One Word Answer 5.1 by Charlaine Harris

Author:Charlaine Harris
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

5

couldn't. Telepaths don't have an easy time of it when it comes to love affairs. In fact, Mr. Cataliades was the only

one on the scene who had a brain I could scan, and he was none too human.

I thought about asking him what he was, but that seemed kind of tacky. Instead, I asked Bubba if he'd round

up some folding yard chairs so we could all sit down, and while that was being arranged, I went in the house and

heated up some TrueBlood for the three vampires and iced some Mountain Dew for Mr. Cataliades, who professed

himself to be delighted with the offer.

While I was in the house, standing in front of the microwave and staring at it like it was some kind of

oracle, I thought of just locking the door and letting them all do what they would. I had an ominous sense of the

way the night was going, and I was tempted to let it take its course without me. But Hadley had been my cousin.

On a whim, I took her picture down from the wall to give it a closer look.

All the pictures my grandmother had hung were still up; despite her death, I continued to think of the house

as hers. The first picture was of Hadley at age six, with one front tooth. She was holding a big drawing of a dragon.

I hung it back beside the picture of Hadley at ten, skinny and pig-tailed, her arms around Jason and me. Next to it

was the picture taken by the reporter for the parish paper, when Hadley had been crowed Miss Teen Bon Temps. At

fifteen, she'd been radiantly happy in her rented white sequined gown, glittering crown on her head, flowers in her

arms. The last picture had been taken during Hadley's junior year. By then, Hadley had begun using drugs, and she

was all Goth: heavy eye makeup, black hair, crimson lips. Uncle Carey had left Aunt Linda some years before this

incarnation, moved back to his proud New Orleans family; and by the time Hadley left, too, Aunt Linda had begun

feeling bad. A few months after Hadley ran away, we'd finally gotten my father's sister to go to a doctor, and he'd

found the cancer.

In the years since then, I'd often wondered if Hadley had ever found out her mother was sick. It made a

difference to me; if she'd known but hadn't come home, that was a horse of one color. If she'd never known, that

was a horse of a different one. Now that I knew she had crossed over and become the living dead, I had a new

option. Maybe Hadley had known, but she just hadn't cared.

I wondered who had told Hadley she might be descended from Marie Laveau. It must have been someone

who'd done enough research to sound convincing, someone who'd studied Hadley enough to know how much she'd

enjoy the piquancy of being related to such a notorious woman.

I carried the drinks outside on a tray, and we all sat in a circle on my old lawn furniture.

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