“And you chose a vampire hunt?” I said, outraged.
No, Lori. You chose a vampire hunt. I simply went along with your choice in order to get you out of the cottage and focused on something other than nits and measles. I had no idea your search would lead you to a real mystery, one of far greater importance than the one you’d manufactured. If it hadn’t been for your vampire hunt, Charlotte and Leo might never have been reunited.
“But . . . you set me up!” I exclaimed indignantly.
Yes, I did. Consider it the bucket of cold water you needed to release you from your hysteria.
I wanted to sulk and be snippy, but I let those impulses go.
My darling husband, my two dearest friends, and my most trusted
230 Nancy Atherton
confi dante had set me up, but they’d done so in order to help me, and their underhanded, conniving, and thoroughly loving plan had worked. I hadn’t palpated the twins’ glands once since I’d started looking for Rendor, and I was sure that the school nurse had marked her calendar with big smiley-faces to celebrate each day that had gone by without a frantic call from me.
“You know, Dimity,” I said, “the vicar told me that I hadn’t been myself since the twins started school, but I wouldn’t have heard him if you and Bill and Emma and Kit hadn’t lured me out of the cottage. So I guess I won’t be angry with you. In a month or two, I might even thank you.”
Be sure to thank Bill when he comes home. He loves you very much, Lori.
“I don’t know why,” I said. “He must think I’m the world’s biggest goofball.”
He thinks that there hasn’t been a dull moment in his life since you came into it. And I can safely say that the same holds true for me.
I hoped Charlotte would never learn that she’d been mistaken for a vampire, but the twins gave the game away the next time they saw her daubed with zinc oxide. Instead of being offended, she was so amused that she and Leo gave the boys a bat box for Christmas, along with memberships in the Bat Conservation Trust and two adorable plush bats with shiny black eyes.
The bat box hangs on a tree down in the meadow, and though I’ll never let a bat sleep on my pillow, I’ve learned to appreciate the helpful little creatures. Sometimes we have to look deeply into a thing to see its beauty. Charlotte looked into the bright blue eyes of a dissolute, swaggering punk and saw the better man he could become. Nell looked into violet eyes shadowed with grief and despair and saw the saint Kit had always been.
When my husband looks deeply into my eyes, he sees a goofball, but according to him she’s a passionate, caring goofball whose Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
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ridiculous vampire hunt brought four loving souls together and restored a sense of balance to her own.
I’ll never buy a copy of Rendor, the Destroyer of Souls, but I just might write a thank-you note to the author—after I finish thanking Bill, who knows, better than anyone, how to heal mine.
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Charlotte’s Jammy Biscuits
Makes 5 dozen
1 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1?4 cup sour milk or buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
31?2 cups all-purpose fl our
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Blackberry, raspberry, or strawberry jam
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large bowl, cream the shortening and the sugars. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla; mix till smooth. Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg; stir into the creamed mixture. Cover and chill.
On a floured surface, roll the dough to an 1?8-inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter to cut the dough into 11?2-inch rounds. Place 1 teaspoon of jam each on half the rounds; use the remaining rounds to top the jam-topped rounds. Lightly seal the edges with a fork. With a sharp knife, cut shallow crisscross slits in the tops of the cookies, to allow the steam to vent during baking.
Bake until golden, 10 to 15 minutes.