"Milagro, can you describe how it hurts, where it hurts?"

It felt like a sharp knife slashing my organs. It felt like death approaching. "It feels like I need you," I gasped, my eyes pleading with him to help me. He knew what I meant.

Oswald shook his head and said, "It's a craving, Mil, it isn't real."

I grabbed his hand and rubbed it against my teeth. Then I turned it to see the blue veins of his wrist. "Please, please." I curled up in agony, heedless of the water splashing out of the tub. "Please."

I saw the panic in his eyes. Finally, he reached into the medical bag and took out something sharp and shiny, a scalpel. When he cut his index finger a bright scarlet line of blood appeared. I took his finger into my mouth and sucked hungrily. The stabbing pain subsided and I was suddenly aware of being cold. I shivered and goose pimples rose on my flesh.

Oswald placed his hand on my forehead. "Thank God," he said, "thank God." He lifted me out of the tub and wrapped me in a towel.

I leaned into him and he slid his arms around me. I had never felt safer or more loved. "Oswald, let's always stay this way."

"Why do you do this to me?" he groaned as he held me tight. "I need you to fight this, Milagro." He pressed his soft lips to my forehead. "We can get over this."

Then the dream ended. They always end too soon.

Chapter Sixteen

freak-of-nature girl

Previous It was Winnie who had cared for me. I knew this because I awoke in the wee hours to find her sleeping in the armchair, a blanket tucked around her, her medical bag by her side. I got out of bed quietly, feeling better than I had in weeks, and wrapped a robe over my T-shirt.

Winnie's face was soft and childlike in sleep. Her eyes moved under their delicate bluish lids and I wondered if she was dreaming of inappropriate acts with inappropriate people.

I'd been hoping for the solitude to mull over my intriguing dream, but I wasn't going to get it. In the kitchen, Edna and Sam were slumped at the table, still wearing their clothes from yesterday.

"Young lady, we thought you were..." Edna began, and then paused.

Winnie shuffled into the kitchen looking exhausted, the blanket over her shoulders. "We were very concerned."

Feeling as well as I did now, I found it difficult to believe I'd really been so ill. "Thanks for your concern, but I'm really okay." I opened the fridge and spotted a glass bowl of vegetables and rice. As I took it out, the bowl slipped, crashing to the floor and shattering.

Sam said, "Milagro, be careful!" just as I took a step away. At first I didn't feel the shard slice my foot and it took a moment for me to say "Oh, hell."

The vampires began talking and moving at once to help. Standing on my one good foot, I reached down and pulled the shard from my other foot. A crimson crescent welled with blood. We all stared in amazement as the wound quickly closed and the skin seemed to knit over the cut. "Damn," I said. "Damn, what the hell was that?"

Sam moved me to a chair and he and Edna quickly began cleaning the mess. Winnie smiled at me. "Milagro, how many times have you been sick in your life?"

"I don't really get sick. I get headaches sometimes."

"I ran the tests three times and kept getting the same results. Normal white blood cell count might go up to eleven. Someone fighting off pneumonia might go up to twenty."

"What was mine?" I asked.

"Your white cell blood count was one hundred and ten. I've never seen anything like it."

Edna sighed. "I knew this girl was an odd one. I'm going to bed. I suggest everyone else try to get a little rest now that we know Milagro is over the worst." As she passed me, she briefly put her hand on my shoulder.

"What about the way my foot healed?" I asked.

"I'm so glad for you," Winnie said. "We heal like that, too. So far we haven't been able to isolate one gene that accelerates the healing process. We think it might be multiple factors that act in concordance."

"But I don't share the same gene pool as you," I said.

Winnie rubbed her brow and said, "I'm sorry, I can't explain it. We only know what we know."

Sam looked at Winnies weary face and said, "I think we should take Grandmama's advice and get a little rest," and then he led Winnie out of the kitchen.I didn't know whether to feel happy or sad that I was a freak, overjoyed or dismayed that I could heal myself without a physician, delighted or mournful that my interlude with Oswald had only been a dream. I desperately needed something to occupy my mind and this was the right time to begin writing again.

My novel was about a bright, sexy young Latina who unwittingly takes a job with a lobbyist for a corporation that is stealing land from impoverished Central Americans. There was a hunky activist and also troops of zombies representing the powerless peons.

I opened the typewriter case and after some experimentation I figured out how to roll a piece of paper evenly in the machine. I had to hit the keys hard to peck out my first page, with the title Who Do That Voodoo. Rewriting on a typewriter was difficult.

There's only so much x-ing out a girl can do on a page before it looks like something redacted by the FBI. I decided to act like a shark and move forward only.

The window in front of my desk had a view of a walnut tree and the vineyard beyond. As I worked I saw the limitless sky going from black to cobalt to azure. Wasn't there a story that began, "They did not know the color of the sky"? I knew the color of the sky. It was the clear blue of Sebastian's mad, mad eyes.

At dawn I took a break and ventured into the cozy parlor. I was drawn to a shelf with glass doors to protect the books. Inside were five slender books, collections of short stories by Dena Franklin, the previous owner of my typewriter.

I took one volume and opened the frontispiece. It was a first edition. The table of contents listed the following titles: "A Girl and Her Banker," "Waiting for the Boat to Paris," "Crying over Spilt Gin," "Dinner Party for a Fool," "My City Costume," and "Kindly Indulge My Whim."

After arranging myself attractively on the purple velvet loveseat, I read the first two stories. The writer's delicious, barbed style seemed familiar. The stories were set in big cities and the women wore chic hats and had affairs, while the men gambled, drank excessively, and unexpectedly fell in love with their wives to the dismay of their mistresses.

I flipped to the back of the dust jacket, but there was no information about Franklin. She must have had the sort of life I'd sadly attempted to lead when I was in the City. Only with my life, you would have to replace the debonair ambassador with a scruffy acting student, the designer gowns with garage-sale sun-dresses, and the penthouse digs with a rat-infested basement.

My stomach growled and I realized that I was starving. In the kitchen, I made a pot o' Java and mixed up a pan o' corn bread.

I had just finished setting the table when Edna came downstairs as fresh and revived as if she had slept the whole night in a velvet-lined coffin.

"Well, I stand astonished," she said.

"Why not sit astonished?"

Sam and Winnie soon joined us and we ate together like one happy family of the walking undead.

"Sam, do you know where Sebastian's been lately?" I asked.

"He's still in the City and probably expecting that you'll return sooner or later. Would he look for you at your parents?"

I shrugged. "That's the last place I'd go if I needed help and he knows it." Sebastian knew that the milk of human kindness ne'er flowed from my mother's breasts because she believed it would make them sag.

"Your friends?"

Of my F.U. friends, I only stayed in regular contact with Nancy and she was sworn to secrecy. I realized that I would have to find a way to get to her bridesmaids' tea or fear her wrath forevermore.Sam rubbed his watchband in a nervous manner.

I said, "Sam, what aren't you telling me now?"

He grimaced. "Gabriel called this morning. CACA broke into your apartment last night. They carted away boxes."

"Wait a minute!" I said, feeling violated and angry. "Breaking and entering is absolutely something the police could have stopped! Gabriel could have called anonymously."

"Mil, all Sebastian has to do is say that he's an old friend and you've asked him to collect some things for you," Sam said all too reasonably. He paused as if debating something.

"What else?" I asked warily.

"One of them spray-painted some graffiti above your bed," he said. "'Burn in flames, dark-skinned succubus.'"

I let loose a stream of profanities and added, "Wouldn't that be a clue to the cops that these were not my friends?"

"This is negligible compared to many of the things CACA has done across national and international lines, such as union busting, racketeering, bribery... Perhaps they thought you had Oswald's address or family information."

My warm corn-bread happiness vanished. "So Sebastian and his neofascist militia are free to ransack my apartment?"

Edna gave me a look out of the corner of her eye. "Really, young lady, you make everything so dramatic."

"Really, Edna, how would you put it?"

"Why should I need to put it in any particular way? I am not the one claiming to be a writer."

For some reason, Sam and Winnie thought this was hilarious. I was furious at Sebastian and annoyed that the vampires didn't seem to think the burglary was awful, so I went to walk it off.

As the dogs ambled around me, I tried to think seriously about my situation. My skin crawled at the idea of Sebastian going through all of my things, fingering my underwear, reading my letters, scoffing at my humble possessions. No doubt he would think me a complete fool for keeping mementos from our time together.

The sun was shining over the glorious mountains that bordered the valley. I saw a white crane standing at the edge of the creek where it pooled into a small pond. The dogs rushed forward, barking wildly, and the bird flew gracefully away.

I was startled by someone shouting, "Bad dogs, bad dogs!" Then I saw Oswald was sitting on a boulder. He stood and said, "The dogs know they're not supposed to bother the egrets."

"I thought it was a crane," I said nervously.

"Cranes are taller," he explained. "This was an egret. They like to fish here."

"Oh, I didn't know they came this far inland."

"Yes, they do." He paused and finally said quietly, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Evidently I now possess the ability to heal instantly." It sounded more amazing when I said it aloud.

"I just saw Winnie on her way out to work. She told me.""Don't you think that's bizarre?"

"You're a surprising girl."

His clear gaze unnerved me, and I said, "Well, I better go back."

I thought he would stay where he was, but he fell into step with me. I kept my eyes straight ahead. He occasionally bent over to pet the dogs or throw a stick for them.

When he spoke, his voice was too loud. "You look healthier."

I kept telling myself to act normal. "I feel better."

"High fevers sometimes make people delusional."

"I wasn't at all delusional," I said apprehensively, afraid that I had said something about Oswald in my sleep that Winnie had overheard.

"You weren't?"

"Not to my recollection. And I will be forever grateful to Winnie for taking care of me and staying by my side all night and making sure I came out of it."

His smile rose up on one side. "Winnie took care of you?"

"Yes, the whole time. She is a very dedicated person," I said pointedly, reminding him of the quality he so admired.

We were silent for uncomfortable minutes before he asked, "Do you like birds?"

What kind of question was this? "I appreciate their role in the ecosystem," said I. "Cranes and egrets are quite lovely. I like little sparrows and robins, of course. I am conflicted about carrion eaters. Hummingbirds are always a delight."

"And what about chickens?"

"Very tasty when roasted."

"Not as a meal. How do you feel about chickens as animals?"

"I have not yet formed an opinion of the chicken."

"I'm so glad to hear that you are not closed-minded about them," he said, and glanced at me, his gray eyes gleaming with good humor.

"I am willing to hear any reasonable argument in defense of or against those of the chickenish species," I rambled on.

Oswald laughed and I felt such relief that we were on safer ground that I laughed, too. He said, "Most people these days seem to confuse 'fowl' with 'foul.'"

"Alas, one of the perils of the homonym."

Oswald picked up an old tennis ball in the grass and with a fluid movement hurled it into the distance.

Searching for another safe topic, I ventured, "So how are your veterinary studies going, Oswald?"He was delighted by the turn of conversation and grinned widely. "I'm thinking about applying to school next year."

"Well, good luck. Do you have all your prerequisites?"

"I suppose," he said nonchalantly. "Perhaps you could write a letter of recommendation for me. I would really appreciate it."