In lamplit green twilight, a dozen vampires sat on benches and stone stools or stood meditatively between trees. They looked as human and peaceful as Sally had ever seen them look. A bird trilled from one of three modest redwoods.

In one corner stood the vampire in frayed evening clothes; maybe he’d been turned on his way to La bohème or Così fan tutte. Another one, with scraggly red hair and a sour face, met her eyes with annoyance. Sally realized she was the only living blood present.

She turned to Lavinia for support and found her stroking the wood of the gate with that puzzled look. She turned to a redwood and said, “May I?” to a vampire leaning against it. The tall old woman stepped gracefully aside without ever leaving her trance. Lavinia stroked the soft fuzz of bark and leaned her cheek against the tree.

Sally stopped herself from saying, “What are you up to, you tree hugger?” Was she jealous?

Lavinia turned to her with delight. “This tree is so alive!” she whispered. Somehow the garden demanded respectful quiet. “This is wood without that wrong I felt in your stake.”

Sally fought down a ridiculous sense that she’d just been insulted. As the gracious older vampire turned to the redwood and stroked its bark curiously, Sally asked what is wrong with me?

Once she asked the question, she saw the answer. “Do you feel loyal to your fellow vampires?” she’d asked Lavinia and Lavinia had snorted, “Would you be loyal to measles?”

But here were vampires Lavinia could be loyal to.

She looked around at these odd hybrids. They were in a trance, like the vampires last night, but they didn’t look dead, just a little pale (and some had skins so dark it was hard to tell even that). There was no smell of death like when her father died (she had come home to help but KerriAnne hadn’t, she reminded herself). Their clothes were not decayed, though they must have worn them for years.

They had that faint otherworldliness that Lavinia had. They seemed … preserved, like something kept on a shelf. Her second-grade teacher once brought in a vanity powder box that had been her grandmother’s (and the class clown had made everyone pee in their pants by slipping a booger into it while she wasn’t looking). The vampires had that old silver and purple feel, that lavender-and-lace kind of smell.

Lavinia took her hand, raised her eyebrows to ask what was up. Sally tried not to blush as she shook her head.

Lavinia whispered, “I saw a statue in Europe. Rome, Florence, I’m pretty sure it was Italy. This angel smiling a beautiful smile and jabbing this woman with a gold arrow, and she’s got this look like she’s comin’ in her pants. Back then I thought it was the sickest bit of male penetration fantasy ever. Now I’m thinking, if an angel penetrated my heart with that tree, I’d just about die of ecstasy.” She saw Sally’s shocked look and quickly added, “Don’t worry, not gonna make a stake and stick myself with it. Just a feeling. C’mon.” She tilted her head toward the house. “In.”

As they walked through the deepening twilight, Sally remembered that shortly after she met Lavinia, she’d dreamed of a shared garden behind several houses. This garden had the same feel.

They reached the lighted back door and Lavinia turned the gold knob. When she pushed the door open, her hand was able to pass into the interior of the house. With no words of welcome spoken (but of course, they had been on the card) she stepped into a private home. Sally followed and saw exactly who she expected to see.

When she’d held up the card in front of Lavinia’s face that afternoon, she’d been certain the old German ledermacher had put it in Lavinia’s pocket and that Lavinia knew he lived in San Francisco, but Lavinia looked so honestly confused that Sally said with relief and disbelief, “You don’t know about this card? You must have felt it crinkle in your pocket.”

As often happened for her, as soon as she said the dumb thing out loud, she realized the truth: it couldn’t have been there all along; she’d leaned against Lavinia any number of times and heard no crinkle.

Lavinia studied the image of the fairy, the symbolic vampire and the words of welcome. “Never fucking saw this in my life. It fell out of my pocket?”

But Sally understood now: she’d seen the card after pulling her phone out to check messages. It hadn’t fallen out of Lavinia’s pocket, it had fallen out of hers. And since it hadn’t been in there before the rally, there was only one of two people who could have put it there.

In the living room of the yellow Victorian, surrounded by several dreamy vampires, Jesse snuggled against Walter while Sleeping Beauty sang, “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream.” Jesse had a plate of food in his lap but Walter, of course, had nothing.

Jesse saw them first and nudged Walter. Walter stopped the video, stood with supernatural grace and glided across the rug to take Lavinia’s hands.

“I’m delighted for you, sister,” he said, letting his teeth show for the first time. “It’s a hard road back.”

“Hah fuck,” Lavinia agreed in a voice choked with emotion.