chilling
by
Graham Masterton

"Graham Masterton is possibly horror's
most consistent provider of chills."

--Masters of Terror

Peggy may be dead--but she hasn't left them. As the
sisters grow up, a string of inexplicable deaths threatens to
shatter their lives. No matter how warm the weather, each
corpse shows signs of severe frostbite . . . and each victim's
dying moments are tortured by a merciless little girl in a
white dress, whose icy kiss is colder than death.

To my mother, Mary, with love.

Copyright © 1995 by Graham Masterton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by
law.

ISBN 0-8439-4935-X

The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "I" with design are trademarks
of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpi.fr

The Chilling

"She was exquisitely fair and delicate,
but entirely of ice--glittering, dazzling ice."

One.

Elizabeth glimpsed Peggy running around the side of the house, a little
mouse-grey furry figure barely visible through the duck's-down
snowflakes, and for one moment she felt as if something terrible were
about to happen.

In the distance, she heard the school clock striking, its tone flattened
by the cold. Dongg.

Elizabeth stopped, crimson-cheeked, runny-nosed, panting.

She stared at the empty garden, and at the white weather boarded corner
around which Peggy had vanished so completely, as if running from one
life into the next.

The garden seemed to be holding its breath, hushed, with its dark
snow-blanketed fir trees, and its curved, wind-razored drifts. All
Elizabeth could hear was the occasional shuddering of overladen branches
as they dropped their little offerings of snow. But there was nothing
else. The huge, empty sound of nothing else. Sky, garden, house, and
that was all.

She turned around, uncertain, nine years old. She wiped her nose on the
back of a red woollen glove. She wondered if she ought to run after
Peggy, but she guessed that Peggy would have scrambled through the hedge
at the back of the conservatory, and along the patio, and around the
kitchen garden; and that by now she would probably be crouching in the
shed, giggling and sniffing and sure that nobody could find her.

But Elizabeth was still disturbed by that feeling. That deep,
inexplicable feeling, which had glided through her mind like a huge
black shark gliding through cold black water without disturbing the
surface.

She knew for sure that Peggy was hiding in the shed. Where else would
she go? But she felt more strongly that Peggy had gone; that Peggy had
disappeared; and that she would never see Peggy again, ever.

She called, '! Peggy, where are you?' But the garden remained
snow-muffled and silent; and she hesitated; and stopped.

"Peggy, when are you? But there was no reply. Elizabeth hated the sound
of her own voice.

"Peggy!' she called. Then she called, '!"

Eventually, Laura came struggling across the garden in her poppy-red
corduroy coat. Laura was seven, and everybody said that she was the
prettiest. Her hair was blonde and curly (like her mother's) while
Elizabeth's was dark and straight (like her father's). Peggy's was
blonde and curly, too, but Peggy had disappeared around the
weatherboarded corner and Elizabeth wasn't sure if they would ever see
Peggy again.

Laura, panting, said, '? What is it?"

"Peggy's gone."

Laura stared at her. ' do you mean, gone?"

"I don't know. Just gone." "She's hiding, that's all,' said Laura. '
caught her playing with his fairy egg-cups and he shouted at her."

Elizabeth bit her lip. ' egg-cups' was what they called ter^father's
golf-tees. All three of them found them fascinat-^Otevea all three of
them, at one time or another, had been cokted for stealing them.
Elizabeth felt worried. Worried, that vmi it, in dte'same way that mommy
got worried, whenever it was Bight-dine and snowing really hard and
daddy hadn't come back from New Milford.

*We'd better find her,' she said.

They trudged through the snow together, around the side of the house. It
was half past three, and already it was growing dark. The tennis courts
were deserted, their nets sagging and clotted with snow. The only
footprints on the snow were the fork-like footprints of robins, and the
dabs of the family cat.

"Peggy!' they called. ', we're coming to get you!"

Silence. The wind rose, and whirled up a snow-devil. ' didn't come this
way,' said Laura, emphatically.

"She must have, I saw her."

"But there's no footprints."

"Of course not. The snow's covered them up."

They struggled across the patio, and around the conservatory.

All along the guttering, icicles hung; and at the very end of the
conservatory, where the guttering usually flooded, a grotesque
ice-figure hunched beside the house, a frozen hooknosed witch, clinging
to the downpipe. Whenever the sun came gleaming through the trees, the
witch's nose dripped, and the girls danced around her in terrified glee,
singing, "Nose-drip, nose-drip, witchy-witchy, nose-drip!" But tonight
the witch was gunmetal grey and gleaming and her nose was hooked in a
cold, impossible curve; and Elizabeth and Laura circled her in genuine
dread.

Supposing she spoke? Supposing she struck them stone-cold dead, right
where they stood? Walking the stiff, quick walk of the seriously
frightened, the two girls managed to reach the steps that led down to
the rose-lawn, unscathed, unclawed, their coats unbloodied and their
livers intact.

"Peggy,* said Elizabeth, so softly that Laura could scarcely hear her.

"That's no good,' said Laura. ''ve got to scream at the top of your
voice. Peggy! Peggy! Peggypeggypeggypeggypegg?*."

Laura's voice rose up into a piercing scream, a scream that echoed and
echoed across Sherman, and echoed from the top of Green Pond Mountain,
invisible in the snowstorm, and from Green Pond Mountain to Wanzer Hill,
and all across Lake Candlewood, until the snow suddenly snuffed it out
forever.

The two girls waited, and listened. No reply. Elizabeth turned around,
and stared at the Nose-Drip Witch, but she remained where she was,
moulded out of ice, around the downpipe. Somehow she looked rather
forlorn. Perhaps she was thinking that spring would soon be here, and
she would melt away.

They went to the shed. It stood under a tall fir tree. It was small and
dark, although its roof was covered with an extravagantly thick coating
of snow, so that it looked like a frosted fruit-cake. There were no
footprints around it, and Elizabeth could hardly manage to pull open the
door, because of the snow. Inside, the shed was gloomy and smelled of
creosote and dried grass. Elizabeth could just make out the antlers of
the lawnmower handles, and spades, and shovels, and stacks of
earthenware flowerpots. The windows were thickly curtained with
spiderwebs, in which all kinds of colourless and skeletal shapes dangled
and danced.

"Peggy?' she whispered.

"Peggy, where are you? shrieked Laura, making Elizabeth jump.

They listened. They could faintly hear music coming from the house. '
Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby'. The kitchen window was warmly lit and
behind the red gingham curtains they could see their mother crossing and
recrossing from (able to sink to oven, carrying cakes and pies and
mixing bowls. Further along, the library windows were lit up too, though
much more dimly.

"I think we ought to tell mom,' said Elizabeth.

"She can't have gone far,' said Laura. They both knew that they would
get into trouble for having lost their little sister.

Drat her! She's such a nuwe'

"Yes, drat her!"

Together, they pushed the shed door shut, and fastened it.

Then they continued their plodding circuit of the house. It was ahuge,
rambling place, the iargest house ^ side Of Sherman.

There were eleven bedrooms and four bathrooms and three huge reception
rooms. The girls' father was always complaining that he spent more of
his life carrying logs to the various fireplaces around the house than
he did writing or editing. ' passport should read "stoker", not
"publisher",' he used to say. But their mother had fallen in love with
the house because of its huge galleried drawing-room, in which they
could raise a fifteen-foot Christmas tree, just like those movies in
which everybody comes home for the holidays and the children are
dressing the tree with tinsel and ribbons, and there's some kind of
romantic misunderstanding but everybody ends up dewyeyed and toasting
each other in punch and singing ' The Herald Angels Sing'.

Their mother had come from a broken home, that was all they knew. Until
she was eight, Elizabeth had thought that a 'broken home' was a house
with a massive crack down the middle. Now she knew that it meant
something else, worse, and that was why they had just one grandpa,
whereas most of their friends had two.

Elizabeth and Laura reached the southern end of the house.

There was nothing here but the swimming-pool and then a narrow triangle
of lawn and then the woods. The snow was falling even more thickly now,
and Elizabeth's toes were beginning to hurt, even though she was wearing
her boots with the sheepskin linings.

"Well, / don't know where she is,' Laura declared.

"I'll bet she went back indoors,' said Elizabeth. ' saw mommy baking,
I'll bet, and she's probably licking the frosting-bowl and all the raw
cake."

They made their way back to the house. A gust of wind blew pungent
woodsmoke around them, like a fuming cloak.

"I'll bet she's eaten all the frosting,' said Laura, cross 'already. Til
bet it's strawberry and I'll bet she's eaten all of it.

I'll bet she's even sucked the spoon."

Elizabeth didn't say anything. She felt it would be spiteful to say
anything. But she knew that Peggy was mommy's little special darling,
and sometimes when mommy was laughing and playing with Peggy it made her
feel old and tall and rather plain, and not exactly unwanted but
resentful of having grown up.

They reached the snow-covered steps that led back towards the front
door, and it was then that they saw the footprints.

"Footprints!' said Laura.

"They're ours,' said Elizabeth. She remembered how Pooh and Piglet had
walked around and around in the woods, becoming more and more alarmed at
the discovery of their own ever-multiplying tracks in the snow.

But Laura frowned and said, ', they're not, look, they're too small and
it's only one person."

The footprints were already clogged up with falling snow, so that they
were little more than dimples. When they looked more carefully, however,
the girls could see that they came around the front of the house and
down the steps. After she had disappeared around the corner, Peggy must
have hidden behind the bushes until Elizabeth and Laura had passed her
by, and then doubled back.

But where was she now?

/Standing on top of the steps, the girls tried to make out the line of
the footprints across the luminous white garden. They were slurred, the
footprints of a small hurrying child, and there was no doubt where they
were heading. Across the garden, diagonally, and straight towards the
swimming-pool.

The snow was so thick that it was impossible to tell that there was a
pool there, except for the two white-painted metal ladders, about fifty
feet apart, and the metal mountings for the diving-board. Father had
thought about emptying the pool for the whiter but the pump had broken
down, and then there had been trouble with the drainage because of all
the rain, and by the time the first frost started it was too late. At
least, he had said it was too late, but he had been frantically busy
with his new series of books called Litchfield Life, and he hadn't had
very much time for the house, apart from bringing in logs for the fires,
logs, logs and more logs.

The girls had skated pebbles across the frozen surface of the pool, and
once they had sent Elizabeth's Shirley Temple doll windmilling out on an
Arctic expedition. It was after Elizabeth had stepped on to the ice to
rescue Shirley that their father had forbidden them to go anywhere near
the pool during the winter; or else he'd slap their legs.

But Peggy must have gone near the pool. Her footprints led directly
towards it; and about five feet away from the nearer ladder, there was a
faint greyish depression, which was quickly being filled by falling
snow.

Elizabeth opened her mouth in completely silent horror.

Cold snowflakes whirled against her lips and melted on her tongue.

"Go find father,' she whispered. ' findfathert Laura stared at her.
Those wide blue eyes. Then Elizabeth stumbled down the steps and across
the lawn, ploughing and hopping through the knee-deep snow. She didn't
even look back to see if Laura had gone. Her throat felt completely
raggedy-red, as if she had every sore throat of her entire childhood,
all at once. '? she screamed. '?

She reached the brink of the pool and almost overbalanced.

Only the slightest line in the snow showed where the edge lay.

She hesitated, gasping and panting. There was no doubt about it. Peggy's
footprints headed unerringly across the surface, and then stopped.

Elizabeth turned around, trying to swallow her sore throat away. Laura
had vanished, so father must be coming. The silence was overwhelming.
She could have been the only person in the whole world. She looked back
at the faint

depression in the snow, and said, ' God, please God, please help me,' in
the highest and tiniest of voices.

She grasped the top of the metal ladder, and cautiously trod down into
the snow. Much further down than she had expected, the sole of her boot
met the surface of the ice. She took a deep breath and gradually put her
weight on it, still holding on to the ladder. The ice seemed to be thick
enough.

She stood on it with both feet, and gave a cautious little hop, and
still it seemed to hold her.

She glanced back at the house. There was no sign of father yet. She
would have to find Peggy herself. She didn't want to.

She was sure that Peggy must have drowned; and she was terrified that
the ice would break underneath her and that she would drown, too, long
before father could get here. But she knew that she had to, Peggy might
be clinging on to the edge of the ice, underneath the snow, and how
would she feel for ever and ever if she didn't try to save her?

Holding on to the ladder for as far as she could reach, Elizabeth
shuffled out across the surface of the pool. The snow was almost a foot
deep, so that it came right up to her knees, an dover the top of her
boots.

She let go of her ladder, and started to slide-step towards the
depression in the snow where Peggy's footprints disappeared.

She found herself whispering Pooh s song under her breath. "The more it
snows (tiddely porn), The more it goes (tiddely porn), The more it goes
(tiddely porn) on snowing."

She heard the ice complain - an odd, squeaking noise, like two pieces of
broken glass rubbing together. She paused, her arms held out wide to
keep her balance. She had almost reached the depression in the snow, and
if the ice had broken here, then it could easily break again. She
cleared away the snow with her feet, and then knelt down and cleared it
away with her gloves. Just under the snowflakes, water was slopping,
already gelid, more like grey tapioca pudding than water.

Carefully, she cleared all around the hole in the ice, and it was no
more than two feet across.

Behind her, she heard her father shouting, '!

Elizabeth! Get off the pool! Get off the pool!"

But she didn't turn around. She had glimpsed something stirring, just
beneath the surface of the ice. Something that bobbed and dipped and
slowly revolved.

"Lizzie? her father was calling her - much closer now. His voice sounded
almost hysterical." Lizzie, don't you move?

But now Elizabeth was frantically clearing away the snow from the
surface of the pool, and wiping the ice with her gloved hands, around
and around, like a speeding driver trying frantically to see through a
fogged-up window. When it was dear, she stopped, and stared, and said
nothing. Because it was a window - a window through which Elizabeth
could look down into another world, dark and dreadfully cold. A window
through which she could see her drowned sister Peggy, her skin as white
as milk, her eyes wide open, her lips pale blue. Her curls floated and
the fur trimming around her hood floated, languid and slow, as if they
were weed, or Arctic sea anemones.

Most poignant of all were Peggy's little hands, in their pink woolly
gloves, which were clasped together, up against her chest, as if she
were saying her prayers.

The mare it snows (tiddely porn).

Her father had reached the edge of the pool. She could hear him, but she
didn't turn to look at him. If she turned to look at him, she knew that
she would have to obey him.

"Lizzie!' he called. ' Peggy there? Where's Peggy?"

Elizabeth didn't know what to say.

"Lizzie, sweetheart, is Peggy there?" "Yes,' said Elizabeth. Her voice
was deadened by the snowflakes.

"Jesus,' said her father. He stepped out on to the pool, and ii balanced
his way towards her. His circular glasses were partially fogged-up, and
his grey fisherman's sweater sparkled with snowflakes. A thin,
brown-bearded man in his late thirties, intent on rescuing his drowned
daughter.

"Lizzie, where is she?' he barked. ' on, Lizzie, for God's sake!"

Beneath the ice, Peggy smiled and slowly revolved.

Elizabeth knew for certain that she was dead. She felt an intense pang
of sorrow - so painful that it almost doubled her up. Peggy's face was
so near, just inches below the ice; yet she was already so far away. For
her, it would always be five past three on Friday, 23 February 1940, and
never any later.

Peggy's face was directly below her. Elizabeth paused, and touched the
ice with her fingertips. Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to
the frozen surface of the pool, just above her sister's lips.

Her sister stared at her, but didn't blink. The snow fell all around
her, as if it wanted to lay a blanket over her, as if it wanted to cover
her up.

"Lizzie?

Her father was picking her up by one arm, swinging her around. She felt
her shoulder socket being wrenched.

"Lizzie, get off the god damned pool and back in the house!"

She stepped back, just as her father started kicking at the ice with his
boot heel; but she didn't climb out of the pool. She stood close behind
him, watching him in helpless anguish as he kicked and kicked and kept
on shouting, '! Peggy! Hold your breath, darling! Keep holding your
breath! Daddy's here!"

It took him only a few seconds to kick out enough ice to reach her. He
caught hold of her sodden fur coat and swirled her into the slushy water
where the ice had first broken. Her body circled and dipped, one of her
arms floated free. ' on, Peggy, come on honey,' he told her, and managed
to pull her halfway out of the water, and then roll her on to the ice.

"Blankets!' he roared. ' get me some god damned blankets!"

He picked Peggy up, cradled her, balanced himself, and somehow managed
to skate and slither to the edge of the pool.

He heaved himself up on the ladder. He groaned, ', God!" Peggy's arms
flopped and swung, and water dripped glittering from her fingertips. Her
face remained buried in her father's sweater, as if she didn't want
anybody to look at her, because she was dead.

Elizabeth's mommy was running from the house, her white baking-apron
flapping. '? she was shrieking.'Peggy?

Elizabeth climbed rigidly out of the frozen pool. Her shoulder hurt
where her father had swung her around. Her father was already surging
through the snow, back to the house, with Peggy in his arms. Mommy
hurried close behind him, crying '!' over an dover.

Elizabeth was crying, too. She struggled her way back through the snow,
shivering and cold and shocked, her face a blur of tears. By the time
she reached the house, father had already wrapped Peggy in blankets and
laid her on the back of the station-wagon. Exhaust smoke filled the
driveway, tinged hellishly red from the rear lights. Elizabeth's mommy
came out of the front door, her face like a mask of somebody else
pretending to be Elizabeth's mommy.

"Darling ... we have to take Peggy to the hospital ... Mrs. Patrick is
coming over to take care of you. We'll call you later."

Then they were gone. Elizabeth stood for a while in the driveway,
watching the snow fill in their tyre tracks. Then she went back into the
house, which was warm and suddenly quiet, and smelied of baking. She
closed the front door and went to the cloakroom to take off her boots
and her socks and her sodden coat.

Laura appeared, her cheeks watermarked with tears.

"Peggy's dead!' she gasped. ' said drat her, and she's dead!"

The two sisters sat on the stairs, side by side, and cried until it
hurt. They were still crying when the front door opened and Mrs. Patrick
arrived from Green Pond Farm. Mrs. Patrick was their nearest neighbour,
and she had known the girls since they were born. She was big and Irish,
with a fiery complexion and fiery hair, and a nose like an old-fashioned
hooter. She took off her coat, and then she gathered the girls up into
her arms and shushed them and shushed them, until at last they were
aware that her thick green home-knitted cardigan smelled of mothballs
and that her brooch was scratching their faces. Much later, Elizabeth
was to write in her diary that the consciousness of ordinary irritations
is the first step towards coping with grief, and when she wrote that,
she was thinking specifically of Mrs. Patrick's cardigan, and Mrs.
Patrick's brooch.

When the girls were in bed that night, the telephone rang.

They crept in their nightgowns out on to the galleried landing, and
listened to Mrs. Patrick in the hallway. The house was much chillier
now: the fires had died down and their father hadn't been there to stoke
them. Somewhere, a door was persistently banging.

They heard Mrs. Patrick saying, ''m sorry, Margaret; I'm really so very
sorry."

They looked at each other, their eyes liquid, although they didn't cry.
It was then that they knew for certain that Peggy had left them for
ever; that Peggy was an angel; and strangely, they felt lonely, because
now they would have to live their lives on their own.

The following Thursday morning their mommy took them to Macy's in White
Plains. The sky was brown with impending snow and Mamaroneck Avenue was
brown with slush. Snow covered automobiles crept this way and that, soft
and sinister, like travelling igloos. Their mommy bought them black
coats and black hats and charcoal-grey dresses with black braid
trimmings. The store was overheated and while she was trying on her
coat, Elizabeth felt as if she were going to suffocate. But somehow, the
sombre ritual of buying mourning clothes was the first normal and
understandable thing that had happened in a nightmarish week, and when
they left the store with their packages Elizabeth felt very much better,
as if a fever had passed.

Every day since Peggy's drowning had been different, frightening and
off-balance. On Saturday and Sunday, nobody had spoken. On Monday
evening mommy had silently hugged them and rocked them backwards and
forwards and stroked their hair, feeling just like mommy, looking just
like mommy.

But then she had abruptly dropped them off her lap, and left the nursery
without turning back, and noisily locked herself in her bedroom. A few
moments of silence had passed while they stared at each other in
perplexity. Then they heard her cry out like a wild mink caught in a
gin-trap.

The sound of their mother's pain had been more than they could bear, and
they had started crying, too, while father stood outside the bedroom
door ineffectually calling, ' ... Margaret ... for goodness' sake,
Margaret, let me in."

On Tuesday night, without warning, their father came home
catastrophically drunk and surted blundering around the house and
slamming doors, screaming at mommy that she blamed him for everything,
for giving up his job at Scribner's, for moving to Sherman, for buying
the house, for failing to empty the god damned pool. Why didn't she come
right out with it, and say what she felt? Why didn't she simply accuse
him of murdering his own daughter? Jesus Christ, he might just as well
have plunged her head under the water with his own bare hands and held
her down until she drowned.

After that, suddenly, the night went quiet. Elizabeth and Laura lay in
their beds side by side and listened and listened, and didn't even dare
to whisper. Eventually, they heard sobbing, and it went on for almost a
half-hour. It might have been mommy's, it might have been daddy's. It
could have been both.

They said a prayer to Peggy, although it was more like a conversation
than a prayer. They found if difficult to believe that she had actually
gone for ever.

"Dearest Peggy, what's it like being dead? Do get in touch somehow, even
if it's just a whisper or writing your name on the frosty window. We
think about you all day every day and we still love you just as much. We
won't let anybody throw Mr. Bunzum away, we promise. We cry about you
all the time but , we know you must be happy."

Lots of unfamiliar people came and went. Adults who murmured and blew
their noses and avoided your eyes. Almost magically, the house began to
fill with flowers, daffodils and irises and even roses. There were so
many flowers that mommy had to borrow vases from the neighbours, and
still the blossoms seemed to swell. In February, with the snow still
blinding the windows, all of these bright and fragrant flowers made the
week seem even stranger, like a Grimm's fairytale.

Mrs. Patrick came in every day that week and brought them lunch, which
they ate in the kitchen. They liked Mrs. Patrick's

lunches because they were pot-roasted chicken and thick vegetable soup
and Swedish meatballs, good farm food, fragrant and plain. Their mommy
had always baked pretty little cookies and cakes, because granma had
taught her when she was a girl. But when it came to stews and
casseroles, she seemed to lose interest halfway through, and all her
meals were odd-tasting and kind of unfinished, too salty or too herby or
too floury, as if she had experimented with some new recipe and then
grown bored. Her roasts were always grey and overcooked and sorry for
themselves, and for a long time the girls thought that her greens were
an intentional punishment, like losing your allowance, or having your
leg slapped.

Once or twice, while they ate, mommy came into die kitchen and talked
abstractedly to Mrs. Patrick. ' lost your little Deborah, didn't you,
Mrs. Patrick? Oh God, I never understood what it was like to lose a
child, not until now. It's like having your heart torn out by the
roots.' Her cigarette smoke trailed endlessly across the room, towards
the range, where die heat made it shudder for a moment and then suddenly
snatched it away.

Mommy's presence made the girls uneasy, because they felt that they
shouldn't show too much of a healthy appetite, what with Peggy having
just drowned. Sometimes mommy said, "Don't make so much noise with your
knives and forks.' Then they picked at their food, hungry but reluctant
to eat, and Mrs. Patrick looked at them ruefully, but didn't shout at
them.

On Wednesday morning, emboldened by the need for affection, and by plain
gratitude, Elizabeth said pardon but what was Mrs. Patrick's real name?
Mrs. Patrick looked at her in bewilderment, and said, ', you goose, it's
Mrs. Patrick."

Later Elizabeth wrote in her diary that - even in real life some people
are given major speaking parts, while others are only background
characters. Even life has its extras; and Mrs. Patrick was an extra, and
knew it. ' God will pay her some overtime, for looking after us."

Mommy was the prettiest woman that Elizabeth and Laura had ever known.
It was only later in life that Elizabeth realized that half of her brain
was missing.

Mommy was petite and eye-catchingly narrow-wasted, with a dear,
fine-boned face and a slightly side-sloping smile that every man friend
of the family seemed to take personally, and which every woman friend of
the family seemed to take as a threat.

Father always said that mommy looked like Paulette Goddard in a curly
blonde wig, only prettier. Her eyes were as blue as that first piece of
sky that shows when a rainstorm clears, and she always dressed in
crisply-starched cottons or pastel silk sweaters. She had a snappy,
flirty way about her even with Duncan Purves, the doleful owner of the
local auto shop, and with the Reverend Earwaker, the pastor of Sherman's
Methodist Episcopal church, who believed that the radio was the very
larynx of Satan, and who had once spoken the ritual of exorcism
throughout the Jell-O programme (much to the fury of his wife, who was a
Jack Benny fan).

The girls always loved to hear the story of how father and mommy first
met. He had been working at Charles Scribner's Sons, the publishers, as
a fiction editor: and she had been working as a cigarette girl at El
Morocco - temporarily, of course, while auditioning for parts in
Broadway musicals.

Father was having dinner with Louis Sobol of the New York Journal, who
was supposed to be writing the ultimate Cafe Society novel - a
roman-a-clefth&t would out-Gatsby The Great Gatsby. In spite of the fact
that Louis Sobol was capable of turning in five aooo-word gossip columns
every single week, he had written only two paragraphs of his novel in
seven months, and he was pleading for more time. ''ve got the
efc/licked; I just don't have the roman a sorted out."

Father had called mommy over for a pack of cigarettes; which she had
opened for him, so that he could take the first one, and then struck a
match. Unfortunately, she had dropped the lighted match into her
cigarette tray, and before she could retrieve it, the whole tray had
burst into flames. The girls loved this bit, because father and mommy
always acted it out together, rushing around the living-room to show how
father had snatched a magnum of Krug '21 from a neighbouring table,
violently shaken it up, and hosed mommy's blazing tray with foaming
champagne. Louis Sobol had written about it in his column the following
day, calling it ' costliest firefighting exercise in Manhattan's
history'.

Mommy's picture had appeared in the paper; and she had caught the eye of
Monty Woolley, the famous theatrical producer, who had signed her up for
the tiniest of parts in Fifty Million Frenchmen. If you happened to
sneeze when mommy came on, you would have missed her appearance
altogether.

But the next day, mommy had called into father's office with a bottle of
champagne to thank him. Touched, enchanted almost, father had invited
her out for cocktails, then for lunch. The rest was all
piano-music and-roses.

Puffing at her cigarette for punctuation, mommy would say, "That was my
only Broadway role but of course (puff) if I hadn't fallen in love with
your father (puff) I could have had many, many other roles (puff). Monty
Woolley several times said that I had all the potential of a great
screen actress. He said my face always lit so well (puff). But I made my
choice and my choice was to marry and have children,' (puff, followed by
an emphatic crushing-out).

Mommy would repeat this explanation in a light, gushing, well-rehearsed
lilt which Elizabeth at first found romantic but later found unsettling,
as if she and Laura and Peggy were directly to blame for the fact that
she had given up her acting career. As if she and Laura and Peggy had
deliberately plotted together to isolate her for the rest of her life in
Sherman, Connecticut, baking cookies and listening to the radio and
reducing rib-roasts to bundles of rags.

Laura, however, never tired of hearing mommy's ' actress' story, and
would lie for hours in front of the fire swinging her legs and leafing
through mommy's newspaper cuttings and agency photographs. '. Eloise
Foster, the former cigarette girl who gained notoriety by setting El
Morocco alight, was one of the chorus line's brightest sparks."

Elizabeth often caught Laura posing in front of the cheval glass in
their bedroom, with a table lamp in her hand. ' think my face lights
well, don't you?' she used to ask.

Elizabeth never answered, but sat on her patchwork quilt and opened her
diary, or Lama Doone, or a book of Hans Christian Andersen stories.

Her favourite Hans Christian Andersen story had always been The Snow
Queen. Just like Kay and Gerda, the children in the story, she would
warm pennies in front of the fire on winter mornings, and press them
against the windows, to make peepholes through the frost. And she always
imagined herself as the Snow Queen herself: ' fair and delicate, but
entirely of ice, glittering, dazzling ice; her eyes gleamed like two
bright stars, but there was no rest or repose in them."

That Thursday evening, after they had gone to Macy's for their funeral
clothes, Laura sat in front of the mirror making faces at herself, while
Elizabeth read The Snow Queen yet again.

She had read the story aloud to Peggy and Laura, and sometimes to Mrs.
Patrick's son Seamus, too, over an dover, until it had magically
transformed itself from a fairy story into a strange kind of reality -
into the vivid memory of a parallel life, which they had all secretly
been leading, as well as their lives in Sherman, Connecticut.

When Elizabeth read The Snow Quern, her sisters listened like ' children
in a dream, because they knew it off by heart. They knew that a
magician! a wicked magician!! a most wicked magician!!! had once made a
mirror that made everything beautiful look ugly. The loveliest
landscapes looked like boiled spinach. The handsomest persons appeared
as if standing upon their heads. But the mirror shattered, and broke
into trillions of splinters, each of which retained the peculiar
properties of the entire mirror. One of these splinters fell into the
eye of a boy called Kay, and another pierced his heart.

Up until that moment, Kay had been living an idyllic life with his
sister Gerda and his grandmother, but now he became cynical and rude and
rash. One winter's day, when the snow was flying pell-mell through the
streets, he hitched his toboggan to the back of a large white sledge, in
which rode a tall, strange woman, dressed apparently in rough white
furs.

But her furs were snow, and she was the Snow Queen, and she kissed him
with her icy lips and wrapped him in snow until he was only a heartbeat
away from extinction. The Snow Queen took Kay to her palace in Finland,
where she burned blue lights every evening; and there she made him sit
on a frozen lake, which was broken into thousands of near-identical
pieces.

There she told him that if he could form the word Eternity out of ice,
she would give him the whole world, and a new pair of skates besides.
But he could never do it.

Gerda, meanwhile, went searching for her brother, seeking help from
birds and flowers. Peggy and Laura's favourite was the story that was
told to Gerda by the hyacinths, about three fair sisters, and they liked
to imagine that they were the three fair sisters, and played endless
games in which they dressed up in their mother's evening gowns and
incessantly combed their hair.

Gerda sought the help of a little robber-maiden, and the wise advice of
the Lapland woman and the Finland woman. She fought an army of vicious
snowflakes, the Snow Queen's guards; and eventually she found the Snow
Queen's palace, with walls that were formed of the driven snow, and its
windows of the cutting wind. She sang a hymn to Kay, who wept, and when
he wept, the splinter of mirror was washed out of his eye. Together,
they returned home. The dock said ' tock!' and the hands moved as
before. The grandmother meanwhile sat in God's good sunshine and read
from the Bible these words, ' ye become as little children, ye shall not
enter the kingdom of heaven'.

Elizabeth was re-reading The Snow Queen because it reminded her so much
of Peggy. It made her feel as if Peggy might still be alive, somewhere,
in that parallel world of driven snow and chilling winds. But she was
worried about the hyacinth story. It had been worrying her all week. In
fact, it had worried her so much that she hadn't dared to look at it,
until today. She read it again, and as she read it she felt guiltier and
guiltier and when she had finished she dosed the book tight, and held it
close to her chest, her cheeks flushed with unhappiness.

"There were three fair sisters, transparent and delicate they were; the
kirtle of one was red, that of the second blue, of the third pure white;
hand in hand they danced in the moonlight beside the quiet lake; they
were not fairies, but daughters of men. Sweet was the fragrance when the
maidens vanished into the wood; the fragrance grew stronger; three
biers, whereon lay the three sisters, glided out from the depths of the
wood, and floated upon the lake; the glow-worms flew shining around like
little hovering lamps. Sleep the dancing maidens, or are they dead?"

What if Peggy had remembered that pan of the story, when she was out in
the garden, in the whirling snow? What if she had tried to dance on the
surface of the swimming-pool, like the three fair sisters dandng by the
lake?

Worst of all, what if it were all her fault that Peggy had drowned?

She glanced up at Laura; just to make sure that Laura didn't suspect
anything; but Laura was too busy practising her movie-star pout in the
mirror.

Elizabeth lay awake for hours that night and heard the clock in the
hallway strike midnight. From father and mommy's room she could hear
murmuring conversation, quiet and sad.

There had been no sobbing today, thank goodness, and no shouting, and no
slamming of doors. Father and mommy were both too tired. Mrs. Patrick
said they looked like ghosts; although she wouldn't tell them whether
she'd ever seen any real ghosts to compare them to.

The murmuring conversation died away. Elizabeth counted to looi. Then,
she eased herself out of bed.

With Hans Christian Andersen's fairy book hidden under her
dressing-gown, Elizabeth tippy-toed along the landing, and down the
stairs. She had to tread very carefully, because every stair creaked.
She had read in a mystery story, however, that burglars always made sure
that they trod on the very, very edges of the stairs, close to the wall,
or close to the banisters, and if you did that, you scarcely ever made a
sound. In fact, really good burglars could actually run upstairs,
totally silently.

In the living-room, the remains of the day's fire were still glowing,
ashy and orange. Elizabeth crossed the threadbare red rug and stood in
front of the hearth for a moment, debating with herself if she ought to
try burning the fairy book, but in the end she decided that it would
probably take too long -- and what would happen if father came
downstairs and caught her before she had finished? Father had been
furious when he heard that away in some country called Germany some
people called Nazis were burning books. He said that burning books was
as bad as burning babies. '

She went through to the kitchen. Although the floor was tiled, and the
windows were already misted with cold, it was warm here, because father
had stacked up the range for the night. Ampersand the cat was sleeping
in his basket next to the range, but when Elizabeth came in he opened
one slitty eye and watched her as she walked around the table to the
back door.

As quietly as she could, she levered back the bolts and turned the key.
Then she stepped out into the silent, snowy night. She crossed the lawn
to the shed. Her footsteps made a felty, squeaking noise in the snow.
The moon was masked by cloud, but the garden was luminous enough for
Elizabeth to be able to see where she was going. Her blue velveteen
slippers were quickly soaked, and she was shivering. Yet her guilt was
so overwhelming that she had to hide the book, as urgently as a murderer
has to hide a gun.

If her parents ever discovered that she had read Peggy The Snow Often
... Well, she couldn't imagine what would happen, but whatever it was,
it would be terrible. They might even end up with a broken home.

She knelt down beside the shed, and scooped back the snow with her bare
hand. During the autumn, she had discovered a crevice underneath the
floor of the shed, and she had used it to hide some of her love letters.
They hadn't been real love letters, of course, she had written them all
herself, but she would have been mortified if anybody had found them -
especially the one from Clark Gable which ended ' promise you that I
will wait With hated breath until you have reached 21."

She wedged the fairy book into the crevice, and pushed it as far under .
shed as she could reach. Then she carefully scraped back the snow, and
patted it so that it looked reasonably undisturbed.

There was a prayer in The Snow Queen which she had long ago learned by
heart, because the first time she had read it, it had seemed so sweet
and pretty. Tonight, however, it seemed tragic, and she stood in the
snow in her dressing-gown with tears streaming down her cheeks, barely
able to pronounce the words because her throat was choked up so much.

Our roses bloom and fade away, Our Infant Lord abides a/way; May we be
blessed His face to see.

And ever little children be!

She shivered in what she estimated was just about a minute's silence,
and then she hurried back across the garden. Ampersand wearily opened
his one slitted eye again, and watched her tippy-toe through to the
living-room. Humans, I don't know where they find the energy.

She climbed the stairs, keeping close to the wall, burglar style. It was
only when she reached the landing that she realized that father was
standing in the shadowy doorway of his bedroom, watching her. She said,
'!' in terror, and almost wet herself.

"Lizzie?' he asked her. ' have you been doing?' But his voice was
gentle, and she knew at once that he wasn't going to be cross with her.

"I thought I heard something,' she stuttered, her teeth clattering with
cold.

He came out of the shadows. He wasn't wearing his spectacles, and his
eyes were swollen and plum-coloured with tiredness.

"What was it?' he asked her. ' did you hear?"

"I don't know. Maybe an owl."

He laid his hand on her shoulder. ', it might have been.

You know what they say about owls."

She shook her head.

"They say that owls bring messages from dead people,' he told her. ' can
fly from the land of the living to the land of the dead, and back again,
all in one night."

Elizabeth looked up at him, wondering if he were serious. ' wasn't an
owl. It was just nothing."

He hesitated for a while, keeping his hand on her shoulder.

Then he said, ''m going down to the library, do you want to come? I
haven't been sleeping too well. You can help yourself to a soda if you'd
care to." "Okay, sure,' she said, as sweetly as she could, in case he
changed his mind. She suddenly felt pleased that she was nine, and
rather grown-up. She betted he wouldn't have asked Laura to help herself
to a soda, and join him in the library, right slapbang in the middle of
the night, for goodness' sake.

The two of them went downstairs together, and this time the stairs
creaked and it didn't matter. Elizabeth went to the Frigidaire, crammed
with platefuls of Mrs. Patrick's leftovers, and found a frosty-chilled
bottle of Coca-Cola. She returned to the library to find that her father
had drawn his big leather chair up close to the fireplace, and that he
had poured himself a large cut-crystal glass of whiskey, and set it in
the brown-tiled grate.

"Sit down,' he said; and so she dragged up his old piano stool, the one
with the frayed tapestry seat and all the music inside it, strange
musty-yellow music that nobody would ever play, like ' Up The Golden
Stairs' and ' The News To Mother'.

Elizabeth swigged Coca-Cola from the bottle and watched the fire embers
dying away. She wondered if father were going to talk, or whether he
would sit here in silence, drinking whiskey and staring at nothing at
all.

-'I guess y9u miss Peggy pretty sorely,' he said, at last.

Elizabeth nodded.

Her father said, ' Reverend Earwaker keeps telling me that the Lord
giveth and the Lord taketh away, as if that's supposed to make me feel
better. I don't know. I wouldn't have minded what the Lord had taken
away from me - my arms, my legs, my eyes ... But not little Peggy, not
my little Clothes-Peg.

He didn't have to take her away."

"I expect she's happy,' ventured Elizabeth.

Her father glanced across at her and gave her half a smile.

"Yes,' he said, ' expect she is."

"Laura and I say prayers to her, every night, and talk to her, too."

"Good,' he said. ''m glad of that." Elizabeth said, ''re not sorry you
had her, are you?"

There was a lengthy silence. One of the last logs lurched in the hearth,
sending a whirl of sparks up the chimney. ''s a very mature question,'
said her father. ''m not too sure that I know what the answer is."

"Sometimes I think that mommy's a bit sorry she had any of us."

"Your mommy? Your mommy's not sorry she had you, any of you! Nothing of
the kind!"

"But if she hadn't had us, she could have been a movie actress, couldn't
she?" Her father had  his hand over his mouth for a while, as if he were
making quite sure that no words came out until he was sure what he was
going to say. Then he explained, ' mommy is one of these people who
always needs to think that their life could have been different."

"But it could have been, couldn't it? She was on Broadway."

"Yes,' her father agreed, ' was on Broadway."

"And she could have been a famous movie star?"

She could tell by her father's expression that he was tempted to say no.
She was almost tempted to say it for him. He couldn't look at her:
wouldn't look at her, in the way that he wouldn't look at mommy whenever
mommy started talking about El Morocco and Monty Woolley and Fifty
Thousand Frenchmen. Elizabeth suddenly realized that she had known for
quite a long time that mommy had never been gifted with whatever it
takes to be a famous movie star, the style, the idiosyncrasy, the voice,
the kind efface that cameras fell in love with.

But mommy's lost movie career was one of the articles of faith of
Buchanan family life, and they both understood that it was heresy to
question it.

Father looked down into his drink and said, ' you do, Lizzie, don't
regret things that you never did. Don't ever pine for anything. Not men,
not money, not things you think you should have had."

Elizabeth drank more Coca-Cola, and gave her father a sage nod of the
head. She was beginning to enjoy herself. This was grown-up talk, in the
middle of the night.

Her father said, ''t pine for Peggy, either. She's gone now, and no
amount of pining can bring her back. Don't worry: she won't be alone.
We're going to put Mr. Bunzum in the coffin, to keep her company."

Elizabeth stared at him in horror, and then burped, because of the
Coca-Cola. ' can't do that!"

Her father frowned at her. ' not, Lizzie? Mr. Bunzum was Peggy's
favourite toy."

"But he'll suffocau\ And he never liked the dark! You know he never
liked the dark!"

"Lizzie, sweetheart, Mr. Bunzum is a toy rabbit."

"But you can'ti Peggy wouldn't want you to! Mr. Bunzum's real! Mr.
Bunzum isn't even dead yet! He had real adventures, I can prove it!"

Her father put down his whiskey glass. ' car prove it?' he asked.

"Wait.' Elizabeth hurried upstairs, burglar-syle so that the j stairs
wouldn't creak. She crept across her bedroom, so that she wouldn't wake
Laura, and then she opened her desk. She 1 took out three well-worn
exercise books, and then hurried back I downstairs again. Her father was
still sitting in the same place,] although he had picked up his whiskey
glass again. She handed| him the books and said, '."

Because he was tired, and because he wasn't wearing glasses, her father
found it difficult to focus at first. But when he held the first
exercise book at arm's length, he was able to read out '. Bunzum Goes To
Hollywood'.

"You wrote this?' he asked Elizabeth.

"I wrote all of them."

Her father set down his glass, licked the tip of his finger, and opened
the first page. He stared at it for a very long time, and swallowed. The
dying light from the fireplace reflected from the tears that were
welling up in his eyes.

"Chapter One,' he read out. '. Bunzum Sees A Movie." He paused for a
while, and then he read, '. Bunzum was a person who lived in a big white
house in Sherman, Connecticut, with his friend Peggy and Peggy's two
sisters Elizabeth and Laura. Mr. Bunzum's problem was that he was a
rabbit, which made life very difficult for him, i.e. he was the proud
owner of an excellent red Packard but could not drive it because every
time he drove it the cops stopped him and said "you're breaking the law,
whisker-face." Also he could not eat in restaurants because whenever he
walked in for lunch and said "lunch?" they thought that he was the
lunch.

"But Peggy loved Mr. Bunzum so much that she dressed him and fed him and
took him everyplace he wanted to go, for which Mr. Bunzum was internally
grateful. Mr. Bunzum for his part loved Peggy too and the two of them
were the firmest friends that anyone had ever known.

"Mr. Bunzum - ' But here, Elizabeth's father was stopped right in the
middle of reading by a terrible sob. He bent forward in his chair as if
he had the world's worst stomach ache, and he was grimacing with grief.
He sat there shaking and sobbing, and he wouldn't stop. In the end there
was nothing that Elizabeth could do but tippy-toe Upstairs again.

She climbed back into the chilly sheets of her bed and lay in the
darkness with her heart beating, and prayed to Jesus that she had done
the right thing.

She saw the moon come out. She thought of The Snow Quern, and the
maidens dancing by the lake. She could smell the flowers on their biers;
and they were Peggy's funeral-flowers.

She heard Laura's blocked-nose breathing; and the dock downstairs
striking two. Then suddenly she was dreaming, and she couldn't think
how.

In the morning, she found her exercise books back on her desk, with Mr.
Bunzum lolling on top of them. There was a note beside them, on-her
father's Candlewood Press notepaper. The note read, ' have read all of
Mr. Bunzum's adventures and agree with you that he is a real person,
still alive, and not to be buried. You are a writer of wonderful talent
and imagination, and one day much grander publishers than me will be
proud to publish your books. -- All my love and XXXX, your father."

When father opened their curtains on the morning of the funeral, they
could see that the snow was falling thick and hurried. He was already
dressed in his black trousers and his black jacket and his starched
white shirt. He looked very tired and old, as if he had aged a hundred
years in a week. His face looked papery, Elizabeth thought. He had
trimmed his beard and he smelled of that spicy cologne that mommy had
given him for Christmas; but he looked like a fastidious old man, rather
than father.

"Breakfast's ready,' he told them. ' it quick as you can.

The guests will start arriving at a quarter past ten, or thereabouts."

After he had gone, Laura bounced out of bed in her long pink nightgown
and went to the window. ''s really deep!' she exclaimed. ' could build a
snow-angel!"

"What do you mean, a snow-angel?' asked Elizabeth.

Laura pressed her hands together as if she were praying, and closed her
eyes. ' know, a snow-angel. Like the angels in the graveyard, only
snow."

Elizabeth climbed out of bed and stood beside her. The snow was whirling
down so furiously they could scarcely see the garden. ', we could,' she
said. ' we could make it look just like Peggy."

Laura looked up at her, her eyes still sticky with sleep, her blonde
curls tousled. ' you think that Peggy will be an angel?" "Of course,'
said Elizabeth, although she didn't feel completely certain about it. '
never did anything mean or nasty, 3'

did she? And she was only five. You know what Jesus said about suffer
the little children to come unto Me."

"Why did they have to suffer?' asked Laura. ' thought Jesus was supposed
to be kind."

"Everybody has to suffer sometimes,' Elizabeth told her.

"That's what Mrs. Dunning said at Sunday school." "Succotash has to
suffer, too,' said Laura.

"What?"

"That's what they say in the funnies. "Suffering succotash!"

'

They put on their slippers and their cuddly woollen robes, Elizabeth
blue and Laura pink, and went downstairs to the kitchen. It was so
gloomy that Mrs. Patrick had switched on the lights. It wasn't a quiet
breakfast. Fifty people were expected for lunch; and Mrs. Patrick was
punching seven kinds of hell out of a huge batch of bread-roll dough;
while a brown cauldron of chicken chowder was quietly blabbering to
itself on top of the range, next to a boiling stuffed ham sewn up in
muslin, which rhythmically rose and fell in its seething pot like
somebody's boiling head.

Mrs. Patrick was listening to the radio, too. There was news from
Europe, where the Russians were having horrendous difficulties invading
Finland. Leland Stowe of the Chicago Daily News was recounting what he
had seen. ' this sad solitude lie the dead ... uncounted thousands of
Russian dead. They lie as they fell - twisting, gesticulating and
tortured ... beneath a kindly mask of two inches of newly-fallen snow."

Mrs. Patrick suddenly realized that the girls were listening and
switched the radio off.

"What is it?' hissed Laura.

"It's the war,' said Elizabeth. They knew that there was a war in Europe
but Elizabeth found it difficult to imagine what Europe was like. At
school they had learned that there were kings and queens in Europe, and
palaces. They had also learned that Europe was very much smaller than
America, and much more densely populated. Elizabeth had a mental
impression of a glittering ballroom crowded with thousands of people in
golden crowns and ermine robes, angrily jostling and pushing each other.
No wonder they had wars.

"You shouldn't fuss your head thinking about the war,' said Mrs.
Patrick, dredging flour across the tabietop. ' doesn't concern us, not
one whit. It's their quarrel, the British and the French and the
Germans. If Mr. Roosevelt has any sense at all, he'll keep us well out
of it. Not that any politician has any sense."

Father came into the kitchen. His glasses steamed up almost immediately,
and he had to take them off.

"Come on girls, hurry up now. You don't have all day."

"Where's mommy?' asked Laura. ' haven't said good morning yet."

"Mommy's okay, you can see her in a minute. Just finish your breakfast
and get yourselves dressed."

As they climbed back upstairs, they felt a chilly, unsettled atmosphere
in the house. There was very little wind, and so the fires had taken a
long time to draw. The whole house was hazy with acrid woodsmoke, which
made them cough, and being nine and seven they really made a performance
of their coughing, rolling around on their beds in their long woolly
underwear, spluttering and hacking and wheezing like terminal
tuberculosis patients, until father called out to them to shut UP, will
you, and get yourselves ready.

"But it's so smoky."

Father was about to say something angry, he hated laying all those
god damned fires in any case, but stopped himself. Instead, he shielded
his eyes with his hand in a very curious way; and then took his hand
away again, and said, ' ... this is going to be a difficult day. It's
going to be a difficult day for mommy and it's going to be a difficult
day for me. I know how dose you both were to Peggy, and that you can
still talk to her.

But when you're grown up like mommy and me, you can't do that any more,
don't ask me why. So for us, Peggy has gone away, completely gone away.
We've lost her."

The girls lay on their beds in their underwear watching him solemnly. He
licked his lips quickly (mouth turned dry) and then he said, ' mommy and
I have to put our youngest little girl into the ground. That isn't going
to be easy for us; and I hope you'll understand how we feel, and try to
be patient and helpful." Laura said, ' the little children to come unto
Me." "Yes,' said father, with his eyes glistening.

"And suffer the succotash to come unto Me." Father said, '?"

"It's all right,' Elizabeth interrupted. ' promise we'll be helpful."

Elizabeth brushed Laura's hair, a procedure which was always accompanied
by a monotonous chorus of '', '', "OW', ',' as she cleared out the
tangles. Then they dressed in their mourning clothes and stood side by
side and looked at themselves in the cheval-glass. Elizabeth thought
that they looked as if they were dead, too. Their faces were waxy and
their eyes were large, and the luminous snow-light surrounded them with
a blurry, almost ghostly aura.

It was then that they glimpsed a shadowy movement in the mirror, which
made them jump. They turned around and saw mommy standing in their
bedroom doorway. She was dressed in a severe, boxy suit of black moire
silk, with a small up swept black hat and a dense black veil that
completely masked her face.

For a split second, they were very frightened. Mommy was so black, so
silent, so faceless. '?' said Laura, in alarm.

Mommy moved and when she moved she was just mommy.

She came into the room and laid a black-gloved hand on each of them. She
smelled of cigarettes, and perfume and something else aromatic, which
they weren't old enough to identify as gin. ''t worry, Laura sweetheart,
I'm quite all right.

You both look beautiful. Are you ready to come downstairs now? Granpa
and granma have just arrived; and so has Aunt Beverley." "I haven't
washed my teeth yet,' said Laura.

"You're all dressed up in black and you haven't washed your teeth?
You'll get toothpowder all over your collar."

"I have to wash my teeth, you can die from dental caries."

Mommy didn't argue. Elizabeth couldn't see her face, because her veil
was too dark, but she could guess what she was thinking. When mommy had
gone downstairs, and Laura was industriously brushing her teeth with her
Donald Duck toothbrush, Elizabeth came into the bathroom and hissed at
her, ''t talk about dying any more. Mommy doesn't like it. It'd bad
enough Peggy being drowned."

"But they told us at school. And you can die from not washing your
hands, after you've been to the bathroom."

"Oh, certainly. And you can die if somebody drops a cow on your head."

They went downstairs. The front door was wide open and a few mischievous
snowflake-fairies were flying over the threshold and dancing across the
orange-and-yellow Shaker rug. An icy draft was streaming in, ruffling
the fringes of the lampshades, and scattering black-edged condolence
cards across the floor, but at least it was clearing away the woodsmoke
and brightening up father's sulky fires.

Aunt Beverley was taking off her sleek brown mink and talking eight
million to the dozen, as usual. Aunt Beverley was a very tall mannish
woman in her late thirties, with a long neck, and a big, bloodless, bony
head. Mommy always said that Aunt Beverley believed herself to be much
more beautiful than she really was. She must have spent untold
eye-watering hours plucking her brows into geometrically-perfect arches,
and pinning up her hair into a glossy black tidal wave.

But her ears were too big and lobular, and her nose was too complicated,
and her funeral-dress might have been Pauline Trigere but it hung on her
frame (in Elizabeth's opinion) like a photographer's black cape over a
camera and tripod.

"Well, the roads were so darned impossible that we nearly turned back at
Cannondale. I can't tell you, Margaret, it was Napoleon's retreat from
Moscow, all over. Humphrey was adamant that he didn't want to die in
Connecticut. He said his grandparents died in their beds in Braggadocio,
Missouri, and his parents died in their beds in Braggadocio, Missouri,
and he certainly didn't intend to be frozen to death in the middle of
winter in a rented automobile in some prissy Yankee dormitory in
Connecticut. And, why! Look who's here! My dear little Lizzie; my dear
little Laura!"

Aunt Beverley bent down and kissed them both with her sticky scarlet
lips. She smelled of cigarettes and freckle cream.

She wore four rows of sparkling jet beads, and a ruby-and emerald brooch
in the shape of an apple tree. Mommy had known Aunt Beverley for ever
and ever - since Fify Thousand Frenchmen, when Aunt Beverley had been
wardrobe mistress.

Elizabeth knew that there was something different about Aunt Beverley.
She wasn't at all like mommy, or like any of the women who lived in
Sherman. She was bossy, and wickedly gossipy, and drank whiskey. Even
the men seemed to be afraid of her. She wasn't their rca/aunt, of
course, she just liked them to call her aunt. She had never married: she
was still '. Lowenstein', although she never seemd to be wanting for
male escorts. Humphrey was the latest: a bulbous-eyed man in his early
forties with thinning hair and a little clipped moustache.

"I'm very sorry for your loss,' he told mommy. Then he said, "Wonderful
house." "Thank you,' said mommy.

Father came up and said, ' you could make it."

"Wonderful house,' Humphrey repeated.

"Seventeen-sixty-one," said father.

"As much as that? I thought Connecticut prices were coming down."

"Excuse me?' said father.

Outside, in the snow, more cars were silently arriving, in plumes of
exhaust. Big black Buick Eights and Chrysler Imperials and Packard
sedans, nose to tail. There was a sporadic slamming of doors, and then
the funeral guests began to make their way towards the house. Elizabeth
and Laura had to stay in the hallway to greet them, while Seamus
collected their coats and hung them up. Seamus was seventeen with
carroty hair and a face like one of his mother's rising loaves.

Mommy said that Seamus had been stricken with meningitis when he was
six, which had left him fanciful and odd; but Mrs. Patrick said that he
had been kidnapped by leprechauns for a month or two, that was all, and
that when the leprechauns had brought him back he had seen sights and
danced dances that no human being had ever seen or danced before, and
that was what made him the way he was.

Elizabeth liked him and didn't mind it when he sat in the corner
listening intently while she read The Snow Queen, but she was always a
little afraid of him. He would say things like, "Brilliant umbrella,
sir,' over an dover again. Or, ' with fences, that's what I say, forward
with fences.' Or else he would quote whole pages of The Snow Queen, with
extraordinary emphasis, like somebody speaking in Finnish. Laura adored
him and thought that he spoke just as much sense as anybody else.

At a quarter to eleven, father told Elizabeth to dose the door, because
everybody was feeling the draught. The living-room was crowded with
guests, and the fires were crackling, and Seamus was taking round trays
of sherry and cheese straws.

Just as she was about to close the door, Elizabeth saw a whale of a
Cadillac arriving through the snow. It parked a little way away from the
rest of the cars, and for two or three minutes there was no sign of
anybody climbing out. '!' her father called her. ' the door now, will
you, for goodness' sake?" "Somebody's coming,' said Elizabeth.

Her father came up behind her and peered through the crack in the door.
The snow was falling so furiously that it was almost impossible to see
anything at all. The door of the Cadillac opened and a stocky
wide-shouldered man in a wide-brimmed hat climbed out, and started to
trudge to the house.

"Well, I'll be damned,' said her father, and he never, ever said Til be
damned', at least not in front of her. ''s Johnson Ward."

"Who's Johnson Ward?' asked Elizabeth.

Her father laid a hand on her shoulder. ' writer, sweetheart.

You've met him before but you probably don't remember. He's one of the
greatest writers that ever was, in my opinion. He wrote a very famous
book called Bitter Fruit."

Elizabeth didn't know what to say about that. She had met a few writers
- a nervous, chainsmoking young man called Ashley Tibbett, who had
written some essays about rural life in the Litchneld Hills, books so
skinny that they looked as if they didn't have any pages between their
covers. And Mary Kenneth Randall, a serious, harsh-voiced woman with
thick ankles and thick sombre clothes and hair like a scouring-pad, who
had written two huge novels about objectivism, whatever that was.

But as far as Elizabeth had been able to tell, writers didn't care for
children very much. Writers talked about nothing except themselves, and
they seemed to regard children as competition. Ashley Tibbett hadn't
even been able to look at them, and Mary Kenneth Randall had given them
a particularly vile cough-candy and patted them so hard on the top of

3

the head that her wedding ring had clonked against their skulls.

Johnson Ward reached the [torch and he was big and smiling and
twinkly-eyed and he stamped his feet and banged his leather gloves
together.

"Johnson,' said father. He looked quite small by comparison, almost as
if he had shrunk in the wash. Johnson Ward took off his glove and
squeezed father's hand tight, and then clapped him on the back.

"Hullo, David. I hope you don't object to my coming.

Michael Farkas told me what had happened. I'm really so sorry. Your
little Peggy was a dream come true."

"Yes, she was,' said father. '. We're going to miss her."

"And this must be Lizzie,' said Johnson Ward. He took off his hat, and
when he took off his hat, Elizabeth saw that he wasn't so very old. His
hair was the shiny light-brown colour of peanut-brittle, and neatly
combed into a parting. He had a peanut-brittle coloured moustache, too.
His face was broad and generous and friendly, with an easy smile and a
captivating way of crinkling up his eyes. He reminded Elizabeth of Clark
Gable, sort of, except that he was taller and heavier, and his ears
didn't stick out, as Laura always said, ' the kitchen cupboard with its
doors wide open." "How do you do, sir,' said Elizabeth, in a whisper.

Johnson Ward squatted down in the porch so that his coattails dragged in
the snow. He was very clean, with a crisp white collar, and he smelled
of cigars and spices.

"You don't have to call me "sir",' he told her, taking hold of both of
her hands. ''re friends, you and me, even if you don't know it. The last
time I saw you was when your baby sister was born, and you were four. Do
you know what we did?" "No, sir,' said Elizabeth.

"Well, I'll tell you what we did, we spent the whole afternoon in the
garden popping balloons, that's what we did. We jumped on them. We sat
on them. We pricked them with pins.

We even bit them, do you know that? Now, that's what I call brave,
biting a balloon. But there's one thing I'll never forget; and that is,
what a lady you were. Even at four, you were a lady, and I can see today
that you're still a lady; and that you always will be."

Elizabeth didn't know what to say. She remembered bursting the balloons
but she didn't remember Johnson Ward.

All the same, Johnson Ward grasped her hands warmly and tightly, and she
decided she liked him. Elizabeth's father said, rather sharply, ' thank
you to Mr. Ward, Lizzie."

"Thank you, Mr. Ward,' Elizabeth whispered.

"No, no, thank you, Bronco,' Johnson Ward insisted.

Elizabeth hesitated. How could a grown-up writer with a Cadillac and a
moustache call himself ''? That was a cowboy's name; a name that little
boys used, in schoolyard games.

"Come on, now,'Johnson Ward urged her.

Elizabeth swallowed. The cold draught had made her throat feel dry.
"Thank you, Bronco,' she told him.

Father closed the front door and Johnson Ward took off his heavy coat.
Til bet you miss your little sister sorely,' he said.

Elizabeth nodded. Most of the time she didn't find it too difficult to
think that Peggy was dead. But now and then, for no particular reason,
her eyes would fill with tears, and her throat would tighten up, and her
voice would sound as if she had a thistle stuck in her larynx -- that's
if she could speak at all. At those times, she felt a cold and
blasphemous suspicion that Peggy wasn't in Heaven, after all; that she
wasn't sitting on some sun-blessed cumulus cloud, with white wings and a
white nightgown and a golden halo around her head. At those times, she
suspected that Peggy had simply left them for ever, and was lying chilly
as ice in her coffin, and that was all.

At those times, she thought about Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales,
too, lying concealed beneath the shed.

As they crossed the hallway to the crowded living-room, Johnson Ward
laid his hand reassuringly on Elizabeth's shoulder. ' my older brother
Billy died, I was so cut up that I couldn't eat and I couldn't write and
I couldn't even think. You know what that's like, when you can't even
think? Your head's no more good to you than an empty cooking-pot.

You can bang on your skull with your knuckles for all you're worth, but
there's nothing inside, only echoes. Those were bad, bad times for me,
those were."

He stopped, and looked down at her. ' do you know what happened? I went
to Havana) for the principal purpose of getting drunk. I gambled at the
casino, and I smoked big cigars the size of telegraph poles, and I got
drunk. And I was sitting in the Plaza de Annas, with a mouth that felt
like a cat's favourite cushion and a headache that felt like an iron
Derby that was half a size too small, when a Cuban boy came up to me,
and stood staring at me. He was wearing a white shirt and khaki pants
and sandals with open toes. He stood and stared at me and I sat and
stared back at him. And do you know what he said? He said, "Bronco,
don't you recognize me?"

"Well, I stared at him even harder, and maybe there was something
familiar about his eyes, but that was all. But then he said, "It's
Billy, your brother."

"You can imagine that I went shivery all over, just like somebody had
emptied an ice-bucket down the back of my shirt. I said, "It can't be.
Billy's dead." But he stepped a little closer and he looked at me just
the way I'm looking at you now, and he said, "It's Billy. I just want to
tell you that everything's fine." "Fine?" I said. "You've turned into a
Cuban and everything's fine?" '

"Couldn't be sweller," he said. And he turned around, and walked across
the plaza, and that was the last I ever saw of him." "Was he a ghost?'
asked Elizabeth, in awe.

"Uh-unh. I don't think so. I think he was just Billy."

Elizabeth wanted to ask Johnson Ward if it might be possible to find
Peggy, too, amongst the crowds around the Plaza de Annas, or anywhere
else for that matter. But before she could do so, mommy came across the
room, black-veiled, tilting slightly.

"Johnson!' she exclaimed, and flung her arms around him.

"Hello, Margaret. Please accept my condolences, and Vita's, too."

Mommy turned her head this way and that. ' didn't bring Vita?"

"Vita's not too well. Nothing serious, but she couldn't face the
journey." "I'm sorry,' said mommy, in a tone of voice that suggested
that she wasn't sorry in the slightest. ''s the writing coming along?'
She pecked at the air with two black-gloved fingers, in a charade of
somebody trying to find their way around the keyboard of a typewriter.

"Slow,' said Johnson Ward. ' know me. Three words a day if I'm lucky."

"I'm surprised you can still find anything to write about, after Bitter
Fruit."

"Well ... Bitter Fruit did have a little of everything in it, didn't
it?'Johnson Ward smiled.

Elizabeth's mommy swayed, as if she were trying to keep her balance on
die deck of a ship. ' know what the trouble with you writers is, don't
you?' she demanded.

"I'm sure you're going to tell me, Margaret, whether I know or not."

"The trouble with you writers is that you think you're realer than we
are."

"We do?"

"Of course you do! But that's where you're wrong! I'm real and all these
people are real and David's real and Elizabeth and Laura are real. The
only ficstitious - the only Jictitious character in this room is you.
You're not real. You're not! But you won't admit it."

Johnson Ward grasped mommy's black-gloved elbow, partly as a gesture of
sympathy, and partly to hold her steady.

"Why don't I mingle?' he said. ' some of these good people's reality
will rub off on me."

"You're a sham, Johnson,' mommy declared. ' certified fraud."

Johnson Ward left mommy frowning at the wall as if she had never seen it
before. He circled around the room, shaking hands with some of the
people he knew, and smiling to some of those he didn't know. He clasped
the Reverend Earwaker's hand and whispered something in his ear, and the
Reverend Earwaker nodded, again and again. Elizabeth thought Johnson
Ward was wonderful and couldn't keep her eyes off him. He had not only
said she was a lady, he had treated her like one, too. And although
Mommy had been horribly rude to him, he hadn't seemed to mind at all.

On the other side of the room, Laura was chattering to Aunt Beverley,
telling her how she still wanted to be a movie star, even famouser than
Shirley Temple. Aunt Beverley was saying, ' course, candy-cake. You're
twice as pretty as Shirley.

If your mommy says it's okay, I'll take you to see Sol Warberg, he's a
very, very famous producer."

At one minute after eleven o'clock, the doorbell chimed. The murmuring
conversation died away. Everybody knew who it was; they glanced at each
other, discomfited. Elizabeth's father went to open the door with the
scissorlike stride of a man who wants to get something over and done
with, as soon as he can.

Black as two half-starved crows, Mr. Ede the mortician and his assistant
Benny, tall and painfully thin, stood side by side in the snow-clogged
porch. They both removed their black hats, and Mr. Ede's hair, which had
been carefully combed across his narrow skull to cover up his baldness,
flew up in the air and waved around in the wind.

"Are all of your guests arrived, sir?' he asked, peering beadily into
the hallway and swivelling his head. Father turned around to look at
their assembled friends and relatives, and there was a look on his face
that was close to panic. Even Elizabeth could understand what the
mortician really meant. Are you ready, sir?

It's time to put your daughter into the ground.

Through the open doorway, across the white and ghostly garden, she could
see die huge black hearse waiting, its windows so filled with flowers
that she could only make out one glinting silver handle of Peggy's
coffin.

She repeated the little prayer from The Snow Queen. ' roses bloom and
fade away ... our Infant Lord abides alway ... "

When they returned from the funeral, the guests were silent and pinched
with cold. There had been some painful sobbing at the graveside as
Peggy's small, white, silver-handled casket had been lowered, and mommy
had thrown five white roses on it, one for each blessed year of Peggy's
life. A keen north-northeaster had cut across the exposed northern slope
of the cemetery, so that the snow had blown into their eyes like
shattered glass.

As soon as Mrs. Patrick opened the front door, mommy rushed past her and
fled upstairs, a distraught black shadow.

The girls heard her locking her bedroom door. Uncomfortably, the rest of
the guests crowded back into the living-room. The double doors to the
dining-room had now been opened, and the table spread with food and
drink - chicken chowder and breadcrumbed ham and a joint of red-rare
beef and spicy meatloaf, as well as a glazed turkey and a whole poached
salmon with pimento-stuffed olives where its eyes should have been. It
looked to the girls like a cartoon salmon, as if it might suddenly talk
to them.

In a giant silver bowl borrowed from the Sherman Country Club, Mrs.
Patrick had brewed up a hot brandy punch with plenty of sugar and lemon
juice and doves and sauternes wine, which Seamus ladled out to every
guest ' melt you out' The punch was very strong, and before long
everybody's cheeks became warm and flushed, and the conversation grew
louder and less inhibited. People even started to laugh. There was a lot
of talk about the war in Europe. Butter and meat rationing had just been
announced in Britain. Most of the men thought that the United States
ought not to get itself involved. ''s happening in Europe is Europe's
business. And - who knows? -- Adolf Hitler may well turn out to be just
the tonic that Europe needs."

Johnson Ward, his mouth stuffed with potato salad, said, "What about
freedom? That's what we're talking about here.

Freedom of speech, freedom of thought. Those Nazis are against freedom,
and if they're against freedom, then I'm against them."

"Freedom of speech, indeed,' said Mrs. Gosling from the Sherman Women's
Club. ''ve heard about your book, Mr. Ward, and from what I hear about
your book, the only freedomsymt'n interested in are drinking, dancing,
driving too fast and adultery."

Johnson Ward shrugged. ' disapprove just as much of bridge, home-made
gingerbread and embroidery,' he replied.

"But, believe me, I'll defend them to the last drop of blood."

When all the guests had been served, Mrs. Patrick called Elizabeth and
Laura to bring their plates, and she dished out slices of turkey and hot
hashed potatoes with thick brown gravy and cranberry sauce. She told
them to go to the kitchen if they were thirsty, for milk or lemonade,
but Laura said pretty please to Seamus, who had always liked her, and
cajoled him into pouring them two half-glasses of punch.

They sat on the cushioned window seat overlooking the tennis court,
swinging their legs. Elizabeth thought that the turkey was quite nice,
but it didn't taste the same as Thanksgiving, and she soon felt picky
and full-up and bored. Laura was just as bad. She complained to Mrs.
Patrick that there were holes in her turkey, and even when Mrs. Patrick
told her they were fork-holes, that was all, she still had to cut round
them and submerge the holey pieces deep in her gravy, to hide them.

After all that eyelash-fluttering at Seamus, she and Laura both thought
the punch was disgusting. It tasted even more poisonous than Mary
Kenneth Randall's cough candy. They made extravagant retching noises
until Mrs. Patrick told them to stop it. When nobody was looking they
emptied their glasses back into the bowl.

They hung around the living-room for a while, but the air was becoming
almost unbreathable with cigarette smoke, and the conversation was even
more boring than the dining-room.

Eventually, Elizabeth and Laura wandered to the library, where granpa
was talking to father. Granpa looked exactly like father except he was
kind of yellowish, as if somebody had cut father's picture out of the
newspaper and left it on the windowsill for too long.

"How are doing, my beautiful young ladies?' he asked, taking Laura on to
his bony knee, and jiggling her up and down.

"You're feeling pretty low today, I'll bet.' Elizabeth was glad that she
was too big to sit on granpa's knee any more. He reeked of camphor ice,
which he used for his roughened, cracking skin, and tobacco, and death.
The girls were always quite sure that they knew what death smelted like.
They had only to think of granpa.

"Let me tell you something,' said granpa. ' time a child dies and goes
to Heaven, there's another star up in the sky. You go out one clear
night and look for yourself. You'll see our little Clothes-Peg,
sparkling bright as can be."

"Bronco said that I might meet her in Havana,' said Elizabeth.

Granpa frowned at father. ''s the child talking about, Havana?"

Father gave an uncomfortable smirk. ' - that's Johnson Ward, the writer.
You remember Bitter Fruit?

"Darn dirty book, from what I recall,' said granpa.

"Go on, girls, run along now,' father urged them. ' and I have things to
talk over."

So it was that they dressed in their coats and their woolly hats and
their gloves and their extra socks and their big wobbly sounding black
rubbers and let themselves out of the kitchen door, into the snow.
Ampersand the cat glared at them in suppressed fury as the freezing
draught ruffled his fur.

Laura carried a Macy's shopping bag, one of the bags in which they had
taken home their funeral clothes, slung around her neck like a backpack.
They marched around to the tennis court, singing Winnie-the-Pooh's cold
toes song. The wind had suddenly dropped, and it had stopped snowing,
although the sky was as grey as a Barre granite gravestone. The silence
was huge. Elizabeth felt that if she screamed at the top of her voice,
she could have been heard in Quaker Hill.

They traipsed to the very centre of the tennis court.

Elizabeth looked around. This'll do,' she decided. They began scraping
up snow with their gloved hands. Then Laura discovered the nursery slate
which father had requisitioned last summer for chalking up his tennis
scores, and she used it as a makeshift shovel.

Elizabeth said, ' must be exactly the same size as Peggy, and it must
look like her. Otherwise God won't know it's her, will He?

"God's supposed to know everything,' Laura retorted. Her cheeks were
fiery red and there was a bright drip on the end of her nose.

"I know He's supposed to, but He must have so many different things to
worry about. You know, like the weather, and the Russians."

It took them almost a half-hour to create the snow-angel.

Elizabeth knew it was the right height because Peggy had come up to the
second button on her coat; and so did this snow-angel.

Laura rummaged in the Macy's bag and produced Peggy's brown beret and
Peggy's bright red kilt and Peggy's brown tweed Saturday coat, all of
which she had borrowed from Peggy's closet. They dressed the snow-angel
and then they stood back to admire her.

"Her face is too white,' said Laura. ' she doesn't have any hair."

"Statues always have white faces,' Elizabeth told her. ' the statues in
the graveyard had white faces."

"She'd look much better with a pink face, and hair,' said Laura.

"Well ... let's go look in the shed."

They walked back across the garden, and tugged open the door of the
spidery, spooky shed, and ventured inside. It was so dark now that they
could scarcely see anything, only the faintest of snow reflections
shining through the spider webs.

They groped around, giggling. In one corner, Laura found an old canvas
bag, which had once been used to wrap up the roots of a cherry sapling.
They also found some soft, oily cotton, which the gardener had used for
cleaning the lawnmower.

"This'll do, this'Il do,' Elizabeth hissed.

Singing, ' cold my tots, tiddtty-porn' in an off-key, falsetto duet, they
returned to the tennis court. Elizabeth took off the snow angel's beret
and carefully fitted the canvas bag over her head. Then Laura arranged
the fluffy cotton on top; and Elizabeth replaced the beret. Now their
snow-angel looked more realistic.

"What about eyes?' frowned Laura.

"We could sew buttons on."

"It's too cold for sewing. We could use stones." "I have a better idea,'
said Elizabeth. ' could heat up the poker in the kitchen range, so that
it's red-hot, and burn two holes for eyes."

"Yes!' agreed Laura, excitedly. ' red-hot poker! A red-hot poker!"

They went back to the kitchen, much to Ampersand's disgust. Laura kept
guard while Elizabeth heated up the poker.

Then they rushed out with it and Elizabeth jabbed it into the snow
angel's canvas face. With a sizzle and an acrid smell of burning, two
black-circled eyes appeared.

"And a mouth, too!' said Laura, jumping up and down.

"Quick! Make her a mouth!"

When they had finished, they stood and admired their snow-angel, and
then Elizabeth said, ' ought to pray."

They knelt in the snow even though it was wet and bitterly cold, and
Elizabeth squeezed her eyes tight and said, ' Lord, this is our memorial
to our dear sister who we loved.

Please see it and bless it and make Peggy into an angel." "Amen,' said
Laura, and sniffed.

By the time the girls had tugged off each other's boots and hung up
their snowy coats and hats, the funeral guests were beginning to leave.
Father and mommy were kissed and hugged again and again, and there were
sorrowful faces and tears and slapping of backs and extraordinary yelps
of grief, many of which might have been inspired by Mrs. Patrick's
punch. All the same, it was a sad, disassembled moment.

As they stood at the foot of the stairs, however, dutiful and pale in
their mourning dresses, Elizabeth and Laura could sense a general
feeling of relief. Peggy had been laid to rest, thank goodness, and her
soul had been commended to God whether she reappeared as a twinkling
star or a Cuban girl in the Plaza de Annas or as nothing more than a
gradually fading memory, less and less distinct as the years passed by.

Dear Peggy, thought Elizabeth. I hope you can hear me. I hope that God
has seen our snow-angel, and taken you up into heaven.

They all returned to the living-room. Father said, ' God that's over.'
Through the open doorway, they could see Mrs. Patrick noisily clearing
up the dishes. Mommy lifted her veil and her face looked puffy and
bruised, as if she had been punched. ' need a drink,' she told father.
Without a word, he went to the cocktail cabinet and poured her a gin. He
was about to close the cabinet again, but then he turned to Elizabeth
and Laura, and smiled. He poured each of them a tonic water with
rock-syrup and a maraschino cherry; and winked. ', at your age? Whatever
next!"

Mommy said, ' don't know whether I'm glad it's over or not. I feel as if
she's been tugged right out of my arms, just ripped away from me. My
beautiful littlest baby."

Tears streamed down her cheeks and she made no attempt to wipe them
away. Elizabeth took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and cautiously
handed it to her. Mommy stared at it for a while as if she couldn't
think what it was, then dabbed her eyes.

"I don't understand how life can be so cruel,' she said. ' gave up
everything! I gave up my youth! I gave up my career!

Wasn't that enough, for God's sake?" Father said nothing but stood on
the opposite side of the room, watching her cautiously. She wandered
around the living-room, drunk and distracted, touching the walls for
support, and also to reassure herself that she was still here.

Then she went through to the dining-room, and sat down opposite Mrs.
Patrick.

"You've been such a help, Mrs. Patrick,' she said. ' Godsend! I don't
know what I would have done without you.

No! I mean it. I don't know what anybody would do without you."

"It's all shoulders to the wheel in times of trouble,' said Mrs.
Patrick, scraping plates.

Seamus came up, unsteadily balancing a trayful of punch glasses.

"You, too, Seamus,' mommy blurted. ''ve been wonderful." "Times of
terrible,' said Seamus. ' mole lord's eye."

Mommy groped a cigarette from one of the boxes on the table, but didn't
light it. She sat with her head bent for a long time, not smoking, not
drinking. Father said quietly to Elizabeth and Laura, ' you'd better
think of taking your bath.' There was a sense of danger in the room; a
feeling of adult unpredictability.

Suddenly, mommy raised her head. She stood stock still for just a
moment, and then she approached the window seat and stared at her own
reflection in the night-blackened glass.

"David,' she said, in the oddest of voices.

"What is it?' asked father.

"David, there's somebody out there, in the snow."

Father peered into the dining-room. '? That's just your reflection,
darling."

"No, no it isn't. There's somebody out there! David, there's a child,
standing in the snow!" Father said, ' can there be? There are no other
children for miles."

"There is! David, there's a child!"

Without warning, mommy's voice suddenly swerved up to an hysterical
pitch. She turned around and stared at all of them with her eyes wide
and all of the blood emptied out of her face.

Father tried to go to the window but she came stalking back into the
living-room, pushing him out of the way. She reached the kitchen door.
''s Peggy? she screamed at him. ''t you understand? It's Peggy\ She's
come back to me!"

Elizabeth was overwhelmed with dread. She clasped . hand over her mouth
and couldn't do anything but gasp for breath. Laura squealed, '! Mommy!'
But mommy was already wrestling with the key in the back door, and
before they could say anything else, she had rushed outside.

Through the kitchen window they saw her hurrying across the gloomy
garden towards the tennis court, her black veil flying behind her. It
was like watching a character in a frightening movie.

"Mommy!' wailed Elizabeth, catching her breath. ', don'if "What is it?'
her father demanded. ', what is it?"

They ran outside. ', don'if called Elizabeth, in terrible distress; but
it was already too late. Mommy was screaming, '! Peggy!' and running
across the tennis court to the small, silent snow-angel in its beret and
tweed coat.

"We made it,' sobbed Elizabeth, miserably. ' and I made it.' And father
said, ', God,' and broke into a run.

Mommy rushed up to the snow-angel and then she suddenly stopped, and
stared at it in horror. She must have encountered its face, its
sack-weave face with its empty burned-out holes for eyes and its
grinning black raggedy mouth. She swayed from side to side, and then she
dropped to her knees in the snow and she let out a scream that was
almost inhuman. '! Peggy!

Oh, ny baby! Agggrrrhkhht Before father could reach her, she had rolled
herself over in the snow, and then up on to her knees, and launched
herself at the snow-angel in a frenzy of frustration and grief. She
pulled off its beret, tossed away its hair, and ripped its face apart
with both hands. She clawed, screeching, at the figure's body, digging
out snow as if she wanted to dig out its heart. Then she dropped to the
ground and lay flat on her back, shuddering, choking, in a jerking,
convulsive fit. Elizabeth could see her eyes roll up into her head and
her neck swell: and her feet kick so hard against the ground that one of
her black high-heeled shoes flew off. Elizabeth didn't have to be told
what to do. She turned around and ran back to the house as fast as she
could.

"Mrs. Patrick!' she screamed. '. Patrick! There's something wrong with
mommy!"

As Mrs. Patrick came bustling out, wiping her hands on her apron,
Elizabeth ran to father's library and picked up the telephone. Silence.
The telephone was dead. Frantically, she jiggled the receiver-rest up
and down, and screamed, '!

Hallo! Help! Help us! Emergency! Hallo! Hollar but the phone stayed
dead. Too much snow. The lines between Sherman and Boardman's Bridge
must have come down, the same way they had last year, and the year
before.

Elizabeth ran back to the kitchen, just in time to meet father and Mrs.
Patrick, swiftly and grimly carrying mommy into the house.

"Will she be all right?' begged Elizabeth, as they laid her on the
living-room couch in front of the fire. ' tried to call for the doctor
but the phone won't work."

"Just watch her, keep her warm, make sure she's breathing," father told
Mrs. Patrick, ignoring Elizabeth altogether. Til go bring Doctor Ferns
myself."

"Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Patrick, sorrowfully. She chafed mommy's hands to
warm them. ', Mr. Buchanan, this is a tragedy, and no mistake. What a
tragedy, God help us."

There was nothing Elizabeth could do but stand beside the couch and
watch mommy twitch and mutter, her eyeballs roaming underneath her
closed eyelids like caged bears. Laura came in and took hold of her
hand.

"O Holy Mother, smile on us now when we need You,' said Mrs. Patrick. '
were a mother, too, remember, O blessed Mary. You were a mother, too."

Elizabeth squeezed Laura's hand tight. ''t worry,' she whispered. ''s
going to be all right,' she said; even though she had a terrible feeling
that she had probably told one of the biggest lies of her life.

Heart of Ice "Her kiss was colder than ice. It went to his heart,
although that was half-frozen already. He thought he should die."

On the day that would have been Peggy's eighth birthday, 15 June 1943,
Elizabeth and Laura took their best friend Molly Albee to the cemetery;
and they laid fresh white carnations on her grave. They stood with their
heads bowed and their eyes squeezed shut, praying for Peggy's soul, and
trying as hard as they could to remember what Peggy had really looked
like.

It was a hot, treacly afternoon. With her eyes shut, Elizabeth could
hear the leaves rustling and the hoarse warbling of vireos in the high
maples that shaded the cemetery's southern side.

She could hear a freight train whistling, on the line that ran between
New Milford and Danbury.

She also heard a voice whisper, ',' quite close to her ear.

She opened her eyes, and turned around. Laura and Molly were both
standing on the other side of the grave, and there was nobody else in
sight - nobody close enough to have whispered in her ear like that. She
frowned, and shaded her eyes against the sun. The shingle pathway was
deserted, except for a gardener who was patiently edging the grass, and
he was more than two hundred feet away. On the far side of the cemetery,
where it was still wooded, she thought she saw something flickering
between the trees, but it was probably a rabbit, or a wood-pigeon.

Above Peggy's grave, a white angel with a sweet, sad face looked down
where Peggy lay. The birds had perched on the angel's head, and her
cheeks were streaked with black tears.

Elizabeth could never decide if this was disgusting or mystical, or a
bit of both.

They walked back through the cemetery and out of the squeaking iron
gate. A young bespectacled man with sprigged up chestnut hair was
changing the lettering on the church notice-board. He waved to them, and
called, ' afternoon, ladies!' His name was Dick Bracewaite and they all
loved him.

The Reverend Earwaker had been ailing lately, with a prostate condition
that had proved resistant both to ice-packs and to prayer. Dick
Bracewaite had been sent from St. Eugene's in Hartford to stand in for
him, and the church had never been so well attended, especially by
eyelash-fluttering adolescent girls.

The three girls kept on turning around and giving Dick Bracewaite little
finger-waves, until they turned the corner into Oak Street, where they
collapsed into fits of laughter.

"Oh, I love him! I love him!' said Molly, dancing around and around and
swinging her school bag. Molly was big and freckly, with hair like a
bomb-burst in a copper-wire factory, and she was in love with everybody,
especially Dick Bracewaite and Frank Sinatra.

Oak Street was neat and hot and empty, apart from Mr. Stillwell's green
delivery truck parked outside the Stillwell Hardware Store; and Mrs.
Miller's station-wagon parked in the shade of the large post oak that
stood beside the Sherman Grocery, and which had given Oak Street its
name. Mrs. Miller's chocolate-coloured spaniel sat in the back of the
station-wagon with its lurid pink tongue hanging out like a brush
salesman's necktie.

There was a feeling of timelessness; as if this summer would never end;
and Oak Street would always remain the same, ' common and familiar as my
breath' as Thomas Wolfe had put it. But Elizabeth had lately become
aware that she was changing. She felt a funny son of swelling
balloon-like tension inside her - and a strange feeling of bewilderment,
as if she ought to know something, as if she really ought to understand
something, but couldn't quite grasp what it was. In less than a

5

month's time, she would be thirteen. To her own surprise, she had lost
all interest in her dolls. She had tried very hard to play with them.
But even those dolls which she had once adored the most, and to whom she
had once confided all of her secrets, now seemed to be lifeless and
unco-operative and ineffably stupid. Even the tiny, imaginary family
which had once lived in her doll's house appeared to have moved out,
without leaving a forwarding address.

All that interested Elizabeth now was love and romance; love, and
romance, and horses.

She read every novel that she could find, from Emily Bronte to Sinclair
Lewis. The more romantic they were, the more tragic they were, the more
she adored them. Her particular favourite was Anna Karemna, which made
her cry, especially when Anna was killed by a train. But she also loved
Esther Summerson, in Dickens' Bleak House, because Esther was so pretty
and sweet to everybody, yet characterful, too. She felt a wonderful
creepy thrill when Esther met the grizzled old rag collector, Mr. Krook;
and an even ghastlier thrill when Mr. Krook died by spontaneous
combustion, leaving ' suffocating vapour in the room, and a dark greasy
coating on the walls and ceiling' and something that looked like '
cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white
ashes." She thought the idea of spontaneous combustion was both
fascinating and appalling, and she looked it up in her father's
encyclopedias. There was the Countess Bandi of Casena, in June 1731, of
whom only a head, three fingers and both legs were found in a heap of
ashes. Then there was the Indian woman who was consumed by flames and
whose smoking body was carried between two constables to the District
Magistrate near Dinapore.

As soon as she had finished her homework, Elizabeth would open her fat
royal-blue notebook, the one inscribed Strictly And Completely Private,
and write another short story about love and horses. Her heroines were
always confident, dear eyed girls whose lives were fulfilled except for
one thing: their mothers had mysteriously disappeared when they were
little.

These confident, dear-eyed girls were invariably mad on showj umping,
and their long-lost mothers invariably turned out to be world-class
showjumpers who had been permanently crippled in tragic riding acddents
at the pinnacle of their careers. Unable to face the world, they had
closeted themselves away in ', Gothic nursing homes'. Elizabeth gave her
stories titles like ' Finest Hour' and ' Wins The Day'.

When she was writing, Elizabeth felt elegant and happy and attractive.
She circled the showj umping rings of the world, her hand raised to
acknowledge the amazed applause of the crowds. And, when she dismounted,
he was waiting for her.

Tall, strong and gentle, with ', hyacinthine curls, and eyes like the
restless ocean."

There were villains, of course; but these were always 'sneering and
bony-nosed' and met various sticky ends, induding two who died by
spontaneous combustion -- ' in their own inner iniquity'.

Nobody had read her stories yet; and nobody knew how much she needed
them. Ever since Peggy's death, her life at home had been discordant and
unsettling. It was like four different radios playing at once. Father
would say one thing; and then he would talk to mommy and mommy would say
something else altogether; and then Laura would throw a tantrum and they
would all end up saying totally the opposite.

What was worse, she herself was changing so much. Her face seemed to
grow uglier and uglier every day, with a long nose just like father's,
and sticky-outy ears, and a neck that went on and on just like a
giraffe. She had grown much taller, too. In fact she had grown so much
taller than Laura, and so much taller than anybody else in her class,
that she walked everywhere with her books clutched to her chest and her
shoulders hunched, so that nobody would notice her extreme height. She
kept her hair long and straight, held back from her forehead with an
Alice band, because she thought it concealed her giraffe-like neck, and
she wore her favourite summer dress almost every day. Father had bought
it too big for her, in the expectation that she would ' into it', and
she had cried when she had first tried it on, because it made her feel
so old maidish. But she liked it now. At least her shoulders didn't
strain the stitches around the yoke and her wrists didn't dangle miles
beyond her cuffs, like they did with her other dresses, and at least the
bodice was loose enough to hide her swelling nipples, about which she
was deeply embarrassed. The dress was covered in tiny blue-and-yellow
flowers, with a double collar edged in blue-and-yellow piping, and
Elizabeth always wore her blue enamel pony club badge with it. She was
founder, president, chairwoman and only member of the secret and very
exclusive Lake Candlewood Pony Club; and she didn't even own a pony.

As they walked the whole length of Oak Street, along the hot afternoon
sidewalk, the three girls didn't have to discuss where they were going
next. Laura took hold of every telegraph pole she passed, and swung
around it, and sang ''t sit under the apple tree ... with anyone else
but me ... anyone else but me ...' Laura, who had been eleven in April,
was prettier than ever.

The sun had bleached her blonde curls so that they shone even brighter,
and she was petite and trim and easily the most popular girl in the
third grade.

"Do you think Dick Bracewaite ever thinks about girls?" asked Molly.

"Well, of course, silly!' said Laura. ''s a man, isn't he, and men are
always thinking about girls. That's what Aunt Beverley says, and she
should know."

"Oh, sure,' Molly retorted. ' Aunt Beverley is practically a man
herself."

"She is not!" "She is too! My father says you'd only have to cut her
hair short and you wouldn't be able to tell her from Robert Taylor."

Laura swung her schoolbooks and hit Molly on the shoulder with them. The
strap came undone, and they scattered across the sidewalk. Molly chased
Laura around and around a telephone pole while Elizabeth tried to rescue
them. Loose pages were fluttering everywhere. Molly caught up with Laura
and yanked off her hair ribbon, and skipped off with it.

Elizabeth was still chasing the last stray page, but she managed to
snatch it just before it was blown through the iron grid in front of
Baxter's Realty, and into the inaccessible basement area beneath, which
was already littered with leaves and gum wrappers and cigarette butts.

She shuffled the loose pages back together again, but as she did so, she
saw that not all of it was geography homework.

Laura had written on one page, ' me in his arms and kissed me. He was
handsomer than Jesus. Their was a holy light almost shining from his
eyes. He took off all of his cloths and said that we could be pure like
the dissipuls. I took off my cloths too. He said this my darling is what
true lovers do. He kissed me again and again and said I was the closest
being he had ever known to an angel."

Laura had caught up with Molly and retrieved her ribbon, and some kind
of honour had been satisfied. Now she came back along the sidewalk and
saw that Elizabeth was reading her story.

"Lizzie!' she screamed at her. ''s private!"

She tried to snatch it but Elizabeth held it out of her reach.

"That's private! That's completely private! How dare you read it! That's
private!"

Dodging away from her, Elizabeth read the next few sentences out loud.'
"We lay on his bed. His pecker was hard.

Frank said it was a true sign of love between a man and a woman if the
man's pecker was hard. There was nothing bad about it it was almost
divine. He said I should touch it and I held it for a while. He said I
could kiss it if I wanted to but I was undessided." '

Molly shrieked in hilarity; while Laura furiously danced and jumped all
around her. ' that back! Give that back! I hate you! I hate you for
ever!"

"More!' begged Molly. ' out some more!"

"He bade me close my eyes. I closed my eyes and he stroked my hair and
then he stroked my muff." '

"Aaaah!' shrieked Molly, in delight.

Laura screamed ' that back or I'll tear up all of your horse books!"

"More!' pleaded Molly.

"I felt a heavenly sensation. ' love you, darling,' I mermered. ' love
you too, my sweet one,' he replied. He went up and down all the while
complimenting me on my beautiful body. Suddenly he cried out. I opened
my eyes and saw a veritable fountain coming from his pecker. He said '
goodness the time' and quickly dressed. That was love at its truest. I
knew next time I would be ready for doing it properly.

Frank kissed me and promised me that he would be gentle." '

Elizabeth stopped reading. Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment and
shock, and she stared at Laura with her mouth open. Molly had gone into
a squealing-fit, and was furiously stamping her sandals on the concrete
paving. ''s so nukl' she kept squealing. ', it's so rude1." Elizabeth
said, ''ll have to tell father.' She felt terribly grave and
responsible. She also felt confused. They had been given a lesson on the
fundamentals of human reproduction in class.

Their biology teacher, Mrs. Westerhuiven, was comparatively young and
modern, and had actually demonstrated the erection of a male member
(with the aid of a photograph of Michelangelo's David and her own
discreetly-lifted index finger.) All of the girls at school talked about
sex during recess.

In fact, they talked about scarcely anything except music and make-up
and ' it's going to be like.' But Elizabeth had never read anything so
graphic or lewd as Laura's story. It scarcely sounded like Laura at all.

"Pecker!' squealed Molly. '! I don't believe it! It's so rude!"

Laura's eyes were almost blinded with tears. ' mustn't tell father.
Please don't tell father. It's only a story, that's all.

I'll throw it away. I'll burn it. Just don't tell him, okay?"

"Pecker? crowed Molly, gleefully. '

Elizabeth turned the page over, and saw that there was much more written
on the other side. ' of this is true, is it?" she asked.

Laura managed to tear it away from her, and crumple it up.

"Of course it's not true! It's only a story! You shouldn't have read it!
It wasn't even yours to read! It was private! You write stories and
they're private, so why shouldn't I?"

"If it's not true,' put in Molly, ' who's Frank? That's what I'd like to
know."

Laura wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ' Sinatra, that's all."

"Front Sinaltaf shrilled Molly. ' Sinatra's much too old for you!"

"It's only a story and it's none of your business!' Laura retorted. And
with that, she picked up her books, and bustled off, running diagonally
across the street and heading toward Candlewood Road, and home. Her
blonde curls shone in the afternoon sunlight. Elizabeth and Molly looked
at each other, and Molly shrugged, and then they carried on walking
along Oak Street. They had almost reached the shining, curved,
stainless-steel facade of Endicott's Corner Drugs. Inside, they could
see several of their schoolfriends talking and laughing and drinking
sodas. Endicott's was the place where all the kids who lived around
Sherman came to mess around after school.

The parking-lot at the side was crowded with dented old convertibles,
Fords and Chevys and a green Hudson Terraplane with '' hand-painted all
over it. With petrol rationed to three gallons a week (officially, at
least) none of the kids ever drove very far, but their cars were
essential to their status; and where else could they find to smooch?

"You don't think that story was true, do you?' Molly asked Elizabeth. '
mean, it couldn't have been, could it?"

Elizabeth shook her head. ' aren't any boys around called Frank, are
there? Not unless she changed his name. It's just that I can't believe
all those words she used. And all that description of doing it. I never
knew anything about doing it when I was eleven."

"And "veritable fountain"! What did she mean by that? It sounds
disgusting!" "Spermatozoa,' said Elizabeth, emphatically.

"Spermatozoa? I thought Mrs. Westerhuiven said spermatozoa looked like
tadpoles." "Well, I don't know,' said Elizabeth. ''m going to have to
talk to Laura later."

"Mrs. Westerhuiven definitely said they looked like tadpoles."

Inside Endicott's, an L-shaped stainless steel counter ran along the
back and right-hand walls, and it was at this counter that a dozen of
the local high-school boys and girls were perched, swinging their legs
and drinking sodas and milk shakes and eating ice-cream sundaes. There
were four tables, too, all of which were already crowded, but Elizabeth
and Molly managed to squeeze in at the end of one of the banquettes.

The noise was up to its usual pitch. At the next table, three'
fifth-grade girls were screaming with laughter; while down at the far
end of the counter, two boys were popping their fingers and trying to
sing "They're Either Too Young Or Too Old' in a growling disharmony of
recently-broken voices. Another boy accompanied them by raking a sundae
spoon down the side of the tall chromium wire cage that held the oranges
for Fresh Squeezed Juice, and tapping with a fork on the porcelain jar
of Borden's Malted Milk.

Behind the counter was a huge crystalline pyramid of upside-down
ice-cream dishes, and a coffee urn, with a glass showing the coffee
level, and glass jars of pecan nut cookies and Baby Ruths and Planters
peanut bars, as well as all the shining paraphernalia of milk-shakers and
ice-cream scoops.

Judy Mcguinness was sitting on a stool right beside Elizabeth, and
Elizabeth gave her a nervous smile. Judy Mcguinness was head cheerleader
and last year's Prom Queen and just about everybody's heroine. She was
round-faced and very pretty, in an exotic, Ava Gardner way, with heaps
of curly black hair and violet eyes and - envy of envies - a natural
beauty spot. Her parents allowed her to wear lipstick out of school and
so she always did, a vivid red shade of Stadium Girl. She was dressed in
a blue striped blouse and a pair of well-tailored white slacks rolled up
to mid-calf, so that everybody could see her critically fashionable odd
socks, one purple and one blue.

"Hi, Buchanan,' Judy drawled. ''s your mom these days? Any better?"
"She's very well, thank you,' said Elizabeth. She hated it when people
asked her about mommy.

"Is she home for the rest of the summer?"

"She's home for good now."

"Well, that's marvelous. I didn't know! You must remember me to her.
She can remember people, can't she?"

"Of course,' Elizabeth flushed. ' remembers everything." "Really? I
thought -"

"She's not insane or anything, if that's what you're trying to say."

Clan Marshall, the school's star swimmer, tanned and toothy, was sitting
beside Judy, his hand resting lightly but possessively on her arm. He
gave Elizabeth a wink and a ' up' click of his tongue.

"You tell ', kid,' he said. In the mirror behind the counter, between
the white-painted lettering for Popsicles and Banana Splits, Elizabeth
saw herself flush hot and crimson. She hated it when she blushed; and
these days she seemed to be blushing all the time.

At that moment, however, Old Man Hauser appeared, wearing a soda jerk's
cap and a red bow tie and a white apron double-bed around his waist.
Although the drugstore was called Endicott's, Old Man Hauser had owned
it for as long as anybody could remember. He was a calm, dry-voiced
seventy three-year-old, with a face that always reminded Elizabeth of a
withered swede. Nobody knew what his first name was. He insisted on
being called Old Man Hauser. Laura used to think that he had actually
been christened ' Man', but Elizabeth thought it was pretty unlikely.

"Good afternoon, Lizzie,' he smiled. ''s it to be today?" "Two malteds,
please,' said Elizabeth. She had never seen him in a soda jerk's cap
before, and she couldn't help smiling at him. ''s Lenny today? He's not
sick, is he?"

"Lenny? Sick? Of course not. But he's wishing he was."

"I don't undersand. He was here yesterday."

"Certainly he was here yesterday. But didn't he tell you? He had the
greeting. They're sending him off to Fort Dix on Saturday, for
training."

"Lenny's been drafted? Elizabeth was horrified. ' didn't he tell me?"

Old Man Hauser shrugged. ' didn't think they'd take him, on account of
his ears. He was sure they were going to classify him 4-F, the same as
they did Sinatra. It came as quite a blow when they told him he was i-A,
and fit enough to fight the whole German army single-handed." "Oh, no,'
said Elizabeth.

"What are you worrying about, kid?' Clan Marshall asked her, with a
grin. ''s going to be fine. You know what they used to call him at
school? "Magic Miller". He never got detention. He never got lines. If
anybody ought to be worried, it's Hitler."

That's the love of Buchanan's life you're talking about, sweetheart,'
Judy told him.

"He's home if you want to see him,' said Old Man Hauser. ' gave him the
day off to say goodbye to his folks." "Thanks, Mr. Hauser,' said
Elizabeth, and turned to go.

"You don't want your malteds?' asked Old Man Hauser.

"Here, have a double-dip cone to go. Come on. It's on the house."

"Hey,' said Clan Marshall, ' wish I was in love with Lenny.

Maybe I could get free ice-cream, too."

"You're in love with yourself and nobody else,' Judy told him.

"Ouch,' he replied.

Molly stayed at Endicott's because she would go weak at the knees if she
didn't have her daily malted on the way home from school, and might even
die of malnutrition. Elizabeth walked along the hot, glaring street,
trying to lick her chocolate-and strawberry double-dip faster than it
was dripping down her wrist.

Lenny lived in Putnam Street, a quiet, elm-shaded avenue of large Queen
Anne houses with turrets and carpentered porches. Originally, these
houses had been built for Sherman's more prosperous citizens, its doctor
and its lawyer and the owner of the Sherman Sawmills. But now the
sawmill was derelict, and there weren't enough people living in the area
to support a lawyer, and the last remaining doctor was so old that he
needed a doctor himself. Several of the houses were empty; most of them
were shabby and scurvy with weathered paint.

Lenny's house - in the very middle of Putnam Street - was in better
repair than most, but then Lenny's father owned and ran the local
hardware store, and he could buy all his paint and putty at cost.
Elizabeth walked across the lawn to the front door. The garden was
unkempt and weedy, but some effort had been made to clear the rose beds
under the verandah, and round at the side of the house there was a
well-tended vegetable patch, where the bright green leaves of bean
plants fluttered, and summer squash shone yellow as Chinese lanterns. A
station-wagon was parked in the grass tufted driveway, its engine still
sporadically ticking as it cooled down.

From inside the house, she could hear the radio, tuned to the latest war
news. '... after a sustained air bombardment to knock out its airstrips
and underground hangars, the Italian island of Pantellaria was taken by
the Allies yesterday in what is proving to be ... "

She climbed the steps, banged at the heavy doorknocker, and waited.
There was a warm sweet aroma of baking in the air, muffins and
cornbread. After a while the door opened and there was Mr. Miller thin
as a rail in his baggy grey trousers and his shirtsleeves and his yellow
braces. The sunny street was reflected in his glasses.

"Lizzie!' he smiled. ' on in. You're just in time to wish Lenny
goodbye!"

"He's leaving already? asked Elizabeth.

"They called this morning, said he had to report this afternoon, at
five."

"But I haven't even had time to buy him a present!"

"Oh, don't you worry none about that. You can always send him something,
if you're minded to, when he gets to Fort Dix. He'll probably appreciate
it more. I know I did, when I was in the service."

Mr. Miller ushered her into the house. She had always liked the Millers'
house because every room was crammed with the oddest knick-knacks and
bits-and-pieces. A picture of Quonochontaug beach, made entirely out of
clam shells. An old-fashioned spinning wheel, half of a plough, a
lobster pot.

Mrs. Miller was standing at the kitchen table, prying muffins out of the
baking-tray; and she smiled as Elizabeth came in, the smile of a woman
who knows when goodness comes into her house. She nodded her head
towards the back door, which had been left ajar; and out on the boarded
verandah, Lenny was feeding the canaries, looking smarter than Elizabeth
had ever seen him, in shirt and necktie. He was a lean, good-looking,
but rather reticent kind of boy, like a young Jimmy Stewart. He was
summer-suntanned, with a distinctive mole on his upper left cheek, and
his hair short and shiny and quiffed at the front.

"Go on, Lizzie, go talk to him,' said Mrs. Miller. ' could use some
friendly talk."

Elizabeth went out onto the verandah. Lenny was obviously aware that she
was there, but he continued to coo and tweet to his canaries, and prod a
bone-white cuttlefish shell through the bars of their cage.

"Lenny?' ventured Elizabeth at last.

He looked at her. His eyes were red-rimmed, from hay fever, maybe. Lenny
had always suffered from hay fever.

"I didn't know you'd been drafted,' she said.

He shrugged, and pulled a face. ', sure, of course I was drafted. These
days, you have to be a loony, or crippled, or dead already."

"You didn't tell me,' she repeated.

He pushed the last fragment of cuttlefish shell through the bars. ' ...
you would have found out sooner or later."

"But you would have gone! And I wanted to give you a present, and
everything!"

"Hey, come on kid,' he told her, and stood in front of her with his thin
arms folded, and smiled. ' don't need no presents, not from you."

Elizabeth couldn't stop her throat from tightening. ' wanted to give you
something, that's all, to remember me by."

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. ' don't need nothing
to remember you by. How could I forget you?"

She stared at him, wide-eyed. ' mean that?"

"What kind of doofus do you think I am?"

Mrs. Miller called out, ' - why'n't you take Lizzie down to the orchard
and fetch me some of them pie-apples?"

"Okay, ma!' Lenny called back. Elizabeth had never seen him act so
obliging. He was always grumbling that his mother and father took
advantage of his good nature, and made him run errands whenever his
favourite radio show was on; or made him wash the dishes when he wanted
to go fishing.

They stepped down from the verandah into the thick hot glare of the
garden. The sun was so bright that Lenny had to keep one eye screwed up.
Their ankles rustled through the grass; the birds sang an inquisitive,
spangled song.

"Aren't you afraid?' asked Elizabeth. There were very few secrets
between them. In spite of the difference in their ages (which in anybody
older, would have amounted to nothing at all), they both believed in
mystery, they both believed in magic. They had once leaned on the
railing of the wooden bridge where Lake Candlewood darkly emptied its
waters into a lush and overgrown stream, and Lenny had said, ' may not
think it ... nobody may think it ... but trolls live under this bridge,
sure as eggs." "Trolls?' she had asked him, peering into the gurgling
shadows. ' are trolls?"

7i "You don't know what trolls are? Trolls are what you're afraid of."

"What do you mean?' she had challenged him.

"Exactly that, stupid. Trolls are what you're afraid of.

Anything. Being embarrassed, coming last in maths, making a fool of
yourself in front of your parents. Drinking your first beer and puking.
Wrecking your father's car. Dying. All that stuff." "Dying?' she had
asked him; and that was what she was asking him now. Only this time the
danger of him dying wasn't just an idle conversation on a bridge. This
time, the danger of him dying was real and immediate. She had seen
newsreels of fully-laden GIs dropping out of DUKWs into ten feet of
water, and never coming up again. She had seen men lying on the roads of
Normandy, as if they were sleeping. But who would sleep in the middle of
the road on a summer afternoon, when there was a war to be won?

Lenny picked a cooking apple from a tree, twisting it around so that the
stalk snapped. There was so much brightness and shadow; and flying
insects criss-crossing the garden in random, sunlit patterns.

"I'm not afraid. Well not too much. The way the war's going, I'll
probably never even get to Europe, let alone fight."

Elizabeth watched him picking apples and said nothing for a long time.

"I don't know ...'he said, after a while. ''m kind of looking forward to
it. I know I'll have to obey orders and all. But at least they won't be
dad's orders, or old man Hauser's orders, or Clan Marshall's stupid
orders for Moron's Ecstasies."

"Oh, yuk,' said Elizabeth. A Moron's Ecstasy was Endicott's ultimate
sundae, including eight different flavours of icecream, bananas, Melba
peach, raspberries, mixed nuts, tuttifrutti, pineapple and whipped
cream. It cost a whole dollar, and was the current craze among school
seniors who wanted to show that they had stomachs of steel.

"Mack Pearson said that boot camp wasn't so bad,' said Lenny. ' only
part be hated was the haircut."

"Will you write me?' asked Elizabeth. She had the strangest feeling -- a
feeling that she had never experienced before. She knew that she liked
Lenny. She had always liked Lenny, and Lenny had always liked her, even
when his friends ribbed him for going around with a girl. But now she
couldn't keep her eyes off the way that he raised his suntanned hand to
the apple tree, and the way the sun shone through his hair, and
illuminated his eyes like two perfect circles of palest agate.

He was almost godly; and a soldier, too. He reminded her of a picture in
one of her books of an armoured condottiero, one of the mercenary
soldiers of sixteenth-century Italy. She had fallen in love with this
condottiero when she had first seen him.

He looked so beautiful and so brave. And now she began to understand
that she had fallen in love with Lenny. In fact, she must have gradually
been falling in love with him for a long time, if love meant that he was
flawless, and wonderful, and that she couldn't bear the thought of him
going away.

"What's the matter?' he asked her. ''re looking all goofy."

She felt her cheeks bum. She hoped that he couldn't read her mind! ' was
just thinking, that's all,' she flustered. ' was just wondering how long
you were going to be away."

Lenny shrugged. ' do six weeks' basic training at Fort Dix ... then who
knows? It's all pretty secret. We're not allowed to tell anybody
anything. You know ... "even walls have ears"." They walked back to the
house. Mrs. Miller said, ' about some cookies and some milk, Lizzie?"

"No thanks, Mrs. Miller. I'd best be getting home."

"Give my good wishes to your folks."

Lenny took her out to the street. ' this is goodbye for a while,' he
said, taking hold of her hand, and squeezing it.

"You will be careful, won't you?' she begged him. ' won't drink too much
beer, and puke?' She paused, and then she said, "You won't die, will
you?"

He leaned foreward and kissed her, not on the forehead, not on the
cheek, but directly on the lips.

^Fll be careful,' he promised. ' I'll write, too."

Mrs. Miller was calling from the house. '! Which pants did you want
pressed?" "Coming, mom!' he called back. Then he said, ' bet your cotton
socks I'll write."

He turned, and went back down the side of the house, leaving Elizabeth
standing on the sidewalk with her eyes wide and her lips still fizzing
with the sherbet sensation of Lenny's kiss. He had kissed her on the
actual lips! He must love her! Or nearly love her, anyway.

And she loved him--she loved him, she loved him, with all of her
swelling heart.

She walked dreamily back along Putnam Street, staying under the dark
aromatic shadow of the elms. Already she was inventing a story in her
head about a showjumping star who falls in love with a soldier. The
soldier is wounded in the Pacific, and sends her a message that he has
been killed, so that she won't have the burden of marrying a man so
terribly scarred. One day she wins the highest international show
jumping trophy, and makes a speech in which she dedicates the trophy to
all the boys who never came back from the war, and especially to her
lost love. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she says that she can
never love another man, ever. At that moment, her terribly-scarred lover
comes hobbling out of the crowd amongst whom he has been covertly
watching her, and they are passionately reunited. She promises to use
her prize money to restore his looks, and they have six children and
fourteen horses and live deliriously ever after.

Elizabeth decided to call her story ' Spoils of War'.

She was nearly at the end of Putnam Street when she saw a small girl in
a white cotton frock walking towards her. She was out of the shadow of
the elms now, and the street was dazzlingly bright - so bright that the
girl appeared almost to be walking in a fog of reflected light, kind of
out-of-focus.

The girl had a very pale face and intensely blonde braids -- braids so
blonde that they were almost silver, so that she looked very
Scandinavian, Finnish or Lapp. Elizabeth didn't take very much notice of
her at first, because she was too involved in "The Spoils of War'. But
there was something about the way in which the girl was walking that
suddenly caught her attention.

She seemed to be gliding, rather than walking, as if the sun bright
sidewalk was covered with ice.

As she approached, Elizabeth slowed, and stared at her. For some
ridiculous reason, she began to feel alarmed, although she couldn't
think why. She knew just about every single kid in the whole of Sherman,
and Boardman's Bridge besides, even kids as young as this one, but she
had never seen this kid before.

Maybe she was visiting, with her parents. Maybe she was lost.

The girl came gliding nearer and nearer on white-sandalled feet, until
she and Elizabeth were face to face. The sun was so strong that
Elizabeth had to squinch up her eyes. Even then she didn't seem to be
able to focus on the girl's face.

The girl stared up at Elizabeth with perfect composure.

"Hallo, Elizabeth,' she said. Her voice was oddly tinny, as if she were
speaking on the radio.

"Do I know you?' asked Elizabeth.

The girl gave her a blurry smile. There was something familiar about
her--something so familiar that Elizabeth began to feel seriously
frightened. How could she be so familiar, when Elizabeth had never met
her before?

"Are you lost?' Elizabeth asked her.

The girl shook her head. In some peculiar way, she had managed to pass
Elizabeth by, while at the same time never taking her eyes away from
Elizabeth, nor turning her head.

Elizabeth could feel the sun beating hot on the top of her head, and yet
the girl herself seemed to give off the faintest of chills.

"Do I know you?' Elizabeth repeated.

The girl was already gliding away. She was swallowed by the shadows of
the overhanging elms, until all that Elizabeth could see of her was a
white dress and gliding white sandals. How did she walk like that? It
was so strange, like a waking dream, right here on the corner of Putnam
Street, on a normal afternoon.

Deeply immersed in the shadows, the girl turned around just once. Her
pale face was completely expressionless, yet she was obviously trying to
communicate something.

But what?

Elizabeth slowly continued her walk towards Main Street, frowning in
perplexity. Why had the girl seemed so familiar? It was almost as if
Elizabeth had known her all her life; and yet she knew for sure she
hadn't.

It was only when she reached Main Street and saw the sign across the
street saying Walter K. Ede & Son, Mortician, that she was seized with
the most horrific of thoughts. She turned, and stared back down the
street, and she was so frightened that she felt as if centipedes were
crawling in her hair.

"Peggy,' she whispered. Then she screamed out, '?"

Laura was already in the billiard-room when Elizabeth got back. She was
sprawled lanky-legged on the sofa eating a sugared doughnut and leafing
through a copy of Glamour. She didn't look up when Elizabeth came into
the room and dumped her school books on the end of the coffee table.

"Well?' said Elizabeth.

"Well what?' retorted Laura, aggressively.

"Well - what do you think I ought to do?"

"What do I think you ought to do about what?"

"Your story, of course. That's what."

Laura gave her a sulky, challenging stare. ' a snitch. Go on. See if I
care."

"But Laura, it was so rude. Where did you learn all of those words?"

"I just heard some of the boys talking, that's all,' said Laura.

She pushed almost half of the doughnut into her mouth at once.

"They're always saying things like pecker and muff."

"It's awful." "Why should it be awful?' said Laura, with her mouth
crammed. ' say "woodpecker" don't you? And women say they wear muffs in
winter, and nobody gets upset."

"That's different. You shouldn't write stories like that."

"Says who?"

Elizabeth was about to answer when the door opened and her father came
in. He had become thin as a rail and very grey, like a man who has been
standing for hour after hour in a shower of fine wood-ash. The girls had
grown used to his emaciation and premature ageing; but his appearance
was a constant reminder of Peggy's death; as if her shadow had fallen
across him for ever. He still spoke just as firmly, and the Candlcwood
Press was doing reasonably well, and making a bit of money, but losing
Peggy had taken so much of the meaning out of his life.

"Hi, Elizabeth,' he said. She went up and put her arm around his waist.
His sand-coloured trousers drooped because he was so thin. He scarcely
ate, and wouldn't touch drink these days because it gave him nightmares.
Nightmares of snow, nightmares of ice. Nightmares of Peggy rising out of
the pool.

"How was school? Do you have much homework?"

"Only geography, the Rockies, and that's easy." "Listen ...'he said. '
had a call this afternoon that granpa's sick. I have to go to New York
tomorrow. I really have to. Do you think that you two could stay home
and take care of mommy for me?"

"Is granpa going to die?' asked Laura.

Their father shook his head. ''s his heart. His heart's weak.

He has to have tests for his blood pressure."

"It's all right,' said Elizabeth. ''ll look after mommy."

Their father ruffled her hair. "Thanks, Lizzie. I'll call the school
before I leave, and tell them why you're taking the day off."

"Okay, sure thing,' said Elizabeth.

"Mommy should have a nurse,' Laura protested.

"Laura -' Elizabeth retaliated. But her father said. ', she's probably
right. It's just that I can't afford a nurse right now. Besides, you
know how difficult your mother can be. Too difficult for most nurses."

He was about to leave when Elizabeth said, ' -- '

Laura sat up and glared at her furiously, staring daggers.

Long-bladed daggers with elaborately-decorated handles, just like the
cartoons.

But Elizabeth had no intention of telling her father about Laura's
story. She wasn't a snitch by nature; and, besides, she would have found
it far too embarrassing. But she did want to tell him that, somehow, she
had met Peggy on Putnam Street on the way back from Lenny's house - that
she hadn't exactly looked like Peggy, but she was almost certain that
she was. After all, hadn't Bronco's dead brother looked like a Cuban? It
didn't matter what people looked like, surely, so long as it was
stititfiem.

The bod? is simply the costume of the soul, that's what Dick Bracewaitc
had told them, in church last Sunday.

Maybe, if her father knew that Peggy was still walking around, it would
put his mind at rest - give him hope, and peace. Maybe it would brush
off all those ashes of guilt that made him appear so grey.

"Lizzie, I really have to run." "I'm sorry,' said Elizabeth. ''s
nothing.' Nothing that she could possibly articulate, anyway. She was
mature enough to realize that if she told him and he didn't believe her,
his pain would be even more difficult to bear. And, just at that moment,
she wasn't at all sure that she believed it herself.

There were two hours to spare before supper, so Laura went off to call
for her friend Bindy on Sycamore Street and Elizabeth sat in the kitchen
with Mrs. Patrick while Mrs. Patrick finished off a chicken potpie.
Seamus was there, too, sitting on his favourite stool next to the range,
his head leaning against the tiles, softly singing a nonsensical song.

Sad the man, mind the man, day after day Flowers and clouds, Flowers and
clouds.

The kitchen was filled with warm marmalade-coloured sunlight, which fell
in shafts through the steam and flour dust.

Elizabeth traced patterns in the flour with her finger.

"Your father's a poor suffering soul,' said Mrs. Patrick.

"I know,' Elizabeth agreed. She looked over at Seamus, who was still
nodding and singing. His voice was a thin, tuneless whine.

"Is he worse?' she asked Mrs. Patrick.

Mrs. Patrick nodded, and gave Elizabeth a sad and wistful smile. '.
Ferns said he'll have more fits. I like to think that it's the fairies.
They loved him so much that they want him back, to play with him some
more."

Elizabeth listened to Seamus singing for a little, and then she said, '.
Patrick - do you think it's possible for people, when they're dead, to
be other people, and walk around, and meet their old friends?"

Mrs. Patrick was about to put the potpie in the oven. She turned around
and stared at Elizabeth in the strangest way.

The open oven was so hot that Mrs. Patrick's forehead was beaded with
sweat.

"What made you say that, child?"

"I don't know. Something I saw."

"What did you see?"

"A little girl, that's all. She didn't look like Peggy and yet she did.
And she looked at me so queerly. And she said, "Hallo, Elizabeth", quite
plain, as if she knew me."

"Where was this?"

"On Putnam Street: I was visiting Lenny. He's had the greeting, and he
has to go to Fort Dix tomorrow."

"The dead go to Heaven, child, to sit with Our Lady and Our Lord Jesus
Christ." "But you said that Seamus would go back to the fairies."

"There are fairies in Heaven. There is anything a soul could want in
Heaven."

Elizabeth had the feeling that this conversation was going to get her
nowhere at all. Mrs. Patrick was a Catholic, and while she may have been
a very superstitious Catholic, and believed in elves and piskies and all
sorts of supernatural larkings-about in hedgerows and underneath
toadstools, she was still sure and certain that her Redeemer liveth, and
his Blessed Mother, too, and that it was They alone who set us down on
earth when we were born and scooped us back up again when we died.

There was no room in Mrs. Patrick's theology for a Peggy who was dead
but not really dead at all.

"Sad the man, mind the man, day after day,' keened Seamus. ' and clouds,
fowers and clouds."

Then, abruptly, he stopped singing, and sat up straight, gripping the
seat of the stool. His face was bright with inspiration. ' snow flakes!'
he exclaimed, his thick lips shiny with saliva. ' stockfish!"

"What holy gibberish,' said Mrs. Patrick, shaking her head.

But Elizabeth sat and stared back at Seamus with her mouth open and her
fingers tingling with fright and surprise.

Because dried stock-fish was what the Lapland woman in The Snow Queen
had used to write a letter to the wise Finland woman ('paper had she
none'); and living snow flakes had been the Snow Queen's guards ('their
shapes were the strangest that could be imagined; some looked like great
ugly porcupines, others like snakes rolled into knots with their heads
peering forth, and others like little fat bears with bristling hair -
all, however, were alike dazzlingly white - all were living snow
flakes').

"Seamus,' said Elizabeth. ', who told you that?"

But Seamus leaned back against the fireplace again, and carried on
singing.

"He's a poor boy,' said Mrs. Patrick, chopping carrots.

Elizabeth found her mommy sitting in her bedroom with the linen blind
drawn down to keep out the sunlight. It gave the room the appearance of
an old sepia photograph. The bed was made but the quilt was rumpled
where her mother had been sleeping on it. Sometimes she slept all day,
day after day. At other times you could go into her room in the small,
intense hours of the morning, and find her standing by the window in her
nightgown, staring into the garden.

Today, her mommy had dressed in a cream short-sleeved blouse and pale
blue skin, and pinned up her hair. She was sitting in her blue
basketwork chair smoking a cigarette, her head wreathed in curls of
smoke as if she were wearing an evanescent crown of thorns. She looked
better today: her eyes were more focused.

"And what have you been doing, darling?' she asked.

"We went to the cemetery to see Peggy. Then we had icecream at
Endicott's. Lenny wasn't there, though. They've called him up."

"You really like Lenny, don't you?"

Elizabeth blushed and nodded. Like him? Whillikers, she adored him! ''s
always so considerate."

"You should always go for a considerate man',' said her mommy, taking a
last hard draw on her cigarette, and then crushing it out. Immediately,
she picked up the pack of Philip Morris and shook out another, and lit
it with fussing, jiggling hands. To hell with handsome,' she continued.
' you know what I mean? You need the kind of man who doesn't stifle you.

The kind of man who lets you be yourself. Doesn't ... disappoint you all
the time. Doesn't dish you up nothing but tragedy. , Doesn't trap you
with children in the back of beyond." ' Elizabeth said nothing. She was
used to this endless * complaining about her mommy's lost career. What
was more, she quite liked the idea of'the back of beyond'. It sounded
like somewhere mysterious and odd, where extraordinary things could
happen. Maybe she ought to sign all her letters; "Elizabeth Buchanan,
White Gables, Sherman, The Back of Beyond'.

"I'm beginning to feel like getting out,'said her mommy. She half-turned
towards the shaded window, her cigarette poised.

"It's summer, isn't it? I'm beginning to feel like getting out.

Going for a walk, maybe. Sitting on the verandah. Clothes-Peg loved the
summer, didn't she? She never liked the cold." Elizabeth said, ' think I
may have some good news."

"Good news? Good news about what?"

"About Peggy, of course. I think Peggy is kind of still with us, in a
way."

Her mommy turned slowly back from the window, and stared at her. ' are
you saying, Lizzie?"

Elizabeth began to grow hot and flustered. She had thought that this was
going to be easy - easy and joyful - a way of lifting her mommy out of
her misery and her discontent. She wasn't prepared for the hostile,
intense look in her mommy's eyes, the quiver of disapproval in her
voice.

"I was walking back from Lenny's house and I saw a girl who wasn't Peggy
but she was."

"What are you saying? What the hell are you - ? What an you saying?1

Elizabeth felt trapped, suffocated by mommy's cigarette smoke. She knew
she was right, she knew for certain that she had passed Peggy on Putnam
Street, yet she wished and wished that she had kept it to herself.

"I saw a little girl ... she was dressed all in white, she seemed to
shine."

"That's nonsense, such nonsense. What are you trying to do, give me
another breakdown? Do you know how long it's taken me to-?"

"Mommy, I know. And I didn't mean to upset you. But she was so much like
Peggy. She was, I can't explain why! And then Seamus said things from
The Snow Queen, which was Peggy's favourite."

Her mommy smoked furiously. Then she burst out, ' .God's sake,
Elizabeth! You're as mad as him! Or maybe you're handsome face, his
cheeks burned crimson and burnished by the sun, and eyes as green as the
sea. He wore brown tortoiseshell spectacles with circular lenses, but
far from making him look weak, they gave him an even more masculine
appearance, like a professional boxer who just happened to need
reading-glasses. His chestnut hair was shinily tonicked and combed
straight back from his forehead, with an endearing sprig at the crown.

"Personally, I can't think of anything more eloquent than silence,' said
Dick. ' you can tell somebody you love them better by staying silent
than you can by trying to put it into words. I tell God that I love Him
in complete silence."

He left the next sentence unspoken. Laura was quite sure that he was
going to say ' tell you that I love you in complete silence', but he
didn't. His fingers were poised above her wrist, and she knew that he
wanted to touch her, she could feel it on her skin, as hot as summer
sunlight through burning-glass. She looked into his eyes and he looked
back into hers, and he gave her everything that made her feel bright and
good: complete devotion, rapt attention, and a terrible fear of losing
her. Such fearl It was unbelievable. It made him even more virile; even
more of a god. The tension between them was deliciously unbearable.

"Something happened today,' said Laura. ' thought I ought to tell you."

Dick swallowed noisily. ' happened? Something bad?' '

"It's really dumb. I wrote a story about us, that's all. I dropped it,
on the way back from school, and Elizabeth read it'

Dick said nothing. Outside in the garden, a pigeon was cooing, over and
over, and the trees were rustling excitedly.

Laura felt her eyes rush up with tears, but they always did when she
knew that she had done something cruel or wrong.

She wept not because she was sorry, but because she was frustrated at
being found out, and because she was angry at the stupid people who told
her off. Hadn't they ever lied, or flirted with boys, or stolen
lipsticks or candies or change from their mother's purse? Sometimes
Laura felt that the whole world was filled with people who were trying
to make her believe that they were shining saints, and that she was the
only sinner. That was one of the reasons she adored Dick so much. He was
a minister, a man of the cloth, and if a man of the cloth thought that
she was perfect (and hadn't he said so, Perfect, Laura, you're perfect),
then she must be right, and everybody else who thought such bad things
about her must be wrong.

Dick, at last, grasped her wrist. ' say you wrote a story about us? What
did you say?"

Just what we did."

"The kissing? The lying together? You wrote about that?"

Laura nodded. For some reason, the more discomfited that Dick became,
the more excited she felt. Dick was worried! Dick was terribly worried!
There was perspiration on his upper lip!

He kept squeezing her wrist, squeezing and unsqueezing. He tried to
speak but he seemed to be having difficulty with his words. ' you ...
what did you write, exactly? Did you mention our names?"

Laura shook her head. She was still weeping but she didn't really feel
sad. ' said your name was Frank, not Dick, because your middle name
being Frank and all." "And you said that we took off our clothes?" Laura
nodded again. ' said pecker and muff. Elizabeth said it was rude."

Dick took a huge breath, as if he were going down for pearls.

"Do you think she knew it was us? You didn't mention the church, did
you? My God, my darling, this was supposed to be a secret between us,
wasn't it, a secret?"

"Dick ... I didn't drop the story on purpose. Elizabeth shouldn't have
read it. I told her not to read it."

He said, ' ... I didn't mean to be angry with you. I'm sorry. But you
know that what we did together was pure, don't you? It was innocent, an
innocent affection altogether, a good and devoted man for a beautiful
child, both born of God."

Laura tilted her head to one side and looked at Dick narrowly. ' that
what you want me to tell them, if they ask?"

' If who ask? Who else is going to know, apart from your sister
Elizabeth?"

"Well, everybody, if we're not careful. You know what people are like in
Sherman. They say that if you tell somebody a secret on one side of the
town, and then start walking to the other side of town, the people on
the other side of town will already know your secret by the time you get
there." "Oh, God,' said Dick. He took his hand away from her wrist.

But this wasn't what Laura wanted. She didn't want Dick to be
distressed. She didn't want him to shrivel up inside of himself, and cut
off all his affection for her. She wanted him now to be bold, and
virile, the boxer in reading-glasses. She wanted him to say that he
loved her forever, no matter what the consequences. She was only eleven,
and yet she had discovered already how weak men can be, how easily led,
and while she liked the power it gave her, she despised them for not
being braver.

Dick said, ''ll have to wait. I don't think it's wise for us to go on
meeting each other any more. Not until we're sure." "But I thought you
loved me. You said you loved me."

Dick half-lurched up in his chair took hold of her blonde curly head in
both hands and wildly and inaccurately kissed her forehead and her
cheeks and her eyes and her chin.

"Laura, Laura, Laura, of course I love you, my darling!

You're my angel! You're my darling! We know each other completely, don't
we, like Adam and Eve? Remember that afternoon when we were naked and
then we wore leaves because we ate of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge?

Remember that afternoon? And wasn't that innocent affection, two people
revelling in the bodies God gave them, beauty and beauty?"

He kissed her on the lips, tenderly and slowly, and obviously quite
aware that he might never kiss her again. He touched her dress; he
touched her knee. He slid his hand up inside her dress, against her bare
suntanned thigh. She didn't flinch, she liked what he was doing. But she
liked to exercise her influence over him even more, and she stared at
him with those misty, misty eyes and her eyes said stop, pederast even
if she didn't know what pederast meant, had never heard the word.

"I - ' Dick began, then remembered the words of his sermon. Aut tact,
out loquere meliora sileniio. Laura looked at him and arched her head
back slightly, in quite a superior way.

Dick sat down. Next to the ecumenical calendar on the wall above his
desk was a photograph of himself at St. Luke's College, soft-focused,
faintly smiling, a portrait of Perfect Unctuousness. Beside it was a
faded print of Susanna and the Elders by Thomas Hart Benton, a painting
of a curvy 19305 nude with immaculateiy-tweezed eyebrows being ogled
from behind a tree by knobbly-faced old men. He had always told himself
that he liked Susanna and the Elders because it harked back to
traditional virtues, and brought Christian thinking into the modern age.
But of course the reality was that Susanna herself was so arousing, and
a close examination of the painting revealed a shadowy and mysterious
cleft beneath her pubic hair.

Laura swung her leg backward and forward and stared at him boldly. ' did
say that you loved me."

Dick was evasive, worried. Who might have read Laura's story, apart from
Elizabeth, and whom might Elizabeth tell?

The end of the world is not just nigh, Bracewaite; the end of the world
is practically upon thee.

"I love you,' he said. ' all the same ... "

Laura stood up. She took hold of his hands, both of them, as if she were
giving him her blessing. It was wonderful to smell his fear, and his
virility, and the fustiness of the church. She had actually seen his
pecker, red and hairy, with its purple plum-like glans, and for some
reason that gave her a power over him that was greater than any other
power she had ever known. And just because she didn't fully understand
it, that didn't mean that she wasn't going to exercise it.

"Will you get into trouble?' she asked him.

"Only if people find out about us. And even then - even if they do -
only if they get the wrong idea."

"I don't know what you mean."

Dick was finding this very difficult. Til only get into trouble if
people think that I was hurting you, or trying to have congress with
you."

"What about the veritable fountain?"

He flushed. Look at this, he had urged her. A veritable fountain.

"We ought to forget about the veritable fountain."

Laura touched his forehead with her inky school fingertips and didn't
know whether to feel sorry for him or not. With Dick, she had learned a
lot about men, and the best thing she had learned about them was that
she could always attract their attention, no matter who they were, just
by running the tip of her tongue across her lips, and sitting with her
legs crossed so that her frock rose high. She knew how to be a movie
star, already, because if she could do this with Dick, she could do it
with any man, and have them all panting after her, thousands and
millions of them, all over the world.

She looked out into the garden. A little girl in a white dress was
standing beside the bushes, solemnly watching her. The sun was so bright
that the little girl almost seemed to effloresce.

Laura didn't know why, but she thought she recognized the little girl,
from sometime long ago.

"Is your gardener here today?' Laura asked Dick.

He blinked at her. ' gardener?"

"His little girl's standing outside."

Dick turned around in his chair, but the girl had gone, and there was
nothing but the lawns and the bushes and the lazily buzzing bees.

"You don't really love me, do you?' asked Laura, in a voice much wiser
than her years.

Dick looked up at her, and then glanced back at the garden.

The sun had gone in, and suddenly the lawns were dull and the roses were
dull, and a dry, unsettling wind sprang up. Dick grasped Laura's hand,
grasped it so tightly that he almost crushed it.

"Of course I love you,' he insisted. ''s just that I'm frightened."

"Frightened? What of?"

"I don't know. Satan; or maybe God. Maybe it's my own vileness."

Laura kissed him on the forehead, even though his forehead was furrowed
and glistening with sweat. The girl in white had strangely reappeared,
almost as if by magic, and was watching her while she did so.

"I won't tell,' Laura promised him. ' if I get into trouble, I promise I
won't tell." She  her fingertip to her lips. All the same, her eyes were
alive with mischief, and Dick didn't know if he ought to be melting from
heat, or terror, or adoration.

Elizabeth rang at Bindy's doorbell and stood in the shady porch waiting
for her to answer. Mr. Theopakis the baker drove past in his big green
Oldsmobile and Elizabeth waved at him.

Eventually Bindy opened the door, a plump brown-haired girl with
spectacles and a stutter, and said ', Elizabeth. You looking for Laura?"

"We're waiting supper. She should have been home twenty minutes ago."

Bindy shook her head. ' hasn't been here."

"Not at all?"

Bindy shook her head again. ' haven't seen her since school."

Elizabeth left Bindy's house feeling hot and worried. If Laura hadn't
gone to play with Bindy, then where the heck was she? Supposing she was
hiding? Supposing she was frightened that Elizabeth would show her sex
story to father, and had decided to run away?

She walked as quickly as she could to the end of Maple, and ttfen back
along Oak. Mrs. Patrick would be furious if they were late for supper,
even though it was potpie and she could keep it warm for them. Mrs.
Patrick believed that the very least courtesy that cooks deserved was
punctual arrival at the table, hands washed, no last-minute dives to the
bathroom.

She turned the corner, back towards St. Michael's, and the cemetery. She
could see almost as far as the Ledger property, on Upper Squantz Road.
There was nobody in sight. The afternoon was beginning to fade, and the
breeze was blowing even more strongly. Elizabeth had the feeling that
something was dreadfully wrong -- that she had stepped into a world that
looked the same as her own, but had subtly altered.

Somewhere in the world, a butterfly had fallen broken to the forest
floor, and everything had changed.

Judy Mcguinness and Clan Marshall drove past, and tooted her, and called
out, ', Lizzie, why so busy?"

Elizabeth looked back along Oak, then squinched her eyes against the sun
and looked down Central. Sherman was gradually emptying, the stores were
closing up. Where could Laura have got to? She hoped that '' in her
story wasn't a real man, and that she had gone to talk to him. Or even
worse, to do more of that pecker and muff stuff. It made her blush red
even to think about it.

She decided to go back and tell Mrs. Patrick that Laura was lost. She
was just turning around, however, when she glimpsed a small girl dressed
in white, running along beside the white fence in front of the
churchyard. She shaded her eyes with both hands, trying to make out'the
girl more clearly, but in a flicker of a second, the girl had vanished
between the trees.

She didn't know what to do. She had the dreadful feeling that it was the
same girl she had seen earlier this afternoon, when she was walking home
from Lenny's. The girl she had imagined to be Peggy.

She walked up to the church, up the old redbrick path and up to the
steps that led to the shiny white-painted front doors.

It looked as if the girl had been running away from the church, in which
case Dick Bracewaite must have seen her.

Maybe he had even been talking to her, and knew who she was.

Elizabeth climbed the steps and opened the church doors.

Inside, it was gloomy, and smelted of seasoned wood and dust. There was
a tall statue of Jesus standing on a pedestal close to the door, with a
large vase of freshly-arranged flowers around His feet, lilies and roses
and blood-red dahlias. He looked down sadly at Elizabeth, as if He would
have liked to have helped her, but was too preoccupied with His own
woes.

"Mr. Bracewaite!' called Elizabeth. The sunlight fell through the
stained-glass windows, burnishing the pews and the huge brass
candlesticks. '. Bracewaite, are you there?"

She walked across to the vestry and cautiously opened the door. All of
Dick Bracewaite's robes and surplices were hanging there, and a pair of
scruffy black shoes lay tilted on the floor beneath them, as if somebody
had taken them off in a hurry. On the table was a copy of National
Geographic featuring Ibo tribesmen, and a pair of spectacles with only
one arm.

"Mr. Bracewaite?"

She opened the door that led out into the gardens. Across the sloping
lawns stood the white weatherboarded house. It looked unnaturally bright
in the dying summer's light. The lawns still glittered with water.
Elizabeth walked between the rose beds to the back of the house. The
french windows were swinging open and closed, open and closed, like a
conjuring trick, their panes occasionally catching the flash of the
afternoon sun.

Elizabeth stepped through them into the study. The breeze was ruffling
the pages of Dick Bracewaite's Sunday sermon. ' lace, out loquere
meliora silentio.' Only his tortoiseshell pen kept the pages from
blowing away.

"Mr. Bracewaite, it's Elizabeth Buchanan! Is anybody there?"

She looked around the study. Although she couldn't quite put her finger
on it, she felt as if the room had only recently been vacated, only
moments before, only seconds before.

Human beings leave a resonance behind them when they leave a room, an
eddy of disturbed molecules, an echo. Somebody had only just walked out
of here: and there was something else, another feeling.

Somebody had shouted in here. She could almost hear the shout, slapped
against the wall like wet wallpaper. She circled the room, listening,
listening, and she was sure that she could still sense it.

The French windows swung and banged. '. Bracewaite?" (Scarcely audible
now.)

She listened and listened, but there was nothing at all, and she had
almost decided to leave when she heard a soft, blurred moaning sound,
like a man trying to sing ' Low, Sweet Chariot' into an empty jamjar.
She stepped out of the study, and across the narrow hallway. The floor
was light oak parquet; and there was a large steel-engraving on the wall
of Christ preaching to the five thousand, standing on his boat, his hair
curled by the wind, his hand upraised. ' am the bread of life, he who
comes to Me shall not hunger."

She heard the moaning again, and she hesitated. It was coming from the
kitchen. The door was half ajar, and she could see a triangular-shaped
section of the floor, with black-and white tiles, and part of the solid
pine table. She could also see a blotchy, mottled shape rather like a
penguin's flipper that swung repeatedly from side to side. It took her a
moment to realize that it was a bare human foot.

Now she was seriously frightened. There was something lying on the
kitchen floor; somebody who was moaning; somebody whose foot was
blackened and blistered, as if it had been burned.

She was so terrified that she was tempted for one tightly swollen moment
to run right out of the house and back across the lawns and out into Oak
Street and keep on running no matter what. But the sight of the foot was
so grisly that she knew she couldn't run away. She had to look.

This is experience, she told herself. No writer can ever shy away from
experience. Without experience, writing has no meaning. She walked into
the kitchen in a slow trance of absolute terror. In later years, she
never remembered actually moving her legs when she walked. It was just
as if she slid, irresistibly drawn by the magnetism of what she was
about to see.

A man was lying on his back on the kitchen floor, a man with no clothes
on, moaning and shuddering, and surrounded by scattered sausages. On
first sight, Elizabeth thought that he was a negro, because his face and
the upper part of his shoulders were almost totally black, as if they
had been stained with ink. Not only was he swinging his feet from side
to side, he was jerkily waving his arms in the air, like a wind-up
clockwork drummer who had lost his drum. His arms were black, too,
almost down to the elbows, and his hands had no fingers, only a few
thick stumps of fingers.

Elizabeth suddenly realised that the scattered sausages were his missing
fingers, blackened and swollen.

She swallowed, and swallowed again. The man's/a** looked like a negro's
face, but even though his belly was blotched with the same kind of
inky-indigo discolorations that covered his face and his feet and his
upper arms, it was plump and white, definitely a white man's belly. His
thighs were white, too, and thick with gingery hair. She stepped closer.
She slid closer, until the toes of her sandals were almost touching his
hip. He had dense gingery hair between his legs, too, but he didn't seem
to have a thing - what Mrs. Westerhuiven would have called male
reproductive equipment and Laura a pecker. Only diseased looking
gristle, yellow and black.

He stank, too. He stank like gas, and dead birds, and sour milk, and
every smell that made you really sick.

She didn't look too closely. She was far too shocked, far too
embarrassed. She was so frightened that she was making a mewing noise,
like a locked-out kitten.

The man stopped pedalling his arms and tried to focus on her. His face
was so swollen that he could hardly open his piggy little bloodshot
eyes. His lips had burst, revealing livid crimson flesh.

"Oh Christ Jesus,'1 he whispered. One of those hurrying, hurrying
whispers.

"What?' said Elizabeth, in dread.

"Oh Christ Jesus forgive me, forgive me."

"What happened to you?' Elizabeth asked him. ''s Mr. Bracewaite? What's
happened?"

The man pedalled his arms again; and Elizabeth realized that he was
doing it because he was in so much pain.

"Forgive me Jesus for all of my sins, forgive me, forgive me."

He tried to catch hold of the hem of her dress with one of his terrible
fingerless hands, but Elizabeth stepped back, not mewling any more, but
trembling uncontrollably.

"I'll call for the doctor!' she screamed at him. ''s all right!

I'll call for the doctor!"

He reached out towards her, black-balloon-faced, a thing out of a
child's worst nightmare. ' Christ forgive me for what I did and spare me
from eternal damnation, Father Son and Holy Ghost I never meant to touch
her, I never meant to touch her it was love and love alone."

Elizabeth couldn't speak. She backed to the door, quite unable to take
her eyes off this blackened, swollen monster thrashing and begging and
praying to Jesus for forgiveness.

She was seized with the terrible thought that he had spontaneously
combusted, like Mr. Krook in Bleak House burned black, yet left the
carpet and the furniture unscathed.

"Jesus forgive me,' the monster begged. ' forgive me, my beautiful
Laura, my beautiful Laura."

Laura? Elizabeth couldn't understand what he was babbling about. What
did Laura have to do with this swollen, repulsive man who was rolling
about on the kitchen floor?

Elizabeth had never seen him before; and actively prayed that she would
never have to see him again. Maybe he had seen her once, and heard
somebody calling out Laura's name, and assumed that she was Laura. Maybe
they looked enough alike for him to have muddled them up: there were,
after all, only two years between them. She reached the door. As soon as
her hand touched the handle, she flew arms-and-legs across the corridor.
Her sandals pattered on the parquet. Then she was out through the study
and bursting through the net curtains that covered the French windows
and into the garden. She couldn't scream out. She was too breathless to
scream out, her chest felt all squeezed in. All she could do was stand
on the lawn staring at the windows hoping against hope that the
black-balloon-faced man couldn't find the strength to follow her.

The black-balloon-faced Jmgerless man, oh criminy.

Nothing happened for a long, long time. Nothing happened for almost a
minute. The birds chirruped, die roses nodded, and their thick creamy
petals dropped into the flowerbeds. She heard traffic on Oak Street,
and' die sound of a woman laughing.

She had to tell somebody. The man could be dying. He could be dead by
now, and then she would have him on her conscience. His terrible swollen
face would visit her in nightmares, whispering for Jesus to forgive him,
and asking her accusingly why she hadn't called for help.

In the end, she made her way step by step back, drew back the billowing
nets, and stepped back inside.

"Hallo?' she called. ' you still here?"

Silence. Then a sudden banging noise, which made her jump, until she
realized it had come from outside, somebody slamming a gate.

She went to Dick Bracewaite's desk and picked up the phone. Almost at
once, Lucy the operator gave her usual nasal response. ' exchange,
Reverend, and a very good afternoon to you. What number did you want?"

"Lucy, this isn't Mr. Bracewaite, it's Elizabeth Buchanan."

"Well, hi, Lizzie, how are you today? I saw your mom earlier.

Good to know that she's getting so much better."

"Lucy - Mr. Bracewaite isn't here but something terrible's happened.
There's a man here, in Mr. Bracewaite's kitchen, and he's wearing no
clothes, and it looks like he's burned or something."

"This isn't one of your practical jokes, is it, Lizzie?' Lucy demanded,
sharply. Elizabeth and Laura had regularly amused themselves last summer
by ringing Lucy and saying "Is that the operator on the line? Well,
you'd better get off quick, there's a train coming!"

"No joke, Lucy, cross my heart."

"All right, then, don't you fret. You just leave the house now, quick as
you can, and stand outside to wait for the sheriff and the ambulance.
I'll call them now, directly."

"You'll be quick, won't you? He looked like he was dying. All of his
fingers were dropped off, it was awful!"

"Don't you fret, Lizzie. Put down the phone now and go wait outside.
Don't try to do nothing for yourself, you can only make it worse."

Elizabeth hung up. She stood in the study for one long moment, listening
for any moans or cries from the black balloon-faced man. Then she left
the rectory and walked quickly around to the roadway. She stood by the
railing, confident at first, feeling almost heroic. But as the minutes
passed, and the oak trees rustled over her head, and the cloud shadows
darkly dreamed their way across the sidewalk, she began to feel
light-headed. By the time that Sheriff Grierson's big Hudson Six came
wailing around the intersection with Oak Street, its red light flashing,
she was seeing everything in negative, and the blackness was spangled
with stars.

Doctor Ferris came out of the hospital room and closed the door very
quietly behind him. He was a lean man of nearly sixty, with the look of
a concert violinist rather than a country doctor. He had a large,
deeply-pored nose, in which his glasses had made two reddened
impressions, and eyes that were slightly too near together and
unexpectedly cold. He was wearing a baggy linen suit, his pockets
bulging with everything that a country doctor and a pipe smoker and a
whittler and an amateur birdwatcher could ever need. He didn't really
play the violin: he only looked as if he did.

Sheriff Grierson was making friendly conversation with Sister Baker, who
liked to think that she bore more than a passing resemblance to Lana
Turner, although her starchy uniform was filled with the equivalent of
Lana Turner-and-ahaif.

She didn't know that was what Sheriff Grierson liked about her so much.
He was a big man himself, wore an XXL of everything, and liked his pie,
and women who spread out some, instead of those mean pinched-up looking
ones.

Doctor Ferris folded his glasses and said. ''s the Reverend all right,
no doubt about it. I saw the birthmark on his back when he visited me
before, for his kidney-trouble."

"Well I'll be ...' said Sheriff Grierson. ' he going to survive?"

"Doubtful, I'd say. Very, very doubtful. That's dead, all of that black
area. Gangrenous. We'd have to operate to see how deep it goes, but you
can see what's happened to his fingers and toes. Dropped off. And all
the flesh on his face is liable to drop off, too. I'm amazed he isn't
dead already."

The Lord's will, I guess,' said Sheriff Grierson. ' do you think
happened to him? How'd he get all gangreeny like that?"

"I know whtt happened to him, Wally. The trouble is, I can't understand
how it happened."

"What are you trying to tell me? He wasn't murdered, was he? Poisoned or
something?"

Doctor Ferris shook his head. "The Reverend Dick Bracewaite is suffering
from severe frostbite. Worst case I ever came across."

Sheriff Grierson stared at him. '?"

"I know,' shrugged Doctor Ferris. ' ludicrous, doesn't it, frostbite on
one of the warmest days of the year. But that's what it is. Not just
frostnip, either, which makes your affected skin go dead white. This is
your real hundred percent turn-you-black frostbite."

"How could that possibly be?' asked Sheriff Grierson; and Sister Baker
said, '? Where does anybody get themselves frostbitten in the middle of
the summer?" "I surely don't know,' said Doctor Ferris. ' only thing I
can think of is that somebody abducted him and locked in him a
cold-store and then brought him back again, but I think the likelihood
of that having occurred is just about next-to-nil. I saw him myself mid-
to late-afternoon, fourish maybe, and the nearest refrigerating plant
that could have froze him to this extent is over in New Milford. Then
again somebody could have stripped him naked and poured liquid gas all
over him, oxygen or nitrogen maybe, but the Lord alone knows how much
gas anybody would have needed to cause this much frostbite."

"That doesn't make any sense, either," Sheriff Grierson put in. ' go to
all the trouble of killing a fellow with liquid gas when you can shoot
him or strangle him or knock him on the head?"

"I don't know,' said Doctor Ferris. ' have to admit that I don't have a
single sensible explanation."

"Did he talk to you at all?"

"He said, "Forgive me" just the two times, and that was all."

"That's what he kept saying when they were carrying him out to the
ambulance." "Oh ... one thing more,' said Doctor Ferris. ' said,
"girder". At first I thought he was trying to say "murder", but he said
it again, and it was definitely "girder"."

Sheriff Grierson thoughtfully rubbed the side of his neck.

"Girder, huh? That's not much to go on."

"Could be referring to a construction site,' Doctor Ferris suggested. '
maybe a girder bridge."

"The bridge over the Housatonic at New Milford is a girder bridge,' said
Sister Baker.

"Practically ever darn bridge between here and Canada is a girder
bridge," Sheriffgrierson retorted. ' don't know ... I've got a bad
feeling about this one. This one feels like a headache with an upset
stomach, and it's going to take more than Speedy Alka-Seltzer to cure
it." "You want to see him now?' asked Doctor Ferris, and Sheriff
Grierson nodded.

Doctor Ferris opened the door and led the way back into Dick
Bracewaite's room. The windows were closed to keep the temperature high,
and the smell of gradually-thawing flesh was overpowering. Two nurses
were attending to him: one wrapping his arms and his legs in warm
hospital towels, the other bathing his blackened, swollen face. Both
nurses wore red rubber aprons, and facemasks.

Sheriff Grierson pressed his hand over his face. ' almighty,' he said,
and then he retched.

"Of course the gangrene didn't smell so bad when he was cold,' Doctor
Ferris explained. ' he's still alive when we've finished thawing him
out, we can rub him down with a little boric acid ointment mixed with
eucalyptus. Helps to subdue the smell."

Sheriffgrierson approached the bed. Dick Bracewaite's eyes were closed,
and his breathing was catchy and irregular.

Sheriffgrierson stood watching him for a while with his hand still
clasped over his mouth and nose. He had seen plenty of bodies in his
years as sheriff of Li tchfield County.' He had seen people who had
burned to death, people who had drowned, people who had blown their
chins off. He had even seen people who had died of frostbite, children
and vagrants caught out by a sudden snowstorm. But he had never seen
anybody who looked like this: puffed up and black like a
slowly-collapsing pig's bladder.

However the Reverend Bracewaite had sustained his injuries, whether by
accident, or self-mutilation, or by the hand of somebody who wanted him
dead, his very flesh had been killed, even when his soul and his spirit
were still alive.

His face was dead, his arms were dead, his legs were dead - yet,
miraculously, the man himself was breathing.

Sheriff Grierson glanced at one nurse, and then at the other.

The first one had wide china-blue eyes.

"Okay if I talk to him?' Sheriff Grierson asked.

"You may if you care to. But he probably won't reply."

Grierson reluctantly took his hand away from his face.

"Rever'nd Bracewaite!' he called, like a man calling a shy cat.

"Rever'nd Bracewaite! It's Sheriff Grierson here, Wally Grierson. Want
to talk to you some, if you're compost mentis."

Dick Bracewaite opened his tiny, swelled-up eyes. He stared at the
Sheriff for a while. Then he whispered,'... irder."

"What?' Sheriff Grierson demanded. ' did you say? Did you say "murder",
or did you say "girder"? Come on, Rever'nd Bracewaite, I have to know!"

But Dick Bracewaite was already subsiding. His chest heaved up and down,
and his breathing sounded like somebody scraping rough twine over
cardboard. He coughed up a fine spray of blood. He coughed again. Then
he stopped in mid-cough, and then he died.

Sheriff Grierson stood up straight. He looked at the nurses in their
surgical masks and the nurse with the wide china-blue eyes batted her
eyelashes at him.

"Guess that's it,' said Sheriff Grierson, tugging up his belt.

"Guess that's no more Sunday sermons for a week or two."

The next morning, while the streets of Sherman were still filled with
sun-golden mist, the Sheriff drove back to St. Michael's and parked
outside the white-painted railings. He walked up to the front door of
the rectory and rang the doorbell, and waited while the Reverend
Bracewaite's housemaid came down to answer it. She was a small woman
with false teeth and a brunette wig which looked as if it had originally
been made for a woman much bigger and much darker. She wore a floral
housecoat and a dry, wrinkled expression of intense dislike.

"Wally Grierson,' she said. ' dojiou want? Zif things ain't troubled
enough." "Hallo, May,' said Sheriffgrierson. ''ve come to take a look
around, that's all. Study, kitchen. You didn't touch nothing, did you?"

"That cheeky young deputy of yours, the one with the spots, he said not
to, so I didn't."

"Thanks, May."

Grierson stepped inside the rectory. He took off his hat, and looked
around.

"Kitchen's this way,' said May, crossly, and shuffled ahead of him. She
swung open the door and said, ' yourself."

"You sure you didn't touch nothing?' asked Sheriffgrierson.

"Touch anything? Are you kidding me? Do you think I want to risk the
wrath of Wally Grierson, class of '25? Pie-eating champeen, weren't you,
two years running?"

"That's enough, May,' he admonished her. ' is the house ofgod."

"This is the house of God-knows-what, you mean."

She went shuffling oftand left him alone in the kitchen where the
Reverend Dick Bracewaite had been found dying. He stood still for a
moment, taking in the pine table and the cream painted hutch with its
jars of sugar and salt and Sanka coffee and the packets of Flako Pie
Crust and Nunso Dehydrated corn. A blowfly droned and droned around the
room. The electric clock on the wall had stopped at 5:07.

He had looked over the kitchen yesterday, when he had first been called
here, but he had seen nothing at all which had told him how Dick
Bracewaite could have been frostbitten.

Only Dick Bracewaite himself, blackened and shaking and lapsing in and
out of unconsciousness.

He paced around the kitchen, frowning, looking, touching things. On the
upper shelves of the hutch, there stood a row of china jugs, as well as
cups and saucers and tea plates. Below them, there stood a row of copper
saucepans, but the odd thing about the saucepans was that they were all
crowded to one side of the shelf. So were a sugar-shaker and a tinplate
tea caddy on the shelf underneath.

Sheriff Grierson went over to the hutch and opened the drawers, one by
one. In each of them, all the cutlery and the kitchen tools were crammed
over to the left. He stood looking at them for a long time, and then at
the stopped clock. The last time he had seen anything like this was when
the Dixon house over at Gaylordsville was struck by lightning.
Everything metal had tumbled into the living-room, where the lightning
had struck, and all the clocks had stopped. A massive wave of magnetic
energy, that was what had caused it. But that had been lightning. What
could have caused a massive wave of magnetic energy in Dick Bracewaite's
kitchen?

He left the kitchen and walked across to the study. The morning was
beginning to warm up now, and he could hear the vireos warbling in the
trees. He picked up Dick Bracewaite's Sunday sermon and read a few
lines. Stay silent, or say something sweeter than silence. Well, he
thought, Dick Bracewaite was surely going to be silent now. He look up
at the photograph of Dick Bracewaite as a theology student, and at
Susanna and the Elders. Kind of fruity for a Reverend, he thought; but a
Reverend could hardly put up a picture of Betty Grable.

He opened the middle drawer of the desk. Just the usual stuff, pens,
ink, paperclips, a small silver crucifix on a chain, a half-eaten roll
of mint. Life Savers.

He looked in the side drawers, one by one. He found nothing but
neatly-arranged envelopes and notepaper, and an ecclesiastical calendar
for 1942.

The bottom drawer, however, was locked. He tugged it and rattled it
without success, then he looked around for a key. One of the mysteries
about Dick Bracewaite's death (apart from the mystery of his frostbite)
was the whereabouts of his clothes and personal belongings, like his
keys and his wallet. He had been found buck-naked without any discarded
underwear around him, no wristwatch, nothing. That could have meant that
Doctor Ferns' abduction theory was right, and that Dick Bracewaite had
been taken over to New Milford or somewhere else where they had access
to a freezer. He could have been stripped, frozen, and then driven back
here and dumped on his kitchen floor. Good theory, except that the
chronology was all wrong. Too many people had seen Dick Bracewaite too
close to the time that Lizzie Buchanan had found him.

Other theory: somehow they had managed to freeze him here in the
rectory, and then taken his clothes away with them.

Only trouble with that theory: no discernible motive and no known means
of carrying it out.

Sheriff Grierson searched all around the study for the key to the desk.
In the end he took out his clasp knife, listened for a moment to make
sure that May the housekeeper couldn't hear him, then slid the blade
into the desk, just above the drawer.

He wasn't a lockpicking expert, but what he lacked in expertise he made
up for in sheer strength. He pried the lock away from the front of the
drawer, and with one sharp satisfying crack it was open. Inside he found
a document-case, made of black calfskin, with a brass-plated clasp.
This, too, was locked, but it only needed one twist from the knife to
break it.

Sheriff Grierson stood up and emptied the contents across the desk. He
spread them around, and said. ' God almighty."

He hardly ever swore, and up until now he had never blasphemed. But he
had never seen anything like this before nothing that shocked him so
much nor fascinated him so much and at the same time made his stomach
churn in disgust.

The document-case had been crammed with scores of black-and-white
photographs and pencil drawings. There were a few scenes of rural
Connecticut, and a drawing of the church of Christ the King in the
centre of New Milford, but the rest of them depicted naked or semi-naked
children, mostly girls but some pretty-looking boys, too. The
photographs were pale and pearly-grey, like children seen through a fog,
beautifully but indecently posed. The drawings were mostly in
ochre-coloured pastels or very soft pencil, and executed with a lewd and
meticulous attention to detail.

The children had half-closed dreamy eyes, and seductive smiles, as if
they were enjoying what Dick Bracewaite was doing to them. What was most
shocking of all, though, was that Sheriff Grierson recognized at least
five of them: Janie Mcready, Jimmy Phillips, Sue-Ann Messenger, Polly
Womack and Laura Buchanan.

He stared at the pictures for a very long time. His disgust and shock
finally subsided, to be replaced by a terrible and suffocating anger -
anger that Dick Bracewaite could have used these children to satisfy his
own revolting lust - anger that he himself hadn't found out about it,
and stopped it, and protected the community that he was pledged to
protect.

He sniffed, and took a deep, steadying breath. Then he shuffled the
pictures straight, and slid them back into the document-case. Evidence,
exhibit one. But Sheriff Grierson almost felt like letting the
perpetrator go free. Whoever had killed Dick Bracewaite, and however
they had managed to kill him, they had been doing the community of
Sherman a considerable favour.

May appeared in the study doorway and stared.' Wally?' she said. ' want
a lemonade? You look like you're sick."

Sheriff Grierson ignored the comment and said, ' me, May, what was the
Reverend Bracewaite like with children?"

"Children? Why, he adored children. Do you know what he used to say to
me? "A man has no need of angels, when he has children"."

Sheriff Grierson tucked the document-case under his arm.

"He don't have neither now, children nor angels."

May looked perplexed, but Grierson laid a hand on her shoulder and
smiled at her. ' ain't no angels where the Reverend Bracewaite's going."

Aunt Beverley arrived on Saturday morning, in a fine summer rain that
turned the driveway into molten gold. She had been driven up from New
York by a big-nosed man in a startling brown check suit and yellow
spats. She said his name was Moe and he was something to do with wartime
baseball. He perpetually shifted an unlit cheroot from one side of his
mouth to the other, and when he did speak he was mostly unintelligible.

Aunt Beverley said he had money to bum.

The atmosphere in the house was tense and strange. In some ways, it was
worse than it had been when Peggy had died. Ever since Sherutgrierson
had come around on Tuesday evening to talk to father, and then to Laura
and Elizabeth, they had been scarcely able to speak to each other, any
of them, because of the absolute awfulness of what had happened.

How could you go on chatting normally about horses or lunch or meeting
your friends in Endicott's when all you could think of was your own
sister or your own daughter, without any clothes on, being touched and
photographed and even doing that with the Reverend Bracewaite?

Father had a haunted pinched-up look on his face. He had been forced to
postpone his trip to New York, and had paced around his desk all day,
waiting for the phone to ring with news of grandfather. He had talked to
Laura for a long, long time with the door closed, over an hour, and when
Laura came out of the study her eyes were scarlet-rimmed and swimming
with tears. Upstairs, in her bedroom, she said that father hadn't been
cross with her, but he had been deeply hurt that she hadn't felt able to
tell him what Dick Bracewaite had been doing to her. Why hadn't she
trusted him? How had he failed her? Why in God's name had somebody else
managed to kill Dick Bracewaite before father himself had been given the
chance to have his revenge?

Father had made them both solemnly promise not to mention a word to
mommy. Mommy was improving every day: they didn't want her to go off the
rails again, not now.

Elizabeth had stood pale-faced at the end of the bed and watched Laura
sniffing and talking and twiddling with the fringes of her bedspread.

After a while, she said, ''re not sorry, are you?"

Laura had frowned at her sharply. ' are you talking about? Why should I
be sorry?"

"But you're not sorry that it happened. You liked it."

"Don't be so horrible,' Laura had retorted. She had lifted her bedspread
and hidden her face in it. For a while she had tried to make a noise
that sounded like sobbing; but after a while she had lowered the
bedspread a little so that only one blue eye was visible, and the corner
of a smile.

"You liked it,' Elizabeth breathed, in complete horror. ' actually,
actually liked it!"

But now Aunt Beverley was here to take Laura away for a while. Away from
scandal, away from small-town disapproval, and most of all away from
men. Seam us opened the front door for her, and took her umbrella, and
Aunt Beverley came striding into the hallway, pulling off her beige
summer gloves like long strings of raw pastry, and swivelling her large
head imperiously from side to side. She was dressed in a beige jacket, a
spotted beige blouse, and a beige hat that looked like a tureen-lid.

Elizabeth hadn't seen her since Peggy's funeral, and she thought that
she looked even more waxy and made-up and older than ever, although her
hair had turned to a vivid ginger.

Seamus dutifully shook out her wet umbrella over her feet.

"Well, thank you,' she declared.

no "Cuffs and coats,' he replied, with a smile.

Moe brushed rain off his sleeves. ' is alpaca, it shrinks."

"Isn't that the loudest suit you ever saw?' Aunt Beverley remarked,
stepping across the hallway and taking out her cigarette-case. ' suit's
so loud it keeps people awake at night."

"How are you doing, Beverley?' their father asked her, holding out his
hand.

"Better than jwu, I imagine,' Beverley replied.

"Are you staying for lunch? Mrs. Patrick's managed to find us a couple
of Cornish rock hens."

"Well, that's sweet of you, but we'll probably stop off at Danbury, on
the way back. Moe has to get to his game."

Moe said, ' know something, the Giants are playing the Phillies today,
and they're both so bad, I don't think either team can win." "The
Phutile Phillies,' said Laura.

Moe looked down at her, his cheroot travelling swiftly from one side of
his mouth to the other. His eyes bulged in appreciation. ''s a girl who
knows her stuff,' he declared.

"The Phutile Phillies, that's right. They brought in that lardbutt
Jimmie Foxx out of retirement and what did they get?

Sixteen flops on the trot."

Father laid his hand on Laura's shoulder. ' ... are you all packed now?
Aunt Beverley wants to get you back to New York."

"I think I have time for a drink,' said Aunt Beverley.

' Where's your lovely wife today? Isn't she joining us? I thought she
was making progress." "Margaret's been resting,' father told her. ' has
been making progress, for sure. But it hasn't been easy. That's why I
don't want her to know about any of this. I've said that Laura's been
offered the chance of a screen audition, that's all, just a small part.
And of course she's thrilled about that."

in Moe lit Aunt Beverley's cigarette and almost lit his own cheroot, but
then appeared to think better of it.

"As a matter of fact,' said Aunt Beverley, ' may be a chance of a real
screen test. Robert Lowenstein is making a picture about the Home Front.
What's it called, Moe?"

"I Piped My Eye In My Old Apple Pie, how should I know?"

"That's nearly it. The Apple Pie Patrol. It's a picture about wives and
sweethearts doing their bit. And they're looking for pretty little
blonde girls like you, Laura."

Father looked even more pinched than ever. ' ... you know why you're
looking after Laura, don't you? I want her away from all that. I want
her to have quiet and normality and strictly-supervised bedtimes."

"You're right,' Moe nodded, with exaggerated enthusiasm.

"That's exactly what I could do with. Especially the strictly supervised
bedtimes."

He waggled his eyebrows at Aunt Beverley like Groucho Marx, and Aunt
Beverley said, ' up, Moe, for God's sake."

They went through to the drawing-room. Moe circled around and around as
he walked, admiring the antique fireplace and the tall colonial-glazed
windows that gave out onto the gardens. Aunt Beverley sat down in the
largest, most dominant chair and asked for a whiskey. Moe said he had an
ulcer, and he was driving, so gin would do. Straight up, no ice, no
olive. Father allowed Elizabeth to have a small glass of cherry brandy.
There were hickory-smoke peanuts on the table and Moe started to scoop
them up as if he hadn't eaten in three days.

Laura sat well away from the grown-ups, on the faded brocade window
seat. Behind her the sunlight sparkled on the raindrops, and her golden
curls shone, and she looked like an angel of flawless innocence. That,
of course, was why the late Dick Bracewaite had found her so alluring.

Elizabeth tried to join the grown-up conversation; but there didn't seem
to be very much more that she could say. She sensed, too, that her
father needed to talk to Aunt Beverley alone.

"Why don't you go find your mommy, you two?' her father asked them. ' if
she needs any help."

They went upstairs. Oddly, however, mommy wasn't in her bedroom. Her bed
was still unmade, as if she had only recently got up, and her
dressing-table was still scattered with combs and lipsticks and an open
powder compact. The powder puff had dropped onto the carpet and she
hadn't bothered to pick it up. Even odder, though, she had left a
cigarette burning in the ashtray.

"Maybe she had to rush to the bathroom,' Laura suggested.

But just as they were turning to investigate, Elizabeth glimpsed
something down on the front lawn, something white that bobbed quickly
out of sight. She ran to the window; and she was just in time to see her
mother hurrying across the driveway, wearing her long white nightgown
and carrying her white umbrella. ''s mommy!' Laura exclaimed. ' she
isn't even dressed1."

The two girls pelted downstairs and into the living-room.

They caught father and Aunt Beverley with their heads close together,
earnestly talking, while Moe was pacing around the billiard-room next
door, chalking a cue. '! Mommy's run out of the house in her nightgown!"
"Oh, God,' said their father. He took off his glasses and came hurrying
after them. Seamus had been coming into the living room with a tray of
iced tea, and he almost dropped it. ''s the friend?' he asked, in panic.
Moe, perplexed, said, '?"

They ran outside. The rain was soft and fine. The sun was so bright that
at first they couldn't make out where their mommy had gone. But then
Elizabeth saw a flicker of shadow on the corner of Oak Street, and she
screamed. '! There she is!" and they all set off in pursuit.

Elizabeth hastily smeared the rain out of her eyes with the back of her
hand, and prayed that they would find mommy first, and that this latest
escapade wouldn't be noticed. She already had enough patronizing gibes
to put up with, and she always heard the whispers, although she
pretended that she didn't: ' see her? Her mom's a certified loony."

However, they didn't even have to run as far as Oak Street.

On the right-hand side, just before the intersection, the ground dropped
away. There was a creek here, no more than a muddy trickle in winter and
dried-out in summer. It was here amongst the scrub and thistles that
Margaret Buchanan was standing, her upside-down umbrella on the ground
beside her, her hair hanging in rat's-tails, her wet nightgown clinging
to her ribcage and her bony thighs. On her face was an expression of
such desolation and anguish that Elizabeth had to look away.

Father slid down the path to reach her, and put his arm around her.

"Come on sweetheart, let's get you home. What on earth made you come
running out here?"

Mommy twisted his sleeve, and stared at him as if he were the one who
was mentally unbalanced. ' saw her. It was just like Lizzie said. I saw
her with my own eyes."

"Come on sweetheart. You'll catch your death."

"Don't you say "come on" to me. I saw her with my own eyes. She must be
here, not too far away, if Lizzie saw her and I saw her, too. And it was
her, no question about it."

"Who was it?' asked father.

"You don't know? It was Peggy, my little Clothes-Peg!

Peggy's back!"

Father looked at her, his face fractured with sadness, and said nothing;
but mommy wrenched herself around and pointed along the creek and
screamed at him, ''s here! I saw her! Why can't you believe me? You
should be happy that she's back!"

Elizabeth, shivering, peered through the glittering rain. For a split
second she thought she glimpsed a blurred white figure, running behind
the rainbows, but it could have been nothing more than a flash of
refracted light, or something she wanted to see, rather than something
that really was. She looked at her mommy's face, however, and she could
tell that her mommy had really seen the same little girl all dressed in
white. She could tell it for sure. Her mommy was staring at her, quite
steadily, quite calmly, and there was nothing in her face that beseeched
her to believe that she wasn't insane, because she didn't have to prove
her sanity to anybody.

Elizabeth reached out and took hold of her mommy's hand.

She was very cold.

"Come on, mommy,' she whispered. ''s go home."

They all climbed back up the slope to the sidewalk. The rain began to
ease off, almost as if somebody was slowly closing off their
lawn-sprinkler. They walked back with squelching shoes along a street
that was already beginning to steam.

"Your hat's gone strange,' Laura said to Aunt Beverley.

"Is that all?' Aunt Beverley retorted, fiercely.

As they walked back along the street, Elizabeth noticed that some of the
bushes were sparkling. At first she thought it was only caused by
raindrops, but when she brushed one of them with her hand, she realized
that they were sparkling with ice.

She looked down at her fingers, and she could see the crystals melting
on her fingertips, like snowflakes. She brushed another bush, and then
another, and she was showered with tiny particles of ice. They glittered
on her sleeve, and blew through the summer sunshine like chaff.

Ice, in June, it's magic.

Her mommy looked at her, and Elizabeth touched one of the bushes and
whispered, ', mommy. It's ice."

Her mommy gave her a tired, affectionate smile. Elizabeth was sure that
she understood what it meant. She took hold of her mommy's hand, and the
two of them walked back to the house with a shared secret and a shared
feeling that the world was made of more than rain and sunshine: it was
made of mirrors, too.

She hugged Laura goodbye. Aunt Beverley was already waiting in the car,
and Moe kept checking his wristwatch and looking fretful.

Til write you every day,' Elizabeth promised. ' won't mind at all if you
don't write back every day, but do send me some picture postcards."

Laura nodded. She was crying so much that she couldn't speak. At last
their father laid his hand on her shoulder and said, ' along,
sweetheart. Time to go.' He was going too, so that he could visit granpa
in New York.

But as Laura climbed into the car, Elizabeth called out, "Wait! Please!
I won't be a second!' She ran back into the house and up the stairs. She
hurried along the landing to her bedroom, snatched what she wanted from
her pillow, and ran helter-skelter back downstairs again.

Laura was sitting in the back of the car, her face pale and her eyes
pink. Elizabeth said, ' ... he always wanted to go to Hollywood. You can
take him."

She passed Mr. Bunzum through the window. Laura took him and hugged him
close.

"You will look after him?' asked Elizabeth.

"He's a rabbit,' said Aunt Beverley, turning round in her seat, smoke
issuing out of her nostrils. ''ll have the time of his life in
Hollywood. They're all rabbits there."

Moe gave a vulgar chuckle, and for the first time in her life Elizabeth
realized that she understood a grown-up joke. It was extraordinary. It
was just like the day she had suddenly realized what ' doats and dozy
doats and little lamsy dior? actually meant. She stepped away from the
car feeling extremely adult.

She stood beside her mommy and waved as the car turned out of the
driveway and then turned behind the trees. The sun sparked once from its
chromework, and then it was gone.

"Well, Elizabeth,' said her mommy. ''s just you and me now."

Elizabeth looked up at her. Mommy gave her a wink.

That Sunday was humid and still and very, very hot. The church bells
sounded like buckets of treacle being banged slowly together. Mommy and
Elizabeth walked to St. Michael's and knelt at their usual pew. The
doors were left open in a futile attempt to keep the church cool, but
all the ladies flapped their gloves and all the men were quietly boiling
in their Sunday suits. The service was taken by the Reverend Skinner, a
white haired retired priest from Danbury with a shrivelled, monkey like
face. He led the congregation in a special prayer for Dick Bracewaite,
and hoped that God in His infinite mercy would find it in His heart to
forgive him for what he had done. Not many people said amen to that and
Janie Mcready's parents got up and walked out.

They sang ' Kindly Light' and ' My God To Thee'. The Reverend Skinner
gave a long and scarcely-audible sermon on the text of idolatry. ' a
scarecrow in a cucumber field are they, and they cannot speak; they must
be carried because they cannot walk! They have devoured Jacob; they have
devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation."

Elizabeth, in her yellow-and-white-striped cotton dress, so stiffly
starched by Mrs. Patrick that it crackled whenever she sat down,
discreetly sucked a humbug and thought about the scarecrow in the
cucumber field. She imagined him drowsing in the summer sun, and the
cucumber field all wobbly with heat. He probably didn't care that he
couldn't walk, because he was too darn comfortable drowsing in his
field.

But she imagined a crow, too - a huge black crow, lazily flapping its
wings on the warm up-currents, always circling the cucumber field,
waiting for the scarecrow to close his eyes, and so the scarecrow never
could.

Elizabeth was almost dozing off herself when she saw a small white figure
walking past the church doors, so bright that her outline seemed
blurred. A thrill of excitement ran down the back of her legs, and she
was tempted for a split second to touch her mommy's arm and whisper, '!
She's here!' But she couldn't be sure that it was the same girl, and she
didn't want her mommy to get excited, not if it wasn't the same girl.
Yet who else would be walking around the streets during communion,
except for Catholics or Jews. She didn't know any Catholics in Sherman;
and the only Jews she knew were middle-aged.

She watched the doors for a long time but the girl didn't pass again.
After a while she squeezed her eyes tight shut and said a prayer for
Peggy's soul, and for mommy's sanity, and for herself, too, because it
didn't matter about muffs and peckers, not to her. All she wanted was
her sister back home.

After the service they left the church and talked for a while to some of
their friends. Mrs. Brogan was holding the stage, as usual, a big loud
woman in a big loud dress and big feathery hat. Elizabeth and her mommy
had to elbow their way past them. They had almost reached the gate when
Mrs. Brogan called out, in a grating, mock-sympathetic cluck, ''s your
trouble, Margaret, dear?"

Mommy hesitated. Elizabeth could see that she was tempted to just keep
on going, to pretend that she hadn't heard, but for all of her
illnesses, mommy was made of pricklier stuff than that. She turned
around and faced Mrs. Brogan and said, in a very high voice, ' yes, Mrs.
Brogan? And which particular trouble was that?"

Mrs. Brogan's face subsided into her double chins. ' was referring to
Laura, of course. And that repulsive Mr. Brace waite. Such a terrible
business. Terrible. I was just saying how tragic your life has been,
dear, what with Peggy and now Laura. I don't know how you manage, I
really don't. Well -1 know there are times when you can't manage, but
surely we all have those."

Mommy took two or three steps back towards Mrs. Brogan and Mrs. Brogan
flinched. When mommy spoke, her voice was hushed and deadly serious,
like a snake sliding swiftly across a shingle slope.

Til have you know that all of my daughters are alive. All of them; and
all are well."

Mrs. Brogan stared back at mommy for a long time, her lower jaw visibly
quivering behind the net of her Sunday hat.

Then at last she said, ' offence was intended, Margaret."

"No oflence was taken, Mrs. Brogan,' mommy replied.

They walked home through the heat, hand in hand, one white glove in
another. There were times when Elizabeth thought that her mommy was one
of the prettiest, most characterful women in the whole world, and this
was one of them.

"Do you really believe it?" she asked. ' you really believe that Peggy
is still alive, somehow?"

"Yes. I do now. I'm sure of it."

"She doesn't look the same. She's older."

Mommy shook her head. ' don't think that matters. It's her, whatever age
she is, whatever she looks like."

"But how can we be sure?"

"I'm sure. I'm her mother."

"But '

"But what? I may be her mother but I'm insane? I'm not insane. I was
never insane. I was grieving for your sister, that's all. Grief is a
kind of insanity, I suppose. But I'm not so grief stricken that I can't
recognize my own baby when she comes calling for me. God, I gave up
everything for my children, my stage career, my movie career, my singing
career. I could have had the whole world spraddled at my feet. So don't
tell me I don't know my own baby when she comes calling for me. I gave
up too much."

They crossed the street and walked down towards the house.

The glare of the sun was so intense that everything was brighter and
more richly-coloured than Elizabeth could have imagined possible. Wizard
of Oz colours, chrome yellow and emerald green and gorgeous crimson.

They had nearly reached the front door when Elizabeth said, '?

There was a moment's pause between them, and then they both burst out
laughing. Seamus opened the door to find them leaning against the
verandah rails, helpless as scarecrows.

That night Margaret Buchanan opened her eyes and stared up at the
ceiling. Something had disturbed her sleep but she didn't know what. The
window was wide open but the night was so hot and so still that she felt
as if she were melting, literally melting, and that all they would find
of her in the morning would be a thick pink waxy stain on the sheet, and
her nightgown, and her hair.

Outside, the sawing and chirruping of crickets was absurdly loud, but
there was no breeze at all, not even a hesitant breath of it. No
traffic, no distant airplanes, no homegoing feet.

She sat up in bed and wiped her perspiring forehead with the sheet. She
listened and listened, with sweat trickling down her sides, but all she
could hear was that endless amplified chimp chirrup-ckirrtp-chirrup, and
the crackling of her horsehair mattress.

She climbed out of bed and went to the window. The moon wasn't up yet,
and the darkness was absolute. All the same, she stood straining her
eyes, as if she expected to see a white girlish figure walking across
the lawns in front of the house. She touched the window sash, and she
could feel the unevenness of the paintwork with her fingertips. She
touched the nets, and she could feel their upraised patterns, flowers
and baskets. She often touched ordinary things these days, as if to
reassure herself that she was ordinary, too, and that her life wasn't
being lived out on some Monty Woolley stage set.

She turned back to the bed and groped around until she found her silver
cigarette-case. She opened it up, took out a cigarette, found her
lighter, and was about to light up when she thought she heard somebody
laughing in the corridor outside her room. A high, girlish giggle.

Her first thought was: Lizzie, still teasing me for saying 'spraddled'.
But then there was another giggle, and it didn't sound like Lizzie. It
didn't sound like Lizzie at all. It was far too young, far too
back-of-the-throat, the way young children laugh. Children of five, like
Peggy.

She walked round the bed, touching the bedknobs to make sure that she
didn't bump into it and bruise herself. She opened her bedroom door, and
put her head out, and listened again.

The landing was silent, and as dark as the end of the world.

Complete, swallowing blackness. Margaret closed her eyes tight, as if
that would make her hearing more acute. But all she could hear was the
house creaking in the heat, her own heart beating, and the endless
crickets.

I'm imagining things. Ever since Lizzie told me that Peggy was still
alive, I've been imagining things. That little girl yesterday, who stood
in the rain smiling at me, she wasn't real.

She was wishful thinking. If she were really Peggy, why did she run
away? Peggy would have run towards me, and hugged me, all giggles and
curls. She wouldn't have led me into the rain, and made me look such a
fool.

She opened her eyes. The landing was still dark and silent.

There. It was all my imagination. It was just another of those things
that I always wanted and could never have, like a brilliant career on
Broadway, with the crowds carrying me shoulder-high through Times
Square, while dawn appeared like a greasy-grey hangover, and even the
trash-collectors put down their pails and applauded.

She turned back into her room and the girl in white was standing by the
window, not saying anything, not moving at all. Margaret couldn't see
her face, but the first pale light from the rising moon shone on her
dress, and on her hair, so that it gleamed in a silvery halo.

Margaret went cold. She crossed her arms over her breasts and she could
feel her nipples hard and her skin covered in goosebumps. She wanted to
say something but her lips felt as if they had frozen. She had been
quite convinced that Peggy had somehow returned to her, in another
guise; but now that she was confronted with this silent, silvery-haired
girl, her conviction seemed to drain away, and she felt a chilly sense
of fear.

Peggy was dead, after all. Peggy had drowned. How could she ever come
back, even in another body?

"What do you want?' Margaret whispered.

The girl said nothing. Neither did she move.

"What do you want?' Margaret repeated. She was so frightened that she
believed she was going to faint. The darkness was overlaid with more
darkness; the stars with even more stars. ' do you want? Are you real?"

The girl spoke. Her voice was high and dear, and yet it was
oddly-accented, too, each word rising in emphasis at the end, almost as
if it were a tape-recording played backwards. ' came to see you, mama."

Margaret clamped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled up with salty
tears. At last she managed to take her hand away and say, '? Little
Clothes-Peg? Is that you?"

"I came to see you, mama,' the girl repeated.

Margaret managed to take one step forward, and take hold of the bedrail.
' you really Peggy?' she asked the little girl.

"Please don't try to trick me. I couldn't bear it if this was a trick."

"I came to see you, mama."

Margaret stared at her. ' you a doll? Is that all you are?

What are you? Tell me what you are, you're frightening me!"

She dropped to her knees on the rug. She was sobbing so grievously that
her lungs hurt, and she could hardly speak. The littel girl came away
from the window and stood very close to her - so close that Margaret
could hear the rustling taffeta of her party dress, and even smell -
what? She thought it was funerals at first, the smell of dead flowers,
three days after Peggy's funeral, when all the hothouse roses and
orchids had started to droop and decay. It was similar, but it was
another smell. It was the smell of dead flowers in the changing-roorns
of the El Morocco, on Monday morning when you came back to work. Dead
flowers mingled with cigar smoke and sour Isabey perfume and weekend-old
laundry.

Sordid but exciting. A lost career, distilled into a single smell.

Margaret lifted her head. The girl was very pale, but she was smiling.
Her face looked as if it had been caked with white stage powder. ' came
to see you, mama,' she said, although her lips didn't move.

Margaret wiped her eyes with her fingers. ', is it really you? Or am I
going mad? Please tell me if it's really you."

The girl giggled. ' have to say - what you have to say is-- what it is
you want most -- in all the whole world."

"Darling, you know what I want. I want us all to be together. I want to
hold you in my arms. I never meant to lose you. I'm sorry I lost you.
I'm really so sorry.' Tears were streaming down Margaret's face now, and
dripping onto her nightgown.

"Oh Peggy, you don't know how much I missed you, you'll never ever
know."

The little girl stood dose to Margaret and stroked her hair.

Margaret couldn't actually feel her fingers, but she felt her hair
rising up with every stroke, as if it were charged with static
electricity.

She felt cold, too: she couldn't stop shivering. She would have done
anything to wrap a blanket around herself; or find her bathrobe. And yet
-- only a few minutes before -- she had felt so hot that she thought she
was going to asphyxiate, like a barbershop customer with his head
wrapped in hot towels.

"You can have what you want,' the little girl breathed.

"What?' said Margaret.

"You can have whatever you want. All you have to do is to follow me."

Margaret sat back and stared at her. She had been very frightened
before. Once, when one of her boyfriends had got catastrophically and
violently drunk, screaming at her, hitting her, she had seriously
believed that she was going to die. But tonight - faced with this
pale-faced manifestation of Peggy her fear was so comprehensive that she
felt as if she couldn't move, or speak, or do anything ever again,
except kneel on this rug and wait for the whole world to rotate
underneath her, so that this moment would no longer be.

Elizabeth heard the kitchen door slam. She didn't know how she heard it
slam, or why she knew what was happening, but she was out of bed and
searching for her slippers an instant after it had happened. She dragged
her pink bathrobe from the hook on the back of the door, and quickly
struggled into it. She opened her bedroom door in time to see her mommy,
in her nightgown, fleeing barefooted down the stairs.

"Mommy?' she called, in alarm. '? Where are you going?"

Her mommy didn't answer. Elizabeth heard her running across the
living-room, her bare feet slapping on the parquet. Immediately she
started to run after her. Something was seriously wrong. She could tell.
Mommy's bedroom door was still ajar and there was a strange smell of
electricity in the air.

Just as Elizabeth was running down the stairs she heard the front door
open, locks and chains. By the time she reached the hallway it was wide
open, and her mommy had gone. She ran outside, onto the porch, and saw
mommy hurrying around the side of the house, towards the swimming-pool.

"Mommy!' she screamed. She was really scared now. ', come back!"

She debated with herself for a split second if she ought to call Mrs.
Patrick, or maybe Seamus, but if mommy were going to do anything stupid,
it would take them far too long to get here. She ran down the steps and
hurriedly followed her mommy around the side of the house.

The moon illuminated the garden as if it were a stage set, !

constructed of artificial bushes and painted trees. Even the sky looked
as if it had been painted. The surface of the swimming pool,'instead of
looking liquid and sparkling, was pearly white, and steam was rising
from it. Elizabeth's mommy was walking towards it, more slowly now, both
hands lifted, her nightgown billowing as she walked.

"Mommy, please r At first Elizabeth couldn't see why her mommy was
walking towards the pool so raptly, because she was walking in her line
of sight. But then she reached the edge of the pool and stopped, and
then took two or three steps to the right, and Elizabeth saw that the
Peggy-girl was standing on the far side of the pool, white-faced and
smiling. Elizabeth was already halfway across the lawn, but the girl's
sudden appearance made her feel as if her knees had turned into jelly,
and she stumbled twice and nearly fell over.

The girl wasn't calling or beckoning. She was standing quite still, with
her feet together, her arms down by her sides. But there was an
expression on her face which was utterly compelling. It was an
expression of triumph; but also an expression that was dose to ecstasy,
like a Michelangelo saint.

She was the wrong age to be Peggy. She didn't even look like Peggy. Yet
Elizabeth was still quite sure that it was her - and her mommy must have
been, too, because she suddenly called out, '! Wait! Don't go without
me, sweetheart. Not this time."

The girl took one step nearer, then another. Then she actually stepped
down into the pool. Elizabeth was about to scream out and tell her not
to when she realized why the surface of the pool looked so milky and
opaque, and why it was.

steaming. The pool was frozen over, and the girl stepped down onto solid
ice.

It was summer, the hottest night of the year, and the pool was frozen
over.

Elizabeth watched in fright and fascination as the girl glided to the
centre of the pool. She seemed to be able to move without putting one
foot in front of the other, as if she were skating. Without a word, her
mommy stepped onto the ice,, too, and walked towards her dead Peggy with
stiff, uneven steps. She was barefoot, but if she felt the cold she
showed no sign of it.

"I knew they hadn't taken you away from me,' said her mommy. ' knew
you'd come back.' Her voice was high and lyrical, almost like singing,
and the chill of the frozen pool made her breath smoke.

The Peggy-girl said nothing at all, but kept on smiling that joyful,
triumphant smile, her eyes misted over in the same way that the surface
of the pool was misted over. Elizabeth reached the edge of the pool and
held onto the cold chrome handrail. She thought of stepping onto the
ice, too, but she didn't know how thick it was, and whether it would
bear their weight. She remembered too vividly the ice cracking beneath
her knees, and Peggy staring up at her, trapped.

Mommy reached out for the Peggy-girl. At the same moment, a white
screech owl fluttered overhead, and Elizabeth looked up. A frozen pool,
a summer night: it was all too strange for words. The owl circled
towards the oaks behind the house, and even though it distracted her for
only a moment, Elizabeth missed what happened next. The ice cracked,
from one side of the pool to the other, with a terrible grating sound,
like a huge sheet of plate glass breaking.

Mommy dropped directly into the water - and presumably the Peggy-girl
did, too, because Elizabeth couldn't see her.

Mommy screamed and gargled and splashed and went under. Without
hesitation, Elizabeth jumped into the pool, half running, half sliding
on a tilting piece of ice, and then plunging in her bathrobe and
slippers right into the water.

She was chilled and shocked, but she managed to kick off her slippers
and swim through the slush to the middle of the pool, circling around
and treading water.

For one heart-sinking moment, she thought that her mommy had gone under
for good. She circled around and around, desperately thrashing her arms,
with large lumps of ice bumping into her. She was too cold even to shout
out, but at last she managed to take in a huge breath of air, and dive
beneath the surface. She looked around, but all she could see were
wobbling silver air-bubbles, and the dark shadowy shapes cast by the
pieces of ice that were floating on the surface.

She kicked her legs, and groped around with her hands, but she couldn't
feel anything at all - neither her mommy nor the Peggy-girl.

She swam back up to the surface, and broke through the thick,
porridge-like slush. She knew that she wouldn't be able to stay in the
water for very much longer. Already she couldn't feel her fingers, and
her toes were starting to hurt. She was just about to strike out for the
edge of the pool, however, when the slush exploded right in front of her
and her mommy came bursting out of the water, wild-eyed, screeching for
breath.

Elizabeth shouted at her, '! Don't panic!' But her mommy was hysterical.
She thrashed her arms around and pedalled her legs, churning up a froth
of ice and freezing-cold water. She went under again, but this time
Elizabeth managed to catch hold of her nightgown, and pull her back up
again.

Her mommy surfaced, and tried to cling onto her - tried to climb onto
her, scratching her face and pulling her hair in her panic. Elizabeth
went under again, and swallowed a stomach ful of freezing water. But she
managed to struggle around until she was underneath her mommy, and then
kick herself up to the surface and grasp her around her neck, from
behind. She had swallowed too much water to be able to speak, but she
started swimming towards the shallow end of the pool, dragging her mommy
after her with a strength that was fifty percent adrenaline, forty percent determination, and ten percent downright stubbornness. She wasn't
going to die. She wanted to write and ride horses. She didn't want her
mommy to die, either. At last, Elizabeth felt her heel scraping on the
concrete bottom.

"We're all right, we're all right,' she managed to choke out.

"We can stand up now.' Then slowly zig-zagging like two drunks, the two
of them waded the last six or seven feet to the steps and climbed out.

Her mommy knelt on the edge of the pool and coughed up water, her head
bowed, her wet hair straggling down.

Elizabeth, her teeth chattering, limped all the way around it, peering
into the slush to see if she could see the Peggy-girl. She lifted up the
long-handled net which her father used for straining bugs and leaves out
of the pool, and she pushed it into the water again and again, and
churned it around, trying to feel the Peggy-girl's body. There was no
sign of her, and Elizabeth was growing too numb and shaky to go on
searching. She dropped the net and walked over to her mommy. Her mommy
raised her head and looked up at her. Her face was completely empty of
colour, as if she were a black-and-white photograph of herself.

"Where's Peggy?' she asked, in a hoarse, haunted voice.

Elizabeth shook her head. ' can't find her. I'll have to call an
ambulance."

Her mommy turned and stared at the surface of the pool. ' was her,
wasn't it?' she asked.

"I think so. We'd better get inside."

"All right. Don't wait for me. You go run for the ambulance."

"Mommy - ' Elizabeth hesitated. Her pink bathrobe was dripping, and she
felt as if she would never ever be warm and dry, ever again.

Her mommy said, ''s all right, Lizzie. I love you. I won't do anything
silly."

Elizabeth left her and ran back towards the house. She turned as she
climbed back up the steps, and there was her mommy, still kneeling under
the moon, the loneliest figure she could ever imagine.

Sheriff Grierson stood beside the empty pool with his big red arms
folded and his big red face glistening with sweat. It was just after
lunch the following day, and the heat was even more insufferable than on
the day before. The flag hung limply from the Buchanans' flagpole, and
the whole day looked as if it had been given five coats of clear
varnish.

Elizabeth and her father stood close by. He had taken the first train
back from New York, and looked tired and disoriented. Elizabeth was
wearing her pink blouse and her white canvas pedal-pushers. She had
braided her hair and tied it with a pink ribbon.

Sheriff Grierson said, ' think we're going to have to put this one down
to some kind of hallucination, Mr. Buchanan."

"It was real, though,' Elizabeth insisted. ' saw it myself." "Lizzie,'
said Sheriff Grierson, with great patience. ' swimming-pool of yours
holds something upward of twenty five thousand gallons of water. Not
just that, its chlorinated water, which has a lower freezing-point than
regular water.

How could anybody have lowered the temperature of that 'volume of water
sufficient to make it freeze over, on a hot June night with a
temperature of 69 degrees?"

"I don't know, sir,' said Elizabeth. ' just know what I saw. It was all
over ice, from one side to the other, and my mommy walked on it, right
to the middle."

"To meet this girl who looks like your sister Peggy?"

Elizabeth nodded.

Sheriff Grierson sniffed and looked around. ' don't know what to say to
you, Lizzie. I surely don't. I know you're a good girl and a truthful
girl, and you've never caused no trouble. I

also know there's been some funny stuff going on lately, like the way
the Reverend Bracewaite met his Maker. I'm inclined to think that you
believe you saw what you believed you saw, honestly and sincerely; but
that it's much more a question of believing rather than actually was."

"You think I'm making it up,' said Elizabeth. Her arms and her legs were
aching and she felt really angry with Sheriff Grierson for being so
obtuse. Of course it was impossible for anybody to freeze a
swimming-pool in the middle of summer, let alone enough for people to
walk on. But it had happened, and it was Sheriff Grierson's job to find
out why, and how not accuse her of story telling, and her mommy of being
mad.

"I'm not saying you made it up deliberate,' said Sheriff Grierson,
defensively. ''m just saying it came out of your imagination, and you
honestly believed it to be when logic might have told you that it
wasn't.' He turned to Elizabeth's father and said, ' I talk to you
alone, for just a while?" "Elizabeth,' said her father. ' you think that
you could go see if Mrs. Patrick has finished packing mommy's bag?"

"I saw it,' Elizabeth insisted. ' really did."

"Please, sweetheart," her father begged her. ' won't be long."

Elizabeth went inside and her father and Sheriff Grierson strolled
together around the pool.

"I had hoped that Margaret was over it,' said her father.

Sheriff Grierson laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Obviously she took it harder than you first believed."

"There wasn't any sign of this girl who was supposed to be Peggy?"

Sheriff Grierson shook his head. ' footprints, nothing."

"And what about the pool?"

"Deputy Regan said it was unseasonably cold, all right, but he didn't
notice no ice."

"It could have melted by then."

 3i "Mr. Buchanan, I don't believe that there was any ice to begin
with."

"The Reverend Bracewaite died of frostbite. Maybe we're dealing the same
kind of phenomenon. Freak weather patterns, sudden localized cold snaps,
thought of that? I published a book last year about strange weather
conditions in the Litchfield area. In the summer of 1896 it snowed on a
quarter acre field just outside of New Preston and nowhere else."

"Mr. Buchanan, think about it,' said Sheriff Grierson. ''s just not
possible. And apart from that, there's this story your wife and Lizzie
have been telling us about some mysterious girl who's supposed to be
your late daughter Peggy but doesn't actually look like her."

Elizabeth's father looked back towards the house. ' ... " he admitted. '
know that it's hard to believe. But I've studied all kinds of local
phenomena - ghosts, and mysterious attacks, and things falling out of
the sky - and while some of them are bound to be bunkum, some of them
are bound to be true, too."

Sheriff Grierson gave him a comforting pat. ' on, Mr. Buchanan. There's
no harm done. But your wife's still suffering the effects of grief, and
Lizzie's always been a little bit of a dreamer, hasn't she?" "I guess,'
said Elizabeth's father. Then he said, ', Margaret's going back to the
clinic this evening. They're going to give her some tests, see what they
can do to help her."

"How about Lizzie?"

"I think she'll be all right, once her mother's gone. She'll have to
be."

They began to walk back up the lawn. ' your family up some, all of this,
hasn't it?' asked Sheriff Grierson.

Elizabeth's father said, ' Peggy went ... I felt that the family slipped
out of my grasp. I didn't know where we were going any longer, or what I
was supposed to do. Sometimes I blame myself for everything. For Peggy
drowning, because I

didn't drain the pool. For Laura, because I wasn't a strong enough
father-figure. For Margaret, for driving her half out of her mind. Now I
feel as if I've let Lizzie down, too, because I can't believe her."

"You're wrong to blame yourself, Mr. Buchanan,' said Sheriff Grierson.
''ve seen this kind of thing happen to families before. It's the natural
effect of a tragedy, that's all. Things will work out for you, don't you
worry about that. You just have to square up to your problems, look '
dead in the eye, and then try to lick ' in a fair fight."

"I don't know. It's been worse than losing a child. It's almost as if-
when Peggy died - she left, but something else moved in with us." "Don't
get your drift,' said the Sheriff.

"It's hard to explain. But I feel as if we lost a daughter and gained a
curse. There's something living with us that brings us bad luck."
Sheriftgrierson said nothing. It was plain that he still didn't
understand what Elizabeth's father was talking about. He didn't care for
superstition, and he didn't like anything inexplicable. He believed in
God but he didn't believe in curses, or bad luck, or imaginary girls who
could walk on the surface of swimming-pools. He was still irritated
enough by what had happened to Dick Bracewaite, he was personally angry
at Dick Bracewaite himself, for having been so inconsiderate as to be
killed in a way which defied explanation.

Doctor Ferris was waiting in the hallway for them, looking more like an
out-of-work violinist than ever.

"How is she?' Elizabeth's father asked him.

"She's fine,' said Doctor Ferris. ', anxious, but no physical problems,
except that she's underweight. I gave her something to help her sleep."

"You really believe that the clinic's the answer?"

Doctor Ferris snapped his bag shut. ''s obvious she can't stay here.
This house and all of its surroundings obviously have the effect of
bringing on these morbid hallucinations. She needs professional care,
well away from here, otherwise she's going to grow steadily worse. I
don't like to second-guess the specialists, but it wouldn't surprise me
if electric shock treatment weren't considered desirable."

"Electric shock?' asked Elizabeth's father, anxiously.

"As I say, I don't like to second-guess the specialists. But
electro-convulsive therapy has been shown to be quite successful in the
treatment of severe depressives. Or, failing that, leucotomy."

Elizabeth's father looked lost and dejected. Sheriff Grierson said, '
there's anything else you need, Mr. Buchanan, you know where to reach
me. Doesn't just have to be police business, neither."

Elizabeth's father gave him a wan smile. ', sheriff.

We'll manage."

Sheriff Grierson tipped his hat, revealing a sweat-stained underarm.
Then he walked back to his car, with Doctor Ferns following behind. As
they drove away, neither of them saw the white face watching them from
the upstairs window, just above the porch. Nor did Elizabeth's father,
as he stood watching them go. When he eventually turned around and
walked back into the house, the face was gone.

Laura was woken up by somebody whispering, very close to her ear. She
opened her eyes with a start, and found herself staring at the empty
pillow next to her. She blinked. She could have sworn that she had heard
somebody whispering. She didn't know what they had been whispering, but
it had been one of those distinctive, saliva-sizzling whispers,
conniving and secretive.

She sat up in bed. This was her first morning in Los Angeles, and the
breeze was flooding warmly into her bedroom, so that the net curtains
billowed and flapped. Her room was whitewashed, small and plain, with a
carved oak Spanish-style bed and a carved oak bureau, on top of which
stood a large blue bowl of freshly-picked oranges. On one wall a
blue-and-white rug was hanging; on the others there were straw fans and
paintings of orange groves. There was a pungent smell of eucalyptus in
the air, combined with the smell of freshly watered terra cotta pots.

She climbed out of bed and stepped out onto her narrow balcony. Aunt
Beverley's house was perched on the brink of a cliff overlooking Santa
Monica Bay. She had bought it ' peanuts' from the actor George Albert.
Although it was quite rundown, and needed redecoration, it was cool and
airy with tiled floors and whitewashed cloisters, and a small enclosed
courtyard with a blue mosaic fountain and a showy purple bougainvillea
on its eastern wall.

Laura looked down at the beach. The ocean was masked behind a thin
photographic mist, through which an occasional wavelet sparkled, but it
was still early yet, only ten after seven, and by nine o'clock the mist
would have burned off. Laura was missing Lizzie really badly, and her
father and mommy, too; but she thought this was Paradise, and although
she had cried into her pillow before she went to sleep last night, she
already had the feeling that she belonged here. She liked going around
with Aunt Beverley, too. Aunt Beverley took whatever she wanted and went
wherever she wanted to go, and spoke her mind. She might look like a
man, and swear like a man; but she was stronger and funnier and ruder
than any man that Laura had ever met, and whenever she was with her,
Laura felt adventurous but safe. Aunt Beverley seemed to know absolutely
everybody in Hollywood, and she was disparaging about all of them. She
called Charlie Chaplin ' Sniffer' because he sniffed around every pretty
girl at every party he went to. Elia Kazan - '' to his closest friends -
she referred to as "Madge' because she thought he was so self-indulgent
and effete.

Aunt Beverley was a fierce woman and no mistake, and you could see it in
the eyes of the people she talked to.

Laura was still standing on the balcony in her too-big red and-white
striped pyjamas when she heard that whispering again. It seemed so close
that she turned around, startled, but there was nobody there. It could
have been the ocean, shushing. It could have been the breeze. Yet she
was sure that she had heard somebody dose to her ear, trying to tell her
something. Whisper-whisper-whisper, the way schoolgirls do.

Her room was empty, apart from Mr. Burizum, tilted lopsidedly on the
pillow. Poor old Mr. Bunzum had made it to Hollywood at last, and still
couldn't drive his excellent red Packard, poor old whisker-face, mainly
because he was nothing but a stuffed rabbit, and didn't really own an
excellent red Packard anyway. Laura lifted up the net curtains and
stepped back into her bedroom and strained her ears. She could hear a
woman singing ' the Lord and Pass the Ammunition' in Spanish. She opened
her bedroom door and looked down into the courtyard, and saw a plump
black-haired woman down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the blue
mosaic. The woman looked up and smiled and called, ' diai. r Laura
quickly closed her door in embarrassment.

' It was then that she turned and saw the faintest outline of a girl,
standing on the balcony. The girl was aged about ten or eleven, the same
age as Laura, with tousled curls. She was wearing the simplest of white
dresses. Her face was turned away, and for some reason Laura thought
that she was crying.

She was scarcely visible, no more than a half-transparent disturbance in
the morning air, although Laura could see her more distinctly when the
breeze dropped and the net curtains fell across the window.

Laura stood still, her hands tingling with fright. The breeze blew up
the curtains, and for a moment the girl's outline disappeared; but then
they fell again, and the girl faintly materialized. She turned towards
Laura. Her eyes were little more than smudges, and her cheeks were
white, but Laura could see that she was deathly serious. What was more,
Laura knew her - she knew her so well that her heart almost stopped on
the spot.

The girl was Peggy. She didn't actually look like Peggy. She was much
older than Peggy had been when she drowned. But Laura was absolutely
certain that it was her.

"Ohhhhhh ...' the girl whispered, her voice fading and swelling like a
faraway radio station. ' leflft my boots behind ... mmmmmmhhhavwe
leffitt my gloves behind ... " Laura, aghast, said, '? What have you
left behind?"

'... leffitt my boots behind ... "

Laura knelt on the edge of the bed, reached over, and picked up Mr.
Bunzum. She held him tight against her heart, and slowly approached the
curtains. The breeze blew them up again, and the girl momentarily
vanished in the sunlight; but then they sank back, and Laura could see
her again, very faintly, scarcely more than a watermark in the air.
Anybody who walked into the bedroom by chance, and hadn't heard her
whispering, would probably have failed to see her altogether.

"Peggy, what is it?' asked Laura. ' me what you want."

Peggy whispered something but Laura couldn't hear what it was. The ocean
was shushing too noisily on the shore, and two or three automobiles
drove past. The maid was still singing "Praise the Lord and Pass the
Ammunition'.

Laura said, ', are you crying?"

The whispery voice grew stronger, and for a moment it rushed over
Laura's ears like water rushing over pebbles.

"Oh ... I have left my boots behind ... I have left my gloves behind."

"What boots, Peggy? What gloves? What are you talking about?"

But the curtains lifted, and the girl vanished. Laura dropped Mr. Bunzum
and pulled the curtains back across the window, but the image didn't
return.

"Peggy?' she called. ', are you there?' She stepped out onto the
balcony. She put out both hands and felt the air, in case Peggy was
there but couldn't be seen, like The Invisible Man or something. But
there was nobody there, nobody there at all, and all she could feel was
the warm morning wind.

She went back into the bedroom. She almost tripped over Mr. Bunzum, and
she was just about to pick him up when she realized that he looked very
strange. Normally he was a brownish sort of rabbit, in a dirty yellow
waistcoat, but now he was sparkly and white. Very cautiously, Laura
picked him up, and realized at once what had happened to him. He was
sparkly and white because he was frozen solid. Not just cold, but frozen
hard, and giving off fumes of intense cold.

Laura dropped him in alarm. He fell onto the Mexican tiled floor and
shattered into seven separate pieces - arms, legs, body and head. Even
one of his ears snapped off.

Laura sat on the bed staring at him for a very long time. She didn't
understand this at all. But there was one thing she knew for certain.
Peggy wasn't dead; not in the usual sense of being dead; and somehow
Peggy had managed to find her all this way away in Santa Monica.

She stood up after a while, went to the bureau and took out her pen and
the pad of writing-paper that father had given her.

Carefully, so that she would always remember it, she wrote down the date
and the time. Then she wrote the words that Peggy had whispered to her.

"Oh, I have left my boots behind. I have left my gloves behind."

The words seemed familiar, like something that somebody had once said to
her when she was very small. Yet here, in the warmth of California, they
seemed so incongruous. Who needed boots and gloves on a morning like
this? Nobody but Mr. Bunzum, and he was broken now.

Garden of Death "Dead she is not," said the roses.

"We have been down in the earth; the dead are there, but not her."

She stepped off the train and there he was, waiting for her, in his big
brown coat and his wide-brimmed hat, still looking like Jimmy Stewart
but filled out now, and broad-shouldered, a man instead of a boy.

The locomotive let out a deafening, dolorous wail. Lenny came towards
her with both of his hands held out, and grasped both of hers, and
kissed her. ' ... you look like a million." "You too,' she said. '
couldn't believe it when the phone rang and it was you."

"I'm just sorry that it was such bad news. Is this all of your luggage?"

He picked up her tan calfskin bag and together they walked across the
depot to the parking-lot. It was a dazzling-bright Thursday morning in
October 1951. The train from New York had taken Lizzie back into the
reds and russets and shimmering yellows that had illuminated every
October of her childhood, and she had sat by the window reminiscing
about Laura and Peggy and the days that she had spent in Sherman, all
the way from White Plains to New Milford.

Outside the station the sidewalks were ankle-deep in crisp, scurrying
leaves. Lenny guided Elizabeth over toward a shiny red Frazer Manhattan
convertible.

"What do you think?' he asked her, opening the boot and stowing her
case. ' bought it last summer."

"It's beautiful. I love the colour."

"Sure. I chose it specially to match your lipstick."

He helped her into the car and then climbed behind the wheel. ' think I
ought to warn you that your dad's pretty bad.

He can't walk and he can't talk. He can make a few signs, but that's
about as far as it goes."

Elizabeth nodded. She had tried to prepare herself for seeing her
father, but every time she thought about him, she remembered him the way
he was, carrying in logs for their innumerable, every-hungry fires; or
carving the turkey at Thanksgiving; or bouncing Laura and Peggy on his
knees. She remembered him standing in winter with his back to the
hearth, his glasses on die end of his knees, reading to diem with all
the rapture of an actor from one of the latest publications from
Candlewood Press, one of his books about local witches or strange
customs or the ghosts of those who had lived in Litchfield when it was a
country of isolated farmhouses and dark, tumbledown coaching inns.

She couldn't think of him immobile, speechless, his intellect trapped in
a useless body.

They drove through New Milford toward Sherman, over die Housatonic
bridge. The river reflected the pecan-red trees and the royal blue sky
and the ducks that were already flying south.

Elizabeth opened her purse and took out her cigarette-case.

"Smoke?' she asked Lenny.

"Trying to cut down. Not very successfully. Sure, you can light me one."

Elizabeth was never quite sure when she had grown out of being an
awkward, gawky adolescent and turned into the trim, elegant young woman
she was today. All of her diaries were crammed with miserable ramblings
about spots and periods and hair that would never do what she wanted it
to do. Yet here she was, at the age of twenty-one, with dark up swept
hair, a finely-boned face, and long slim legs. She was wearing her best
camel coat from Bergdorf Goodman, a pleated plaid skirt and a red
twinset. In her coat lapel sparkled the diamond brooch that her father
had given her when she had graduated with honours from Connecticut State
University. It was fashioned like a rose, and it had once belonged to
her mother.

"How are you liking the big city?' asked Lenny, as Elizabeth passed him
a lighted Philip Morris.

"Oh, it's wonderful. My apartment's pretty cramped. There are three of
us sharing. But after Sherman ... "

"Don't tell me. The doziest community since Sleepy Hollow."

They turned toward Boardmans Bridge, and the sun flickered between the
trees. ' you back for long?' asked Elizabeth.

Lenny blew smoke. ''m just visiting the folks; and sorting myself out,
too. You heard about what happened, I guess?"

"Yes. I'm sorry. Isn't there any chance of you getting back together
again?"

"Unh-hunh. It was all a mistake, right from the start. One of those
wartime idiocies. You don't think about the future, because you think
that you're probably going to die anyway. In fact I was sure I was going
to die. Even now I still can't believe that I got through it."

"What about your business? Are you going to carry on working for her
father?"

Lenny shook his head. ' and I mutually agreed that we hated each other's
intestines, and that it would be better if we parted company. I'm not
sorry about that. I hated Pittsburgh.

Besides, the old man gave me five thousand dollars relocation money,
which is a polite way of saying that he paid me off."

"What are you going to do now?"

Lenny tapped his forehead with his fingertip. "Think, that's what I'm
going to do. I'll still work in insurance, but I'm sure that I can come
up with some really neat scam, like family package insurance or
special-rate cover for older drivers."

"I was amazed when you went into insurance. I always thought you were
too romantic."

"Romantic? Me?"

"Don't you remember kissing me, before you went off to Fort Dix?"

"Did I? That was pretty damn forward of me."

"You wrote me, too, almost every week."

"That was only because you kept on writing me. And sending me those
saucy pictures."

"I used to think that we were going to be married someday."

"You and me?' Lenny laughed out loud.

Elizabeth glanced at him sharply; and was surprised to discover that,
even now, he was capable of hurting her. She had sobbed for days when
she heard that he was married. She thought that she would never recover.
She still felt jealous - so much, that she could almost taste it.

They were driving around the northern end of Lake Candlewood now. On
every side the hills were blazing with crimsons and oranges and yellows,
like a forest fire. Elizabeth could smell the trees and the woods and
the logsmoke aroma of October, and she closed her eyes for a moment and
wished that everything had turned out differently, and that the years
hadn't passed yet, and that her father and mother would both be waiting
for her when she arrived home, smiling and waving and chatting to her.

Lenny said, ' tired?"

She opened her eyes. '. Just remembering."

"Remembering's a very bad habit. I wouldn't do it if I were you."

They drove along Oak Street and then turned into the driveway of
Elizabeth's house. Lenny carried her suitcase to the front door. She
looked around. The lawns were stained with black patches of moss, and
the steps were clogged with wet, unswept leaves. The house itself was
beginning to look sad and dilapidated, in need of a fresh coat of paint.
It looked almost as if nobody lived here.

Lenny rang the bell and after a long pause Mrs. Patrick came to the
door, with her hands smothered in flour. She looked tired, and even
though it had only been early July since Elizabeth had last seen her,
she seemed to have aged about ten years.

"Lizzie! How good to see you!' she smiled. ' on in. Your bedroom's all
ready. The fire's lit."

Lenny carried Elizabeth's case inside. ',' she told him.

"I really want to thank you for meeting me. Are you going to stay and
have a drink?" Lenny took her hand between his. ' now. You have to see
to your dad. But I'd like to see you later, if I could. Give me a call,
or come around. I know my folks would love to see you, too."

He gave her a kiss on the forehead, and left. Mrs. Patrick closed the
door. The house was chilly and smoky, and there was a faint smell of
damp everywhere.

"Have you heard from Laura?' asked Elizabeth. Laura was still living in
Hollywood, with Aunt Beverley.

Mrs. Patrick shuffled ahead of her in rundown slippers. ' sent a wire.
She said she was truly sorry but she wouldn't be able to come home till
Thanksgiving at the earliest."

"I see. Does everybody else know what's happened?"

"Oh, yes. Mr. Ament saw to that. He's taking care of the bank, too, and
making sure that the bills are all paid."

Mrs. Patrick stopped at the foot of the staircase. ''ll be wanting to go
up to see him.' There were tears glistening in her eyes.

Elizabeth put her arms around her and hugged her. ', Mrs. Patrick, I'm
so sorry. You look exhausted."

"Oh, don't worry about me. I've had a lifetime of hard work, I'm used to
it. It's your poor father you should be worried about. I never saw
anybody so stricken. Now be careful, you don't want to get flour on that
lovely coat of yours, do you?"

Elizabeth wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. ''s not alone, is he?'
she asked.

Mrs. Patrick said, ' doctor was here a half-hour ago, and the nurse gets
here at half after twelve to feed him and bathe him. So he's well looked
after. It's hard to tell what he might be thinking, though, or even if
he's thinking anything at all."

Seam us appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying two empty log
baskets. Of everybody Elizabeth had known during her childhood, Seamus
was the only one who hadn't changed at all.

It was almost as if his abduction by the little people had given him a
charmed and ageless life. His mind had unravelled even more, like a
home-knitted sweater caught on a nail, but that made him seem even
younger, and even more endearing.

"Hallo, Seamus,' said Elizabeth. ' see you're keeping the home fires
burning."

"Blue lights,' grinned Seamus. ' lights every evening."

"How has he been?' Elizabeth asked Mrs. Patrick.

Mrs. Patrick shrugged. ' has his moments, poor darling.

Now I must get back to my dumplings."

Seamus came down the stairs. ' and ravens,' he said, his eyes sparkling,
as if he were saying something really mischievous. ' jumped round the
carriage, but they never barked."

Elizabeth stared at him. ' did you say, Seamus?"

"They jumped round the carriage, but they never barked."

"Why didn't they bark, Seamus?"

"It was forbidden."

Elizabeth slowly nodded. ', Seamius. You're quite right.

It was forbidden. Now how did you happen to know that?" "Crows and
ravens,' smiled Seamus, very pleased with himself. ' jumped round the
carriage, but they never barked."

"Seamus!' called Mrs. Patrick, from the kitchen. ' babbling that
nonsense and put some more wood on the fire!

And make sure it's dry!"

Elizabeth went upstairs. At the top of the first flight, she stood and
looked around her. The house was no longer hers. It

had shrunk and grown shabbier, and somehow her presence had left it now,
even her childhood presence. Laura's too.

She supposed that it happened to all children in the end, and to all
houses. Once she had graduated from High School, and gone to university,
she had come home less and less frequently, and two Christmases ago she
had moved out altogether to share an apartment in Hartford with one of
her best friends, Leah Feinstein. Now she had her job with Charles
Keraghter & Co, and she shared a third-storey walk-up apartment on West
14th Street with another assistant editor and a girl who worked on set
design for Radio City.

She had written to Lenny all through the war - sending him cards and
drawings and badly-knitted socks and the sexiest photographs of herself
that she dared to have developed (in her swimsuit, mostly, with the
shoulder straps let down). All of that golden dream had died when Lenny
had married. But something else had kept her in touch with her
childhood: the whispers she constantly heard; and the fleeting glimpses
of a little girl in white. Sometimes she didn't see the girl for weeks
on end. But then suddenly she would see her running through the crowds
on Seventh Avenue; or standing on the corner of Times Square; or staring
at her from a passing bus. It always unsettled her; and gave her a bad
day, as if the barometer were down. But she missed her if she didn't see
her. For some reason, the little girl made her feel watched-over, and
protected.

Laura had admitted that she had seen her too; but to Laura her image had
appeared much more vaguely. A shade, a quivering reflection, rather than
a real girl. She and Elizabeth had written and talked about it again and
again. Laura had even suggested they go to a medium. Aunt Beverley knew
a man called Gilbert Maxwell who was supposed to have talked to the
spirit of Frank Gaby, Universal Studios' Mr. Dynamite, who had hanged
himself in 1949. But Gilbert Maxwell charged $250 a session, even to his
friends.

They rarely talked about it now. They found that they argued about it
too much; or that they tried to read too much into it. Elizabeth had
thought about exorcism, but then how could she exorcize her own sister?
She didn't even know what happened to spirits, when they were exorcized.
What if they suffered? What if they were trapped forever, in some
airless suffocating prison?

She walked along the landing. She had loved this house so much when they
first moved here. But now the rooms were empty and there was nothing
here but shadows and terrible regrets.

She reached her father's room, knocked, and opened the door. Even though
the blinds were drawn, the room was filled with sunshine, because it
faced south-westward. Her father hadn't changed it since her mother had
gone to the clinic. The cheval-mirror stood in the same corner; the hat
boxes were still piled on top of the closet. Her father lay in the large
sawn-oak bed that they had bought from a farmhouse in Washington Depot.
The heaped-up pillows were white and starched. His face was drained of
colour and featureless, like chewed-up papier-mache. His arms lay inert
on the cream bedspread, his hands veiny and emaciated.

"Father?1 she said, and approached the bed. His eyes followed her but he
showed no sign of recognition. ', it's Lizzie." ' She leaned over the
bed and kissed him. His breath smelted of meat. His nurse must have been
shaving him because he had random crops of white bristles that had
eluded the razor. His mouth sloped open at the left corner, and he was
dribbling.

Elizabeth took hold of his hand and squeezed it. He blinked and
swallowed, but he probably blinked and swallowed all day and all night.
It didn't signify anything. She sat on the edge of the bed so that he
could see her. He was definitely looking at her, but he was incapable of
telling her that he could see her, and that he was pleased that she was
here.

"SO "Oh, father, why did this have to happen to you?' she asked him. '
were always so energetic, always so lively. But they can cure you, can't
they? They can give you exercises. They can teach you how to talk. I was
talking to Jack Peabody at work, and his grandfather had a stroke. You
remember Dennis Peabody, who used to work for Scribner's? He was
paralysed for almost six months, but now he's writing articles for the
Saturday Evening Post, and walking to the deli and everything." She
smiled at him but she felt more like crying. That any man's life should
come to this; after years of fun and dancing and publishing books and
talking and going to parties. Alone now, or all but alone, in a vast
dilapidated house without any family at all, incapable of movement or
speech. The tears slid down her cheeks and there was nothing she could
do to stop them. Her father watched them and said nothing.

"I've been working real hard,' Elizabeth told him. ''ve given me this
really complicated book to edit. Reds Under The Bed, by Carl Scheckner
III. It's all about the Communist threat, and it's full of references
and footnotes and indexes and everything and I have to check them all. I
have a senior editor called Margo Rossi and she's such a Tartar! If I'm
one minute late back from lunch she practically flays me alive."

Her fingertip circled the back of her father's hand.

"I want to tell you something, though, father. I couldn't have done any
of this without your help and without your support.

You taught me so much. I know how much you hurt after Peggy died and
mommy got sick; but you were always there, weren't you? And you always
told me that you loved me."

Her father made a thick rattling sound somewhere in his throat, as if he
were trying to speak. His eyes opened and closed, opened and closed, but
there was no pattern to it, no secret semaphore, nothing but
helplessness, Elizabeth sobbed, "Don't give up, father. Please don't
give up. I'll do everything I can to help you get better."

She sat and watched him for nearly ten minutes; and he lay there and
watched her back. She tried to tell him about work, and what her friends
had been doing, and the weekend she had gone upstate to Mohonk Lake. But
his inability even to show her that he recognized her was more than she
could bear, and she choked up, and had to sit with him in anguished
silence.

She was thinking of leaving him when his eyes rolled slowly to the
right, as if he had seen something in the far corner of the bedroom. She
thought at first that what he was doing was completely involuntary, but
then his eyes rolled back to her, and repeated the movement to the
right.

She turned around, and let out a '1.' of total shock. In the corner,
only feet away from her, was the little girl in white. She was standing
in the sunlight, and she seemed to be quite real, although Elizabeth
couldn't understand how she had managed to enter the bedroom and walk
across to the opposite corner without being seen and without being
heard. Her face was as white and as smooth as polished marble. Her eyes
were impenetrably dark. She wore the same simple dress that she had worn
before, although she seemed to have put on more petticoats. Her hands
were clasped in front of her, and Elizabeth noticed that her nails were
bitten down. Somehow this made her seem all the more frightening.
Whoever saw a ghost with bitten-down nails?

' ' are you?' asked Elizabeth, standing up and taking a cautious step
backwards.

"I came to see papa,' the girl replied. She spoke without opening her
mouth, and her voice was extraordinary, with a metallic, distant quality
to it, like somebody sliding a brass ring along a brass curtain-pole.

"Are you Peggy?' asked Elizabeth. She was so frightened that she could
scarcely speak properly.

"I came to see papa. I've left my boots behind. I've left my gloves
behind."

"Are you really Peggy?"

The girl gave Elizabeth an unfocused smile. ''t be so worried, Lizzie.
You don't have anything to fear. Nobody will ever hurt you, ever."

"You've been following me. You've been watching me."

"Yes."

"Then why haven't you ever talked to me before? I wanted so much to talk
to you."

"Better to stay silent, unless you have something to say. I didn't want
to upset you."

"I saw you in Macy's. I saw you in Central Park. I've seen you
everywhere! You came here before, didn't you? You froze the
swimming-pool."

"The winter froze the swimming-pool."

"But it was summer, and you almost drowned us, mommy and me."

"You didn't drown, though. She didn't want me to take you."

"What are you talking about?' Elizabeth demanded. She was close to
hysteria. ' don't understand what you're talking about."

'- want me to take you,' the Peggy-girl repeated, her voice more
distorted.

She slid towards the bed. As she passed the cheval-mirror, the surface
misted over. She stood and looked down at Elizabeth's father and her
face was filled with curiosity and regret.

Elizabeth said, ''t touch him." The Peggy-girl smiled without looking at
her. ''ll be cold soon enough."

"He's not going to die,' Elizabeth retorted. ''s going to live, and he's
going to get better."

The Peggy-girl slowly shook her head. ' he doesn't believe that."

"How do you know? He can't even speak.

"He has something in him that can say what he wants. We all do; although
many of us don't know it, and many of those who do know it prefer to
stay silent."

"You're not making any sense."

The Peggy-girl stared at her. ' course I'm making sense.

Why do you think some people rest in eternal peace while others never
do?"

She turned back to Elizabeth's father. She reached her hand out to his
forehead, but Elizabeth snapped. '! Don't touch him!"

Elizabeth bustled around the end of the bed and tried to seize
Peggy-girl's wrists. But instead of grasping them, her hands plunged
into them, like plunging into freezing slush. She could feel them, but
she couldn't get any kind of grip. She pulled her hands back in shock.

"Just let him alone!' she demanded, breathy and scared. ' don't care who
you are or what you are, just let him alorul'

The Peggy-girl stepped to one side, and this time Elizabeth snatched at
her sleeve. But the Peggy-girl seemed to have scarcely any weight, or
substance. Instead of resisting, or trying to pull herself away, she
completely collapsed. Her head dropped into her collar; and then her
whole dress folded up, billowy and insubstantial, and before she knew it
Elizabeth was struggling with nothing more than an empty bag of
collapsing cotton. She clung to it, tried to stop it from collapsing any
further, but it rolled up into something the size of a handkerchief; and
then Elizabeth found that she was holding in her hand nothing but a
snow-white rose, made of frost. It melted in front of her eyes, until
the only evidence that it had ever been there was a faint chilly feeling
in her fingers.

Elizabeth turned to her father in astonishment. He was watching her, but
of course he couldn't speak. She looked wildly around the room, trying
to see if she had been deceived by some elaborate trick. But the room
hadn't changed; the sun still shone; and there was no place at all where
the Peggy-girl could have concealed herself.

Shaking, Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed and took hold of both
of her father's hands. Her heart was still beating at high speed, and
she badly needed a drink. But she looked him intently in the eyes, and
said, ' saw her, didn't you? She was really here? A little white girl in
a little white dress."

Her father moved his eyes from side to side.

"Is that a yes?' asked Elizabeth. ' that's a yes, moving your eyes from
side to side, then do it again."

There was a very long pause, and then her father did it again.

"You saw her, didn't you? The little white girl in the little white
dress?"

F .

"That was the same little girl that mommy saw, when she ran out into the
rain. She turned the bushes all icy, even though it was summer."

Yes.

"That was the same little girl that froze the swimming-pool, the night
that mommy and I almost drowned. I saw her quite dearly. We both saw
her. Mommy was never mentally sick. I wasn't making up stories. We
really, really saw her, just like we did just now. I've seen her again
and again. I've seen her in New York. I've seen her everyplace that you
can think of.

Laura's seen her too."

Elizabeth was crying as she spoke. She wiped her eyes with the back of
her hand, and then she said, ' believed us.

Nobody believed either of us."

Elizabeth's father remained impassive, his face still fixed in a vapid
sneer.

Elizabeth said, ' you believe that was Peggy? I know she doesn't look
like Peggy, but do you believe that she is?1

Yes.

"Have you ever seen her before?"

Another long pause. Then, Yes.

"You've seen her before? How many times?"

No response.

"Twice? Three times? More than three times?"

Yes.

"More than ten times?"

No response.

"And how long ago did you see her? Before mommy went to the clinic?"

No response.

"Before mommy had her operation?*

No response.

Thank God for that, thought Elizabeth. At least he hadn't let mommy
undergo a leucotomy knowing all the time that she had been telling the
truth - that she had seen a little girl who was Peggy's soul or Peggy's
spirit or whatever part of Peggy still persisted in the waking world.

"Where did you see her?' asked Elizabeth. ' in the house?"

Yes.

"Anywhere else?"

F .

"Further than Sherman?"

Yts.

"How far?' asked Elizabeth, and now a small dreadful thought was
beginning to occur to her. ' far as New York?"

Another pause. Then, Yes.

Elizabeth and her father stared into each other's eyes. She could see
now that he had so much that he wanted to tell her, so much that he
wanted to explain and discuss. There were so many questions that she
wanted to ask him, too - questions that were far too complicated for a
Yes or a No. Like - why did he think Peggy should still be here? Why did
she look like another girl altogether? Why was she so cold? What was she
made of? Ice, or flesh, or cotton, or smoke, or nothing at all?

Were they imagining that she was here? Was she happy or was she sad? Was
she trapped somehow between the living world and whatever lay beyond?

"Are you frightened of her?' Elizabeth wanted to know.

No response. But then a very quick Yes.

"You are frightened of her? Or not?"

Again, the same reply.

"You're frightened?"

Yes.

"But not of her? Of something else?"

Yes.

"What is it that you're frightened of? Is it a person?"

No response. Then Yes.

"It isn't a person but it is a person? I don't understand."

Elizabeth's father lay back staring at the ceiling. She had the
impression that he was making an enormous effort to do something, or to
say something. His hands began to quiver, and his throat swelled up, and
he started to utter a thick, low, growling sound.

"Father - don't,' Elizabeth begged him. ' don't have to strain yourself,
please. I'm going to stay for at least a week - we can spend a whole lot
more time talking about it."

But her father growled louder and louder, an upsetting dog like girmrm
which grew louder and louder.

"Grrrrdd,' he managed to say at last. '."

Elizabeth shook her head in dismay. ', please, I don't understand."

"Grnrdduh!"

He let out a thick, phlegmy whine, and then he relaxed. He kept
flickering his eyes from side to side as if to say Yes, Yes, Yes. By
uttering '' he had somehow managed to tell her what was frightening him.

"Gnrdduh?' asked Elizabeth.

Yes, Yes, Yes.

He kept on flickering his eyes from side to side until they were
interrupted by a quick, flurrying knock at the door. It was a plump
blonde woman in a nurse's white uniform. ', Miss. Buchanan,' she said,
smiling. ' name's Edna Faulk.

I'm here to take care of your father."

Edna went across to the bed and leaned over Elizabeth's father, still
smiling. ' afternoon, Mr. Buchanan! How would we like to have a little
wash before lunch?"

Elizabeth looked into her father's eyes one more time. There was no
expression in them at all. He had totally lost the ability to show her
how he felt. She wished that she could understand what he was trying to
tell her, but she knew that it would need hours or even days of careful
questioning. What wasn't a person and yet was a person? What was '?"

"You won't mind leaving us for a while now, will you, Miss. Buchanan?'
said Edna Faulk. ' you'd care to come upstairs and share some lunch with
your father, well, you're very welcome, but I must warn you that we're
rather messy, aren't we, Mr. Buchanan? We're very messy pups at
mealtimes, believe me!" Til come back later,' said Elizabeth. She
couldn't bear the idea of watching her father being fed. ' have some
people to meet."

She kissed her father on the forehead. He looked up at her but she
couldn't tell if he were angry or contented, happy or miserable. As she
left the sunlit room, she turned around one more time, and she found
herself wishing that he hadn't survived. At least, if he had died, he
would have found Peggy in heaven, rather than here.

She walked along Oak Street and saw how much Sherman had changed. Most
noticeably, the large post oak had been cut down, leaving nothing but a
wide flat-topped stump. There were still seats around it, but without
the green cavernlike shade that its overhanging branches used to offer,
the street looked bald and ordinary, a Litchfield street like any other.

The Stillwell Hardware Store had gone, to be replaced by Zee-Zee
Appliances, with a window full of Frigidaires. Mr. Pedersen had died of
throat cancer three years ago, and the Sherman Grocery had given way to
Waldo's Supermarket.

The creekbed where Elizabeth's mommy had pursued the Peggy-girl in the
summer rain had been all covered over with hardcore and asphalt now, to
make a fifty-car parking-lot.

Baxter's Realty was still here, and so was Endicott's soda fountain,
although Old Man Hauser was in a home now, deaf and blind and
incontinent, and the drugstore was run by a young, lugubrious pharmacist
called Gary with a flat-topped crewcut and red bow tie and heavy
black-rimmed spectacles.

The war had changed Sherman first, and most dramatically, because it had
taken away its self-absorption and its innocence.

In previous generations, the town's children would have stayed, for the
most part, and carried on the town's traditions.

But Clan Marshall the school swimming star had been hit by a mortar bomb
on the beach of Peleliu Island only six minutes after the US 1st Marines
landed there in September 1944. His death was famous because the war
artist Tom Lea had painted his head flying through the air. Dan's
girlfriend Judy Mcguinness, the Prom Queen, had joined the Navy as a
Wave and had married her boss, Rear-Admiral Wilbur Fetterman, and then
divorced him, and now she lived in Charleston, South Carolina, with a
Kaiser-Frazer concessionaire called Hewey Something-or-other.

Molly Albee was married and living in Providence, Rhode Island, with
three gingery babies and a husband who repaired boats. Altogether three
of Elizabeth's friends had died in the war; others had disappeared; but
even those who had returned had brought back with them the outside
world, with its cool and its be-bop and its cynicism, and its hugeness,
too; and once Sherman knew that it was just a minuscule pan of something
huge, it was no longer Sherman, the warm-hearted centre of everybody's
world, but just another place.

Television had changed it next. Those between-wars family evenings by
the Zenith radio were gone for ever, those evenings when shared
imaginations would conjure up Amos'n'Andy, Burns and Alien, and One
Man's Family. Now everybody watched Milton Berle and Hapalong Cassufy
and the kids all sang ''s Howdy Doody time, it's Howdy Doody time, Bob
Smith and Howdy too, say Howdy-Doo to you'. Not only that, but they
could see automobiles and floor-wax and which twin had the Toni, they
could see what was happening in New York, and Washington, and even
London, England, and the loss of innocence was complete.

Elizabeth walked along Putnam Street with its Queen Anne houses and
this, at least, hadn't changed. She reached Lenny's house and walked up
to the porch. As she knocked on the heavy doorknocker she had the most
extraordinary sense that the last eight years hadn't passed at all, and
that she was back where she had been in 1943, knocking, on the Millers'
door to tell Lenny goodbye.

Mrs. Miller answered the door. She was whiter-haired, but still
comfortable and well-rounded, and she must have been cooking, too,
because the house was fragrant with die smell of meadoaf.

"Lizzie Buchanan, well I never! Don't you look the picture!

Come along in!"

Lenny and Mr. Miller were sitting in the living-room, next to a
crackling log fire, drinking coffee and reading the papers. Up above
their heads the canaries still twittered and chirruped in their cages.

Mr. Miller was even thinner than Elizabeth remembered him. Stomach
trouble, that's what Mrs. Patrick had told her.

But he took off his spectacles and stood up and embraced her like a
long-lost daughter, and Lenny stood up too, all proud to have her call
on them.

"You want a cup of coffee?' asked Lenny.

"Actually, no. But I could use a cigarette."

"Mom doesn't like me to smoke in the house."

"All right, then, let's smoke in the garden."

They strolled down to the end of the garden, through the orchard. The
long grass was thick with fallen apples. Elizabeth leaned against one of
the trees and blew out smoke and said, "Sherman's changed, hasn't it? I
didn't really notice until today."

"Everywhere's the same. It's not just the places, though. It's the
people."

"Do you think we're all so different?"

Lenny shrugged. ' day you came to say goodbye, that seems like a whole
world away. I was a rookie, still wet behind the ears, and you were just
a school kid."

"So, what if I was a school kid? I'm still very annoyed that you didn't
realize that I was desperately in love with you."

Lenny gave her a sly grin. ' did realize. Especially later, when you
sent me those swimsuit pictures. You were very cute, Lizzie. But let's
face facts, you were a tad young for me, weren't you?"

"I wasn't too young to have my heart broken."

They walked some more, right to the very end of the Millers'

property, where it tangled into silver birches and traveller's joy. The
more Elizabeth talked to Lenny, the more she found herself liking him.
She had always liked his looks - those-kind of hurt, self-deprecating
eyes, and that very straight nose, and that cleanly-defined jawline. His
face had strength and sensitivity.

"You're not married yet?' he asked her. ''m surprised at that. You were
always writing those romantic stories." Elizabeth blushed and said, '
... just because a girl is romantic, that doesn't mean that she can
always find the right man.' She finished her cigarette, and crushed it
out on the ground. ' dated a couple of guys when I was at high school.

John Studland, you remember him?"

"Dark curly hair, tall. Did a terrible Charlie Mccarthy impersonation."

"That's the one. He was nice. He was really nice."

"Nice?"

"All my boyfriends were nice. I dated a boy in Hartford called Neil
Bennett. He was nice, too. He was so nice that I almost married him. He
gave me a diamond engagement ring and. every thing."

"What was the matter with him?"

"Too nice. I like men with a bit of danger."

"Oh, yes?' laughed Lenny. ' who?"

"I don't know,' Elizabeth blushed. ' haven't met one yet.

Well, I've met one or two authors who seem a bit dangerous.

Felix Rushmore, the man who wrote The Tongue Tells No Stories; and
Haldeman Jones, who wrote Babylon."

"And you think they're dangerous, these two guys?"

Elizabeth shrugged. She felt embarrassed. ' live right on the edge, if
you understand what I mean. They experience everything they can, like
poverty and violence and the dope culture, and they put it all there on
the page."

Lenny flicked his cigarette butt into the trees. ' bet they never ran up
a beach with a tin hat and an M-i rifle and Jap machine-guns going
dogguh-dogguh-dogguh all around them."

Elizabeth looked at him narrowly. There was something in his face which
appealed to her strongly. A woundedness: a vulnerability. ',' she said,
thrusting her hands into the pockets of her coat. ' bet they never did
that." She asked him home for supper and he said okay, sure, he'd love
to. She was quite surprised because he had seemed so defensive, at times
even mocking. She walked back to the house on her own because she wanted
to pay a few visits - first to see Molly Albee's mother and then to
Sycamore Street to see Bindy Morris, who used to be a friend of Laura's.
She suddenly realized as she walked along Putnam Street that she badly
missed Laura -- especially here, in the old home town, where they used
to be so happy together.

She stopped on the corner of Putnam and Oak. This was where she had
first seen the Peggy-girl, on that hot afternoon when Lenny had left for
boot camp. She stood there for a while, looking around. Three or four
automobiles went past but none of them was driven by anybody she knew.

She was walking back along Oak when she saw a girl in a white dress
standing on the stump of the sawn-offoak, about two hundred feet away;
simply standing there with her arms by her sides. She had her back
turned, but Elizabeth was pretty darn sure who she was. She started to
walk quickly towards her, even though she didn't really want to. She had
to. She had to find out who this Peggy-girl was, and what she wanted,
and why her father was afraid of her.

She walked (aster and faster, her heels rapping on the sidewalk. The
girl in white remained where she was, not moving, her dress ruffled by
the breeze.

"Peggy!' called Elizabeth, as she came nearer. '!"

The little girl didn't respond; although a small dog jumped up at
Elizabeth and barked at her and began to trot alongside her.

"Peggy!' Elizabeth called again.

She had almost reached the stump when the little girl turned around. She
wasn't smiling and she wasn't serious. She didn't have a face at all.
She didn't have a head at all, only her empty hair.

Elizabeth stopped and stared, her whole skin-surface prickling with
fear. The faceless girl remained where she was.

"What are you?' Elizabeth whispered. ' do you want? If you were really
Peggy, you wouldn't frighten me like this, would you? Or maybe you
would. Maybe you think it was ay fault, that you fell in the pool and
drowned? Maybe you've always blamed me?"

The little girl leaned towards her. Elizabeth took one step back, and
then another. How could a little girl exist without a face? Sheer cold
panic began began to rise up inside her and there was nothing she could
do to stop it. This was so irrational, especially here in Sherman, as
familiar as her own breath. This was so darn frightening.

The small dog looked at her quizzically, and then at the Peggy-girl, and
nervously yapped. The Peggy-girl leaned further and further over, until
she was leaning at an angle at which nobody could have kept their
balance, Elizabeth took two more steps back, and said, ', Peggy, please
don't. Please don't scare me."

At that instant, a dry autumnal gust of wind blew across Oak Street. It
tossed up gum wrappers and empty cigarette packs and showers of leaves.
It blew Elizabeth's hair across her face, and fluffed up the dog. Then
it caught the Peggy-girl, and blew her around an dover, so that she
curled and swooped and then she was nothing more than a swirl of soft
white fabric, like a biown-away silk scarf, which flew up into the air,
and across the street, fluttering and tumbling. But as a stronger gust
of wind caught it, it flew apart into dozens of separate pieces, and
Elizabeth realized that they weren't silk, but paper, dozens of sheets
of paper. She hesitated at first, but then she hurried across the street
and gathered up six or seven of them. They were all thin, barely more
than tissue, more like Bible-paper than anything else. They were all
blank, too, although one edge was slightly plucked and ragged, as if
they had been torn from a book.

Riddles, she thought. Peggy's asking me riddles. A girl with no face; a
girl who can be blown apart by the wind, into dozens of sheets of blank
paper. She's asking me riddles, and yet she's trying to tell me
something, too - something which she didn't have time to tell me back at
the house. I have the feeling she wants to warn me, besides. All of
these appearances seemed to have a pattern, and a concealed meaning,
like the signs of a coming storm.

The wind got up even more that evening and by six o'clock it thundered.
Edna the nurse gave father his supper and tucked him in for the night.
Huge fat raindrops pattered on the windows, and die gardens outside were
suddenly tungsten white and then plunged back into blackness.

Seamus stood by the kitchen window staring out. ' lights every evening,'
he remarked.

"That's right, Seamus,' said Elizabeth. ' lights every evening. But how
do you know?"

Mrs. Patrick was buttering the potatoes. ' talks such babble these
days." "No,' said Elizabeth, ' don't think he does."

"What do you mean?' Mrs. Patrick demanded. ' lights every evening, he's
always saying that. So where's the sense in that?"

"It comes from a story,' Elizabeth explained. ' was the Snow Queen, who
lived in Finland, and who burned blue lights

every evening. It was a fairy tale way of explaining the Aurora
Borcalis."

Mrs. Patrick looked baffled, so Elizabeth added, ' Northern Lights.
You've heard of the Northern Lights?" "I've heard of all kinds of
things,' said Mrs. Patrick. ' doesn't mean to say that I believe them.
I've seen all kinds of things, too." Elizabeth said, ' haven't seen a
girl, have you? A little girl, aged about ten, all dressed in white?"

Mrs. Patrick looked at Elizabeth seriously. ''s been enough trouble in
this family, don't you think, without imagining more?"

"Well, I suppose."

"Are you going to visit your mommy tomorrow?' It was obvious that she
wanted to change the subject.

Elizabeth nodded.

"Let's pray she recognizes you,' said Mrs. Patrick. ' days she can't
always tell the difference between people and furniture."

"There are quite a few people like that,' she told Mrs. Patrick.

"You should meet my boss."

"He's a harsh man, is he?"

"She's not a man, she's a woman. But, yes, she's harsh. You could use
her tongue to sandpaper the floor." "Well, you know what I think,' said
Mrs. Patrick. ' act of harshness you commit when you're alive, that's
one more birch for your back when you get to Purgatory."

The doorbell rang and Seamus went to answer it. When he had gone, Mrs.
Patrick said, ''t go troubling the poor boy, will you, asking him
questions and suchlike? The things he says, they may sound as if they
have some meaning, but they're nothing but moonshine. Goblin
conversation, that's what his father used to call it." "All right,
then,' said Elizabeth. ' I don't actually agree with you. I believe that
Seamus knows very much more than you think. He has a funny way of
telling us about it, that's all."

"Whatever he knows, he can keep it to himself, as far as I'm concerned."

"You're not frightened, are you?" "Who said anything about being
frightened?"

"When 1 mentioned the little girl, you definitely didn't look happy."

"What are you saying, child? I've never seen such a little girl, never."

"You're sure about that?"

iare you saying you don't believe me?"

"Of course not, Mrs. Patrick. But I've seen her. I've seen her as close
and as dear as you are now. And if I've seen her, I'm surprised that you
haven't."

Mrs. Patrick opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, but
then she closed it again. At that moment there was a knock at the open
kitchen door, and Lenny came in, wearing a smart blue suit and a blue
polka-dot necktie.

"Something sure smells appetizing,' he said.

"It's only plain and simple,' said Mrs. Patrick.

"You won't catch me complaining,' smiled Lenny. ''m a plain and simple
kind of guy."

Mrs. Patrick looked at Elizabeth with a heavily meaningful expression.
''m pleased about that. Some people have a way of being far too
fanciful, don't you think?"

They ate supper in the breakfast-room, because the dining room was far
too chilly and there was no fire. Mrs. Patrick served her
bean-and-vegetable soup, made with Great Northern beans, followed by
roast chicken and apple tart.

Lenny had brought a bottle of red wine and they toasted each other's
health, and made a wish for better days.

After supper, Elizabeth and Lenny went into the living room, where they
sat on the big worn-out velveteen couch and talked about everything that
had happened to them since the war. Seamus came in and stacked more logs
on the fire, and the flames sparkled in Elizabeth's wine glass.

"You were at Guadalcanal, weren't you?' asked Elizabeth.

Lenny sipped his wine and looked away. ' don't talk about it,
generally."

"Was it bad?"

"I try not to think about it. I lost a whole lot of friends. I was
totally convinced that I was going to die, and that's a feeling I never
want to have again, ever."

To change the mood Elizabeth found the big brown-leather photograph
album, and showed him pictures of herself at High School, on vacation in
California, and posing on campus at Hartford.

"I like this one of you crossing your eyes,' Lenny grinned.

Then, ''s this? That can't be Laura, can it?' He was pointing to a
colour photograph of a stunning young blonde girl sitting beside a
swimming-pool in a red swimsuit.

"That's Laura all right. That was when she got her first movie part. She
played a chambermaid in Hotel Ritz. All she had to say was, "Make up
your room, sir?" '

"She's grown up real pretty."

"Let's put it this way, she doesn't lack for boyfriends." ' ' she been
in any more movies?"

"Just little bits and pieces, chorus girls, hatcheck girls, waitresses,
dancers, that kind of thing. This year, though, she thinks she's going
to get her big break."

"Well, luck to her,' said Lenny. ' those looks, she deserves it. And
who's this?"

Elizabeth leaned against his shoulder and peered at the photograph he
was pointing to. It showed herself in New York, standing on the corner
of Central Park South, opposite the Plaza hotel. It was summer and she
was wearing a yellow poplin blouse and a white calf-length skirt. Just
behind her a young girl was standing - dose enough to look as if she
might have been asked to appear in the picture, but not so dose that she
and Elizabeth seemed at all intimate. The girl was very white-faced, and
she was dressed all in white. She must have moved when the photograph
was taken, because her face was blurred, and her eyes were nothing but
two dark smudges.

Elizabeth felt a cold prickling in the palms of her hands. ' don't know
who that is,' she told Lenny. ' some girl." "But, look,' said Lenny, ''s
in this picture, too."

He b'fted the book so that Elizabeth could see it better. And, sure
enough, he was right. The same white-faced girl was standing in the
background. She was further away, her face half turned, but it was
unquestionably the same girl. The strange thing was, this photograph
showed Elizabeth's father, about a month before he suffered his stroke,
standing outside the New Milford Savings Bank.

"She sure gets around, this girl, doesn't she?' said Lenny.

"Look, she's in this one, too; and this one; and this one."

The little girl was turning to look at Elizabeth as she stood by her
father's DeSoto outside the country fairgrounds in Danbury; she was
running across the street, her hair flying, as Elizabeth posed outside
the florists in the middle of Oak Street; she was standing in the
distance with a blurry frown on her face when Elizabeth was sitting on
the beach at Hyannis with her college friend Mimi.

"Is this just a coincidence, or what?' laughed Lenny. ''s everywhere.
She's in every single darned picture. In Sherman.

In Danbury. In New York. On Cape Cod. She's even here in California,
when you went to see Laura. And you're trying to kid me that you don't
know who she is?"

"I swear I have no idea. I don't know how she got in all those pictures.
I mean, I don't see how she could have done."

She closed the album and put it down on the polished oak

coffee table. ' don't understand it. I've looked through those
photographs dozens of times, and I've never seen her before."

She kept staring at the album. She felt like picking it up again, to see
if the Peggy-girl was really there, but she had the strongest intuition
that she would be, and so she left it where it was.

Lenny said, ''s impossible. This album starts around 1946, right? If
that was the same girl in every picture, how come she never got any
older, and how come she was always wearing the same dress? Come on,
admit it. It's a trick. It's something you do to tease people."

"Lenny, I promise you, it isn't a trick, and it isn't a joke."

He picked up the album and opened it. He looked at the first page and
said, ' - she's not in these pictures, is she?' He turned over the next
page, and then the next. He stopped, and pressed his fingertips against
his forehead, like a man who has a sudden twinge of migraine.

"What's the matter?' asked Elizabeth.

"She's not in any of these pictures, either. I could have sworn '

He leafed through page after page, turning them quicker and quicker.
Then he sat back and stared at Elizabeth. ''s gone."

Elizabeth carefully took the album, laid it on her lap, and looked
through every single page. At last she closed it, and stared at Lenny in
utter dread. ''s true, isn't it?' she asked him. ' of all she was there,
and now she's not."

"There must be some kind of an explanation,' said Lenny.

He looked around the room, and up at the chandelier. ' it was an optical
illusion, you know. Reflected light, something like that."

"You know it wasn't."

He hunched forward. ', I know it wasn't. I'm going nuts, that's what it
is. I'm going nuts and you're going nuts.

It's sexual deprivation that does it."

Elizabeth took hold or his hand. ''s something I have to tell you. I saw
that little girl today."

"You saw her? Where?"

"She was standing in my father's bedroom. I don't know how she got
there. I just looked up and there she was. She talked to me. I could
hear her, as dearly as I can hear you. She said she was going to protect
me. Then she collapsed. Well, not really collapsed, but folded up,
shrivelled up, and disappeared. Right in front of my eyes, I swear it."

Lenny eyed her for a long time, and then he said, ' ever hear of
reefers?"

"Of course I've heard of reefers. But I've certainly never smoked one,
if that's what you're trying to suggest."

"Okay, I'm sorry. I'm finding this hard to get to grips with, that's
all. Tell me all about this girl."

"There's nothing much to tell. She appeared, and talked to me, and then
she tried to touch father. That's when I got angry, and I tried to grab
her arms, but she folded up right in front of me, while I was holding
her wrists. In the end, all I was left with was a flower, made out of
frost, which melted."

Lenny was staring at her as if she had just said something in a foreign
language. ' were left with a flower, made of frost?"

Elizabeth, embarrassed, slammed down the album. ' saw those pictures for
yourself! She appears, and then she vanishes, no warning, nothing! I saw
her again on Oak Street, after I came around to your house! She was
standing on the oak stump, as real as anything except that she didn't
have a face.

Hair, but no face, as if-1 don't know, as if her whole head was made of
glass."

"No face, nothing at all?"

"Nothing. I was scared to death."

"And that was today?"

"When do you think? That was this afternoon, when I was walking home
from seeing you. I saw her, Lenny, she was real.

i? i Solid enough to touch! But she kind of blew away, like sheets of
paper, like pages torn out of a book."

"She was real enough to touch and yet she blew away?"

Elizabeth was infuriated. ' don't believe me, do you?

You think that I've lost my mind, like my mother! You think it's a
trick, or a joke, or some kind legpull! Well, if that's what you think
it is, Lenny. look into my eyes, because I'm crying for my sisters and
I'm crying for my parents and most of all I'm crying for me, and if this
is a legpull it isn't a very funny one, is it?"

Lenny quickly seized her hands and said, ', come on, Lizzie, don't get
so steamed up! I'm sorry, I believe what you're telling me. I really do.
Come on, I saw it for myself, I saw the photographs, except that was I
sure that I must have been dreaming, or having some kind of an optical
illusion. I mean that doesn't happen, right? People appearing in
photographs and then they're gone. That doesn't happen."

Elizabeth picked up the album and held it tight against her breasts. '
time, it has happened. This time, it's real."

Lenny swallowed. Then, almost reverently, he said, ''ve seen men dying.
I've seen the shadow of death pass over their faces. I've seen men
talking and laughing when they were shot to pieces and should of been
dead, and I've seen men sitting on the ground dead without a single mark
on them, as if they just decided to stop being alive. But I never saw
anything like this before, and I don't know what to think of it, so what
I'm doing is, I'm trying as hard as I can to believe that it isn't true,
and that I was tired, and my brain was just kidding me along, or maybe
you were." "It's real,' said Elizabeth. Then, much more quietly, but no
less emphatically. ''s real."

"Then what do we do? Laugh it on? Call for a priest, or what?

What the hell do you do when something like this happens?"

"I suppose we have to try to work out what it means."

Lenny frowned, and raked back his hair with his fingers.

"You really think it means something?"

"It must do. I think it's Peggy. In fact, I'm sure of it."

"Peggy? Your little kid sister? The one who drowned?"

Elizabeth nodded. ' know it doesn't look much like her, but it feels so
much like her. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but she won't go
away. It's almost as if she's looking after us, because she made us so
unhappy when she died."

Lenny took out a pack of Luckies, and offered one to Elizabeth. ' some
of those Pacific islands, you know, they believe that you can go into
this hypnotic trance, and talk to your dead relatives. These
witch-doctor types even advertise their services on billboards. Come on
in and chew the fat with your dead Uncle Frank, or whoever."

He lit her cigarette, and then his own, and blew out smoke.

"That's in the Solomons, though - Choiseul and Bougainville.

You don't expect to talk to your dead relatives in Sherman,
Connecticut." Elizabeth said, ''m worried about her. I'm worried that
she's trapped in some sort of terrible betwixt-and-between you know, not
quite living and not quite dead. Souls are supposed to let go, aren't
they. They're not supposed to haunt you. I read somewhere that ghosts
are the souls of people who can't let go, people who can't quite die,
because they've left something unfinished here on earth."

Lenny sat back. ' did your sister leave unfinished?"

"Her life, of course."

"But nothing specific?"

"Not that I can think of."

Elizabeth turned to him. The firelight was dancing in his eyes, and he
looked as sensitive and handsome as she remembered him, from all those
years back, when he was all packed up to join the army. ' believe me,
don't you?' she said.

"Sure I believe you. Why would you make up something like that? Besides,
I saw the photograph album."

"Shall we look at it again?' asked Elizabeth.

"Unh-hunh,' said Lenny, quickly shaking his head. He laid his hand on
top of the album cover so that she wouldn't open it.

"I don't think we need to, do you? Either she's there, or she's not
there. If she's there we'll go crazy; if she's not there, we'll start to
doubt what we really saw - what we know we saw." He paused, and smoked,
and then he said, ' day on Guadalcanal I was sitting outside my tent
eating my midday meal when one of my best buddies came and sat down next
to me. I swear this is true. Ray Thompson, his name was, tall sad guy
from St. Louis, Missouri.

"I didn't look at him too closely. On Guadalcanal there were so many
flies that you concentrated one hundred percent on what you were
eating. We all developed this kind of flick-bite way of eating,
twitching our spoons to shake the flies off, and then quickly swallowing
it before they could settle again. That was a stinking place,
Guadalcanal, let me tell you. There were spiders as big as your fist and
wasps as long as your finger, and tree-leeches, and centipedes that left
a rash when they walked over your skin. Most of us caught malaria or
dengue, and we all had dysentery."

"I don't know how you could bear it."

"I'll tell you how we could bear it, we didn't have the choice.

You want some more wine?"

She passed over her glass. ' were telling me about your friend."

"That's right. Ray and me sat together and talked about home and girls
and this and that. I noticed that Ray wasn't eating but I guessed that
he'd eaten already, because General Vandegrift was always complaining
that we were too damned thin. Mind you, who wouldn't be, with malaria
and dysentery?

For no reason at all, Ray says, "When you get back, tell Carole that
I've left the money under the driver's seat." I turned around to ask him
what he meant, and he was gone. I didn't know where he went. I was
pretty sick by then, I could have been hallucinating. But I never saw
Ray again; and about two days later somebody told me that he was dead.
Not only that, they'd found him in a dump of kunai grass a quarter of a
mile away from the camp, about an hour before he came to talk to me. An
hour before. He talked to me, I swear it, but he was dead."

"Then it does happen,' said Elizabeth, feeling awed.

"I think so. Something lives after you. I don't know what, or for how
long, or why. But I believe it does. I still see men who died on
Guadalcanal. I see them driving in automobiles. I see them in
supermarkets. No man leaves his loved ones, and the life that he worked
so hard for, just because he's dead."

"What about the money?"

"The money under the car seat? I don't know. I wrote to his wife and
told her but she never wrote back. Kind of an unsatisfactory ending,
huh?"

At first, Elizabeth found Lenny's talk about his dead friend to be
convincing and sympathetic. But after he had finished another glass of
wine, and started to tell her that everybody lives after death, and that
all of his Marine buddies could still be found, if only he knew where to
look for them, she began to think that there was something wrong with
him, something irrational. She knew for sure that she had seen Peggy,
but how could Lenny believe that all of his dead friends were still
walking around. Over 1300 Americans had died on Guadalcanal. Surely they
hadn't all returned home, dead, to pick up their lives where they left
oft?

"If somebody wants something bad enough,' Lenny declared. ', death alone
isn't enough to stop him having it, believe me."

Elizabeth went down to the cellar and brought up another bottle of wine.

"Were you really that struck on me?' Lenny asked her, as he poured it
out.

Elizabeth laughed. ' were the love of my life."

"Maybe I should have paid more attention to you."

"You were going to war. You were a man. Why should you have paid any
attention to a gawky thirteen-year-old girl?"

He sat back and lit another cigarette. ' weren't gawky.

You were cute. I always remember you as cute."

"I felt gawky."

"Well, you've certainly changed now. I hardly recognized you when I met
you at the station."

"Thank you,' she said, and found herself blushing. She still found it
difficult to accept compliments without colouring up.

"Can I ask you something personal?' said Lenny. ' you have a steady
beau?"

"I have plenty of men friends, if that's what you mean."

"No, no, I'm talking about somebody steady. The kind of guy who takes
you home to meet his parents, and who starts discussing children, and
where you're going to send them to college."

She smiled at him and shook her head. ', nobody like that. Not now,
anyway. After Haldeman Jones, I dated a writer called Kenwood Priest for
a while, and Kenwood kept talking about buying a house in the Finger
Lakes region and living the life of a recluse, just the lakes and the
trees and the whippoorwills, but that wasn't for me. I spent my whole
childhood in Sherman. I want traffic, and people, and police sirens."

"Kenwood Priest, what did he write?"

"Oh, some thin, sensitive book called The Lost Young Mm. I'll always
remember the last line. "For there is no going forward for us, and no
going back, and we must stand on the shoreline of our growing-up, with
the seagulls keening overhead, until the surf comes in and overwhelms us
at last." '

"Hmm,' said Lenny, swallowing wine. ' kind of mushy to me."

They paused in silence for a moment, with the fire crackling and the
wind blowing hollow in the chimney, and then they both looked at each
other and burst out laughing. It was probably the wine, or tiredness, or
the extreme strangeness of what had appeared in the photo album. But
they laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks.

"Oh God, stop,' begged Elizabeth. ' sides hurt."

But Lenny went on hooting and gasping and clutching himself, until
Elizabeth seized hold of his wrists and shook him and said, ' it, Lenny!
Stop it! You're giving me a stomach ache!"

He stopped laughing and looked up at her. She let go of his wrists, but
he lifted his hand and touched her hair, soft and fine and shiny in the
firelight.

He didn't say a word, but he lifted his face and kissed her, first on
the cheek, then on the lips. Their tongues touched, and spoke in silence
more words than either of them had said since they had first met each
other again. Both of them kept their eyes open, and looked deep and
unfocused into each other's eyes, their lashes still wet and sparkling
from laughing.

They kissed, and kissed again. Lenny held Elizabeth tight in his arms,
his fingers running slowly down her back. Even through his jacket she
could feel how lean and wiry he was. All those months in the Pacific had
taken the flesh off him, and he had never put it back on again, even
after five years of civilian life. He stroked her hair, he stroked her
shoulders. His hand slid around the side of her sweater and cupped her
breast.

She pulled away. ' - I don't think I'm ready for that yet." Lenny
smiled, and shrugged. ''s okay by me. Just following my natural urges."

"You don't mind?"

He leaned forward and kissed her again. ' course I don't mind. It's
quite enough excitement for one evening, finding out that the girl I
always used to like has grown up into the most attractive woman I ever
met."

Elizabeth blushed again. '."

"That's not flattery.' He touched her cheek with his fingertips.

"You really are one of the most beautiful women I ever saw."

"Only one of them?" He grinned, and gave her one more kiss. ',' he said,
' have to be going. I'm taking mom to Hartford tomorrow, and I want to
make an early start."

"It's been good to see you,' said Elizabeth, squeezing his hand.

"How about dinner Saturday night? You'll sail be here?"

"I'd love it."

She found Lenny's coat and he shrugged it on. He stood in the draughty
hallway holding her close, holding her right inside his coat, like warm
wings wrapped around her. Until she stood so close to him she hadn't
realized how tall he was. He smelled of tobacco and musky cologne.

"I know things have been bad for you,' he told her. ' just want you to
know that I'm here to help you out now. Old playmates, huh? You should
go through your dad's papers, you know. See what kind of insurance he's
got, life insurance, pension, disability insurance. His savings won't
last for ever.

"Thanks, I will."

"Goodnight, then, sweet Elizabeth,' he said, and they kissed - a long,
lingering, exploratory kiss. Elizabeth's hand brushed accidentally
against his front and she felt how hard he was, and that feeling was
imprinted on her nerves for hours to come, in the same way that a
dazzling light is imprinted on the eye. By the time the rear lights of
his Frazer had disappeared behind the trees, she knew that she was
dangerously infatuated with him. But then, she supposed that she always
had been.

She went around the house, damping down the fires and drawing back the
dusty velvet drapes. She didn't like coming downstairs in the morning to
find the house in darkness. The house was silent and filled with heavy
regret. All the house could do now was to wait for Elizabeth's father to
be moved to hospital, or to die, and then it would welcome a new family.

The days of the Buchanan household were gone for even Elizabeth, Laura
and Peggy, their giggling echoing in the corridors, their slippers
scampering down the stairs.

Elizabeth poked the living-room fire until the last log collapsed deep
into the hearth, and set up the fireguard around it. Then she walked
through to the kitchen, drew back the gingham curtains, and ran the tap
for a glass of cold water to take to bed.

She didn't look out of the window at first, but then the moon suddenly
appeared from behind the clouds, almost a full moon, fuzzy and
pearly-blue. She was filling her glass, and she dropped it into the sink
in fright. Right in the middle of the tennis court stood a small white
figure in a coat and beret, a small white lonely figure as still as
death.

"Oh, my God,' whispered Elizabeth. ', my God, no. Don't let it be that."
Swallowing with fear, she went to the kitchen door and lifted down the
old duffel coat that her father always wore when he went out to fetch
firewood. She pulled it on, unlocked the door, and stepped out into the
frosty night. This time there was no cat to watch her with slitted,
disapproving eyes; Ampersand had died three years ago, under the wheels
of a furniture truck.

She crossed the lawn in a hurried, uneven lope. The figure hadn't moved.
It stood exactly in the centre of the tennis court, facing the house. In
the moonlight she could see already that its face was a kind of dirty
grey, and that its eyes were smudgy and dark.

She slowed down as she reached the tennis court itself, and she
approached the figure with extreme nervousness and caution. Eventually,
however, she was near enough to touch it, although she didn't. She
didn't have to, because she knew what it was made of.

It was the snow-angel that she and Laura had made for Peggy. It was
dressed in Peggy's brown beret and Peggy's red kilt and Peggy's brown
tweed coat. It had a misshapen fertilizer sack for a face, and two black
holes for eyes, burned with a red-hot poker.

It was the snow-angel, made of snow, even though it hadn't snowed since
early April.

Elizabeth stared at it, her breath smoking, her heart beating far too
fast. What did this mean? What did all of this mean?

Had somebody built it for her, to taunt her? Or had they built it to
frighten her father?

Maybe it was nothing more than a strange, random occurrence - one of
those supernatural phenomena like faces that appeared in mirrors and
empty rooms that filled up with blowflies and voices that sobbed in the
night. Maybe it had no rational meaning at all.

All the same, it frightened Elizabeth badly. She felt as if she was
being given a warning. Who else knew about the snow angel, apart from
father and mommy, herself and Laura?

Nobody. Nobody at all. But father was paralysed, mommy was still in her
clinic, only semi-rational most of the time, and Laura was three
thousand miles away in California. What was even more bewildering than
who might have built it was how they had built it. It was unseasonably
cold for October, but not cold enough to snow. Yet, inexplicably, here
was a snow-angel, just as the pool had frozen over in the middle of June
and the Reverend Dick Bracewaite had died of frostbite on a sweltering
summer's afternoon.

"The winter did it,' die Peggy-girl had told her, in father's bedroom.
But what did that mean? ' winter did it.' There was no winter anywhere;
no trace of winter; not real winter; not yet.

Elizabeth circled around the snow-angel. She could even smell the
coldness of it. It stared at her mockingly with its charred, lopsided
eyes. She stood still, and looked around the gardens. There was a thin,
chilly wind blowing, which set the dry leaves rustling across the lawns.
More clouds began to run across the moon, and the darkness thickened.
Only the snow angel remained luminous and bright.

Elizabeth was tempted to find a shovel and knock the figure down. But
then she thought, no, I'll go get Mrs. Patrick out of bed, and I'll ask
her to come here and see it for herself. Then at least I'll have a
witness, and I'll know for sure that I'm not going completely insane.

She hurried back to the house, went inside, and locked the kitchen door.
She left the house by the front door, crossed the driveway, and hurried
down the street, turning off at the shingle-graded track that led down
to Mrs. Patrick's farmhouse.

There were no lights down the track and only a single light visible at
Green Pond Farm, and almost the only way in which she could tell where
she was walking was because of the skinny silver birches which lined the
track on either side, each as white and thin as a sudden shriek. Her
feet crunched on the shingle. Invisible animals scurried through the
undergrowth; sleeping birds stirred.

Three-quarters of the way down the track, she thought she heard another
sound - the sound of somebody singing. She stopped and listened, but all
she could hear was the wind in the branches and the crackling of dead
leaves. She turned back and looked towards the house. It looked very
large and dilapidated from here, almost abandoned. She thought of the
photograph album with all of those images of the Peggy-girl in it, and
she thought for a chilling split second that she could see the
Peggy-girl standing beside the front of the house, but then she realized
that it was nothing but the white-painted garage door, framed into a
shifting, irregular shape by the leafless bushes that grew beside it.

She carried on walking - through the gate and past the pigsties. The
Patricks didn't keep pigs any longer, but they still smelled of pig. She
went up the steps of the front verandah and pressed the doorbell.

While she waited, she listened to the night. She could hear a train
rattling very far away; and the sound of branches creaking. She was sure
she could hear someone singing, someone very high and dear. At first she
thought it was the Patricks' television, but it had such clarity that it
didn't sound like television, and apart from that the words were very
strung out, with long silences in between, as if somebody was walking
and singing at the same time, and sometimes forgetting to sing.

She almost caught it, but then the front door opened, and the screen
door squeaked. It was Clan Philips. Mrs. Patrick's younger brother, who
mostly ran the farm these days, him and his wife Bridget. His fiery red
hair was mostly grey these days, but he was just as ruddy and bulbous as
the rest of the family, and he looked just like Mrs. Patrick dressed up
as a man.

"Why Lizzie Buchanan, is that you?"

"Hallo, Mi- Philips. Has Mrs. Patrick gone to bed yet?"

"She's not here. Seamus had one of his turns about an hour ago, worst
one so far. The doctor came and they've taken him

down across to New Milford, so that they can keep their eye on him."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. He's going to be all right, isn't he?"

Clan Philips shrugged. ''re all saying our prayers, Lizzie."

Elizabeth hesitated for a moment, and then she said, ' know this is a
terrible imposition, Mr. Philips, but do you think you could spare just
five minutes to look at something?"

"I don't know ... I'm supposed to be waiting on the telephone."

"It won't even take five minutes, I promise you. It's something in the
garden, back at the house. It's kind of a phenomenon, and I need a
witness."

"It's a what?"

"A phenomenon. Something really strange. The trouble is, it's not going
to last, and I don't think anybody is going to believe me, unless
somebody else takes a look at it."

"I'm sorry, Lizzie, I'm not sure. If my sister calls - '

"It really won't take a moment, Mr. Philips. I promise you."

He gave her an odd, questioning look. ' wouldn't be a flying saucer,
would it? I was reading about them flying saucers in the paper. Some guy
from Wyoming got himself kidnapped."

"Nothing like that. Please." He thought hard for a moment. Then he said,
' right, then. I'll take the phone off the hook so they'll know that I'm
still here."

He went back into the farmhouse and returned a few moments later,
shucking on his green raglan overcoat.

"I really appreciate this,' Elizabeth told him, and meant it.

They walked up the track together. The wind had died away, but the
temperature had dropped dramatically, two or three degrees below
freezing, and they found themselves walking unusually quickly, not
because they were pushed for time, but to keep themselves warm. Their
breath fumed; and all around them they could hear the soft crackling of
hoar frost, as it froze the branches and the fallen leaves.

"Snappy night,' Clan remarked, pushing his hands deep into the pockets
of his coat. ' knew it so cold as this, this time of year." Elizabeth
said nothing, but hurried on.

They reached the house, and walked around the darkened conservatory
towards the tennis court. The grass was thick with frost now, and they
left glittering footprints behind them.

"What is it you want me to see?' asked Clan, puffing.

Elizabeth crossed the tennis court. The snow-angel had gone. She looked
around everywhere. She stared at the ground to see if there were any
trace of shovel marks, or scattered snow.

But there was nothing, only the hard sparkling frost. No snow angel, no
beret, no coat, no kilt. No sacking face with poker burned holes for
eyes.

"It was here,' she said, in frustration.

"Maybe if you tell me what I was, I might be able to help you look for
it,' Clan suggested.

"I don't think you'd believe me. That was why I wanted you to see it for
yourself."

"Well, if it's gone, I don't see that it makes too much difference."

Elizabeth peered into the darkness, and gave an involuntary shiver. She
felt that there was something concealed in the night, some cold and
heartless presence, something that was more than just a white-faced
manifestation of her drowned sister. Something that was huge.

Clan looked at his wristwatch. ''m sorry, Lizzie, I'm going to have to
get back."

"All right, I'll tell you what it was. It was a figure made of snow."

There was a long pause, and then Clan Philips said, ' haven't had any
snow."

"That was why I wanted you to see it."

"When you say "a figure"?"

"It was a little girl, all made out of snow. She wore a beret and a coat
and she had a sack for her face."

Clan slowly surveyed the garden, his hands on his hips, sucking in his
lips. Then he said, '. If it was here before, it surely ain't here now."

He was just about to turn to go when Elizabeth thought she glimpsed a
small white shape on the very far side of the garden, underneath the
overhanging trees.

"Look,' she said. ''t that somebody there?"

Clan peered at it with his eyes slitted. ' be. You want to take a quick
look?"

They walked down the sloping garden. It was very dark now, and Elizabeth
stumbled twice. The second time Clan caught her elbow, and said, ' a
care, now. You don't want to go breaking your ankle. Even a phenomenon
ain't worth that."

They reached the trees; but the small white shape had vanished, if it
had really been here at all.

"I'm sorry to have dragged you all the way up here for nothing,' said
Elizabeth. ' just hope you don't think that I'm going out of my mind."

"Don't believe that's for me to say, Lizzie,' Clan Philips replied.

He turned to go; but as he turned there was an earsplitting fusillade of
crackling noises from the trees. He said, ' the hell?' and Elizabeth
couldn't stop herself from gasping.

The crackling went on and on. Right in front of their eyes, branch by
branch, twig by twig, the oaks turned frosty white.

They looked as if they were being sprayed by a firehose on an icy day,
building up fantastic lumps and columns and sparkling stalactites. In
fact, the temperature had plummeted so low that they were being coated
in frozen moisture out of the air.

Soon the trees scarcely looked like trees at all, but extraordinary
twisted temples, glistening with cold, with gargoyles and balustrades
and spires. Whole branches splintered and came lurching off,
overburdened with ice. Trunks split in half.

And all the time the temperature dropped and dropped and kept on
dropping. The lawns all around them were thickly encrusted with frost,
and the grass was so intensely frozen that it snapped when they stepped
on it.

What is it?' Elizabeth screamed. ' is it getting so cold?" "Don't ask
me!' Clan shouted back at her. ' I think it's time you and me beat the
retreat!"

They started to run back up the lawn. But they hadn't gone more than six
or seven paces when Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder and saw the
white-faced Peggy-girl standing just in front of the frozen trees. Both
of her arms were raised, as if she were hailing them, or calling them to
come back. Elizabeth snatched at Dan's sleeve. Both of them stopped
running.

"She's here,' said Elizabeth, her voice white with panic.

"That's no snowman,' he protested. ''s only a girl."

"I know it is. But they're one and the same."

"One and the same? Lizzie, I'm sure I don't know what the two-toned
tonkert you're talking about. But I think your best course of what to do
next is to put as much distance between you and this house as you
possibly can."

He started to run again, but Elizabeth didn't follow him. The Peggy-girl
was gliding across the grass towards her, leaving no footprints
whatsoever. Her hair was rimed with ice, her dress was stiff as frozen
washing, her eyes were horrifyingly dark. Elizabeth took one
half-staggering step away from her, but she couldn't make her legs work
properly. All she could do was stare back at this apparition and pray
that it wouldn't touch her.

The Peggy-girl came dose, almost dose enough to touch.

"You remember the night you made the snow-angel?' she said, although her
lips didn't appear to be moving.

"I remember,' said Elizabeth, still aghast.

"That was the night you kept me here for ever."

"I don't understand. You'll have to tell me what you want. I can't help
you if I don't know what you want."

"You can't help . anyway,' said the Peggy-girl. Elizabeth could scarcely
hear her over the crackling and snapping of the trees. They sounded like
a rifle-range.

Clan stopped halfway back to the tennis court. '! Who is that, Lizzie?
Come on, honey, I think it's best if I get back to Green Pond, and you
get back in the house."

Elizabeth ignored him. She didn't want to turn her back on the
Peggy-girl. She had the strongest feeling that if she did, the
Peggy-girl would jump onto her back and cling oh tight and freeze her to
death. She didn't want to die the same way that the Reverend Bracewaite
had died.

"Come on, Lizzie!' Clan shouted.

But Elizabeth gave him nothing but a quick backhand wave, indicating
that he should wait for a moment. ' have to know what you're doing,' she
said to the Peggy-girl. ' are you following me? Why are you here?"

"Don't you want me to be here?"

"Of course I do. But I have to face up to the fact that Peggy's dead.
That you're dead. I've grieved, I've done my grieving, I've come to
terms with it. And now you're here; and everwhere else."

"I'm here to protect you."

"I don't need your protection. I don't want your protection."

"Don't you think so?' said the Peggy-girl. ' don't know what you did."

"Lizzie!' Clan repeated. ' really gotta go!"

He came jogging back down the slope. His face was red but his eyelashes
were white with frost, and there were icicles hanging from his cap.

"Who's this?' he asked.

Elizabeth said, without taking her eyes off her. ' call her Peggy."

Clan looked uncomfortable, but then he took hold of Elizabeth's arm, and
tried to pull her away. ' on Lizzie, I don't know what's happening here,
but you'd be better off out of it," The Peggy-girl turned to stare at
him with those smudgy eyes of her. ' mustn't touch her,' she warned him.

"And who's going to stop me, missy?"

The Peggy-girl looked back at Elizabeth.' You don't know what you did,'
she whispered, almost hissed it.

At that instant, the oaks splintered even more loudly. Clan lifted his
head, and frowned, his hand still clutching Elizabeth's wrist. '
coming,' he said, in the softest of voices. ' very big.' \

"Yes, said the Peggy-girl, and her dead-white lips slowly pursed into a
humourless, self-satisfied smirk. ' very big-"

Even Elizabeth could hear it now: the steady crunching of footsteps
through the frozen forest. It could have been a man, or a large
predatory animal. Whatever it was, it was approaching them fast, very
fast, and its progress through the trees was frighteningly noisy. It was
breaking all the ice-petrified branches that stood in its way. Even
saplings were cracking in half, and silver birches, and as it neared the
treeline Elizabeth could see the branches shaking, and undergrowth
exploding in bursts of ice.

"For God's sake what is it?' whispered Clan.

But the second it burst out of the trees, a screaming wind started up,
with such abruptness that Elizabeth thought at first that it was Clan
who had screamed. The whole garden was instantly filled with thick,
driving snow, thick whirling flakes of ^ it, and Elizabeth had to raise
her hand to protect her face. She saw the Peggy-girl's face for a few
moments, with her smudgy eyes and her mean little smile, and then the
blizzard whitcd her out completely. White face, white dress - both were
obliterated in seconds by a furious curtain of white.

Clan pulled violently at Elizabeth's sleeve and shouted, "Come on, let's
get out of here!"

She resisted for a moment, trying to see where the Peggy-girl might have
gone. She was desperate to find out what it was that the Peggy-girl
wanted, why she kept on appearing so persistently.

But then a vast black shape appeared through the snow - so black that it
was only visible because of the way in which the snowflakes flew around
it. It was black as velvet, black as a casket with the lid closed. Night
black: eye-shut black. And it was huge. It towered over them, fourteen
or fifteen feet tall, shaped like a woman in a hooded cape, but a cape
which was hunched up at the back.

Clan stood staring at it for a moment, his mouth open, his eyes blinking
against the blizzard. The shape came closer and closer, and the only
sound it made was the felted squeaking of feet on thick snow. The shape
brought with it an aura of even more intense cold. Elizabeth saw Dan's
eyebrows spangle with ice. His breath turned to dry crystals, and blew
out of his nostrils like Christmas glitter. She felt her own hair
crackle, and her forehead felt as if she had been pressing it against a
cold metal door.

Clan released his grip on her sleeve and started, heavily, to run.
Elizabeth tried to run, too, in the opposite direction, but almost at
once she caught her foot on the bricks that edged the pathway, and fell
onto her knees. She turned around. It was too cold to cry out. Every
breath that dropped into her lungs was agony. She saw Clan stumbling back
uphill through the knee deep drifts, and close behind him, the huge
black hunched-up shape. Clan didn't turn around. He kept on stumbling
through the snow, his head bent in concentration, his arms stiffly
swinging to give him balance. He had almost reached the steps that led
around the side of the house, but the shape was very close behind him -
so dose that it momentarily blocked out Elizabeth's view of him.

She couldn't think what it was. Bears could grow as big as this; but
bears hadn't been seen in these woods for over a hundred years; and what
bear brought its own blizzard with it?

It was more like some grotesque kind of pantomime-horse; or the shadow
of a pantomime-horse, black as the fabric of the night.

Clan Patrick managed to reach the foot of the steps; but here he
stopped. The temperature around him was so low that the bricks in the
steps split with a sound like pistol shots, and the rose bushes
splintered into shards of desiccated twig. Clan managed to lift one arm.
His hand was as white as a statue's hand, and just as rigid. Right in
front of his eyes, his fingers cracked off, and dropped into the snow.
Then his whole palm split apart, skin and blood and bone all frozen into
lumps of human salts. He didn't cry out. His lungs were frozen solid.
His coat broke, as stiff as a board, and then his dark blue sweater and
his shirt.

The black shape circled around him in a fluid, threatening lope, the
snow flying off it in all directions. Elizabeth knelt in the snow and
watched in horror as Clan Philips broke into pieces - his ribcage
splitting, his stomach dropping out like a big red stone, his lungs
crushed into heaps of sugar-pink frost. His skull split with a terrible
resonant crack, and his head broke into halves. One half dropped onto
the steps and lay in the snow, staring at Elizabeth with one frozen,
milk-white eye.

The black shape flowed around the remains of his broken-off stump of a
body, which was frozen upright. Around and around it flowed, stirring
the snow into whorls and eddies.

There was a creaking, straining sound, like a shop window about to
shatter. There was a single second of absolute frozen tension. Then the
remains of Dan's body exploded into thousands of fragments of ice. All
that was left to show that he had been standing there was a few
scattered fingers, a divided face, and a mauvish glittering stain on the
snow.

Gasping, Elizabeth tried to climb to her feet. She was terrified that
the black shape was going to come after her now.

She was sun it would: it was so cold, so heartless, so predatory.

She staggered six or seven steps across the lawns, but she was so cold
that she could hardly bend her knees or her elbows, and her lungs felt
as if they had been hosed out with sea water. She coughed, and choked,
and had to stop, her hand cupped over her mouth. She was sure that she
could hear die shape squeaking across the garden towards her, but she
didn't want to look behind her to see how near it was. She knew that she
was far too cold to get away from it. She was so cold that she almost
didn't care.

She heard the air splintering all around her. Oxygen and hydrogen,
actually freezing. She felt as if her brain were being clenched. She
thought, God help me.

It was then that she saw something white moving towards her through the
snow. It came closer and closer, and soon it was dose enough for her to
see that it was the Peggy-girl, in her white summer dress, with thick
white burrs of snow dinging to her hair.

"You're quite safe,' she said. ' said I was here to protect you."

Elizabeth stared at her, and then wildly turned around. The black shape
had vanished, the snowy garden was deserted, and already the blizzard
was easing off.

"What was that?' she said, her eyes still wide. ' was it, Peggy? What?"
"Didn't you recognize it?' asked the Peggy-girl.

"What do you mean? It's killed Clan Philips! It's killed him!"

"He shouldn't have interfered, should he? He should have stayed at
home."

"He didn't do anything! He only came to look at the snowangel." "Ah, yes
...' said the Peggy-girl, wistfully.

"What was that?' Elizabeth repeated. Her teeth were chattering so
furiously that she could barely speak. ' shape, that thing in the snow?*

The Peggy-girl dosed her eyes, and touched her lips with her fingers. It
was a sign, it meant something, but Elizabeth couldn't understand what.
She began to limp back towards the house, still shaking with cold, but
by the time she let herself in through the front door, the snowstorm had
died away, and a much wanner wind was beginning to blow.

The first thing she noticed was that all the docks had stopped.

The house was completely silent, except for the occasional lurching of a
dying fire. She went upstairs, still wearing her coat, and hurried
directly to her father's bedroom. The dock had stopped in here, too, but
her father was still breathing. She kissed him on the forehead and he
was cold. She would come back up and change him and give him a hot
water-bottle; but first she had to call the police.

Sheriffmaxwell Brant arrived fifteen minutes later, with two deputies
and a photographer. Almost immediately behind him came an ambulance, its
red lights flashing through the trees.

Elizabeth switched on the floodlights that they once used when they
played tennis on summer evenings, and Sheriff Brant and his deputies
carried powerful flashlights of their own. They approached the steps
where Clan had died, their beams flicking from side to side. Elizabeth
stayed well back, and said, "There ... that's all that's left of him."

Sheriff Brant was a lean, grandfatherly rail of a man, with
short-cropped grey hair and metal-rimmed spectacles and eyes that always
looked as if they were focused on the far distance, just over your
shoulder. His two deputies were young and callow. One had a wispy brown
moustache that looked as if it had taken him a year to grow. The other
was spotty, and kept blushing.

The ambulance had brought Dr. Ferris from the hospital. He was Seamus
Patrick's doctor, too, and he had been attending to Seamus when
Elizabeth had raised the alarm.

The Sheriff looked quickly around the garden. All the snow had melted
away, but there was still a smell of chilly dampness in the air, a smell
of thawing-out.

"Cold here,' he. remarked. Then he walked cautiously forward and
examined what was left of Clan Philips.

The right half of Dan's head lay on the third step down, one eye still
open. His face had spilt so cleanly in half that it looked as if the
rest of it were buried in the brick. The other half, in fact, was lying
split-side up in the rose bed, a cross-section of head, complete with
reddened sinuses and teeth and a fat purple tongue that was seasoned
with compost. There were fingers everywhere, and toes, too, and part of
a ribcage. But the rest of Clan was nothing but a glistening, gelid
pool, as if somebody had poured three or four bottles of cough syrup
onto the grass. The smell of death, however, was just as strong as it
always was, when somebody was freshly-killed. Sweet, musky and cloying -
the kind of smell that stays in your nostrils for days and which affects
everything you taste.

Dr. Ferns came up, toting his bag, a cigarette dangling out of the side
of his mouth. He hadn't worn the years too well: his face was deeply
lined and his hair was stained with nicotine.

He looked sicker than some of his patients.

"How's it going, Maxwell?' he asked. He put down his bag and briskly
rubbed his hands together. ' here, isn't it? If I didn't know better I'd
say that we're due for some snow."

Sheriff Brant nodded toward the remains that were lying on the ground. '
Philips, poor bastard. Don't even ask me to guess what happened to him."

Dr. Ferris approached the remains with one eye closed against the smoke
from his cigarette and the other suspiciously narrowed. ',' he said.

Brant said, ' it was acid, what do you think? I saw some goop like that
before once, back in White Plains, when some realtor strangled his wife
and tried to dissolve her body in sulphuric acid."

"This reminds me of when I was in the service,' put in the spotty
deputy. ' were practising with hand grenades, and one of my pals forgot
to let go of his. His belly was nothing but pink paste."

"Will you please watch what you're saying,' said Brant.

"Miss. Buchanan's still here; and I reckon that she's probably had more
than enough distress for one night."

"I'll just go inside if you don't mind,' said Elizabeth. She was feeling
trembly and shocked now, and overwhelmed by the strangeness of what had
happened. She couldn't stop thinking about that huge dark shape with the
snow flying off it, and the crushing crackle of Dan's body falling
apart.

"I'll come along with you,' said Brant. ' ... I'll leave the bits and
pieces to you for a while. Carl, take pictures of the whole surrounding
area, but tread careful. I don't want any evidence being trampled, the
way you trampled over that dognapping case." "Don't worry, Sheriff,'
said the photographer. ' can count on me."

Sheriff Brant took Elizabeth by the elbow and guided her inside. She
took him into the living-room and poked the fire, so that it began to
burn up again.

"You want a cup of tea, Sheriff?' she asked him.

"Don't you bother yourself, Miss. Buchanan. You've had a pretty serious
shock."

Elizabeth sat down and took out a cigarette. Her hands were shaking so
much that Brant had to light it for her. He watched her as she inhaled
and blew out smoke.

"Do you think you can tell me what happened?' he asked her, sitting down
next to her.

"I don't really know,' she told him. ' were out in the garden when all
of a sudden it turned cold. Bitterly, bitterly cold. It started to snow
and Mr. Philips and I got separated in the storm. The next thing I knew
he was lying there literally in pieces. It was awful."

"Excuse me, did you say that it started to snow?"

She drew on her cigarette, nodded. ' was really thick. I couldn't see
anything at all."

"Miss. Buchanan, we haven't had snow since the middle of March. Apart
from that, if there was snow, and if that snow was really thick, like
you said it was, where is it now?"

Elizabeth shook her head. She couldn't imagine where it was. She could
hardly believe that it had fallen at all. She had wondered if she ought
to try to explain to Sheriff Brant about the Peggy-girl, and the black
shape that had pursued Clan Philips up the garden, but for some dark,
tightly-knotted reason she had decided that it would probably be wiser
not to.

Sheriff Brant said, ' you all right, Miss. Buchanan?

You're looking kind of pale."

"It's just the shock of it, I think. I can't believe it really happened.
He just froze - froze solid - and fell to pieces."

"So you actually witnessed him fall to pieces?"

"One minute he was trying to run, the next he was all broken up. I
couldn't see anything. All I could see was poor Mr. Philips and all of
that snow."

At that moment, Mrs. Patrick came bustling in, still wearing her
overcoat. Her nose was red from the cold but otherwise her face was
drained of colour. Somebody else came in behind her Wally Grierson, the
previous county sheriff, now retired. He looked like a motheaten old
bear these days, big and old and sagging, but his expression was
concerned and kindly, and he lifted his hand to Elizabeth in a quick,
avuncular wave.

"Oh, Lizzie!' sobbed Mrs. Patrick, crossing the room and holding out her
arms. ', Lizzie, what in the Lord's name happened?"

Elizabeth took Mrs. Patrick in her arms, and for the first time in her
life she found that she was comforting Mrs. Patrick, instead of the
other way about. It was another moment of coming-of-age; but she would
have given up everything she owned to have it any other way.

Wally Grierson was sitting in the kitchen with Sheriff Brant when
Elizabeth came in. Mrs. Patrick had brewed up coffee, and they were
dunking ginger cookies in their mugs.

"How're you feeling?' Wally asked her. ' darn shaky, I'll bet."

"Dopey, more than anything. Dr. Ferns gave me a tranquillizer."

"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

Elizabeth unhooked a coffee mug from the hutch, and half filled it with
coffee. ' can if you like. But there isn't much else I can tell you.
There was snow, that was all. I don't know where it came from and I
don't know where it went."

Wally sniffed. ' you know what Dr. Ferns said? He said that for a human
body to be so frozen that it actually broke into pieces, it'd have to be
chilled down to minus two hundred degrees Centigrade, or more; and,
frankly, that's pretty well impossible, out in the garden like that,
even in a snowstorm." "I can't explain it,' said Elizabeth. ' can't
explain the snow, I can't explain how Mr. Philips broke to pieces. I
wish I could."

"Do you know why Sheriff Brant called me over here?' asked Wally. '
called me over because of what happened to the Reverend Bracewaite,
remember that?"

"Of course I remember it. Sure."

"The Reverend Bracewaite died of frostbite in June. He wasn't so
seriously frozen as Clan, not by any means. But what happened to him was
just as impossible as what happened here tonight. Intense, unnatural
cold, that's what we're talking about. Stranger than fiction, don't you
think? But stranger still is the fact that you were the only witness to
both of these fatalities."

"I know. But I don't know why."

Wally stood up and walked around the kitchen table until he was standing
right behind her. ' - do you have even half an inkling of what this is
all about? If you do, you really ought to share it with me, don't you
think?"

She shook her head. She didn't quite feel real. But when it came down to
it, what was real? Stranger than fiction, Wally had said, and Elizabeth
thought of the wind-gusted pages that had scattered across Oak Street --
pages of a book that hadn't yet been written, and maybe never would be.

The snow must have been real, the cold must have been real, because Clan
Philips was dead and Wally Grierson wanted to know why. She was also
beginning to suspect that the Peggy girl was real. It was true that she
was capable of appearing and vanishing whenever she wanted to; and that
she could raise up snowstorms. It was true that she could collapse into
nothing at all, and appear whenever she wanted to. But she was real. She
existed just as surely as Peggy had existed.

Something of Peggy had outlived her drowning. But whatever it was, it
was more than little Clothes-Peg. Little Clothes Peg couldn't have
caused a blizzard; or summoned up a dark shape that crumbled Clan into
lumps of bloody frost.

Mrs. Patrick came back into the kitchen. Til be off now, Lizzie,' she
said. ' won't be in tomorrow if you don't mind but I'll ask Daisy
O'Connell to come over for you." Elizabeth said, ''m so sorry. About
Clan."

Mrs. Patrick gave Elizabeth a long, sad, complicated look, as if she
were searching her eyes for a mystery. ', you've no need to be sorry. It
was a freak of Nature, that's all. The will of God."

"I don't think so,' said Elizabeth. ' would never have willed your
brother dead; never; not until his time."

"Maybe his time had come, God bless him."

Elizabeth stood up and hugged Mrs. Patrick tightly. ' you going to the
hospital tomorrow? Give my love to Seamus. Tell him I miss him. Tell him
we all miss him. Tell him Eternity."

"Eternity?' blinked Mrs. Patrick. ' should I tell him that?"

"He'll know what it means."

"Seamus doesn't know what anything means. He's been stricken."

"Please, Mrs. Patrick. He'll know what Eternity means."

"Very well, then,' said Mrs. Patrick. She nodded goodnight to
Sheriffbrant, and to Wally Grierson, who nodded his head and said, ' you
kindly for the coffee, Katherine. It was appreciated."

Elizabeth opened the front door for them. The night was crisp and
silent, and the moon was low in the sky. As they left, Elizabeth
thought: Katherine. In all these years I never knew her name was
Katherine, and now I do, and all the more vulnerable she looks for it,
too.

Wally paused in the hallway, and looked around, and listened.

"Your clocks have stopped,' he remarked.

"I know. All of them did, after the snowstorm."

Wally approached the long-case clock beside the door. It was father's
pride and joy, a Thomas Tompion that he had bought in New Canaan after
the success of his Famous Haunting! of Rural Connecticut. It was
veneered with honey-gloss lacquer that looked almost good enough to
lick, like hard-shelled candy.

Wally peered deep into the clock's interior with his head cocked on one
side, and then he said, '. Stopped at eleven-oh-two precisely." He said,
' me, won't you?' and walked back into the living-room, where a wooden
ship's clock stood on the shelf above the fire.

"Stopped!' he called. '-oh-three, but that's near enough for me."

He went through to the kitchen, then the scullery, then the dining-room.
Every dock in the entire house had stopped around .

Back in the hallway, he said to Elizabeth, ' me see your watch."

He took her hand in his hand. His fingers were enormous, compared to
hers, swollen and red like sausages. All the same, his touch was
infinitely gentle, and when he looked at her watch and raised her eyes,
she could see how concerned he was.

"Your watch has stopped, too,' said Wally. ' same time --
eleven-oh-two."

"Why do you think that happened?' frowned Elizabeth, shaking her wrist,
and then listening to see if the watch was ticking again.

"Some kind of strong magnetic wave, that's what Dr. Ferris thinks. The
same thing happened when the Reverend Bracewaite died. Even his cutlery
was shifted, that's how strong it was - one side of the kitchen drawer
to the other."

Sheriff Brant said, ' you finished up, Wally, dr what?"

"I'm just coming,' said Wally. He looked down at Elizabeth and said, '
idea. Give me just one idea. This whole thing has been tormenting me all
these years." "I don't know,' said Elizabeth. ' really don't."

"You said Eternity to Mrs. Patrick. What did that mean?"

"It comes from a story, The Snow Quern. I used to read it to my sisters
when they were small. I guess Seamus must have heard it, too, because
he's always quoting bits out of it."

"Go on,' Wally urged her.

"It can't be relevant,' said Elizabeth. ' to what happened to poor Mr.
Philips."

"Still, tell me about it." "All right, then.' Elizabeth sighed. She was
feeling desperately fatigued now, and she could scarcely keep her eyes
open. ' says in the story that the Snow Queen lived in a huge palace,
with a hundred halls, some of which were miles and miles long. She spent
most of her days sitting in an empty, interminable saloon all made of
snow, and in the middle of the empty, interminable saloon all made of
snow lay a frozen lake, which was broken into a thousand pieces, like a
Chinese puzzle. She called it the Ice-Puzzle of Reason. The Snow Queen
had abducted a boy called Kay, and he spent all his time trying to form
these pieces into words, but there was only one woro which he could
never manage to form, and that was Eternity.

"The Snow Queen said, "When you can put that word together, you shall
become your own master and I will give you the whole world." '

Sheriff Brant said, ' on, Wally. It's almost two."

But Wally lifted a hand and said, ', I want to listen to this. Why did
you say Eternity to Mrs. Patrick?"

"Because if Seamus manages to put back together all of the broken-up
pieces in his head, he'll be his own man again, and the whole world will
be his."

Wally thought about that, and then he said, very softly, ' think he'll
understand that?"

"I think so. I was brought up with Seamus. Seamus understands more than
most people know." Wally said, ' interests me, Lizzie, is all this talk
of snow, all this talk of ice. Look what happened to Clan Philips
tonight, and the Reverend Bracewaite. Is this all just coincidence, or
are we talking about some kind of connection here ... I don't know, some
kind of missing link between life and stories? What do you think?"

Elizabeth thought of her copy of The Snow Queen concealed beneath the
garden shed and the guilt that she had felt when she had hidden it. She
didn't blush. She was far too tired to blush. But she felt as if an
earth-tremor had passed beneath her feet, and temporarily unbalanced
her. She felt as if she were very dose to understanding what had
happened. But she also felt that when she eventually did understand it,
when the Ice-Puzzle fitted into place, the answer that it gave her would
be dreadful beyond belief.

At six-thirty in the morning Elizabeth went into her father's room,
knocking before she entered, although she expected no reply. The room
was chilly and the light was smudged, as if it had been drawn in pencil
and half rubbed-out. Nurse Edna had already woken her father and sponged
him and given him a drink. His empty orange-juice bottle stood on the
nightstand.

Nurse Edna was downstairs now, supervising his breakfast.

Cream of Wheat, with molasses stirred in, and two softly baked eggs.

Elizabeth sat on the bed and took hold of his hand. He looked up at her
but his eyes said nothing.

"I expect you heard the noise last night,' she told him.

Yes, flicked his eyes.

"Something terrible happened. Mrs. Patrick's brother Clan was killed."

No response.

"The thing was ... Lenny was here earlier. You remember Lenny Miller?"

Yes.

"Well, he and I were looking through the photograph album. I know this
sounds ridiculous but we saw that same girl in every single picture. The
girl in white. The Peggy-girl. The girl who was here before."

Yes. Then Yes again, which meant more than yes, it meant go on, I
understand you.

"After Lenny left, I went around the house, damping the fires and
closing the curtains. It was then that I saw the snow-angel. You
remember the snow-angel, the one that Laura and I made, after Peggy's
funeral?" She paused, and lowered her head, and stroked the back of her
father's hand. ' ... how could you ever forget, after the way that mommy
reacted?"

Elizabeth's eyes filled up with tears. She felt so tired and so
bewildered and she didn't know what to do. At least her father would
listen, whether he believed her or not, because he had no choice but to
listen. He was like the wedding guest in The Ancient Mariner, thought
Elizabeth, the one who ' not choose but stay'. And her story was just as
strange as that of the Ancient Mariner, with just as much ice. ' ice was
here, the ice was there, the ice was all around /It cracked and growled
and roared and howled / Like voices in a swound!"

And The Ancient Mariner included another chilling parallel to what had
happened last night. ' Nightmare Life-in-Death was she / Who thicks
man's blood with cold." Elizabeth said, hurriedly, ' snow-angel last
night was made of snow, even though it wasn't snowing, and it was
standing in the middle of the tennis court, in the same place where
Laura and I made it the first time. I couldn't believe it! I couldn't
believe it! I was so frightened. I put on your old coat and I walked
down to Green Pond Farm to find Mrs. Patrick -1 mean, just for her to
see it for herself, so that I knew that I wasn't going out of my mind!
The trouble was, Mrs. Patrick wasn't there. Seamus was taken sick last
night, and she was over at New Milford, taking care of him. But her
brother said he'd come take a look." She paused for a moment, and then
she said, in a much quieter voice, ' snow-angel was gone, but it started
to snow. Then this--shape, this black shape came out of the snow.

It was more like a place where the snow wasn't, rather than a thing that
actually was. I don't know how else to describe it. It was huge, like a
huge beast, or a giant woman in a black hood.

It chased after Mr. Philips, and it froze him. It froze him so hard that
he broke. I never knew that could happen, but it did. I don't believe
it, but I saw it with my own eyes."

She sat on the bed with tears in her eyes while her father looked at her
with nothing on his face but the same vapid snarl.

"I don't know what this all means,' she said. ' don't know why it's
happening, or how."

Her father swallowed. He started growling deep down in his throat again,
and he was clearly trying to say something.

"Oh God, I wish you could talk,' said Elizabeth, squeezing his hand.

"LUlgggrrr,' growled her father, then stopped out of exhaustion and
obvious desperation.

"Just a minute,' said Elizabeth. ' I go through the alphabet, and you
move your eyes when I get to the letter you want to tell me?"

Yes.

"I know it'll take for ever, but it's better than nothing.' She started
to recite the alphabet, over an dover, watching her father's eyes for
any sign of a sideways flicker. The first reaction was on the letter L.
The second was on I. The third was on B.

When he flicked his eyes at R, she said, '? Is that it?

You're trying to tell me there's something in the library? A book?"

Yes.

"What's the name of this book?"

H, U, M, A, N, I, M, A, G, I ' Imagination?"

Yes.

"You think there's something in this book that explains what's
happening?"

Yes. T, A, L, K, T, O, A, U, T ' to the author? I should talk to the
author?"

Yes. P, E, G'Peggy?"

Yes. I, S, G, E, R, D, A.

Elizabeth frowned. ' don't understand that. Peggy is Gerda? What does
that mean? You're talking about Gerda from The Snow Queen, the little
girl who tries to save her brother?"

Yes.

"I don't understand. How do you know that Peggy is Gerda?

How can she be Gerda? The Snow Queen is only a story."

A, F, T, E, R, I, F, I, R, S, T, S, A, W, P, E, G, G, Y, I, D, I, D, S,
O, M, E, R, E, S, E, A, R, C, H.

"You did some research? Into what? Into ghosts?"

Yes. B, U, T.

"Yes, but what?"

G, H, O, S, T, S, A, R, E, N, O, T, W, H, A, T, Y, O, U, T, H, I, N, K,
T, H, E, Y, A, R, E.

"I don't even know what I think they are. Peggy seems to be snow, and
paper, and thin air."

W. H, A, T, M, A, K, E, S, Y, O, U, D, I, F, F, E, R, E, N, T, F, R,0,M,
A,N, I "What makes me different from animals? My soul, I suppose.

People have souls, animals don't."

I, M,A, G "Yes, my imagination makes me different, sure. But surely my
imagination is going to die when I do?"

No response.

"You're trying to tell me that my imagination is going to live after I'm
dead?"

I, N, A, M, A, N, N, E, R, O, F, S, P, E, A Elizabeth slowly shook her
head. ', I think I'm going to have to read this book first."

Yes. T, H, E, N, C, O, M, E, B, A, C, K.

"I'm going to go see mommy today. Is there anything you want me to tell
her?"

No response.

"Do you want me to give her your love?"

No response. Then, S, H, E, S, L, O, S, T, L, I, Z, Z, I, E, J)U)S)T)L,
I>K>E, M)E.

Elizabeth held her father close and stroked his forehead. He didn't feel
like father any more. He felt more like a storefront dummy tucked
tightly in a blanket. He smelled of breakfast and sickness.

Til give her your love all the same,' she said. Then she sat up and
looked at him and said, ', father. What happened to us?"

She was walking across the hallway to the library when the doorbell
chimed. She opened the door to find three men in hats and overcoats
standing on the verandah. She recognized one of them as Mack Poliakoff
from the Litchfield Sentinel.

"Good morning, Miss. Buchanan,' he said, lifting his hat. He looked
almost exactly like Oliver Hardy, right down to his little clipped
moustache. ' heard you had some trouble here yesterday evening. Wondered
if you wouldn't object to talking about it?"

The ruddy-cheeked young man next to him said, ' don't want to upset you
any, but the county sheriffs department sent out a news release,
regarding the death of Mr. Clan Philips in unusual circumstances."

"Freak weather conditions,' put in the third man, a tall
lugubrious-looking fellow with drawn-in cheeks and eyes like the heads
of blue-steel nails.

"I'm sorry,' said Elizabeth. ''m very tired and I don't really want to
talk about it." "We only want to know what you saw,' said Mack
Poliakoff, with a fat, encouraging smile. ' Brant told us all of the
technical details. Pretty unpleasant way to go, from what we understand
of it." Elizabeth said, ''m sorry, I'm still getting over it. Maybe you
can call back tomorrow.

"Oh, come on, now,' said the tall, lugubrious man. ' claimed there was a
snow-blizzard blowing in your backyard yesterday evening, that's what
Sheriff Brant told us."

"There was. That's how Mr. Philips froze to death."

"There was no snow reported anywhere else in the locality," the man
persisted. ' didn't even snow on Mohawk Mountain.

In fact the nearest reported blizzard conditions were in Bottineau,
North Dakota."

"I can only tell you what I saw,' Elizabeth retorted. ', please, I
really don't want to discuss it." "Just one thing,' put. in Mack
Poliakoff. ' Brant said that you were the sole witness to another freak
death by freezing, eight years ago last June. The Reverend Richard
Bracewaite, if my memory serves me, at St. Michael's church." "Yes,'
said Elizabeth. ' I didn't understand how that happened and I don't
understand how this happened. I don't have anything more to say." The
ruddy-cheeked young man said, ' you think thatjwu could have possibly
been the cause or the agent of either of these deaths?"

Elizabeth stared at him. ' do you mean?"

His ruddy cheeks flushed even ruddier. ' ... there are several recorded
cases of people being channels for natural forces. One man in Montana
used to get struck by lightning on a regular basis, never harmed him
once. And the Hopi Indians believe that certain people have a
natural-bora ability to draw down rain. Supposing it really did snow
here yesterday evening - here in your yard and nowhere else - maybe it
snowed because of you."

Elizabeth said, ' really don't know. I saw what I saw. I don't have any
kind of explanation for it."

"Is there any snow left? Any trace of it, that we could photograph?"

Elizabeth shook her head. The reporters were making her feel panicky -
almost as if she had killed Clan Philips herself, with malice
aforethought. ''ll have go now,' she told them, and started to close the
door.

But Mack Poliakoff nimbly stepped forward and wedged his scufly Oxford
shoe into it. ',' he said, ' don't want to make a nuisance of ourselves,
but this is a pretty unusual story."

"Can you tell us how much snow fell?' asked the tall reporter.

"Inch? Two inches? More?"

"Did it cover the whole yard, or just a small area?' asked the
ruddy-cheeked reporter.

"How come Clan Philips got froze and you didn't?"

"What was Clan doing there? His nephew was sick in the hospital and he
was supposed to be waiting at home for a call from his sister. How come
he was wandering around your yard instead?"

"Do you believe any of the witch stories they tell in New Milford?"

"Do you believe in black magic?"

"The Buchanans go back a long way ... any known witches in the family
tree?"

"How long did the snow last?"

"If it was cold enough to freeze Mr. Philips, how come it thawed so
quick?"

"Do you store any liquid oxygen or liquid nitrogen anywhere at home?"

"How come it snowed as much as that and nobody else noticed but you?"

"Do you mind telling us how old you are?"

"Stand still ... let me take your picture."

The three reporters were still pestering Elizabeth when Lenny's car drew
up alongside theirs, and he came briskly up the path. He was wearing a
smart coat of ginger tweed and a tweed herringbone cap.

"Oh, Lenny!' called Elizabeth.

"Hey you guys, what are you doing here?' Lenny demanded.

"You, fatso, get your foot out of the lady's door."

"Take it easy, buddy.' said Mack Poliakoff. ''re asking Miss. Buchanan a
few pertinent questions for the public interest, that's all."

"Take a powder," Lenny told them.

"Listen, friend, we're not doing anybody any harm here, okay? We're
simply getting some facts straight."

"Are you deaf or something? I said scram."

Mack Poliakoff lifted his camera and took a flash picture of Lenny. Then
all three of them retreated back down the path and ostentatiously drove
away, spraying up gravel as they did so.

"Creeps,' said Lenny. ' was hoping I'd get here before they did."

"You heard what happened?"

"Are you kidding? The whole town heard what happened."

"It was awful. I can't even begin to tell you how awful it was."

"Look, you're getting cold out here. How about inviting me in for a cup
of coffee?"

Elizabeth nodded. ' think I could use a cup of coffee myself just about
now."

Lenny was free that day: he was due to meet a dry goods dealer over at
Torrington, but the man had the flu and cancelled.

Now Lenny offered to drive Elizabeth over to see her mother in the
Gaylordsville Clinic, and she gladly accepted. It was one of those dull
autumn days with a sky the colour of pale gum, when even the turning
maples lose their verve. There was a smell of impending rain in the air.

She told Lenny everything about yesterday evening. As he drove, he
glanced at her worriedly from time to time; and when she had finished,
he said, ''re sure you're okay?"

"Oh, fine. Maybe a little woozy, but that's only the tranquillizers."

"Do you have any idea what you saw?"

Elizabeth slowly shook her head. ' can't even guess. But in a strange
way, this all seems to be connected to The Snow Queen. Seamus has been
quoting it; father said that Peggy was Gerda; and there's all this ice
and snow."

"The Snow Queen's a fairy story."

"I know. But somehow it's kind of overlapped into our lives.

Don't ask me how."

"It's always been a favourite story of yours, hasn't it?"

"We all used to love it. We read it over an dover. It was almost part of
our lives. We used to act out the parts; we almost felt that we'd been
there; been inside it."

"There's your explanation, then. Whenever you see ice or snow, it
reminds you of The Snow Queen."

"What about Seamus?"

"Seamus is different. Seamus is ... well, his whole life is a fairy
story. The Snow Queen is probably more real to him than you are."

"Maybe he's right. Maybe she is more real than me.

Sometimes it feels that way."

They reached the Gaylordsville Clinic and Lenny drew into the
parking-lot. The clinic was a drab rectangular building set back in the
woods that overlooked the Housatonic River. The grounds were deserted,
and all Elizabeth could hear as she climbed out of Lenny's car was the
chipsping of birds, the stirring of leaves in the mid-morning breeze,
and the low conspiratorial chuckling of the river.

The swing doors gave a hollow clonk. Inside, the clinic was plain and
functional, with green-painted walls and maroon hessian carpets and
framed posters of local beauty spots.

Lenny took off his coat and said, Til wait here for you. Take your
time.' He sat down in the reception area, picked up a copy of Life
magazine and took out his cigarettes.

Elizabeth walked along the first-floor corridor to the rear of the
building. She had visited her mother frequently enough to know where she
could usually find her. She was sitting by herself in the dim, glazed
conservatory, a thin haunted figure in a bronze Lloyd Loom chair. Her
bony shoulders were covered by a grey woollen shawl; and her face was
grey; and so was her dress. She didn't look up as Elizabeth approached
her. She didn't look up when Elizabeth took hold of her hand, and kissed
the top of her head.

"Mommy? It's Elizabeth."

She dragged another chair across the died floor, and sat down close to
her. She tried to smile as brightly as she could, and said, '? Look,
it's Elizabeth! I've come to see you!

I've brought you some of those maple candies you like!"

Her mother stared at her oddly. She was still the same mommy to look at
-- still pretty in her faded, off-balanced way.

But while her leucotomy had relieved her clinical depression, it had
taken some vital ingredient out of her personality, something that had
always made her her. Elizabeth always felt as if she were talking to a
carefully coached stand-in, rather than her real mommy.

"Lenny brought me over,' she said, with a smile. ' remember Lenny
Miller? He was married during the war but now he's divorced." "War?'
asked her mommy. ' there another war?"

"No, no, mommy. Same old war. It's been over since 1945."

"It's only 1943 now."

"It's 1951." Elizabeth's mommy smiled at her archly, and then laughed.

"You always were a dreamer, weren't you, Lizzie? Always making up your
stories! 1951! What will you think of next?"

Elizabeth laid a hand on her mommy's knee. ' are you, mommy? Are they
feeding you well? Are you happy?"

Margaret Buchanan nodded. ''m fine, sweetheart. True as blue, right as
rain. You don't have to worry about me."

"Naturally I worry about you. I'd come up to see you more often if I
wasn't so busy in New York."

Her mommy flapped one hand dismissively. ', you don't want to worry
about that. Peggy comes to see me every day."

Elizabeth felt a chilly crawling sensation down her back. "Peggy comes
to see you?"

"Of course she does, every single day. She's such a sweet child, you
know. So thoughtful. So eager to please."

"When did you see her last?"

"She came yesterday, just after we'd finished lunch. She was talking
about you. She said you ought to be careful, you ought to take more care
of yourself."

"You really saw her?"

"Do you think I'm as crazy as the rest of the people they have in here?
Goodness me, Lizzie. She sat right where you're sitting now; she brought
me hyacinths."

"Hyacinths? At this time of the year?"

Her mommy looked confused for a moment. She tugged up the sleeve of her
dress and started to scratch furiously at her elbow, which was already
red-raw with eczema. ' was sure I smelted hyacinths."

Sitting with her mother in that dim conservatory, listening to the
echoes of the clinic, the squeaking of trolley wheels, the coughing, the
crying, Elizabeth suddenly remembered what the hyacinths in the garden
had said to Gerda in The Snow Queen. They had told her the story of the
three sisters who disappeared into the woods, and reappeared on biers,
floating on the lake, with glow worms reflected in the water. ' the
dancing maidens, or are they dead?"

She also remembered what the answer to the question was.

"The odour from the flowers tells us they are corpses, the evening bells
peal out their dirge."

She looked up. A young dark-haired man was watching her from the far
side of the conservatory. He met her gaze for a moment, then turned
away.

One of the nurses brought them tea. Elizabeth's mommy talked about New
York. She was convinced that Cafe Society was still in full swing, and
asked Elizabeth about La Hiffs Tavern and the Colony Restaurant, and who
was dancing too close to whom on the postage-stamp floor at El Morocco.
It was all still real to her, as if the past fifteen years had never
happened: the days of Elsa Maxwell's society parties, where Beatrice
Lillie jostled with Averell Harriman and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney;
where Noel Coward danced with Princess Natalie Paley. Gone now, those
days of champagne and tiaras and society column photographs by Marty
Black, but still alive in Margaret Buchanan's mind, and keeping her
entertained. She was still capable of talking about the house, however,
and Laura's career, and she seemed to be aware that Elizabeth's father
was paralysed, although she wouldn't mention it directly. Her
hypothalamus had been disconnected from her frontal cortex; she was
always happy.

Elizabeth smiled and nodded and didn't drink her tea. She thought to
herself: is it tragic, to be so happy? Perhaps it is.

A shrill bell rang for lunch and Elizabeth stood up to leave.

Her mommy reached out and held her hand, quite tightly.

"Shall I tell little Clothes-Peg that you were here?"

"What?"

"The next time she comes, shall I tell her?"

Elizabeth felt her lungs constricting, as if she were going to
suffocate. Panic attack, she thought to herself, stop it. She had seen
the Peggy-girl herself, so she must have some reality.

What made her feel so frightened was that others had seen her, too, and
with each sighting the Peggy-girl took on even more reality, until Until
the black shapt in the snow took on reality, too. The beast, the
black-hooded woman. And the thought of that filled her with' such
terrible fear that she started to shake and tried to tug herself away.

"Lizzie -- what's wrong?' asked her mommy.

"I'm tired, that's all, I'm sorry. I haven't been sleeping very well. I
feel, I don't know, jagged."

"You need a gentleman friend, that's what you need. You need somebody to
take you out; somebody to hoof with. You should try the Kit Rat."

"Mommy, it's lunchtime. I have to go. Lenny's waiting for me."

"Lenny? Lenny Titze? Theodore Titze's brother?"

"Lenny Miller, mommy. You remember Lenny Miller. His family live on
Putnam Street." "Lenny Miller ...' her mommy mused.

She walked back along the corridor towards the reception area. As she
did so, the dark-haired man stepped out of a side corridor and
confronted her. He was broadly built, good looking in an inexplicably
dated way, Like a man from a 19205 magazine cover, with slicked-back
hair and a casual cotton polo-neck, six o'clock shadow and a smile.

"I saw you talking to your mother,' he said. Warmly, but slightly sly.

Elizabeth stopped, and said, '?"

"I saw your sister talking to your mother, too."

"My sister?"

"You do have a sister, don't you?"

"Yes, but she lives in California."

"I'm talking about a little sister. Ten or eleven maybe, always dressed
in white?"

Elizabeth stared at him in dread. ''ve seen her too?"

He nodded. ' comes here almost every day. She comes in, she talks to
your mother, she walks away. She's pretty." Urgently, Elizabeth said, '
have to go. I have a friend waiting for me."

"You don't understand."

"I'm sorry. I think I do understand. But I have to go. Really.

I'm late as it is."

Without taking his hands out of his pockets, the man took a neat step
sideways, blocking her off, his loafers scuffing on the carpet. ', wait.
You shouldn't do anything rash. Your sister is something different, like
me, which is why I ended up here, because I didn't have anywhere else to
go. At least I have the company of humans here, even if most of them are
mad."

Elizabeth took two or three deep breaths. ' me,' she said. ''ve enjoyed
talking to you, but I really have to go."

The man said, ''m trying to tell you something, but I'm not making a
very good job of it. I'm trying to tell you that your sister is alive,
in the same way that I'm alive. I'm not what I seem to be; I'm not
really me. I'm what I thought I was. For God's sake, writers make worlds
and stir up people's imaginations and then they want them to forget
about it? How can you forget about it? George Gershwin wrote music and
we were all carried away and then what? Forget it? Forget you ever heard
it? Forget it ever excited you?"

Elizabeth stood stock still and frightened. She wanted to hear what the
man had to say; but on the other hand she didn't.

It was creeping too close to reality; it was dosing the gap between what
was unthinkable and what was totally terrifying.

The man said, ' used to believe in the green light, you know? I used to
believe in that orgiastic future that year by year recedes ahead of us.
We didn't get there today, but that's no matter. Tomorrow we'll run
faster, stretch out our arms further ... And one fine morning - and
that's the way we beat on, boats-against the current." "I'm sorry,' said
Elizabeth. ' you let me pass?"

"We all have to pass in the end,' smiled the man. ' days, though, it
looks like most people pass alone. When I was younger, it was different.
If a friend died, no matter how, I stuck with them to the finish."

"I wasn't talking about dying,' said Elizabeth.

"Hmh. Nobody ever is."

Elizabeth waited patiently for him to move out of the way.

After a few moments, he did. Tm Jay,' he told her, as she passed him by.
''m Dave. That's all I have to say. I'm really Jay.' He said it with
such earnestness, as if she should have recognized him, or at least
pretended to recognize him.

He lifted his hands in mock-surrender. ' may be hundreds of Jays. Look
in any bar. Look in any motel.

Trashed, out-of-date, turning up at die same old parties, over an dover
an dover. There are only die pursued, the pursuing, the busy and die
tired. We share this world, Elizabeth, with everything we've ever
imagined. I mean, let me ask you something: what makes us different from
the animals?"

Elizabedi blanched; and shivered.

"Are you trying to say that you're dead?' she wanted to know.

There was no other way of asking him.

He stared at her and his eyes glittered. ' do you think?"

"I think that it takes a dead person to know one."

Without a word she walked on towards die reception area.

She didn't turn around, although she was conscious that die dark-haired
man was watching her. Lenny was still sitting cross legged on one of die
chairs smoking, and reading an article about Korea.

Lenny looked up. ', is everything okay? You look like you've seen a
ghost!" "Please, Lenny,' she said, taking hold of his arm. ' take me
home."

She went up to see her father first. In the grey afternoon light he was
looking sickly-yellow, even his eyes were yellowish.

Nurse Edna said, ''m worried about his kidneys. I may have to call in
the doctor again."

"Is it serious, do you think?"

"I don't know. His heart's still pumping and his lungs are clear, but if
his kidneys fail -"

Elizabeth stood close beside him with her hand over her face because she
could smell death.

"Father? How are you feeling? Tell me you're feeling better."

No response.

"I saw mommy this afternoon. She's not too bad."

No response.

"She's not too bad, but she's seen Peggy too."

Yes. And, Yes.

"There's something else. I met a man at the clinic. He talked tome."

No response.

"He said he'd seen the Peggy-girl, visiting mommy. Do you want to know
what he looked like?"

Yes.

"He had dark hair, combed straight back. Good-looking but very louche.
He said his name was Jay."

No response.

"You want me to say the alphabet?"

Yes. W, H, A, T, E, L, S, E, D, I, D, H, E, S, A ' don't know. He talked
in riddles. But he said he saw Peggy talking to mommy, and he said that
he was the same as she was. I asked him if he were dead, too, I don't
know why. He was talking to me, how could he be dead?"

A, N, Y, T, H, I, N, G, E, L, S, E "He said that he was always trying to
reach the future. If you didn't reach the future today, you could reach
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^ to r- m long as you ran faster and stretched out your arms farther. He
said that we're boats against the tide."

H, E, W, A, S, D, E, A, D.

"You really think so?"

Yes. Then Yes. Then Yes again.

He dosed his eyes, and although Elizabeth waited and waited, he didn't
open them again. He must be exhausted.

Elizabeth stayed beside him for a while, and then kissed him and stood
up. Outside in the garden, under the tarnished tureen-lid of the sky,
the Peggy-girl was standing beside the tennis court, looking up at her.
Elizabeth made no attempt to go closer to the window, and after a while
the Peggy-girl glided away into the bracken.

Elizabeth was still staring out of the window when Lenny knocked softly
on the door.

"Are you okay?' he asked her. ''s the old man?"

"I don't think either of us are very well,' she replied, without turning
around.

"I'm sorry.' He came up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She
reached up and patted it.

"Do you believe that it's possible for imaginary people to come to
life?' she asked him.

"When you say "imaginary people" ... ?"

"I mean characters out of stories."

Lenny shrugged. ' don't see how that could be."

"Father seems to believe it. He thinks that the little Peggy girl is
Gerda out of The Snow Queen. He seems to think that dead people can come
alive again, as characters out of books."

"Oh, come on now, Lizzie, he's rambling. He was always interested in
ghosts and haunted houses and witch trials, wasn't he? He's rambling;
it's gone to his head."

"I guess so. But what about the snowstorm? What about the photograph
album? What about the Reverend Bracewaite and poor Clan Philips?"

"Maybe that newspaper reporter was right. Maybe you have some sort of
unusual talent for attracting blizzards."

"Oh, that was nonsense! And besides, I wasn't there when the Reverend
Bracewaite was frozen."

Lenny pinched the bridge of his nose. ' don't know, Lizzie, I've been
turning it over an dover in my mind, trying to explain it. I think there
is something here, but I think it's more than likely to be Peggy's aura.
Do you know what I mean? Because Peggy was so young and so lively, she
left something of herself in the house, and that's what you and I have
been experiencing.

You're her sister, so you're much more sensitive to it than I am. You
may even be acting like a receiver ... you know, sort of a human
television, picking up the thoughts and the feelings that Peggy left
behind. Maybe I'm a little bit sensitive, too.

Look at what happened to me on Guadalcanal."

Elizabeth turned to look at him. He shrugged again and pulled a face. '
read about it in Reader's Digest, Loved Ones Who Speak From Beyond."

"Well ... maybe you're right,' said Elizabeth. ' certainly seems to make
more sense than storybook characters coming to life."

They were still standing silently together when Elizabeth's father let
out a thick rattling sound. Elizabeth immediately crossed to the bed and
leaned over him. He didn't seem to be breathing, and she couldn't feel a
pulse.

"Call Nurse Edna!' she said. ', Lenny - call Nurse Edna!"

She turned back to her father and held his hand between hers. She knew
already that there was nothing that she could do, that he was dead.

"Oh, father,' she whispered. ' love you so much. Don't forget me,
wherever you're going. And please tell Peggy that she can rest now; that
everything's fine."

A huge wave of grief overwhelmed her, and she sat down on the bed with
tears running freely down her cheeks, rubbing her father's hands, over
an dover, as if she could warm them.

Cold Sun "I do but tell you my tale - my dream."

Laura climbed out of Petey Fairbrother's bright yellow Jeepster and
slammed the door. '-bye, Petey - thanks for the ride!"

Petey grinned at her, one eye squinched up against the sun.

"How about later? Some of the gang are going over to Dolores's Drive-in
for hamburgers and shakes."

"I don't know. It depends. Aunt Beverley has guests tonight. I think she
wants me to stick around and socialize."

"Laura, you know that I can't live without you!"

"How come? You managed it before you met me."

"Sure, but I forgot."

She leaned over the side of the car and kissed him on the nose. ' keep
on breathing, you eat three times a day, you don't forget to drink your
orange juice, . you don't forget to fall asleep at night."

"That's living?"

She kissed him again. ''s better than being dead."

She walked up the concrete path. She was one of the dishiest girls in
college. With her curly blonde hair and her broderie anglaise blouse and
her pink-and-green striped dirndl skirt she was the epitome of teen
chic. On her first day at college, the seniors had collectively voted
her Miss. Heavy Breathing 1951.

She had been dated every weekend - although Petey Fair brother had
always been her favourite. Apart from being very tall and athletic, with
a sun-bleached crewcut as flat as the deck of the USS Missouri, his
father was Jack Fairbrother the movie director, and he had been able to
take Laura on the sets of six or seven new movies.

Laura went up the two concrete steps to the front door and opened it.
Inside, she could hear Aunt Beverley talking loudly, and smell
cigar-smoke. She dropped her bag in the hallway and peered at herself in
the mirror. She thought she was putting on weight. The strawberry
malteds were beginning to take their toll. She blew out her cheeks so
that she looked even fatter. God, what a podge. She placed her hand on
her heart and swore to God that she would cut out milkshakes for ever,
or at least a week.

They had moved twice since Laura had first come to California. After two
landslips, the house overlooking Santa Monica Bay had needed shoring-up
with reinforced-concrete foundations, and a whole new deck. Aunt
Beverley had decided to cut her losses, ' the view', and bought a house
in Westwood. But only seven months later, when they were barely unpacked
from the first move, a friend had sold her his two-bedroom bungalow on
Franklin Avenue, within spitting distance of Hollywood Boulevard. It was
much smaller than the Santa Monica house, and less secluded than the
West wood house, but it had large, airy, whitewashed rooms, and a
cramped courtyard tiled in aquamarine and yellow ochre, and a riot of
flowers and tropical plants. Laura missed the ocean, but she liked the
location better, because most of her friends lived much closer, and she
could hang out at Schwab's and the Hamburger Hamlet where all the movie
hopefuls congregated.

Laura found Aunt Beverley sitting outside in the greenish glow of her
fringed sunshade, wearing a fuchsia romper suit and a crimson headscarf
and sunglasses. She was drinking aquavit and pineapple juice, and
smoking a cigarette.

Opposite her, smoking a cigar, sat a leonine grey-haired man in a
custard sports coat and white yachting slacks. He was handsome, in an
ancient kind of way, like a stone head of Alexander the Great.

"Oh, Laura, you're back,' Aunt Beverley enthused. ', this is Laura.
Laura, this is Chester Fell." "Oh, hi,' smiled Laura, holding out her
hand. ''ve heard of you."

Chester gave her a deep, warm, self-satisfied smile. ' to know that I'm
not a nonentity,' he replied.

"Chester's casting for his new picture,' said Aunt Beverley.

"He's been looking for fresh new talent." "I see,' said Laura. She sat
on one of the gaudy sun-chairs, spreading out her skirt. She picked up a
handful of salted almonds from the dish on the table, and began to
nibble them in a picky, affected way, keeping her eyelashes lowered. She
knew that Chester was looking at her, and sizing her up, and she liked
the power of ignoring him. A California quail fluttered down and perched
on the trellis, and watched her eating.

Chester glanced up at it, and said, ' like an audience, don't you?' His
voice was deep and nimbly, like distant thunder.

Laura said, ' like to act."

"I saw you in Shanghai Ritz, playing the cocktail waitress."

"Yes,' smiled Laura, still without looking at him. ' had two lines in
that. "Sir wants an olive?" and

"Don't you dare touch me." '

"I remember,' said Chester. ' were excellent. Fresh and innocent,
without being clumsy."

"That's not what the reviews said about me,' Laura remarked.

"What did the reviews say about you?"

"They didn't say anything. I was never mentioned."

Chester laughed. A humourless ha-ha-ha. He brushed cigar ash off his
slacks, and then he looked at Laura very seriously.

"You have the right kind of face for the movies, did you know that? The
cameras go for exaggerated eyes, short straight noses, distinctive jaws.
You ought to see most of our so-called stars when they come off set.
They're the weirdest-looking bunch of people you ever saw in your life.
But put them in front of a camera, and - they're magic."

"You're not saying /look weird, are you?' asked Laura. She was conscious
of Aunt Beverley making her ', don't make a fuss' face, but she was sure
that Chester wouldn't be upset.

Men were never upset with her, except when she refused to kiss them or
go to bed with them or see them tomorrow. She was always in control, and
she never forgot it.

"Of course you don't look weird,' Chester flustered. ' you look is
pretty and young and fresh as a daisy."

"She's such a darn tease,' said Aunt Beverley, through clenched teeth.
She clenched her teeth so often that it was amazing that she hadn't
bitten her way through hundreds of cigarette holders, instead of two or
three.

Chester leaned back in his chair, with his glass in his hand.

"There's no doubt about it, Beverley, this girl has screen potential.
Maybe a great screen potential. She's going to need some grooming, of
course. Hair, make-up, that kind of thing.

But, yes, I see the possibilities."

"What movie are you casting for?' asked Laura.

"The working tide is Devil's Elbow. It's an automobile-racing drama. A
handsome hero, a dastardly villain, a gorgeous moll.

In fact, bushels of gorgeous molls."

"And what would I be, if you gave me a part? Gorgeous Moll number 386,
there on the left?"

"Laura!' snapped-Aunt Beverley.

But Chester simply smiled. ' on, Beverley, she has a right to ask. This
is her career, after a while. You wouldn't let some total stranger
interfere with your life, would you, even if you were young and
beautiful?"

"Chester!' snapped Aunt Beverley.

Laura turned around and grinned at Chester and Chester winked back. Til
tell you what I'll do,' he said, without taking his eyes off Laura. '
doesn't Laura play hookey tomorrow morning and come over to the Fox lot
for a camera test? Yes? It would only take an hour, and who knows? It
could be the start of something really big." "I'm not sure,' said Laura.
' don't really like to miss class."

"What are you studying?' asked Chester.

"English literature, drama and economics."

"Egghead, hunh?"

"I want to be a screenwriter, as well as an actress. My father was a
publisher, my mother was in musicals with Monty Woolley." "Quite a
heritage,' said Chester. ', it's up to you. You want to come over
tomorrow morning, ask for me, and we'll see what we can do. Maybe we can
have lunch, too."

"Go on,' Aunt Beverley urged her. ' can read Shakespeare any time."
"You're studying Shakespeare?' said Chester. ' hate Shakespeare. I
always hated Shakespeare, all those prithees and by the roods, who talks
like that? Shall I tell you who I admire? Tennessee Williams, that's who
I admire."

He stood up, and flung out his arm, and affected an extraordinary
high-pitched voice. ' don't want realism! I want magic! Yes, yes, magic!
I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't
tell them the truth. I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that is
sinful, let me be damned for it!"

Laura laughed and clapped. ' Dubois! Brilliant!"

Chester sat down again, and lifted his glass of aquavit, and gave them a
toast. ''s to American drama, stage or screen, the tormented people who
write it, the harassed people who produce it, and the beautiful people
who act in it!" "Hear, hear!' said Aunt Beverley; but not because she
cared a hoot about drama, American, English or Icelandic. Aunt

Beverley cared about only one thing: that Laura should like Chester, or
at least not find him repulsive. Aunt Beveiiey hadn't survived in
Hollywood for thirty years by being scrupulously moral. Aunt Beverley
had survived by fixing and arranging all the shady and tempting things
that newly wealthy men and women felt the urge to indulge in, and by
being all things to all people. When she was young, she had been able to
provide many of the forbidden pleasures that Hollywood luminaries wanted
in person, and sometimes she still could. The silent movie actress Ida
Marina had always called her La Linga Buena (The Beautiful Tongue).
Jimmy Dean slyly called her Torquemada. Nobody knew exactly what Aunt
Beverley had done for him, but they could guess.

Chester said, ' me tell you something, the American theatre is
light-years ahead of the rest of the world, and I'm talking serious
literature here. It's real, it's gutsy. Death Of A Salesman, The Glass
Menagerie, brilliant. Now the American motion picture industry is going
to do the same."

"This Devil's Elbow movie you're producing, is this serious literature
too?"

Chester was caught off-balance. He blinked at Laura, and then he said, '
exactly. It's real, it's gutsy, but, yes, it does have quite a high
commercial content. In other words, I want realism, yes, but I also want
the accounts to be showing a profit, at the end of the day, so that I
can make something really serious."

Laura looked at him gravely for a moment, and then burst into giggles.
Aunt Beverley said, ', for God's sake! Have some manners!"

"No, no,' grinned Chester. ' like a girl with a sense of humour. I like
that. More than anything else, I like a. pretty girl with a sense of
humour."

"You are a flatterer,' said Laura, although she didn't blush.

Chester's grin became more secretive, more calculating.

"Yes,' was all he said, but his tone of voice said very much more.

"Well ...' said Laura, airily. ' guess it's only revision tomorrow.
Othello. "She gave me for my pains a world of sighs, 'twas strange, '
passing strange, ' pitiful, ' wond'rous pitiful." '

"There - what was I saying?' Chester interrupted. ' says " '"? Who goes
around saying " '"?"

Laura giggled again. Aunt Beverley could see that she quite enjoyed
Chester's bluster. It gave her a sense of power. ' could be quite a
break for you, sugarpie,' she said, with smoke pouring out of her
nostrils like twin volcanoes.

Laura threw a nut up into the air and caught it in her mouth.

"All right, then,' she said. ' time do you want me tomorrow?"

At three o'clock in the morning, she was woken up by the sound of
whispering. Her bedroom was on the right-hand side of the courtyard,
underneath the clay-shingled verandah. She was used to the night breeze
rustling through the bougainvillea, and rattling the yuccas, but this
whispering was different. This was a young girl's voice - low, earnest
and intense.

Laura sat up in bed and listened. The night was unusually cool, even for
October, and she shivered. The breeze made her shutter-catches tap, and
tap, and tap again, as if somebody were surreptitiously trying to open
them. She strained her ears, and she could still distinctly hear the
whispering, but it was too soft and too far away for her to be able to
make out any words.

She eased herself out of bed. All she was wearing was a large white
Hathaway shirt which she had begged from Petey Fairbrother. She padded
over to the window and adjusted the slats of her shutters so that she
could see outside. The courtyard glistened in cloud-reflected moonlight,
but there was nobody there. Aunt Beverley's chair was tilted back
against the wall, just as she had left it. The fringes of the sunshade
ruffled and danced. The bowl of nuts was empty, with fragments of shell
all around it: as soon as they had gone inside, the quail had fluttered
down to finish them off.

Still the whispering went on. It sounded worried, somehow-- almost
hysterical. Laura tried listening again, but there was too much
background noise. There wasn't much traffic passing through Hollywood at
this time of night, but the occasional swish of a distant automobile was
almost enough to drown out the whispering altogether.

Laura unfastened one of the door-catches, and swung the door open. It
was then that she saw a young girl standing on the opposite side of the
courtyard, white as death, with dark smudged eyes. She bit her knuckle
in fright, and stood staring at the little girl, unable to speak, unable
to move, but trembling from head to foot as if she were being
electrocuted.

Elizabeth had mentioned seeing ' kind of a ghost of a little girl' in
several of her letters - ' ghost that doesn't look at all like Peggy,
but must be Peggy.' Laura, however, had seen nothing of the Peggy-girl
since she had first arrived in California - only that vague apparition
behind the net curtains, the apparition that had frozen Mr. Bunzum. She
had begun to think that she must have been dreaming, and that Elizabeth
was making up stories, as usual. When she was younger, it had been
horses; now she was older, it was ghosts. Yet here she was, the
Peggy-girl, as white as Elizabeth had described her, beautiful, sad and
chilling to look at. And she was whispering, over an dover again, the
same anxious litany.

"Oh! I have left ny boots behind! Ok! I ha* left ny gloves behind'

Laura slowly lowered her fist from her mouth. She had bitten four
teeth-marks deep into her knuckle. She took an awkward, shuffling step
forward, then another. She felt the cold smoothness of the glazed tiles
beneath her bare feet. ' boots behind- ' whispered the little girl.'
-gloves behind'

"What do you - ?' Laura began, but half-choked on her own saliva. ' do
you want?"

The little girl stared at her with such a dreadful face that Laura could
hardly bring herself to step any nearer. It was a face that understood
the meaning of death; a face that had lived in Purgatory. It was white
with misery; white with horror; white on white on white like layer upon
layer of chalk and whitewash.

As Laura went closer, she felt a sparkly coldness in the air, and the
breeze started to feel as if it were blowing off a field of snow. '?'
asked Laura. ', is that you? If it is, please tell me. I'm frightened."

"Oh! 1 have left mj'

"Peggy, what do you want? What are you doing here? Can't you rest?"

' - gloves behind -"

Laura took one more step forward and the Peggy-girl wasn't there any
more. She had simply vanished, disassembled, as if she had never been
there. But Laura could still hear her whispering, and still feel that
sharp-sided coldness in the wind.

"Peggy, are you there?' she called her. ', where have you gone?"

She took one step back, and the Peggy-girl reappeared, as if the
moonlight had altered its shape, like Japanese paper folding. Laura felt
a shiver of bewilderment. She stepped forward again, and the Peggy-girl
vanished again; she stepped back, and she reappeared.

It was only then that she realized what she was actually seeing. There
was no Peggy-girl standing in the courtyard, either real or ghostly. Her
outline was formed by the shadow of the overhanging bougainvillea,
falling on the whitewashed wall. Her eyes were two dark smudges of soot,
where oil lamps had been hung on the wall during a summer cookout. Her
dress and her legs were nothing more than the spiky leaves of a fan palm
in a terra cotta pot.

One step back, though, Laura could see her as dearly as if she were
actually standing there, with her arms by her sides and that terrible
expression on her face. And she could still hear her whispering.

She stepped forward, with one hand held out in front of her.

She felt nothing, except the chilly breeze. She took another step, and
then another, even when the Peggy-girl was no longer visible.

"Are you there?" she breathed. ' you really there?"

'-boots behind-"

She reached further and further, until she was almost touching the wall.
The cold was almost unbearable. Her breath was vaporizing and frost was
forming underneath her nostrils.

"Peggy!' she begged. ' me where you are!"

At that instant, the terra cotta pot cracked sharply and the two halves
fell apart, see-sawing on the tiles. The fan-palm fell sideways, and
shattered on the ground as if it were made of emerald-green glass. Laura
stepped back in shock - one step, then another. Her lower lip was
juddering with cold and her toes were so cold that she could hardly feel
them.

Aunt Beverley appeared, wearing a hairnet and men's pyjamas and carrying
a heavy-duty flashlight.

"What the hell's going on? I thought you were burglars."

"I'm sorry, Aunt Beverley. I woke up. I thought I heard something. I '

"Oh, my planter!' said Aunt Beverley, in exaggerated distress. ''ve
broken my beautiful, beautiful planter."

"I didn't touch it, Aunt Beverley, it broke by itself. It just snapped
in half."

"Planters don't just break by themselves. Oh, look at it! Nick Ray
bought that for me, in Tijuana!"

Laura was shivering. ''m sorry, Aunt Beverley. It was an accident,
really. I'll b-buy you another one."

Aunt Beverley shone the flashlight in her eyes. ', look at you! You're
freezing! Get back into bed, I'll warm up some milk!"

She put her arm round Laura and led her back to bed. ' don't know why
you're so cold,' she said. ' hope you're not sickening for something."

"I'm fine, I'll be fine, so soon as I get myself warm."

Laura climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over herself and lay
curled-up and quaking with cold. Aunt Beverley switched on the bedside
lamp and sat beside her. ' you sure you're all right?' she asked. '
wouldn't do to miss that camera test tomorrow. Or today, I should say."

"I'm sure. I'm sure. Don't worry, I'll be fine."

She clutched herself and kept on shivering, and thought of the
Peggy-girl standing in the courtyard, as real as anything she had ever
seen, yet not there at all. An illusion, a mirage, a combination of
plant and wall and shadow. Not even a ghost, but an absence of ghost.

Aunt Beverley stroked her shoulder. The stroking was light, monotonous,
but strangely reassuring. ' you feeling warmer, sugarpie?' she said. Til
heat that milk for you now.

What did you think you heard? I don't think anybody can climb into the
back of the house, to tell you the truth. The walls are too high and
there's all of those thorn bushes and prickly pear."

"I thought I heard somebody whispering, that's all. It must have been
the wind."

Aunt Beverley stroked her shoulder a little more and then stopped
stroking. ''re tense. You're worried about something.

What is it?" Laura said nothing but stared through the triangular space
between her pillow and the blanket. All she could see was the side of
her bleached-oak nightstand, with its whorls and its knots. She was sure
that two of the darker knots were eyes; and

that the grainy whorls around it formed the shape of a face. A little
girl's face, a Peggy-girl. A girl who was watching her, whatever she
did, wherever she went. Protective, but scary.

Aunt Beverley said. ' you say you heard whispering ... did you hear what
it was they were saying?"

Laura didn't answer for a very long time; but Aunt Beverley stayed where
she was, patiently waiting, and it was then that Laura first began to
understand that her Aunt wasn't just a mannish, chain-smoking,
hard-drinking Hollywood procuress; she was also a woman of considerable
acumen and sympathy; a woman who was sensitive to every kind of human
weakness.

"I thought it was Peggy,' said Laura at last; and a tear slid out of her
eye and dripped across the bridge of her nose. ' thought she was trying
to tell me that she had left her boots behind, and left her gloves
behind."

An even longer pause. Then Aunt Beverley said, ' should she tell you
that?" "Gerda says it, in The Snow Queen. She visits the Finland woman,
and it's so hot in the Finland woman's house that she takes off her
boots and her gloves, and leaves them behind, by accident."

"Peggy used to like that story?"

"She loved it. But she always got worried when Gerda left her boots and
her gloves behind."

"And that's what she was whispering to you, outside?"

Laura nodded.

Aunt Beverley stroked her shoulder for a while. Then she got up off the
bed and went through to the kitchen. She filled a saucepan with milk,
and put it on the hob to warm, and walked into the sitting-room to find
her cigarettes. She had grown to think of Laura as her own daughter,
almost. She knew that Laura was happy here, in Hollywood. It suited
Laura's extravert personality, and her need to feel wanted, and
important. Laura had always suffered from middle-childitis: with a
talented and serious-minded older sister and a younger sister who had
always captivated everybody who saw her. Ever since Peggy was born,
Laura had been unshakeably convinced that she was hard done by -- that
Elizabeth and Peggy were better respected, better treated and better
loved. That was why she had sought the attentions of men, no matter who
they were, no matter what they wanted her to do.

Aunt Beverley was one of five and knew what sibling jealousy was all
about. She had done everything she could to restore Laura's pride in
herself. Aunt Beveriey's own father had abused her, and she knew how
important it was to have pride. One night, when she was twelve years
old, her father had crept naked into her room at night, sat astride her
pillow, and forced his whole erection down her throat, right down to his
crunchy pubic hair. After that, it had taken Aunt Beverley years of
self-bullying and semi-suicidal behaviour to regain her self-esteem. She
had started chain-smoking only to fumigate her mouth. If she closed her
eyes and thought about it, she could taste her father, even today.

She could only touch men if they asked her to punish them; and then she
gladly did.

She lit a cigarette and smoked a quarter of it before she crushed it
out. As she did so, she thought she heard somebody in the kitchen. '?'
she called. ' shouldn't be out of bed. Get yourself warm, for goodness'
sake."

She walked towards the kitchen door. A fleeting white reflection crossed
the hallway; but it was only a reflection.

"Laura?' said Aunt Beverley. ' that you, Laura?"

The kitchen was deserted. Only the green-topped Formica table, with its
neatly-arranged salt-and-pepper pots, its Al bottle, and its pear-shaped
vase of freesias. Only the electric clock, chirring quietly on the wall.
Only the gas flaring under the milk.

She frowned. She had a sense that somebody had been here, she didn't
know why. She switched off the gas, and carried the milkpan over to the
table. She tilted it to pour the milk into the mugs, but the surface of
the milk tilted, too, and it wouldn't come out. The pan was blazing hot.
The milk should almost have boiled by now. But when she prodded the
surface with her finger, she realized why it wouldn't pour out.

The milk was frozen solid, its surface sparkling with ice crystals.

Aunt Beverley returned the pan to the hob and stood staring at it. The
milk was frozen. She had poured it out of the bottle into the pan and
lit the gas underneath it, and it was frozen.

She sat down at the kitchen table, took out another cigarette and smoked
it until it nearly burned her lips. Afterwards, she went through to
Laura's bedroom to tell her about the milk, but Laura was fast asleep,
her blankets thrown aside, her Hathaway shirt ridden up so that her
bottom was bare. Aunt Beverley stood and looked at her and thought that
she was beautiful. She never would have dreamed of touching her, ever.

Laura was family; Laura was practically hers. But she loved her, all the
same; and she wondered what it was that had disturbed her tonight,
because it was chilly and unfamiliar, and it had made its presence felt
in every room.

Laura stirred, and clutched at her pillow. Aunt Beverley watched her for
almost ten minutes, but as the room darkened before the dawn, she turned
and went back to her own bed, where she lay sleepless for over two
hours, occasionally smoking, thinking about bad times and happy times,
and whether she was right to take Laura down to Fox tomorrow.

She didn't look out of the window, or she would have seen the way in
which the bougainvillea threw its shadow on the whitewashed wall; and
the way the oil-lamp smudges seemed to stare towards her bedroom like
brooding eyes.

She would have seen what looked like a rat, at first, or a small
raccoon, lying dead among the jasmine. The Mexican cleaning woman would
pick it up tomorrow morning, before Aunt Beveriey woke up, and she would
throw it in the trash. After all, what did anybody in Hollywood need
with a small-sized, dried-up, fox-fur glove?

Aunt Beveriey drove Laura to Fox herself; in the powder-blue Chevrolet
Styleline she was borrowing on a '-permanent' basis from Max Arnow, the
casting director at Columbia.

Only God and Max Arnow knew what favours Aunt Beveriey had provided in
return. Laura had woken up tired, with swollen eyes, and so Aunt
Beveriey had splashed her eyes with ice-water, and made her lie in her
room with cucumber slices all over her face. The puffiness had gone
down, but she still looked distracted. Aunt Beveriey was smoking like a
fast-running locomotive, and kept flicking her ash out of the window.

"Remember to be natural, be yourself,' she repeated.

"For goodness' sake, Aunt Beveriey, I will be natural."

"Give him a private moment. Do you know what a private moment is? A
private moment is when you act out something that you would only do on
your own, with nobody watching.

Shelley Winters once told me about this private moment that Jerry
O'Loughlin acted out, at the Actors Studio. A young man comes into his
apartment, right? It's snowing outside, it's cold. He's wearing a hat
and an overcoat and a scarf. He's carrying a box of fried chicken. He
takes off his gloves and he puts the chicken on a high stool. Then he
just stands there in his hat and his overcoat and his galoshes and he
eats the chicken. He's eating because he must, with no enjoyment,
without undressing, without sitting down. Shelley said that it was so
sad, so lonesome, so pointless, she was crying like a baby."

"I never ate fried chicken standing up,' said Laura.

"But you must have done something in private."

"I read in private. I fix my make-up in private. What else? I take
showers in private."

Aunt Beverley gave a grim, J. Edgar Hoover smile. ''m quite sure that
Chester would sign you up for ever if you decided to do that for your
private moment."

Laura leaned against the Chevrolet's door, and tipped her sunglasses
down to the end of her nose, and scrutinized Aunt Beverley with a
mixture of affection and cockiness. ''re not selling me to Chester, are
you?"

"You're going for a camera test, that's all."

"I don't know. Do you think I should trust you?' They often teased each
other this way.

"Do you think you should you trust anybody?' Aunt Beverley retorted. '
of the people I trusted the most were the people who betrayed me the
worst. You remember Moe? The man who was with me when we first collected
you from Sherman?

Moe was such a sugarpie. He borrowed eight thousand dollars to put on
the horses and lost it, all of it, and practically made me bankrupt.
"Trust me," he said. In an iguana's ass."

They reached the gates of the Fox lot and Aunt Beverley showed her pass.
She drove in and parked in the visitors' parking-lot, behind the
commissary. It was a cool, bright day, with the yuccas shaking in the
breeze like castanets and the sun bouncing off the concrete sidewalks. A
Roman slave walked past, wearing sandals and a red tunic, smoking a
cigarette.

"Don't forget," Aunt Beverley promoted her. ', and private."

"I won't forget. Natural, and private."

"And sincere."

"For goodness' sake, Aunt Beverley."

"And innocent. Chester really goes for innocence."

They had to wait for over an hour before Chester was free.

Eventually he came out of his office in a yellow polo shirt and white
ducks, with a towel slung over his neck. He kissed both of them.

"Sorry you had to wait so long. Did they bring you coffee?

Accountants! They want me to shoot the crash scenes on the lot, to save
money. I said listen, why don't we spend no money at all, and just have
a loud bang offscreen, and a cloud of dust, and some kid to throw an old
car tyre into shot. All right, it'll cost a dollar seventy-five for the
tyre and a quarter to the kid, if you can stretch to that."

He checked his watch. ' don't I take you across for your camera test
right now? They're all set up. Beverley, you don't have to hang around
here if you don't want to ... this is going to take at least an hour.
Come back and join us for lunch, say, twelve-thirty?"

Aunt Beverley gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder.

"Okay, Chester. I have some shopping to do, anyway. I need a new
terra cotta planter.' She said it in a long-drawn-out sarcastic tone, and
looked directly at Laura as she did so.

Chester said, ' kind of private joke between you two?"

Aunt Beverley left and Chester took Laura across to one of the smaller
soundstages. ' aunt of yours, she's a character, isn't she?' said
Chester.

"She's quite eccentric,' Laura admitted. ' she's so understanding. She
lets me do whatever I like, most of the time, but I always know that she
cares."

"I'll tell you a funny story about your Aunt Beverley," Chester
enthused. He opened the door to the soundstage and winked at her. ' day,
maybe, when you're old enough."

"It's not one of those stories?" "Unh-hunh,' he told her, shaking his
head. ''s not like any story you ever heard. And everybody's in it. It's
a Who's-Whoofhollywood story. It's even got Trigger in it."

"Roy Rogers' Trigger?"

Chester made a face which meant ''d better believe it."

Inside the soundstage, the lights picked out the corner of an
18th-century garden, with a stone balustrade and an urn overflowing with
roses. ' is the garden set for Lady of Versailles,' said Chester. ''re
going to do your tests here.

Look- this is Rosa, she's going to take you into makeup. This is Bruce,
the greatest lighting cameraman since God, and this is Terry, she's
going to give you some lines to read." "Aunt Beverley said you wanted me
to act out a private moment."

Chester looked nonplussed.

"You know,' said Laura. ' out something which I usually do by myself,
with nobody else watching."

Chester shook his head. ''s Method. I'm not interested in Method. I want
actors to act.' He looked at her for a moment, his cheeks, puffed out,
and then he said, ' ... if you want to share a private moment a little
later ... ?"

She was tested for over an hour - walking, smiling, turning her face
this way and that way, looking up, looking down. She had to talk, and
laugh, and pretend to weep. She had to scream. She had to show what
Chester called ' whole ga-mutt' of emotions.

"What did you think?' asked Laura, as they walked across to the
commissary.

"Bruce will bring me the rushes this afternoon. I thought you looked
terrific, but it's what the camera felt about you that counts. If the
camera loves you, you're made. If it doesn't, well ... you said you
wanted to write."

He stopped, and took hold of her hand. ''m going to tell you something,
though, you're one pretty girl, Laura. Your Aunt Beverley was right
about you. You're a doll."

"Is that what she called me?' asked Laura.

At the same time, however, she glimpsed a small white figure in a white
dress crossing quickly between the commissary and the offices next to
them. It was only for a second, the briefest of glimpses. She could have
blinked and missed it. It could have been a child actress, walking from
one soundstage to another.

It could have been anybody's daughter, in a white summer dress. But
Laura was almost certain that it was the Peggy-girl, watching her -
keeping her distance, but watching her.

"Something wrong?' asked Chester.

"I don't think so,' said Laura; but she continued to feel troubled all
through lunch, and even Aunt Beverley noticed how often she turned to
look out of the window.

When they returned home that afternoon there was a wire waiting for
them, telling them that Laura's father was dead.

Two days before the funeral it snowed and went on snowing.

The Litchfield hills became eerily silent, under a sky the colour of
dark grey flannel. There was little that Elizabeth could do except spend
her days indoors, tidying up her father's books and papers.

Her boss Margo Rossi had reluctantly given her two weeks' compassionate
leave, although she had insisted on sending up the manuscript of Reds
Under The Bed so that Elizabeth could finish line-editing it. ''m sorry
about your father,' she had told Elizabeth, over the phone. ' there's
nothing deader than a deadline."

Elizabeth used only the kitchen, the library and a bedroom otherwise she
would have had to spend half the day fetching and carrying logs from the
snow-clogged yard outside. She had restarted all the clocks, but then
she stopped them again. The house was so huge and empty that the sound
of ticking made her feel as if her life were sliding by; and the chimes
always made her jump.

She wasn't alone all the time. Mrs. Patrick called by every afternoon;
and several friends had called by. Lenny had taken her out to dinner
twice and on Sunday she had cooked him lunch. Their affection for each
other grew each time they met.

Elizabeth felt so natural with him. Although his wartime experiences and
his marriage had . him different - edgy, sometimes, and restless - he
was still a part of her early life, when her family had been together,
and her mind had been filled with gymkhanas and handsome horsemen and
passionate kisses under the cherry-blossom trees.

Lenny was in Hartford this week, although he telephoned her every
evening at seven o'clock, just to tell her how much he missed her, and
how boring insurance could be. What Elizabeth was looking forward to the
most was Laura's arrival.

She hadn't seen Laura for over a year now, although they still
corresponded two or three times a month and sent each other photographs.
Laura was flying to Idlewild and then taking the train. She was expected
in New Milford mid-afternoon.

Elizabeth sat at her father's desk, leafing through page after page of
business letters. Most were letters to the printers, and the binders,
and the bank. There were a few letters from authors, some of them
famous. A quick scribbled note from Marc Connelly; a neat '-you' letter
from Edna Ferber; and a rambling typed letter from Alexander Woollcott.
There was also a letter from a local address, New Preston, signed by
Miles Moreton. It read: ' am delighted that you want to publish my book
Human Imagination: Our Immortal Sold? and I can certainly meet you for
lunch at 12 noon on the I3th."

Elizabeth suddenly remembered that her father had told her to read Human
Imagination, and to talk to its author, too. She walked along the
shelves, trying to find it. Her father had been chronically untidy, the
books were in no kind of order, but at last she discovered a thick
black-jacketed book right at the very end of the second shelf. It had a
plain typographical dust jacket, but on the inside flap there was a
photograph of a very thin, angular young man with curly hair and staring
eyes, smoking a cigarette.

Elizabeth lit a cigarette herself, and sat back in her father's chair
and started to read. Outside the french windows, it had started to snow
again - huge, tumbling flakes that danced and whirled. The temperature
had been steadily dropping since yesterday night, but the Reverend
Bullock had telephoned to reassure Elizabeth that the funeral would go
ahead, the grave had been dug before the ground froze. That problem
hadn't actually occurred to her, and she had stood for a long time in
the hallway after she had hung up, thinking of the deep, cold,
shoulder-wide trench in the ground into which her father would be
lowered, and covered over, as if to mask his face from the sky.

She had found it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that he
had died, because the last warmth of her childhood security had died
with him. Her mother couldn't take care of her. Now she was truly on her
own, and it was snowing.

She smoked, and read, and while she read the day grew darker and darker.

Imagination exists independently of all other brain functions. All other
brain functions are concerned with response to quantifiable external
stimuli - to cold, to heat, to pain, to caresses. Humans alone possess
imagination.

Even the so-called '-sense' that animals possess - for instance, the
much-vaunted ability of dogs to be able to anticipate earthquakes - is
only a highly-refined response to measurable ground-tremors and changes
in atmospheric pressure. Dogs cannot imagine earthquakes, any more than
cows can imagine rain. Animals cannot imagine that they are another
animal, living in an another age, in another country.

Humans, however, are capable of creating infinite worlds inside their
heads. They can imagine that they are other people. They can even
imagine that they are animals. One human can create an imaginary world,
with imaginary people in it, and write about it, and that world can then
be recreated, with certain personal adjustments, inside another human's
mind. Imagination is capable of taking on its own existence.

There is anecdotal evidence that the human imagination is capable of
outliving the human body and the reactive brain -- that '' are not the
souls of people who have died while leaving some important corporeal
business undone, or the spirits of those who are still seeking revenge
for some terrible injustice that was done to them during their
substantial lifetimes. Instead, 'ghosts' are the living resonance of
that most powerful of human qualities, the ability to create out of
nothing that which is not, and which never can be, and yet is just as
real to the common consciousness as something that actually was.

Who is the more real? Abraham Lincoln or Tom Sawyer? What is more real?
Tara, or the Jefferson Memorial? If we can imagine a place or a person
with complete conviction, is that not every bit as good as 'reality'?

In 1927, in New Orleans, a Negro pianist called John Michaels claimed to
a reporter from the Times-Picayune that his dead brother had paid him a
visit in the guise of a 13-year-old white boy called Philip Lasalle. His
brother had shouted at him and persecuted him and woken him up, night
after night, demanding that he got out of bed and worked. Some nights,
his brother would even whip him with a riding-crop, and Michaels showed
weals on his back to prove it - injuries that it would have been
impossible for him to inflict on himself.

After several months of this, Michaels was close to nervous collapse. He
was interviewed by two doctors from the Pontchartrain Mental
Institution, who concluded that he was sane and that he was telling the
truth, although ' substance of his claim is beyond explanation and
completely beggars belief."

Michaels' brother was a full-blood Negro and had died of viral pneumonia
at the age of 32. Anybody less like "Philip Lasalle' would have been
hard'to find. However, two years after his death, some of his property
was returned to Michaels from his brother's lodgings in Baton Rouge.
This property included the novel Sweet Remembrance by Chauncey Geffard -
a popular story of life on a Southern plantation in the days before the
Civil War. One of the principal characters in this book is a privileged
young white boy who is given everything his heart desires - a horse, a
carriage, and a fine rifle. He mistreats his slaves - whipping the men
and seducing the girls--but one of the strands of the novel's plot is
the way in which he is gradually transformed by ill-luck and personal
tragedy into a sympathetic character.

The white boy's name was Philip Lasalle.

Michaels swore that he had never even heard of the book before his
experience; and there was no obvious reason why he might have lied. He
made no money from the newspapers or the magazines who came to interview
him, and he left New Orleans shortly afterward and went to live under a
false name in Mobile, Alabama. On- May 8, 1928, he was found moaning and
covered in blood in his hotel room on Conception Street, and taken to
hospital, where he died the next day. His injuries were consistent with
a sustained thrashing with a cane or riding-crop.

Before his death he was interviewed twice by Mobile police, and on both
occasions he claimed that his assailant was white, aged about 13, and
that his name was Philip Lasalle.

Elizabeth laid the book down on the desk. The afternoon was so dark now
that she could scarcely see to read. She switched on the amber-shaded
Tiffany desk lamp and looked at the book, her chin in her hand. She
didn't know whether she wanted to read any more or not. All she knew was
that Miles Moreton was trying to suggest that our imagination could
outlive us, and that we could come to life again as anybody we chose to
think of- even if that '' was fictitious, out of a novel.

What was even more frightening was that -- fictitious or not -they were
still quite capable of hurting people, even killing them, as the
swirling black shape in the garden had killed poor Clan Philips.

She stood up, and went to the windows, and watched the snow. They
reminded her so much of the snowflakes in The Snow Queen: ' are the
white bees swarming there ... they have a Queen bee. She flies yonder
where they swarm so thickly. She is the largest of them, and never
remains upon the earth, but flies up again into the black cloud.
Sometimes on a winter's night she flies through the streets of the town,
and breathes with her frosty breath upon the windows, and then they are
covered with strange and beautiful forms, like trees and flowers."

She shivered. She knew without a doubt that the Peggy-girl was out in
the garden somewhere, standing in the snow, watching the house, waiting,
impervious to cold, but her toes and fingers almost black with
frostbite.

She turned back to Human Imagination. She began reading another case
history, about a woman in Bethlehem, Connecticut, who had reappeared to
her family in the shape of Jo, from Little Women, and who protected them
so thoroughly from anybody who threatened to take advantage of them that
her widower was unable to remarry, because any prospective partner was
unexpectedly drenched with ice-water or showered with broken glass, and
her children were ostracized at school because any other pupil who said
so much as '!" in their presence found that their ears were viciously
boxed by empty air.

Elizabeth thought: this is too much like the Peggy-girl to be true. The
violence, the over-protection, the mysterious cold snaps, the strange
appearances. Father had been visited by the Peggy-girl and had
discovered what she was; and she was this.

Peggy's imagination had outlived her. She had no substance now, apart
from her bones. But what she did have was presence, and her presence was
Gerda, from The Snow Queen. Who is the more real? thought Elizabeth.
Gerda or me? Gerda or Margo Rossi? Gerda or Peggy Buchanan, that poor
little girl who had fallen through the ice while she was playing
dancers.

Sleep the dancing maidens? No, they're dead. Dead and cold and never
likely to breathe again. But the story lives on, Gerda lives on.

Not only Gerda, but the Queen of the white bees, who flies yonder where
they swarm so thickly.

She squashed out her cigarette and immediately took another one. At that
instant the front doorbell rang, and she jumped. She went to answer it,
and it rang again, and she called out, ' right, all right! I'm coming!"

Standing on the snow-whirling doorstep was Laura, wearing a huge fur hat
and a huge fur coat, her face orangey-tanned in the winter light. Behind
her a red taxi burbled in the snow, and Jack the taxi-driver from New
Milford was lifting her bags out of the trunk.

"Oh, Lizzie,' said Laura, and hugged her. Her fur coat was chilly and
prickled with wet. ', Lizzie, poor father, this is all so sad."

Elizabeth cooked them a supper of rib chops with celery stuffing, which
they ate in the kitchen. Laura said, ''d almost forgotten what home food
tasted like, I've been living off avocados and alfalfa."

"You're looking well on it."

"Thanks. But sometimes I could kill for a plateful of Mrs. Patrick's ham
and red-eye gravy. With dumplings, of course.

And chocolate chiffon pie to follow."

Elizabeth sat back and looked at her and smiled. ', come on, Laura.
You're a Hollywood girl. I think you always were.

How did that screen test work out?"

"Camera test, actually. "I want to see if the lens loves you, baby," But
good, I think. If I get it, it'll be the biggest part I've had so far.
I'll actually get to say some sensible dialogue, instead of "Dry
martini, sir?" or

"Ooooh, thank you, Mr. Frobisher", which was the sum total of my first
two speaking parts."

Elizabeth laughed. ' you want some more wine? I don't have any chocolate
chiffon pie, I'm afraid. I should have bought some apple turnovers,
shouldn't I?"

"Not for me. I never eat dessert. I only dream about it. You should see
some of those girls who hang around at Schwab's.

Thin, you'd never believe it."

They poured another glass of red wine and sat back and smoked and
enjoyed the silence of each other's company for a while. Elizabeth felt
that Laura's arrival had already made her father's funeral much more
bearable. She had realized, thinking about Laura, that she had been
intensely jealous of her, when she was younger, but very protective,
too. She still felt protective, because she was older; but she wasn't
jealous any longer, and that was surprisingly liberating, and good for
the soul.

Laura said, out of the blue, ''m not really sure, but I think I've seen
Peggy again." Elizabeth stared at her. Laura thought that Elizabeth was
looking rather too thin. ' was that?' she asked, cigarette smoke
trailing.

"The day before my camera test. Well, the night before, actually. I
heard somebody whispering in the courtyard outside my bedroom. I looked
out of the window and I was sure that it was Peggy - I mean, the girl
who looks like Peggy, but isn't. The only thing was, when I walked
towards her, she wasn't Peggy at all, or even the girl who looks like
Peggy, she was nothing more than a shape."

"A shape? What do you mean?"

"She was just the shape between the palms and the creepers and the wall;
there was nothing actually there. It was like, what do you call it, an
optical illusion. Except that it wasn't, because I heard her
whispering."

Elizabeth was silent and thoughtful for a very long time. ' told you
what happened to Mr. Philips."

"Yes."

"But there's something more. Father saw the Peggy-girl too.

He saw her several times. I don't know what he thought about her. He
wasn't able to tell me. But he did put me on to a book that he
published, Human Imagination, and this book says that our imagination
lives on after we're dead. Everything else dies, but imagination's
different, because it's something that never was, made real; and so it
stays real. Like Oz, and Narnia."

Laura swallowed a large mouthful of wine. ' don't get it," she said.

Elizabeth looked embarrassed. ' tell you the truth, I don't, either. Not
exactly. But father said that I should talk to the author, and the
author's local. Maybe we should go to see him, now you're here."

"Oh, I don't think so,' said Laura. ' just want to be quiet, and
sorrowful, and think of father." "Wait up,' said Elizabeth. She went
through to the library, and came back with Miles Moreton's book, which
she opened at the flyleaf, to show Laura the author's photograph.

"Heyy ...' said Laura, raising her eyebrows. ' you're right."

Later, as they sat by the fire in the sun-room, Elizabeth told Laura
everything that had happened on the night that Clan Philips had been
killed. Laura sat and listened without interruption and when she had
finished, Elizabeth was quite sure that she believed her.

"It's a force, isn't it?' said Laura. ''s something supernatural.

But Mr. Bunzum was all frozen, Mr. Bunzum broke into pieces. Whatever
happened to Clan, that must have been the same thing."

"Dick Bracewaite, too,' Elizabeth put in, as gently as she could.

Laura gave her a small, unfocused smile. ' ... poor old Dick
Bracewaite."

"You never told me about that."

"There was nothing to tell. You want to know the truth? He was a pervert
and I was a showoff."

"He really did it to you?"

Laura nodded. ', yes, he did it to me. He did everything you can think
of, and a few other things besides. The trouble was, I liked it, at the
time. It made me feel naughty and special and excited. I knew I
shouldn't be doing it, but the naughtier it was, the more I liked it."

She paused, and looked at the fire. Twin flames sparkled in her eyes. '
terrible thing was, I didn't feel sorry when they told me he was dead. I
didn't feel anything at all. Maybe I should have felt angry. Maybe I
should have gone to spit on his grave. But, I don't know. He took
advantage of me. He took my innocence. But, in a funny way, I think I
took far more from him than he ever took from me. You're like that, at
that age.

You expect everything. You expect the world. And just for a while you
get it."

Elizabeth said, ' frightens me, all of this."

"Why should it?"

"These cold snaps ... Dick Bracewaite dying, the way he did.

Frostbitten, in June! Then Clan Philips. I can't really believe that
it's Peggy, yet it must be Peggy, mustn't it? She's guarding us,
protecting us, and anybody she doesn't like, she freezes." "Do you
really believe that?' asked Laura, leaning back against the cushions.

"I don't know. But who could freeze people, just by kissing them?"

"You don't mean the Snow Queen?"

"Her kiss was colder than ice. It went to his bean, although that was
half-frozen already; he thought he should die." '

"But, really, that was just a fairy story."

"I know. But that's the point. It was Peggy's favourite, and if Peggy's
imagination lived on after she was drowned - everything would live on,
Gerda, Kay, the Lapland woman, the Finland woman, the snowflakes, the
Dreams." Laura said nothing, but watched the fire.

Outside the window, the snow fell thicker and thicker, as if the sky
were determined to silence them, no matter what. And a figure stood in
the tennis court, in a white summer dress, with a triumphant smile on
her face that would have chilled Elizabeth and Laura right down to their
feet, if they could have seen it.

They took a left past Marble Dale and up a sloping tack between the
snow-laden trees. The car slid sideways on the ice, but Elizabeth
changed down into second gear, and gradually the tyres took a slithering
grip and they climbed slowly up the hill.

Today was unexpectedly bright and sunny, so bright that Elizabeth had to
wear sunglasses to drive. She had borrowed Mr. Twomey's old Studebaker
Champion, repainted by hand in a terrible grass green. The car's heater
didn't work, so both girls wore gloves and coats and woolly hats.

They took a sharp right turn at the top of the hill, down a snowy
incline and up another hill. Here, set above the road behind a
natural-stone retaining wall, was a small chalet-style house with a
fretwork-decorated verandah, and fretwork decorated shutters. The sign
on the mailbox said Moreton. A black Labrador appeared around the side
of the house and barked at them monotonously as they climbed the path to
the front door. ' up, dog,' said Laura, and the dog stopped barking,
turned around and disappeared around the side of the house again.

"I always knew you had a way with animals,' said Elizabeth.

The dog had obviously alerted his owner, because the front door opened
immediately and there was Miles Moreton, much older than he had appeared
on his book jacket, his curly hair wired with grey, his eyes pouchy, his
fingers stained dark with nicotine. He wore baggy green corduroy
trousers and a green checkered lumberjack shirt.

"Come on in,' he called them. ' didn't know whether you'd be able to
make it up the hill."

The house was grossly untidy, with books and papers stacked in the hall,
and not one of the pictures hanging straight, but at least it was warm,
with a huge fire crackling, and by the smell of it Miles Moreton had
just brewed up some coffee.

Elizabeth and Laura hung up their coats and shifted stacks of paper so
that they could sit on the old brown velour couch.

Miles distractedly moved books from one side of the room to the other,
and then back again. ' guess you can tell that I'm not used to having
visitors. Would you like some coffee? It comes from Basel, in
Switzerland. It's the same coffee that Carl Jung used to drink."
Elizabeth said, ''re coming to the funeral?"

"Oh yes, I'd be honoured. Your father was a man in a million. He was
intelligent, he was sensitive. I never met anybody with such diverse
interests."

"He was interested in everything,' Elizabeth agreed. ' guess that's why
he never made much money. He never published the same kind of book
twice. One month it was fly-fishing; the next it was Greek poetry; or
obstetrics; or cheese-making."

Miles found a crumpled pack of Camels on the table and offered them
around. ' wrote that book on human imagination over ten years ago. I'm
surprised that your father even remembered it."

"He had a reason to remember it. He was beginning to have experiences
that convinced him that what you were writing about was true."

"Experiences?" "Visits,' said Laura.

"You mean - ?" "That's right,' said Elizabeth. ' was visited on more
than one occasion by our sister Peggy. She drowned in the family
swimming pool when she was five."

"Did she appear as herself?' asked Miles. He was quite breathless with
fascination.

Elizabeth shook her head. ' think that she appeared as Gerda, from The
Snow Quern. She was always saying that she would like to travel to
Lapland, and visit the Snow Queen's palace."

"Do you have any proof of these manifestations? Any photographs? Any
lost artefacts?"

"We've seen her for ourselves. Not just once, but dozens of times."
Elizabeth told him about the Reverend Bracewaite and Clan Philips, and
Laura described her experiences in Santa Monica and Hollywood. He sat
and listened and smoked his cigarette right down to the butt, so that it
burned his lips.

"There's no question that your sister's manifestations are very similar
to other sightings,' he said. ' of the most common characteristics is
this ability to leave the scene of the sighting by changing shape, by
becoming something else. The visitors don't simply vanish into thin air,
they change into a scarf or a sheet of paper and disappear that way.
It's also interesting that she appears to be slightly unfocused. We
never imagine fictional characters exactly, down to every last mole on
their chins; and this is how your Peggy-stroke-Gerda seems to look. She
also seems to appear less vividly in California than she does locally.
This is because she imagines that the Snow Queen story is centred on the
house where she was brought up; and this is where her imagination is at
its strongest."

"What makes her appear?' asked Laura. ' do you think she wants?"

Miles shrugged. ' don't think she actually wants anything, in the sense
that people want money or love or forgiveness. It sounds as if she's
being very protective towards you both - in fact, over-protective.
Wasn't that a characteristic of Gerda in The Snow Queen?"

"Oh, absolutely. The whole story is about her travelling to Finland and
Lapland to rescue her brother."

"Quite. And in that case, you're going to have to get accustomed to the
idea of being guarded for the rest of your lives."

"I can understand if she attacked the Reverend Bracewaite," said
Elizabeth. ' why would she kill Clan Philips? He was there to help me,
not to hurt me."

"I can't say. It might depend on what was going on in his mind.' She
looked puzzled. ' me put it this way: imaginary characters are
apparently able to "see" other imaginary characters, even if they're
created by people who are still living. Clan may have imagined himself
to be doing something with you of which your sister didn't approve, and
so she killed him." "Doing what, for instance?' Laura demanded.

"Use your imagination,' said Miles, rather archly.

Elizabeth sat back. ' never thought of that. But that means ... well,
any man who finds me attractive could be at risk."

"That's right. You could be very dangerous to know."

"But I've never had any trouble before now."

"You've been out with men before?"

"Of course."

"Maybe their intentions were all honourable; or at least benign. Maybe
Clan imagined doing something violent. It's impossible to say."

"What exactly is this Peggy-girl?' asked Laura. ' say she's not a ghost.
Does she exist on her own, or do Lizzie and I have to be there to see
her? What I mean is, when Lizzie and I die, will she die, too? Is she
real, or are we imagining her?" Miles said, ' don't know for sure. But
so far, all the evidence seems to suggest that these spirits have their
own independent existence. They survived the death of their own material
brains; I'm sure that they can survive the death of the people who knew
them when they were alive. As to what that actually art ... my theory is
that they are creations of the collective unconscious, that great shared
pool of human thought which all of us are tapped into. If you go back in
human history, to the time when men first became capable of articulating
the things they thought about, you can find dozens of examples of
fictional and mythological creations which took on flesh.

"For instance, there was a thing that Viking sailors used to call Shony.
It was a manlike creature that used to appear in the North Sea, with
shaggy hair and spines. It was supposed to devour seamen who fell
overboard; or else it would mimic the screams of a drowning man, and
when somebody dived into the water to rescue him it would tear them to
pieces. Viking shipbuilders used to redden the keek of their ships by
tying a victim to the logs on which they rolled their boats into the
water - kind of a sacrifice, so that Shony wouldn't attack them.

There was no real evidence that Shony existed, but then something very
interesting happened. Sir Walter Scott the Scottish novelist wrote about
Shony, calling him by his local name of Shellycoat. Here ... " He stood
up and sorted through a tilting stack of notebooks until he found the
one he was looking for. ' is what Scott wrote. "When Shellycoat appeared
on the shore, he seemed to be decked with marine productions and, in
particular, with shells whose clattering announced his approach." '

"About two years after this was published, a young man was found on die
beach near St. Andrews, in five, with no legs and half of his torso
missing. It looked as if he had been attacked by a shark - although
there are no sharks in the North Sea. A month or so later, a young woman
was found mutilated, and then two dogs. A young anthropologist from
Cupar decided to keep watch on the beach. He camped out there day and
night for three weeks until one morning he saw a woman coming in his
direction, walking her dog. There was a dense hoar, or sea mist, so it
was difficult for him to see very much. But when the woman was only
about two hundred feet away from him, he heard a clattering sound, and
behind her "some huge, hunched Thing came out of the ocean shallows,
covered with dripping brown weed and mussel-shells."

"The young man shouted a warning, the woman turned around, saw what it
was and ran. The thing was quick, though.

11 caught her dog and literally tore it in half, devouring one half and
throwing the rest on the beach. Then it disappeared back into the mist."

"My God,' said Elizabeth. ' anybody find out what it was?"

From the back of the notebook Miles produced a photocopy of a blurry
charcoal sketch. ' is what the anthropologist drew, less than an hour
later.' The sketch showed a woman in a black coat running to the left
foreground. Her eyes were deep black smudges of terror. This was a woman
who was running for her life. Her hat had flown off and was lying on die
beach.

Fifty feet behind her was a massive shape, black and bulky, hung with
seaweed and encrusted with shells.

"It could have been a hoax,' said Laura.

"Yes, you're right, it could be a hoax,' Miles agreed. ' anthropologist
swore on oath that what he had seen was real, and so did the woman, but
they could have invented the thing together; or somebody could have
dressed up like Shellycoat just to scare people, although it's hard to
imagine how he managed to tear a dog in half. However, two interesting
facts came to light. One was that a local lad named Angus Renfield had
drowned the previous spring at the same spot, and that his favourite
story was Sir Walter Scott's description of Shellycoat.

Apparently he used to try to frighten his pals by covering himself in
weed and chasing after them along the beach. The other fact was that a
fishing-boat returned to St. Andrews shortly afterwards with a damaged
trawl-net. The crew discovered that a huge hole had been torn or bitten
out of it. In one part of the net, they found twenty or thirty
mussel-shells, in an overlapping pattern, all interwined with coarse,
greasy hair.

These shells, if you held them up and shook them, made a distinctive
clattering sound." "That's a pretty scary story,' said Laura.

Miles lit another cigarette. ''s impossible to authenticate, although
you can still see the shells in the library at St. Andrews University. I
have a photograph of it somewhere. But this isn't the only instance of a
fictional or mythological being coming to life. People have reported
seeing Dickensian characters, Joycean characters, Raymond Chandler
private eyes. A nurse at a drug clinic in London says she was totally
convinced that a man who came for treatment was Sherlock Holmes." "Oh,
come on,' said Elizabeth. ' must have been helping herself to the
medicinal brandy.' She wanted to laugh but the serious look on his face
completely silenced her.

"No, the nurse wasn't drunk and she wasn't imagining things, but
somebody was. Somebody was imagining that they were Sherlock Holmes.
Somebody dead. Their spirit hadn't survived in the form in which they
actually lived. When you think about it, why should it? Your imagination
is completely free from the constraints of your body. Somebody had
imagined that so strongly that they took on a perceivable form.

"There is vast psychological power in the collective unconscious.

Jung knew that, and used it to help people with schizophrenia and other
serious mental disorders. It's like one person being knocked down in an
accident and dozens of other people rushing to help ... medics, nurses,
doctors, surgeons, anesthetists, blood donors ... not to mention the
community that built the hospital and paid for the emergency services in
the first place. The only difference is that the help you receive from
the collective unconscious is psychological rather than physical."

"If this is true, how come the whole world isn't populated by fictional
characters?' asked Laura. ' aren't we shoulder-to-shoulder with the
Hardy Boys, or Huckleberry Finn, or Anne of Green Gables? Just think of
it! I could be Scarlett O'Hara when I die!"

Miles poured himself some more coffee. His expression was still serious.
' don't think all spirits take on the shape of fictional characters. I
don't think that very many spirits survive the moment of extinction. In
almost every case that I've come across, the deceased person died a
traumatic death.

They almost always drowned or suffocated, or suffered a long period of
oxygen deprivation in some other way. I don't have any idea how it
happens, but oxygen deprivation seems to be one of the necessary
conditions for the imagination to be released. This is why so many
people report out-of-body experiences when they're clinically dead for a
short period of time. There have been far too many reports to be
dismissed; especially since they're all so similar. The sensation of
floating to the ceiling and looking down at your own body ... the
sensation of moving away towards a bright light. Seeing parents and
friends who have predeceased you. This is the human imagination leaving
the human body, and after that has happened, it can take on any form it
wants to, provided it has the will, and the strength, and the need to do
it."

"I'm finding this very difficult to believe.' said Elizabeth.

"I'm surprised,' Miles replied. ''re a writer yourself ... you should be
quite familiar with the power of the human imagination. Believe me, in
the backs of our minds there is another world, with other people in it.
They exist because we want them to exist. You have only to dose your
eyes and think of them, and there they are. You can actually see them.

You can actually describe them. You can hear them talking and smell.
their perfume. To all intents and purposes they're real. They're really
real."

Elizabeth was thoughtful for a moment. Then she said, ' there any way to
get rid of them? I mean, if we can make them up, surely we can unmake
them, too."

"You're talking about getting rid of Peggy?"

She nodded.

"But Peggy's your sister,' said Miles. ' may not look exactly like your
sister any longer, but that's who she is. You can sense it for yourself.
What if Laura here were in a fire, and her face got all burned, and she
had to have reconstructive surgery so that she wound up looking like
somebody different?

You wouldn't want to get rid of her, would you?"

"This is different. Peggy's liable to kill people. Besides, she's dead
already. Whatever this Peggy-girl is, whether it's Gerda or Peggy or
somebody else altogether, the Peggy that I knew is lying in the cemetery
and she's not going to come back."

"You're wrong,' Miles replied. ''s lying in the cemetery is Peggy's
material body, that's all. Her essential being, what she actually was,
is still with us, and will remain with us."

"You're saying I can't get rid of her?"

"How can you get rid of Gerda from The Snow Queen? Burn every copy and
brainwash everybody who's ever read it? Once a character has been
devised, he or she can never be andevised."

"But she could ruin my life! If every man I ever meet is liable to be
frozen to death, how can I have any kind of relationship with anybody?"

"I guess you could try living as far away from Sherman as possible."

"Oh, I see! I have to go live in China because my dead five year-old
sister doesn't like me going around with men who have sex on their
mind!"

Miles lit a third cigarette. For a moment, his face disappeared behind
the smoke. Then he blew it away, and nodded, and said, ' ... it may
actually come to that."

"And what about me?' asked Laura.

"I guess the same thing applies,' said Miles. ' all, there's every
reason to think that your Peggy killed the Reverend Bracewaite, isn't
there, even though you didn't actually see her do it." Elizabeth said,
''s really no way?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Spirit-forming isn't exactly a known science,
after all. You have to believe that a fictional character can actually
exist before you can work out how to be rid of her, and that's not a
leap of faith that many people are prepared to take."

"I'm not sure I'm prepared to take it myself."

"You've seen Peggy for yourself."

"I know. But maybe it isn't Peggy at all, maybe I'm deluding myself. And
that black shape that froze poor Clan to death, what could that be?"
"The Snow Queen,' said Miles, matter-of-factly. ' a spirit becomes a
character, she can conjure up all of the other characters that make her
what she is." "That's what I thought,' said Elizabeth. ' the Snow Queen
wasn't black, like that. The way that Hans Andersen described her, she
was white. She wore a cap and coat entirely of snow, and she was tall
and slender, and she was dazzlingly white." Miles said, ' sure, that's
what he wrote in the story, but he was writing for children, wasn't he?"

"I don't understand."

"Hans Andersen wrote for adults long before he started writing fairy
stories for children. In fact, he didn't particularly enjoy writing
fairy stories, but they were so successful that he didn't have any
choice. When they were first published, a lot of critics said that his
stories were too morbid for children. They read like children's stories,
but they're aimed at adults. He was a Scandinvian. You know, gloomy and
dire. The Snow Queen was based on one of the daughters of Loki, the
great Nordic incarnation of evil. Loki was like Satan to the Norse
people. He frightened them so much that they wouldn't make any
sacrifices to him, or build any temples in his honour, in case he
appeared to thank them. His first wife was called Embers and his second
wife was called Ashes. Even today, when Danish housewives hear the fires
spitting, they say that Loki is beating his children.

"His third wife was called Augur-boda, which means Anguish-boding. She
had three children, the first of whom was Hel, the queen of the
underworld, who gave her name to the English word

"Hell". Hel was thrown out of the celestial kingdom of Odin, and
according to legend she was given "nine unlighted worlds to rule, a
queen and empress over all the dead." The people who lived in Hel's
palace were criminals and sinners, and anybody who had died without
shedding blood. The Norse people had the greatest contempt for anybody
who died in bed. You were supposed to be warlike and valiant, and die by
the sword.

"Hel was supposed to have been responsible for the Black Death. The
Danes said that she mounted her white, three legged horse and travelled
the length and breadth of Northern Europe, spreading disease. She was
also supposed to be responsible for any death by freezing or frostbite.
In other words, Hel, the daughter of Loki, was the original model for
the Snow Queen." Laura said, ''s only a legend, though, isn't she?"

Miles blew out smoke. ' sister Peggy is only a fairy story."

"You're trying to suggest that Peggy has been reincarnated as Gerda; and
that Hel has been brought to life, too?"

"You want my serious opinion?"

"Of course!"

"Then my opinion is that it's all impossible, that none of it could
happen, and yet it has."

Elizabeth stood up, and walked to the window, and looked out of the
snowy yard. The black Labrador was standing by the frozen birdbath,
watching her with garnet-coloured eyes.

"How do we put her to rest?' she asked.

"I don't know,' said Miles. ''m an author. I'm a psychologist.

A dabbler in this and a dabbler in that."

"I have to put her to rest. She's going to haunt us for ever, if I
don't."

Miles looked at Laura, and made a face which meant, what can I do, I've
told you everything I know. Laura said, ' you should move out to
California, Lizzie. I'm sure that Chester would give you some
screenwriting work." "No,' said Elizabeth. ' don't want to run away. Why
should I ? Loki, Hel, they're only stories, aren't they? Stories can't
hurt you." "Lizzie,' said Miles, as gently as he could. ' think you
ought to understand that they can; and often have done; and will again;
and that of all the stories your sister could have chosen to imagine,
The Snow Queen is one of the most frightening. The name of Loki may be
unfamiliar to you, but the name of Satan isn't, is it, and we're talking
about the same kind of manifestation.

If Peggy has imagined herself to be Gerda, then she has imagined the
Snow Queen, too, because the Snow Queen is essential to Gerda's
struggle. Without the Snow Queen, Gerda is nothing more than a little
girl who presses hot pennies against frosty windows so that she can see
the street outside.

"You've seen the Snow Queen. You've seen her for yourself, and her name
is Hcl."

They buried their father with the simplest of ceremonies. A biting
north-westerly wind was blowing from Canada, and sizzles of fine snow
blew over the open grave.

Elizabeth and Laura were amazed how many people came.

Mary Kenneth Randall, the novelist, in a wheelchair, pushed by an
ever-complaining black woman. Eugene O'Neill, the playwright, looking
old and cold and miserable. Ashley Tibbett, the essayist, emaciated and
yellow and dying himself from lung cancer. The humorist S.J. Perelman,
who used to challenge David Buchanan to martini-drinking contests at the
Algonquin, and usually won. Marianne Craig Moore, the poetess who wrote
The Pangolin. Frederic Nash, better known as Ogden, but on a day like
this short of any witty verses.

Somebody else came, a little late. A huge black Cadillac trundled up to
the cemetery gates, as silent as any of the hearses, and a stocky
wide-shouldered man climbed out. He wore a black overcoat with an
astrakhan collar and he walked with a silver-topped cane. The Reverend
Bullock was already intoning the words, ' to ashes, dust to dust ...' as
the man reached the graveside. He took off his hat and stood bareheaded
while David Buchanan's casket was lowered into the frozen ground. His
hair was no longer the colour of peanut-brittle, more like rusted steel;
and his moustache was droopier; but it was Johnson Ward all right, no
doubt about it, the once-notorious author of Bitter Fruit.

He waited until the ceremony was over, and then he stepped forward and
dropped something into the open grave.

Elizabeth circled around the back of the mourners.

"Bronco,' she said.

"Little Lizzie,' he said. ' favourite balloon-popper."

He kissed her, and he still smelled spicey-clean. ''m so pleased you
could come,' she said. ' haven't seen you since - '

"Yes,' he said. ' since we buried your little Clothes-Peg.

Maybe we should stop meeting at funerals.' He looked down at the grave.
' father of yours, he was so dear to me, do you know that? It was a joy
to write for a publisher like him, even if he couldn't pay much money.
He cared so much for what he did."

He took out his handkerchief and wiped his nose. ' you know what I threw
in his grave? The pen he lent me, the first time I ever met him. A woman
came up to me in Jack & Charlie's and asked me for my autograph. That
was the first time that anybody had ever asked me, and I didn't even
have a pen, so Davey lent me his. I offered it back to him, but he said,
no, keep it. You can give it back to me when people stop asking for your
autograph any more. Well, they don't. They don't even know who I am,
half of them. Those days are long gone; and now Davey's gone, too, and
he can have his pen back."

Elizabeth took his arm. ' you're working for us now, aren't you? Margo
said you were writing a new novel, all about Arizona."

Bronco shrugged. ''m supposed to be, in fact, I'll probably have to.
I've spent the advance already."

"When's it due?"

"The end of the year. Not much hope of that."

"How much have you written?"

He lifted his leather-gloved hand, as if he were framing a cinema shot.
''ve written, "The Sun Worshippers, by Johnson Ward". Then I've written,
"Chapter One". Then I've written, "Pearson sat in the middle of a day
with no shadow. He had women on his mind. Women and liquor, but mostly
women." '

There was a long pause. They were walking downhill from the gravesite
now, arm-in-arm. The wind blustered in their ears.

"Is that all?' said Elizabeth.

Bronco gave her a keen, tired, paternal look. ''s it, little Lizzie,
balloon-biter extraordinaire. But don't you tell Rossi, or she'll have
my guts for banjo-strings."

"You're blocked, that's all. You can get over block."

"Unh-hunh, this isn't block. Billy's been calling."

"Billy?"

Bronco glanced over his snow-dandruffed shoulder. ' told you about
Billy. He was my brother, the one who died. I met him in Cuba and now he
keeps appearing in Phoenix. How can I write when my dead brother keeps
pestering me?"

Elizabeth pulled Bronco to a halt. ' you serious?' she demanded.

He stared at her and his eyes were wild. ' course I'm serious, for
Christ's sake. He never leaves me alone. Vita thinks I've gone crazy. /
think I've gone crazy. I try to write and he sits in my room and stares
at me, and interrupts me, and talks to me, and tells me how careless I
am, I shouldn't have let him die, I shouldn't have made any money, I
don't have any talent, I'm a failure. He's always there, god damnit."

"Have you spoken to anybody else about it?"

"I have a gardner. I've talked to him about it. Actually I had to,
because he saw me arguing with Billy, and asked me what was wrong." "Did
he believe you when you told him who Billy was?"

They had reached the funeral cars. Laura and Lenny came over, Lenny
dapping his hands against the cold.

Bronco said, ' thing ... I only told him that Billy was my brother. But
he said, "You shouldn't go messing with dead people. Dead people will
try anything"." "Somebody must have told him that your brother had died.

Maybe Vita."

"But what would 7011 assume if you saw me arguing with somebody in the
garden and I said it was my brother? You'd assume it was another
brother, wouldn't you? You wouldn't think that it was my dead brother!"

Laura came up and took hold of Bronco's arm. ' favourite risque
novelist,' she said, kissing his cheek.

"My,' smiled Bronco. ' sure have grown, little Laura."

Now Margaret Buchanan came down the shovel-cleared pathway in a
wheelchair, wrapped in a dark plaid blanket.

Seamus was pushing her, although Seamus didn't look well.

His cheeks were as pale as kitchen soap and his eyes were red rimmed. He
wore a black woolly hat that gave him the appearance of a big,
mollycoddled toddler. He stopped beside them but he didn't say anything.
A shining drop swung from the end of his nose.

Margaret wore tiny circular sunglasses and a wide black hat.

Her mouth was pinched. ' don't know why David had to go on such a cold
day,' she complained. ' always used to be so considerate. But now he's
gone, goodness! isn't he making a meal of it?" Laura said, ' on, mother.
There's some hot food back at the house. You'll feel better when you've
had something to eat."

But Elizabeth took out her handkerchief and went up to Seamus and wiped
his nose for him. He didn't look at her. He didn't say anything.

"Are you all right, Seamus?' she asked him, gently.

He gave her a quick sideways glance, but still he said nothing.

"Is there something wrong?' coaxed Elizabeth. ' I done something to
upset you?" He paused for a very long time, chewing the cold morning air
as if it were gum. ''t say,' he replied, at last.

"Daren't, or won't?"

"I know what happens to them who dares to say."

"Those who dare to say what, Seamus?"

He rolled his eyes. ''t say, nohow. Just daren't say."

"Well, what happens to them, when they dare to say this thing that you
daren't say?" "Get kissed,' said Seamus.

"Kissed? Kissed by whom?"

"If I give you more kisses, I shall kiss thee to death."

Elizabeth shivered. Seamus was quoting from The Snow Queen again; he
seemed to be obsessed by it; but Elizabeth knew what he was talking
about. The Snow Queen's kisses were as cold as a glacier, and her mouth
could drain out the very last warmth from anybody's heart.

Seamus saw how alarmed she was, and caught hold of her sleeve. ' can't
blame us! You can't blame us! I do love you, even though I daren't
tell!"

Elizabeth stared at him. ' that what you daren't say? That you love me?"

"Ssssshhhhhh!' hissed Seamus, in a panic, pressing his finger to his
lips, and spraying spit everywhere.

Margaret turned around and looked up at him disapprovingly.

"It's bad enough with it snowing, without you spitting on me, too. Come
on, take me to the car, I'm cold and I'm tired of this wheelchair. I
never knew a wheelchair-pusher to fidget so much. Backwards and
forwards, all though the funeral. I thought I was going to be seasick."

Seamus pushed Margaret away, and then Miles Moreton came up, and took
off his hat, and offered his condolences. ''ll miss him, you know, more
than I can tell you. He was a brother, just as much as a publisher."
"Thank you, Miles,' said Elizabeth.

"By the way ... I hope I didn't frighten you too much yesterday, with
all my talk."

"Not at all. At least you gave us some kind of explanation for what's
been going on."

"I did some more reading about it,' said Miles. ' there are ways in
which you can exorcize somebody whose imaginative consciousness has been
haunting you. People have tried it, from time to time." "Can we talk
about this later?' asked Elizabeth. ' don't want to keep everybody
waiting in the cold."

"It's very simple,' Miles enthused. ''s merely a question of choosing a
character of your own ... a character who's capable of dismissing the
character who's been troubling you ... and being that character, and - '

"Come on, Lizzie!' called Laura. ''re freezing to death out here!"

Elizabeth touched Miles's arm. ''ll talk to you later on.

Thanks for coming. My father would have appreciated it no end."

That evening, when all the rest of the funeral guests had left,
Elizabeth, Laura, Bronco and Miles sat by the fire and drank three
bottles of red wine between them. The house was huge and hushed; and
every now and then they heard that distinctive threatening creak which
means that there are too many tons of snow on the roof.

"You ever had such weather in autumn before?' asked Bronco, his necktie
loosened, his feet propped on the stool in front of the fire.

"Nothing like this,' said Miles. He lit one Camel from the burning end
of another, and blew out smoke. "This'll go down in the record books."

"Bronco's seen his brother,' Elizabeth told Miles."

Miles narrowed his eyes. ' the way you said that, I assume that has some
special significance."

"The same significance as seeing Peggy,' said Elizabeth.

"You mean your brother's deceased?' Cigarette smoke trailed between
them, and was suddenly lifted by the chilly draught.

Bronco said, ' met him in Cuba. He didn't look like Billy, not at all,
but I knew that it was him. Now he's back again, pestering me all the
time."

"Who does he look like?' asked Miles.

"I don't know, some Cuban."

"When he was alive, did he read any books or see any movies about Cuban
people?"

"Not that I know of."

"Did he ever visit Cuba?"

"He didn't even visit Poughkeepsie." Miles said, ' what I've been
reading, it appears that when a person dies, they have to base their
imaginary identity on people they've known or read about or thought
about while they're alive. Once they're dead, they are their own
imagination, that's all they are, and their imagination can't imagine
themselves to be anybody else, if you get my meaning." "I'm not sure
that I do.' said Bronco. ' after all this wine."

"What I'm saying is, your brother had to base his appearance on somebody
he knew when he was alive - whether that person was fictitious or real.
Some people base their after-death appearance on the way they looked
when they were alive. This has the fascinating side effect that many
spirit-forms look younger or better-looking than they did on the person
who died. It seems as if the dead are just as vain as the living."

"I can't think of anybody my brother would have based himself on. He
didn't know any Cubans, as far as I know, and he never read a book in
his life, apart from Practical Mechanics. He spent all his time
listening to jazz records."

"How about jazz musicians?' asked Miles. ' particular ones?"

"I don't know ... there was some rhumba-type record he used to play.
Maybe that was it. I don't know who played on it, though."

Miles swallowed more wine. ' you still have his record collection?"

"Sure, I have everything he ever owned. Even some ridiculous zoot suit
he used to wear, with a belt at the back."

"Well, what I suggest is, when you get back to Arizona, check through
his records and see if you can find anything Latin.

Once you know who his spirit-form is based on, you can take the
necessary steps to stop him from bothering you."

"And what are these steps'?"

"To put it simply, you have to play the spirit-form at its own game.
It's rather like scissors-cut-paper, paper-wraps-rock.

You have to choose a character for yourself, fictitious or real, but
someone who's capable of negotiating or dealing with the spirit-form
who's bothering you. For instance, if your brother is manifesting
himself as some Cuban musician, you can take the form of an impresario
or a bandleader or a record producer, and tell him that he has to leave
you alone or eke he's going to lose his job."

Bronco guffawed. ' how, precisely, am I supposed to take the spirit-form
of some rhumba-playing bandleader?"

Miles remained serious. ' have to use die glamour. It's one of die
oldest and best-documented forms of occult deception." "The glamour?'
asked Elizabeth.

"That right. We use the word "glamour" today to describe illusory
beauty. But actually it's a Scottish variant of the word "gramarye",
meaning shape-changing, as practised by witches. What the witches did
was to wind a cord made of braided animal-hair around their necks until
their breathing was restricted and they were starved of oxygen. In other
words, they were in a state of near-death. Their imagination was then
free to leave their body and take on any form they wished." "That
doesn't sound very glamorous to me,' said Bronco. ' there any kind of
evidence that it actually works?"

"I've found four authenticated cases so far. The earliest was in 1645.
The latest was in August, 1936. A man was arrested in Schaumburg,
Illinois, for trying to pass a dud cheque. He gave his name to the
police as Babbitt, a real-estate agent from the town of Zenith."

"You mean Babbitt from Sinclair Lewis's novel?' asked Elizabeth.

"The same, or so he claimed. He was examined by two psychiatrists, and
both of them claimed that he was perfectly sane. He not only resembled
Babbitt, he talked like Babbitt, he knew everything that had happened in
the novel - and not only that, he knew things that hadn't happened in
the novel but which logically could have done. The police even sent a
copy of the man's statement to Sinclair Lewis himself, but there's no
record of what he thought about it, and of course he died in January so
we can't ask him for ourselves.

"The day after "Babbit" was released on bail, the body of a middle-aged
woman was discovered in a house close by. She was wearing a man's suit
which one of the attending officers recognized as "Babbitt's". He also
recognized the signet ring she was wearing, which was much too large for
her. He checked her fingerprints and found that they were identical to

"Babbitt's".

"If the Renaissance writings on glamour have any truth to them, both of
these people had deliberately half-strangled themselves in order to
leave their bodies in the shape of fictitious characters ... for what
reasons, we can't even guess.

But then nobody would guess what you were doing, would they, Bronco, if
they found you dressed as a bandleader?" "Well, you're right,' said
Bronco. ' this isn't very encouraging news, is it? If you have to risk
strangling yourself just to get rid of a bothersome spirit, I think I'd
rather put up with the bothersome spirit."

"These days, you may not actually have to strangle yourself," said
Miles. ' are several drugs which dramatically lower your rate of
respiration. You could actually deprive yourself of oxygen by chemical
means, which would be much more controllable. I'd have to find out more
about dosages, of course."

"I'm sorry,' Bronco told him. ' glamour business doesn't appeal to me at
all. Too weird by half, too dangerous. I think I'll try a good
old-fashioned exorcism. Bell, book and candle, and a well-bribed
priest."

The long-case clock in the hallway chimed eleven. Miles finished his
wine and said, ''d better leave now, Lizzie.

Thanks for everything. I really appreciate your inviting me.

Your father deserved a good send-off.' He went into the hallway,
shrugged on his overcoat and found his hat.

Laura kissed him. ', Miles. It-was good to meet you. Come out to sunny
California sometime."

They didn't stay long at the open door. The wind was rising, and the
snow was falling as thick as swarming bees. He climbed into his old
brown pre-war Ford, pulled out of the driveway, tooted his horn, and
made his way through Sherman on the way back home.

He had been deeply saddened by David Buchanan's death, but he had found
a great deal of comfort in the funeral service, and he had enjoyed
talking to Elizabeth and Laura and Johnson Ward. Most of the time, he
lived a very reclusive life these days, writing and researching. On
Tuesdays and Thursdays he gave lectures on creative writing at Western
Connecticut State, but he never fraternized with any of the faculty, or
formed any kind of social relationship with any of his students. Some of
the girls fluttered their eyelashes and said, ', Mr. Moreton*, but that
was as far as it ever went. He couldn't imagine taking any of them out
and trying to talk about Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra and whatever
else it was that excited girls these days.

A long time ago Miles had been in love. But it was so long ago that it
almost seemed like medieval times, a gilded past of chivalry and high
romance. Her name was Jennifer and she had hurt him so much when she
rejected him that his bones had ached for months afterwards. Now,
unbelievably, he could scarcely remember her. Blonde hair through which
the sunlight always seemed to shine, and cornflower-blue eyes, and a
ringing laugh, and that was all. Time had worked the glamour on her,
too.

Miles was excited by his new research. When he was writing Human
Imagination he had occasionally come across some extraordinary
demonstrations of what the human psyche could do, but he had never come
across such strong evidence that spirit-forming was not only possible
but actually happening here in Litchfield County. He was excited, but he
was frightened, too. He was beginning to understand just how tenuous our
grip on life actually is: how fragile we are. One slip, one choke, one
step in the road, one breath too few, and everything we ever were is
gone for good. All of our consciousness has closed itself off, like a
camera shutter. Gone, dark, finished. Yet it was clear that some element
of what we had once been could sometimes survive our clinical death, in
some changed and glamorous form - although whether this form would be
happy or not, he didn't like to think.

Of course, what excited him more than anything else was the prospect of
writing a new book, and he had thought of the title already: The Proof
of Ghosts. All he had to do was establish that Elizabeth and Laura were
telling the truth; and that Johnson Ward had really seen his dead
brother; and he would be famous worldwide. He could answer at last the
question that everybody had been asking since sentient life began: is
there life after death -- and if there is, what form does it take?

His car whined through Sherman and out towards Boardman's Bridge. In the
summer he might have turned toward Gaylordsville and driven over the
hill to New Preston, but in this weather it was out of the question.
There was no other traffic on the road, and the snow was flying down in
big, thick lumps, so thick that the windscreen wipers could barely cope.
The side and rear windows were blotted out, and Miles felt as if he were
covered in a blanket. The heater worked, but the rubber door-seals were
perished, and so his ankles were exposed to thin, icy draughts.

Oh well, he thought, as he trundled towards New Milford and the
Housatonic bridge, once I've written The Proof of Ghosts

I can afford a new automobile. Maybe a new bed, too: and an icebox. But
that was the sum of his material ambitions. What he really wanted was to
travel. To Rome, to Vienna, to Lisbon.

He wanted to see Casablanca, and stand ' the edge of the Sahara desert,
listening to heat and emptiness and the slow susurration of the human
soul.

He had almost reached the Housatonic bridge when he saw a figure beside
the highway. To his astonishment, his pale-yellow headlights illuminated
die figure of a young girl, no more than nine or ten, standing in die
snowstorm in a white summer dress.

She was neither walking nor waving, just standing, with her arms by her
sides, her eyes as smudgy as smoke.

He stopped the car and waited for just a moment, his hands gripping die
steering-wheel, to see whether she might climb in, but when she didn't,
he opened his door and climbed out.

"Can't say you're dressed for a night like this!' he called out, one
hand lifted to protect his face from die driving snow. The girl said
nothing but stood watching him with those smudgy eyes. The snow had
clogged her hair like a beret made of dandelion-puffs. Her skin was
deathly white, and her lips were faintly purple. Her fingers were tinged
with purple, too, as if she were frostbitten.

Miles high-stepped across die snow towards her, sliding once, and nearly
falling over. ',' he said. ' can't stay here, you'll catch your death.
Let me take you home, huh?"

Still die little girl said nothing. Miles laid a hand on her shoulder
and as soon as he had done so he wished he hadn't. It was thin and bony
and very, very cold. In fact, it seemed colder than the snow. It was
like laying his hand on a dead, skinned shoulder of lamb.

"Do you live close by?' Miles asked her. ' can take you wherever you
want to go. If you don't want to go home, I can take you to die cops,
they'll take care of you, give you something warm to wear."

The girl at last turned her face towards him. He was shocked how white
she looked. ', I have left my boots behind,' she whispered.

"What, sugar?"

"Oh, I have left my gloves behind."

Miles gave her a tight, humourless smile. ' can soon sort that out,
can't we?' He looked around. The highway was deserted. No traffic,
nobody walking, not even a sledge. Just a girder bridge and an empty
road, and snow that pattered softly down and changed the landscape into
somewhere strange. ' do you live? Is it very far from here?"

The little girl raised one arm and stiffly pointed north.

"You live in New Milford?"

She shook her head.

"Further? You live further than New Milford? Marble Dale?

No? New Preston? No? Cornwall Bridge?" The girl shook her head again and
again but continued to point north.

"You live in Canaan? No? You live in Massachusetts?

Vermont? What are you trying to tell me, you live in Canada?"

The snow was falling so thickly now that the car was beginning to look
like nothing more than a huge white hump at the side of the highway. '
on, honey,' Miles said, in exasperation. ' me take you to the cops.
They'll know what to do with you."

The little girl shook her head. Miles had started to reach out to her,
to take hold of the arm, but there was some ferociously negative quality
in the way she shook her head like that, and there was a look in her
dark, unfocused eyes that made him hesitate.

This wasn't some innocent little child being standoffish. This was some
being that was in full possession of its powers and its senses saying
no, don't touch me -you dare to touch me!

"Okay, please yourself,' Miles told her. ' you have to do is get in the
car. It won't take us more than a couple of minutes."

He walked back to the car, and cleared the freshly-fallen snow off the
windscreen with the side of his glove. He opened the driver's door, and
stood waiting for the little girl to follow him, but she remained where
she was, staring at him, frozen to the bone.

"Will you please just come?' Miles pleaded. ' can't leave you standing
here, now can I?"

"She breathed!' the girl called out.

"She breathed? What do you mean? Who breathed?"

"She breathed on the young ones as she passed,' the girl told him.

Jesus, thought Miles, this kid's touched in the head. He was inclined to
leave her and find the nearest telephone so that he could call the
police. The trouble was, the temperature had dropped so steeply that he
was afraid she would die of exposure if he left her out here very much
longer, dressed as she was.

Supposing he called the police but the police couldn't find her?

How could he live with himself if she died?

There was nothing for it. He would have to pick her up bodily and carry
her into the car.

He walked back towards her but she lifted her arm again and this time
she pointed directly at him.

"She breathed and they died from her breath!"

"All right, sugar,' he said, trying to reassure her. ' know you're cold.
I know you're exhausted. I'm just going to help you into the car, okay?
Then we can get you all nice and toasty-warm again."

The snow was pelting against Miles's back. The temperature was so low
that the power-lines cracked and dropped from the utility poles beside
the road, thin and rigid and curved.

Miles found it almost impossible to breathe: the air was so cold that
his lungs literally cringed, because they didn't want to take it in. His
nose and his chin were encrusted with ice, and lumpy little beads of ice
formed in the corner of his eyes.

"For Christ's sake, kid!' he shouted at the little girl. ' have to get
into the car!"

Her face was white and wild. She was staring at him in such a terrifying
way that he felt as if sharpened fingernails were dragging down his
back. She kept on pointing, kept on pointing, and he realized then that
she wasn't pointing at him at all, but something behind him.

"What?' he demanded. He was too frightened even to look.

He heard footsteps. They sounded soft and heavy and intentional. Whommp,
whommp, whommp, whommp, soft and heavy and very intentional.

"What?' he whispered. '?"

He turned, and almost lost his balance. Towering above him, only a dozen
feet away, was a huge black shape, hooded, cowled, and crackling with
unimaginable cold. He couldn't understand what it was, but it was
approaching him with such determination that he knew that it meant him
serious harm.

He shouted out, '? and started to run away from it, but it kept on
billowing towards him, its cape blowing out behind it like the wings of
a giant manta ray.

Oh, skit, he thought, and bounded through the snow in giant, cumbersome
leaps, swinging his arms from side to side to keep his balance. He knew
that he didn't stand a chance of escaping; he could hear it bearing down
on him. But there was nothing else that he could do, except to run.

Oh, shit, he thought. I didn't want to die like this.

The black shape came rumbling after him. He could smell how cold it was,
it froze the roof of his mouth, and clogged up his nostrils. He reached
the Housatonic Bridge, leaping and jumping through the calf-deep snow, a
hurdler, a ballet dancer. He didn't know where he was trying to go. He
didn't know how he could possibly escape. But the thing that was
following him was cold and terrible and felt like evil, and he was quite
sure that it wanted to tear him apart. Its cape literally thundered
through the snowstorm, yards and yards of heavy black material, like
velvet funeral curtains being shaken out. Snow flew off its outline:
snow flew out of its hidden face.

"Oh God preserve me. God preserve me,' Miles panted. He reached the
bridge and gripped one of the crossbars to support himself. His breath
was blasting out of his mouth in agonized clouds of ice. He heard the
shape so close behind now that his whole being seemed to be shaken by
the vibration of its approach.

Somehow, he found the strength to take another step; but when he did so
he was abruptly pulled back. The palm of his hand had frozen to the
steel crossbar, and he couldn't pull it free. He tugged, and tugged
again. He twisted his head around, and the black shape was looming right
over him now. For an instant, he glimpsed a huge white horselike face
that looked as if it had snakes growing out of it. Then the hood fell
back and there was blackness once again.

He gripped his left elbow in his right hand, and wedged his right
shoulder against one of the bridge's uprights, and heaved.

There was an instant when he knew that he could never pull his hand
free. Then the skin tore away from palm of his hand, with a sticky
crackling sound, revealing red flesh and tendons, and even glimpses of
white bone. He screamed: a small, muffled scream. But he tugged his arm
again, and the skin tore away at the wrist, and he was free.

He ran. At least, he thought he was running. In fact he was
stumble-trudging across the bridge until he was less than halfway.
Imagination, thought. This is all imagination. Not mine, but somebody
gist's.

But knowing that it was simply imagination was not enough to save him.
He stumbled sideways and his right ankle cracked.

It didn't just crack, it shattered, because the bone was frozen.

He tried to walk on it, but his sock was filled with nothing but skin
and crunchy slush, and the pain was so terrible that he let out a high,
piercing shriek, and toppled over, and hit the roadway, shuddering and
kicking, even though it hurt him even more.

The black shape rushed up to him; and hung over him; blotting out the
whirling of the snow. Miles stared up at it, his' vision gradually
dimming because of the cold. His optic fluid was chilling; his blood was
sluggish in his veins. He tried to speak but he found it impossible. He
felt tired beyond all reason, and death would be welcome. At least he
could rest, when he was dead. At least he could sleep.

He was still lying in the roadway when the little girl came hobbling up
to him, and stood beside him, watching him with an expression that was
almost remorseful.

He looked back at her, but he couldn't speak.

"I have to protect my sister,' she said.

He understood; but he couldn't nod.

"I couldn't let anybody hurt her,' the little girl explained. ' couldn't
let anybody lead her astray."

Miles tried to close his eyes but the lids were frozen open and the
snowflakes fell onto his open pupils and burned them with cold. He knew
that he was almost dead. All he could feel was a dull, thick pain, from
skull to toes.

"Do you want me to say a prayer for you?' asked the little girl.

"Our roses bloom and fade away, Our Infant Lord abides alway; May we be
blessed his face to see, And ever little children be!"

She bent over him and stared into his flinching eyes. ' you like that?"

There was a moment in which he hoped that she would simply leave him
there, and let him die. But then she stepped smartly back, and beckoned
to the black shape that was hanging over both of them.

Miles heard a roar like an approaching express train. He screamed out
loud, and fragments of half-frozen lung came spraying out of his mouth.
He was seized by claws that were worse than claws. They were titanically
strong, crushing his pelvis into slush, bursting his stomach, exploding
his pancreas, turning his intestines into ribbons of ripped-apart tripe.

He was lifted right into the air, and torn apart. Frozen arms were
ripped from frozen sockets; legs were twisted off. In only a matter of
minutes, there was nothing left of Miles Moreton but stains on the snow,
and offal, and hanks of hair.

The little girl stood reflectively beside the bridge. Then she turned
around on her bare frostbitten feet and walked off into the snow. The
black shape walked close behind, the snow glancing off its shoulders. It
wasn't following her. It wasn't subservient. It was walking in the same
direction because they were both returning to the same place: the place
to which the little girl had pointed, when Miles first stopped for her.

By first light, it had already started to thaw. A pale sun gleamed in a
sky the colour of steam. Deputy Jim Hallett was driving towards New
Milford when he saw flocks of huge black carrion crows strutting across
the highway, close to the Housatonic Bridge. As he approached, they
briefly lurched up into the air, but they soon returned to the slushy
road surface.

They were tearing at something with their beaks, something from which
they were determined not to be distracted.

Deputy Hallett stopped the car and climbed out. The first thing he saw
was Miles Moreton's face, staring at him eyeless out of the bloodstained
snow.

Laura was sitting in the courtyard, leafing through the latest copy of
Variety, when Chester appeared wearing a bright lemon-yellow sports coat
and carrying an extravagant spray of purple orchids.

"Hey there, I was hoping you'd be home!' he enthused. He came over and
kissed her on top of the head and dropped the orchids onto the table. '
was really cut up to hear about your old man. I hate funerals, don't
you? Mind you, my old man died a couple of years ago, cancer, and those
morticians really did a number on him. He looked more dead when he was
alive than he did when he was dead. My sister saw him in his casket and
said, "Look at him, doesn't he look well?" '

He sat down uninvited and took out a cigar. Although it was November the
temperature was up in the high 705, and his tanned forehead glistened
with perspiration.

"Beverley must have told you the camera tests were terrific.

Sam Persky really loves them. He loves them."

"Does that mean I get the part?' asked Laura.

Chester clipped the end off his cigar and took out his lighter.

"It means you're shortlisted for the shortlist."

"What else do I have to do? More tests?"

"Yes, kind of more tests. You and me have to powwow."

Laura put down her magazine and sat up, smiling. Her curly hair was
brushed back into an Alice-band and she was wearing a tight blue
sleeveless V-necked blouse with wide lapels, and a pair of dark blue
calico shorts and sapphire sandals.

"Do you want to talk about it now?' asked Laura.

Chester was busy lighting his cigar. ' ... not now, I'm kind of pushed.
I just came by to see that you were still just as delicious as you were
in the tests. In case my eyes had deceived me, if you know what I mean."
"And have they?' asked Laura.

Chester frowned at her as if he didn't understand what she meant. He
didn't have a very long span of attention, even for his own
conversation. ' flowers are for Beverley. Kind of much as gracias."

"Oh, really?"

"Your Aunt Beverley is the best man-friend that anyone could ever wish
for, believe you me. How about dinner tonight?

Are you free? Well, who cares. Be free. I'll call by at seven o'clock."

"Then we can powwow?"

Chester stood up, rising through his own clouds of smoke like a rocket
taking off from Cape Canaveral. '. Then we can powwow."

He left as abruptly as he had come. Laura sat up straight on her sunbed,
feeling vaguely uneasy. The courtyard seemed to have grown chillier, and
the birds had stopped singing. All she could hear was the traffic. It
wasn't so much Chester's unexpected visit that had unsettled her. She
didn't know what it was. Ever since her return to Sherman for her
father's funeral, she had felt as if she were being watched and
followed.

She supposed it was probably natural, after a death. Her friend Tilly
Makepiece had lost her mother last year, and yet she still heard her
singing in the kitchen. Laura hadn't seen any sign of the Peggy-girl
since her return, but after she had talked to Elizabeth and Miles
Moreton about it, she was sure that her visions had been real, or at
least as real as visions could be.

She hadn't yet heard about Miles's death. Until the county coroner
returned a verdict on how he had died, Elizabeth had thought it wiser
not to tell her, and even then she doubted if she would. Laura had her
future to think about. She didn't want to be unnerved by another
horrific death, especially when there was nothing that either of them
could do about it.

Laura picked up the orchids and took them into the house to put them in
water. Aunt Beverley wasn't here this afternoon.

She had gone to the Chateau Marmont to talk to Harrison Carroll the
movie columnist about something-or-other. Laura opened the kitchen
cupboard and took out the largest receptacle she could find, a
turn-of-the-century tall brown glass vase which Aunt Beverley had
filched from the set of Winchester '73.

"I'm Going To Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair' was playing on the
radio in the living-room. She sang along as she lifted the orchids out
of their crackly cellophane and arranged them in the vase. This was it,
she thought to herself. Dinner with a famous director, a pow-wow about
her part, and then fame at last. She couldn't wait for Aunt Beverley to
come back, so that she could tell her.

"I'm going to wash that do-dce-dum-diddle-dee! I'm going to wash that
wacka-smacka rooty-too tee!"

She had almost finished arranging the orchids when the radio abruptly
went dead. She stopped singing, and listened.

Silence. Not even the sound of the yuccas rustling, or the yelp of a
distant dog. She waited for a moment, and then she left the flowers and
walked through to the sitting-room. It was empty, striped with sunlight,
with the white lace curtains silently stirring in the faintest of
draughts.

She went across to the radio and switched the knob on and off. The
speaker crackled as she did so, but that was all. She banged the side of
the cabinet with the flat of her hand, the way that she had seen Aunt
Beverley '' it whenever it went wrong; but all she managed to elicit
from it was a thin, soft, blowing noise, like the wind behind a
tightly-sealed window.

She started to walk back to the kitchen. It was then that she distinctly
heard a young girl's voice say, '/ have to protect you, Laura. You know
that."

Frightened, she turned around. There was nobody there.

"Who's that?' she called out. ' that you, Peggy?"

'/ hoot to protect you, Laura. Sisters hunt to look out for each other,
don't they? Eat* if you never looted out for me."

With a skin-contracting sense of horror, Laura realized that the voice
was coming from the radio. She hesitated for a split-second, wide-eyed,
then she leaped across the room and switched it off.

"Oh, I have left ay gloves behind,' the voice continued, undeterred. '
that won't matter, will it. Laura? I can endure almost anything, for the
sake of keeping jmi safe."

"Go away!' screamed Laura, in a panic. ' away, leave me alone! You're
dead!"

7 still have to protect you, Laura, dead or not."

"I don't want you to protect me! I don't need you to protect me! Just go
away and leave me alone!"

At that moment, the whole room appeared to tremble. Not the way it
trembled in an earthquake, but as if Laura were seeing it through a heat
haze. It seemed to darken, too, and in some extraordinary way the
corners drew nearer. Laura took a step back, then another, but then she
couldn't step back any further. She didn't know why. She simply
couldn't. Her brain seemed incapable of telling her legs that she had to
move.

The lace curtains in the far corner of the room seemed to be stirring
more than the others. They started to fold and bulge and rise away from
the wall. Laura watched in dreadful fascination as they took on the form
of whatever was standing underneath it. There was somebody there. There
was somebody hiding behind them. She could see the shape of their head
and the shape of their shoulders, and their upraised arms.

There was a little girl hiding behind the curtains. A little girl so
white of hair, so white of face, that Laura couldn't see her underneath
the lace.

"You can't be,' she whispered. ' can't be here. Leave me alone, please.
You don't need to protect me, you honestly don't."

But the figure behind the curtains said nothing, and now it was growing,
and rising from the floor. Right in front of her eyes, the curtains
floated in the air, their folds revealing an agonized, childish face,
and outstretched arms, and a summer dress, in dusty lace, that was more
like a funeral dress.

Laura opened her mouth, but she was incapable of speaking.

All she could manage was a sharp barking sound. She saw now that there
was nobody hiding behind the curtains, no little girl at all. The
curtains were the little girl, they had taken on her shape. Even her
eyes showed as darker whorls in the lace.

The lace-girl rose and sank in the faint currents of air that blew
through the room. Her lips moved, and she spoke, but her voice came out
of Aunt Beverley's radio, as before, crackly and distant, like listening
to a radio programme from long, long ago.

7 always wanted to protect you, Laura. There are so many things around
us. So maty frightening things, only seen in dreams'

Laura managed to say, ', Peggy. Don't scare me like this."

But the room darkened even more, and Laura saw strange shadows moving
across the walls, as if there were someone behind her; a rushing sound
like something passing; horses with long, attenuated legs; ghostly men
and women.

"They are dreams,' whispered the Peggy-girl. ' have come to haunt us in
the night."

Laura turned around, her neck stiff with terror. But there was nothing
there, only the open door. She turned back again, and seized hold of a
curtain, and flung it violently to one side, to reveal what was
underneath. It billowed and fell back against the window, empty and
lifeless. At that moment, the room brightened, too, and Laura found
herself standing alone. A car horn honked in the street outside, and she
heard birds chirping and people laughing. She went over to the radio and
tried the control-knob. It was switched off. She switched it on again
and it was playing the Chiquita Banana calypso commercial. She switched
off again and went through to the kitchen. The flower-vase was covered
in a thick furry layer of white frost, and when she touched the orchids,
they shattered, as if they were made of fragile glass, and scattered
over the tabletop.

She went to the phone and picked it up. '-distance, please. New York."

She reached Charles Keraghter & Co. but a nasal receptionist told her
that Elizabeth was in an editorial meeting, and wouldn't be free for
another hour.

"Do you want to leave a message?"

Laura hesitated for a moment, and then looked across at the broken
orchids. ', tell her that her sister called. Tell her that the Snow
Queen's paid me another visit."

"Do you want to repeat that?"

Aunt Beverley came home in time for lunch and they ate shrimp and
avocado salad in the courtyard. Aunt Beverley's lipstick was smudged and
she was wearing a silk polo-neck blouse in a particularly jarring mauve.
She seemed irritable, and distracted.

"You saw Harrison?' asked Laura, cautiously.

"Yes. He's being very nosy."

"That's his job, isn't it, being nosy?"

"There's nosy and nosy. Harrison makes Jimmy Durante look like Porky
Pig."

"What's he after?"

Aunt Beverley put down her fork, lit a cigarette. ''s all hearsay. He
can't prove anything."

"What's all hearsay?"

"I've done some people some favours over the years, that's all. Fixed it
for people to meet. Fixed it for people to get hold of some difficult
merchandise that they might have had a hankering for. He says I might
have supplied some difficult merchandise to Vele Lopez.' She defiantly
blew out smoke.

"It's all lies, of course."

She didn't seem to want to say any more, so Laura said, "Chester called
by. He's seen the camera tests and he says they're terrific. He wants to
take me out for dinner tonight, so that we can powwow."

For one fleeting instant, there was a look on Aunt Beverley's face that
almost approached remorse, but then she shrugged and turned away, ' sure
he takes you somewhere fancy.

Last time he took me out, we ended up at the Hamburger Hamlet on
Sunset."

Laura gave her a brief, dissolving smile. Then she said, "Aunt Beverley,
do you believe in ghosts?"

"Ghosts? What do you mean, ghosts? Of course I believe in ghosts. Every
time I look in the mirror, who do you think I see standing behind me,
but every man I ever knew?"

"I mean real ghosts, people who have actually come back from the dead."

Aunt Beverley crushed out her cigarette right in the middle of her
shrimp. ''s a funny question to ask. Are you serious?"

Laura nodded. ''s still with us. Elizabeth's seen her, too." Aunt
Beverley thought about that for a very long time without saying
anything, her eyes searching Laura's face. ' you know what it is she
wants?' she asked, at last. ' usually want something, don't they? Peace,
or reassurance, or forgiveness. Mind you, Peggy couldn't have had
anything to forgive."

"She says she wants to protect us. The trouble is - '

Aunt Beverley raised a hand to silence her. ''t tell me what the trouble
is. Don't tell me anything. I don't want to know about ghosts, not real
ghosts. God knows, I have quite enough of my own. If she wants to
protect you, fine, let her protect you. All of us could use some
protecting, now and again."

But Laura persisted. ' trouble is, it's not just her. There's always
something with her, something that freezes everything it touches. You
remember your planter that broke? That was frozen. And today, when
Chester had left - '

Her eyes filled with tears and she damped her hand over her mouth. She
hadn't realized until now how much Peggy's apparition had distressed and
frightened her. Aunt Beverley stood up and put her arm around her
shoulders and said.

"There, come on now. You've been under a strain, that's all, what with
David's funeral and trying to get this pan."

All the same, she remembered the pan of milk that she had set to boil,
and which had frozen solid.

She stayed where she was, stroking Laura's shoulder, and for the first
time in her life she began to feel that the past was catching up with
her, as if every sin that she had ever committed had been painstakingly
set to paper, and stacked away, leaving a crooked chalk initial on the
wall to identify it.

V for Velez, H for Herman, B for Bartok.

Elizabeth left the conference room at 4:15, when it was still only 1:15
in Hollywood. She felt exhausted and angry. Almost every editorial
suggestion she had made to Margo Rossi about Reds Under The Bed had been
greeted by a single, supercilious raise of one eyebrow, followed by a
sweeping and totally contradictory suggestion from Margo herself. Margo
had dismantled Elizabeth's attempts at editing the book so completely
and so systematically that even George Kruszca, who was normally Margo's
Number One Yes-Man, had started to look disturbed.

He stopped Elizabeth in the panelled corridor. He was a big
wide-shouldered man with heavy-rimmed glasses and startlingly black
brushcut hair. ' .. that was rough,' he told her.

"Oh, forget it,' said Elizabeth. ' doesn't care for anything I do; and
she doesn't care for me personally; and she doesn't mind who knows it."

They walked along the corridor. George said, ' have to understand that
Margo clawed her way up from the bottom and she resents anybody else who
looks as if they're doing it, too. As far as she is concerned, nobody
else claws their way up after her. Especially if they're pretty." "I
thought you were a Margophile."

George gave her a lackadaisical grin. Tm a Georgeophile, if you want to
know the truth. I've worked at Keraghty for six years and believe me I
know the value of keeping my mouth shut and my head nodding. Or shaking,
depending on the question. I have a wife and a baby to keep. What's more
important? Telling Margo that she's an i8-carat bitch, or putting
strained vegetables in my baby's lunchbowl?"

They reached the elevators. George prodded the button for 7, they stood
back, waiting. ' me give you a word of advice," he told her. ''re
clever, you're educated, you're creative, you're likeable. You can be
careless, I've seen it, not only in your editing, but in the way you
deal with people. But experience should sort that out, and experience is
what you need. So don't let Margo bug you. Take whatever she dishes out,
and think to yourself that you're working for one of the hottest
publishing houses in the country, and the longer you're here, the more
valuable you're going to be."

"You're a man of steel, George,' said Elizabeth, and grinned.

Margo Rossi came stalking on sharp high-heeled shoes along the corridor
towards them. She was a tall, svelte woman of thirty-two with dark
swept-back hair and Italianate good looks. She had hooded eyes and a
long thin nose and the tightest mouth that Elizabeth had ever seen.

"Lizzie,' she said. ''m glad to see you're not sulking."

"I'm a little disappointed, I admit. But I never sulk." "Good,' said
Margo, baring her considerable teeth. ''s the first lesson of corporate
survival. Admit your mistakes and never whine about them." "And bow a
lot,' George murmured, under his breath.

The elevator arrived. Margo said, ' go ahead, George, I want to talk to
Lizzie for a moment."

He hesitated for a second, then stepped into the elevator and stood with
his arms by his sides staring warningly at Elizabeth as the doors
closed.

Margo said, sharply, ' understand that Johnson Ward is one of your
family friends."

"Bronco, yes, that's right."

"Bronco? I never heard him called that before. Is that what you called
him when you were a child?" Elizabeth said, ' don't know. He asked me to
call him Bronco, so I did."

"I knew that living out West would be the finish of him,' said Margo. '
suppose you're aware that he was paid a twenty thousand dollar advance
for his latest novel, due for delivery the week before Christmas? I
called him yesterday and after a great deal of evasion he admitted that
he hadn't written more than six or seven pages."

"I knew he was having difficulty with it. It's his brother Billy."

Margo blinked, in that intimidating slow-motion way of hers, her
eyelashes sweeping downward like raven's wings. It was a blink that
meant, am I hearing this correctly, or do you wish to change your mind
before I open my eyes again?

"Billy is dead, Lizzie. He's been dead for a very long time."

"Yes, but Bronco's been sort of'haunted. By memories, I guess.

He's always written slowly, and now he's finding it even harder." Margo
said, ' difficulty I have with this, Lizzie, is that we have twenty
thousand dollars invested in this book and Mr. Keraghter is very keen to
know when we might be expecting some kind of return on our investment. I
don't need Bitter Fruit all over again, but I wouldn't mind a couple of
hundred pages of sour grapes." "Do you want me to talk to him?' asked
Elizabeth.

"Do I wantjkw to talk to him? No, I do not wantjww to talk to him. The
last person in the world I need to have talking to him is somebody who
sat on his knee and called him Bronco."

"Margo, I don't think you really understand. This Billy thing is
serious."

"You're telling me it's serious? I have to account for commissioning one
of the most costly novels of 1951, and all I have is six pages of novel
and a twenty-page letter of excuses."

Elizabeth looked down at the floor. ', you don't."

"Actually, I don't what, dear?"

"Actually you have only two-and-a-half lines of novel and a twenty-page
letter of excuses. The lines are: "Pearson sat in the middle of a day
with no shadow. He had women on his mind.

Women and liquor, but mostly women." '

Margo stared at Elizabeth and her mouth squeezed tighter and tighter.
''s it? That's all he's written? And you knew?

"You're his editor."

"You're incredible! Jesus, you're incredible'. I should sack you on the
spot."

Elizabeth turned her face aside. ''m sorry. I didn't mean to be
arrogant. He's a friend of the family, that's all, and I suppose that
makes me more tolerant of him." Margo visibly quivered. Then she said,
in deliberately dear and measured tones, as if she were speaking to a
halfwit, "Johnson Ward obviously needs help with his novel. I am his
editor. I am going to take two weeks away and fly to Arizona to help him
get his nose to the grindstone. If he fails to get his brain back
together again, I shall make it my business to come back to New York
with twenty thousand dollars of Mr. Keraghter's money."

She took a deep breath, and then she said, ' I am away, you will take
over some of George's editorial duties, and you will also edit Mary
Harper Randolph's new book, to the best of your ability. Although I was
critical of the work you did on Reds Under The Bed, it did show promise,
Lizzie, and some of your suggestions were almost usable."

Elizabeth bit her lip. Her mind kept trying to frame the next sentence.
With all due respect, Johnson Ward needs somebody who believes him when
he talks about Billy. With all due respect, Johnson Ward needs
companionship and relaxation, not another Vita on his back. With all due
respect, you have as much appreciation of the lazy, scandalous, vain,
arrogant and heartbreaking world of Johnson Ward as you have about
playing the slide trombone.

With all due respect, you're a bitch.

She said none of these things. Instead, she said, ', all right,' and
pressed the button for the elevator.

"I'm relying on you, Lizzie,' said Margo, in a steelspring, uptilting
voice.

"Yes,' said Elizabeth, and waited with her head bowed for the elevator
to arrive.

Chester angled his Cadillac into the steeply downsloping driveway of his
house on Summit Ridge Drive, and pulled up under the Spanish-style
lantern which stood outside the front steps. It was a chilly night, but
brilliantly clear, and when Chester opened the door for her and she
climbed out of the car, Laura could see the lights of Los Angeles
sparkling all the way to the airport. She was wearing a tight white
satin dress that

Aunt Beverley had brought her for one of Sidney Skolsky's parties. It
left her shoulders bare, and so Aunt Beverley had lent her a mink wrap.
Aunt Beverley said that someody seriously disreputable had given it to
her, but she couldn't remember whether it was Gaetano Lucchese or
Franklin D.

Roosevelt.

"Come inside,' said Chester. ''s somebody I want you to meet."

Laura almost lost her balance on the slope, and tip-tap-tip tapped all
the way down to the bushes at the bottom. ' house isn't straight!' she
giggled. ''s all leaning over!"

Chester laughed and rescued her from the shrubbery. ' like to live on a
hill,' he told her, putting his arm around her and steering her back up
to the steps. ' like to look down on people, from up above. And that's
what you're going to be doing, only from higher up."

Laura managed to focus on his face by screwing up her left eye tight and
peering with her right. ' high up?' she wanted to know.

Chester pointed directly to the night sky. ' the way up.

You're a star."

He helped her into the house, and across the marble floor of the hallway
into his living-room. It was cream-painted, cream-carpeted, with huge
cream leather couches. The walls were hung with oil-paintings of
huge-breasted nudes, so vast that they looked as if they had been
painted to be viewed from at least a half-mile away.

The south-facing wall was all glass, and gave out onto a balcony, from
which they could see the whole of Los Angeles stretched out beneath
them.

"Welcome to my humble abode,' said Chester.

Laura looked around. ''re right, it is pretty humble, isn't it?' she
slurred. ' to that, you're looking pretty frowsy yourself." "Groucho
Marx!' said Chester. ' have a talent for comedy, too!"

Laura collapsed into one of the sofas and let the mink wrap slide off
her shoulders. ' have a talent for everything,' she said.

"Champagne?' asked Chester, walking over to the cream lacquered liquor
cabinet.

"Afore champagne?' screamed Laura, and started giggling again.

"Come on,' Chester urged her, taking three tall flutes out of the
cabinet, and a chilled bottle of Perrier-Jouet. "This is a celebration.
This is a night for champagne!"

"All right, then,' Laura declared, far too loudly. ' champagne!"

She felt wonderful. She felt as if she were floating. Chester had picked
her up promptly at seven o'clock and driven her to the Players on Sunset
Boulevard. The Players was a gourmet restaurant on a second-floor
verandah, owned by Preston Sturges, the director. All his Oscar-winning
friends liked to gather there: not only for their own company, but for
the matchless food, especially the rare beef and the Caesar salads.

Laura had eaten lobster, and drunk champagne, and drunk more champagne.

All evening, Chester's face had smiled at her over the candlelit
tabletop like the waxing moon, and assured her she was a star. ' I said
shortlist, I was just trying to be cautious, you know what I mean, in
case you were disappointed.

But look at you now! Shortlist, schmortlist. The camera loves you, I
love you. The public's going to love you."

Now she lay back on the sofa and everything swam around her and she knew
that she was going to be famous. ', Chester ...' she said, ' me!" But
Chester simply smiled and shook his head. ' on, Laura, you're a
beautiful girl. You're the most beautiful girl I've seen in Hollywood in
years. But I can't kiss you. This is a professional relationship -
director, star. How many people in Hollywood fall victim to scandal? How
many actors and actresses jump into the sack with everybody they meet,
practically? Far too many, that's my opinion!' He sat down beside her
and clinked glasses. ''re at it like rabbits, for God's sake." Laura
frowned at him. '. Bunzum,' she said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Mr. Bunzum ... he was a rabbit. Do you know what happened to him?"

Chester stared at her suspiciously. ',' she said, thickly, his throat
filled with phlegm.

Laura sat up and pressed her nose flat against his, so that they were
staring into each other's eyes at point-blank range.

"Mr. Bunzum was frozen to death. Frozen so solid that his arms fell off.
Frozen so solid that his legs fell off."

She leaned away from him, so far back that he thought she was going to
topple off the sofa. ' so solid that his peter fell off!"

She whacked the sofa and threw back her head and laughed and laughed.
Chester pretended to laugh but he wasn't laughing at all: he was too
tense. All the same, watching her, he thought that she was perfect.
Beautiful, perfect, her hair golden, her skin shining, her small breasts
swelling the white satin dress.

"Listen,' he said. ''s somebody I want you to meet.

Somebody important."

Laura squeezed the tip of her nose between finger and thumb to stop
herself laughing. She let out a terrible snort, and laughed even more,
but eventually she managed to calm herself down. ' important? Somebody
how important?

More important than you? More important than me?"

"Just ... somebody very important. His name's Raymond.

You'll like him a lot. He's been thinking of putting some finance into
Devil's Elbow ... quite a fair amount of finance ... in which case --
well, we can afford to have you play a starring role. Not exactly lead
starring role, Shelly Summers has been cast for that, we have to have
some established box-office names, after all. But "also starring", and
that's a whole lot better than "forty-seventh floozie on the left" now
isn't it?"

Laura stared at him wide-eyed. ''m going to be "also starring?" Really?"

Chester swept his hand across an imaginary movie screen. ''s Elbow,
starring Michael Grant and Shelly Summers, also starring Laura Buchanan,
Mitch Forbes and Zachary Moskowitz."

"You're kidding mee!' she squealed.

"I'm not kidding, I promise. But be nice to Raymond, okay?

Raymond is the money man ... if Raymond gets upset, we don't get the
extra finance. Then it's bye-bye "also starring"." Chester tried to look
tragic, without much success. ' only that, it could be bye-bye Devil's
Elbow altogether."

Laura sat up and frowned at him. ', Chester. This is my solemn-num oath.
I shall be nice to Raymond."

Chester raised his glass. ' a good girl, then. Raymond!

Raymond - are you there? Come say hello to our brand-new star!"

There was a pause about as long as it takes for the needle to drop onto
a record and the music to begin. Then a very tall swarthy man in a
beautifully-cut tuxedo appeared from the dining-area, holding a
balloon-glass of brandy. He was ugly in a brutally handsome way, with
scar-spattered cheeks and a sloping forehead and slightly bulbous eyes.
He carried himself like an athlete, although there was the hint of a
limp in his left foot, trailing slightly. An injured athlete. He
approached Laura and stood towering over her, and his thick lips lifted
in a patronizing smile.

"Is this her?' he asked Chester.

"What do you think?' said Chester, suddenly nervous.

Raymond reached out one of his octave-spanning hands and touched
Laura's'silky curls. ' don't know yet,' he said.

"Depends how pliable she is."

Margo Rossi reached home shortly after midnight. Since September she had
been living in a plush but rather stuffy two-bedroomed apartment at the
Apthorp, a vast apartment building on Broadway and 78th Street, popular
with actors and writers and theatrical producers. Margo's father was big
in walnuts, and had paid the lease for her, two years in advance.

She peered at her face in the mirror as she went up in the elevator. She
thought she was looking haggard. She had spent the evening at Downey's
with a lawyer called Victor Emblem who had been pursuing her
relentlessly for six months, sending her roses, sending her teasing
little notes, telephoning her at the office. Victor was good-looking in
a pallid, shock-haired way, rather like a handsome Stan Laurel, and his
sense of humour was highly sophisticated. Victor's idea of a rib
cracking joke was a senior judge saying to a junior colleague, "Be just!
And if you can't be just, be arbitrary."

She suspected that he liked her because she was confident' and tough.
That was why she hadn't enjoyed herself this evening, in spite of
drinking four green brandy stingers. She was tired of the way in which
men responded to her. Either they found her threatening, and turned
their backs on her; or else they wanted her to dominate them. Sometimes
she felt as if J the world were populated by only two kinds of men:
masochists:; or boors.

She let herself in to her apartment and switched on the light, and
suddenly became aware of how cold it was, so cold that she ; could see
her breath. The heating was working, because the; lobby and the
corridors had all been up to their usual intolerable temperature.
Mostly, her apartment was so warm that she could scarcely breathe. She
knew she hadn't left a window open. Unless somebody had climbed up the
fire escape and broken in. She hung up her coat. She cautiously
approached the living-room door, which was an inch ajar. The whole
apartment was quiet, quiet enough for her to hear her wristwatch
ticking.

"Is anyone there?' she called out.

Of course there was no reply. But a draught was blowing out through the
inch-wide gap in the doorway and it was freezing cold -- not just
window-open cold, but intensely cold, meat freezer cold.

She hesitated. Maybe she should call the super before she went into the
sitting-room. There had been a rash of burglars and intruders at the
Apthorp lately. Mrs. Lindhurst in 711 had been hit on the head with one
of her own zinc statuettes; and the Strasbergs had lost a fortune in
jewellery. But Margo considered herself more than a match for any
scavenging burglar. If she were capable of reducing seasoned editors to
tears, there was no reason to think that she couldn't do the same to
some uneducated bum who made his living climbing other people's fire
escapes.

She pushed open the sitting-room door and swung it wide. It was dark
inside, except for the light from the hallway falling across the carpet,
and her own attenuated shadow. And wasn't it cold\ She groped her hand
sideways until she found the lightswitch, and turned on the lamps.

The room had been catastrophically wrecked. The lamps still worked, but
they lay on the floor with their bases and their shades broken. The
tapestry couch had been ripped open, and its stuffing strewn everywhere.
Side-tables had been overturned, ornaments smashed, paintings torn to
ribbons. The carpet and the scatter-rugs had been cut to pieces, and the
pale blue moire wallcovering hung from the wall in shreds.

"Oh, my God,' breathed Margo, and walked into the centre of the room
like a woman in a nightmare. She picked up a small Dresden figure of a
shepherdess, headless and crookless now, and placed it carefully on the
one occasional table that remained upright - even though its unlaid
surface had been deeply scored. She looked around with her mouth open
and her eyes blurring with tears. It looked as if a ten-clawed monster
had rampaged around the room, tearing and smashing everything in sight.
She had heard of burglars doing damage before now: but she had never
heard of anything like this.

She found the telephone lying on the floor, chipped but still working,
and dialled down to the super's office. He seemed to take an age to
answer. He was either asleep, or watching TV with the volume turned up
so loudly that he couldn't hear. Then she heard the bathroom door bang.
She covered die phone receiver with her hand and listened hard. She
heard it again, but this time it was softly dosed, as if somebody were
using the handle.

She put down the phone and walked back into the hallway and along to the
bathroom. The door was closed but the light was shining from underneath
it. She wiped her nose and her eyes with the back of her hand and stood
outside the door .

wondering what to do.

"Who's there?' she called, nervously. ' there's anybody | there, you'd
better come out. I've called the police and they'll 1 be here at any
minute." There was a long silence, an eternity. Biting her lip, she S
stepped towards the door and clasped the handle. It was ice cold, so
cold that it almost burned her. But she was determined j to find out who
had wrecked her apartment. She would damn well kill them if she had the
chance. She was just about to open J the door when she heard
high-pitched laughing, somewhere] behind her. A child's laugh: a little
girl's laugh. She tur around in time to glimpse a white dress and a bare
white I disappearing into her bedroom.

"Hey!' she snapped. ', you! I want a word with you!"

She ran back along the corridor, kicking off her shoes. She reached the
bedroom door and slammed it open so violently that it juddered on its
hinges.

The room was even colder than the rest of the apartment. It could have
been outside, on a sub-zero day, with the wind blowing off the snow. It
was light, too, even though the lamps weren't switched on. The whole
room was illuminated by a blue, chilly fluorescence which crawled up the
drapes and across the radiators and around the edges of the furniture.

A little girl in a white dress was standing on the opposite side of the
room, in front of the long mirror. She had her back turned. She was
standing quite still, staring at herself, although Margo couldn't see
the reflection of her face.

"What have you done to my apartment?' Margo demanded, her voice quaking.
' the hell have you done to my apartment? Are you crazy? Are you some
kind of lunatic?" The little girl said nothing. Margo took two sharp
steps towards her, but then abruptly stopped. She suddenly realized that
the girl was swaying very slightly from side to side, and the reason she
was swaying was because her feet were more than two clear inches off the
floor.

Margo stared at her, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say.

"Cat got your tongue?' asked the little girl, in a curiously muffled
voice.

Margo opened and closed her mouth. Then she managed to say. ' are you?
What are you doing here? What do you want?" "I never come to nice
people,' said the little girl.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand you.

You're floating. How can you float?" "Anyone can float,' said the little
girl. ''s just a question of desire." Margo said, ''m going to call the
police." "What for?' asked the little girl. ''ll be gone by then, and
who will ever believe you?"

"I want to know why you're here,' Margo demanded.

"Don't you ever say "please"? You never say "please" to my sister, do
you? You never say it to anybody."

Margo took a gritty little breath. ' tell me why you're ' here," she
said. ' tell me why you've torn my whole damned apartment to pieces.
Please tell me why I shouldn't take hold of you and wring your scrawny
little neck!"

"Now, now, Margo, that will never do,' the little girl replied. > ' must
beg me to tell you, and say "pretty please"."

Although the girl was still floating and swaying, Margo was!

regaining her confidence. It was some kind of damn stupid | trick, that
was all. And the little girl, for all of her insolence, was only a
little girl. She took the three remaining steps toward her and seized
hold of her bare skinny arm. It was intensely cold, much colder than she
had expected, but she held on tight j and tried to tug the little girl
around, so that she could look her j in the face.

"Look at me!' she screamed. ' damn well look at me!"

Instantly, the little girl turned her face away. Margo tried to| grab
her hair, but the little girl twisted her head around and| pulled it
free.

"Look at me! Look at me, you little bitch!"

The girl struggled to tug her arm free, digging her elb painfully into
Margo's ribs. But Margo gripped both of herl arms now, and forced her to
look towards the mirror, so that she could at least see a reflection of
her face. When she looke however, the surface of the mirror was obscured
with from and leaf-patterns of frost, and all Margo could see was a
blur, s

Margo tried again to look at the girl's face directly, but < the girl
twisted her head away, and whirled her hair so that it covered her like
a bedraggled white veil.

"You bitch!' Margo raved. ' vicious little bitch!"

She gripped the girl around her neck, dragged her nearer the mirror, and
rubbed furiously at its frost-flowers with her sleeve. At first she
succeeded in clearing nothing more than a few semicircular scratches,
but she rubbed and rubbed until she had cleared a hole in the frost the
size of a breakfast-plate.

All the time the girl kept struggling and twisting, but even though
Margo was disgusted by the coldness of her skin and the ice-cold
crustiness of her dress, she clung round her neck and refused to let go.

"You don't want to see me, Margo!' the little girl choked.

"You don't want to see me, I promise you!"

"Let me be the judge of that!' Margo panted.

"Not in the mirror, Margo!' the little girl gasped, trying to pry
Marge's fingers away from her neck. ' mirror is the puzzle! The mirror
is the reason! The mirror is the answer!"

But the more she protested and fought, the more determined Margo became.
She seized the girl's shoulders and thrust her face towards the patch
she had cleared in the frost, and said, triumphantly, '

And froze. And released the little girl; and lowered her arms; and
stared.

There was a face in the mirror, but it was not the face of a little girl
at all. It was a white, deathly face with eyes like black stones, a face
which appeared to have white snakes growing from it. It was exquisite
and terrible at the same time, and it stared back at Margo through the
hole in the frost like some appalling creature staring cruelly and
longingly into the world of humans.

The little girl slowly spun away, around and around, so that her white
dressed twirled. Yet still the terrible face stared at Margo through the
porthole of frost, and it seemed to be saying. / shall know you now, by
sight. I shall know who you. are. You will never be rid of me. Every
time you rub a circle in a misty window, I shall be staring in at you.
Every time you take out'jmirpowder-compact on a winter's day and look in
its mirror, there I shall be. You are mine, now. You belong to me, for
ever.

Margo turned and stared at the little girl in panic, but the little girl
did nothing but giggle and rush out of the room.

Margo looked back at the mirror. She saw the face for one split-instant
more, and then the mirror shattered like a bomb, catching her in a
vicious blizzard of broken glass. Shards of mirror flew into her face
and into her eyes. More shards sliced through her clothing and cut her
shoulders, and her arms and her thighs and her breasts. She had opened
her mouth to scream, and her lips and tongue were porcupined with scores
of tiny triangular pieces of mirror.

Blinded, bloody, shocked, she stood where she was for almost a minute.
Then she collapsed onto her knees, even though her knees were filled
with fragments of glass, too, and when she knelt they were driven into
her flesh even further. She couldn't speak, she couldn't move. She tried
to reach up to tug some of the glass out of her tongue, but there were
splinters in her fingers, too, and all she succeeded in doing was
cutting her mouth even more.

And she was so cold. She was so miserably cold. She was freezing and
shaking and she wanted her father so badly that she couldn't bear it.
She couldn't even cry because her eyes were filled with glass.

She heard a dreary wind blowing, like the wind across a black winter
landscape. She even thought she could feel snow, falling wet and cold
against her skin, but that might have been blood. She heard a young girl
laughing, eerie and high and chillingly self-delighted.

Raymond was leaning dose to Laura. ' about some more champagne?' he
asked her, lifting the bottle out of the ice bucket. The bottom of the
bottle was wet and it dripped onto her ankle.

"Ahh!' she screamed, and then she burst out laughing again.

Raymond topped up her glass, and poured just a little into his own. '
know something,' he said, ' is crowded with hopefuls, and that's all
they'll ever be, hopefuls.

Hoping isn't enough. You have to have something beyond hope. You have to
be totally convinced that everybody wants you ... that everybody wants
to look at your face, that everybody wants to look at your body, that
everybody wants to possess you."

"And how about you, Raymond?' said Laura, wiping the tears of laughter
away from her eyes. ' you want to possess me?"

Raymond cocked the little finger of his left hand and gently touched the
tip of her nose. ''re a very special woman, Laura. One in a
million-million. What man wouldn't?"

He looked into her eyes for a long, long time. Then he turned to Chester
and said, ' about something to eat? I've been sitting in meetings all
day. I'm feeling hungry."

"Cold roast chicken, and maybe some salad?"

"Sure, why not?"

Chester called for his manservant, a small dour Mexican with a flat face
and beady black eyes like a gingerbread man.

"Hernandez will fix you something,' he told Raymond. ' want to talk
finance?"

"All in good time,' Raymond replied. ' me satisfy my appetites first."

"So what do you actually do, Raymond?' Laura asked him.

Raymond started to wind her curls around his finger. He was so close to
her that she could smell the cigarettes and alcohol on his breath, as
well as another smell, flat and strong and quite unpleasant.

"I'm a clever guy, that's all. People want to make movies, I help them
to make movies. People want to do anything, maybe stage a boxing bout,
maybe put on a show -1 help them to do it.

I find people who have money and don't know what to do with it, and I
put them in contact with people who know what to do with it but don't
have any. Also, I dedicate my life to enjoying myself. That's a high
thing on my list. Tell me, what's the use of being alive if you don't
enjoy yourself?" "No point at all,' smiled Laura. She leaned her face
nearer and nearer to him, until their noses were almost touching. ' me,'
she said, ' you been eating garlic?"

For an instant, Raymond's eyes turned as hard as nailheads.

His mouth turned to a slit. But Laura fell back onto the sofa, laughing
again, and Raymond uneasily softened, and rubbed the palm of his hand
against his thigh. ',' he said, as if he could only just choke the words
out.' Totani e palate in tegame alia Genovese. Why -- you want to make
something of it?"

He let out a harsh, repetitive laugh, and Chester joined in, but then
abruptly stopped as if he had forgotten what he was doing right there in
mid-laugh.

"Squid and potatoes,' Raymond explained. He drank a mouthful of
champagne and swished it around his mouth. ' has to have garlic,
otherwise it tastes like squid and potatoes."

He laughed again, and repeated himself. ' it tastes like squid and
potatoes, hanh?' Chester was obviously relieved when Hernandez appeared
with a large napkin-draped tray, with pieces of cold chicken and a green
salad. Hernandez mixed a little dressing from small tear-shaped bottles
of oil and vinegar, and then left.

Raymond voraciously ate chicken and stared into Laura's eyes while
Chester wandered around the room with his glass of champagne, lighting
and relighting his cigar. There was some kind of sleazy jazz playing on
the gramophone, quite softly but suggestively.

"Shouldn't I start thinking about a press agent?' asked Laura.

Raymond tore at a leg-muscle with his teeth. ' thing at a time. But I
know plenty. I can introduce you. First of all, you have to start
dressing good. Change your wardrobe. Change your hair. Get your face
made over."

"That's going to cost something, isn't it?' asked Laura, although she
couldn't suppress her feelings of excitement and flattery and sheer
fantastic luck.

Raymond didn't take his eyes off her. ' can fix all that. Now you're a
star, you have to start looking like a star, right?' He swallowed and
sniffed, although he still had a greasy shred of chicken hanging from
the side of his lip.

Laura reached out to pick the chicken off. He instantly gripped her
wrist so hard that it hurt her. Then he clapped his hand to his mouth
and wiped the chicken off himself. ' do that,' he said.

"Don't be so fierce!' Laura retorted. ' was only being friendly."

"You're trying to suggest I eat like a pig, is that it? First of all I
smell of garlic, then I eat like a pig?"

Laura pulled her hand away. ''re too sensitive, Raymond.' But then she
gave him a coy, lopsided smile. ', I like sensitive men. Especially
sensitive men who give me entire new wardrobes."

Raymond picked up a napkin from the tray and vigorously towelled his
mouth. Then he tilted himself over to Laura and kissed her cheek. ' like
furs?' he asked her. ' do you like the best? Fox, mink, what?"

Laura was bright-eyed. ' mean it? A fur?"

Raymond nodded. '-length mink, that's what you need.

Every star who is worthy of the name has to have a full-length mink. And
maybe a fox-fur jacket, too, what do you think? And we have to think of
jewellery. Diamonds, especially, because they glitter so good when the
press takes your picture." Laura smiled and nodded and felt as if she
were floating away on some gently-rising balloon. The sitting-room was a
balloon, soft and rounded and warm and comfortable.

Raymond's face was a balloon, too, bobbing up and down in front of her.
She thought he was so ugly that he was handsome.

She wondered how that could be. How could a man have such a sloping-back
forehead and all those craters in his cheeks and still be so sexy?

She sat up and kissed him. He tasted all right. A bit chickcny, but
otherwise all right. ' know what you are?' she said, nuzzling in close
to his shoulder. ' think you're a Latin lover."

"You think that's what I think I am?"

She nodded her head up and down, up and down. ' sure do." "You want me
to prove it to you?' he asked.

She snorted and giggled and flung her arms around his shoulders and
kissed him on the nose. ' lovers are always like that, aren't they?
Always having to prove themselves!"

Raymond made a moue. ''t that the only way that you can find out if your
guess is correct?"

Laura nodded giggling again. She couldn't help it, everything seemed so
delicious. Raymond kissed her cheeks and her ears and her eyelashes, and
then he kissed her on the mouth, deep on the mouth, and his tongue slid
in between her teeth, and started exploring her gums, like a walrus
exploring a rocky shoreline.

Something happened to Laura then. She never remembered how, or why. But
it seemed at that moment as if Raymond were the most desirable man she
had ever met, that he was the key to everything exciting and successful.
He was rich, and he could make her famous, and that gave him a magnetism
that she found totally irresistible. The gramophone was playing
"Downright Dirty Blues', with a slow, strutting rhythm and a trumpet
that sounded as if it were physically in pain. Laura nuzzled and kissed
Raymond's b'ps, and then she lifted herself up, lifted her dress high on
her thighs, and climbed astride him, reverently holding his pockmarked
cheeks in both hands. ', senor, are the answer to a maiden's prayer,'
she whispered, and kissed him, and kissed him again.

His right hand slithered down the back of her white satin dress and
cupped her bottom. He allowed himself a small smile, because he could
confirm now what he had already suspected earlier - that, in a
close-fitting satin dress like this, she wasn't wearing any
undergarments. His left hand cupped her breast. He looked over Laura's
shoulder at Chester, and Chester nodded his understanding, and walked
out onto the balcony, behind the net curtains, and smoked his cigar, and
admired the lights of Los Angeles.

Laura felt Raymond's hands sliding her dress higher and higher. It felt
so silky and sensual, and he was such a Latin Lover, wasn't he? His
hands caressed her bare bottom, his fingertips ran soft as spiders in
between the cheeks. She kissed him again, a wet, passionate, all-over
kiss. ' you know what you are, Raymond? You're ... god, that's what you
are. Not the God. But a god. The god of Hollywood. The keeper of the
keys."

"You are a very exciting little girl,' breathed Raymond, and his fingers
ran around her thighs and found the soft damp fur of her pubic hair.

She felt him struggling for a moment underneath her, but she was
floating and floating away, and she didn't realize that he was twisting
his fly-buttons open. It was only when his fingers opened the lips of
her vulva, and a hot bludgeoning presence made itself felt between her
legs that she realized what he was doing. Even then, it didn't seem
really real. It was more like one of those dreams she had, when she
thought that a boy was on top of her, thrusting and thrusting, and then
suddenly he melted into nothing, and it was morning, and the birds were
singing, and Aunt Beverley was bringing her a glass of orange juice.

Raymond grunted, and pushed himself up into her, only halfway, then
grunted again, and buried himself deep inside her, right up to the
balls. She was sitting on top of him, but he was far stronger than she
was, and it was he who set the pace.

He gripped her bottom in both hands and rammed up into her, again and
again and again, until she was jiggling around on his lap like a
marionette.

She loved it, she hated it, it made her feel sick. It was fantastic. His
huge cock ramming into her over an dover again, his tongue wriggling
deep inside her mouth.

"You're a floppy little fuck, aren't you?' Raymond sweated.

He kept on thrusting himself into her, and her vagina was making a
monotonous, systematic squelching noise. ' on, Laura, I thought you were
sexy! I thought you were the screen queen!! I thought you were a star!"

"Star,' Laura mumbled, her arms flapping loosely by her sides.

Raymond rammed her and rammed her again and then he lost his patience.
He tipped her off his lap, so that she sprawled onto the sofa. Then he
furiously unbuttoned his shirt, although he didn't take it off,
unbuckled his belt, and took off his black evening pants and his shorts.
Hairy-chested and hairy-legged, still wearing his shirt and his black
evening socks, he lifted Laura off the sofa and carried her over to the
marble-topped breakfast table. He laid her flat on her stomach, her
dress lifted up to her waist, her legs wide apart.

"This is cold,' Laura murmured, to her own reflection in the polished
top. Her eyes closed, then opened again. ' am I doing here? Chester? Is
that you, Chester?"

From the balcony outside, there came a suppressed smoker's cough.
Chester was watching through the net curtains. He saw Raymond take the
tear-shaped olive-oil bottle from the supper-tray, and approach Laura
where she lay spreadeagled on the table. He heard her call his name, but
he stayed where he was, and continued to watch, and to cough. Raymond
stood between Laura's outspread legs. His cock was darkly pigmented,
very hairy, and huge. He took the stopper out of the bottle of oil, and
carefully poured a thin stream of it all the way down the shaft. Then he
put down the bottle, and massaged the oil into his cock and balls until
they shone, and his black pubic hair looked like Frank Sinatra's quiff.

His hands still smothered in oil, he parted the cheeks of Laura's bottom
and smeared them around and around. Laura opened her eyes and tried to
lift herself up off the table, but Raymond pushed her back down again,
and said, ' want to be a star? Then shut up, and stay where you are."

Chester smoked and watched through the breeze-blown curtains as Raymond
positioned the plum-coloured head of his cock against Laura's bottom.
Somewhere not too far away he heard a police siren but he didn't turn
around to see where it was. He didn't once take his eyes away from the
tense, still scene in the living-room. He coughed, though, when Raymond
forced himself forward, once, twice, and then again; and Laura cried out
and tried to get up again, but Raymond punched her with his clenched
fist in the small of her back to make her stay where she was.

She stayed where she was. Her face was turned towards Chester as though
she were watching him accusingly, but he knew that she almost certainly
couldn't see him, out in the dark. He smoked and wished that it were all
over, but he knew that Raymond wanted him to watch. Raymond was even
standing slightly to one side, his right hand on his hip, his shirt
drawn back, so that Chester could get a clearer view.

Chester closed his eyes, but he could still see dark, greasy veins,
sliding in and out, and stretched reddened flesh. All the same, he still
had his eyes closed when Raymond let out a thick, coarse shout of
triumph, and shouted. ''re a star after all, Laura! You're a star!"

After a while he opened his eyes to see Raymond on the sofa with a full
glass of champagne, and Laura still lying on the table, her dress
raised, the cheeks of her bottom decorated with sperm. He opened the
sliding door and stepped back into the room. Laura's eyes followed him
but she didn't attempt to move. Chester walked across to the bathroom
and came back with a thick turquoise towel. He looked down at Raymond
but he couldn't find the words to describe his loathing, not only for
Raymond, but for himself, so he said nothing at all. He wiped Laura and
then he helped her off the table. She clung on to him and kept
swallowing as if she wanted to be sick.

"You want the bathroom, sweetheart? I'll take you to the bathroom."

When he came back he stood looking at Raymond and he still couldn't
think what to say.

"Do you have a problem?' Raymond asked him, at last.

Chester shook his head. ', no problem.' '

Raymond swallowed more champagne, and sniffed. ' want to talk some
finance now? How much do you need?"

"Whyn't you put your pants on first?' Chester suggested.

Raymond's penis was lying shiny and curled-up on his sofa like a slug.

Raymond sniffed his underarms. ' have a better idea. Let's go for a
swim. We can talk about finance in the pool."

Hernandez drove Laura home in Chester's Cadillac. She had to ask him to
stop twice so that she could be sick by the side of the road. Apart from
that, she said nothing, but stared out of the window and watched the
lights of Hollywood dancing a nauseating rhumba.

"I know what you're thinking,' said Hernandez, as he turned into
Franklin Avenue. ''re thinking, "Those bastards, I'll get even one day."
'

He drew into the kerb and shut off the engine. ' me tell you something,
Miss. Laura. If you ever get those bastards, I want to be there when you
do. I want a front-row seat, and popcorn."

She turned her head and stared at him. Her throat and her sinuses were
raw from vomiting. She felt as if she had been beaten all over with a
billy-club. Hernandez climbed out of the car and opened the door for
her. He held out his hand to help her out but she wouldn't take it. He
stood and watched her climb unsteadily up the steps to Aunt Beverley's
front door.

There was a bloody stain on the back of her white satin dress.

Hernandez waited until the front door opened and Laura went inside. Then
he returned to the car. ' get those bastards,' he repeated to himself,
as he started the engine. ' get those bastards good."

The bastards themselves were paddling around in Chester's bean-shaped
pool under a starry sky. The air was cool now, but the water was well
over 70 degrees. Chester had brought out another bottle of champagne and
cigars for each of them.

"You know, sometimes I think about girls, and I think, "fuck 'em,"' said
Raymond.

"What do you mean?' Chester wanted to know. ' not only think it, you do
it."

"No, you're missing my point. Sometimes I wish they'd help themselves,
do you know what I'm saying? They're so god damned helpless. They're so
god damned eager-to-please."

"Laura didn't look very eager-to-please."

"Ah, forget it. Laura drank too much champagne. She would have loved it,
else. She would have been begging on her hands and knees for more.
There's nothing girls like better than a reaming."

Chester didn't trust himself to reply to that. He leaned his head back
against the side of the pool and puffed cigar smoke into the night. ''re
looking at a shortfall of one-hundred-fifty thousand dollars,' he said.
' think your pals can come up with that?"

"They'd want to see some projected figures. The trouble is, things
aren't as easy as they used to be. Time was, you could move your money
from state to state in your back pocket, and nobody would stick their
nose into it. These days, every Treasury agent seems to have got
religion or something. They don't seem to understand that it's greasing
and lubricating that made America what it is today."

"You should know,' said Chester, although he probably didn't say it loud
enough for Raymond to hear.

Til tell you what,' said Raymond. Til go talk to some of my people in
Reno. There's somebody in particular I have in mind. Somebody who's very
interested in movies."

"Not Bernie Katz. Jesus, that toad."

"Why not Bernie Katz? Bernie would really go for Laura."

"I don't know, Raymond,' said Chester, pensively. He had done similar
favours for Raymond so many times before, and yet this time he felt
deeply guilty. Most of the girls had done plenty of favours before, and
didn't mind what Raymond did to them. They just smiled falsely and
laughed falsely and looked into the middle-distance while he grunted and
humped. But Laura was different. Laura was sweet and bright and if she
didn't get mixed up with too many people like Raymond, she might even
get to keep her sweetness and brightness, and make something of herself.
Not in Devil's Elbow, of course. All of the casting had been completed
over five months ago, although there was probably still some room for a
356th moll on the left.

They floated around for a while, and Chester began to sense that Raymond
wasn't particularly interested in coming up with an offer. He didn't
want to beg, but he had most of his own money tied up in Devil's Elbow,
plus the money of a lot of people who wouldn't exactly be delighted if
the picture never got finished and released.

"Listen,' he said. ' don't you talk to Bernie Katz, at the very least?"

"What can I tell him?' asked Raymond. His voice was very flat.

"Tell him he can play it any way he wants to. If he wants the picture to
lose money, it'll lose money. If he wants it to make money, it'll make
money."

"All right. I'll call him, then I'll go see him. I presume I can take
Laura along."

Again, Chester didn't trust himself to answer.

Raymond took a leisurely and'absurdly over-stylish swim across the pool,
naked and hairy, his body illuminated by the lights beneath the surface.
Chester didn't care for people swimming naked in his pool, and he looked
the other way, especially when Raymond trod water in the deep end, his
short refracted legs paddling like a frog's.

After a while, however, Raymond called out, ' you think this water's
getting cold?"

Chester had been thinking the same thing. ',' he said.

"Guess we're just tired. How about calling it a night?"

"This water's definitely cold. Is your heater on the fritz?"

"It was working fine this afternoon. I'll have Hernandez take a look at
it tomorrow."

Raymond swam to the side of the pool, and was about to lift himself out
when a little girl suddenly appeared, almost from nowhere, through the
bushes. She was very pale, and she was dressed in white, and it seemed
to Chester almost as if her long white hair were flying up in the air,
rather than hanging down.

Raymond was half-way out of the water but he dropped back in again with
a heavy splash. ', Chester, we've got ourselves a visitor!"

"Hey, sugar, this is private property!' called Chester.

"Besides, you shouldn't be out so late, should you?" "I'm fine, thank
you,' said the little girl. Her eyes were very strange: almost as if she
had no eyes.

Raymond said, ''m glad you're fine, sweetheart, I really am. But the
point is I'm kind of buck-naked here, and getting cold, and I need to
get out of this water."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because I don't have any clothes on, and you're a little girl, and men
shouldn't show themselves to little girls. It isn't nice."

"You're afraid I'll laugh, aren't you, because you're fat and you're
ugly. You don't have to be afraid I'll laugh, because I'm very serious
tonight."

"Oh, you're serious? What are you serious about?"

"I'm serious about you not getting out of the pool." Raymond said. ' is
this? Come on, kid. I'm freezing in here. If you don't scram I'm coming
out anyway."

Chester stood up in the water. ''s all right, Raymond, I'll deal with
this.' He, at least, was wearing shorts, a voluminous pair of
red-and-yellow Bermudas with palm trees printed all over them. He waded
over to the edge of the pool where the little girl was standing, and
gripped the edge so that he could heave himself out. He was just about
to pull himself up, however, when he noticed the little girl's feet.
They were bare feet, stained inky-black and purple with frostbite. But
more alarming than that, they were floating an inch above the tiled
surround.

Chester jerked his head back and stared up at her. ' the hell? You're -
' She was smiling at him, such a winning smile, her face was white as
snow, her eyes as dark as shadows. With a graceful sweep of her body,
she bent down and circled her arm over his fingers. He saw something
flash, and he felt something brush his knuckles, but at first he didn't
realize what it was.

The little girl spun around and around, her white dress flying out like
convolvulus flower. Chester ducked down in the water again, preparatory
to heaving himself out, when he saw that the side of the pool was
swimming with blood, and that blood was running down his arms. He raised
both hands, and saw that the little girl had sliced through his fingers
- sliced so deep that he could see the bones glistening.

He let out a great roar of indignation and fear. ''s cut me!

She's fucking cut me!"

The girl laughed at him, and stopped her spinning, and came back closer.
In her right hand she was holding up a long triangular shard of mirror.

"You can't get out,' she told him, in that strange muffled voice.
Shirley Temple talking through a handkerchief. ' won't let you get out!"

"Look at my hands,' Chester babbled. ' what you've done to my hands!' He
held them out in front of him, and they furiously dripped blood into the
water, little clouds and tangles of crimson.

Raymond surged towards the side. Naked or not, he wasn't going to allow
some crazy child to keep him imprisoned in this pool. He hoisted himself
up into the tiled surround, close to where she was standing, his arm
raised to protect himself.

Without a sound, she swept her arm in a fast criss-cross pattern in the
air, and suddenly Raymond's arm and shoulder were cross-hatched with
cuts.

He tried to stand up, but she cut him again and again, the wounds
proliferating as if by magic. His belly was sliced from side to side.
His hairy thighs were drenched with blood. He cupped his hand
protectively over his genitals, but she cut the back of his hand open,
and more blood poured down between his legs. He dropped to his knees. He
was silent with shock.

The little girl danced around him, cutting his ears, cutting his cheeks.
He swayed, and tried to keep his balance, but then he dropped back into
the water, in an ever-spreading fog of blood.

"Raymond!' shouted Chester, and started to walk out towards him. Chester
didn't swim too well, even when his hands weren't sliced to ribbons. '
on, I'm coming out to get you!' He turned to the little girl and
screamed at her, ' the hell have you done? You're out of your mind!
You're insane! You could have killed him!"

Raymond was floating on his face, around and around, surrounded by
blood. As he waded out to him, Chester kept calling, ' on, Raymond! Hang
on, Raymond!' and Raymond let out a gargling, choking sound, so at least
he was still alive.

Chester found that the water was growing colder and colder, so cold that
he couldn't feel his legs. This wasn't just water any I longer, this was
slush, like half-melted ice. The surface was grey and thick, like frozen
porridge, and the waves that were caused by Chester's wading were
languid and self-suppressing.

"Raymond!' Chester managed to shout; although it was more of a gasp than
a shout.

Raymond gargled, and tried to call, '!' but then he disappeared below
the surface. Chester saw his hand thrusting up, clawing at nothing at
all, then even that was gone.

He took a deep breath and dived. He found it almost impossible to
submerge himself. The water was mostly frozen, and he might just as well
have dived into quicksand. He groped around in the slush, and by chance
he found Raymond's leg.

He hooked his arm around it, and struck out for the surface.

But there was something dreadfully wrong. His fingers met a solid
ceiling, cold and complete. The pool had frozen over, to a depth of two
or three inches. He groped frantically in all directions, trying not to
breathe, but he was out of energy and oxygen.

He tried to punch a hole in the ice, but it was impossible. He wallowed,
swallowed a mouthful of freezing water, and let out a shrill,
hysterical, bubbling noise. Hmumdet, he thought. Hernandez . will hear
me. But then he remembered that Hernandez was driving Laura back to
Franklin Avenue. There was nobody here but Raymond and him; and both of
them were bleeding badly, and both of them were trapped beneath the ice.

He dropped Raymond, let him sink down slowly in the gelid water. Raymond
wasn't struggling. Raymond was probably dead already. Bursting for air,
Chester hammered at the ice with both fists. Dimly, he could see the
patio lights and the vague outline of the house. But then a terrible
darkness swept across the pool, blacker than any night. The water was
cracking and complaining as it froze even harder. He breathed in water,
a whole chilly flood of it, and when he breathed in water he knew that
he was going to die.

In the instant before he drowned, however, he saw a face, peering down
at him through the ice. It was the most terrifying face that he had ever
seen - long and white, with darkened holes for eyes, and fronds that
grew out of it; and it was all the more terrifying for being so blurred,
through the ice, so indistinct.

He drowned, and sank, but only a little way, because the water was so
thick with ice.

Laura stood in the shower for almost twenty minutes, with the water
running as hot as she could bear it, soaping herself and scrubbing
herself. Eventually she slid back the frosted glass partition and
stepped shakily out and wrapped herself in her thick towelling bathrobe,
and crept to bed with the shuffling gait of a woman three times her age.

She lay on her side and watched the shadows of the yuccas dipping and
dancing on the shutters. Aunt Beverley wasn't home yet, so she couldn't
talk. She didn't really know whether she wanted to talk to anybody. The
pain and the degradation that Raymond had inflicted on her was more than
she could bear to think about. What made it worse was that it was she
who had encouraged him to make love to her, she had sat astride his lap,
and kissed him, and told him that he was a god.

She didn't just feel physically hurt, although she couldn't even touch
her bottom and her back felt cracked. She felt stupid, and betrayed, and
ridiculous. Had she really thought that Chester was going to bill her as
' starring'? Had she really been suckered into thinking that Raymond was
going to buy her a whole new wardrobe and a full-length mink?

Her head thumped and her mouth felt as dry as Death Valley. The trouble
was, she blamed herself as much as she blamed Chester and Raymond. They
were both manipulative and lustful, but she was vain, and it was her
vanity that had hurt her, as much as Raymond's cruelty. She still blamed
herself for what had happened to Dick Bracewaite, even though he had
subjected her to sexual indignities far worse than anything that Raymond
had done to her. She blamed herself for wanting too much to be wanted.
It excited her, when she knew that men wanted her, and that women envied
her. It gave her a bright shining feeling that nothing else did.

Elizabeth had her writing, and her career. But all she had was this
bright shining feeling, whenever she could get it, which wasn't often,
and sometimes she needed it so badly that she would have done anything,
with anyone, just to feel the slightest glimmer of it, the faintest
glow.

She dosed her eyes and remembered how it had felt, face down on the
table, her legs stretched apart, with Raymond forcing his way inside
her. It had been agonizing, and humiliating, but the more she thought
about it, the calmer she became, because he had wanted her, hadn't he?
He had wanted her badly. He may have thought that he was the master,
that he was God, but who was really in control? The wanter or the
wanted?

She closed her eyes and slept, without even realizing that she was
sleeping, and in her dreams she saw other dreams, like spindly horses,
and lords and ladies, and people who rushed silently behind you when you
weren't looking.

It was almost two o'clock in the morning when Jim Boreas found Aunt
Beverley sitting in his white Pontiac Chieftain convertible, pretending
to drive. Jim Boreas was one of Hollywood's most successful producers,
and tonight he had been celebrating the completion of his latest movie
The Woman In Sable at his huge art deco house in Bel Air. Just about
everybody who was everybody was there, Charlie Chaplin and Marion Brando
and Alan Ladd.

The party had quietened down now. The guests had dispersed around the
gardens or gathered in Jim Borcas's den for stag stories and bone-dry
6-oz martinis or retreated to the library to get some serious slandering
done. The laughter had died away, the coyotes were calling eerily from
die hills. The orchestra had been replaced by a small Tijuana band. Ken
Morales and his Pico Brass, and a few bedraggled couples were still
shuffling around by the pool like die survivors of a 19305 dance
maradion.

Six or seven half-deflated balloons bobbed on the surface of die water,
occasionally scuttling from one side of die pool to the other when die
morning breeze caught diem.

Jim had a cigarette in one hand and a half-empty bottle of tequila in
the other. He leaned on the car door and said, ' are you doing,
Beverley? Where are you headed?"

Aunt Beverley twisted the steering-wheel from side to side.

"I'm on my way to the beach. I feel like the wind in my brain."

Jim nodded appreciatively. He was one of the easy-goingest producers in
Hollywood, balding, self-assured, friendly to everyone. ' far have you
gone?' he asked her.

"Oh ... I'm almost there. Just past Brent wood. Beep-beep! Look out, you
stupid pedestrian! And as for you, sir,' she said, turning to Jim, '
hanging onto the side of my car, I'm doing sixty miles an hour!"

Jim blew smoke out of his nostrils. ' about going for real?' he asked
her.

"For real?"

"Sure, we can go swimming."

"Swimming?' she said, in pretended astonishment.

"Sure ... the sea's chilly, the moon's full, What more do you want? Move
over."

Aunt Beverley shifted herself over, and Jim climbed in. He started the
engine with a soft whoosh of power.

"What about your guests?' said Aunt Beverley.

"What about them? So long as the canapes keep on coming and the booze
keeps on flowing, what do they care? You know this town better than I
do. It's Christians and lions, that's all it is. Christians and lions.
And not too many fucking Christians, either." He swigged tequila. Then
he said, ' this,' and handed her the bottle. ' want wind in your brain?
Is that what you want?"

At that moment, Elia Kazan came up, looking sweaty and concerned. He was
closely followed by Jim's accountant, and a woman whom Aunt Beverley
didn't recognize. ', get out of* the car, please, you've been drinking
all night."

"We're going to the beach,'Jim insisted. ' wants to feel the wind in her
brain."

"Jim, I'm serious, get out of the car!"

Jim frowned at Aunt Beverley, and his expression was deeply
drunk-serious. ' me, Beverley, why do you want the wind in your brain?"

"Because I did something tonight that I want to forget about."

"Oh, yes?"

"I arranged for somebody to meet somebody, and I don't think that
somebody's going to come out of it too happy."

"I see! You've got a guilty conscience!"

"If that's the way you want to put it."

"Well ... there's only one way to get rid of a guilty conscience, and
that's to go to meet your Maker, and look Him in the face, and say,
"So?" '

Elia Kazan said, ', get out of the car, will you? This is crazy!"

Jim violently revved the engine, so that the Pontiac's suspension dipped
with torque. ', Gadge. Meet us at the beach, why don't you?"

"You're out of your tree!' Kazan rapped at him.

Jim whooped and screeched and scratched his armpits like a chimpanzee.
'-hoo-hoo!' and Aunt Beverley joined in with him, laughing in delight.

"King Kong liiivvesl' Jim called out, and revved the engine again. Tyres
howling, horn blazing, they swerved around the ornamental shrubbery in
front of the house, and dipped down the driveway towards the road. As
they passed the rows of parked cars, they caught the bumper of a pale
blue Rolls Royce, with a terrible crunching, banging noise.

"Jim, be careful!' Aunt Beverley screamed.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo!'Jim retorted, and Aunt Beverley laughed all the more.

"Free!' she sang at the top of her voice. She leaned back so that the
slipstream ruffled and thundered in her hair. The Pontiac squealed down
Stone Canyon Road, swaying and dipping from one side of the road to the
other.

"Power!' shouted Jim. '! Madness! Guilty consciences!

Tequila!" "Chimpanzees!' Aunt Beverley shouted back.

They careened through the gates of Bel Air, suspension bucking, tyres
screeching, and fishtailed onto Sunset. As the Pontiac slid from side to
side, Aunt Beverley thought for a frightening split second that Jim had
lost control, and she clung desperately onto the doorhandle. But still
she couldn't stop herself from laughing. A passing fruit truck blared
its horn at them, and the driver leaned out and screamed, ' loco
bastard!' But Jim yelled back '-hoo-hoo!' and deliberately swerved the
car from one side of the highway to the other.

"You know what day it is today?' he shouted.

"I don't know!' said Aunt Beverley. "Thursday?"

"No, no. Today is a very special day! Today is Tlazolteod's birthday!"

"Who the heck is Tlazolteotl?"

"Tlazolteoti, my darling Beverley, is the queen of all Mexican | magic!
She has a white face like death, and a butterfly tattooed ; around her
mouth, because that's the symbol of a dead soul. On Tlazolteotl's
birthday, any sinful woman has to go to the ; crossroads to meet her,
take off all of her clothes, and bite her own tongue until it bleeds.
Then she has to walk home naked."

"What for?' Aunt Beverley laughed.

"That way, she gets absolution. Takes her clothes off, bites j her
tongue, Tlazolteotl forgives her."

"Does it really work?"

"I don't know. Do you want to try it? How sinful have you ; been,
Beverley? You said you were feeling guilty, didn't you?

What were you feeling guilty for?"

Jim overtook a slow-moving gasoline truck on the long blind curve around
the Bel Air Country Club. The truck driver flashed his headlights and
blew his klaxon. Jim waved at him and Beverley waved, too.

"If only he knew who he was blowing his horn at,' said Aunt Beverley.

"He'd probably pray to St. Ignatius to forgive him."

"St. Ignatius?"

"Patron saint of the terminally unappreciative."

They slewed around the next curve, the speedometer needle touching 70.

"Power!' Jim shouted. He took the tequila bottle from her, unscrewed it
with his teeth, and spat the cap out of the car.

"Beauty!' he shouted, and took a huge swig. '!

Tequila! Happy birthday, Tlazolteotl!"

He handed the bottle to Aunt Beverley. ' on -- you drink Tlazolteotl a
birthday toast, too!"

Aunt Beverley took a mouthful of warm tequila, swilled-it around, and
swallowed it. It roared down her throat like soft fire, and she gasped,
and almost choked. Jim slapped his thigh and whooped with hilarity.
'-hoo-hoo! Hoohoohoo!"

The speedometer wavered close to 85. ' you ready for redemption?'Jim
yelled.

Aunt Beverley had never experienced such fear; never experienced such
elation. They were invincible, they were king and queen of Hollywood.
Nothing could touch them, nothing could harm them. '-hoo-hoo!' Jim
gibbered, in a high pitched monkey's mating call.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo!' Aunt Beverley gibbered back, pushing out her lower lip so
that she looked like a chimpanzee.

And it was then that a huge toiling flatbed truck appeared around the
right-hand hairpin bend that takes Sunset Boulevard down through Santa
Monica Canyon past Will Rogers park. It was carrying eight steel girders
for the new Regency Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, twenty-five tons of I
them. It was probably travelling at less than 8 m. p.h.

Jim was saying to Aunt Beverley, ' it is you feel; guilty about, don't.
I gave up feeling guilty years ago.' Hej wasn't even looking at the road
ahead.

Aunt Beverley saw dazzling lights and cried, '. r But when Jim looked
ahead, the windscreen was totally I frosted over, totally opaque with
feathers and ferns. He] swerved to the right, and hit the nearside
embankment, then* swerved to the left. The frosted glass was flooded
with white | light, and he couldn't see where he was going, or where the
j truck was, or anything at all. Aunt Beverley didn't know if she j was
looking at KJieg lights or flashlights or the terrible wb face of
Tlazolteotl, whose mouth was tattooed with butterfly symbol of a dead
soul.

They were less than a hundred feet away from the when Jim hit the
brakes; but any automobile designer couli have told him that a
five-and-a-half-thousand-pound auti mobile travelling at over 80 will
take nearly three quarters of a mile to stop, even if the driver isn't
bombed on tequila.

Jim cried out, '? (Of all things that a domineering I successful
Hollywood producer should cry out, in a moment < danger.)

The Pontiac missed the front of the truck by less than inch, and for a
split second Aunt Beverley thought that were divine. But then the front
wheels hit the opposite banking j with a noise like thunder, and the car
flew roaring into the < and she was thrown out and into the night sky.
She felt as if s were being wrenched this way and that like a Raggedy-/
doll in the hands of argumentative children. She thought < screaming,
but decided that she didn't want to. She worried that she was going to
ruin her suit. Out of the corner t her eye, she saw the car dropping
into the canyon, and then s knew that she could fly. This was all going
to work out well. All she had to do was land somewhere soft, brush
herself down, and then walk back to Bel Air. No problem at all.

She heard the Pontiac nose dive into the ground - a deep, resonant
bellowing and banging. I hope Jim can fly too, she thought to herself.

And this was only an instant before she fell head first into the glass
studio roof of 3373 Rosita Drive, a purple-suited angel dropping from
the sky, with a huge explosive crash. The glass -as she shattered it -
caught her just beneath the nose, and sliced off the flesh right up to
the bridge. It took off most of her chin, and opened up her left cheek
all the way through to her tongue.

She hit the angled architect's drawing-board that was positioned right
under the glass roof, hit the chair, hit the floor, breaking both arms,
breaking both legs, then rolled in a chaos of blood and glass and
tracing-paper until she finished up underneath a model of a new poolside
bungalow.

A fat Mexican maid in a pink nightdress came running into the studio.
The first thing she saw was the broken roof. ' Grant!' she cried, '//a
habido un accidentef It was then that she saw Aunt Beverlcy's bare and
bloodied feet under the table. ' Grant!' she screamed. ' Grant!
Nccesiumos an medico - rapidanuntel'

A tall wiry-haired man appeared, in green-striped pyjamas.

"Jesus,' he said. Then, very softly, '."

"Esta sangrando mucko,' said the maid. She crossed herself.

The man crawled under the table and peered at Aunt Beverley closely. Her
face was a glistening red mask of blood.

"Miss.?' he said, his voice quaking. '., can you hear me?"

Strange Days "Can the flame of the heart expire amid the flames of the
funeral pile?"

"Here we are,' said Bronco, turning into the driveway and pulling on the
brake. ' isn't much, but it's home."

It was two weeks before Christmas in Scottsdale, Arizona.

There was only one cloud in the sky, a small heat-frittered fragment of
white that Elizabeth would have described as a shrimp and Bronco would
have called Mr. Punch. They climbed out of Bronco's ageing
station-wagon, and Elizabeth looked around. Bronco's house was a
sprawling, ranch-style property set in ten or eleven acres of its own
land, although most of that land was dust and heat-baked rocks. Off to
the left of the house was a kitchen garden, with gourds and tomatoes and
cabbages growing. The front of the house had been cultivated with spiky
bushes and prickly pears and other desert shrubs. In the distance,
Elizabeth could see the tawny hump of Camelback Mountain, and two or
three circling buzzards.

"I was grieved to hear about Margo,' said Bronco, as he lifted
Elizabeth's suitcase out of the back of the station-wagon. ' never liked
her, in particular. But she's got fire in her belly; and that's pretty
rare these days. Most of the editors I meet are time-servers or
sycophants. Did I ever tell you about the time that Harold Ross punched
me on the nose? Those were the days." "She should make a complete
recovery,' said Elizabeth.

"She'll have scars, of course. But she's been talking to a plastic
surgeon, and he's really optimistic."

"Strange thing to happen, though. A mirror exploding like that. I used
to work in a bar once, and sometimes the beer glasses exploded of their
own accord. They were moulded out of really cheap glass, under tension.
Maybe that's what happened to Mango's mirror."

"Actually, I'm not so sure."

They had reached the verandah steps. Bronco squinted at her from
underneath the brim of his Panama hat. ' do you mean, you're not so
sure? Do you have some other theory?" "I don't know. But the police said
that the mirror was smashed into hundreds of triangular slivers, and
that each sliver was identical. They said the chances of that happening
were countless millions to one."

"It could have been the structure of the glass,' Bronco suggested. '
crystals break like that, don't they?' He looked at Elizabeth's
expression and tilted his head to one side.

"But you don't think so, do you?"

"I can't be sure,' said Elizabeth. ' Margo talked about a little girl
wrecking her apartment, a little girl in a white dress, just like the
Peggy-girl. And in the story of the Snow Queen, there's a frozen lake,
which the Snow Queen herself calls the Mirror of Reason, and the lake is
broken into a thousand pieces, each of which exactly resembles the other
- so that the breaking of them might well be deemed a work of more than
human skill."

Bronco looked at her steadily, but didn't answer. Elizabeth said, ' day
before Margo was hurt, she gave me a very difficult time at the office.
I'd been editing that book Reds Under The Bed, and she criticized just
about everything that I'd suggested, right in front of everybody.*

"You think Peggy was punishing her, for embarrassing you?"

"The same way she punished Miles Moreton, and the same way she punished
Aunt Beverley, and those two movie producers who tried to take advantage
of Laura."

Bronco opened the screen door and they went inside. The house was
single-storey, but it was spacious and cool, with that distinctive
aromatic smell of oak. It was sparsely furnished, but it was obvious
th^t Bronco and Vita had once been wealthy, even if they weren't so
well-off now. There were antique armchairs and antique sofas, and an
inlaid bow-fronted cabinet filled with exquisite Dresden figurines. Over
the wide stone fireplace hung a huge painting by Everett Shinn of a
snowy night on Broadway, bustling with horse-drawn cabs and umbrellas
and hurrying theatregoers; and on the right hand wall there were two
paintings of New York tenements by John Sloan, the most celebrated
painter of the '' school.

"Vita's having her afternoon zizz,' Bronco explained. ' doesn't like the
heat; but then she doesn't want to go back east, either, because of her
arthritis."

He showed her through to a large airy bedroom that looked out over
several acres of sandy-coloured scrub, with a view of Camelback
Mountain. It was prettily decorated with a brass bed and an antique
bureau and a French writing-desk with a vase of sweet peas on it. Bronco
set her suitcase down on the bed, and said, ' you like it here. Sorry as
I am about Margo, I'm real glad they sent you instead. At least you
understand what I'm trying to write about.' He glanced shiftily
sideways. ' understand about Billy, too."

"Have you seen him recently?"

"Three days ago, when I went into Phoenix to buy some typing-paper. I
told myself, "Come on, Bronco, Lizzie's coming to help you, you've got
to help yourself." So I went into Phoenix to buy some fresh
typing-paper. Best quality onionskin."

"What happened?"

"I was standing in the stationery store when I looked in this narrow
mirror that was advertising pens, and there was Billy, standing out in
the street watching me. He wasn't a ghost.

Leastways, he wasn't transparent. He was just as real as you or me.
Standing in the sunlight, watching me. And do you know what he did? He
wagged his finger from side to side, like I was doing something wrong,
like I shouldn't be buying typing paper, like I shouldn't write at all,
or even think of writing." Bronco paused, and lowered his head. ' talked
to me before. He said I shouldn't write any more. One book like Bitter
Fruit was quite enough. If I tried to do it again, the critics would
have my guts for breakfast. Especially since Bitter Fruit was so damned
long ago. I was a young blade then. Daring, you know? Outspoken. What am
I now? Just a dried-up old geezer with writer's block and a nagging
wife." Elizabeth said, ''s protecting you. He doesn't want to see you
get hurt."

"Yes, but that's the whole point of doing anything, isn't it?

That's the whole point of living. If I never wrote another book, because
I was scared of what the critics might have to say about it, I might
just as well blow my brains out and have done with it."

"It's the same with me and Laura,' Elizabeth nodded. ' time that
somebody upsets us or hurts us, even if they're only thinking about it,
like Clan Philips must have done ... Peggy calk up this Snow Queen thing
and tries to kill them. I think she means well, god damnit, but you can't
live your life in cotton wadding, can you? You have to take risks. You
have to be hurt.

Otherwise - you're right -- you might as well be dead."

Bronco rested a hand on her shoulder and looked down at her with deep
paternal kindness. ' know something, Lizzie? I always loved you, when
you were little. You were wise, you were clever, you had so much
imagination. Now you're a woman and I love you still." She smiled and
took of hold of his hand and squeezed it. Shel hadn't realized how much
she had missed having a father in| her life.

"You and I and Laura, we all have the same problem to deal ] with,' he
said. ''ve buried our dead, but we haven't yet laid them to rest.' He
looked at his watch. ' don't I give you a half hour to rest and freshen
up, then we can talk some more?

How would you like a drink? I mix a mean Pisco Punch."

"I'd like that."

After Bronco had left her, she unpacked her clothes and hung them up in
the large Spanish-style closet. Then she took a long shower in the small
green-tiled bathroom next to her room, a ceramic fish the size of a
grouper grinning at her. She towelled herself and looked in the mirror.
She thought that she was putting on a little weight. Too many take-away
lunches in the office; too many pasta suppers*. She was still reasonably
trim, however, and if she worked hard while she was out here in Arizona,
and didn't drink too many Pisco Punches, she could probably get back to
her ideal avoirdupois.

She had been shocked about Margo - especially when she had found out the
details of what had happened. Margo had talked about ', terrible cold,
and a little girl in a white dress who floated.' The police and the
doctors had put her description down to trauma, but Elizabeth had been
convinced that the Peggy-girl had been exacting her revenge. She had
been doubly convinced when Laura telephoned, the very next day, with the
news that Aunt Beverley was seriously injured, close to death, while
Chester and Raymond had been found at six o'clock in the morning,
suspended in Chester's totally-frozen swimming-pool like crushed flies
in amber. The police had put their deaths down to a ' attack with a
knife or other sharp-bladed instrument by persons unknown, followed by
freezing due to pool equipment malfunction.' A warning had been
published to all owners of Safe-T-Pump heating units to vacate their
pools immediately in case of any dramatic lowering of temperature.

Despite her distress, however, Elizabeth was glad that she was here. If
she could help Bronco to exorcize Billy, then maybe she and Laura could
find a way to rid themselves of Peggy. She was no longer ' little
Clothes-Peg'. Apart from being dangerous, Peggy's protectiveness was
seriously interfering with their lives, right or wrong. Peggy seemed to
feel that they needed shielding from everything harmful, from pain, from
betrayal, from hypocrisy, from everything that could possibly spoil a
fairy tale life: '-up and yet children children in heart, while all
around them glowed bright summer, warm, glorious summer."

She dressed and went through to the sitting-room. Vita was sitting on
one of the sofas in a sackish cocoa-coloured robe, looking pale and
freckly and very much older than Bronco.

Vita was one of those women who was never completely well.

She suffered from migraines and allergies and colds, not to mention a
long-running comprehensive '-of-sortsness' that prevented her from
attending any party or dinner or social gathering which she didn't wish
to go to, and even a few that she did wish to go to. She would always
want to leave early, especially when Bronco was laughing and flirting
and really enjoying himself; and even when he was attentive to her and
well-behaved, she carried herself with such bloodlessness that nobody
would have been surprised if he had one day strangled her, and thrown
her body in the Arizona Canal.

She was a very thin, bony woman, Vita, with an almond shaped head and
contemptuous, almost Oriental eyes. Her hair was scraped back and
fastened firmly with a diamante clasp, although a few strands always
contrived to escape her control, and form a wiry dancing-troupe on top
of her head.

Her nose always looked as if it were undecided: shall I be blobby, or
shall I be pinched? and so it was both, or either, depending on how you
looked at her. In the 1930$ she had been wildly romantic, and deep, and
written poems that wrung people's souls; but then she had lost Bronco's
first and only baby, and with it, her ability to have any more children.
On that morning, eighteen years ago, she might just as well have died.
Bronco had once said of her, ''s no damn accounting for what makes life
worth living for one person, yet not for another. I didn't care for
babies, not particularly; but for Vita, giving birth was everything."

As Elizabeth came into the room, Vita drawled, ' you're here to squeeze
blood out of a stone, are you?"

"Hello, Mrs. Ward. I'm Elizabeth Buchanan. I'm pleased to make your
acquaintance."

"I madejiours, my dear, when you were lying in a crib. As did Johnson.'
She made no attempt to conceal the implication that Bronco was old
enough to be Elizabeth's father.

Elizabeth said, ' can't remember that far back, I'm afraid."

Vita picked at the hem of her robe. ' was sorry to hear about your
father,' she said. ' all of his weaknesses, David was a true gentleman."

"Weaknesses?' asked Elizabeth, tartly.

"Well, one doesn't like to criticize the dead. But he could have gone so
far. That little publishing house ... really '

"That little publishing house brought out some great works of
literature. Not to mention all of those supernatural books; all of those
books on ghosts; and spirits; and hobgoblins."

Vita gave her a slanting shrug. ''s precisely my point.

David could have done so much better, if he had stayed in New York. And
look at Johnson. He's no better. One of the greatest novelists who ever
was, sitting out here in the back of beyond, drinking whiskey and
waiting for inspiration."

Elizabeth kept her peace. Bronco had told her that Vita made a sport of
needling people, as if she could somehow provoke them into admitting
that her present suffering was their fault, instead of hers. All she
said was, ''s been suffering from writer's block, that's all. It happens
to hundreds of writers."

"Oh, yes, and of course it had to happen to Johnson."

"Why not? Bitter Fruit was sensational. Now everybody expects him to
produce another novel, the same but different, the same only better. He
may look tough, he may talk tough, but he's sensitive, and proud, and
he's terrified of failing, that's all."

Vita gave her a tight, masklike smile. ' have been married to him for
quite some time." "I know,' said Elizabeth. ' that's why I'm sure you
know what he's capable of writing, given the confidence."

Vita was about to reply when Bronco came into the room, carrying a
champagne bottle and three glasses. ' ... let's crack open some bubbly,'
he said. ''s celebrate."

"Celebrate what?' asked Vita.

Bronco opened the bottle and filled their glasses. ' times,' he said. '
without memories, times without ghosts."

Til drink to that,' smiled Elizabeth.

Vita said, ', yes? Well, I'll drink to a long-overdue admission that
Johnson's no damned good, and that it's time for him to find himself a
real job."

Elizabeth protested, struggling to keep her temper. ' husband needs
confidence, not criticism, Mrs. Ward. Creating a book ... that's even
more difficult than giving birth to a baby." Immediately she wished that
she had stitched her lips up, rather than use that analogy, but it was
too late. Vita was already arching her head back and rolling her eyes
and forming her retaliation on her tongue. ', I suppose, that if Johnson
can write another novel, I should have managed to bear him a child?"

Elizabeth said, ', that wasn't the implication. And if I was clumsy,
talking about babies, then I apologize." Bronco said. ' don't have to
apologize,' and held her hand. ' wasn't your fault, what happened to our
baby. But if you can help me write another novel - well, that'll be
something worth doing, won't it?

Elizabeth turned to Vita and tried to tell her in one sympathetic look
that she understood what her irritations were, what her fears were. But
Vita turned her face away, her mouth drawn in, her cheek twitching, and
Elizabeth had to recognize that Vita was impossible.

Bronco gave her a wistful smile and said, ' on, Elizabeth, let's bury
the dead. Let's think about tomorrow."

At one o'clock in the morning, when the moon was shining baldly through
the shutters, Bronco knocked softly on the door of her bedroom and
whispered, '? You awake?"

She lifted herself on her elbow. ', I'm awake. What do you want?"

"Thought you and me could talk, that's all."

"No, Bronco, we can't."

He softly closed the door and sat on the end of her bed. ''s been a long
time, Lizzie, since I held a woman close to me, for all of my
reputation."

She reached out and touched his hand. ' know that, Bronco.

But we can't."

"You're diplomatically trying to tell me that you don't find me
attractive, is that it? You're trying to let an old geezer down gently?"

"It isn't that.' Y "Then what is it? You don't want to hurt Vita's
feelings? Vita has no feelings, believe me. She used to be a siren, but
now she's a Gorgon, and Gorgons are best avoided, you know that, less'n
you want to turn to stone."

She kissed him, and he still tasted of cigars and spice and cleanliness,
the way he had when he arrived in Sherman for Peggy's funeral. ''re a
man and you're very attractive, but I'm here to work."

"Work? That's all you think about? It's the middle of the night!

"There's something else. Any man who threatens me, any man who even
approaches me ... well, think what happened to Clan Philips and Miles
More ton. I'm fond of you, Bronco, I really am. But I'm afraid.
Supposing the Peggy-girl comes after you. Supposing she freezesjwu, the
way Clan was frozen. I couldn't bear it, Bronco - especially if it was
my fault."

Bronco nodded. ' right then,' he said, at last. ' let me ask you one
thing: once we've dealt with Billy, once we've dealt with little
Clodies-peg."

She kissed him again. ' we've dealt with both of those, then you can
take me out to dinner and tell me how much you love me. Do you remember
Dean in Bitter Fruit, what he said to Gory? "There's no such thing as
love, Gory ... there never could have been, not if what I feel for you
is love. Antony and Cleopatra, what did they have? Sweat, and
empire-building, and snakes. Romeo and Juliet, don't make me laugh.
Calf-love, and nagging parents, and faded flowers. Casanova? Dick sores,
and hangovers, that's all." '

They finished the quotation together, in soft and hilarious unison.'
"But what we have is love. Gory. The love that's lit by glowing
cigarettes and dome-lights, the love that joins our outlines together,
so that we're one single Rand Mcnally, so that nobody who drives through
the dark can ever tell where Gory ends and Dean begins." '

Bronco looked at her, his eyes glistening. ''ve got a memory,' he said.

"How many times do you think that I read Bitter Fruit? Only as many
times as the rest of my friends, and more."

Bronco stood up. Elizabeth thought that he was looking very old; but
then she was older, too.

"Goodnight, Lizzie,' he told her in a husky voice; and closed the
bedroom door.

The gardener's name was Eusebio and he was a Pima Indianfrom the Gila
River Indian Reservation south of Phoenix. His Indian name meant
something quite different, like ' Bean-Hands', but his family had taken
the name Eusebio from Father Eusebio Kino who founded a mission in 1687,
and who had given the Pima Indians religion, cattle and the ability to
grow wheat. Eusebio still talked about Father Kino as if he had seen him
only a week ago; the fact that he had died in 1711 seemed unimportant.

Bronco took Elizabeth out to meet him. He was hoeing rows of beans. The
morning was mild and warm with a slight wind blowing from Sonora.
Eusebio was small and stocky, with-a face that looked like a large
crumpled mushroom. He wore a faded blue smock and a wide-brimmed hat,
and open-toed sandals.

"Eusebio this is Miss. Buchanan, she's staying here for a while."

Eusebio looked at Elizabeth with one eye closed against the glare. '
like it here?" he asked her.

"I think it's beautiful."

Eusebio shook his head. ' try to scratch a living out of this land, then
tell me it's beautiful. This land has nothing. No water, no life.
Nothing at all. This is a land for dead people."

Elizabeth watched him scratching at the dust for a while.

Then she said, ' a matter of fact, I was going to ask you about dead
people. Or one dead person in particular."

"Oh, yes?' said Eusebio. He had a half-smoked cigarette perched loosely
behind his right ear, and every time he leaned forward with his hoe, it
looked as if it were going to drop out, but it never quite did. As if
talking about the dead weren't unnerving enough, Elizabeth thought.

"You saw Mr. Ward's brother, Billy,' said Elizabeth.

Eusebio nodded, without interrupting his hoeing.

"In fact you've seen him more than once ... and you've seen him at times
when nobody else has seen him, apart from Mr. Ward." There was a long
silence. Eusebio continued to work, but Elizabeth could tell that he was
doing nothing more than going through the motions. The sharp sound of
his hoe blade echoed flatly in the warm morning air. ' take the peyote,'
he said. ' peyote shows you spiritual sights, like tomorrow, and the
dead who take on different shape." "What's the peyote?' asked Elizabeth.

Bronco said, ''s a drug. The Indians extract it from the tubercules of
the mescal cactus. When you eat it, it gives you extraordinary
hallucinations, and makes you sensitive to all kinds of impressions,
especially '. You can see plants grow. You can see the clouds go
speeding past. You can see dead people, too; or so Eusebio says. The
Indians used it as a medicine, but also to bring them visions. It's
mentioned in some of the surviving Aztec manuscripts, and there are old
Spanish documents that report its use all the way from Yucatan to
Oklahoma. What interests me, however, is that it was used to slow down
respiration, so that anybody who took it could see their dead relations.
We could use it as a way of achieving the glamour, the shape-changing,
without having to strangle ourselves.' He put his hand around his
throat. ' don't really relish the idea of strangling myself." "Do you
really think it works?' asked Elizabeth.

"I don't know. But Eusebio had been taking it when he saw "Billy". My
guess is, if we took it, we could take on fictional identities, too, and
tell "Billy" to leave me be."

"What do you think, Eusebio?' asked Elizabeth.

He shrugged. ' spirit is not like a man. A spirit is hard to control.
You can't say to a spirit, do what I say, because I'U punish you, you
wayward spirit. What does a spirit care?"

"But supposing we took the peyote ourselves, Mr. Ward and me, and became
spirits, and took on different shapes?"

"Depends what they are, these shapes."

"Well, if he's a Cuban musician, supposing we were record producers, or
something like that?"

Eusebio's mouth cracked into a mirthless laugh. ' sure have dreams and
fancies, don't you?"

Elizabeth said, ' isn't a joke. Mr. Ward's brother has been worrying him
and stopping him from writing! We have to stop him, one way or another!"

Eusebio stopped working and leaned on his hoe. ' must find out the truth
first, Mr. Ward. You must find out who your brother has chosen to be.
You can't take risks, in the spirit world. Not even little risks. If you
appear there, and you don't have the power, you could be killed. Worse
than that, your brother could catch your spirit-character, and never let
you return to your body. You would be dead, and yet alive, and nobody
could revive you."

"He'd be in a coma, you mean?' asked Elizabeth.

Eusebio thought for a moment, then nodded. ' you call a coma, yes.
People who breathe, but never move or talk. They are visiting the
spirit-world. Sometimes they achieve great things in the spirit-world,
while their families and their friends sit by their bed and despair.
There are three worlds, and there always have been. The world of the
living. The world of spirits.

And the world of the truly rested, the empty world, which is the world
of absolute peace."

"That's where I want Billy to go,' said Bronco, emphatically.

"The world of absolute peace. Then maybe /'// get some absolute peace."

Eusebio took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his
hand. His hair was straight and greasy, and curled-up in the back. '.
Ward ... I can bring you some of the peyote. But take my warning, okay?
You find out who your Billy really is, before you start to go after him,
or you could pay the price."

They walked back to the house. In the distance, Camelback Mountain
wavered and shifted in the morning heat.

"What do you think?' said Bronco. ' you think we're crazy?"

Elizabeth took hold of his hand. ',' she said.

They were still walking, hand-in-hand, when Vita appeared on the
verandah, wearing a flowery brown dress that made her complexion look
paler and muddier than ever, twirling a parasol.

"Johnson!' she called, in a high, imperative voice. ', we're fresh out
of cinnamon!"

Bronco squished Elizabeth's hand, and let it go; but the meaning wasn't
lost on her; any more than the difficulty of what they had to face.

They searched all afternoon through Billy's room. His gramophone-record
collection, his clothes, his books, his half completed diaries. Some of
the bits and pieces they found were unbearably sad, especially the
photographs: a young man laughing, a young man squinting at the sun.

"We'd only moved here four months before he was killed," said Bronco,
leafing through some jazz magazines. ' bought a motorcycle ... I'd
always wanted a motorcycle, but there wasn't much point hi having one in
New York. Billy asked me if he could ride it, and tike a fool I said
yes. He came off at the very first curve, doing sixty miles an hour, and
hit a telegraph pole. Broke his neck, killed him instantly.' He was
silent for a long moment. ' was all a long time ago. I think I could
have forgotten it, if Billy would let me forget." "Didn't he ever read
any books?' asked Elizabeth, more to break the mood than anything. ''s
only magazines here."

"Sure, he did sometimes. Maybe I should look in my study."

They walked across the living-room to Bronco's study. Vita was reclining
on the sofa with a glass of weak Russian tea, reading Mccall's. The
blinds were drawn, which meant that she was suffering from a migraine.
Bronco blew her a kiss, which she vaporized in mid-air with one of the
most withering looks that Elizabeth had ever seen.

"This doesn't look very much like writing a novel to me,' she remarked.

"Oh, it will be,' Bronco assured her. Elizabeth didn't trust herself to
say anything at all. She had never met a woman so hostile and sarcastic
- yet a woman who never stopped complaining that she was so helpless, so
sick, so starved of sympathy.

They went into the study. It was an L-shaped room illuminated with
white, watery, reflected light. Its longer walls were lined with
hundreds of books, some leather-bound, some paper-jacketed, some
exquisite, some torn. Facing the window stood a large leather-topped
desk. An Underwood typewriter was neatly positioned in the centre of the
desk, and a stack of typing-paper was neatly positioned next to it. It
was a still-life which completely illustrated writer's block, without
the need for a caption.

Elizabeth said, ' take the top three rows, I'll take the bottom three."

They patiently made their way along the bookshelves, their heads tilted
to one side so they could read the titles on the spines. Elizabeth had
never come across such an eclectic selection of books in her life:
Spanish Drama Before Lope de Vega was squashed in between The Mesolithic
Settlement of Northern Europe and The Beast In Me - And Other Animals by
James Thurber.

At last, Elizabeth came across a thin book called Nights in Havana. She
tugged it out, and held it up. ' any bells?"

Bronco took it and leafed through it. ''s certainly not mine.

Here's a note in Billy's handwriting. And look -' he held up a ticket
for a Duke Ellington concert in New York. ' must have been using this
for a bookmark."

Elizabeth said, ' Miles was right about the glamour, we should read this
book, and see what character Billy has chosen to be. Then we should
choose characters of our own ... characters who can tell him to leave
you alone - or persuade him to leave you alone, at the very least."

Bronco nodded. ' don't you read it first, while I try to get some
writing done? Do you fancy a Pisco Punch?"

"No thanks. A little too early for me."

Bronco stared philosophically at his typewriter. ''re right. I shouldn't
have one either."

Elizabeth reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ', go on, have one, if
it helps to get you started. If there's one thing I'm determined not to
do, it's to give my boss your twenty thousand dollars advance back."

While Bronco pecked hesitantly at his typewriter, Elizabeth sat on the
verandah outside his window and started to read Nights in Havana. It was
a novel set in Cuba in the early days of Batista's dictatorship. The
hero was a young idealist called Raul Palma who was trying to free his
father, who was imprisoned on suspicion of murdering one of Batista's
right hand men. Only one person knew who had really killed him, a
beautiful prostitute called Rosita, and she was too frightened to speak
out. The plot was hackneyed; but the scenes of Havana's sleazy
night-life were unforgettable, the pimps along the Paseo, the brothels
and the bars, and always the constant throb of sub-tropical heat and
mamba music. The character of Raul Palma was inspirational, too. He was
lean, he was good looking, he was driven by reckless political
commitment.

Elizabeth liked Rosita, too -- childish and beautiful but soiled by
poverty.

By the time she had reached the climax of the novel, Elizabeth was sure
that Billy had taken on the character of Raul - and, if that were true,
she was convinced that Rosita could persuade him to leave Bronco alone.
Raul was ready to risk his life for Rosita, shielding her with his own
body from the vicious, corrupt chief of police, Captain Figueredo.

She had almost finished the novel when she heard Bronco calling her. '!
Lizzie, can you hear me? Come here, quick!"

She closed the book and went inside. Bronco was waiting for her by his
half-open study door. His face was ashy, and lined with tension. ' me
you can see what I see."

He opened the door wider so that she could step inside. She did so, very
hesitantly. She passed so close to Bronco that she could smell his
cologne and the rum on his breath. Sitting beside Bronco's desk, his
chair tilted back on two legs, sat a young sallow-faced man in a faded
grey shirt and voluminous black trousers. His eyes were bright and
glittery and very amused, although he wasn't exactly smiling. He was
handsome in a cheap, matinee-idol way, with black greased-back hair and
a large gold pendant around his neck.

Elizabeth approached him cautiously. The young man followed her with his
eyes, although now and then she glanced quickly at Bronco, as if to make
sure that he wasn't up to any funny business. The atmosphere in the
study was stifling. The air was so humid and hot that Elizabeth found
herself perspiring, and she had to wipe her forehead with the back of
her hand.

"This is Billy,' said Bronco, tensely. ' is my brother, back from the
dead."

"Buenos dias, senorita' said Billy, although he didn't get up.

Elizabeth nodded. There was some unearthly quality about this young man
that frightened her very much. Although he was sitting in Bronco's
chair, he wasn't quite sitting in it, he looked as if his image were
superimposed on it. His voice didn't quite synchronize with his lips,
either, and there was a strange unsteadiness in the way he moved.

"Something is worrying you,' Billy suggested.

"You worry me. You should leave your brother alone. He has work to do."

"I am protecting my brother. Besides, who are you to tell me what to
do?"

"Your brother doesn't need protecting. Your brother can protect
himself."

The young man laughed, a blurry, indistinct laugh that had no real
humour in it. ' brother will be hung, drawn, quartered and stretched out
to dry. My brother will be safer if he keeps his peace."

"Perhaps your brother doesn't want to be safe."

Billy shook his head. ' have to protect him. He never took care of me;
but I must take care of him."

Elizabeth looked down at Bronco's typewriter. So far this morning he had
typed only a single sentence: ' knew what time the bus would arrive."

Elizabeth turned back to Billy. ''re Raul, aren't you?

Raul Palma."

The young man's eyes darkened, and his face turned serious.

"Maybe you should mind your own business. Johnson is my brother, not
yours."

"Maybe you should leave him in peace."

Billy stretched out his left hand and placed it on top of Bronco's
typewriter. ' long as my brother risks his dignity, then I will be here
to protect him. You can't make me abandon my duty."

His hand trembled, and his eyes stared at Elizabeth in fury.

She took one step back, then another. As she did so, the sheet of paper
in the typewriter began to darken, and curl at the edges.

The next thing she knew, it had spontaneously burst into flame.

Still Billy stayed where he was, his lips clenched tight, daring
Elizabeth to challenge him, daring her to cast him out.

Amid the paper-smoke that burnt the nostrils, Elizabeth turned away, and
took hold of Bronco's arm, and led him away out of the room, and dosed
the door.

Bronco said, ' saw him, didn't you? You saw what he's been doing to me?"
"Yes,' said Elizabeth, and held up Nights in Havana. ''s Raul Palma, a
revolutionary in the time of Batista. That means that you and I will
have to take the peyote, and hunt him down in Havana, and persuade him
to leave you alone." "You really think it's possible?' asked Bronco,
taking the book and flicking through the pages.

"I don't know,' said Elizabeth. ' if we can't get rid of Billy, then we
can't rid of Peggy; and we have to. We really have to."

"Gotcha,' Bronco nodded.

The afternoon was eerily silent. Vita had gone to bed to nurse her
migraine. Elizabeth was sitting out on the verandah, correcting proofs,
while Bronco lay some distance away, stretched out on a basketwork
sun-lounger, reading Nights In Havana and sipping Pisco Punch.

The sky was faultlessly blue. The ground was faultlessly white. The air
was totally transparent, like a polished lens. In the distance, the heat
wavered and flowed, so that it looked as if Camclback Mountain were
floating in a glassy lake. The only sounds that interrupted the silence
were the cracking of ice in Elizabeth's drink, and the soft rustle of
paper as Bronco turned another page.

Elizabeth lowered her proofs onto her lap and looked towards the
horizon. She was frightened of what she and Bronco were going to do; yet
in a way she was quite excited by it, too. Surely the living could exert
their influence over the dead? And surely real people could exert their
influence over imaginary characters - people who wouldn't even have
existed, if it hadn't been for human imagination? She had often wondered
where fictitious characters ' from'. Somebody at a literary dinner party
had once argued that they were all of those people who had never been
born ... either because their potential parents had failed to meet, or
because their sperm had come second in the race towards the egg, or for
whatever reason. ' that you never got to be, simply because your father
argued with your mother about the way she cooked the dinner ... and so
they didn't make love that night ... and that was your chance gone for
ever. Unless, of course, you could make your presence felt in some
fiction-writer's imagination. A life on the printed page is better than
no life at all, after all."

Eventually, Bronco closed the book, picked up his drink, and took a
swallow. ' crappy novel, hunh?' he remarked.

"The characters were good; especially Raul."

"Yes. I can see why Billy liked him. He didn't give a bent cent for
anybody, did he? Mind you, I liked Captain Figueredo, too.

What a bastard he was."

"How about Rosita?"

He eased himself off the sun-lounger and walked along the verandah until
he was standing next to her. ', well, Rosita ... now you're talking."

"I think I should try to be Rosita and you should try to be Captain
Figueredo."

"You're really game to try it?"

"What choice do we have?"

Bronco sipped his drink and stared out over the dry, bleached landscape.
' think we should do some research?

Like, study some maps of Havana, maybe, or learn the Cuban national
anthem?"

"I know the Cuban national anthem. "At combate corred bayameses ... " *

"How the hell do you know that?"

"I had a Cuban friend at school. Her father had something to do with the
abrogation of the Platt Amendment. That was when the United States gave
up control over Cuba's internal affairs. She was very proud of him."
Bronco smiled at her. ' like you, Lizzie. You're the only person who
knows more irrelevant rubbish than I do." Elizabeth said, ' don't you
ask Eusebio to get us some peyote for tomorrow morning? Laura should be
here by nine tonight ... I'd like her to be here when we try the
glamour. It's not that I don't trust Eusebio, I do. But if anything goes
badly wrong ... well, I think I trust Laura a little more."

Bronco sat down beside her. ' come you're so young and I'm so old?' he
asked her.

She smiled at him kindly because she was very fond of him.

She knew what he was trying to say to her. She knew what longing and
what frustration he was trying to express. They would have been the
happiest of partners, if their ages hadn't been so disparate, if they
hadn't met when his career was waning and hers was just beginning to
flourish. The life they could have led. The talks they could have
talked. She gripped his hand and gripped it and gripped it, trying to
communicate to him that she knew, she knew.

They collected Laura from the airport at sunset. The sky was luridly
streaked with orange and mauve. The sisters flung their arms around each
other and held each other tight, and cried, but they cried out of
happiness more than grief, and the feeling that fate had brought them
back together again, where they had always belonged.

Laura was wearing a pretty yellow-and-grey dress with puffy sleeves and
a crossover bodice, and a big yellow hat.

Elizabeth said, ' at you! Just like a movie star!" "Don't,' said Laura.
"That's a sore point with me, after what happened."

Bronco took off his hat to her. ', sweetheart ... good to see you. Glad
you could come. How's Beverley?"

"She's going to recover ... I mean, she's going to live. What she's
going to look like, though - I've only seen her in bandages. The surgeon
told me that she lost her nose."

"What about Jim Boreas?"

"Paralysed, with facial burns. He swears that the windshield frosted
over. Ice, that's what he said, so that he couldn't see where he was
going. The police say that he was drinking too much tequila."

"So nobody believed him?"

"Would you, if you didn't know about Peggy?"

"Will he get better?"

They were walking across to Bronco's station-wagon. It was growing dark
already, and there was a strong aroma of mcsquite and aviation fuel in
the air.

"Jim Boreas? No, I don't think so. He can't walk. He can't speak
clearly. He can't even swallow." Bronco said. ' convinces me, you know.
This really convinces me. We have to learn how to do this glamour thing,
and make it work."

Elizabeth stroked his hair; and it was a gesture that Laura didn't miss.
' on, Bronco,' she said, ''s get home first, and let Laura settle in.
Then we can talk about the glamour."

They were driving east on Indian School Road. The night was
velvety-black now and warm, and the lights were sparkling everywhere.
Laura said, ' know that Peggy was wrong. Chester and Raymond didn't
really deserve to die. But, by God, when I heard what had happened -- I
was pleased, I have to tell you, I was pleased.' She hesitated for a
moment, and then she said to Elizabeth, ' didn't tell Bronco what
happened?" Elizabeth shook her head. ' told him they were rough with
you, that's all." Bronco said, ' don't need to know what happened,
sweetheart.

If anyone lays one finger on you, all I can say is, they deserve the
very worst. I'm sorry about Beverley, too, but I think she got her just
deserts. That woman has been playing a dangerous game for many, many
years, believe me. It was bound to catch up with her, sooner or later."

Elizabeth reached over the back of her seat and took hold of Laura's
hand, and held it all the way to Bronco's house.

Tonight, they all felt a strong need for physical contact.

Bronco served up barbecued chicken for supper, and a big salad of palm
hearts and avocado, with his own special dressing, and plenty of cold
white wine. Vita ate a little, then excused herself, and went to bed,
pleading nausea. Bronco watched her go, and then relaxed. ' doesn't take
kindly to female company,' he explained. ' you, if it's a man, no
migraines then, she's all over him like wallpaper paste." "She's
probably jealous,' Laura suggested.

Bronco shrugged. The candles flickered in his eyes. ' doesn't really
matter what she is. The truth is, I should never have married her. She
used to follow me around, when I was at NYU, and she would do everything
for me ... cook my meals, press my trousers, type my essays, you name
it. I needed a partner for dinner? There she was, all dressed up,
corsage and all. I was lonely, one night? She was always ready to warm
my bed. She made herself indispensable, that's what she did. I didn't
marry her because I wanted to marry her. I married-her because I didn't
have the heart not to. In other words, I was a moral coward; and I can
never forgive myself for that."

"This is the author of Bitter Fruit talking?' asked Laura. "The low-down
dirtiest book that ever was?"

Bronco laughed. ' think you'll find that's pretty dated now.

All that swing, and trucking, and so-called loose behaviour." Elizabeth
said, ''d better talk about the glamour, hadn't we, before we drink much
more wine?"

"Do you think this cactus stuff is really going to work?' asked Laura.

"The peyote?' Bronco was filling up his glass. ' don't see any reason
why it shouldn't. The Indians have been using it for centuries.
Elizabeth and I are going to eat a little and see if we can take on two
of the characters that appear in Billy's novel." He held up Nights In
Havana. ' it works., we're going to find him and try to persuade him to
take off somewhere else, and stop bothering me."

"What if he refuses?"

"I don't know. We'll have to think of something else.*

Elizabeth said, ' I told you, we want you to watch over us while we do
it, just to make sure that nothing goes wrong."

Laura pulled a reluctant face. ' right, but I can't say I'm very happy
about it."

"Just think about Aunt Beverley,' said Elizabeth. ' wouldn't want that
to happen to anybody else."

"I guess not. But it frightens me, all the same."

That night, Elizabeth slept badly, and dreamed of walking through the
snow. She was standing in a vast, black-vaulted hall, and snow was
falling thickly all around her, and carpeting the floor. The experience
was very intense. She could feel the cold. Then, gradually, the light
began to fade, until she was standing in total blackness. She reached
out with both hands, but all she could feel was the snow falling. She
shuffled forward like a blind woman, groping in the air in front of her.
She heard a thin, lamenting voice close to her ear. ', I have left my
gloves behind ... oh, I have left my boots behind ...' over an dover
again.

"Peggy?' she said, with a sudden thrill of terror. Then she woke up.

She sat up in bed, cold and shivering, as if she had really been
shuffling through the snow. Her nightlight was still dipping and
flickering in its terra cotta bowl. She looked down at her right hand,
and found that she was clutching something that looked like a dead,
desiccated rat. She cried, '!' and tossed it away from her. It fell
beside the desk, and when it fell she realized what it was.

She climbed out of bed and picked it up between finger and thumb, and
looked at it with awe. It was a child's fur glove, very old and very
dried up, as if it had been soaked and then left by the fire. It was
probably nothing grander than rabbit fur, and it was very roughly made,
with big, childish stitching.

What gave Elizabeth such a feeling of dread, however, was that she knew
whose glove it was. It had been left behind by Gerda when she was trying
to find the Snow Queen's palace. Until Peggy had drowned, it had existed
only in a story, an imaginary glove, left by mistake in some hot
imaginary hovel, in a fairytale Finland that nobody could ever find in
any atlas.

Yet now it was here, in Scottsdale, Arizona, on a winter's night in
1951, the actual glove.

She had read of cases in which people woke up suddenly from very vivid
dreams to find that small objects had materialized on their pillows. A
woman in Montana had dreamed of her childhood in New Orleans, and woken
up to discover that she was holding a handful of Spanish moss. An
elderly man had dreamed of his wife, who had died twenty-six years
before in a hotel fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had opened his
eyes to find her wedding ring lying on his pillow, so hot that it had
scorched a circle on the pillowcase.

But a glove from a fairy story? She stood staring at it for a very long
time. She wondered if Peggy were trying to intimidate her, to discourage
her from entering the spirit world. If she were, then maybe she was
frightened herself of what Elizabeth might do. On the other hand, maybe
she wasn't frightened at all. Maybe she was trying to protect Elizabeth
from an experience more terrible than Elizabeth could begin to imagine.
Maybe this was the most potent way in which she could say, ''t.' After
all, if there were powers in the spirit-world which were capable of
changing'an imaginary glove into a dream glove, and then into a real,
wearable, measurable, touchable glove, then what other powers were
there, and how could she and Bronco possibly hope to influence them?

She drank a glass of water, and then she went back to bed.

The nightlight cast the most peculiar shadows on the wall spindly men
and women, and stretched-out horses -- the silent caravan of
dream-people, on their way to other people's sleep.

She stayed awake until the nightlight burned itself out, and the first
wash of dawn appeared on the wall. Before she fell asleep, she thought
she heard a child crying, somewhere in the yard outside; but she covered
her ears with the blanket, and told herself it was only imagination.

They set up two canvas cots in Bronco's study, side by side, so that
when they lay down in them they could reach out and hold hands. Eusebio
stood by the window, staring out at his vegetable patch, a tiny
screwed-up cigarette stuck to his lip. He showed no interest whatever in
Bronco's books, or his pictures, or any of his souvenirs. He was
absorbed by the soil, and what he was growing, and the way the
cloud-shadows moved across the ground.

Elizabeth was so nervous that she had been sick. Now she sat pale faced
on the side of her cot, waiting for Bronco to finish his preparations.
She had dressed as nearly as possible to look like Rosita, the
prostitute in Nights in Havana, in a tight scarlet dress with big yellow
flowers on it, and a deep V-shaped decolletage.

She had swept her hair up in a 19405 wave and fastened it with two
sparkly clasps that she had borrowed from Laura, and painted her lips
the same vivid scarlet as her dress. She had borrowed a pair of red
high-heels that had once belonged to Vita. They were a size too large
but they made her walk in a shoddy, teetering way that went with the
character.

She lit a cigarette and puffed it rapidly while Bronco fastened his
belt. He had taken his old white Navy uniform out of storage. It reeked
of mothballs, and it was so tight around the waist that he could barely
button it up, but all the same he looked the part of a seedy Cuban chief
of police, especially with his hair greased flat and his moustache waxed
so that it pointed upwards at ten to two.

"What do you think?' he asked. He was red in the face from doing up his
belt.

"Drink less wine, eat fewer enchiladas,' Laura remarked.

"You look fine,' said Elizabeth. ' says in the book that Captain
Figueredo's uniform is "ill-fitting and stained with sweat"."

Bronco lifted his arm to see if his uniform was stained with sweat, too,
and the stitching ripped.

"There, you look seedier still,' Laura teased him.

"Are you ready, senor?' asked Eusebio, dourly. He plainly thought that
this was all madness, and was impatient to get back to his beans and his
corn and his collard greens.

"Oh, wait up one minute,' said Bronco. ' never see a police chief
without a gun."

"You don't need a gun, do you?' Elizabeth asked him. ''s only imaginary,
after all."

Then, however, she thought of the rabbit-fur glove lying on her desk.
For some reason, she hadn't wanted to tell Bronco and Laura about it,
particularly Bronco. She knew how desperate he was to exorcize Billy
from his life, and she hadn't wanted to unnerve him. ' right,' she said.
''d better have a gun. There are some pretty tough types in this novel."

Bronco went to his gun-closet in the living-room, unlocked it, and took
out a long-barrelled Colt .45 revolver. He loaded it, and pushed it into
his belt.

"Now you really look the part,' said Laura, as he came back in.

Eusebio stepped forward with a small parcel of greaseproof paper, and
unwrapped four dried slices of cactus. ' are the mescal buttons,' he
said. ' must think of who you want to be, think about them strong, so
you don't think nothing else. Then you chew the button slow and even,
let the juices flow down your throat They make you nauseous, you
understand? Some people never get the peyote dream because they sick too
soon. Let the dream come into you. Let it rise up inside you. You will
be feeling plenty strange. You will see the peyote plant. You will
become the peyote plant. Everything become vegetable. Then vegetable
will open and out you will step ... spirit-form, yes?"

Bronco picked up one of the mescal buttons, and sniffed it.

"We can't smoke these, no?" "No,' said Eusebio, shaking his head. '
smoke, chew."

Elizabeth lay back on the cot. Laura knelt down beside her and held her
hand.

"You'll watch me, won't you?' said Elizabeth.

"Every moment,' Laura promised her. ' it looks like anything's wrong,
I'll wake you up immediately, I promise."

Eusebio handed her one of the buttons. ' of your spirit-shape first,
then start to chew. Try to hold back your sickness. The peyote changes
your breathing, same as strangling, same as hanging. Too much peyote and
you don't breathe at all, and you die." "Thanks for the reassurance,'
said Bronco. ''s just get on with it, before I change my mind."

Elizabeth settled herself down. Then she reached across, and held
Bronco's hand. They were taking this journey together, and she wanted
them to stay together. She looked at him, and tried to smile, and he
winked back at her, and said, "God be with us, what do you say?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"Close your eyes now,' Eusebio instructed them. ' your eyes and think of
your spirit-form. Think of its appearance, think of what it looks like.
Make out that it's somebody you know, somebody real. Make out that you
can touch this spirit form, and talk to it. Make out that you know it
better than you know yourself. Then slide inside it, one person inside
another, like two photographs, one on top of the other one. Then you can
be that spirit-form, then you can know what they know, and talk like
they talk, and go to places where only they can go."

Elizabeth dosed her eyes, although the room was still so bright that she
could see the scarlet veins in her eyelids. She tried to forget that she
was lying on a canvas cot, holding hands with Bronco, with Laura leaning
over her, and Eusebio impatiently sniffing and fidgeting in the corner.

She tried to imagine that she knew Rosita; that she had met her in New
York. She tried to imagine her face, and her voice, and the way she
walked. According to Nights in Havana, she always wiggled her hips when
she walked, and shook out her black curly hair, and when she could get
it she ceaselessly chewed Wrigley's gum. She tried to imagine that she
could actually hear Rosita, smell her perfume, feel her skin. Rosita had
a tiny tattoo of a flying owl on her left shoulder, carrying a bell in
its claws.

"Death's fatal bellman', that was what the Cubans called owls. It was a
symbol of mortality - live your life to the utmost, because tomorrow the
ground may open up and swallow you, or a drunken client may slash you
with a cut- throat razor.

Hesitantly, she dropped the mescal button into her mouth.

It tasted bitter and dry, and she almost spat it out at once. But she
knew that she had to help Bronco to hunt down Billy, and that she
herself had to exorcize the Peggy-girl, and if this was the only way to
do it, then she would have to chew this hard, disgusting slice of cactus
until she took on Rosita's spirit-form, until she became Rosita.

"Slow - chew slow,' she heard Eusebio telling her, quite crossly.

She thought: I'm chewing as slow as I can. This cactus is absolutely
disgusting, it's hard and it's fibrous and this sickening bile-tasting
juice keeps squidging out of it. How can I be Rosita when I'm chewing
this stuff?

There was a moment when she almost vomited. The juice was so foul that
her stomach contracted, and she gripped Bronco's hand and let out a loud
cackling retch. She kept her eyes closed, though, and lay back again,
and even though she knew that Laura was kneeling beside her, stroking
her forehead, she began to feel less like herself and more like - she
didn't know. She felt as if she were poised in the desert, with the sun
blazing down. She felt as if she would never move again. She heard drums
softly beating, and voices chanting, and the sky rotated around her like
a smoky kaleidoscope. She felt as if lying here motionless were her
natural state. There was no need to move to have insight. She felt as if
time were slowing down, slower and slower by the second, until her
thoughts were moving like treacle, and a second lasted for hour. No need
to move.

Yet the drums kept on softly beating, they were mamba drums; guitars
began to strum. She was opening, she was flowering. She felt almost as
if she were being born.

She journeyed an infinite journey across the desert, sliding sideways on
her own unconsciousness. Days and nights went past, like a fanblade
flickering in front of a shaded electric lamp. She heard women talking
and laughing: she heard men shouting and fighting. She saw a cockroach
on a plaster wall.

She bought the dress because she wanted to buy the dress, it reminded
her of flowering gardens, where fountains splashed, and cherubs stood
blind-eyed and toupeed with moss. She got drunk on American whiskey and
screamed with laughter.

Then she was falling downstairs and jarring her back. She screamed and
swore. She was sure that she would lose the baby. Later, bewildered and
exhausted, she sat in an armchair watching a man in a dirty
sweat-stained vest dealing cards. His name was Esmeralda and he never
looked up once. On the other side of the room a dark-skinned girl of no
more than fifteen years old was dancing for him, swaying her hips. She
was naked except for 7-inch high-heeled shoes and a cluster of
rainbow-coloured combs in her hair. All the time she was dancing she was
stretching her vagina open wide with two fingers, glistening and
crimson. Still the man didn't look up.

The cards were more important. Fate was more important.

She sat up. She had a hangover and her mouth was dry. Next to her,
Captain Figueredo lay snoring. They must have finished that whole bottle
of whiskey and fallen asleep. He stank like a pig, like he always stank.
He never washed his penis, either. A girl had to be drunk to suck on
that. Opera music was playing in the next room, on a scratchy gramophone
record. She looked around. She had the extraordinary impression that she
was in two places at once. She was sitting up in her own bed in her room
in the Hotel National, but at the same time she was sitting in
somebody's office, with a half-transparent desk, and ghostly shelves
that were filled with books. She could see the faint shadowy outline of
a man standing by die window, and when she turned to climb out of bed
she saw another shadowy outline that looked like a girl, kneeling dose
beside her.

She rubbed her eyes, but the shadowy outlines remained.

The whiskey, she thought. The whiskey was bad. That fucker Perez. She
had paid him $6 for that bottle of whiskey, and what had it done to her?
The opera went screeching and warbling on and on, and she felt like
going through to the next room and snapping the record over her knee.

"Jesus,' she said, shaking Captain Figueredo's arm.

He breathed in sharply, and then let out an extraordinary bellowing
snort. '? What's the matter? What time is it?"

"I don't know, afternoon. The whiskey was bad. I keep seeing double."

Jesus Figueredo rolled himself into a sitting position. He blinked
towards the window, and then he said, ''re right. I see double too. I
see books, and a table, and a man."

"Perez must have sold me some of that bootleg stuff."

"I'll kill him. I'll bite off his fucking kneecaps."

Rosita stood up. She felt nauseous, and strange, but there was something
more. She felt as if she could hear people speaking in her ear -
sometimes loudly, sometimes scarcely audible. She shook her head so that
her long black ringlets shivered, but she could still hear them.

"What do you think?' she asked Captain Figueredo. ' do you think, the
whiskey's made us crazy?"

Captain Figueredo stood up. He licked his lips like a lizard, as if he
would have given anything for a drink, and paced around the room. ''re
here,' he said, after a while. ' yet, we're here, too. Bedroom, library
-- library, bedroom. We're in both."

"What does it mean? Does it mean we're still drunk?"

"No. I don't think so. It means ... we've done something. I know I've
done something, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is."

"It has to do with ...' Elizabeth began. But her memory was so fragile
and fleeting that she didn't have time to articulate it before it
twisted out of sight, and off it went, like a freshly opened but unread
love letter being caught by the wind. She hesitated for another reason,
too. She was concerned that Captain Figueredo might not want her again,
if she turned out to be difficult. He always paid well, and brought his
friends, and that was what survival was all about. She had a reputation
as the girl who would do anything, from dancing the mamba to letting you
fuck her with the leg of a kitchen chair.

Captain Figueredo pressed his hand over his eyes, and counted to ten in
a loud, obvious whisper. Then he opened his eyes again, and looked
around. ''s still here,' he said. ', people. Nothing's changed at all
... except that man was standing further to the right."

"Maybe he's waiting for something. He looks the impatient type."

"He's not impatient. He's frightened of me. He's just a peon, look at
him."

"I'm going mad,' said Rosita. ' that Perez."

"Don't you fret about Perez,' Captain Figueredo reassured her, clapping
his hand on her back. ' is a dead person from now. Besides He hesitated,
thinking, thinking. He touched his forehead with his fingers.

"What is it?' asked Rosita. ' have a headache, what?"

.'I ... I don't know who I am."

"What do you mean? Don't frighten me!"

"I am Jesus Figueredo. I am Jesus Figueredo. But why? I feel like I was
somebody else, and now I'm me."

"It's that fucker Perez." "No, no,' said Captain Figueredo. ''s more
than that. I am somebody else; and you are, too. Don't you feel it?' He
looked around the room, at the bare-plastered walls of the Hotel
Nacional, but at the bookshelves, too, and the people who were watching
them but weren't really there.

Rosita knew what Jesus was trying to say. She did feel like somebody
else. She also knew that she was supposed to do something important -
more important than meeting Manuel at the Mamba Bar, more important than
collecting her money from Dr. Cifuentes.

At almost the same moment, both of them looked down at Rosita's bed and
saw the book. It didn't look like a real book. It was semitransparent,
like the pencil-sketch of a book which an artist might have added to a
finished painting. But they could read the tide clearly enough, Nights
in Havana.

"Raul Palma,' said Rosita.

Captain Figueredo nodded in agreement. Then he checked his wrist watch.
' know him better than me. It's nearly four o'clock. Where can we find
him now?"

"The San Francisco brothel maybe. Or the Super Bar on the corner of
Virdudes."

"What does he do at the San Francisco brothel?"

"He has friends there. You would say coconspirators."

Captain Figueredo dragged a filthy handkerchief out of his pocket and
blew his nose. Then he stuck his finger up his nostril and twisted it
around. ''ll try the Super Bar first. Are you ready? Do you want to
wash?"

Rosita moved through two worlds at once, out of the bedroom and into the
bathroom. She could see ghostly furniture that wasn't there, and windows
letting in light where there were solid walls, and pictures hanging in
mid-air, and potted palms in the middle of doorways. She went to the
bathroom and switched on the light over the mirror. She peered at
herself and thought she looked haggard. She lifted her dress in front of
the basin and washed herself with her hand. She watched herself in the
mirror while she did k. She saw somebody else in her eyes but she didn't
know who it was.

She wondered when she would ever learn, and of course the truth was that
she had learned, but failed to act on it. She was free to leave Havana
whenever she wanted to. She had no children; she had no family now that
her father had died. But she had grown used to being Rosita. The
wolf-whistling that followed her all the way along the Paseo was all the
acclamation she required, and she didn't mind the men she called
'clients' half as much as she pretended. Most of them were shy and
courteous, with voluminous pee-spotted undershorts and bad breath. Some
of them were rough and drunk, and left her cheeks with stubble burns.
But on the whole they invaded very little of her total body-space, only
her mouth and her vagina, a few cubic centimetres which she rented out
to pay for her food, and her apartment, and her Ford (which was waiting
for a replacement gearbox), and the rest she kept for herself. When
anybody asked her about prostitution, she always said, Then sell their
whole bodies and brains to banks and insurance companies, all day, every
working day, for a lifetime. I give my body for twenty minutes only,
then I can do what I like, go for a walk, have a drink, meet my friends.
Who is the prostitute, tell me?"

They drove to the Super Bar in Captain Figueredo's Buick but they drove
like people in a dream. The buildings and trees that unravelled past
them seemed more like a painted frieze than actual scenery. The
sidewalks were crowded with the usual pimps and dirty-postcard sellers,
yet they all appeared to be frozen in time. The sky was bronze and
threatening, and a strange four-engined seaplane churned through clouds
with propellers like eggbeaters.

The day was so humid that the Buick's windows were steamed up on the
outside. Captain Figueredo laid his hand on Rosita's thigh, and said, '
are not many things in this life which give me succour, Rosita."

"No,' she replied. ' I won't, not again, if you don't start to take
showers."

"I am a pig, I know it,' he said, gloomily.

They parked outside the Super Bar and Captain Figueredo gave a
ten-year-old boy a nickel to watch his car. Inside the bar it was dark
and smelled of stale cigars and disinfectant. A tall black man with a
pointed head was polishing glasses behind the bar. Three men in black
shirts were sitting around a table, their chairs tilted back. Another
man was sitting on his own beside a tank of tropical fish.

Rosita had hung around the Super Bar for years. Yet this afternoon it
was more than the Super Bar, it was a sitting room, too, with phantom
sofas and ghostly chairs, and people who walked from side to side like
rippling sheets of cellophane. The barman called, '!' but she ignored
him, and walked directly across to the fish tank.

The young man on the bars tool crushed out his cigarette and smiled. He
didn't look at Rosita, however - he looked over her shoulder at Captain
Figueredo. ', Bronco ... I was wondering when you'd come looking for
me."

Captain Figueredo leaned against the bar and wedged the fingers of both
hands together. ',' he repeated, and nodded, and smiled. ' you for
telling me."

"You didn't know who you were?' asked the young man, in mock
astonishment.

"I suspected, but I wasn't sure."

The young man turned to Rosita. ' you?' he queried. ' you know who you
are?"

Rosita's mind flickered on and off like a silent movie. She could see
Laura. She could see Eusebio. It was daylight in Scottsdale. At the same
time, she could see Raul Palma, and the darkened interior of the Super
Bar. She could hear mamba music and people laughing.

"It's confusing, for the living,' said Raid. ' don't know who they are.
Ficilitious, or real. For the dead, of course, it's very much easier."
Captain Figueredo said, ' have to stop bothering me, Billy. You have to
go your own way, and leave me alone."

Raul blinked at him. ''re my brother. How can I leave you alone?"

"I have to live my own life. I have to make my own mistakes.

If I suffer, too bad. If I write a new book and the critics hate it,
well, I'll just have to sulk, and do better next time." Raul said, '
don't want them to hurt you, Bronco. They can and they will, no matter
what you write."

"So what do I do? Spend the rest of my life driving to the Scottsdale
pharmacy, to pick up placebos for Vita? Stare out of the window at
Eusebio weeding his greens? You're not protecting me, Billy, you're
killing me!"

"You want a drink, senor?' asked the black man behind the counter.

"Whiskey, straight up,' said Captain Figueredo, without looking at him.

"What about the lady, tenor?"

"I don't see any lady."

"Whiskey for me, too,' said Rosita. ' with a twist."

Raul turned around on his barstool and looked at her with one eye dosed.
' don't know whyjwu came along,' he told her.

"I came along because Bronco's my friend. He needs you to leave him
alone."

"You don't think he needs my protection?"

"That's the last thing he needs. He's a writer. He has to take risks.
Every time a writer starts a new book, it's like throwing himself off a
cliff. If he lulls himself, well, that's just bad luck.

But it's the risk that makes writing important. If you protect him, he
won't be able to write, and if he can't write, you'll be killing him
just as surely as you were killed, when you came off that motorcycle and
hit that tree." "Do you know what?' said Raul, with the slowest of
smiles.

"You're so damned wrong. You want my brother to write because you're his
publisher, and you know you're going to sell a whole lot of copies.
Doesn't matter if it's crap, which it will be. Doesn't matter if it
never matches up to Bitter Fruit. Doesn't matter if Bronco's brought
low, and humiliated, and gutted by the critics, and winds up shooting
himself. God, you're so interested in profit, you don't see it, do you?
He'd be far better living out the rest of his life with Vita, no matter
how dull his life might seem to be, than writing his stupid bombastic
book, and opening himself up, so that all of the buzzards and jackals
can tear at his flesh. I want him to live, Lizzie ... you don't know how
precious life is, till you've lost it." Captain Figueredo said, ''ve
been asked nicely, Billy. I love you. I loped you. But leave me alone."

Raul swallowed the last of his whiskey. ''m sorry, Bronco.

Even big brothers don't always know what's best for them."

Rosita went up to him and draped her arm around his shoulders. ' I make
it worth your while?"

Raul looked her up and down. '? What could you ever do for me, except
give me the clap?"

"Supposing I help you ... you and the others who hate Batista?"

"Supposing you go back to bed with your sweaty chief of police?"

At that moment, another voice demanded, '? What are Rosita could see
somebody standing just behind Haul's barstool, the dim apparition of a
woman. It was Vita; because they had never really left Bronco's house;
they were here, in the Super Bar; and yet they weren't.

Captain Figueredo tipped his drink down his throat, and banged down the
shot-glass, and asked for a refill. The black man obliged.

"Johnsonr the voice repeated.' You're leaning on the sofa, will you stop
it, and stop drinking, too, you know what you're like when you drink
before hutch?

Rosita said, ', this is really important. You have to allow Bronco to
live his own life. If he's hurting, he'll seek you out, you know that.
But you can't protect him from his own experience. You can't."

"Johnsonf the voice shrilled out.

Captain Figueredo drew his Colt .38 out of his belt, raised it, and
cocked it. ' las manos' he told Raul.

Raul didn't make the slightest effort to raise his hands.

"You're joking,' he said, steadily. ' am I supposed to have done?
Subvert the government? Consort with seditionaries?

Drink too much whiskey? Run guns, hobnob with tarts?"

"Johnson, put that thing down! You know I don't like those things in
thehouser

Shadows shifted, lights moved and dimmed and moved again.

"Raul - he's serious,' said Rosita. But then she took hold of Captain
Figueredo's arm and said, ', don't. This is not the way."

"You see?' mocked Raid, spreading his arms wide. ' Rosita thinks you're
got it wrong! The poxiest tart in Havana!"

Captain Figueredo pointed his revolver directly at Raul's heart and
pulled the trigger. Raul's white shirt burst into a fury of blood and
tissue, and he was knocked back off his barstool and crashed against the
fish tank. Glass shattered, water and fish gushed all over him.

Rosita sat with her hand over her mouth, too shocked and deafened to
speak. The black man behind the bar said, ' Gloria Patri.' Raul lay
sideways on the carpet, not moving, totally dead, while parrot-fish
twitched and gasped all around him, and a thin stream of rancid
fish-water poured into his ear.

"Jesus, what have you done?' Rosita mouthed; but she wasn't really
Rosita, she was Elizabeth. The Super Bar shrank and faded -- it almost
fled, as if it were being hurried away by stage technicians. Suddenly
everything was bright and ordinary, and they were standing in Bronco's
living-room in Scottsdale, with the morning sunlight dancing behind the
blinds.

Laura caught hold of Elizabeth's arm. ' - are you all right?' she cried
out. She practically screamed it. ' happened? What happened? What did he
do? Don't lookp But it was already too late. Elizabeth looked down and
there was Vita, sprawled awkwardly on the Papago rug, one knee lifted,
the other twisted, one hand pathetically raised. Eusebio was kneeling
next to her, trying to unbutton her dress, which was sopping with blood,
and more blood pumping with every heartbeat.

Bronco was standing beside the sofa in his overtight Naval uniform, his
arm outstretched, his revolver still smoking. His eyes were wide with
disbelief. Elizabeth stared at him, and he stared back, and for one
split second she was still Rosita and he was still Captain Figueredo.

"Ambulance,' said Eusebio, but nobody moved, because they were all too
stunned. '.1* he repeated, and Laura walked stiffly back to the study
and picked up the phone.

Bronco dropped the revolver on the sofa and approached Vita in a slow
circling movement, his hands half-lifted in despair. ',' he said.

Elizabeth said, ' - you didn't do it on purpose. I was there, you were
shooting at Raul."

"And who's going to believe me?' Bronco flared up. ''s going to believe
that I was Captain Figueredo?"

Eusebio eased Vita's head onto the rug, and looked up at Bronco, and
said, '. There's nothing you can do."

"I was shooting at Billy,' said Bronco, miserably. ' wasn't shooting at
Vita, I was shooting at Billy." "It's unfortunate,' said Eusebio, but
without any trace of forgiveness in his voice. Vita had been good to
him. Vita had given him extra cans of food for his family, and
baby-clothes, and, once, a pocket-watch.

"I was shooting at Billy, Eusebio! As far as I was concerned, Vita
wasn't even therel'

"Yes,' said Eusebio. ' she was there. Objects can go from the
dream-world to the spirit-world, arid into the real world, too. This
object was small, and it was travelling very fast, and with bad intent.
There was nothing to stop it but your love for your wife."

Bronco looked down at Vita, his mouth puckered, his eyes crowded with
tears. ' didn't mean to,' he said. ' really didn't mean to. I was
shooting at Billy, not her."

Eusebio stood up, and shoved his hand through his stiff, wiry hair. '
can kill imaginary people just as dead as real people.

Your Billy will never trouble you no more."

He went to the study, and came back carrying Nights In Havana. ' it
now,' he said. ' how your brother dies."

While they waited for the ambulance, Elizabeth went to her room and read
the last few pages of Nights In Havana. Bronco was kneeling next to
Vita's body, abstractedly fingering her hair. Laura was waiting by the
front window, for the first sign of a flashing light.

"You see!" said Raid, spreading his arms wide. "Even Rosita thinksjou
"we got it wrong! The foxiest tart in Havana.1"

"Captain Figueredo pointed his revolver directly at Rod's heart and
pulled the trigger."

Elizabeth looked up, at the rabbit-fur glove that was lying on her desk,
and she was filled with the coldest sense of dread.

Bronco was arrested for shooting Vita, but released on $50,000 bail
posted by Charles Keraghter, his publisher. He was still shocked and
stricken with guilt, but when she left him, Elizabeth had already seen a
straightening of his back, and a calculating look in his eye, like a man
who wants to get back to work. For the first time, he talked about his
new novel as if he could actually see it, as if it were alive, and all
that he needed to do now was to type it out.

"Do you think that Billy's gone for good?' she had asked him.

"He's gone all right. I can sense it."

"You meant to shoot him all along, didn't you?"

Bronco had nodded. ' knew that he wouldn't be persuaded: Billy never
was. But it makes me feel all the more remorseful about Vita. Whatever
she was, she didn't deserve that." They embraced, and Elizabeth had felt
in his embrace the certain knowledge that if time and chance had been
kinder to them, they would have been lovers. ' me,' she urged him.

"Call me whenever you've finished a new chapter. Call me whenever you
haven't finished a new chapter." Bronco said nothing at all, but held
her, and looked into her eyes, and tried to live out all the years they
had never spent together in a long, concentrated look.

"Goodbye, Bronco,' she said, kissing him.

Elizabeth and Laura returned to Connecticut from New York late on Monday
afternoon the week after Christmas. The house was all shuttered up. It
took them until Wednesday to warm the place through, lighting fires in
almost every room, and keeping them heaped up with logs. At least Seamus
had cut them a plentiful stack to keep them going through the holidays.
Even when the sitting-room and the library were reasonably habitable,
however, draughts still moaned through the window frames and under the
doors, and they spent most of Tuesday sitting in their overcoats in the
kitchen, next to the range.

On Wednesday morning they walked down through the freezing
north-westerly gale to Green Pond Farm to see Mrs. Patrick. Seamus was
there, too, but he had the flu, and his mind was wandering more than
ever. Talking and sniffing by turns, he sat by the fire wrapped up to
his neck in a thick blanket, his hair sticking out every which way.
Every now and then Mrs. Patrick had to put down her embroidery and take
a large handkerchief to him, so that he could blow his nose.

She made coffee, and they sat around the kitchen table while she worked.
She seemed to have aged even more; her cheeks were like withered apples,
reddened and roughened by the wind. Her hands were knobby with
arthritis.

"Seamus wasn't so bad till the wind started up; then he caught a chill.
The doctor's afraid that he'll catch the pneumonia, so I have to keep
him all wrapped up." "Great ugly porcupines,' said Seamus, with a string
of dribble swinging from his lower lap, and glistening in the firelight.
' rolled into knots. Little fat bears with bristling hair."

Elizabeth went across to the fireplace and laid her hand on his
shoulder. He rolled his eyes up to look at her, but he seemed to be
having difficulty in focusing.

"Those were the snowflakes, weren't they, Seamus?' she asked him.

He squinted at her intently. Then he nodded, and nodded again, as if a
bright wave of enlightenment had washed into his mind. "The snowflakes.
White, white, dazzling white, the Snow Queen's guards. That's what they
were. Great ugly porcupines, snakes rolled into knots."

"Little fat bears with bristling hair,' Elizabeth finished, for him.

"He's been on about that for days now,' said Mrs. Patrick.

"Sometimes I wish you'd never read him that story. It's all I ever get."

Elizabeth turned to go, but Seamus struggled an arm out of his blanket
and caught at her sleeve. His eyes were wilder now, and worried.

"She's close,' he declared. ''s very close! Terrible icy-cold!

She breathed on the young ones as she passed, and all died of her breath
save two. Salt lord mole's eye." Mrs. Patrick said, ' think it's best
you leave him now, Lizzie.

He gets awful distressed."

"All right,' said Elizabeth. She held Seamus's hand and gave him a
smile. ''t worry, Seamus ... it'll all turn out for the better, I
promise you."

Seamus whispered, ' the man, mind the man, day after day ... flowers and
clouds, footers and clouds."

They walked back up the snowy driveway. Although it was midday, the
landcape lay sunk in a brownish half-light, everything frozen,
everything tightly locked. Icicles had formed in the branches of the
trees, in the shape of spears and necklaces and starving knights.

"I've never seen him so bad,' said Laura, gripping her fur collar
tightly around her mouth.

"He's very sensitive to changes in the weather,' Elizabeth told her. '
can always feel electric storms coming, or a cold front sweeping down
from Vermont. I think he's sensitive to spirits, too. After all, what
did Mrs. Patrick always say? He was kidnapped by the little people, and
taught magic."

"You don't believe that, do you? That was just something she used to
tell us when were younger, so we wouldn't think that he was loopy."

"I don't know ... I always thought that he could hear things that normal
people couldn't. He used to sing songs, remember, and sometimes they had
beautiful tunes that nobody had ever heard before. And he always said
that he could see things, didn't he? Faces looking out of empty windows;
old women walking down empty streets; dogs and cats where there weren't
any."

They reached the house, and to Elizabeth's delight she saw Lenny's
bright red Frazer parked outside. They hurried indoors and there was
Lenny, still wearing his hat and his brown tweed overcoat, poking the
sitting-room fire into life.

"Lenny! It's so good to see you!' She put her arms around him and they
kissed.

"Careful,' he laughed. '-hot poker. I'm sure glad your front door was
open, or I would've frozen solid by now." "Hi, Lenny,' said Laura,
reaching up to kiss his cheek.

"Lizzie thought you were in Hartford."

"You don't think I'm going to stay in Hartford when Lizzie's here, do
you? Besides, I've got some great news. I met a guy in Hartford who runs
a private life-and-pension fund specifically aimed at office workers.
It's a great scheme, it really is. It has all kinds of benefits,
health-care, loan-back, you name it."

"Will you get to the point?' laughed Elizabeth. ''re trying to sell me
one of your policies already."

"Oh, well. The long and the short of it is that the greatest
concentration of office workers on the Eastern Seaboard is where?"

"New York, of course!"

"So that's my news. I'm moving to New York at the end of the month.
They're arranging an apartment and a new office, and everything's
hunky-dory!"

Elizabeth grinned at him. ''re really coming to New York?"

"End of the month, definite."

"Well ...' said Laura, archly. ' like fate has brought you together
again."

"That's my opinion,' Lenny agreed. He was looking at Elizabeth more
seriously now.

"How about a cup of something hot?' Elizabeth suggested.

Laura made them three mugs of hot chocolate, and then they sat by the
fire. Elizabeth sat close to Lenny, holding his hand, and for the first
time in a very long time she began to feel part of somebody else. She
could stroke the back of his hand and his skin felt like her skin. She
could touch his hair and it felt like her hair, too. She found that she
couldn't stop looking at his profile, his long eyelashes and his
straight nose, and the firelight-filled dimple in his chin.

They lit cigarettes and Elizabeth told Lenny what had happened to Bronco
and Vita, and the way in which they had exorcized Billy.

"You took mescal?' Lenny frowned. ''t that stuff dangerous?"

"Well, there is a risk, but not so much if you have somebody with you
when you take it, somebody who knows what they're doing, like Eusebio."

Lenny shook his head and blew out smoke at the same time.

"I don't know what to say about you doing that. If I'd been there -"

Elizabeth squeezed Lenny's hand. ' didn't have any choice. If Billy had
kept on pestering Bronco for the rest of his life, he never would have
written again. He would probably have ended up killing himself. Besides,
I had a selfish motive, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Laura, tell Lenny what happened to you."

Hesitantly, discursively, and without mentioning the worst of what
Raymond had done to her, Laura told Lenny about Aunt Beverley and
Chester Fell. When she had finished, Lenny said, quietly, ' read about
that in the paper, two movie producers frozen in their own pool. Me and
a couple of the other insurance people were trying to decide what the
life policy liability would be for somebody dying in a freak accident
like that. But you think it was - ?"

Elizabeth nodded. ' don't think there's any question about it. Anybody
who hurts us or upsets us or looks like they're going to get us into
trouble - the Peggy-girl makes sure they're never going to do it again."

"And you want to track her down, the same way that you and Bronco
tracked down his brother Billy?"

"Think what our lives are going to be like, if we don't."

Lenny stubbed out his cigarette. ' sounds too damned dangerous to me.
You don't know what you'd be getting yourselves into. And from what
you've been saying, you might not be able to get back out of it, once
you're in there. What did that Eusebio say, about people in a coma? I
don't want to be married to somebody who never wakes up."

Elizabeth stared at him with her mouth open. ' you say married?"

Lenny flushed so deeply that his face was almost maroon. ' - uh, what I
meant was, if I was married to you, if I was married to anybody - and
they were in a coma - you know, they never woke up -- no matter who it
was, whether if was you or not '

He stopped flustering and ruefully rubbed the back of his neck with his
hand. ' have to admit that I was going to ask you, right after I told
you that I was moving to New York. In fact I arranged to move to New
York on purpose, so that we could be together. I could have gone to
Boston instead."

Laura crowed with delight, and kicked her slippers in the air. ''s
proposing to you, Lizzie! He's actually proposing*. And I'm a witness! I
love it, I love it, I love it!"

One of her slippers landed straight in the fire, and Lenny had to rescue
it, smoking, with the fire-tongs. After he had slapped it against the
hearth and trodden on it to put it out, the romance of the moment had
passed. They were all laughing too much.

Lenny sat down, and looked at Elizabeth with a questioning smile. She
reached across the couch and held his left hand between both of hers,
and smiled back at him.

"Can you give me some time to think about it?"

"Of course. I'm sorry it slipped out that way. I feel like such a dope.
I was going to get down on one knee, and give you this."

He reached into his pocket and took out a black velvet ring box. Laura
was beside herself with glee. ''s so romantic! I can't stand it!"

Elizabeth opened the box and there was a diamond-and sapphire engagement
ring, sparkling brightly in the firelight. It must have cost Lenny
hundreds. She looked up at him, and saw the expression on his face, and
it was so warm and hopeful that she melted. She slipped the ring on her
finger and said, "That's time enough. I've thought about it. The answer
is yes."

He blinked. "The answer is yes?"

"Do you have wax in your ears?' demanded Laura. ' wouldn't let my
precious sister marry a man with wax in his ears."

Lenny leaned over and kissed Elizabeth on the lips. ' love you,' he
whispered. ', thank you. You just made the New York vice-president of
Hartford Life and Loan a very, very ecstatic vice-president indeed."

As he kissed her, a strong cold draught blew through the house. It
moaned and whistled at the front door, and stirred the heavy drapes
across the sitting-room doorway. It blew into the fireplace, so that the
flames cowered beneath the logs, and a fine cloud of sparks and wood-ash
was blown across the hearth rug. It was so cold that Elizabeth felt the
hairs rising on the back of her neck, and she shivered.

"God - what a draught!' she said. It moaned away through the library,
almost like somebody invisible, sweeping through the house wearing an
icy cloak. They heard the French doors in the library rattling, and the
thin shriek of the draught.

"Somebody walking over our graves, if you ask me,' said Laura.

But Elizabeth sat up, and looked around, and then she stood up and
walked to the sitting-room window, and stared out into the gardens. The
naked trees trembled, and the wind was blowing snakes across the snow.
Elizabeth went across to the next window, and stared out of there, too,
looking for any movement in the half-light.

"Anything?' asked Lenny.

Elizabeth shook her head. ' that I can see. But that doesn't mean that
she isn't there. Seamus has been acting up - that's a sure sign that
Peggy's around."

"Isn't it time you just ignored her?' asked Lenny. ' she only comes
because you imagine that she's going to come. She might be just as much
a figment of your imagination as she is of her own."

"What happened to Chester and Raymond wasn't a figment ofay
imagination,' Laura countered. ' was Bronco's brother Billy a figment of
Lizzie's imagination." "Seriously, Lenny,' said Elizabeth, ' don't think
you should get too close to me till we've got rid of this Peggy-girl.
Heaven knows what she might do to you. Look at Clan Philips--and the
worst thing that he might have done to me is think some suggestive
thought. He probably didn't even do that. More than likely, the
Peggy-girl was jealous, that's all."

Lenny said, ' ... I believe in all of this stuff. I've seen it for
myself. I know it's real and I know it can be dangerous. But you can't
expect me to keep away from you, and you can't expect me not to protect
you. Anyway -- how are you going to get rid of her? And when? You're not
thinking of taking that mescal again, are you?"

Elizabeth went over to a side-table and took out a small paper package.
' brought four mescal buttons back from Arizona. As soon as we can see
any sign of the Peggy-girl, I'm going after her."

"You could kill yourself."

"There's a very slight risk of asphyxiation if I take too much, but
Laura will be watching over me, the same way she did in Arizona."

"I won't let you do it."

"You can't stop me, Lenny. And, besides, there's no other way."

"You've agreed to marry me, Lizzie. I won't let you do it."

"You won't be able to marry me unless you do. Look what happened when we
kissed just now - we had a cold wind through here like the Snow Queen's
breath. She could kill birds just by breathing on them, and men just by
kissing them." "You really believe that hooey?' Lenny demanded.

"Yes, I do,' said Elizabeth passionately. ' really believe it.

It's true. People leave their bodies when they die and they can
sometimes turn into characters out of their own imagination. Yes, I
believe it." "And so do I,' said Laura.

Lenny turned his face away. ' trouble is, so do I." Elizabeth said, ''ll
do it as soon as we can - maybe tomorrow. I just have to think what
character I can be, so that I can deal with the Snow Queen. Gerda is the
strongest character in the story, the little girl who refused to give
up, but Peggy's already chosen her. There's a little robber-girl in the
story, and she's quite influential. She holds a sharp knife against her
reindeer's throat just for the fun of seeing it panic.

But she's not as strong as Gerda."

"Does it have to be a character from the same story?' asked Lenny. '
mean, supposing you turned yourself into some witch or something ... a
witch who had more magic than the Snow Queen?"

"Yes!' said Laura. ' what about the Angel in The Red Shoes, do you
remember, in his long white robes, and with wings that reached from his
shoulders to the earth."

Laura and Elizabeth quoted the Angel together: "Dance thou shall," said
he: "dance on, in thy red shoes, till thou an pale and cold, and thy
skin shrinks and crumples up like a skeleton's!" '

But Elizabeth shook her head. ' couldn't become the Angel of God, I just
couldn't - quite apart from the fact that he's a he, and not a she. I
think you're right, Lenny -1 amid be somebody from another book, but it
would have to be somebody stronger than Gerda, and somebody who had the
means of driving away the Snow Queen, too."

Lenny said, ' should come with you. I should eat the mescal too. You
can't do this alone."

"No, you can't. Peggy would never do anything to hurt nu- but she
wouldn't hesitate to hurt you. She really wouldn't, Lenny. Think of the
Reverend Bracewaite; think of Miles. And if you had seen for yourself
what happened to Clan - he broke into lumps, Lenny. He literally broke
into lumps."

"So what can I do?"

Elizabeth looked at her wristwatch. ' want to see my mother this
afternoon. I need to know if the Peggy-girl has been visiting her
recently. Maybe you could drive us out to Gay lords ville."

"Sure. Maybe we could tell her that you and me are engaged, too."

Elizabeth kissed him. ''re no fool, are you, Lenny Miller? You know
that's the main reason I want to go. It's not every day a girl gets
proposed to."

"It's not every day she accepts."

Laura went through to the kitchen, to make sure that the range was well
stoked up. It was an old-fashioned blue-nickel Wehrle, which had
probably been installed before the First World War, but it burned
everything - coal, softwood, even corn-cobs -- and it gave out
tremendous waves of heat. As she came in through the kitchen door,
however, she felt intense cold, rather than heat. The stove was still
alight, the fire was still burning, but it was giving out no warmth
whatsoever.

"Lizzie!' she called. ', come here!"

She approached the range very cautiously, her heart beating so loudly
that she could almost hear it. She had laid the fire early this morning,
and by now the whole kitchen should have been uncomfortably hot. The
range itself should have been impossible to touch, except with
oven-gloves. But it was cold as a cast-iron coffin. In fact, it seemed
to emanate cold. Laura stood close to it, and she could see her breath
vaporizing, little clouds of panic.

Elizabeth came into the kitchen, closely followed by Lenny.

"The range,' said Laura. ' at it, it's burning at full blast, but it's
cold."

Elizabeth went up to the range and stood beside it. It was icy-cold. The
warming closet at the top, the nickel-plated rail, the hotplates
themselves, all icy cold.

"This isn't possible,' she said.

"Maybe it isn't,' said Laura. Her fear made her irritable.

"Maybe it isn't, but it's happening." "Oh, come on,' said Lenny. '
fire's burned itself down, that's all. My grandma used to have one of
these old ranges, and -' Lenny laid his hand flat on one of the
hotplates.

Instantly, there was a sharp sizzling noise, and Lenny shouted out in
pain. He tried to tug his hand away, but his skin was stuck to the
metal, and he lifted the whole hotplate out of the oven-top. He shouted,
and twisted around, and shook his wrist again and again, and at last the
hotplate clanged onto the floor, and rolled away, with the skin from the
palm of his hand still stuck to it, like shrivelled grey tissue-paper.

"Christ it hurts! Jesus Christ, it hurts!"

Elizabeth pulled him over to the sink, and turned on the cold tap. She
held his wrist tight and the palm of his hand wide open, so that the
freezing-cold water could gush all over his burn. He stood next to her,
alternately letting out gasps of pain and short bursts of shocked
laughter, until at last the water numbed his hand, and he began to
relax.

She wrapped his hand in a dry clean tea-towel, reached up and touched
his cheek. She felt so frightened for him that she didn't know what to
say. You love me, you want to marry me, so you're probably going to die,
by one of the most agonizing deaths ever known? Together, she and Bronco
had exorcized Billy; but she wasn't at all sure that she could get rid
of Peggy quite so easily. Everything had been different in Arizona; hot
and strange and slightly magical, with Eusebio to guide her.

She was beginning to doubt that peyote magic would work in
straight-laced New England, in freezing winds, in territory where no
Piman or Papago Indian had ever walked. The land that Eusebio worked may
have been the land of the dead; but Litchfield was the land of a
different kind of dead - trappers and Puritans, witches and Redcoats in
powdered wigs and men who rode furiously by night, on all kinds of
arcane and hairraising errands.

Lenny said, ' ... it's a little raw, but it's nothing."

"Maybe it is nothing, But you should see a doctor. We should take you to
the hospital."

"What? It's only one layer of skin. It's sore, but it'll heal. And what
will the hospital do? Give me a tube of hydrocortisone, a cheery pat on
the back, and charge me $50 for the pleasure?"

"I'd better call the clinic and tell mother we won't be visiting today,'
said Laura.

"No, no,' Lenny protested. ' can wrap my hand up in some surgical gauze,
and put a glove on over it. I'll be all right. It doesn't even hurt that
much. Let's go see your mother. We need to, don't we? I want to."
"Okay,' said Elizabeth. ' you say so. But if we were married --" "We're
not,' said Lenny. ', until we are, please let me have some freedom."

Elizabeth kissed him. ''m sorry,' she told him. ' guess I'm just being
over-protective, like Peggy."

They stood in the chilly kitchen with the draught shrieking high-pitched
through every crevice and every window frame, and roaring soft-throated
in the chimney, and Elizabeth felt that her life was at a crossroads,
where one sign pointed to purgatory, and another to peace. But there was
another sign, too, which was blank, waiting for her to paint her own
destination on it, if only she knew what that destination could possibly
be.

Her mother was in bed now. She was so thin and frail that she could have
been eighty-five years old. Dr. Buckelmeyer said that she wasn't eating
properly, that she seemed to have lost all will to live. She talked
constantly of show business, and El Morocco, and the Stork Club. Her
body was collapsing in a clinic bed in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, but
her mind was still whirling around Manhattan, in the glittering days of
Cafe Society.

Elizabeth and Laura sat on each side of the bed. Lenny stood by the
door, with his hat in his hand. The view from the window was plain and
bleak. Leafless bushes, leafless trees, and a long dull slope of snow.
The room smelled of lavender toilet-water and minced beef.

"Mother, how are you?' asked Elizabeth.

Her mother turned her head to look at her with rheumy eyes.

"Happy,' she said.

"You've given up smoking?"

"Dr. Shitmeyer won't let me."

"Are they treating you well?"

"I think so. I don't notice them much. They come and they go. I've
decided to go back, you see, and live it out all over again ... the good
parts, the happy parts. I'm going tojack and Charlie's tonight and
there's nothing they can do to stop me."

"Mother ... you remember Lenny?"

"Lenny, Lenny, Lenny ... yes. I think I remember Lenny.

The one who went to the war?"

"He's here. He has something he wants to ask you."

Margaret Buchanan blinked furiously. Lenny approached her bedside from
the back of the room, and stood close beside her, too close for
Margaret's comfort, looking down at her.

"Mrs. Buchanan, I've asked Lizzie to be my bride, and I'd like your
approval."

Margaret lay slowly back on her pillow. Her eyes, first moist and
uncontrolled, suddenly became shifty. ' want to marry my Elizabeth?"

"That's the idea, yes."

"And Elizabeth wants to marry you?"

"She's agreed, ma'am, yes, and she's accepted my ring."

"But what will Peggy say? Peggy will be furious!"

Laura took hold of her mother's hand. ' ... you have to accept it.
Peggy's long dead."

"How can she be dead when she came to see me this morning?" Margaret
shrieked at her. ' dare you say such a thing!"

"Mommy, she drowned in the pool and she's dead."

"You're a liar! You're such a liar! She visits me nearly every day! She
came today! She's coming tomorrow! Dead? How can you say that she's
dead?"

"Do you want me to show you her grave?' Laura shouted back at her. ' you
want me to have her dug up, so that you can look at her body?"

"How dare you!' Margaret screamed. ' came today--and I'll tell you
what's more - she knows about this engagement she knows - and she'll
kill you all - she'll kill you - rather than see you married to Aim!"

Elizabeth stood up. She didn't know what to say. Her mother was
seriously ill; and rambling; and no matter what she said to her, it
wouldn't really matter. You can't inflict pain on those who live their
whole lives revelling in pain, as her mother had. You can't disappoint
those who expect nothing but disappointment. All they ever do is drag
you into their pain, and blame you for their disappointment, and never
feel better whatever you do, because they simply don't want to. The only
pleasure they ever get out of their lives is in making you feel worse,
and that isn't much of a pleasure for them, either.

Laura said, ' can't leave yet."

"Oh, yes we can," Elizabeth retorted. ' woman isn't my mother. This
woman isn't even my friend."

Lenny put his arm around Elizabeth's shoulders and drew her dose. ' on,
Lizzie. You're right. It's time to put the past behind us."

As they walked out of the clinic, a man in a maroon-striped robe stepped
out of a side corridor - the same man that Elizabeth had met before,
with his slicked-back hair and his six-o'-clock shadow. ''re leaving in
a hurry,' he said, with a smirk on his face.

"What's that got to do with you?' Lenny asked, aggressively.

"Nothing at all,' the man replied. ' just wanted to wish you good luck.
Tomorrow we'll run faster, won't we, Lenny?

Stretch out our arms further? And one fine day ... well one fine day ...
"

"Come on, Lizzie,' Lenny urged her, and tugged her arm.

But Elizabeth hesitated for a moment, and said to the man, very softly,
' you really who I think you are?"

"It depends on who you think I am."

"I think - I think you could be Jay Gatsby." The man said nothing at
first, but smiled very broadly.

Eventually, he said, ' what I said to you about dead people, that's
all."

"You said, "It takes one to know one." '

The man lifted his hand in a mock-salute. ' word you ever spoke."

Elizabeth spent all evening in the library, rummaging through books. By
midnight, however, she still hadn't decided who she could be to outwit
Gerda and destroy the Snow Queen. If she had been a child again, perhaps
she might have been able to think of some fairy story, in which there
was somebody, more powerful, somebody colder, somebody with arteries
flowing as cold and as white and as thick as glaciers. But she had
forgotten most of her fairy princesses, and most of her hobgoblins, and
even her club-carrying ogres stood unremembered in the background of her
mind, like knobby rows of pollarded plane trees.

The range was still cold, so they went to Endicott's for hamburgers, and
sat under unflattering fluorescent lights watching the youth of the town
combing its greasy quiffs and propping its feet on the table and talking
loudly about '' and '' and how Jackie Brenston's record ' 88' was really
the most.

Outside Endicott's the north-westerly gale screamed along Oak Street,
and soon the snow started too, thin at first, and whirling in the wind,
but quickly thickening up, until the street was almost blinded with
white.

"Time to get back,' said Lenny. ' looks like a bad one."

They struggled out to the car. Already the lights along Oak Street were
being switched off, one by one, as shopkeepers closed up to go home. The
snow pelted in their faces like the Snow Queen's warriors, and stung
their cheeks. Lenny's car was already humped with it, and when they
opened the doors to climb in, they dropped heaps of snow onto the seats.
They drove in silence back to the house. Although it was midwinter,; and
blizzards weren't at all unusual, they had a bad feeling I about this
one. The wind was so strong that it rocked the car, 1 and the wipers
could barely cope with the furiously-falling] flakes. Elizabeth felt a
deep sense of relief when they finally | drove down the slope towards
the house, and pulled up outside the front steps.

"Come in for a drink before you go,' she asked Lenny, as they opened up
the door, and stepped into the hallway.

"I should get back, really, before it gets any worse."

Laura was dancing a mazurka on the doormat to knock the snow off her
boots. ' could always stay. We have plenty of | spare beds."

"Oh, come on,' Elizabeth coaxed him. ' do have some- j thing to
celebrate, after all." Lenny said, ' ... but just one, and only one.
Otherwise mom will start worrying."

"We do have a telephone, you know,' said Laura.

"So did Alexander Graham Bell,' Lenny retorted.

"Oh, sure ... but you're handsomer."

Elizabeth went around the sitting-room, drawing the curtains. \ When she
reached the last window, she paused, to watch the snow. A wan light was
falling across the garden, so that she \ could just make out fir trees,
and the handrails around the I swimming-pool steps. So many years had
passed since she had first moved here, and since Peggy had drowned. But
even after; all these years, she was tied here still by what had
happened, by memory and by superstition. She longed so much to be free
of I this house, to be free of fairy stories. The time had come to grow
up, and to face the world with maturity and understanding and wit.
Icicles and swords and magic spells were no longer enough. Imagination
was no longer enough. This was a time for real responsibility.

Touching Lenny was real. Caring about Lenny was real. It was time that
the spindly dreams were swept away. It was time that the Peggy-girl was
swept away, and the Snow Queen with her.

The fire crackled in the bedroom hearth. The shadows leaped around the
room like Isadora Duncan's dance troupe.

Elizabeth lay in bed watching Lenny undress, half-silhouetted by the
flames. He was so lean and tall. He wasn't a muscleman, but there wasn't
a spare ounce anywhere. His chest was flat and his stomach was flat and
his thighs were two hard curves. His bottom was high and rounded and
small. He wasn't hairy, apart from a small crucifix of soft black hair
in the middle of his chest. His right shoulder-blade was marked with a
crude white scar, like a teacher's tick of approval. A mortar had
exploded ten feet away from him, on an island whose name he couldn't
remember, or wouldn't.

He turned towards her, and she glimpsed his penis, rearing high and
thick and very hard. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and touched her
cheek, and she kissed his hand.

"Can you manage?' she said.

"I think so ... these bandages don't help."

She heard the tearing of the sachet, followed by the snapping and
stretching of the rubber. Then he was climbing into bed, and lying next
to her, almost on top of her, his skin chilly, his penis hard.

"Don't rush,' she whispered, kissing his ear, kissing his hair.

"Don't rush, my darling ... "

His hand cupped and massaged her breast, and she felt her nipple harden.
He kissed her, and his fingers coursed down her naked side, right down
to her hip, so that she shuddered. They were clumsy and unfamiliar with
each other at first, as lovers always are. But at last he lifted himself
on top of her, and she guided his rubber-sheathed penis into her wet
vagina, and he thrust and thrust until he shuddered at last, breathed a
long, luxuriating, ',' and climbed off her.

But she held him dose, and slipped off his rubber, and massaged his soft
spermy penis with her fingers, because she had adored every moment of
it. His lovemaking would become more assured, and she would get to know
him better, and in any case she loved him, his flat ironing-board body
and his scar and his big tight balls. She licked him in his ear, and
licked his stubbly cheek, and his lips, too, and climbed on top of him.

"I think I died and went somewhere better than heaven,' he said.

She ran her fingers through his hair. ' love you.' She whispered. ' love
you so much."

She was just about to kiss him again when the wind whined and screamed
in a sudden gust, and the windows rattled and a door just across the
corridor slammed shut with a deafening bang.

Lenny screamed, ' and twisted out from underneath her like a muscly
anaconda.

"Down? he yelled at her. '!" "What?' he said. ', what are you --"

Lenny shouted, '!' again, and smacked her head so hard that she tumbled
sideways across the bed and almost fell off the other side. Her left ear
was singing and she felt as if her cheek were ballooning out. She sat
up, dragging the blankets around her, and stared at him in bewilderment.

"Lenny?' she said. ', can you hear me?"

His back was turned. His head was dropped between his shoulders.

"Lenny ...' she repeated. She shuffled her way towards him, and laid her
hand on his back.

"I can't do it, can I?' he said, and he was sobbing. ' can't get over
it."

He smeared the tears away from his eyes with the back of his hand. '
young ... They gave us training, but they never trained us for
Guadalcanal ... they never trained anyone to have their legs blown off
or their faces on fire or the guts falling out all over the beach."

He stared at his bare feet on the bedside mat. ''ve been talking about
spirits. But the spirits of those guys are going to haunt me for ever;
until I die; and I'm afraid to meet them when I do."

Elizabeth held him close. She didn't know what to say. All she could
hear was the wind rising, and the snow pattering urgently against her
window.

She fell asleep shortly after she heard the hallway clock chime two. The
wind was still whining, and a distant shutter was banging -- pause --
banging.

She dreamed that she was walking through a frigid palace, in a time long
after she was dead. The palace was silent and dark, and there was nobody
there. They had all left years ago, so that only she remained, walking
hopelessly from room to room. She knew that she would never find her way
out; and that even if she did, the palace was set in the middle of a
vast and snowy waste, thousands of miles from anywhere warm, thousands
of miles from summer gardens where children played and every flower told
its own story.

She reached across the bed, feeling for Lenny's naked back.

He was gone. All she could feel were cold white sheets, with snaking
wrinkles in them like the snow.

"Lenny?' she said, and turned around, and sat up. ' where are you?"

The fire had died, and the bedroom was dark. The wind was screaming now,
like a demented beast. Elizabeth dragged herself across the bed and
switched on the bedside lamp. No doubt about it, Lenny was gone. But his
clothes hadn't gone, and neither had his wallet or his shoes. Ok, I kavt
Uft ny "Lenny?' called Elizabeth. Maybe she didn't have anything to
worry about. Maybe he had gone to the bathroom, that was all, or hadn't
been able to sleep.

He had shocked her and upset her, hitting her like that, but at least
she could understand why he had done it. She had met more than one
veteran who seemed to have escaped the war uninjured: Peter Vanlies from
Freestone Books, Rudge Berry from the New Yorker. Friendly, balanced,
equable men -- until something inexplicably frightened them or riled
them, and then they became Marines again, instantly, capable of any
violence, out of control.

She climbed out of bed and walked across the bedroom naked to pick up
her robe. It was then that she became aware of an unexpected coldness in
the air, even colder than the wind that was blowing, even colder than
the snow. She turned around, and there was the Peggy-girl, floating at
the end of her bed, her face whiter than ever, her eyes even darker, her
lips even bluer with frostbite.

Her dress was soiled now, soiled and greasy, and it stirred listlessly
in the wintry draught. She held out her thin, blue veined arm, with its
frostbitten fingers, and said, ' ... you've betrayed me."

"Betrayed you? I haven't betrayed you! Why can't you leave me alone? I
don't need you, Peggy. I don't want you! Just go, and go for ever, and
leave me alone!"

"Lenny hit you, Lizzie. I can't allow that."

"Lenny hit me because Lenny has problems. I didn't like him hitting me,
and I never want him to hit me again, but I know what his problems are,
and I love him, and I want to help him to solve them. Can you understand
that?"

"Lenny won't ever hurt you again."

Wide-eyed, terrified. ' do you mean? What?' Oh God, don't tell me ...
"We haven't killed him, don't worry,' smiled the Peggy-girl.

She danced a slow aerial ballet around the bedroom, her feet barely
skimming the floor. Her smugness and her dirtiness were frightening. So
was her ever-encroaching frostbite. Her feet and her ankles were so
black now that she looked as if she were wearing boots.

"Where is he?' asked Elizabeth, hoarsely. ' have you done with him?"

"Don't you know?' teased the Peggy-girl. ''t you possibly guess?"

"Tell me,' said Elizabeth. '."

"I was Gerda, wasn't I? You guessed that much. But I didn't have a Kay."

"You've taken him."

"Yes, we've taken him. The Snow Queen took him on the sledge and carried
him away, and now he's sitting in her palace, naked as naked, on the
Mirror of Reason, cold as cold, trying to form the word Eternity, so
that he can escape ... which he never will."

"You bitehl' screamed Elizabeth. ' horrible little bitchl'

The Peggy-girl looked taken aback. ' hit you, Lizzie. He took his hand
to you, and hit you."

"Yes, he hit me! But it's my decision what I want to do about it!

Mine, do you understand me, not yours! You have no right whatsoever to
interfere in my life and take Lenny away from me!

You had no right whatsoever to kill the Reverend Bracewaite, or Miles
Moreton, or those movie people that Laura knew. You had no right to
mutilate Aunt Beverley. fob had no damned right at all, and I'm going to
make you pay for Ms., believe me!"

The Peggy-girl was hop-skip-jumping in front of the hearth.

"Oh, yes, Elizabeth? And how are you going to do that?"

It was four-thirty in the morning and Elizabeth and Laura were sitting
in the library, close to the fire. Even so, the house was so cold that
they were wearing their overcoats.

"I can't think of anybody,' said Laura, in despair. ' God almighty ...
it's nearly dawn."

"I have to be somebody strong,' Elizabeth insisted. ' I'm going to have
any chance of saving Lenny, I have to be somebody strong.' She felt
distraught, exhausted, too frightened for Lenny to think straight.

"What about Scarlett O'Hara?' Laura suggested.

"Can you really see me as Scarlett O'Hara?"

"Maybe you don't have her temper, but you have her looks.

And if you burned Atlanta, wouldn't that melt all the snow, and the Snow
Queen, too?"

Elizabeth thought for a moment. ',' she said.

"Well, that's right, burning. The Snow Queen's afraid of fire, isn't
she? That's why the Finland woman kept her house so hot, to keep the
Snow Queen away."

"Burning,' Elizabeth repeated. She stood up, and looked quickly at all
the books in the library. ' here,' she said.

"What isn't here?"

"Bleak House. Can you see it anywhere?"

"It's in your old bedroom. I saw it there yesterday when I went in to
borrow your robe. What do you want Bleak House for?"

"Esther Summerson, that's what I want it for. I always adored Esther
Summerson. She was Ada's companion, don't you remember?"

"I never read Bleak House. There was never anything literary to read at
Aunt Beverley's, unless you count Variety."

"Esther Summerson was blonde and very beautiful ... but more than that,
she was strong and calm, and that's just the person I need. Gerda was
strong, too, but her greatest strength was her persistence, not her
depth of character."

"And the burning? You said "burning", as if it was something important."

"It is important. Esther knows Mr. Krook, who keeps a rag and bottle
shop by the wall of Lincoln's Inn. Mr. Krook dies of spontaneous
combustion. He catches alight, and burns, and there's nothing left of
him.1

"I've heard of spontaneous combustion. There was an article about it in
the Saturday Evening Post. Some old farmer was sitting in his kitchen in
Nebraska or somewhere like that, and they found his body half-burned
down to the waist, even though the linoleum floor that he was lying on
was hardly scorched." "Exactly,' said Elizabeth. ''m going to be Esther
Summerson, and I'm going to take Mr. Krook to meet the Snow Queen, and
see how the two of them get along together."

Laura slowly shook her head. ' to us,' she said. ' to what we're saying.
We must be going out of our minds."

"If we're going out of our minds, where's Lenny? Don't tell me he walked
off into the snow and left all his clothes behind." "All right, then,'
said Laura, standing up, and wrapping her overcoat tightly around her. '
do you want to take the peyote?"

"As soon as I can ... now."

"Don't you think you ought to change your clothes, like you did when you
were Rosita? You ought to look a little more Dickensian."

"I could wear great-grandma's bonnet, couldn't I? This coat will look
all right, and nobody's going to see what I'm wearing underneath."

She hurried upstairs - first to her old bedroom, where she found a tatty
paperback copy of Bleak House on the shelf next to her showjumping books
and The Last of the Mohicans. Then she went through to her father's
room. His great-grandfather had been so grief-stricken when his
great-grandmother died that he had kept all of her clothes, of which the
last surviving remnants were her tiny patent-leather button-up shoes, so
small that Elizabeth had no longer been able to wear them when she was
eight years old, and the grey velvet bonnet which she used to wear on
Sundays.

Elizabeth lifted the bonnet out of the musty, varnished hatbox. She put
it on her head, and it was uncomfortably tight, but it would have to do.
She went back downstairs. Laura was waiting in the hallway, holding the
mescal buttons in her hand.

"You look terrific,' she said. ' do you really want to do this?"

"Laura, this has got to be ended, once and for all."

They went into the library. Elizabeth sat down on the leather sofa, with
Bleak House open on her knees. She closed her eyes for a moment and said
a prayer, the prayer that Gerda had recited in The Snow Queen. Then she
looked up at Laura and said, ''m ready." "Remember what Eusebio told you
... chew it slowly."

She took the mescal button, and she was just about to put it into her
mouth when the wind, already furious, let out a shriek that sounded
almost human. It came screaming down the library chimney, so that the
logs were hurled out of the hearth, blazing and cartwheeling across the
room. At the same time, the French windows burst open, and the blizzard
came lashing in. The heavy velvet curtains flapped and rumbled, and snow
flew around them like angry white bees. It was so fierce that rows of
books toppled from the shelves, and fell with their pages flapping to
the floor. Papers whirled in the air, and the desk-lamp tipped sideways
and smashed.

"Lizzie!' screamed Laura, in terror. The noise of the storm was
deafening. The trench windows flapped and banged, flapped and banged,
until the glass shattered. Snow tumbled across the floor and began to
pile up in the corners of the room, and on the chairs. The coldness of
the wind was unbearable.

Elizabeth held her hand up in front of her face to shield her eyes, but
she still felt as if the skin of her cheeks were being scrubbed with a
cold wire brush.

The wind and the snow extinguished most of the logs, but one was still
burning underneath her father's desk. She kicked it out of the kneehole
and into the open, and stamped on it. As she did so, however, she
dropped her mescal button, and it disappeared somewhere in the snow.

"Laura!' she shouted. ' hold of that peyote! I've just lost mine!" But
Laura shouted back, '? and pointed frantically to the garden.

Walking towards them through the blizzard was the Peggy girl, her white
dress flapping, her face black-and-blue with frostbite. Her expression
was angry and haunted, and even though her feet didn't quite touch the
ground, and she left no footprints in the snow, she seemed to be
flagging as she approached them, as if the snow and the icy winds were
taking their toll on her.

But it wasn't the Peggy-girl that had alarmed Laura so much. Behind her,
in the darkness, a tall black shape was approaching them, too. It was
only visible because the snow was flying off it, and it looked like a
huge ungainly woman in a cloak.

"Oh God, she's bringing it here,' said Laura.

She turned to run but Elizabeth caught her arm. ' won't hurt us, you
know that. She's here to protect us."

"You think so? Then why is she leading that thing here?"

"She won't hurt us. She can't."

"You can believe that if you want to. I'm not going to stay to find
out."

She ran to the library door, but when she tried the handle it wouldn't
turn, and it was so cold that it flayed her fingers, the way that Lenny
had burned his hand on the stove.

"It's frozen solid!' she called out. ' me open it!" "Leave it!' said
Elizabeth. ' won't be able to!"

"Then I'm going the other way!' Laura shouted at her.

"Come on, Lizzie! You can't just stand there and wait to be turned into
ice!"

The Peggy-girl had already reached the snowbound patio, and was gliding
towards them with those strange, tired footsteps, rather like an
exhausted skater. Close behind her, the huge black shape of the Snow
Queen grew larger and larger, and Elizabeth was sure that she could hear
it, over the shrieking storm. It was making a deep, thunderous sound
like a subway train passing beneath her feet, mixed with a clashing
noise, like hundreds of scissorblades. Beneath its cowl she could make
out a long pale horse-skull kind of shape, which must have been the Snow
Queen's face, if it had a face.

She tried to turn to Laura but she couldn't. She suddenly realized that
she was paralysed with fear. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak. She
could hardly even breathe. Laura snatched her hand and tried to pull her
toward the French windows, but she couldn't think how to make her legs
work.

"Come on!' screamed Laura. ', for God's sake, come on!' The cold was so
appalling that she couldn't say any more, and the temperature was
falling like a stone down a well.

Laura pulled her one more time, and then gave up. She stumbled out of
the windows, and across the patio, heading for the tennis-court. But she
hadn't gone further than the patio wall when she tripped on a step that
was hidden beneath the snow, and fell, and knocked her head. The knock
was so loud that Elizabeth could hear it over the wind.

"Laura!' she called, and managed to walk stiffly towards her.

But as she reached the French windows, the Peggy-girl came and stood in
front of her, with both hands raised, palms forward, as if willing her
to stop.

"Laura's hurt!' Elizabeth protested. All the same, she glanced behind
the Peggy-girl at the black hunchbacked shape which loomed in the
darkness. If it came any nearer, she was going to try to run, too.

"I know what you're trying to do,' said the Peggy-girl, dispassionately.
' you must stay as you are, and lead your life as you always wanted to.
You don't want your Lenny to suffer, do you?"

"Leave us alone!' Elizabeth shouted at her. ' can't you leave us alone?"

"You have to be protected, Lizzie. I don't want anyone to harm you."

"I don't need protecting! I don't want protecting!"

The Peggy-girl said nothing more, but turned her back, and glided away
through the teeming snow. At first Elizabeth thought that the Snow Queen
was going to come closer, but as soon as the Peggy-girl had passed it
by, it turned away, too, and within seconds it had vanished in the
blizzard.

Elizabeth limped over to Laura and knelt beside her. Her face and hair
were already covered in a thin veil of snow. Her eyes were closed and
her breathing was very shallow. She looked almost as white as the
Peggy-girl. '!' she called her. ', wake up!"

Laura's eyes stayed shut, her face pressed against the snow.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, and managed to lift her up in her arms,
and slowly carry her back into the library. She cleared the snow from
the couch, and laid her down. ', wake up!

Laura!"

She turned Laura's head to one side, and it was only then that she saw
that her blonde curls were matted with blood and snow. '! You have to
wake up! Laura!"

She went to the door and tried to open it. The lock was sail frozen
solid, and the handle wouldn't turn, no matter how furiously she raided
it. Desperate, she went across to the fireplace and picked up the poker.
She wedged it at an angle in between the doorhandle and the door, and
heaved. To her relief, the lock gave way, and she was able to drag the
door open. She carried Laura into the sitting-room and laid her
carefully on the sofa. Then she picked up the telephone to call for an
ambulance. The receiver was dead; the storm must have brought the lines
down.

Gently, she sponged Laura's head with a wet tea-towel from the kitchen.
It was difficult to see how deep the wound was, underneath her hair, but
Laura still seemed to be deeply unconscious and her breath kept
catching. Her pulse was faint and irregular. There was nothing else
Elizabeth could do; she would have to borrow Mrs. Patrick's pick-up and
drive to the doctor's, and bring him back to help her. The blizzard was
far too fierce to risk driving to New Milford, and she didn't want to
take Laura with her to the doctor's in case the pick-up broke down,
which it very often did, even in good weather.

The fire had died down to ashes, but they were still glowing, and she
quickly jabbed at them to liven them up, and put on more logs. Then she
took off her great-grandma's bonnet, wrapped her head in a scarf, and
pulled on boots and gloves.

Til be back as quick as I can,' she whispered to Laura, and left her a
scribbled note, Gone to doctor, in case Laura regained consciousness
before she got back.

She went out through the front door and trudged down to Green Pond Farm
through the furious snow. She kept slipping and stumbling, and the wind
was so fierce that she had to lean into it, to stop herself from being
blown over. It took her nearly ten minutes to walk the short distance to
the farm, and by the time she passed the old pigsty her nose was so cold
that she couldn't feel it.

To her surprise, the farmhouse was in darkness. Not a light showing
anywhere. Maybe the power was out. The Patricks must be at home, because
the pick-up was still parked in the farmyard, and there were no tracks
in the snow to indicate that they might have walked anywhere, or that
another vehicle had come to collect them. What was even more peculiar,
the front door was wide open, and snow was drifting into the hall.

"Mrs. Patrick? Seamus?' she called. She peered into the darkness and
listened, although it was hard to hear anything over the wailing of the
wind. ' anybody at home?"

She stepped hesitantly into the hall, and felt her way through to the
kitchen, where Mrs. Patrick and Seamus spent most of their time. The
door was open and she could see that the kitchen itself was illuminated
only by the ghostly, reflected pallor of the snow. It was cold, too, and
her breath was visible as she looked inside.

Everything in the kitchen was covered in glistening layers of ice. The
plates and jugs on the hutch were buried in ice, and the shelves were
dripping with icicles. The dried flowers sparkled with ice, and even the
pie that Mrs. Patrick had been baking was frozen solid, with spangles of
frost on it.

Mrs. Patrick herself was sitting at the table, and Seamus, as usual, was
sitting in his blanket beside the fireplace. Elizabeth said, '. Patrick,
thank God you're - ' even as she realized what had happened to them.

She approached them cautiously and tenderly, with a feeling of
overwhelming grief. Mrs. Patrick was frozen so hard that her eyeballs
had turned opaque, and her skin was deathly white.

Elizabeth gently touched her hair, and it broke in a shower of frozen
white filaments. She went across to Seamus. Her footsteps crackled on
the frozen floor. Seamus sat with his head on one side, a string of ice
dangling from his lower lip. He looked oddly peaceful -- more peaceful
than Elizabeth had ever seen him before.

On a wooden chair she found Mrs. Patrick's black leather purse. It was
frozen solid, too, but she chiselled it open like a big black oyster,
using a kitchen knife. She looked at Mrs. Patrick and said, ' me, won't
you. I'll be back, when this is over.' She took out the keys to Mrs.
Patrick's pick-up, and went outside.

It was no use, however. The pick-up whinnied and chugged, whinnied and
chugged, but wouldn't start. Elizabeth sat back in the old leather seat
and let out a long, smoky, breath of resignation.

There was nothing left for her to do. She would have to use the glamour,
and confront that hideous black figure that Peggy's imagination had
brought to life, and try to destroy it.

Fire And Ice "She called him by his name the Dreams again rushed by -
and behold!

it was not him at all Laura was still unconscious when Elizabeth
eventually made it back to the house. It was almost six o'clock now, but
the storm was screaming unabated, and the sky was just as dark as it had
been in the middle of the night.

She tried patting Laura's cheeks, and coaxing her back to consciousness,
but Laura remained as floppy and as unresponsive as ever. Elizabeth
could only hope that she was sleeping ... nature's way of helping her to
recover. She prayed to God that she hadn't suffered brain damage.

Laura's left hand was clenched, and she carefully pried it open. Empty.
The mescal buttons had gone. She looked around the floor, but there was
no sign of them there, either.

She forced her way back into the library, and groped around in the snow,
trying to find the button that she had dropped, but she couldn't feel it
anywhere. There was too much debris under the snow, too many books and
pens and logs and inkstands.

She went out through the french windows and braved the storm for three
or four minutes, trying to find the buttons on the patio, but the snow
was impossibly deep, and even the bloodstain that Laura had left on the
snow had been covered over.

She returned to the sitting-room. It was well past six now, maybe she
could find somebody in town to help her. She stoked up the fire as high
as she dared, then wrapped up again and walked up the road to the end of
Oak Street.

Sherman was deserted. In places, Oak Street was three or four feet deep
in snow, and a long curving drift went halfway up Endicott's front
window.

Blinking against the blizzard, Elizabeth shouted, '!

Can anybody hear me?' But her voice was swallowed by the wind.

She was about to struggle back to the house when she saw a long
unnaturally-shaped lump of snow on the sidewalk.

Shivering, she knelt down beside it and dug at it with her hands. First
of all she felt something leathery, then something soft. She scraped all
the way around it, and even before she knew who it was, it was obvious
what it was. A man lying frozen, face-down on the concrete. She didn't
want to dig very much more, but she cleared the snow away from his face.
It was Wally Grierson, one-time sheriff, his face as white as dead pork.

Elizabeth slowly stood up. She was beginning to realize now the extent
of the Snow Queen's revenge on all who touched her, all who helped her,
all who denied her. God, for all she knew this blizzard had covered the
whole of Litchfield County, and beyond.

She stumbled back to the house. She was exhausted by the time she
struggled up the steps to the front door, and she was gasping for
breath. She went inside, sniffing with cold, and slammed the door behind
her. There wasn't any time to lose.

She hadn't wanted to do this - not this way - but now she knew that she
had no choice. She brushed the snow off her coat, and put on her
great-grandma's bonnet again. Then she went into the sitting-room. She
held Laura's hand, and kissed her frigid cheek.

"Please be all right, Laura,' she whispered. ' don't leave me, not now.
I need you so much."

She sat in the big armchair on the other side of the room. She wound her
scarf around her neck and tied it in a slipknot. She tied the other end
to the arm of the chair.

Pray God this works. Pray God this works. Pray God I don't strangle
myself, and die.

She closed her eyes. She tried to think of Esther Summerson, the way
that Dickens had described her, when she and Ada first met. ' saw in the
young lady, with the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With
such rich, golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright,
innocent, trusting face!"

She leaned sideways in the armchair, so that the slipknot tightened
around her neck. The scarf began to squeeze her larynx, and made her
gag. But she kept on leaning over, further and further, until her breath
was coming in short, harsh whines, and she felt as if she were
throttling. Her vision darkened, and she could hear the blood rushing in
her ears. She started to panic, and daw at the knot with her
fingernails, but somehow she managed to tell herself to stop, to stay
calm, to think of Laura, to think about Lenny.

"Esther Summerson,' she whispered. ' Summerson."

Her vision darkened and darkened, until she could see nothing at all.
She heard herself breathing in high-pitched squeals of constricted air;
but then even that sound seemed to fade away, and she was sure that she
was walking, not sitting, and that somebody was walking beside her. She
heard shouting, and jeering, and the sound of horses' hoofs and iron
rimmed carriage wheels.

"It's here,' said a woman's voice, very dose to her ear.

She opened her eyes. She was standing outside, in the slush, on a foggy
winter's morning. A woman in a brown Victorian cape and shawl was
standing next to her. She looked around her, and saw that they had
reached a narrow back street, part of a ramshackle collection of courts
and lanes. The wind had dropped, but the air was extremely raw, and
there was an acrid stench of coal-smoke and horses in the fog.

"It's here," the woman repeated. ' were asking for Krook's, wasn't you?
It's here, right in front of your nose."

Esther found herself in front of a shop, over which was written, in
spindly letters krook, rag and bottle warehouse, and krook, dealer in
marine stores. In one window a sign announced Bones Bought. In another,
Kitchen Stuff Bought.

In another, Old Iron Bought, and Waste Paper Bought, and Ladies' and
Gentlemen's Wardrobes Bought. In all pans of the window there were
quantities of dirty bottles - blacking bottles, medicine bottles,
ginger-beer and soda-water bottles.

There was a tottering bench heaped with shabby old books, labelled Law
Books, gd Each. Inside the shop's entrance, Esther could see heaps of
old scrolls and law papers, and heaps of tags, and second-hand bags of
blue and red, all hanging up like hams.

It was so gloomy inside the shop that Esther couldn't have seen very
much, except for a lighted lantern carried by an old man in spectacles
and a hairy cap. As soon as he saw her, he turned, and came towards the
entrance, and confronted her.

He was short and withered, his head sunk sideways between his shoulders
as if he were slowly collapsing from within. His breath fumed in the
fog. His throat, chin and eyebrows were frosted with white hairs, and
his skin was so gnarled with veins and puckered skin that he looked like
an old root that had been left out in the snow.

He addressed her, stepping out of the shop. ' you anything to sell?"

"Mr. Krook? My name is Esther Summerson. I badly need your help."

The old man stepped back, and eyed her up and down. He smelled of dust
and ink and candle-grease and yesterday's luncheon, whatever that had
been.

"Help, what manner of help?' He peeked under her bonnet.

"Hi, hi! Here's lovely hair! I've got three sacks of ladies' hair below,
but none so beautiful or fine as this!"

"I didn't come to sell my hair. I need you to come with me.

I'll pay you well."

"I don't care for pay,' said Mr. Krook. ''s things, that's what I want
to lay hold of. I have so many parchmentses and papers in my stock. I
have a liking for rust and must and cobwebs. All's fish that comes to my
net. Besides ... I can't spare the time. I have rags and robes to weigh,
bones to sort."

Esther could dimly see her reflection in the shop's grimy windows. A
very pretty, fair-complexioned girl, with gentle eyes, and
slightly-pouting lips. She wondered why she seemed so unfamiliar, so
unlike her.

Mr. Krook turned, and hobbled back into his shop. It was then, however,
that Esther saw another room, almost an invisible room, superimposed on
the rags and the junk and the law books. A sitting-room, with a
fireplace, and a long-case clock. She felt a tight constricting feeling
around her throat, and she realized who she was, and why she was here.

"Mr. Krook!' she called. ' have a whole house for clearance, a whole
house crammed to the ceiling with books and papers and kitchen stuff and
furniture! You may have it all, all of it, if you assist me now!"

The old man stopped, and came back. ' this true?' he wanted to know.

"All you have to do is to put on your coat and come walk with me."

"Walk with you? Where?"

"I won't detain you for long. Mr. Krook. Why, if we fall to pleasant
conversation, you might even persuade me to sell you my hair."

The old man stopped, looked hard at her, looked down into the lantern,
blew the light out. Esther waited in the street while Mr. Krook donned
his overcoat, a worn arrangement of greasy black, with a black astrakhan
collar. Then together they walked along the slushy street.

"May I know our destination?' Mr. Krook inquired. Esther wished that he
wouldn't draw quite so close to her, and that he didn't smell quite so
rank.

"Somewhere else,' said Esther. ' should stop at this corner, as I do,
and close your eyes, and think of somewhere else ... Lapland, where it
always snows, all the year round."

"Lapland? Why should I wish to go to Lapland?"

"You wish to have the contents of my house, don't you?" "Mmyes,' said
Mr. Krook, grumpily.

"Then close your eyes and think of Lapland." They had reached the corner
of the street. A hansom cab rattled past, followed by a horse-drawn
dray, from the back of which half-a-dozen ragged children were hanging.
A man in a bowler hat was standing on the opposite side of the street
with a mournful expression and a placard that said, simply, Fish.

Esther stood close to the wall so that she wouldn't be jostled by
passers-by, and closed her eyes. ' your eyes closed, Mr. Krook?"

"My eyes is closed, Miss. Summerson, though the Lord knows why."

"Are you thinking of Lapland, Mr. Krook?"

"I am, Miss. Summerson, though the Lord knows'why." They seemed to be
standing on the noisy street-corner in Dickensian London for an age,
without anything happening.

Then, quite suddenly, Esther became aware of a chilly wind blowing
against her face, a fresh cold wind that carried no odours of horse
manure or coal smoke - a wind that smelled only of fir trees and frozen
distances. She opened her eyes and she and Mr. Krook were standing on an
endless plain of pure unmarked snow, under a sky that was seamlessly
black. It was bitingly cold, but it wasn't snowing, and the air was so
pure that she could almost hear it ring. This was the imaginary world in
which Peggy had been dancing when she fell through the ice into the
swimming-pool. Esther had arrived here at last.

"Mr. Krook!' she said. ' may open your eyes now!" Mr. Krook opened first
one eye and then the other. He looked around him with his mouth hanging
open, revealing rotten yellow stumps of his teeth.

"Where are we? What the devil happened to Lincoln's Inn?

Where's my shop? You've spirited my shop away, haven't you? That's what
you've done! You've stolen my bottles, and my rags, and my law papers.'
That's it, ain't it?"

"No, Mr. Krook, I've done nothing of the kind. I've taken you to
Lapland, to meet my sister. She lives here, amidst the ice and snow."

Mr. Krook closed his eyes tight shut. ' me back again!" he demanded. '
me back to Lincoln's Inn, or by all that's holy '

"No, Mr. Krook,' Esther insisted, and firmly took hold of his mittened
hand, and began to pull him across the snow.

Reluctantly, grumbling, he opened his eyes and started to walk with her.

"Who would live in such a place? Where's the houses?

Where's the people? Where's the rags and bones and bottles?"

They hadn't walked for more than a mile before Esther saw a small white
shape in the distance. She knew instinctively what it was. She was more
than a character in a book, as Mr. Krook was. She was Elizabeth as well
as Esther. She had influence over her own imagination, so that she could
change where she was, and what time it was, and who she should fancy to
meet.

The Peggy-girl came nearer and nearer across the vast and flawless plain
of snow. The air was so clear and lens-like that she seemed to become
larger by optical magnification, rather than perspective. Not far behind
her, a huge black shape loomed, its cloak billowing in the Arctic wind.
Esther could hear its thundering tread when it was still more than a
mile away, like the thundering of a distant iron foundry.

"Hi! What's this?' said Mr. Krook.

"My sister's coming,' Esther told him.

"Your sister? And what else? I shall't take another step. I detest this
place. I detest this tedious walking, too."

"Then stand still,' said Esther, in the dearest of voices.

The Peggy-girl reached them and stood in the wind, staring at them with
a cold and disapproving expression on her face.

"Lizzie,' she said. ' did you come here? This is my place, not yours."

"I came for Lenny. I want him back, and I won't be leaving without him."
"Who's this?' asked the Peggy-girl, turning to Mr. Krook.

Mr. Krook dragged off his fur cap and gave her the deepest and most
sarcastic of bows. ' call me the Lord Chancellor, my dear, although I'm
not the salaried Lord Chancellor, my noble and learned brother who sits
in the Inn. They call me that because both he and I grub on in a muddle,
never cleaning, nor repairing, nor sweeping, nor scouring; and because
he and I can never bear to part with anything, once we've laid our hands
on it."

"Why did you bring him here?' the Peggy-girl wanted to know. Behind her,
in the middle-distance, the black shape of the Snow Queen was bearing
down on them like a huge transcontinental locomotive. The ice began to
tremble under their feet, and the air began to twang and crack.

"I want Lenny,' Esther insisted. ' didn't have any right to take him.
More than that, I want you to leave me alone. Stop protecting me. Live
here, if you want to, with your Snow Queen and your fairy stories, but
leave me alone!"

"God's teeth,' breathed Mr. Krook. The black shape was almost on top of
them now, taller than two men, with a hideously hunched back. Mr. Krook
looked at Esther in alarm, his rheumy eyes bulging out of his head, and
took two staggering steps backward. ' is this thing?' he asked, his
voice thick with panic. ' it mean us harm?"

The Peggy-girl circled around Esther, one blackened toe pointed
downward, ballet-like, so that she left a perfect circle in the snow.
The air was so cold now that Esther's coat was stiff with ice, and her
bonnet glittered. The black shape rumbled and thundered only a few feet
away, towering over them, black against a blacker sky. Still the
temperature fell, until the air itself began to crackle like cellophane,
and every breath formed diamonds around their mouths and nostrils.

"You should know where Lenny is,' said the Peggy-girl, and her eyes were
impenetrable. ' do all our loved ones go?

Where did little Clothes-Peg go?"

"Let him free!' Esther shouted at her. ', for the love of God, let him
free and leave me alone!" "Don't you want me?' asked Peggy, plaintively.

"No, I don't want you! Go away!"

"Don't you love me?"

"No, I don't love you! I hate you! Go away!"

The Peggy-girl stayed silent for a moment. Then her hair rose up in the
air, as stiff as icicles, and she screamed and screamed until Esther
thought that the ice would crack beneath their feet.

At the same time, she heard a clashing metallic snarl, and a rumble of
heavy material, and the so-called Snow Queen threw back her cape and
bared her head.

"Save me!' screamed Mr. Krook, dropping to his knees.

"Saints and angels, save me!"

The head that emerged from the Snow Queen's cape was monstrous and bony,
and white as death. It was a grotesque parody of a woman's face, long
and skull-like, with blind white tentacles writhing around its neck. Its
eyes were dark and unreadable, like the Peggy-girl's, but the jumbled
rows of jagged teeth that encrusted its jaw were drawn back in a hideous
and obvious grin of triumph. Out of the cloak reached a claw-like hand,
fleshless and shrunken, and Esther thought that she could glimpse naked
flesh, . with cold, and dangling and swinging with extraneous growths
and tags of skin.

"Hel, the daughter of Loki,' she breathed, and even her breath hurried
away in terror.

The Peggy-girl stood dose to her. "That's right. How did you know? The
Snow Queen was always Hel. "Hel into darkness thou trew'st. And gav'st
her nine unlighted worlds to rule. A queen and empire over all the
dead." '

Mr. Krook had been silent all this time, his head bowed, | kneeling. ^

"Mr. Krook!' called Esther. ' is Hel, the gatherer of spirits."

"I shall't look!' Mr. Krook called back. ' shall't look, not until it's
gone!"

"Hel wants the spirits of criminals and sinners, and those who die
without shedding blood!"

Mr. Krook stood up, slowly and painfully, and stared up at the monstrous
bony-headed apparition that now stood over him.

"Thing!' he screamed at it. ' may have me not!"

There was a split second's pause. Then the Snow Queen suddenly lashed
out, and her claws snagged into Mr. Krook's arm and belly. She lifted
him dear off the snow, kicking and struggling and screaming, her claws
penetrating right through his overcoat, in one side and out of the
other, and blood spraying from his coat-tails with every frantic kick.
She threw back her grisly head and stretched open her jaws, and a long
black tongue slithered over her gums like an anaconda. At the same time,
she let her doak drop down to the ice, and Esther cried out loud at what
she saw.

The Snow Queen's skin was white and thin, almost transparent. Inside her
misshapen abdomen, Esther could see the arms and legs and faces of naked
men and women, scores of them, dead but frozen, tike a ghastly catch
offish. Every time she moved, the bodies slid and tumbled inside her, an
arm sliding, a leg falling sideways, a torso pressed against her skin.

Mr. Krook, writhing on the Snow Queen's, claws, saw it too, and stuck
out his arms and legs, totally rigidly, and screamed.

Blood sprayed out of his mouth, but he didn't stop screaming, even when
the Snow Queen shook him from side to side, and his overcoat tore, and
his stomach tore, and his intestines fell below his hemline, and swayed
wet and bloody between his feet.

"Mr. Krook!' screamed Esther. ''s time for your moment of fame. Mr.
Krook! What will we always remember you for?"

Mr. Krook was only a character in a book; or perhaps he was something
more than that. Even characters in books have a sense of their own
destiny. Whatever he was, whatever he knew, he embraced the Snow Queen
as tightly as he could, he held her close, white the white bodies of her
victims wallowed around inside her, their dead and desperate faces
staring through her skin.

At first, Esther saw only smoke, issuing from his overcoat -- thick,
oily smoke. Then suddenly he screamed, and gripped the Snow Queen even
more ferociously. His white hair burst into flame - the sort of
guttering, greasy flames you might have expected from a tallow candle.
Then his coat began to blaze.

The Snow Queen uttered a terrible dashing sound and tried to pry him
free from her. But Mr. Krook held onto her like grim death itself. He
was burning so fiercely now that his fingers were probably convulsed,
and he couldn't have rdeased her even if he wanted to.

The Snow Queen screamed, and when she did so, Mr. Krook incandesced. He
blazed brighter and brighter, like magnesium, so bright and blue that
Esther couldn't even look at him. His body fats spat and sizzled with
heat, his bones popped, his intestines roared like fat on a red-hot
stovetop.

The Snow Queen began to burn, too, and everything inside her. Her skin
shrivelled, and fire took hold of her, until she was nothing but a mass
of flame.

Esther lifted both arms to protect herself as the Snow Queen literally
exploded in a fiery eruption of human flesh. Her horselike head dropped
down into her blazing ribcage, her arms folded in. Then she exploded
again and again, until the snowy plains were scattered with burning
human debris, hands and arms and torsos and disembodied heads.

Esther turned to the Peggy-girl, who was standing beside her with her
head bowed. Gradually, the Peggy-girl began to fade, and the snowy plain
began to fade. Gradually, Esther became aware of somebody shaking her,
and shaking her, and saying, "Lizzie! Lizzie! Wake up, Lizzie!"

Almost vanished, almost completely transparent, the Peggy-girl raised
her head and looked wistfully at-Esther with those dark, smudged eyes.
', I have left my gloves behind," she whispered; but her voice was so
soft that it could have been the draught, blowing under the door.

Elizabeth opened her eyes. Laura was shaking her, and she was coughing
and choking. Her throat was swollen and bruised, and she could hardly
breathe.

"Laura!' she said, ', what's happened?"

"You almost died, for God's sake! You almost died!"

Slowly, Elizabeth sat up. Her throat him so much that she could bareiy
swallow. ' did it,' she said. ' did it. I went there ... I found Mr.
Krook. I burned her."

"You almost strangled yourself! How could you do that? You almost
strangled yourself!"

"I'm all right. Please, I'm all right. My throat hurts but I'm fine.
How's your head?"

Laura promptly sat down on the sofa and burst into tears. ' hurts,' she
wept. ' hurts, and when I woke up, I saw you strangled with your scarf,
and I thought you were dead."

They sat for a moment in silence, while Elizabeth drank a glass of water
and tried to dear her throat, and Laura wiped her eyes.

"Did you find Lenny?' asked Laura.

Elizabeth had been thinking about it, hardly daring to face it. What had
the Peggy-girl said to her? "Where do all our loved ones go? Where did
little Clothes-Peg go?"

Exhausted, bruised, she lifted herself off the sofa and walked through
the kitchen to the back door. She opened it up, and saw that it was
lighter outside already, and that the wind had dropped. She crossed the
garden to the swimming-pool, and even before she was halfway across the
lawn she could see the footprints on its frozen surface, and the darker
shadow where the ice had broken.

She stood on the edge of the pool, looking through the ice.

Lenny swam cold and lifeless, his skin as white as snow, staring up at
her through a window through which living people may never pass.

She heard Laura calling her, '! Lizzie! What's wrong?" Her voice echoed
flatly across the cold snowy garden.

She walked across to the snow-covered garden shed, and reached down
underneath it, into the crevice where she used to hide her love letters
when she was young. Her fingertips found the damp and mildewed pages of
a book, and she carefully tugged it out.

The Snow Queen. It was so blotched and stained that it was almost
illegible. All the same, Elizabeth ripped it in half, and tore the pages
out one by one, and scattered them all across the snow.

Laura was waiting for her when she returned to the house.

They put their arms around each other, and held each other in silence.

All this happened nearly fifty years ago. Only two or three people in
Sherman, Connecticut, now remember the winter of 1951, and how many
people died.

Aunt Beverley recovered from her accident with disfiguring facial
scarring and became a care-assistant at a retirement home in Pasadena.
She died of an overdose of aspirin and alcohol in 1958.

Margo Rossi married a Massachusetts hotelier and never worked in
publishing again. Her present whereabouts are unknown.

Laura Buchanan became a TV actress, and appeared in several episodes of
The Dick Van Dyke Show. She died of cervical cancer in 1963.

Elizabeth Buchanan resigned her editorship at Charles Keraghter and
moved to Arizona, where she lived with Johnson '' Ward until he died in
1959. He never completed another novel.

Today, Elizabeth Buchanan is still alive and living in Scottsdale,
Arizona, where she edits The Pen, a magazine for would-be writers.
Sometimes, from a distance, she thinks she glimpses a man in a white
uniform, watching her. Not bothering her, but watching her.

Every time she sees him, she whispers, ' los manos, senor, and tries to
smile to herself.