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As oodness needed to be fearful of those slouching shapes in the fog if goodness wanted to avoid being chewed up and sed
NINETEEN
A FEW BLOCKS BEFORE WE ARRIVED AT THE Cottage of the Happy Monster, our skulking escorts faded away into the fallen clouds and did not return, although I suspected that we had not seen the last of them
The house stood alone at the end of a narrow lane of cracked and runneled blacktop Huge deodar cedars flanked the road, their drooping branches seeht of snow
With a thatched and dorle walls, truainvillea-covered porte-cochere, the large cottage could have been copied fros of Thomas Kinkade
Like curious spooks, pale shapes of curdled h deciding whether the roolow of considerable appeal shone through those phantolies of the diaical power resided within
As we had approached along the lane, I had prepared Anna for an hour or two Forty-five years ago, when Blossory father dropped her headfirst into a barrel in which he had been burning trash primed with a little kerosene
Fortunately, she had been wearing tightly fitted glasses, which spared her from blindness and saved her eyelids Even at six, she’d had the presence of ed to topple the barrel and quickly crawl out, though by then aflame
Surgeons saved one ear, rebuilt her nose--although not to the extent that it resembled a normal nose--and reconstructed her lips Blossom never had hair thereafter Her face remained forever seamed and puckered with keloid scars too terrible to be addressed by any surgical technique
Out walking a week previously, I had encountered her as, with a flat tire, she pulled to the side of the road Although she insisted that she could change the tire herself, I did the job because Blossoer on her burned left hand, and had not been dressed for the rain that threatened
With the spare tire in place, she had insisted that I come with her for coffee and a slice of her incoe of the Happy Monster, and though the place was a cottage and she was a deeply happy person, she was no ’s ET, whoain in the week since we hadof five-hundred ruames out of three, with stakes of a penny for every ten points of spread, she and I were on the way to becoood friends However, she did not know about the supernatural side of my life
Nohen she opened the door in answer to my knock, Blossom said, Ah! Come in, come in God has sent me a sucker to fleece at cards Another prayer answered I’ll have my Mercedes yet
You won fifty cents the last time You’ll need to beat me every day for a thousand years
And won’t that be fun! Blossom closed the door and smiled at Annamaria You remind me of my cousin Melvina--the married Melvina, not the Cousin Melvina who’s an old maid Of course, Cousin Melvina is crazy, and presumably you are not
I made introductions while Blosso
Cousin Melvina, Blossom said, has a problem with a time traveler Dear, do you believe tio, I was in yesterday
And now here you are in today I’ll have to tellAnnamaria by the are
Cousin Melvina says a time traveler fro
As I followed them, Annamaria asked, Why her kitchen?
She suspects they don’t have cake in the far future
The cottage was lass lamps and sconces, the shades of which Blossom had crafted herself
Does Melvina have a lot of cake in her kitchen?
She’s a positive fanatic for cake
On a living-rooreat beauty Blossoalleries; a fewht snacks, Annamaria said
No Melvina lives in Florida, and her husband, Norman, he lives in a former Cold War missile silo in Nebraska
From a kitchen cabinet, Blossoave thean to prepare the brewer, she said, Why would anyone want to live in an olda tin of cookies, Blossoo anywhere with him, but not into a missile silo
Why wouldn’t there be cake in the far future? Annas, Blossom transferred cookies from the tin to a plate Melvina says maybe they lost all the best recipes in a world war
They had a war over cake?
Probably the as for the usual reasons Cake would have been collateral dae
She does sound kind of crazy
Oh, yes, said Blosso in the open door, I said, Annanancy isn’t trouble, Blosso for her
Bad guys? Blossom asked Annamaria
Nobody’s inherently bad, said Annamaria It’s all about the choices we make
And the Deceiver, said Blosso choice in your ear But I believe remorse can lead to redeet around to remorse is after you break a baseball bat over their head
When he sobered up, retted what he did to me, said Blossom
Some people, I testified, they lock you in a car trunk with two dead rhesus e hydraulic crushers, push the SQUISH-IT button, and just laugh They don’t even know the word regret
Did you forgive your father? Annahty-two, Blosso-home bills But I don’t see him
Some people, I said, they lose their teive them a chance to rethink what they did, and they say they rong, they’re remorseful, but then they let you walk into a room where they know there’s a crocodile that hasn’t been fed in a week
Both woave me the kind of look you usually reserve for a two-headedeveryone, I clarified Just soave your father