07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

kiln in the back, although it’s all grown over with Devil’s Shoestring. I used to make flowerpots for
outside the boardinghouse, but children came and smashed them. I think I could make an urn like the
ones you saw if you can draw one for me. But perhaps we’d better wait for Mr. Saltzman’s pictures.”
Matt was mouthing something to Stefan. Elena couldn’t make it out until she heard
Stefan’s voice in her mind. He says Damon told him once that this house is like a swap meet, and
you can find anything here if you look hard enough.
Damon didn’t make that up! I think Mrs. Flowers said it first, and then it sort of got
around, Elena returned heatedly.
“When we get the pictures,” Mrs. Flowers was saying brightly, “we can get the Saitou
women to translate the writing.”
Meredith finally moved back from Elena. “And until then we can pray that Bonnie
doesn’t get into any trouble,” she said, and her voice and face were composed again. “I’m starting
now.”
Bonnie was sure she could stay out of trouble.
She’d had that strange dream—the one about shedding her body, and going with Elena to
the Island of Doom. Fortunately, it had seemed to be a real out-of-body experience, and not something
she had to ponder over and try to find hidden meanings in. It didn’t mean she was doomed or anything
like that.
Plus, she’d managed to live through another night in this brown room, and Damon had to
come and get her out soon. But not before she had a sugarplum. Or two.
Yes, she had gotten a taste of one in the story last night, but Marit was such a good girl
that she had waited for dinner to have any more. Dinner was obtained in the next story about the
Dustbins, which she’d plunged into this morning. But that contained the horror of little Marit tasting
her first hand-caught piece of raw liver, fresh from the hunt. Bonnie had hastily pulled the little star
ball off her temple, and had determined not to do anything that could possibly get her on a human
hunting range.
But then, compulsively, she had counted up her money. She had money. She knew where
a shop was. And that meant…shopping!
When her bathroom break came around, she managed to get into a conversation with the
boy who usually led her to the outdoor privy. This time she made him blush so hard and tug at his
earlobe so often that when she begged him to give her the key and let her go by herself—it wasn’t as
if she didn’t know the way—he had relented and let her go, asking only that she hurry.
And she did hurry—across the street and into the little store, which smelled so much of
melting fudge, toffee being pulled by hand, and other mouth-watering smells that she would have
known where she was blindfolded.
She also knew what she wanted. She could picture it from the story and the one taste
Marit had had.
A sugarplum was round like a real plum, and she’d tasted dates, almonds, spices, and
honey—and there may have been some raisins, too. It should cost five soli, according to the story, but
Bonnie had taken fifteen of the small coppery-looking coins with her, in case of a confectionary
emergency.
Once inside, Bonnie glanced warily around her. There were a lot of customers in the