When I woke next, the doctor was there again—the same young fellow with the sallow skin and tired face, though he did look somewhat rested, and his white coat was very clean and fresh. He had put a tiny bit of cold metal against my chest, and was obviously listening to my heart or lungs or some other noisy internal organ for a bit of significant information. His hands were covered with slick ugly plastic gloves. And he was speaking to Gretchen in a low voice, as if I weren’t there, about the continuing troubles at the hospital.

Gretchen was dressed in a simple blue dress, rather like a nun’s dress, I thought, except that it was short, and beneath it she wore black stockings. Her hair was beautifully mussed and straight and clean and made me think of the hay which the princess spun into gold in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin.

Again came the memory of Gabrielle, my mother, of the eerie and nightmarish time after I’d made her a vampire, and she had cut her yellow hair, and it had all grown back within the space of a day while she slept the deathlike sleep in the crypt, and she’d almost gone mad when she realized it. I remembered her screaming and screaming before she could be calmed. I didn’t know why I thought of it, except that I loved this woman’s hair. She was nothing like Gabrielle. Nothing.

At last the doctor was finished with his poking and prodding and listening, and went away to confer with her. Curse my mortal hearing. But I knew I was almost cured. And when he stood over me again, and told me I would now be “fine” and needed only a few more days’ rest, I said quietly that it was Gretchen’s nursing which had done it.

To this he gave an emphatic nod and a series of unintelligible murmurs, and then off he went into the snow, his car making a faint grinding noise outside as he passed through the driveway.

I felt so clearheaded and good that I wanted to cry. Instead I drank some more of the delicious orange juice, and I began to think of things … remember things.

“I need to leave you for only a little while,” Gretchen said. “I have to get some food.”

“Yes, and I shall pay for this food,” I said. I laid my hand on her wrist. Though my voice was still weak and hoarse, I told her about the hotel, that my money was there in my coat. It was enough money for me to pay her for my care as well as for the food, and she must get it. The key must be in my clothes, I explained.

She had put my clothes on hangers, and now she did find the key in the shirt pocket.

“See?” I said with a little laugh. “I have been telling you the truth about everything.”

She smiled, and her face was filled with warmth. She said she would go to the hotel and get my money for me, if I would agree to lie quiet. It wasn’t such a good idea to leave money lying about, even in a fine hotel.