Dead But Not Forgotten (16 page)

I kept on pulling. Minda might be out of play, but her spell wasn't, not quite; there was still enough magic in the air to keep those clouds spinning, and that meant I had to keep doing my own sort of spinning, chanting my triplicate spells and ripping impossible yarn out of the troubled sky.

I don't know how long that went on. I just know that the last length of yarn dropped into my hands as the final storm cloud wisped away into nothingness, and I collapsed backward into Bob, who seemed like the most solid thing left in a half-faded world, and he caught me before I hit the mud, and my eyes closed. Then my spell was cast, and there was nothing else for me to do but pass out in the least ladylike way possible.

I woke up lying on the grass in front of our car, which was a serious improvement on the muddy bank where I'd lost consciousness. Bob had piled his Windbreaker up under my head as a sort of pillow, and I appreciated the gesture more than I could say. Bob himself was sitting a few feet away, cross-legged, winding what looked like lengths of storm-colored yarn into balls.

“Is that it?” I sat up, blinking. “Is that the stuff I pulled down out of the storm?”

“It is,” he replied. “Care to explain how you did it?”

“I haven't the faintest clue, but won't we have a nice time figuring it all out?” I beamed at him. I was exhausted down to the bone, but I was also damned proud of myself. I'd done something completely new. Something even better than calling a single wind. Which reminded me . . . “Where's Minda?”

“I didn't see her come out of the water.”

“Good,” I said viciously. “Maybe the gators got a treat.”

“Could be,” said Bob.

I leaned forward, plucking at one of the trailing pieces of yarn. “I'm going to need to learn how to knit.”

Bob's eyebrows raised. “Why's that?” he asked.

“Well, I figure it says something nice about my skill as a witch if I knit myself a sweater out of sky, don't you?”

Bob blinked. And then, to my relief and delight, he began to laugh.

“Come on,” I said, picking myself up and offering him my hand. “Let's go home. I want a slice of cherry pie.”

JEANNE C. STEIN

Most of the readers of the Sookie novels were shocked to find out that Sookie's beloved and revered Gran had conceived her two children out of wedlock. How did this out-of-character union come about? In Jeanne Stein's story, we find out.

—

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Adele Hale Stackhouse, Sookie's loving Gran, had a secret she carried with her to the grave. It wasn't until after her death that Sookie found a letter among her grandmother's things and the secret became known.

Sookie's real grandfather was a fairy.

The letter was scant in detail. Adele admitted she'd been unfaithful to her husband, Mitchell, with a beautiful, part-human fairy named Fintan, who walked out of the woods around her home one day and not only swept a storm-downed tree out of her driveway, but swept Adele off her feet as well. They made love, more than once, resulting in the birth of Sookie's father, Corbett, and two years later, in the birth of his sister, Linda.

In her letter to Sookie, Adele is vague about her relationship with Fintan. She was apologetic about deceiving her husband, Mitchell, but tells us that after five childless years, she and Mitchell were desperate for a baby. She told us why she had an affair, but until now, the details of that fateful meeting with Fintan were lost. Certainly, Sookie never imagined learning more. It's possible she didn't want to. It wasn't easy for Sookie to accept that her grandmother had been unfaithful, even though she and Jason were the products of that infidelity. It may even be that Sookie didn't want to believe the story was true.

Until fate stepped in.

Fate came in the form of a journal, found when Sookie and Sam were performing the spring cleaning ritual—a rite raised to an art form in the South. Sam found the journal while chasing a dust bunny under an old dressing table, Adele's dressing table, in an upstairs bedroom. He had shoved it away from the wall when a loose board fell off the back. When he went to push the board back into place, he saw the journal stuffed in the space between two drawers. Opening it, he quickly recognized what it contained. His first reaction was to keep it from Sookie. Her life was just beginning to come together, she was happy, her future bright, her faith in her family secure. But he also knew that Sookie was never one to run from the truth. She had a right to the journal. What she did with it—read it, burn it, or put it back in its hiding place—had to be her decision.

And so the journal of Adele Hale Stackhouse was placed in the hands of her granddaughter. How I ended up with it, I choose not to reveal at this time. I will say, however, that I have Sookie's permission to present an abridged version of what it contained. I have faithfully reproduced Adele's thoughts about the events that occurred. The entire journal covers nine months, from the day Fintan appeared to the birth of Adele's son. I am presenting here only the first few days—days that changed her life forever. That she transcribed details of their conversations, that her emotions were so thoroughly and wonderfully depicted, made my job easy. Perhaps one day, the entire journal can be made public.

Some may see this as a story of betrayal and infidelity. Others, a story of a good woman beguiled against her will by a beautiful creature. Sookie never told me how she felt about it. I suspect, knowing her as I do, that she might see it as I do . . .

A love story.

SUNDAY, JUNE 27, 194–

I've never been one to write down my thoughts, to keep a diary or journal. I don't know why I feel the need to do it now. No, that's not entirely true. I think this is my way of being sure I'm not losing my sanity. If I record the events as they happened, maybe I can make sense of it all.

It began two days ago.

Mitchell had left for Baton Rouge during a terrible thunderstorm early Friday morning to pick up work supplies. I was alone, sitting on the porch, watching lightning bounce from treetop to treetop in the woods, wondering if he would turn around and come back. Hoping that he would. Our fifth anniversary had just passed and instead of marking the date with cake and candles, we marked it as another reminder that we were still childless. Oh, not in words. Rather as a weight we try our best to ignore though it bears down on us more and more. It colors everything we do in a pale wash and makes us hesitant to express our love the way a married couple should.

So I sat alone, feeling lonely and depressed. Normally, I love the rain, even when it pounded like it did that morning, stripping leaves off the apple trees and making miniature lakes on the dusty ground of a dry spring. Life quickened as I watched, reviving, grass and flowers lifting their faces to capture the moisture like a child opening his mouth to catch a snowflake. Something loosened in me, too. I was spellbound by nature's majesty.

A flash of lightning split the sky, followed immediately by a roar of thunder . . . then another sound. I watched as a huge pine failed, shuddering, creaking, screaming as it crashed to the ground, its thirty-foot length blocking the road onto our property.

My first thought: Mitchell couldn't get back to the house now even if he had a mind to.

My second thought: However was I going to move that tree?

Even as these ideas formed, the rain stopped. As abruptly as it started. The clouds parted so quickly and the sun returned so blindingly that steam rose from the ground like smoke. I pulled on mud boots and walked out to survey the fallen tree. We had no close neighbors except the snooty Comptons across the graveyard, and no telephone to call them even if I thought they would come to help. Seemed to me my only choice was to hack away the middle, leaving a path a car's width. Mitchell could clear the rest when he returned, but I faced a monumental chore. The tree was green and at least three feet across. With a sigh, I went to the toolshed to fetch a saw.

Mitchell was the handyman. I looked around stupidly to decide which of the two or three saws hanging in his workshop would do. I chose the biggest one and hauled it back to the tree.

It was slow going. It seemed as if I had been sawing for hours and I had just barely cut into the tree's girth. My shoulders and arms ached. I finally decided to take a break and go back to the house for a cold drink. I had hung laundry out back before the storm hit and knew it would be hopelessly drenched, so I thought I might as well bring it back inside. Another rinse in the tub, another crank through the wringer, and maybe there would still be enough time to let it dry in the sun.

All these little details are so sharp in my mind. As if leading up to what happened next made them important. I took down the laundry and put it back in the tub.

But somehow I knew I couldn't put off the real chore any longer. I had to get back to that tree.

Back in the yard, that's when I saw him. No, that's not quite right. I felt him first. A tingling on the back of my neck. Not like when you're frightened. More like when you anticipate something happening. Something you know is going to change your life. Something you want.

Then there was a scent on the air. Like the earth. Rich, fertile, full of the flowers of spring. Feminine yet darkly masculine, too. Musk. I'd never experienced anything like it.

He appeared out of the woods. He was mist, then fog, then fully formed. I should have been frightened—I knew about ghosts and spirits said to populate the forest and graveyard—but he was so beautiful. And he was smiling. At me. I had to resist the urge to run to him. I held my ground and watched him as he approached. I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath until he spoke to me and, like a spell had been broken, I felt my chest heave.

He held out a hand. “Are you all right?”

I clasped my hands to my chest and nodded. It was all I was capable of doing.

His smile widened. “You need help with this,” he said, gesturing to the tree. “Let me take care of it.”

I stepped back, still too brain numb to form words. He took off his jacket and laid it on the ground, and I thought he would reach for the saw embedded in the tree trunk. Well, he did, but only to pull it free and place it on the ground beside his jacket. Then he put both hands close to the tree trunk and, with no effort at all, raised the tree and moved it with nothing more than sheer force of will. The entire tree slid back into the forest to the point where it had fallen. It just moved, as if pulled by an invisible truck. After the first shock of watching the tree, I studied the man.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, slim at the waist and muscled where the cloth of his shirt pulled against his chest. His face and body looked human, but after watching him materialize as he did from the forest and then move the tree, I knew he couldn't be—at least not completely. And his eyes. He had eyelashes women covet: long, dark, curled at the tips, framing the bluest blue eyes I'd ever seen. His mouth was full, his lips . . . Well, I wanted to kiss those lips, heaven help me.

“Adele?”

When he spoke my name for the first time, I realized I was staring at his face, at those lips, and the smile on his face made my cheeks flame with embarrassment. He seemed to know what I was feeling, what I wanted, and while his smile wasn't exactly smug, it was perceptive. I didn't even think to ask how he knew my name. After watching him move a tree, it didn't seem too important.

I got hold of myself long enough to remember my manners. “Thank you,” I said, regretting the words as soon as they left my mouth. What a stupid thing to say to this otherworldly creature! I should be asking who he was, what he was. Then I asked the second stupid question. “Do you have a name?”

He laughed and the sound was musical. “Of course. It's Fintan.”

He held out his hand for the second time and I took it. His grasp was warm and firm, and electricity sparked from his fingertips to mine. Startled, I pulled back, but he held on.

His eyes locked on mine and I found myself stammering, “Would you like something? A drink of water?”

He nodded, continuing to hold my hand as I drew him toward the house. I wasn't scared. I didn't even question the wisdom of bringing a stranger into my house. It felt as natural as rain to be with him. And more than that, it felt natural to want to be with him.

In the kitchen, he released my hand. I fetched a glass of water from the tap and held it out to him. Once again, when his fingertips brushed mine, it sent a current rushing through me, a burst of energy that traveled up my arm and sent heat to parts of my body—it embarrasses me even now to think about it. (If Mitchell ever finds this journal, I will be mortified. I love him. More than anything. But God help me, his touch never evoked such passion in me. My mind can deny it was desire, but my body knew the truth.)

I turned quickly away from Fintan and went back to the sink. I got myself a drink of water even though I wasn't really thirsty. I just wanted to put distance between myself and this stranger who seemed able to evoke emotions in me so powerful I was afraid of losing control.

I felt Fintan watching me. He had taken a seat at the kitchen table. My hands were shaking. My head spun with feelings of guilt. For what? I'd done nothing. Yet. Oh, but I knew. I knew. Whatever happened next, no matter the provocation, my life was about to change.

I wanted it to.

My back was still to Fintan. His chair scraped against the linoleum. I didn't turn around. When he placed his hands on my shoulders, the glass slipped from my hands and shattered in the sink. Neither of us moved.

Then Fintan spoke. “Adele. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“I'm not afraid.” In spite of how my heart was pounding, I was proud of the steadiness in my voice. I lifted my chin. “Should I be?”

His grip tightened ever so slightly so he could turn me toward him. “No. I have come today because I know your heart's desire. I have watched you from the forest.”

That was the first thing he'd said that sparked a tiny flame of protest. “You've been spying on us?”

He shook his head. “Not spying. And not on Mitchell.”

A burst of fear made my shoulders jump. Illogically, I hadn't questioned that he knew my name, but that he would know Mitchell's somehow alarmed me. “How do you know my husband's name?”

Again, he shook his head, smiling gently. “I mean your husband no harm. Mitchell is a good man. He treats you well. You are content when you are with him. But he cannot give you what you want most. He cannot complete you.”

“What are you saying?”

He took a step closer to me, so close I could see the tiny laugh lines that radiated from his eyes, so close I could breathe in his intoxicating fragrance. I closed my eyes. Was this what being under a spell felt like?

“No.”

My eyes flew open.

“You are not under a spell, although I could certainly influence you if I chose.”

I drew in a breath. “What are you?”

“Human. Partly.” He glanced toward the forest outside the open kitchen window. “Partly supernatural being. You have lived in Bon Temps for a long time. You know there are others who walk among you. In the world, but not necessarily of it.”