Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [926]
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 room. They seemed to be having a good old time. I could hear Octavia’s voice, which sounded very much like it was in teaching mode. Every now and then, Amelia would ask a question.
I did a lot of muttering to myself while I cooked. I hoped this magical procedure worked, and I was grateful to the witches for being so willing to help. But I was feeling a little sideswiped on the domestic front. My brief mention to Amelia that Octavia could stay with us for a little while had been a spur of the moment thing. (I could tell I was going to have to be more careful in conversations with my roomie from now on.) Octavia hadn’t said she’d be in my house for a weekend, or a month, or any measure of time. That scared me.
I could have cornered Amelia and told her, “You didn’t ask me if Octavia could stay right now at this moment, and it’s my house,” I supposed. But I did have a free room, and Octavia did need someplace to stay. It was a little late to discover that I wasn’t entirely happy at having a third person in the house—a third person I barely knew.
Maybe I could find a job for Octavia, because regular earnings would allow the older woman her independence and she’d move out of here. I wondered about the state of her house in New Orleans. I assumed it was unlivable. For all the power she had, I guess even Octavia couldn’t undo the damage a hurricane had done. After her references to stairs and increased bathroom needs, I’d revised her age upward, but she still didn’t seem any older than, say, sixty-three. That was practically a spring chicken, these days.