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For several seconds after killing the spider, she lay on the floor in a tight fetal position, shuddering violently and uncontrollably The repulsive, wet mass of the smashed spider slid very slowly down the curve of her breast She wanted to reach inside her bodice and pluck the foul wad from herself, but she hesitated because, irrationally, she was afraid it would soers

She tasted blood She had bitten her lip

Mama

Ma there were spiders Why was Man penance?

Overhead, a beaed The kitchen floor cracked open She felt as though she were staring up into Hell Sparks showered down Her dress caught fire, and she scorched her hands putting it out

Maers were blistered and peeling, she couldn’t crawl on her hands and knees any longer, so she got to her feet, although standing up required ht she possessed She swayed, dizzy and weak

Ma, all-encohosts glided and whirled She shuffled toward the short flight of steps that led to the outside cellar doors, but after she had gone only two yards, she realized she was headed in the wrong direction She turned back the way she had coht she had come--but after a few steps she bumped into the furnace, which was nowhere near the outside doors She was completely disoriented

Mama did this to me

Laura squeezed her ruined hands into raw, bloody fists In a rage she pounded on the furnace, and with each blow she fervently wished that she were beating herhouse twisted and rumbled In the distance, beyond an eternity of sly: "Laura Laura"

Why wasn’t Ma Rachael break down the cellar doors? Where in God’s na, gasping, Laura pushed away from the furnace and tried to follow Rachael’s voice to safety

A beas, slammed into her back, and catapulted her into the shelves of home canned food Jars fell, shattered Laura went down in a rain of glass She could smell pickles, peaches

Before she could determine if any bones were broken, before she could even lift her face out of the spilled food, another beas

There was so ether She was not even sixteen years old, and there was only so much she could bear She sealed the pain in a dark corner of herto it, she twisted and thrashed hysterically, raged at her fate, and cursed her mother

Her hatred for her mother wasn’t rational, but it was so passionately felt that it took the place of the pain she could not allow herself to feel Hate flooded through her, filled her with so y that she was nearly able to toss the heavy beas

Damn you to Hell, Maround floor with a sound like cannons blasting

Da rubble broke through the already weakened cellar ceiling

Ma Wicked This Way

Co wicked this way comes

Open, locks,

whoever knocks!

--Shakespeare, Macbeth

1

ACROSS the soed course like cracks in a china plate In the unsheltered courtyard outside Alfred O’Brian’s office, the parked cars gliht The wind gusted, whipping the trees Rain beat with sudden fury against the three tall office s, then strea the view beyond

O’Brian sat with his back to the s While thunder reverberated through the low sky and see, he read the application that Paul and Carol Tracy had just subht as she watched O’Brian When he sits very still like that, you’d alroomed His carefully coood barber less than an hour ago His mustache was so expertly trimmed that the halves of it appeared to be perfectly syray suit with trouser creases as tight and straight as blades, and his black shoes gleaernails were manicured, and his pink, well-scrubbed hands looked sterile

When Carol had been introduced to O’Brian less than a week ago, she had thought he was prim, even prissy, and she had been prepared to dislike hiracious manner, and by his sincere desire to help her and Paul

She glanced at Paul, as sitting in the chair next to hers, his own tensions betrayed by the angular position of his lean, usually graceful body He atching O’Brian intently, but when he sensed that Carol was looking at him, he turned and smiled His smile was even nicer than O’Brian’s, and as usual, Carol’s spirits were lifted by the sight of it He was neither handsoht even say he was plain, yet his face was enor, open coentleness and sensitivity His hazel eyes were capable of conveying ao, at a university syy and Mode that had drawn her to hi years they had never ceased to intrigue her Noinked, and with that wink he see: Don’t worry;

O’Brian is on our side; the application will be accepted; everything will turn out all right; I love you

She winked back at hih she was sure he could see through her brave front

She wished that she could be certain of winning Mr O’Brian’s approval She knew she ought to be overfloith confidence, for there really was no reason why O’Brian would reject the Paul was thirty-five, and she was thirty-one, and those were excellent ages at which to set out upon the adventure they were conte Both of them were successful in their work They were financially solvent, even prosperous They were respected in their coer now than at any ti In short, their qualifications for adopting a child were pretty much impeccable, but she worried nonetheless

She loved children, and she was looking forward to raising one or two of her own During the past fourteen years--in which she had earned three degrees at three universities and had established herself in her profession--she had postponed ether Getting an education and launching her career had always coone an unre a child was one pleasure she did not want to postpone any longer