

HOWARD WORNOM

PUPPY LOVE LAND

Their school photos stared up at her from the front page. This time it wasn't
anonymous. This time wasn't like averting her glance from a photocopied MISSING
poster taped in a 7-Eleven window.

This time it was a punch in her stomach, where it hurt the most, closest to
home.

Michelle Roberts, eleven years old. A slim brunette with bows in her hair.

Jennifer Sullivan, eleven. Sandy hair, a tiny scar above one eyebrow, dimples, a
hint of sadness behind a thin smile.

Jacqueline Potter, twelve, the oldest and the prettiest. Strawberry blonde, a
bright smile, a glimmer of womanhood shining in her hazel eyes.

And gone.

They had been gone for over a day. Jackie had gone out to play and had never
come home. The other two had said goodnight and gone to bed early, and had
somehow sneaked out later in the night.

Gone.

Diana folded over the newspaper so the photos were hidden. With the air
conditioner off, the car was hot and oppressive. Through the passenger window
she could see the Potter home, a dented mobile home parked on cinder blocks in
the middle of the Lazy Q Trailer Park, a maze of aluminum rectangles wedged
along lanes of white gravel. On the driver's side of the path, a large woman in
a long pink housedress watched her from the slab of concrete that was her front
porch. A small gray terrier yapped at her.

Diana got out of the car and clutched her note pad. "Hi."

"Terrible thing, ain't it?" the fat lady said. "Terrible." She sipped a glass of
pink lemonade, then placed it back on the TV tray at her elbow. "You're one of
them reporter people, ain't ya? What's this world coming to?"

Diana shook her head. "We don't know what's happened yet." The terrier yapped at
her, straining at the leash that was tied to the woman's lawn chair.

The woman watched her and shook her head knowingly. "Terrible. Just terrible."

She turned and walked around the car. The mobile home-- hell, every mobile home,
she thought -- was depressingly tacky. The concrete porch was ringed with pots
of dying plants, and the screen door was decorated with a faded American flag
sticker that was peeling away from the metal.

She checked her watch. It was after six, and the sun was still blazing low and
hot, almost an autumn orange above the trees. She felt the sweat trickling cool
down her side.

A woman answered the door. She said nothing, just stared at Diana through the
screen. She turned once to look at someone inside.

"We already talked to the police," she said.

"I'm not the police, Mrs. Potter. I'm a reporter for the Daily Press. Do you
mind if we talk for a few minutes.?"

The woman closed her eyes. "Naw," she said slowly. "Just don't wake up Duwayne."

The TV was on, a local news show. Duwayne lay sound asleep in a green easy
chair. A glass on the lamp table was ringed with some brown liquid, and beside
that was an open fifth of Old Grandad.

Mrs. Potter led her into the small kitchen and sat at the Formica table. "He
don't think anything's happened. Thinks she's out messing around with some boy."
She paused to light a Winston 100. The stench instantly curdled Diana's stomach.
The ashtray was packed with butts, lined in rows along the edge. "But she ain't
dating anyone. She's still a baby. He don't know her like I do."

Duwayne's snoring came over the homemade bookshelf blocking off the living room.
Old stacks of Good Housekeeping and People were collecting dust on top.

"My name's Diana Bentley. I'm doing an article on the girls. Have the police
said anything new to you?"

"Aw, hell, they don't know anything. They think they went off together
somewhere."

"Where would they go?"

She shook her head. "Nowhere. She don't know anybody over in Hampton. Ain't
nowhere for them to go."

"Your first name is . . . "

"Arlys. A-R-L-Y-S."

"Okay, I know the police went over this, but I'd like to get it straight for the
story. When did you see Jacqueline last?"

"Right after we had supper. Right about now. It was still light out, and she
said she was gonna go down and play with the girls. I started getting worried
after dark. But Duwayne said to let it go, she was fine."

"Your husband was home?"

"He came home about 11:30. He'd been over to the Katt with his shipyard
buddies."

Diana made a note. The Katt was a bikini bar across the James River in Newport
News, about twenty minutes away. "So he'd been out since the shift ended at
four?"

Arlys frowned. "Drinkin'."

The way she said it made Diana look up. Her own father had been an alcoholic,
and she remembered how she had always felt when he was out somewhere, drunk and
away from home.

"And you didn't call the police."

Arlys gestured toward Duwayne. "Wouldn't let me. Said she'd be back soon
enough."

Diana stood and looked at a child's drawings on the refrigerator door. There
were three of them, held up by fruit-shaped magnets. The drawing on top was in
faded crayon, torn at a corner. It showed a basic child's house, a square topped
with a triangle, and a bright sun shining over the trees. The second was a
seascape with a dolphin jumping in the waves. The third had been drawn with
colored markers, and showed a beach with three children playing in the sand. A
house stood off to the right, where three puppies were dancing around a ball. A
poem was written in the corner: The doggys are playingin the bright
sunshine,where people love themand everythings fine.

"Are these Jackie's?"

"This one's her favorite," Mrs. Potter said, pointing to the beach scene. "Every
year she picks her favorite drawing from school and puts it up here for me. It's
like a little game." She took a drag on her cigarette and turned away. "She made
that one a couple of weeks ago."

"School is still out for a few weeks, isn't it?"

Mrs. Pottershrugged. "She made it with the girls over at the Pines place." She
turned and stabbed her cigarette into the ash tray. "Made the face there, too."

Diana looked. Below the drawings, a small mask had been taped onto the metal,
painted in swifts of white and light brown. She touched it. "What is it?"

"Hell, I don't know. Papier-mache or something. One of their projects."

"Were the three of them always together?"

"Yeah, especially this summer. And besides . . . " She looked over the partition
at her husband. "Well, I guess she just needed to get out."

Diana looked over at him, snoring wetly in his Lay-Z-Boy.

"I remember twelve. It was a good time for me." She paused. "Mostly. Maybe not
for Jackie."

Mrs. Potter glanced up into her eyes. "Maybe not."

"Where did they usually go to play?"

"Sometimes they'd ride bikes through town or down to the shopping center. They
loved the library. Jackie was getting them to read all these books, like the
Nancy Drews, the Sweet Valley High books. That's where they went a lot."

She lit another cigarette and kept the smoke m a long time. "They were spending
a lot of time over at the Pines place."

"The Pines?"

"That's her name, Mrs. Pines. Don't know her first name. Runs a dog shelter off
of 258. Jackie saw the sign one day we were driving home from Wakefield from
dinner. She and the others used to go up there and help out with the dogs, two,
three times a week. Had a puppy here a couple of weeks ago." She glanced over
the partition again. "Duwayne said it was making a mess, so Jackie had to take
it back." She flicked an ash off her polyester blouse. "Nice little thing, too.
Pines woman lost her girl a few years ago, I hear. Probably don't mind having
the kids around." She paused. "Jackie loved that little thing."

"Do the police know about this place?"

"Damn straight, I told them. First place I told them to look. She was always so
happy to get up and out there. Sometimes she wouldn't come home till after
sundown, stinking like a dog. Sundown ain't no time for no twelve-year-old girl
to be out alone." She was nervous, scratching her thumbnails together. Then she
got loud. "That's the only place I could think of. The only place. Where the
hell else would she go? Ain't this her home? Not no damn puppy place."

Diana touched the mask with her index finger. Under the paint she could feel a
light mixture of papier-mache and something rough, like twigs. The eyes were
empty, and the mouth was a tiny slit, tight, as though it were holding in a
scream.

The snoring stopped suddenly, and Diana heard the springs creak in the easy
chair. Then Duwayne was in the entrance to the kitchen. He glared at Diana and
snatched a cigarette and the lighter from his wife. He lit up and tossed the
lighter back onto the table, then grunted past her and took a Bud out of the
refrigerator. She could smell him as he walked by. "When's supper? I got bowling
tonight." He noticed Diana and popped the can. "You another cop?"

He was squat and beefy, all beer. His work shirt was stained with sweat, and the
skin of his face was pink and splotchy, setting off his small, mean eyes. He
pulled a long swig of Bud.

"I'm a reporter. I'm sorry about Jackie."

"Shit, she'll be back when that boy gets smart and throws her out. More trouble
than she's worth, that one." He staggered back into the living room and poured
some Old Grandad into his glass. He downed it in one gulp and polished it off
with the beer. He settled back in his chair. "Getting it from somewhere else,"
he said.

Arlys glared at him over the bookshelf. Softly, she said, "He's a bastard
sometimes."

Diana started to speak. "Would you mind--" But she stopped herself. Diana hated
getting too personal with a victim; she knew it came with the job, but sometimes
she wondered if being a reporter, on her own, on the job all the time, was what
she really wanted to do with her life. At times like these, when a mother's
little girl might be dead, questions like these were deliberate intrusions into
the lives of innocents, thrown into the public spotlight and bled for sympathy
by reporters more interested in a byline than the truth.

But it was her job.

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to take a quick look in Jackie's room, try to
get a feel for her. It would really help flesh out the story."

Arlys pushed herself out of the chair and started down the hall. "Come on."

The door to the back bedroom was open, and Diana could see heavy pine furniture,
draped with Duwayne's work clothes. An empty pack of Winstons was on the
nightstand. She opened a door just past a small bathroom. "This is it," Arlys
said.

Sunlight came through the trees and dappled the drapes across the window. The
walls were made of cheap wood paneling, and bore only a poster of Clint Black
and some magazine photos of Billy Ray Cyrus and Richard Marx. The walls were
fairly empty, and it instantly depressed Diana, whose walls at Jackie's age had
been covered with pictures of television and movie stars, models, rock singers,
and mementoes from friends and school.

She knew then that Jackie was not a happy child.

Her single bed was still made, a stuffed Mickey Mouse tucked near the pillow,
and the desk held a plastic cup from Domino's, full of pencils and colorful
felt-tip pens. A stack of library books was arranged near one comer, and Diana
went through them: a Hardy Boys book, a paperback horror novel by Christopher
Pike, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ("Been her favorite since fourth grade,"
Arlys said, "read it five times."), a book on making marionettes, an anthology
of ghost stories, and an Agatha Christie mystery.

"Looks like she's growing up," Diana said.

She opened the top drawer and found some sketches drawn on school paper. Puppies
playing in a field. Three girls riding bikes. A little house with a ghost
peeking around a tree. Tall, green trees arranged in a circle, and three girls
having a picnic. The caption in red felt tip read OUR SECRET PLACE.

She closed the drawer and sat in Jackie's chair. Top right drawer, papers and
some school supplies. Middle drawer, a music box from Disney World that played
"It's a Small World." Costume jewelry inside. Bottom drawer, some coloring
books, old crayons, and a broken watch.

She pulled open the top right drawer again and rifled through the school papers
with her thumb. Casually, she said, "Did she take anything with her?"

"Some shirts and underwear. Jeans. She took Duwayne's hunting knife, and the old
pup tent she played in out back."

There. She knew she had seen something. A paperback had been hidden between the
papers. Diana slowly lifted the top papers and glanced at the title, then closed
the drawer.

"I appreciate you letting me do this."

"I just want my girl back."

"Is there a boy?"

"No. Not yet. Just Billy Ray Cyrus."

Duwayne yelled from the front of the trailer. "Goddamn it, Arlys, get supper on!
I can't wait for that girl all night."

Diana and the mother exchanged glances. "I'll walk you to the door."

Diana stopped on the porch. The sun was lower, and Mrs. Potter's face was a pale
moon through the screen.

"Sorry about him," she said softly. "He and Jackie, they haven't gotten along
lately."

Diana looked around the trailer park; she didn't know why, maybe hoping for a
glimpse of a girl walking home. "I'm sorry, too, Mrs. Potter." She pulled out
her card. "Look, I'm very concerned about the girls. Please give me a call if
you hear anything. Or if I can do anything for you. I'll let you know if I hear
something."

"Thanks," Mrs. Potter said, but she wouldn't look into her eyes. "Do you think
they're gonna find them?"

Diana forced herself to nod. "They'll be fine," she said. "Probably out on a
Nancy Drew adventure."

Behind the screen, Mrs. Potter nodded silently.

"Mrs. Potter," she whispered, "let me ask. Why didn't you report her missing
earlier?"

Arlys gestured toward her husband. "Told me not to. Said there was nothing to
worry about. You know, I even stayed up waiting for her. I've never done that
before. I fell asleep during Carson, no, whoever it was. Then it was the
morning, and Duwayne had already left for work."

Diana thanked her with the promise of a follow-up and started toward her car.
The door closed behind her.

The fat woman across the path called out, and Diana stared at her. "You know,"
the fat woman said. Her dog was facing away from her, watching something moving
in the grass. It stood up and barked once, then sat back down. "You know, I once
saw the face of Jesus on the side of their trailer. Harry told me it was just
shadows from the trees or something. But nope, He let me see Him. He looked real
sad, and I knew something terrible was gonna happen over there. Harry didn't
believe me, but I just knew it."

She fanned herself with an old magazine. "She's dead, you know. All three of
them. Gone way up to Jesus." She threw back her head and barked a high-pitched
laugh. The dog looked at her and wagged its tail. "Better than here, though,"
and she pointed across to the Potter trailer. "Better than right down here."

Diana got in the car and drove away.

She stopped at the Hardee's across from the Smithfield Food Lion and swallowed
two BCs with a cup of sweetened iced tea. The smoke and the tension in the
Potters' sweat box had been too much, and she needed some sunlight and a little
fresh air to breathe, to get the stench of Duwayne Potter out of her head. She
robbed her forehead hard with the palm of her hand. BC powder. If iced tea was
truly the house wine of the South, then BC had to be the daily special.

The girls had been best friends this summer. Jackie left home about six o'clock
on Wednesday. The sun didn't set until eight that night, so somebody could have
seen her on the streets. Jennifer and Michelle went to bed about nine o'clock;
early for them, but they both claimed they were tired.

Jackie never came home. In the morning the front door had been found unlocked at
the Sullivans', and Michelle's window screen had been taken out from the inside.

They sneaked out, Diana knew. Jackie, the oldest, left early and took care of
everything they would need. She knew her parents wouldn't look for her.

It all fit. They were in it together. This was a plan. They had run away on the
first real adventure of their lives, and they would be back as soon as they got
too tired and afraid, or when the money ran out. Unless --

Jackie, unfortunately, she could understand. Now. But what could be so bad as to
make the others steal away from their homes in the middle of the night, as well?

Why did they go?

She took a swallow of the syrupy iced tea and squeezed the bridge of her nose,
willing the headache to go away.

The book she had found hidden in Jackie's drawer had been borrowed from the
library. Stop Child Abuse NOW!

Unless, she realized, something has gone horribly wrong.

She looked at her watch. Almost seven o'clock, and the sun was still orange and
bright. Still time. She drove across to the 7-Eleven and used the pay phone.

The call was answered on the fourth ring, and she could tell the woman had been
crying again. "Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Potter, but could you give me
directions to that dog shelter you mentioned?"

She found the faded sign at a turn-off about three miles past Ken's Barbecue on
route 258. She followed the one-lane pavement almost a mile before it became a
dirt road, red with rich Virginia clay, and then she stopped at the next
turn-off on the right.

The sign on the old fence was hand-painted, a child's handwriting, in colors she
recognized from the mask on the Potters' refrigerator. PUPPY LOVE LAND. The
flowery arrow underneath pointed down the tree-lined dirt road, peppered with
shells and silver flecks of gravel. Another sign, weathered and neatly lettered
by an adult, read VOLUNTEER DOG LOVERS NEEDED.

She turned down the drive. Instantly the heat in the car dropped ten degrees
from the shade of the overhanging trees, and the car filled with the sweet,
moist aroma of fresh magnolia. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly,
smiling to herself at the total difference between this country road and the
Potters' claustrophobic trailer.

The drive curved to the right, and the trees opened onto a gravel-strewn circle.
She slowed the car around the drive and stopped to gaze up at the house at the
end. It was a huge, old Victorian: three stories tall, at least four or five
bedrooms, a porch wrapped around three sides and a wooden swing hanging at one
end.

"Wow," she said softly. "Wow."

The hot dust settled around her feet as she got out of the car. She heard dogs
barking far beyond the house, where the sun blazed along the treetops, and to
her left stretched a long even field that once was a farmer's field of corn, or
cotton or collards. A small scarecrow leaned helplessly at an angle way in the
distance; from here she could see faded tatters of fabric hanging in the absence
of a warm breeze.

"You looking for a dog?"

Diana spun around. The woman coming around the house was tall and straight, her
sandy brown hair tied up inside a flourescent pink cap that read Jantzen. Her
white shirt was damp with sweat, and the knees of her jeans were worn with green
grass stains. Her hands were dark with dirt and mud.

"Hi. No, I'm with the paper." She held out her hand. "You must be Mrs.--"

"Pines." She wiped her hands on her jeans and shook Diana's hand. "Stevie Pines.
Don't mind the dirt. Garden's out back."

"Diana Bentley. Daily Press." She handed her a business card.

"The girls?" Stevie brushed away a stray hair. "I've already talked with the
police. You've talked with them, haven't you?"

"Of course. I'm just trying to follow up on their habits, you know, show where
they might have gone, who they've seen recently."

Stevie slipped the card into her shirt pocket. She started up the steps leading
to the front door. "Sorry I scared you. Gets quiet out here sometimes. Come on
in. I'll get you something to drink. Hope you like iced tea."

"This was originally a farmhouse, built in 1888." Stevie looked up with a smile.
"The year of the Ripper."

Diana turned and stared.

Stevie closed the refrigerator and handed Diana a tall glass of iced tea. "It's
got a lot of history. Somehow you can feel it when you walk in. I knew it as
soon as I saw the house for the first time. We had to live here."

They walked into the living room, a burnt orange from the sunlight slanting
through the curtains. It was comfortable inside, the way an old house should be.
The walls were decorated with paintings and lithographs, even some original
acrylics Stevie had painted herself.

Diana was amazed how at home she felt. There were no wreaths woven out of twigs,
no wooden ducks wearing scarves or gingham bows; no butter chums or cute,
country signs reading Welcome Friends. No wooden hearts, no blue or pink pastel
hearts used as napkin holders, no handmade calendars with painted hearts as the
dates, no straw wreaths made in the shape of a heart. This was a genuine country
home -- warm and well-kept -- that eschewed the ducks and hearts and other tacky
trappings of country life that suburbanites buy at craft fairs in the malls.
This was reality away from the city: a peaceful life, a beautiful home, and a
coexistence with the green land outside.

Diana looked over the low bookshelves along the walls, surprised at the number
of books Stevie owned. The titles were a mix of literature and popular fiction
-- Hemingway, Proust, Stephen King -- and a library of nonfiction ranging from
Stephen Hawkings' A Brief History of Time to whole shelves devoted to topics
from Arthurian literature and free speech.

"The kids did all this," Stevie said, sitting on the sofa. "It was Jackie's
idea. I had them in a mess, totally out of order. Jackie arranged everything
alphabetically by author, with special sections placed on individual shelves.
Like the censorship books." She paused. "They loved the library."

"Why so many on censorship?"

Stevie smiled. "My mother started it. I wanted t o buy The Exorcist when I was
in junior high, and she wouldn't let me. It was a dirty book. So I went ahead
and borrowed it from the school library.

"I loved it. It wasn't about Satanism or sex or dirty words. It was about faith
-- real faith -- and innocence. How good can defeat evil. With love.

"The fanatics didn't see it that way. A few weeks later-- this was when
everybody thought the movie was making kids puke in the theaters -- some parent
got angry and complained to the school. And the book got kicked out of the
school library."

She took a sip of her tea. "But I had read it. And after I grew up, I found a
used copy of the hardback and donated it back to my junior high school library."
She smiled. "It's still there.

"I guess that's why censorship. Because I learned early that it doesn't protect
anybody; it just hurts them. It hides the truth. Because of justice."

She grinned. "Sorry. You asked."

Diana had taken out her pen and notebook. "A minute ago, you said we. 'We had to
live here.'"

Stevie watched her for a moment. "This isn't part of the article."

Diana shook her head.

Stevie gestured around the room, and Diana made out framed photos standing on
the tables. "My daughter. We moved here about four years ago, after my divorce.
Then--" She stopped herself and leaned back into the sofa, so the shadows hid
her face. "She died about six months later."

"I'm so sorry. What was her name?"

"Named after her father's grandmother. Rose."

The girl in the pictures had a wide, honest smile, and eyes so bright and open
that Diana could not stop staring. Rose and her mommy, hugging and swinging in a
porch swing, their faces huge in the lens. She felt she could hear them, outside
in the afternoon sun, playing and laughing.

"She was beautiful." She tried to meet Stevie's gaze, but the sun was setting
too fast, and her eyes were hidden in shadow. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I ask too
many questions."

"A reporter with a conscience. A dying breed."

"The girls. They came here a lot?"

"At least two or three times a week, sometimes more. They loved the dogs, taking
care of them. I think they just --" She stopped. "Well, I think a lot of it --
they just had to get out of their homes. It was too much for girls their age."

"What do you meant"

She leaned forward again, flicking on the lamp on the end table. "Haven't you
been to see their parents yet?"

"Yes. Well," she admitted, "just Jackie's. Why?"

"So what did you think?"

"About what? I don't get you."

"Come on. How would you feel if you were a kid living in a pit like that ?"

"I --"

"Their home lives weren't all that different. Economically, or emotionally. I
mean, Michelle's mother is--well, she's crazy. Obsessive. Mean as hell.
Jennifer's mother is shacked up with a biker over from Newport News, and they
never have the time for her.

"All the girls had were each other. And here. So I don't blame them for taking
off. Not at all."

"So you think they ran away."

"I'm sure they did. I even told the police. But I don't know where they went. Or
why they didn't tell me."

"Do you have any facts you can tell me about the girls' home life?"

"If you mean did I ever see anything first hand, no. But I have no reason to
disbelieve what they told me. And it's a lot worse -- a lot more lonely -than
you or I could imagine."

She stared up at the ceiling and sighed. "Look. Michelle's mother was the model
for Snow White's stepmother, okay? She blamed Michelle for her husband walking
out, and she took it out on her all the time. She treated Michelle like dirt.
All she really had to do was look in a mirror to see why he really left.

"Jennifer has no idea who her real father is. But she's been beaten up by some
of her mother's boyfriends when they've been drank, and her mother just gets rid
of her when she wants to party with her biker friends.

"Sure, it could be a lot worse. But isn't that bad enough?"

She didn't go on. Diana said, "And Jackie?"

Stevie thought for a time. "It was worse with her."

She ran her hand through her hair and sighed. "Jackie didn't tell me everything.
Just a little. But sometimes it was hard to cover up all the bruises."

"They were abusing her?"

She nodded. "Not her mother, but she let it go on. That's just as bad." Stevie
took a deep breath. "I don't know how long it's been going on, she never told
me. But it's been getting steadily worse since she's been helping me the last
two months. I'd see a bruise that wasn't there the day before, and she wouldn't
talk very much. I think the girls knew, too. Maybe she told them everything; I
don't know.

"But I think that was the catalyst: she was growing up, developing. Maybe
talking back. Her daddy did something to her last week. I didn't see her for
four days, and I knew he'd gotten drunk and beaten her again. When she showed up
with bruises all up and down her hack, I wanted to kill him. I even called child
welfare and reported it, but who knows what's taking them so long to do
anything."

"He was drunk when I was there," Diana said.

Stevie raised an eyebrow. "Was he?" She shrugged. "Nothing unusual." She
finished her iced tea and put down the glass. "So I guess that's why they came
here so much. And why they ran away. They wanted to be loved."

"Any idea where they might have gone?"

"No. I don't think they know anybody anywhere else. If they're still around
here, I'd bet Virginia Beach. Maybe Richmond. But they weren't dumb. Hampton is
too close. For all we know, they might be hitchhiking to Florida. Disney World.
Don't all kids want to go there?"

An image flashed in Diana's mind. Jackie's room. The music box. From It's a
Small World.

"Disney World. Did they ever say anything about Disney World?"

Stevie sat up and thought. "Come to think of it, you know, Jackie did, I think.
She loved it. She went there with an aunt and her kids a couple of years ago.
You know, that's a possibility."

Diana wrote DISNEY WORLD? in her notes.

Stevie asked, "Are you going to talk to the cops again?"

"Tomorrow morning. I'll suggest Orlando to them."

"Good. That's a good idea." Stevie stood up and arched her back. "I've got to
get outside and stretch. Come on. You want to look around?"

Diana put away her note pad and followed Stevie out onto the porch. The sun was
low, barely a glimmer behind the treeline. The lone streetlight on Stevie's
drive was already on, and the fields around her house were filled with the
chirrups of crickets, the rattle of locusts.

"How did the girls help out?"

They walked around the house and Stevie pointed to a large, fenced-in area. On
the back porch, she flicked a switch and the pens were flooded with light. The
dogs instantly started barking, and Stevie clapped her hands and called their
names.

"They fed the dogs and hosed down the pens, took them for walks in the field.
Some days they'd wash and brush them, and when there wasn't much to do, they'd
help out in my garden." She pointed out a line of tomato vines. "Jen planted
these. Did a good job, too."

She unlocked the gate. "I'll try to keep them off you, but don't count on it."

"That's all right."

They went in, and the dogs jumped and barked around them. A collie came up and
sniffed Diana's fingers, then thrust its nose into her hand. A black cocker
spaniel wriggled around in circles, waiting for attention. Stevie scratched its
head and it rolled slowly over onto her feet, paws up, begging to be rubbed.
"Baloo, here, is a nut. He just needs a little love, is all."

"Where did they come from?"

"All over. I found the hound dog out roaming my back woods, ticks all over him.
The red one, over there, somebody abandoned over at the bait shop."

"They're great," Diana said. The collie jumped away and barked at her, then came
back and licked her knee. "You've done a good job here."

In fact, it was the finest shelter Diana had ever seen. Clean, orderly, the dogs
healthy and looking beautiful -- she could tell Stevie really cared about these
dogs. Some of the dogs even had individual dog houses, each painted in bright
colors. One showed a landscape and sky, the horizon red with the setting sun,
the roof painted a rich blue and lit with stars. "The girls?" Diana said.

"They built them, too. I showed them how. They were so good here."

Diana kneeled down to pet Baloo. He hopped up and licked her face. "I wish I
could take one home."

"Why don't you?"

"No, I don't think so." She stood. "I've been on my own too long. I'm not
ready."

Stevie looked at her and shrugged, then led her out of the pen. She locked it
behind them and pointed out a shed. "Supplies and tools. The girls were in
charge of that. Jackie kept it organized for me."

"So why did you start this place?"

"Somebody has to take care of them. Lost little puppies. They need food and
warmth, and absolute, unconditional love. Sometimes, I think I love them too
much. I don't want to let go." She looked Diana in the eyes and told her, "You
need a puppy."

Diana did not answer. Stevie started back toward the house, but Diana stayed and
pointed into the distance. "What's back there?"

In the distance, behind a ragged line of trees, Diana could see the dim outline
of a building. "That's the old barn," Stevie said. "I don't use it much. Just
for the lawn mower, really, and some planting supplies. My garage is too small."
Stevie looked toward the horizon. "It's getting dark, but I'll show it to you if
you want."

"Did the girls ever play there?"

"No, I wouldn't let them. It's old and about ready to fall down." She paused and
said softly, "No. I've lost one daughter already."

They walked back to the house in silence. It was time to go, and Diana thanked
Stevie for the tour and headed for her car.

Stevie stayed on the porch. "You don't think they're going to find them."

Diana stared at her, deciding how honest she should answer. "I don't know. No. I
guess not. At least, not alive."

Stevie nodded silently in the darkness.

Diana looked out over the field. In the last rays of the setting sun, the tiny
scarecrow was a black silhouette against a blaze of red. She said, "You know,
you don't seem very upset about all this."

"I don't?" Stevie thought about it. "Maybe I don't. It's not deliberate, though.
I love those girls. You don't know how I've worried about them. But now that
they're gone--" She smiled gently. "Look, they didn't want to be here, not like
this. Maybe it's just that, wherever they are, they're probably someplace
better."

"I wish I could be sure of that." Diana opened the car door. "Thanks for the
help."

Stevie waved once from the porch and watched her drive off.

Diana drove under the canopy of trees until she reached the end of the drive.
She stopped the car and uncapped her pen, and at the top of her notes she wrote
ABUSE? DUWAYNE POTTER? Then she thought silently for a minute and wrote ASK COPS
-- HOW DID ROSE DIE?

She capped the pen and drove across the James River, toward home.

She woke early, around five, her neck damp with a thin layer of sweat. Her
dreams had been disjointed, chaotic; swirls of colors and shouts. She woke with
a low cry that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her. She had never
before screamed during a dream.

She went in to the office early to get most of the article written for the next
day's paper. The editor extended her deadline by two hours so she could
interview the other parents, so she settled at her desk and first called the
state police.

She had worked with Trooper Harrison before, on the Colonial Parkway murders.
Harrison was a big man, balding, who pretended to be macho and sexist around
other cops. Diana knew better: Harrison was a sucker for '60s rhythym and blues,
Universal monster movies and Chia pets.

"Got nothing yet, baby," he said. "Haven't turned up a damn thing."

She typed the update into her computer. "So what's going on?"

"Procedure. We've got thirty troopers and I don't know how many volunteers out
searching the woods around Smithfield. We've got the dogs out and a statewide
APB. We'll turn up something. Where can they go?"

She typed in over fifty troopers and volunteers searched through the Smithfield
woods before she answered.

"How about Disney World?"

"Off to see the mouse? Possible, but slim."

"I found a music box from there in Jackie Potter's belongings. And evidence of
child abuse."

She heard his chair creak, and she imagined him leaning forward at his desk.
"Okay. So what are we saying here, Diana?"

She stopped typing. "I'm saying I interviewed Stevie -- Stephanie Pines
yesterday. The girls hung out around her place, taking care of the abandoned
dogs. She says Jackie talked to her about going to Disney World. She also said
that Jackie was beaten several times by her father."

"Duwayne. Yeah, we know him. Angry drunk."

"Tell me about it. Pines also said she reported the abuse a couple of weeks ago.
And I found a book Jackie had borrowed from the library, on child abuse.

"I can't say for sure, but I think they all had fairly unhappy homes. And I
think -- I hope -- they went off and escaped together."

"Shit. It's hearsay and circumstantial, but you've done your homework. Let me
know when you want a job in law enforcement."

"Do me a favor, Harrison. I need confirmation on the abuse. I can't make a
charge like that without facts."

"I'll see what I can do, but don't count on anything. Social Services usually
plays it close to the vest."

"Understood."

"Meantime, I'll put Florida on the alert and get hold of the mounties up and
down I-95. We'll get them back one way or another."

She hung up and stared at the green computer screen. She was curiously empty,
unsure what to write, and she realized that all she could see in her mind was
that long field outside the Pines house, and the scarecrow, and how empty it
felt to stand there alone in the twilight.

She liked Stevie Pines. She had felt an energy inside her that was strong,
defiant; a casual strength forged of love and loss, tempered by survival. She
wasn't sure that she could ever be that strong, on her own. Since her mother had
died, Diana had tried to be decisive, a newswoman with a mission. But it was at
times like this-- half asleep at seven in the morning and worried for the lives
of three children -- that she felt helpless, alone. And ultimately useless.

You need a puppy, Stevie had said.

Her dream came back to her then, images flashing like the cursor on the screen:
a flicker of candlelight; shadows wavering across a wooden wall. The laughter of
children, of girls. Trees, stretching up toward the stars. A glimmer of light,
whiskey brown, disappearing in a swirl. And underneath it all, a heartbeat,
gradually growing into the barking of a dog.

It came to her without thinking, a certainty she desperately believed.

They're alive.

She stared at the screen. Last night, she was sure they would be found dead. And
now, she thought --

No. She felt, she knew --

They're alive.

She wrote most of the story. Ten minutes later, she answered the phone on the
first ring.

"It's Harrison. I got something for you."

"That's fast."

She started typing into the computer. "Got hold of Liz Wilkins over at Social
Services. She didn't want to talk at first, but I told her what I was working on
and she came through. Stevie Pines reported Potter two times, once last week and
once three weeks ago. And somebody reported him anonymously just over two months
ago. Liz thinks it was the mother."

"Wait a minute. Mrs. Potter said something to me." She tried to remember.
"'Especially this summer.' She said, 'She needed to get out.' Jesus, I think
this has been going on since school let out, at least. All this time, and nobody
did a thing."

"Not surprising. Damn shame, too. They were going to send a social worker out
there tomorrow."

"Damn," she whispered.

"Off the record now, we're going to invite Mister Duwayne Potter over to the
office for a chat. So give me a call later on. I'll let you know what the bird
had to sing."

"I think they're alive, Harrison."

"I hope you're right. You know, chances are against it."

"Listen, I need something else, too."

"Okay."

"Find out for me how Stevie Pines's daughter died. About four years ago."

"Don't have to. I can tell you."

"What?"

"I was on the case."

"What case? I thought --" She wasn't sure now. "Her death wasn't natural?"

"What death? We just don't know. They never found the body."

Her fingers froze over the keyboard. "What are you saying?"

"The little girl disappeared. Rose. She was sick at home. Morn goes out to get a
prescription. She gets stuck on the drawbridge, and when she gets home, the
girl's gone. Front door's wide open, no signs of violence. They found the
babysitter unconscious in the field.

"The girl was never found."

She had a hard time bringing it out. "This is crazy, Harrison. You don't see a
connection here?"

"Sure, I thought about it at first. But, haw, not here. I was in on the case,
Diana. Nothing panned out. Stevie Pines is about as right as you can get. Sure,
it's a coincidence. A nasty one. But that's all it is. She's at the.top of my
'A' list, along with you, babe. And Kim Basinger."

She felt hollow inside, and she realized she had been holding her breath. Stevie
had told her the truth; she had reported the abuse, not once, but on two
occasions. They're alive, she felt, they escaped; but this --

She said thanks and goodbye, and hung up. But she knew that there was some
connection here she was not making, some clue screaming for attention that she
just couldn't make out for the black and white facts. She remembered Jackie's
drawing, of the house with the little ghost, and she made an intuitive
connection that perhaps Jackie's untrained hand had never really intended.

It was Stevie Pines' house.

She saved the article and keyed off the computer, then gathered her notes and
purse. Puppy Love Land, she thought. What's going on out there?

It was already 90 degrees outside when she parked in front of the Windward Way
Apartments a few minutes after ten in the morning. She climbed the stairs and
knocked on the door of 16B. The sticker under the door knocker read SULLIVAN.

She waited.

It was cooler in the breezeway, and she could hear the sound of tires hissing
over the asphalt of route 258. She knocked again. She heard something, but she
could not tell if it was someone inside or out.

The door to 15B opened behind her. A woman peered out, her hair up in green
cutlers and wrapped in a scarf. "They's home, but they won't answer."

"How come?"

"Don't ask me. They don't do anything when they stoned."

She went over to the woman. "They do this a lot?"

The woman looked up at her. "You a friend of theirs?"

"No. Reporter."

"Ohhh." She opened the door wider and smiled, ready to talk. "Well, listen, you
ain't gonna get nothing from them. Hell, they high day and night. I don't know
who's gonna take care of that kid. They sure can't when they out drinking all
the time, and who knows what."

"Was the little girl, Jennifer, alone most of the time?"

"Alone? Oh, yeah. Hell, the mama go out every night. She don't have no damn time
for her own child. Girl come over here every now and then and watch TV when her
mama kick her out. I'm too damn old for babysitting. Hell, that woman's got men
all the time over there. Damn scummy-looking men, too, them and their
motorbikes. I seen them, too. Had the door open, and they just laying around the
sofa, smoking that dope. Nigger music on the hi-fi. Ain't no life for a good kid
like that."

"Did Jennifer tell you where she went?"

"Nope. I had to wait and hear it on the TV 'cause nobody ever come over here and
tell me."

"Any idea where she might have gone?"

She laughed, then started coughing into her hand. "Hell, you know girls. Where
they gone? They gone to see boys. Where else?"

A soap opera theme came up behind her, and she started cackling. "My show's
coming on. I got to go."

Diana thanked her and got her name, then went back to the Sullivan apartment.
She knocked louder this time. "Ms. Sullivan," she shouted, "my name is Diana
Bentley. I'm with the paper. Can I talk with you for a minute?"

She waited and pounded on the door. "Ms. Sullivan, it's about your daughter."
She knocked again. "Jennifer?"

Nothing moved behind the spyhole. She placed her ear on the door. She could hear
muffled laughter, the music from a game show. From under the door, she caught a
whiff of marijuana.

She knocked again, and waited. A shout from building D. The locusts in the
trees. She knocked again, harder, until her knuckles were red.

She took a step back and stared at the door. An F-14 from Langley roared low
over the apartments, then rumbled into the distance.

"Don't you care?" she whispered. A child cried from the floor below. "Don't you
even care?"

It was a faded, red brick ranch home from the sixties, surrounded by azalea
bushes and low hedges that were uneven with neglect. The well out front was a
red brick square, covered with a concrete slab where a concrete squirrel sat,
gnawing a concrete nut.

The old lady squinted at her through the screen door. She was short, her gray
hair scraggly and uncombed. A thin brown cigarette dangled from the corner of
her mouth.

"I'm with the paper, Mrs. Roberts. I'm doing an article on the girls for
tomorrow's paper."

"I can't let you come in. The place is a mess."

She looked beyond her into the house. Newspapers were in neat piles arranged
alongside the sofa. The coffee table and furniture were almost hidden by tall
stacks of papers and magazines, and grocery bags full of Pepsi bottles. There
was one clear spot on the sofa where the old lady had burrowed out a space for
herself to watch television, surrounded by bottles of pills and newspapers that
had been folded over to the crosswords.

She felt a headache starting to throb behind her eyes. "That's all right. This
is fine."

"Have you heard something about Michelle?"

"No, not today. I'm sure the police are looking --"

"They're not doing a goddamn thing. Not telling me one damn thing about my own
daughter. You know where she is?"

"Well, no, ma'am."

"She should be right here, goddamn it. Right here with me, right where she
belongs. Not off running away with that goddamn white trash."

Diana stood silent, almost frozen. Mrs. Roberts was shaking her head, jabbing
her cigarette like a pointer. "I told her over and over those friends of hers
weren't any good. And you think she listened to me? Hell, no. Just like her
goddamn no good father."

She disappeared into the living room, complaining to herself. Diana squeezed her
eyes shut and wished this was all over. The acrid smoke from the old lady's
cigarette seemed to billow through the screen in the old lady's wake. Mrs.
Roberts rummaged through the mess on the coffee table. "I had it right here."
She picked up a pile of bills and placed them in her spot on the sofa. She moved
another pile to the floor. "Goddamn it, somebody's stolen it."

"Can I help you with anything Mrs. --"

The old lady looked up and shook her finger at her. "Don't you come in! Just you
stay right there." She moved another stack on top of the pile on the floor. It
spilled over. She got down on her knees and fished under the sofa for a stray
envelope. "Shit," she muttered. "Somebody's been messing in my goddamn papers."

She stood up and looked over the piles left on the table, then smacked her lips.
"Here. Here." She started toward the door. "She ran out, just like her father.
Goddamn Roberts are all alike, not like my family. Can't trust one of them. Not
even my own daughter. And goddamn it, I want her back."

She pressed a mask into the screen, almost identical to the mask Jackie Potter
had made and taped to her mother's refrigerator. The screen stretched out,
imprinting a grey face into the wire mesh.

"Look, she made me this," Mrs. Roberts said in the darkness behind the mask,
behind the screen. "And she's mine, damn it! She's my daughter. Mine. And I want
her back, goddamn it. She's mine! I want my daughter back!"

Diana could feel the sun shining hot on her shoulders, and she suddenly felt too
close to this woman, too trapped. She apologized for upsetting her and stumbled
off the front stoop, unnerved by the obsessions concealed in the darkness behind
the screen; and in the car, while old lady Roberts frowned at her through the
screen door, still shaking the mask in one hand, Diana leaned back against the
hot vinyl seat and took a deep breath in the still air.

Now I know.

Now I know why.

The story was finished, logged in and ready for the morning edition, and it was
after six P.M. when she let herself into her townhouse and locked the deadbolt
behind her. The day had seemed too long and too ugly, mostly because she
couldn't get the smell, and the image, of that woman out of her mind.

She threw her purse on the sofa and went straight for the refrigerator. She
filled two-thirds of a glass with ice and tonic water, then took a green bottle
of Tanqueray from the pantry and filled the glass to the top. She stirred the
drink with her finger. "Screw the lime," she said, and she took a long drink.

The air conditioner had been set on 75 degrees , but the sunlight streaming
through the blinds had kept the air conditioner pumping all day, and the
temperature was up to 81 degrees.

She closed the blinds and picked out a Jimmy Buffett CD. She turned the volume
low, a pleasant undercurrent that would stay with her without being intrusive.
It was a Key West day, she thought, sipping her drink: a day that cried out for
her to be lying out by the hotel pool on Key West, doing absolutely nothing;
being served lime margaritas while her skin turned brown and the Gulf breeze
brought the scent of distant shores and mythic adventures; then dancing and
drinking long after the sunset celebration at Mallory Square, usually over at
Sloppy Joe's or upstairs at Rick's, or even in Capt. Tony's.

"Pascagoula Run" came on, and Buffett sang about a kid leaving home to
experience the wild world. Last summer she had taken the bartender's stapler and
fixed her business card to a wooden beam at Capt. Tony's, on top of a card from
some Pennsylvania attorney. The bar had been wallpapered with yellowed business
cards and dented license plates, and she had been proud of herself, her first
vacation after her first year of reporting; she had left her mark where drunks
and tourists and middle management peons alike could see her name and what she
did. Reporter.

Reporter. Right.

She had felt good about herself then, about her career and her choices, and she
had wanted to do something she had never done before. It had been her only visit
to Key West, but returning was a frequent dream whenever the deadlines built up
at work, or when she just needed desperately to be somewhere exotic, absolutely
peaceful, surrounded by happy people, totally different, more alive than
anywhere else.

Especially here. Especially now.

The Tanq and tonic smelled fresh and clean, but under it she could still taste
old lady Roberts's foul cigarettes. She took a sip of her drink and let it slide
cold down her throat. Now, there's a word. Foul. Yes, that woman and all the
hatreds she hoarded over, as though they were family photos to be displayed like
a priceless collection of miseries, would stay in her mind for a long time.
Foul.

She peeled off her damp clothes and let them stay in a heap on the floor. She
lay on the sofa, sipped her drink, and crossed her arm over her eyes.

She had finished the story just before one. She had taken a long, quiet lunch of
curry chicken and fried rice at Kam Ling's, then returned to the office, waiting
for news from the cops.

Harrison had called around three. Troopers at the rest stop just inside the
Florida border had stopped three girls matching the APB.

Diana had listened quietly and had asked all the right questions, but she had
known inside that it was all wrong.

She had been right. It turned out the girls had been with a church group from
North Carolina, heading for a choir festival in Daytona Beach. The troopers had
held back the church bus for over an hour, and calls had gone back and forth
between cops and parents until the situation was finally straight.

Duwayne Potter had been brought in for questioning. They had found him on the
job, already half drunk, and they were checking his alibis as they spoke.

So far, nothing.

Harrison had said, "Sorry, babe. I'll call you if we find something," and she
had thanked him and hung up. Forget Florida, she had thought. Something else is
going on. You're not going to find them.

Not there.

She sat up on her couch and held the cold glass against her forehead. Running
away fit. It was the only thing she wanted to believe. It had been worse for
them than she ever could have imagined, and it looked like they had finally had
enough and had run off to see the world.

It's a good story. Maybe they crossed a wild meridian of their own, and they're
off on a fairy-tale adventure more real than their own lives in the sticks.
"God, I hope so," she said out loud. "I hope so."

But it was more than that, and she knew it. She could feel it with every
instinct, with every electrical impluse playing along her cerebral synapses.

And the reason was Stevie Pines.

She had lied to her. No, she realized, not lied, but --

Damn it, she had to face it. Stevie Pines's only real crime was not revealing
her own daughter's disappearance. She felt betrayed by the lack of confidence,
and by her own reaction at hearing of Rose's disappearance. It was all too much
of a coincidence; and she had started liking her, damn it, liking her too much
for these ugly suspicions.

But she had noticed something else. Stevie had talked about the girls in the
past tense. And it was also her nonchalance at their running away. As though she
knew something that no one else would ever know.

Like, where they were.

Like, where her daughter was.

And if, maybe, they were all together.

Alive.

She finished her drink and said the word out loud, softly. "Alive."

And she didn't like it at all, because now she wasn't sure at all if they would
ever find them. Alive or dead. And she didn't know why.

But she was sure that Stevie Pines did.

Did she help them run away? Did she hide them? Are they still there, like those
puppies, being fed and cared for by someone who loves them?

And if they are, then where is her own daughter?

She nodded to herself. The girls deserved better than what they had always had,
and she was determined to finish this and find them.

And if you find them, you really want to bring them back? To the smoke and the
trailers and the drugs? To abuse. . .and to madness?

No. Of course not. But she desperately wanted this story to have as happy an
ending as possible, an ending where the little lost princesses are brought back
from the deep woods.

And, unfortunately, where reality demands that they deal with their own wicked
queens; maybe through therapy, maybe through social workers.

"Damn it." What a trade off. This fairy tale is more like a tragedy.

She unscrewed the cap off the Tanqueray, added some ice and fixed another drink.
This one was stronger; she could feel it tingle on her tongue, and she drank
half of it in one long gulp.

"I'm going to need this," she said, and she polished off the drink. "For
tonight, I'm going to need it."

At first she tried to imagine what private investigators would do in the
hardboiled novels she read. Should I carry a gun? You don't have one. Should I
confront her directly? You don't have a shred of evidence. Call the cops?

Hell, no. This one is all yours.

Damn it, what would Spenser dog But the gin had gotten to her, and dimly she
realized that she was no Spenser or Stoner or Elvis Cole, and she finally
decided just to be careful and quiet, and try not to attract attention.

She did have one answer, though.

If she's got them, where would they be?

Only one place out there where she didn't show you around. Inside that old barn.

Her buzz had evaporated hours ago. Her watch showed 3:17 -- the soul's midnight,
she remembered from a Bradbury book -- and she parked her car on the last
stretch of asphalt and cut the engine. In the beam of headlights, moths
flittered toward her, and she turned off the lights.

The night was clear and bright, and with the full moon high above the tree line,
she could see the turn-off toward the house about a hundred yards away. She got
out and softly closed the door. The light inside did not go out, so she pressed
against the door until it clicked. The light winked out. She was alone in the
road. All she could hear was the ticking of her car, the calls of crickets.

She wore a black T-shirt from an Aerosmith concert and black Levi's and an old
pair of sneakers, and she started onto the dirt road, peering through the trees
and foliage for a glimpse of the Pines house. The rocks crunched loud under her
feet. She held a black, halogen flashlight in her right hand: a heavy thing
filled with five D batteries, that could double as a weapon. She was ready.

She paused beside the child's hand-written sign and wondered which one of them
had painted it. Then she looked around one last time, back down the long road
frosted with moonlight, and down the canopied drive toward the house.

She took a deep breath. This is it. And she started in.

The moon shone through the trees in pale patches. It was hard for her to see,
but she had no desire to use her flashlight this close to the house and let
Stevie know that someone was coming. She focused on the opening of silver
moonlight at the end of the drive and kept on, staying close to the right-hand
fence.

At the end, she kneeled down below the fence and peeked between the trees. The
house seemed pure white in a bath of moonlight: closed tight and dark inside,
asleep. To the left lay the long field surrounded by trees; straight ahead, the
dog pens, and the old barn hidden in the woods.

No. A straight path was too close to the house. Anyone sneaking near the dogs
would be guaranteed to wake them up, barking. Her only chance was to make her
way through the trees, cross the field, then stay well behind the house and
sneak into the barn.

She stepped back into the darkness under the trees and climbed over the fence,
then made her way through the brush so she could travel the length of the field
hidden just inside the trees. The tree line was straight, but the going was
slow. Several times she stumbled over roots or fallen branches, and once she
stopped at the sound of something in the woods with her. She caught a faint
whiff of skunk, then realized there was probably a fox burrowed somewhere near;
their smells were nearly identical.

The moon was higher now, and would not afford her any real cover out in the
field. She was just past the halfway point: she was almost in line with the
scarecrow in the center, tilting as though it were ready to fall over. It was
after four o'clock; she could stay inside the tree line and follow the field
along its borders, but she was already bruised and scraped and tired, and she
might not make it to the barn until five, and that was cutting it too close to
dawn. The house was still dark in the distance, and she hoped that if she stayed
low enough, she could make it across the field and no one could possibly see
her.

She left the trees and started through the tall grass, hunched over, keeping in
line with the scarecrow. She stopped once at the sound of wings overhead, an
owl, and realized that in the morning, her path through the field would be
plainly visible. I could hang around and make crop circles, she thought. But she
would be gone by the time Stevie noticed the trail, and anyway, she would
probably blame it on some kids.

The scarecrow stood a head taller than she had expected, and seemed more ancient
and fragile up close. The clothes on the scarecrow were faded and delicate,
fluttering in a breeze from the west, and she touched the post as she gathered
her breath. It was surprisingly solid, smooth and warm under her fingers. She
felt the strength of the wood, and she wondered what it was that made Stevie so
strong to live out here without anyone else.

She left the scarecrow behind and started for the distant line of trees ahead.
She was parallel to the dog pens, and she crouched lower in the grass, hoping
that the dogs were all asleep in their shelters. The treeline in the back was
uneven, covered with kudzu and ivy, creating a curtain of rounded shapes that
flowed with shadows, a forest created by thought.

Then a dog barked: a loud, lonely bark, not of warning but for attention. She
dropped to the ground and peeked through the grass. A black labrador was pacing
the wire fence. It stopped and barked once toward the house, then turned and
disappeared into one of the doghouses.

Her back was a tight knot of pain when she finally reached the treeline in the
back. The trees there were closer together, forming a ragged line from the far
end of the field and beyond the house. The woods were darker, quieter, and the
tunnel back to her car seemed an impossible distance away. She checked her
watch. It had taken her almost twenty minutes to cross the field. A lot of time
left, but she had still wasted more time in the trees than she had planned.

She stayed in the trees and headed toward where she thought the barn lay. She
had to squeeze through trees and make her way over limbs and trunks that had
fallen, and she turned on her flashlight for seconds at a time to make sure of
her footing. There were no sounds in here, of birds or locusts, and she stopped
when the silence seemed to crash around her all at once. She flicked on the
flashlight and played it among the trees and ivy that surrounded her like a
cage.

And she knew that she was lost.

Her flashlight found a gap between two huge trees that was barren of weeds and
brush, and she squeezed through and followed a curving path of grass and leaves
through the woods, looking up occasionally, hoping to spot the rusted roof of
the barn through the branches.

She came out of the woods into a circle of bright moonlight and stared up at the
tall trees silhouetted against the pale night sky. In the center of the clearing
she found a yellow tennis ball that someone had forgotten in the tall grass.

She tossed it up and caught it, then looked around. There was something here.
She played her flashlight across the trees, and on the eighth tree found a
ribbon tied around the trunk. At the base of the tree, tucked between the roots,
a plastic Garfield school box had been covered over with leaves.

She got down on her knees. Inside were a plastic ring and seven pennies, and a
folded sheet of paper. The girls had drawn on it with crayons: a map of the
property, the trees inhabited with an owl and a ghost, and, according to this,
they had buried their treasure inside the old barn.

She sighed at her own stupidity, recognizing the clearing for what it was: the
girls' secret place.

And she wondered if Stevie knew that the girls did indeed play inside the barn.

The dew was cool, soaking through the knees of her pants. The map showed a path,
a secret trail to the barn, and she stood and lifted an overhang of ivy between
two trees and stepped onto a narrow path beaten out by the girls' feet.

The path led to a clearing in front of the barn, thick with tall, pale grass and
concealed from the house by the treeline. A rich smell hovered over the clearing
of earth, a dank ripeness. The moonlight glittered on the jagged shards that
were left alone in the barn's windows. The tin roof was rusted, red, sagging
inward where timbers had rotted and walls had crumbled away. The old wood walls
were speckled with mildew, swallowed by spidery tendrils of ivy that reached up
onto the roof. The doors hung open, letting on to a darkness unfiltered by the
bright moonlight.

She snapped on her flashlight and tucked the map into a back pocket. She stared
long at the darkness beyond the door. She whispered, "Here we go."

She squeezed between the doors, careful not to make the rusted hinges squeal and
possibly set off the dogs. The dry smell of dust, of old hay, was strong,
permeating the wood. Her flashlight picked out a rusted handsaw hanging from a
support pole, a couple of dented milk cans. A mouse rustled in one of the
stalls. Webs swung in the high, dark corners in the rafters above.

In the last stall on the left she found Stevie's riding mower, a shelf of 10W30
oil and a funnel, and several three-gallon containers of gas. On the other side
were a large toolbox, about twenty two-by-fours, a jar of nails and a couple of
hundred-pound bags of dry dog food.

She played the flashlight into the rafters. An old ladder led up to a hay loft,
and she grasped the rail and tested all of her weight on the bottom rung. It
held.

She tested each rung first, and slowly made her way to the loft. The hay doors
were latched shut, and the floor was strewn with a light layer of brittle hay
that had lain undisturbed for years.

She sat on the edge and let her feet dangle in the air.

Nothing. It was just like Stevie had said: supplies and tools.

She climbed back down and went again through the barn. She looked behind the
bags of dog food and aimed her light into all the comers. She rummaged through
the toolbox and looked under the lawn mower, but she found nothing.

Beyond the stall, the rear doors were locked, and ivy had crept in from outside.
An old milk can stood in a far comer, near a line of old hoes and rakes leaning
against the wall. The smell was different in this comer, underlaid with the
scents of grease and smoke.

She aimed her light through the tools and behind the can. Nothing. But the milk
can was different, shinier than the others in the barn. She reached for it with
one hand and shook it. Something wobbled inside.

She twisted off the cap. Inside was a blue tin box, a picture of Mickey and
Minnie Mouse printed on top and scenes from the Magic Kingdom on the sides. A
label underneath said it had been filled with candy.

She smiled -- This must have been Jackie's -- and she popped it open with her
thumb.

Their treasures were simple and beautiful, a glimpse into girlhood Fifty seven
cents. A pewter key chain. Folded notes kept over from school: I think Darin
likes you!!! and Let's meet at my house at 4:00. A stack of scratch-off lottery
tickets, all losers, bound with a green rubber band. Three smooth rocks and a
chunk of quartz that flickered like a diamond in the beam of the flashlight.
Long ribbons, identical to the one tied outside on the tree. Three lockets, one
for each, with plastic jewels inside. A photo of the girls standing in the
kennel with Stevie Pines. And a cassette tape, the uncensored 2 Live Crew.

She envied the wondrous dreams of escape and adventure, of growing up, these
things must have created for them. She hefted the quartz. She, too, had a lucky
rock, that she had thought was magic. She had kept it in an old Roi-Tan cigar
box along with other small, lovely things, and had wished upon it when her Daddy
was out drunk, or angry, and he had his work belt dangling in his huge hand.

She wondered if the girls' rock had brought them all the magic they had needed
to get out. She hoped so, for hers, in the end, had been just a rock after all,
and her escape had come only years later, when she was old enough to move out
and leave the hurt and the arguments behind.

We're all runaways, she thought, and she placed the quartz inside the tin box
and closed it tight.

The clamp of tin echoed softly in the rafters. She heard another sound, outside.
A spongy sound, of grass, of twigs crackling under feet.

She clicked off the flashlight and hugged the box to her chest. She backed
against the wall and felt hard wood dig into her back.

The sound came again, louder. A soft, organic sound that she could feel in her
feet, as though something were worming quietly through the earth, spreading its
fingers up through the grass.

She flattened herself in to the shadows and felt the wood jab into her back. She
reached around and felt a wooden handle, a rusted latch. Yes. She covered the
lens of the flashlight with one hand and let a soft beam angle between her
fingers. It was a door, heavier, stronger than the walls around it. She cut the
light and pressed the latch. A soft click; then the door swung open on silent
hinges, and she slipped inside.

The smell overwhelmed her, the aromas of grease and wood smoke, and old salt,
absorbed into the walls. This had been the farm's smokehouse, where hams and
bacon had been cured, hanging from planks and beams along the walls. The tin
roof had fallen in, probably years ago, and the debris had been cleared away to
leave a space in the center of the room.

She stepped forward, the flashlight unnecessary in the brilliant moonlight
streaming down through the roof. She stared at the ragged circle of light cast
upon the floor, and her stomach suddenly clenched into a tight fist.

Circles had been etched into the packed, earthen floor. Circles meeting,
conjoining; circles within circles, dizzying, forming endless patterns and focal
points that trapped her eyes, spun her around, made her want to dive inside and
be lost.

She felt separate, outside herself, as she was jerked helplessly toward the
spirals. The deep, ripe smells of earth and smoke filled her nose. Her stomach
heaved. She tasted the gin and tonics in the back of her throat and she fell to
her knees. Her head felt thick, buzzing; she thought she could feel the cold,
pure energy of the moonlight streaming down upon the infinite spirals, charging
them with power.

She felt cold, awash with the moonlit energies sparkling around her, as though
invisible fingers were caressing her, raising goosebumps along her skin. She
chanced a quick glance at the patterns and felt momentarily dizzy, but at this
angle near the floor, the circles were distorted, ovals, and she felt only minor
discomfort.

Three circles were drawn within one large circle, each containing, meeting,
smaller circles that whorled within each other like stars spiraling within
galaxies. In three tiny circles, conjoining precisely at the center of the huge
pattern, lay three locks of hair, knotted together. And in the larger circles,
three small bundles of mud and twigs and fabric, no larger than melons, had been
carefully positioned, absorbing the moonlight.

There was something inside each, wrapped in placentas of wet earth. She fought
down the vertigo as she stood to get a better look at the bundle closest to her.
It was slightly open at the top, where the mud-caked fabric had dried and come
apart, and in the moonlight she caught a glimpse of white and brown, and two
eyes of darkness.

She recognized the little face.

A mask.

A life mask, she thought, and she reached inside.

The hand that clenched the back of her neck was strong, a grip like corded
steel. She yelped once and was jerked up onto her feet, then thrown back through
the open door. The metal fingers of the rakes scraped her ankle as she fell. She
tasted dirt on her tongue, then wiped it away with the back of her hand as the
door slammed above her. The flashlight snapped on and picked out the girls' tin
box, upside down in the dirt. She winced as the beam focused on her face.

"You could have ruined everything" Stevie Pines said. She grabbed Diana's arm
and jerked her off the floor. She slammed her against the wall, shining the
light into her eyes. "If you've done anything at all. . ."

Diana slapped the flashlight away from her face. "You wan ted me to buy that
story of yours. They didn't run away to Disney World, and you know it."

Stevie shook her head and sighed. She snapped off the flashlight. "You don't
know a thing," she said. "You shouldn't have come."

Diana stepped away from her, toward the barn doors. "Look, I don't know what
you're doing here, but I know you did something with them." She moved closer to
the opening. "That was their hair in there, wasn't it? In those damn circles.
You've got them somewhere." Her voice rose. "You can't just go around, stealing
peoples' daughters." She paused. "Good God --" She realized what she was leading
up to. "What did you do with your own?"

She was at the open doors now, backing out. She could see the moonlight spilling
over her shoulders.

Quietly, Stevie said, "I never did anything to Rose. I'd never do anything to
hurt her. Or the girls." Then she stood up straight and gazed beyond Diana, into
the night. "And I suggest you stay right where you are."

She felt a breeze, like a warm, sweet breath, against her skin. She glanced
quickly over her shoulder, then looked again, and turned, her eyes widening. She
backed into the barn, staring through the doorway.

"What is th-- "

"I never expected this, Diana. You -- There has to be a reason. Nobody could
ever make it this far."

The moonlight bathed the clearing in a pale, ghostly light. The tall grass
waving in the breeze seemed frantic, whispering, like the legs of a dying
insect.

And in the center of the clearing waited the scarecrow.

Its ragged clothes flapped in the warm night wind. The moonlight spilled over
its features, casting crevasses of shadow in the wood of its hands and legs. It
was not a sewn-up suit filled with hay, but a figure woven, or grown, of vines
and wood, fingers of twigs; hair of ivy and corn silk, imitating a living shape,
a human, crucified --

Or a small child.

The breeze fluttered the scarecrow's white bonnet, the edge of its tattered
dress. Its eyes were wide and empty, and the indentation of its gaping mouth was
a wide shadow. She felt hands grasping her arms, and Stevie spun her around and
stared into her eyes. The grass whispered with the sound of burrowing worms, of
secrets buried in the earth.

"Listen to me. It is very important that you listen to me."

"She's-"

"Diana, you have to listen."

She tried to look back, but Stevie held her arms tighter. "Diana, you have to
go. I promise you, you'll know everything. Okay? I think you pretty much know
already. But you have to go. You don't belong here. And they're looking for
you."

Diana stared at her, finally realizing what she was saying. "Who? Who's looking
for me.?"

"The police. Out by the plant."

"What are you talking about?"

Stevie shook her head. "You'll have to trust me." She looked once out through
the doorway. "Come on."

She almost screamed. "Out there? It's--"

Stevie shoved her from behind. She stumbled out and spun around.

But the scarecrow was gone. Or had never been there. The grass murmured softly
in the breeze. "Just be thankful you didn't use this in there." Stevie handed
her the flashlight and started toward a faint path in the trees, leading
straight to the house. "You don't know what you could have done."

Diana flicked on the light and shined it across the clearing, picking out moths
bobbing above the grass. The scarecrow was gone.

She started for the trees, and her foot thumped against something hidden in the
grass. A gourd lay wrapped in a cradle of leaves, shining purplish in her light.
She aimed the flashlight around. The gourds grew throughout the little field,
protected by clumps of grass and swaddled in leaves veined with red. She parted
the leaves of one with her foot, and her nose filled with the gourd's rich, ripe
odor. It twitched, pulsing as though something were pushing out, toward the
light. Toward her.

She backed off. Stevie yelled, "Let's go!"

She snapped off the light and found Stevie's silhoutte against the far opening
of the path. She plunged through the trees and caught up with her in the field,
halfway to the dog pens. The long field shone in the moonlight. The house loomed
huge and white in the distance. "Wait a minute," she said. She slowed and picked
out the silhouette of the scarecrow, in its place far in the center of the
field. "What is it? What's going on out here?"

Stevie kept walking. Diana picked up her pace. "Why won't you talk to me?"

They walked in silence then, until they reached the pens. Diana froze. All the
dogs sat lined up at the fence, watching her. A large black dog jumped to the
roof of a dog house and stared. Not one barked, not one panted or scratched or
moved. They watched her.

She kept her eyes on them as she ran for Stevie. The dogs all stared toward the
scarecrow in the field. "Wait up!"

Stevie watched her from the front steps as she ran up. She stood and turned to
face her from the porch.

"You' know where they are," Diana said.

Stevie looked down at her. "Go home. Call the cops."

"Why? What's happening here? Tell me why."

"Look. There are things you don't know. But I think you will, soon. I think
that's why. . ." She trailed off and stepped down, stopping close to Diana.

"No. Now, I--" Stevie stepped back into the shadows of the porch and faced the
field. "God, Diana, I'm sorry. I can see it in your eyes. I didn't know. I had
no idea. Now I understand -- why you care about them so much."

Diana felt the heat rise in her cheeks. "This isn't about me."

Stevie opened the door. "This is the way they wanted it. You'll understand soon.
They're where they need to be." The screen door closed, and Stevie latched it.
"Go, Diana. Do it now. Trust me." She closed the door behind her. Diana heard
the deadbolt slide back. The porch light winked off.

She stared into the shadows for a moment, then she screamed at the door, "What?
What do you know?"

Ten minutes later, she stopped at a pay phone at a bait shop and climbed out of
her car. She hesitated, the phone at her ear, her eyes rimmed red. This isn't
about me! She dropped a quarter in the slot and made the call.

A state trooper answered on the first ring. "Harrison's been trying to reach
you, miss," the trooper said. She heard papers rustle near the phone. "He said
for you to meet him across from the packing plant. He said you'd know what it
was all about."

She suddenly went cold inside. The phone was forgotten in her hand.

I'll call you, Harrison had told her, if we find something.

The red and blue lights flickered like heat lightning against the horizon. She
turned onto the packing road. A young trooper had angled his cruiser across the
road, and he stopped her several hundred yards away from the crime scene. She
mentioned Harrison and showed her reporter's I.D., and he waved her on. She
pulled up in a tangle of sheriff's cars and state cruisers, their radios
belching static, their staccato flashers stabbing her eyes.

She asked a deputy for Harrison, and he pointed toward a knot of trees about
fifty yards away in a field. It was over an hour before sunrise, and yesterday's
heat still had not broken. Her clothes were damp and stuck to her skin, and it
was hard to breathe in the humid air.

She stopped in the field to watch a group of cub scouts, standing around in the
glaring red lights. Tents had been arranged in a half-circle behind them. Some
of the scouts were crying, responding to a trooper who was kneeling in the
grass, talking with them.

Harrison saw her from the trees and shouted. She hurried past a lone cruiser,
where a trooper sat in the back, brushing something on top of a briefcase. She
glanced once, then went to Harrison.

The cops had set up portable lights, all angled toward the ground. Harrison
gestured for her. She stepped to his side and looked down once, then clenched
her eyes shut. "Oh, damn," she said. Her words were empty against the too real
backdrop of tinny voices from the road. She wanted to cry, but all she felt was
emptiness inside. She turned away. "Damn. Oh, damn."

The girls had been laid out side by side, wrapped loosely inside a light green
tarp and buried under a blanket of twigs and dirt and leaves. They had been
stripped naked, their flesh pale in the harsh, artificial lights, and their
throats had been slit, long straight gashes of blood and shadow beneath their
chins. The blood was black underneath their bodies. A few flies danced across
their gray flesh.

A photographer kneeled to take close-ups of the bodies. She could see the
flashes behind her eyes.

"I'd say they've been dead at least a day," Harrison said, "probably more like
three." He wiped under his nose with his hand. "Called Dr. Bragg from Hampton.
He should be here soon to look them over. But we won't find out much till the
official autopsy in Norfolk."

She turned and forced herself to look. The sweet smell of decay in the heat
nauseated her, and she covered her nose with her hand. "Rape?" she said.

"Don't know. I'd expect it."

A flash went off.

"Couple of cub scouts found them. Had to come out and pee." He looked toward the
tents. "We got out here about an hour ago."

"Find anything?"

"The weapon had been buried with them. Pretty stupid. We're printing the handle
right now."

She turned to watch the cop in the back of the cruiser, dusting a long knife
with black powder. They can't be dead. They can't.

"A knife?"

Harrison nodded.

"A hunting knife?"

"Yeah."

Her stomach twisted. She thought of the circles scratched in the dirt. "Oh, God.
That's Jackie's tent, isn't it?"

Harrison knelt and looked closely at the fabric under the bodies. "It is a pup
tent."

"And that's the hunting knife Jackie stole from her father."

Harrison watched her. Over his shoulder, he yelled, "Harvey! What have you got?"

Trooper Harvey stepped out of the cruiser and slipped the knife into a plastic
bag. "Oh, we got prints all right. All over it. This is the weapon, for sure."

"The kids stole that knife. You make their prints?"

Harvey shook his head. "All too big and well-formed. I'd say an adult male, like
the others."

Harrison was quiet for a moment. Diana said, "Others? What does he mean? Not
other bodies."

He shook his head and led her toward the cruiser. "No. Prints. We found
something else." He reached through the window and pulled out another plastic
bag. He held it up into the light.

She couldn't breathe. She felt cut off, alone and cold, as though the world had
stopped around her. The bright, flashing lights seemed muted and still. The only
sound she could hear was the slow beating of her own heart, and her head swam
with the ripe scent of earth.

"They didn't steal the knife," she said. Harrison watched her. Her eyes were
blank. The words came out, but she was not sure if she meant them. She just did
not know anymore. "They didn't steal the tent or anything else. They didn't run
away."

Harrison looked at the bag, then looked back at her. "So what is it, Diana?"

"It's him. He did it. He killed them."

"Who, Diana?"

She stared at the bag.

At the empty glass bottle.

At the butt of a dead Winston cigarette, stuck in a syrupy film of Old Grandad.

And at the image of a scarecrow, a sad little guardian, alone in a garden of
blue.

The events came fast, hazy images, like the popping of flashbulbs.

Near dawn, the Lazy Q Trailer park was surrounded by representatives of the
combined police forces of Smithfield, Isle of Wight County and the Commonwealth
of Virginia. Flashing cruisers blocked both entrances to the trailer park, and
officers had taken cover at points surrounding the trailer.

Diana stood safely with Harrison behind an unmarked car, angled nearby so he
could supervise. She had told him everything she knew and suspected about
Duwayne Potter, but she could not bring herself to mention the events of the
night with Stevie Pines. They were too weird, too disjointed. It was their
secret, she felt, and there were too many unanswered questions that were better
left to her.

At 5:53 A.M., Harrison ordered two troopers to make the arrest. Diana held her
arms tightly as the cops pounded on the door and announced themselves, pistols
ready. There was no answer. They shouted again. Lights snapped on inside the
trailer nearest Diana, and a face peeked out, a fat lady with pink cutlers in
her hair. Diana heard the yapping of a small dog. She recognized the woman, and
through the glass, heard her say, "I knew it. I knew it. That S.O.B. did it like
I said!"

A sleepy yell came from the trailer across the drive. "Huh? What is it?"

"This is the police, sir! We have a warrant for your arrest! Open the door and
raise your arms above your head!"

"What?" He was waking up. "No. No! I'll be right there!"

Harrison spoke into the microphone in his hand. "Stand ready." The cops leveled
their guns at the trailer door.

In the hazy stillness, Diana could hear the crickets and the locusts waking to
the dawn. She heard a door unlock, the squeal of hinges. The trailer door swung
open.

It happened faster than she had imagined. Harrison shouted "GO!" and the two
cops yanked open the screen door and tackled the man inside. There was a
startled shout. Then she heard the cops yelling "On the floor! Hands behind your
head!" and then Harrison was running, Diana right behind.

They led him out of the trailer, hands cuffed behind his back, an old man clad
only in faded, blue boxer shorts. He seemed confused, staring around at the cops
and the neighbors, his hair ruffled from sleep. His wife watched from the porch.

Harrison stopped them at the bottom steps and looked straight into the man's
eyes. The man's lower lip quivered. He had a two-day old growth of stubble
across his face. "Duwayne Marlin Potter, you are under arrest for the murders of
Michelle Marie Roberts, Jennifer Lynn Sullivan, and Jacqueline Jeanne Potter."
He pulled a white card from his shirt pocket and held it in front of Potter's
face. "These are your rights," Harrison said, and he read them out loud, never
once taking his eyes away from Potter. "Do you understand your rights, Mr.
Potter?"

Potter looked around, dazed. "Rights?" He blinked and jerked once against the
cops holding his arms. They tightened their grips. "But I didn't do nothing," he
said. His eyes were wide with terror. "Kill? My daughter's dead? I didn't kill
anybody."

Harrison slowly leaned his face down in to Potter's. He said it softly, slowly,
behind gritted teeth. "Do you understand your rights, sir?"

Potter stared at him, then nodded.

"Say it."

"Yes. Yes, I understand. But--"

Harrison said, "Let the record indicate that the suspect has stated he
understands his rights." To the cops, he said quietly, "Now get that dumbfuck
out of here." The troopers pushed him into the back of a cruiser and slammed the
door.

Harrison came up to Diana. "Sometimes I like this job. Hate the paperwork,
though."

Diana stared through the windshield at Potter's pale silhouette. He was a child
abuser, a drunk, a son of a bitch. A scared old man; and now all the meanness
had been beaten out of him.

But was he a murderer?

The fingerprints on the knife and the bottle were certainly Duwayne Potter's. As
she watched the police swarm over the trailer brandishing their search warrant,
she knew they would eventually find enough evidence to put him away for life.

But did he really kill them? She did not believe he was psychologically strong
enough to kill anyone -- just weak enough to take out his anger and frustration
on the people who loved him.

My daughter's dead? he had said, and Diana saw his eyes: wide, oblivious,
uncomprehending.

She knew then that their deaths had been news to him.

Over the sounds of police radios and bystanders shouting questions to the cops,
she heard Arlys Potter crying inside the trailer. Her daughter was dead and now
gone up to Jesus, and Duwayne Potter would pay for his crimes against his
family.

But as guilty as he was of violence and abuse, she knew inside that Duwayne was
not capable of his daughter's murder.

Justice, as she knew, was usually blind.

The sun was up when she made it onto the James River Bridge, heading home. She
felt drained and sticky, even with the air conditioner turned on HI. The radio
was silent; she did not want to hear or think about anything. She just wanted to
be numb.

She crossed into Newport News and passed the newspaper building without thinking
once about going in. She had called her editor from Smithfield and explained the
story. It was too late for today's edition, anyway, and she promised to have her
story in for the next day's paper. Right now, she didn't give a damn.

She parked in front of her townhouse and sat for a moment in the parking lot,
while the temperature rose around her. She felt nothing: no sadness, no pain;
just a hollow feeling deep inside that threatened to explode like a balloon.

The headline would read GIRLS' BODIES FOUND IN SMITHFIELD, or GIRLS FOUND DEAD,
BURIED. Or something trite and tasteless: MURDERED CHILDREN FOUND IN SHALLOW
GRAVE. A paperback would be written eventually, a bright orange cover embossed
with a grainy black and white photo of the father, led away in cuffs. It would
be titled A Country Killing, or One Family's Secret, or For the Sake of the
Children: A Father's Hidden Madness.

She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead hard. This was all coming apart, all
too quick and surreal. She climbed out of the car and closed the door. She did
not care if she locked it or not.

She let herself into the townhouse. She had left the lights off and the curtains
closed when she left the night before, and the house was cool and dark. She
poured herself a glass of cold water from the refrigerator and pushed off her
shoes, stretching her toes.

Upstairs, she peeled off her moist clothes and sat in the dark bathroom for a
long time, leaving only a night light on out in the hall. The aroma of her soaps
and bath oils relaxed her, seeming to cleanse her senses of the night smells, of
earth and blood. She washed her face and neck, scrubbing hard so her skin
tingled, and she decided not to fight it, to go to sleep right now, yes, until
noon, and then go to work.

To goddamn work.

She flicked off the night light and headed blind for the bedroom. She opened the
door, then cried out in the darkness as the smell inside assaulted her. She fell
to the floor and gasped for air.

The smell was strong, the heady richness of earth, the sweet stench

of blood

of overripe fruit. Dirt stuck to her arm and hand, her legs. She could smell the
smoke, the grease, absorbed into the dirt, and she brushed it off as she crawled
to the window on her knees. She plucked at the drapes. A wedge of sunlight lit
up the room, and she stared at the brown dirt that had been sprinkled in circles
on the floor.

Her stomach clenched into a fist. An image flashed in her mind, of dark,
mud-caked hands, of dirt jammed under fingernails. Stevie, she thought. Then her
fluids came up, hot, spattering the carpet, across her leg. She felt the world
weaving around her, her head too heavy, her vision a blur. She tried to stand,
then fell hard onto her rear, her legs too weak to support her.

She started crawling toward the circles. She could dimly see they formed a
smaller design to the ones in the barn; less intricate, yet still powerful
enough to buzz like insects in her mind, drawing her forward with an unconscious
tug.

Her stomach tightened in pain as she reached the edge of the circle. She cramped
up and fell forward onto her face. Dirt smeared her lips, tasted metallic
between her teeth.

And she realized she was kissing the circles.

Circles

Three circles joined in the center. And in the center, wrapped in mud and fabric

a shirt

were the bundles from the barn.

She reached out and felt cold electricity tingle up her arm as she violated the
boundary of the circles. Then she was inside, and she went limp, the pain and
dizziness slowly evaporating. She took deep breaths and rested, felt cool sweat
trickling down her back.

The bundle closest to her was wrapped in a mud-caked T-shirt; she could make out
a drawing of Barbie on the front. The others were wrapped in what looked to be a
blue tank top and a small flannel shirt. The material was stiff and dark with
drying mud, coated inside with earth and bits of grass and twigs.

She crawled over to the closest bundle and looked inside the gap at the top. The
dried, earthen mask inside had been cast from Michelle Roberts's face. A
whorling, circular design had been etched in the forehead.

The life mask crumbled at her touch. Underneath, she glimpsed a swirl of light
brown, and she carefully reached inside and scraped back the protective layers
of drying mud.

The odor somehow seemed natural to her: rich, abundant with life. She smeared
away the mud and inhaled deeply, staring at the pliant, gourd-like shape inside.
It was mottled with swirls of white and brown, slick to the touch. It quivered
as she brushed it with her fingers, and its skin rippled, unfurling a twist of
hair. She touched the fur, softly, amazed at its silken feel, and she ran her
hands down the length of its body. Fur uncurled all over, and as she caressed
it, a small black snout poked out, and its tiny eyes blinked open, wincing at
the early sunlight.

She smiled, feeling warm tears on her cheeks, and she brought the puppy to her
breast as it stretched for the first time, mewling with newborn hunger.

She held the tiny thing up in her hands.

It was a girl.

She wept.

After the others were born, she washed the mud out of their fur and dried them
with a blow drier. The comers of the bathroom were soon filled with tufts of
brown and blonde fur. She let out the puppies and led them to the kitchen, where
she fed them with bread and poured them bowls of water. She would buy some dog
food in the afternoon.

Later, she aired out her bedroom and vacuumed up the dirt spread over the
carpet. The room was filled with the sweet moistness of earth. It welcomed her
softly, as it had nurtured the puppies, and in her mind she saw a tiny, green
scarecrow silhouetted in Stevie's long, beautiful field.

She needed no explanations, then. Rose had been lost a long time ago, and it did
not really matter how; and Stevie had been left to take care of the field, to
watch and to love and protect.

Like the scarecrow.

She sat for a long time in the middle of the living room and played with the
puppies, letting them jump and kiss all over her. She held the brown-haired
puppy to her breast and laughed happily as a warm, wet stain spread down her
shirt. Will you be puppies like this forever? she thought, kissing its tiny
snout. Will you live as long you should? Do you know who you are? Is this the
kind of life you truly wanted? Or deserve?

She held the puppies one by one and kissed them on their heads.

The girls were gone forever. But she had the puppies now, and she would make
sure that their lives would be much richer, much fuller-- and probably longer--
than the grim lives the girls had lived with their parents.

It was a trade off, all right.

Maybe justice wasn't so blind after all.

In the afternoon, she called their names. The puppies ran to her instinctively.
She lifted them onto her bed, and they all slept snuggled together for the first
time, curled beside her stomach.

She slept easily, without waking.

And she dreamed of three little girls, laughing and playing in the sunshine,
forever free.