"So." I cleared my throat. "How 'bout those demonic powers?"
Laura wolfed down the last of her blueberry muffin. We were at the Caribou Coffee in Apple Valley, snarfing down muffins (well, she was) and white tea. After last night, I'd been tempted to cancel on her and spend the night in bed with Eric, but how many half sisters did I have? One, so far.
"Betsy, do you have something on your mind?"
"No, no. Well, maybe."
Laura's big blue eyes shone with reproach, which would have made me feel worse if there hadn't been crumbs sticking to her lower lip. "Everybody has secrets, Betsy. You most of all."
I handed her a napkin. "Hey, I'm totally open about my disgusting covert vampire lifestyle."
She laughed.
"Look, I just met you a few days ago, right? Heck, I just found out about you a few days ago. I couldn't think of a way to blurt out the whole 'I'm dead' thing without weirding you out. Or making you think I skipped my meds."
"You'd be surprised what does and doesn't weird me out."
"Hey, I was there, okay? I would totally not be surprised. Well, not that surprised. Look, let's do a quid po ko, okay?"
"I think," she said gently, "you mean quid pro quo."
"Right, right. Let's do one of those. I'll tell you something weirdly secret about me, and then you do the same."
"Um..."
"Oh, come on," I coaxed. "We're sisters, we have to get to know each other."
She fiddled with her glass. "Okay. You go first."
"Okay. Um... last night wasn't the first time a bunch of moody vampires tried to kill me."
She nodded. "Thank you for sharing that with me."
"Now it's your turn."
"Ah... when I was eight I stole a plastic whistle from Target."
"Laura!"
She cringed. "I know, I know. I felt so bad about it afterward I told my mom and my minister. Who was also my dad."
"For heaven's sake, what kind of morbid confession is that? I'm talking about really awful sinful evil stuff."
"Stealing is a sin."
I rested my forehead on the table. "I mean really bad stuff. Not kid stuff. Because I have something to tell you, and I can't do it if I don't feel a little closer to you."
Her eyes went round with curiosity. "Why can't you?"
Because I sucked at telling people intimate things about themselves. "Because I... I just have to."
"Well, why don't you just go ahead?" She patted the top of my head. "Just get it off your chest. You'll feel better."
"Okay. Well. You know how your mom is the devil and all... ?" Her lips thinned, but I plunged ahead. "And you know how-wait a minute. How do you know your mom is the devil?"
"My parents told me."
"Your mom and the minister?" I was trying not to gape at her, and failing.
"Yes."
"How did they know?"
"She told them. I think she thought it would be funny. That they would get rid of me. And she... the devil... appeared to me when I was thirteen." I noticed she didn't say "my mother." In fact, her lips were pressed together so tightly, they had almost disappeared. "She told me everything. About possessing a-no offense, a woman of poor character-"
"None taken. At all."
"-and how it was my destiny to take over the world and how she was proud of me because I wasn't like anyone else-"
The milk glass broke in her hands. It had been mostly empty, but a little bit spilled onto the table, and I frantically blotted. Meanwhile, Laura was getting pretty worked up.
"And it's not up to her, you know? It's not up to her at all! It's my life, and I don't give a-a crap about destiny or any of it. It doesn't mean anything anyway! I don't have to be bad, and it's not how I was raised. She didn't raise me, my mother and father did, and she doesn't get to decide how I live my life, and that's how it is, that's how it is, that is exactly how it is!"
This would have sounded like a normal antiparent rant from any teenager, except while she was shouting, Laura's honey blond hair shaded to a deep, true red and her big blue eyes went poison green. I was leaning away from her as far as I could get without actually falling on the floor, and she was screaming into my face.
"Okay," I said. I would have held up my hands to placate her, but if I let go, I'd be on my ass on the floor in Caribou Coffee. "Okay, Laura. It's okay. Nobody's making you do anything."
She calmed a little. "I'm sorry. I just-she makes me crazy. So crazy."
"It's okay."
"I'm not like that."
"Okay."
"I won't be like that."
"Okay, Laura." I watched in fascination as her hair lightened and lightened until it was back to blond, as her eyes went from squinty and green to big and blue.
"It's like I said before. I don't think your parents define who you are."
"Definitely not." I was trying to look around the coffee shop without her seeing. How had nobody noticed her transformation? "I didn't mean to get you upset."
"It's not your fault." She was nervously picking up the pieces of the glass and piling them into a napkin. "I'm-I guess I'm a little sensitive on that subject."
Well, I won't be broaching that one again, Red, not to worry.
"So, uh, thanks again for your help last night." I tugged on a hank of her (blond?) hair. "I couldn't have done it without you."
She didn't smile back. "Yes, I know."