Damon loosened his grip a little. He said, “I can hear a faint murmuring sound in my head. Just tell me normally. We’re well away from anyone.”
Bonnie was insistent. She scrunched her whole tiny body together and then explosively sent out a thought. She could tell that Damon caught it.
Fourth, I know the way to the seven legendary kitsune treasures, Bonnie sent to him. That includes the biggest star ball ever made. But if we want it, we have to get to it — fast.
Then, feeling that she had contributed enough to the conversation, she fainted.
Someone was still knocking on Stefan’s door.
“It’s a woodpecker,” Elena said when she could speak. “They knock, don’t they?”
“On doors inside houses?” Stefan said dazedly.
“Ignore it and it will go away.”
A moment later the knocking resumed.
Elena moaned, “I don’t believe this.”
Stefan whispered, “Do you want me to bring you its head? Unattached from its neck, I mean?”
Elena considered. As the knocking continued, she was getting more worried and less confused. “Better see if it is a bird, I guess,” she said.
Stefan rolled away from her, somehow got on his jeans, and went reeling to the door. In spite of herself, Elena pitied whoever was on the other side.
The knocking started again.
Stefan reached the door and nearly wrenched it off its hinges.
“What the—” He stopped, suddenly moderating his voice. “Mrs. Flowers?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Flowers said, deliberately not seeing Elena, who was wearing a sheet and directly in her line of vision.
“It’s poor dear Meredith,” Mrs. Flowers said. “She’s in such a state, and she says she has to see you now, Stefan.”
Elena’s mind switched tracks as suddenly and smoothly as a train. Meredith? In a state? Demanding to see Stefan, even if, as Elena was sure she must have, Mrs.
Flowers had delicately indicated just how…busy Stefan was at the moment?
Her mind was still solidly linked with Stefan’s. He said, “Thank you, Mrs. Flowers.
I’ll be down in just a moment.”
Elena, who was slipping into her clothes as fast as she could, while crouching on the far side of the bed, added a telepathic suggestion.
“Maybe you could make her a nice cup of tea — I mean, a cup of tea,” Stefan added.
“Yes, dear, what a good idea,” Mrs. Flowers said gently. “And if you should see Elena, perhaps you could say that dear Meredith is asking for her, too?”
“We will,” Stefan said automatically. Then he turned around and hastily shut the door.
Elena gave him time to put his shirt and shoes on, and then they both hurried down to the kitchen, where Meredith was not having a nice cup of tea, but pacing around like a caged leopard.
Stefan began, “What’s—”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Stefan Salvatore! No — you tell me! You were in my mind before, so you must know. You must have been able to see — to tell — about me.”
Elena was still mindlocked with Stefan. She felt his dismay. “To tell what about you?” he asked gently, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table so Meredith could sit.
The very simple act of sitting down, of pausing to respond to civility, seemed to calm Meredith slightly. But still Elena could feel her fear and pain like the taste of a steel sword on her tongue.
Meredith accepted a hug and became a little calmer yet. A little more herself and less like a caged animal. But the struggle was so visceral and so clear within her that Elena couldn’t bear to leave her, even when Mrs. Flowers deposited four mugs of tea around the table and took another chair Stefan offered.
Then Stefan sat down. He knew Elena would stand or sit or share a chair with Meredith, but whatever it was, she would be the one to decide.
Mrs. Flowers was gently stirring honey into her mug of tea and then passing the honey along to Stefan who gave it to Elena who put just the little bit that Meredith liked into Meredith’s mug and stirred it gently, too.
The ordinary, civilized sounds of two spoons quietly clinking seemed to relax Meredith still further. She took the mug Elena gave her and sipped, then drank thirstily.
Elena could feel Stefan’s mental sigh of relief as Meredith floated down another few levels. He politely sipped his own tea, which was hot but not burning hot and made from naturally sweet berries and herbs.
“It’s good,” Meredith said. She was almost a human now. “Thank you, Mrs.
Flowers.”
Elena felt lighter. She relaxed enough to pull over her own cup of tea and squeeze lots of honey in and stir it and take a gulp. Good! Calming down tea!
That’s chamomile and cucumber, Stefan told her.
“Chamomile and cucumber,” Elena said, nodding wisely, “for calming down.” And then she blushed, for Mrs. Flowers’s bright smile had knowledge in it.
Elena hastily drank more tea and watched Meredith have more tea and everything began to feel almost all right. Meredith was completely Meredith now, not some fierce animal. Elena squeezed her friend’s hand tightly.
There was just one problem. Humans were less frightening than beasts but they could cry. Now Meredith, who never wept, was shaking and tears were dripping into the tea.
“You know what morcillo is, right?” she asked Elena at last.
Elena nodded hesitantly. “We had it sometimes in stew at your house?” she said.
“And for tapas?” Elena had grown up with the blood sausage as a meal or a snack at her friend’s house, and she was used to the bite-sized pieces as a delicious food only Mrs. Sulez made.
Elena felt Stefan’s heart sinking. She looked back and forth from him to Meredith.
“It turns out my mother didn’t always make it,” Meredith said, looking at Stefan now. “And my parents had a very good reason for changing my birthday.”
“Just tell it all,” Stefan suggested softly. And then Elena felt something she hadn’t before. A surge, like a wave — a long gentle swell that spoke right into the center of Meredith’s brain. It said: Just tell it and be calm. No anger. No fear.