Twilla

by Tom Reamy

Twilla Gilbreath blew into Miss Mahan’s life like a pink butterfly wing that same day in early December the blue norther dropped the temperature forty degrees in two hours. Mr. Choate, the principal, ushered Twilla and her parents into Miss Mahan’s ninth-grade home room shortly after the tardy bell rang. She had just checked the roll: all seventeen ninth graders were present except for Sammy Stocker, who was in the Liberal hospital having his appendix removed. She was telling the class how nice it would be if they sent a get-well card, when the door opened.

“Goooood morning, Miss Mahan,” Mr. Choate smiled cheerfully. He always smiled cheerfully first thing in the morning, but soured as the day wore on. You could practically tell time by Mr. Choate’s mouth. “We have a new ninth grader for you this morning, Miss Mahan. This is Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreath and their daughter, Twilla.”

Several things happened at once. Miss Mahan shook hands with the parents; she threw a severe glance at the class when she heard a snigger—but it was only Alice May Turner, who would probably giggle if she were being devoured by a bear; and she had to forcibly keep her eyebrows from rising when she got a good look at Twilla. Good Lord, she thought, and felt her smile falter.

Miss Mahan had never in her life, even when it was fashionable for a child to look like that, seen anyone so perfectly … pink and … doll-like. She wasn’t sure why she got such an impression of pinkness, because the child was dressed in yellow, and had golden hair (that’s the color they mean when they say golden hair, she thought with wonder) done in, of all things, drop curls, with a big yellow bow in back. Twilla looked up at her with a sweet, radiant, sunny smile and clear periwinkle-blue eyes.

Miss Mahan detested her on sight.

She thought she saw, when Alice May giggled, the smile freeze and the lovely eyes dart toward the class, but she wasn’t sure. It all happened in an instant, and then Mr. Choate continued his Cheerful Charlie routine.

“Mr. Gilbreath has bought the old Peacock place.”

“Really?” she said, tearing her eyes from Twilla. “I didn’t know it was for sale.”

Mr. Gilbreath chuckled. “Not the entire farm, of course. I’m no farmer. Only the house and grounds. Such a charming old place. The owner lives in Wichita and had no use for them.”

“I would think the house is pretty run down,” Miss Mahan said, glancing at Twilla still radiating at the world. “No one’s lived in it since Wash and Grace Elizabeth died ten years ago.”

“It is a little,” Mrs. Gilbreath said pleasantly.

“But structurally sound,” interjected Mr. Gilbreath pleasantly.

“We’ll enjoy fixing it up,” Mrs. Gilbreath continued pleasantly.

“Miss Mahan teaches English to the four upper grades,” said Mr. Choate, bringing them back to the subject, “as well as speech and drama. Miss Mahan has been with the Hawley school system for thirty-one years.”

The Gilbreaths smiled pleasantly.

“My … ah … Twilla seems very young to be in the ninth grade.” That get-up made her look about eleven, Miss Mahan thought.

The Gilbreaths beamed at their daughter. “Twilla is only thirteen,” Mrs. Gilbreath crooned, pride swelling her like yeast. “She’s such an intelligent child. She was able to skip the second grade.”

“I see. From where have you moved?”

“Boston,” replied Mr. Gilbreath.

“Boston. I hope … ah … Twilla doesn’t find it difficult to adjust to a small town school. I’m sure Hawley, Kansas, is quite unlike Boston.”

Mr. Gilbreath touched Twilla lovingly on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll have no trouble.”

“Well,” Mr. Choate rubbed his palms together. “Twilla is in good hands. Shall I show you around the rest of the school?”

“Of course,” smiled Mrs. Gilbreath.

They departed with fond murmurings and good-byes, leaving Twilla like a buttercup stranded in a cabbage patch. Miss Mahan mentally shook her head. She hadn’t seen a family like that since Dick and Jane and Spot and Puff were sent the way of McGuffey’s Reader. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreath were in their middle thirties, good looking without being glamorous, their clothes nice though as oddly wrong as Twilla’s. They seemed cut with some outdated Ideal Family template. Surely, there must be an older brother, a dog, and a cat somewhere.

“Well … ah, Twilla,” Miss Mahan said, trying to reinforce the normal routine, “if you will take a seat; that one there, behind Alice May Turner. Alice May, will you wave a flag or something so Twilla will know which one?” Alice May giggled. “Thank you, dear.” Twilla moved gracefully toward the empty desk. Miss Mahan felt as if she should say something to the child. “I hope you will … ah … enjoy going to school in Hawley, dear.”

Twilla sat primly and glowed at her. “I’m sure I shall, Miss Mahan,” she said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was like the tinkle of fairy bells—just as Miss Mahan was afraid it would be.

“Good,” she said and went back to the subject of a get-well card for Sammy Stocker. She had done this so often—there had been a great many sick children in thirty-one years—it had become almost a ritual needing only a small portion of her attention. The rest she devoted to the covert observation of Twilla Gilbreath.

Twilla sat at her desk, displaying excellent posture, with her hands folded neatly before her, seemingly paying attention to the Great Greeting Card Debate but actually giving the rest of the class careful scrutiny. Miss Mahan marveled at the surreptitious calculation in the girl’s face. She realizes she’s something of a green monkey, Miss Mahan thought, and I’ll bet my pension she doesn’t let the situation stand.

And the class surveyed Twilla, in their superior position of established territorial rights, with open curiosity—and with the posture of so many sacks of corn meal. Some of them looked at her, Miss Mahan was afraid, with rude amusement—especially the girls, and especially Wanda O’Dell, who had bloomed suddenly last summer like a plump rose. Oh, yes, Wanda was going to be a problem. Just like her five older sisters. Thank goodness, she sighed, Wanda was the last of them.

Children, Miss Mahan sighed again, but fondly.

Children?

They were children when she started teaching and certainly were when she was fifteen, but, now, she wasn’t sure. Fifteen is such an awkward, indefinite age. Take Ronnie Dwyer: he looks like a prepubescent thirteen at most. And Carter Redwine, actually a couple of months younger than Ronnie, could pass for seventeen easily and was anything but prepubescent. Poor Carter, a child in a man’s body. To make matters worse, he was the best-looking boy in town; and to make matters even worse yet, he was well aware of it.

And, she noticed, so was Twilla. Forget it, Little Pink Princess. Carter already has more than he can handle, Miss Mahan chuckled to herself. Can’t you see those dark circles under his eyes? They didn’t get there from studying. And then she blushed inwardly.

Oh, the poor children. They think they have so many secrets. If they only knew. Between the tattletales and the teachers’ gossip, she doubted if the whole student body had three secrets among them.

Miss Mahan admonished herself for having such untidy thoughts. She didn’t use to think about things like that, but then, fifteen-year-olds didn’t lead such overtly sexual lives back then. She remembered reading somewhere that only thirty-five per cent of the children in America were still virgins at fifteen. But those sounded like Big City statistics, not applicable to Hawley.

Then she sighed. It was all beyond her. The bell rang just as the get-well card situation was settled. The children rose reluctantly to go to their first class: algebra with Mr. Whittaker. She noticed that Twilla had cozied up to Alice May, though she still kept her eye on Carter Redwine. Carter was not unaware and, with deliberate, lordly indifference, sauntered from the room with his hand on Wanda O’Dell’s shoulder. Miss Mahan thought the glint she observed in Twilla’s eyes might lead to an interesting turn of events.

Children.

She cleared her mind of random speculation and geared it to Macbeth as the senior class filed in with everything on their minds but Shakespeare. Raynelle Franklin, Mr. Choate’s secretary, lurked nervously among them, looking like a chicken who suddenly finds herself with a pack of coyotes. She edged her middle-aged body to Miss Mahan’s desk, accepted the absentee report, and scuttled out. Miss Mahan looked forward to Raynelle’s performance every morning.

During lunch period, Miss Mahan walked to the dime store for a get-well card which the ninth-grade class would sign that afternoon when they returned for English. She glanced at the sky and unconsciously pulled her gray tweed coat tighter about her. The sky had turned a cobalt blue in the north. It wouldn’t be long now. Though the temperature must be down to thirty-five already, it seemed colder. She guessed her blood was getting thin; she knew her flesh was. Old age, she thought, old age. Thin blood, thin flesh, and brittle bones. She sometimes felt as if she were turning into a bird.

She almost bumped into Twilla’s parents emerging from the dry goods store, their arms loaded with packages. Their pleasant smiles turned on. Click, click. They chatted trivialities for a moment, adding new dimensions to Twilla’s already flawless character. Miss Mahan had certainly seen her share of blindly doting parents, but this was unbelievable. She had seen the cold calculation with which Twilla had studied the class, and that was hardly the attribute of an angel. Something didn’t jibe somewhere. She speculated on the contents of the packages, but thought she knew. Then she couldn’t resist; she asked if Twilla were an only child. She was. Well, there went that.

She looked at the clock on the high tower of the white rococo courthouse, and, subtracting fourteen minutes, decided she’d better hurry if she wanted to eat lunch and have a rest before her one o’clock class.

The teachers’ lounge was a reasonably comfortable room where students were forbidden to enter on pain of death—though it seemed to be a continuing game on their part to try. Miss Mahan hung her coat on a hanger and shivered. “Has anyone heard a weather forecast?” she asked the room in general.

Mrs. Latham (home economics) looked up from her needlepoint and shook her head vaguely. Poor old dear, thought Miss Mahan. Due to retire this year, I think. Seems like she’s been here since Creation. She taught me when I was in school. Leo Whittaker (math) was reading a copy of Playboy. Probably took it from one of the children. “Supposed to be below twenty by five,” he said, then grinned and held up the magazine. “Ronnie Dwyer.”

Miss Mahan raised her eyebrows. Loretta McBride (history/civics) tsked, shook her head, and went back to her book. Miss Mahan retrieved her carton of orange juice from the small refrigerator and drank it with her fried egg sandwich. She put part of the sandwich back in the Baggie. She hardly had any appetite at all anymore. Guess what they say is true: the older you get …

She began to crochet on her interminable afghan. The little squares were swiftly becoming a pain in the neck, and she regretted ever starting it. She looked at Mrs. Latham and her needlepoint. She sighed; I guess it’s expected of us old ladies. Anyway, it gave her something to hide behind when she didn’t feel like joining the conversation. But today she felt like talking, though it didn’t seem as if anyone else did.

She finished a square and snipped the yarn. “What do you think of the Shirley Temple doll who joined our merry group this morning?”

Mrs. Latham looked up and smiled. “Charming child.”

“Yes,” said Loretta, putting away the book, “absolutely charming. And smart as a whip. Really knows her American History. Joined in the discussion as if she’d been in the class all semester.” Miss McBride was one of the few outsiders teaching in Hawley who gave every indication of remaining. Usually they came and went as soon as greener pastures opened up. Most were like Miss Mahan, Mrs. Latham, and Leo Whittaker, living their entire lives there.

It was practically incestuous, she thought. Mrs. Latham had taught her, she had taught Leo, and he was undoubtedly teaching part of the next crop. Miss Mahan had to admit that Leo had been something of a surprise. He was only twenty-five and had given no indication in high school that he was destined for anything better than a hanging. She wondered how long it would be before Leo connected his students’ inability to keep secrets from the teachers with his own disreputable youth.

Now here he was. Two years in the army, four years in college, his second year of teaching, married to Lana Redwine (Carter’s cousin and one of the nicest girls in town) with a baby due in a couple of months. You never can tell. You just never can tell.

“Well, Leo,” Miss Mahan asked, bemused, “what did you think of Twilla Gilbreath?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She seems very intelligent—at least in algebra. Quiet and well-behaved—unlike a few others. Dresses kinda funny. Seems to have set her sights on my cousin-in-law.” He grinned. “Fat chance!” Miss Mahan wouldn’t say Leo was handsome—not in the way Carter Redwine was—but that grin was the reason half the girls in school had a crush on him.

“Oh? You noticed that, too? I imagine she may have a few surprises up her sleeve. I don’t think our Twilla is the fairy-tale princess she’s made out to be.” She began another square.

“You must be mistaken, Miss Mahan,” Loretta said wide-eyed. “The child is an absolute darling. And the very idea: a baby like that running after Carter Redwine. I never heard of such a thing!”

“Really?” Miss Mahan smiled to herself and completed a shell stitch. “We shall see what we shall see.”

The norther hit during the ninth-grade English class, bringing a merciful, if only temporary, halt to the sufferings of Silas Marner. The glass in the windows rattled and pinged. The wind played on the downspouts like a mad flautist. Sand ticked against the windows and the guard lights came on in the school yard. Outside had become a murky indigo, as if the world were under water. Miss Mahan switched on the lights, making the windows seem even darker. Garbage cans rolled down the street, but you could hardly hear them above the howl of the wind. And the downtown Christmas decorations were whipping loose, as they always did at least once every year.

The sand was only temporary, a cloud of it blown along before the storm; but the wind could last all night or all week. Miss Mahan remembered when she was a girl during the great drought of the thirties, when the sand wasn’t temporary, when it came like a mile-high, solid tidal wave of blown-away farmland, when you couldn’t tell noon from midnight, when houses were half buried when the wind finally died down. She shuddered.

“All right, children. Settle down. You’ve all seen northers before.”

Leo and Loretta were right about one thing: Twilla was intelligent. She was also perceptive, imaginative … and adaptable. She had already dropped the Little Mary Sunshine routine, though Miss Mahan couldn’t imagine why she had used it in the first place. It must have been a pose—as if the child had somehow confused the present and 1905.

The temperature had dropped to eighteen by the time school was out. The wind hit Miss Mahan like icy needles. Her gray tweed coat did about as much good as tissue paper. She grabbed at her scarf as it threatened to leave her head and almost lost her briefcase. She walked as fast as her aging legs would go and made it to her six-year-old Plymouth. The car started like a top, billowing a cloud of steam from the exhaust pipe to be whipped away by the wind.

She sat for a moment, getting her breath back, letting the car warm up. She saw Twilla, huddled against the wind, dash to a new black Chrysler and get in with her parents. The car backed out and moved away. Miss Mahan wasn’t the least surprised that little Miss Gilbreath wasn’t riding the school bus. The old Peacock place was a mile off the highway at Miller’s Corners, a once-upon-a-time town eight miles east of Hawley.

Well, I guess I’m not much better, she thought. I only live four blocks away—but I’ll be darned if I’ll walk it today. She always did walk except when the weather was bad, and, oddly enough, the older she got, the worse the weather seemed to get.

She pulled into the old carriage house that served equally well with automobiles and walked hurriedly across the yard into the big, rather ancient house that had belonged to her grandfather. She knew it was silly to live all alone in such a great pile—she had shut off the upstairs and hadn’t been up in months—but it was equally silly not to live there. It was paid for, and her grandfather had set up a trust fund to pay the taxes. It was a very nice house, really; cool in the summer, but (she turned up the fire) a drafty old barn in the winter.

She turned on the television to see if there were any weather bulletins. While it warmed up, she closed off all the downstairs rooms except the kitchen, her bedroom, and the parlor, putting rolled up towels along the bottoms of the doors to keep the cold air out. She returned to the parlor to see the television screen covered with snow and horizontal streaks of lightning.

She knew it. The aerial had blown down again. She turned off the set and put on a kettle for tea.

The wind had laid somewhat by the time Miss Mahan reached school the next morning, but still blew in fitful gusts. The air was the color of ice and so cold she expected to hear it crackle as she moved through it. The windows in her room were steamed over, and she was busily wiping them when Twilla arrived. Although Miss Mahan had expected something like this, she stared nevertheless.

Twilla’s hair was still the color of spun elfin gold, but the drop curls were missing. Instead it fell in soft folds to below her shoulders in a style much too adult for a thirteen-year-old. But, then, this morning Twilla looked as much like thirteen as Mrs. Latham. All the physical things were there: the hair, just the right amount of makeup, a short, stylish skirt, a pale green jersey that displayed her small but adequate breasts, a lovely antique pendant on a gold chain nestling between them.

But it wasn’t only the physical things—any thirteen-year-old would have appeared more mature with a similar overhaul—it was something in the face, in her bearing: an attitude of casual sophistication, a confidence usually attainable only by those secure in their power. Twilla smiled. Shirley Temple and Mary Pickford were gone; this was the smile of a conqueror.

Miss Mahan realized her face was hanging out, but before she was forced to say anything, several students, after a prelude of clanging locker doors, barged in. Twilla turned to look at them, and the moment was electric. Their inane chatter stopped as if someone had thrown a switch. They gaped. Twilla gave them time for the full effect, then strolled to them and began chatting as if nothing were new.

Miss Mahan sat at her desk feeling a little weak in the knees. She waited for Carter Redwine to arrive as, obviously, was Twilla. When he did, it was almost anticlimactic. His recently acquired worldliness and sexual sophistication melted away in one callow gawk. But he recovered quickly and his feelers popped up, testing the situation. Twilla moved to her desk, giving him a satisfied smile. Wanda O’Dell looked as if she’d eaten a bug.

Miss Mahan had to admit to the obvious. Twilla was a stunning beauty. But the whole thing was … curious … to say the least.

The conversation in the teachers’ lounge was devoted almost exclusively to the transformation of Twilla Gilbreath. Mrs. Latham had noted it vaguely. Loretta McBride ceded reluctantly to Miss Mahan’s observations of the previous day. Leo Whittaker expressed a masculine appreciation of the new Twilla, earning a fishy look from Loretta. “I never saw Carter act so goofy,” he said grinning.

But neither they nor any of the others noted the obvious strangeness of it all. At least, Miss Mahan thought, it seems obvious to me.

That day Miss Mahan set out on a campaign of Twilla-watching. She even went upstairs to her grandfather’s study and purloined one of the blank journals from the bottom drawer of his desk. She curled up in the big chair after building a fire in the parlor fireplace—the first one this year—and opened the journal to the first page ruled with pale blue lines. She wrote Twilla, after rejecting The Twilla Gilbreath Affair, The Peculiar Case of Twilla Gilbreath, and others in a similar vein.

She felt silly and conspiratorial and almost put the journal away, but, instead, wrote further down the page: Is my life so empty that I must fill it by spying on a student?

She thought about what she had written and decided it was either unfair to Twilla or unfair to herself, but let it remain. She turned to the second page and wrote Tuesday, the 5th at the top. She filled that page and the next with her impressions of Twilla’s first day. She headed the fourth page Wednesday, the 6th and noted the events of the day just ending.

On rereading, she thought perhaps she might have overemphasized the oddities, the incongruities, and the anachronisms, but, after all, that was what it was about, wasn’t it?

It began snowing during the night. Miss Mahan drove to school through a fantasy landscape. The wind was still blowing and the steely flakes came down almost horizontally. She loved snow, always had, but she preferred the Christmas-card variety when the big fluffy flakes floated down through still, crisp air like so many pillow fights.

She knew there had been developments as soon as Carter Redwine entered the room. His handsome face was glum and sullen and looked as if he hadn’t slept. He sat at his desk with his head hunched between his shoulders and didn’t look up until Twilla came in. Miss Mahan darted her eyes from one to the other. Carter looked away again, his neck and ears glowing red. Twilla ignored him; more than that—she consigned him to total nonexistence.

Miss Mahan was dumbfounded. What on earth …? Had Carter made advances and been rebuffed? That wouldn’t explain it. Surely he had been turned down before. Hadn’t he? Of course, she knew he had. Leo, who viewed his cousin-in-law’s adventures with bemused affection, had been laughing about it in the teachers’ lounge one day. “He’ll settle down,” Leo had said. “He just has a new toy.” Which made her blush after she’d thought about it awhile.

Surely, he hadn’t tried to take Twilla … by force? She couldn’t believe that. Despite everything, Carter was a very decent boy. He had just developed too early, was too handsome, and knew too many willing girls. What then? Was it the first pangs of love? That look on his face wasn’t lovesickness. It was red, roaring mortification. Then she knew what must have happened. Carter had not been rebuffed, maybe even encouraged. But, whatever she had expected, he had been inadequate.

Twilla had made another error. She had failed to realize Carter, despite the way he looked, was only fifteen. Then the ugly enormity of it struck her. My God, she thought, Twilla is only thirteen. What had she wanted from Carter that he was too inexperienced or naïve to give her?

Friday, the 8th

Billy Jermyn came in this morning with a black eye. It’s all over school that Carter gave it to him in Gym yesterday when Billy teased him about Twilla. What did she do to humiliate him so? I’ve never known Carter to fight. I guess that’s one secret that’ll never penetrate the teachers’ lounge.

Twilla is taking over the class. I’ve seen it coming since Wednesday. It’s subtle but pretty obvious when you know what to look for. The others defer to her in lots of little ways. Twilla is being very gracious about it. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. (Wonder where that little saying came from?—doesn’t make much sense when you analyze it.)

I also wonder who Twilla’s got her amorous sights on, now that Carter failed to make the grade. She hasn’t shown an interest in anyone in particular that I’ve noticed. And there’s been no gossip in the lounge. The flap created by Carter has probably shown her the wisdom of keeping her romances to herself. She’s adaptable.

Sonny Bowen offered to put my TV aerial back up for me. I knew one of them would. Bless their conniving little hearts.

TGIF!

Miss Mahan closed the journal and sat watching a log in the fireplace that was about to fall. The whole Twilla affair was curious, but no more curious than her own attitude. She should have been scandalized (you didn’t see too many thirteen-year-old combinations of Madame Bovary and the Dragon Lady—even these days), but she only felt fascination. Somehow it didn’t seem quite real; more as if she were watching a movie. She smiled slightly. Wonder if it would be rated R or X, she thought. R, I guess. Haven’t seen anyone with their clothes off yet.

The log fell, making her jump. She laughed in embarrassment, banked the fire, and went to bed.

The snow was still falling Monday morning, though the fierceness of the storm had passed. There was little wind, and the temperature had risen somewhat. That’s more like it, Miss Mahan said to herself, watching the big soft flakes float down in random zig-zags.

The bell rang, and she turned away from the windows to watch the ninth-grade homeroom clatter out. The Gilbreaths must have been out of town over the weekend, she observed. Twilla didn’t get that outfit in Hawley. But she was still wearing that lovely, rather barbaric pendant around her neck. She sighed. Two days away from Twilla had made her wonder if she weren’t getting senile; if she weren’t making a mystery out of a molehill; if she weren’t imagining the whole thing. Twilla was certainly a picture of normalcy this morning.

Raynelle Franklin came for the absentee report looking more like a frightened chicken than ever. She followed an evasive course to Miss Mahan’s desk and took the report as if she were afraid of being struck. There were only two names on the report: Sammy Stocker and Yvonne Wilkins.

Raynelle glanced at the names and paled. “Haven’t you heard?“ she whispered.

“Heard what?”

Raynelle looked warily at the senior class shuffling in and backed away, motioning for Miss Mahan to follow. Miss Mahan groaned and followed her into the hall. Students were milling about everywhere, chattering and banging locker doors. Raynelle grimaced in distress.

“Raynelle, will you stand still and tell me!” Miss Mahan commanded in exasperation.

“Someone will hear,” she pleaded.

“Hear what?”

Raynelle fluttered her hands and blew air through her teeth. She looked quickly around and then huddled against Miss Mahan. “Yvonne Wilkins,” she hissed.

“Well?”

“She’s … she’s … dead!”

Miss Mahan thought Raynelle was going to faint. She grabbed her arm. “How?” she asked in her no-nonsense voice.

“I don’t know,” Raynelle gasped. “No one will tell me.”

Miss Mahan thought for a moment. “Go on with what you were doing.” She released Raynelle and marched into Mr. Choate’s office.

Mr. Choate looked up with a start. He was already wearing his three o’clock face. “I see you’ve heard.” He was resigned.

“Yes. What is going on? Raynelle was having a conniption fit.” Miss Mahan looked at him over her glasses the same way she would a recalcitrant student.

“Miss Mahan,” he sighed, “Sheriff Walker thought it best if the whole thing were kept quiet.”

“Quiet? Why?”

“He didn’t want a panic.”

“Panic? What did she die of, bubonic plague?”

“No.” He looked at her as if he wished she would vanish. “I guess I might as well tell you. It’ll be all over town by ten o’clock anyway. Yvonne was murdered.” He said the last word as if he’d never heard it before.

Miss Mahan felt her knees giving way and quickly sat down. “This is unbelievable,” she said weakly. Mr. Choate nodded. “Why does Robin Walker want to keep it quiet? What happened?”

“Miss Mahan, I’ve told you all I can tell you.”

“Surely Robin knows secrecy will only make it worse? Making a mystery out of it is guaranteed to create a panic.”

Mr. Choate shrugged. “I have my instructions. You’re late for your class.”

Miss Mahan went back to her room in a daze, her imagination ringing up possibilities like a cash register. She couldn’t keep her mind on Macbeth, and the class was restless. They obviously didn’t know yet, but their radar had picked up something they couldn’t explain.

When the class was over, she went into the hall and saw the news moving through like a shock wave. She accomplished absolutely nothing the rest of the morning. The children were fidgety and kept whispering among themselves. She was as disturbed as they and made only half-hearted attempts to restore order.

At lunch time, she bundled up and trounced through the snow to the courthouse. It was too hot inside, and the heat only accentuated the courthouse smell. She didn’t know what it was, but they all smelled the same. Maybe it was the state-issue disinfectant. The Hawley courthouse hadn’t changed since she could remember. The same wooden benches lined the hall; the same ceiling fans encircled the round lights. No, she corrected herself, there was a change: the brass spittoons had been removed some twelve years ago. It seemed subtly wrong without the spittoons.

She was removing her coat when Rose Newcastle emerged in a huff from the sheriff’s office, her heels popping on the marble floor, sending echoes ringing down the hall. Rose was the last of the three Willet girls, the daughters of old Judge Willet. People still called them the Willet girls, although Rose was considerably older than Miss Mahan. She was a widow now, her husband having finally died of insignificance.

“Hello, Rose,” she said, feeling trapped. Rose puffed to a halt like a plump locomotive.

“Oh, Miss Mahan, isn’t it awful!“ she wailed. “And Robin Walker absolutely refuses to do anything! We could all be murdered in our beds!”

“I’m sure he’s doing everything he can, Rose. What did he tell you?”

“Nothing! Absolutely nothing! If my father were still alive, I’d have that man’s job. I told him he’d better watch his step come next election. I told him, as a civic leader in this town, I had a right to know what’s going on. I told him I had a good mind to organize a Citizens’ Committee to investigate the whole affair.”

“Give him a chance. Robin is a very conscientious man.”

“He’s a child.”

“Come on, Rose. He’s at least thirty. I taught him for four years, and I have complete confidence in him. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m here to see him myself.”

“He won’t tell you anything,” Rose said, sounding slightly mollified.

“Perhaps,” Miss Mahan said. Rose echoed off down the hall. “He might have if you haven’t put his tail over the dashboard,” she muttered and pushed open the door.

Loreen Whittaker, Leo’s aunt by marriage, looked up and smiled. “Hello, Miss Mahan. What can I do for you?”

“Hello, Loreen. I’d like to see Robin, if I may.”

Loreen chuckled. “He gave me strict orders to let no one in but the governor—right after Mrs. Newcastle left.”

Miss Mahan grimaced. “I met her in the hall. Would you ask him? It’s important.”

Loreen arose from her desk and went into the sheriff’s private office. Miss Mahan felt that she and Robin were good friends. She had not only taught him, but his sister, Mary Ellen, and his little brother, Curtis, was a senior this year. She liked all of them and thought they liked her. Robin’s son was in the second grade and a little doll. She was looking forward to teaching him, too.

Loreen came out of his office, grinning. “He said you could come in, but I was to frisk you first.” Her smile wavered. “Try to cheer him up, Miss Mahan. It’s the first … murder we’ve had since he’s been in office, and it’s getting to him.”

Miss Mahan nodded and went in. The sheriff sat hunched over his desk. His hair was mussed where he had been running his hand through it. There was a harried look on his face, but he dredged up a thin smile for her.

“You aren’t gonna give me trouble, too, are you?” he asked warily.

“I ran into Rose in the hall,” she smiled back at him.

He motioned her to a chair. “What’s the penalty for punching a civic leader in the nose?”

“You should know that better than I.”

He grunted. “Yeah.” He leaned back in the chair and stretched his long legs. “I can’t discuss Yvonne Wilkins, if that’s what you’re here for.”

“That’s why I’m here. Don’t you think this secrecy is worse than the facts? People will be imagining all sorts of horrible things.”

“I doubt if anything they could imagine would be worse than the actual facts, Miss Mahan. You’ll have to trust me. I have to do it this way.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “I’m afraid I may be in over my head on this. There’s just me and five deputies for the whole county. And we haven’t anything to work on. Nothing.”

“Where did they find her?”

“Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you this much. Yvonne went out yesterday afternoon in her father’s car to visit Linda Murray. When she didn’t come home last night, Mr. Wilkins called the Murrays, and they said Yvonne left about six-thirty. He was afraid she’d had an accident in the snow, so he called me. We found her about three this morning out on the dirt road nearly to the old Weatherly place. She was in the car … dead. It’s been snowing for five days. There wasn’t a track of any kind and no fingerprints that didn’t belong. And that’s all you’re gonna worm out of me.”

Miss Mahan had an idea. “Had she been … molested?”

Robin looked at her as if he’d been betrayed. “Yes,” he said simply.

“But,” she protested, “why the big mystery? I know it’s horrible, but it’s not likely to cause a … a panic.”

He got up and paced around the office. “Miss Mahan, I can’t tell you any more.”

“Is there more? Is there more than rape and murder?” She felt something like panic rising in her.

Robin squatted in front of her, taking her hands in his. “If there’s anyone in town I’d tell, it would be you. You know that. I’ve loved you ever since I was fourteen years old. If you keep after me, I’ll tell you, so have a little pity on a friend and stop pushing.”

She felt her eyes burning and motioned for him to get up. “Robin, you’re not playing fair.” She stood up, and he held her coat for her. “You always were able to get around me. Okay, you win.”

“Thank you, Miss Mahan,” he said, genuinely relieved, and kissed her on the forehead. She stopped in the hall and dabbed at her eyes.

But I haven’t given up yet, she thought as she huddled in her coat on the way to Paul Sullivan’s office. The bell tinkled on the door, and the nurse materialized from somewhere.

“Miss Mahan. What are you doing out in this weather?”

“I’d like to see the doctor, Elaine.” She hung her coat on the rack.

“He’s with the little Archer girl now. She slipped on the snow and twisted her ankle.”

“I’ll wait.” She sat and picked up a magazine without looking at it. Elaine Holliday had been one of her students. Who in town hadn’t, she wondered. Elaine wanted to talk about the murder as did Louise Archer when she emerged with her limping daughter, but Miss Mahan wasn’t in the mood for gossip and speculation. She marched into Dr. Sullivan’s sanctorium.

“Hello, Paul,” she said before he could open his mouth. “I’ve just been to see Robin. He told me Yvonne had been raped, but he wouldn’t tell me what the big mystery is. I know you’re what passes for the County Medical Examiner, so you know as much as he does. I’ve known you for fifty years and even thought at one time you might propose to me, but you didn’t. So don’t give me any kind of runaround. Tell me what happened to Yvonne.” She plopped into a chair and glared at him.

He shook his head in dismay. “I thought I might propose to you at one time, too, but right now is a good example of why I didn’t. You were so independent and bull-headed, you scared me to death.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You won’t like it.”

“I don’t expect to.”

“There’s no way I can ‘put it delicately,’ as they say.”

“You don’t know high-school kids. I doubt if you know anything indelicate that I haven’t heard from them.”

“Even if I tell you everything I know about it, it’ll still be a mystery. It is to me.”

“Quit stalling.”

“Okay, you asked for it. And if you repeat this to anyone, I’ll wring your scrawny old neck.”

“I won’t.”

“All right. Yvonne was … how can I say it? … she was sexually mutilated. She was split open. Not cut—torn, ripped. As if someone had forced a two-by-four into her—probably something larger than that.”

“Had they?” Miss Mahan felt her throat beginning to burn from the bile rising in it.

“No. At least, there was no evidence of it. No splinters, no soil, no foreign matter of any kind.”

“My Lord,” she moaned. “How she must have suffered.”

“Yes,” he said softly, “but only for a few seconds. She must have lost consciousness almost immediately. And she was dead long before they finished with her.”

“They? What makes you think there was more than one?”

“Are you sure you want to hear the rest of it?”

“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t.

“I said we found no foreign matter, but we found semen.”

“Wasn’t that to be expected?”

“Yes, I suppose. But not in such an amount.”

“What do you mean?”

“We found nearly a hundred and fifty cc’s. There was probably even more. A lot of it had drained out onto the car seat.” His voice was dull.

She shook her head in confusion. “A hundred and fifty cc’s?”

“About a cup full.”

She felt nauseous. “How much … How much …?”

“The average male produces about two or three cc’s. Maybe four.”

“Does that mean she was … what? Fifty times?”

“And fifty different men.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Yes. I know. One of the deputies took it to Wichita to be analyzed. To see if it’s human.”

“Human?”

“Yes. We thought someone might …”

She held up her hand. “You don’t need to go … go any further.” They sat for a while, not saying anything.

After a bit he said, “You can see why Robin wanted to keep it quiet?”

“Yes.” She shivered, wishing she had her coat even though the office was warm. “Is there any more?”

He shook his head and slumped morosely deep in the chair. “No. Only that Robin is pretty sure she was … killed somewhere else and then taken out on the old road, because there was almost no blood in or around the car. How they ever drove so far out on that road in the snow is another mystery, although a minor one. The deputy was about to give up and turn around, and he had on snow chains.”

Miss Mahan was late for her one o’clock class. The children hadn’t become unruly as they usually did, but were subdued and talking in hushed voices. A discussion of Silas Marner proved futile, so she told them to sit quietly and read. She didn’t feel any more like classwork than they did. She noticed that Twilla’s eyes were bright with suppressed excitement. Well, she thought, I guess you can’t expect her to react like the others. She hardly knew Yvonne.

It had stopped snowing by the time Mr. Choate circulated a memo that school would be closed Wednesday for the funeral. Apparently Robin had managed to keep a lid on knowledge of the rape. There was speculation on the subject, but she could tell it was only speculation.

When she got home, she saw the Twilla journal lying beside the big chair in front of the cold fireplace. Strange, Twilla had hardly crossed her mind all day. She guessed it only proved how silly and stupid her Twilla-watching really was. She put the journal away in the library table drawer and decided that was enough of that nonsense.

Tuesday, the 12th

This morning I saw Twilla jab Alice May Turner in the thigh with a large darning needle.

Miss Mahan stopped in the middle of a sentence and stared in disbelief. She walked slowly to Twilla’s desk, feeling every eye in the class following her. “What’s going on here?” she asked in a deathly quiet voice. Twilla looked up at her with such total incomprehension she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. But she looked at Alice May and saw her mouth tight and trembling and the tears being held in her eyes only by surface tension.

“What do you mean, Miss Mahan?” Twilla asked in a bewildered voice.

“Why did you stick Alice May with a needle?”

“Miss Mahan, I didn’t!”

“I saw you.”

“But I didn’t!” Twilla’s eyes were becoming damp as if she were about to cry in injured innocence.

“Don’t bother to cry,” Miss Mahan said calmly. “I’m not impressed.” Twilla’s mouth tightened for the briefest instant. Miss Mahan turned to Alice May. “Did she jab you with a needle?”

Alice May blinked, and a tear rolled down each cheek. “No, ma’am,” she answered in a strained voice.

“Then why are you crying?” Miss Mahan demanded.

“I’m not crying,” Alice May insisted, wiping her face.

“I think both of you had better come with me to Mr. Choate’s office.”

Mr. Choate wouldn’t or, I guess, couldn’t do anything. They both lied their heads off, insisting that nothing happened. Twilla even had the gall to accuse me of spying on her and persecuting her. I think Mr. Choate believed me. He could hardly help it when Alice May began rubbing her thigh in the midst of her denials.

Miss Mahan sent Twilla back to the room and kept Alice May in the hall. Alice May began to snuffle and wouldn’t look at her. “Alice May, dear,” she said patiently. “I saw what Twilla did. Why are you fibbing to me?”

“I’m not!” she wailed softly.

“Alice May, I don’t want any more of this nonsense!” Why on earth did Twilla do it? she wondered. Alice May was such a silly, harmless girl. Why would anyone want to hurt her?

“Miss Mahan, I can’t tell you,” she sobbed.

“Here.” Miss Mahan gave her a handkerchief. Alice May took it and rubbed at her red eyes. “Why can’t you tell me? What’s going on between you and Twilla?”

“Nothing,” she sniffed.

“Alice May. I promise to drop the whole subject if you’ll just tell me the truth.”

Alice May finally looked at her. “Will you?”

“Yes,” she groaned in exasperation.

“Well, my … my giggling gets on her nerves.”

“What?”

“She told me if I didn’t stop, I’d be sorry.”

“Why didn’t you pick up something and brain her with it?”

Alice May’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Miss Mahan, I couldn’t do that!”

“She didn’t mind hurting you, did she?”

“I’m … I’m afraid of her. Everybody is.”

“Why? What has she done?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. I’m just afraid. You promise not to let her know I told you?”

“I promise. Now, go to the restroom and wash your face.”

Twilla kept watching me the rest of the period. I imagine she suspects Alice May spilled the beans. The other children were very quiet and expectant, as if they thought Twilla and I would go at each other tooth and claw. I wonder who they would root for if we did.

I’ll have to admit to a great deal of perverse pleasure in tarnishing Twilla’s reputation in the teachers’ lounge. I was a little surprised to find a few of the others had become somewhat disenchanted with her also. They didn’t have such a concrete example of viciousness as I had, but she was making them uncomfortable.

I also discovered who Twilla’s romantic (if you can call it that) interest is since Carter flunked out.

Leo Whittaker!

I was never so shocked and disappointed in my life. An affair between a teacher and student is bad enough, but—Leo! No wonder she was being quiet about it. I thought he acted a bit peculiar when we discussed Twilla, so I said bold as brass: “I wonder who she’s sleeping with?” He turned red and left the room, looking guilty as sin.

I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve got to do something. But what? what? what? I can’t do anything to hurt Leo, because it’ll also hurt poor Lana.

How could Leo be so stupid?

Dark clouds hung oppressively low the morning of the funeral. They scudded across the sky so rapidly Miss Mahan got dizzy looking at them. She stood with the large group huddled against the cold outside the First Christian Church of Hawley, waiting for the formation of the procession to the County Line Cemetery. The services had drawn a capacity crowd—mostly from curiosity, she was afraid. The entire ninth grade was there, with the exception of Sammy Stocker, of course, and Twilla. Only two teachers were missing: Mrs. Bryson (first grade), who had the flu, and Leo Whittaker. Leo’s absence was peculiar because Lana was there, looking pale and beautifully pregnant. She was with Carter Redwine and his parents. Carter seems to be recovering nicely from his little misadventure, she thought.

She spotted Paul Sullivan and crunched through the snow to his side. He saw her coming and frowned. “Hello, Paul. Did you get the report from Wichita?”

“Do you think this is the place to discuss it?”

“Why not? No one will overhear. Did you?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“Well?”

“It was human—although there were certain peculiarities.”

“What peculiarities?”

He cocked his eyes at her. “If I told you, would it mean anything?”

She shrugged. “What else?”

“Well, it all came from the same person—as far as they could tell. At least, there was nothing to indicate that it didn’t. Also, all the sperm was the same age.”

“What does that mean?”

“The thought occurred to us that someone might be trying to create a grisly hoax. That someone might have … well … saved it up until they had that much.”

“I get the picture.” She grimaced. She thought a moment. “Can’t they … ah … freeze it? Haven’t I read something about that?”

“You can’t do it in your Frigidaire. If the person who did it had the knowledge and the laboratory equipment to do that … well … it’s as improbable as the other theories.”

“Robin hasn’t learned anything yet?”

“I don’t know. Some of us aren’t as nosy as others.”

She smiled at him as she spotted Lana Whittaker moving toward the Redwine car. She began edging away. “Will you keep me posted?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Paul.” She caught up with Lana. “Hello, dear.”

Lana started and turned, then smiled thinly. “Hello, Miss Mahan.”

She exchanged greetings with Mr. and Mrs. Redwine and Carter as they entered their car. “Should you be out in this weather, Lana?”

Lana shrugged. She looked a little haggard, and her eyes were puffy. “I’ll be all right.”

Miss Mahan took her arm. “Come on. My car is right here. Get in out of the cold and talk to me. We’ll have plenty of time before they get this mess untangled.” Lana went unprotesting and sat in the car staring straight ahead. Miss Mahan started the car and switched on the heater, although it was still fairly warm. She turned and looked at Lana.

“When you were in school,” she said quietly, “you came to me with all your problems. It made me feel a little like I had a daughter of my own.”

Lana turned and looked at her with love and pain in her eyes. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Miss Mahan. I’m a married lady with a baby on the way. I should be able to handle my own problems.”

“Where’s Leo?”

Lana leaned back against the seat and put her fingers on the sides of her nose. “I don’t know,” she said simply, as if her tears had been used up. “He went out last night, and I haven’t seen him since. I told my aunt and uncle he went to Liberal to buy some things for the baby.”

“Did you call Robin? Maybe he had an accident.”

“No. There was no accident. I thought so the first time.”

“When was that?”

“Last Friday night. He didn’t come in until after midnight. The same thing Saturday. He didn’t show up until dawn Monday and Tuesday. This time he didn’t come back at all.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He wouldn’t say anything. Miss Mahan, I know he still loves me; I can tell. He seems genuinely sorry and ashamed of what he’s doing, but he keeps … keeps doing it. I’ve tried to think who she might be, but I can’t imagine anyone. He’s so tired and worn out when he comes home, it would be funny if it … if it were happening to someone else.”

“Do you still love him?”

Lana smiled. “Oh, yes,” she said softly. “More than anything. I love him so much it”—she blushed—“it gives me goosebumps. I was crazy about Leo even when we were in high school, but he was so wild he scared me to death. I thought … I thought he had changed.”

“I think he has.” Miss Mahan took Lana’s hand as she saw Robin get in his car and pull out with the pall bearers and the hearse directly behind him. “They’re starting. You’d better go back to your car. I’m glad you told me. I’ll do all I can to help.”

Lana opened the car door. “I appreciate it, Miss Mahan, but I really don’t see what you can do.”

“We shall see what we shall see.”

Miss Mahan managed to hang back until she was last in the funeral procession. The highway had been cleared of snow, and she hoped it wouldn’t start again before they all got back to town. But she didn’t know. The sky looked terrible. She turned off the highway at Miller’s Corners, down the dirt road to the old Peacock place. There was nothing left of Miller’s Corners now except a few scattered farmhouses. The cafe had been moved into Hawley eight years ago, and the Gulf station had closed when George Cuttsanger died last fall. The Gulf people had even taken down the signs.

If the Gilbreaths were fixing up the old Peacock farm, they must have started on the inside. It was still as gray and weary-looking as it was ten years ago, if not more so. The black Chrysler was in the old carriage house, and smoke drifted this way and that from one of the chimneys, caught by small erratic gusts of air.

She parked and sat looking at the house a moment before getting out. The snow was clean and undisturbed on the front walk. She guessed they must use the back door; it was closer to the carriage house.

No one answered her knock, but she knew they were home. She waited and knocked again. Still no response. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. “Mrs. Gilbreath?” she called. She listened carefully, but there was not a sound. She could hear the melting snow dripping from the eaves and the little ticking sounds an old house makes. She went in and closed the door behind her. “Mrs. Gilbreath?” she called again, hearing nothing but a faint echo. The house was warm but even more dilapidated than the last time she was in it.

She stepped into the parlor and saw them both sitting there. “Oh!” she gasped, startled, and then laughed in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to barge in, but no one answered my knock.” Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreath sat in highback easy chairs facing away from her. She could only see the tops of their heads. They didn’t move.

“Mrs. Gilbreath?” she said, beginning to feel queasy. She walked slowly around them, her eyes fixed so intently on the chairs she momentarily experienced an optical illusion that the chairs were turning slowly to face her. She blinked and took an involuntary step backward. They sat in the chairs dressed to go out, their eyes focussed on nothing. Neither of them moved, not even the slight movements of breathing, nor did their eyes blink. She stared at them in astonishment, fearing they were dead.

Miss Mahan approached them cautiously and touched Mrs. Gilbreath on the arm. The flesh was warm and soft. She quickly drew her hand back with a gasp. Then she reached again and shook the woman’s shoulder. “Mrs. Gilbreath,” she whispered.

“She won’t answer you.” Miss Mahan gave a little shriek and looked up with a jerk. Twilla was strolling down the stairs, tying the sash of a rather barbaric-looking floor-length fur robe. The antique pendant she always wore was around her neck. She stopped at the foot of the stairs and leaned against the newell post. She smiled. “They’re only simulacra, you know.”

“What?” Miss Mahan was bewildered. She hadn’t expected Twilla to be here. She thought she would be with Leo.

Twilla indicated her parents. “Watch.” Miss Mahan jerked her head back toward the people in the chairs. Suddenly, their heads twisted on their necks until the blank faces looked at each other. Then they grimaced and stuck out their tongues. The faces became expressionless again, and the heads swiveled back to stare at nothing.

Twilla’s laugh trilled through the house. Miss Mahan jerked her eyes back to the beautiful child, feeling like a puppet herself. “They’re rather clever, don’t you think?” she cooed as she walked toward Miss Mahan, the fur robe making a soft sound against the floor. “I’m glad you came, Miss Mahan. It saves me the trouble of going to you.”

“What?” Miss Mahan felt out of control. Her heart was beating like a hammer, and she clutched the back of Mrs. Gilbreath’s chair to keep from falling.

Twilla smiled at her panic. “I haven’t been unaware of your interest in me, you know. I had decided it was time to get you out of the way before you became a problem.”

“Get me out of the way?”

“Of course.”

“What are you?” She felt her voice rising to a screech, but she couldn’t stop it. “What are these things pretending to be your parents?”

Twilla laughed. “A thirteen-year-old is quite limited in this society. I had to have parents to do the things I couldn’t do myself.” She shrugged. “There are other ways, but this is the least bothersome.”

“I won’t let you get me out of the way,” Miss Mahan hissed, dismissing the things she didn’t understand and concentrating on that single threat, trying to pull her reeling senses together.

“Don’t be difficult, Miss Mahan. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Twilla’s face had become petulant, and then she smiled slyly. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” Miss Mahan didn’t budge. Twilla took a few steps and then turned back. “Come along now. Don’t you want all your questions answered?”

She started up the stairs. Miss Mahan followed her. Her legs felt mechanical. Half way up she turned and looked back at the two figures sitting in the chairs like department store dummies. Twilla called to her, and she continued to the top.

A hallway ran the length of the house upstairs with bedroom doors on either side. Twilla opened one of them and motioned Miss Mahan in. The house wasn’t as old as her own, but it still had the fourteen-foot ceilings. But the ceilings, as well as the walls, had been removed. This side of the hall was one big area, opening into the attic, the roof at least twenty feet overhead with what appeared to be some sort of trap door recently built into it. The area was empty except for a large gray mass hunched in one corner like a partially collapsed tent.

“He’s asleep,” Twilla said and whistled. The mass stirred. The tent unfolded slowly, rustling like canvas sliding on canvas. Bony ribs spread gracefully, stretching the canvas-like flesh into vast bat wings which lifted out and up to bump against the roof. The wings trembled slightly as they stretched lazily and then settled, folding neatly behind the thing sitting on the floor.

It was a man, or almost a man. He would have been about sixteen feet tall had he been standing. His body was massively muscled and covered with purplish gray scales that shimmered metallically even in the dim light. His chest, shoulders, and back bulged with wing-controlling muscles. He stretched his arms and yawned, then rubbed at his eyes with horny fists. His head was hairless and scaled; his ears rose to points reaching above the crown of his skull. The face was angelically beautiful, but the large liquid eyes were dull and the mouth was slack like an idiot’s. He scratched his hip with two-inch talons, making the sound of a rasp on metal. He was completely naked and emphatically male. His massive sex lay along his heavy thigh like a great purple-headed snake.

“This is Dazreel,” Twilla said pleasantly. The creature perked up at the sound of his name and looked toward them. “He’s a djinn,” Twilla continued. He turned his empty gaze away and began idly fondling himself. Twilla sighed. “I’m afraid Dazreel’s pleasures are rather limited.”

Miss Mahan ran.

She clattered down the stairs, clutching frantically at the bannister to keep her balance. She lost her right shoe and stumbled on the bottom step, hitting her knees painfully on the floor. She reeled to her feet, unaware of her shins shining through her torn stockings. Twilla’s crystal laughter peeling down the stairs hardly penetrated the shimmering white layer of panic blanketing her mind.

She bruised her hands on the front door, clawing at it, trying to open it the wrong way. She careened across the porch, into the snow, not feeling the cold on her stockinged left foot. But her lopsided gait caused her to fall, sprawling on her face, burying her arms to the elbows in the snow. She crawled a few feet before gaining enough momentum to regain her feet. Her whole front was frosted with white, but she didn’t notice.

She locked the car doors, praying it would start. But she released the clutch too quickly, and it bucked and stalled. She ground the starter and turned her head to see Twilla standing on the porch, her arms hugging a pillar, her cheek caressing it, her smile mocking. The motor caught. Miss Mahan turned the car in a tight circle. The rear wheels lost traction and the car fishtailed.

Take it easy, she screamed at herself. You’ve made it. You’ve gotten away. Don’t end up in the far ditch.

She was halfway to Miller’s Corners when the loose snow began whipping in a cloud around her. She half heard the dull boom of air being compressed by vast wings. A shadow fell over her, and Dazreel landed astraddle the hood of her car. The metal collapsed with a hollow whump as the djinn leaned down to peer curiously at her through the windshield. She began screaming, tearing her throat with short, hysterical, mindless shrieks that seemed to come from a great distance.

Her screams ended suddenly with a grunt as the front wheels struck the ditch, bringing the car to an abrupt halt. Dazreel lost his balance and flopped over backwards with a glitter of purplish gray and a tangle of canvas-flesh into the snow drifts. Miss Mahan watched in paralyzed shock as he got to his feet, grinning an idiot grin, shaking the snow from his wings, and walked around the car. His wings kept opening and closing slightly to give him balance. Her head turned in quick jerks like a wooden doll, following his movements. He leaned over the car from behind, and the glass of both side windows crumbled with a gravelly sound as his huge fingers poked through to grasp the tops of the doors.

The dim light became even dimmer as his wings spread in a mantle over the car. The snow swirled into the air, and she could see the tips of each wing as it made a downward stroke. The car shifted and groaned and rose from the ground.

She fainted.

A smiling angel face floated out of a golden mist. Soft, pink lips moved solicitously, but no sound emerged. Miss Mahan felt a glass of water at her mouth and she drank greedily, soothing her raw throat. Sound returned.

“Are you feeling better, Miss Mahan? We don’t want you to have a heart attack just yet, do we?” Twilla’s eyes glittered with excitement.

Miss Mahan sucked oxygen, fighting the fog in her brain. Then raw red fingers of anger tore away the silvery panic. She looked at the beautiful monstrous child kneeling before her, the extravagant robe parted enough at the top to reveal a small, perfect bare breast. The nipple looked as if it had been rouged. “I’m feeling quite myself again, thank you.”

Twilla rose and moved to a facing chair. They were in the parlor. Miss Mahan looked around, but the djinn was absent. Only the parent dolls were there in the same positions.

“Dazreel is back upstairs,” Twilla assured her, watching her speculatively. “You have nothing to fear.” She smiled slightly. “He will have only virgins.”

Miss Mahan felt the blood draining from her face, and she weaved in the chair, feeling the panic creeping back. Twilla threw her head back, and her crystal laugh was harsh and strident, like a chandelier tumbling down marble stairs.

“Miss Mahan, you never cease to amaze me,” she gasped. “Imagine! And at your age, too.”

The anger returned in full control. “It’s none of your business,” she stated unequivocally.

“I’m ever so glad you decided to pay me a visit, Miss Mahan. It’s, what do you say? Killing two birds with one stone?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dazreel has, as I said, limited but strong appetites. If they aren’t satisfied, he becomes quite unmanageable. And don’t think he will reject you because you’re a scrawny old crow. He has no taste at all, and only one criterion: virginity.” Twilla was almost fidgety with anticipation.

“What possible difference could it make to that monster?” I must be losing my mind, Miss Mahan thought. I’m sitting here having a calm conversation with this wretched child who is going to kill me!

Twilla was thoughtful. “I really don’t know. I never thought about it. That’s just the way it’s always been. It could be a personal idiosyncracy, or perhaps it’s religious.” She shrugged. “Something like kosher, do you think? Anyway, you can’t fool him.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Miss Mahan said in confusion. “Did you say he was a … djinn?”

“Surely you’ve heard of them. King Solomon banished the entire race, if you remember.” She smiled, pleased. “But I saved Dazreel.”

“How old are you?” Miss Mahan breathed.

Twilla chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Don’t let the body mislead you. It’s relatively new. Dazreel has great power if you can control him. But he’s crafty and very literal. One wrong move and …” She ran her forefinger across her throat.

“But …” Miss Mahan was completely confused. “If this is all true, why are you going to school in Hawley, Kansas, for heaven’s sake?”

Twilla sighed. “Boredom is the curse of the immortal, Miss Mahan. I thought it might offer some diversion.”

“If you’re so bored with life, why don’t you die?”

“Don’t be absurd!”

“How could you be so inhuman? What you did to Yvonne … Does life mean nothing to you?”

Twilla shifted in irritation. “Don’t be tiresome. How could your brief, insignificant lives concern me?”

There was a restless sound from above. Twilla glanced at the stairs. “Dazreel is becoming impatient.” She turned back to Miss Mahan with a smirk. “Are you ready to meet your lover, Miss Mahan?”

Miss Mahan sat frozen, the blood roaring in her ears. “You might as well go,” Twilla continued. “It’s inevitable. Think of your dignity, Miss Mahan. Do you really want to go kicking and screaming? Or perhaps you’d like another run in the snow?”

Miss Mahan stood up suddenly. “I won’t give you the satisfaction,” she said calmly. She walked to the stairs, bobbing up and down with one shoe off. Twilla rose and ran after her, circling her in glee.

Twilla leaned against the newell post, blocking the stairs. She smiled wistfully. “I rather envy you, Miss Mahan. I’ve often wished … Dazreel knows the ancient Oriental arts, and sex was an art.” She grimaced. “Now it’s like two goats in heat!” Her smile returned. “I’ve often wished I had the capacity.”

Miss Mahan ignored her and marched slowly up the stairs with lopsided dignity. Twilla clapped her hands and backed up ahead of her, taunting her, encouraging her, plucking at her gray tweed coat. Twilla danced around her, swirling the fur robe with graceful turns. Miss Mahan looked straight ahead, one hand on the bannister for balance.

Then, at the third step from the top, she stumbled. She fell against the railing and then to her knees. She shifted and sat on the step, rubbing her shins.

“Don’t lose heart now, Miss Mahan,” Twilla sang. “We’re almost there.” Twilla tugged at her coat sleeve. Miss Mahan clutched Twilla’s wrist as if she needed help in getting up. Then she heaved with all her might. Twilla’s laughter became a gasp and then a shriek as she plummeted down the stairs with a series of very satisfying thumps and crashes. Miss Mahan hurried after her, but the fall had done the job.

Twilla lay on her back a few feet from the bottom step, her body twisted at the wrong angle. She was absolutely motionless except for her face. It contorted in fury, and her eyes were metallic with hate. Her rose-petal lips writhed and spewed the most vile obscenities Miss Mahan had ever imagined, some of them in languages she’d never heard.

“Dazreel!” Twilla keened. “Dazreel! Dazreel!” Over and over. A howl reverberated through the house. It shook. Plaster crashed and wood splintered. Dazreel appeared at the top of the stairs, barely able to squeeze through the opening.

Twilla continued her call. Miss Mahan took a trembling step backward. Dazreel started down the steps. Miraculously, they didn’t collapse. Only the bannister splintered and swayed outward.

Miss Mahan commanded herself to think. What did she know about djinns? Very little, practically nothing. Wasn’t there supposed to be a controlling device of some sort? A lamp? A bottle? A magic ring? A talisman? Something. She looked at Twilla and then at the djinn. She almost fainted. Dazreel approached the bottom of the stairs with an enormous erection.

She looked frantically at Twilla. She’s not wearing rings. Then something caught her eye.

The pendant! Was it the pendant? It had slipped up and over her shoulder and beneath her neck. Miss Mahan scrambled for it. She pushed Twilla’s head aside. The child screamed in horrible agony. She grasped the pendant and pulled. The chain cut into the soft flesh of Twilla’s neck and then snapped, leaving a red line that oozed blood.

She looked at Dazreel. He had stopped and was looking at her tentatively. It was the pendant! “Give it back,” Twilla groaned. “Give it back. Please. Please, give it back. It won’t do you any good. You don’t know how to use it.” Dazreel took another step.

Miss Mahan threw the pendant at him. Twilla screamed, and the hair on the back of Miss Mahan’s neck bristled. It was not a scream of pain or rage, but of the damned. Dazreel’s huge hand darted out and caught the pendant. He held his fist to his face and opened his fingers, gazing at what he held. He looked at Miss Mahan and smiled an angelic smile. Then he rippled, like heat waves on the desert, and … vanished.

Miss Mahan sat on the bottom step, weak with relief, gulping air. She looked at Twilla, as motionless as the parent dolls in the chairs. Only her face moved, twisting in sobs of self-pity. Miss Mahan almost felt sorry for her … but not quite.

She stood up and walked through the kitchen and out the back door. She thought she knew where it would be. Everyone kept it there. She went to the shed behind the carriage house, floundering through the snow drift. She scooped away the snow to get the door open. She stepped in and looked around. There was almost no light. The scudding clouds seemed even lower and darker, and the single window in the shed was completely grimed over.

She spotted it behind some shovels, misted over with cobwebs. She pushed the shovels aside, grasped the handle, and lifted the gasoline can. It was heavy. She shook it. There was a satisfying slosh. She smiled grimly and started back to the house, walking more lopsided than ever.

Then she stopped and gaped when she saw Leo Whittaker’s car parked out of sight behind the house. She hurried on, letting the heavy can bounce against the ground with every other step. She opened the kitchen door and shrieked.

Mrs. Gilbreath stood in the doorway, smiling pleasantly at her, and holding a butcher knife. Without reasoning, without even thinking, Miss Mahan took the handle of the heavy gasoline can in both hands and swung it as hard as she could.

The sharp rim around the bottom caught Mrs. Gilbreath across the face, destroying one eye, shearing away her nose, and opening one cheek. Her expression didn’t change. Blood flowed over her pleasant smile as she staggered drunkenly backward.

Miss Mahan lost her balance completely. The momentum of the gasoline can swung her around and she sat in the snow, flat on her skinny bottom. The can slipped from her fingers and bounced across the ground with a descending scale of clangs. She lurched to her feet and looked in the kitchen door. Mrs. Gilbreath had slammed against the wall and was sitting on the floor, still smiling her gory smile, her right arm twitching like a metronome.

Miss Mahan scrambled after the gasoline can and hid it in the pantry. She ducked up the kitchen stairs when she heard footsteps.

Mr. Gilbreath walked through the kitchen, ignoring Mrs. Gilbreath, and went out the back door. Miss Mahan hurried up the stairs. Oh Lord, she thought. I’ll be so sore I can’t move for a week.

She entered the upstairs hall from the opposite end. She stepped carefully over the debris from the wall shattered by the djinn. She looked in the bedrooms on the other side. The first one was empty with a layer of dust, but the second … She stared. It looked like a set from a Maria Montez movie. A fire burned in the fireplace, and Leo Whittaker lay stark-naked on the fur-covered bed.

“Leo Whittaker!” she bellowed. “Get up from there and put your clothes on this instant!” But he didn’t move. He was alive; his chest moved gently as he breathed. She went to him, trying to keep from looking at his nakedness. Then she thought, what the dickens? There’s no point in being a prude at this stage. Her eyes widened in admiration. Then she ceded him a few additional points for being able to satisfy Twilla. Why couldn’t she have found a beautiful man like that when she was twenty-three, she wondered. She sighed. It wouldn’t have made any difference, she guessed. It would have all turned out the same.

She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him. He moaned softly and shifted on the bed. “Leo! Wake up! What’s the matter with you?” She shook him again. He acted drugged or something. She saw a long golden hair on his stomach and plucked it off, throwing it on the floor. She took a deep breath and slapped him in the face. He grunted. His head lifted slightly and then fell back. “Leo!” she shouted and slapped him again. His body jerked, and his eyes clicked open but didn’t focus.

“Leo!” Slap!

“Owww,” he said and looked at her. “Miss Mahan?”

“Leo, are you awake?”

“Miss Mahan? What are you doing here? Is Lana all right?” He sat up in the bed and saw the room. He grunted in bewilderment.

“Leo. Get up and get dressed. Hurry!” she commanded. She heard the starter of a car grinding. Leo looked at himself, turned red, and tried to move in every direction at once. Miss Mahan grinned and went to the window. She could hear Leo thumping and bumping as he tried to put his clothes on. The car motor caught, and steam billowed from the carriage house. “Hurry, Leo!” The black Chrysler began slowly backing out, Mr. Gilbreath at the wheel. Then the motor stalled and died.

He’s trying to get away, she thought. No, he’s only a puppet. He’s planning to take Twilla away! She turned back to Leo. He was dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, putting on his shoes. He looked at her shamefaced, like a little boy.

“Leo,” she said in her sternest, most no-nonsense, unruly child voice. The car motor started again. “Don’t ask any questions. Go down the kitchen stairs and to your car. Hurry as fast as you can. Don’t let Mr. Gilbreath see you. Bring your car around to the front and to the end of the lane. Block the lane so Mr. Gilbreath can’t get out. Keep yourself locked in your car, because he’s dangerous. Do you understand?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Never mind. Will you do what I said?”

He nodded.

“All right, then. Hurry!” They left the bedroom. Leo gave it one last bewildered glance. They ran down the kitchen stairs as fast as they could, Leo keeping her steady. She propelled him out the back door before he could see Mrs. Gilbreath still smiling and twitching. The black Chrysler was just pulling around to the front of the house.

She ran to the pantry, retrieved the gasoline can, and staggered into the entry hall. She could see Mr. Gilbreath getting out of the car. She locked the door and hobbled into the parlor. Twilla had been moved to the divan and covered with a quilt. He shouldn’t have moved her, Miss Mahan thought; with an injury like that, it could have killed her.

Twilla saw her enter and began screeching curses at her. Miss Mahan shook her head. She put the gasoline can down by the divan and tried to unscrew the cap on the spout. It wouldn’t budge. It was rusted solid. Miss Mahan growled in frustration. The front door began to rattle and clatter.

Twilla’s curses stopped suddenly, and Miss Mahan looked at her. Twilla was staring at her in round-eyed horror. Miss Mahan went to the fireplace and got the poker. Twilla’s eyes followed her. She drew the poker back and swung it as hard as she could at the gasoline can. It made a very satisfactory hole. She swung the poker several more times and tossed it away. She picked up the can as Twilla began to scream and plead. She rested it on the back of the divan and stripped away the blanket. She tipped it over, and pale pink streams of gasoline fell on Twilla.

Glass shattered in the front door. Miss Mahan left the can resting on the back of the divan, still gurgling out its contents, and went to the fireplace again. She picked up the box of matches as Mr. Gilbreath walked in. His expression didn’t change as he hurried toward her. She took a handful of wooden matches. She struck them all on the side of the box and tossed them on Twilla.

Twilla’s screams and the flames ballooned upward together. Mr. Gilbreath shifted directions and waded into the flames, reaching for Twilla. Miss Mahan ran out of the house as fast as she could.

She was past the black Chrysler, its motor still running, when the gasoline can exploded. Leo had parked his car where she told him. Now he jumped out and ran to her. They looked at the old Peacock house.

It was old and dry as dust. The flames engulfed it completely. The snow was melting in a widening circle around it. They had to back all the way to Leo’s car because of the heat.

They heard a siren and turned to see Sheriff Walker’s car hurrying down the lane, followed by some of the funeral procession on its way back to Hawley. The ones who hadn’t turned down the road were stopped on the highway, looking.

“Leo, dear,” she said. “Do you know what you’re doing here?”

He rubbed his hand across his face, his eyes still a little bleary. “Yes, I think so. It all seems like a dream. Twilla… Miss Mahan,” he said in pain, “I don’t know why I did it.”

“I do,” she said soothingly and put her arm around him. “And it wasn’t your fault. You have to believe that. Don’t tell Lana or anyone. Forget it ever happened. Do you understand?”

He nodded as Robin Walker got out of his car and ran toward them. He looks very handsome in his uniform, she thought. My, my, I’ve suddenly become very conscious of good-looking men. Too bad it’s thirty years to late.

“Miss Mahan? Leo? What’s going on here?” Robin asked in bewilderment. “Is anyone still in there?” He looked at her feet. “Miss Mahan, why are you running around in the snow with only one shoe on?”

She followed his gaze. “I’ll declare,” she said in astonishment. “I didn’t know I’d lost it. Leo. Robin, let’s get in your car. I have a lot to tell you both.”

Miss Mahan sat before the fireplace in her comfortable old house, tearing the pages from her Twilla journal and feeding them one at a time to the fire. Paul Sullivan had doctored her cuts and bruises, and she felt wonderful—stiff and sore, to be sure—but wonderful. Tomorrow the news would be all over town that, with brilliant detective work, Robin Walker, aided by Leo Whittaker, had discovered that Twilla Gilbreath’s father was Yvonne’s killer. In an attempt to arrest him, the house had burned, and all three had perished.

She had told Robin and Leo everything that happened—well, almost everything. She had left out her own near encounter with Dazreel and a few other related items. She had also given the impression—sort of—that the house had burned by accident. Poor sweet Robin hadn’t believed a word of it. But after hearing Leo’s account, taking a look at her demolished car, and seeing the footprints in the snow, he finally, grudgingly, agreed to go along with it. And it did explain all the mysteries of Yvonne’s death.

She knew the public story was full of holes and loose ends, but she also knew the people in Hawley. They wanted to hear that an outsider had done it, and they wanted to hear that he had been discovered. Their own imaginations would fill in the gaps.

Lana Whittaker didn’t really believe that Leo was working with Robin all those nights he was away, but they loved each other enough. They’d be all right.

She fed the last pages to the fire and looked around her parlor. She decided to put up a tree this year. She hadn’t bothered with one in years. And a party. She’d have a party. There hadn’t been more than three people in the house at one time in ages.

She hobbled creakily up the stairs, humming “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly,” considerably off-key, heading for the attic to search for the box of Christmas-tree ornaments.

The End

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