Jane watched them for a long time, pondering the random cruelties of life.
* * *
Samhain was not long distant when Gwen caught Jane between classes and pressed two pasteboard tickets into her hand. "Hot off the presses. They're front row seats right on the forty-yard line, two of them," she gushed happily. "I really believe you should take a date, Jane, you're old enough. I know you're a little shy, but it really is all right to invite a boy out. Just to get things started."
"Yeah, well, that's very nice of you, but—"
"You could invite Ratsnickle. I know he likes you."
Jane's body went cold. It felt exactly like the prickly sensation that sweeps through the flesh an instant after being stung by a wasp, just before the pain registers. "I don't want your damned tickets!" She thrust them back into Gwen's hands and stormed away.
Gwen caught up to her, seized an arm, and when Jane shook it off, grabbed her by the shoulders and swung her into an empty classroom. She kicked the door shut behind her. "All right, what's all this about?"
"You know what it's about."
"No, I do not."
"Well, you ought!" Jane began to cry.
This melted Gwen. With a gentle, shushing noise, she tried to take Jane into her arms. Jane wrenched herself away violently, and Gwen retreated, baffled. "Well, I don't know what's gotten into you, I really don't."
It was raining outside, a gray drenching rain driven by winds that rattled the windows and covered the glass with sheets of water. The inside of the classroom, almost silenced by soundproofing spells and lit with fluorescent fixtures, seemed a raft of bright unreality in a universe of storm. All of its own accord Jane's hand dipped into her blouse pocket. She removed the piece of paper she had been carrying with her ever since her encounter with the Principal and unfolded it.
"'Peter of the Hillside,'" she read aloud, "'has been examined by the undersigned practitioners of hermeneutic medicine on this Day of the Toad, Axe Moon, in the one hundred seventy-third year of the Descent of the Turbine, and found to be and is hereby certified as a virgin, innocent of carnal knowledge and a fit sacrifice to the glory of the Goddess and for the aversion of Her dread disapproval and wrathful desire.'" Eyes blazing, she said, "A virgin!"
"Where did you get that?"
"What does it matter where I got it? It says that Peter's a virgin."
"Well, Jane, you have to understand that the Goddess doesn't want—"
A bolt of lightning struck a distant tree on the far horizon, and Gwen gasped. Jane, though, didn't even flinch. She felt the storm's energy flow through her veins like wrath, buoying her up, filling her with power. Every hair on her body tingled. Gwen seemed smaller now, and she shrank from Jane like a shadow bending away from the light.
Thunder filled the room.
She shook the paper in Gwen's face. "All I want to know is, if you don't sleep with him, what do you do?"
"He's my consort."
"Yes, but what does that mean?"
"Peter… eases my pain. He makes things easier for me."
With a thunderclap of shock, Jane felt half a dozen scrips and scraps of information fall together into a single blinding insight. "He's a sin-eater, isn't he?"
Gwen hesitated just long enough that she couldn't convincingly deny a thing. "Well, what if he is?"
"Oh, you—viper! I thought you were brave, I thought you were strong. But you didn't have to be, did you? You haven't felt a thing. You haven't suffered at all. It's Peter who's suffered. It's Peter whose feet hurt when yours blistered, Peter who suffered your hangovers and your cocaine jags. It's Peter who's paid for all your pleasures, isn't it? Tell me something. When you mistreat him, who feels the guilt? Hah? It isn't you, is it?" The lightning was coming closer. Against the greenish afternoon darkness the artificial lighting made Gwen's face look overwhite, skin too taut, like a skull. "That's what a consort's for. Maybe nobody talks about it, but everybody knows. I haven't done anything that hasn't been done every year in every community since time began. So what's the big deal? What are you so upset about?"
"You've had the free ride, but it was Peter who paid the freight."
"I'm
entitled
!" she shrieked.
A wrathful calm came over Jane. She said nothing. She was the focus of the storm, its eye of power. All its bleak strength poured into her. She stared at Gwen with godlike disdain.
With a small cry Gwen broke away from her gaze and spun to the door. She seized the knob and thus anchored turned back into the room for an instant before fleeing. "Anyway, it doesn't matter what you think, Miss High-and-Mighty Jane Alderberry! I'm still the wicker queen, and Peter is still my consort. That's who we are and what our relationship is. You may not like it, but so what? That's just the way things are and there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!"
The door slammed behind her.
Jane was left alone in a roomful of huddled fiberglass desk chairs, twoscore identical creatures like children with blank, empty faces. They waited patiently for her to speak.
Not necessarily, Jane said, but silently and to herself.
— 11 —
IT WAS ONLY WHEN SHE WENT TO EMPTY OUT HER LOCKer that Jane realized how overgrown it had become. Orchids and jungle vines filled most of the space within and a hummingbird fled into the corridor when she banged open the door.
"I don't understand," Strawwe said. "Do you want your papers forwarded to the University early, is that it?"
A mulch of corrected assignments, old tests, and mimeographed syllabuses, had formed at the bottom and sprouted mushrooms and ferns. Some of her books were too moldy for retrieval. A tiny animal scurried away when she reached for her hairbrush, rattling the bamboo like a xylophone.
"You can have these examination books if you want. I won't be needing them."
Strawwe danced anxiously from foot to foot, trying to engage her attention more fully. It was pathetic how anxious he was to please. With her reversal of fortunes she had become to him an object of fear and mystery. "It's a little late in the year for a normal transfer, but it might be possible to get you in under Special Status."
"Do what you like."
A white rectangle of paper lay atop her things on the book ledge. Somebody had slipped a note through the air vents. Jane opened it:
I know your mad at me. But I still think we make a pretty good couple. I cant be happy without you. Let's give it another try. Why not kiss and make up?
It was not signed, but only Ratsnickle could have concocted such a thing. Jane felt an involuntary surge of anger, but forced herself to smile coldly and murmur to her own ears only, "Dream on."
"The secretary thought we should have a little ceremony. Nothing fancy, maybe an afternoon tea. Just you, me, her, and a few teachers who've been significant mentors to you. I could have a parchment scroll made up, with calligraphy. Or a plaque."
"We'll see." She closed the locker for the last time ever.
"That's what I'll do," he called after her. "Okay?"
On the way out she ran into Trinch, grinning his eighty-tooth grin. He had only two eyes now, though their colors didn't match, and his middle leg had dwindled to such a degree that he had to keep it coiled up in his jeans. His metamorphosis all but complete, he was as frog-ugly as ever. By his satisfied demeanor, though, that was what he'd intended.
"Jane! Fancy running into you." He put an arm around her shoulder and she knocked it away.
"None of that! I'm wise to your tricks."
He took the rebuff with good grace. "Hey, I was just up by your digs, watching the exterminators lay down bait. There's little yellow warning flags all over the place."
"That so?" Jane wasn't particularly interested.
"Yeah, I talked with one of them and he said there was a really nasty infestation of meryons thereabouts. Said that if they didn't take to the baits, he'd be coming back in a day or two to flood their burrows with poison gas."
It made Jane feel queasy to think of the little fellows being gassed. But everyone had their problems, and she had more immediate things to think about. "Thank you for sharing that with me," she said. "I'll be especially careful not to eat anything I find on the ground in the next few days."
Then she was outside in the crisp autumn air, with an armful of things to take home to the dragon, and the school at her back. I'm never coming back here again, she thought to herself. Never. But she felt nothing, and there was no time to force sentiment on herself.
She still had preparations to make for this evening.
* * *
Jane knocked on Peter's door.
"Come in," he said.
Because it was Samhain Eve and the last possible day to make alterations, Peter was wearing his gold lamé suit, double-checking the fit. Gwen was off to the celebratory banquet in the city. Everybody was talking about it. There would be champagne and speeches and a suite had been reserved for the orgy afterwards. So Peter was alone.
Jane's heart went out to him, he looked so pale and ascetic, like a weary, ill-used child. A hand sickle rested on the dresser top. She looked away from it. "I brought some wine. I thought maybe a glass or two would make tonight easier on you."
"Thanks," he said distractedly. "That's really nice of you."
"De nada."
She set the jug on the floor and her purse beside it. The purse contained the minimum she was going to need if things worked out: a toothbrush, the stone Mother, and a change of underwear. "Where are your glasses?"
Peter went into the bathroom and emerged a minute later without his jacket and holding two jelly-jar tumblers. "Will these do?"
"They're perfect," she assured him.
Jane waited until Peter's glass was almost gone then refilled it for him. Her stomach hurt, but she had to ask. "Peter," she said, "are you really a virgin?" Thinking maybe there was some horrible mistake, some misunderstanding on her part.
He nodded. "The Goddess doesn't want used goods." He took a long swallow. "You haven't been around much lately."
"Gwen and I had kind of a falling-out. I, uh, found out she was using you as a sin-eater." His face hardened and turned more intensely white and she hurriedly added, "She didn't tell me; it was something I figured out for myself."
"Well, I'd appreciate it if it didn't get around, okay?"
She touched his shoulder. "Hey. You know I wouldn't do anything like that." His head swung around to look at her and then away, and nodded shaggily. She filled his glass again. "Peter? Can I ask you something personal? See, I don't really… I mean, it's not like…" She flushed. "Just what does a sin-eater
do
?"
Peter's head whipped around again and she stared into the shocked, unreadable eyes of a forest animal. For an instant he was still. Then sudden laughter exploded from him, knocking him flat on his back on the bed. He howled and howled for so long that Jane began to worry about him. But eventually he gathered himself together and sat up again. All the tension was gone from him. "You know how sometimes when you've been badly treated, you can kick a dog, say, and you'll feel better?"
"No."
Peter ducked his head. "Well, tell you the truth, neither do I. But that's the way it is, apparently. That's kind of what Gwen does to me. There's this special ceremonial knife they gave her, and a booklet with the various runes. But mostly she just uses a razor blade."
"Peter!"
"No, really—it wouldn't work without blood. Here, I'll show you the scars." He began to undo his shirt. His coordination was not too good by now, and Jane moved to help him. Because she'd been drinking heavily too, there was some confusion. Finally, laughing, they pulled it off. Peter turned away and she saw that his back was covered with razor-slashed sigils, row upon row of them, a book of pain. Some were new and scabbed; the rest were white and fine. Jane recognized Gwen's neat hand.
Wonderingly she touched the silvery marks. His skin was hot. She traced the runes with her fingertips. She could not stop stroking them, could not stop touching him. "Poor, poor Peter."
He straightened and stared unseeing at a poster of Gwen tacked to the wall. Her gaze was direct, mocking, enigmatic. "You want to know what's the worst part? I mean, worse than all this, what do I care if my back itches a little? It's how much I want her. I can't stand her, but I want her so bad." He wiped his hand on the side of his pants, hard. "I want her and I hate her. When I think of her I feel like puking. What a sick relationship."
Jane bent to brush her lips lightly against Peter's shoulder. He turned to her and suddenly they were kissing. His arms were about her, his hands running up and down the back of her blouse. She clutched him to her and stuck one hand under his waistband. It only went down to the second knuckle; his belt was too tight to go any farther.
There were all these clothes in the way! They went on kissing and kissing, and making no progress.
Finally Jane drew back and began to pull at his belt, tugging the strap first one way and then the other. She yanked the zipper down. A little button went flying. Meanwhile, Peter was unbuttoning her blouse, fumbling at the catch on her brassiere.
She couldn't believe he was giving in this easily.
* * *
There was so much to think about, so much to do, that the act itself barely registered on Jane. It was uncomfortable at first, but then it got better. They were both awkward; Jane was sure that sex wasn't supposed to be so anxious and uncoordinated, so inelegant. But this first time, the fact was all that mattered. They could get it right later, when there wasn't so much riding on it.
Some indeterminate amount of time later Peter's motions grew more hurried, and his face turned red and puffy. He made a small cry, like a lake bird at twilight, and collapsed atop her.