I threw on a jacket, went out and got Woofer, and brought him into the house for company. When Fred came in, I hugged him so tightly and for so long, I surprised him. I felt as if I had been away from home and from him for a long, long time. And several times during the night, I woke up, listened to his breathing, and watched the shadows on the wall cast by the streetlight.

Needless to say, I woke up with a headache. I downed a couple of aspirin and looked out at a world of light. Ice still coated everything, and a bright sun was bouncing off every crystal of that ice. Bouncing, ping, right between my eyes.

I groaned, crawled back into bed, and pulled the quilt over my head.

“You all right?” Fred asked. I could hear the whir of his electric shaver and knew he was doing his morning routine of wandering around the house while he shaved.

“Headache.”

“You want some aspirin?”

“Just took some.” I drifted back into a deep sleep.

Two hours later I woke up again, this time feeling much better. A look through the window rewarded me with bright sunshine, melting ice, and no pain.

Muffin was stretched out on the kitchen table in the sun. She answered with a yawn when I told her good morning.

“Lazy cat,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes. Who was I to call her lazy? Hadn’t I just crawled out of bed?

I glanced at the clock. Almost ten. I poured a cup of the coffee that Fred had made, went into the den, and called Luke at the Blount County Medical Center.

He had been dressed and waiting for me for an hour. Where was I?

“I’ll be there at one o’clock,” I said. Damned if I was going to hurry.

“But I told them I’d be gone before lunch.”

“One o’clock,” I repeated. “Are you still seeing double?”

“Just sometimes. Most of the time not. I’ve got to get out of here, though. I ran into a man who knows Virginia, who saw her up there at that church.”

“What do you mean he saw her up there? Is he one of the snake handlers?”

“I don’t know. He just came in and said he saw my wife.”

“How did he know you were looking for her?”

“Hell, Patricia Anne. I didn’t ask him that. He said she was all right, though. Said his name was Thomas Benson. Old man. Here for dialysis.”

Probably blew his kidneys on strychnine and snake venom.

“Did you ask him if he knew where she is now?”

“He said he didn’t. He said some other folks up there might know, though. He said a lot of them were going to a big meeting up in West Virginia this weekend, so we need to get up there real quick, Patricia Anne, and ask around.”