The elephant pills did not exactly kill her. They put her into a trancelike state in which she had a vision. In the vision she was exactly as she was, in her naughty nightgown, and gloriously dying; the church bells were warming up for the somber death toll, and there would be mourning until the funeral. How sweet she would look in the casket, a red-red rose on her cold-cold bosom. Other girls would envy her the beauty of that nightgown, knowing that they would not have the nerve to be shown dead in such an outfit.

Three figures entered the room, coming through the wall, so it was obvious that they were of the spiritual persuasion. Two were her grandparents, now reunited in the afterlife. Grandma approached. "Dear, you may not yet die, because there is something you have yet to do with your life. We love you and will always be with you."

Then the third figure, the stranger, approached. He was clothed in a dark robe and wore a cowl over his head, and his face was shaded by mist. Who he was she dared not guess, but there was an inherent glow about him that bespoke his authority. "Colene," he said, his voice full of compas

-- sion and knowledge. "You have to go on. You will not be able to quit. Your life will get better."

Buoyed by that message, she had roused herself from the vision, stumbled to the bathroom, poked her finger down her throat, and gagged out the remaining contents of her stom -- ach. "Just call me bulimic," she had gasped with gallant gallows humor as her heaves expired. She had changed her mind about dying. For a while.

No one had known. Her mother hadn't even missed the six pills.

Had she done the right thing? Colene could not be sure. Yet now, with the appearance of Darius, it seemed that there was indeed something for her to do with her life. Maybe her vision was coming true.

After more time she got up again, slipped her feet into her slippers, turned out the light, and cracked open the door. She made her way through the house. If her mother asked, she was just going for another snack. But her mother didn't notice her passage.

Colene got the spare house key, stepped quickly out the back door, and locked herself out.

That way her mother would assume that she had locked them in for the night, and would not check her room. Colene would use the key to let herself in again later.

It was chill outside, and she shivered as she made her way across the dark back yard to the shed. Her heart was pound -- ing, but not because of the temperature. She was embarking on another suicidally foolish risk.

She knocked on the door, then opened it. She couldn't see anything inside, but knew he was there.