Oma told me, "Your suffering will be over soon. Tomorrow night."

I was excited. I said, "That soon?"

And she said yes. She had foreseen it. Aaron would meet his end.

"He will die?" I asked.

She nodded. I was not sad about this. I was not conflicted. I felt happy.

The next night, I waited in my bed the way that a child might wait for Christmas morning. I could not sleep. I was too excited, and a little scared.

I heard a sound outside. Scraping. Metal on stone.

It was Oma. She took one of her kitchen knives, sharpened it on the stoop, and then went to Aaron's house – which was only down the street by less than a mile. A withered shadow, she crept into his room. And while he slept, she stabbed him. A hundred times.

She came back to my room and told me what she had done, and she gave me the knife.

"Sometimes, we must choose what we see down the road," she said.

And then she went outside to wait.

They came for her in the early morning hours. She made no mystery about what she had done – her gown was covered in the bully's blood. I do not know what they came to do to her, maybe kill her, but it was too late.

She had died there on the stoop.

A bent little shape, a weeping willow, dead.

I wept for her.

I did not weep for Aaron.

THIRTY-ONE

Hairless Fucker Dies

"That's a great story," Miriam says. "I really like the way it proves nothing about your grandmother's magic powers, the way she says something's going to come true and then she goes and stabs a little boy to death to make it true. That's super. I totally see why you believe this stuff."

Hairless's smile fades. His tone is sharp, steely.

"You watch your tongue, or I will bite it off. Oma was a true spirit. She saved my life when I was too weak to do so."

Miriam says nothing. She just feels the pulsing ring from where Harriet hit her.

The small, stocky woman paces back and forth in front of the tub, fist still tightened.

"She also taught me that the universe has rules. Rules that are hidden from men, unless one is willing to look deeper, to kick over the log and see what squirms underneath."

Hairless pulls out his satchel and shakes it. Something that sounds like dice clatter together. "I collect bones. It is what I read."

Miriam coughs. "Great, you've got the voodoo, too."

For a moment, the Hairless Fucker says nothing. Then he nods. "Yes."

Miriam's not so sure. She thinks he's lying. Maybe he convinced himself of it, or maybe he's just hoping to convince others.

"Still," he says, "you have abilities far more precise than most. You have abilities on par with my oma. That impresses me. It thrills me."

"Happy to be entertaining."

"I always need good people in my organization."