A/N: I'm sorry about the very long delay in updating. I've been holding onto this chapter to take a breather and double check that all of my ducks are lined up before I post the ending section. (See, I can't even blame it on PMR.) ;) And thanks to PMR's recently popping her head up, I've included here a summary of chapters 1-24 as a reminder of all that has passed. Fair warning: the summary is long. If you want to skip it, scroll down to the following line. Right…just keep scrolling.
Thanks to new readers/followers, as well as people who have been along on this buggy ride from the beginning. I'm sticking with this story because I like thinking about this northern twist on the SVM series. (And as it turns out, the Amish and vampires have a few things in common.) I can't promise rapid updates, but in upcoming chapters, I will include summaries of the previous chapter. At this point, six more chapters ought to take us to the end. Four of those are written in various stages; the other two are in my head. Thanks again! ;)
Summary Chapters 1 - 24
Sookie Stackhouse, telepath, goes to live on her Gran's farm in Bird-in-Hand with her brother Jason at age 7 after her parents are killed in a flood. Surrounded by Amish farmers, Sookie comes to know the language and customs of a community very different from her own. Feeling pent-up in the rural setting, she looks to the Amish for guidance, for a way to accept the inevitable limitations she experiences as a telepath. Lancaster County, she figures, will be her home for good as she settles into her life as a barmaid at the Virginville Tavern. Even when the vampires come out of the closet, Sookie's path stays on its regular course.
And then one evening, Sookie is surprised to find herself face-to-face with a vampire, none other than her former Amish neighbor Bill Compton, who died years earlier. He's been granted permission to return to his home territory—with the understanding that he will stay out of the public eye—and asks for Sookie's help commissioning a quilt from his sister Sarah. Sarah has married since Bill's human death and lives in the isolated town of Honey Creek, many of whose inhabitants suffer from a genetic condition. Without health care, money is tight for Sarah and her new family.
Sookie readily offers to help, understanding fully she must keep his existence a secret, even from Gran. She goes to the farmer's market, picks up some slippery elm (an herbal remedy) for Gran's heartburn, and while there, stops by Sarah's stand to commission the quilt. Sarah has news: an abundance of celery has been planted on Bill's family's farm, which everyone has taken to mean that Bill's oldest son Tom will soon be married. While they are chatting, one tall, blond, and fangy vampire shows up; it's a strange sighting, for sure, among the typical shoppers of the farmer's market. His presence frightens Sarah and reminds her of the Hexenmeisters, a gang of Amish youth she heard had been planning to visit Fangtasia, the vampire bar in Intercourse.
Upon hearing the news of Sarah and his son Tom, Bill is happy. He's worried, however, about the presence of the other vampire. She's forced to reveal to Bill that she's a telepath, and along the way, agrees to go to Fangtasia to help head off any trouble the Hexenmeisters might encounter there.
Sookie struggles to keep her telepathy under wraps at Fangtasia as she helps the bartender, Long Shadow, bounce a few underage Hexenmeisters—all with excellent fake IDs. The evening goes well until Sookie "hears" a commotion in the men's bathroom as she is dancing with Fangtasia's owner, Eric, the very same vampire she'd seen at the farmer's market. She narrowly helps avert a fight between an Amish teen and an unduly jealous fangbanger. And then as she is waiting with Bill in Eric's office, she picks up evidence of more Amish kids in trouble outside at the dumpster. Eric sends Long Shadow, who stumbles upon a drainer and gets trapped by a silver net. Hearing the struggle, Sookie realizes she's accidentally sent him to the wrong place. She saves him and tries to get the drainer to run, but Long Shadow retaliates. Sookie survives as Bill pulls her out of harm's way, but must stand by as the drainer is murdered by Long Shadow. And then she notices that one lingering Hexenmeister has witnessed the whole attack from the bathroom window; as a result, she must reveal her telepathy to the vampires of Fangtasia. Eric has Pam glamour the witness to forget about the murder, but Sookie can't shake his horrifying mental images and moralistic commentary.
The very next day at work, Sookie finds no reprieve from tensions as a hostage situation unfolds at a local Amish farmhouse. By the end of the day, the hostage taker, a taxi driver named Jim Collins, kills himself, five women and children, and injures six more. The region is shocked by the violence against a peaceful group of people, and draws attention from the rest of the world. One of the victims, Sadie Dietrich, offered herself up as his first victim. Equally shocking, the Amish community immediately and publicly forgives Jim Collins for his horrific crime.
Bill puts the Amish response into context for Sookie, describing to her the Martyr's Mirror, a key text referred to by the Amish. The book details the deaths of over 800 martyrs and espouses forgiveness and non-resistance. As they are talking, Bill suddenly shoves Sookie to the ground to protect her as a crashing noise comes from the direction of the house. He goes to look for the cause, and disappears as Gran calls out from the front door. Sookie jumps up to help her. Together, they discover the ceiling of the smokehouse has collapsed under the weight many years of stashed walnuts by squirrels. After all of the preceding heavy events, it's a relief, but Sookie feels the increasing burden of hiding her goings-on from Gran. What's more, she's been increasingly concerned about Gran's health—her expansive mood, strange bouts of energy followed by exhaustion, and heartburn.
Sam helps ease the tension by inviting Sookie to try out Laurel Run, the new mega smorgasbord and shopping complex that has recently opened. Together, they have a nice evening sampling the menu, but as she's returning to the bar that night to pick up her paycheck, a vampire named Harlen appears, asking Sookie where Bill is and to relay the message that he stopped by to see him.
Regarding the visit, Sookie begins to worry about a few things: that Harlen knew of the connection between her and Bill, that he learned details about her such as her name and place of work, that Bill might be missing, and that he might have more than a friendly relationship with Bill. That's not all Sookie finds on her plate. A photograph of one fangy Eric, smiling at an Amish woman—Bill's sister, Sarah—is published in the paper. In fact, it's from the evening Sookie first met Sarah at the farmer's market.
The timing is terrible. A shocked public looking for an explanation for the violence at the Amish farmhouse finds easy answers by pointing the finger at vampires. The evidence is weak at best: Jim Collins apparently had a well-known hatred of vampires ever since his wife left him, just after vampires came out of the closet. But already one group, the Fellowship of the Sun, has seized on the connection, making full use of the hordes of reporters and television crews still hanging around Amish country. Sookie and Gran run into them—the FotS and news people—at the firehouse, where Gran goes to help sort through the overwhelming quantity of supportive letters and donations being delivered to the Amish. "The earth was made for God's creatures," the FotS signs read, along with "Devil's minions." When a reporter corners Gran for her reaction to the allegation that vampires caused Jim Collins to go on his shooting rampage, Gran responds with a shrill, "Ach! It's Poppycock!"
Sookie hustles Gran inside the firehouse, where she is relieved to find a group of Gran's cronies set up to sort the mail. She leaves her there to run to the Bird-in-Hand-Bugle for her, to place an ad for the Gardener's Guild upcoming holiday home tour. But winding through the country roads, Sookie's thoughts loosen as she remembers Gran's saying: "If you listen through the wall, you will hear others recite your faults." She's flooded by her memories of the events from the parking lot of Fangtasia and the Hexenmeister's judgment of the whole scene, and can't help but question her actions. Right or wrong, she did what she needed to to stay alive—unlike Sadie Dietrich. She shelves her concerns on the matter for the time being.
At the newspaper office, an unfriendly woman she nicknames Copper provides her with the necessary advertising forms. Before she leaves, Sookie takes a moment to admire the Amish country photographs on the wall, including the very one of Eric at the farmer's market. In the meantime, an intense argument breaks out elsewhere in the office, and Errol Clayton, manager and reporter, comes storming into the reception area. Sookie waits for him to drive away before she exits to the parking lot, where she finds a stray cat.
Sookie names the cat Bobbi and takes her home, stopping first for kibble at the PennSupreme. She's startled to find a "Missing" poster of Maudette Pickens buried on the bulletin board, here at her old place of work, and wonders what happened to her. She uncovers the flyer and adds it to the top of the pile.
Later that day at the tavern, Sookie is shocked to learn that the clip of Gran's catchy "Ach! It's poppycock!" has gotten a lot of play in the news. Many are expanding on her words and calling her a vampire sympathizer, a harsh criticism in the context of the accusations being aimed at vampires. Sam, who seems to have knowledge of the FotS from friends in Texas, warns Sookie to be very careful of them. Gran, on the other hand, seems unfazed by her brush with celebrity and moreover, has taken a shine to Bobbi. As she's chatting with Sookie about her volunteer work and the Amish massacre, she says, "Every woman worth her salt does what she has to." Sookie is left still wondering what to make of Sadie Dietrich's hardcore turn-the-other-cheek stance.
That evening, Bill returns to Sookie's window. When she angrily tells him Harlen's message, Bill acknowledges it's a warning that others may know of his presence in Bird-in-Hand. Sookie very pointedly reminds him that she's been diligently keeping his secret for him. Bill responds by indicating he's worked hard to keep her safe and offers her a chance to back out of her exchanges with him and his sister. But Sookie doesn't like the idea of being alone again-she's very much comforted by Bill's quiet mind-and presses him to acknowledge whether their interactions are about more than helping his sister Sarah. Bill assures her he is interested in no one else, such as Harlen, and takes her downhill, through the old orchard, to the abandoned farmhouse where he's been staying. They have a romantic evening, playing Scrabble, talking of his Amish days, and finally, sharing a passionate kiss or two.
Sookie goes to work the next day, ecstatic to feel like a member of "the club." It doesn't take long, however, for her mood to deflate. She has trouble controlling her telepathy on a day when everyone seems to have an opinion about her and Gran. Even Sam acts strangely toward her. And then near the end of the shift, Janella Lennox, a former server from the tavern comes in. She's aged so much that Sookie barely recognizes her. More frightening is the blank space in her head. Janella boasts that she's been with a vampire and presses Sookie to say whether she'd ever dated a vampire—surely someone as freaky as her would have been game. When Janella gets ruder still, Sam boots her out of the bar. And then to cap off her rotten day, Sookie discovers a rumor has been floating that she is pregnant with Sam's baby and has been asking him for money to pay for an abortion.
At home, Sookie sees that her Gran has been on another tear in the kitchen, preparing food for the crew working on the demolition of the massacre site late that evening. It's scheduled for late at night to try to escape the media's ever watchful eye. Gran has crashed in bed, so it's up to Sookie to drive the contributions to the volunteers. Later after she returns home, she finds another story has broken. This time, someone has set off fireworks at the site, sparking a fire that destroys the home and draws news crews.
Before she can learn more, Bill arrives and suggests they go for a walk through the orchard. Suddenly, they meet up with Liam, Malcolm, and Diane, three boisterous and dangerous vampires, toting Janella Lennox and an injured man, Jerry . It's clear that they caused the fire. Sookie tries to help Jerry, but he refuses, throwing his lot in with the vampires. The Blue Ball vampire trio is extremely curious about Sookie, to the point that Bill claims her as his own. This intrigues them more, and they leave with the intent of making it a game to discover whatever secrets Bill and Sookie are hiding.
The interaction shakes Sookie, given Bill's obvious connections with the trio. It doesn't seem possible from the Bill she thought she knew well, the one who once lived as her Amish neighbor. As Bill explains to her, some vampires are happy with the old ways and are not especially interested in mainstreaming with humans and try to cause trouble for the rest of the vampires. "You're not like them," she tells Bill. In response, he acknowledges that he survives by drinking blood, and that there's a part of him that enjoys the thrill of the hunt.
Sookie leaves Bill that night with the understanding that she'll call him after she's had time to think. She's determined to have an ordinary day off. She runs errands, including stopping by Sarah's store to help pick out fabric. Progress on the quilt will be delayed, in part because Sarah has a lot of work to complete. While she's there, another customer, an annoyingly ingratiating woman, seems to make Sarah ill-at-ease.
Sookie returns home to pick up Gran to take her to the farmer's market. The market is a mob scene, packed with tourists and gawkers drawn to Amish life as well as news vans and FotS protestors. But Gran is determined to stay in spite of the crowd, and Sookie worriedly agrees to drop her off and meet her at the lunch counter. After some anxious moments wending through the crowded aisles, Sookie finally finds Gran, and they manage to have a pleasant meal together followed by a stop at the garden center.
Sookie leaves Gran with her plants to get her car. But she gets stuck in a line of cars at a standstill. There's been an accident involving a mule hauling a cartload of pumpkins. Frightened by the yellow strip protecting the media cables stretching across the road, the animal first refused to budge and then bolted, knocking down a bystander. It's Gran. She's killed instantly.
Aside from losing her beloved grandmother, Sookie has to face the viral images of Gran's death circulating on the internet, replayed in the minds of those around her. Nearly everyone can't get enough of the so-called vampire-loving poppycocking Granny, including the FotS, who see it as a sign of God's judgment on those who accept vampires. But at the funeral, Gran's friends prove themselves stalwarts. Sookie finds plenty of her own friends showing their support too, including, Caroline Yokum, Bill's ex-wife, and her second husband John. Afterward, Sam spends time with Sookie, touring the old orchard and clearing out Gran's garden for the season. When he leaves, Sookie feels terribly alone until Bill arrives. Looking for comfort in each other, they have sex.
In the week following the funeral, Sookie works to find her stride without Gran. Arlene comes to help clear out Gran's room. On another day, she clears the smokehouse of walnuts, unearthing some wood carvings of birds. One is a distelfink that Sookie likes to carry in her pocket. When she takes a box of items to Maxine Fortenberry several days later, she does something she hasn't done in a while: she answers Maxine's thoughts. Sookie is thoroughly shaken, realizing how quickly she's fallen out of practice with her telepathy. She takes charge right away, calling Sam to put her back on the work schedule and taking a trip to WalMart for practice with her blocking. Once there, she comes up with a plan to move herself into Gran's room, and treats herself to new bedroom accessories.
Sookie settles back into work well enough, though she faces plenty of unkind thoughts toward her Gran. It seems the FotS has gained traction, and vampires face ongoing scrutiny. The Blue Ball vampire trio only adds to the bad reputation, publicly stirring up trouble at every opportunity. Bill and Sookie continue to worry about them returning to her property.
One evening, Sookie is unexpectedly called to Bill's house to read a person for Eric, a photographer he'd like to use to counter the negative spin vampires have been facing. Bill makes it clear that Eric is ordering her to appear and that she has little choice in the matter. Once there, Sookie attempts to take reasonable control over the situation, banking heavily on the idea that a willing telepath is much more effective than an unwilling one. She tells Eric straight out that she is willing to read his photographer, given that she, too, despises biased reporting. Further, she offers to help out in any other way she can to make sure he gets a fair shake in the press. Eric indirectly consents, calling forth his potential photographer, who turns out to be Al Cumberland, the man famous for his photographs of Amish. In fact, he's the very man who took the picture of Eric at the farmer's market. And, Sookie learns, it was Al who'd been arguing with Errol over the use of that photograph on the front page of the Bugle on the day she visited the newspaper office. As a result of that falling out, Al has severed his ties from the paper permanently. Sookie can't get a good read on Al, but to the best of her knowledge, she figures Al is not working at cross purposes.
On the walk back uphill, Bill presses on Sookie the fact that Eric will want to use her again. He won't let that point die and becomes possessive of her, pressing her for sex right then and there. Sookie refuses and asks him to leave for the night. Only Sookie can't seem to get any peace. As she walks up to her car to retrieve her library books, old high school buddy JB du Rone drives by; his headlights reveal the naked body of a dead woman, abandoned in the shallow drainage ditch.
The police who arrive to investigate don't believe Sookie is guilty of murder, and as it would be confirmed later, the victim was drained by a vampire. The woman is discovered to be an ex-Amish woman from Mt. Joy, which draws more criticism toward the vampires. Everyone, including Bill, assumes it's the work of the Blue Ball vampires, and when they are believed to have perished in a fire set by vigilantes, everyone considers the case more or less closed.
At work, Sookie faces more pressure from visitors prying for information about the Lancaster County vampires. She becomes acutely aware of all of the secrets she is hiding. At the end of the night, when Sam makes an unusual request of her—to stay and have a drink with him—she agrees, figuring she could use a change. And that's exactly what she gets. After spending time chatting, he takes a risk and shares his big secret—by shifting into a dog.
Sookie accepts Sam's revelation well, though when he suggests they get coffee together sometime, she feels hurt he waited for so long to ask. She puts him off for the time being. Bill and Sookie have an important conversation too, starting with the topic of Jonas Miller, a young boy killed by an automobile years ago. While Englishers list the date of death as the day his life support was removed, the Amish consider his death as the day he was struck. This leads Bill to wonder about his own soul, and whether parts of him remain the same, in spite of being animated by something else now. Sookie acknowledges she wouldn't want to become a vampire and is relieved he agrees.
Sookie is called back to Fangtasia to help rid Eric of the Amish teens hanging around his club. They've slipped him explicit love notes and have posed for photographs in "fang girl" t-shirts. With the FotS still picketing nearby, it's another recipe for disaster. Sookie is nervous about her performance; she and Bill decide that for her safety and protection, she should take blood from him beforehand.
From the start of her second visit at Fangtasia, one thing that Sookie can tell Eric about his Amish fans is that their behavior is out-of-the norm for Rumspringa, the running around period of Amish youth. While Long Shadow speculates the teens are taking vampire blood, a possibility Sookie considers unlikely, Eric and Pam wonder whether witches are involved with them.
To gather more information about the loitering teens, Sookie reads two of Eric's employees who encountered them. One, Ginger, has either been glamoured or is under a witch's spell. Sookie can get little information from her, and it's not clear whether her memories have been tampered with for reasons related to the Amish teens or something else. In fact, Sookie suspects Eric called her to Fangtasia in part to see what else she would turn up. She feels the evening raises more questions than it answers, and as a way of keeping herself out of Eric's far-flung affairs, offers to stop by the next time the teens appear outside Fangtasia. Before she leaves, Eric takes the opportunity to flirt and pry her for details on her relationship with Bill.
As Sookie begins to leave the parking lot, Long Shadow suddenly appears and threatens her to not return Fangtasia. It's clear he's worried she might discover something about him. And then when she arrives home and goes to look for her missing cat, Diane attacks. Before she can drain Sookie, Bill manages to escape his own trap and stake Diane. Sookie is surprised by Bill's coldness toward Diane and shaken by the events of the long night. It's not clear to either of them whether Liam and Malcolm are still alive.
Bill cautions Sookie that Eric will want to use her to discover Long Shadow's secrets. Implicitly, they agree to keep Long Shadow's threat from Eric for the time being. Though Sookie would like to put the whole evening behind her, Bill seems intent on discussing Sarah's former relationship with a young man who turned out to be very controlling of her. Except under extreme circumstances, the Amish stance on marital conflict and family strife leans toward "working it out." Sookie begins to panic, remembering Uncle Bartlett, and wonders what it would have been like if her Gran hadn't taken firm action against him. Bill, noticing the change in her behavior, pushes her to tell him what's wrong, but he backs off when she resists.
Disclaimer: The SVM/Sookie Stackhouse series belongs to Charlaine Harris; I'm not profiting from this story except by having fun with her hard and talented work.
Please note this chapter contains a section parallel to the graveyard scene in DUD, with a Lancaster County spin.
Chapter 25: News and The Amish Grapevine
The next morning, I woke to blithely blue skies. I paused for a moment to listen for the birds, and when I heard them, I was both reassured and reminded that I needed to get my storm windows installed.
Never mind that a whole headful of churning worries and concerns threatened to pop to the top. On this day off from work, I'd be damned if I was going to let any of them get the best of me. I threw on an old pair of jeans, tight ones with holes that would have scandalized Gran, even for completing house chores. In nonstop motion, I walked straight through the kitchen, out the front door, and up the bank to the newspaper box. Without even looking at the front page, I tossed it on the doormat and headed around the house to the steps leading to the basement. I did a quick check on my tomatoes, noted a few of them were ready to eat, and then started grabbing storm windows and stacking them in the shade. I'd clean them this morning, install the ones that I could on my own, and store the rest inside the porch. Later, Jason would help me with the tricky ones that always needed creative engineering if I offered to cook him a Sunday dinner. But on second thought, I realized I could ask Bill, and took a thrill at the image of his floating high on the east side of my house. There were ways that having a vampire around was handy, and he'd enjoy being able to do this job.
Returning inside, I grabbed a bucket from the porch and filled it with hot water and ammonia. Using one of those thick orange extension cords, I ran the radio through the porch. And then, finally, I started a big pot of coffee.
The work went fast, aided by tunes, caffeine, gorgeous weather, and the task at hand. I scrubbed away last winter's dirt and dried the windows with soft rags until they sparkled and shone. Although they wouldn't last long, I was satisfied anyway knowing I'd get a good start on the season.
Jason had stopped by to measure the smokehouse for lumber, so I poked inside to check whether it was set for him to begin work. We'd have Sunday dinner together on that occasion, I realized with a surprising jolt of reassurance as I worked out the menu in my head: pot roast with potatoes and carrots, homemade potato rolls, and apple crisp.
Meanwhile, I swept and gathered the remaining butchering tools to stash them in the cast iron kettle, which my grandfather had used to make his popular scrapple. In fact, his recipe still scrawled across the wall, the ingredients—cornmeal, salt, pepper, coriander—measured by the handful. Save for the ceiling, the smokehouse was sturdy, with cinderblock walls painted white. Gran and Grandpa used to smoke the hams outside, over smoldering fires of cornhusks, enclosed by flexible sheets of tin. Then one year, an unexpected breeze had knocked the tin loose and fanned the flames, scorching the meat. The very next day, my grandpa had laid the foundation for this building, determined to never lose a ham again.
I thought about breaking for lunch, but the idea of sitting at the kitchen table alone wasn't appealing. So I let my forward momentum carry me straight to the bathroom, where I gave myself the same kind of treatment I'd given my windows. I stepped out of my shower as a buffed new person, in spite of the faint, but numerous bruises that had developed. After dressing in neat, casual clothes—jeans and a light sweater—I grabbed my book bag, purse, shopping list, and an apple and a granola bar.
Of course I had a few destinations in mind, the library and grocery store being top priorities, but mostly I had the urge to drive and let the roads take me where they pleased. Here and there, I passed decorated houses with dried corn husks tied to front porch pillars, pumpkins, and scarecrows, and even a giant blow-up turkey lawn ornament. In one yard, a group of boys dressed as cowboys and police officers chased each other with toy guns. Luke Skywalker brought up the rear, waving his light saber.
Jason and I used to scavenge the fields of some of the farmers we knew, collecting chunks of broken corncobs that missed the harvest. With a little doing, we'd loosen the hard kernels from the cobs until we'd collected enough to go corning, tossing handfuls of the stuff at peoples' windows to make a clicking noise. Sidewalks of the main street in Bird-in-Hand had been sprinkled with yellow around this time of the year, though it seemed less popular now.
Soon enough, snow would turn the fields into chalk rubbings, textured and spiked with broken cornstalks thrusting out of the whiteness.
"I always liked a heavy snow," Bill had told me, "one that buried the land good and solid, especially when it came time for pruning, around February or so. Made it easier to see what you were doing. One time I clipped myself good and hard." He still had the scar to prove it. "Made for a nice, quiet ride in the buggy too."
And then he'd switched abruptly. "Tom isn't pruning hard enough."
I'd thought we'd been verging on dangerous territory. There was no doubt it had been tough on Bill getting so close to his family without being able to do anything himself.
Before long, I knew where I wanted to go, pulling into a dirt-and-gravel farm lane to turn around and head toward Zweizig's market.
Zweizig's hadn't been Gran's favorite place to shop. At one time, she'd gone there for local produce, honey, and deli items when she couldn't get to the farmer's market. But then John Zweizig had expanded, adding a huge greenhouse and a gift shop that catered to tourists. Prices had skyrocketed, and offended by what she saw as Mr. Zweizig's betrayal, Gran had stopped going there altogether. But it was still the second best center for garden plants.
The stone lot was as full as I'd expected on a prime tourist day. In addition, two horse-and-buggies sat in a separate grassy parking lot, next to picnic tables, a tire swing, and a play house. A group of pre-school age Amish children played tag, using the swing as base, their mass of energy vibrating around them. A couple of tourists had congregated in the lot to snap pictures of the scene.
Once I entered the market through the glass door of the greenhouse, I found what I was looking for right away—a mixed fall planter with cabbages, mums, and pansies. On my way to the cash register, I stopped short when I ran into Sarah Compton, or Sarah Norris, rather.
Sarah had a lovely mental picture of Gran wearing her favorite apron, the one with a cherry pattern and a green checkered border with light blue piping and white eyelet trim. Her hair, thick and glossy and brilliant-white—she'd given Gran the benefit on that point—coiled at the back of her head, as she normally wore it, and though her face showed the deep lines of age, her eyes sparked with a lively kindness. Sarah held onto the image for a moment or two, like she was warming a coin between her fingers.
It was like she was giving me a telepathic treat, an unusual occurrence, to be sure. She gave me a pat on the arm, since a hug wasn't possible with the bulky planter on my hip. "I've kept you in my prayers. I'm sorry I couldn't come to Adele's funeral."
She was feeling sad, a thin stream that snaked and dissipated, and thinking about the distance between Honey Creek and Bird-in-Hand. On that day of Gran's funeral, she'd been preoccupied with something. The memory almost formed, but then, in a snap, she flicked the channel of her brain to the planter in my hands with a control worthy of admiration.
"Thank you. I'm heading to Gran's grave now," I explained, glancing at the planter.
She admired it before exchanging more pleasantries—how she was here dropping off Thanksgiving items to sell—before turning the conversation to my Amish neighbors, Bill's family.
"All of that celery," she said, prompting some gossip. There was nothing quite like the Amish grapevine: they spoke of everyone's business freely within their groups, though the intentions didn't seem to be malicious. For the most part.
"Tom hasn't announced yet, I gather?" Amish weddings were sneaky, often cropping up only two weeks or so before the date, traditionally in November and December, after the harvest season. But ever since Sarah had first dropped the news of the abundance of celery in the family garden, Bill had been speculating his son Tom would be published any day now.
"No, no. Tom won't be announcing. There have been a few changes recently. Tom left the community about a week ago," Sarah said without prevaricating. "Took a job working at a mushroom plant near Reading. He got an apartment with a new girlfriend, who left with him, but now she's back already."
My fall planter was suddenly a lot heavier. "I didn't know."
She sighed. "Ja, vell, no one expected it. Came as a surprise to us all. He'd been dating the Yoder girl for so long, we were all expecting the two of them to publish this fall."
"I wish him well," I said after a pause, feeling at a loss.
"No one knows how he's doing yet. It's too soon to tell."
A sense of unease had settled over us, but in another moment, Sarah's thoughts had moved ahead, which prepared me for the next shocking bit of news about Bill's daughter. "He'll be back for Sarah Isabelle's wedding in two weeks."
"Sarah Isabelle's published?"
Sarah nodded. She was thinking it had been a good idea to plant that celery for Tom.
Now with two bits of startling news weighing on me, I wanted to plunk my container on the ground; instead, I hiked it higher to prove I could and dredged up all the social grace and poise I could muster from years of lessons from Gran. I didn't have to say anything life-altering, after all. Just something sincere. "How wonderful for them. I wish them well too."
Sarah's thoughts confirmed what I had been thinking, that Sarah Isabelle was just a tad young to be married and that she and her future husband had gotten a head start on their family.
She winked, a gesture I didn't know how to read since she was already moving on. "I'm sure you'll get a wedding invitation. But in the meantime, you should stop by and look at the quilt. I had some other work I needed to finish first, but in the past few days, I've been able to focus on yours."
"I'll come as soon as I can," I promised. We said our goodbyes.
\/ \/
Gran's gravesite still had a newness about it. The raw dirt had been patched with turf, which, I noted with satisfaction, was holding up nicely. But I could still see the rectangular outline that marked where the earth had been cut to accommodate Gran's coffin. The small headstone hadn't arrived yet, and without that anchor, the planter I had purchased looked lonely and disconnected. I tried it in the middle and then on both corners, opting at last to place it where her headstone would eventually go.
"I miss you Gran," I said aloud, kicking my shoes off to squirm in the grass, suddenly satisfied I was accomplishing my most important task of the day.
I sat down, my knees folded with my arms wrapped around them, and breathed in the grassy air, touched with the scent of dry leaves. Around me, tree shadows stretched lankily, prodding the warm caramel light of late afternoon. Peace overcame me as I slipped into that wonderful mental place where thoughts glide through without a snag. I thought about all kinds of things with ease, though none with resolution: how I'd gotten to this point not in one giant leap, but in small steps; what more I could do to help Bill, how the vampires and Amish folks might escape the limelight, what I would do about Long Shadow if I had to go back to Fangtasia. And while I was at it, I wondered who I could invite for Thanksgiving dinner and whether my car needed an oil change.
At some point during my musings, two boys rode by on bicycles, the one in the lead casting a glance at his friend behind him and grinning. Several rows away, a group of two sisters and a brother meandered among the gravestones until one of them pointed and called out, "There she is." Aunt Edith. Directly in front of me, a robin hopped-paused-hopped across my field of vision. Somewhere off in the distance, the whir-stop-whir of a weed wacker seemed to echo its movements.
Gradually, as the air picked up a chill, I became aware that I'd been sitting for a long time. I stood, stretched, and brushed myself off. "See you later, Gran. Love you," I said, as though I were just stepping out on an errand. On the way home, I let myself have a good cry.
Hunger took over as soon as I stepped inside my house. Opening up the freezer, I started pulling containers from Gran's funeral. Pork barbecue. Cheesy casserole potatoes. Cope's corn pudding. Banana bread.
While it was heating, I checked my blinking answering machine and found two messages from Sam, one asking if I could fill in for Dawn, who hadn't shown again, and another saying Charlsie Tooten had agreed to come. A third message, from Bobby Burnham, Eric's Day Man, curtly asked me to return his phone call ASAP.
Dinner was ready in minutes, thanks to a combination of the microwave, the toaster oven, and the stove top. I dug into it all, enjoying the home-cooked efforts of my friends and neighbors. As soon as I felt a dent in my hunger, I reached for today's paper and tugged it out of its plastic sleeve.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
There, on the front page, stood Eric in half-naked glory—shirtless, fangs bared—"posing" with his Amish fan club. Apparently the Bugle had no other news fit to print today, because a full page covered snapshots of him: Eric in an empty cornfield, Eric taking a buggy ride, Eric milking the cows, Eric with a hat and suspenders, Eric… Oh, it was easy enough to see he was just a cardboard cutout—probably the very one I'd seen overseeing Fangtasia's souvenir station—with Amish girls and boys draped around him. Somehow, the kids had gotten hold of him and were carting him around town like a traveling gnome.
It was sort of funny.
And it was very bad.
An accompanying article summarized the gist of the recent struggles among the Amish. "A Community in Flux," it was titled. One popular Amish expert from Kutztown University reported his explanation of Rumspringa and the ways that the current "running around" behaviors diverged from the norm, yet one more opinion thrown into the mix. "Adolescence is typically a time for experimentation—the Amish are no different in that way. But we may be seeing more extreme behaviors in reaction to the frightening and tragic killings, as a way of testing the limits and overcoming vulnerabilities in a community once regarded as safe."
I put down my fork, having already eaten too much along with side dish of bad news.
Shame on Errol Clayton, the way he was making use of them, both the Amish and the vampires. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.
I looked at the pictures again. Okay, sure, I could see a picture or two…but a whole front page? At this rate, this story would never die down.
A burning sensation was firing up in my chest. Ugh…I'd made some bad decisions in my life. Today, the worst of them was my diet.
I stood and rummaged through the cupboard over the sink. Did Gran leave behind any slippery elm? Yes, there it was. After reading the directions, I set to preparing it, adding a cup of water in the kettle to boil.
Unbidden, thoughts about Bill popped into mind. With this new news from Sarah, I had a thorny problem on my hands. Perhaps, I could not tell him, but I dismissed that idea at once. Eventually, he would find out since he still seemed to have spotty knowledge of his Amish folks. No, of course I would need to tell him the news. The issue was more of how to tell him.
From time to time, Bill had complained loudly about the strict way of Amish living. I didn't doubt there were things about it that had been hard for him, that he'd struggled at times to follow the rules, but I also thought that he had been committed to that lifestyle and as a vampire, sensed a deep loss—with his Amish folks and God, his chance at salvation. If Bill had a way to change his course, I knew what he'd choose, and it wouldn't involve leaving the Amish by any means. Hearing about Tom…I had to think Bill would have all of the disappointment of a father wanting his son to have a better life.
And as for Sarah Isabelle…I sighed heavily. It went without saying. When it came to women, Bill was a traditionalist; he hadn't had any trouble following that particular part of his Amish heritage.
I sighed again, thinking about the delicate balance of the community. Maybe certain things were never meant to mix.
The water boiling, I poured it into a mug with a tablespoon of the powdered slippery elm and added honey. Then, after tasting it, I added a little more honey.
The stuff was potent. Within moments, I couldn't tell whether my heartburn had gone away, or whether the rest of me was just feeling warm and toasty-cozy. Not bad, I had to say. No wonder Gran had used it all so quickly.
I took more, at which point it even tasted pretty darn good.
In near complete darkness, I wondered whether I'd see my vampire tonight. I cleaned the kitchen, moving slowly, thick and sweet and ooey-gooey. All was well. I was fine. Damn fine.
When the phone rang, I ignored it, choosing instead to escape the loud jangle by stepping outside. I stretched and wondered where to roam. There was no reason to go to the barn, now that Bobbi was gone for good. Passing the old fallen tree, I hopped up, unsteady on its loose, peeling bark. Oops. Whoa! Reaching out to catch my fall, I skinned my palms on the rough surface. I picked myself up and laughed lazily; nothing would prick my sense of wellness. What a fine, crazy sensation this was, open wide to the world without a care or concern for anything that might go bump in the night. Ha! Take that, Liam and Malcolm—if you're still alive—and Long Shadow and…witches, whoever the hell you are. Any placard-wielding fool from the FotS. Who was I forgetting? Eric too.
I entered the old orchard not by the nearest path, but straight through the shrubby undergrowth, where a crunchy blanket of leaves lay year-round. Soon, I reached the tree Tara, Jason, and I had always considered home base and started climbing, my muscles and bones rubbery and numb, but still sturdy enough to hold my weight.
Scooting out on a limb, I called aloud, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
I strained, stretching for the branch just out of reach above me, to see whether I could see the old house from here. Had Bill spent his daytime rest there today? Did he usually light a candle once he rose? Where did he go when he wasn't there?
Suddenly, the branch on which I was sitting gave way with a loud crack, followed by a whole blur of motion, scraping, crashing, and bouncing.
"Oof!"
I landed ungracefully as a tangle of limbs—my own and the one I'd been sitting on, as well as others I had taken down along the way. After a stunned moment, I laughed, realizing I'd actually said, "Oof!" as the air had been forced out of me. I wiggled my toes. I held my fingers out in front of my face and wiggled them too.
Whoa, look at that. See? I was all right. Better than all right.
I was disentangling myself when a pair of feet suddenly appeared. Brown loafers. I didn't jump.
"Sneaky vampire. You didn't scare me," I said.
Bill's face—emanating a gentle Red glow streaked with Gold—bent toward mine. "Sookie! Are you harmed?"
"Look at you!" I marveled. My fingertips grazed the faint light surrounding him, so unlike his typical moonlit glow. He still felt cool, but radiated colors dimly. Oh, it was beautiful, like the western sky past sunset. He made me feel happy and warm inside.
"Are you harmed?!" he asked again, concern evident in his voice.
"Shhh," I grasped his arm, scarcely believing what I was seeing, his emotions playing out like a pulsing light show. Somehow I knew what they meant—me and all of my fabulousness. My fabulosity. Fabuliciousness. A giggle slipped out.
"I'm Super. Super Duper." There was a ride at Hershey Park called the Super Duper Looper, the first rollercoaster in our area that looped upside down. For a while, t-shirts had boasted, "I survived the Super Duper Looper," until a scarier rollercoaster had taken its place.
Bill's nostrils flared. "What have you taken?" His fingers dug into my arm, as though he could squeeze it out of me.
I had to admit that hurt. "Stop it!" I tugged away, from his grip, his skin flickering to Muddy Brown. Naughty vampire. He was wearing a Grateful Dead concert t-shirt, which was a different, but not a bad look for Bill.
"What have you taken?" he said again, insistently. He'd taken his hands off me; now they clenched by his side, which made the muscles in his arms and chest bulge under the fitted tee. Looking more closely, I noticed the shirt was printed in Fraktur lettering: Kaercher Barn, 1987. Huh.
And then I laughed again, because it was just too crazy to believe. All of it. "I took something for heartburn," I explained. My sides ached from laughing. Hoo boy. That was a good one, for sure. "It's good shit," I added. "I missed out on high school partying, but I'm making up for it now." Another snigger slipped out. "With my grandmother's homeopathic remedy."
Bill looked thoroughly concerned, his skin sallowed by Pale Yellow. "Sookie, I'm worried. Something isn't right." He crouched slightly, in ready stance, scanning the orchard around us. "Has someone harmed you?"
I guessed he hadn't heard me the first time. Or he hadn't believed it in spite of my fabulence. My…
I shook myself. "Listen. What I'm saying is true. I took something for heartburn, some old stuff Gran had in the cupboard. It's made me a little…loopy, but it's really all right." I stroked his leg.
Apparently he finally agreed, taking one last careful look around, his nostrils flaring. As he relaxed, straightening to his normal upright position, Pale Yellow pattered away like a brood of baby chicks.
Awww.
In only a short time, we'd been through a lot together, Bill and me. I worried for him, didn't want to see him hurt, and wished dearly for him that his existence weren't so complicated.
A spike of Red flared inside me.
"Oh," I sighed, delighting in its excellence. "I want you to kiss me."
Grey Puzzlement crossed his face—Bill was a veritable rainbow of emotions—but having already checked the orchard, he moved to sit next to me. I watched his butt hover and then sink into leaves—and meanwhile I behaved myself and resisted the urge to stick my hand out strategically. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me to his chest.
I let myself fall into him. All right, I admit it was very Woman's Day of me, wanting to have him nearer, to keep him in Bird-in-Hand with me. For one more moment, I forgot about our impracticalities. How bad could it be, really, to revel in the comfort of something I'd never had, something everyone else took for granted?
"About that kiss." He jostled me gently.
Tilting my head up toward his, I let him grasp my chin, opened my mouth to his, and met the thrust of his tongue. Why not give it all I had? I sank into the shared hush of our kiss, swirling silently with shades of Red and Pink. On and on it went, until I thought the two of us might qualify as a team for the kissing Olympics. His hand, which had slipped from my shoulder to my ribs, had started stroking, his thumb grazing the side of my breast. And then he pressed in that way that signaled he wanted more.
Maybe I could get another round from my champion kisser. One more before everything changed. I rubbed my cheek against his chest.
"What's this?" he asked, concerned anew.
Judas, I couldn't hold out any longer.
I blinked back tears, or at least I tried to blink them back. This was going to hurt us both one and the same. He scooted to face me, leaned in, and licked one away. He shuddered, but to his credit, he didn't come back for seconds, even though plenty of tears were dripping now. With his patient, calm demeanor—Sky Blue—I had the sense he'd wait here forever with me.
But that was the problem: we didn't have forever together here. And my only high ever had been shot through with Sober Midnight Blue. Briefly, I entertained the idea of saying screw it and letting the two of us fall into what would have come next—very fine lovemaking out in the wilds.
No, he needed to know, and I needed to be the one to tell him, and holding back on him now would be wrong—would serve only my own purpose. I fixed onto the Red coursing through me—not my blood—as my spine straightened, my muscles tensed, and my head cleared, sharp and cloudless.
"Bill," I said, grasping his hand. "I need to tell you something I learned from Sarah today."
"Sarah?" That caught his attention right quick.
I gave him a squeeze. I wished there was more I could do for him. Best to do it without meandering. "Listen. I ran into Sarah today at Zweizig's market. She told me that Tom moved away last week. He took a job working at a mushroom plant in Reading."
His eyes studied my face, as though he really didn't believe what I was saying, waiting for me to cry, "Uncle."
"Tom left," he finally said, his words absent of any emotion.
I nodded.
His gaze faltered.
"Honey, it's true," I said gently, hearing the catch in my voice. "Tom moved out to take an apartment with his girlfriend. She didn't last long—she returned—but he stayed. In Reading."
"He can go back too," he said.
I didn't answer, letting him ponder that possibility for a moment. But we weren't done.
"There's more," I prodded.
Bill's eyes had picked up a bit of a wild look, and I knew he was fighting it, that this news hadn't yet penetrated his heart. I guessed what I would say next would do it.
"What is it?" he said tersely, in that same tone Gran had used when she wanted her bad news straight up, without any flowery verse.
"Sarah Isabelle is published. Her wedding is set for roughly two weeks from now."
"Two weeks?" he asked, alarmed now. "She's too young."
"Two weeks," I said firmly, sidestepping the age issue. I tensed for his reaction.
And then Bill flipped. The Red Glow died, snuffed out by Purple Misery, a thick and unwieldy mantle. He seemed to shrivel under its weight. Standing, he started to run, but then stopped abruptly as though he didn't know what to do with himself. He combed his fingers through his hair. He paced. I felt his trapped instinct to move and flashes of stymied rage. But he had nowhere to escape to. No way of changing anything. He was stuck here with the Purple Misery, overwhelming everything else. It draped over him in folded layers, heavier and heavier, growing thicker and more suffocating. My own breathing came in winded bursts, through a strange impulse to suck in enough air for the both of us. "Enough!" I wanted to cry out. This was no good. No good at all.
"Blue and red make purple," I heard my art teacher repeating in my head. I put my hands up to my scalp, wishing I could scrape out the colors.
Bill let out a strangled, choking noise. He fell to his knees, pressed his forehead to my shoulder, and nudged. I stiffened. My heart had softened to the Bill I'd glowed Red with, but I'd lost him to the Purple and all of its complications. For good, now, I thought, my own Purple welling inside. His face—tilted up toward mine—had hardened into a grimace of pain for so much more than the recent state of his family. I'd know this even without my rainbow vision.
And I felt lonelier than ever.
When he nudged me again, I braced my hands behind me to lower myself to the ground. I'd no sooner gotten there when his hands went for my waistband to tug my jeans and panties off in one motion. His knees pressed between my thighs as he unfastened his pants and stroked his penis a few times. Then in quick succession, he reached under my shirt, ripped at my bra, and pushed into me, bracing above me, his lips miles away. I'd been prepared for him earlier, but now the swiftness of him inside jarred me, drawing a gasp.
He set off at once with a committed pace. When my t-shirt slipped down, he simply tore it open. That's where his eyes were drawn—to my breasts, jiggling with his thrusts. But he was determined with his motions, and it didn't take long until my orgasm clutched hard. As if on cue, he groped a breast, sank his fangs into my neck, and joined me. My spasms were only beginning to quiet when a wave of sobs overtook me. They shocked me, the way they came so compulsively, yanked right along by my other release as though they were tethered together.
Bill fell to my side.
"Never baptized," he said. "Neither of them."
\/ \/
I might have slept for a moment then, because the next thing I knew, I was being carried out of the orchard. And I most definitely lost more time because next, Bill was bent over me, nudging me on the daybed. The door to the front porch was open.
"Sookie," Bill prodded me again.
"Hmm?" I stretched
"Eric is outside. He needs your permission to come in."
"Hmm?" I stroked his cheek to see what color I could bring to the surface. At the moment, it was simply his usual pale glow.
"Right now."
"Okay."
"You have to say it."
"Oh. Okay. Eric can come in." I turned to my side and burrowed into the pillow. And then I was being nudged again, and Eric was looming over me.
"What's her problem?" he asked Bill. Eric glowed a little Orange, nothing terribly obvious, which I read as "Determined." I didn't know how I knew, I just felt it inside with my whole body. In my half-awake state, I almost said something about it, but suddenly realizing I was still mostly nude beneath a thin sheet woke me up right quick.
Yes, it was definitely best to keep those kinds of thoughts away from the vampires. I couldn't read their minds, but if they knew I could get a read on them using a homeopathic heartburn remedy…I shuddered to myself. That profound realization was followed quickly by an intense wooziness, one that spun my world first in one direction and then another.
"I'm gonna be sick." I sat up suddenly, struggling to wrap the blanket around me. Neither of them seemed terribly concerned about it, though when I stumbled, Bill reached out to steady me. I would have offered to warm up some blood for my guests, but I needed to hoof it to the bathroom schnell.
I spent an unpleasant time there, first kotsing up and then cleaning up. I was head-to-toe grimy, with smudges of dirt and scrapes all over my body and bits of debris stuck in my hair. Fang marks marred my neck, too, which weren't Bill's neatest work. Still unsteady on my feet, the best I could do was a superficial wipe-up. Some of those "dirt smudges," I quickly realized, were bruises. I brushed my teeth too, which made a big difference, thank goodness, and picked out the softest, stretchiest clothes I could find.
When I returned to the kitchen, not much had changed. The daybed was still rumpled. A trail of dirt and debris led from the front door, to the bed, to the bathroom. Bill and Eric were both standing, obviously doing nothing other than waiting for me.
"You've had adventures tonight," Eric observed.
"Oh, well, that's Bird-in-Hand for you. Just as exciting as Intercourse."
"Not with me," Eric said matter-of-factly.
That called for a snappy comeback, but the way my head was starting to pound like the world's worst hangover, he was already several steps ahead of one-upping. I thought it best to conserve my energy.
"What do you want, Eric?"
I figured he'd launch into his latest trouble with the press, the way he'd been toted about town like a traveling gnome. But instead, he surprised both Bill and me. "I need you to come read my accountant."
"Why's that?"
"I'm missing $60,000."
There it was again—that sinking realization that I was being used for all I was worth. And on this night, with my throbbing head, roiling stomach, and rainbow vision—Eric was flickering Brown, by the way—I'd had enough.
"Nope," I said. "I'm all set here tonight—not going out anymore. And anyway, I don't think it's your accountant who took the money. If I had to put money on anyone, I'd put it on Long Shadow, on account of the fact that he threatened me not to come back to your bar."
"Is this true?" Eric focused on Bill. "Long Shadow threatened her?"
"Yes. On the night Diane attacked."
I'd have to think about this exchange later, when I didn't have fifty other things on my plate. Eric looked like he might say something else, but I cut him off, since I was already on a roll, and laid it all out on the table. "Also, about those photos in the paper, I've had a thought on those…" (more like an experience) "…and the way those Hexenmeisters have been acting out, makes me wonder whether they're using something homeopathic—an herbal remedy or something. They call themselves the Hexenmeisters, so they could be playing around with a spell, too. Using a souped-up homeopathic remedy would make a heck of a lot more sense than vampire blood."
This was Lancaster County, after all. I spoke freely here since Long Shadow wasn't around. I hoped I wasn't just blurting it all out on account of the fact that I was still a little high. I hoped my rationale would make sense in the morning, not having had any time to really mull it over myself.
Bill stepped forward, "Sheriff, she's right. And all of those things are available at Laurel Run."
Huh? Laurel Run? The new mega smorgasbord, shopping complex Sam and I had visited?
Bill cast a significant look in my direction, which I didn't know how to interpret. He was pale glow again, with not even a flicker of color. And as for Eric, he looked like something had struck him.
"Let's go," he said to Bill, as he headed for the door.
Bill hesitated. "Sookie." He approached me and put his hand on my cheek. As quiet and colorless as ever. He might have said something else or leaned in to give me a kiss, but Eric was raring to go, jiggling the handle of the screen door. They left me in my dirty kitchen.
I let it all be.
Except that as my head hit the pillow, I remembered the unhealed wounds on my neck.