Floy loved dainty things, her perty-perties, things of florid beauty like herself. She had to work at beauty of course, since under the rouge, the double eyelashes and thick black burgundy lipstick she was the most hatchet faced girl to ever strut through Ewe Springs on stiletto heels. "A girl at heart, the soul of a lady," she always said.

She squirmed on the pothole. Stress gave her cramps. Frigid s.h.i.thouses made her varicose veins throb. Ladyship was a b.i.t.c.h. Her b.l.o.o.d.y fingers probed the back of her mouth where a molar was tearing loose. What was another tooth or two at this stage? Why, Floy was seriously considering a charm bracelet designed to incorporate her oral extractions. Floy's make-up case held plenty of her uprooted fangs, each suitable for mounting. Naturally, this would mean getting Lovell to negotiate a ride down to Roanoke, to the jeweler. That might be trickier still. It was Wednesday and Lovell was five days missing.

The word was out, but so were Floy's snoophounds. Her homely nieces, Myrna and Kate, had driven back up to the house this morning on their diesel tractor. A good tractor was about all that could climb that snow-packed hill in this weather. Floy was just polishing off breakfast--six fried eggs and a pound of chicken livers--when she heard her boxy nieces jump onto the porch.

"Mawnin, Aintie Floy," Kate said, coming through the door.

"Mawnin, Aintie," Myrna shivered in behind her sister.

Floy gulped her last greasy liver, smacking h.e.l.lo at them.

"Uncle Love show his face yit?" asked coal-thatched Kate, brushing snow off her overalls.

Floy yawned, picking her teeth with the glossy spike of her pinkienail. "Nope. The sumb.i.t.c.h is out likkerin up on my money. You gals ask fer him at Bull Hannah's?"

"Yes'm, we asked," Myrna rolled her eyes. She had been through this too many times. "Bull says he'll keep his finger in the wind and not to worry, that tomcat will drag his guitar home soon's he's uncrossed his eyeb.a.l.l.s."

"Ain't his eyeb.a.l.l.s I'm applying my thoughts to. It's Friday night's take he's a-drankin up while I sit here in the lap of misery. Our lifestyle is teeterin on the brink."

Kate dropped into the chair opposite Floy. "Aintie Floy? Why don't ye jist accompany Uncle when he entertains the folks? Then you kin keep track of finances up front--"

"--Yep, s.n.a.t.c.h it from ole Bull before Uncle Love kin," Myrna growled from the window, pouring coffee, more interested in the fawn and mother doe crossing Floy's yard.

Floy chuckled, showing a few spotty teeth, lifting two mighty cheeks from her twin chairs. Both chairs creaked relief.

"Look girlies, I spent more nights in more jiveboxes with that cheat than his own p.e.c.k.e.r did. I was still a size twenty when he reloaded my Shirley Temple that New Year's Eve in Plowboy's beer joint, down to Roanoke, eighteen h.e.l.lacious years ago, gals." Floy pumped water over her breakfast plate. "Count em. Eighteen years o'goadin that shiftless sumb.i.t.c.h into bein somebody, into shootin fer the big record money, the Opry'n all that mess. I sat at enough teensie tables in Kentucky, Tennessee, G.o.ddam Georgia poolhalls, long electric nights enough to contract epidermal eruptions and an allergy to sawdust."

"My word," Kate boggled, chin in hand. Myrna's behind stood guard at the crystal-flaked panes.

"Everbody dances to Lovell, honey, but he don't listen to n.o.body, nothin, not never, not ever," Floy advised her younger niece. "He don't mind his Lady Floy at all. I tole him to drop that jungle bunny s.h.i.t and pick hillbilly like they wanted on Music Row. n.o.body want's to cut no wax on that jungle bunny s.h.i.t. Christ, Lovell I'd say, ain't nothin but white folks is gonna ante up fer enough platters to finance our swimmin pool, our Lincoln Continental and ermine earm.u.f.fs. Slow it down, baby, I said, mebbe Ernest Tubb'll take you on as a Troubadour, then you kin work yer way up the ladder with that Opry-bookin-sucker, Jim Denny. Know what yo Uncle Lovell said to that, Kate honey?"

"Garsh, I dunno. What?"

"Plug me in you split-tailed demon."

Myrna roared, laughing herself sick as she fell against the window. Floy frowned at her. Kate shook her black thatch, a wry spasm on her lips, afraid to join her sister's folly.

"Uncle Love was sockin them electric blues--weren't he?--when he first struck yer fancy," Myrna bellowed, all smiles and strawberry ringlets. She liked that s.h.i.t Auntie called jungle bunny s.h.i.t.

Their three-hundred-pound princess took offense. "You young and ignorant, Miss Myrna. Lady Floy wasn't always lit with grace. She was a fool thing once herself. A finger-poppin, panty-twistin fool but not fer long."

"Made a coupla records though, didn't he, Aintie Floy?" Myrna kept smirking.

"A couple, d.a.m.n his hide," Floy snapped, kicking off her fuzzy houseslippers. She did not care for little Miss Myrna's tone. "Fancy, my foot. Where's he hid out? They's only two hunert-fifty skins left in my china kitty."

Myrna sighed, wise beyond her years. "He's got moxie, Uncle does. Always comes home after a day er two."

"A day er two, Myrna, that's right. Never been gone five before. If he brings me home that b.l.o.o.d.y pox what's eatin up every Mutt, Jeff and scar-kissed Lych who spooks at bathwater--I mean--last thing we need. d.a.m.n, I'm blue. Feel like shoppin up a little good cheer. How'z about you darlins runnin me into Ewe Spring, mebbe even Cayuga Ridge to pick out a few things."

Myrna shrugged. "Sure Aintie Floy, you bet. Paw-Paw's done fed an so is the stock."

"Deeelightful," Floy rang, squeezing out through her kitchen door. "Let me jist trim my toenails and I'll be right with you. Law, mebbe we'll buy you each a perty-perty hair barrette er somethin."

Floy trimmed her pointy toenails, which she had just lacquered crimson the night before. She found her good highheels and frayed mohair carcoat. Both girls held Auntie's outstretched hands like Floy was a great, gangly stork picking her way through the snow to their tractor. She sat backwards on the hydraulic hitch while Kate perched on the wide left fender. Myrna drove responsibly, as always.

Lady Floy watched snowy hillsides unreel behind them, becoming glazed asphalt when they reached the road. Her footsies were freezing in the glittery, open-toed shoes, but Floy had learned to live with it. Beauty exacted its price.

They stopped at Miss Doobelle's, where Floy left a b.u.t.terick pattern and her down-payment on a new orchid chiffon dinner gown before they went on up the branch to Ewe Springs. She selected some magazines and lipsticks (but no barrettes) from Valentine's Salon, sat for one of Valentine's Tulip waves, then Floy bought dinner for herself and the girls at The Bra.s.s Dray Inn; a smoked goose and fixings which they decimated in five minutes. After dinner, the well-fed trio rode the diesel tractor over to Cayuga Ridge. Once there, Floy could not find the brand of pear halves she desired from Birdnell's Mercantile Feed, Fuel & Grain. She had made a special trip for those pears, her syrupy favorites.

"Where's my special favorite pears, Mr. w.i.l.l.y? This ain't them," her shrill demanded, hoisting an inferior brand betwixt plump thumb and forefinger.

"And I am most sorry Mizz Floy," said w.i.l.l.y, behind the candy jars, eager to please. "They couldn't ship no Sunnybowl Pears this week, a trucker strike er somethin like that. I hear them Hi-Lo Pears yer a-holdin make mighty fine eatin, though."

Floy set the pears back on the shelf. "I tell you what Mr. w.i.l.l.y, when Sunnybowl returns to your establishment my sugar pear dollars will return as well. Gimme some of them peppermints anyhow, and I'll take this comb set and this here scarf. Oh, and some of that Sal Hepatica purgative."

She peeled off one crisp bill after another. Birdnell's array of perty-perty hair barrettes showed little appeal for Myrna or Kate, nor had Valentine's for that matter, so Floy bought them a case of Chocolate Soldier and left it at that.

"How's ole Lovell that gitpickin ace these days?" w.i.l.l.y joshed as they left his store.

"He's dead or better be, w.i.l.l.y, now shuddup."

The afternoon was waning, so the girls took Floy back home after Cayuga Ridge. Snow began filtering through the late grey light as they helped her inside with her purchases. They left right after that and Floy felt a whole lot better. Pretty soon, breakfast and dinner began to move on her, making her wonder for the umpteenth time why her Uncle Dodge--the girls' grandpaw who lent Floy this shotgun palace--could have sense enough to string the place with rural electric power but never put in proper plumbing.

The tooth tore loose. Floy wrapped it preciously and finished her business, using the soft tissues she brought from the house. No Monkey Wards wipes for Lady Floy. But now there was an open pit festering back there in her gum. Her poor sorely pit thirsted for some cherry wine. Fortunately, half a pint was left in her lingerie drawer.

Worse still, even more sorely open--what Floy was really hankering after was some deep nookie. Lovell wasn't too interested in her deep nookie these days. More often than not, after she rolled the skunk-drunk gitpicker for his folding money, she had to pin him down, hike her skirt and overload that nookie for herself.

This desire nipped at Floy, who evacuated the skin-tight privy, going back inside to her warm boudoir where the Rotogravure magazine wallpaper gave her scads to think about. After a few hours of sipping cherry wine she took care of her own dern nookie with no help from Mister Lovell Starling, thank you very much.

Fionuala Brynn Dar'bannon was dreaming silver again. She was forever dreaming silver, remembering silvery days in a silvery light. Perhaps it was because glints of silver were the sharpest she could still see, dreaming or awake.

But she was surely dreaming now.

Fionuala could glean that much.

She was surely dreaming, surely dreaming now.

She was riding in the catfish car with Mrs. Kleef at the wheel. Mrs. Kleef drove a mud-grey car that looked like a slow, slimy catfish. With silver whiskers. Fionuala might have left Mrs. Kleef behind lifetimes ago but Mrs. Kleef never left one's dreams for long.

"Do you read us, missy?" Mrs. Kleef was asking.

Who was us? They were always alone on this mountain road. In a silver wash of sunlight, Fionuala looked over at Mrs. Kleef who also had whiskers. A thin, furry mustache feathered Mrs. Kleef's upper lip; the squat woman peered over big knuckles on a big steering wheel. Mrs. Kleef's hammertoe rode the gas pedal. Fionuala gazed out the window at shining, silvery treetops brushing past them, the chipper twinkle of wrens on air. She nudged her mirror spectacles back into place. Fionuala was wearing the same polka-dot smock that fit her on the trip down to the home two years before. She had not worn it since. Familiar, she thought, how familiar.

"Do you read us, missy?" Mrs. Kleef repeated, eyes still latched on the shimmering route ahead.

Fionuala felt herself nod.

"Do you read us?"

Silver currents of light flowed from the rearview mirror, speckled with soft, giggling voices--they curled around Mrs. Kleef, wrapping around her bulb shaped head before light and giggles streamed out the open window, trailing far behind the catfish car. Fionuala felt nice. She was happy. She was going home.

"You're not ready, you know. Not ready for a real world full of real peoples." Mrs. Kleef kept talking to Mrs. Kleef's big knuckles. "Real peoples lie and steal and some'll take advantage of a girl like you. Some'll take advantage. Some'll take advantage and you've not been much of a problem to us at the home, but your father wants you back and some'll take advantage and he's got a pot of money so we can't keep you anymore..."

Same old Mrs. Kleef. Same old hammertoe. Same old dream.

"...even tho she's not ready-or-not for real peoples."

Asininity. That's what this dream woman was. Fionuala spake only to herself during the entire journey home. She did not answer back then and she would never respond to such nonsense now, not in this silvery situation. She was waiting to speak with Asta, her father, her only adult visitor in the last two years. Dear Asta--whom she never called Daddy--who wanted his girl back, now that Asta's wife was dead and mailing no hospital checks.

"My word, Fionuala Brynn, you're growing like a shoot."

Fionuala's specs looked again. Now, it was Asta Dar'bannon driving. Mrs. Kleef was memory. The catfish car was memory. Of course, Mr. Dar'bannon was memory, too. In memory, Asta sat silver-haired, straight and well-groomed while guiding the great Royale Victoria. "...growing, growing, growing like a shoot."

"Am I?" Fionuala asked in return.

"Yes, indeed you are. You've blossomed into young womanhood and I know why."

"Tell me why, Asta, tell me why." Why had she never called him Daddy?

"Because this world outside the walls has nurtured you. Sunshine, A bombs, spring showers and the cultural refinements of our home. No more secret whisperings, dead languages, no more ghostly creatures. I'm only sad that your mother cannot see her young lady flourish."

Fionuala thought about Asta's wife for a fraction.

"I am too, Asta. I'm sad too."

Asta's finely beveled nails splayed at the windshield.

"Oh darling, we're home in time for tea," her father lilted.

Fionuala looked and saw the grand shining house, weepy willows dripping with sparkly tinsel, just like Christmas. The garden was alive, truly alive, zinging a joyful springtime tune.

The Royale Victoria drove up the steps and into the foyer. They drove once around the parlor then up the staircase, pa.s.sing through Fionuala's old room with the nursery carol wallpaper. The Royale Victoria rode the dumb waiter down to their gleaming, utensil-draped kitchen.

"Soon you'll be mature enough to drive yourself," Asta told her as they wheeled through the library, then into her parent's regal bedchamber. Asta's wife lay within the bedposts, a face of rice paper, half-sewn into her shroud. Fionuala snuck a smile when their Royale Victoria left the chamber then turned left toward the back porch.

As fat tires rumbled out the backdoor, down the stoop, Fionuala saw her own plain fingers on the ivory steering wheel. She was driving herself now, this was no Royale Victoria and the sky was silver foil, rippling. She released the wheel, turned around in the seat. The hea.r.s.e's long compartment held Asta's gla.s.s casket. Asta lay perfectly tailored inside the gla.s.s, open-eyed and consumptive. He was beautiful under gla.s.s. Fionuala scooted back around, retook the wheel of her rolling hea.r.s.e. The rearview mirror giggled and spake as Fionuala reflected on the line of putt-putt cars trailing behind her, headed for the silver-stoned cemetery. She felt happy. Asta was going home.

Then her shining dream went white, snowy white, as she rounded a frozen curve and saw the darkling fellow. A tall fellow with a silver-stringed guitar.

The axeman propped up on white cotton sheets, all the better to study Fina's foot. She needed one foot protruding while she slept, as though her five dainty toes required liberation from smothering coverlets, no matter how cold the night. Why, this very morning was early, grey and rising warm, but he knew those tiny toes were still chilly to the touch.

Lovell loved the arch of her foot. There was a spare, fledgling grace to that arch. He spent many, many daybreaks l.u.s.ting after it. Over there, his guitar leaned against the mahogany wardrobe, waiting for him. He thought about strumming his catstrings for that arch. He considered composing an ode to that arch, but did not wish to waken Fina from her dreams. He tugged the sheet, revealing more of her milky ankle. He favored the ankle too; he loved to taste the ankle, to kiss it until she got giddy. But nothing compared to her naked arch. Her toes flicked away a lazy fly, a pleasing sight to the connoisseur.

He was growling hungry. Lovell lay back in bed and considered rolling some laughing tobacco to cleanse his palate. He had abandoned most every other abuse. But he liked to roll smoke. He liked the fresh musk of it; he liked handling the mealy paper, the skill and dexterity of the roll; plus, it staved off his appet.i.te for a short while. And b.u.t.tery flapjacks would taste that much richer, once Fina was awake.

Every bit of this was rumination, of course. His b.u.t.t didn't move. The sky didn't fall quite yet. The smoke would wait, just like his guitar. He seemed to get deep pleasure doing next to nothing these days. Pondering footsies and the morning's heat and bedroom canopies were just about his speed. Built for comfort, baby, not for speed. Maybe there was a chorus bubbling up, searching for a vamp. Maybe he and axe #1 would work out that vamp. Maybe trolls camped inside this mattress. Lovell wondered if he could ever orientate to such a vast chunk of bed as this bed, muchless the very idea of a--what would Floy call it?--a boudoir the size of this haybarn of a boudoir. Fina's shaded gla.s.ses looked back at him from her 17th-century Acanthus bedstand. She kept his mind off these quiet splendors most of the time, but Lovell doubted he would ever take it in stride. Still, he felt dozier than wise anymore; he caught himself smiling over dribs and drabs.

When he saw her straight-eight Royale Victoria locomoting long along the snowpack one hard glacial morning, he wasn't so dozy; he was just hungover. Pill hungover, which was always the worst. Meaning, his troubled heart and mind stole the show. He did not want company.

Lovell stood shivering on Six Bucket Run, eyeing the blindered Reo as it slowed on the road alongside him. Weird, man, he thought. Weird. All it needed was a shepherd dog and white cane. Lovell could not see inside the car. The Royale Vic's windows were tinted midnight swamp green. His inner ear crackled with rancor. He shoved a fist into his coat pocket, cupping the straight razor tucked there, in case of a fracas.

Little in life, very little, prepared him for the bird that emerged that frigid day. The driver's door clicked open. She flapped out like a lame and hooded peac.o.c.k blanching at sudden sunlight; whatsmore, she wore the sappiest puss he had ever seen. For that matter, her puss was all you could see. Ultra-dark sungla.s.ses peered from under a ten-gallon sunhat, anch.o.r.ed to her chin by her sheer black scarf. White gloves met fitted knit sleeves, then disappeared into the deep folds of her widow's weeds; an antiquarian brocade left over from another century. "Hmmmmmm..." she mused. Despite this camouflage, Lovell sensed a frail frame lurking under her pleated armor. That lower face and plucky smile was her only exposed flesh.

"What an exotic instrument," she almost whispered, an airy voice, an echo with no point of origin.

It was then he realized she was addressing his axe. Those big sunshades didn't give up much. Who knew where her eyes were going? She sure wasn't much of a looker under all that garb; he could readily tell.

"Never seen a gitfiddle before, ma'am?" Lovell coughed, releasing the razor in his pocket. He suspected she was ten, fifteen years his junior.

"A git--fiddle. Why no, do you stroke it like a cello? Does it come with a horsehair bow?" Her voice broke pleasantly, almost gigging his funny bone.

"Naw, ma'am, it's a guitar. You know, a guitar."

"Yesss, I have seen a guitar from time to time. In catalogues. But yours has a peculiar apparatus attached if I am not mistaken. Are those radio k.n.o.bs down there?" she asked, pointing.

Lovell slung the axe off his back.

"Nope, it's jist an eee-lectric guitar. Made this'n myself."

"Electric..." she nodded, cupping the word in her small mouth. "An electrical guitar. How very clever, simply startling. What, exactly, does this electricity do for the instrument?"

"Do?"

"Does it light up? Or play songs on a paper music roll? Like our automatic piano?"

Lovell snickered finally. You had to dig it. It was too, too gone. Lovell swiftly divorced all thoughts of his house--Floy's Uncle Dodge's house. Floy could sit tight.

"Naw, nothin like that. No Christmas lights. That voltage, it jist kicks my chords up louder and kinda queers the sound, charges it up ya might say. Better fer the boogie."

"Boogie?!" Her milky lips gasped recognition. "Our piano plays the Beale Street Boogie. Plays it very nicely, yes, I would say it is my favorite. Asta, my beloved father--he purchased the roll but his wife called it an abomination, forcing Asta to file it inside the piano seat."

"I doubt it's the same woof of boogie I'm p.r.o.ne to bop."

She giggled at him.

"Kai shen aroe. Your language is delightful. Do you plug it in?"

"Plug in my language?"

"Your gitfiddler, is it? Do you plug it into an outlet proper, into the wall fixture?"

He shook his dull head, hit a lick on the silver-stringed box. Soft, it bit the air, like a thin steel shiv.