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When I turned eighteen and left the children’s ho so my bike up Wolf Mountain as far as the dirt road, then a trail, led, I found myself at Horseshoe Rock I hiked down from it into the woods At the bottoh dry leaves and found a quartz boulder, weather stained, canted down the gully Through the center of it ran a vein of gold

In the dark and the rain, I crawled inside a sleeping bag and slept near the boulder And for the first tih I had no necklace, nocat Beast spoke tosilenced For weeks, I/we hunted, ate, visited old dens Hid froone All others of one I was the last one Anywhere

When I shifted back to huold and tucked the on an adjustable, doubled gold chain, to carry it with me, while the rest went into a safe-deposit box for a rainy day If I concentrated, I could sense the gold, no et and the original vein in the boulder deep in the e Of coet necklace over my head and went inside I"Mol," I answered, "I’ "You scared me"

Stunned, I said, "Huh?"

"Don’t be the bird no

I clutched the cell, ie baby No o But Moonna come visit you" And the call ended

After a two-quart pot of oatrilled nearly rare--but not quite--under the oven broiler, and a whole pot of strong black tea, I felt h I was eo to the point that I held on to the cabinets or furniture when I walked Angie was right What I had done was dangerous Really bad stupid

Cold, unable to get war until the hot shoater cooled, I curled up under the covers with a pen and pad, and jotted dohat I reht The location of the chapel--not nonchapel, but chapel It had contained a cross and a nun Well, a priestess, but close enough That ht? The half-remembered location of the house where the creature entered Had he killed? The TV had been on Had I ue-liver-eater gone to ground under the house? Questions, no answers, and a fractured, hazy ht was of the priestess, holding aloft a wood cross, shining with light Wood didn’t do that, not even in the presence of evil, which is why I always carry silver crosses Weird Just plain weird And weirder still--a vah my recollections and questions, I fell asleep

I woke up feeling war on my door with loud, i on a long tiirl sleep in? Stiff and sore, I rolled out of bed, trailing covers, found the borrowed robe, and slid it on Through the glass I saw the Joe, Rick LaFleur

"Crap" With ill grace, I opened the front door "It better be freaking da jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat that he pushed back by the brih to take me in from head to bare toes A slow perusal that went froed frorin spread across his face "Please tell lared, he raised a hand and reached toward et slapped Or taken down in the street and left bruised He brushed a strand of hair back from my face, behind my ear

Beast ith a sudden lurch And purred She drew a breath and foughtBubo bubo I felt her claws inRick’s fingers trailed along my neck to the collar of my robe, a slow caress across ht his wrist before he got too friendly "What do you want?" I snarled, holding his hand away from me I was tickled pink that my voice showed only annoyance, not desire But I had started to sweat behindmy spine Beast wanted him Badly

"I caes poured intoblood

His grin stretched with a kind of sexual teasing I had neverout the word as if I were an ies in ht, so I ca" I dropped his wrist He let it fall, grin in place

"I didn’t sleep last night," I said "What time is it?"