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  Westmore didn't have to wonder. He struggled for some consoling words but all he managed was, "Easter, don't dredge up things that upset you."

  There, again, she smiled oh-so-gently. "Aw, I ain't upset. Noot, like I tolt ya, he's dead now 'cos of her, but like Grandpop say, death is just the spirit movin' on ta the next place it's s'posed ta be..."

  "Of course," Westmore blabbered.

  "Ever mornin' of ever day I wake up, I'd say ta Noot, 'You are my everything,' and I'd have done anything for him. Anything. And it were true, and he knowed that. And then..." The long pause was worse than if she'd sobbed. "I lost it all."

  This was tragic. Westmore barely knew her but he couldn't help feeling for her. However, even after all she'd let out, she still had that tiny smile.

  It was the worst part of all: the smile was all she had now to counter her life-upheaving loss.

  She was looking at him; not out of self-pity but something as simple as curiosity. "You ever love someone that much, Westmore? So much ya'd do anything fer 'em?"

  Westmore felt staggered; he could scarcely answer, and with this he found that he envied her even more. He answered rigidly, and in a tone that he hoped sounded only half-serious: "I'm afraid the avenues of love are something I've never found room for in my life..."

  "Aw. That's too bad. 'cos when it's real, like me'n Noot—it's the most wonderful thing." Her voice lowered. "Guess I got as 'dicted to my love fer him as he got ta that meth...and Linette..."

  Westmore put the car in gear, desperate for a subject-change. "Well, now that your prayer's recorded, you can show me the Crafter house, then I'll drive you home." He pulled out of the lot, then followed some preliminary instructions from Easter, and then they were off.

  The one thing he would never notice was this: the tiny carcass of the blue-bottle fly was no longer on the dash. Instead, the insect was walking around now on one of the rear windows.

  ***

  Only minutes had lapsed before they were out of Pulaski and on some main semi-rural road. Pastures and farmland passed by as the late-afternoon sun threatened to bring on early evening. "Now just take this next turn here," she said, "onto the Tick Neck Road—"

  Westmore laughed. "Now that's a name for a road, Easter."

  She seemed not to hear him, instead relaxing back into the rental's plush seat. That gentle smile had never left her face. She seemed to be reflecting inner thoughts, and Westmore could only presume they were nice thoughts in spite of what she'd implied earlier. Incest, he thought. Was it a cliche, or something more?

  Just another tainted facet of humanity. Not just rednecks, not just backwoods people and trailer parks. It's everywhere—the pursuit of the forbidden. Addiction, lust, lies, incest, greed... None of it picks favorites, we just PRETEND it does.

  It was forcible mental insistence that ordered him to keep his eyes off her body, yet all the while, his penis stayed three-quarters erect.

  When the a/c was too much, he turned it off and lowered the windows. His next cigarette felt euphoric.

  "Been a spell since I'se rode in a car," she said. Her black hair sifted in the breeze.

  "I wish I didn't have to own one. Flat tires, insurance, road rage, traffic jams." He shook his head. "I almost wish I lived out here."

  She chuckled. "Depends on how's yer made up. Hill-life ain't fer all folks, but I'm fine by it."

  "You've lived in the area your whole life?"

  "Oh, yeah, an so's my whole family since just after that war they calt, I think, the Civil War. But the land's given us dang near everything we ever need."

  His eyes looked through her window, partly to gaze at the sweeping farmland but also to steal a cringing glance at the formidable nipples printing against her top. "It's really a treat for me to see all this: farms, pastures, graze land."

  "Well, enjoy it while'se ya can 'cos it'll be behind us shortly, and we'll be in the deep woods. In fact"—she leaned forward, squinting. "This next turn comin' up, but be careful."

  More excitement of the non-sexual variety stirred in Westmore. He was about to see the Crafter house. He turned into the narrow lane which seemed compressed by centuries-old trees on either side.

  "This here's the Governor's Bridge Road..." She was leaning forward again. "And...and—here! This turn."

  The car slowed into the opening of what appeared to be a long, dirt-paved driveway that proceeded up. E. CRAFTER, read the large metal mailbox, but time and weather had reduced the letters to near invisibility. Gotta snap a pic of that too. Westmore's palms were sweating. "How much farther?" he asked, but the next blink answered his question. At the top of the incline, the house loomed.

  "And that there," she said, "is the Crafter house."

  The tree-walled road emptied into a tree-walled clearing in which the house sat. Classic semi-Georgian and Edwardian architecture struggled to stand out from sheer dilapidation. Great bow windows swelled from the first story, garrets studded the second, while the higher turret on the north wing seemed somehow to invite inspection. Oddly, though, no windows had been broken, and the great stained-glass tympanum remained intact as well. Was the house actually leaning? Westmore studied the second-story and thought he spied a face in one of the dreary panes.

  Ridiculous...

  At the rim of trees, the sun began to sink.

  "I can't believe it," Westmore muttered. "Thank you..."

  She smiled.

  He was about to get out with his camera when a chill caught him. Were the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up? The facade of the cryptic house, for only a second, seemed to have transformed into a collapsed, screaming face.

  "Um..." He fidgeted. "I think I'll wait til tomorrow to take pictures and have a look around. It's...getting dark."

  "Ain't nothin' wrong admittin' you ain't keen on goin' up there at dark. Me? I wouldn't go up there fer nothin', night or day."

  Yeah, this is...a little too unnerving for sundown...

  He backed up and proceeded back down the drive, ecstatic yet subdued. What would he find when he did look around?

  "Take this turn here. Then it ain't much farther."

  Westmore drove on. The high trees allowed only a smidgen of light. Part of his consciousness remained advertent on the woman, the other part on the house. My work's laid out for me now...thanks to her. He noticed then that a quick glance into the passenger-side rearview showed her bosom. Damn it... Eventually she'd get wise if he didn't stop. He felt like a cad: using her knowledge to forward his career, and using her body for masturbation-fodder. Man of the Year, yes sir. That's me.

  Ten minutes later, they turned onto a road with another howler of a name—HOG NECK ROAD— and not long after she guided him up a very narrow dirt lane that was scarcely more than a foot path. Darkness nearly swallowed them.

  "Here we is," she announced. "Don't mind the dark. I never leave candles burnin' if'n no one's there."

  "Oh, so your daughter isn't home now?"

  She shook her head.

  Westmore's headlights lit a long, L-shaped shack with strips of tin for a roof. Wooden planks composed the walls, darkened by some crude varnish; it made the structure look black. Westmore knew then that he'd truly penetrated another world.

  For some reason, the moment felt awkward, "Again, I can't thank you enough for giving me all this information about Crafter."

  "Why, it was my pleasure, Westmore."

  "Say, are there any motels nearby?"

  "Well, shore. A lot on the highway, but closer"—she touched her chin—"yeah, there's the Gilman House in Luntville. It ain't fancy but it's cheap."

  "Sounds perfect—"

  "And I'se sorry I cain't be more hospitter-bull. Only reason I don't offer ta let'cha stay the night here is 'cos, well, I still got some chores ta tend to."

  "That's quite all right. I'd never want to impose and, besides, you've already helped me in big way."

  Was it him, or did Easter, t
oo, seem afflicted by some sudden, ineffable awkwardness?

  "Just let me grab my sack, and I'll git..." She turned rather cumbersomely to reach into the back seat where she'd stowed her bag. Then: "Aw, fer goodness sake!"

  "What's wrong?"

  "My dang sack fall over'n half the stuff in it plumb slid under the seat..." She strained, reaching back farther.

  "I'll get it," Westmore said. The dome light popped on when he got out and opened the back door. In the footwell he could see the disarranged items: some of the loose sheets, a rabbit's foot, an apple, some matches, an old pocket watch. He leaned over to pick it all up...

  His eyes flicked briefly upward. Easter was still leaning between the seats...

  Her pose was such that her smock's loose bustline hung low via gravity, allowing Westmore a near-perfect view of her bare breasts.

  That one-second glance seemed to last minutes. Here, that shared awkwardness collided, fusing the moment. Her breasts were so perfectly white they could've been luminous, contrasted by the large brown-pink nipples which seemed swollen. The image affected him like a shout.

  Westmore forced his eyes back down, to pick up her things.

  Damn, I hope she didn't catch that. It was with some clumsiness that he returned to the front seat with her articles in his arms.

  His heart actually shimmied. "You're a dear," she said, and began transferring the things back into her rucksack.

  That image of her caused him to think in slow-motion, a visual undertow, dragging him. He knew he should say something, otherwise the awkwardness would only intensify. "So...all those loose sheets are from old manuscripts?"

  "Oh, shore. Handed down through the family since olden times." Her graceful hands busied themselves in re-sorting the sheets of vellum. One sheet was filled with carefully drawn planetary signs, a pentangle, trines and sectiles, a divination chart.

  Without forethought, Westmore said, "Easter? Was that passage I read into the recorder...was it really a good-luck prayer?"

  The questioned startled her but only in an amused way. "It's all a matter'a terp-uh-tay-shun..."

  She laxed back in the seat now that her items were properly stowed. "Folks see diffurnt things diffurnt ways."

  Westmore listened intently to her words while looking intently at her monumental bosom.

  "'Tis funny..."

  "What?" he droned.

  "'Bout how hot yer interest is in ole Crafter"—she was cradling the rucksack like something prized—

  "but you should'a heard how Grandpop Orne laugh about him."

  "About Crafter? I'm not following you."

  "Like I tolt ya, Crafter were just a dabbler—

  "Right. A novice necromancer. I think the better word is probably mountebank. He fancied himself a sorcerer but he was really just a..."

  He laughed softly. "A nutty old man."

  "'Zactly! But, see, my Grandpop Orne?" She patted the rucksack, then her big crystalline eyes re-found Westmore's. "He weren't no novice, no sir."

  "So you're saying...your grandfather was a real warlock?" Westmore asked in a surprisingly neutral tone.

  "Yeah." Now her eyes drilled into his. Her smile beamed. "You believe that, Westmore?"

  "Why not?"

  "But it's like anything—there's black'n white, good'n bad. Grandpop use what he know in a good way, Crafter didn't. Makes ya wonder, don't it? I was thinkin' 'bout that earlier when I was walkin' ta that 'lectric store..."

  Whatever the mesmerization was that had been going on...it suddenly snapped. "Wait a minute. You walked all the way from here to the Best Buy?"

  "Oh, shore."

  Westmore eyed the odometer. "It's probably fifteen miles!"

  "Naw, ain't but eight're nine cuttin' 'cross," she dismissed. "Workin' and walkin' is somethin' I'se used to. It's good fer the soul'n good fer the body." Were her eyes suddenly more intent on him? "Nice long walk ever day's the best way ta keep fit." A downward glance appraised her abdomen. "Ain't gone ta fat yet like a lotta gals my age," and then she shook her head. "Fastest way ta lose yer man is go ta fat but, a'course, bein' in good shape still didn't help me none..."

  "You're a very beautiful woman, Easter," Westmore said spontaneously, then nearly gagged. What am I saying! She'll think I'm making a play for her just after she tells me her husband's DEAD!

  Her voice softened. "That's nice'a ya ta say. You really are a nice man, Westmore, and I'se in debt ta you fer more than you can know."

  Westmore was still recovering from the gaff. "What?"

  Yes, her eyes were more intent on him, and her smile too.

  Uh-oh, he thought when her hand opened on his thigh.

  "You made me feel so good today..."

  "By reading the prayer into the recorder?"

  "Naw, you know what I mean, Westmore," and that's when—

  Oh, my God...

  —she dropped the straps of her gown. In a single instant, with no warning nor inkling, Westmore was looking at those large, perfect breasts, their nipples pointing right at him.

  Her hand rubbed his thigh.

  "What make me feel so good, Westmore, is the way you been lookin' at me all day..."

  Westmore could've howled. His face turned hot as a car hood in the sun.

  Easter squealed a laugh. "Why, Westmore, you're blushin' somethin' fierce!"

  "I-I—," was all he could stammer. His face collapsed into his hands—he'd been caught, red-faced, red-eyed, and red-handed, using her for a visual scratching-post. "Holy shit, Easter. I'm so embarrassed. I... I just don't know what to say..." and what could he say? The humiliation made his face seem to beat like a heart.

  She kept laughing; she was getting a real kick out of this. Her fingers touched his chin, raising his gaze back up, and there they were again, those magnificent breasts, pucker-nippled. Her abdomen displayed essentially no fat, only fine creases caused by her pose. The vision of all that perfect white skin seemed hallucinotic to Westmore. In her years, her skin had lost some elasticity but even that was attractive.

  Eventually, he croaked, "I'm sorry, Easter. I have been eyeballing you all day—it's no excuse to say I couldn't help it, but—shit..." He gulped. "You're just...so...beautiful..."

  "Hush, now," she enthused, and then her left arm was about his shoulder and she was pulling his face to her breasts. Her voice declined to a whisper. "That's a lovely thing fer you ta say. My husband Noot, he used ta say it all the time. Just you now...go on ahead'n suck these..."

  She guided his mouth directly to a swollen areola. Westmore felt mindless; he sucked desperately and found that once he began he didn't ever want to stop.

  "Yeah, just like that," the spirited whisper returned. "All fellas like ta suck a gal tits—takes 'em back ta their babyin' days"—now her left hand stroked his hair—"when they didn't have a care in the world. No stresses, no hardships, no worryin'..."

  Westmore kept sucking, indeed, like a baby seeking safety and comfort the only way it knew how. The faint musk coming off her skin intoxicated him; his erection squirmed in his pants.

  "Umm-hmm," she uttered when her right hand began to smooth circles over his crotch. "I'se thought so...," and then, "Ummmmm. I like that..."

  Westmore was sucking harder, engrossed in the nipple's dense texture, marveled by the way it swelled even more.

  Now, as she rubbed his crotch, she whispered very pointedly, "Like I was sayin'. It made me feel good knowin' how'se you were lookin' at me. When most fellas look at me, well, I just don't like it at all, but you? You're so diffurnt, Westmore. The older a gal gits, the easier she can tell. In a manner'a speakin', lust is like nekker-mancy—there's good...and there's bad. Your lust ain't all hateful'n selfish like that'a most men. That's what I'se talkin' 'bout. The hankerin' you have fer my body, it's a nice thing. It's good. And I say that's so refreshin' in this day'n age..."

  But Westmore barely heard her. He just kept sucking, his eyes closed, his arms a
round her as if he were clinging to the only post over an abyss.

  Her whisper kept descending, "See, part'a me'd shore as hail like ta take ya in my mouth or just up'n fuck the daylights out'a ya—

  The word fuck in his ears nearly caused him to orgasm.

  "—but odd as it sounds... I'd feel like I were cheatin' on Noot." Her flesh jiggled when she uttered a chuckle. "A silly notion, I know. Even though he cheated on me all the time, and even though he's dead now, I'd feel I were bein'... unfaithful. That make any sense ta you, Westmore?"