“A shark hook works quite well. I used one for years. The fleam belonged to my predecessor. Miriam just gave it to me recently.”

“Your . . . what do you mean, ‘predecessor’?”

“Oh, didn’t Miri tell you? We last about two hundred years. Unless there’s an accident, of course.”

“We die?”

“Oh, no. That we cannot do. We end up in the attic.” She smiled. “Like cast-off overcoats.”

Leo glanced toward the stairs.

“Miri didn’t tell you?”

“No, she didn’t.”

She took Leo’s hand and led her upstairs.

Miriam was at the head of the stairs. “I thought you were going to make an arrangement, Sarah.”

“An arrangement?”

“Flowers. For our guests.”

“I—yes. I was.”

“Miri, do we die?”

“You do not die.”

“But she said—”

“The contents of the attic are my affair. As are those books. You girls do not ever touch Keeper things without my permission!”

“I thought—”

“You thought you had the run of my house just because you’re blooded? You go downstairs and get things ready, both of you. And, Sarah?”

“Yes, Miri?”

“Be careful. Be very careful.”

As Sarah was arranging the flowers that would stand on the piano during the musicale, Leo chattered away about the kinds of people she preferred to “do.”

Finally Sarah snarled at her, “You’ve become a serial killer.”

Leo went silent.

Sarah turned on her. “You have! During the hundreds of years you now have before you, you’ll take thousands of lives! Men, women, children, every one of them wanting life and deserving life, and you will take their lives—steal their lives—because you’re a greedy, self-involved little monster!”

“Sa-rah!”

“You’re not worth the warts on one of their fingers! Not one! But in your arrogance, you think you’ve gained some natural right to kill them! Miriam has such a right—maybe! But you certainly do not.”

“Then neither do you!”

“I had this done to me. I didn’t ask for it. You did, Leo. You knew what it meant and yet you asked for it!”

Miriam strode in. “Miri,” Leo wailed, “she’s—”

“I can hear,” Miriam growled. She looked from one to the other. “Two canaries in the same cage,” she said. “You’d better learn to get along, because you won’t be let out. I’m in trouble and I need you, both of you. Hell, I need ten of you! Fifty! But I do not need any bickering or moralizing or bitching. You’ll work together as a team or suffer the consequences.” She glared at Sarah. “Severe consequences.” She looked at the flowers. “That’s quite nice,” she said. Then, to Leo, “You are not her equal. You will learn from her and take her advice and, in my absence, her orders. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Miri.”

“Miriam to you, child.” She went out.

“Wow,” Leo said.