She stumbled out the front door and down the wet steps, tears streaming down her cheeks. His smiling face a blur, Kay took a leap and flew into his waiting embrace. With her eyes squeezed shut, she wept against his neck, inhaling the smell of him, savoring the masculine feel of his hard, strong body, feeling the stubble on the nape of his neck against her cheek. He smelled of musty fatigues and deodorant. It was a masculine smell, a warm smell, a lovely, comforting smell. He smelled like Spence, her lover, her mate, her heart. He was home. After two long, lonely years, he was home—home to stay. With his face buried in her neck they wept, until she pulled back seeking a kiss.

She stumbled out the front door and down the wet steps. Suddenly she was on the ground. Her prairie skirt was twisted around her legs and her right ankle was screaming inside her lace-up boot.

Halloween, her least favorite holiday. She had thought she would see who showed up at the party, help herself to a beer and a handful of candy corn, savor some bluegrass music and head home early. Now she wouldn’t be going at all. She wished she hadn’t bothered with the stupid costume: the long skirt that had tripped her, the old-fashioned boots, the black devil mask.

She stumbled out the front door and down the wet steps. Skidding on her butt to the bottom, she almost laughed aloud when her mind incongruously flashed to the playground slide across the street from her childhood home.

As if in a dream, Janet studied her blood-soaked right hand, then touched the bruises on her face. Suddenly, she did laugh. A quiet, hollow laugh. Who knew that a human body contained so much blood? The warm liquid coating her fingers felt somehow sticky and slippery at the same time. Idly, she wondered if the alcohol content affected its texture.

She stumbled out the front door and down the wet steps. On the dark, rain-slicked sidewalk outside his apartment she stopped, mind whirling, body numb and leaden, even though the icy air coiled around her legs.

It had. Hadn’t. Yes. No.

It was too ugly a word, she thought. Rhymed with shape: atop her, too heavy, a smothering blanket. With tape: something used to attach, seal shut, replace broken bonds. With gape: her friends, disbelieving and uncertain, as if she might shatter at any moment. The hungry public waiting, ready to devour every detail. People ready to glance sideways at her as if to discover some sign, some reason they could use to reassure themselves that it would never happen to them, their precious families. Were they looking for wounds? Bruises? Horns and a tail?

She stumbled out the front door and down the wet steps. Steps steeped in wine, sardine smoke, and nicotine. This is her pretty black magic. Medea’s magic---nuanced in spice and hate.

“Get back here, Medea! Damn you!” I yell.

I slip running after her down those steps and feel the heat pain shooting up and crystalizing my bones. I crumble to the ground. She tried to break my neck.

She stumbled out the front door and down the wet steps. Boots quickly abandoned pathway for tilled ground and stalks of corn. Berthine “Bert” Blakely vomited immoderately. Wiping her face, she started giggling, and then collapsed as giggles turned to laughter. The employer of The Dog Sniffer-er, looking unwell, tottered to the doorway after her. He looked to say something, but thought better. “Ruff,” Bert said.

Bert lost her job months earlier when the factory closed. She wasn’t trained for any job openings in her town, and she couldn’t afford to commute to another. She had the cabin, inherited from an uncle, but the taxes were overdue. She fed herself and Jake by parking her pickup and ears of corn at the intersection on weekends. A scrawled sign offered four ears/$1.00. Bert had no idea what they’d eat once summer ran out. Anyway, she was sick of baloney on white bread that stuck to the roof of her mouth. Jake didn’t like his food either, but never complained. The dog had wandered onto Bert’s property the previous year looking as if he’d been through it. Bert adopted him, and now she loved Jake more than air.