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intelligence caused her, he could
have sworn, to look directly into his mind's eye and wink. And at
that moment he saw that her hair was not the orange color he had
first perceived, but the red-gold of autumn, and noticed that her
trousers were of a subtle cut that sometimes appeared to be a long,
gray-green skirt, and that the loose shirt was of a velvet
material. When she at last seemed to find what she sought, she
laughed, and her laugh was not purely whorish but contained merry
undertones like the ringing of silver bells as the mighty steed on
which she rode carried her, the damsel, and others he had not yet
differentiated from the ether toward something that amused
her.
     
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    "Where we headed,
darlin'?" Willie MacKai mumbled sleepily as he let himself be
tugged past the compartment where his compadres lay sprawled
together like a litter of hound pups, sleeping off the long trip
and the excitement afterward. It did occur to him that maybe he
ought to let them know where he was going, since he had Lazarus,
the banjo, which had gotten them all out of several jams already.
He should warn them—warn them—he couldn't remember what he was
supposed to warn them about. His head was full of fuzz. Well, hell, they knew
as much about this as he did. Maybe they already knew about
whatever it was Torchy was going to show him. He saw Julianne,
still peakedy and peeling from her burns with her eyebrows growing
back a hair at a time and so pale she looked like a forties movie
star without her makeup. She and Gussie looked up at him as he
passed and he shrugged and waved a feeble little wave and allowed
himself to be towed. Whatever Torchy was going to show him, he
hoped it would be worth the strain of being woke out of a sound
sleep. He was a little tired of running all over creation. That
Torchy was a strong-willed woman though—strong in other ways too.
He wasn't sure he would have been able to resist the tug of her
hand if he'd wanted to. He admitted to himself that he was somewhat
under the influence. Thoroughly gerzoggled, if you wanted to know
the truth. That was some whiskey that woman had fed him.
    He sobered up considerably, however,
when Torchy answered, pulling him into another car, "Why, we're
hiding, Willie luv. Didn't you see the coppers hanging about
outside the car as we passed the windows?"
     
    * * *
     
    "Wait, wait, hold it right
there, " Selena Anderson commanded, waving her flashlight for
emphasis. "You're telling us a story about a drunk person? You make
it sound funny. That's really disgusting."
    "Are you always this much
of a pain in the tail or is this just
special party manners?" the figure in the cowl asked, then said,
"Never mind. Maybe you're right. This part isn't proper for kids. "And with that, she blew out the
candle , rose to
her feet and started to glide away.
    "Hey, wait," Sass Pulaski
called. "Aren't you going to tell us the
rest? How about the ghost? Does it meet Willie? What kind of a story is it that we don't know how it
ends?"
    "The usual kind," the
voice drifted behind the woman as she opened the French doors and
her black robes billowed behind her, along with the curtains. "The
kind where you'll find out later, when you're older and maybe more
ready for it, or if you're never ready for it, maybe you
won't."
    She hated to stop like
that but the little Anderson girl was a problem. Minda Moloney's
parents were okay; they were part of the underground that supported
the activities of the storyteller, but the Anderson kid could get
them all in hot water. Minda's parents would have to think of
something to tell the kids. It had been agreed that the storyteller
would simply leave if there was any trouble.
    Between the condos, in the
narrow path that led to the parking lot, she removed the robe and
cowl and stuck them into an Adidas bag she had concealed under her
robe. Now, as a small woman with a mop of gray curls, wearing a
pink jogging suit and running shoes, she strode