Mount Hope

Originally published in The Hillistrator’s inaugural issue, January 19, 2003, Rapid City, South Dakota. Sadly, The Hillistrator is no longer publishing.

Neltha Klausen lay as still as she could, heart thumping.  It was a small noise, intruding between the comforting clanks of the old furnace, and could have been the wind, she supposed, but somehow it wasn’t.  The wind no longer woke her, hadn’t for twenty years, though she considered herself a light sleeper.  Something else.  A cat, if she had had one.  But she’d buried Buster six—or was it seven?—years ago, out next to the rhubarb, out with all his predecessors in a miniature fenced graveyard dotted with crosses that Milt Harstad carved as he sat at the bar.  Since Buster, she hadn’t felt it fair to get another cat:  she probably wouldn’t live as long as it would, and who would love it then?  After she was gone?  A middle-aged cat with whatever eccentricities it had developed.  And Lord knows they all have some.  So Neltha lived alone. 

There it was again, something moving downstairs.  Neltha touched her wedding ring, her diamond engagement ring, too, fixtures on her finger for over 55 years now, though Bert was long in the ground.  She loved those rings, couldn’t bear it if somebody took them from her.
But wait, now.  In Mount Hope (population 289), nobody had been robbed by a stranger in all the years she’d lived there.  Children, other relatives, sometimes so-called friends, sure.  But never strangers.  So… who?

Neltha swung her skinny legs out of the massive mahogany bed and felt for her slippers.  She pulled her worn purple robe on over the long white cotton nightshirt, though one of the elastic-cuffed sleeves bunched into the purple arm as she hurried and she had to start again, pinching the cuff this time.  She felt for her glasses, strung them around her neck, and fixed them on her face before she stepped as lightly as she could into the shadows of the upstairs hallway.  The floor, of course, told whoever was down there that she was awake.  The house had been her mother’s and her mother’s mother’s before that.  Everything creaked. 

“Who’s there?” she called, embarrassed at the tremble in her voice.  Nothing.  Neltha waited, feeling an unnatural cold filter up through the folds of her robe. 

Kathleen Sullivan leaned over the grill, trying to ignore the gossip as she scraped off bits of breakfast, but Lucy was more determined than usual.

“Neltha said the back door was wiiiide open.”

“No.”  Milt Harstad put down his whittling knife, forgetting for the moment to brush the shavings off his hard shelf of a belly.

“Yessir.  Swinging in the wind.”  Lucy nodded with the whole top half of her body, momentum nearly pulling her off the bar stool.  “Cold swirling in just like your best friend, bringing in a little skiff of snow.  It nearly killed all those violets on her windowsill.  Neltha said the furnace kicked up a rumpus trying to catch up.  That nasty old thing.  It probably took hours to reheat the place.”  Lucy shivered, pulling her cardigan closer around her ample shoulders.  “Not that she could have slept anyway, I’m sure.”   

Kathleen straightened up and stretched her back, checked the coffee cups and topped off Milt’s before picking up the scraper again.

He added sugar.  “Girls aren’t home, are they?” 

Lucy rolled her eyes.  “Milt.  You know they’re traveling.  Remember?  Left their husbands home and went on their annual Sisters Adventure.  I believe they’re somewhere in Florida this year, not that they’ve sent Neltha a card or anything.” 

“Humh.  Wonder who it was, then.”

Lucy lowered her chin and raised her brows.  “She thought she heard those damn snowmobiles just as she closed the door.”

“I knew it.”  Milt tongued his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other.  “Those kids are no good.  Didn’t I say so just last week?”

“Yes, you did and you were right.”

Kathleen scraped harder, pursing her lips.

“You know,” Lucy said, “it’s the first time I’ve been tempted to lock my door since Richard Jahnke got drunk the night he came back from Vietnam.  Remember?”

“Sure do,” Milt said.  “Called us all ‘Cong’ and swore he still had his M-16 up at the house.  Now that was a night, wasn’t it, Kathleen?”

“Yuh.”

They all nodded, remembering.

Everett Berglund stepped through the front door and closed it quickly, bringing the harsh light and dry tang of subzero air into the dark cafe.  He brushed a little snow off his Carhartts, stomped his boots on the rubber lattice mat, and took a stool next to Milt, laying his work gloves on the bar. “Heard Neltha had some trouble last night,” he said as Kathleen served his coffee and bent to retrieve a small carton of French Vanilla creamer from its place next to the jug wine in the cooler.  

“Not so much trouble as a mystery.”  She shook her head.

“We think it was those city kids from the campground up the road,” Milt said.  “The ones that’ve been out here the last couple weekends.”

“The ones with that big motor home?”

“Yup.”

“Humh.”

Kathleen picked up Milt’s breakfast plate, pushing pancake crumbs into the garbage with his crumpled napkin.  “We don’t know that, though,” she said. 

Lucy’s voice took on that irritating tattletale tone.  “Neltha thought she heard snowmobiles.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Ev said, stirring a liberal dose of creamer into his coffee.  “Those damn kids just won’t stay on the trails in the park.”

Lucy pulled at the sparse curls that surrounded her head like a pale gray dust bunny.  “Berna Jansen called the sheriff last week when they nearly mowed down her garden fence, you know.  Would have decapitated one of ‘em for sure, all that barbed wire and them going fast as the dickens.” 

“Yuh,” Milt nodded.  “They buzzed poor Russ Hawkins after closing, too. Nearly knocked him down.  He was pretty far gone, and it would’ve been a struggle for him to get up again, much less all the way to home.”  He looked at Kathleen.  “Guess we should see to it he gets there.  Take turns again.”

Kathleen sighed, wiping her hands on a damp bar rag.  “You’re right.  We should.”

“Well, those damn kids better not buzz me,” Ev said, his eyes narrow.  “Wish they’d just go back where they belong.”

“Yeah.”  Kathleen nodded slowly.  “Much as I need the business, I’d rather they just stayed home up there in the city.  They are big eaters, though.  Haven’t cooked so much steak in a long time.  Lord, those people have money, and them so young.”

As her patrons continued to gossip, Kathleen moved down the bar, picking up maple syrup pitchers and setting out dinner condiments:  ketchup and mustard in red and yellow plastic, small bottles of Tabasco, A-1 in case anybody felt flush.  She swung the hinged bar section up and stepped into the dining room to set up tables for the noontime crowd, moving with the thoughtless grace of routine until Milt called to her for more coffee. 

“All I can say is that if they harass any of us again, we should call the sheriff and charge ‘em with trespass,” Ev Berglund said, winding up a good head of steam.  “Nip this thing in the bud, you know what I mean.  Stop it cold.”

“Absolutely.”  Lucy lined up predictably with Ev.  “Get them before they get us.”

Kathleen shrugged her skinny shoulders and turned up the corners of her mouth.  “They’re only kids.  Maybe we should just talk to ‘em if they come in again.”

“And say what?”  Lucy propped fists against hips, elbows thrust out. “ ‘Get those things away from us?  Have a little respect?’  Don’t you think that would just egg ‘em on?”

“No, I don’t.  And you wouldn’t have to phrase it that way.  Just say, ‘We know you love open fields, kids, but there’s lots of barbed wire around.  It’s safer in the park where you’re camped.’  No need even to mention us.”

“They’ll know, though.  They’ll understand.”  Ev poked his middle finger onto the bar to underscore his words.  “It’ll backfire, sure as shootin’.” The others nodded, muttering their agreement. 

“All right,” Kathleen surrendered, hands up.  “Just thought it would be nice to try a non-confrontational approach.  Maybe they’ll go home anyway and all this discussion will be moot.”

“Nah,” Milt said.  “It’s Saturday and there’s more snow on the way.  They’ll be here.  Want to bet?”

There were no takers.

***

Kathleen closed her back door and pulled the wool scarf tighter around her salt-and-pepper hair, wishing she had let it grow a little longer.  Grateful for the long down coat Sears had had on special last spring, she quickly swept the loose snow off the stoop.  She hurried down the steps, ducking her head, sheltering her watering eyes from the wind.  The light was already going, muffled and dim: it was nearing 4:00.  “More snow,” Kathleen muttered as she hurried across the vacant lot between her yard and the Liberty.  She had worn a small path from her back door to the café through the knee-deep snow.  Only a few desiccated heads of the tallest weeds, goldenrod and mullein, stuck out above its banks and tottered in the wind. 

She noticed snowmobile tracks winding toward the street, and stopped.  Slightly ashamed, she turned back to the house and locked her door.  Nouse tempting them. 

Kathleen closed the cafe for a couple hours every afternoon to rest.  She’d be 74 next year, shouldn’t work so many hours.  She had tried to nap this afternoon, like always, but images of those city kids kept intruding.  The lunch crowd had discussed Neltha’s situation at length, and the question of her open door mushroomed, of course, into a gang of thieves in less than an hour.  Kathleen slept fitfully, woke with a mind full of those kids tramping through her house, intruding on her privacy, jeering at the spare furnishings and handling the few things of value she owned. 

Don’t be so paranoid, she thought as she walked across the wide Main Street, her boots squeaking and crunching in the cold, packed snow.  It wasn’t like she needed those things.  All she really cared about was the bar and café. 

She and her brother Hank had opened it, the Liberty, in 1945 when he came back injured from the war.  It had been clear from the start that Hank’s skills revolved around customer relations, Kathleen’s around managing finances and cooking and cleaning up—running the place.  She loved her work, simple as that.  Although she had a sister, Helen, living in Washington State now for more than 40 years, Kathleen felt Mount Hope was more her immediate family. 

She unlocked the door, flipped the cardboard sign to “Open,” and looked around.  It was her favorite moment of the day.  For about an hour she would have the place to herself.  She loved it—the warm, knotty pine walls, the beveled mirror behind the bar, her equipment placed just where she liked it.  The hurricane lamps (electric now, but the originals had been kerosene) cast just enough light into booths to make them look cozy, though the padding in the benches needed replacing again.  She lit white votives in their clear globe holders, set them sparkling over the center tables.  She even had a jukebox, though nobody played it much any more except the city kids, who hooted over the fact that you still got three plays for a quarter.  Hank had bought that thing one weekend when he was larking around up in the Cities.  They couldn’t afford it really, but people loved to listen when he sang along with Frank and Bing in his clear, mellow tenor.   She could still imagine him, every now and then, sitting on his stool, the one at the far end of the bar, holding forth with his buddies, laughing and telling jokes and somehow pulling the whole town into the Liberty with the force of his personality alone. 

Hank had been a fine athlete, too.  Batting cleanup, he led the town American Legion team to several titles and coached football at the consolidated high school down the road.  But hockey was his real love:  for a big man, his grace on the ice and skill with a stick were legendary, and used to bring tears of pride to Kathleen’s eyes. 

Twenty-four years after the fact, Kathleen could barely make herself think about his death.  Hank’s trophies still sat behind the bar, on the highest shelf above the liquor bottles.  Today, like every day, she stood on a stool to dust them. 

Forty minutes later, just as she was finishing the coleslaw, she heard Milt’s wheeze as he hurried in, slamming the door behind him.  “Damn, it’s cold!”

Kathleen grinned.  “Milt, didn’t you just come from mass?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then why does the first word out of your mouth have to be a curse word?”

“Sorry.  Guess I should have stayed to the end.”  Milt grinned as he traded his coat for the apron on the last hook from the door and slipped the ties over his head.  He hadn’t untied them in years—when the apron went through the wash it always came back the right length.  “I hate it, though, when you feel like your nose hairs are so cold they’re going to break off.”

“Well, if they do, just keep ‘em out of the beer.”

Milt chuckled a little as he checked the ice supply and unloaded the dishwasher, storing clean glassware behind the bar.  About ten years back Kathleen had tried Milt on for awhile, they had even lived together for a week just to see how it’d work, had some interesting but dispassionate sex, and decided they were better as friends.  Besides, Milt worked his farm alone, his kids now grown and gone, and from March through November he had little energy—not to mention time—for anything else.  But he was a good bartender, a good friend.  He worked for her during the winters just to keep from going crazy, he said, but Kathleen knew he loved the gossip, the knowing.  People came to the Liberty as much for that as for the food.

They worked silently, side by side.  Milt restocked the cherries and olives and cut a lime for Lucy’s gin and tonics.  Kathleen added carrots and potatoes to the pot roast, heated the grease in the fryer, and turned to Milt, wiping her hands on an embroidered dishtowel.  “Here they come.”

“Yuh.” 

The Catholic Church bells almost seemed to announce them, the Saturday night regulars.  They arranged themselves predictably, settling in for a comfortable evening of food, drink and fellowship with the rest of Mount Hope, miles from a major highway and happy to be there.

***

The youngsters burst through the door in a crowd, helmets under their arms, cheeks flaming from the cold, hair flying.  Their down jackets and pants, striped and wedged in neon pinks, blues and violets, made a kaleidoscopic jumble as they crowded in.  Their voices carried clearly through the Liberty as they commandeered the center of the dining room, sliding two tables together with laughter and teasing. 

“Hey, Chad, nice job on the ditch out there.  Almost threw Kim on her ass!”

“Fuck you, Anderson!” from a kid whose hair hung over his forehead in clumps.

“He did not almost throw me!”

“Then why did your arm fly up like a rodeo rider?”

“I was just waving at the rest of you guys.”  Her enormous eyes flirted with every male in the group.

“Like hell.”  A blond kid punched her lightly on the arm.  She flipped her long black hair over her shoulder and grinned at him. 

“Barkeep!”  A tall young man stood and held up two fingers.  “Couple of pitchers, please, of whatever you have on tap.”  They hooted and applauded in unison. 

Mount Hope, silent, listened to their banter, watched as the young people peeled back clothing layers, one young man all the way to a black, sleeveless undershirt, displaying a large bicep tattoo.

“What is that thing?” Lucy whispered to her husband Ben.  They sat in their corner booth with Ev and Mabel Berglund.

“An eagle, I think.”

“Really?  What’s that in its claws?”

“Got me.”

“Arrows?”  Mabel’s voice was tentative.

“Could be,” Ev said.  “Can’t really see from this angle.  Did you catch that thing in the blonde’s eyebrow?”

“That ring thing?”

“Yuh.”

“Umh.  That must have hurt.”

“Wonder why she did that?”

“Too much time and money, that’s why.”  Ev shook his head.  “These kids today don’t know what hard work means.  They got money from their folks, never had to struggle like we did.  Look at ‘em:  so full of themselves.”

Kathleen, making coffee rounds through the dining room, heard his pronouncement and stopped.  “Ev, you were just as full of yourself when you were that age.”  She smiled.  “You’re just too old to remember.”

Mabel chuckled.  “She’s right, you know.  Remember when we used to skinny-dip out at the river?”

“Yeah, Ev,” Lucy prodded.  “You were always the first to strip.”

“And he didn’t wait till he got in the water, either,” Mabel said.  “That’s what caught my eye.” 

“I had your eye long before that.”

“A little naughtiness didn’t hurt, though.”

“Well, back in those days I had a pretty good body.”

“It’s just fine now, too, honey.”  Mabel patted his arm.  “Just a little softer.

Ev grimaced and shook his head.  “Tell Milt to bring us another round, will you, Kathleen?”

“You bet.” 

Kathleen dropped menus with the kids, described the special and soup of the day, finished her coffee rounds and returned to the bar just in time to flip up the counter for Milt, who balanced a tray of glasses and pitchers of beer.  “There’s more of ‘em this week,” he said.  “Hope that’s a good thing.”

“Don’t worry, Milt.  They’re just kids.” 

***

“Excuse me.  I can’t sell you another pitcher.  I’m sorry.”   Kathleen’s fingers picked at the hem of her sweater. 

Their heads turned toward her in unison.  “What?” said the kid with the clumps of hair hanging over his forehead.

“I said I was sorry.  No more beer.”

“Look, lady.  I already got a mom.”  He grinned.  “One’s plenty.” 

“I don’t mean to come off like your mom.  Not at all.  But I know how far you kids have to go tonight, and I want you to get back safely.”  Kathleen turned toward the bar, heard a muttered “fuck” as she threaded through the tables.  She retreated to the kitchen, stood behind the grill window and, over Milt’s shoulder, watched the reactions at the center tables.  They put their heads together, murmuring so nobody could hear, though nearly everybody in the bar was trying. 

The regulars had all stayed, too.  Unusual.  It was after 11, and the lion’s share of Mount Hope was typically down for the night by now.  But the place was full—and watching.  If I were one of those kids, she thought, I’d feel like a zoo exhibit.  But then, maybe they like the attention. 
They had paid their enormous bill and she hoped they’d just move on back to the state park.

No such luck.

They sent an emissary to the bar, to Milt.  The tall girl with the black hair, the prettiest of the bunch.  She leaned on the bar next to Russ Hawkins.

“Hi.”  A well-practiced hair flip.  Kathleen watched Milt’s body language, knew he was trying not to smile.

“What can I getcha?” he said, pouring another shot for Russ.

“I’d like a pitcher of Miller Lite, please.” 

She was truly beautiful, Kathleen thought.  Not a bad strategy. 

“Sorry, Miss.  No alcohol.” 

“Can’t you give us just one more?”  Coy.  Better at flirting than Milt’s late wife, Beatrice, had ever been in her life.

“Sorry.  Proprietor sets the rules.”

A pout.  “Not even one?”

“Nope.”

She sighed heavily, turned back to her friends and announced, “This dickhead says no, too.”  Her announcement prompted catcalls, boos, and a wide variety of curses, though the blonde with the eyebrow ring, blushing, tried to shush them.  Mount Hope had heard it all before; they had undoubtedly used most of the words themselves—but behind closed doors, mind you.  The town now listened with its collective mouth open, shocked at the use of such language in public. 

Milt turned to Kathleen and raised his brows.  She nodded, taking a deep breath.

“Look, kids.  I appreciate your business,” Kathleen said as she approached the angry group.  “How about some coffee?  Hot chocolate?  I’ll throw in a couple pitchers of Coke if you want.  On the house.”

They muttered, cursed a little more.

“I don’t get it, lady,” the kid with the tattoo said.  “Why won’t you serve us but you’ll give that bum at the bar whatever he wants?”

Kathleen glanced at Russ Hawkins, gave Tattoo a tired smile.  “That’s a fair question, sir.  The difference between you and Russ is that he’s walking.  Less than three blocks home.  And we watch to be sure he makes it.” 

“We’ll be careful,” said the blonde with the eyebrow ring.  “We don’t have that far to go, either, ma’am.”

Kathleen sighed, felt tired, old.  “I know exactly how far you have to go.  At a minimum, there’re three county roads to cross, one state highway, lots of farm roads.  And two open rivers.”  Kathleen’s eyes flicked to the shelf of trophies above the bar, lingered there.  “And that’s if you stay by the main road.  If you go across country, there’s barbed wire…  It’s just too dangerous in the dark, especially if you’re full of beer.”

“Come on,” the kid with the clumps of hair wheedled.  “We’ll go slow.”

“No.  You won’t.”

Tattoo stood, squared his shoulders, and stared down at Kathleen.  “Look, lady.  You can’t just refuse us—” 

Milt came around the bar.  A murmur rippled through the Liberty.

He picked up Tattoo’s jacket.  “This yours?”

“Yeah.”  The kid’s voice sounded huge, defiant, in the silence.  “But I’m not ready to go yet.”

“Yes, you are,” Milt shoved the jacket at the kid, his eyes like granite.  “You’ve had enough.”  

Tattoo stared at Milt.  When he finally sat back down and reached for his sweater, Mount Hope let out its collective breath.

Standing together, Milt and Kathleen watched as the kids, sullen and grumbling, layered up for the ride home.

***       

“Night, Kathleen.”

She looked up from the grill, wire brush in hand, as he hung his apron on the last peg from the door.  “Night, Milt.  Thanks for your help with those kids.”     

“No problem.  You got Russ?”     

“Yuh.  I’ll take first turn.”

“See you tomorrow then.”

As she finished cleaning up, Kathleen listened to the familiar sounds of Milt’s pickup outside the bar:  cranking, whining in the cold, finally starting, idling.  He coddled that truck like a child.  Never drove it cold, no matter how nasty the weather. 

She pulled off the rubber gloves, massaged lotion into her fingers and finished her hot buttered rum. 

“Come on, now, Russ.”  She helped him struggle into his jacket, buttoned it for him, found his gloves, and shrugged into her own coat and mittens. “Time to go home.” 

He muttered something unintelligible.

"Yuh.  I know.  Here we go.”  She took Russ by the arm, maneuvered him through the door and turned to lock it.  She waved at Milt as she and Russ headed down the street in the falling snow.  Milt blinked his lights at them, pulled out.  She watched his taillights all the way out of town.

They had just turned the corner when she heard the snowmobiles.  Sounded like they were coming fast, toward town, maybe wanting to taunt anybody left in the bar.  She tried to get Russ to hurry, to get out of their sight line.  She didn’t want to deal with them out on the street, not in the middle of the night. 

“Come on, Russ.  We have to hurry a little.”

She pushed him too hard, though.  He went down, his feet tangled in hers, and she followed him.  The impact knocked the wind out of her bony body, though Russ partly cushioned her fall.  She scrambled off him and strained to get a breath. 

The snowmobile noise was retreating.

She snorted out a small breath cloud and looked at Russ.  Like every good drunk, as Hank used to say, he was fine.  It took a minute to get him to his feet, another to be sure he was really OK, and they started on their way again. 

The snowmobiles were well away from town now, out near County Road 10.  She could barely hear them.  Kathleen shook her head.  “Russ, I’m sorry I pushed you.  I should know better than that.  Shouldn’t let myself get so paranoid.  They’re just like we were.  Just kids.”

It wasn’t until Russ was safely locked in his apartment over the feed store and she had walked all the way home that Kathleen realized she didn’t have her keys. 

***

"Don’t you dare go down there!”  Lucy hissed, pulling at Ben’s arm as he sat on the edge of the bed.  “It’s those damn snowmobile kids.” 

He twisted around and whispered back at her.  “What?”    

“Didn’t you hear ‘em?  They just buzzed by, a whole bunch of ‘em.”

“When?”

“Just a couple minutes ago.”

Ben yawned.  “Why would they be pounding on our door?  At this time of night?”

“I have no idea.  Maybe they’re still mad.  Maybe they want to scare us all.”

“Well, it’s working, then.  At least with you.”

“Just don’t go down there.  If we ignore ‘em, maybe they’ll go away.”

***

A block away, Neltha Klausen pulled her covers up tight around her ears, snuggling the quilt right up to her curlers. 

Go away, she thought.  Leave us alone.  Go back to the city or wherever it is you came from.  We don’t want any trouble.

The pounding stopped.

She stared at the ceiling for a long time, trembling.

***

Kathleen pulled the coat tighter around her throat, turtling into its warmth.  Her nose ran.  She checked her pockets for a hankie, had to stretch out her thin legs, aggravating the arthritis in her knees.  No hankie, but she slid the extra pair of gloves onto her stiff fingers, layering her thick mittens over them.  Better.  Warmer.

The town was silent, not unusual for this time of night, just the muffled hiss of falling snow, the smell of it sharp in her nose.  Too bad, she thought, no stars tonight.  But the snow was spectacular, flakes thick and fat, but still so light they barely seemed to fall, slowly, straight down in the windless night, a gauzy halo around the streetlight at the end of the block.

So.  Kathleen sighed.  Here she was, sitting on her back stoop, shivering.  Couldn’t stop.  She checked the thermometer on the oak out back:  below zero and heading lower.  She could barely feel her fingers.  Her toes had bowed out half an hour ago.  The hot buttered rums hadn’t helped.

She’d gone back, searched where she and Russ had fallen.  No keys.  Then over to Russ’s.  She hollered there until her voice gave out before she understood he’d passed out, of course, about 10 seconds after he’d locked the door.  She tried the public phone, but realized when she picked up the receiver that when the town’s only gas station gave up the ghost last year, its phone did, too.  She tried anyway, hoped at least for 911.  Nothing.

And Lord, she’d pounded on doors.  All locked and nobody answered.  Even the Church.  Now who could have done that?  By the time she’d considered windows, she didn’t have strength to try.

Maybe she’d be lucky.

Kathleen huddled in the stoop’s corner, hugging herself against the shivering, and thought some about Hank, then Milt, others of her friends and neighbors.  She considered the kids in their fancy trailer up the road, hoped they’d made it back safely. 

She said her rosary.

Kathleen shook her head.  She worried for Mount Hope.  Tomorrow would be a bad day.  The Liberty would be closed for the first time since the day Hank died.  People wouldn’t know what to think.  Sooner or later, though, they’d figure out what happened.  Her tracks, though slowly filling with snow, were all over town.  And if it turned out badly, the Catholic Church would find out it owned a bar and grill.  Better them, though, than a sister she barely knew.  The Church understood how to make money:  it’d keep the Liberty afloat.  Mount Hope needed the place.

When the shivering finally stopped, it felt like a good thing, but Kathleen suspected it wasn’t. 

So tired, so cold.  She curled up tighter in the corner, thinking about Neltha and her open door. 

Such an old house.

Kathleen closed her eyes. 

It was probably just the wind.

######