She sighed distractedly. “Miles and miles from here, thank God. It must have been on the highway, somebody picked her up. Nobody from around here. Poor Wallace, of course he didn’t do anything. He has no car. I hope Grace told them he has no car.”

“They know that, Mom. Where?” Rose shouted.

“What’s so important about where?” her mother retorted angrily.

Dad appeared in the living room doorway, wearing his halfmoon reading glasses, the evening newspaper in his hand. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?”

“A lot of morbid nonsense,” Mom grumbled and took herself off to the kitchen in a huffy way.

“She’s worried,” Dad said. “And rightly so, darlin’.”

“Where was Nancy Emerson’s body found, Dad?”

He peered at her over his reading glasses. “Somewhere near the Cape, in Massachusetts. She was buried in the woods.”

Pine woods, scrub pine, pine needles. Rose was remembering one summer’s rented house, gray clapboard salted by the sea breeze. Kicking up the thick carpet of brown pine needles with bare feet. It hurt a little.

She tasted the salty breeze in her mouth and wondered at it.

“Rose, Rose,” her father was saying, putting his arms around her. “Stop crying, it’s all right.”

He thought she was weeping for Nancy. If only it was as simple as that.

Part Two

Him

She who is my sister never understood me; she always blamed me, believing only what she wanted to believe. She’s here, wicked and alknowing person. Her voice, like gravebones, makes the taste of pain in my ear.

She never knew the truly me. Inside, where my blood boils, is where I really am, and I am ready to come alive again. Everything has its season and mine is now, as it always has been, the season of joy. I will again do what I must do. I am not afraid to do it.

Killing is not a bad thing. Death is easeful, death is kind. I am friends with death. It cools the boiling blood. Blood is as red as a Christmas ribbon. Blood ties a body like a Christmas package. Blood is the color of Christmas berries, baubles, all things of joy. Why shouldn’t I find joy in blood?

This is a nice town. It has been a good place to hide, and it has been a good place to make death.

What is really amusing is that, in all these years, she has never known how close I am.

Rose

Six

She went to jerram for comfort.

“We all get premonitions or have weird dreams once in a while,” he said reasonably.

“Mine wasn’t just a weird dream. It came true.” “For some reason there was a strong connection between you and Nancy. But it probably won’t happen again.”