It Happened by Debbie Bumstead Winans

It Happened

by Mary Deborah Alice Bumstead Winans

-One-

Little Mary's Memories

The light from the hall shines into the dark room. Half awake I see the shape of a man, as black as night and as scary as death, framed in the doorway. Then the door is shut and he is inside. I must keep as still as I can. I must not move a single muscle. If I so much as twitch a finger, he will stab me with his knife. My stillness doesn't stop him from coming over to the bed, where he sits down. Startled, I shy like a pony, suddenly, my whole body frightened. I know who it is, I know what will happen, it has happened before, and yet I haven't gotten used to it. In fact, each time is worse than before, as if the worst were yet to come, the whole building up to some horrible conclusion. I want to run, back to Mama or Daddy who are sitting unaware in Grandbee and Grandpa's living room, so close I can hear them talking. Why don't they come to help me? But the barriers of doors, closet, bathroom, hallway, kitchen, and most of all the barriers of his hands, his voice, keep me imprisoned.

Uncle Hersey says things like, “Little Mary, I won't hurt you.” What a lie. He pinches me sometimes, that hurts. He pushes, he prods in tender places, that hurts. He says, “Be still, you can't go to Mama now. Look, I'm going to show you something,” or he says, “Be as quiet as you can, don't cry. I can hurt you if I have to,” or “Let me pull your pants down, what a good girl, Mary,” and “Remember, never tell anyone I came in here; it's a secret, and I can hurt you if you tell.” All in his gentle smiling voice, whispery, but scary, so scary a big balloon of darkness fills up my chest with fear. I am frozen in fear, waiting for the end.

This is what he does:he pulls my shirt up high under my arms and rubs my chest, pinches my nipples, even puts his lips down on me, licking me. He pulls my pants and panties off completely. I know now he will rub my thighs, push and pull at my skin, and wiggle his fingers into my little places. I hate how he cares so much for my bottom parts, how he ignores my eyes. He doesn't care about me up in my mind at all. All he wants are my thighs open. Over and over I try to shut them, and he pushes them open. I can't stand it. I want to go away. I want to go far far away. At the same time my body reaches out without my permission. It likes the feeling between my legs, the smoothing of his hands on my skin, his tongue licking me, as if I were a kitten. What am I supposed to do about my body, how do I keep it from becoming part of him and his ways, when the rest of me wants to escape?

He makes noises that scare me, too. Why is he sounding so strange? And then I open my eyes sometimes, and see the giant poking thing that he keeps in his pants behind a zipper. The belt loosens, I can hear it, the zipper comes down, I can hear it. Then I peek as hard as I can, wondering. But it is more than I can bear when he lifts me up and sets me on his lap and puts the poking thing against my tummy. How hard it is, how strange it is. He wants me to hold it, but I can't because I'm not there anymore. I'm completely limp. I can't bear it one bit longer. I'm just waiting for some other world to come into my life and set me free.

*

I am Little Mary, so young my memories are patchy. But I know now Uncle Hersey had been close to us since before my big brothers were born. He admitted years later that he had even abused his little brother, my Daddy, when they were kids. My brothers probably were victims, too, but I don't know, as no one will talk about it now. I think I can feel that Uncle Hersey's been at me since I was a baby of one or two. Most memories are gone from those alive, or gone in every sense from those who have died. I look at a photo of my family standing next to him, circa 1957: he's smiling there like the good brother of my Daddy that everyone thinks he is, while I am clinging to my Daddy's leg, turned away, hiding my face from the uncle with my other hand, frowning in the sunshine, barely three years old. I really don't know how many times he has found me, in one house, or another, or another. Mostly at Grandbee's in the country where each week we gather, eat, play, hike in the hills, have glorious fun with aunts, uncles, cousins galore, and into the evening the adults talking, talking, and me, the littlest girl, sleepy, dropping off, and being put down to sleep alone in Grandbee and Grandpa's bedroom.

But I remember once, at his own house in the city, I stay the night with my favorite cousin. He sneaks in, into the fairy tale bedroom nook my cousin has for all her own, that I'd been excited to sleep in with her. His dark villainous shadow creeps in, staining my love and excitement with fear. My cousin knows, oh how she knows about her own dad. It has happened to her innumerable times, but now she's too old. He likes me now, and pushes her away in anger as she tries to save me.

And now I am six and he has finagled a way to find me in my own home. This is the way he did it: He got a deal on a house out on State Street in our town. He bought the house and he told his brother, my Daddy, that wouldn't it be good if Daddy could come fix up the house, wouldn't it be fine if Daddy and Daddy's family moved into the new house, and Daddy worked on it for free rent? Then Daddy and Mama could rent their little old house on Buena Vista for some extra cash. Oh, what a clever idea, and of course, he had to stay weekends at the house with us, too, to help. It was way too far to go to his home in the city each night.

But that first night there, when Mama and Daddy are asleep or busy, I suppose, anyway, where are they all this time, I wonder. Shouldn't they be watching me? Maybe they let him come in to do this to me? Maybe this is part of growing up? No, I don't know, but this time I'm not going to let him get me. Haha, I listen to the footsteps coming along the bare hallway. He's coming, he's coming. My mind darts around like a trapped bunny. And like a bunny I hop up from bed. Silently, I zip away to hide. Haha, he won't find me behind the big boxes in my room, all still unpacked. I creep behind one, crouch into a ball, my heart thudding, my little places throbbing, but me so still, so quiet, as the door opens. There is the light spilling in like always, but he doesn't see me. I'm not there. His voice whispers, threatens. I only roll up tighter into my frozen ball of body. I don't give in. I hide. I hear him come in, but there is a noise in another part of the house. He has to retreat. I've won this time, and that makes me feel strong.

*

It becomes something like a nightmare, happening in the dark, awakening me from sleep, so during the day I forget it and try to feel happy. I love school. Oh, I love my teacher, Mrs. Smith. It is true I was afraid at first. I was afraid of riding the bus from our new home and back, when I had learned to walk to and from kindergarten with my best friend, Annette, last year when we lived on Buena Vista. It is true I was scared of all the new faces; I don't know why, but how much better I felt when they took me from one teacher's classroom into Mrs. Smith's room where Annette was. I heard them discussing it -- “Maybe Mary would do better with her friend in my class,” Mrs. Smith said. I did do better. I began to learn to play. I learned to laugh and have fun. School was joy, and now I know daylight means I can relax. Only good things happen during the day, I'm sure of it now.

That is how it works. Out at Grandbee and Grandpa's the day is full of only fun, good times, with loving Mama and aunts, all so soft and safe, cousins so dusty and noisy and adventurous. Long hikes up the dirt road, picking out walking sticks, that was fun, too, with Daddy along, and quiet Grandpa, even he, Uncle Hersey, seemed almost a safe grown-up, with his smile, his high waisted pants, his talk of God. Only when he laughed did I hear some echo of my fear in the dark room inside me. But I think the daylight time is safe, I'm pretty sure of it.

Until one day. When the adults, all except for him, have gone on a hike, and all the cousins and I are playing rough among the rocks, climbing and hiding and shuffling through the eons of prickly oak leaves. Somehow I've fallen in the leaves, felt almost as if I were drowning in the leaves. I must go in to the bathroom, too, the need presses on me, so I run up the stairs of the pink adobe house we call Sleepy Hollow and cross the kitchen to the bathroom. Ah, how good it feels to pee, but – the door is opening. “I'm in here,” I cry, desperate for privacy. “I know,” his voice says.

“You are covered in leaves,” he says, as I grab up my pants. He sounds just as if he might be Daddy, commenting, and because it is day, I feel maybe I'm safe.

“Wouldn't you like to get cleaned up?” he asks, and I'm still thinking it is all right. Maybe I do need cleaning up, but as he kneels and begins to undo my clothes, dread stiffens me. Now I can not move. What is wrong? Is this the way it is supposed to be? My tummy feels sick, as he holds me close to him and turns on the bathtub water.

Some oak leaves fall into the tub and float like little boats. I stare and stare at the leaves swirling, while his hands explore my bottom, my little parts. He lifts me into the tub, lays me down, right down in the water. It is still only a few inches deep, but down it flows out of the spigot, getting deeper and deeper. Now I'm not drowning in leaves, I'm drowning in water! But he doesn't care. He opens my thighs. I close them, struggle to sit up. He opens them, makes me slip back, water up my nose. He doesn't care! All he wants is down below. He wants my thighs open, my little places to touch. It is daylight, and yet, here he is, the nightmare man of darkness drowning me. Is he trying to kill me? I begin struggling with all my might.

But then he's done. He lifts me out. “Don't tell anyone,” he reminds me. I stand still, shivering, gone completely away from myself. I'm keeping my eyes downcast, but up there in my other mind I'm looking at his zipper and wondering about the thing inside his pants, the thing that hides and then comes out like a dark greedy goblin when he unzips. It is hidden away again. I'd like to study it in private, maybe learn what it is and what it means, maybe touch it or poke it back or bend it or hit it, I don't know what. I want to know it and understand what it wants of me. I'm fascinated by that thing because it seems so important and powerful. Maybe with a thing like that I couldn't be caught like this. I'd be strong all the time, like boys are. And all the while he dries me, dresses me. I'm like a doll, unable to move, unable to do for myself in any way. Today my strength is all gone. He has won for good.

I'm left to go outdoors again, but I don't know what to do. I wander onto the patio, feel the warmth of the day, see the comforting boulders on the hillside, hear the shouts of my brothers and cousins. When the other adults come home from their hike, I want my Mama, I want my Daddy. But even they along with everyone else greet Uncle Hersey as if he were a regular human being. They all believe he is good, kind, Godly, the big brother who succeeds at work as opposed to my Daddy who fails, the one to look up to, the man who does only good in an evil world, the one with the sparkling smile and soft soft voice. They never see the danger, the power and greed behind his smile, the cruelty behind his zipper.

-Two-

True Deborah

Through the years of being battered by Uncle Hersey and his giant thing, Little Mary barely survives. First he had filled her nights with fear, and then he had brought the pain into daylight. But now I am seven, my name is Deborah, and a year full of goodness and joy bursts upon me like a healing light come down from heaven to cure me. Daddy, Mama, my brothers, and I move away from Hemet, move away from my father's side of the family, move away from the darkness that had stalked Little Mary. We travel up to Washington state to rent a home on Puget Sound in the green forests.

I am free to remember my own life, my own loves, my own occupations. Nothing like that creeping fear hurts me here, so I am clean, I am happy, I am truly myself, Deborah, as my family calls me. I am an important little girl with a big name. I prosper. I thrive. I am filled with nature, with blue sea, with good family play. I love school, I love my teacher, Mrs. Taber, I love reading, I love my best friend, Jenny.

Oh, there are dark reminders sometimes. Seeing Daddy in a pair of mustard yellow stretchy swim trunks that show the bulge between his legs, which scares me, reminding me of something I've almost forgotten. The bucket of big clams we dig up in the mud one day – I stare at them soaking in fresh water with their big white wrinkly thing-like appendages hanging out of their ball-shaped shells. Makes me feel funny to see them. They remind me of something and I'm afraid and fascinated at the same time.

Mostly, though, I am free. It feels good to be myself. And this freedom teaches me that I can be strong, I can be successful. I will take this lesson forward. For years to come I will be myself and proud of it. Even when the old trouble hurts me again and again with versions of the same pain, I will still be strong. Even though this cycle repeats in my life, still I can be and I am important, joyful, true Deborah.

-Three-

Debbie/Davey

I don't remember how, now that I'm eight, now we are back from Washington and in Hemet again where I'm called Debbie -- but somehow I know what male genitals look like. I know boys are men, and boys have what men do on their bodies. I'm mighty interested in this. Sometimes I pretend that I could be a boy, but this is separate from my main life as a girl. As a girl, I'm sure I'm going to have lots of children, and I'm going to be a good mama. As a girl, I absolutely love my dolls. I give them lives full of personality and pretend reality, so much so, that they almost seem like real babies. I love dressing up my Betsy McCall doll in the different outfits Mama makes for her; oh, my, those little carefully sewn dresses please me. I want to sew, too, and I begin trying, enjoying it.

As a girl, I play with my girlfriends in girlish ways. I'm horse crazy, as girls sometimes are. Animals are like children, and I want all of them, horses, dogs, cats. I want to learn all the wild creatures' names, too. I love books about animals, about magic and fantasy lands, about families full of real children. I am consumed by life in books; how beautiful the worlds are in my mind when I'm reading a good book.

As a girl I am complete, at least, that is what I think.

But sometimes I like to feel like a boy. I want to call myself Davey and leave Debbie behind for awhile. I feel a grubby boyish brave feeling, a feeling that in daydreams I can go on boy adventures and get loved by grown-ups who love me for being a boy, not a girl. I know boys are more important than girls, is that why I like to daydream I'm a boy sometimes? Or is it because I love my Daddy and want to be like him? Or that I look up to my big brothers and want to be like them? Or that my best friend, Jeff, is a boy, a kind boyish boy just like I would be? Or does it have to do with what Uncle Hersey did to me that causes me to want to have that other life inside me? Does that part of me go back to Uncle Hersey, that is what I really want to know now.

Did his abuse of Little Mary set me up to thinking it'd be better if I were a boy? Seeing his genitals, realizing their power, did that make me want to be strong enough or the same enough to be able to stop him from hurting me? If I were the same as he, maybe he wouldn't hurt me? Later, I find out this wouldn't have made a difference; he abused boys, too. But maybe I thought at the time that being a boy like my Daddy, my brothers, even like Uncle Hersey, might save me, might save my life.

My life as Debbie/Davey is a wonderful full learning feeling life. In a way, though it sounds like it's a sexual thing to want to be a boy part of the time, this duality in me seems more about being everything together that I see all around me, and less about attraction to one sex or another. But it changes as I leave Debbie/Davey behind and enter puberty. Only when I fall in love with a boy my own age and a man, a teacher, in ninth grade does the true sexual girl come into her own importance. As a girl, though I'd been fine, complete in every way, I see now it was in every way but sexual. I still love my dolls, still want to be a mama, still love sewing, horses, reading, caring for animals, playing with girlfriends in girlish ways. Still in all my outer ways, as a girl, I flourish. But now I see that the girl had never known herself as a sexual person. She had been in hiding all those years; I hadn't been able to see her at all. Not until I am 13 does she flood out in the most healthy way, full of desire, all ready to be over Uncle Hersey, to leave him way way behind, to go into good love with potential for good sex between grown good man and grown loving woman.

-Four-

Famous Debbie Bumstead

Finally I'm ready to be over it. I'm ready to grow past the past and open up to who I should be at the age of 13. I am a young teenager wanting to become a woman who will be loved in the right way by a good man. I know what sex is now. I've learned at school how the man's part fits in the woman's part and why I've started having periods.

Now that I'm thirteen, for the first time we have a television at home. I watch lots of shows and movies in which there's romance, kissing and hugging. It looks sweet to me, and seems to easily enter into my daydreams. First there's a boy in 8th grade that I like to look at, a quiet blond handsome boy named Mark. I dare not talk to him, though, still too shy. This shyness has been with me since Little Mary's time. As a little girl it felt like a silent shadow that paralyzed my whole body and my mind when I was confronted by new grown-ups. I was terrified of my friends' parents, of shopkeepers, of anyone unknown. Now my shyness includes the scary teens of my own age.

But still, by ninth grade even shyness isn't keeping me from heading toward healthy growth. I actually flirt with a boy named Rex who is in several of my classes. And my daydreams are full of Mr. Basile, my ninth grade Art teacher. He is dark, but the opposite of tall and handsome, being short and plump with a smallish chin, but looks don't matter in this case, not when one poet recognizes another. Of course, I have no idea of his opinion of me in real life, but he loves me dearly in my daydreams, so much so we are making love in these dreams and having a child -- what beautiful daydreams I have!

And then – I become famous. No, not in my daydreams, but in real life. I am famous within my family as most people are, but I'm also famous with my teachers, famous with my friends, and even famous enough to win awards and scholarships later on. Do you know how much famous people are loved? I do. I'm lucky to be able to paint and become famous as an artist, and I'm lucky to be able to write sensitively about life and nature and become a famous writer. Not many people become famous at such a young age, and those who do are loved so much they blossom into pure joy. They are ready for all good things to happen in the present and future, while the past goes past and disappears.

My English teacher, Miss Kerr, has recognized my writing talent and made me famous, and for that, I've decided to be just like her, if only I were pretty. If only I could dress as prettily as she, be as brave as she, have success at work, as she does. Well, there's still hope, I think. Things are going along; maybe I'll improve in looks and dress. I spend a lot of time planning to look nice, so maybe someday I will. I practice sewing with Mama. Mama is stylish herself and is bound to help me learn.

Fame follows me everywhere! I find a discarded tennis racket on the school campus and begin practicing, until – I am famous on the tennis teams of high school and college! True, I'm not often a winner, but I win sportsmanship awards. And in tennis, I can see something of life more clearly than at any other time. Looking across a court, waiting for a serve, it seems as if I know the truth about time, about here, about now. How can that help me, though, with the darkness still deep inside me?

Because, as always in good years, there are reminders of dark shadows. I begin a ten year long series of nightmares, always about dead babies or kittens. These are so bad I fear going to sleep. Why am I finding little corpses lying on hillsides of green grass? Or seeing a child play by the side of a cliff and then drop suddenly over the edge? Why do I see children's bodies burning in fires? Why do the kittens I should have taken care of end up hanging from crotches of trees, dead? I never understand my nightmares, but now I wonder: did they have to do with Little Mary struggling to survive and failing as I grew into a woman? Was she trying to tell me something or bring herself into my memory for some reason? I don't know.

The other pain that never lets me go from age 13 to 43, when it is so bad I have to have a hysterectomy, is the monthly agony of cramps. My periods are so difficult and painful that from the beginning I contemplate suicide to get away from them. I curse the curse! Later when I learn that sex abuse in childhood can be related to hard periods later on, I think, well, if that is true, the abuse must have been horrible, considering the days of writhing I went through each month for thirty years.

But in between periods I am a famous kid! Another friend who has made me famous is named Dr. Pullias. He's an old friend of my Grandpa Bumstead and has property above Sleepy Hollow in the hills. Yes, he is there in the hills, too, along with Uncle and Daddy, but he is never dangerous. He is true and good. I get to know him as a child of ten, but at 13, I send him some postcards that lead to a pen pal relationship, which goes on to be a deep friendship. In letters I tell him all my troubles and all my brags, and he writes back letters of encouragement and counsel. Sometimes I wonder, did he ever have an inkling about Uncle Hersey? What would he have said to me if he'd known that it happened? How would he have helped me? Dr. Pullias, a psychologist, comes along somehow when I need him. He's a professor at USC, a famous man who writes books. I love him for making me famous, too, by sending my writings to an agent, by telling people how wonderful I am, by making me feel as special as anyone possibly could be.

Oh, if only it could have all continued going forward. If only I as Famous Debbie Bumstead could have taken over and gone forward bravely. If only I could have attained my glorious goals – a career with children, a published book or two, a house in a garden, a loving man to love. If only I had not had to stay and watch as sex in its torture mode created another person inside me, born of Little Mary, named Alice. I watch, still sometimes Famous Debbie despite it all, as Alice is thrown down and hurt time after time, year after year. I can hardly bear it.

-Five-

Alice and Tiger

Alice has a whole book written about her, that's how much she is loved by all the parts in me that know her well, including me, Tiger. Tears come to my eyes when I chance to hear her song, “The Theme from a Summer Place,” an instrumental piece that's still often played after 40 years. I hear it in the oddest instances sometimes, once on the gas station muzak, another time on a tv commercial, once at my husband's parents' anniversary party, and so on. As soon as the strains of piano and violin start, I am yearning inside to help Alice, to bring her back to me and somehow undo everything that hurt her and made her disappear.

Alice was beautiful, well-dressed, dynamic, free of inhibition and shyness. As a teen she was wild, super sensitive, everything honest and truthful. As an adult she was vibrant, full of life and teasing laughter. I might have been Alice! Instead I am Tiger, the dullest grown-up imaginable who has calmly taken care of all the troubled characters inside me since my appearance in 1968.

Yes, I, Tiger, was there from the beginning, when Alice first appeared. I came to help her grow into a woman when she was 14. I am a woman, myself, but that's all I am, and that's nothing without Alice. Why am I called Tiger? Just because I'm as far from being a tiger as anyone could be, I am that dull. What Alice and I might have been together, only I and one other person will ever know.

I hardly want to visit it all again for this article on what happened. Here are the bare facts: My mom and dad began a long, long, five, six year long back and forthing, all about his extra-marital affairs, her sadness, the getting back together, the falling apart, and on and on. The things that hurt me the most were Mama's drinking and Daddy's sexuality. The drinking, which lasted five or six years, too, changed my mama into someone different I couldn't trust, who left me alone night after night as she either went out with Daddy or later out with a boyfriend who was a truly terrible drunk. Dad's sexuality was blatant, bringing his girlfriends home, making noisy love to my mom that I had to listen to or see, lecturing me on being tolerant whenever I came back from running away.

I hardly want to remember it.

Why did this affect me so badly? Not only because it would have been hard for any kid, but because it related to the hurt I'd gone through as Little Mary. Even as a six year old I had recognized that Uncle Hersey and my dad looked very alike, spoke alike, laughed, smiled alike. They were practically twins in looks. To have my uncle reveal in secrecy all the sexual deviancy he was so good at, hurting me with its awfulness, and then, just as I was ready to leave that past behind and learn good sexuality, here came my dad, wrecking my heart and mind with this misery of drink and overdone sex.

That's what Alice suffered through. Then she got slammed again when she tried mightily to get back to her own sexual growth. I think because she was scared of sex, she didn't have the skills to find a sexual man. She thought she had. Andrew was a fine fellow, interesting, liking writing and art like Alice did, and they spent hours on the phone, and days on the go together. They even spent nights together. But in the seven years they knew each other he never touched her. In every way they were a couple, yet he didn't kiss her, hold her hand, make love to her. And she didn't know why. She thought it was her fault somehow. But it wasn't her fault. The only thing she should have done that she didn't was ask him about it. What would the answer have been? I don't even know if Andrew knew why he didn't reach out as a man to the lonely Alice of me. When Alice finally hurt enough to realize she must get away from Andrew, more long years of pain followed as she crept into her hideout all alone. How could such a thing happen to such a beautiful girl like Alice? I don't understand it still.

I wrote the book of Alice in 1982 or 3, before I understood consciously what had happened to Little Mary and to Alice. I wrote from my un-named inner unknowable intelligence, which stirs up all that I know with what I've forgotten and a bit of what I will be in the future that I'm still unaware of, and then it makes this magical mishmash into words that actually tell the forgotten past and predict the future with no help from me at all.

Writing The Destruction of Alice was my next attempt at growing, and in it I predicted my cure. Perhaps the cure was obvious and when I stated it out like that, I allowed it to happen. Within a year of writing out how Alice meets a good man in my book, I had met a good man myself, who wanted both to love me and make love to me.

-Six-

Alice by Myself

Never listen to Her. The One called Tiger. She doesn't know a thing. I hate her for all her dull wishy washy ways, trying to take care of me in those days. I didn't need her. I could have escaped and done very well without her around. I might have run away from everyone and started over brand new. How can I know when I've been silenced so completely, mostly by Her?

OK, I know She helped me. She tried. And I know the people of the past who actually did it and hurt me. I never want to know them again. That man called my uncle, haha, I'd never call him uncle. He was nothing more than a drip drop of evil. I don't care what he did. It was nothing to me. I ran away as soon as he appeared. I don't want to know anything about him. That man called my dad, he wasn't my real dad. My real dad would never have done such mean things. I don't care how many times you say that woman who drank those years was my mama, I know she wasn't. My mother would never be a drunk and leave me helpless like that. And what do I care about Andrew. He was good for some fun times, that's all. I didn't care if he made love to me or not. He could be gay for all I care, and he probably was.

I'm alone and I can be alone. I need nothing but my horse to fly away on. First I had my black horse and then my Arabian. They gave me the flyaway feelings of freedom that I needed in those days. Even now I tell Her to go away sometimes, so I can at least imagine myself riding, riding, riding across the fields like I used to do, up the hills. I can go further now, down to the sea, galloping along the beach in the tumbling waves, just like Alex does on the Black Stallion, bareback, no bridle needed, completely free.

Still...most of the time I hardly come out at all. As soon as I do, I'm frightened and I hurry back inside into the deep dark where I'm safe. I got tamed once by Her husband, that was the most I've ever had of life. With him I was free, finally. He tamed me by touching me over and over, as kindly and calmly as if I were a filly needing gentling. He was my everything and now he's gone, wouldn't you know it. Even a good man can leave you, if he dies. That's why I can't stand going on anymore.

Oh, but how free I was with my Phil man. Joyous is the only word that describes my love for him. She, Tiger, had to come in quite often to take care of things, but when She wasn't around, I was as free and full of life as I could be. Phil and I laughed, cuddled, made love in every way from slow and gentle to fast and wild. I didn't need Her for all of that, not like She thought I did. Not with Phil.

But Phil is gone. I'm scared and hidden away again. I want to hug him suddenly in the middle of the kitchen again. I want to tell him all my funny stories while I sit up close on the couch with him, his arm around me. I want to lie quietly with him, held so tight to his chest I know I am safe forever. I want to sing silly songs on the road and watch tv in hotels as we travel together. I want to sit in the cool dawn on the patio with him, knowing I'm loved. But, no, death comes along relentlessly and I have to be alone again. Don't think I can't take it, I can.

But will I ever be let loose to be free and loved again?

-Seven-

Mrs. Debbie Winans

A cure is never as easy as it sounds. I'm Mrs. Debbie Winans, probably the most healthy person inside me, but it took awhile to get here and even so at the least little setback all my other named parts come hurrying back to make me suffer or help me be strong, according to their own experiences. By now there are just too many of me inside me. But each seems to have her own place, if only they'd work together and make me whole.

For several lonely years before meeting Phil, I fell in love with some men. But they didn't return my love at all. Why was I the sort to be “just friends” with a man? After I wrote my Alice book, I let my loved professors read it. One man's comment showed that he understood even more quickly than I did that the ending was about forgiveness and acceptance. Another professor didn't like Alice. He called her a hysterical virgin, which hurt me. But that was perceptive, too, wasn't it?

The battle with Alice and me was desperate during my first months of being with Phil. Alice was afraid. I was determined. She was all for fainting away like Little Mary did, while I was full of love and desire. I wonder if Little Mary felt a darkness overcome her when Uncle Hersey bent his head to her little body with open mouth – because Alice nearly swooned when Phil first clasped me to him and kissed me. I wonder if Little Mary cried after Uncle Hersey hurt her in bed like Alice did when Phil and I first made love. I wonder if Little Mary had trouble sleeping, always in fear of strangers getting her, always jerking awake after falling asleep. That is the trouble Alice had, so badly that Phil often commented on my sudden terrors when we slept together.

So strange all the effects of the past on the present and the future, into the distance future. I was 26 or 27 and still a child in too many ways because I'd not had the chance or taken the opportunity until then to let go and love and fall into danger and find safety instead. Because Phil was a mixture of love, danger, and safety. He cured me eventually. He cured Alice, I should say. He let her and me get over my dad and Andrew, find forgiveness and leave hysterical virginity behind.

So now here I am, Mrs. Debbie Winans, in many ways fulfilled and calm at last. But I didn't consciously know about Little Mary until another 20 years had passed. I thought all my trouble had been from the divorce years and Andrew's betrayal. Though in the 80s when Uncle Hersey was 60 or so the news broke: He had been caught abusing his 3 year old grand-daughter, I still avoided the thought of him for two decades. Then I had a flashing memory come into my mind, and then another, and then another. Little Mary's memories. They came always just as I lay down to sleep at night, specific scenes that horrified my mind and made my stomach feel upset.

Finally I wanted to know. I corresponded with one of my cousins, his daughter, who gave me the history that she herself found out after he'd been caught. He wasn't incarcerated; instead he had to go through counseling. During that time he made his confessions of active lifelong pedophilia with relatives' children and children off the street, any he could find. He took advantage of both boys and girls, but was always careful to hurt them while they were under six, so that they wouldn't remember.

He told my cousin many horrible things about how he did it without penetration, how it all happened. That he himself didn't remember ever being abused as a child, but that he began his own actions as a kid using his little brother, my dad. That he still thought it wasn't a crime, that he was introducing sex to children, helping them learn about it, like men do in primitive tribes where society never makes a big deal of it. But that must all be a lie he told himself, because he was very good at keeping his evil part of life secret. None of the family suspected him, except, my cousin said, maybe his wife later on, but she was too weak to deal with it. But many had had memories haunting them, she, my cousin, two other cousins, daughters of our aunt, who was big sister to Hersey and my dad. Even today, though, some of his five children refuse to think about it, saying at the end, as Uncle Hersey was dying, that he got forgiveness from God.

After learning so much that I thought I'd never know, now I understood what my writing of Alice's pain had been about. Alice had been abused by her uncle. Yet I had thought this idea was metaphorical for me being hurt by Dad's infidelity when I was a teen. Now I see both reality and metaphor were true. It happened.

It happened. That is my title for this article because it has taken me even more years to believe I am right in all that I've written here, including the memories of Little Mary, which, though fictionalized with my imagination, are real. They occurred. It all happened. Don't you think so?

Little Mary: “Yeth.”

True Deborah: “Yes.”

Debbie/Davey: “Yeah.”

Famous Debbie Bumstead: “Yes.”

Tiger: “Yes.”

Alice: “I don't care.”

Mrs. Debbie Winans: “Yes, and Alice does care.”

Alice: “I don't care! I don't care because I hate them all for what they did to me when I didn't deserve it or ask for it or want it.”

“All right, Alice.”

There I am, together yet separate because what happened to me through life splintered me into many pieces, all the pieces of me. You can imagine yourself how important Phil was to me and all the parts of me. He died recently of an illness, leaving me alone after 25 years of life in love.

But my love still remains inside me, and in some ways I'm not even alone. Here are all the pieces of me finally in one article, telling how it happened. That makes me feel whole and together for at least this moment in time. Maybe this moment will stretch into the rest of my life, and I'll be a whole person all at the same time finally.

Shasta of Dabrion: Prologue

Prologue

Shasta Maxmir lived in the unsettled years after the Age of Destruction. Only a few million people clung to existence on Earth near the coastal areas where life still had its chance to prosper. No one ever went into the dry blasted interior of the continent or traveled to other parts of the world, except occasional curious Flyites. Even in Shasta's time there lived humans who flew with their own wings, and others, the Oceanites, who lived and breathed under the sea. There were also many domestic animals that had been genetically programed to gain human intelligence as they aged. But Shasta was an old-fashioned land human like the other land humans who had inherited Earth from their own kind in ancient times.

Shasta was at the end of adolescence, ready for final exams at the high school, when the adventure that changed her world began. Shasta had studied history, her favorite subject being Wildlife. She learned there had been an amazing, unbelievable variety of plants and animals before the Age of Destruction, each one of which fit into a beautiful and incredible puzzle picture of life. Shasta also learned that death was much more a part of life in the time when Nature ruled the planet. Now people and other animals lived a couple of centuries at least, unless they were murdered or had an accident. Or unless they killed themselves.

Hopelessness flowed into the widening cracks of many souls -- it was a struggle to find enough meaning to live long days, months, years in their constricted world. Sometimes it was not meaning which evaded the soul, but the pain of cruelties done to an individual over the many years of childhood that confused and saddened the heart. So many searched, and some discovered. And groups of others, called Revelers, left soul-searching behind, and fell into the strange night life of roaming, partying, and further destruction. Shasta, frightened of the night, was one of the Dayites, day people who wanted most of all to understand balance, to find hope, to make everything all right.

She lived in a many-roomed mansion called Dabrion in a city named Restenek on the west coast of what used to be the United States in centuries past. The States were long gone, mostly forgotten, except by historians, those funny people, like Shasta Maxmir, who still believed that humans could learn from the past.

Shasta of Dabrion: Chapter One - Shasta of Dabrion

Chapter One

 Shasta of Dabrion

Shasta sprawled uncomfortably in her desk in class, her mind on the final test questions, but her body aching with the mysterious illness that no one could explain, neither physicians nor psychologists. The pain crept into her legs like a legion of insects marching upward, crawling finally into her back and ending at her neck, and all the aches up and down her body remained marching in place, like a tiny army on parade. Shasta's teacher, Emka, saw that Shasta was suffering and told her to lie on the bench at the back of the classroom.

“It won't help,” Shasta complained. Blond-haired Tiwhynian Shasta had large eyes of shining blue, flecked strangely with white, like snow falling on her namesake mountain. Her eyes were hooded by heavy lids, as if holding in a secret, her nose was straight, her mouth wide and full, tilted up at the ends like a pixie's. Her skin was as pale as if she'd been born from a silver womb, and as she stood up, her body looked slight and strong at the same time, her dark gray clothing draping neatly around her figure. She went to lie down on the bench for a few minutes, but then was up and at her wildlife exam once more. It was easy until she got confused and lost her place on the answer sheet. After catching up with that, then came the essay part of the test.

Were meerkats related to mongooses? Shasta pondered the question, as she scanned the drawings of animals pinned up on the bulletin boards around the room. The classroom was one of many in the big dome-shaped high school building near downtown Restenek. Though the school was large, not many students attended; Shasta and her friend, Jojo, were the only two graduates this season.

“I'm out of here,” Jojo, said, slapping test papers down on her own desk next to Shasta's. “I just don't feel like taking this exam!” She glared at Emka. Jojo was tall and slim like Shasta, but she had Batien brown skin, dark eyes, short curly black hair.

“Remember the two students who quit a few months ago,” Emka replied, “ just left their studies and refused to take the finals? They abandoned purpose, didn't they? And then -- what happened to them?" Years ago as a freshman, Shasta had met Emka and loved her teacher almost immediately. Emka, with long black hair, turquoise eyes, sharp chin, had recognized something special in Shasta, too, and had encouraged and drawn out her questing nature.

Neither JoJo nor Shasta answered their teacher's question. What had happened to those students? The two were dead now, gone forever. Shasta thought of a cousin of hers named Sishish who had committed suicide years ago; though for a different reason, still hopelessness lay behind the act. It isn't the answer, Shasta thought, I realize suicide isn't the answer. There's always a way, always a solution, always a better answer than suicide. Anyway almost all the time, she added to herself sadly.

Shasta bent her head to finish the test, and JoJo also reluctantly took her papers up again. The meerkat was a type of mongoose, Shasta wrote, remembering her reading of the ancient books collected in the school library, books about how the world had once been incredibly alive with countless animals and plants. She wrote down all the details she'd learned about the small mammal, the meerkat, who wasn't really a cat at all. She added that at one time there were even films about meerkats, studies of their communities in Freecaland that had fascinated ancient people. In the films the meerkats were named human names and loved by humans, just as she loved her dogs, her cat, her horse and ponies. No one knew if meerkats still lived in the wild. Maybe if there were people in Freecaland, they knew, but how could anyone here communicate with a country so far away to find out? The Flyites sometimes flew to other places to bring back news from over the oceans, but Shasta had never heard of one going to Freecaland. She wrote in her essay that she wished she could know if the meerkats were still living busy lives in the wild somewhere. It seemed an important detail to know.

“Why is wildlife so important, anyway,” Jojo asked as the two girls walked home from the high school. They had finished the test early after all, and the other final exams would be taken next week

“Because we hardly have any anymore,” Shasta replied. “They are nearly all extinct. And there's the other reason, that when we had true nature in the world, the earth was better.”

“But we'll never see them again, so why bother?”

The girls climbed the steep hill above the school, scuffing through the red earth and rocks, under a murky sky. Shasta could barely see in the dim light, but at the top were the cages in which a few reproduced wild animals lived for humans to know, a sort of sidewalk zoo. “Look at them, that's why we bother,” Shasta answered Jojo. Shasta hated to see the caged animals, their fur coats so filthy, their eyes so dull and lost looking. Who took care of them? She never saw the person who took care of the animals whenever she passed the cages here and elsewhere.

“Poor things,” Jojo agreed.

“I know. If only the wild animals could develop intelligence, like the domestics can. Then they would have rights, instead of having no say in what is done to create and keep them, tortured like this.” Shasta drew her thin hands through her hair, messing up the ash-blond locks, trying to rid her mind of the animals' misery. Everyone who knew Shasta, though that wasn't many, praised her as someone who had the potential to figure it all out, all the many human and animal problems, and save the dark and constricted world. But Shasta herself felt too much weight pressing her down from the silent sky; she found she could only do one very small thing at a time.

“I turn here, as usual,” Jojo said, taking Shasta's arm for a moment. “Let's go to town later, see a film, get dessert! One exam down, only nine to go!”

The girls parted at Shasta's house, an ancient and many-roomed mansion of old wood and rock, which Shasta had named Dabrion, after the first planet discovered in another solar system years ago. Inside Dabrion, in the hallway, Shasta's husband Biz greeted his wife and hugged her close, wrapping his warm arms around her.

***

Dabrion had a secret entity within its walls, Shasta felt. Her home seemed alive, as if each room were an organ in a body and each stairway a bone supporting a network of moving parts. The secret entity must be the heart, Shasta figured, but she hadn't found it yet in all her years of searching. Maybe that was the house's purpose, to hide a treasure from her, to keep her going forward to find it. As she stood now in the entry hall with Biz, to her left was the open living room with its wood floor reflecting golden highlights from the fire in the fireplace. Others in her family sat in various worn chairs and sofas, her brothers, Daavi and Tiboro, her parents, Momo and Popi. Shasta's animal friends rose from the hearth rug to come greet her, the dogs, Trev and Pish, and the cat, Pooka.

--Welcome home, dear, Trev said, speaking as animals do with an inner voice heard by others just as a normal speaking voice. He rushed to Shasta's side, waving his thick black tail. He leaned against her fondly, while she bent over to put her cheek on his head and thump him cheerfully on his sides. Pish had to be hugged, too, and Pooka stroked.

But Shasta was distracted from entering the rest of the family circle by a strange old woman who stood on the bottom step of the sweeping front stairway in the hall. “Come along,” the woman said, impatiently, and Biz put a hand on Shasta's back to push her forward. Trev, Pish, and Pooka looked on curiously, but stayed downstairs with Biz. As Shasta slowly went up, her hand sliding along the balustrade, the little woman, whose head barely came up to Shasta's shoulder, muttered in irritation and waved at Shasta to hurry. Shasta had no idea who the woman was, but apparently a surprise had been prepared for her upstairs and she must follow and see. They entered a big bare room on the second floor that had large windows and a high ceiling. In a nook stood a birdcage, and a parrot in the cage looked out at Shasta.

“What a pretty bird,” Shasta said with delight. “And compared to some I've seen, the cage is neat and clean.”

The old woman didn't reply to Shasta. Instead she argued with a man in the room, a strange man who turned out to be the zoo-keeper Shasta had never seen, who kept the sidewalk zoos in town. Here he appeared out of the gloom of the far corner, a competent looking man in a white lab coat. When he flicked the light switch, Shasta saw that he had stocked the whole room with cages of animals, wild animals, here in her own home! Shasta looked around with eyes wide, a small zoo in her own house. As the man and the old woman waited, Shasta wandered along the pathway through the cages. She saw a wolf, a bobcat, a beaver. But how small their enclosures were! Unlike the sidewalk zoo's dirty cages that she and Jojo had passed on the way home from school, these were clean and shiny, but still too too small. The animals had no room at all to move around. Here was a bear, for heaven's sake! Shasta stared at the bear in awe, but when the unhappy animal grunted, she jumped. She had thought for a moment the bear was loose!

She didn't like her surprise at all. “I don't want this,” she told the old woman and the zoo-keeper. “Take it all away.” For years Shasta had suffered about the caged animals, those animals who were not sentient, who could not speak for themselves. Restricted, imprisoned, in need of help, the animals seemed to call for her to set them free or give them good homes that weren't cages. Even in her pity, the often disabled, often misshapen, and always unhappy wild animals' plight made her feel awful, as if she herself must somehow escape. Shasta ran out of the zoo room and up two more flights of stairs, down a long hall, and up one more narrow creaky set of stairs, up into her attic bedroom where she climbed into the big pillowy bed that she and Biz shared. She didn't want a zoo – no, that's not why she studied wildlife and cared about animals. It was the nature of the world as it once was in good and balanced times that she loved.

Though it was still early in the afternoon, Shasta snuggled under the covers and gathered them close up around her chin. She tried to relax and let the events of the day and the aches of her body dissipate. From below she heard the strains of beautiful music rising through Dabrion. Biz was relaxing, too, playing a plaintive melody on the piano instrument.

Shasta fell asleep and felt as if she were a child again, a small woebegone waif in the streets, who inspired interest in many people. They could tell she was special somehow. A man began to chase her. Shasta ran and ran, and running with her were the wild animals from the cages, the bear, the bobcat, the wolf, running as if they might escape to the happiness and freedom of another time. Shasta knew the man chasing her, oh, how she knew him, feared him; he was her Popi's brother, her predatory uncle, Laneville, whose perversion was to violate children's bodies for pleasure and power. He had been the reason for Sishish's suicide, but Shasta would not let him catch her, too. She shied like a horse at his outstretched arms, through alleys and scenes of the old life with other children and women in long skirts. Finally she stopped at the corner of a mansion, and a good man stepped up, smiled at her, and led her by the shoulder to safety. Even though she had met Biz years after childhood, when she was a young woman ready for marriage, in her dream she saw that the good man saving her from Laneville was Biz, and the mansion, Dabrion. Shasta smiled in her sleep.

As Shasta came downstairs again after her nap, it was quiet in the house, and a pleasant smell of cooking crumbles wafted up from the living room. Step by step she wandered downwards, thinking of her dream and remembering Sishish. When I moved Momo up from Zemateca, she thought, Momo and her furniture and other belongings, that was day I last saw Sishish. Sishish came by with her husband, Bark, and Sishish tried on one of Momo's nighties. Strange, Shasta thought. And Bark was aroused by the sight of his wife in the silk clothing, and told everyone else to leave. Then Shasta had seen the couple lower themselves to the floor to make love. She had gone outside where she found piles of old time photos, one a picture of a museum, destroyed in the past by Revelers in the night.

“Here she is!” Momo said, looking up as Shasta came into the room at Dabrion, far away from the childhood home in Zemateca. Momo crouched by the fire, holding the pan by its long handle and watching to see that the crumbles didn't burn.

Popi, who rarely spoke anymore, living as he did now in the lost years of coming death, sat in a chair close to the fireplace. Daavi and his new wife played a game of cards on the sofa, and Tiboro slouched morosely in a chair in a dark corner of the room. Biz stood up, Trev and Pish at his side, and escorted Shasta to the loveseat in front of the fire. Biz's bright presence lit Shasta's thoughts, made them brighter and funnier. With Biz she wasn't afraid of the way anything might happen this day or the next day, or the next day, or the night. If any disaster hung in the balance of day at nightfall, Shasta was sure Biz would keep her safe.

“Anything interesting happen today?” Biz asked his Shasta, as if reading her mind, which he did sometimes with great accuracy.

Shasta told him of her encounter with a childhood friend. “Over on Shire street by the high school this morning,” Shasta said, “I met Jeppers, I've told you about him. I was happy to see him, but he didn't seem as happy to see me. We passed by the Day Carnival in the parking lot and I found a pile of books I'd like to have had at one of the booths, but I didn't want to carry them, so I didn't buy them. Then under the tent Jeppers and I tried to find seats at the show. We found a double seat, but Jeppers began hopping around, pretending to sit in different places, like he wasn't sure he wanted to sit with me. It hurt my feelings.”

“Did he sit by you in the end?” Biz asked. Biz was never jealous, and he had no need to be.

“Yes, he was just fooling around, just like he used to do,” Shasta said, “and then it turned out his mom had brought a film to run on the carnival screen, a little story of Jeppers from the past. It showed him as a baby with a Batien man on the beach. 'That man was a great family friend,' Jeppers told me. But Jeppers didn't know what had become of the man, where he might be today.”

Biz nodded. He said, “And what about your surprise today, when you came home? Did you like it?” Biz was a few years older than Shasta, more of a grown-up both in fact and in personality. He was a tall burly man with great golden eyes and dark dashing hair, just like some hero from an ancient novel.

“No,” Shasta said, sadly. “I'm sorry. I sent them all away.”

--I didn't think you would like the zoo, Trev said, putting his long nose onto Shasta's knee.

--But Biz wouldn't listen to us, Pooka, the small tortoiseshell cat added. She jumped onto Shasta's lap and curled up to enjoy the warmth from the flames. Shasta smiled and gently scratched Pooka's neck. The animals knew her better than Biz did!

Trev settled on the rug and put his handsome head over Shasta's shoe. He was a big dog with large pricked up ears and soft thick black fur with sable ticking on his muzzle and legs. His intelligence had developed in his third year, so that now, like humans, he could think and reason in words, but his friendship remained completely dog loyal, his love and need as strong as when he was a puppy. He and the other sentient animals of Dabrion communicated by that extra sense of thought transference, one of the gifts even land humans didn't have. The big dog would have given his life for Shasta, if necessary. Shasta knew his true heart, and knew secretly that Trev was nearly as important to her as Biz.

The third pet in the house was only that, still just a pet. Pish, a lean mostly-white short-haired herding dog, who was currently squeezed up under Biz's crossed legs. Pish had not attained the intelligence of the older animals yet; she was just a dog. Somehow Pish knew that she didn't measure up to the others, and this made her lead a furiously active and slightly frustrated life. It was as if, though not conscious of it, her whole being yearned for the day when her mind would be opened at last.

Momo served everyone the warm crumbles she had cooked on the fire. Quiet munching filled the restful room as the sun turned toward the west and sent afternoon light through the windows. It was still early, Shasta thought, still early enough to go to town with Jojo and get back before night. Still, a little shiver of fear went down her back with the thought of what if? What if she were caught out at night with the night Revelers? She remembered back at Zemateca, as a pup, Trev was once out all night with the even younger Pish. This was before Trev had attained his gift of intelligence; never had Trev and Pish been out in the dangerous time. But they survived, Shasta told herself, I went to look for them the next morning and saw Daavi trying to catch Trev by the collar. I ran to them, led Trev home myself, while Pish came following after. Then I tried hard to fix the fence, so the dogs would be safe.

Shasta shivered again at the memory because it grew worse. As she worked on the fence, in one corner of the yard she had found a body oozing blood onto the ground. Dark sticky human blood splattered the earth around the young man who had been murdered there. She had felt sick looking down at the crumpled body, a day person, she saw, dressed in plain clothes. And when she had turned her eyes up into the tree leaves, she'd seen a bird, and the bird seemed worried, as if lost and far from home and in danger of the killer. Maybe that was why she moved Momo away, to get away from the murder scene. Murders happened so easily, so darkly and dangerously that it was better to crowd together and be safe with all the family.

“What are you thinking about so hard, Shasta?” Momo asked, breaking into the past from the present.

Shasta smiled. “Just rambling,” she said, “and I'm going out with Jojo in a minute. We're going to see a film. I'll be home before dark,” she reassured everyone, as everyone leaned forward to protest.

--I'll go with you, Trev said.

“I'll be OK. You don't have to worry.”

When Jojo showed up on the porch of Dabrion, Shasta was ready, dressed in her usual dark pants and shirt, designed especially to keep her from being noticed. But Jojo wore a funny costume, a short pink skirt with a fuzzy orange sweater, and she carried a backpack with her name painted on it.

Shasta laughed. "You are something, Jojo," she said.

Jojo hefted the backpack up further on her shoulders with a shrug, and said, "Let's go."

Back they hiked toward town. The sun had burned the murkiness of morning away, now sunlight shone on the bright rooftops of the modern townhouses, the tiled slabs of the old-fashioned Nainith-style homes, and the peeling paint of the shacks made by those who were too poor to find a true builder. In the commercial area of town, the film theater was one of the most popular places for Dayites, as the day people called themselves. Here movies and short films that had been discovered in the rubbish of the ages were regularly projected by old-fashioned machines that had been repaired countless times over the years for this purpose.

But this afternoon the movie wasn't memorable, less interesting even than the film Shasta had seen with Jeppers that morning. To save the outing the girls decided to stop for something to eat at the dessert shop next door to the theater. The shop's lights showed up cheerily in the now late afternoon gloom. Inside, the hard wire chairs and the tiny round tables made the atmosphere seem safe. The two girls sat down and ordered desserts from a waitress who wore an outfit similar to Jojo's.

"You fit right in here," Shasta told her friend.

“Some of us have to break the clothes barrier,” Jojo joked.

“I like your colorful clothing,” Shasta replied, “but if I wore some of my pretty things out in the open, I'd be afraid people would think me a Reveler.”

“Maybe that's not so bad,” Jojo said, trying to shock.

Shasta shook her head. “No, it's bad,” she said.

“So anyway,” Jojo went on, thumping her long fingered hands on the tabletop, “have you heard from Dakota?" Dakota, another friend of the girls, had gone to a conference in Ausson, up north with the snow.

"She wrote me a letter," Shasta said. "She had to drive somewhere, and snow had been forecast. She was afraid, and I could just imagine her driving in traffic with the snow lightly falling. She drew pictures in her letter, made it like an old comic book. One drawing showed a sidewalk with many funny-looking people passing by. I remember one was a tramp leading a horse."

"What's her conference about?"

"Something psychological, I guess." Dakota had taken up the popular and very useful study of the human mind, not history as Shasta and Jojo had.

"She's going to analyze you."

"She can join the club." Shasta had been attending therapy sessions for three years now. Elinvy, her psychologist, was a big influence now, trying to help Shasta shake the sadness inside that had plagued her all her life.

The waitress brought their treats. Shasta had asked for ice cream and pumpkin pie. She let the taste swirl in her mouth and slide down her throat. It was bliss, until her eyes glanced out the windows at the darkness falling all around the building like a heavy smothering curtain.

"We're late," Jojo said.

"Night is here," Shasta agreed. Tears filled her eyes in sudden fear. "How will I get home?"

"Come on," Jojo said, "we'll go by the school, take the short cut to my house. You can stay the night with me."

The girls quickly finished their desserts and left the shop, entered the darkness of town, and hurried along the street. Far distant wild sounds reached them, of people laughing and shouting and screaming. As they crossed the school field, they saw the school band, practicing in the night! It was a scary sight, and the girls began to run.

Shasta's legs felt free, as if let loose at last to escape their pain, but only for a few minutes. Then the ache began its journey up from her feet and through her knees. As Shasta and Jojo ran, they passed several crowds of people gathering on the corners, who called after them rudely. Maybe Jojo's costume kept them safe from pursuit, maybe the Revelers hadn't yet mounted up to their usual frenzy of chasing, but the two young women safely reached the block where Jojo's house stood. Then suddenly they heard the noise of someone or something running behind them, the footfalls clicking fast, a shape rushing at them like a streak of lightning. Shasta turned, looked, and then stopped, her heart bursting.

“It's Trev!”

Trev had jumped out of the back of the old truck coming up the street, driven by Tiboro, and there was Biz in the passenger seat, smiling out at her. Shasta felt saved from the night. She hugged Trev, leaned on him, let his body warm her aching legs.

“Oh, Trev, you are my best boy,” she cooed to her dog, making Trev wriggle in doggish joy, despite his his disapproval of her going out in the night.

Jojo was disappointed. "I'm going in," she said, "are you coming?" She pouted at the men. Now Shasta would go home; there would be no sleeping over. Even though Jojo lived competently here in her own home with her husband and two precious and rare little children, she often longed for the fun of a sleepover, and Shasta sometimes obliged, though she herself preferred to spend the nights in Dabrion with Biz's warm body next to her.

"I need to go back and rest," Shasta told her friend, taking Jojo's hand and squeezing it. But Jojo was miffed. She leaped up onto her porch with just a wave and no good-bye. Surely, though, now she'll be OK, Shasta thought as she listened to the sounds of greeting as Jojo went in to be with her family. With children like that, who wouldn't be happy?

Shasta got into the truck beside Biz, and pulled her big dog in, too. Trev sat on the floor, his head in her lap, and he sighed a long sigh. But they weren't home yet.

Tiboro got lost. He swung around the neighborhood and took a wrong turn, putting them outside the town limits. Bare plowed fields stretched to the bleak horizon. Dust from the road floated up in front like low-lying fog, and Tiboro suddenly said, "Uh-oh."

"What?" Biz asked.

"Almost out of fuel. Forgot about that." Shasta and Biz glanced at each other. Tiboro suffered from Passon's Disease, and it made him forgetful at times. As he advanced in years, he lived his life less and less efficiently. Where once he'd been a master builder, now he had trouble with measurements. Where once he'd been strong and happy, now he was too thin and spent his time brooding. These were symptoms of Passon's, a disease of the brain that slowly took over the body as one grew older. Popi had it, and now Tiboro.

Then, down beside the river the truck gave out, puttered to a stop, and Tiboro shrugged his shoulders, grinned his wide smile, and said, “Sorry!”

"Don't worry about it; we'll walk," Biz said.

So the three strode up the street in the dark with the river rushing near them, gleaming water spilling downstream in a constant flow past the trees and the fields.

"This is good," Tiboro said, suddenly happy.

Shasta felt no fear with Biz holding her hand. She looked at Tiboro and laughed. It was different, she agreed. The dome of the heavens was bright with stars, the air fresh with the river breeze. Her lungs expanded inside, breathing in the smell of the broken earth. She realized the night was beautiful, that it was not the night itself, but its people that frightened her. But now her legs ached. She couldn't go on much longer without rest.

They quietly neared a tall abandoned school building of gray block construction, its windows black like dead eyes. "That makes me think of riding my bike," Shasta said, "around the school buildings with Jeppers when we were kids, a long time ago it seems."

"There's a light," Biz pointed. As they passed the building and looked back, they saw several windows on the lower floor bright with light and shadows passing to and fro. "A party," Biz said. "Let's keep going." But a group of people came outside and saw them, yelled for them to join in, and ran to make sure they did by grabbing arms and slapping them on the back in a semblance of friendship. Shasta knew it was dangerous, but she could no longer walk. Biz lifted her up into his arms and carried her toward the lighted rooms.



****



Shasta, Biz, Tiboro, and Trev were led over to the school building and up to a first floor arched window which was broken, its glass lying in smithereens on the ground. A big step over the sill and Biz, still carrying Shasta, entered a large room made of two classrooms. The Revelers had presumably had fun knocking a wall down to make the two rooms into one, and all the desks and tables could be seen piled out in the hallway. Fancily dressed people, women in long gowns, men in suit and tie, all turned at the strangers' entrance and a loud rude laughter spread through the crowd. Here were two men, a woman, and a dog, what shall we make of them? Out walking in the fields at night, why? Dressed so quietly in common clothes, obviously not party-goers. And the dog, easily recognizable as the mystic type, not too rare, but still an oddity at a party. The people surrounded Shasta and her group, staring and smiling and gossiping.

"Why do you carry the girl?" someone asked Biz. "Is she sick?"

"Her legs ache," Biz said. "I'd like to bathe her legs with warm water. Can I get a bowl of water?"

"What does he want?" the people all turned to each other in pretended puzzlement at the question.

Biz was patient. He spoke directly to a woman in a blue gown. "Do you have a bowl?" he asked.

"Oh!" she cried. "He asked me if I had a baby. He knows I can't have a baby. But he asked me if I had a baby. I can't believe it!"

"No," Biz shook his head, trying to explain, but the whole group of Revelers became enraged, repeating the woman's words and then his again, as if Biz had really asked such a personal question. Maybe it was pretended anger, but the men and women stirred themselves into a whirl of emotion, yelling and threatening action against the newcomers. Shasta put her head back on Biz's shoulder, feeling almost too sad to be frightened. Biz shook his head, still patient, as one after another of the people poked their faces close to his to insult him. Tiboro was not doing well; he was getting angry himself, his hands becoming fists at his side. He and Trev kept close to Biz and Shasta as they made their way toward the hall, in search of a place for Shasta to rest.

Shasta opened her eyes wide suddenly; she had caught the eyes of someone she knew too well standing and smirking against the wall, a person whose recognized face made a stab of terrible pain enter her heart. Uncle Laneville! Shasta knew he was a Reveler, and a prominent leader of that other, night-ridden side of life. But to find him here, almost as if waiting for her to appear! He watched her, looking into her eyes, holding the stare, challenging her to speak. He was tall, dark haired, old, but not so old as Popi now seemed, even though in years he was older than Popi. Was evil a sort of fountain of youth for Laneville? Shasta wondered. She winced as she studied him. He wore a suit, but he didn't look fancy like the others. His pants were pulled up higher than his natural waist, a trait she'd known and disliked since she was little because it made him look dorky and harmless, like a timid professor, when in actuality he was powerful, and full of secret lies and cruelties.

Now Shasta's body filled completely with fear. She had to turn her head away. But she heard Laneville's voice speaking above the rest of the babble. "The man said, 'Do you have a bowl,' not 'Do you have a baby,'" Laneville said, now making his way toward Biz. "Come this way, Biz, she can lie down in the school nurse's room."

So it was that when Shasta opened her eyes again, she found herself on a bed in the school office. A woman in a red dress sat beside her, wiping Shasta's face with a warm cloth. Biz stood over her, and Laneville was at the foot of the bed, reaching out to her aching legs to rub them. Shasta gasped and pulled her legs up, away from her uncle. She looked at his half handsome face, at the smile that pretended sweetness, and then her eyes dropped and she saw his hands. How could she have forgotten his hands! Laneville had large hands with thick fingers stained with purple, as if he'd stuck them in a bowl of lifetime-permanent ink. Shasta didn't know the real reason his fingers were stained, by birthmarks; she only thought it could very well be from his cruel nature rotting him inside. She knew the look of his nakedness, too, through those unwanted encounters in the past that made her shudder at the thought of his touch. But now Laneville's hands reached again for her legs. This time Biz, noticing Shasta's distress, not knowing its reason, forcefully shoved Laneville right off the bed. Shasta thanked Biz with her eyes, while Laneville stood up nearby, apologizing profusely. Tears even fell down his cheeks in his pretended effort to be forgiven.

"Crocodile tears," Shasta said to herself. The tears a predator sheds for his prey, while ripping her open alive.

Shasta of Dabrion: Chapter Two - Trev, Dondi, Pooka and Pish

Chapter Two

Trev, Dondi, Pooka, and Pish

An intense atmosphere of fear and anger filled the small room in the abandoned school building. On one side stood Biz and Tiboro next to the cot on which Shasta lay, and on the other side Laneville held hands with the woman in the red dress. Trev was on guard between, his hair raised along the back of his neck, making him appear even larger than he actually was. To Trev Laneville smelled bitter, as if the man had rolled in something bad and then tried to scrub himself clean with strong soap. When Trev shifted his nose to the woman beside Laneville, her perfume nearly made him sneeze, but he also smelled her weakness and her lonely desire. Trev turned to Shasta, and she looked into his calm eyes, gathering the strength he sent to her with his composed mind. Shasta's natural scent was heaven to Trev, reminding him of rain-sweet fresh air in a field of violets. He put his head on the pillow next to hers.

--We must go, Trev said, and Shasta got up from the bed despite her achy legs, ready to leave. Trev stood sturdy to support her, as she leaned one hand on his back, but Laneville pushed past and grabbed Shasta for a hug.

“I'm sorry you are aching,” Laneville said, “and sorry you can't accept my help here. Are you sure you shouldn't stay and rest awhile?”

This man isn't sorry, Trev knew, looking up into the man's watery eyes. This man is planning something big, Trev thought, letting out a low growl as Laneville continued to hold the frightened girl. Trev took Laneville's arm in his large mouth, biting down firmly and pulling back, while Biz caught Shasta as she suddenly fainted.

“Don't ever touch her again, Laneville!” Biz shouted, and Trev bit down a little harder to emphasize the words.

Laneville smiled through his fake tears, pulled loose, and raised his hands in mock surrender. The woman in the red dress laughed. She was yellow-haired, faded, but still pretty, and she had, as so many night people did, worn emotionless eyes caked with make-up to make them appear bright and happy. Trev gazed sternly at the woman. She abruptly stopped giggling under his disapproving stare.

“That dog is thinking about me,” she complained.

“You should be flattered, Penkeera” Laneville joked.

Trev ruffed in disgust, and turned to follow Biz carrying Shasta, and Tiboro, as they left the school building. The party people let them go, though they yelled and laughed with derision and threw a few rocks.

When Shasta woke from her faint, she began to sob on Biz's shoulder. She couldn't stop, now matter how much she tried to talk sense to herself inside. Trev could sense her feelings welling up, and he wished hard that he could cure her sadness. She feels hopeless right now, Trev said to himself, but times will change for her soon. He licked her hand as it dangled at Biz's side, but the sympathetic touch made Shasta cry harder.

"We'll take her to the clinic,” Biz told Tiboro and Trev, decisively. “It's near here, and I think she needs to talk to Elinvy.”

"Yes, that's good,” Tiboro agreed. Tiboro, once a man of few words, was now, due to Passon's Disease, a man of hardly any words.

Trev agreed, too, and then added -- I'm going on home. I have something to do. I'm going to try to take care of this Laneville fellow, so I've got to speak with Dondi and see Pish and Pooka.--

“What have you got up your paw, Buddy?” Biz asked. He gave Trev a loving glance, while Tiboro scratched the dog's soft black ears.

“No, Trev,” Shasta wept, “you can't beat him.”

-- I can, Trev told her. He bounded off into the night, feeling like a wild wolf of the past chasing across the wilderness. But instead of through forests and meadows, he ran on the sidewalks of the dark town, passing houses all shut up tight, and instead of wild animals hunting each other in the dark, he passed the night people congregating on the streets. Trev felt his strength filling his legs with power and his heart began to pound hard with new purpose. His galloping leaps became longer until he almost felt like he was flying. And the roving groups of night people held no terror for him; the people who were called the Revelers stopped and watched him in admiration.

It was hard to comprehend why the Dayites and the Revelers were enemies. These days there was a truce; the Dayites were safe during the day hours, and the Revelers had the nights to themselves as long as they didn't break into the homes of the day people. In the past from time to time chaos had broken out, the night people trying to intimidate the Dayites, the day people then refusing to cater to the practical needs of the Revelers, upon which the Revelers depended. Why couldn't the groups get along, Trev wondered as he galloped toward home. He had heard in a discussion between Shasta and Elinvy one day that there was a movement toward trying to integrate Revelers and Dayites, but it had to be achieved in baby steps, so Elinvy had said. Shasta had given her opinion that though it was a good idea to bring everyone together, how could a Reveler be trusted? How could you trust those who murdered people, hurt children, wrecked the world? So Shasta had asked of her psychologist. Trev remembered Elinvy's reply, that one day the answer would become clear to Shasta, and that day Shasta would help a Reveler to change, and change herself as well.

Trev continued to pass the night people at their play in the streets. If it could be called play, Trev thought. If anything going on could be called fun, he added, looking around. A young woman in black tights and a multi-colored shirt carried a jug of orange juice, which she poured on her companions. Rampaging in a terrible temper, she screamed in short shrieks that hurt Trev's ears. A friend of hers attempted to calm her down, but she yelled at him, “I'm going to kill you!” and more juice flew out of the jug. Trev felt unafraid, just curious. He paused on the moonlit grass near some bushes to rest a moment, and watch. A man, who looked so old and so much like a gardener with his boots, his dungarees, his large hands that he might have been a Dayite but for his actions, tried to take the young woman into his arms. She tossed orange juice into his face, too, but he ignored it, took her by the ears and led her away, cruelly hauling her along like a broken doll, and her friends came rollicking after.

Up ahead, as Trev went on toward Dabrion, a wrecked car burned at the curb, flames rising in the air. The shadow figures of people danced around the fire, while from the other direction, behind Trev, the roar of motors rent the air as two racing cars flew down the street toward the dancers. Trev stopped again to watch the impending crash. He had no problem now with street traffic, not since he had received his gift of intelligence. As a puppy, he had been terrified because Shasta had told him so many times to stay out of the streets, that vehicles could kill him.

Now Trev looked back on his puppyhood with affection and humor. How wonderful it had been to play with his siblings, twelve of them tumbling around with no knowledge of life and human words and meanings of past, present and future. Then Shasta and Biz had chosen him, or rather he had chosen them by pulling at Biz's shoelaces, which had made Shasta pick Trev up to cuddle and love. Trev thought of his puppy time like humans think of their childhoods, as a time of unconscious learning and living. The transformation from regular dog to intelligent animal happened much sooner to Trev than usual. Most dogs didn't attain intelligent life (as well as the gift of a much longer life than dogs usually lived) for many years. Shasta called Trev “The Genius Dog” because he'd learned so quickly.

The drag racing cars streaked by Trev as he stood thinking of the past. Both missed the burning car, but there was the sound of screaming brakes and then a bump. A pedestrian Reveler was hit with a glancing blow that made him fly through the air and land crumpled on a Dayite's manicured lawn. The Revelers seemed to take such an occurrence in stride. The onlookers picked the crumpled body up and took off on foot toward town, calling loudly, “He'll be back good as new tomorrow night.”

Trev was glad to turn onto the quieter streets further from town. Now he could hear the rustle of the trees' leaves moving quietly against the dark sky. He saw a cat, as black as a shadow, hurry across the pavement. --Strangers out, the cat called to Trev, but Trev didn't know if the cat meant he, Trev, was a stranger or the Revelers or someone else. When Trev reached Dabrion, he ran to the back of the mansion where a few acres of green grass and trees grew, and where Dondi, the bay gelding, spent his time “horsing around” as he himself would joke. Pish, Trev's dog companion, came out the push-door from the kitchen, saw her friend and rushed to him, wagging her tail, licking his muzzle, and greeting him with squeals of joy. Trev gave Pish a friendly smack with his body and pretended to bite her neck. Pish, beside herself, began a fast circuit at top speed of the grassy field, leaping the brook, dodging the trees, and circling Dondi and the ponies as they grazed.

Though built like a sight hound, thin, long-legged, short-haired, Pish was a herding dog with strong instincts to gather animals together. She was white with pale freckles of black on her ears. Her most beautiful feature was the liquid amber of her eyes rimmed with black skin like eyeliner and stiff little white eyelashes that made her seem shy, like a bashful girl. She was still a dog with a dog's mind, but Trev had high hopes for her attainment of intelligence sooner rather than later.

Pish's shoulders only reached halfway up Trev's sturdy heavy-coated body, her sleek white hair contrasting beautifully with Trev's black fur that was ticked with sable highlights. Trev's eyes were a darker brown and not so big or lovely as Pish's, but they shone with the brightness of his mind, like the eyes of a wise lama from ancient times.

--Pish, get Dondi, Trev told her, just as a human shepherd might order his collie, and Pish paused in her joyous race to approach the horse from behind with a bark and a nip.

--I don't appreciate that, Dondi called to Trev. --All right, Pish, stop it, I get the idea! -- Dondi flicked his hooves up in a playful kick meant, of course, to miss the little dog. Dondi was an Arfabilin, probably the most ancient of domestic animal breeds left in the world. He should have been a stallion; after all no intelligent fellow wants to be gelded. But as a yearling he had been cut by previous owners who hadn't known he'd be sentient. At first it had been hard because he thought he could only be loved and respected as a stallion. But then he had met Shasta and he'd devoted himself to her. Now Dondi didn't mind. He was cheerful and strong, masculine in his own way, and a beauty. His coat was bay, a shining reddish brown that darkened to black on his lower legs, his velvety nose, his thick mane, and his full switching tail.

-- Here I come. You asked for me!-- Dondi laughed as he bucked and galloped his way over to Trev's side. The ponies followed, all six of the shaggy haired pals, who as yet hadn't attained intelligence, if they ever would; they leaped the brook and shook their heads at Pish. Trev lay down under a tree, and when the others reached him, everyone relaxed. Pish threw herself down in the cool grass of night, the ponies began to graze, and Dondi stood beside Trev to talk. --What? What is it? Dondi asked. --Where are Shasta and Biz? --

--We have to help Shasta, Trev said. --There is deep trouble. --

Dondi's skin trembled. He shied as if a shadow had passed his line of vision, and he felt like running away. Dondi knew this feeling of his, his horse flight response, he called it, and he knew it meant danger was nearby, whether real or imagined. He snorted as if trying to blow away his fear.

--I think we all know Shasta's uncle, Laneville, but I don't think we've realized how bad he is. He is planning to hurt Shasta for some reason, Trev explained. --He's an evil man with these secret plans going on in his mind, but I can't tell what those plans are. So we have to go find him and follow him and make sure he doesn't catch Shasta. --

--Why is he after her? Dondi wondered.

--A big reason, something to do with the Revelers. --

Pish suddenly sat up, staring at the kitchen door. Out through the dog door came Pooka, an orange and black tortoiseshell cat with a tiny kitten face that fooled those who didn't know of her sharp mind.

--Come here, Pooka, Trev called. Pish eagerly went to herd the cat along, but Pooka gave Pish a swat and said, --No, bad dog! Dogs! Bothersome creatures. -- Pooka tiptoed through the dewy grass and joined the quiet group under the oak tree. Trev brought the cat up to date on their discussion.

--I know Laneville well, Pooka told them. --I've seen what he did to Shasta as a child. I can't tell you, though; she will have to tell you. But you are right, he is an evil man. I thought he was long gone from her life. Why would he want to come back? --

The animals digested Pooka's words, thoughtfully shaking their heads. Pooka was the oldest by far of them all. She had been with Shasta since Shasta's childhood and had seen many things in her secret cat-like way.

--It's our job to find out, Trev said

--The sun will be coming up soon, Dondi commented. The animals dozed for the last few hours of the night, all except Pooka, who crept through the bushes looking for edible bugs and thinking hard about her human, Shasta, and the trouble Shasta seemed to be in.

Pooka knew it was tiring being a human and having to act as humans do, and Shasta wanted to make the world a better place, too, how hard was that to figure out? Pooka crunched on a hard-shelled bug thoughtfully. She remembered the first time she had seen Laneville. Shasta was practically an infant, left alone in a strange room on a huge bed. Pooka had slipped in, too, and crouched under the skirt of a chair, as the tall thin man with his purple stained fingers slunk in with many backward glances to see if he was safe from discovery. Pooka had peeked out from under the chair and watched him perform very strange actions that she didn't understand. Shasta was wakened, stripped of her clothing, caressed, breathed over, even licked like a mother cat licking a kitten. But some sense told Pooka that Laneville was acting oddly, outside normal human behavior. When he pulled open his own clothing, Pooka panicked. She saw Shasta's round eyes dark with terror in the dim room and knew Laneville had to be stopped. But what could a little cat do? Pooka leaped to the bed and spat, but the man swatted her away like a fly.

Pooka figured she should go tell Momo or Popi or someone, but who would believe a cat? Her intelligence had only just been given her. Only Shasta knew Pooka was now smart, and Shasta was too young to tell anybody about Laneville herself, after being threatened by him to keep things secret, or else. So the man continued his weird acts. Pooka witnessed several more instances in different circumstances, and she suffered with her girl, and comforted Shasta afterwards as best she could.

Pooka didn't care to remember such things often. She was a cat and cats just don't tell everything they know. Pooka curled up in the warm dust by the horse barn, hidden by a board leaning against the wall, and she stared into midair, meditating, her eyes still black with the darkness that only now began turning to dawn in the east. Pooka had been with Shasta many years, and through many adventures, but always the cat had had to play it cool, always she had faded away into the woodwork if she needed to, and not many humans even knew nowadays that Pooka was intelligent. That didn't mean Pooka couldn't help Shasta, though. Maybe she, Pooka, would discover the key to the whole problem some day! Pooka's purr rumbled inside her throat at the daydream of her own important contribution, and she smiled a kitty's smile.

Then Pooka's ears flicked suddenly, honing in on a minute sound in the barn. She immediately crept forward silently to the open door. Her ears led her to the tack room; again the door was open, and a tiny wriggling sound tempted her in. The room was filled not just with saddles and other tack, but old toys and a tricycle and other castaway objects resting in the night's shadows.

It's in the Nowahz Ark, Pooka realized. Daavi had made a funny ark that looked like a raft with a birch bark top. Once it had entertained the children in the family, but now it lay on its side on the floor, with tiny china animals tossed beside it. One of the animals moved.

Pooka couldn't resist pouncing. She scattered all the toys, and just in time saw that a string was attached to the china giraffe – someone was hiding and moving it, waiting just for her! Pooka screamed as hands reached for her. She tore at top speed out the room, out the barn, and down through the grassy pathways to the tree where the other animals dozed, the horses on their feet and the dogs lying down near the oak. Pooka leaped onto Dondi's back in terror and cried for them all to wake. Dondi, used to that feeling of Pooka's soft feet clambering aboard his back, didn't shy, but tossed his head and looked around at her.

--What? He asked.

--In the barn, Pooka cried. --Someone tried to catch me deliberately!--

--Who? Where? Trev was up in a second, Pish following his lead. All the ponies thundered away, spooked by the fear in the air.

--I see them, Dondi said. He was tall enough to look over the rise and see three figures running, silhouetted like black cut-outs of paper against the lightening sky. --Get down, Pooka, I'll go chase them off.

Dondi cantered across the meadow, jumped the stream, and quickly gained on the fleeing men. Trev and the ponies ran after Dondi, while Pish pretended to herd them all from behind. Pooka ran for the safety of the house; after all that was best, to get away and not be kidnapped by strange men. That would kill Shasta, Pooka thought. She would hate to lose me!

Outside, at the edge of the property, Dondi reared and kicked out like a wild stallion, laughing all the while at the men's clumsy retreat. The men, missing the gate, had to climb over the fence as fast as they could, fearing a bite from behind by the dogs. Trev barked as he ran, a great loud noise that sounded serious and dangerous, which made the men yell as they finally clambered over the fence and fell to the other side. A car waited for them by the back alleyway, and they piled in and sped away. Trev immediately decided to chase the car, discover the men's destination, and then confront them and find out their motive in trying to catch a tiny cat, but first he paused beside the fence, thinking.

Laneville is behind this, too, Trev told himself. What is it about Laneville? Trev searched in his mind for memories of the man. Mostly he remembered Pyly Lowall, the land of hills and rocks with groves of trees in canyons that Shasta and he enjoyed hiking. Pyly Lowall belonged first to the parents of Popi and his brother, but then Laneville had somehow connived the older folks to give him all the land, including a few homes built there by Popi's able hands. And a wise old teacher, Trev suddenly thought, had the property above Pyly; he and his wife called their land Tabbit Rill. Almost a total opposite of Laneville, the old man was safe to know, and Shasta had loved him. Where was he now? That one time, Trev told himself, I remember Shasta and Jojo and Pish and I camped out on Tabbit Rill, and when we woke up we looked out of the tent to see men in suits searching for clues below them in Pyly Lowall's canyons.

Shasta and Jojo were afraid, Trev remembered. They hid in the tent, peeking out to exclaim about the handsome leader of the searchers, had they seen him before? Was he famous? What had happened? “It's something supernatural, I think,” Jojo said. “That man looks like he's with the GCJ,” Shasta agreed, “and the woman in the lab coat with him, she's a doctor, I think.” Trev had bravely left the tent, even though a loud thumping in the sky pounded in his ears. It was a helicopter that rose over the ridge, flew down, hovered and landed. When the noise stopped, Shasta looked out of the tent again, saw me, Trev remembered, and I told her it was still safe here on Tabbit Rill. I kept reassuring her, as the GCJ man came up to ask us all questions. What had we seen in the night? Nothing. What had we heard? Only the calling quail.

And that was all, Trev now told himself. But why haven't I heard the history Pooka knows? Why was Laneville a secret that Shasta kept, never once mentioning him to me? Trev felt sad, like he hadn't been trusted. But maybe that's not the reason she didn't tell me, he thought, maybe she pushed it back so far that she'd nearly forgotten the bad times, and then this evening when we met Laneville, it all came back to her and made her faint and need to go to the clinic for help with her mind's trouble. She hasn't had time to talk to me about him. And Pooka, she loves to keep secrets, it is her nature. Laneville must have remembered Pooka and Pooka's secrets.

Trev growled and shook his head in amazement. Laneville was fast, too fast. To send the kidnappers immediately after running into Shasta at the school building? How could that be? Was there another reason why Laneville wanted Pooka taken, which had been planned days ago and happened to come about tonight? There's no time to think it out completely, Trev told himself. I have to act.