium, but until then, I was having a hard time thinking clearly. "I'm looking for a remedy for heartburn."

"Aloe vera juice? Marshmallow root tea?" Amos had started rummaging around on the shelves.

"I don't think so. It's for my grandmother. Poplar?" I remembered it was the name of a tree.

"Oh! Slippery elm!" He pointed at me, projecting an image of my grandmother—or maybe it was someone else—with an extra thick head of white hair and quite a few years of wrinkles erased from her face. "Are you Adele's granddaughter?" He didn't let me answer before he continued. "I remember her. She was here with her friend…Margaret?"

"Maxine," I corrected.

"Say…she didn't finish all of that did she? Has she been to the doctor?"

"She's fine," I said, more sharply than I intended, still working to shut the steel plates of my mind to Amos's blitz. Gran had been to the doctor only in the past week, and had gotten her stamp of good health, save for the acid reflux and arthritis that slowed her down.

He gave me a quick, hesitant glance, but clearly his thoughts were already racing ahead. He'd continued rummaging around on his shelves, wondering whether he'd given Gran a weak batch. And then suddenly an image of his father, a stern and imposing-looking Amish man, hovered over both of us, and Amos started thinking in a mix of Pennsylvania German and English. Amos hadn't been baptized into the Amish community, leaving home at age 18 without looking back, an unusual feat for someone making that particular choice.

"Ah," he finally said aloud, echoing. He beamed and held out a small clam pack. "But tell her not to use as much. A little oughta go a long way."

I took the pack from him and moved quickly toward the checkout counter, ready to break from Amos's intensity. "I'll tell her. Thank you. How much do I owe you?" I grinned hard, feeling the strain of holding up those steel plates blocking his thoughts from my head.

"6.99. Trust me. That's a good deal."

Amos didn't give up easily and couldn't seem to take any hints. I nodded again and fumbled for the cash in my wallet. Darting out the door, a "denki" escaped from my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

"Hey!" I heard him call, but he didn't follow.

I really wanted a sticky bun.

Sarah's booth was located along one of the long sides of the building, about midway back, not too far from the belt and watch vendor. She'd hung a large, beautiful quilt along the back wall, and on her front counter, she'd set up a display of seasonal crafts—placemats and table runners, wall hangings, stuffed pumpkins and such. She was standing outside her booth, starting to pack these items when I approached.

I had just introduced myself to Sarah when I couldn't help but notice the sauntering form of a very tall figure, moving in our direction. He wore a tight black t-shirt with one word on it. Come.

He was a vampire.

I knew from his glow and the lovely silence that floated with him, carrying him along in a bubble. His thick blond hair brushed the top of his broad, solid shoulders. He looked right back at me intently.

I swallowed hard, my throat dry.

Sarah must have been curious about what was distracting me, because she turned quickly to see the vampire too. He ignored her, still holding my gaze, and then nodded, his face opening up with a small, but overtly confident smile...

…complete with fangs descending.