Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight

"Yeah, sure. But, you know, it just wasn't meant to be."

"Someday..." he began, and let the idea trail off.

"You know what, Tolliver? You remember when we did Romeo and Juliet in high school?" We might have studied it years apart, but our high school stuck to its course of study religiously.

"Yeah. And?"

"There was that line that Mercutio says, when he gets killed in the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets. He says it in his dying speech. You remember?"

"No," he said. "Tell me."

"He says, ‘A plague on both your houses.' And then he dies."

" ‘A plague on both your houses,' " Tolliver repeated. "That about sums it up."

I had a thought. "But of course, Paul Edwards had a foot in both houses—the Hopkins house and the Teague house."

"Somehow that seems like the right thing to say, anyway."

We were quiet for a minute. Then, as the last of Sarne fell behind us and we headed from the mountains to the delta, the flatlands that stretched on and on, I said, "You know, I keep thinking about Teenie, lying out there in the woods, all alone. No matter what happened, I did a good thing."

"Never doubt it. It was a good thing." He hesitated. "Do you think they know? When they've been found?"

"Oh, yes. They know," I said, and the miles to Memphis opened ahead of us.