The Mad Dice went round.

And round.

And with each long, oaf-legged step across this meadowgra.s.s, the sunstroke spun his dial: "Yer feisty-b.i.t.c.h lip is got my dander up, and ye jist about ruint my rash." He was coming unwound, it was utterly obvious. No zithers, no r.p.m. run amok, only Birdnell holding court to the hot sky above. "Yer suppose to be a-nurturin yer man, an that's me. An now my podrash is ruint nearly bout!"

Tizzy couldn't wait for the flip-side. She thought about splitting his head open with a rock. Here, as they traded sunburnt field for leafy cover. Now was the time. Her special moment. He was at his most brainable while they journeyed through these trees. Tizzy could chunk a big speckly rock, from close behind. But knowing Matthew, he might die--that was the Birdnell style alright--he'd die and leave Tizzy with another sorry how-do-you-do. He finally shut it off when they dropped into the cutback. By day, it was easy to see how thornapples snuffed out Nottingham's torchlight. The loose, gravely cutback was much deeper than Matthew remembered from his blindeyed fit; plus, a cruel thornapple haw ran atop its ledges with only a V-cut where the trail fell into the cutback's trough.

"Remember, we cain't tarry long," she said.

He flipped flies away from his mouth. This day was G.o.ddam hot.

"Yeah. I'm jist a-prayin ole Bob don't kitch us."

"His hands is full, you knotnoggin. Are yer ears weak too? I tole him they must be a monkrat a-nestin up under my room, tole him I'uz up half the night from all that scratchin neath my bed."

"I heard ye mama. I also seen that dirt-rabid grin on ole Bob's face when ye tried to pa.s.s off sich foolishness. Naw, she says. He's a-really thinkin we run down to the car, to fetch little gal's hair comb don't ye know?"

"Sure he does. He's partial to me, cain't you tell? Anyhow, he'll be a scroungin under that crawl fer my invisible, no-count monkrat fer at least a hour er so, which is better'n any dim excuse you could muster."

"Right. I jist hope he don't go a-sniffin fer us down by the car, once he gives up on yer monkbait."

"He won't."

When they spilled down into the beautiful dell again, a spray of pale blue b.u.t.terflies danced ahead to the tiny cottage. Sheltered in the pines, the whole place looked drowsy. A winch over an old stony well. A lazy slat fence. An arched door. But n.o.body to speak of. Neither animal paddocks or livestock were evident, here or nearby. Maybe the folks who lived hereabouts were gone, out hunting, Tizzy thought. Or could this just be a meeting place for Mr. Nottingham and some secret friend, a lover perhaps? She found it hard, picturing Mr. Nottingham in that way; but knowing her father Tizzy was aware of the darker rooms which could hide and abide in men's hearts. No, you could never tell about a man and his rooms. Now, trigger-happy boys' hearts, they were another thing altogether.

Matthew approached the cottage door with his guard up, tossing his suspicions everywhichaway; second guessing every mortared rock corner, the crumbling well, the surrounding woods. A few hours made all the difference. Tizzy could now see a faint trace of road, overgrown ruts which once led to this place, and still did, however faintly. Mr. Nottingham was right. There were other ways, other traces, off Riddle Top.

"Looks like n.o.body's astir," Matthew told her, soft gloom in his voice.

"My feelins exactly."

"What we gone do?"

"Knock on the door," she ordered without qualm.

Matthew balked at this, unnerved by Tizzy's scientific att.i.tude as he and she circled in a spot midway up the cottage path. He wanted to b.i.t.c.h, to tussle the issue, but caught himself in time. Matthew realized one could diagnose this as another case of spinal failure on his part, and, since the night previous, he'd had just about enough of that cant from this little girl. A nasty, off-kilter grin sagged on Mad Dice's face; the boy swaggered up to the moss framed entry. Looking back, smirking at Tizzy, he laid a sharp rat-a-tat-tat on the door.

Well, neither of them expected an answer and none came.

"Want me to knock again?"

"Nope."

"Maybe we oughter--"

"Matthew--" she coaxed, hopelessly, "--could you jist blow yer nose and think? Could you possibly help find an open winder er some other simpleminded clue to gittin inside."

"I swear Tizzyloo, one're these days I'm gone brain ye the broad o'my hand."

"Try it hogboy."

He lurched rightways toward the front window, the window they had crouched under to better spy on Nottingham. It was still unshuttered but the curtains were drawn together now. Matthew put his muscle against the stubborn latch.

"Don't break the gla.s.s," Tizzy said, joining him at the window. Through embroidered mesh she saw only a murky candlestick and bedpost inside. The cottage couldn't be much larger than this one room.

Tizzy yawned, went back and tried the front door. Typical of the gristlebrain not to test that first. Okay, it was locked. But gristlebrain didn't know that. It was locked tight by an old-timey, scrolled copper doork.n.o.b over an ornate keyhole which asked for an ornate skeleton key. The k.n.o.b had gone green with age and felt strangely rich to her touch. Like holding some beautiful otherliness in her hand. But Tizzy would not be denied. They waded through the ivy, around and behind the clammy side of the creekrock chimney. In back, the cottage had a brief split-log wing, with a second door. There was no doork.n.o.b here, it was bolted within. At chin level, another, smaller window at left of this entry was very shuttered indeed; a decision made permanent by several bent nails where the shutter latches met. And just when Tizzy was ready to declare Matthew fool-for-the-day, he found redemption, of a sort. Matthew found one window shutter rotting where rainwater leaked from a broken eaves. He was able to jim a hinge loose from the mortar and swing the shutter aside. There were no surprises, only muslin curtains over a small gla.s.sless window. Matthew poked his head inside.

"Jist the kitchen in hyere," he grunted, goosenecking as he bent and stretched his long body inward, wholly ignorant of Tizzy pondering his boney sharp elbows and scrawny withers.

It might be fun to kick him up the rump right about now. Wouldn't that be some fun and games? Since last night, she felt evils in her womb; she was so devilishly sick of his ways. Why, now, was he so sorely tempting?

"Well, git on in there," she said. "So's I kin take a gander."

"Awright, you little witch," she heard him say, then the rest of Matthew hiked and shinnied into the window. She heard the clank of a bucket or something. She heard him fall, then curse. Tizzy took heart; she wouldn't want the boy going all afternoon without a fresh rupture. Tizzy reached for the high windowsill but, before she could strain, the backdoor groaned for her then tore open. Matthew wrestled the raspy, encrusted hinges. He got the crack open enough for Tizzy to enter, despite the clutching briar seal and the white rose petals it shed.

Inside, Tizzy saw an empty milkcan he'd spilt. Matthew was still rubbing his shoulder. "Might be out o'socket," he said. He'd climbed in over an oilcloth lined counter and tin sink. Some tarnished pots and blue china plates gathered dust on a shelf. Adjacent to the backdoor was another lock, a bra.s.s padlock; to a pantry it would seem. Matthew jiggled the padlock and experimented with some of the extra keys on his carkey ring.

He'd been doing this for a minute proper with not a shred of luck, when he heard her voice.

"Matthew..."

"Whuh?" he said, heartset on the key at hand.

"Come in here..."

Vexing the lock, Matthew c.o.c.ked an eye at Tizzy. She was indistinct; standing beyond, in the front room. Something was wrong, something a bit hairy in her tone.

So, Matthew came in after her. Into the flat shadow of the room. He could just make out a darkstone mouth in the wall. That was the fireplace. And Tizzy. She was facing him. She stood fast. Matthew stepped past the four-poster. He came to the foot of the bedspread--then turned back; reaching, he found Tizzy's arm, and let his eyes fall on the everloving crux of her fixation.

Neither of them spake for a too long time.

For the bed was cast in brackish light. And someone lay in the bed. n.o.body drew new breath in here, not Tizzy, not Matthew, yet an oblong, human shape lay beneath patchquilt covers. The lump was slender, dividing the bed's heart; the sleeper's face hidden in shade.

"h.e.l.lo...?" Tizzy just had to whisper, had to, had to, dreading any answer. No answer came.

Tizzy went sidelong to the window while Matthew's mind petrified. Tizzy shook apart the dusty curtains, letting sunlight creep across the bed. Across the sallow face.

It was a woman, no, a girl. It was pretty Courtlynn.

"Oh my Lord." Tizzy felt herself gliding to the girl's bedside.

There she rested. But hardly in peace.

And, yes, she was that Courtlynn.

The new girl from Ewe Springs, from Tizzy's very last day at Cayuga Ridge School. Courtlynn's raven hair spread across the pillow; black, curling tentacles, her widow's peak culminating over her open eyes, lucid as fresh-laid robin's eggs. Tizzy remembered the girl's creamy, beauteous throat, the luscious mouth, yet nothing Tizzy remembered took one's breath away like this pale remembered girl in her afterlife. Blue eyes wide, abalone sh.e.l.l cheeks around cold parted lips. She was covered, thank G.o.d, the quilt tucked under her chin, and Courtlynn seemed more striking, more comely in death.

"Matthew don't--" Tizzy croaked out, but words could not hinder him.

Matthew was leaning over her bed. He set his keys on the bedstand, his hand reaching for the quilt bunched around Courtlynn's chilling, heavenward stare. Slowly, he slipped back the covers from her body.

She was naked. The quilt slid smoothly down her smooth skin, revealing two dusky nippled mounds, then her ivory-sloped belly and finally the spa.r.s.e nest betwixt her legs---legs flanked by bloodless stumps, white bone. Courtlynn's hands were missing; cut off clean at the wrists.

"Matthew, stop--don't look no more--"

But he'd already tossed back the remaining cover and Tizzy's lungs burst in relief. Mercifully, she saw Courtlynn's pretty little toes. Only the hands were taken.

"Have pity on meee..." Matthew was scarcely there, until his split-thumb grazed the dead girl's toe, that is; until he flinched and let go of the quilt. Still, his eyes never stopped feasting up and down her nubile corpse.

Tizzy could smell the venal disease in his mind. He might drive Tizzy to retch. "Ssssss..." she warned.

Matthew wanted more, though. Matthew's specs had already left those marble bosoms. Tizzy could see how far gone he was. His dimwit soul was fatally seized. By Courtlynn's cold gaze, by the beestung mouth; a bit of white teeth, a dry blooddrop on her lower lip.

"Who is she by G.o.d?" He wiped his temple. "I wonder..."

"A girl I know. From school. A Ewe Springs girl."

"Well I be d.a.m.ned..."

"That's what he said."

"Who?"

"Mr. Nottinham."

"You thank he done this?"

"Yes," she said, leaning forward, inspecting the fine black eyelashes. They were probably still growing.

"But--" and his voice squeaked, a demon in his noisebox, "but, what's he done with her hands?"

"Go ask him."

He didn't laugh; and Tizzy didn't hear herself say those three words as her blank chinaman mask bent closer, and promptly forgot the question.

Tizzy was peering into an icy blue pit. A dead schoolgirl's left eye. For a moment, Tizzy thought she might catch a flinty glimpse in there, a reflection of the horrors she died with. Was there any shimmer of her waning moments, a spark of revelation? Was that really a dragontail Tizzy saw down in there? Was she a maiden thing, was Tizzy? Tizzy did not know. Courtlynn's naked flesh was unsullied, by all appearances, save for the missing hands. But who could tell for true?

"Tizzy...I thank we best light on out. Git on outa here."

"So do I."

"Off'n this hyere mountain."

"Boy howdy."

"You agreein with me on that?"

"Yep." Tizzy was solemn as a preacher's girl, her memories roiling.

"Maybe he didn't do it. But I ain't one to hang aroun waitin fer whoever did."

"He done it." She raised up from the cold face, then ran a glance down the bed.

"You awright Tizzy?"

"I do declare..."

"What?"

"She sure was a perty thang."

"I...I reckon so."

"Her name'uz Courtlynn."

She drew the sash, accidentally hit the empty rocker but left it rocking. He replaced the covers, rigged the back shutter into place and they fled the weird cottage. They would never make it back to the house, oh dear, Nottingham's house, in time to leave this afternoon. Even with good fortune and no wrong turns, there was doubtfully an hour's sun left on Riddle Top. They agreed on the next morning, after Nottingham took his daily leave. They ran, panting, and Matthew swore he'd sit up with her all night if need be, to protect her from sleepwalkers. She made him promise that much.

Her head was racing too, fraught with fervent memories of Cayuga Ridge and the Preacher Polk, Shonda Gay--and Courtlynn's catty laughter the day they left; the ravishing new-comer with her grandma's opal ring and a heartbreaker's vixen eyes, who could never have deserved her fate back there in that cottage. No matter how Tizzy fancied her. Was it a week or two weeks or a month since Tizzy Polk stood on that playground? Seasons had come and gone inside her it seemed, in the wake of their criminal spree. Matthew might say it didn't amount to much. Seventy-one dollars, no cents. But she knew better. Her world, her seasons, they all changed when she heard the report of Matthew's pistol, down at Hayden's Crossroad. It was all too easy to conjure the fear in that old woman's eyes: Miss Doobelle, who did nothing but mind her own business. In a liquid moment, Tizzy saw Miss Doobelle's unblinking terror become a lifeless glint, in Courtlynn's eyes.

"Prob'ly he kilt her in that place," Matthew huffed, well behind on the trail. "So's n.o.body could hyear."

"It's doubtful."

"Why the h.e.l.l not. n.o.body to catch her screams, way up hyere..."

"Nope. They's no blood on the bedcovers."

"Awright...awright...I git ye. Still if'n we'd poked around much longer last night, we'd a heard it sure enough. d.a.m.n, what'd we a-done then? Hearin her scream afore dawn?"

"Blow yer nose Matthew. I'm perty sure. She'uz already dead."

"Then who'uz he a-talkin at? Who'uz he a-talkin at when we spied on him?"

She didn't answer, avoiding thorns and gruesome notions; Tizzy deftly led the way, scurrying down the mountain path. Saints alive, what if the car had been stolen? What if, before they found the car, what if the rapture came down? Over a crumbling chasm, asking the what ifs, Tizzy rounded the ledge and saw her mother upside down in a puddle. Her mother, a woman, a black shroud in rainwater's mirror.

Tizzy splashed.

Caught short--Tizzy revolted in midstride--recoiling backward, eyes aghast at the figment. Her mother, with her cracked doll's face, her puddled reflection, tragic Courtlynn Laticia Polk weeping on the path. Woeful, mother watched as Tizzy who went backward off the ledge.

"Matthhhhew!" she screeched, tumbling over the scarp. Flailing, Tizzy snared a hairy, washed-out root. The root held, almost yanking her arm clean off; Tizzy hurt, Tizzy hung suspended in air. A loose shower of dirt cascaded over her face. Tizzy spat gravel and yowled. "--h--help!"

Blinded, eyes full of grit--she grabbed another root with her free hand, a fat slippery root--Tizzy felt it wriggle. And saw the copperhead snake in her clinch! "Laaaaaawww!" She flung the snake away-- Quickly, Matthew was leaning over the ledge, grasping for her free hand.

"Take're easy Tiz--take a-holt o'me--"

He snagged her, then hoisted Tizzy back up onto the ledge; she came puffing and clawing every inch of the way. For an instant, Matthew glimpsed over the shelf and saw a tiny, half-hidden lake, far, far below. Without pondering such discovery, Matthew gave Tizzy a final yank. They both collapsed against the mountain, hearts exploding, guts afire. Suddenly, Tizzy sat bolt upright, gaping down the path in a bloodless daze.