Lisa felt little comfort as she climbed the stairs. Before retiring to her room, she stepped up to Maggie's crib, hoping a baby's smile would brighten her evening. "Hey, Maggie, Maggie," she said to the tiny girl who peered at her over the bars.

But rather than smile, Maggie wailed so hard that her pacifier flew several feet.

"Oh, what's wrong?" said Lisa sweetly. She reached dutifully into the crib with both arms, but Maggie contorted her face, screamed forcefully, and wriggled away. Holy crap, thought Lisa. I've never seen her like this. What did she do, swallow a porcupine?

Seeing that Maggie refused to be calmed, Lisa shuffled away. Shortly thereafter, as she lay in bed reading the final chapter of Unnerving Darkness, her mother wandered in for a visit.

"Your father told me you were feeling blue," said Marge. "What's the matter? Did the Springfield Jazz Festival lose another one of its corporate sponsors?"

Lisa trained sorrow-filled eyes on her. "It's horrible, Mom. I'm in love with the most wonderful boy on the planet, but when I'm with him, I forget myself and turn into a reckless fool. I want so badly to see him again, but I don't dare."

"Oh, Lisa, Lisa," said Marge consolingly. "It doesn't hurt to be a little bit reckless now and then. Why, if I hadn't been reckless, you wouldn't have an older brother."

"Thanks, Mom," said Lisa facetiously. I'll make sure to pass on that valuable moral lesson to my own daughters.

"Glad I could help," said Marge. I wonder if birth control pills come in Flintstones shapes.

It was then that the blue-haired woman noticed something disconcerting. "You look a bit pale," she remarked. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Never felt better," said Lisa, trying to turn her attention to the book.

She felt warm fingers caressing her forehead. "You don't have a fever," said Marge. "I guess it's nothing."

Lisa managed to read a few more lines as her mother left the bedroom. Ya know, I am feeling kinda weird, she thought. Maybe it's time to consult the mirror.

Leaving the book aside, she hopped down from the bed and walked to the full-length mirror. She was, indeed, somewhat pale, yet what struck her as odder still was that her reflection seemed…distant somehow…as if she was looking at herself through a cloud of compressed emptiness.

Creepy, she mused. I know I'm not sick. Or am I? I don't remember much of what happened with me and Vladimir on Mount Springfield, except for being happy beyond my wildest dreams. I do recall something about…flu-like symptoms, and mild anemia…omigosh, what if he did suck my blood? Being a vampire, he could've easily put a mind whammy on me to make me forget…

She detected no sign of bite marks on her foggy reflection. How silly of me to suspect Vladimir, she chided herself. I trust him more than I trust my own life, or something like that. He'd never try to drink my blood without my consent…and why would I ever consent to that?

A familiar jingle drifted up from the living room. Maybe some Itchy and Scratchy cartoons will distract me, she thought, taking leave of the mirror.

She found Bart on the couch, and settled down next to him. "Hi, Death…I mean, Lisa," quipped the boy.

"I'm not that pale," she grumbled.

The episode title was Eternal Itchiness of the Scratchy Mind. Scratchy, despondent after breaking up with his girlfriend, timidly entered the Memory Erasure Clinic. Here Itchy, dressed in a scientist's smock and horn-rimmed glasses, strapped Scratchy to a table, attached electrodes to his temples, stuck a pump into his mouth, poked needles into his chest, switched on a computer display to monitor his vital signs, and finally, picked up a revolver and blew his brains out. The waveforms on the computer screen went completely flat. "Another satisfied customer," squeaked Itchy.

This was followed by a short called Itchy Todd, animated in dark Gothic hues. Itchy, a barber, was applying his razor to Scratchy's lathered face. Suddenly, in an orgy of unrestrained violence and wicked laughter, he slashed open Scratchy's throat, lopped off his nose, and sliced off his ears. Blood flew in every direction, staining the dingy windows of Itchy's establishment. In the final scene, Itchy held up a mirror to Scratchy's butchered head, and the cat screamed in horror at the sight of himself.

Bart convulsed with laughter. "Bwa ha ha ha!"

"B-b-blood," mumbled Lisa, her eyes fixated on the TV set. "Blooooood…"

"Bwa ha ha…huh?" Bart looked over at his apparently mesmerized sister. "You okay, Lis?"

The cartoons gave way to a repeat of So You Think You Can Dance. Lisa, once again aware of her surroundings, shook her head vigorously and leaped from the couch. "I gotta go," she said hastily.

Up the stairs she flew without so much as taking a breath. When I saw that blood on the screen, I wanted to drench my hands in it, to lick it off my fingers, she thought. That's not the Lisa Simpson I know at all. What's happened to me?

She glanced briefly at the crib where Maggie was sleeping, then proceeded into her own room, placing herself squarely in front of the tall mirror. What she saw, or rather what she didn't see, was impossible on many levels.

She had no reflection.

She screamed so loud that she drowned out Mary Murphy.

To be continued