Miriam stepped into the girl’s view. She didn’t notice, such was her concentration. Miriam moved closer. Now, the girl stopped working and glanced her way, then looked harder. Her mouth dropped open. She looked the naked apparition up and down. An expression of pity crossed her face, mixing with horror as she realized that the woman she was seeing was severely burned.

Miriam stepped toward her. She swayed as if falling, causing the girl to instinctively move forward to help her. Miriam enclosed her in her arms and drew her behind the loom, then opened her mouth against the neck and pulled the fluids in fairly easily, requiring two great gulps to fin-ish the process.

Her whole flesh seemed to leap with joy; it was as if she were going to fly up to the sky. She fought against crying out, such was the pleasure. Her body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes filled with an electric tickling as her newly refreshed blood raced to repair her wounds.

The shuddering, tickling sensations were so overwhelming that she was dropped like a stone to her knees. She pitched forward, gasping, her body deliciously racked with a sensation very like climax. Again it came, again and again, and the voices came closer, and the tip-tapping of the shoes.

She grabbed the remnant, invisible in its heap of clothes, and pulled it behind the loom. As she untangled the dry, emaciated remains from the clothing, she heard a ripple of laughter. The tour guide had said something that amused her audience. The click of other looms went on. Quickly, quickly, Miriam put the clothes on—black jeans, a black turtle-neck, shoes that fit her, unfortunately, quite badly. Then the blue smock. No hat, and that was not good because her hair would take time to regrow. She needed a wig, but that could not be had here. She stood up.

“Noelle?”

It was the guide, curious about why she was not at her loom. They would know each other perfectly, of course.

“Noelle, what are you doing? Why are you back there?”

She could not speak. She had no idea what Noelle’s voice sounded like. If the woman came around the loom, she would see something impossible—a skeleton covered with skin, and standing over it, a hairless and eyebrowless creature, its skin flushed bright pink. The burns were probably still very much in evidence as well, making her the stars knew only how grotesque. She picked up the remnant and crushed it. The cracking, splintering sounds were appalling.

“Noelle!”

“I’m fixing it!”

“Who is that?”

“It’s me, please.”

The guide began her spiel again, but her uneasy tone told Miriam that she was not satisfied with what she had heard, just unable to understand what was going on. She’d send a guard around in a moment, almost certainly.