Hide and Seek

smelled the rich natural perfume of her damp hair. She was Casey,

just Casey. Slightly nuts but that was all.

I still lay inside her.

Like the dead, it would take only a little imagination to get me to

rise again.

I broke the kiss and gently lifted her away.

"No more?"

"I think we've educated old Liz Cotton."

I stood up and pulled on my clothes. She sat still a moment fingering

a blade of grass, the picture of healthy life amid all those twisted

shapes of tombstones. Suddenly I heard the crickets and the frogs

again. They'd been there all along, but I was elsewhere.

She got dressed. The last thing she put on was her pullover blouse.

She tugged it on over her head and then thought of something. While it

was still around her neck she kissed the palm of her hand and pressed

it to the headstone of Elizabeth Cotton.

We walked back through the cemetery to the church. Neither of us

spoke. I glanced at the padlock on the door and shook my head.

"You know why I was so mad before? Back at your house. You know why I

hit you?"

"The windows. The broken windows. I don't blame you."

"No. Just partly that."

"What else?"

I pointed to the padlock.

"Look at that. It's ridiculous. A Yale lock wouldn't keep out a

determined ten-year-old."

"So?"

"So I know. Remember I told you there was one other brush with the

law?"

"Yes?"

The blue eyes glittered at me.

"Breaking and entering. I was fourteen years old. It was no big

thing. A lot of scare tactics at the police station, that was all. And

bad times with my mom and dad for a while."

"A lock like this?"