Hunter looked reassured enough for me to feel that it was time to change the subject. His attention was wandering, so I let him scramble down. He began playing with the Duplos he’d brought in his backpack, transporting them from the bedroom to the kitchen with his dump truck. I thought of getting him some Legos for a belated birthday present, but I’d check with Remy first, get his okay. I listened in to Hunter while I was doing the dishes.

I found out that he was as interested in his anatomy as most five-year-olds are, and that he thought it was funny that he got to stand up when he peed and I had to sit down, and that he hadn’t liked Kristen because she didn’t really like him. She pretended to, he told me, exactly as if he’d known when I was listening in to him.

I’d been standing at the sink with my back to Hunter, but it didn’t make any difference in our conversation, which was another strange feeling.

Can you tell when I’m listening to your head? I asked, surprised.

Yeah, it tickles, Hunter told me.

Was that because he was so young? Would it have “tickled” in my head, too, if I’d met another telepath when I was that age? Or was Hunter unique among telepaths?

“Was that lady who came to the door dead?” Hunter said. He’d jumped up and run around the table to stand by my side while I dried the skillet.

“Yes,” I said. “She’s a vampire.”

“Will she bite?”

“She won’t bite you or me,” I said. “I guess sometimes she bites people if they tell her that’s okay.” Boy, I was worried about this conversation. It was like talking about religion with a child without knowing the parents’ preferences. “I think you said you’d never met a vampire before?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. I started to tell Hunter he didn’t have to call me “ma’am,” but then I stopped. The better manners he had, the easier this world would be for him. “I never met anything like that man in the woods, either.”

This time he had my undivided attention, and I tried hard not to let him read my alarm. Just as I was about to ask him careful questions, I heard the screen door to the back porch open, and then foot-steps across the boards. A light knock at the back door told me that Heidi had returned from scouting in the woods, but I looked out the little window in the door to be sure. Yep, it was the vampire.

“I’m through,” she said, when I opened the door. “I’ll be on my way.”