I took to watching how she cooked, and before the year was up, I could make a pot of pease soup, scrape and fry up a salmon, or throw together a pot of moose stew as quick as Nan; anything to get Aunt Drucie out of the house early. Not that I minded her so much, but I could best hear Nan when I had the place to myself, and when I could best find comfort. Sitting in her rocking chair, with the fire crackling in the stove and the wind hurtling the snow against the window, I could forget that she had passed on and feel her humming all around me, and see and hear everything she ever did and said, like looking at a picture, only I saw it in sounds: the creaking of the floor beneath the weight of her step, her ongoing arguing, the twittering in her throat as she sucked on the hard green candies and the rumbling in her belly while she filled up with gas. And it's like there's a smell that comes with the picturea"a mixed-up smell of powder and skin and oily hair. And sometimes, when I just happened to be sitting there doing my homework or listening to the fire crackling, some-thinga"like the whistling of the kettle or a whiff of dried salt from the starfish nailed to the inside of my room doora" would trigger the picture and bring a feeling over me, like something soft, and nice, and biga"so big that it felt like I was going to see something, like when you have a dream sometimes and you wake up and you can't remember it, but the feeling is so strong that it's almost as if the feeling is the dream itself. And then, when I get that feeling, I get another one that hurts all overa"like a big ache. And no matter how well everything was going with Aunt Drucie and school, that's what I felt like every single solitary minute since the day Nan passed ona"like a big ache that hurt all over.

One night I woke up to the sounds of the rocker creaking. It was one of them nights where it felt as if Nan had lain with me and I felt warm no matter how cold the canvased floor. Hopping out of bed I crept down the hall and looked into the kitchen, half expecting to see her sitting there. It was Josie. A thin shaft of moonlight shone through the window, outlining her bulky form in the rocker next to the cold stove. She was still mad at me for Nan's passing, and I thought to go back to bed. But she looked cold, and Nan wouldn't have wanted her feeling cold. I took a step towards her and yelped as she suddenly reached out and grabbed me and pulled me into her arms. Still yelping, I scrabbled to get away, but she pinned me to her chest and started rocking. Hearing her sob, I went still. I noticed that the smell of fermenting dogberries wasn't so strong. And I noticed that she had laid her chin on the crown of my head, like Nan used to do when I was little. Despite feeling a pain in my side from where her fingers were digging into me, and despite my being too big to fit even a small bit comfortably on her lap, that aching feeling came in my throat and I stayed still for a long time with her rocking me like thata"rocking and weeping, rocking and weeping. It was almost dawn when her arms slackened and I nearly slipped to the floor. Creeping back to bed, I listened as she soon got up from the rocker and went down the hall to her room.

The next morning she stomped past me in the hall and started cranking splits into the stove and lighting the fire like she always did before Nan's passing. And I made her tea and toast like I always did since Nan's passing. Yet despite her getting over her anger towards me, she hardly did any of the things she used to do while Nan was alive, like bounding up and down the gully, racing noisily across the house with muddied feet, barking out that crazy laugh at just about anything or shoving her face up to mine and sticking out her tongue. Mostly, she just sat in the rocking chair, or trudged off down the gully somewhere for hours on end. I couldn't think what she did with her time. Doctor Hodgins said she was seeking solitude to grieve Nan's leaving and it was best to leave her be. So, I left her be. One small blessing that came with her not doing any of the things that she used to do was that she never went off with the men when they came blowing their horns up on the road any more. And the smell of rotting dogberries slowly disappeared from her body.

One evening in late September, just a year since Nan's passing, I was coming down over the bank from the road, just home from the store, when I caught sight of Josie treading across the meadow towards the secret path leading to Nan's partridgeberry patch. I always remember the way she looked walking off across the meadow that day with the grass up to her waist, and the sun, a bloody red, going down behind the hill, touching on her hair and making it look like a flame that burned smaller and smaller the further she went. I told her that when she came home for supper. We were eating baked beans and Aunt Drucie was dozing in the rocking chair.

"Who looks like a flame? You looks like a flame!" She slapped her hand on the table and stared at me. I stared back. She had freckles that had faded and were now blended into her skin so's you couldn't see the spots any more, you just saw that she used to have freckles. Her teeth were jumbled in front and her eyes were a greenish brown with queer yellow flecks spotting them. Sometimes she had a way of staring at you till it felt like the flecks were small beams of yellow light shining straight through your head, lighting up your very thought. Then, most times she'd just walk away, leaving you wondering if she knew what you had been thinking, or if it just felt that way.

"What do you look like?" she demanded, slapping the table harder.

"Like Nan," I said, eyeing her carefully as I placed a forkful of beans into my mouth. She went silent at the mentioning of Nan's name, and sullenly picked at her bread. I thought to ask her then, who my father was. But I remembered Nan once saying to Aunt Drucie that that would be like asking which bean in the can made her fart.

My father! From the first day I entered the schoolyard I was told by Margaret Eveleigh, and everybody else around me, that I didn't have a father. Then, when Josh Jenkins figured out everybody got to have a father, him and Margaret pinned me in the corner, sizing up my features and trying to figure out whose father I looked like.

"You don't look like nobody," Margaret had said accusingly, and I ran off home to Nan, crying that I had a father and that I didn't look like nobody.

"Aye, it's not just the youngsters sizin' up your features," Nan had said. "For sure they're all frightened to death that you're goin' to start lookin' like one of theirs someday."

I suddenly lost my appetite for the plate of beans before me and left Josie sitting at the table forking around hers. Shoving another junk of birch in the stove, I smiled at Aunt Drucie as she sputtered awake and, pulling on my coat and boots, wandered outside looking for Pirate. I liked to think I entered the gully the same way as hea"just appeared one day, with an offering in his mouth. Only, I wouldn't wish it was a half-dead robin. Aside from his not wanting anyone to touch him, it was the one thing I didn't like about Piratea"his killing instinct.

After I had pried the robin free from his jaws, I had put it in a box and kept it in my room, feeding it a little water and a couple of small worms, cut up like sausages. It never ate the worms, but it beaked back the water. When it got stronger, I'd chase Pirate out of the house and put the bird on my finger, lifting it gently up and down, up and down, till the air stirred its wings and soon, they were flapping a little more each time. After a week, it was flying off my finger to the table or the top of the chair. One day Pirate was waiting just outside the window, and when the robin flew off my finger to the windowsill, he lunged and caught it in his mouth. This time the little bird wasn't so lucky. I ran outside screaming, but Pirate was gone. The only thing left was a few feathers resting on the windowsill. I put the feathers in the special box where I kept my pieces of broken coloured glass.

Not finding Pirate spooking through the timothy wheat edging the meadow, and not particularly interested in walking far in the dull, grey evening, I wandered back inside the house. Josie had gone off somewhere, and Aunt Drucie was gone home for the day, leaving me to wash the supper dishes. She was sleeping more and more this winter, and cooking and cleaning less. Because we lived outside of Haire's Hollow, no one actually knew how much time Aunt Drucie was spending at our house or hersa"which worked out fine with me. I'd taken over most of the chores by now and was only too happy to be sending her home more and more. Doctor Hodgins's wife had worsened considerably this winter and his visits were kept down to one, sometimes two, a week. And when he did come, he couldn't stay for long. And what with my mother taking off down the gully all the time, I was mostly alone. And that's when I liked it besta"when I was alone, feeling Nan's humming all around me as I sat quietly by the crackling stove doing my homework and reading.

The one problem that kept upsetting things was when Josie forgot to split the firewood. She didn't usually. Cleaving wood was her one chore since she was a gaffer, and one she was always intent on doing. And during that first year after Nan's passing, she most always kept the woodbox filled and splits ready for the morning's fire. But, it appeared as if she became more and more despondent over time, and chopping wood became another one of those things that she didn't care about, any more. And try as I might, I just couldn't get that damn axe to slice through a junk of wood, getting it caught instead on a knot, or jammed at such an angle that no amount of prying could get it freed. On those evenings during the second winter without Nan, after Aunt Drucie had gone home and there wasn't enough wood to keep the fire going, and the wind was whistling in through every crack in the house, it was Pirate that kept me warm. Stretched across the foot of my bed, his was a quiet presence that brought comfort to a cold night. Crawling beneath my bedclothes and shoving my feet down beneath the spot where he was lying, it felt like Nan had already been here, leaving behind a tea plate, heated and wrapped in a towel for me to put my feet ona"like she always done in the winter time. On nights like this I stared at the orange speckled starfish shining dully through the dark, and wished that Pirate was a cat that could be touched.

It was after such a night that Doctor Hodgins came to visit. Buffing his hands from the cold, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, his breath spurting out in puffs of white.

"Good Lord, why's the fire out?" he asked, glancing at the empty woodbox behind the stove.

"I was up studyin' half the night and burned all the wood," I say.

"How you going to get to school on time with no fire lit and kettle not boiled?"

"It's Saturday."

"Heh, so it is." He scratched his head, looking a little confused. "Perhaps I should have come over and split you a cord."

"You knows she likes to do it," I said, nodding towards Josie's room door. He stood quietly for a minute, rocking back and forth on his heels, and I noticed that his hair was tangled, and his shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and wrinkled. "Is something wrong?" I asked.

He started buffing again, pacing the room.

"Nothing you can help with, I'm afraid. It's Elsie." His eyes darkened and his voice lowered as he turned to me. "She's took a turn for the worse. I'm taking her home to St. John's. There's a good hospital there. Plus her sister." He shrugged. "We'll just have to hope for the best."

"Will you come back?" I asked, suddenly terrified.

"Of course I'll be back," he said, trying hard to sound convincing. "Just as soon as she's well, again."

"Will that take long?"

"Maybe." His voice deepened further. "Maybe not." A look of unbearable sadness passed over his face and he moved quickly around the room, buffing his hands all the harder. "You make sure Josie keeps the woodbox filled, and that Drucie don't go to sleep while she's stirring the gravy." He jammed his hands in his pocket and looked at me with a forced grin. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

I forced a smile.

"We'll be fine," I said, not feeling fine at all. "You just take care of Elsie."

He smiled at me then, a sad little smile that did little to lighten the look of gloom around him. Trying hard to think of something to say, something that might make him feel better, as he had with me so many times, I ushered him out the door, making small of his worries about the unlit stove.

"You go on now, and don't go worryin' about us. It's nothing for Josie to split a load of wood. And Aunt Drucie will be here any minute, rousin' her out of bed."

"Mind you don't catch cold," he said, nudging me back inside from the winter's wind. Giving me a pinched look, he pulled the door shut behind him, sending an icy draught around my bare feet and legs. I shivered, huddling my arms around myself for warmth as I watched him through the iced window, trudging up over the snow-beaten path. More so than anyone, his was a presence that was deeply felt in the gully, in this house and in mea"like the fire that had always burned steadily in the stove when Nan was alive. It was only after she had passed on did I feel the canvas cold beneath my feet. Even when I was the first one up in the mornings and the coals in the stove had gone out during the night, I had never felt the canvas cold beneath my feet. And now, watching Doctor Hodgins walk away from the gully to some distant city that I had only read about in books, I felt another coldness, one that touched me deep inside, drawing a small shiver of fear down my spine and leaving me feeling as cold as Nan's brow as she had lain in her coffin.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

GULLY TRAMP'S GIRL DOCTOR HODGINS WAS GONE BUT a week when Aunt Drucie came down with the flu. Stamping the snow off my boots as I came in through the door from school, I started in fright to see her sleeping in the rocking chair, her head lolled to one side, and her half-opened mouth drooling onto her shoulder as the pan full of bologna smoked black on the stove. Dashing across the kitchen, I snatched the pan by the handle and dragged it back on the damper. "Goodness a mercy ah a ahh a " She come to her feet and let go with a fit of coughing and sneezing that sprayed the pan of bologna and sizzled across the top of the stove. "You go on home," I pressed her. "I can take care of things till you gets better." Nodding appreciatively, her throat too sore to do much talking, she let me help her with her coat and bandanna and trudged weakly out the door. I watched her walking up over the bank to the road, her shoulders hunched beneath her long, winter's coat, and a scarf wrapped around her face, wondering if I shouldn't be walking home with her, and helping to put her to bed. But a chill was creeping around my own bones, and I went back to the stove, stogging it full with birch. The next morning I woke with my throat sore and swollen, and my nostrils as clogged as a weed-choked brook. Dragging myself through the freezing cold house, Josie not having chopped enough wood to bank the stove again, and not finding much of anything to eat that didn't need a fire, I put off going to school and took myself back to bed. Around lunchtime I roused Josie who was still comfortably rolled up in her blankets, and whined at her for not chopping enough wood, then ordered her to get ready and walk with me to Haire's Hollow to bring back some groceries.

The second we entered the store, May Eveleigh left off her conversation with Mrs. Haynes, the teacher's wife, and turned frowning eyes upon us.

I offered a bit of a smile towards Mrs. Haynes as she absently fastened and unfastened the top button of her fashionable coat, remembering how she'd told me, once, when I was coming out of church with Nan, how pretty I was. But there were no nice words to spare me this morning as May leaned over the counter towards us, nostrils flaring like a bird dog sniffing out its prey.

"How come you're not in school, today?" she asked.

"I'm sick," I said.

"Then how come Drucie let you out on a cold day as this?"

"I-I'm better."

"Who's better?" Josie demanded, peeling her eyes off the jar of hard green candies sitting on the counter to scowl at me. "You's better? You's not better."

"Then if you're better, how come you're not in school?" May asked, ignoring Josie.

I stared helplessly at what appeared to be a fading bruise on Mrs. Haynes's cheek. She gave me the sympathetic smile of one too busy being preyed upon herself to offer much to anyone else, and went back to fidgeting with her coat button.

"Becausea"I might get sick again," I said, turning back to May.

"She's sick agin!" Josie barked. "Sick!"

Whatever other questions May might've wanted to ask, she forgot them as the queer yellow lights from Josie's eyes suddenly blazed into hers. Then quick as anything, she rammed her hand inside the candy jar and, pulling out a fistful of the hard green candies, shoved two into her mouth and stood back with her lips reamed shut, as if expecting May to reach out and pry the candies from her gob as Nan would've done if she had been standing there.

Not sure if I should be acting sick on account of my not being in school, or acting better on account of not wanting to make Aunt Drucie look like she wasn't taking good care of me, I quickly took advantage of the sudden shift in focus and asked for a can of milk and a pack of biscuits. Snatching up the brown paper bag, after May tucked the groceries inside, I nudged Josie with my foot and scurried out the door.

The next morning, with every muscle bruised and my stomach a little queasy, I forced myself out of bed and stoked the fire. Hearing a steady hacking cough coming from Josie's room, I groaned and made her a cup of tea and some toast. Groaning harder still, I slung my school bag over my shoulder, and dragged myself out the door.

It was a grey, windy day, the air damp with unshed rain. Wet snow slushed around my rubber boots, and the ice beneath made it slippery for walking. Not seeing any smoke coming out of Aunt Drucie's chimney as I walked by, I ran down the path to her door and checked inside. She was in bed, bundled beneath a mountain of blankets, hacking and sneezing, and the house colder than the outdoors.

"You stay where you are, now," I called out as comfortingly as I could, ripping up some birch rind and shoving some splits in the stove. "It's a bad flu, you just needs to rest. Me and Josie'll be fine for a few days, you just stay in bed. There!" I said, putting a lit match to the birch rind, and then stogging the stove with split, dried wood. "A nice fire to keep you warm and boil the kettle."

"You're a good girl, Kit," Aunt Drucie croaked.

"Shhoosh now," I said, buttering up some crackers and mixing her a glass of cold raspberry syrup. "Here!" I laid the platter with the crackers and syrup on her bed and backed out the door. "I gotta go now, I'll be late for school. Make some tea when the kettle's boiled, and don't forget to put a bit of peppermint in it."

"Lizzy'd be proud of you, Kit."

"I expect so. Bye now," I said and hauled the door shut. I ran, slipping and sliding, down over Fox Point to Haire's Hollow. It was eerily quiet walking along the road through the outport, and I knew with a sinking heart that school had already started. The water lopped a dirty grey along the shore and I raised a listless hand to Old Joe as he called out a greeting from the wharf, while puttering about his endless tasks.

There were three rooms in the schoola"grades primer to six in one, seven to nine in another, and ten and eleven in the other. I was in grade nine, the same room as whose windows looked out at me as I hurried across the schoolyard. Edging open the classroom door, I kept my eyes down and walked as quietly and quickly as I could to my desk. Mr. Haynes had stopped talking as I stepped inside, and he now watched as I took out my geography book and flipped it open to somewhere in the middle. He started teaching again, and while I never took my eyes off the book for the rest of the morning, I knew he was flicking looks my way every chance he gota"waiting, just waiting. And whatever it was he was waiting for, I knew with a foreboding certainty, he was going to make it happen.

Unpredictably, it was Josie that happened. It was just minutes before lunchtime when all of a sudden everyone was whispering and shuffling in their seats, and then busting into muffled giggles and outright laughing and groaning. Shifting my eyes sideways to see what was causing the commotion, I caught sight of her as she walked past the school windows, shoulders hunched forward into the wind and retching as she walked, the vomit blowing back into her face and sticking to the strands of her windblown hair as it flapped around her face.

Margaret Eveleigh grabbed me by the arm and pointed to the window, while most everyone else, their hands clapped to their mouths to keep back their groans, whipped around to see if I was seeing my mother walking down the road and puking into her hair. Ordering everybody to be quiet, Mr. Haynes snatched the strap off his shoulder and cracked it across his desk. It was as if my mother heard the smack, because at that second she looked up, and seeing everyone looking out the window and laughing at her, she stopped retching and smiled back, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. Then, upon seeing Mr. Haynes looking out as well, she waved. Everyone busted their gut and Mr. Haynes walked savagely down the aisles, welting his belt across whichever desk was nearest to him. Blissfully, the bell rang for lunchtime. There was a stampede as everyone tried to be first one out the door, bursting to let go with their jeering and hooting. For me, it was a choice of hanging back with Mr. Haynes and his strap, or heading for the door with everyone else. I headed for the door.

Surprisingly, it was big, blond-haired Josh Jenkins that come out of it the worst. Gaming for Margaret's attentions, he stuck his finger down his throat and let go with a stomach-curdling urge that succeeded nicely in getting the attention of Margaret's best friends. But not Margaret! She was too intent on swooping down on me, a look of utter disgust marking her pretty pink cheeks, to notice Josh Jenkins. Only, I was spared on this day. Gaining more and more courage from the giggles of Margaret's best friends and getting carried away with the spirit of the moment, Josh ran up behind her and, grabbing hold of her ringlets, buried another gutretching gag into the flaming red coils. All around, everyone hooted with laughter, and the younger ones, who had yet to suffer from Margaret's personal persecutions, started circling around her, bravely chanting "Josie, Josie."

Clawing back her ringlets from Josh's fanned fingers, Margaret spun around as if she had been whipped. Raising her fist to his quickly sobering face, she screeched loud enough for all of Haire's Hollow to hear, "You ever touch me again, pus-faced Jenkins, and I'll have you jaileda"you and your slouch of a father for all the credit he got in our store and can't pay for." Her face burning brighter than the look of fervour dying in Josh's eyes, she caught sight of me trying to sneak off around the school, and swooped before me, a fury of red.

"Your mother's a dirty, rotten tramp!" she screamed, both fists flailing. "She's not fit to walk the roads. Do you hear me, Gully Tramp's Girl?"

Escaping to the back of the school, I huddled down on a small, flat-topped rock and rested my back against the wall. It was where I sat most days during lunchtime and recess. No one else came back here, and it was warm, out of the wind and with the sun burning red on my eyelids. Only I felt cold this day, as cold as the morning Doctor Hodgins walked up the gully, on his way to St. John's. I was surprised that I felt cold. Not even when I was racing down the gully, with my feet slipping over the ice-covered rocks and the wind licking over my face with the breath of a thousand icebergs, did I ever feel the cold, outdoors. But it must've been a real cold day. Shivering, I pulled open my lunch bag and took out the slice of partridgeberry bread. That was when I first noticed Sid.

He was in grade ten, a different classroom from mine, and didn't hang around the schoolyard. He was the reverend's son and was born and raised in Haire's Hollow. But his mother saw to it that he never spent much time running around with the outport boys, keeping him home to help her on account of her being crippled all the time with arthritis, and sending him away to St. John's in the summers with her cousin's boys. He was nicknamed Mommy Suck. And when he did come out and about in the outport, he looked a sight with his puffed-up shoulders and poker-back walk. And the way he talked was more grand than the outporters, what with his mother, who was born and raised in St. John's, making him pronounce his "th" sounds and saying "catch" not "ketch," and "goodbye" not "see ya"a"all which made for more name-calling at school, with "Dead Sid" being the most popular some days, and "Sid the Kid" on others. And what with the black pressed jacket and white shirts he always wore, and the small, hardcover books that looked like prayer books that he always carried around in his pockets, he looked more like a preacher going off to church than a young fellow going off to school.

On this day, when he came around the corner of the school to where I was sitting, he was pale as anything, with fleshy red lips, squinty eyes that looked like blue dots behind his black-framed glasses, and his skin whiter than flour. His hair was yellow, the colour of mine, and he was looking at me the way he looked at everybodya"his mouth partly opened and his lips working as if he was wanting to protest about something, but hadn't yet figured out what that something was.

I didn't want Mister Sidney Kidney staring at me, so I closed my eyes and pretended he wasn't there. When I looked up, he was gone. Along with everyone else in the schoolyard.

I began to breathe more easily in the silence. When I first started coming to school, it used to hurt my ears with everyone seemingly talking at once. Sid was to say later that it was because I had spent so much time alone in the gully, that I had gotten too used to the quiet. Funny, but I'd never thought of the gully as being quiet, what with the wind scratching the trees, and the water pounding upon the rocks, and Josie barking, and Pirate meowling, and Nan bawling out. And in the evenings when the seagulls all fought for roosting space in the tucamores around the shore, they made more noise than a thousand schools at recess time. Yet it all seemed to go together, somehowa"the wind and the sea and the birds and Nan. Sitting there on the rock behind the school, I heard nothing but the occasional raised voice of some youngster tardying on his way home, and the joints in the schoolhouse squeaking from the frost. An empty, churning feeling weakened my stomach, in much the same way as it did on that first day of school when Nan left me alone at the schoolyard gate. Shucking my slice of bread to the crows, I got up and walked home.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE REVEREND'S PLEDGE JOSIE WAS IN BED WHEN I GOT HOME. Burning the last of the split wood to boil the kettle, I made us a pot of tea. The smell of vomit greeted me as I entered her room. I stood for a moment, staring down at her stiffened red strands splayed out on her pillow, and the glazed look in her eyes as she stared back at me. "Doctor Hodgins," she said hoarsely. "He's still in St. John's," I said. She winced, swallowing against the rawness of her sore throat, then turned her cheek onto her dirtied hair. I thought of Nan, pointing the dripping rag towards me and hollering how it was a God-given right to be clean, but how He left it for us to do some of the work, and how she might be a tramp, but she was better than them that made her so. But the chanting of Margaret and the others in the schoolyard sounded over the rest of what Nan had said, and laying her cup on the small, wooden table besides her bed, I backed out of the room. She watched me, a glimmer of yellow igniting in her eyes. Turning my back, I left her room and wandered into my own. Climbing into bed I stared dismally at Old Joe's orange speckled starfish nailed to my door, and spent the rest of the day with my head buried beneath my pillow.

The next morning I knew I should've went to school. But, I never. Instead, I tackled the axe and the birchwood Old Joe had dropped off the day before. And with waddles of birch rind and bark, and a few splits of wood, I got a fire going long enough to fry up some potatoes and eggs. Josie was still sleeping, so I laid her plate next to the cold cup of tea she hadn't touched from the day before, and went back to my room. Pulling on one of Nan's old, flannelette nightdresses that hung around me like a tent and had a ragged edge around its tail from where Nan had ripped off a piece to make a good cleaning rag, I crawled back into beda"my throat sore, my bones aching and my feet knobs of ice from standing on the freezing canvased floor. Hoping Aunt Drucie wouldn't show up, I shoved my feet down to the warm spot beneath where Pirate was snoozing, and after eating the eggs and potatoes, pulled out the box of coloured glass from beneath the bed. Sorting the little robin's feathers to one corner, I picked out the bigger pieces of glass and idly lined them up against the window to catch the light.

It was a bright, sunny day, and cold clear up to the sun. And the sea was blue-black against the white of the snow. Closing one eye, I peered down over the gully through the largest piece of yellow. It tinted golden the wings of the seagulls gliding over the sea, but for the first time that I could remember, I took no heart from my childish game, and flicked the pieces of glass back into the box.

Around lunchtime, I heard Josie get out of bed, her step slow, heavy, its quickness buried along with Nan. Worried that she might go into Haire's Hollow again, I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen window. She was ploughing her way through the snow down into the gully. I watched her for a minute, her body heaving from side to side like a wearied old woman whose thoughts were so burdened that likely the snow was hardening and turning to ice beneath her feet. Pulling my coat on over Nan's nightdress and shoving my feet into a pair of rubber boots, I followed her.

It had snowed heavily during the night, and the drifts were up to my waist. Flapping my arms to keep warm, I followed in her footsteps down the centre of the gully, the brook long since frozen and buried. It was easier walking along the beach, the sea having kept it clear of snow. Yet the wind was strongest, cutting tears out of my eyes as I walked along, heading for Crooked Feeder. I climbed on top of a snowbank just before I got to the brook, and stopped. She was hunched down by the half-frozen water, rocking back and forth, back and forth, the way that she had on the day of Nan's passing. An easterly gust swept over me, its stinging coldness jarring a picture in my mind of her sitting in the rocking chair and rocking me all through the night. I thought to go over to where she was sitting. I shivered, and turning instead, I walked back up the beach.

I didn't see the car parked by the side of the road on account of the snow being piled so high. Climbing over the edge of the gully, I walked back to the house and shuffled in through the door. There, my eyes widened in fright. Standing by the stove was the Reverend Ropson. He was dressed in black as he always was, with a flush of pink staining his hairless face, and his paltry blue eyes as cold as the stove he leaned against. In one fluid movement he was across the kitchen and standing in front of me, the coiled thrusting of his serpent's head striking to within a hair's width of mine.

"Where's Drucie?" he half snarled, his whispering tone ricocheting round the house like a fiery wind.

I pressed back against the wall, fear rooting my feet to the floor.

"S-she's sick."

"And your mother?"

"Crooked Feeder."

"What's she doing down there?"

"N-nothin'."

He stared me over, his nose wrinkling as if the sight of me was more than his stomach could take. Then something of a satisfied smile caught at his lips as he took in my unbuttoned coat, and oversized nightdress ripped up around the tail and wet from dragging in the snow, and my fingers red from the cold, and the snot oozing out of my nose.

"Your teacher is concerned," he whispered severely, a thin smile marring his face. "He saw your mother sick yesterday, and now today you aren't in school. I thought we'd have a little meeting to see what can be done. Come with me, and I'll see to it that you're taken care of."

The knowing of just how the reverend meant to take care of me, and remembering that this time there was no Doctor Hodgins to stop him, jarred my rooted feet into action. I darted around him, heading for the hallway, but he clamped a hand onto my arm and yanked me back.

"No!" I screamed, kicking at his legs as he dragged me to the door. "It's just a cold! It's just a cold!"

"Quiet!" he snapped, dragging me kicking and screaming out of the house, and paying no more heed to my desperate cries than one would a vixen youngster. Grappling an arm around my waist, he half dragged, half carried me up over the snow-trenched path and onto the road by his car. Shoving me inside, he slammed the door shut against my flailing arms and legs and, scrambling round to the other side, quickly climbed in while I grasped desperately at the locked door handle.

"Sit back," he ordered, clamping both hands on my shoulders and shoving me back against the seat. I kicked and screamed harder. Then the palm of his hand smashed against the side of my face with the force of Mr. Haynes's belt, startling me into stunned silence. Revving up the motor, he speeded down the road, the car slipping and sliding, and sending me into another round of terror as I realized there was no escaping the moving car.

Twisting around, I flung my arms up over the back of the seat and scuffed my way up over. His fingers dug into my shoulders as he clawed me back down, but not before I saw Josie's flaming red head poke up over the snowbank by the road. Screaming and kicking with another burst of vigour, I fought back the reverend's arm holding me down, then gasped for breath as he hit the brakes, throwing me forward and slamming my head against the dash. The reverend cursed as we skidded out of control, and what with the smack to my head, and the car skidding from side to side, the queasy feelings that had been sitting in my stomach for the past two days erupted into a sour bile in my mouth and spewed out over the reverend's feet and onto the fine yellow strands of my hair.

Queer enough, it wasn't Josie's walking past the school windows and vomiting into her hair that shot through my mind as I hung upside down in the car, puking, but Josh Jenkins and the flush of red riding up over his ears when Margaret Eveleigh shot off her mouth about his father's unpaid store bill. And when the reverend slowed to a stop and got out of the car, cursing like no reverend man is supposed to curse, and climbed back in, dumping handfuls of snow into my face, I was already sitting back up and welcomed the sweet relief of the clean-smelling snow. And when we finally pulled up in front of the reverend's house, and Sid opened the door to greet us, I was calm.

Sid stepped to one side as the reverend hurried inside, pulling me behind him. It was a real kitchen, with cupboards all around, not a cup in sight, and a chrome table gleaming to one side. Voices chattered through an open doorway that led into the sitting room, and to its right was a smouldering wood stove. And to the right of the wood stove was a darkened hallway with a curling bannister leading upstairs.

"Did you get everyone?" the reverend asked as Sidney Kidney brushed past us to take a stand in front of the darkened hallway.

"Yes, sir," said Sid.

"Landsakes, Reverend, where've you been; everyone's waiting," Mrs. Ropson said worriedly, hurrying into the kitchen from the sitting room. Her mouth dropped when she seen me, her eyes quickly scanning my stained, ripped nightdress, swollen eyes and wet, limp hair. "Goodness, mercy, why'd you bring her here a "

Her words trailed off as May Eveleigh appeared in the doorway behind her, then Mr. Haynes and his wife, and Jimmy Randall with the chewed-off eara"all wearing their Sunday clothes, and crowding in through the kitchen, their eyes brailling over me, and their mouths opening and closing in speechless wonder as they took in the sight that I was.