She slipped on a pair of worn flip-flops and made her way out of the room and down the hall to the stairs, a reluctant Peaches waddling and yawning noisily at her side. On the main floor, she turned into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of milk, and gave Peaches a dog biscuit for being such a good sport. Leaving her pet gnawing happily on the cool tile floor, Jenny took her milk and wandered into the living room.

This was the room that had sold her parents on the house, and Jenny understood why. Stretching from front to back, it took up almost half the first floor and had a soaring beamed ceiling, a stone fireplace, and at the back, a wall of windows that looked out over hills covered with pine and aspen. Beyond that, bathed in the milky moonlight, was a rocky bluff that ringed the town of Rimrock on three sides and gave it its name.

Jenny had been told that the rimrocks were a great place for hiking and learning to climb, in case you got the urge to pit yourself against the mountains that made this part of the country famous. So far, Jenny hadn't felt that urge. In fact, she hadn't even visited the rimrocks yet and wasn't sure she wanted to. If anyone asked, she'd agree that they

were beautiful and awesome; privately, they gave her the creeps. She was sure they were full of snakes and coyotes, maybe even a few bears. But it wasn't just the possibility of unfriendly wildlife that bothered her about the bluff, it was the bluff itself. It was like a menacing shadow in a horror story or an evil giant in a fairy tale. It loomed.

It was a dark hulk now, but at the end of the day, Jenny had seen its pale, pinkish sandstone turned bloodred by the setting sun. It probably happens at sunrise, too, she thought, shivering as she peered through the tall windows.

She shivered again and then jumped when something cold touched her bare leg. Peaches, who'd ambled in hoping for another late-night treat, sat back with a guilty look on her face.

Jenny shook her head and laughed. "It's okay, Peach. Fm just jumpy. You can't help it if your nose is cold and wet. Let's go back to bed."

The dog was all for that. Bed was even better than a biscuit. It was better than the view, too, Jenny thought, giving the rimrocks one last look before she rinsed her glass and went back upstairs. Maybe that's what kept waking her up at night in this house; maybe that mass of rock that loomed over her. new home had somehow worked its way into her sleep, hovering there until she woke up and faced it.

"What you really ought to do, Jen," Richard Fowler said, **is face it during the day sometime."

He stuck some bread in the toaster and poured himself a cup of coffee. Then he leaned against the counter and grinned at the look on Jenny's face. "You go over there and climb around those rocks a few times, and I guarantee that nothing'll wake you during the night. You'll be too tired to do anything but sleep."