o my relief, I woke up in an empty house. Neither Amelia's nor Octavia's throbbing heads were under my roof. I lay in bed and reveled in the knowledge. Maybe the next time I had a whole day off, I could spend it completely alone. That didn't seem a likely occurrence, but a girl can dream. After I planned my day (call Sam to find out about my car, pay some bills, go to work), I got into the shower and really scrubbed. I used as much hot water as I wanted. I painted my toenails and my fingernails, and I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and went in to make some coffee. The kitchen was spanking clean; God bless Amelia.

The coffee was great, the toast delicious spread with blueberry jam. Even my taste buds were happy. After I cleaned up from breakfast, I was practically singing with the pleasure of solitude. I went back to my room to make my bed and put on my makeup.

Of course, that was when the knock came at the back door, nearly making me jump out of my skin. I stepped into some shoes and went to answer it.

Tray Dawson was there, and he was smiling. "Sookie, your car is doing fine," he said. "I had to do a little replacing here and there, and it's the first time I ever had to scrape vampire ash off an undercarriage, but you're good to go."

"Oh, thanks! Can you come in?"

"Just for a minute," he said. "You got a Coke in the refrigerator?"

"I sure do." I brought him a Coke, asked if he wanted some cookies or a peanut butter sandwich to go with it, and when he'd turned that down, I excused myself to finish my makeup. I'd figured Dawson would run me to the car, but he'd driven it over to my place, as it turned out, so I'd need to give him a ride instead.

I had my checkbook out and my pen in hand when I sat at the table opposite the big man and asked him how much I owed him.

"Not a dime," Dawson said. "The new guy paid for it."

"The new king?"

"Yeah, he called me in the middle of the night last night. Told me the story, more or less, and asked me if I could look at the car first thing in the morning. I was awake when he called, so it didn't make me no nevermind. I got over to Merlotte's this morning, told Sam he wasted a phone call since I already knew all about it. I followed him while he drove the car out to my place, and we put it up on the rack and had a good look."

This was a long speech for Dawson. I put my checkbook back in my purse and listened, silently asking him if he wanted more Coke by pointing at his glass. He shook his head, letting me know he was satisfied. "We had to tighten up a few things, replace your windshield fluid reservoir. I knew just where another car like yours was at Rusty's Salvage, and it didn't take no time to do the job."

I could only thank him again. I drove Dawson out to his repair shop. Since the last time I'd driven by, he'd trimmed up the front yard of his home, a modest but tidy frame house that stood next door to the big shop. Dawson had also put all the bits and pieces of motorcycles under cover somewhere, instead of having them strewn around in a handy but unattractive spread. And his pickup was clean.

As Dawson slid out of the car, I said, "I'm so grateful. I know cars aren't your specialty and I do appreciate your working on mine." Repairman to the underworld, that was Tray Dawson.

"Well, I did it because I wanted to," Dawson said, and then he paused. "But if you could see your way to it, I'd sure like it if you'd put in a word for me with your friend Amelia."

"I don't have much influence over Amelia," I said. "But I'll be glad to tell her what a sterling character you are."

He smiled very broadly: no suppression there. I didn't think I'd ever seen Dawson crack such a grin. "She sure looks healthy," he said, and since I had no idea what Dawson's criteria for admiration were, that was a big clue.

"You call her up, I'll give a reference," I said.

"It's a deal."

We parted happy, and he loped across the newly neat yard to his shop. I didn't know if Dawson would be to Amelia's taste or not, but I'd do my best to persuade her to give him a chance.

As I drove home, I listened to the car for any strange noise. It purred away.

Amelia and Octavia came in as I was leaving for work.

"How are you feeling?" Amelia said with a knowing air.

"Fine," I said automatically. Then I understood she thought I hadn't come home the night before. She thought I'd been having a good time with someone. "Hey, you remember Tray Dawson, right? You met him at Maria-Star's apartment."

"Sure."

"He's going to call you. Be sweet."

I left her grinning after me as I got into my car.

For once, work was boring and normal. Terry was substituting since Sam hated to work on Sunday afternoons. Merlotte's was having a calm day. We opened late on Sunday and we closed early, so I was ready to start home by seven. No one showed up in the parking lot, and I was able to walk directly to my car without being accosted for a long, weird conversation or being attacked.

The next morning I had errands to run in town. I was short on cash, so I drove to the ATM, waving at Tara Thornton du Rone. Tara smiled and waved back. Marriage was suiting her, and I hoped she and JB were having a happier time of it than my brother and his wife. As I drove away from the bank, to my astonishment I spotted Alcide Herveaux coming out of the offices of Sid Matt Lancaster, an ancient and renowned lawyer. I pulled into Sid Matt's parking lot, and Alcide came over to talk to me.

I should have driven on, hoping he hadn't noticed me.

The conversation was awkward. Alcide had had a lot to deal with, in all fairness. His girlfriend was dead, brutally murdered. Several other members of his pack were also dead. He'd had a huge cover-up to arrange. But he was now the leader of the pack, and he had gotten to celebrate his victory in the traditional way. In hindsight, I suspect he was fairly embarrassed at having sex with a young woman in public, especially so soon after his girlfriend's death. This was quite a bundle of emotions I was reading in his head, and he was flushed when he came to my car window.

"Sookie, I haven't had a chance to thank you for all your help that night. It's lucky for us your boss decided to come with you."

Yeah, since you wouldn't have saved my life and he did, I'm glad, too. "No problem, Alcide," I said, my voice wonderfully even and calm. I was going to have a good day, dammit. "Have things settled down in Shreveport?"

"The police don't seem to have a clue," he said, glancing around to make sure no one else was within hearing distance. "They haven't found the site yet, and there's been a lot of rain. We're hoping sooner rather than later they'll cut back on their investigation."

"You-all still planning the big announcement?"

"It'll have to be soon. The heads of other packs in the area have been in contact with me. We don't have a meeting of all the leaders like the vampires do, mostly because they have one leader for each state and we have a hell of a lot of packleaders. Looks like we'll all elect a representative from the packleaders, one from each state, and those representatives will go to a national meeting."

"That sounds like a step in the right direction."

"Also, we might ask other wereanimals if they want to come in with us. Like, Sam could belong to my pack in an auxiliary way, though he's not a Were. And it would be good if the lone wolves, like Dawson, came to some of the pack parties... came out howling with us or something."

"Dawson seems to like his life the way it is," I said. "And you'll have to talk to Sam, not me, about whether he wants to associate with you-all formally."

"Sure. You seem to have a lot of influence with him. Just thought I'd mention it."

I didn't see it that way. Sam had a lot of influence over me, but whether I had any over him... I was dubious. Alcide began making the little shifts in stance that told me as clearly as his brain had that he was about to go his way on whatever business had brought him to Bon Temps.

"Alcide," I said, seized by an impulse, "I do have a question."

He said, "Sure."

"Who's taking care of the Furnan children?"

He looked at me, then away. "Libby's sister. She's got three of her own, but she said she was glad to take them in. There's enough money for their upbringing. When it comes time for them to go to college, we'll see what we can do for the boy."

"For the boy?"

"He's pack."

If I'd had a brick in my hand, I wouldn't have minded using it on Alcide. Good God almighty. I took a deep breath. To give him credit, the sex of the child wasn't the issue at all. It was his pure blood.

"There may be enough insurance money for the girl to go, too," Alcide said, since he was no fool. "The aunt wasn't too clear about that, but she knows we'll help."

"And she knows who 'we' is?"

He shook his head. "We told her it was a secret society, like the Masons, that Furnan belonged to."

There didn't seem to be anything left to say.

"Good luck," I said. He'd already had a fair share of that, no matter what you thought about the two dead women that had been his girlfriends. After all, he himself had survived to achieve his father's goal.

"Thank you, and thanks again for your part in that luck. You're still a friend of the pack," he said very seriously. His beautiful green eyes lingered on my face. "And you're one of my favorite women in the world," he added unexpectedly.

"That's a real nice compliment, Alcide," I said, and drove away. I was glad I'd talked to him. Alcide had grown up a lot in the past few weeks. All in all, he was changing into a man I admired much more than I had the old one.

I'd never forget the blood and the screaming of the horrific night in the abandoned office park in Shreveport, but I began to feel that some good had come out of it.

When I returned home, I found that Octavia and Amelia were in the front yard, raking. This was a delightful discovery. I hated raking worse than anything in the world, but if I didn't go over the yard once or twice during the fall, the pine needle buildup was dreadful.

I had been thanking people all day long. I parked in the back and came out the front.

"Do you bag these up or burn them?" Amelia called.

"Oh, I burn 'em when there's not a burn ban on," I said. "It's so nice of you both to think of doing this." I wasn't aiming to gush - but having your very least favorite chore done for you was really quite a treat.

"I need the exercise," Octavia said. "We went to the mall in Monroe yesterday, so I did get some walking in."

I thought Amelia treated Octavia more like a grandmother than a teacher.

"Did Tray call?" I asked.

"He sure did." Amelia smiled broadly.

"He thought you were fine-looking."

Octavia laughed. "Amelia, you're a femme fatale."

She looked happy and said, "I think he's an interesting guy."

"A bit older than you," I said, just so she'd know.

Amelia shrugged. "I don't care. I'm ready to date. I think Pam and I are more buddies than honeys. And since I found that litter of kittens, I'm open for guy business."

"You really think Bob made a choice? Wouldn't that have been, like, instinct?" I said.

Just then, the cat in question wandered across the yard, curious to see why we were all standing out in the open when there was a perfectly good couch and a few beds in the house.

Octavia gave a gusty sigh. "Oh, hell," she muttered. She straightened and held her hands out. "Potestas mea te in formam veram tuam commutabit natura ips reaffirmet Incantationes praeviae deletae sunt," she said.

The cat blinked up at Octavia. Then it made a peculiar noise, a kind of cry I'd never heard come out of a cat's throat before. Suddenly the air around him was thick and dense and cloudy and full of sparks. The cat shrieked again. Amelia was staring at the animal with her mouth wide open. Octavia looked resigned and a little sad.

The cat writhed on the fading grass, and suddenly it had a human leg.

"God almighty!" I said, and clapped a hand over my mouth.

Now it had two legs, two hairy legs, and then it had a penis, and then it began to be a man all over, shrieking all the while. After a horrible two minutes, the witch Bob Jessup lay on the lawn, shaking all over but entirely human again. After another minute, he stopped shrieking and just twitched. Not an improvement, really, but easier on the eardrums.

Then he lunged to his feet, leaped onto Amelia, and made a determined effort to choke her to death.

I grabbed his shoulders to pull him off of her, and Octavia said, "You don't want me to use magic on you again, right?"

That proved a very effective threat. Bob let go of Amelia and stood panting in the cold air. "I can't believe you did that to me!" he said. "I can't believe I spent the last few months as a cat!"

"How do you feel?" I asked. "Are you weak? Do you need help into the house? Would you like some clothes?"

He looked down at himself vaguely. He hadn't worn clothes in a while, but suddenly he turned red, very nearly all over. "Yes," he said stiffly. "Yes, I would like some clothes."

"Come with me," I said. The dusk was coming on as I led Bob into the house. Bob was a smallish guy, and I thought a pair of my sweats might fit him. No, Amelia was a little taller, and a clothes donation from her would be only fair. I spotted the basket full of folded clothes on the stairs where Amelia had left it to carry up the next time she went to her room. Lo and behold, there was an old blue sweatshirt and a pair of black sweat pants. I handed the clothes to Bob wordlessly, and he pulled them on with trembling fingers. I flipped through the stack and found a pair of socks that were plain white. He sat down on the couch to pull them on. That was as far as I could go toward clothing him. His feet were larger than mine or Amelia's, so shoes were out.

Bob wrapped his arms around himself like he feared he was going to disappear. His dark hair was clinging to his skull. He blinked, and I wondered what had happened to his glasses. I hoped Amelia had stored them somewhere.

"Bob, can I get you a drink?" I asked.

"Yes, please," he said. He seemed to be having a bit of trouble getting his mouth to form the words. His hand moved up to his mouth in a curious gesture, and I realized it was just like my cat Tina's movement when she had raised her paw to lick it before she used it to groom herself. Bob realized what he was doing and lowered his hand abruptly.

I thought about bringing him milk in a bowl but decided that would be insulting. I brought him some iced tea instead. He gulped it but made a face.

"Sorry," I said. "I should have asked if you like tea."

"I do like tea," he said, and stared at the glass as if he'd just connected tea with the liquid he'd had in his mouth. "I'm just not used to it anymore."

Okay, I know this is really awful, but I actually opened my mouth to ask him if he wanted some kibble. Amelia had a bag of 9Lives on the back porch shelf. I bit the inside of my mouth, hard. "What about a sandwich?" I asked. I had no idea what to talk to Bob about. Mice?

"Sure," he said. He didn't seem to know what he wanted to do next.

So I made him a peanut butter and jelly, and a ham and pickle on whole wheat with mustard. He ate them both, chewing very slowly and carefully. Then he said, "Excuse me," and got up to find the bathroom. He shut the door behind him, and stayed in there for a long time.

Amelia and Octavia had come in by the time Bob emerged.

"I'm so sorry," Amelia said.

"Me, too," Octavia said. She looked older and smaller.

"You knew all along how to change him?" I tried to keep my voice level and nonjudgmental. "Your failed attempt was a fraud?"

Octavia nodded. "I was scared if you didn't need me, I wouldn't get to visit anymore. I'd have to go stay all day at my niece's. It's so much nicer here. I would have said something soon, because my conscience was bothering me something awful, especially since I'm living here." She shook her gray head from side to side. "I'm a bad woman for letting Bob be a cat for extra days."

Amelia was shocked. Obviously, her teacher's fall from grace was an amazing development to Amelia, clearly overshadowing her own guilt about what she'd done to Bob in the first place. Amelia was definitely a live-in-the-moment kind of person.

Bob came out of the bathroom. He marched up to us. "I want to go back to my place in New Orleans," Bob said. "Where the hell are we? How did I get here?"

Amelia's face lost all its animation. Octavia looked grim. I quietly left the room. It was going to be very unpleasant, the two women telling Bob about Katrina. I didn't want to be around while he tried to process that terrible news on top of everything else he was trying to handle.

I wondered where Bob had lived, if his house or apartment was still standing, if his possessions were somehow intact. If his family was alive. I heard Octavia's voice rising and falling, and then I heard a terrible silence.